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Daniel

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Everything posted by Daniel

  1. Daniel
    I just found this video on an old hard-drive. I shot it on New Years Day 2011. It is over an hour long so I cut it down to about 3 1/2 minutes before posting it (and even that could probably be cut in half again, I know my attention span is about 1 minute).
  2. Daniel
    At the time of the video there were 3 pairs (6 adults). The adults were just babies when I got them and had grown up in the tank back when it was a discus tank. Eventually I ended up the 3 pairs (you can see other adults near the end of the video). One pair had a territory on one end, one pair had a territory in the middle, and one pair had a territory on the other end. Sometimes all 3 pairs would be breeding simultaneously which was quite tumultuous.
  3. Daniel
    500 gallons or 8 feet by 3 feet by 3 feet.
  4. Daniel
    I created a YouTube account so I could post videos there. After the video is up on YouTube I paste the link from YouTube in to my post here on the forum, and it just embeds itself in the post.
  5. Daniel
    🙂 I think that is blue-green algae pearling! It's funny, aquariums that are just a little bit shabby, some dead plant leaves, a little blue green algae make some the finest aquariums for breeding. And plenty of aggression in this tank too. Notice how ripped up the female's caudal fin is? In a natural state this is what it looks like, everything isn't perfect. But the system as a whole functions better because of the imperfections. Some of the Amazon sword plants are sending out runners with baby swords, some are flowering. The Bolivian rams in this tank are breeding and so are the Corydoras, and baby angels from previous spawns are growing up in the tank they where hatched in. Admittedly, only 1 out of 100 baby angels grow to adulthood in this tank but boy are they strong and healthy and alert!
  6. Daniel
    There have been several recent threads about breeding angelfish in a community aquarium. I want to show that although this is possible to do this, you get lots of attrition of the fry, or even the eggs (watch for juvenile angels stealing eggs about midway through the video). The spawning pair keep swimming over to the edge of their territory to protect their border from other adult angels in the tank and that's when the young angels sneak in! My son Walker and his fellow composer Richie Varnadore wrote and performed the music in the video. I said 'give me something fishy sounding', and this is what they gave back to me.
  7. Daniel
    North Carolina
  8. Daniel
    It looks like it would have gone at least 2 hours but likely not have made it to the 3rd hour. I could have shutdown the computer and switched over to a laptop. And the 3 40 breeders in the bottom row didn't need to have lights on. If it were in danger of getting cold I have a wood stove that would keep the downstairs warm. If I whittled it down to just air pumps needing power, I bet I could keep the USB nano air pumps going for quite a long time.
  9. Daniel
    Experiment over, power came back on. Result of this trial was - it will run at least 1 hour. And the 1930s tank of course didn't miss a beat. 🙂 I just checked the available storage on the 2 UPS's APC Smart-UPS 2200 was at 68% APC Smart-UPS 3000 was at 61% Only 1 tank has a heater, 2 tanks have filters. So the the primary consumer of power was the computer.
  10. Daniel
    I hope you’re not right, Duke Power says they think the power will be back on in about 5 hrs. I got $1 on the UPS’s lasting six hours. I might as well be optimistic right?
  11. Daniel
    Here is a experiment that I didn't intend to run today. My power just went out. My entire fishroom is on couple of large(ish) uninterruptible power supplies (UPS). One is an APC Smart-UPS 2200 and one is an APC Smart-UPS 3000. I have always wondered how long will they keep the whole room running during an outage? You can see all the equipment plus my computer are still up and running as of now. But for how long?
  12. Daniel
    The three substrates for this project will be: CaribSea's EcoComplete Planted CaribSea's Super Naturals Peace River and Rio Grande mix Garden dirt capped by U.S. Minerals' Black Diamond Blasting Sand The Black Diamond Blasting Sand seems to be one of the most popular black sand type substrates used in aquariums. With tax the 50 lb bag that I purchased from my local Tractor Supply was $10.66 which certainly made it popular with me. The front of the bag indicates it is 'Coal slag'. Not being sure was exactly this was I looked it up on the U.S. Minerals website's FAQ and got this description: What is coal slag? This stuff is boiler slag, which is a recycled product from coal burning plants. When coal is “fired” at over 2500 degrees it melts and produces a by-product called slag. When the slag is cooled through a process called vitrification, it crystallizes, forming sharp, angular granules in a variety of sizes. We reclaim this slag and put it through several screen processes to remove dust and unburnt coal, and then size the remaining crystals into five different “grit” categories. There was also a Safety Data Sheet which listed its composition: I thought to myself, is this stuff safe? But it was almost like U.S. Minerals read my mind because one of the next FAQs was: Is it safe? You’re darn right it is. It’s a recycled product, for starters—and it meets drinking water standards. Black Diamond Granules have been tested and not linked to any disease, including Silicosis. That’s because Black Diamond Granules contain less than 0.1% free silica and are low dusting and chemically inert. And if you’re worried about berylium, don’t sweat it. While our slag does contain trace amounts, an independent lab says we’d need to have 1,000 times more before we’d have to report. So rest easy. Fortunately, I learned, I don't have to sweat the berylium! I think they meant beryllium.
  13. Daniel
    In the wild hardly 1 in a 100 angelfish fry might survive. Every breeding is a shot in the dark. We don’t know yet what the future holds and if you learn and then we learn, then that’s not nothing.
  14. Daniel
    Harvested the daily Daphnia out of the summer tub.
  15. Daniel
    I do not plan on sterilizing the dirt. I take a lot risks (or perhaps my fish do) but I think dirt is low risk, especially if it hasn't been part of an aquatic environment. I plan on digging the dirt (ancient compost) from my asparagus bed that I set up about 5 years ago with compost I made previously. So I know there are no unknown chemicals in the dirt. I made the compost from old plants cleared from the garden and kitchen waste. If the unsterilized dirt produces something weird, that will interesting in and of itself.
  16. Daniel
    I love an experiment!
  17. Daniel
    It does not help at all with evaporation. Water evaporates at pretty much at the same rate plants or not. So no.
  18. Daniel
    I hate opening lids! I am always putting food in multiple times a day, sometimes with bbs in a siphon tube in one hand and a handful of wiggling live blackworms in the other hand. Like @MattyIce I have a lot of floating plants that keeps the jumping down a little bit. I do not run dehumidifiers in my house. Even though I have lids for the 500 gallon aquarium in the living room, I last used them in 2007, so that horse left the humidity barn for me 13 years.
  19. Daniel
    An Inductively Coupled Plasma mass spectrometry test is pretty cheap and fairly accurate these days. This test is $30 and will test for 40+ elements in your water. I have used it and thought it was reasonably priced 1-Pack ICP Water Analysis Test - CoralVue - Bulk Reef Supply WWW.BULKREEFSUPPLY.COM Included in the tests are pH, GH, and KH too.
  20. Daniel
    I don't know, but I love the title of the post. 🙂
  21. Daniel
    I will try and get some Black Diamond Blasting Sand (BDBS) from the local Tractor Supply. Also I ordered: Dwarf Sagittaria Ammannia Gracilis Bacopa Caroliniana Jungle Vallisneria Red Melon Sword Red Flame Sword Cryptocoryne Lucens Cryptocoryne Wendtii Cryptocoryne Lutea Staurogyne repens Baby Tears That should be a good start.
  22. Daniel
    Yes! @clovenpine you found it! I wanted to be that boy, and I am.
  23. Daniel
    There often aren't right answers, there is just the answer relayed by someone saying what has worked for them. In another thread I listed all the 'wrong' things I do. But for me they aren't wrong, they actually work really well. But I would never suggest to a new aquarist not to cycle a tank or not quarantine their fish. One way not to get confused is not to listen to all the opinions. For example, if you wanted to learn how to keep discus you would find on this forum that @Jessica. has really nice discus tanks and has the pictures to show the results of what she does. I would follow her methods and her advice and maybe filter out competing advice. @Jessica. also posts links to where she looks to for discus information, which is really helpful. So if there is a certain kind of aquarium you want to keep, find someone experienced here on the forum and follow what they do. It will cut out a lot of the static.
  24. Daniel
    Here is my shopping list from the Co-op for plants Dwarf Sagittaria Ammannia Gracilis Bacopa Caroliniana Jungle Vallisneria Red Melon Sword Red Flame Sword I will order today and get some Amazon sword later. What am I missing?
  25. Daniel
    I think the light stocking part is important. There are enough beneficial bacteria on the plants to handle all the nitrogen cycle needs and then as the needs grow over time, so does the size of the beneficial bacteria population. I have two more confessions: I (almost) never put a top cover on an aquarium My acclimation process is instantaneous plop and drop, bag water and all
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