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dasaltemelosguy

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Everything posted by dasaltemelosguy

  1. dasaltemelosguy
    I love these meetings. I try to never miss one (but the time zones can be problematic). The last two saw fishes we keep in their natural environments, and they found some incredible variations on fishes we keep that may literally have never been seen before. It's always fascinating and enlightening, I wouldn't miss it.
  2. dasaltemelosguy
    I've never done anything for very long. I was a quantum physicist for Rutgers University, then a chemist for a NJ hospital system, then I taught Philosophy and Comparative Religion at Seton Hall...briefly, then I became an electronics circuit designer of biofeedback and medical equipment for Bausch and Lomb. But I was seduced by music and musicians which led me to design electronics for high fidelity reproduction which found favor in the music industry so vicariously, I was 'in the music business' except that I have no talent whatsoever. But I knew a lot of people with LOTS of talent, so I like to think that made up for my insufficiencies! Eventually we formed a small company around the designs for high end audio amplification and loudspeakers which I design circuitry for to this day.
  3. dasaltemelosguy
    I'm not sure if this will work on your stand but I have a 120G on a standard big box store stand (I forget which one) that we enclosed and refinished and it's in an area where the floor is suspended several feet above the rest of the house (weird, I know). That said, over time, it's so uneven I had the same issue, 3 legs touched, 3 floated (I have the 4 corners with feet + two in the center). I add these or some equivalent to my tanks for this reason. 4 Pack Heavy Duty Leveling Feet, (4000 Lb Capacity) I know it sounds precarious but, on several occasions, I've lifted on end of the full 120g tank with a jack from my car about an inch or 2, adjusted these feet until level and just lowered it back down. I wouldn't recommend the latter to everyone as it's scary to watch a 2000lbs aquarium lift off the ground, I've done it several times on a 75g and a 125g (long) as our floor settled, and it still makes me nervous, but it has always worked for me. (We once had to move a FULL 125G long to another room and naturally preferred to not move the fish and break it down, so we rented a lift table from Home Depot and removed 1/2 the water. It picked up the entire tank and stand and we just wheeled it over to the other room and refilled it-hardly troubling the fish. Honestly, it's scary to see at first but they do have rentable gear for duties this heavy and more.) Since yours is empty these feet can make it work and they're for any weight. But your stand may require something different as the one above seems best for the classic wooden aquarium stand but there's many to choose from for the metal stands or any form imaginable. Just make sure you have the weight capacity covered. Heavy Duty Leg Levelers I added two for center support. Not sure if this is of any value for your purposes but I thought I'd mention it in case it's an option for you. I hope you get it back as your tank was gorgeous! Good luck.
  4. dasaltemelosguy
    I think this is it?
  5. dasaltemelosguy
    No problem @Wrencher_Scott. Those bulbs are rated for 5000 hours of a germicidal level of radiation, but most will do double that. What I think is important is the life in hours, the wattage and if available, the radiation output in Joules which should be between 16uJ-33uJ. The reason fluorescing from a 2' distance in free air will tell you its working is that UV loses 75% of its power every time you double the distance from the bulb. If you equate that to the power it has just cm's close to the water, it's actually twice the level of UV required to kill bacteria. But I do understand that you'd like a bit more precision than making detergent glow in the dark! To that end, they make these really cool UV test strips. You simply hold it 1" from the UV bulb and it changes color ONLY if there's a germicidal level of UV radiation present. They are cheap and you may buy them in bulk and verify your UV light has bacteria killing UV output as often as you wish: UV Test Strip-1 This is another one with more graduations: UV Test Strip-Meter Here's a short video of someone using the UVC test strip above with a portable UV sterilizer: This is a good chart to show how long it takes to kill various pathogens. "Shielding", the UV industry's term for shadows blocking UV light is one cause of imperfect sterilization. But what's most apparent here is that UV would require more time than flowing water would allow to kill eggs, so they pass right through anyway. I don't know the UVC output of the GKM but if it really kills algae in real time, it's pretty powerful as if you look at the chart, algae are by far the most difficult to negate via UV! I hope this helps. Good luck.
  6. dasaltemelosguy
    In truth, the reason is actually scientific but not the way I phrased it! But I try to make things approachable for people who might not have test instruments. That said, the UVC required to kill organisms within 4cc in water is far less than then UV required to travel in 2' of air and still generate fluorescence. Also, a UV flashlight is probably UVB, not UVC and UVB does not sterilize but it can still excite enough for fluorescence. Basically, it's a blacklight. I wouldn't do it if you're uncomfortable with it either. But you can easily see the degree of disinfection under a microscope but only with UVC. If you're interested in the mathematics that support it, just DM me so we don't bore everyone!
  7. dasaltemelosguy
    I agree, I use Prime too! But you actually can test the UV bulb easily. For a 9w-13w UV bulb, open the light so the bulb is exposed and get ready to turn it on. Block it from your eyes! Now put a teaspoon of Tide or antifreeze about 2' from the bulb in a dark room. If it fluoresces visibly at that distance or greater, the bulb has full output. If it has enough UV energy to fluoresce from 2' away, that is indicative that the UVC content is 100% for the short distance water passing through it would see.
  8. dasaltemelosguy
    You're right about that. Running a typical UV sterilizer will break down the chloramine within hours. The chlorine is gone in about an hour by the same method. There's a small chart on the time required for this here:
  9. dasaltemelosguy
    Hi, if you have a jewelry cleaner of any size or power, fill the tub with peroxide and run it for 5-15 minutes. The airstone will be like it's new. The ultrasound drives the peroxide into the stone, loosening the organics, and then it's forced back out by the ultrasound. It takes forever in plain water but in peroxide, it's a 15-minute session. It's very effective but if you leave it for too long, it'll dissolve the airstone! So given the variations in jewelry cleaners and their power, I'd check on the stone say, every 5 minutes to make sure it's not starting to dissolve. I have some of those 12" long air stones that inevitably clog at the far end. A dip of the bad end in this for a few minutes' evens out the flow. It works even better if you fill the tub with alcohol. But 91% alcohol is flammable, so I'd stay at 70% or less for this. With alcohol as the solution, it's VERY fast so watch the stone doesn't dissolve. With my 19-watt jewelry cleaner, it takes 15 minutes to completely renew an airstone in peroxide and 5 minutes (or less) in alcohol. Given ultrasound can ignite flammable fluids, I can wait for the peroxide!
  10. dasaltemelosguy
    That's 100% correct. You can also degass the chloramine if you have a UV light though. It takes a few hours, but it'll break down the chloramine completely with enough time. Bad Gas
  11. dasaltemelosguy
    I truly hate this most dark corner of this hobby. I once had a tank-wide camallanus infection that once under control, had caused severe internal damage in most of the fish. I was faced with almost daily euthanizations of large, adult fishes I raised from fry (and I'm still not over it!). At first, I used clove oil and yes it works but there's an initial, strong distress period for the fish until it 'kicks in' which is upsetting. If you go very slowly, it's less severe but it's always present. I tried this stuff below and it's wonderful. Literally the ONLY reaction is when you put the fish in it, he just gets slower and slower and tips over. No visible distress at all. A loathsome topic but if you must deal with it, IMO, this is the drug of choice. Just my 2C: KOI Sedate
  12. dasaltemelosguy
    Thanks all. I'm so glad you like them. We're testing electronic plant cleaning techniques now and we've been breeding these guys for over a month and wow did they put on a show! I'll post any interesting ones as they emerge. I haven't looked into this kind of stuff for years, but I was truly surprised by how inexpensive a USB microscope is nowadays: USB Scope 1600X Here are links to what we have so far: Drop Drama 1 Drop Drama 2 Drop Drama 3 The first one you've seen already. The second one is wild. I started the camera a little late but if you watch the first few seconds, a hydra stings a live aphid with eggs and begins to consume him. A couple of worms, and I have no idea what they are, then move in and start on the aphid eggs and the hydra tries to sting them but they seem immune to it. Nor can the hydra seem to penetrate the eggs. Their eggs are so perfectly symmetrical, they look like rubber washers. The third one is a high magnification of an aphid egg. At 2000X, high enough to see bacteria, this tiny egg has something moving in the cratered embryo and as the light passes through it, it looks like lunar event! Scale truly does create phenomena. There's a lot going on in a drop of water! It's another world down there. Thanks for looking everyone.
  13. dasaltemelosguy
    Three Hydra in a Drop of Water Found these guys on the tank glass and shot this footage under a 100X scope. An incredibly pretty dance.
  14. dasaltemelosguy
    I find these to be very effective if you can't create an actual vacuum: Oxygen-Absorber-Packets These will slowly remove all of the oxygen in the container and replace it with relatively inert nitrogen. If you need moisture as opposed to oxygen removed, these of course are better: Desiccant-Packets I save these from every bottle of whatever it is that has one as they really help with mold. I pop one in a zip-lock bag with vegetables, and they definitely can be stored for a longer period. Unfortunately, they can't be used together as the moisture packets negate the oxygen packets!
  15. dasaltemelosguy
    That's beautiful! I'm going to do the same now that I've seen yours. If I can get it to 'grow in circles on the ceiling', that would solve the entire issue. Really? That's fantastic. I'd love to see these spread out, especially that high up. It's gorgeous. Thanks so much!
  16. dasaltemelosguy
    Hi, yes, it's just a simple rig to degass peroxide and pump it into the tank. I drew it up one morning after reading someone poisoned their tank adding peroxide directly to the water boost O2 which can be tricky. I merely quantified the output for a predictable O2 level using commonly available parts. But the really cool part is the study done where the labs found a huge improvement in medicative efficacy when treating sick fishes with while keeping the tanks hyper oxidated. Links to both are here: LOW/O2
  17. dasaltemelosguy
    At first, when the stalks were shorter and thinner, I just didn't cut one end of the plastic in a quadrant, and it held them in place like a spring: They soon outgrew that idea! But Nylon hardware and Tie-Wraps worked really well and are very inexpensive: Ace Hardware, Lowes, HD, they all have lots of this hardware in stock. BTW @dmurray407 mounted his in a stunningly beautiful array. But I forgot to ask how he mounted them!
  18. dasaltemelosguy
    Thank you! I didn't know how they 'trained' them. That's a lot easier than a skylight!
  19. dasaltemelosguy
    @OnlyGenusCaps, that's a brilliant idea. The entire delivery system is already in place, just swap out the gas!
  20. dasaltemelosguy
    @Torrey. That's an incredible reduction in such a short period. Thanks for telling me as I'd like to continue to test aquatic plants for nitrate and ammonia consumption as we were testing only emergent's at the time. I'd like to try to expand the database, so I think floaters are a good place to start. It makes a great deal of sense in that being floaters, they would naturally see stronger light than submerged as a whole and that would bias them towards nitrate uptake vs ammonia uptake as the submerged plants are biased towards in large measure. But 5PPM? Wow. Over time I ran into two issues with the emergent's. I had pothos, lucky bamboo, monstera, peace lilies and anthurium. It added lots of color and cool looking roots. But I can't find any plants so far that the pothos and bamboo don't outcompete! After repeatedly killing all the monstera, lilies and anthuriums, I gave up and pothos and bamboo own the tanks now! (Perhaps illustrating their nutritional preferences, the emergent's don't seem to affect the aquatic plants in the tanks). My 2nd issue is the bamboo is getting much less lucky. I had to move a ceiling fan, but it still wasn't satisfied. It's now less than 6" from the ceiling! I think we're going to try to train it to spread laterally...or install a skylight! Thank you for the kind words. I'm so glad some people are finding some of the piece's worth reading. I hope you're feeling better.
  21. dasaltemelosguy
    @Guppysnail those are great observations. The more I read those studies, the more upside potential there seems to be. And yes, you're right. Virtually all of the studies cite immunity improvement. An odd one surfaced too. There was literally a study done on using hyper oxidation for medication overdoses. In particular, they were trying to revive inverts that suffered through a Levamisole treatment. In fact, they cited hyper oxidation as the only treatment for this particular med OD. As I read more of them, I noticed the only cited downside being a form of acidosis but in fish, the O2 rises in concert with the CO2 so they don't suffer adverse effects and it immediately returns to normal once the supplemental O2 is ceased. So, it seems pretty safe. I think your fin rot observation may be spot on. I'm literally going to try that on my oscar as he has minor rot and perhaps, I can avoid meds altogether. Thank you for the ideas!
  22. dasaltemelosguy
    Great information! It looks like its limitations are as you suspected. Best for euthanasia. Thanks so much.
  23. dasaltemelosguy
    Thanks. That makes a lot of sense. I'm no fan of clove oil either if there's an alternative available. This stuff is very peaceful in effect, but the ED/LD is that tight? Scary stuff!
  24. dasaltemelosguy
    @Odd Duck, I was wondering what you think of this drug? Koi Sedate Prior to finding this I used clove oil to euthanize but I hate the discomfort the fish seem to be in during the process if you misjudge and go too quickly. I find this stuff a blessing. And it is easily available online. I've dropped a fish in it, and they show no signs of discomfort and just tip over, completely unconscious it seems. On one rainbow with camallanus, I was able to pull the clogged worms out and he was fine after he awoke. If it's to euthanize, a double dose and they effortlessly expire. In my very limited experience, it's the gentlest anesthetic I've tried by far. But my entire experience in this most dark side of the hobby is only with clove oil and this drug so I was wondering what you think of this drug compared to other options? Well, we should!
  25. dasaltemelosguy
    @Patrick_G and @Fish Folk, you're both correct. A Focacciaphile worth his salt will travel any distance to try what he's never had. @OnlyGenusCaps, The Pizza Effect is really interesting! I would expect no less from you! That certainly occurs in so many instances, but I never knew it had a name. Well, as long as we're talking science definitions: Focacciaphilia is the obsession with finding great pizza at all costs. Focacciaddiction is condition afflicting anyone who would write what I just wrote. Focacciaphobia is the fear that you live with a Focacciaphile. Fogettaboutit is when your spouse demands you stop talking about pizza. Focacciafiling is when you didn't stop, and you get divorce papers in the mail. Focacciafat is the weight you gain when you cook nothing but pizza because you live alone because you ate nothing but pizza. Source: 🍺🍕
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