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Hadlock posted:
Bulky Bartokomous posted:That looks fine. With very few exceptions in this hobby stability > a specific pH. This needs to be emphasized a million times. Whatever pH your aquarium settles at is generally going to be fine no matter what. Some algae, coral, plants, inverts, and fish will do best at certain pH levels but nearly all of them will adapt and live comfortably otherwise. Do not chase certain pH levels, don't make adjustments with acids or bases, just live with what you got. Stability and consistency (evaporation top-off, water changes) is far, far more important than keeping your reef above 8.0 or your planted tank below 7.0 or whatever. Not picking on you Hadlock.  I use coral skeletons to 'buffer' my planted tank for snails & shrimp. A baby carrot size chunk per 10 gallons seems to work pretty well.EDIT: lovely page snipe, my apologies.
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Sep 7, 2022 02:09
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Stoca Zola posted:They can see well enough to know the difference, my mums goldfish used to hide from me and come out for her, and it took many episodes of me looking after them while my parents were away before they started accepting me. I thought I’d seen a study on it, and while I was looking for that one I saw a story about one where they showed fish look at and recognise each other’s faces. I’ve also seen somewhere that they choose “friends” that are their preferred fish to hang around with. In trying to avoid anthropomorphism sometimes it goes too far and fails to recognise real animal ability and behaviour I think. One of the really big ideas I got out of Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? was that the aversion to anthropomorphism is bizarrely anthrocentric. Everywhere else we tend to operate from an assumption that things in nature work similarly to other things in nature. For reasons largely attributable to religion, however, we have gone to great lengths justify why this model does not apply to humans being compared to animals. That we are special, unique snowflakes and that when we recognize similar behavior in other species, we are cautioned against anthropomorphizing. The other main reason I think this type of thinking is discouraging it to keep a clean conscience. If we were to recognize the depth and similarity of animal cognition to our own, we would have to consider that a lot of the poo poo humans do to other species is pretty unconscionable.
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Sep 7, 2022 03:53
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Octopodes punch fish out of spite, though, birds are up there brainwise, too. Even fish are smarter than people might think. https://www.amazon.com/Alex-Me-Scientist-Discovered-Intelligence/dp/0061673986
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Sep 7, 2022 09:28
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Aerofallosov posted:Octopodes punch fish out of spite, though, birds are up there brainwise, too. Even fish are smarter than people might think. Welp, that's going straight on the read list. Thanks!
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Sep 7, 2022 12:06
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drat it drat it drat it, I thought event horizon was doing better in the little fry holder away from anything that could bother him, and he was rather active the past two days, took food okay, but this morning when I got up about three of his legs had dropped off segments. I have no idea what's going on with him, I did a quick 30% water change in the tank, nitrates read about 10, but the tiny feather worms on the live rock remain fine, the brittle star seems to be okay, I just don't know if something's personally sick with him or what. Everything I've heard about sea stars dropping their limbs indicates disease, stress, or nitrates which is a cause for the first two. Then again I unfortunately have no history on him, for all I know my friend took him from the wild at some point, he had done that in years past with various animals despite me telling him that was a bad idea. He could have come from a pet store, could have come from a tide pool somewhere, I literally have no history on him other than I've had him since May and he's been the coolest guy in the tank. Going to really suck to lose him.
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Sep 7, 2022 13:56
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Cowslips Warren posted:drat it drat it drat it, I thought event horizon was doing better in the little fry holder away from anything that could bother him, and he was rather active the past two days, took food okay, but this morning when I got up about three of his legs had dropped off segments. I have no idea what's going on with him, I did a quick 30% water change in the tank, nitrates read about 10, but the tiny feather worms on the live rock remain fine, the brittle star seems to be okay, I just don't know if something's personally sick with him or what. Everything I've heard about sea stars dropping their limbs indicates disease, stress, or nitrates which is a cause for the first two. I wouldn't beat yourself up. According to Google they average 3-5 year lifespans, with 8 being super old. With animals that we don't have the history of its really tough to say, but a lot of the times when they get sick, I think it just comes down to being old. My Melanurus Wrasse is on his way out. I decided not to pull him from the display and bombard him meds and I feel like it's the right call. All we can do is take the best care of them we can while they are in our lives and hope that that is enough to give them a nice life while they are here.
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Sep 8, 2022 03:10
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He died today. I mean, he had lost all but one limb since I removed him from the fry tank, kept him in a 5 gallon setup with tank water and some hiding places. He was a bit active the first day, even ate, and then just leg dissolving. I don't even see the pieces IN the 5 gallon, but they should be there, one was like five inches long. Rest well, Event Horizon. You were the coolest serpent star, even if I never got to train you to hand-feed.
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Sep 10, 2022 03:37
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Stoca Zola posted:I’m looking at rice fish too, medaka seem very suitable for unheated ponds as Seriously Fish has them listed as temperate to sub-tropical fish. They prefer it cooler overall so I think they’d do well in my bigger pond once that’s done, I think the smaller one will get too hot in summer. Daisy’s rice fish seem more tropical and better suited as an aquarium fish, I quite like their red fins and I wonder if they would do well with my mix of small rasboras. Still too cold and shipping too unreliable here to order any new fish in so I’m waiting until spring for milder temperatures. But to be fair, rice fish would probably be fine, it’s not like there’s frosts here. I think they don’t mind a bit of seasonal warmth either, a natural cycle of warm and cool isn’t as much of a problem as too warm all the time. So I ordered 10 of these guys at the beginning of august https://medakafarm.com/products/medaka-miyuki-large Due to heat waves + travel stuff they finally arrived, they are super cool, I have the black "golden" killifish, the pink rosy red minnows and now these guys which are kind of a baby blue. They just look like blue rosy reds to me. I had a few die in transit so ordering another 5 + the replacements, to arrive later this month hopefully. It's hard to describe but they have a blueish iridescent tint to them, whereas the rosy reds are just kind of an opaque pink color Photo from their website (pretty accurate)  And then from my pond 
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Sep 10, 2022 05:08
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We are almost to page 400 and it's maybe time for a reboot. THE ISSUE AT HAND imho, is that while our current OP is kinda amazing, this isn't just a FW tank thread any more. We got SW freaks, pond weirdos, etc. We can be more inclusive. I started this in 2008 apparently, farmed out a dece chunk of OP work for the reboot in 2013, etc. A decade-ish later we are almost 400 pages in. It's a lot. The OP is a thing of beauty, I hadn't looked at it in years. I dunno SW or ponds, or really anything. A reboot with an OP saying "[SW stuff goes here later]" etc would probably be OK as long as someone backed that up at some point? HAVE YOU LOOKED AT OUR loving OP IT'S AMAZING
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Sep 11, 2022 21:41
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Just make a new thread simply titled "FISH"
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Sep 11, 2022 21:59
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Baronjutter posted:Just make a new thread simply titled "FISH" https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4012163
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Sep 11, 2022 22:09
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I guess we have a new thread: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4012163
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Sep 11, 2022 22:10
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Was the idea of the new thread to completely not make any attempt at an OP I don't get it? I don't think we should make a random no effort thread for something this active honestly. Staying here is better unless someone wants to put the effort in to make a real thread? e: ah it doesn't say so in the new thread that you're going to update the OP but it says so in this thread so I guess it's coming.
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Sep 11, 2022 23:33
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VelociBacon posted:Was the idea of the new thread to completely not make any attempt at an OP I don't get it? I don't think we should make a random no effort thread for something this active honestly. Staying here is better unless someone wants to put the effort in to make a real thread? Yeah i'm gonna put some effort in there VERY soon.
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Sep 12, 2022 22:11
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Desert Bus posted:Yeah i'm gonna put some effort in there VERY soon. Thank you! I won't go say thank you in the other thread as well but I mean it in both places
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Sep 12, 2022 22:18
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Had a nice two-hour power outage last night. Everything seemed handle it just fine except for one powerhead that came back on in reverse. I really should look into a generator at some point.
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Sep 15, 2022 15:26
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It's been an unusually light hurricane season this year, harbor freight keeps sending me 10% off coupons for generators, I think they're way overstocked right now https://www.harborfreight.com/2000-watt-super-quiet-inverter-generator-with-co-secure-technology-59135.html This one is $625, it'll run your fridge + tv + all the lights in your house + aquarium stuff as long as you can keep gas in it. You have to plug it into the house and start it, so it's not automatic though Alternately they make USB powered air stones that you can hook up to a UPS that ought to run for a couple hours no problem
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Sep 15, 2022 17:23
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Hadlock posted:It's been an unusually light hurricane season this year, harbor freight keeps sending me 10% off coupons for generators, I think they're way overstocked right now As a city kid who is now a city adult I find generators fascinating. Do you really just plug it into a random outlet and that just works? You don't need to have a separate circuit for that with like a voltage stepdown or anything?
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Sep 15, 2022 17:38
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I am a city adult presently, I just live in the flyover/3rd world country part of the usa now, and have enough of a back yard/storage space to house a generator So think of a house like an RV, you can go to the national park and yes you can plug it in and everything will magically work With a house though, you're wired into the Mains Power. It goes through a power meter that gets read by the power company, and behind that you have a Main Shut Off Switch and after that is your breaker panel. This switch is always on/open in a house, because, why would it not be? You have a fridge, HVAC etc and sometimes you stay up until 4am  in theory* shock/kill the lineman trying to fix your power. Also you'd be trying to power the entire neighborhood, which... would not work very well with your hellcat 2000w Of FuryWith a generator you need one of two things 1. A "lockout device" which won't let you turn on the generator breaker switches without turning off the Main Shut Off Switch. This is a silly $50 sheet of metal and trivial to install if you're at all handy 2. An automated lockout device that will detect the power is out, automatically flip off the Main Shut Off Switch, and sends a relay signal to your generator to start, these are ~$500 and cost another $1000-2000 to install *I don't think there has ever been a recorded death, your five nearest neighbor's lights + refrigerators would consume the power, but safety first, because technically you could kill the guy if the problem was in front of your house, also it's highly illegal not to use a lockout device edit: so that is the expen$ive part of the generator thing more edit: But yeah I have a $50 lockout panel, my generator has both 120v and 240v so via a $30 cable it connects to a special $45 generator receptacle, runs through $50 worth of interior housing electrical cable to the breaker box and then into a $35, 30A 240v breaker, which connects to both "legs" of the breaker panel which provides both 120v and 240v you can run your 120v light bulbs and your 240v electric dryer off a 7000w ( $900) generator. The power coming in to your house is 240v, the breaker panel splits it into 2x 120v Hadlock fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Sep 15, 2022 |
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Sep 15, 2022 18:40
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The slightly lower cost, and less risk to utility workers solution is to just run extension cords from the generator into the house, and only plug in essentials like the fridge, a lamp, and your fish's life support systems. If you're not running big loads like a stove or dryer, you can get away with a smaller generator this way. The main idea is you don't want to connect your generator to the grid. It can cause all kinds of problems for your and the utility's equipment, and cause lines to be energized which wouldn't have been otherwise. If you just took one of those sketchy double male extension cords, and hooked it up between an external receptacle and your generator, without opening your main breaker, you'd be back feeding power to the grid. What Hadlock said is mostly correct, with the exception of erroneously inverting on/open. A switch or breaker is closed in the "on" position, and open in the "off" position. Easy slip.
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Sep 16, 2022 15:13
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B33rChiller posted:The slightly lower cost, and less risk to utility workers solution is to just run extension cords from the generator into the house, and only plug in essentials like the fridge, a lamp, and your fish's life support systems. If you're not running big loads like a stove or dryer, you can get away with a smaller generator this way. This is probably a really dumb question so I apologize in advance, but how do you route the extension cords into your house without leaving a door or window ajar? I'm asking because I'm envisioning this happening during an Upstate NY winter.
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Sep 16, 2022 16:15
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Typically there is a covered outlet on an exterior wall you plug the generator into.
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Sep 16, 2022 16:26
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Enos Cabell posted:Typically there is a covered outlet on an exterior wall you plug the generator into. But this would be if you are going to pump power into you whole house with a shutoff to keep it from going out into the grid, correct? I'm thinking the option of just running an extension cord to each tank from outside sounds easier, assuming I'm not losing heat in the process.
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Sep 16, 2022 17:14
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Hadlock posted:
So amazingly, like three hours after I posted this like, and I am not joking 100 utility workers showed up on my block and replaced a bunch of power poles on my block, including the one that services my house in particular. Shut down power to my house. Had I done a bad thing and run by my generator without the shut off device, it would have been sending 30 amps of 240v to the pole they were working on Of course they are all super well trained and they treat all the wires as live, before they get started all the wires get covered in giant orange pool noodle looking things, and their truck is covered in a bunch of stickers talking about rule of 3 different points of grounding, etc, ...but humans still make mistakes, and pretty sure every jury in America would convict you guilty for frying a line man
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Sep 16, 2022 17:26
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Bulky Bartokomous posted:This is probably a really dumb question so I apologize in advance, but how do you route the extension cords into your house without leaving a door or window ajar? I'm asking because I'm envisioning this happening during an Upstate NY winter. not a dumb concern at all. This solution does, in fact, require leaving either a door or window cracked. In my case, the bottom skirt on my back door is large enough to flex around a power cord, so it can essentially be jammed in the weather stripping. It's not ideal, but it's more of an ad-hoc system with less danger of damaging stuff.
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Sep 16, 2022 17:36
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Bulky Bartokomous posted:But this would be if you are going to pump power into you whole house with a shutoff to keep it from going out into the grid, correct? I'm thinking the option of just running an extension cord to each tank from outside sounds easier, assuming I'm not losing heat in the process. Yeah you can put your generator in your back yard, and usually they have 2-4 120v outlets. The fridge is a pretty heavy power user so you'd need to buy a dedicated $100 heavy duty (large gauge) extension cable for that, and then if you're very careful/selective (consult an electrician) run a second extension cable with a power strip and then run your tank + a cell phone charger off the second one. On the back of every power strip it explicitly says "NOT PLUG INTO AN EXTENSION CORD" because it can overheat if you get anywhere near the 15A limit and will cause a fire. Running 3-4 amps likely would, I'm not even gonna say it for liability reasons, just consult an electrician. Some poor old lady dies every year because the space heater in her house was run from an extension cord at the end of a power strip that ran under a rug overheated and caught fire while she was sleeping Two 500w pumps and a 200w heater will eat as much electricity as a space heater set on high It's very safe to run a 30a 240v cable from the generator to your house through a breaker/special plug, everything was designed and certified to work correctly and there's no risk of fire because all the cabling in your house is adequately sized for the task
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Sep 16, 2022 17:38
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Cut holes in a fun noodle. Run the wires through that, then jam the fun noodle in the bottom of a window and push it down as hard as you can. Edit: Hadlock posted:Yeah you can put your generator in your back yard, and usually they have 2-4 120v outlets. The fridge is a pretty heavy power user so you'd need to buy a dedicated $100 heavy duty (large gauge) extension cable for that, and then if you're very careful/selective (consult an electrician) run a second extension cable with a power strip and then run your tank + a cell phone charger off the second one. On the back of every power strip it explicitly says "NOT PLUG INTO AN EXTENSION CORD" because it can overheat if you get anywhere near the 15A limit and will cause a fire. Running 3-4 amps likely would, I'm not even gonna say it for liability reasons, just consult an electrician. Some poor old lady dies every year because the space heater in her house was run from an extension cord at the end of a power strip that ran under a rug overheated and caught fire while she was sleeping Seriously read this. Also unwind any extension cord you're going to use. Even if you're just using a little bit of electricity, it creates heat, which if it's all wrapped around itself will start a fire. I know all this stuff and I still MELTED an extension cord running a battery charger off it because "oh it's just going to be for a minute, and the plug's behind that shelf." RodShaft fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Sep 16, 2022 |
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Sep 16, 2022 17:43
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There yah go, Hadlock with the proper, well thought out solution. If you think ahead, and get the proper stuff installed, you're golden. RodShaft solving the bodged together weather stripping problem. And those are good points about the cabling, connections, and generator being sufficiently rated for the load. Don't try and use a bunch of little two pronged lamp cords daisy chained together to support a power bar with the ground plug snipped off, and 10A worth of load plugged into it. (hyperbolic example)
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Sep 16, 2022 17:50
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Things you could (probably*) safely run off a generator + 100' extension cord A dozen USB powered air stones + 2 USB powered aquarium pumps + 80w worth of led lighting. That should come out to Under 100w total which even a two prong lamp cord wouldn't sweat. In theory your reef tank should be capable of surviving a long weekend without power with that setup, even though it wouldn't be super happy about it Each USB powered thing is about 0.02 amps @ 120v so you could run a bunch of USB powered stuff before hitting 1 amp. 80w of lighting is about 0.6 amp. I wouldn't go over 1 amp on an extension cord, if your power is out chances are conditions are bad enough that the fire department probably isn't going to be responding right away, especially if they find out it was you that caused an electrical fire that set your house on fire All this is a moot point though because it's like $150 to install the plug and lock out switch and do it the right way and not need a calculator to  hope you're not gonna burn your house down*Being extremely conservative because I do not want to burn your house down TL;DR unapproved electrical improvements will catch your house on fire and you will die But generators are cool and good
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Sep 16, 2022 19:52
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Wouldn't some sort of battery backup be better for a fishy situation?
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Sep 16, 2022 20:26
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Yeah Anker and others make all sorts of "battery generators" from like $100 all the way up to $3500 A $600 "Anker 545 power house" is 778 watt hours with a max of 500w continuous output because reasons So if your two medium size reef tanks each have 1/4hp (480gph?) that's 2 x 200w so you've already hit 80% of the max output. Probably have to turn off the heater which is probably another 100w. With just the two x 200w pumps, 400w, take the battery capacity, 778 = 1.9 hours run time. When it's out you have to go find a power source to recharge (like solar) Compare to gas generator, which will do 2,000 watts continuous, for about 6 hours on two gallons of gas (more like 12+ hours running 400w), and you can pump 12-18 gallons of gas out of your cars gas tank, or buy 1-5 gallon gas cans at any hardware store Of course if you turn off the big pumps/filters and switch to tiny air stones and USB powered pumps you can probably go 1-3 days on that Anker 545. And the Anker doesn't need an oil change annually Laptops, cell phones and other solid state electronics sip power, the problem is 120v aquarium gear is doing the literal physics definition of work so burns a lot of energy moving water around with electric motors
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Sep 16, 2022 20:43
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Lots of great discussion on generators and power backups, thanks all. Sadder news, my melanurus wrasse passed away. I knew he was on his way out, and I still feel like I made the right choice in not bombarding him with meds. I'm not sure if I'm going to get another one or not, going to think on it for a while.
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Sep 17, 2022 00:46
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Bulky Bartokomous posted:Sad news So sorry for your loss, you definitely gave him a wonderful life and the best care possible. loving blows that it never gets any easier to say goodbye though.
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Sep 17, 2022 02:26
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Bulky Bartokomous posted:Lots of great discussion on generators and power backups, thanks all. I'm sorry, man. Cool looking fish! Reminds me of Lisa Frank, wrasses have lots of personality too. I still miss Event Horizon. Goddamn serpent star was so cool.
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Sep 17, 2022 03:09
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 Got a chance to prune for the first time since the baby was born, also was able to track down some assassin snails to hopefully bring down the trumpet snail population.
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Sep 17, 2022 21:37
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 This is why you don't leave old media on the floor when you have kittens. Anyway, I picked up master test kit and tested my tap water and my RO water. It's pretty basic at 7.8 for the tap water and 8.0 for the RO water. I seem to remember this being a problem before too. Obviously, the PH will change when I cycle the tank and put in plants and stuff but I think that maybe I should look at using peat or leaves or something. Don't know poo poo about doing that though. I am also going to have to test the hardness but that's not in the master kit. Actually... why would I test the hardness? I have a water softener, the only thing left in the water would be some silicates. Lareine fucked around with this message at 06:37 on Sep 19, 2022 |
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Sep 18, 2022 22:35
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So in addition to my remaining 3 medium goldfish I have the 12 golden killifish, ~8 rosy reds and 7 platinum blue rice fish The goldfish are easily 10x the mass of the next largest fish, they just kind of do their own thing The killifish chilling in the top right corner of the pond One killifish has defected to join the rosy red tribe, apparently, has gone full native The rice fish aren't really schooling together. On my left half of the "pond" is the pump with the main outlet shooting towards the viewing area, this creates a current/stream. Almost always there's 2-3 rice fish hanging out there, looking for a snack, the others are in different parts of the pond at different depths. One rice fish likes to hang out with the killifish Apparently the rice fish have started spawning. I had three big happy tufts of Christmas moss on top of three bricks near the center of the pond, just below the surface 3-6" for about two months. Within three weeks now suddenly someone (presumably goldfish) have basically scraped the moss from the brick. My guess is some fish spawn ended up in there Very surprised, the golden killifish seem to be the strongest schooling fish in the pond. When I first added them they tended to roam around more independently
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Sep 19, 2022 06:37
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Lareine posted:
Um, I'm not 100% on this, but don't most water softeners work by essentially swapping sodium ions for calcium? Usually in places with water softeners, at least one sink will be plumbed to bypass the softener system for human consumption purposes. It would be a real shame if you ended up hitting your fish with an overdose of sodium. I'd advise double checking your system, and maybe testing total dissolved solids. ETA: LOL kitties!
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Sep 19, 2022 06:46
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B33rChiller posted:Um, I'm not 100% on this, but don't most water softeners work by essentially swapping sodium ions for calcium? Usually in places with water softeners, at least one sink will be plumbed to bypass the softener system for human consumption purposes. It would be a real shame if you ended up hitting your fish with an overdose of sodium. I'd advise double checking your system, and maybe testing total dissolved solids. From what I remember, the sodium isn't exchanged DIRECTLY with the calcium in the water. The water is sent through resin or zeolite and the calcium in the water attaches itself to the resin. When the resin gets clogged up with calcium, you send a sodium brine solution through to take the calcium off and flush it away. Some trace sodium might remain after the recharge but I don't think it's that much. My water is potable and acceptable for human consumption though typically we end up using the RO water anyway because we have it too. I can call the water softener company and ask though. Edit: You know what? gently caress it. I'll just use RO water and add minerals back if needed. Lareine fucked around with this message at 08:00 on Sep 19, 2022 |
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Sep 19, 2022 07:05
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Lareine posted:From what I remember, the sodium isn't exchanged DIRECTLY with the calcium in the water. The water is sent through resin or zeolite and the calcium in the water attaches itself to the resin. When the resin gets clogged up with calcium, you send a sodium brine solution through to take the calcium off and flush it away. Some trace sodium might remain after the recharge but I don't think it's that much. My water is potable and acceptable for human consumption though typically we end up using the RO water anyway because we have it too. I can call the water softener company and ask though. Ah, ok, I wasn't too certain, just vaguely remembering some water treatment training video I watched at work years ago.
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Sep 19, 2022 08:13
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