daggaz

Cloudiness is a sign of a bacterial bloom. Could be something in your well that really likes the stuff in your tank... I'd definitely get your water checked if I were you. You might have a recent contamination problem that could possibly end up affecting your own health.

Just add crocodiles.

Did you cycle the tank first?? But yeah, the 24hr lights are the biggest issue on top of zero water changes in a non-planted tank. For low maintenance, you're going to have to go with a lot of plants, but even then somebody has to trim the verge on occasion and just keep an eye on things. Tanks won't maintain themselves. I'd redo the substrate to aquasoil, put in a ton of plants, definitely keep the sump, and make clear to the school that the janitors/teachers need to cover the tank at night. A suggestion here, is to put in a curtain so that this job is always super easy and convenient: just pull the curtain closed.

That's weird. A 55 gallon tank isn't even that big... I imagine the person you talked to didn't actually know what you were talking about and used the power of their imagination.

I've got a powerhead in my 50 gallon and can hook a hose directly to it to drain the tank, using the UGF as a filter to keep from sucking up my fish. But I never do this, because I don't do any regular water changes. Instead, I throw out about half a kilo of frogbit every week. Man that stuff grows fast.

Also they have an eerily smooth gliding motion, they just kind of scoot along without any visible means of propulsion. Its an unmistakable motion, compared to the rest of the entire worm family.

I'm laughing so hard right now.

This is a great thread, pepere, thanks for posting. It's always interesting how far off a camera is from your own eye, but you do a good job explaining the apparent differences. I'm thinking of upgrading my own lights, got too much yellow and no real control, and this thread is a big help.

Tank update: everything is thriving. Fish are healthy and active, shrimp are breeding, plants are big and green. I bought more chili's and to my delight, a bunch came out of hiding and now school around the tank in a happy, red cloud. There must be 30+ now (haven't kept track, impossible to count.) Also I finally bit the bullet and bought 20 neon tetras. My LFS has a big tank with 2000+ for the last two months, that have been doing great the whole time. They use tap water same as mine, so I was delighted to see tge hardness wasn't going to be an issue. Released them today, they look FANTASTIC schooling around with the other fish in the blackwater tannin jungle. Will post pics in a couple days. Everybody is getting along swimmingly,!

Triops: Crunchy snacks that get big and eventually fight back.

How does feeding them look? Was considering adding one to my jungle. Also, can they get big enough to eat chili rasboras?

I was gonna post what billipo said. Its perfect for a germinator, you can use it outside and flip it upside down (with small gap at the bottom for air circulation and finger room) and hey-presto instant baby greenhouse.

You can put a small plastic tray down that only covers a part of the floor-space of the tank, and build an undergravel filter with an airstone-powered uplift tube in it. Then you do the rest with soil or whatever organic based substrate you are looking at. This gives you added filtration (remember that an organic substrate IS a kind of filter, as are the plants that grow in it) with additional, active flow. The flow is really good for the plants as well. Check out my journal for a more detailed description of how I did it, including drawings. It definitely works, very well. And my experience so far, at least with my tank, is that my system is extremely robust. I can dump huge amounts of food in there and add a couple bags of fish and pour in living water full of algae, etc, etc, and the tank parameters barely wiggle. Thats my tank, tho, which is 50 gallons, has a powerhead on the UGF, and heavily planted with well established plants.

You are the one who wants a river and are asking which tank you should get.. right? 😉

wait i am confused who is advising who in this thread now... Anyhow with that much fish I wonder if you dont have space for a 50g, would give you a little more room to play around with for decorations, as well. The tank is the cheap part...

Short outages are perfect use-case for an UPS.

Well my tank is also a heavily planted hybrid walstad, so the entirety of the dirt substrate AND the plants are also acting as a filter. But yes, I think you will be more than ok with one uplift tube in a five gallon. That real-estate is precious!

You can buy an UPS power supply for a couple hundred bucks, if power outages are a real problem in your area. Basically a battery that automatically charges/discharges depending on the supply voltage. They're a bit steep, but the peace of mind knowing all your fish won't die overnight may be worth it to you, especially if you have frequent outages as you say.

I have a 50+ gallon tank with only one... I think you will be just fine with the one. The increase in flow is going to be minimally helpful, especially if you are using airstones as I imagine to generate the lift.

I think you need a LOT more of it to be harmful, Tony. The local water ways are choked with beech, most of the water runs like coffee, and its still full of aquatic wildlife. Oxalic acid binds calcium, but the water is completely saturated with leached calcium-carbonate already. The micro-critters were all sourced from natural waterways in the first place, too. Honestly I am just a bit perplexed, but I think I will repeat the experiment once I get the colony up and running again (in separate jars).

Yeah it's beech. My water is super hard tho so I doubt the pH swung very much, tho I could try and test that.

From a forest. No pesticides or anything like that. I'm kind of leaning towards its the lack of oxygen that did them in, though honestly I am a bit surprised that the jars could get deprived so quickly, there's nothing big in there.

The scuds seem ok (what few I still had left), its the daphnia and some of the larger swimmy critters that are all dead on the bottom, now.

I've got water fleas and copepods in two different jars, both with an airstone. The other day, I a) added a handful of dead beach leaves to each jar which quickly upped the tannins b) had to remove the airstones for about 12 hours Now most of my critters are dead, floating around on the bottom. There are still a number of survivors, especially the really tiny ones, but most of the adults are dead. What did I do wrong? I'm gonna let it go for now and see how it evolves, I think there are enough survivors to get back to a strong, breeding population again, but I would like to understand what killed them off so I can avoid it in the future.

Less yard, more pond. 😉