tolstoy21

@SeizedHad similar issues recently. Large scale hair algea outbreak plus some GSA. I got thing under control with ottos, a siamese algae eater and a handful of ramshorn snails. However, a 20 gallon might be on the tad small for an SAE, as they grow fast. I don't know if otos will eat existing long tufts of hair algae (I use the SAE to gobble down that), but in my experience they do seem to prevent it from getting established and coming back as they graze the leave and rocks. I went from algae-mageddon to clean tank in about a week and a half.

@RovingGinger You should seriously consider professional testing if you see that much nitrate at the tap. I do my well every two years because I have a few things I need to watch. As for nitrates, nitrates above 10mgl measured as NO3-N can have long-term health affects on humans and can be lethal to infants under the age of 6 months, causing something called blue-baby syndrome. An API test kit does not measure NO3-N. It measures NO3 instead. But it's easy to convert between the two. It is my understanding that 10mgl NO3-N will show up as about about 45ppm nitrates in an API kit. Link below shows how to do the conversion -- Hach Support Online SUPPORT.HACH.COM Your partner in Water Quality - Find expert answers and outstanding support you can depend on Anyway, if you suspect you're anywhere near that number, you should seriously consider having a professional test your well. My well is about a 8.5mgl NO3-N, and has some other fun stuff like traces of arsenic. Like I said, I test bi-annually just to keep ahead of things and avoid any invisible health concerns lurking in there that could affect my family. If you've never done a well test before, you should do a full test for everything so you know what you're drinking. In my area, those run around $400 last time I had one performed (I believe I tested for everything including radon). After doing a full test, you can do more targeted testing every two or so years to watch items of concern. Targeted testing is less expensive. But as always, ask a professionals for his or her advice. I'm not a professional at all, but I can relate my experience to you based on being in a similar situation and having had my well tested as a result. Below is the CDC information concerning nitrates in well water -- Nitrate and Drinking Water from Private Wells | Wells | Private Water Systems | Drinking Water | Healthy Water | CDC WWW.CDC.GOV Education and information about nitrate and drinking water from private wells, including definitions, symptoms of methemoglobinemia, how methemoglobinemia is diagnosed, how it can be treated, and... ATSDR - ToxFAQs™: Nitrate and Nitrite WWW.ATSDR.CDC.GOV

Excel is a good tool if you want to also visually represent trends in your data. So is google sheets. (These are very useful to quickly make sense of large-ish amounts of raw data). But in your case, it could be useful and fun to visually represent things for others to see, like in a forum post! Like how different volumes of water changes affect nitrates over time in relation to amount of food going into the system (sounds fun right!). Of course this wont be super scientific as there are so many other variables to account for, but could be interesting nonetheless. As for what to track, just track everything you do routinely that can be quantified in some way (with maybe some free form fields for notes), then later you can use that data to make sense of what you did. If you track irrelevant stuff, no biggie. Just don't included it in any later analysis. On the other hand, if you're just thinking of keeping a basic ledger for posterity sake -- go pencil and paper!

I'm guilty of #1, but I also move over a bunch of floating plants and occasionally a seeded sponge filter or large rock or something. I also stock lightly at first. If I need to, I'll add something like Stability. As for #3, every time I rinse the brine i think "Yeah I probably don't need to be doing this". But I do it anyway!

@Bucket Online. I get 100% of my plants online. Fish, I'll also order online occasionally if I'm looking for something specific. I find out about everything--what is what, care instruction, best places to buy just by reading a lot online and watching you tube. I also have no social media presence (this forum is the extent of it currently), don't have friends in the hobby, and don't attend fish clubs (no time for that really -- kids, work, etc.)

I use the empty plastic containers left over from Won-Ton soup. I collect the brine into one, strain those through a sieve and then dunk the sieve in the second won-ton soup container with clean water. After that I just dump some from there into one tank after another, eyeballing it based on how many fish are in each. Totally imprecise, but it's easy and works for me AND!! gives me incentive to eat order more Chinese take-out!

Something like what you’re describing is shown in the beginning of this fish room tour with Dan from Dan’s fish.

Yeah, I could be wrong about that relationship, but I feel like I've read that online more than once.

Safe for aquarium? Not safe? It was my understanding spiderwood is taken from azalea roots. If this is true, I'm wondering if cuttings from branches could be used as well. I ask because I had to prune back an old azalea this summer and I saved some of the oldest, driest cuttings, which have been sitting in my garage for a few months. I thought these--trimmed up, cleaned up and thinned out a bit--might look good in a blackwater, leaf-litter aquascape. Anyone have any experience in with this type of branch wood?

Unlimited free time to enjoy. Not sure that's a power, but it feels like one to me!

My salt and pepper corys spawn constantly in my community tank. Over the course of 2 1/2 years about 20 have made it to adulthood. The more cover you have, the greater their chances. I had the most survive when my dwarf sag carpet was out of control and super dense. One day I pulled out all the sag and was surprised by how many young corys were hiding in there. The other day I watched a couple deposit and fertilize eggs on the glass while a third cory followed right behind them and ate half the eggs as they were being laid. So odds are definitely against them, but over time, given adequate cover, some find a way to survive.

I'll definitely start a build thread if and once I begin. But if I don't finish the kitchen renovation first, the rest of the family might get a tad cross. 😉 I want to expand a rack I have, and maybe it might be interesting to build something large into that expansion, so something like space for a bunch 20 highs on top, and in the middle, a custom build large aquarium with sump space underneath. Not the most efficient use of space, but maybe something fun to try, especially considering I can't fit large aquariums easily down my basement stairs. Hmmmm.......

Hmmmmm.... now I suddenly have this bug stuck in my mind to build a large aquarium in my basement. 400+ might be a bit too large for my space, but still, the fire has been lit!

Hard thing to really answer without designing something and costing out materials, unless you're looking for a cheap, large tank already available on the market. Also, used vs new is another consideration in terms of total costs. Are you looking to acquire a tank and trying to see how much something like this runs, low-end? Or just asking the question as a sort of challenge to see what kinds of ideas people have about what they could come up with if given the task? As others have suggested, there are more costs than just the tank, such as floor support, filtration, etc. So it's a hard question to answer without more specifics, unless, like I said above, it's a question meant as a fun-spirited challenge, and you're not looking for something specific for yourself. I would imagine a plywood tank, material-wise, would be cheapest. There are many good examples of these online.

Apisto mama

I need a test tube holder. I drop and break these more than I care to admit.

Hmmmm . . . hard to pin down. There a few aspects about this hobby that fit my personality well and that I enjoy. 1) Its very relaxing and peaceful to watch colorful fish that you care for and raise, swimming in an ecosystem you created. It's fulfilling on many levels. 2) In general, every hobby I have--or had in the past--is nature-themed. Current other lifelong hobbies include birdwatching and rose gardening (been doing both of those for a few decades time). I've had fish and reptiles my entire life, on and off, depending on where I was in life, but it's not until the past 4 years that I dove into this hobby with both feet. 3) Unlike the above, which are either seasonal or occur outside my home, I can enjoy the aquarium hobby every single day without needing to go anywhere or without being affected by it being winter and the garden being dormant. Or the middle of summer and the bird activity somewhat subdued and predictable. Aquariums are always there, exactly where I also happen to be most of the time. My house! 4) I've always loved growing plants, roses specifically (such a rewarding thing!). There is nothing more amazing and fulfilling than planning a garden scape (outside, or in an aquarium) -- picking and planting the plants, arranging their layout even when they're small and there's nothing but your imagination and experience to guide you, caring for the plants over time, and then, with lots of patients and discipline, seeing the fruits of what existed only inside your mind as a vision slowly grow into reality. 5) I love to tinker, test and build things, and improve upon processes. In the aquarium hobby, as opposed to something like birding, there's a lot of opportunity to build things, or experiment with things in my basement. (Yes, I've become that older, cliche guy who hides away, tinkering in his basement). I always need a project to think about and work on. If I don't have a problem or idea for my mind to chew on, I'm not happy. Plenty of projects in this hobby, if that tickles your fancy. That, I think, sums up the major points of what i enjoy about this hobby. It's really the combination of those aspects, and not one thing in specific.

I would like to add a thought/caveat to what I posted above about my simple brine shrimp grow out setup. I'm not breeding a ton of fish, so I don't hatch out massive amounts of BBS. And, if I am hatching out on a daily basis, I don't dump every single last bit of left over BBS water into the grow out bucket . . . . so I do actually still rinse some down the drain. Just wanted to clarify that so there’s no confusion. The reason for this is simply that I want to manage the population in that bucket, and I don't want to inadvertently raise the salinity if I'm not watching the evaporation vs how much salt water I'm adding on top of what's in there. So my leftover BBS recycling is not 100%. I reuse as much as I can within my comfort zone for managing a 3 gallon environment and dependent on how much shrimp I harvest from it and at what frequency Not to say that dumping every last drop of excess shrimp water wont work, it's just that I haven't played around with that as a scenario yet. I've seen someone on YouTube who recycled every last bit and keeps his grow out bin going long term. This is his video, and what got me setting mine up. Also, i have vacuumed out the bottom of my bucket, at times. and replenished with fresh salt water (basically a water change), but I'm not sure that's necessary and straining the shrimp from that change water leaves you with a dirty net full of shrimp. Admittedly, I still give that to my fish. Rather than water change the bucket, I've settled on just harvesting the batches and starting a new one periodically.

You want the food to be very fine and powdery. Something a teeny tiny filter feeder can handle. I used Sera micron only because I had some laying around going unused and stale, and because it has spirulina powder in it as a main ingredient. Spirulina powder supposedly works great for this setup from what I've read on the internet when i started researching this. I just haven't used any yet because I haven't run out of Sera micron. A container of food goes a loooooong way. When I feed, I dip a wooden shish-kebab skewer (something else I had laying around in my basement!) into the water a few inches. Then I dip that into the powdered food, getting a nice coating on the stick. After that, I swish the food-covered skewer around in an API test tube full of the bucket water. I then shake that up to dissolve the contents and dump the resulting green liquid into the bubbling bucket. Or you could just go the easy route and toss a pinch directly into the bucket!

@Bekah This is what I do with my extra ones, instead of the drain. Pretty much just three gallons of salt water in a bucket with an inexpensive, small heater and some vigorous bubbles. I feed them a pinch of sera micron every morning and they grow out fine. Maybe once a day i stir the bucket to get settled food back into the water column. I did use some RO fittings to make a permanent, rigid air line in the side of this thing so I'm always bubbling at the bottom of the bucket, but that's overkill and an inclination to tinker on my part. Only maintenance for this is an occasional top off with RO water to ensure the salinity doesn't rise too high due to evaporation. One could probably use distilled or rain water for this as well I'd guess. I make the water with Instant Ocean. One bag lasts me a while. The black marker line on the side of the bucket is my water level for three gallons. As it drops a bit below that, I know it's time to top off a bit. I don't grow out massive amounts, but I do get enough to net out and feed some fish (I certainly cant sustain my tanks on its yield alone). Those that avoid the net long enough spawn babies themselves. I run this a while. Then when I think it's starting to foul (and I have no real rule around this other than looking in and thinking, yeah that's getting pretty murky looking), I then net out all the shrimp, feed them to fish, clean the bucket and start over. Like I said, you don't get tons, but you do grow out those leftovers and can enjoy watching fish get excited chasing and gobbling up larger brine. For me it's just another project of interest, just to see if I can accomplish it successfully. There is no real science behind what I do other than common sense. This is to say is that I don't find growing out brine shrimp to be that hard if you follow some simple, reasonable guidelines -- Keep some food suspended in the water via the bubbles. Keep the temp reasonable. Check salinity and top off every now and again. Oh, and don't over crowd the bucket. Like don't dump that initial thick, dark, orange stream of BBS into that bucket. You want a reasonable amount in there. Whats a reasonable amount? No clue. Less than whats in that thick dark orange stream. I do fine using just the few left overs swimming around the very top of the BBS water. I also occasionally replenish their numbers with a drop or two of concentrated BBS taken from the swarm at the bottom of the hatchery, with a pipette. But go easy with that. A few drops from that orange swarm is a lot of shrimp.

I acquired Odessas from Greg a few months back. Very healthy fish. He's great to order from. Super responsive. Just all around positive experience. Very open to fielding general questions about fish species he keeps and has expertise in, from my experience. However, and this isn't a complaint, just an observation/note -- his Odessas are young and unsexed. So they have a lot of growing out to do before they fully color up. So if you're someone who is looking to acquire the immediate satisfaction of the full coloration of the mature males, there are no guarantees to sex of the fish you receive. And you'll have to be patient and grow them out. Mine are just starting to color-up now and I'm hopeful they'll be as amazing as they appear to be in his videos and photos. I'm going to attempt to breed them once they mature a bit. All that being said, can't recommend buying through Greg enough.

Ok, not Sunday, but figured I'd share some snaps from this morning.

@Jessica. Very good point as well. I did this also at one point. Knowing my nitrates would always be high from the tap, I selectively fertilized with Seachem phosphorous, potassium and flourish, skipping the nitrates. If 20ppm is the baseline from one's tap and the fish load isn't super extreme, this is another great alternative if you also plan on having a planted tank.

@Jessica. -- As someone who used to do that, 100000% agree. You get tired of the labor (and expense) of all of that after a while. This is why I went the route I posted earlier in this thread. I wanted something in-line with my plumbing that required a cartridge change maybe every 6 or more months, and that was it. Granted plants are waaaaaaaay easier than this, but I can't resist the challenge of tinkering and creating an easy automated solution to things. Right now I just use my R/O for shrimp water, but I pre-make a couple of buckets and set those aside in my basement. That way the work is minimal and I have a supply of water-change water for my shrimp on hand when it's a lazy day and I don't feel like making any.

@Cory Thanks for the response. You know after I set this up last night I kicked myself for not thinking to do what you're suggesting, as it would have been easier and a tad cheaper, especially considering I have a bunch of RO tube fittings already on hand. Thanks for reinforcing (in a positive way) my 'Doh!', head-slap moment!