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Eric R

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Everything posted by Eric R

  1. Eric R
    Cool! I especially like the use of locally collected plants. I'm going to setup a tub pond myself using the same container.
  2. Eric R
    I wrote a short review of it in another post here: I highly recommend it, you can get it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tub-Pond-Handbook-Comprehensive-Container/dp/B091W9WLDP/ igh
  3. Eric R
    If you're into octopuses, you should check out Richard Ross:
  4. Eric R
    Neat idea! I especially like how you'll be able to see in from the side. First time tubber here, I'll be using this above ground container, though I'm going to surround it with rocks so that the container is less visible. Link at Lowes: https://www.lowes.com/pd/MacCourt-38-in-L-x-38-in-W-Black-High-Density-Polyethylene-Pond-Liner-35-Gallon/1000382051 I'm going to add a waterlily and a bunch of marginal plants and I hope to have it look like this when I'm done!
  5. Eric R
    Thanks for sharing, I'll give it a listen! [Uh-oh, another podcast to check out now!]
  6. Eric R
    I figured considering the time of year of with all of the recent posts on summer tubbing, I'd make a recommendation for a book on the topic that I just picked up, The Tub Pond Handbook (3rd Edition) by Dr. Ted Coletti (I'm in no way affiliated with the author, just a fish hobbyist writing a glowing review for a recent book I picked-up, hoping other people may find the recommendation useful!). Though I love books, I very rarely buy them for the aquarium hobby, as I personally find that a lot of books at this point either contain outdated information, or that's it's easier to find what I consider to be more current and better information on forums like this or a handful of youtube channels. However, Dr. Ted came to speak for an hour recently for our local aquarium club virtual meeting. I thought the presentation was packed full of very useful information (and excellent pictures, all of his own backyard tubs, of which he currently has 30!), plus he's been actually keeping backyard ponds for 20 years, all relatively small and nearly all above ground. He's a big proponent of using plants for filtration, and I don't believe that he runs filters or heaters for any of his tubs. His book is an easy to read and reference how-to manual on planting a beautiful summer tub, with recommendations for containers, plants, fish, how to handle pests, timelines, how to overwinter plants, etc., and helped to answer a bunch of the questions I had about the process still after reading about it through online articles, on forums, and watching youtube videos. Some of the information on water quality and the nitrogen cycle is old news for anyone that's been in the hobby a while, but probably still useful and worth including for newer hobbyists. The 3rd edition of this book just came out this month, so it's very up-to-date. You can get it on Amazon and it's pretty reasonably priced I think for $18 (there's also a kindle edition): https://www.amazon.com/Tub-Pond-Handbook-Comprehensive-Container/dp/B091W9WLDP/
  7. Eric R
    Just letting other hobbyists know about this upcoming event (I'm not affiliated with organizing of this event, so hopefully this is allowed under forum guidelines!). The Northeast Council of Aquarium Societies (NEC) is having their annual convention online this year this coming weekend, April 23-25. Registration is just $7! And there are a good number of well known speakers participating, as well as there being other interesting virtual aspects to the convention to participate in. The website will all of the details is: https://northeastcouncil.org/basic-page/convention-2021-virtual-convention-new Since it's virtual, you obviously don't have to be in the Northeast to attend. However, if you do live in the Northeast, the convention is also having an online auction associated with the event: https://auction.fish/?nec-virtual-convention-auction You don't have to attend the convention or be a member of a local aquarium society to participate in the auction, see the site for all of the rules.
  8. Eric R
    Not sure if you've already considered this, but if you're getting adult fish for your pond, keep in mind they may be more likely to breed than they would indoors. Have a plan in mind for what you'll do if you end up with juvenile fish at the end of the season.
  9. Eric R
    If you were to consider an aquarium heater as a backup, you could look at a heat controller, like the ones inkbird makes, so that you could set the temp lower than what most adjustable aquarium heaters can be set to.
  10. Eric R
    I understand that you really want to keep more fish, but unfortunately you have restrictions with your parents on what you can keep. Unfortunately, anything less than 2.5 gallons really shouldn't house fish. It's not good for the quality of life of the fish, and I imagine that is important to you since you wouldn't be on here asking about it otherwise. If you're looking for something more interesting to you than cherry shrimp or snails, and you could consider trying out a reef tank though, people do make 1 gallon tanks work for some of the less demanding species of coral, and you could add a small snail or shrimp to it. Check out this amazing 1 gallon pico-reef: https://www.nano-reef.com/featured/2021/saltygallons-1gal-all-in-one-pico-reef-tank/
  11. Eric R
    It's an uber sustainable protein source, what's not to like? Green smoothie anyone?
  12. Eric R
    Maybe Igor should be Igorina, a la Terry Pratchett?
  13. Eric R
    Sorry to hear about your struggles, I don't have any suggestions unfortunately. I just wanted to say that your shiners look incredible!
  14. Eric R
    Nice pictures, love me some darters!
  15. Eric R
    Seems like an awful lot of filtration. If it was me, I'd do either a single sponge filter or an appropriately sized hob.
  16. Eric R
    I've used the non-wifi inkbird controllers successfully. I'd suggest trying their wifi models as @Mmiller2001 recommended.
  17. Eric R
    UGFs seem to used to be really common but have fallen out of fashion. Can't say I have ever tried one or really even know a lot about them. Most surfaces in your tank, especially plant surfaces, help with biological filtration. Sponge filters, HOBs, and canisters can provide varying amounts of mechanical filtration. All three work fine for me.
  18. Eric R
    "Yes, I thought you had to" is a rather biased answer for a survey.
  19. Eric R
    @tolstoy21 I have the smart buddie booster pump, which incorporates an auto shutoff and a backflush setup with the booster. I'm impressed with it. The instructions show to put the pump after sediment and carbon and before the RO membrane. https://brsinstructions.s3.amazonaws.com/brsAquaticLife/Smart_Buddie_Manual_061318.pdf I don't think the sediment or carbon filters need the extra pressure, but I don't know if having the extra pressure shortens the useful life of those filters, or if putting those filters before the booster pump potentially extends the life of the pump?
  20. Eric R
    Interesting, I have my booster pump setup after the micron filter and carbon block but before the RO. I saw this suggested somewhere but don't remember where right now.
  21. Eric R
    Neat, I haven't seen that graph before with a trend line for total N. Interesting relationship!
  22. Eric R
    With white worms, I can keep mine in my basement, so temperature isn't an issue. Though I keep my fish upstairs in my bedroom, so going downstairs and coming back up was also impractical. I was keeping mine in a damp soil mixture, and found that they weren't reproducing very fast so that I couldn't feed much or often, and it was time consuming and messy to pick them out of the soil one by one. Also, I had to watch and try to feed individual fish since I didn't have many worms to make sure that everyone was eating, with the picky ones that only eat live foods, like pygmy sunfish. It was just impractical for me. I gave up on them when the culture became infested with tiny red mites (they may have come in on the soil, that was my fault). I've heard about people using scouring pads instead of soil as a culture media. I had grindal worms shipped to me this way but they didn't ship well the one or two times I tried so I didn't end up getting to try it. @Dkshadowwolf and @Daniel, do you have suggestions on easier ways to keep white worms or grindals? With microworms, I just make a new culture every two months, sprinkle yeast on the culture every so often, and use my finger to wipe some worms off the top or side of the container. Very easy. If white worms or grindals could be this easy, I would definitely add them to the mix. I'd do blackworms, but I'm not interested in setting up another aquarium just to culture them. Unless there's also an easier way with them?
  23. Eric R
    I feed quality crushed flake to all my tanks, sinking shrimp pellets to my tank with corys and sometimes the shrimp tank, blanched frozen veggies to the shrimp and snail tank, microworms for my natives tank for the pygmy sunfish and to my paracyprichromis tank, bbs to my paracyprichromis tank, and the vibra bites fake bloodworms for my apistos, cardinal tetras, and julidochromis. I'd like to feed more live foods, but find it to take too much of a setup or too time consuming. I tried white worms but that didn't work well for me. I just started bbs and will probably use that for more tanks now that the paracyprichromis are eating crushed flake as well. I also need more microworm cultures going at once. They're easy I just need to start them.
  24. Eric R
    Have you tried feeding them crushed flake or sinking pellets and they won't eat it? I've found corydoras not to be picky eaters, mine seem to scavenge any food that makes it to the bottom. They aren't the fastest eaters though, so you need to make sure that food gets past any fish in the upper water levels.
  25. Eric R
    Well I'll be damned. Thanks for sharing. I do notice that my corys like to dig through sand in search of food, so maybe keep a small part of the tank with sand where you feed them? Seems like they'll do okay though with the gravel, so choose what you think looks good!
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