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Eric R

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Everything posted by Eric R

  1. Eric R
    Did you test ammonia as well? Also is chlorine reading 0 or 0.8? I can't really tell from the picture.
  2. Eric R
    Following. I have a tank with Julidochromis ornatus, and another with Paracyprichromis nigripinnis. My water isn't too hard from my well, so I add baking soda and epsom salt to increase ph and hardness. I am trying out some hardy plants however to see how they do. I think I prefer the second, two island scape, to the first.
  3. Eric R
    I think that most commonly when we use PAR for planted tanks, that the units we are measuring in are micro-mols per meter squared per second, which is equivalent to the slightly more accurate and technical term PPFD (photosynthetic photon flux density). If that's the case, then yes, sunlight has a much higher ppfd than even the strongest planted tank lights (at least according to this one source I quickly found): https://www.ledtonic.com/blogs/guides/sunlight-ppfd-measured-over-an-afternoon Video about units for PAR vs PPF vs PPFD: I feel like we should start saying PPFD instead of PAR, but I've never actually used a PAR meter and don't know what units they give for results. I know that on plantedtank.net, I've started to see PPFD used more, though PAR is still commonly in use.
  4. Eric R
    Depends on what you want it to look like. Cheapest and easiest option would be cinder blocks and 2x4s. You could also make your own out of all 2x4s if you feel handy.
  5. Eric R
    Hmm interesting thought. With the right lights, you can control which LED channels are on at which times of days, and use warm whites and other colors with little blue at night. Though I haven't noticed the blue in my aquarium lights bothering me as much as it does from phone or computer screens at night.
  6. Eric R
    I know you said it's a ways down the road, but Cherry shrimp are the workhorse of my cleanup crew, and I think your stocking selection sounds like it could be shrimp safe to me, though I haven't kept all of the fish you mentioned personally.
  7. Eric R
    Also, the Sub column is substrate, here is the key: I - Inert............... E-Eco Complete............ A - Active...................D - Dirt................F - Flourite
  8. Eric R
    Anubias nana petite look great in small containers, if you can find a small stone to glue them to. Pygmy chain sword is another easy plant that will give your container some height. I'll second and third both java fern (which also should be secured to something instead of planted in the substrate) and java moss.
  9. Eric R
    .
  10. Eric R
    @tonyjuliano I think the general consensus on this site is that bettas don't belong in such small containers. Aquarium coop recommends at least 5 gallons for a betta, though they can be kept in a properly setup 3 or 4 gallon tank. 1 gallon is too small. Bettas also should have heaters, unless kept in a heated fish room (or really hot climate without AC). I think that @Catfish_Lover_Janeis making a responsible decision considering shrimp instead of fish for a tank this size, and asking advice about how to properly setup such a tank. https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/betta-fish-care-guide https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/betta-tank-setup
  11. Eric R
    @Todd C. another thing you can do is let the store know how long your drive is (if they don't ask). The owner at my LFS always asks how long a drive customers have when bagging fish, so that if they have a longer drive he will bag the fish in a larger number of bags, such that there are fewer fish in each bag. This will help reduce ammonia concentrations during the trip. I've had fish shipped overnight a few times with no losses, and they are usually in their bags for 18 hours or so, with those bags in a styrofoam box with heat packs if it's cold. Though I think one thing fish shippers often do is reduce or stop feeding fish for a couple days before shipping, which would be different than if you got the fish at a store.
  12. Eric R
    Neat fish!
  13. Eric R
    I have a bunch of $30 inkbird heater controllers for this exact reason. There was a guy, Giga, on nano-reef.com that made the coolest mangrove island saltwater tank. It ended up crashing because a heater failed and cooked the inhabitants. They also have wifi models for slightly more money, I'm trying one out now. Glad you caught yours in time to avert catastrophe!
  14. Eric R
    I will happily support most any LFS that properly quarantines their fish and pay more money for those fish. As hobbyists, we also should be prepared to quarantine, medicate, and feed with quality food fish newly arrived to our care. Shipping will stress the healthiest of fish and reduce immune function. Also, a good tip is if you live close to your LFS/LPS, to check on the same fish a few times over several days or a week after they arrive to the store to see if they stay healthy or if their health worsens. Or, if there's something particular you know you want, to see if you can order it before it arrives, and show up the day it's delivered to the store and take it home immediately before it's added to the tank in the store.
  15. Eric R
    It seems to me that a lot of people allow their ponds to naturally top off with rain water, if they aren't under cover, and just have some sort of overflow installed so that the pond doesn't overflow its edges if the water gets too high. If you're worried about ph, you can periodically check your pond kh levels and mix in a bit of baking soda or a small bag of crushed coral to add carbonate buffer to keep your ph stable. If your pond is covered such that you need to manually top off, rain water should be fine, as long as your rain water collection container and your roof don't leech anything into the water. This can be a problem if you have an asphalt shingle roof instead of a metal roof.
  16. Eric R
    I ordered my water lily from pond plants online, they had a good selection of plants and good prices. I ordered eight or nine plants which made shipping worth it, which was about $23. There's also Tricker, that had slightly better prices and a good water lily selection but not all the plants I wanted. Shipping is about the same.
  17. Eric R
    Yeah, I've always heard that rimless acrylic tanks need full bottom support, though I don't have any acrylic tanks myself. 1/2" or 3/4" plywood (not osb - oriented strand board, the stuff that looks like chunks of wood glued together) on a metal stand should work fine. Some folks use something with cushion as a mat in between, as @Nate s said.
  18. Eric R
    Welcome aboard! Following your R2R build thread, I have all the equipment to setup two reef tanks, but been too occupied with FW projects (oh, and life outside of the hobby! Even during Covid) to get them started yet. I'm super impressed with your SW build thread, well documented and taking quarantine very seriously right off the bat. I'm taking notes so that I can follow your practices once I start adding inhabitants. I also want a mandarin pair, excited to see yours grow! (And they do start out so incredibly small, don't they?). Also appreciate your ethic of only captive-bred, this too is something I plan to follow as much as possible, especially with corals and fish and inverts (I may source some macro algae or maricultured live rock from reputable suppliers in the gulf or Florida). You can start a thread in the tank Journal subforum, it's fairly equivalent to a build thread on this forum. Also neat that you have a Scarlet Badis pair, are they a m/f breeding pair? I'm interested in trying my hand at breeding this species if I have the space and can get a pair at some point, though it's a bit down the list of future projects.
  19. Eric R
    Can I ask about the RO water with ph 7.8 - 8.0? Do you have an RO unit in your home and is this the ph of the water that is coming out of the unit? I think most of the fish you mentioned should do fine in your well water parameters though.
  20. Eric R
    @Chris45 Not sure what we're looking at in the pictures in your last post. Can you take more pictures of the same area from farther away?
  21. Eric R
    Nice. Are they resin or wood with a liner or...?
  22. Eric R
    I usually just rinse a few times with tap water after using and let dry. We don't need much precision with our test kits, and can't be that precise anyway, so I don't believe a bit of contamination with tap water or dried water residue will noticeably affect your test results. I don't feel like I've noticed anything off in the results from doing it this way.
  23. Eric R
    @Jaybfish Is there a reason that you want to do a fish-in cycle instead of a fishless cycle?
  24. Eric R
    It's definitely possible to build a stand with a 40b on top and 75 on the bottom out of 2x4s. You should post an image of your design though so we can provide feedback on whether it should be sturdy enough. This thread on reefcentral has a lot on information about building stands out of 2x4s: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1169964 The main trick to building stands out of 2x4s is to make sure that the lumber itself is transferring the weight directly to the ground, and that you aren't relying on screws or nails to transfer the weight. Basically, make sure that you always have vertical pieces of wood supporting all of your horizontal pieces of wood. Most screws aren't really designed to carry the kinds of loads that aquarium stands have to hold for larger tanks.
  25. Eric R
    Love your 1 gallon jug setups. Killifish are on my list of things I'd like to eventually keep, but unfortunately they haven't made it high enough to get onto the things I'm actually keeping list, due to space and time constraints. They come up fairly regularly in the regional auctions. If I ever do decide to jump into killies, I can't wait to try out something like your fry hatching setup!
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