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tolstoy21

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Everything posted by tolstoy21

  1. tolstoy21
    I'd love to know the answer to this as well, as I have the exact same setup . . . a basement that doesn't get above 60 in the winter, and in the summer is maybe low 70s in the hottest days. For me running a single 20 gallon high at 78 F cost approximately $10 a month, in the coldest months, in electricity my market. This is my limiting factor for number of total tanks I'm willing to maintain in that space at the moment. I'm not sure if a central sump and heating just that with standard aquarium heaters will change this equation, but I have seen people use re-circulative heat exchangers hooked into their gas hot water heaters to heat large basement sumps and save some money. Haven't done this because walling in and insulating the space seems a more cost effective solution if I have to do any sort of labor to cut my heating costs. As for water changes, I'm not sure if you saw my other post on the subject, but I use a standard sump pump in a plastic tote to move my change water across my basement and into my utility sink. pretty easy solution what require no super fancy plumbing skills to achieve. I too have thought about tying into the sewer stack line, but you're going to have to include a trap in that between your sump and your sewer line to keep sewer gas from leaking back up into the space (not a big deal but something you'll need to think about). I found using my slop sink the easiest solution.
  2. tolstoy21
    Quick, hopefully easy question . . . . This is my first foray into vinegar eels (up till now, I've been a microworm guy!) so I need some advice. When you harvest them by putting water in the neck of the bottle and then siphoning the eels out, how long do you let that water sit and collect eels? Few minutes? Few hours? Overnight?
  3. tolstoy21
    Day 4-ish and we have some free swimmers. No idea on even an approximate fry count yet. So far, been feeding them mainly micro worms with a pinch of Sera Micron.
  4. tolstoy21
    So far, and it's only been a few days, the multiple water changes a day is the hardest part (and honesty it's not that hard). Luckily, like a lot of other people right now, I am working from home, so I have the extra time to put in the extra care these fry appear to need, as suggest by Greg Sage. I have the adult tanks (2 of them) situated next to the fry tank. The adult tanks are on auto water change, so the water in them is good. When I change water from the fry tank, I just siphon 'seasoned' water out of the adult tanks, as per Greg's recommendation. I didn't have a lot of adult fish to start with-- 6 females, 3 males. So when I was picking out my females, i just picked them all and didn't have the luxury of choosing the most egg-filled ones from a larger selection of females. To be honest, I had a hard time discerning if any of them were carrying. But I guessed at least one must be, as I conditioned them well for 3 weeks ahead of time, as I started my vinegar eel cultures. When I pulled the adults after 2 1/2 days together, I was please to see there were eggs scattered about that had not made it through the bottom grate, and that had not been eaten. So my guess is that more must have also fallen through and are currently below the grating. Those visible eggs are now gone. They either fell through finally, or hatched. Like others have said, the I guess the easier part is getting fish to mate; the harder part is keeping these super tiny fry healthy and fed so they make it to the juvenile state.
  5. tolstoy21
    After growing out a small batch of Odessa Barbs I acquired from Select Aquatics over the summer, I finally attempted to breed them this week. Two days after pulling the adults, I'm finally seeing fry! Not sure how many will be in this batch total (three? three hundred?). Time will tell. Right now there at the teeny-tiny, glass-hugging, sliver stage. Almost impossible to focus on with my phone, or aging eyes! I'm currently feeding them a diet of micro-worms, vinegar eels (alas, don't really have enough of these right now), and Sera Micron. If anyone wants specifics on the breeding setup, go to Greg Sage's YouTube channel. I'm replicating his most current set-up note-for-note. His great video series will get all the credit for any success I achieve (I'll gladly own any failures). I'll keep this thread updated with any trials or tribulations (and hopefully successes), just in case anyone else is interested in Odessas.
  6. tolstoy21
    Just as an example, this is what I have going on . . . nothing pretty but it does the trick! I have this hooked up to a standard waste line with a check valve, but this unit came with an adapter to thread into a standard garden hose. I got all this at Home Depot. it's pretty plug-and-play.
  7. tolstoy21
    Could you use a simple utility/sump pump, available at any big box hardware store, hooked up to a garden hose, for this purpose? Run the garden hose to your collection system? Takes no plumbing experience at all to set up. Just water change into a tote or bin large enough to hold that volume of water and then put your pump in there and turn it on. Many utility pumps are high powered enough to pump a good distance and can handle a ton of head pressure This can also be semi automated with an add on float switch, usually available in the same area that the store keeps the pumps. This could help you from accidentally overflowing your bin or bucket and allow you to change water into a smaller sized container since the pump will turn on and off as the bin fills and empties I do something like this to move waste water from my auto water change system from one side of my basement to another, where my slop sink is located.
  8. tolstoy21
    I would say one’s mileage may vary on this, and that it depends on why one uses or needs a softener or other water conditioning devices in a home. Personally without adjusting my well water, the amount of time and money I’d spend replacing fixtures, dealing with water scale, and opening walls to fix pinhole leaks caused by pipe corrosion — this all outweighs the cost of my water remediation. I’m not convinced that softerners drastically affect aquariums and fish unless the ph/hardness they produce is not to ones liking for the species one plans to keep. Maybe, you’ll need to use some wonder shells or equilibrium to adjust the gh, but that’s probably it. I do personally bypass my softener because I’m handy and can do my own plumbing and because the ph of my /treated water is higher than I want it to be, but I don’t think most people should fret and worry about their softener in terms of keeping an aquarium and go out and spend money to bypass it via plumbing. (Like someone else suggested, just use the built in bypass). Just know what the readings of the water coming out of the softener are via any available aquarium test kit and adjust that with some simple, readily available aquarium products to target the gh/KH you’d like, if needed. Now in terms of being a home owner, if you need a softener, and not everyone may need one, they can remediate some problems that will cost you more money to deal with long term than maintaining one will.
  9. tolstoy21
    Actually, that's an excellent point to bring up. I hadn't thought about that, but i've treated a community tank multiple times in the past two or so years with erythromycin to get rid of cyano, and had not actually thought about that when I originally posed this question as a hypothetical. So that brings us back to the original thought experiment -- are practices like this detrimental? Or, if there is enough space between episodes of treatment, this is a non-issue? For me it's not about overmedicating a single dosage, or extending a single treatment period beyond what's recommended. It's just a question of -- over a much longer, extended period of time, what frequency of medication (of a single type of meds or different types) can have an impact on fish health? And by fish health I'm thinking of direct effects like organ damage, and not indirect effects like impacting biological filters. But I guess those are important considerations as well.
  10. tolstoy21
    This is just a general, high-level question, because I am curious . . . . At what frequency can one medicate an aquarium? What I mean by this is, if your community tank displays illness in multiple fish and you run it through a course of meds, and then 6 months later, it incurs some other outbreak, would medicating the entire tank again be detrimental to the fish's health? I guess I'm wondering how many courses of meds a fish can handle within a given year without this itself becoming a health factor? Does anyone have experience with this specific case? I have no sick fish (that I am aware of) currently, so I don't have specifics to give. And, yes, I know one can remove individual fish to a quarantine. And I understand that if fish keep getting sick, check your tank params, etc . . . I'm just wondering about meds, and overmedicating by repeat doses spaces far apart, and how that affect fish health short or long term. (Imagine you got the sick three individual and distinct times in a year and had to take three courses of medicine as a result . . . this is what I'm thinking, but about fish.)
  11. tolstoy21
    In a few months you'll look back in amazement at your excitement over 6 baby shrimp, when there are more babies than you can even count.
  12. tolstoy21
    I tend to get 1/4 to 1/3 what the store sells a fish for in store credit. Half that amount if I take cash from the places that offer cash which I have yet to take. Credit is usually all I’m looking for.
  13. tolstoy21
    I have a check valve on my sump setup as well, but mine is one that threads directly onto the sump (it's made by the sump manufacturer -- think I got it at Home Depot). I put one on for the same reason, I don't want the water that's in the vertical pipe (8' foot of it) to dump back down into the basin, as this will cause the sump to run more frequently. There's always standing water in that vertical run of pipe, but it's never caused me an issue.
  14. tolstoy21
    If a shrimp dies in the dwarf sag and no one is there to see it, is it really dead (or did it ever even exist)?
  15. tolstoy21
    Counting moving fish sounds like an exercise in futility. In birdwatching there are methods for estimating the count of large flocks of moving birds. But even when you're estimating, it's difficult (to me at least). Counting schooling fish swimming back and forth in an aquarium sounds not fun. Maybe just count dead fish and subtract that number from the total you started with! Dead fish don't move and are super easy to count, and, if you're doing things right, that number will remain zero each day!
  16. tolstoy21
    I suspect the shrimp drifted towards the stone after dead, on the current created by the updraft. I use a moderately bubbling air stone with crystal reds and they appear to appreciate it and the extra oxygenation. Before that I only used a small HOB. They’ve done much better in my experience with the addition or the air stone.
  17. tolstoy21
    I feed my shrimp Mineral Junkie as a supplement to normal feedings to help prevent these kinds of problems. I’d try adding something with calcium/minerals to their diet. There are a number of foods out there that can promote good molt/shell health for invertebrates. I’m also wondering that if they died of failed molts a week after you introduced them, if this isn’t a result of the care they got before you owned them as I’m not 100% sure how long the molting process is, nor how long it takes shrimp to utilize calcium pre molt for an effective and healthy molt. Maybe try another batch of shrimp from a known good tank bred source (if you didn’t do this the first time). When I started with shrimp, my first batch died like yours, fast. I got a second batch from another source and without changing anything, they all thrived.
  18. tolstoy21
    Will ‘sneaker males’ also take on the finnage of apisto females or just the size/coloration?
  19. tolstoy21
    If you use Seachem Equilibrium, that only adds back GH, you’ll need something like Seachem Alkaline or Acid Buffer to adjust the KH. I think these Seachem products are pretty decent, and probably more cost effective than the comparable Shrimp products. Crushed Coral and Aragonite also works to adjust the KH, but these won’t budge the GH that much.
  20. tolstoy21
    I find a straight edge and a sharp box cutter work well to cut these. I’d be wary about using a table saw unless you have a finer toothed blade installed. I find larger toothed rip saw blades can shatter plastic material rather than cut is cleanly and safely. But this is just my experience cutting other things. The poly panels might be fine to cut with any blade, but I’d be careful. Or run a quick, small test first with goggles on. Also @Bill Smith the clear packing tape hinge works awesomely and is so easy. Just tried it and it was super simple, mostly invisible and all around a great hack. Thanks for that suggestion. EDIT: Just watched Cory’s video and he also does recommend a fine toothed blade!
  21. tolstoy21
    Yeah that's what I've kind of been imagining every time Im struggling to slide a whole lid back on and am like "Ugh. Need hinges."
  22. tolstoy21
    Yeah, I'd love to spend the time making semi-nice hinges for these because that's another complaint of mine about using these: picking the entire lid up. One of these days ill spend some time figuring out how to make a decent hinge for these. Im sure its not super difficult.
  23. tolstoy21
    I haven’t noticed any issues at all with light through these. But I don’t grown any difficult plants. My java moss and java fern do great under them with moderate intensity lights suspended about 6 to 8 inches above the lids. I believe these panels are used in greenhouse applications, correct?
  24. tolstoy21
    I like the Sicce Ultra Zero utility pump for this purpose. It empties a bucket right down to the very bottom. They also hook up to a python out of the box, if you need to do that.
  25. tolstoy21
    I use those and and really like them. I kind of believe the material is great at heat retention, but have no real data to back that up other than observation and speculation. They only drawback to them is if you accidentally dip them into the tank the voids can fill with water and, if you're not paying attention, this spills on your floor. Other than that they work well and are easy to cut to size with a box cutter.
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