Luciferkrist

THIS is the important part. If you try gluing it before it cures, it WILL put some volatiles into the water, but good luck using glue IN the water.

Now that I have my 210gal tank up and running, I need to start considering it's maintenance. My old magnetic scraper for my 75 is just not strong enough for the extra 1/4 inch of glass, so I'm looking for opinions on the 'best' overall magnetic scraper. I have noticed that most of them do not include what thickness of glass they will work with, and any of the ones that do tend to approach a 3 digit price! I know a good pad and myself are the best options to remove algae, but some days I don't like being literally shoulder deep into my tank, or notice a bad spot while I am already dressed and heading to work.

Welp... tested my water on Tuesday and it is apparently ready for fish? So I added some of the 'extra' guppies from my small tank. I already have FRY... Seriously. 5 days. That's all it took. So of course I made my weekly pilgrimage to my LFS that same day, to see if they got any new driftwood in - I am in the processes of cycling a 65, for what I have no idea. And I noticed these same 3 fish in the same little display tank, right on the bottom row where nobody can see, that have been there for over 6 months now. Blue gouramis, now I am not a gourami guy as I had my fill of them when I was a teenager, but I asked why there were there for so long and why they were only 5 bucks each. Turns out they are actually pretty old and were taken in as a trade in back in January, they are all about 5 inches so they needed a larger than 'usual' tank, and people like the look of the juveniles more. I figured if they were going to just sit in their 20 gallon nursing home - I might as well give them some room to roam until then. I grabbed all 3, thinking that if they did not like their new home, or my testing was a false positive I could house them in my 75 until it my 210 finishes the cycle. The 3rd one is a bit smaller and likes to hide behind my stump, doesn't much like my camera I guess. They are all doing fine, as you can see, I JUST too those this morning, and aren't even picking on my mutt-guppies, though they do certainly chase them. And since they had been in the store for so long, they come pre-trained to expect feeding when I gently tap on the glass like my other tanks! Oh. I also decided to 'modify' my lights again - I was having a bit too much plant melt and some of my other plants were not getting adequate lights. So I drilled a bunch of holes in my ceiling, like you do. But now my light gets almost everywhere, and does really look more even. And, I also added some tumbled garnet to the 'border' of the river. Still not quite happy with it but I looks REALLY cool in the water. Surprisingly inexpensive (relatively) as well, very soft edged and when I rinsed it... nothing came out in the water. In case anybody is interested: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08Q7NKT39?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

Okay, light shroud is done! Starting with some aluminum tape and some vinyl gutter endcaps. 6ft length of u-channel vinyl gutter! Now apply the aluminum tape to the inside of the gutter - Don't forget the endcaps! Now to paint. I chose some metallic black paint to match my stand color. Dries super fast and is really easy to touch-up if you mess up. From white to black in just an hour. Now to see how it look on my tank and if it is too restrictive on the light... And it works like a charm, and quite less light getting wasted on my ceiling. (Yeah, I added some more plants since then...) Next up? Straighten out the garnet river, monitor the plant growth/melt, and weekly water testing so I know when I can start fish shopping!

So I was doing my regular filter maintenance today and when I was reaching into the canister of my HOB I felt something a bit slimy - nothing odd, so I just whisked my brush in it to remove any debris in it. Then I remembered that I hadn't seen my ropefish in weeks. Not seeing him for a few days at a time isn't anything new but I had started to wonder if he was okay. I had been testing for ammonia, just in case he did unfortunately pass away and was just hidden in the absolute jungle that my tiger lotus plants have become, but my levels remained at 0. So when I went back to place my rinsed media back into the HOB... I saw 2 little beady black eyes staring at me from the almost empty filter! This darn fish had me scared and sad for almost a month, and was apparently living his best IN MY FILTER. I am pretty sure that when I last cleaned the intake and impeller parts of my HOB he climbed into the nice dark and secluded hole that was still dangling into the water. Because unless he literally swam up the filter outlet, which I doubt as he struggles with just the current from the airstone, he would have had to survived the impeller blades. Needless to say I will NOW be covering my filter intake when doing any more maintenance! So what is the weirdest place you have found one of your fish, alive at least?

So I finally got into a place in my life when I could get into something I always wanted. A ridiculously large aquarium. I knew I was going to be limited to a 6ft tank, as my unique basement stairs force me to stand any tank longer than 48 inches on its end, and my ceiling is only 6'6" over them. So I had 3 options - 125, 180, or 210. The 125 is only 18 inches deep, and the 180 and 210 are 24 inches. So I decided to make a 'blank' of the middle option, 72x24x21. And... It fit! So now it was time to order my new tank: All 210 gallons of it! Special thanks to Blue Fish Aquarium and their careful delivery! I had to get it nice and level and figure out where it would go. Next, was deciding on the method of filtration. This was... trying. Obviously there is no 'correct' answer, but with the help of you lovely people on here I ended up with a Fluval FX6, as HOB or sponge filtration would have ruined the point of having the overflows, and sumps are still a bit intimidating - and I have cats that are a bit too curious to be trusted to stay out of it, and I do not want to add cat hair to the stuff I have to clean out of it! So after too many trips to the hardware store, and lots of trial and error with fittings... Consider it plumbed. Yeah, I know the extra slack on the outputs isn't great, but due to how I had to position the canister, I needed the few extra inches to make the runs to the nozzles equal. I may end up shortening them down or reduce the output to one side in the future. Next big decision - SUBSTRATE. Holy crap-baskets this was the WORST part of this so far. Mostly because there are as many opinions on what is the best in each situation as stars in the sky. The only thing I knew is that since I was going to have a good number of plants, just tossing a layer of basic sand wasn't going to cut it, and I didn't want to spend 2 grand on aquasoils! Eventually I leaned on what my 75gal tank taught me; Inert porous gravel + root tabs + sand cap = works. Got 200lbs of the stuff, and 2 50lb bags of play sand, and a bunch of root tabs. Unfortunately I was too excited to remember to take any pictures of most of that process. What I used for the base was this: The stuff is pretty rough textured , so I was going to have to cover it with something fine-grained so my bottom dwellers didn't get their bellies and fins shredded, so there is where the sand comes in! While out looking for river rocks at a local landscaping place I found some really neat looking boulders. Turns out it is called Kona Boulders, which is mostly a red dolomite - perfect for aquatic environments. Looks a bit like bacon, eh? I also know that I will have bichir(s) eventually, so I wanted to go with some 'red' - Apparently they have their colors and patterns 'pop' against a dark red. In service to that I also wanted to get a splash of color on my substrate, so I got some garnet sand-blasting media. My camera doesn't do it justice, it looks more of a rich, deep red, and has a bit of translucence. Now that I got my bottom done... I needed something to tie it all together, some more natural hardscape. After 3 weeks of searching landscaping places, pond service businesses, wood product processors, and even a few taxidermy places to find a good piece or two of driftwood. No dice. In Michigan it is illegal to take any from public beaches, and everytime I tried to go out to rivers or woods, it would rain and flood them out, or make the areas with fallen old timber inaccessible. I was close to giving up, when I decided to stop into a small shop that mostly sold things like lawn gnomes and pink flamingos - They had a brilliant, complex, and most importantly well-weathered piece for the hefty price of... 15 bucks. I took that bad boy right home and proceeded to scrub, spray, and disinfect it with diluted isopropyl just in case. Had to leave it to dry for a full week to make sure it was all evaporated and no surprises were burrowed in it! When it was ready I placed it into the tank and siliconed it to the bottom and the top to keep it from floating or twisting when I am messing around with the scape the first few weeks. Then I started putting it all in and finally began filling it with water... Around 1 ton of water and a hundreds of pounds of sand, substrate, and rock, the stand had a few creaks... but she held. I put some of the garnet sand into a path to try to make some varied terrain, and I'll have to get some time to straighten it out soon, and added a few plants from my nearly over grown 75gal. Now it was time to turn on all my heaters, filter, and air pump, and lights. And was met with a horrific sound coming from my filter. After another round on here, and some sage advice, I took the motor off and discovered my impellers shaft was cleanly snapped in half! So ran to my LFS to see about a new impeller or kit, or if possible replace or warranty. People, be good to your LFS and they will be good to you - the manager offered to give me an entire new impeller assembly. My dream is salvaged, and I know where ALL of my regular purchases are going to be for this tank! Except things they can't won't get very often... Still going to buy ACO plants, accessories, and ferts, even with shipping, still a great value. So now my filter is running and I begin the long, frustrating process of starting the cycle. After a day of making sure everything survived 24 hours, I added some more Italian Val. The keen eyed of you will notice that I flipped the driftwood, as it offered a really nice small planter in the hollowed out part. Have some val and a large anubias in it right now! Next step is making a custom hanging baffle for my lights to maximize the coverage, and reduce the bleedover. Will update as it progresses! On a related note - Anybody have advice on how to make clean lines in different sand/substrates AFTER the tank is filled? I may have gotten too eager to start this one.

Update: My LFS got me a replacement impeller assembly, and it started up this time with no issue! Also, damn are these things quiet. Now I just have to wait for it to cycle!

Wow, those floater roots man!

Stocking is still up in the air. Originally I wanted to do an arowana and a stingray tank - but since then I've kind of fell in love with plants and hardscapes, so the rays are now off the table with this size tank. I will eventually have some bichirs for sure, as I just love their derpy little personalities. The rest will be on hold until get back from Aquashella in October - I'll get a chance to see/talkabout species I know very little about and maybe find something I like.

Well, not going to let a few hours more of waiting ruin my dream tank, so I'm going to show off my mk. 1 scape. Still need more plants and clean-up the substrate, and get the actual lights for it - it's all temporary until I get it cycled.

Welp... think I found the problem. Looks like my impeller shaft broke. No idea how that happened as I never even tried it out before tonight. Luckily, I got it from my LFS so they will probably exchange it for me, but they don't open until noon.

So I finally am able to put water into my 210g, got my decorations, got my hardscape, got my substrate, got some plants and was finally ready to go. So imagine my disappointment when I prime my brand new canister, and plug in the 'beast' and... nothing. No water moving, no detectable water flow either into or out, but the motor is making a horrifying grinding noise. I followed the 2 Gal water prime for the canister, waited for it to do it's first air purge, and now every time it just keep making horrible sounds and not pumping anything. Before you ask, yes I took the media baskets out and placed the media into the bags it came with, so it isn't clogged as far as I can tell. My intake pipes are a direct drop into the intake, and my output pipes are only about 6 foot. I tried everything I can think of, as I assume it is air in the pump/motor, but I have no idea how to fix this. Has anybody had a similar issue?!

Well, found PART of the problem. When I was doing some water changes, I knocked loops one of my wood pieces - and bubbles came out of where it was anchored. Looks like I did NOT properly soak the soil before capping it, so it has gone anaerobic and smelling of farts. So any BB developing in the substrate was not happening. I am putting some lengths of tubing vertically into it to try to soak the soil underneath and to get out any trapped gasses. If I don't see any improvement in water parameters in 2 weeks, I will probably just clean out the tank and start over with more 'normal' substrates. Man, I just wanted to have some good plants for my future fish!

My bottom substrate is basically a mix of some Miracle Grow Nature's Care organic potting soil and some leftover crushed lava rock. I double checked any the potting soil didn't have any added ammonia sources, and had been recommended as aquarium-safe. Only issue it ever seemed to cause others was some water staining, but I wanted a tannin-in-water look anyway.

No problem, 'snail' isn't exactly exhaustively descriptive around here after all. Had them come in on some java ferns, and found them to be impossible to remove, so have just embraced them.

Just the usual pest bladder snails as far as I can tell.

There are now a few dozen baby snails, and a number of juvenile ones. I literally only put 1 in each side 3 weeks ago, so they are obviously eating something. LOL

The only one I KNOW about.

Low end pH Gets dark blue... which makes no sense. My kit has a 2025 expiriation - I definately checked that.

I will probably have to start 50% changes this week.

I have been trying to cycle my, hopefully one day, future betta tanks. I started the cycle with a well seasoned pair of sponge filters, 5 of the full 15 gallons of established tank water, plants propagated from an established growing tank/plant, organic substrates capped with BDBS, presoaked mopani wood decos, 10-20% water changes every 3-4 days, and even put some snails in to have a small bio-load. It looks like this now: As you can see, the snails love it, the plants dig it, and the only thing I'm not happy with the looks for now is the mulm gathering on the bottom. I'm waiting for it to be more stable before finishing my scape and adding more sensitive plants. But. Every time I test my waters to see how the cycle is going it looks like THIS: So it is pretty much a toxic waste dump. It literally makes my skin tingle when I'm cleaning or testing the water. Pretty sure the pH is only high due to the sheer amount of ammonia, but even that is completely at odds with my other tanks that tend into slight acidity. After 3 weeks, in such a small tank, I would have expected SOME improvement of at least 1 parameter! So what gives? My 75g only took 5 days to completely stop showing ammonia, and 2 weeks to get rid of detectable nitrites. Why is this tank taking so long to even show improvement? Apologies for the ramble... I just want to start looking at fish again.

Mine often do that as I am turning on the lights for the day. They are all a dull grey and usually packed into one of the corners, but come out and start turning bright red once they get some light. They are a LOT more sociable and active when I have lower light to help keep algae under control and/or more overhead vegetation. I am pretty sure they are just more comfortable with something over their head, maybe you might want to let your floating plants take over more fo the surface real estate. They seem to prefer shaded areas.

I have some test strips en route, to be sure and was going to take a sample to my LFS on Monday for confirmation. I was hoping to be able to start looking for fish I liked this week, but looks like I will just be doing some extra water changes and a lot of testing for now.

I started cycling my future betta tank just over a week ago and was testing my water using my API kit to see how it was going. I had never seen a pH reading that high before! It was almost black! Set up is a 15 gallon divided in 2 using a natural slate divider, using a 2 weeks cycled sponge filter on both sides, and already added several plant cuts from an established tank and a few snails to finish cycling. I have organic potting soil under BDBS for a substrate, and only mopani wood for decorations. Everything I have SHOULD be lowering the pH. My ammonia levels are effectively 0, nitrites are a bit high, but nothing out of the ordinary when having a low bio-loaded cycle, but my nitrates are really high - I assume from using potted soil and only some small water column feeding plants. Tap water ranges from 7.6 to 8.2 depending on which tap I use. I do now want to try a pH down additive as I fear it will interrupt or reset my cycle. All my other 6 tanks stabilized to 6.8 to 7.2 after just a few days. So what is going on?

I actually grabbed 4 of those 10gal kits ot too far back. The worst part is by far the hood. Not having large enough access to do general maintenance really gets annoying. The other less than desirable part is the heater, it is too large, physically, to fit i to the tank without wither the entire knob catching on the hood, especially if you put any decent amount of substrate in. Surprisingly, I did price out the difference in buying each part and even at full price at petsmart, you save about 30 to 60 bucks on the 10gal kits. The default lights are good enough for Java ferns, anubius, and hornworts at least, just don't get crazy.