tolstoy21

Below is a link to a basic chart of standard PVC flow rates. I'd assume the rate at which you're putting water into the tank probably equals the rate at which its going to come out. The drain rate would be non-pressurized in this scenario. #1 FlexPVC®.com Water Flow Charts Based on Pipe Size (GPM/GPH) ie, How much water can flow through Sch 40 Pvc Pipe Size 1/2" 3/4" 1" 1.5" 2" 2.5" 3" 4" 6" FLEXPVC.COM Water Flow Volume for a given pipe size based on charts, tables, formula, nomograph, & experience.

I believe the diameter of pipe and bulkhead is determined by the flow rate you wish to achieve through it. I use 1/2" on my basement tanks, which is fine to accommodate drip fed water. On my 125 gallon aquarium, I have a 1 1/2" bulk head installed in the sump so I can trigger larger water changes of around 40 gallons at a time (when I need to occasionally do that). Not sure if a smaller bulkhead would suffice in that scenario, but I didn't want to risk reducing the flow rate in a way that would overflow onto my floor. My experience tells me I could maybe go down to 1" for that specific setup. In my other systems that do drip changes, 1/2" works perfectly.

I'm totally curious about this . . . . Are the thumbnails for the topics filled in by AI or some other software automation? Or do you all do that manually? Like I said, totally curious.

No problem. I think the best advice I've seen I've seen in this hobby is to not stress over all the above things. (Of course when i first got into this, I didn't take that advice and did the opposite to no avail). So just keep your parameters in the ballpark for a healthy tank without chasing specific parameters. Figure out what your water is like, and how your tank trends over time, and stock fish that like that your water. Most fish do well in a wide range of stable conditions. This is the simplest thing to do, and the easiest path to success. Of course, on the flip side, some fish prefer and thrive in a higher Ph (alkaline) and others thrive in a lower one (acidic). If, and when, you get into keeping those fish that don't naturally thrive your tap water, then you'll need to start thinking about buffering your water differently to accommodate those species. But that's fun for another day!

Yes do one! If you're even remotely handy, build one. It's an interesting project and anything that alleviates manual labor is awesome in my book. By trade I'm a computer infrastructure automation engineer, so yeah, automate things. As I tell my employees, build robots, don be robots! I've had a semi-automatic WC system on my 125 for a few years and just switched to a drip system. The drip part of it gets me to a 100% automated solution (minus the occasional gravel vac). I also just started down the path to setting up a drip system for a small rack of breeding tanks in my basement so I can't comment on if drip is better than other methods, as I haven't been running that long enough, but anything you can do towards automation is 100% the way to go. Also, drilling tanks is the way to go. It's visually cleaner looking, less bulky than a lot of PVC in the tanks, and you don't have to worry about losing siphon. Drilling glass seems frightening at first, but once you've done it once, you'll be like -- wow that was easy! The one tip I have for glass drilling is make a template for the drill bit out of wood and clamp that to the tank. This both keeps the hole saw from skittering across the glass as you as you try to make that initial cut and also helps create a small reservoir. I did this with a simple wood scrap, and now I just pop it onto any tank I want to drill and the bulkhead hole is in the same place every time. When I drill I also just use a squirt bottle to spritz the work semi-frequently. I see lots of people running hose water over their work, but I never found this to be 100% necessary. You just want to avoid the allowing the bit and the glass to get too hot, and this is usually caused by the dry friction and lack of good heat sink, like a puddle of water. So keep the work wet so theres a nice little puddle around the bit, drill a few moments, take a tiny break, spritz the work again. Rinse, repeat. It will be far less labor than creating PVC siphons. Cutting and gluing and testing a ton of PVC sounds too time consuming.

Over time, the tank will consume KH as it buffers the water. And yes, the color vividness of the API tests can be subjective. I find the difference between 20 & 40 on the nitrate test very hard to discern for my aging eyes. I also find the colors on the high Ph tests difficult to differentiate (7.4 Ph and 8.0 ph look too similar to me). For your purposes, i think as long as you're within a drop or so of certainty of the GH/KH reading you're fine. I'm not sure what's contributing to the GH, could be rocks or other hardscape possibly, but that's such a small bump I'd not worry. Just track it's trend over time so you know what to expect from it as your tank settles in. Same with KH, track its trend a bit until you get a good idea of when, and if, the tank depletes it. 5 KH is a good amount to buffer your aquarium. With normal water changes you shouldn't have problems. You just want to make sure it doesn't go below 1. If you're shooting for specific values in terms of GH/KH/Ph, then you'll have to muck around with adding buffers and minerals to the water, things like crushed coral or Seachem equilibrium or alkaline buffer, but I don't believe that's your objective, and that costs money and time and usually isn't necessary except in very specific circumstances. It's normal for things like driftwood, CO2, fish waste to swing Ph down gradually as that acidifies the water. You just want to avoid it bottoming out or it changing suddenly (which is what KH is supposed to buffer against). I won't claim to be an expert on any of the above, but I've did a bunch of reading on this over the past year or so trying to wrap my mind around GH/KH/Ph, how it changes over time and what changes it, so I hope my advice is good. Usually if I get a new tank setup, I'll test it frequently and keep a mental trend-line things like KH and PH and nitrates so I get a good idea of how things work over time so I know how frequently to water change, etc. Then I test far less often once I'm confident how the environment works and the tank appears healthy.

This is my first time attempting to breed apistogramma cacatuoides. I went to feed the ‘happy’ couple this afternoon and the male was listless and pale, on the bottom of the tank, hiding under a leaf. I assumed he was sick (did a water change last night and now thought oh crud what did I do wrong?) so I fed the tank some baby brine and the male perked up a tad and started eating. When he got near the cave, the female came out and beat the living heck out of him. He fought back, but she really went at him! So, I’m guessing they are soon to enjoy the fruits of parenthood? They were pretty flirty flirty last nightly, nudging each other with their tails while the male flared his fins. Today it’s a divorce lawyers dream. If they’ll have little ones soon, will the aggression cease after the eggs hatch? Or should I relocate the male before she clobbers him to death? I’ve had this happy pair for about a week and the fighting began today. Marriage counseling?

Greg Sage at Select Aquatics does something similar in terms of creating overflow plumbing that requires no tanks drilling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lNSqpRBvIA In think the King of DIY also has a number of videos on the topic as well. Personally, I drill my tanks and overflow into a medium sized tote with a utility sump that empties the water into a drain pipe on the other side of my basement.

I use coral and aragonite for things like shell dwellers, or fish that 'prefer' something above neutral. I get a Ph of 7.4 - 7.6 by adding some Top Fin coral into the substrate or bubbling it in a small box filter, and something closer 8 with aragonite. The coral gives me a level of confidence I'm not suddenly going to run out of KH and have a unexpected Ph drop. For 'soft-water' fish I'm just using the plain well water (taken from a line that bypasses the water softeners, etc.). This gets me closer to a Ph of 6.8, with a KH around 1. These were the species I was thinking about when I asked the original question concerning is hardness GH or KH. I know the advice is to not 'chase the Ph' and just make sure it's stable. But adding some coral to some tanks is easy enough to maintain without hassle. Again thanks for the answers. Was really just trying to get clarity around the topic. This brief conversation helped!

Thanks again varanidguy! So much on the internet seems to conflate hardness/softness with alkalinity/acidity in a way that was confusing the heck out of me. When I'm thinking about my water in terms of fish keeping, I kept asking myself -- "Is my water hard or soft?" I know it's hard given the GH, but then was stumped as to how to figure in the almost non-existent KH in terms of what is mentioned when people say a specific fish species prefers 'soft water', and then what they go on to describe seems to relate more to acidity/Ph. For me personally, I have a few tanks I add crushed coral or aragonite to, and I also use RO for caradina shrimp. But when pondering my plain, unfiltered well water, what I was reading online in terms of fish keeping seemed clear as mud. Something like this on the other hand (taken from non-aquarium literature), seemed more accurate to how I was thinking about the topic: I grabbed this snippet from: https://extension.usu.edu/waterquality/learnaboutsurfacewater/propertiesofwater/alkalinity

Thanks for the reply varanidguy. So when people refer to fish 'soft water' is this specifically in reference to KH/PH/acidity irrespective of GH? Are their instances where GH becomes a factor in terms of long term fish health? Are their GH sensitive species? I don't really have any specific issues I'm looking to fix. I'm just looking to get some clarity around this topic.

Is hardness GH? KH? Both? I ask this because when I read fish keeping articles, they all seem to suggest different things. Some reference only KH as being soft and make no reference to GH. Others suggest GH. Others mention TDS/PPM. My well water is below 1 KH but has a GH of 9. Is this hard or soft? Both? Doesn’t really matter? I understand the difference between GH and KH and what they do and are composed of. Just totally confused by the loose and various use of the term ‘hardness’ in reference to those. According to my well test company I have hard, acidic water. My house has both a water softener and a PH neutralizer for tap water. (The low Ph - 5.0 out of the tap - does a number on my pipes). But like I said, I get confused by what I read in various articles in relation to fish keeping and hardness. For instance, when someone references ‘soft water species’ is this in reference it KH alone? Because they all seem to mention Ph in conjunction with that, yet my water has both a low Ph and is moderately hard. Right? The inter webs is totally confusing me!

Started feeding these yesterday and fish gobbled them up. However, one observation for anyone interested -- if you don't cut them up and throw them in whole and live, the ones that make it to the bottom burrow into the substrate very fast. Im guessing they die and rot down there.

I culture them with a stackable homemade system made from plastic totes and wire mesh. Super easy and super inexpensive. There are many examples and instructions on how to make these online. I roughly followed this --> https://www.instructables.com/Make-Black-Gold-With-DIY-Worm-Compost-Bins/ In my experience, worms are difficult to maintain and harvest the compost from if you don't have a stackable system that allows them to migrate upwards as food is added over time. Also, it takes a little while to get the hang of maintaining the bins, adding the right amount of food waste, cardboard, grit and water so as to not create a 'hot' compost. And, to figure out how to balance the whole thing without inadvertently creating a massive fly outbreak (if you're doing it indoors . . . done this twice!). Like everything else, it's a lot of trial and error before you dial it in. My bins probably have many thousands of wigglers, too many to count. They reproduce like mad.

I could be crazy or speculating but I just noticed something these past few weeks . . . . I have a moderately planted 125 gallon. About two years back, when I set it up, I moved about a dozen otos into it. Over that time, their numbers appeared to dwindle. I re-scaped the tank about 6 month ago and as the new plants were settling in, I had a large algae outbreak so I figured I'd replace my missing otos. I went to my LFS, got a dozen more and added those into the tank. Since I've added these new ones, it appears the others were there all along, just hiding and not very active. However, now I just counted a school of over 20+. I don't have any aggressive fish in this aquarium that would force anything into hiding in my experience, nor anything that's much larger than an oto. Zebra Danios are probably the largest fish i currently have in that specific tank. So what I'm observing in my tank at least is that they appear to be more highly active in this larger school (20+ members) and eating more algae. Obviously there's more of them so of course more algae gets consumed. But I never saw the older ones grazing at all, and this this lead me to the impression that I only had 2 or so left in the aquarium. Am I crazy, or has anyone else had experience with this? Do larger school numbers encourage more activity in terms of not hiding as well as actively consuming more? For me I'm going to speculate the tipping point was getting the school above a dozen members. Before I upped the numbers, algae was overtaking everything. Every surface was coated. A week after upping the oto numbers, the algea was completely consumed. Why were the original dozen so reclusive and apparently not very hungry?

I've had a worm composting system running in my basement for years now to recycle my home's organic waste and to use the output in my rose garden (rose gardening being my other, and probably longest-lived hobby; been at it a few decades now!). It just dawned on me to ask . . . can I use these as live food? I have a bajillion, more or less an endless supply. Anyone have experience with this? Pros? Cons? Tips? Don't know why I never thought to ask this before.

. . . you go to put your container of fish food on your tank lid, except you forgot you just took the lid off? I just dumped about half a container of Xtreme flake into a 29 gallon. Looked like a snow globe full of red snow!

The main reason I got holey rock was because I liked the way it looked. The buffering capacity was really just a secondary benefit in my mind.

Ed, Thanks for the reply. I was under the impression (and hoping) that Texas holey rock would be enough to buffer the Ph to 8. I do want to get a colony going from an initial six multis i have coming soon, so I think I'll just mix some aragonite sand into the existing inert sand.

Is a ph of 7.4 for a neolamprologus multifasciatus tank bad? Nothing to worry about? I'm starting a shell tank and have a bunch of texts holey rock in it and some Carib Sea Florida Crushed Coral. The Ph has stabilized around 7.4. The tank is a 40 breeder with about 20 lbs of holey rock and inert sand. I have maybe a pound of the florida coral in a medium-sized box filter, bubbling water through that. I was hoping the Florida coral would buffer to around 8 since it has aragonite, but so far I'm sitting at 7.4. I was also under the assumption the the holey rock would have the same effect. My tap water is pretty acidic, has KH lower than 1, and stabilizes at around 6.6 - 6.8 if unbuffered. Any advice? Just roll with 7.4? Do the coral and rock take longer to buffer than I am anticipating?

I’ve had good luck recently with a batch of otos. Got 12, gave them the med trio for a week and then moved them into the community tank where they joined 6 other existing ones. I have lots of large algae covered rocks and some wood, and they grazed on that all and cleaned it in about 2 weeks. Have not had a single oto die on me. Mine don’t seem to be fussy eaters. Being the algae is getting scarce, I also feed them Hakari algae wafers, and just tried Repashi super green today and they ate that as well. However, mine are surprisingly not fussy and are also eating the flake food that gathers in an dead spot in my tank. They eat both Tetra color flakes and Xtreme flakes. Whenever I feed the tank, they all rush to the corner and wait on the substrate for leftovers and sift the sand with the Cory cats for the leftovers. At first I thought they did this cause they were starved, but they’re all about as fat as can be.

I’ll also vote for sump. I use a 29 aqueon as a DIY sump on a 125. Very useful for hiding heaters, co2 reactor, plumbing in UV if you want to go that route. Either way, it’s super easy to work with and service. Sumps also increase the total system water volume, which is an added benefit. I use fluorite black sand because I like the way it looks. It can be pricey to fill a large tank with it, but I just like the black sandy look. Stem plants grow very well in it, once they get established, but sometimes they are hard to keep in the substrate until that time.

I resealed a used 125 I got off Craig’s list last summer. My advice — watch a lot of you tube videos on the subject. Joey the king of DIY has a few good videos on the topic. There’s a lot out there you can use to get the gist. Lesson I learned the hard way is this — with a large tank and one person, you have to go quicker than you think. Silicon can set up faster than you think, at least in terms of a being able to smooth it with your finger. Once it gels, there’s no smoothing it without ruining it. Once it starts to gel, it’s also hard to remove the tape, if you used any to get clean lines. I made this mistake and had to strip the tank down and start anew a second time. Once I knew the pace I hard to go at, the second try came out perfect. Your tank looks huge, so If you can have a buddy smooth and remove tape behind you as you lay down a caulk bead (or vice verse), that might be the best route I’d definitely tape the verticals corners, but not worry about taping the bottom. You want clean lines where it’s going to be visible. The bottom will be under substrate, so if the lines aren’t perfect, whose going to see? Also, if you’ve never worked with caulk before, maybe practice on something so you get a good idea exactly how much chalk to spread in the joints. Too little is no good for obvious reasons. Too much is also bad cause the cleanup of the excess slows you down a lot and makes a huge mess. Hope this helps.

I use a Pentair UV sterilizer on a 125. The instructions on those are pretty good at outlining what flow rates you need to maintain through the sterilizer to be affective against different types of problems. As stated above, exposure time is everything, so the flow rates are much lower than what your return pump may de doing, so these may require a dedicated small pump tuned to the rate you want to achieve for effectiveness. I will admit, that sterilizer is pricey, but it's well made. Also, to reiterate what was said above, they only work on organisms in the water column. So internal parasites, and things in the substrate or anywhere else remain unaffected.

Thanks for the reply. I'm not worried about getting rid of them, just trying to grow the population a tad in my larger tank. I did a weeks worth of daily, manual removal in the shrimp tank and then decreased the feeding a bit and that's all under control. Honestly, I think the use of Mineral Junkie caused my spike (probably feeding too much of that) because before that, their numbers were low and they didn't do well in the low Ph of the tank. I'm going to guess the addition of excess calcium and other minerals that they could scavenge helped them thrive, whereas before that they were barely getting a foothold. As for the 125, something must be feeding on them because there is plenty for them to eat and thrive on in that tank.