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You want mechanical filtration being hit first by the flow of water, so large pore sponge followed by smaller pore sponge if you have more than one type. This will catch all the lumps and need cleaning more often than the rest. Next you want biological filtration so bio balls, ceramics, more sponge or whatever, and any chemical filtration should come last so that it is getting whatever the biological filtration can't handle. If you put chemical filtration in the middle it will steal food from your biological filtration. You don't want any big lumps getting past your mechanical filtration to cause blockages and dead zones in your biological filtration because it needs flow and oxygenation to process the nitrogen.
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Oct 2, 2015 20:47
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Stoca Zola posted:You want mechanical filtration being hit first by the flow of water, so large pore sponge followed by smaller pore sponge if you have more than one type. This will catch all the lumps and need cleaning more often than the rest. Next you want biological filtration so bio balls, ceramics, more sponge or whatever, and any chemical filtration should come last so that it is getting whatever the biological filtration can't handle. If you put chemical filtration in the middle it will steal food from your biological filtration. You don't want any big lumps getting past your mechanical filtration to cause blockages and dead zones in your biological filtration because it needs flow and oxygenation to process the nitrogen. Cool, so it seems that I had it right after all. Mechanical, bio balls, and then purigen. Is it better to do one tray of ceramic and one of bio balls or will straight bio balls do as well/better? I bought a roll of this. It came highly recommended from several other fish forums. Any thoughts?
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Oct 2, 2015 21:04
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One of my filters goes like this: Bio balls, mostly being used for mechanical, sponge, filter floss, purigen, then ceramic rings. It's a bit backwards in places but that was more a case of making everything fit than getting it exactly right. That seems to be working pretty well, nitrates 5 ppm. The other filter has a layer of thin sponge, largish pore size, then regular kitchen sponges with a layer of fused scrubber on the top side then ceramic rings on the bottom. This filter seems to trap a lot of gunk across a wide area as it is not sealed like the first one, it's a trickle filter and that's the tank with 20-40 ppm. So both filters are doing their job of making the bad stuff into nitrates. The ceramic rings claim to have anoxic zones for direct conversion of nitrates to nitrogen but I don't know if the scale of that is big enough to make much difference in total nitrogen removal. Plastic bio balls don't have has much surface area as ceramics claim to, but they also can't clog as easily so the area they have is well utilised. There is probably more bio filtration surface area on a sponge or fused filter pad than there is on a bio ball but I think it's good to have a mix because then you're getting different flow rates and different conditions and providing more chances for good conditions so that some part of your filter will work. There are some different ceramic products out there with various wild claims for surface area, those seachem matrix ones look fairly convincing though. I'm using bio nood type ones. I really should look into how long these are supposed to last, might try matrix when it's time to swap them. That pink/white stuff looks like it will do a good job, no matter what you use though you need to rinse the gunk out of the mechanical filtration fairly regular because the whole point is that it should catch stuff and clog. If it doesn't clog it's not catching stuff! Sheets are good though so you can get a good fit, you don't want gaps in your mechanical layer where water can just path around and carry lumps where you don't want them. Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Oct 2, 2015 |
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Oct 2, 2015 21:21
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Cool, thanks! I'm gonna look into the seachem matrix as well. I got that filter sponge roll thing because it's freaking cheap and you get a ton of it. It's only $12 bucks for a roll. And it only gets cheaper the more you order. -e- Content: Here's some close up shots of my vampire shrimp.  
Rallos fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Oct 2, 2015 |
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Oct 2, 2015 21:31
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The guppies are probably dead and so is my filter.
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Oct 3, 2015 02:40
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So swordtails are interesting me. I've seen them suggested as beginner fish, getting a school of like 1 male and 3-4 females and then getting a small school of angel fish and a decent number of cory cats. My concern is that swordtail fry are going to take over. My book says angelfish will eat the fry anyway, but I'm concerned about having issues.
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Oct 3, 2015 05:04
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New mollies have not being doing very well. They've spent the evening mostly clustered near the heater shimmying quite a bit (temperature is 23c), gh is around 100 and kh 70, no other level problems. I think they have ich possibly as well, one has three white dots near the tip of its tail. I'm really worried about them and not sure what to do to get them healthy.
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Oct 3, 2015 05:17
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Pregnant live bearers love parking near the heater. But the shimmying is a worry. What did you do to acclimate them? What hardness water were they in before? From what I've read they are likely to shimmy from insufficient hardness, are you using degrees of hardness or ppm in the numbers you've stated? If ppm it's not hard enough. Otherwise it's probably hard enough that any ich won't do well, but might have been a shock if the fish were in much softer water before. What are you using to keep the hardness high? I've gotten rid of suspected ich before using the heat + salt method.
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Oct 3, 2015 06:00
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I am like 600 posts behind in this thread but this is the current situation: Half my tank is a forest of Green Myrio. It can't seem to choke out Anubias nana, but it killed my Madasgar Lace and Red Cobamba. I am trying to keep it in check so my Red Crypt can grow back in, but that poo poo's insidious. Runners everywhere. Hides the sponge filter real good though. Stock: 1 molly 1 platy 1 striped raphael 1 female albino bristlenose pleco 1 clown pleco 2 kribs m/f 1 female opaline gourami 1 siamese algae eater 1 black devil spike snail 1 zebra nerite snail 1 hybrid mbuna (they thrive in the tank i got it from and we have the same water, gonna go back once it gets bigger) ? harlequin rasboras 29 gallons (probably 25 cause of the 4" of substrate) Temp at 82.5f. 1 ??? sponge filter 1 filter thingy on a powerhead modified for increased performance (right front) 1 AquaClear 50 with a sponge and slightly too much ceramic media and filter floss. A shitload of plants So no chemical filtration, a LOT of biological, and mechanical before the biological on 2/3 filters. I expect the kribs to breed someday and slaughter everything but Tank the Striped Raphael, and then get annoyed with dealing with re-homing baby kribs and re-home the parents, and leave it as a wet-pet tank for Tank. Desert Bus fucked around with this message at 11:10 on Oct 3, 2015 |
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Oct 3, 2015 11:08
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I'm wondering if any Fluval Spec owners can help me with a problem I've caused for myself. My pump return hose kept popping out of the socket on the pump so I took the joiner off of the hose and poked it down the pump chamber and got it to stick in the pump socket nice and tight. From there I was able to get the hose back on by guiding it to the joiner via the telescoping handle of one of my shrimp nets, which I had threaded down the middle of the hose, and then pressing down on top of the hose forced it to go on the joiner. From there, I haven't been able to get the elbow piece to go back onto the top of the hose properly. I can pull the hose back out, get the elbow on, but then I'm not able to get the hose back on to the pump joiner without something guiding it straight which means the elbow has to come off. Also I can't get the joiner back out of the top of the pump, and because of this, I can't get the pump out of the pump chamber (normally I'd slide it to the sponge filter chamber and pull it out by hand since I have the power cord going up that way to avoid having too tight a bend in the cord. The joiner makes it too tall to fit under the divider between the two chambers. I've tried lifting the pump up through the pump chamber but I can't get the suction caps to unstick and I can't reach down in the the narrow chamber with anything. Maybe I need to get something flat and rigid and slide it under the pump from the sponge chamber side, and use leverage to break the suction? Then feed the pump up the pump chamber and get all the fittings on that way? I can't remember what I did last time but I feel like this time I'm doing it wrong. So can anyone who has a tank like this give me any tips?
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Oct 3, 2015 13:56
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Stoca Zola posted:I'm wondering if any Fluval Spec owners can help me with a problem I've caused for myself. My pump return hose kept popping out of the socket on the pump so I took the joiner off of the hose and poked it down the pump chamber and got it to stick in the pump socket nice and tight. From there I was able to get the hose back on by guiding it to the joiner via the telescoping handle of one of my shrimp nets, which I had threaded down the middle of the hose, and then pressing down on top of the hose forced it to go on the joiner. From there, I haven't been able to get the elbow piece to go back onto the top of the hose properly. I can pull the hose back out, get the elbow on, but then I'm not able to get the hose back on to the pump joiner without something guiding it straight which means the elbow has to come off. Also I can't get the joiner back out of the top of the pump, and because of this, I can't get the pump out of the pump chamber (normally I'd slide it to the sponge filter chamber and pull it out by hand since I have the power cord going up that way to avoid having too tight a bend in the cord. The joiner makes it too tall to fit under the divider between the two chambers. I use my tongs that I use for moving plants around to get the pump out on my Spec III, which one do you have?
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Oct 3, 2015 15:46
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I've got some longtongs but they aren't quite long enough to get a strong enough grip to break the suction of the suction cup feet on the pump. If I ever get the drat thing out I am going to take those suction cups off! It's a Spec V but I think the pump chamber etc are all the same size.
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Oct 3, 2015 16:14
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 These are the LEDs with my current 20 gallon set up and I want to replace the lights with more plant friendly lights. The only issue is I can not find this type of light setup anywhere and I am hoping somebody can point me in the right direction so I don't have to buy an entire new hood.
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Oct 3, 2015 16:20
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Stoca Zola posted:Pregnant live bearers love parking near the heater. But the shimmying is a worry. What did you do to acclimate them? What hardness water were they in before? From what I've read they are likely to shimmy from insufficient hardness, are you using degrees of hardness or ppm in the numbers you've stated? If ppm it's not hard enough. Otherwise it's probably hard enough that any ich won't do well, but might have been a shock if the fish were in much softer water before. What are you using to keep the hardness high? The water around here is pretty soft, so I suspect it was soft at the place I got them as well. When I added the salt to the water the kh/gh went up as well (those numbers were in ppm). None of the nearby stores sell anything to take care of kh, just gh, and I don't want to do something wacky like add baking soda. Any suggestions for me to adjust the hardness? Will it hurt the other fish (danios and a pleco) to have it higher?
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Oct 3, 2015 16:37
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It might hurt your other fish or your plants for you to just chuck salt in - mollies actually need KH not just GH as far as I know. Quoting Neale Monks from the wet web media site: quote:...it is obviously that mollies are much more demanding fish than most aquarists assume. But the key things to get right can be summarised fairly easily: All mollies need very clean water with no nitrite and as little nitrate as possible. The water needs to be warm, and hard, alkaline. Most aquaria are slightly too cool for mollies to really thrive, and the soft and acidic water the majority of aquarium fish enjoy is positively harmful to mollies over the long term. The addition of marine salt mix isn't essential -- but it will offset any lapses in water quality management and will raise the pH and hardness levels to where they should be. Table salt, or tonic salt, is perhaps better than nothing, but because it contains nothing to harden the water, it is far inferior to marine salt mix in terms of benefits. If you're going to add salt, the exact amount doesn't matter because mollies will accept anything from freshwater to full strength seawater, but in terms of benefits against cost, aiming for 20% seawater (SG 1.004) would be about right. At this salinity, your freshwater-adapted filter bacteria will not be harmed, and the amount of salt needed would not be very great, about 7.5g/l (1oz/gallon). Anyway I've just got my hands on some Seachem Alkaline buffer http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/AlkalineBuffer.html which would help and you can buy it online if there's nothing local (I got mine online!).
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Oct 3, 2015 17:16
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Rythe posted:
I forgot I was going to say, when I added some blue LEDs for my plants I just got a waterproof strip and stuck them on the hood next to the existing lights. If your plants need high intensity lights you're probably going to need something a lot more drastic than that. Probably would help to know what plants you have and whether you're supplementing CO2 as well since brightlights and CO2 usually go hand in hand.
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Oct 3, 2015 17:24
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Heading out to buy some lumber for the stand I'm building. I'll probably post some pics of the progress later.
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Oct 3, 2015 17:33
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Guppies are here and alive and beautiful!
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Oct 3, 2015 17:52
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Wow they're tough little buggers! Take some pics and post them so I can show my feral ugly guppies and make them jealous! They had to have been in breather bags to last that long, right?
Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Oct 3, 2015 |
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Oct 3, 2015 17:56
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Stoca Zola posted:It might hurt your other fish or your plants for you to just chuck salt in - mollies actually need KH not just GH as far as I know. I have read that the seachem stuff is best (this seems to be a rule generally with water treatment products). This site http://www.aquarium-pond-answers.com/2007/10/mollies-in-aquariums.html suggests that gh is more of an issue, saying: quote:es only thrive in water that is very high in GH and Calcium (a GH over 250 ppm GH), pH over 7.8, KH over 100+ (ppm), and some salt, about 1 teaspoon per 1 gallon or 3-4 liters (or 1.002 to as high as 1.006 specific gravity). Regardless, my levels are certainly not high enough for them. I did increase the heat for the ich, and they seem a little more active today, although one still mostly hangs out at the back, and they don't seem to be eating much, although at least one has a poop trail indicating otherwise. The salt has been in a few days and the other fish haven't changed thier behaviour, so I think they are alright at the moment. Thank you very much for the information and advice!
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Oct 3, 2015 19:53
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The thing with ich is its lifecycle speeds up with heat. The thing with salt is it makes regular fish have a stronger slime coat. The ich you see in white dots is already encysted and is feeding, and will drop off then release the larval form. By making it hotter you encourage the larval form of ich to emerge sooner, and I think beyond a point the heat itself will kill the ich. The salt means the ich larva don't do very well and can't penetrate the slime coat to infest your other fish. I'm not sure how this applies to Mollies since they won't necessarily make more slime but freshwater ich hates salt and a less stressed Molly will be better able to fight off disease.
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Oct 3, 2015 20:32
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Got some new fish today so the tank is coming along nice.
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Oct 3, 2015 20:56
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Rallos posted:You could get a bunch more shrimp if you want. They have very little bioload. Chunderbucket posted:You got that right. Get a million of 'em! Got two more cherries today.  There seems to be a scrimp shortage in town. Hardly any places that I would remotely consider buying aquatic life from have them.
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Oct 3, 2015 21:14
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Prescription Combs posted:Got two more cherries today. I ordered mine online and had no problems. I got a dozen to ensure I got some males and females. Aquatic Arts (on Amazon) is great.
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Oct 3, 2015 22:15
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Stoca Zola posted:I forgot I was going to say, when I added some blue LEDs for my plants I just got a waterproof strip and stuck them on the hood next to the existing lights. If your plants need high intensity lights you're probably going to need something a lot more drastic than that. Probably would help to know what plants you have and whether you're supplementing CO2 as well since brightlights and CO2 usually go hand in hand.  This is my current plant set up, I have some standard plants from PetSmart like sword tails, past that I'm not that good with identify plant species. I am not running C02 since I have used these plants in tanks before with no issue and I figured I would try a more plant friendly light since this is the first time going so heavily planted. Not sure if I should run C02 with this many plants.
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Oct 3, 2015 22:59
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Removing double post.
ShaneB fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Oct 3, 2015 |
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Oct 3, 2015 23:17
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Vier posted:Got some new fish today so the tank is coming along nice. That driftwood looks dope. Oh, the previous maintainer of this tank apparently thought a 50W heat stick was enough for a 55 gallon tank. Christ. Also, any thoughts on this? ShaneB posted:So swordtails are interesting me. I've seen them suggested as beginner fish, getting a school of like 1 male and 3-4 females and then getting a small school of angel fish and a decent number of cory cats. My concern is that swordtail fry are going to take over. My book says angelfish will eat the fry anyway, but I'm concerned about having issues.
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Oct 3, 2015 23:20
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ShaneB posted:Oh, the previous maintainer of this tank apparently thought a 50W heat stick was enough for a 55 gallon tank.
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Oct 4, 2015 01:25
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Frame of the new stand came together pretty quickly. It's 40" tall so that I'll have plenty of room to work with a 55g sump, with room for up to a 90g sump down the road. The sump will sit in a water sealed 1" recessed area, to contain any minor flooding. Still not sure how I'm going to skin the front and sides though. Base completed, attaching legs.  Upside down, mostly finished.  Center braces installed, and moved inside for the day. 
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Oct 4, 2015 02:31
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Whoa, lots of stuff to catch up on! Enos, happy to see your progress on giving those frontosas a bigger home! Congrats on the fry, it's pretty cool when you have large fish doing well enough to breed when you're not expecting it. ShaneB, my experience with swordtails is that they will cannibalize some of their fry, so you really won't have to worry about getting overrun. Granted, the tank I had them in was pretty lightly planted, but the other fish you mentioned will also help keep their numbers in check. Desert Bus, how big is Tank right now? I would love pics, I love raphaels, they've got these fantastic serrated spears for pectoral and dorsal fins, and spikes on the apex of each segment of their armor, they're a pretty hard fish. I have had my striped raphael for about 5 years now. Orson Wells is part of the clean-up crew for my 300 gallon tank, and has prospered -- He's somewhere between 8 and 9 inches, looking forward to your guy getting up to that size. Update time: I have had the Rio Araguia kelberi for a month now, and they've gotten some size on them. The largest is 6" now, so he's put on about an inch. They are starting to get their yellow spangles around their black bars. They are all on pellet food, with occasional treats, so they will really start putting on size now. Here's a shot of the trio.  Also, Nessie (as in the Loch Ness Monster) says hi. If you ever wanted to know what "the lights are on but no one's home" looks like, this is it. Nessie is a 16" saddleback bichir (Polypterus endlicheri). Enlarge for best effect.  
Fusillade fucked around with this message at 03:09 on Oct 4, 2015 |
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Oct 4, 2015 02:59
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Alright, 50% water change, added some of the gh and kh boosting agents, mollies are already seem to be doing substantially better. They even came up to the lid area when I fed them today which they've never done since I got them.
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Oct 4, 2015 03:22
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Rythe posted:
By eye that looks pretty bright, a real nice arrangement too. Flourish excel (another seachem product) might suffice as it acts as a carbon source, but I don't know, at this stage I'm doing strictly low tech tanks since I'm newish to the hobby. As far as identifying plants goes, from the very left you seem to have some regular Java fern and Windelof Java fern, if I recall these shouldn't have their bases buried in substrate in case they go rotten and prefer to be tied to a rock or driftwood. They'll grab it themselves after a while. Low requirements. Same with the anubias nana in the front middle, should be fine in a low tech tank but will grow faster with co2. I think your stem plants might be hygrophila and they are pretty undemanding too, but if I'm wrong and it's a ludwigia of some sort it would probably do better with bright light and a little co2. Not really sure what your little spiky ones are, but the variegated leafy ones look a lot like spider plant to me. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. The leaves are too strappy to be a variegated dwarf rush. I've heard of spider plant being emersed, that is half in, half out of the water but I don't know what will happen to a completely submerged plant, I suspect it will struggle and might just die and go rotten. Lastly I can't actually spot any sword plants! They're a rosette plant not a stem plant so all their leaves should go to the same centre. A lot of places will sell terrestrial plants that survive for weeks or a couple of months underwater but are ultimately unsuitable for aquatic life. I guess these plants originally might come from somewhere prone to flooding so they can survive it temporarily. It always helps to research before you buy.
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Oct 4, 2015 06:55
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Stoca Zola posted:Wow they're tough little buggers! Take some pics and post them so I can show my feral ugly guppies and make them jealous! They had to have been in breather bags to last that long, right? I'm not sure if they were in breather bags or not, but they were well packaged. I will try to take pictures, but the male is a lovely jet black and fish photography is difficult at the best of times.
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Oct 4, 2015 07:45
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A less potato-cam shot of my panda cories, now settled in. The leaf I added for them to hide under has sunk but retains its curl so they quite often duck under it when they feel a bit skittish. The other one further back just won't go anywhere useful but all the fish seem to like giving it a once over for anything growing on it. I don't know where I saw it, maybe here, but daily fish counts where possible are very useful. I've been watching my wonky beacon tetra and after a few water changes to get the nitrates down she seems to have improved a lot. I was almost relieved but I did the fish count anyway only to find myself one beacon tetra short. My very original Mr Beacon who had been swimming fine and eating fine, dropped dead overnight and was on his side on the bottom in the corner  - he's a little smaller than the others and has a football shaped swimbladder not a rounded one so it was pretty easy to identify which one he was. All the other non-tetra fish are completely fine so I think I'm going to give up on beacon tetras and not replace them as they die, I suspect I'm just not able to give them water conditions that they need (possibly too alkaline or not soft enough). Plus this could all still be more camallanus casualties too, the water parameters don't look extreme enough that fish should be dropping dead and all the other fish seem perfectly fine. I tried getting a pic of my male guppies but they are too quick!
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Oct 4, 2015 09:26
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Finally tested the KH and GH of my water and found out the GH is pretty much as low as it gets, so that sucks. I know my city generally has softer water, but I guess where I live is on the extreme end of that. It probably has something to do with why my shrimp have all been dying and why my plants look kind of gross lately, though! I got some Seachem Equilibrium from Amazon to bring it up a little bit, so hopefully that'll help.
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Oct 4, 2015 17:31
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quote:...previous fluval spec pump issues .... Now that the pump is operative and accessible I've started setting the tank up to offload some guppies from my corydoras tank. I'm using the playsand that I didn't end up using in the cory tank because the guppies should appreciate the hardness buffering it provides, unlike the cories. Even though I washed the sand really well the water is cloudy and gross since the root tabs I added in the sand dissolved a bit on the way in, so no pictures yet. The sponge filter has been live for a long time but I am going to do a cycle test in case the bacteria starved from the amount of time it's been running empty. Speaking of filters, does anyone else find that their filter smells delicious? The wet/dry trickle filter in my main tank smells like before a rainstorm crossed with raw sweet corn on the cob.
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Oct 4, 2015 18:29
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Stoca Zola posted:I managed to jam my hand right down into the bottom of the sponge chamber and use a metal strip to lever up the pump and break suction from the feet cups. I started feeding the pump up through the narrow pump chamber but it went sideways and the suction cups got a grip on the sidewall which caused it to jam. Dammit! I ended up threading a piece of twine underneath the whole pump and pulling the other end up with my long tongs and using that to hoist the pump out of the hole despite the suction. Once it was out I took off the joiner pipe and the little suction cup feet and fed everything back through so now I have it lowered totally down the pump chamber with no problematic crossover to the sponge side. There is no way it can get stuck down there now as I'll be able to lift it both by pulling the hose and the power cord. The only reason I did it the other way in the first place was that the power cord didn't feel like it had enough flex in it to bend up and fit in the chamber but it did so fine this time. How does it taste? This is important.
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Oct 4, 2015 19:15
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I've been working on my partner to get a bigger fish tank and we went to the aquarium store today. Have a 20 long, looked at a 33 long and he just said "well you might as well save a bit more and get this 55 gallon all in one kit". Plan worked 
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Oct 4, 2015 19:25
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One of my female guppies was sitting at the top of the tank not moving much and brushing herself up against the floating plants. At first I was worried, but then I saw why. What have I gotten myself into.
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Oct 4, 2015 22:46
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I did a 50% water change to get the temps out of super danger zone (71F for the 2 rams) and do a last attempt at getting nitrates down. A new heater arrives tomorrow. 4 big buckets of filthy water later... Nitrates still bright red in the test kit. I'm done trying to deal with this old tank syndrome. Time to make it a new tank. I'll do what I can to help the rams make the transition but I can't keep trying to water change my way out of this. I want to change this gravel out anyway so it's time to take a day and empty this tank completely and remove all the gravel and sludge down there.
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Oct 4, 2015 22:56
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