AllFishNoBrakes

@TheSwissAquarist Thanks for the kind words! I’ll be sure to pass them along. The rainbows are just your standard Dwarf Neons. Maybe one day I’ll take the Boesmani leap!

The swords are indeed massive! A couple years of letting them just go wild gets ya there. Appreciate the kinds words for my girl. I’ll let her know you sent well wishes!

Whew, what a week. Skipped maintenance last week as I simply just wasn’t feeling it. I slept in (greatly needed) and just didn’t feel like spending 4 or 5 hours on the tanks. I removed some floating plants, topped some things off, messed with an air stone or two, but didn’t do the whole routine. This week, my girlfriend had surgery on Monday, and we thought we might, maybe, be staying overnight in the hospital. Figured we’d be out of there by Tuesday afternoon, back home, and would have the next 2 days to take care of her and get the tanks done as she was napping. Turns out we were there until Thursday night. Not what we were planning on, but it needed to happen, and honestly the team over there at the hospital was really awesome. Thankful the surgery went well, thankful for the people that took great care of her while we were in the hospital, and thankful to have her home and on the road to recovery. Yesterday, I was able to set up the Fluval 107. Felt intimidating, but honestly it’s pretty simple. Just like anything else, after you do it the first time it only gets easier from there. The tank was a mess, but the filter did a great job overnight! I woke up to water that was tinted, but not cloudy. Today I worked on every tank. Took all the media out of the canister to squeeze it out and continue collecting the debris in the water column. Scraped glass on the Pea Puffer tank, and trimmed back several of the Swords that desperately needed it. Put in some work, for sure, but I’m liking where the tanks are at. I think the duckweed is 99% gone in the 55 Angel tank, and as of today it’s about 98% gone in the 20 high next to it. Few more tanks to go, but I’ve definitely done some damage in those tanks, too. The 107 inspired me to add a different internal filter to the Pea Puffer tank. I need to give that tank some love. I’m looking forward to sprucing up the tank. It’s probably my tank that requires the most manual cleaning as no snails can escape the murder beans. Hoping a more powerful internal filter can help me keep the tank looking a little better. I think I’m going to take the tiny internal filter I pulled from the 29 gallon blackwater and stick it in the 20 long blackwater tank. The 20 long has run exclusively off a small ACO sponge filter the 3+ years it has been up and running. I figure it can’t hurt to have a little more sponge, a little more circulation in the tank, and using Poly Fil I should be able to polish the water like I was doing when it was in the 29. Without any bottom dwelling fish, it’s not nearly as cloudy as the one next to it was before the 107, but I’d love to see the dark brownish-reddish water be more polished. I’ve also been going back and forth with some things to add to the 29. I need to make some decisions and make a move, but I’m looking forward to doing something new. Cheers to sprucing things up and trying new things. Hope you’re enjoying your tanks!

For sure. If I didn’t use the entire thing on each one, I’d still probably do an uplift tube extension on most

I would pay $5 for the air collar alone to not ever have to mess with air stones again. For me, I’m paying for the air collar, and the tubing and connectors are free add ons in case I want more flow. This is so simple, but I am so stoked for this product and will purchase it for every sponge filter I have that it fits, and I’ll consider upgrading the couple nanos I have running just to be able to use the air collar.

Well, friends, we got her installed and fired up today. Per usual, I learned a couple of things like one does when they first try something new. I learned that the Fluval hoses are waaaay more rigid than I thought they’d be. I also learned that maaaaybe I’ll have to buy a new hose kit, and a shelf. I rinsed everything out in tap water and then soaked everything in some dechlorinated water. I read the instructions a couple of times, again, to make sure it all made sense in my head. I started out by removing the Tetra tiny internal filter and put the sponges and the filter in the bucket of dechlorinated water. I then put the bottom of the hose “clamps” over the rim of the tank, and thankfully they fit where I had already cut the lid for the tiny internal filter. Nice. All good. I squeezed the sponges into the new canister to seed it, and then poured mulmy water from the bucket into the filter, filling it up about halfway. Again, figured it couldn’t hurt to get some extra mulm in there to seed the new filter. I cut the hose kit in half, and installed the intake hose. I measured ~6” above the rim, and then chopped it off. Took the intake off, squared it up with the outflow, and gave the outflow hose the same chop. I went to install the top of the hose “clamp”, and this is where I started to run into some trouble. The tank is not tall enough/the filter wasn’t low enough/the tubing is waaaay too rigid for the clamp to work. For it to work as intended, the filter would need to be 8-12” lower than it is currently sitting on the shelf behind the tank. Technically, I could put the clamp on, but the pressure would just slide the bottom part of the “clamp” to the rim of the tank and there were some aggressive angles on the hose leading into the canister. I gave myself a big facepalm, and started to panic a bit. I took a quick break to eat our food that was delivered while I pondered what to do. Do I buy a new hose kit and a shelf? I could drill the shelf into the wall, below the tank, and above the quarantine/grow out tanks on the bottom shelf. This would allow me to use the hose clamps as intended, but would make the filter visible. But, it would also make maintaining the filter much easier. I could flip the lever, pull the power cord, pop off the top, and just grab the filter off the shelf. Instead of having to do that and then wrestle the filter from behind/beside the tank. That’s a decision for another day, though. For now, I need to either get this filter running or put back the tiny internal filter. Not going back to the internal filter, so I had to make it work. In true DIY/thrifty fishkeeper fashion I grabbed the zip ties and cut the hose back. Repeat for the outflow side. The hoses have a rigid kink in them, so I used that to my advantage and zip tied the hose to the bottom clamp bracket, with the kink flowing out of the tank and above the rim. Not ideal, but I thought it would work. I removed the strainer, installed a small intake sponge filter in its place, and installed the intake to the hose. I installed the outflow nozzle and got it into the position I thought it needed to be. I primed the filter and learned you have to do some fast pumps on the priming handle to get the flow going. Makes sense, but I just didn’t know and didn’t think about it. I did a couple slow pumps and didn’t hear the filter filling, and thought maybe gravity couldn’t do its job since the hose is in a bit of a rainbow above the rim of the tank. I thought for a second, did a couple fast pumps, and then I heard the filter filling. I breathed a sigh of relief, let the filter fill up, and crossed my fingers. I plugged her in, and she turned on! There was a decent amount of air coming out of the nozzle but I knew that would dissipate. It may be a little less than factory ideal, but it was working! I filled the tank back up with fresh, temperature matches, dechlorinated water, played with the placement/angle of the nozzle, and adjusted the flow. I sprinkled in a tiny bit of flakes and then nano pellets to see how the flow was going in the tank. I moved the magnetic glass scraper to the other side of the tank so as to not impede the flow. I didn’t notice any shrimp being blown around fearing for their lives, and the lone Hatchetfish was chilling so I felt like we were at a good starting point. I cleaned up my mess, put tools away, and gave the filter a bit of time to start collecting the debris. The tank was EXTREMELY cloudy from removing the tiny internal filter and draining it, the general cloudiness of the tank which prompted me to buy the filter in the first place, and on top of that I wasn’t able to do my maintenance last week. To my surprise, after about 15 or 20 minutes the water has already cleared up pretty nicely! Still a long ways to go, but definitely moving in the right direction. It may not be factory pretty due to the clamps not working as intended, but it’s definitely working for it’s intended purpose. Tomorrow I will do my maintenance on all the tanks, and I plan to shut down the filter, clean all the sponges to remove all the debris that its collected overnight, put it all back together, fire it back up, and add more botanicals to the tank. I’m confident this will be the tool that I need to achieve the look that I want with the tank. As far as the empty tray goes that I started this post for, my lovely girlfriend had a brand new pack of pot scrubbers in the house. I cut them snug to the gray, stacked 3 pot scrubbers on top of each other in the tray, and we’ll see how it goes. As far as the addition of the shelf and a new hose kit; I’ll continue to think about it. I don’t really want the canister to be visible, but it would be nice to use the hose clamps as intended, and maintenance would probably be a lot easier. For now, the filter is in a tub that holds 1.5 gallons of water. In case there is ever a leak, I want it contained, and I plan to buy a water alarm so my girlfriend could pull the power on the filter should it ever start leaking. Learning is always good, and I’m looking forward to continuing to learn as I have more time with a canister filter. I hope you’re enjoying your tanks, friends.

Nice! I’ve seen them in the background of videos. While I don’t love they way they look, and I’m not necessarily looking for additional flow, this piece from the website alone has me sold: The Easy Flow sponge filter upgrade kit also comes with an air collar that attaches to the base of the uplift tube. The airline tubing connects to this air collar, which creates smaller bubbles much like an air stone. NO MORE HAVING TO TAKE APART FILTERS/NEVER CLOG AIR STONES TO CLEAN THEM EVERY SINGLE WEEK TO MAINTAIN THE AMOUNT OF BUBBLES I WANT AND EFFICIENT USE OF THE SPONGE FILTER?!?!?! SOOOOOOOOOLD! Add to cart right now for THAT alone. I’ll take the less pleasing visual aesthetic for that feature any day. The additional flow will just be a bonus! The disclaimer about nano sponge filters made “after 2023” leads me to believe there will be a new nano sponge filter launched Q1 2024 that will be compatible.

I actually edited my original message. I thought I was quick enough. Apologies! For sure. The 300+ that I was talking about started with 15. I’m working on a Blue Diamond colony that started from 10 with a lone female. Looking forward to when I have a giant colony and one single lady will be responsible for all of it.

For sure. I’ve never personally used it as like I said I already have low pH, soft water, with little to no buffer. I guess my general understanding is that kH is essentially insurance against a massive pH drop. I thought as long as you had some kH, the pH wouldn’t drastically drop. The incremental “as kH lowers, so will pH to an extent” makes sense. I just wanna learn as I have very little, or no kH in my water, and my pH doesn’t really move. Even with my blackwater tanks where I thought for sure I’d see some movement.

In order to eventually drop the pH, right?

Coming right up! Those are my bread and butter for credit at the LFS. Normally, I brush off a good chunk of the eggs and just hatch a small portion of the spawn. Last time I hatched I threw the whole slate in there. I panicked a bit at first, but it has actually worked out pretty well in that spawn has allowed me to sell 20 at a time all summer long. It has carried me through the summer as hatching/water changing/feeding fry just wasn’t in the cards as I was too busy with work, but I could keep growing out the Angels and selling them off 20 at a time!

This could be fun. Let’s see what I can find: Panda Angel wigglers Panda Angels barely free swimming Panda Angels starting to look like tiny Angels Baby Panda Angels! Bristlenose Pleco’s yolk sac almost gone Baby Bristlenose Pleco’s! Julii Cory’s Albino Cory’s just hatched Baby Albino Cory’s! Whole gang of Krib fry. Pygmy Cory Man, I used to take soooooo many pictures of fry. Had to scroll way back on the camera roll to find a lot of these. Need to get back to taking more pictures.

Yo! Normally I don’t really comment on pH/KH/GH type questions, but then I read you’re in CO and I am too! I’ll tell you what I do in my 14 tanks that have been running for 3+ years. I do a whole lot of nothing. No crushed coral, no Seachem alkalinity or stability, and definitely no API up/down. My tanks run even a little softer than yours. High 6’s on the pH, 0 to very little KH, and I have no clue on the GH. 75-120 TDS (which is basically useless as I have no clue what the “stuff” actually is, but confirmed my water is very soft). I personally think you’re on the right track with bigger water changes. Knowing how soft our water is, and not wanting to mess with it, I do 20-30% water changes every week. Consistency is the key for me and has worked out very well. Knowing our water doesn’t have a lot of minerals in it I want to replenish a decent amount, and I do that with slightly bigger water changes on a weekly basis. I also made the decision to not play with fish that I know have no chance in our natural water. No African Cichlids for me that want high pH hard water. Simply doesn’t make sense to me to try to “make” water. Instead, I play with what I think will do well with our natural water. Weekly water changes, water conditioner, and Easy Green for me and it’s been very successful with a lot of different fish, plants, and inverts. Feel free to message me on the side if you wanna chat more from another person located in CO!!

In my experience, shrimp can have massive numbers and still have a very small bioload. I’ve easily had 300+ shrimp in a 20 gallon long. I hit up the LFS and said “I think I can bring you 100 cherry shrimp” and they told me to bring them. I didn’t realize how many shrimp I actually had, until I bagged up the 100 and it looked like I didn’t even put a dent in the population. My concern with your tank is more on the Mystery Snail side. Personally, I wouldn’t add more than the 3 you already have. For the shrimp, add a few more and let the colony establish. That’s just what I’d do if it was my tank.

Bummer! Breeding bettas sounds so fun, but I do not have the space/bottles/tanks necessary to grow them out. Also don’t have the vinegar eel cultures I would want to actually give it a legit shot. Maybe one day.

One time, I placed an order and immediately realized I forgot the add the algae scrubbers to my cart. I emailed them, Candi promptly got back to me, and sent me a separate invoice. I got that paid immediately, and 2 or 3 days later my package arrived with the algae scrubbers. They really are THAT good!

I know this is a highly debated topic, but years ago when I was new to the hobby those products definitely helped me out. They definitely helped me save time and definitely helped me out of some sketchy situations when I was brand new and didn’t know what I was doing. At this point, I have other resources (like seasoned sponge filters that will “instantly” cycle a tank, tons of established media and substrate, etc.) so I have no use for those products, but they definitely have their place. Someone might not have tons of other tanks, friends with tanks, or an LFS to get seasoned media from. Also, peace of mind for some is worth the price of that bottle that can definitely help someone out.

As you know, all fish have different temperaments. Just because a species is labeled “aggressive” doesn’t mean your fish will be. Same goes for “peaceful” fish. My only other comment is that just because something is working right now doesn’t mean it will work tomorrow, the following day, or in the months and years to follow.

I would simply say: Do what makes you happy. While you may not be gaining much in size, you are almost doubling the total volume of the water. As far as rimmed/rimless, it really comes down to personal preference. I have a rimless tank, but it still has a lid. I personally like the rimmed tanks as it hides the water line. Going rimless won’t make the water any more crystal clear, if anything, it might annoy you more if that’s what you’re really going for. That might require more maintenance/scraping the glass, addition of or more chemical filtration, etc. In my experience, your plants will definitely have to transition. It may not be as bad as say going from emersed to submerged grown, but they’ll definitely transition to a new home/placement/water structure/potential lack of nutrients in the substrate and water column/new tank in general. All new tanks will go through a diatom phase, and that could have an impact on your plants and your overall enjoyment of the tank as you work it towards an established/seasoned tank. If you’re happy with where your plants are, and you have no fish, that’s the real deciding factor in my opinion.

Should be good to go. The air stone provides a nice circulation/flow (not as good as the tumbler in my opinion, but still really nice) and my Ziss breeder box has no holes that the fry can escape through. The mesh on the sides is fine enough to allow water to flow through, but not fry to swim out in my experience. Shout out to @mountaintoppufferkeeper for the more technical/actual size of the mesh and eggs! Also with the tip to roll the eggs on the plastic so other fish aren’t picking at them through the mesh. Brilliant.

Been there. This caused me to either hatch in the Ziss Tumbler and then move them to a 2.5 gallon tank with a small (seasoned) sponge filter and Java moss, or hatch in the tumbler and then move them to the Ziss breeder box.

My first female betta jumped out of the finger hole in the lid (used to open the lid) on Thanksgiving day. Thankfully, we were around that day, found her, put her back in her tank, and she lived a long time after that. I immediately covered up that hole, lol. Do all bettas jump? Idk, but I was shocked my little lady jumped straight out that hole and I found her on the floor.

Super rad. Hope the Angels do well for you!

One of the lessons I had to learn when I first started breeding fish was 1. Make sure you have the space to raise them and most importantly, 2. Make sure you have a way to sell/trade for store credit/give away/re home your fish! I’ve put myself in sticky situations by breeding too many of fish that don’t move fast. Things can get out of control quickly, especially with egg layers that lay hundreds of eggs. Even though I have good relationships with a couple LFS’s, I still only hatch partial Angel spawns. No worries with the help. Happy to do it! Keep me in the loop. I wanna see these little guys and gals grow up!

Rad! Puts my pvc stand to shame! The only advantage that my stand has is that is can hold my sieve for hands free harvesting.