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Stoca Zola posted:Dropping your water level a bit so that the filter outlet falls further into your tank, to increase your surface agitation, can help both with increasing evaporation and increasing oxygenation which is good since warmer water holds less oxygen. I'm having the opposite problem here. Despite the blanket and solar heat collector that I've set up for my pond, I haven't seen too many fish out there lately. Hopefully they're all just hiding under the blanketed part of the pond where it's warmer. It's not like we get frosts here or anything, but this is the first winter for a lot of these fish so they will have to harden up if they want to survive. I had hoped to get a chance to collect the more interesting looking ones to bring back inside but I think it's too late, if the cold was going to kill them I think they'd already be dead by now. Survival of the fittest I guess, and I did my best to keep them warm with what I have. Pandas have been hit or miss for me for loving years. I get from farms, they die. From breeders, they last a little longer but die. Anywhere else, die sooner. I honestly think they, like so many awesome cats (looking at you C. perugiae), don't ship well and just aren't bred as strong as the aeneus cories. Or paleatus. gently caress I had wild caught elegans cories (awesome and they are dimorphic too!) that lasted through everything, including three different shipments and trials of pandas. Pandas are cute but pandas suck.
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May 31, 2016 23:27
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Well cheers for more confirmation that pandas are fragile - I keep coming across info saying that they're just a bit more fussy to keep than paleatus etc but that they certainly aren't the flimsiest of fish, should be able to keep them alive if you know how to cycle a tank, do water changes, keep at correct temperature and so on. That might be true if you live somewhere where the distance that they've been imported isn't that far but here in Australia who knows how long they've spent in a box before they get here to a seller who then puts them in a box again maybe without giving them much of a chance to recover. Maybe if I keep trying, survival of the fittest will give me a school of hardy pandas that survive the whole ordeal. I thought they'd be easier to keep (easier to feed) than any of the dwarf corys and I don't think I have enough room for the hardier but bigger paleatus, bronze or brochis. Maybe if my pond is a total write off after this winter I'll dig out a proper deeper pond and use a liner, move all my rosy barbs out and redo my big tank for bigger catfish. Or move the penguin tetras and use that sand bottomed tank for dwarf corys, if they're hardier.
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Jun 1, 2016 04:11
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My corys are trucks but also are boring as hell. 
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Jun 1, 2016 04:26
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My cories were doing just fine til my chain loaches ate them. dog days are over posted:Hey fishgoons! I bought a little 2.5 gallon tank the other day and planted it with no real intention of adding any livestock due to how small it is, but I'm wondering if there's anything I could actually keep in there in the future if I decided that bubbles and plants became too boring to look at (right now I'm in love though). The filter and hardscape take up a fair bit of room in an already small tank. Shrimp, nerite snail would be fine. Looks like it'd be okay for a betta. It's a bit on the smaller side though.
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Jun 1, 2016 04:30
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ShaneB posted:My corys are trucks but also are boring as hell. I got some p. cool pepper cories (think thats' what they are), and then about a month later switched the substrate in my tank without really thinking. Turns out I had gotten pepper cory colored gravel and now they're shifty hard to see bastards 
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Jun 1, 2016 04:35
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My trilineatus and Julii cories were adorable, hardy, and bred like rabbits
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Jun 1, 2016 05:46
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SynthOrange posted:My cories were doing just fine til my chain loaches ate them. Cheers, I will probably just stick with the shrimp and nerite if I do decide to stock it. I'd hate to look at it and feel a pang of guilt about it being small for a betta. Something I learned: bogwood makes your water look like mud! I read that tannins are good for the water quality but I'd rather it was less.. brown. Anything I can do to improve it rather than draining and starting again? I feel like rinsing the wood isn't gonna stop it leaching tannins.
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Jun 1, 2016 14:35
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Put some purigin in the filter. It worked for cleaning up rhe tannins in my tank.
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Jun 1, 2016 15:35
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I finally bought the Python system for water changes and...holy poo poo...this is loving amazing. It's SO easy! No more buckets!!!!!!!! :iamafag: I cannot recommend everyone get one enough, seriously amazing. Semi-related, I'm looking at getting a new PH buffer ( my tap water is a solid 5, perpetually ), just because I've already got giant tub of conditioner and every ph buffer I see seems to also do that too and is redundant. I've also read that the Seachem Neutral Regulator contains phosphates which would contribute to algae growth so that's out. I suspect I don't need a "regulator" because my KH is so high, so can probably get by with just an alkali buffer, but then I need to find/confirm one that has no phosphates/is plant friendly ( many seem to label specifically - "not for planted aquariums". Any suggestions for a good pH/alkali buffer?
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Jun 2, 2016 00:02
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dog days are over posted:Cheers, I will probably just stick with the shrimp and nerite if I do decide to stock it. I'd hate to look at it and feel a pang of guilt about it being small for a betta. Boiling the tannins out of the wood is a thing. Eventually it'll leech out everything over time (years) depending on your water change regimen. When I said it's on the smaller side for a betta I meant cozy rather than restrictively cramped in there.
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Jun 2, 2016 05:59
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Mocking Bird posted:My trilineatus and Julii cories were adorable, hardy, and bred like rabbits Wow how could I forget trilineatus, they were my second choice of small cory after pandas. I guess I just wrote them off due to not wanting to mix too few of different kinds of cories after reading that they prefer their own species to school with. I really like paleatus too but they grow a lot bigger so I didn't want to crowd them. I think if I see any cories of either sort locally I'll grab them because at least that way the ones that died from shipping stress are already gone, and I can quarantine the rest with much diligence. TollTheHounds posted:Semi-related, I'm looking at getting a new PH buffer ( my tap water is a solid 5, perpetually ) This one seems like exactly what you want (although they can only give you quantities for use with RO water, you'll have to experiment to get the dosage right for your own water supply), you can either use it in specific ratios with Acid buffer to set your pH exactly where you want it or use it by itself to prop your KH up a bit and both are plant friendly. But if your KH is already high, that *is* the buffer. How can you have a high KH and a low pH, I thought the two directly affected one another? How are you measuring it (and what actual values are you getting)? What happens if you "age" your water? I guess you can't age the water if you have a Python (?). Is your substrate artificially dropping your pH? Some plant substrates apparently do this and it's best to identify what parts of your system and supplies are having which effect before you try embarking on pH wars. Aim for stability, don't aim for a specific measurement because sometimes you are limited by your circumstances. I've got a venturi style pond cleaner hose fitting, I was just thinking you could use that to transfer water from the tub where it was being aged into the aquarium by hooking the outlet hose up and you'd get a mix of aged and tap water, better than nothing. I'm not sure if a python works anything like that? The point of aging the water is to let any dissolved gases that are affecting the pH to disperse - dissolved CO2 for example lowers the pH.
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Jun 2, 2016 06:51
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Stoca Zola posted:This one seems like exactly what you want (although they can only give you quantities for use with RO water, you'll have to experiment to get the dosage right for your own water supply), you can either use it in specific ratios with Acid buffer to set your pH exactly where you want it or use it by itself to prop your KH up a bit and both are plant friendly. But if your KH is already high, that *is* the buffer. How can you have a high KH and a low pH, I thought the two directly affected one another? How are you measuring it (and what actual values are you getting)? What happens if you "age" your water? I guess you can't age the water if you have a Python (?). Is your substrate artificially dropping your pH? Some plant substrates apparently do this and it's best to identify what parts of your system and supplies are having which effect before you try embarking on pH wars. Aim for stability, don't aim for a specific measurement because sometimes you are limited by your circumstances. I'll try that one out, I was only going based off what I could find on Amazon and didn't see that particular variation for some reason ( mostly only the Seachem "Neutral" regulator ). What I mean is that my TAP water is an even 5. My tank is perfect at 7.5 give or take .1-2 ( always a pain to do it based on colour testing kits, I don't have an electronic tester ). I've never tested the KH of the Tap, only what's currently in my tank. The tank KH is 9 right now ( based on this test kit: http://www.apifishcare.com/product.php?id=587 ) which in retrospect isn't THAT high, probably roughly around 160ppm, although obviously that test isn't that accurate. I have no issues with the TANK pH, but I've ALWAYS conditioned my tap water to be an even 7/7.5 before it goes into my tank, regardless of what my tank KH is. With the Python ( http://www.pythonproducts.com/products.html ) it's going straight from the tap into the tank, so I just dump in conditioner/buffer relative to the amount of the change. If I'm changing out ~20G, which due to my water pressure might take 20 minutes, every 5 minutes I'll put in 1/4 of the conditioner/buffer required based on conditioning 20G all at once. So no, there's no way to age the water this way and even if I wasn't in love with no more buckets, I don't have the space or gear to age water in a big barrel or anything. So, I probably don't understand KH well enough ( other than that the higher it is, the less likely you will experience spikes in pH in either direction ), but my assumption is that with a decent KH I don't have to worry about spikes ( never have had an issue ), but since I'm removing water during water changes, I am lowering the KH value when I add in new water ( diluting it ) and so it's safer to add in a buffer to "keep things sweet". I do use Equilibrium too ( for KH + GH ).
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Jun 2, 2016 20:19
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Oh right, I was assuming you were measuring your tap water, oops! I think measuring your source is always a good idea especially if you are putting it straight into your tanks - a lot of people must have great tap water but I just really don't trust mine. I think it would burn my fish putting my pH 10.5 chloramined-up water straight in the tank even if I had water conditioner in there already. Probably not so bad in a bigger tank, more time for the conditioner to act I would guess but I don't want to risk it myself. I'd be interested to see what your tap KH/GH is, or what happens to it if it's allowed to sit in a bucket for a while - I've never heard of tap water pH that low before and I wonder if it's just from dissolved gases or if it's from your source or the treatment your water gets before they pipe it to you. My understanding of KH is that it's a value that represents the buffering capacity by comparing it to equivalent carbonate hardness. I don't think carbonates are the only buffer available and different chemicals buffer to different pH values - sodium carbonate tends towards 8.2 and phosphoric acid (like in pH-down) tends towards 6.5, for example. And mixing them can set your value in between although I've not ever done this. You don't want to go lower than 6.5 as the nitrifying bacteria don't like it and won't function, for specialist acidic blackwater tanks I think the answer is just do lots of water changes or chemical filtration instead of biological filtration. I remember seeing a table listing lots of buffering chemicals which I can't seem to find now - http://microscopy.berkeley.edu/Resources/instruction/buffers.html here are some buffer tables showing what proportions are required to hit a desired pH. I guess we are limited in what we can use in aquariums by the effect it will have on our fish and plants. Probably not a great idea to use sodium barbital to buffer to 6.8! If you want to drop your pH without using phosphoric acid, dissolved CO2 makes carbonic acid which works, and which causes problems if you want to feed your plants but didn't take the pH drop into account. It looks like you can't say that a particular KH will give you a particular pH because that depends on which chemicals are acting as the buffers, but that you need a high enough KH for stability to make sure the nitrates produced by the nitrogen cycle (nitrate + h = nitric acid) don't crash your pH over time. I went to the local fish store to pick up a spare heater and scope out the fish situation and it looks like they might be under new management, all the staff were completely different and they were stocking a brand of heaters and pumps that I've never seen before. Their fish stocks were quite low and quite sickly looking, so no change there. Dead and dying fish in the tanks, visible fin rot, ugh. Those poor bronze corys. Every time I go back there I decide I could never pay money for such poorly kept fish. I don't know why I keep forgetting how bad it is, it's just unbelievable I guess. Their saltwater fish always look a lot healthier for some reason (probably because it doesn't share the plaguesump like all the freshwater tanks do). I picked up a bag of potting mix while I was out to try my hand at a dirted tank - I have a tiny glass tank which used to belong to my parents, it's probably about as old as I am. I'd say its 3 gallon at the most so not really any good even for a quarantine tank. I couldn't find any of the recommended brands of soil so I got some cheap stuff that didn't look like it had any chemical fertilizers or other nasties added to it. I read something about soaking the mix first before using it and scooping out the floaters, which would be barkchips or perlite. I'd say this potting mix was around 50% floaters! Glad I remembered that step or it would have been a horrible mess. I've got a small amount of bright rust orange plant substrate, some kind of baked mineral stuff so I put a layer of that in the bottom along with some crushed clay and some carbonate-rich playsand, then a layer of the soaked mix, then a layer of small gravel. I'm trying it with some hydrocotyle japonica, some native lilaeopsis, some hygrophila (water wisteria) which for some reason I've always struggled to grow, and a cutting of some kind of Elodea. My fish tanks all have gravel or inert sand substrates, and even using root tabs, Equilibrium, and some occasional liquid ferts, my plants seem to struggle a bit. Some of that is probably lighting related as I've avoided bright lights both for fish comfort and to try to avoid algae. It will be interesting to see how it goes! Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 08:01 on Jun 3, 2016 |
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Jun 3, 2016 07:33
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Trip report for the dirted tank: weird scum on the surface despite agitation from a small powerhead, and I've never seen so much cloudiness from infusoria. Looking closely through a lens, I can see all kinds of swimmers. I don't know if I could use it as fry food because it smells kind of weird and a bit piney. The water is going a weird orangey brown. Plants so far seem indifferent but its early days. Did not expect this kind of result from a manure-free soil mix! I decided to go with buying 7 more panda corydoras and 7 julii (probably actually trilineatus but it's hard to say, their colours are still quite muted) and they arrived today. This morning the pandas were listless with 1 DOA and the others were lively and raring to go, however after I got home from work the pandas are snuffling around the quarantine tub like they own the place, while the others are all hiding under the sponge filters. They do all look a lot healthier than I was expecting, and none died while I was at work; their appetites seem good, barbels seem okay. I am hopeful that maybe this time with better preparation and planning I will be able to get a better survival rate.
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Jun 8, 2016 17:01
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Yeah there was a ton of stuff in my dirt tank's water even when I capped it with a good gravel layer. Just do a few more water changes.
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Jun 10, 2016 03:51
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Yeah that looks heaps better already, I don't know why a water change wasn't my first thought. Thanks SynthOrange! I screwed up a bit and let the new water hit the gravel too fast, wasn't thinking - it kicked up a bit of dirt but I don't think it broke through the gravel layer too badly. Probably can fix the damage after it settles down a bit. Finally found the charger for my camera so I took a few pictures only to find the flash shows off how filthy the glass is   My original "big tank" - its around 120lt with barbs, danios, a few male guppies. Eelgrass, rotala, hornwort, some chewed java fern and the new anubias is holding up really well.  Photobomb by Buster. Yes I was sneaking around in the dark trying to surprise the fish, which is why some of them are at weird angles or all hanging around the bottom.  Same tank, a view from the short side. Balancing a stone on the roots of the anubias seems to be working to help it grab the drift wood, its partially attached on the left, still a bit loose on the right.  My favourite guppy from that tank. Barely visible on the right - chewed java fern leaves. The barbs rip them off when they are new and tender, not sure if they actually eat them, they probably try.  Fluval Spec V with sleeping male guppies - hair algae is finally dieing off (the top 1/4 of the tank used to be choked with it) although the cladophora lingers. Timers are really great vs algae. Stirred sand layer courtesy of MTS. I should have framed the shot better to show how I set up the replacement light, a finnex clip on which fits quite well into the slot in the lid and both weighs the lid down securely and is easily removable instead of having to twiddle the screw every time. Thanks Rallos for finding out that they can use 240V, it makes a real difference on how both the plants and fish look (although in this pic its all camera flash).  Shrimptank with rear wall mattenfilter. I threw some little crypts in here to see how they like it, one is already nearly too big. Lilaeopsis brisbanensis, random moss and scraps of java fern at the front plus some bolbitis choked by algae on top of the driftwood. There are supposed to be 3 shrimp in here, one was berried last time I saw her. They pretty much all hide on the dark side of the driftwood though.  Sand tank for corydoras, with Joe Hockey the penguin tetra at top centre. I have only 3 left after the finrot disaster and Joe has gone back to bullying instead of schooling. I'm not going to replace the rest of his school (yet) as I think they really need a bigger tank. I do have a bigger tank but at the moment it is the indoors shelter for the pond guppies I was able to catch. I gave up on the rest and have left them out to fend for themselves for winter, they really did NOT want to be caught.  Overdue for a snail cull. Also a guppy cull probably, I got all the females out already but there are still too many males and I've spotted some fry too. Ideally in the end I will have no guppies in here because they bully the corydoras and steal all the food.  No regrets though, I still love these feral guppies and their random colours. Might throw all the rosy barbs outside in the pond and use my big tank as a guppy display tank (although I still love those plant destroying assholes too). Not sure if the male guppies will fight without bigger fish around to keep them on their toes. Things seem to get a bit tense in the Fluval Spec which is guppy only, the other 2 tanks all have bigger fish and I never see guppy fights in those. I had a grand plan for guppy segregation tubs but so far I ran into a technical problem, the new big tank I bought was slightly too wide to fit on the rack I'd planned to use, so I haven't got anywhere to put the guppy tubs that is high enough for them to drain into the big tank. I'll work something out eventually.  Quarantine tub. It's set up for comfort rather than sterility with a very thin layer of sand on the bottom to encourage natural feeding behaviour. I've got 4 sponge filters set up on one side and I've just added the hornwort as a bit of extra cover/nitrate export. 6 panda cories and 7 julii/trilineatus - you can see 1.5 pandas and 3 of the other here. Now that they've settled in, 6 of the unknowns have soft grey bodies and small spots and one has much darker, more reticulated spots. Could still all be trilineatus I guess, I'm pretty keen to see them side on through glass but they are staying in that tub for at least 4 weeks. All of the pandas are feeding well and looking healthy. One of the unknowns is very thin and I am hoping to see some improvement there but the rest look healthy so far too. All of the redness I was seeing when they were in the bag has gone, at least. It's good being able to look in to this tub and identify some definite males and females among these new cories!  This is the tank I got to be the sump for my guppies although its just a pond substitute at the moment. I didn't originally plan to use a turtle tank, but when this appeared for sale locally along with a fluval 206 canister it sparked my imagination as a way to add extra filtering. I'd always intended to use a piece of foam matten filter to stop any tank inhabitants from being sucked up by the pump that would feed the guppy tubs so I left that in too. The way I'd planned it, the return from the canister filter would feed the guppy tubs, which would return via gravity overflow to the top of the trickle filter. Once I get a stand to elevate the guppy tubs high enough for this to work, they will be put into the circuit instead of that looped pipe that goes to the trickle filter.  Warm indoors pond guppies with whatever leftover plants I could find tossed in and some dead leaves to hide in if they feel the need. The heater is only set to 20, I don't want to spoil them too much. A week ago when I put these guys in along with half a bucket of pond water, the water was opaque peasoup green. Still a bit green tinted but I'm really pleased with how well the canister cleaned it. I put a new o-ring on it tonight and it doesn't drip-leak any more so very pleased with my tank/filter purchase, even if it did mean the premature death of a turtle. I don't think the people who owned this turtle before he died had a reptile light for him, since they were selling all their turtle gear in one go after he died and they did not sell me a light. RIP well loved but poorly kept turtle.  A macro pic of the jar of critters that grew from the dirted tank. They must have been living in the dirt since none of my previous tankwater/filter squeezings infusoria attempts grew anything like this. I've set up a new sterile jar with a pinch of yeast, some boiled and soaked turtle pellets and a 5ml sample from this jar. If they continue to be really easy to culture I'm going to try them on some guppy fry to see if they are interesting as food. Really not sure if they are too big as a first food but I do have vinegar eel cultures going as well. And I got some microworms in the post and 2 cultures started up so I'm all set in case I get any more fry. I have problems every time I try to hatch brine shrimp, and when I tried to culture daphnia I think I accidentally starved them so if these work it will be a good alternative. Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 10:11 on Jun 11, 2016 |
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Jun 10, 2016 18:15
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So I finally managed to procure a 10 gallon tank. I've bought a new filter that I've been using in my existing tank for just over a week (I put the old filter media right into the basket), so I'm ready to move everyone over and get a bunch more tetras so they can be a little happier as a group of 10 or so. Aqadvisor seems to think my plan is good:  My question is this: how do I go about moving over my plants and everything to the new tank? Should I be trying to preserve the old substrate or pull the plants out and put them in the new substrate? I've got some scraggly looking dwarf hairgrass that I'm worried won't be able to make the transition very well. Should I just buy new plants instead of trying to move over the hairgrass? The anubias and the java fern should be fine; I'll just need to reattach them to the rock they're on and maybe split up the java fern a bit because it's gotten to be a pretty big clump. Any advice for moving everything over? Thanks!
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Jun 12, 2016 00:29
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Well, as I wanted shrimp in my tank again I sold off my angels. got 50 bucks for all 6 which was fine for me since I needed them gone and used that to buy a group of 20 cherry shrimp. Now they were advertised as being everything from pink to deep sakura red, but after time it seems I got a random bunching which I enjoy even more. Got a bunch of deep red cerrys, some clear ghost shrimp, a few black spotted clear shrimp, and a few blue colored shrimp. So far out of the group I've counted about 11 females as they all were berried within a week of showing up. Also got a couple bullfrog tadpoles that showed up rather thin, but after three weeks they're fat and HUGE, the biggest being about the size around of a Kennedy half dollar. And gently caress those blasted Nerite snails laying eggs all over the goddamned place. It's like watching a game of slither SocketWrench fucked around with this message at 11:29 on Jun 12, 2016 |
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Jun 12, 2016 11:14
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Good news and bad news. My mystery snail finally laid a clutch after cruising out of the water for about a week the bad thing is she laid them at the very top of my hood and I didn't notice for a day or two. The humidity must not be very high up there because when I went to scrape them off to put them in a little hatchery set up, the outside was pretty hard and crusty Is it worth it to even try to get any out of this clutch or is it a lost cause? The underside of the clutch was mostly soft and pink looking still, so maybe some of the eggs inside are still viable?
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Jun 12, 2016 15:31
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heidi posted:So I finally managed to procure a 10 gallon tank You'd probably want to keep your smaller tank fairly intact/running as insurance in case you need to put your betta back in there if he gets territorial with the tetras, or if you need a refuge for the shrimp if they get picked on by the fish. You could use it to isolate any fish you suspected of illness for ease of observation too (if there were less plants in there, at the moment a sick fish could hide and die and be very difficult to spot!). In the new tank, even though you've seeded your new filter, you will probably still want to treat it as if it isn't cycled, monitor it closely or at minimum add new fish slowly, not 10 all at once. Adding some fast growing stem plants will help towards keeping nitrogen byproducts under control. Looks like most of your plants are slower growing (except the one that looks like pennywort) so it wouldn't hurt to buy some extra plants, and the tetras would probably appreciate some taller plants to ease any tension/provide hiding spots if the betta gets cranky. It's probably possible move some plants over, even the hairgrass, without disrupting the substrate too much. What works for me is to grab the base of the plant (with long tweezers if you have them) and very gently jiggle it up and down, this lifts the plant out of the substrate, loosening the roots while leaving most of the fine particles behind. Works for me in my sandy tank, I have to pull up excess eelgrass all the time and none of the discoloured sand from below the MTS zone comes up using this method. With more granular substrates like gravel/ADA it might be tougher but just be gentle and patient, and it doesn't matter if some of the roots snap off as long as the core of the plant stays intact. Looking back at your tank pictures, that hairgrass looks pretty healthy to me and could probably be separated out a little into smaller clumps. It is fragile (breaks easily) but just make sure you grab it at the base and don't pull by the leaves and it should be fine - it should grow back even if some of the leaves break off. I had hairgrass in my barb tank and it bravely struggled on even though they were ripping all the leaves off and only disappeared for good when they uprooted it and ate the whole lot. So it breaks easily but it's tougher than you'd think vs abuse. A new tank is a good opportunity to plan out an aquascape though - I really like this site for ideas http://tropica.com/en/inspiration/. Being able to search by tank size gives you a better sense of scale over seeing the standard epic size competition winning scapes, and being able to search by difficulty helps to steer away from plants that need hitech set ups to thrive. http://tropica.com/en/inspiration/layout/Layout58/5262 This one with the driftwood "tree" and narrowleaf java fern was the starting point for my sandbottom tank, although I put eelgrass at the back instead of big crypts and hydrocotyle instead of crypt parva at the front. It's a lot of fun, and you're in a position where you don't have to rush so you could take some time to plan out a cool layout (unless the tetra is still griefing your betta, then maybe don't worry about aquascapes until later). Ashes_to_ashton posted:Good news and bad news. My mystery snail finally laid a clutch after cruising out of the water for about a week the bad thing is she laid them at the very top of my hood and I didn't notice for a day or two. The humidity must not be very high up there because when I went to scrape them off to put them in a little hatchery set up, the outside was pretty hard and crusty Worth a try? So maybe the dried ones on the outside protected the middle from drying out too much. I've heard you can sit them on a sponge in a bit of water to keep them at the right moisture level, and they take weeks to hatch so it can't hurt to give it a go.
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Jun 12, 2016 15:46
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I've been using my Aqueon water change system for...awhile. Two years maybe? I'm not sure. I've lost suction on it and I'm not quite sure why or what to do about it.
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Jun 15, 2016 02:32
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Those things seem like they can't really go wrong, unless something gets stuck or jammed and blocks something. Bits of snail or gravel? Bit hard to tell, wonder if running water through it the wrong way would help.
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Jun 15, 2016 03:24
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Moved place 3 weeks ago and had to move everything,it was a challenge but I done it with not one loss of life. I did completely change the substrate to black sand and was afraid my tank would begin cycling again but I've an Eheim classic canister filter and it's overkill for 200 litres so any bacteria I lost in the gravel would be OK. Done lots of regular water changes maybe one every 2 days now everything is stable,feels good.Bought a pair of Nannacara anamolas dwarf cichlids,gorgeous fish,seeing them in the petshop doesn't do them justice,bring them home get some good nutrition into them and they colour up,beautys.
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Jun 18, 2016 21:34
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Lord Kinbote posted:Moved place 3 weeks ago and had to move everything,it was a challenge but I done it with not one loss of life. I did completely change the substrate to black sand and was afraid my tank would begin cycling again but I've an Eheim classic canister filter and it's overkill for 200 litres so any bacteria I lost in the gravel would be OK. Done lots of regular water changes maybe one every 2 days now everything is stable,feels good.Bought a pair of Nannacara anamolas dwarf cichlids,gorgeous fish,seeing them in the petshop doesn't do them justice,bring them home get some good nutrition into them and they colour up,beautys. Good job on that! Apparently something was wrong with the shower attachment. I have no idea what, but I got a replacement part and it works fine now. I took it apart before buying a replacement, but I'm tempted to break it to see what went wrong.
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Jun 19, 2016 02:52
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Dogwood Fleet posted:Good job on that! I use JBL in and out,which in America is the same as a python?our modern taps here have threads for airaters.it screws in then you have a valve for fill or drain.
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Jun 19, 2016 04:42
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 Sorry about the potato quality,full of bogwood and some Catapa leaves.
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Jun 19, 2016 04:57
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Mirror therapy with some cucumber gonna get the nannacaras displaying When I picked them up from my LFS they called golden eye cichlid and you can see why and he's young too has an inch and a half to go and looking good get pic of female. Lord Kinbote fucked around with this message at 05:26 on Jun 19, 2016 |
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Jun 19, 2016 05:19
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Here we go
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Jun 19, 2016 05:45
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Lord Kinbote posted:I use JBL in and out,which in America is the same as a python?our modern taps here have threads for airaters.it screws in then you have a valve for fill or drain. Yeah, we have aerators too. I've been screwing the flow valve onto a fitter that connects directly to the shower pipe for at least a year and a half. The valve without the hose wasn't getting any suction. I still have no idea why, I'm just glad that it works and that I didn't have to replace the whole thing.
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Jun 19, 2016 05:56
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Dogwood Fleet posted:Yeah, we have aerators too. I've been screwing the flow valve onto a fitter that connects directly to the shower pipe for at least a year and a half. The valve without the hose wasn't getting any suction. I still have no idea why, I'm just glad that it works and that I didn't have to replace the whole thing. Have you tried a sink?screw it in to the tap.
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Jun 19, 2016 06:13
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My apartment company installed tamper-proof aerators on all of our faucets, and the suckers limit my water flow at 1 gpm. If you're not familiar with the tamper-proof kind they are basically made so that apartment tenants can't screw them off by requiring a special 'key. We don't pay for water so I understand why the company wants to limit water flow. However, the low flow made it a serious hassle to fill my 75 gallon tank and do water changes. Problem solved: I ordered the special key that's used to remove the aerators from the manufacturer and have been wasting a gently caress ton of water and filling my tanks like a champ
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Jun 20, 2016 01:35
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I've set up the new tank and moved over some plants and rocks and things, as well as a marimo I'd been keeping in a vase and I love the look so far. Thanks for the advice Stoca, planting the hairgrass was way less difficult than I remembered it being the first time... Not sure if that was because of the different substrate or that I've become more experienced with those long plant tweezers, but I managed to transplant a bunch of little clumps. No fish yet; I've been ghost feeding and waiting for it to cycle before adding anybody. The light I got with the tank (one of these bad boys http://www.marinedepot.com/Coralife...IPCTW-5-vi.html) was working fine for a few days until one day it just didn't turn on. Bought a new bulb and it still doesn't work, and after calling the company it sounds like it's probably the ballast. They don't make new parts for this fixture so I'd have to risk buying a used one and trying to repair it myself. The thing I'd need is something like https://www.amazon.com/Coralife-Aqualight-Ballast-1X65W-Model/dp/B002NHFCV0, so I'm thinking I should just buy a whole new fixture instead. Is this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GH9HS80/ still the light of choice for planted tanks or is there some new hotness I should be buying?
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Jun 22, 2016 22:57
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Well my first egg clutch of mysteries hatched 2 days ago! I've got everyone in a few cups of water (Doing water changes every 2 days with water from my 10 gallon so it doesn't get too manky) and I think everyone's survived so far. Once they get a little larger I'll put them in the breeder box in the 10 gallon so they'll have more room to scoot around. Plus my female laid down 2 more clutches, I'll have to start finding homes for the little buggers soon!
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Jun 24, 2016 03:41
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Nearly three weeks of quarantine, no signs of illness, good appetites, and the pandas and trilineatus form little swim teams and cruise around together quite happily. Maybe the trick is to only ship corydoras in cooler weather? I'm really pleased with how they are all settling in. The trilineatus seem to spend a bit more time climbing things and swimming above the substrate. Congrats Ashes_to_ashton on your snail babies, I thought there was a good chance you'd get some! Heidi I've got a Finnex stingray clip on and to my eye they have a more visually pleasing colour than the upAqua plant LED I was using although the Finnex seems to produce more algae. I had a timer set and algae had started to die off using the other light but it's come back with the Finnex! This doesn't mean it's a bad light just that care is required to match the light with the tank and plants. I probably need to remember to add ferts more often. I think the fish look better than they did under the other light, too. I'm guessing the fugeray would have a similar look. I haven't heard of a alternative or more preferred light, not counting DIY led kits.
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Jun 24, 2016 17:45
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So I thought I had the (more) solid bottom of my breeder box and the top of it on tight enough that the babies couldn't escape out of the larger bottom slots and into the main tank. Unfortunately I thought wrong and I now have god knows how many baby mystery snails cruising around my 10 gallon. How do I avoid vacuuming the little buggers up when I clean the surface of the sand during water changes?
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Jun 26, 2016 02:53
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If you're skimming with a gravel vac siphon you can hold it a fair way above the surface and make a quick stirring motion to lift the gunk into the water column to be sucked up, and the tiny snails should stay behind or at least fall back down quicker than the muck. In my experience the more snails you have, the cleaner the surface of the sand will be anyway (but I have mostly MTS so your mileage may vary).
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Jun 26, 2016 05:30
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Corydoras feeding time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYXj8We9__4 I have put all the new corydoras into the sandbottom tank and the trilineatus have settled in really well. All but one of them was very faded grey while they were in quarantine and now their colours are dark and their patterns are bold. The panda corys have settled in and everyone schools together but the trilineatus also often park themselves all over all the plants or swim up to about half way in the water column. They're all still really dumb about pellet/disk food though and suck the sand next to the food without actually touching it. Now that there's more of them they do seem like one eventually finds it and the rest then join in. They're feasting on snail eggs all day so maybe it's just not that appealing?
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Jun 30, 2016 17:18
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Lord Kinbote posted:Here we go That poor fish has seen some serious poo poo.
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Jun 30, 2016 17:22
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Stoca Zola posted:Corydoras feeding time: I just got 8 cory cats for my new 75 gallon tank, and I've only ever seen one of them nibble the bottom feeder wafer one time. They also don't really school together. I think everyone is happy tho, they're very active and roam the tank licking every surface they can see
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Jun 30, 2016 17:27
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What kind of cories did you get? I guess they all behave different depending on what region they evolved in. Got any pictures of your new tank? What substrate did you use? I'd like to pull all the guppies out of my corydoras tank and let the corys eat without competition, at the moment I'm not sure if I'm overfeeding because the guppies steal all the food and I want to make sure the cories get a chance.
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Jul 1, 2016 12:51
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