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Brandy

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Everything posted by Brandy

  1. Dosing in food should ease the amount of kanaplex getting to shrimp and snails, but could you possibly catch a portion of the invert population and put them in a container of any sort? If they need the exact water that your tank has you could even put them in some floating breeder boxes and just feed them separately. Insurance against total losses. Alternatively, I've used a sort of tank within a tank trick to treat just one fish, and avoid dosing a giant tank. You do daily water changes with preconditioned tank water and the temp is stable... Anything water tight that fits works. I've used a 1 gallon pickle jar before. Not with the lid! It stuck out of the water. Not sure if this will help, just a way I have gotten around incompatible dosing.
  2. Arguably if your sponge is slightly bigger than your tank you can also just cram it in there and it will stay. But it's hard to get it as straight and pretty.
  3. Hi! So I still have the fry sorter set up and what I did originally was overly complicated, because the matten sponge I had didn't fit my tank. However I have a second matten filter in my 125g, and there I did what I probably should have done the first time. I cut the sponge mat to the place I wanted it to go, then I cut 1 inch strips of plastic and siliconed them into the tank. The plastic I used this time was black "starboard" leftover from a boat project, but previously I used white PVC trim from Home Depot that I spray painted black. Thick glass would also work. The idea is to glue in some "tabs" to hold the sponge in place. here is the tab from the front: And here is a terrible pic from the side thru the glass. Blue arrow pointing at tab Hope that helps! Also, just so you know, you WILL NOT need additional sponge filters. The matten is plenty.
  4. Photo update. Well established mts colony. Added plants, mostly grown by me in other tanks. The long grass is actually dwarf sag that came in my coop care package last year.
  5. The substrate is a range, very shallow (1in) at the front to a couple of inches at the back. I have the acaras in a 40 breeder for now, which has 2 inch substrate. I was just not really able to get them established in that tank. My hope is to have a large population breeding away in the 125 before I begin the massacre, and maybe they will be able to cover the losses. The ramshorns don't have a chance.
  6. They will eventually move to their own tank to breed at maximum warp. Right now, the angels are eating fry as fast as they arrive. The big tank was supposed to be an acara display tank, but my dear adult kid "gifted" me with teeny tiny angels so, I gave them gentle tank mates rather than throwing in the acaras immediately. I have to admit, the fact that the acaras will not suffer a snail to live is really frustrating. I have been seeding the tank with MTS as fast as I can grow them, but I hold out little hope that they will survive once the acaras move in. They are beautiful fish but messy eaters, and something needs to clean that up. I have corys, ottos and a Synodontis for a reason. The plan is a display for the acaras and angels, and the beloved Synodontis. The rest are just there to clean up! fortunately, the Acaras have shown little interest in chasing the spiny otos or corys, so fingers crossed that it continues.
  7. Yeah, my understanding of pressurized tanks is that the output pressure is plenty high, controlled by your regulator, and a manifold is not that hard, but what would you need after the manifold? I assume you need to be able to balance your flow rate at each tank like with any manifold. Would you just time bubbles per second or something to balance them? Some (non-aquarium-related) systems I work on have complicated mixing valves that will give you precise flow rates of different gasses in deciliters per minute. But I understand pressurized systems for aquariums don't require that kind of precision.
  8. No matter, we all have opinions. I don't run it, but I like learning about others who do. Let's focus on the OP question. I too would like to see PHOTOS OF SYSTEMS. Get cracking people. Pics or it didn't happen! 😆
  9. What about splitting those? can you run co2 on multiple tanks with a simple manifold?
  10. AAAnnyway. Everyone has their favorite system. I had nano tanks and I originally used a very cheap diy system like the video @xXInkedPhoenixX posted. I found that I prefer low tec for nano tanks. Maybe some day I will go for a gorgeous tank like @Mmiller2001, but for now I feel like nano tanks are easy to plant without using high maintenance plants. Does anyone like the little fluval systems? I always thought a clever person might be able to rig that to diy co2 and break the dependency on canisters.
  11. Yeah. The other fish were eating them so fast I had less than a minute to get them moved. It was a bit of a rodeo. But I've got free swimmers this morning!
  12. So update, the tank is coming along.... You will notice I've broken with all my plans... There are breeder boxes in the corner and despite my best intentions I have live bearers in the tank. It's temporary! I swear. However, I needed a place to grow them out and I needed something to help eat the first wave algae... Stocking list is currently: 12 otocinclus 4 angels 7 albino Corys 12-ish platies 1 Sysdontis eruptus (I love him so much) a billion snails Angels are getting bigger... And just for completion: the resident fry Platy babies Cory babies (lost many eggs to fungus, may have been infertile):
  13. Interesting, I kinda love air. Why don't you like it? Aesthetics or something else? I would run every tank with sponges or matten filters if I could. I like the simplicity of no moving parts. My 125g is running with a corner matten actually, but it's powered by a submersible. The flow rate for air was just too low on a tank that long.
  14. How do you even see CPD fry? I'm hatching Corys for the first time in the ziss, and I'm not sure I've ever seen anything so tiny that was a multicellular organism. Yet I am fairly certain they cannot get out through the mesh. However that may have to do with their egg yolk sac. Hmmm. I may be in trouble. Edited to add: I may also need glasses. 🥸
  15. I think I have really pushed the envelope on this lately. My tanks tend to be plant crammed, and when I moved my ambient temps went down. I have a lot of unheated or lightly heated tanks, and they are cold now. Plant growth has slowed waaay down, since I also slacked on fertilizer. Except I have floating plants and sometimes terrestrial plants growing out of the tanks (tradescantia, pothos, begoinia maculata) and those are all growing like crazy. I also produce shrimp and snails from those tanks. I pull "waste" out in the form of feeder snails, and duckweed. Now that I have a duck and chickens, I never have to put it in the compost. Water changes keep inorganic salts from building in the water, theoretically...Unless your tap water is super hard and your plants are actually effectively using all that--then you might be adding salts. Or, like me, your tap water is basically DI water, and you want every mineral you can get to stay in the tank! I scored a free tank covered with hard water stains--years of them, you could not see thru the glass. My solution was to fill it with water and stock it with snails. They are gone. I mostly top off until the mulm gets swirly and annoying. However, that is not going to stop me from drilling about 15 tanks this weekend for my future auto water change system. Because laziness is not just a philoshopy, it is a way of life! And carrying buckets is less fun than watching fish.
  16. I have actually run about 15 of these for over a year and a half with check valves. Some of mine have died. I also have disassembled them. Sometimes, the motor has died, but the majority of the time the little rubber bellows has developed a pinhole crack that then widens until it does not push air anymore. I save the bits and have frankensteined healthy bellows onto a healthy motor with success. At about $10/each I decided that I could buy up to 20 before it would just make more sense to get a linear piston pump and go full fish room. I am in the process of making that switch now. If I only had one or two tanks these are so silent and perfect I would run them for years, replacing as needed. I am still a fan, but once you are over 5 tanks or so you may as well bite the bullet...
  17. Interesting. both my tanks with acaras are the same...and they eat every snail I put in. I think that is somehow related? either I have too many nutrients or the wrong kind and the snails are normally on patrol? Something...It is only my acara tanks. And I am about to tear my hair out. I have an idea I want to try, I will move the acaras out of the smaller tank and throw in a handful of ramshorns. And just watch what happens. Maybe a platy.
  18. I just want to say I feel your Easy Green pain. I can NOT run out. 😆
  19. It is so funny, they loved the bug bites plain colored flakes, and the love the red ones but last time they rolled their little fishy eyes at me over the extreme krill. I like the flakes for the really tiny guys like chili rasbora, and the guppies who should be happy to eat anything I feed them. Mostly everyone else gets Hikari.
  20. Hey all... I'm low on food and so I'm shopping. True story (that I wish was not) but my fish LOVE Fluval bug bites. Like crazy pants, look like they have been starving 5 minutest after I just fed them. I don't WANT to take out a second mortgage, but they love what they love...😁 Worse, I can't get them at ACO, and I really don't like buying stuff elsewhere because, well, ACO is awesome, as we all know. Now, I am well aware of WHY the Aquarium Co-op doesn't carry them. I'm not AT ALL asking why, or asking for a change. What I DO want to know is what voodoo black magic Fluval is putting in this food?! My fish think it is crack. And really I have weird allergies, so foods NOT including bloodworms matter for me. That's how I got their addiction started... I'm telling you, I need another project like I need a hole in the head, but their reaction makes me want to start RAISING BLACK SOLDIER FLIES (primary ingredient). I mean, yeah that's a dumb idea for guppies, but pretty sure the cichlids and chickens would be ecstatic. What flake food do your fish think is crack? Bonus points of it is not made by Fluval... I guess I should just go back to hatching 5 batches of brine shrimp a week...
  21. Well. I warned you. Slow. I have tanks... I have space and a lovely ACO linear piston air pump... Lord knows I have fish. And snails. Plants. And shrimp... And big, BIG plans! What the heck is the hold up, you say?! Also, where HAVE YOU BEEN?! This. This is the problem. I have, in the entire 600sf future fish room, a single outlet, which is dedicated to running the sump pump that keeps the floor from being 6-8 inches below the water table. But! I am finally able to find a month or so to dedicate all my spare time to JUST THIS PROJECT!! Step one. Expand electrical options...
  22. I have used spray, latex, and craft acrylic. They all look the same from inside the tank. The acrylic/latex can easily be razored off a glass tank, the spraypaint is more durable and takes more elbow grease. The advantage of latex or acrylic is that I can do it in less than an hour without masking anything.
  23. I have tried puffers with each other, guppies, platies, and chili rasbora. Frankly, they all got hassled. They survived, but the puffers would allow them some small portion of the tank. The Rasboras were probably the least hassled thanks to being fast and a school, and inhabiting the top-mid level of the tank. However tank size plays a part, and if you have one puffer in a 20 gallon with lots of cover and some upper level speedy fish that works out ok. If you have 2 platies in a 7 gallon with 2 puffers they will be hassled into a corner and end up with nipped fins. The only reason I was so willing to try so many options was because I always had other tanks that I could shift fish into if it did not work out.
  24. In my experience my puffers would take out every single shrimplet, but leave adults alone. I used to put off colored "cull" shrimp in the puffer tank, and then let them breed as a food source for the puffer. Worked out quite well, as long as new generations of undesirable colors were available to refresh the colony. The adult shrimp cleaned up the puffer snail leftovers, and that was helpful as well.
  25. I honestly was wondering if I had forgotten something, lol. And I had. "Blue-green algae" is not algae at all, of course. Most commonly it is actually blue green, and it looks like algae, hence the misnomer. It is actually Cyanobacteria, and it CAN be other colors. I don't think that is what is in the pic @Burbotlips posted, but it might be what is going on in my tank, or I could have both...The "blue green" kind, and some other type of real algae. Definitely funky smelling. https://www.cnrs.fr/en/green-orange-where-does-diversity-cyanobacteria-colours-come#:~:text=Cyanobacteria%2C which are often called,the cells of particular species.
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