Andy's Fish Den

Amazon, eBay, lots of sizes available as well as thickness of the bags. If you're going to be bagging any spiny fish such as corydoras, plecos, I'd get ones that are at least 3mil thick, other than that I just get 2mil ones, The sizes I keep on hand for my personal use are 4x16, 6x18 and 8x18 between those sizes, I can bag up a lot of stuff unless the fish is extra large.

I've overflowed a couple tanks, but thankfully my fish room and all but one of my tanks is in the basement with concrete floor. Other than that, one day I was doing water changes on all my tanks (~25) and I didn't realize that the pilot for my water heater was out, so it never kicked on to heat. I had set the temp when I started filling tanks, I drain all the tanks first, then start filling them up. By the time I got about 3/4 of way through filling tanks, I happened to stick my fingers in the water going into the tank and it was cold, I ended up having to light the pilot and wait a half hour or so until there was hot water to mix. No fish were harmed, thankfully there was only two or three tanks that were colder than should have been.

This is awesome! Can't wait to see how each of you scape and stock your own tank

As @Beardedbillygoat1975said, there are some tanks, 40 breeder is the largest I believe that were made specifically for reptiles and it has much thinner glass. You will want to make sure it's not one of those. Also, just check out the silicone seams, beardies do have nails that could scratch at the silicone and possibly weaken it. If the silicone looks good, and its not one of the reptile cages, I'd clean it good, you can use Dawn dish soap, just clean and rinse well. I've done it many times and I am almost certain I've heard @Dean’s Fishroomsay in a video or podcast before that he does too when cleaning a tank. Set the tank on a level surface and fill it up to check for leaks. If no leaks, put it where you want it and get it set up for fish!

I would just leave the eggs alone with the parents, dicus are very difficult to raise away from parents. What are water parameters? Discus will lay eggs in harder water, but the eggs to require some acidity to the water to properly hatch, so most people use RO water mixed in at the minimum, If the pair eats the eggs this time, you can make a cage out of vinyl coated hardware cloth to protect the eggs, its very easy to do if they laid on cone. There are many good videos on YouTube on raising baby discus, the babies and juveniles are the ones that require really good water quality and lots of water changes to grow properly without being stunted.

I have always been told to not use straight RO or RO/DI water in tanks as it has no buffering capacity and with extended use can cause the pH to crash. I have an RO/DI unit that I use to make pure water, TDS of 0 coming out, for my saltwater tank, as well as then mixing with remineralizer for my caridina shrimp. There are also plenty of other products that you can use to mix with RO water to bring it up to the correct TDS for your fish, Seachem Equilibrium is the first one that comes to mind. I've been told as well not to use distilled water in tanks if you have invertebrates in it, because if the stills or piping that is used for the distillation process are copper, then copper can leach out into the water, and we all know that copper is not good for inverts. Distilled and RO water is very corrosive, it has no minerals etc in so it will try to absorb anything it can from whatever it is in contact with, so you will see people who have large elaborate mixing stations for saltwater, all the piping and anything that comes into contact with the water will be either PVC or pex with no metal fittings.

As someone who has owned homes with wells for a long time now (25+ years) and had well issues, I would first contact a well drilling/ service company in your area. They can assess the well and see what issues there are and help you with remedying them. If you have coliform bacteria in the well, I am surprised that your local health department has not got involved, they will probably want you first shock the well, and the retest after a certain amount of days. If it is still present, don't be surprised if you are told to install a filter and chlorinating system. I have a friend that purchased a home a year ago that had the same issue with coliform bacteria and that is what our health department made him do.

Once you use a Python or similar system to fill your tanks, you will never use a bucket again. I don't worry about chlorine now, as I have a well, but even when I did, I drained water out using a long hose into my a sink or bathtub, then had python attached to sink, set water temp, and ran the water straight into aquarium. I'd put a dose of prime or whatever dechlorinator before adding water and then another afterwards.

The tank looks good! I love the rotala h'ra I want to get some for my tank, haven't found any local and been afraid to have some shipped in being I live in northern Ohio and don't want it to freeze.

I would imagine it could be cut with a hack saw or using a dremel tool. You could also just take the uplift tube off, I run most of mine that way.

I have all kinds of used food storage containers that I use regularly in my fish room. Ice cream buckets, the big jars that peanut butter pretzels come in at Costco, whipped topping bowls, you name it. I've also noticed in the videos with @Dean’s Fishroom catching or moving fish that he uses a lot of restaurant food storage containers, I know them from working as a chef in the past like him.

I did the DIY stuff for a year or two and ended up moving onto a pressurized system. I spent more money doing the DIY system than if I would have just bought a tank, regulator and all the stuff the first time.

The way things are for me, they will come out right after I buy a Fluval 3.0 for a new project.

Nice haul of plants there! I am so jealous of you guys that can have the co-op as your LFS, and having several nice LFS out there.

Glad to hear that you are on the mend and getting better! Take care of yourself and heal up and be better than ever now.

It would all depend upon how much water volume is being changed, temp of water in tank and the water being added. I purposely will use cold water to trigger fish to spawn, especially corydoras species, I have drained 40-50% of the water from a 20 gallon, and added in water that was 15* cooler and not had any issues, it actually only lowered the tank temp by about 5 degrees when it was filled. Now, you also have to consider, I didn't just dump the water in either I had it trickling in over a period of about an hour trying to simulate rainfall. When I am doing my regular water changes, I just do it by feel, and get it close, and maybe just slightly cooler rather than warmer.

As long as is safe for potable water, you'll be good. I've made my own custom length siphon hoses with the 3/4" vinyl hose from the depot.

I keep my discus tanks in the 83-86F range. I've found over the years that my wilds can tolerate a wider temp range, they've been down to as low as 78 when I had a power outage, and up to 90. The domestic strains I've kept have been more sensitive to temp swings, I had a tank of pigeon bloods become lethargic and not wanting to eat when they got down below 80. My discus I have now are kept in my tap water, which is well water, pH runs 7.4-7.8 and my GH and KH both run right about 150. If I decide I want to breed them, I will use RO water that is reminerslized to correct parameters. As far as plants, plant the tank to suit you. My two tanks I have now with discus both are planted, one heavily, the other with just four swordplants and couple crypts. Some species of plants can't tolerate the higher temps of a discus tank, but I've found most swords, crypts and val plants do good. As long as you keep on top of your water changes, once a week or so, and trim plant leaves that are dying so that they don't rot in the tank to pollute the water, it is very doable to have a planted discus tank. If you do ever want to use salt, it will harm the plants, so you'll have to either remove the fish to a hospital tank, or remove the plants.

If it was my tank, I would use both powerheads. If the UG filter was designed with two uplift tubes,, I would use them to get equal flow across the tank, especially of the filter has two plates that sit next to one another or connect. If you think about it, if you have one uplift tube in one of the back corners, how much flow is it going to pull from the corner diagonally from it? I would want to get as much flow through the gravel as possible, otherwise it would be like in a canister or HOB filter that has water channeling and not going through the filter media the best.

I've never heard this about discus, and have used salt many times to treat them rather than medications. As for OP, feed them well, keep water quality good with water changes, and the torn fins should heal. The crooked fin could be something genetic or from being cramped in bag or whatever. If genetic, it will be like that forever, I have seen a few discus with crooked or missing ventral fins before, never a pectoral fin though.

You'll be fine. I've built and used stands for 40 breeders and 20 gallon tanks out of 1x4 many times and not had any issues. With the design you pictured above, there is plenty of vertical support. Most of my stand and racks only have one vertical support piece made of 2x4 in each corner.

I'll start off by saying I am in no way even close to understanding chemistry, I came so close to failing it in high school. Now, I wish I had paid more attention since I see how handy it would be in this hobby. But, when I lived in a house that was on a municipal water source that used chlorine in the water, I always used Prime or whatever brand of chlorine remover was available cheap at the LFS. One day, I was doing my water changes on my tanks, drained 50% of the water out of all my tanks, and went to start refilling them. I grabbed the bottle of dechlorinator and had that "Oh crap!" moment, when I realized it was pretty much empty and had forgot to get another bottle when I was at the LFS. I thought I would just put a little bit in each tank and had always heard that chlorine dispersed out with aeration and I figured between the little bit of dechlor and I held the nozzle of the hose up so it had a good amount of aeration and movement as it was going into the tank that I would be ok. I filled the tanks, and sat down to eat, went into the bedroom to feed the fish then, and found several of them dead or floating on their sides barely breathing. I chalked it up to not having enough dechlorinator in, as I had done everything the same as I had always done. Was it because of that? I have no idea. Could it have been something else? Very well could have been, but its a strange coincidence that I never had it happen before, but it did when I didn't have enough dechlor solution to put in the tanks. So, for me, I have seen firsthand that they work by doing something to the water. I have never felt that they remove chlorine, but it does something chemically to detoxify it. Like I said, I am not a chemist, so I couldn't even hazard a guess as to what happens. Thankfully, I live in a house now that has a well, and do not chlorinate it, so I don't have to use Prime or anything else.

I've bought many different brands and they are all pretty much the same unless you buy a schedule 80 bulkhead, which are heavier and thicker, so need a bigger hole for same size as regular sch 40 bulkheads. I would recommend getting it with threads on at least the side that will be on the outside of the tank, so that if you need to change things its a lot easier than if they are glued on.

Depends up size of tank. If small, a nerite or two, if say 10 gallons or so, a group of corydoras,

Congratulations on getting them to spawn and have some babies! It's always exciting to finally get some babies to hatch and live after a few tries. Keep it up and keep us posted how it goes.