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MattyIce

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Everything posted by MattyIce

  1. MattyIce
    Accidentally cross threaded the bottom valve on my Ziss hatchery while putting back together after a clean, damaged the thread a little: Now it wants to use the cross thread when I screw it on the blender, I have to line it up almost perfect to screw it in correctly and if I unscrew it too far when straining brine shrimp it leaks out the bottom of the valve slightly. It still works but I’d like to buy a new one, I tried looking online but I did not have any luck. Does any one know where I can buy a replacement one?
  2. MattyIce
    With the dollar per gallon sale I picked up a 29 gallon last night and today I took it apart, cut the glass a bit, sanded it, and put it back together on its back to make a 28 gallon “lowboy”:
  3. MattyIce
    I started testing something like this a couple days ago, though I think a little more extreme than just mineralizing my dirt. Back in April I started my first attempt at a dirted tank. Heard about washing dirt before using it so I figured I’d try it with a little amount of dirt in a Tupperware container to see how it worked. It didn’t, I felt like I was wasting way too much dirt and ended using the dirt as is, wet it, capped it, and water changed till it ran clear. While out of laziness I left the Tupperware container outside, so it’s been sitting out there 6 or so months in sun and rain. I drained it and brought it in the other day, capped it, planted it, and have it under 12 hour high light no filter. Looking forward to seeing if I end up with an algae farm after a couple weeks or if I’ve kinda balanced those initial issues out by letting it run as an outdoor algae farm over summer: If this works, I’m probably going to run any future dirted tanks with a 1 - 2 month high light algae farm cycle before planting to balance the tank and with out it planted it should be super easy to remove the algae when I am ready to plant it.
  4. MattyIce
    Actually it’s a 37 gallon tuff stuff that I was using as a hospital tank at the time, had it up on cement blocks for easier water changes with a sponge filter in it. Eventually it became my first attempt at a dirtied tank. my water system is a bit complicated, I have a 17 ish foot deep well with around 100 tds almost entirely accounted for as KH and GH 1500 gallon Rain water Cistern with around 25 tds mostly accounted for in hardness (only collects from third floor, I believe the gutters are copper lined, but they are very old gutters, and any copper that is picked up does not cause any issues for plants snails or shrimp): I use a little giant pump that I can switch between the two pretty easily depending on what water I need or how low I am running on one or the other. I was able to get the hose into my room next to the ac, have it running along the ceiling to a 55 gallon drum with a 300 watt heater: in the drum I have a 600 GPH pump plumbed to a 20 foot length of python that reaches all my tanks. everything is on smart plugs, specifically smart plugs that are normally closed so I don’t flood when the power comes back on after an outage, so I can remotely turn them on with my phone or Alexa. Maybe a little organized in that I set up a tripod/camera and cleared a space for recording the unboxing but most of it was things I thought of on the spot, like actually showing the plants, the platforms for the plants, or removing the flaps on the box. Thank you though.
  5. MattyIce
  6. MattyIce
    Been testing different room temps in the effort to remove heaters from tanks, with the first test overnight room temp was around 72, last night it was closer to 75, which explains for the difference in the control form the prior test. Control lost 20ml and duckweed only lost 10ml Did not notice a temperature difference between the 2 like I did with the red root floaters. My guess is the duck weed is able to cover more exposed water surface than the red root floaters since they are smaller and fit together more tightly so there is reduced evaporation and also with it not having the insulation effect, the lower stored energy might be causing less evaporation. A good layer of duck weed can reduce evaporation by up to 50% and a good canopy of red root floaters can reduce evaporation by around 17% and insulate a tank well enough to bring its average temp up by almost a degree. Good to know.
  7. MattyIce
    All my fish like the pleco formula bug bites, I grind them up with a pepper grinder. I use one with 5 settings instead of one with a screw that needs to be tightened or loosened to change the coarseness of the grind, switching between settings is a lot easier than messing with the screw. With food going bad and the grinder not being air tight, I only put about 2 days worth of food in the pepper grinder at a time. Concerning mixing food, I also do a mix of tetra color granules, ez fry food, and bug bite color enhancer in a deli container, none of it really needs to be ground up, so there is no point in putting it in the grinder. Don't really use flake food, if I did though I'd probably put it in the deli container with the rest of the stuff that doesn't need to be ground up.
  8. MattyIce
    I use an aqueon 5 watt heater, but I keep my room at around 74 degrees.
  9. MattyIce
    Let it go for 26 hours, the control lost 12 ml and the one with floaters lost 10 ml. I also took temperatures through out, didn’t notice a difference when the light was on, but after turning it off, the one with floaters seemed to stay about 1 degree higher than the other. My guess is that the canopy of red root floaters worked almost like insulation baffles keeping it warmer while also reducing evaporation. I am retesting with duck weed against a control, to try and remove the insulation effect and see if I have similar numbers: I measured the 160 ml with the duck weed In, so I don’t have to remove it to measure the water tomorrow.
  10. MattyIce
    Don't you know, If you aren't feeding your fish new life spectrum you are killing them...or something like that. Now I gotta binge watch until I find that live stream, thanks...
  11. MattyIce
    I think it was a normal employee, apparently they had a problem with me getting tetra color granules. one of the brands recommended was new life spectrum, the other was Tropical.
  12. MattyIce
    20 gallon low boy
  13. MattyIce
    Critiquing my food and telling me what food I should get instead, extra points against you if you question why I am still buying the food I came to the store to buy, and bonus round if you act offended that I only want the smallest size available of the food you recommended.
  14. MattyIce
    I thought about the light thing, but then one tank would be lower temperature so in that situation with a heater making both tanks the same temp, I don't know if there would still be a difference. If it does help, my guess is it is because of reduced surface area. in the same way I would think water would evaporate faster in a bucket than in a jug, though I don't know if that would be any different either.
  15. MattyIce
    Now I’m wondering if floating plants also help with evaporation and in turn humidity at all, I feel like it should, but I’m not sure if there is science to back it up. 160 ml of water in each, no floaters in one, a canopy of red root floaters in the other. Gonna give it 24-48 hours depending on how fast they evaporate, and see which one has less water. I see some flaws where the plants could cause a change the amount of water in ways other than evaporation but I think it’s still worth doing.
  16. MattyIce
    2 that sit on the rim, 3 that clamp on the edge, and 12 hanging above. Only had fish jump from tanks they didn't want to be in, too small of tank, not cycled, other fish terrorizing. outside those conditions, Some fish might do a little glass surfing and go too far up, but with a rimmed tank they hit the rim and fall back it, so its only really an issue with rimless tanks. but even then, if the fish are happy fish they don't tend to glass surf. For humidity I use a dehumidifier. Also, I have floating plants in all my tanks, that probably helps a lot with the jumping,
  17. MattyIce
    They are an inconvenience when trying to do anything in the tank, from feeding to maintenance and I don't like cleaning them when they get covered in calcium and algae.
  18. MattyIce
    I am not sure what that would be, though unless you fish are eating less or seem to be getting a lot skinnier you probably don't have to worry about the Levamisole.
  19. MattyIce
    No Problem. If you are sure it is parasites, I would also recommend buying some Levamisole if you don't already have some, if the metroplex doesn't seem to be working, I would switch to something like levamisole. If you order it online through somewhere like SelectAquatics, it can take a little while to arrive, maybe up to a week, that is why I recommend getting some now so you have sooner if you need it.
  20. MattyIce
    I checked the abstract on the study on salvinia, probably not going to pay 36 for the full study, but from the abstract it seems to imply that Salvinia mostly uses Ammonia for its metabolic processes, and that it suffers with just nitrates and no ammonia. Nitrogen nutrition of Salvinia natans: Effects of inorganic nitrogen form on growth, morphology, nitrate reductase activity and uptake kinetics of ammonium and nitrate - ScienceDirect WWW.SCIENCEDIRECT.COM In this study we assessed the growth, morphological responses, and N uptake kinetics of Salvinia natans when supplied with nitrogen as NO3−, NH4+, or … "Plants supplied with only NO3− had lower growth rates (0.17 ± 0.01 g g−1 d−1), shorter roots, smaller leaves with less chlorophyll than plants supplied with NH4+ alone or in combination with NO3− (RGR = 0.28 ± 0.01 g g−1 d−1). Ammonium was the preferred form of N taken up. The maximal rate of NH4+ uptake (Vmax) was 6–14 times higher than the maximal uptake rate of NO3− and the minimum concentration for uptake (Cmin) was lower for NH4+ than for NO3−." also reading some of the comments from the forum link provided, a person commented on biologic turning ammonia into nitrates before salvinia has a chance to use it causing their nitrates to run high. Now I kind of want to experiment with Salvinia while cycling a tank, with a crashing tank, and with no filter tanks.
  21. MattyIce
    I would not try to feed fish Paraclense. Paraclense is metronidazole and praziquantel, Prozi pro is just praziquantel. Seachem makes Metroplex, which is metronidazole, where in the instructions, it explains how to add it to food and recommends using it with Seachem focus. so you could treat the whole tank with the prozi pro (praziquantel) while feeding them Metroplex (metronidazole). At around 13 mins John talks about how he prepares food with metroplex:
  22. MattyIce
    I would define seasoned as how well it maintains parameters and self sustains life. I believe it was initially concerning caradina shrimp, in that its not just a cycled tank, you need a seasoned tank to keep them alive. Like if you throw 20 blue bolts into a tank, feed them with a weekly nano banquet block, and have them breeding in a month, you were probably working with a seasoned tank or you are really really good. Perhaps a test where you empty any fish from the tank, put 10-20 fry in it, and see how many you can get to sellable size with out feeding them. How many survive out of how many you put in would be the seasoned tank rating. Feels a little cruel towards the fry though.
  23. MattyIce
    When I first got my betta I didn't realize they needed warmer water, kept her in a community tank that was around 75. she was terrorizing some of the fish so I moved her to a spare tank that I was keeping at room temp. around 72, but dropping to 68 at night. After moving her, she just sat still, never really swam unless there was food and after about a week she started to get Ich. I added a 15 watt heater bringing the temp to 74 - 78ish, and she became active again with the ich going away with out needing to do anything. Now I try to keep her at 74 or above. With the 15 watt heater during the colder months, if that gets stuck on, its not going much higher than mid 80's. I switch to a 7 watt during the summer, which is about the same way, where on a really hot day it might get to 83 degrees, so im not worried too much about the heater.
  24. MattyIce
    14 gallon rimless cube. Brazilian pennywort and Ludwiga have grown out through the glass top and with the help of a wolf spider taken it over:
  25. MattyIce
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