AllFishNoBrakes

I was successful with the removal in my 20 long. The 29 I just pulled it out of today seems good so far. Those were easy though; any floating plants were being removed! Going to be much more tough to eradicate it from the other floaters. One tank at a time though… I’d drive myself crazy trying to do multiple tanks at once. As @Cinnebuns said, I’ve definitely transferred all the floating plants and rinsed/submerged them to “wash off” the duckweed, but I didn’t try to get it all. At that point, I wanted to just massively thin it out. This time though, I want it eradicated.

Definitely exaggerated by the camera. They’re not exactly level, but it’s all good. There’s metal joists that support each level, and those tanks meet between 2 joists. Just a slight tilt, but it’s in one direction. That top shelf is the only one that has plywood on it as I knew the 55 was going up there. Shelves are rated for 2.5k lbs, 10k for the whole rack Ya, we’ll see with the floaters/duckweed. I want to keep all the other floaters, and simply remove the duckweed that’s intertwined in them. I’m not expecting any changes, but we’ll see!

What’s up everyone? Hope you’ve been well! Feels weird to have a one week gap in the journal, but the vacation was well worth it. We flew to where my girlfriend is from and met up with her dad and brother. Stayed there overnight, and then went a few hours north to the lake. Had a blast on the boat and the jet ski, swimming, and sipping adult beverages throughout the day and into the night. We hadn’t been to the lake in 5 years, and the place we stayed at was rad! We ended up staying an extra day, and for the additional night in the “Valley House” and day on the boat, they only charged us an extra $100. They do things differently in the south, for sure. Also, it’s sooooo humid out there. I don’t know how people do the 80-100% humidity in the summer down there. I’ll take the “dry heat” where I grew up any day. Anyways, back to the tanks. Water changed every single tank in the house. It’s nice to know that the tanks can skip a week every once in a while, but I prefer to keep up on it weekly. The overgrowth of the floating plants alone is enough to keep up on it! The pea puffer tank was super dim as the duckweed and red root floaters had taken over. So crazy how much they can grow in a week! Also took the time to start converting the 29 gallon towards a second blackwater setup. It really wasn’t that bad. Pulling out the floating PSO was a piece of cake, and it was funny to watch the hundreds of shrimp come flying out of there as I pulled it above the waters surface. Threw the Spider Wood from the 55 Angel tank in there, and to my surprise they’re all floating. I guess a couple of weeks out of the water will do that. 2 of the smaller more dense pieces have sank already. The bigger, but more branchy pieces need to water log. Once they all sink, I’ll get everything situated. Here’s where the tank is right now: Seeing as this was the third tank I ever set up, I have learned so much with this tank, and I’m excited for its new adventure. The Anubius in the middle towards the back definitely took a beating when I cut it from the Betta tank and moved it over here. Had some pretty hardcore melt that I wasn’t expecting, but it has sprouted a new leaf so I’m hopeful it will continue to bounce back. The original blackwater tank is the lightest I’ve seen it since it started, basically. You can actually see to the back and see the rocks in there, lol. I boiled up some botanicals and will top this bad boy off, as well as give the 29 (next to this tank) it’s first dose of tannins. I did a larger water change than normal on the blackwater tank today. Normally I just do 10%, but I went ahead and did 20% today. I was surprised to see the Pothos roots are green! They definitely look white (as you can see above) and the 10% water change doesn’t get the water level low enough to really look at those roots. I’m excited for the next iteration of the rack as we’ll have the Sword tanks up top, the blackwater tanks in the middle, and then my girlfriends shrimp tank and the quarantine/grow out tanks on the bottom. In my girlfriends shrimp tank we have our first berried female! We should have little tiny blue shrimplets in no time. I have a couple new stickers coming for the rack in exchange for some botanicals, and I’ll be sending out another sticker for another forum member! Super glad they started that thread as it could be lots of fun, and I always enjoy people coming together and sharing what they have. Finally, I’ve decided to rid my tanks of duckweed. It’s going to be a battle, especially the pea puffer tank with the red root floaters. However, I’m determined to get it done! Simply going to take some determination, and I’m just going to go one tank at a time until it’s complete. Cheers, everyone! Looking forward to making some changes and keeping things interesting. Hope you’re enjoying your tanks, too!

I have 2 goosenecks on my 20 long blackwater tank and I like them, but I was definitely going for a more “dramatic” look with the spread of the lights on a long tank. I also have a Fluval nano for my 6 gallon dirted no filter tank, but needed a heftier light to get max plant growth. Also have a 48” coop light on my 55. Those are all my “specialty” lights, bought for specific purposes. Other than that, all Aquaneats on either lids I made, or glass lids and haven’t had a problem with a single Aquaneat. Everything has its purpose and place!

Wild! I’ve had duckweed since I got my first little bunch of salvinia and honestly I’m just over it. I don’t mind it in the tank, but hate how it sticks to you and then everything else whenever you have to put your hand in. I just stripped all the duckweed out of a tank I’m converting, and I’m going to continue to do so to my other tanks. Still want the salvinia, red root floaters, and water lettuce. It’s gonna be a pain to separate all the duckweed from the other floaters but if I do it just one tank at a time I can be duckweed free by 2024, lol.

10 of 14 of my tanks run Aquaneat lights with a Kasa timer. Works great for me.

@Nacskins I do have a red pleco, but it’s on my rack. However, I just tested it with ANOTHER duplicate I have, and I can peel it off, adhere it to a piece of glossy tape, and you can then peel it off and reuse it! It may not be on the stock piece of glossy paper, but it will absolutely work. Check it out with the Clown Loach sticker I pulled off my rack: To everyone else that might want to play, I also realized I have this duplicate Rainbow: Let the sticker trading commence! If anyone wants to trade some stickers hit me up!

This could be super fun!! I have the following 5 stickers that are all duplicates in my collection: If anybody has other stickers to trade let me know! I got a ton of stickers from when they used to be numbered with your orders, but if anybody has something that wouldn’t be another duplicate I’m super down to trade. Unfortunately, I already have the Discus and do not have a duplicate red Pleco.

@nabokovfan87 any luck? I’ve never intentionally tried to do a cool water change in conjunction with a storm to get mine to spawn. But, I’ve definitely done my normal water change, then there was a storm, and then they spawned. Would they have done so without the water change? Who knows. Just one of those things… let us know how it went for you!

My no filter tank is exactly this. 1/4” dirted bottom with a gravel cap. Pearl Weed has taken over and is a tall carpet when trimmed and a giant jungle when not trimmed. Lots of snails, 2 Amano shrimp, and like 6 nano fish when I have fish in it. This tank pearls more than any other tank that I have. Why no filter? Because it sounded fun, new, and exciting and I wanted to see what it was like. Am I rushing to do more dirted no filter tanks? Absolutely not. Most tanks of mine have 2 filters. It’s simply fun to try new things. It works, keeps rockin’ and I keep enjoying it.

If you’re not wanting to go the “mix your own” route, I’d buy an ACO regulator, a 5 lb tank from a welding supply store, and then tubing and diffuser and you’re in business. I have two mix your own systems and haven’t had issues. I also have a 5 lb tank with 2 bubble counters to be able to run 2 tanks off a single 5 lb tank. All 3 of them do the exact same thing.

Ah, we meet again. This time on a Thursday. Weird work schedule this week with the boss being out of town for his birthday at the beginning of the week, reviews, evaluations, and new menu item tastings. Last night I noticed the HOB to the 20 tall basically wasn’t functioning. Just a trickle of water on the highest flow setting. The weird thing, is that when I moved it back to low, more water was flowing. I tinkered and messed with it and couldn’t figure it out. I thought maybe some of the Amazon Sword leaves were wrapped around the intake sponge, so I trimmed a couple of those back. Still nothing. It didn’t make sense, but I decided to clean the intake sponge and voila, back in action. It’s probably a good thing that happened as we’ll be out of town next week. I have a buddy coming to watch the house and the dog, but they would’ve had no idea that the filter wasn’t functioning or how to fix it. This prompted me to squeeze all filters in todays maintenance sesh. Water changed every tank, squeezed every sponge filter, reset every air stone, and got bit by an Angelfish in the process. Can’t really blame him; I stole the eggs they had been fanning for 2 days right in front of his face. All the other times the eggs were eaten overnight, so I assumed that was going to happen again, and when that didn’t happen I couldn’t risk fry with my vacation coming up. I disposed of the eggs, and then when I went back to clean the filter the dude straight bit my hand, lol. Good papa right there. Took this picture of the Albino Cory’s in the 55 gallon chillin’ after the water change. All hatched and raised by me, which I tend to forget about, so it was fun to see them hanging out together. Cheers, Nerms. Catch you guys in the next journal post after some much needed R&R. Excited to start converting the 29 gallon to another blackwater tank when I get back. Gotta decide what additional stocking I want with the Rainbows being out of there!

All of my Ziss air stones have 2 pads and 1 plastic disc. Some blue, some green, some blue and green. I’ve tried more pads, less pads. One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish. I’ve settled on 2 pads and 1 disc and I really hope that Cory is working on a “true” never clog air stone. Weekly I have to take the air stone out of the sponge filter and “wring” them out to keep the desired air flow I want. Would be awesome to not have to do that every week.

@nabokovfan87 Nice! I hadn’t seen that tank before, but I definitely dig it. Also feel very similar that all the tannins in my tank basically haven’t affected pH at all. I have juuuust enough kH to stave off any pH drops. Fine by me though, I’m not trying to lower pH. Simply just thought it would happen based on what everyone tells you/how botanicals are marketed.

I use tons of Indian Almond Leaves, and then I bought a package off Etsy with 139 pieces of botanicals. I love the leaf litter look of the IAL’s, and then the other botanicals add variety and visual appeal.

Did the filter continue to run dry? I don’t normally have power outages, but recently went through 2 power outages due to some repairs that required power to be out. 2 different power outages for ~2 hours each had 0 less-than-favorable outcomes on my tanks. That being said, I was home the first time and the second time my girlfriend was home and could confirm that air came back on, HOB’s primed and were running again, etc.

Personally I would probably do a couple days. I probably wouldn’t stress too much, but again I would test it. There’s people much smarter than myself when it comes to tank construction and how they’re supported. Tagging @nabokovfan87 to see what they think. It would probably be preferred to not have that gap, but…

As long as you’re able to to say, “yup, holds water and doesn’t leak”. Outside would definitely work

My large sword plants were getting decimated by small BN, even with feeding them zucchini daily. After a bacteria bloom from feeding so much zucchini to try to keep them off the swords I moved them out and haven’t had issues since.

When I was frantically snatching up tanks in 2020 when I got into the hobby, I found a 55 gallon online for cheap. It was never disclosed that it was used for reptiles, and my girlfriend went to pick it up. Long story short, it held water just fine, and continues to hold water just fine 3 years later. Also has chips on the outer edge pieces of glass that most would freak out about, but I didn’t notice those until later and again 3 years down the road I haven’t had any issues. Water test it somewhere that if it leaks it doesn’t matter and if it holds water you should be good.

Agreed that they are due to age. Small = young shrimp that will grow to full size.

For what it’s worth, your tests read as 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite to my eyes. Continue to test and make sure you don’t have an issue, but 0 looks different from 0.25 in my experience.

Tagging @Fish Folk as they might have first-hand experience. Could be wrong, though.

My Rams are in with Julii Cory’s. They don’t mind the Cory’s whatsoever. They just hide around the big rock and driftwood when I walk up to the tank. I probably look like a giant predator that’s coming to get them. Except when I’m dropping food in the tank. Then they come out and look me in the face while they gobble up sinking pellets. Gotta love it

I totally understand the need for population control. Learned that lesson quickly with Platy’s early on! The LFS I work with the most didn’t want them. I don’t have aquarist friends nor do I have time to attend local club meetings to give them away. As for the question, I can only give you my experience with my Bolivians. Mine are big chickens that run and hide, unless I’m dropping food in the tank. My only other thought is that Bolivians hang out on the bottom, and I always found Platy fry up top hanging in the floating plants. As far as breeding them, I bought what I hoped was a male and female in the hopes of breeding them, but they’ve never paired up and I’ve never seen a spawn. Rams are not livebearers, so you could definitely pull spawns and dump the eggs if you did end up with a pair and didn’t want to hatch the eggs/raise the fry