Will Billy

I agree with @Steph’s Fish and Plants. Disposable filter media is exactly that, trash. Sorta like a disposable cup from your favorite fast food burger chain. You use the cup for what its worth for all of about 10-25 minutes and then you throw it away. Reusable filter media is like having a yeti cup. After you use it, you clean it and then use it again. 1 yeti cup cost more than a 50 pack of solo cups, but im pretty sure you will get more than 50 uses from your yeti cup.

Awe! Look at the cute little fat plumpers. Such wonderful color patterns. I am quite envious and wish my wife would let me start a goldfish tank. Im glad they got their meds and fingers crossed for everyone. Thank you for the pics, as i can only live vicariously through them, until i can convince my wife we need another tank lol.

Yes, to clarify, since the box filters and sponge filter rely on an air pump to engage the filtration, the fourth bucket or control bucket will have a simple airstone (Ziss brand never clog airstone as i have extra of these and will be using one with the sponge filter). This is to ensure that all parameters in all 4 buckets are equal. I will primarily be testing nitrate levels as i proceed with the experiment, but will be testing other parameters as well to conclude if other parameters are affected by the filtration, thus skewing the experiment in favor of filtered water, to non filtered water. PH, GH, and KH i am presuming would affect the outcome of the experiment. Water temperature is also a key issue that will be maintained with heaters as water temperature can increase or decrease bacterial metabolism. All 4 buckets will have identical heaters and thermometers to maintain precise temperatures for metabolic consistency.

Unfortunately duckweed is super invasive. It gets everywhere, every time you stick your hand in the tank, duckweed all up and down your arm. Tank maintenance, duckweed. Filter maintenance, duckweed. Feed the fish, duckweed. Anything going in and out of the tank for any reason, duckweed. From someone who thought this little floating plant was cute, might i suggest #1 giant duckweed. Yes there is a giant variety of this plant that is much easier to deal with than standard duckweed. It does all the same stuff the standard duckweed does, just easier to manage in the giant variety. #2 Salvinia, is quite similar in size and appearance to giant duckweed. Other good floaters are Amazon frogbit (which i cant get in Tennessee), Water lettuce, Water Hyacinth, and Red root floaters. All of which i have tried and recommend (with exception of frogbit) to standard duckweed. All of this coming from a guy who loves pest snails, but cant stand pest duckweed.

Oh no! My mystery snail had a low speed collision with 1 of my bladder snails, and ran him over! Im tempted to pluck my mystery snail off the glass and save the little guy. What should i do?

Follow up. i have ordered another box filter. I will be setting up an experiment to not only test the box filter capability, but the Seachem De*nitrate bio media in an attempt to see if i can boost nitrate removal through beneficial bacteria. My hopes is that as a final result, although i do not expect 100% nitrate removal, i hope that a concerted effort on 2 fronts #1 being plants, and #2 being denitrifying bacteria ( both anoxic, and anaerobic bacterias) this could potentially reduce water changes, and or water change volume. I will be setting up 4, 5 gallon buckets. All with the exact same tank water for equal water parameters. 1 bucket as a control with no filter, 1 with a medium sponge filter (similar in size to box filter being used), 1 with a box filter, and 1 with an optimized box filter using De*Nitrate material. The experiment will take quite a bit of time, as nitrifying bacteria only takes 2 weeks to cultivate, and denitrifying bacteria can take from 6 weeks to 4 months to develop depending on oxygen conditions. Im expecting early results in about 6 months, with continued monitoring up to a year.

I can see where they are going with this idea. In nature adult trees utilize a symbiotic relationship with mycelia to pass nutrients to saplings, that grow under the canopy of the adult tree unable to get as much light from the sun. An interesting side note to that is scientist are astonished that the adult trees know to send nutrients only to trees of the same species, and steal nutrients from different species, all without a brain to detect its surroundings, and make decisions about nutrient flow. As for the aquarium hobby though, im not sure the benefits, and possible consequences of such a product. I’m assuming the best method would be to mix it in with aqua soil, at tank setup stage. It might be possible to add to an established tank, much like adding new soil to a tank. Again as you noted i cant seem to find much info on this product either, and Amazon has 1 review. I think if it were me I would test it out on an experimental tank first. Will it cloud your water for a while? Can it spike ammonia like Osmocote? Will the fungus stay put or will it try to take over a dead piece of drift wood? Quite a few questions I have, i cant answer from 1 Amazon review. The theory is there, i would just like to see the evidence.

Here is the last configuration. I removed the inner baskets which allowed more room for pumice stone, and i used some ceramic rings at the very bottom.

So i took the plunge and bought a box filter to try out. I watched a few videos on how to optimize them, and came up with my own solution(s). The first picture of the box is sorta how it came. The lift tube only goes down to the bottom of the first set of sponges. The water is pulled in from grates on the lid, and corner holes at the bottom. I replaced all the gravel it came with, with Seachem De*nitrate. If i understand correctly De*nitrate is the same material as Seachem Matrix media (mostly pumice stone) just smaller pieces. My theory in the second photo is to sandwich the De*nitrate stone between the sponge material to keep the biomaterial as far away from the oxygenated water as possible in an attempt to create an anoxic, or anaerobic zone for denitrifying bacteria. The third photo shows all the sponge material jammed into the top piece where the air from the air pump creates suction and oxygenation for aerobic bacteria. And all the biomaterial in the bottom half which is technically more exposed to oxygenated water through the holes at the bottom, but in theory should have much slower water flow. Anybody have any thoughts, ideas, or opinions as to the best method of optimizing for anoxic and, or anaerobic bacteria to assist plants in nitrate removal from water column? P.S. if you think the third picture might be best, i can remove the internal boxes and be able to cram even more pumice stone into the lower section, potentially adding a bit more bio material in the attempt for creating anoxic, or anaerobic bacteria.

How high is you PH and GH? As long as it isnt crazy of the charts high, they should be fine. Over time fish can acclimate to your PH. Wild PH swings chasing it around up and down before they can acclimate to it is usually the biggest stress on fish. Much more so than a stable PH, be it stable high or stable low. Stability and consistency is the key.

My first memory was my dad getting a 10 gallon tank and some gold fish. I remember digging up earthworms in the back yard with him, and my mom fussing at him for cutting the earthworms up on her good cutting board lol. Eventually my brother took over the tank, and added these things called filters and airstones, and a heater. My fondest memory was when my brother saved up enough money to buy his own 20 gallon tank, and the old hand me down 10 gallon finally got passed down to me. I was so excited to finally have my very own tank. My brother taught me everything i knew about aquariums at that time. I kept that tank for about 8-9 years. Fast forward 25 years or so later and here i am now with my 55 gallon tank.

A trick i used with my sponge filter just to take the edge off from continued tannin release, was i dropped a few pieces of activated carbon into the center slotted tube of the sponge, just below the airstone. I didnt want to use purigen as it is too aggressive and would remove most of my tannins. The activated carbon was just right. I only used it for about a month and now i run my sponge filters with no carbon. Eventually with water changes & time the tannins become less and less and now i find myself adding cholla wood and catapa leaves trying to get my tannins back lol.

Man, those are some great tips. I wished i had seen that video before one of my mystery snails got too adventurous. We lost one in a very unpleasant way when he fell from the top of the tank to the hard floor. My 4 year old daughter was so heart broken, we had to have a service in the back yard with a small headstone made from a left over paver stone. (The most excruciating thing for a pet owner is burying your beloved pet, never thought in a million years i would be burying a snail. Prime example of how little daughters hold their dads emotionally hostage. You just cant say no to that sad face.)

That sounds like a great start Oliver. Keep up the passion and enthusiasm. I look forward to your blog. You have my full interest and support in your endeavor.

I have never had a sump, but did much research on them. Sort of paraphrasing @OceanTruth, they do have overflow boxes that use a continuous syphon system to pull the water out as your sump pump pushes it back in. Again, not from experience, but just from simple research you have to #1 match sump pump flow to syphon flow, and #2 if your syphon loses pressure, or breaks syphon seal so to speak, there is potential for flood disaster. There are ways to mitigate this including adding a float valve that detects water levels and shuts off pump in the event something goes wrong. In my research of sump systems the most fail proof method i found was a top water skim method that still involves drilling a bulkhead in your tank. Maybe someone with actual experience can better help you out, thats just been what i have researched from other peoples experience. If you do go sump system, i have heard great reviews on the seamless sump system. @Cory had a cool video of a DIY sump system that flows sideways, instead of down. I found the video very interesting and informative. Here is a link to that cool little project.

I did a bit of digging on the internet, and found a few things i would like to share here. First off a big round of applause to @Oliver T. A quick google search of marimo moss ball conservation produced a large number of results, however this thread on our forum is the top result! Congratulations Oliver, you did it. This thread is the #1 result. i did find an article about Taipei Zoo is contributing to the conservation of our round algae friends. Here is a link to that article. https://www.travel.taipei/en/news/details/21942 I think Taipei Zoo would be a great resource for you to get more information from regarding conservational efforts. Here is another article from Oxford University that goes into more detail about the decline of wild marimo moss balls. https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/60/3/187/256937 Apparently they not only grow in Japan, but also they are native to Scandinavian waters as well, or at least they used to be. Not looking so great for wild European variants right now. Keep up the great work Oliver, and keep us posted on what you find out. I am very interested in this topic.

Ooooh! I am googling it now.

I commend you @Oliver T, for your noble cause. I know the aquarium hobby has saved around 30 species of fish from extinction in the wild due to habitat loss, and an ever growing number on the endangered list. I’m not sure if there are any specific funds or conservation efforts for wild marimo moss balls, i will have to look into that. One of the best ways to bring about conservation efforts is to do what you just did. Start a conversation about them, share pictures and information on them, and get people interested in the wonderful marimo moss ball. Highlight the benefits of a macro algae, that can live for over 100 years. Did you know you cut them open and spread them out for use in unique aquascaping methods. Yep, they dont have to be kept as a ball. I tip my hat to you @Oliver T. I too love them, and until i read your post was unaware of their decline in nature. You have peaked my curiosity, and now im off to learn more about our rolly polly algae friends. Thank you for that.

I wish i had before and after pictures of the back of my tank before i discovered bladder snails. I only clean the front glass for viewing my fish, and never clean the back or sides to keep diatoms and algae for my cleaning crew to have extra snacks. At one point you couldn't see my background picture. Then i had a bladder snail explosion, and now you can see my background again after only a few weeks. Since then my bladder snail population has tapered off and you can still see my background. To me they are amazing little critters, and had i not discovered them i would be missing out. My next snail i want to try is ramshorn snails.

I agree with @Toobit67 they do need a bit of elbow room. Mine came like that from my LFS store too. Bunched up they look great at first, but overtime they are competing with each other for light. Once competition becomes involved you have winners and losers. About an inch to an inch and a half and everyone wins.

Bacopa is one of my favorite stem plants. They are not fussy at all. They are one of the slower growing stem plants, so they wont get out of control unless you forget to look at your tank for like a month. Easy to plant, easy to propagate, easy to keep healthy, and looks nice to boot. I dont know why people dont talk about this plant more, ive not found anything about it i dont like.

Yea it does. My original goal with it was to optimize the hob filter, but still polish my water with minimum tannin removal. This setup achieved what i was looking for. It does remove tannins but bot that much.

One of my favorites, that i just seem to have bad luck with is pygmy hatchet fish. I love watching those shiny fat bellies dart around the water surface. It’s never any consistent issue with them, i just have had multiple cascading problems over and over. A couple to very bad ich cases, 1 to a hob intake (why i love pre filters so much), 2 of them to stress from a bad tank mate ( a white skirt tetra, go figure), a few mystery deaths.

API puts out a product called ammo lock. It doesnt remove ammonia but temporarily binds to it making it harmless for about 24 hours as i recall. Thus giving your bacteria a “safer” window of time to start working on the ammonia in converting it to nitrite and then nitrate. Im sure there are better ways to go about it, thats just what i have used before. It should be noted that ammonia tests will still register the temporarily bound ammonia as it is still ammonia, just bound into a state that shouldnt harm your fish.

There are a few ways to do this. First if you are set on a hob filter, you can optimize it. First i am a big fan of sponge pre filters on the intake. Not only does it add a bit more mechanical filtration that also prolongs the life of your hob motor, it boosts bio filtration of your bacteria, and reduces your motors ban width ever so slightly, and furthermore doesn't suck up tiny fry and the like. Aside from optimizing your cartridge compartment, you can place a cut in half pre filter sponge on the out take, or a suction cup soap dish with drain holes in it underneath the out take to displace the water flow across the surface rather than its usual undertow. if you are looking for other types of filters then yes, sponge filters are a biological filter powerhouse. They may lack in mechanical filtration compared to a hob, but it has always been my experience that a gravel vac is your primary mechanical filtration even with an hob system. You will always have to gravel vac at some point and perform water changes. Thats the primary reason why simple, cheap, reusable, easy maintenance of a sponge filter is taking over the filtration world by storm lol. I am currently awaiting for a delivery of some box filters, to test out their mechanical filtration properties as they have similar flow to a sponge filter and are generally more geared towards mechanical filtration. I will post results on that soon. Somebody else might chime in on this old school technology, but until i can test it out first hand, i can neither recommend nor discourage this method as of right now.