AdamTill

If you search for “siesta” I think it’s been talked about a few times. My personal experience is that it doesn’t really help with algae, but can be nice if you want to see the tank before and after work.

Heartily recommend the Eheim Everyday feeder. Not only does it work well but it’s sort of subdued and classy rather than being colourful and distracting like some. There are Chinese knockoffs as well that work, but are a huge step down in quality from the name brand version.

Thanks! I always keep track privately but it’s fun to do it publicly as well. I had hoped to make more progress by now but I have my first day at Shopify tomorrow so that’s been bogarting a good chunk of time (pretty excited though).

Haven’t had a ton of time to work on the tank, and I was a little concerned after two of the 1-2 grow tubs I bought rotted, so I went ahead and planted up the tank. Not going to have time to do things all at once, so this will be my first experiment with dry starting. I got my CO2 equipment all sorted and have a 10lb tank downstairs ready to go, so as soon as I have a chance to move everyone over from the old tank I shoukd be able to start CO2 at the same time.

Stocking levels will have a huge impact on whether things are appropriate. I’ve had two mature goldfish that required 90% weekly and 10% daily changes to keep water levels appropriate in 75 gallons (defined as no ammonia, nitrite, <40 nitrate) As for a notion of filters, yes, they’re basically just a means of circulating and aerating water combined with room for beneficial bacteria. Notice that any tub Cory sets up at least has a sponge filter to help move water around though, so we’re at least missing the circulation part. A stock tank has a lot of area. Any area that’s exposed by water level is out though, and nobody I know adds gravel to the bottom of their trough for the fish. Add in the fact that a trough can heat up fairly warm in the summer and ground water will likely be 30+F different during fills and you don’t have a particularly stable environment. In the end though, how long the fish live will be the real determiner of whether I need to reevaluate my thoughts on these setups.

No worries @Daniel, I’m not going to scrap over anything here. I just deal with this a fair amount in the horse world and never thought I’d see it on a fish forum being advocated. People can handle their animals however they want, but filters of some form seem like a low bar to expect. It’s not like we’re talking Japanese ranchu keepers carefully monitoring their stock in filterless ponds, we’re talking using live fish to prevent mosquitos without really providing for their needs (which can be done pretty easily many other ways). 7000 gals and 150 gals are way different, after all. If people are keeping 10+ year old goldfish I’ll tip my hat and be quiet, but most people I know are buying fish yearly or every few years. Says a lot for fish that can live decades. As a horse owner I wouldn’t want then because it makes tank cleaning a pain. Properly scrubbing down troughs prevents vet calls, and having to catch and house fish to properly empty and scrub troughs seems like way more work than needed. I’ve also run microscopy on too many goldfish to want the parasites they typically carry anywhere near my horses. The probably wouldn’t transfer across species, but I also doubt people are deworming etc their trough fish. At the bare min, consider using smaller fish with far less waste production. They might not be quite as hardy in all temps is all. To each their own though, I have no other thoughts on the matter.

When was the last time you checked the water quality? What did it read?

Goldfish etc in horse troughs is common, but without a filter is not something that’s very kind. Far more appropriate is just to keep them clean with elbow grease

First question is what is your water starting at? We have hard water here and even 9” of peat substrate doesn’t make much of a dent.

Not sure if it’s been mentioned but just about all these framed tanks are made by the same company nowadays (same parent co). So there’s no meaningful difference between Aqueon and Marineland etc. Are they perfect? No. But the cost difference between perfect and this is substantial (look at ADA type prices). If they were a time bomb they wouldn’t keep selling them. Ive seen the pictures people take of tanks hanging off the edge of old IKEA furniture etc and I’m not surprised of some of the failures.

Looks like a male, and so they won’t be nearly as heavy bodied. Just don’t want sunken in

It’s common to see otos that look like this. I’m not sure it’s a good sign (or bad one, for that matter), but it’s not a sign of imminent death either.

Measure the degassed pH of your tank when the least possible CO2 is in the water, then measure the pH when the CO2 level is highest. A difference of 1 unit of pH is equal to 30ppm. Don’t stress too much about this being a hard toxicity level though, because people often run a bit higher with shrimp. Just don’t go crazy, have some aeration or water movement (high 02 makes higher CO2 slightly safer), and you’ll be okay.

A bit of Equilibrium or even baking soda in your change water will also solve the problem if you don’t mind dosing.

On the extreme end of helping, we’ve sprung for swim bladder aspiration surgery. It was hundreds of dollars expensive, but helped for a couple of years until the fish passed. Was only because my wife was incredibly attached to the fish in particular. Xrays showed it only had one swim bladder, which was part of why it was so tough to regulate buoyancy. Otherwise, humane euthanasia is a responsible choice (we used clove oil when needed). The stupid life jackets and wheelchairs are fish abuse as far as I’m concerned (they all die from contact sores).

No worries! Crushed calcium as a slow release source or Equilibrium dosed with each water change to get to 3dKH is a normal safe level. You might be fine if you don’t stock heavily, but it doesn’t hurt to have some buffer.

It probably doesn’t matter. It’s worth getting a KH test kit because that affects pH, but otherwise most people won’t be able to do much with the other info

I always do a water change myself, but I haven’t found any source that says you have to. When I was treating goldfish for gill flukes I was using a triple strength dose, so there’s room for double dosing with most fish

This is an interesting experiment to follow https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/33-plants/876457-so-called-heavy-root-feeders-fact-fiction.html

Can you? Yes. Would I trust those little filters with the lives of my aquatic animals? No. People do rig carbon block etc filters inline with the supply water to pull out chlorine and avoid needing dechlor, but they tend to be much bigger and more robust than the little fridge filters. You could always get a low range chlorine test kit to check

Been slowly plugging away as time and baby allow. Got most of the filter plumbing in place. Just have to pick up some more pipe clamps, and paint the cross rails to match the stand. I chose to mount 1” ball valves on the pvc rather than using the plastic ones that came with the FX5. All the tubing is 1”. The intake line has my home made intake strainer on it, and the output is just long enough to be downstream of the intake. I’ll see how much current the filter alone creates, but there’s lots of room to add additional pumps still. The intake grates are coming along. I tried a few things, and right now settled on stainless steel sewn to plastic egg crate. It’s not a perfect dimensional fit, but good enough for a prototype. I lust after the 3D printed ones I’ve seen in videos though.

Should be okay. Your challenge is just going to be having the coral keep up with the water changes goldfish require. Lots of people keep them in softer water though. Worst case, pick up some Equilibrium to dose the water with

True, though I’ve never had med trio and/or wormer affect my plants

Looks like a great start! Not going to lie though, the seran wrap and cords or something in the background of the first picture gave me a mini heart attack. I thought you’d smashed the glass and repaired it with silicone until I clued in lol. Is it a river look only or are you going high flow too?

Personal opinion maybe, but you should AT LEAST deworm otos. They spend their lives with their noses in every nook and cranny of every holding tank they come in, so the odds of them not sucking up every last parasite the other fish that have lived in there have pooped out is slim. My last round of cocama were fine with Prazipro, and I got all four through a month with no issues. Think they got med trio’ed too because we could still get those here at the time. My last round of vitattus I got 17 of 19 through a month in a new uncycled bare bottom tank by feeding judiciously and changing water as appropriate. Both got three rounds of prazi, which is about the only med I can still get up here.