Eric R
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Posts posted by Eric R
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I haven't kept too many, and have only had one species successfully breed so far. I'm keeping rainbow kribs, multies, apistogramma hongsloi, julidochromis ornatus, and paracyprichromis nigripinnis. The multies have been breeding pretty regularly. They are probably my favorite of the bunch, though I like nigripinnis a lot as well as can't wait for them to mature and breed. I got the paracyps and julies because I wanted to start a 55g Tang community tank with the multies as the focus in a large colony. I'm going to work on getting the apistos to breed next, probably by setting up a 10g blackwater tank with a lot of leaf litter specifically for my dominant male and single female. The multies are in the 10g that the apistos are going to go into, once the mutlies get moved into the 55g with their other tankmates. The multies breed really easily in the 10g, I have two breeding pairs and several groups of fry from each, with probably more than 30 fry total. The multies will spawn in the shells they hide in, the female "lures" the male in to fertilize the eggs, then the male has to wiggle out of the shell backwards, which is always kinda funny to watch. Then the fry hatch and stay pretty close to the shells until they are maybe 1/2"-3/4" in size. I believe that multies are the smallest species of cichlid in the world, with the males getting up to maybe 2", and the females 1", when full grown.
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Malaysian trumpet snails are 99% of the cleanup crew in my African Cichlid tanks.
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Sounds like a good plan to me!
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5 hours ago, Hobbit said:
I also decided not to attach the outer joists yet (the ones that abut the end of the frame) because I need to leave room to screw the legs on from the inside. I’m honestly not sure the outer joists are necessary at all. It would be nice to save some weight—I can barely lift this thing already and it’s not even 1/3 built!
Someone else can chime in if they disagree with me, but after looking at your drawings, I don't personally think you need those doubled outer joists on either the top or bottom. People (myself included) tend to really overbuild DIY stands.
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On 4/21/2021 at 2:08 PM, Hobbit said:
Ooo good idea. Come to think of it, I may not even glue it in place so we can remove it for future moving. We’re also planning to attach the top piece in an easy to remove manner (no glue) so we can move that separately too.
@Hobbit I've seen people use magnets to make easy to remove panels on aquarium stands.
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@Fishdude nice progress! Are you going to end up mounting the drain line to anything?
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On 3/1/2021 at 6:51 PM, MJV Aquatics said:
Now may be a good time for planning, but not starting. With covid nearly all club meetings are cancelled or using Zoom. I really miss the meeting auctions.
@MJV Aquatics @Andy's Fish Den if you're part of a local club that's doing zoom meetings or at least has an active mailing list, you can try out this site to do virtual auctions: https://auction.fish/
It was started by a local club member here, and we've had several different clubs, most in the NE but some in other parts of the country using it for local and regional auctions. It's pretty easy to use, and then you can meet in-person following covid protocols to exchange fish.
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5 hours ago, YIACrazy said:
So the suggestion is not to run a sponge filter? For the season? I was going to do an outdoor pond with a large sponge filter and a nano usb air pump.
Some people do, some don't. If you'd like to, I don't see any reason not to, and there are plenty of reasons to do so. Extra filtration and aeration (almost?) never hurt.
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On 4/19/2021 at 10:44 PM, Fish Folk said:
@TheDukeAnumber1 we've recently ordered a few native species from Jonah's Aquarium. Mark does very good, timely shipping. He publishes regular updated native species lists. We've gotten Rainbow Darters, Florida Flagfish, and Okefenokee Pygmy Sunfish from him. All healthy.
Now . . . for a touch of crazy . . . if you want us to catch you some wild Gambusia . . . things can be arranged . . .
I just realized I think I have the same tank that's in this picture. 3.5 gallon plastic(or acrylic?) half moon tank, right? Comes with the weakest color changing LED in the lid and a small hob?
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On 4/18/2021 at 12:18 AM, Hobbit said:
Wow!!! I had no idea you could do all that with foam! I mean I did watch the behind the scenes videos about the Lord of the Rings movies so I knew you could do cool stuff... 😄 but I didn’t realize you could get all that stuff and do it at home!!
My dad worked on the cleanup crew for the movie Armageddon. The asteroid surface scene was shot on a soundstage at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, CA. They dug down about 2 or 3 stories below ground level for the set. All of the spikey asteroid rock bits were just shaped and painted foam! I got to walk around the set after they finished filming one day. My dad also snagged the mission patches off of some of the uniforms in the film, not sure where they are now unfortunately.
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@Sapere_Ceta Very cool setup! Was so impressed with the end product. Gandr is one lucky crayfish!
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I don't think dosing should be a problem, I'd do it after the water changes for the meds. Though the plants will probably survive if you need to reduce or stop dosing for a week or two while you treat for ich.
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Jonah's Aquarium is a very reputable online retailer that specializes in native US species. @Fish Folk orders from them, I will too once I'm setting up my next north american tank 🙂
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38 minutes ago, lefty o said:
if you have a sawzall, you can just run the blade between the pieces of wood, and cut the screw.
Sawzalls are excellent for fixing framing mistakes 🙂
Also most screws will snap if you bend them back and forth enough times, unlike nails.
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Also, you may want to consider checking craigslist for used miter saws in your area. I just checked my local one and found four decent if cheap looking 10" blade models (craftsman, ryobi, etc.) for between $25 and $50. There were a few nicer ones listed for $75. Also doesn't hurt to ask if they'd knock $5-10 off the price, most of the time on craigslist people will. You can also do all those cuts with a speed square and a circular saw with a steady hand and a bit of practice. Unless you live in Vermont, in which case I'd say just come over!
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19 minutes ago, Maggie said:
We need a Ladybird video update! How's she doing?
@Maggie did you see this video yet? Or do you mean another update since she was moved into the new fishroom?
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Are you still adding two caps each of API Stress Zyme and SeaChem Stability every day? I wonder if that could affect your ammonia readings, I've only used Prime as a conditioner but it's known to do so.
Also, since your friend just(?) broke down a tank, is it possible for you to grab some of his old cycled filter media, or and decorations or substrate from his tank that may have beneficial bacteria on it? That can help with your cycle. Also, yes 5 small fish won't produce a lot of waste in such a large tank. Be careful not to add too many fish at once though later, cause even once your tank is cycled you could get a mini cycle.
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5 hours ago, Sapere_Ceta said:
I refined it a little more so it matched the remote times. Maybe something like this to start off with the spectrum percentages, keep them low and gradually go up 10% every week to few weeks while they adjust (so long as I am not seeing any signs of excess light)? The B (Blue) would likely stay the same.
I don't personally have experience with this light. From looking it up, it seems to be capable of medium output in terms of PAR. My guess is that white is your main channel, both in terms of the output of the light as well as having the most LEDs. The r/g/b channels are mostly going to be there for effects and for you to play with how the light looks to you in terms of color with your fish/plants/crayfish(?). I'd recommend starting with your white channel maxing out at 50% and adjust your other channels until you like how the light looks. I'd also make adjustments once every few days to once a week until you get it where you want it, I don't believe that plants need such long acclimation times to adjust to changes in lighting.
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Nice tanks! Love the 33 long footprint and the 50 lowboy even more. I'm setting up a 55g with Julidochromis ornatus, multies, and Paracyprichromis nigripinnis. I have a nice healthy two pair of breeding multies in a 10g with several different generations of fry, probably numbering 30+ already, and I'm hoping they'll completely take over the bottom 2/3rds of the tank, with the remainder with rockwork for what I hope will be a large family of J. ornatus. Then some flashes of color from the P. nigripinnis up in the middle and upper areas of the tank.
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I don't have a lot of experience with Endlers personally, but my first thought was the same as @Kirsten, if the adults all seem fine and the rest of the tankmates seem fine, I'd tend to think that inbreeding could likely be the cause, especially if you're seeing signs of deformities. I also agree with Kirsten's suggestion of trying to breed genetic variation back into the line. @WhitecloudDynasty has several threads documenting his practices for breeding new lines, and he posts a lot about how he introduces diversity by breeding back into the line and then continuing to select for the same traits, so I'd recommend reading over some of his threads for ideas on good breeding practices (unfortunately, not all breeders practice good practices).
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I'd drop the neons from the list, they should ideally have more swimming room than a 5 gallon can provide.
I second endlers, they are attractive fish, not very large, hardy, as well as livebearers. Seeing baby fish grow-up will help your son get excited and feel good about the tank (as another plus, if a few die for whatever reason, there will be more babies growing up, so a loss of a fish might not hurt so bad as it otherwise would, say if it was a single betta). Plus, you'll probably have enough baby shrimp survive that you can also keep shrimp with them.
Other than endlers, you could also consider least killifish (heterandia formosa), another small hardy livebearer like the endler, so most of the same things said above apply here, except that this one is native to the US and not as colorful. Still, I enjoy keeping them, and I'm working on breeding out an albino strain right now.
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On 4/8/2021 at 3:58 PM, JohnT said:
I'd like a digital water parameters test. Just drop some ml's of water (+ maybe some 'reagent') in the device and get some numbers out of it. I'm colorblind and it's quite hard to read the color-based results... 😞
Checkout Hanna Instruments freshwater test line of products (they aren't cheap though!). They make quite a few of these, I use their alkalinity one.
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17 minutes ago, BigRedd said:
I personally setup a 75 gallon tank with plants and to cycle it I used dosed a lot of easy-green and shrimp pellets until I was able to detect the ammonia spikes and nitrite levels. Got the nitrite levels around 5.0 and then waited until they went down. Then I waited a week and did it again but with half as much easy-green and shrimp pellets. After I suspected the cycling was done, I added normal amounts of easy-green and shrimp pellets and watched for any spikes. If no spikes occur, I would consider the tank cycled.
Whole process took around 1-2 months. Also when you go to add your shrimp, only add like 10 at first to see if they survive. Sometimes when you suspect cycling is done, the tank can 'mini-cycle' and you don't want that for your shrimp.
In my experience, mini-cycles seem to happen when you rapidly increase the waste generation in a tank, and the nitrifying bacteria can't increase their population fast enough to process the additional ammonia. Sometimes a tank may be "cycled" but still has a relatively small amount of nitrifying bacteria. For example, if you go from 10 cherry shrimp in a 75g to 10 cherry shrimp and a dozen guppies. Having a tank with a lot of live plants helps, both because the plants provide an excellent surface for nitrifying bacteria, as well as that they can absorb excess ammonia directly if there isn't enough bacteria to convert it all to nitrite/nitrate.
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Additionally, they really make a lot of sense it you have a lot of tanks, if you use a single larger pump to power them all. Less energy use, less moving parts to fail, it takes up less room outside of the tanks (as compared to canisters or HOBs), probably less expensive overall (canisters aren't cheap), quick to maintain (pull the sponge out, squeeze it in a bucket of water change water a few times, put it back. A lot faster than a canister filter). I find that they provide plenty enough mechanical filtration for my tanks.
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Two-Tier Aquarium Stand Build (with storage!)
in Photos, Videos & Journals
Posted · Edited by ererer
Sorry, I can't tell well from your pictures, but it looks like the legs (green) bear fully on the fuschia colored 2x4s, and not on any of the brown 2x4s? It sounded to me like you were talking about reducing the number of brown 2x4s while keeping all of the original fuschia ones.