Pepere

Many sinks have a tailpiece that extends down into the trap. If that is the case in this situation you will not likely be able to install a saddle before the trap.

I use a co op melamine sponge on all of the glass every week right before waterchange so that around half of what gets released into the water column gets siphoned out. The top tank in the photos does not have any noticeable algae on tank sides when I scrub. I have never scrubbed the sides of the fish bowl. Just hasnt been a need… i am guessing because of the rounded sides affecting like exposure on them, but never seen any buildup of growth on them. I do have another 29 gallon tank I did a major redo to replacing substrate a few months ago that I have an ongoing issue with brown diatom algae. At weeks end the glass noticeably improves after scrubbing.., with time I hope that it settles down. O am giving it a few more months before I resort to a heavy whole tank hydrogen peroxide shock and water change followed by a 24 hour liquid carbon shock followed by a deep waterchange to try to knock it down. I have had success with that before but I try time and consistency first. The diatoms do seem to be lessening…

What is underneath the sink? Finished living space or basement with exposed plumbing? I would not be very excited to drill into pipes to drain. I would prefer the drain into the sink option as needed….unless you have access to exposed plumbing below the sink like in a basement… I agree, but there really isnt any room before the trap here. the metal tailpiece from the sink has the drain lifting mechanism and a saddle would likely interfere with it.

I dose 20 pumps of Easy Green in my 29 gallon aquariums after I do a weekly 50% water change.this raises nitrates to about 25-30 ppm after water change.. it drops to around 20 ppm before water change in my heavily planted tanks with fast growing stemp plants high lighting and injected CO2. 1 pump Easy Green raises nitrates 1 ppm in a 30 gallon tank. In my 17 gallon fish bowl with mostly easy plants such as java fern, crypts,Bacopa, rotala, ludwigia repens, water lettuce and hornwort dimmer lighting, and no added CO2, I do a weekly 50% water change and dose 5 pumps of Easy Green to raise nitrates to roughly 15-20 ppm. The Ludwigia Repens in this bowl is seriously slower growing than my high tech tanks. The High tech tanks see 3-4 inches of growth per week and gets shortened weekly. In the low tech bowl, I might shorten it every 5-6 weeks. The Hornwort and water lettuce gets culled every week though….

Here is an article a few years ago about the return of Alwives to China lakein Maine after an over 200 year absence. Big push to open up obsolete unused dams and restore historic fisheries… https://www.mainepublic.org/environment-and-outdoors/2022-05-20/alewives-return-to-china-lake-for-the-first-time-since-1783

Interesting. Here in Maine the alewives stay in the lake less than 3 months at most…. By September all the juveniles are back in the Ocean for the next year before returning to Spawn. some Alewives survive another year to spawn a second time.

In shallow pools you could see hundreds of fins sticking out of the surface of the water and moving. if you look at the fish ladder photos you will see they are all covered with netting to keep the birds out. In the open water however before the fish ladder, netting is impossible to suspend… I watched a seagul land in the water, grab a fish and swallow it whole. Now these fish are nearly a foot long! Seagulls are not that huge! It gave me heartburn to think of a nearly foot long fish squirming around in its stomach…. Thats a lot of fish in a bird not tremendously larger… Harbor seals also come in for food too out in the bay… In two more weeks it will be time for the Horseshoe crabs to come in to Spawn. June 6 is the new moon highest tide.. the come in on the highest tide to deposit eggs at high water mark so the eggs are not flooded again before hatching. I plan on bringing my grandson to see those at Thomas Point Beach a bit closer to home. Thomas Point can see 1800 horseshoe crabs on the beach at one time. And it is a rather small beach…

I sometimes get a bacterial bloom when treating quarantine trio meds. I woke up one morning and when I first looked at the tank I thought it was frosted over it was so extreme. I have cleared it up crystal clear within 24 hours by transferring a spare well cycled sponge filter from another tank.

Here are some links to articles, videos about the fish ladder. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/fish-ladder-maine-lobster-industry

The Alewives are running up to Damariscotta Lake to Spawn. Every year for 3-4 weeks they swim back from the Ocean to the lake, Spawn 60,000 to 100,000 eggs per female and survivors make their way back down the fish ladder into the ocean. in 3-5 days the eggs hatch and by mid July the young will make it down the fish ladder into the ocean. Interestingly they descend down the ladder tail first… when I was a kid the ladder was just dry laid rocks forming pools, but those had to be reworked yearly due to ice and such. a few years ago, the towns rebuilt engineered ladder with concrete pools with weirs 8-10 inches high and with rock faces adhered to the concrete. The rock faces are important as they absorb energy giving the fish more ability to rest. A million fish a year make it up to the Damariscotta lake, nearly a 3 fold increase since before the new ladder. This is just past the bridge as they enter into the channel. here are some of the individual pools. I brought one of my Grandson’s up to share it with him today. My other grandson will go up next week…

I don’t wish to have experiential knowledge. I had 1, 10 gallon tank fail catastrophically. That was enough for me. Significant time spent mopping up…. I don’t want a repeat. It is easy enough in my book to build a rack able to fully support the entire tank.

I leave any that get to the bottom for the corydoras to get.

I just bought a 800 watt runninggwattage, 1000 watt startupwattage inverter based generator that was on sale from a well known brick and mortar store retailer for 169.00. That could keep ones fridge cold, and ones aquarium warm and fire up the boiler from time to time. Granted you can not run everything at the same time, but 169.00 was too cheap to pass up. I have 2, 1800 watt Ryobi inverter generators as primary use…But those cost around $800.00.

I bought 2 fluval 3.0s. I loved the app. I hated the light colors. The reds were a very pale pink. The blue was overpowering and a funky sort of blue. Then there were three types of white. Cool white had few leds and didnt put out much power. True white did t put out much more. Warm white had a lot of yellow. Iwas never happy with the color rendering of it, and they gather dust in my basement. Ibought a Chihiros WRGB pro or some sort. The colors were better, and plenty of power, but the app stunk… I ended up going back to myy originalFinnex Planted Plus ALC and run 2 per tank, one in back half, one in front half. The light programming on that sucks too, but the color rendering is good. The problem with the time scheduling is that it runs with a 3 hour ramp from setting to setting. Impossible to run a split time schedule and gives light too long yielding algae farm given that light ramps to off over 3 hours… I ended up not using the included timer and installing Nicrew inline timer dimmers that allow a reasonable 15 minute or 30 minute ramp. given the nicrew timer I do not have the remote capability of bluetooth or internet,. I run them from 4:00 to 8:30 morning and night. Its not my ideal, but it works and gives good color rendering allowing RGB and white channels and provides the par I need. The ALC has been discontinued. The alphabet letters at theend makes a lot of difference between the lights. There are currently 3 different Finnex PlantedPlus lights. The CRV is the closest tothe ALC. If the Co Op light had rgb color channels and whiter white leds I would give it serious consideration myself. And if it had even a 10 minute ramp up ramp down, even better… The color rendering of it just doesnt suit me as it is.. it sort of like some people like green cars and some like red….

Given that OP is heading out for a 20 vacation, fridge and freezer might already have been culled out.

I agree. Presumably, for a filter to “filter” water, the water should go “through” the filter media, instead of around it….

A 3 watt air pump consumes roughly 75 watt hours a day. A grp 29 deep cycle battery battery at Walmart sells for $120.00 and should give you roughly 600-800 watt hours on a charge. It wont be fully charged t the store so you would need to take it somewhere to charge it. You can get a 400 watt inverter at Walmart for around 40.00. a generTor is problematic as they typically need refueling every 8-9 hours and is way overkill for an air pump. assuming it is not too cool where you live I would forgo the heater. I have had fish in transit for 4 days with measured water temp at 60 when it showed up and 100% survivial. Back in the early 70s when I had my first tank as a kid, the instruction book on keeping fish actually talked about running a tank with or without a filter. The book essentially said you could stock the tank more with a filter……. Back then We ran box filters… iirc the safe stocking level without a filter was about 30% pf what you could stock with a filter… given a 36 gallon tank very lightly stocked, the idea of no filtration and no feeding till power comes back on doesnt sound to terrible to me.

I dont have a high opinion of the Tidal Series. I lived with one for a year before wrapping the cord up and letting it collect dust on a shelf in the cellar. not only does it go into an overflow over the basket top within days of cleaning it, there is massive bypass holes in the basket where flow completely bypasses the sponges anyway. My solution was to replace it with an 07 series Fluval Canister filter and never looked back…. Should have done it from the git go… as to frequency of cleaning the filter, I opt for once a month as recommended in the owners manual. I definitely found monthly servicing reduces algae issues as you are removing dissolved organics producing detritus. I still have the crystal clear water the aquarium science article talks about.

I have 2, 29 gallon tanks and a 20 high in my bedroom. The bedroom is 12x 13. I have atwin bed and a recliner in the corner that allows me to view the tanks and the TV mounted on the wall. Other than cooling and bathing I spend all of my time in the house in this bedroom. Combo living room bedroom for me. Bedroom is the best insulated room in the house. i keep the thermostat at 50 degrees for the rest of the house in the winter, but the Bedroom stays a minimum of 70 degrees and sometimes up to 73 from heat off the tanks and dehumidifier. Bedroom isonly room I run AC in during the summer. Energy consumption savings from only conditioning this room offsets the electricity cost for the tanks… I run air driven ugf plates and canister filters. At 58, I never have quiet anymore due to tinnitus. The sound of the bubbling and air pumps is actually more of a relief than having to listen to constant ringing in the ears…

I so love the Easy Flow kit. I retrofitted one to a medium sized Lee’s Triple flow box filter and find the performance of it nothing short of amazing! Easily 4 times the flow as using the stock air stone and parts… by all means play with the other parts to see what a difference it makes. I was skeptical when I first heard about the Easy Flow kit, but I have been converted,

Bioload isnt everything. Space itself becomes an issue even if nitrates stay low. That being said a densely planted tank helps in some ways to give areas of refuge out of sight. But space still matters. I would be thinking a new tank. Rather than a 55 I personally am looking to add a 75. Same length, but more depth and height. The worse thing about a 29 in my opinion is the lack of depth from front to back. A bigger footprint and depth front to back is attractive for planting.. what do you find daunting about starting a new tank?

On the bottom of this page are links to several articles on reducing algae. I did not purchase a single item sold by this company, but simply put in to practice information described on these pages to get good results. https://www.2hraquarist.com/pages/algae-free

Top two tanks are CO2 injected, bottom fish bowl is not. All three tanks running on 1 degree KH, 4 degrees GH. I have very soft tap water which is 1 degree KH, 1 degree GH. I supplement the tap water with 2 teaspoons of Seachem Equilibrium in about 15 - 20 gallons of new water to raise calcium and Magnesium when I do a water change. Crushed Coral only adds Calcium and Carbonates and does not add magnesium. Crushed coral will slowly raise kh and gh over time which means you get significant fluctuations when you do water changes. Based on my experience over the past year or so, I dont think your plant health or animal health is being affected by low KH. Since I stopped raising KH a year ago, (I had been raising KH with Seachems Alkalinity Buffer to around 4-6 degrees KH) I have not noticed any issues with fish health, behavior or mortality. All 3 tanks are pretty much free of visible Algae. I never use Easy Carbon or liquid carbon Gluteraldehyde products. I never perceived that they did much of anything despite using them daily for months. I had Algae infested tanks when I was using it and never got tanks free if visible Algae until months after stopping using it. The product is a known health hazard and in my opinion not very helpful and totally unnecessary if your goal is to have tanks free of visible algae.

Are you dosing Ich x with the Maracyn? I wouldnt so much expect a broad spectrum antibiotic to help much with fungus. Ichx has antifungal properties as well as treating Ich. I believe @Corymentions ich x and Maracyn having a synergistic effect.

I am not sure there is anything that really can be done… I would check parameters, ammonia nitrite, ph, gh, kh, temp. The others look fine in the picture.. are you using quarantine meds already? how long since you placed this batch in quarantine? I have had multiple batches of fish go through quarantine with 100% survival, and others go through with 60-70% mortality. They all received the same care and treatment…. Nothing I could point to as something I did wrong. The trip from breeding facility or wild caught to your tank is a stressful one, mentally and physically, with possibilities of lots of exposure to fish from different origins..l. Lots of opportunities to pick something up, and the stress of the traveling, cold, heat exposure, fasting, ammonia and co2 buildup in trAnsport bags all take their toll. My experience is that if fish survive the first 2-3 weeks, they will likely last their expected lifetime afterwards…