Bill Smith

NANO-POND #6: Last, but not least, the daphnia culture. It's still going strong! I harvest heavily every couple days to feed all my tanks. The foam you see here is from the spirulina powder I use. When the water begins to clear I either dump in a gallon of green water or a heaping tablespoon of spirulina powder (usually pre-stirred in a cup of water). The dark patches you see are what happens when I don't pre-mix the powder. 🙂 As you can see, still going strong after several weeks. Two secrets with daphnia: Harvest heavily to keep them from over-populating, and keep the water slightly murky with food. Thanks for looking at my little slide show! Bill

NANO-POND #5: Probably one of the more interesting, this one has the water hyacinth and some floating salvinia on top, and a bunch of floating water sprite just below. I didn't know it did this, but the water sprite is growing some of its stems straight up out of the water. It houses several clown killifish, which all seem to be doing very well.

NANO-POND #4: This is probably my favorite of all 6 so far. Simply water hyacinth and guppy grass for the growing population of Hawaiian blue Moscow guppies. They move so fast in the dark for my phone camera to do them justice, but there is so much life and activity in this pond! There are also several juveniles now approaching 3/4"! Easily my most successful pond, and it's also the one I've touched the least!

NANO-POND #3: This one's out of control. Water hyacinth, water lettuce, and some invading duckweed! For the nighttime shot, I removed a lot. Shared the water lettuce to #2, and fed the duckweed to goldfish in my larger pond. The green kubotai rasboras are doing VERY well, eating well, handling the temperature swings. Couldn't be happier about that.

NANO-POND #2 This one's a little more sparse; I shared some water lettuce from #3, and let the water hyacinth and dwarf aquarium lily grow. Nice growth all around. Interestingly, after an infusion of green water, it went all green! It's the only pond that did this. But I'm glad, because it helps to feed any newly-hatched leopard danio fry. But it's pretty murky: Sadly, I had an unexpected die-off of leopard danios over just a couple days. It's possible the recent heat wave was too much. But I have one very robust adult danio left, and a few fry! That last picture is from tonight. The fry in this pic is over 1/4" long! I've been holding off on the Easy Green, and the green water has really diminished. I'm not giving up on leopard danios just yet. I'm going to restock with a dozen as soon as a LFS has some.

NANO-POND #1 All the plants are growing in nicely. The one water hyacinth has become four, the dwarf aquarium lily sent three pads to the top, and I'm scooping off tons of duckweed weekly. The ring is a 24" length of Aquarium Co-Op airline tubing, joined with an airline connector. When the duckweed gets out of hand, I get a nice view through the porthole. The cherry barbs seem to be active and happy. I feed them Hikari micro pellets and supplement with live daphnia. I also add a squirt of Aquarium Co-Op Easy Fry Food daily, in case there might be fry. Click to enlarge!

OVERALL PICS First a couple comparison pics, from a couple different angles. Click to enlarge.

Yep, my Marineland Portrait has a single pea puffer and a Siamese Algae Eater to help keep things clean. Two Imperial walkers are on the hunt:

On the weekend I made the Petco rounds, and added 33 more ember tetras, bringing the total to 41: (I figure once I'm done stocking I'll med-trio the whole thing as its own quarantine.) No schooling behaviors yet, but plenty of shoaling. But every time I move close to the tank, the fish collect into a tight little school. I think @Taylor Blake's suggestion of a tension fish like a guppy is a really great one, and I think I will be adding that at some point soon. In the meantime, I honestly think I'm half stocked so far. I've been watching the parameters daily, and while perusing the Home Depot, I picked up a pothos and added about 4 stems to this tank: I'm already noticing the benefit of reduced nitrates; although I distributed the pothos among several tanks, I think I'm going to double the number of stems I have in there. This should buy me quite a bit of "wiggle room" in the water changes.

I am sorting through some new, nicer pics I took this weekend. These things are a delight, and squirt or two of Easy Green every now and then visibly accelerates the growth in a week! While I prep the photos, here's something I can share that started doing: Because I'm easily topping off as much as 10 gallons a week just for evaporation; I ended up running a splitter off the auto-top-off for my larger pond so that I can fill the ponds directly with filtered water: It's so much less disruptive than dumping in a couple gallons every few days. This other thing cracks me up: Each of the ponds now has a ring around the front of it: Guess my birdie visitors are appreciating the fresh water! I suspect when the water hyacinths grow in more, that kind of perching will be diminished. Bill

I sometimes install shelves on the front of some of my tanks to encourage our cats:

I bought these mats from eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/TWO-PACK-2-x-12-x-12-COARSE-Filter-Floss-Pad-Aquarium-or-Pond-Media-2-pads/111667680920 Very coarse, very thick. Any questions? 🙂

I would use EM Erythromycin or Maracyn (they're the same thing) to prevent infection. I've found them to be effective. Good luck!

+1 on the Yoyo loach. Two smal lones eradicated my big snail problem in my 20 gallon in one week! Only downside is that they can get large. I'll be trying dwarf chain loaches next time.

Yeah, my city (Oceanside, CA) publishes a water quality report, where it merely mentions that it uses chloramines for disinfection. It doesn't say how much.

This is where my lack of expertise comes in. I think it's ~2-3 ppm. My chlorine test kit reads 3ppm total chlorine and less than 1ppm free chlorine. Which leaves 2+ ppm that isn't free...therefore chloramine.

Ah, I've been curious about this. Does anyone know if it will be harmful to fish eggs or fry?

No, zebras are jerks too. But the more you have, the more they occupy each other. 🙂 Aquarium Co-Op has a video on clown killies that got me into them. 🙂

A mini school of 5-6 zebra danios tends to hang around the top. A peaceful dwarf gourami like a honey gourami is likely to hang in the top layer too. If you want tip-top, I like hatchets and clown killies, but you won't see them if you're looking down on the tank.

Good point, my cold water is never ice cold, and it does warm up a little on its way to the tank. In summer, it probably comes through in the high 70s anyway. 🙂 As pointed out in another thread, everyone's water is so very different!

My Southern California water is hard, high-pH, and contains high quantities of chloramines. I have 13 tanks at last count. That's a lot of buckets to dechlorinate on water change day! About a year ago, I took the plunge and researched what it would take to pre-filter my tap water so that I could refill tanks directly, I'm really glad I did, because in the long run, it has saved me more hours than I can count! Thankfully, it's a lot easier than it might seem. Below I will walk through the steps the average household can take to set it up, to show how easy and effective it really is! Plan on a $100 total expense. (All links are non-affiliate) (I have ripped off illustrative pics from the internet. He had it coming.) (Apologies to our overseas friends; this is how I did it in the U.S.) I'm assuming you know how to connect push-fit quick-connectors: Push, then pull, then insert a blue clip. PARTS: 1. 2 x Clear filter housings for 10" x 2.5" filters: 1/4" ports ($28) (clear is useful to see how dirty the sediment filter is) 2. Sediment Filter Cartridge: 1 micron ($7) (you could get 5 micron, but at this cost, why?) 3. Chloramine Carbon Block Cartridge: 1 micron ($20) (this cartridge is overkill if you're only treating for chlorine) 4. RO Canister Wrench ($7) (must-have for opening/tightening canisters) 5. Threaded fittings for RO canister housings: 1/4" ($7) (this is a basic selection; you can get more fancy here: elbow, direct connection, etc.) 6. Water supply RO adapter ($11) (basic is generally fine) 7. 25'-50' of 1/4" RO hose ($9) (how much do you need to reach your tanks?) 8. Assorted RO hose fittings ($12) (buy them all; you'll use more than you think!) 9. Vaseline or silicone grease 10. Teflon tape. STEP 1: Tap into the Cold Water Supply Pick a room with running water. I used my kitchen sink because of its proximity to big tanks, but bathroom or laundry hookups will do. Right where the cold water supply feeds the faucet, you can easily install the adapter valve. To install, simply: 1. Place a towel under the cold water shut-off valve. 2. Turn off the cold water valve. 3. Disconnect the hose to the faucet. 4. Install the adapter (use teflon tape for the threads!). 5. Close the new adapter's valve. 6. Reattach the faucet hose. 7. Turn the water valve back on! Here's a not-very-helpful picture of my installation. I have a RO-drinking water unit, so I had a similar adapter already installed: I do not worry about water temperature when refilling my tanks. I can't prove it, but I've heard that a quick blast of cold water simulates a rainfall and can stimulate breeding and other behaviors. Otherwise I will lose gallons of water trying to get the mix just right every time. Maybe if I had a fish room, but for 13 tanks, cold water alone is just fine. I change 50% in every tank every weekend. STEP 2: Load the Canisters Each of the filter canisters has a black o-ring in its housing. You'll want to gently pry it out, coat it with some vaseline or silicone grease, and push it back in. You can then load the filter cartridges in each one and screw the housings into the lids. Use the wrench to tighten them. STEP 3: Connect the Filter Canister Tops An RO threaded fitting needs to be screwed in both ports on each of the two canisters. You must use teflon tape or you'll have leaks! Once closed up, you can use some RO tubing to connect them to your home water supply adapter. Take note of the "IN" and "OUT" markings on the lids. Run a short length of tubing from the new adapter on your plumbing to the "IN" port of the canister with the sediment filter. Then, run a very short tube from the "OUT" of that same canister to the "IN" of the canister with the carbon block. The remainder of your tubing can be attached to the "OUT" port of that second canister, and will hopefully reach your tanks. Be sure and put a ball valve (you bought several) on the end of the tubing to your tanks, so that you'll be able to turn it on and off at that point! STEP 4: Check for Leaks I had to do this several times until I had used enough teflon tape or vaseline grease on the o-rings. It's worth paying attention at this stage to save yourself grief later! I closed the valve on the very end of my tubing, and opened up all the others. I keep it in this state indefinitely. STEP 5: Flush out the Carbon Powder I ran my unit for about an hour into the sink, until the water came out with the lowest TDS and clarity. STEP 6: TEST! I have a chlorine test kit that measures total and free chlorine; this allows me to infer chloramine quantities when I compare with an ammonia test. None of this is necessary, in my opinion, except maybe for peace of mind. I found that water coming out of this unit tests at zero for chlorine, chloramine, and ammonia. I suppose maybe the ammonia could read as much as 0.25 ppm, but it's my opinion that it's not enough to hurt fish, and any bio filter will snap that up right away. STEP 7: USE IT! I keep all the valves open at all times, except for the one on the very end of the hose that goes in the tanks to refill. The water coming out of this unit is not high pressure; it runs about 1 gallon per minute for me. I prefer that. Now, I just uncoil my hose to any part of the house I need, and coil it back up under the cabinet when I'm done! Clean water from the tap! STEP 8: ADDITIONAL TIPS 1. You can drink it too. 🙂 Unless you're already drinking RO water, it's MUCH better filtered than that stuff that comes out of your fridge icemaker or Brita filter. 2. The hose is so small I can put a tiny hole in my wall and get it to a tank for a permanent installation: Think auto-water changing! 3. You can add stages to improve the filtering capabilities. For example: A 5 micron sediment filter before the 1 micron will increase the lifespan of the latter. I haven't needed this; at seven bucks I plan to change it once a year whether it needs it or not. If you just want to take care of chlorine and not chloramines, you can go for a less restrictive carbon filter, which will boost your water pressure. For more neutral water and low-pH applications, you can add an RO membrane or DI resin. And so on. 4. For filling my rack, I went nuts: Hope this has been helpful. Thanks for reading! Bill

Truly gorgeous tank! More theme tanks!

When using tap water, I always always always treat my water before it goes in the tank. I see no reason to subject my fish even to a few seconds of chlorine/chloramine discomfort. That said, I have had great success in recent months using a sediment filter/carbon block combination, even with chloramine hard water! I sprang for the 1 micron carbon block, and my water comes through chlorine-free and ammonia-free at all times. I hooked it up to the line that goes to my RO drinking water line, and I just open the valve when I need fish water.

Congrats guys, way overdue! 🙂

Orange and black, I like it! I love themed tanks, because they can be very focusing.