Milliardo Peacecraft

@Lonkley I do have a water softener running. The hardness here in Rock County Wisconsin is about 330 mg/L so the softner is working pretty good to take care of that amount of hardness. I do have a few small pieces of driftwood in my 75 gallon aquarium, mostly used to anchor various Java ferns (standard and windelov). I do use Seachem Equilibrium in the softened water to restore some of the minerals without getting to the point of having the water lime up everything with hard water deposits. I have debated about adding CO2, if I had more time in life, I totally would do it, just to tinker around with it, even if the plants I have don't really need it. How much does CO2 bring down the pH of an aquarium?

My tap water is typically around a pH of 8.4 straight out of the tap and I've found that my plants seem to do better if I get the pH down to something below 8.0, anything 7.5 to 8.0 seems to be just fine. Over the past couple years I've been adding a set amount of pH down to the water every water change to get the water a bit below 8.0. I was wondering if anyone had a suggestion of a better way to accomplish lower the water pH to something below 8 that would be simpler than chasing it with pH down.

@Lonkley. I've used this spray on my 75 gallon aquarium and have been quite pleased with it so far.

@Pepere question for you, if you have totally inert substrate, aka colored gravel, I've always debated on how many root tabs to put on my Amazon Sword or my Cryptocoryne Lucens. I put 5 aquarium coop root tabs around it to start and now about 2 or 3 a month for the past year and the plant isn't really any bigger, though it isn't really any smaller either. The crypts got about 3 tabs at the start and about 1 or 2 tabs a month. They have been in there for about 3 months or so and do have some new growth, which is good. I would say the crypts are doing better than the sword.

@Knew tooth is I seem to get the same thing on my Java ferns as well. When I see it I usually start adding extra Potasium with the Easy Green and that seems to help. Granted in general when it comes to any type of Java Fern, you typically can't go wrong with adding extra Potasium, they love it, and no matter how much I add, I've never been able to over do the Potasium such that it caused a problem. I typically dose it at just about twice the rate seachem gives on the back of the bottle (20 ml per 75 gallons).

I have a question about one of my platties. He's been a bit on the sluggish side, vs the other platties I have. He spends quite a bit of time just sitting on the bottom or hanging out in low flow spots in the aquarium. His color is good, he stays upright, he just likes to sit with the back quarter of his body resting on the bottom. He does eat some, but not quite as much as the other platties in the tank. I've has other fish perch like that on various plants before, but when a fish is sitting on the bottom it always makes me wonder. If the plecos get to close to him, he'll move to the other side of the aquarium and he does swim around some. Just wondering if it's just his personality or if something is up. He's been doing this for a few weeks now.

@MattyM Filtration wise I have the following on the 75 gallon aquarium. A fluval C4 that has a course prefilter on the inlet followed by a dual layer filter pad that has course foam on one side and tighter filter floss on the other. There is also biohome media and a bag of carbon in the filter. Additionally there is a Fluval 306 canister filter that has 2 sets of dual layer medium sponge foam and tighter filter floss on it (pictured below). There is also a medium tightness sponge foam filter in the canister along with 2 trays filled with biohome media. One thing with the filtration, the HOB is on the left of the tank and the pickup for the canister is on the right with its discharge on the left side of the tank. I use the heater as a breakwall of sorts to cut down on the blasting of the water out of the canister discharge. I have the heater angled a bit so the water will hit it and be diverted upwards. This way when the fish get into the current the just ride it up and over the heater and aren't blasted straight into it. In fact a couple of them actually use it as a game, you can watch then do laps some evenings playing over and over riding the current across the back of the aquarium. I have debated if I should move the heater a little further out from the discharge which would give more left to right flow in the aquarium to maybe mix things a little more.

Currently I have a slight white haze goung in my aquarium and while I have delt with the haze in other aquariums in the past, I discovered I don't actually know what from a biological standpoint the white haze actually is. In the past it typically goes away on its own in a few weeks, but this one is being a bit more stubborn hanging around for 3-4 weeks. The aquarium is still quite new, maybe 2-3 months old. Testing wise, things look fine. I've been busy with work lately so for the past 2 weeks or so the nitrates have been running lower because I haven't been as good about remember to use Easy Green every 2-3 days. I am curious if anyone has any tricks they have done to get past the hazy water phase of life hazy water phase of life, other than what I typically do (keep tabs on water specs, change water out 30 to 50% at a time as needed, and just wait it out, eventually it goes away...eventually...)

Selling an aquarium cheap is just like selling computer printers cheap. It's not the printer they make the money on, it's the ink... once you buy the aquarium glass, they know you'll be buying a ton more over the next several years, so they can afford to sell the aquarium cheap.

@svachon9 I started using the Equilibrium mainly for the mystery snails. The utility sink I get my aquarium water from is on soft water. The Equilibrium helps the snails to maintain healthy shells. The added benefit is that the plants seem to like it also. Dosing wise, I probably use about a tablespoon and a half to 2 tablespoons for the 75 gallon aquarium total. As of the easy green and easy iron, I dose those per instructions. For the Seachem Potasium, I dose that at double what is listed on the bottle. I use to run my 29 gallon aquarium at a higher fish per gallon ratio than I have my 75 gallon at. On that aquarium the nitrates tended to run higher, so I would dose easy green once a week and then every 2 or 3 days I would dose it with Potasium to keep the Java Ferns happy. As of lights, I use a Finnex planted 24/7 CRV light. I find the finnex light to give off better light (color wise) vs the Fluval planted 3.0. The 3.0 has a way better interface and control, but I prefer the light quality of the finnex. It's a bit hard to say how bright I have it set. It starts to come on at 10 am and slowly ramps up to full red leds with a couple clicks of white by noon. It then slowly ramps up to probably 80-90% power on the white and holds 100% on the red by 3 pm. It then holds near that till 6 pm when it will slowly start to decline back down and start getting a little more blue in hue. By 9pm it really starts to dim and by 11 pm is substantially dimmer and more blueish. It turns off a bit after midnight. If I would ever replace my Fluval C4 I would probably get a TidalWave filter. Unfortunately I haven't used one yet though, so I can't really say first hand how it would work, but it certainly seems like a good option out there.

The aquarium you want sounds a bit like mine (though your definition of a high fish count may be different than mine), but it is doable. I attached a picture of the 75 gallon aquarium, which you can see does have some plants, but it's definitely not a jungle. I also attached a calendar showing my water changes and fertilizer usage for last month. Fish wise, I have the following in the aquarium: 1 Denson barb, 2 angel fish, 1 bristle nose pleco, 1 clown pleco, 2 otos, 3 siamese algee eaters, 4 cories, 4 glow fish (white skirted tetras), 3 black skirted tetras, 4 salt and pepper platies, 1 Buenos Aires tetra, and 1 mystery snail (because who doesn't like mystery snails). Filtration wise I have a fluval 306 canister filter and a fluval C4 HOB on it. Media wise I use a dual layer floss media inplace of the course sponges on the canister filter. The filters also have 2 pounds of biohome media in it to help with the biological filtration. Water change wise, I typically change the water when the nitrates get up to 50-ish. Though sometimes I end up changing water when I have time to do so, even if it's a bit early, because I know there is no way I'll have time to change the water when I ideally should, but by changing it early it buys me a little extra time. In the past on my 29 gallon I would put a bag of purigen in the Fluval C4 HOB filter to keep the nitrates down a bit if I was finding I was having to do a lot of water changes, but that was also back when I had all silk plants in the aquarium. Since I changed over to the 75 gallon with a few plants in it I haven't had to use the purigen and the water changes haven't been too bad.

@xXInkedPhoenixX. Your probably right. I pitched it and re-made fresh stuff tonight.

Quick question, last night I made a fresh set of Rapshy Super Green food for my fish in mini ice tray. Unfortunately I forgot it in the garage overnight instead of putting it in the freezer. I probably discovered it 12 hrs later. Last night it was probably staeted in the 60s and eventually got to the 50s by morning. The question is, is the food still good. It went into the freezer once I discovered it this morning. I'm thinking it is, especially since it's a vegan blend, so it's just veggies.... but I was wondering if any of you have done that before.

@Nacskins Awesome looking setup!

LOL, dying to know how you know they are not pleasant to eat. 🙂

I thought it would be interesting to start a topic of things that you are "not supposed" to do, but that you've been doing for years and have never had an issue with it. I'll start. I've been cleaning my aquarium top with dual action clorox wipes for years to scrub off all of the aglee, scale, and other nasties on both sides of the glass. I just make sure it's good and dry before I put it back on. When I'm cleaning the top, I'm also doing a water change, so declorinator goes in, I've never measured any chlorine afterwards, and my fish have always done just fine. 2nd one, large rocks or ceramic decorations or anything that is too big to clean well by boiling before using.... clorox anywhere spray.. which is now a home made version since you can't find it pre-made anymore. For my Texas Holey Stone, and some other large decorations, I've prepped them for use in the aquarium by scrubbing them with a brush and the garden hose, then letting them dry before I sprayed them down with clorox anywhere spray, let it sit a while to kill anything off it could. Then hosed it down again with the garden hose to rinse off the left over spray. Put it in the aquarium, used declorinator the same way I do for water changes, and have never had any measurable chlorine and all of the fish have been fine.

@Zeaqua I originally bought it for my Otos and plecos, but every night the cories flock to it as well.

My cories all seem to love the Rapshy Super Green that I put in there each evening. It's available directly from Rapshy if your local store doesn't have it. In powder form in the container it lasts quite a while. When I make it I freeze it in mini icecube trays so it's 3/8" cubes, then once froze I put them in a zip lock in the freezer and it keeps a long time. Each night I drop a few frozen cubes in the tank and within minutes it's thawed out and the fish are after it.

I was wondering if anyone knows what type of Cory this is. When I bought him a year or 2 ago he was labeled as a spotted cory. I'm thinking of getting a few more if them since I have a bigger aquarium now, but I now realize, it was mislabeled when I bought it because now what is labeled as a spotted Cory, definately looks spotted and nothing like what I have. As far as cories go, he's decent size, just a smidge larger than my other green cories in the tank. Maybe he's a mix of a spotted and a green?

I finally got my 75 gallon together, so I thought I would post a pic. This aquarium replaced my 29 gallon aquarium in the livingroom. I have a fluval C4 and a fluval 306 canister filter on it. Plant wise there is an Anubias Barteri, pennywart, Anubias Nana, Java ferns, windelov Java ferns, a sword, a rather scraggly looking octopus plant, a tiny Cryptocoryne lucens which has like 2 tiny green leaves on it, and 3 stem plants of some sort that I forget what it was. Everything moved from my 29 gallon over to the 75. Fish wise, its kind of a hodge podge from the 29 gallon. There's 1 Denson Barb, a Buenos Aires tetra that has been in there for years, 3 black skirted tetras, 2 glow fish (pink & yellow white skirted tetras ... picked out by my 6 year old, her favorite colors), 2 cories (a spotted and a green), a Red/White salt & pepper platy, 1 bristlenose pleco, a mystery snail, 2 Otos, and one clown pleco (which I see like once a month, I sware the thing has to be dead and eaten, but then one evening I'll spot him and he's looking just fine ... then it will be another month or so before I see him again.) I did debate quite a bit about what light to get for the aquarium but I ultimately decided to get the Finnex Planted+ CRV 24/7 light. The color it puts out is awesome, I like that every time i look at my aquarium throughout the day it looks a littledifferent. The different hues bring out different aspects of the aquarium. The remote and programming is a bit wonky though, but my last light was a finnex so I'm quite use to it. The programming reminds me of something you would create in a Bata version of something where you are really just testing out the concept and proving everything works.

I really like my fluval E300 heater. It seems to keep the temp really stable, but it does seem to need a bit of flow past it to maintain the temp well.

I currently have a 75 gallon aquarium and I'm debating on what's the best option to use for the outlet, the standard outlet nozzle that blasts across the tank or a spraybar that slows the flow down. I like how the standard nozzle moves the water around the tank so there are fewer dead zones, but I suspect most of my fish would prefer the slower flow of the spraybar. The exception being my platties, they seem to like to play in the flow riding it across the aquarium and doing laps. I have a fluval heater about half way across the tank tipped at a 60 degree angle so the water shoots sideways across the tank, hits that and then is diverted upwards over the heater. The fish basically hit the current and ride across the tank and then upwards over the heater before dumping out the other side. Some nights they make laps over and over playing in the current. For those of you with canister filters, what sort of outlets do you use, and why?

I've never tried dimpled foams, any suggestions?

I was curious what mods all of you have done to your canister filters over the years if you have them. So far the main 3 mods I've done is: Removed the carbon, changed out the stock ceramic media for the Biohome Ultimate media, and then I replaced the filter pads with dual layer floss pads that I cut out of a larger roll of the media. I find the dual layer media really keeps the water crystal clear, which I prefer. I do have to replace it every month or 2 as it does catch quite a bit, but I figure that is about all the longer I probably should go before I service any filter to keep it from being a nitrate factory.

I think I found a combination of GFCI + grounding probe + remote controlled outlet that works really good together. The Husky GFCI from home depot has worked good for the past couple weeks and it doesn't kick out when it looses power. I tripped the breaker downstairs and when the power was restored, everything powered right back up on the aquarium, no manual reset needed. Now if I loose power from a lightning strick and the power does goofy things, all bets are off as to what would happen with it, but so far it has worked just as i would have hoped. I also added a LoraTap remote controlled outlet so I don't have to dig in my aquarium stand to get to the power strip to turn off the filters and air pump each time I feed the fish.