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Daniel

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Everything posted by Daniel

  1. Daniel
    I confess, it is true... I don't: do any cycling on a new aquarium and I put fish in moments after the water goes in to the new aquarium have a quarantine aquarium or think about quarantining new fish rinse my baby brine shrimp Probably the first 2 are much more serious sins than the 3rd one. I think I get away with the first one because all my tanks are dirty and I use a lot of hornwort. I think I get away with second one because most new fish go into their own (uncycled) new aquarium (or maybe it is just luck and I just haven't run out the string yet). I pretty sure @Dean’s Fishroom would give me demerits for the 3rd one, but it is my lazy way of providing trace elements to my fish 🙂.
  2. Daniel
    The reason I mentioned hornwort above was I thought I read somewhere that it was used in some wastewater treatments @KBOzzie59 can check me on this. But after reading @Jessica. and @MattyIce post's above I went poking around on Google and found this paper: Responses of bacterial community structure and denitrifying bacteria in biofilm to submerged macrophytes and nitrate WWW.NCBI.NLM.NIH.GOV Submerged macrophytes play important roles in constructed wetlands and natural water bodies, as these organisms remove nutrients and provide... After spending 3 minutes speed reading it, I think one of its conclusions is although most denitrification is thought to occur under anaerobic conditions, plants (aquatic macrophytes in the paper's lingo) can provide a large surface area for attached biofilm (epiphytic microbes in their lingo) thereby providing a 'pathway for the biological modulation of nitrogen'. Yay! That's what we want. The density of the Nitraspina, Nitrospinacacae, and Nitrospria bacteria (the famous beneficial bacteria) was much greater on the surface of plant leaves than either gravel or plastic (I didn't know that, I thought all surface area was the same, apparently plants enter into a beneficial relationship with bacteria and help provide the oxygen and organic carbon the bacteria needs) . Obviously plants with greater surface area to leaf ratios like hornwort or Eleoacharis (hair grass) will provide greater opportunities for biofilm. Duckweed roots get a brief mention. Almost none of the bacteria could be cultured but was detected through DNA analysis. In summary, one of the reason hornwort is so good is that hornwort has a lot of surface area for the beneficial bacteria to grow on. And not just any old surface area but plant leaf surface area, the bestest kinda of surface area if you are a beneficial bacteria.
  3. Daniel
    Yeah, I did not even have a chance on that one 😊
  4. Daniel
    I am pretty sure the 's' in BDBS is sand, what is the BDB 🙂. I have had to look up what LFS, OP, AFAIK, and a whole bunch of other acronyms as this is my first forum. It is fun learning all these neologisms, and sussing them out is like reading license plates.
  5. Daniel
    I thought about a database. It would be easy to create a form just the way you want it. If you are data oriented I think a database would be the way to go. If you do this, I would love to see the fields you used and what sort of relationships if any you created.
  6. Daniel
    I always want newly hatched shrimp for every feeding so I start a new batch every 12 hours. I don't hatch a lot in any one batch. As soon as the next batch comes online, I dump the old one and set it up as the new batch. I would do this even if I only had one tank. Brine shrimp are very inexpensive in both time any money so why not have the highest quality baby brine shrimp possible.
  7. Daniel
    I just put it on the list.
  8. Daniel
    I have been tracking by tank. But @clovenpine notice that I haven't updated this thread in a long, long time? It is because I am still terrible about writing things down. I take photos with my phone nearly every day and these photos are the only real record I have. But these photos are only part of the picture. I am not sure why record keeping is so painful for me. It reminds me of dieting and exercise. I know I would be better off if I did it, but I am very lax in the execution. August 20, 2020 was my last entry. Your post here is a nudge to get back on it. If I don't keep daily records on my 'Honey, I Dirted the Tank' thread, then I will be a doo-doo head! PS, the @Bill Smith Trello solution works really well for me for planning, but just like paper records Trello needs care and feeding also.
  9. Daniel
    I think you are right about being attracted to light. The interior of hornet nests and beehives are dark so the exit is usually in the direction of the bright light. Honey bees and hornets definitely get thirsty and both collect water to bring the water back to their homes to supply the water needs of the colony. But once inside your house I doubt they had any water collecting on their minds. They are probably just looking for an exit hence the attraction to light or the rim of a well lit aquarium. Beekeeping and fish keeping are very similar. We keep both in boxes. And in both hobbies novices don't know anything, and the experts know even less. 🙂
  10. Daniel
    I am just sitting here staring at the jar of soil in the dirted tank and thinking about soil depth and what I might do. My goal is to have about 2" of substrate in each tank, but that is not set in stone. @Streetwise what is your thinking on 1.5" soil, 0.5" sand, 1.0" fine gravel? It looks like - plenty of soil and then some sand to keep to soil from soiling the tank and then some gravel to hold the plants down? @NanoFishTanks's thinking seemed to run along these lines.
  11. Daniel
    My plan was to discuss this with you all and then place an order from the Co-Op. Since this is essentially a root feeding experiment I am thinking swords big and small, Vallisnera, and Sagittaria. But some stem plants too, Bacopa, Scarlet temple, etc. It will be hard to resist the temptation to throw in some hornwort in because I have always used that as a nitrogen sink, but unless I prune daily, it will block the light. Based on what the Co-Op has in stock, help me with the shopping list.
  12. Daniel
    I have had 3 over the years. They work great, but I never end up using them. I can't really see one for aquarium work.
  13. Daniel
    I had neon tetras that ate some of my angelfish, but the neons were about 1" long and the angelfish were just fry.
  14. Daniel
    I would love to see a photo of this!
  15. Daniel
  16. Daniel
    This is a form of old school 'pipetting by mouth' but I have piece of flexible tubing attached to a piece rigid tubing. I suck up a bevy of baby brine from the ripest looking cone and I either give a tank the whole shebang, or dribble it as needed as I go from tank to tank.
  17. Daniel
    Baby corys! So cool.
  18. Daniel
    Doh! How did I miss @Streetwise the master of mulm, the nabob of nano!
  19. Daniel
    I love hornwort, so your tank looks good to me 🙂, but that sword plant probably wishes there wasn't quite so much hornwort blocking its light. Anubias are less picky about the light. I bet that amount of hornwort just about handles all your biological filtration needs. Hornwort loves nitrates. It sounds like your fish are happy, so in theory you don't have to make any changes or upgrades. But in practice you are ready to try new stuff and up for new challenges. I suffer from chronic multi-tank syndrome (MTS) and usually when I get the itch, I will just add new tank (or even 3). I am big fan of sponges filter over cannisters but that is just me, others prefer cannister filters and would be better to advise on this. I would wait on the CO2 as though it can definitely be helpful on the margins, most plant growing success is due to good lighting and not too much and not too little nutrients. I wouldn't add any new fish and I would space any changes out over time and see what the result of a change is before making the next one.
  20. Daniel
    Pioneers in dirting their tanks include, @ange, @Jessica., @varanidguy, @ChefConfit, @Shade, @regis, @SmallPekka, @Brandy, @Seized, @Nataku, @NanoFishTanks, @Lynze, @David Ellsworth, @FriendlyLoach, @Sunny Doan, @dublicious, @Byron and @Cosmas.OS. Who did I miss? With their guidance, what could possibly go wrong?
  21. Daniel
    I think it would be fun to start 3 similar aquariums at the same time, but try 3 different strategies for the substrate and fertilizer. First a Walstad type dirted substrate - in this case dirt from my yard Second, CaribSea's Eco-Complete And third, a 'normal' tank with CaribSea's Peace Rive substrate supplemented with Aquarium Co-Op's Easy Root Tabs and Easy Green liquid fertilizer. For this experiment (okay, this is definitely not an experiment as I do not have a hypothesis, any controls, or replicants) I will use three 40 gallon breeder aquariums that will likely have sponge filters, heaters, and Finnex lights. It should take me about a week or two to gather all the resources for this experiment (again, definitely not an experiment as my N on each tank will be 1, but my fun quotient ought to be greater than 1 because this will also be an attempt to setup 3 aquariums that are some more than green water fry tanks or mulm factories).
  22. Daniel
    Those 9th grade science teachers rule the world! Back in 1974 like @Ryo Watanabe my 9th biology teacher also had what I am guessing was a 75 gallon MetaFrame aquarium sitting on her lab bench/desk/dais. This thing was a community tank full of plants and fish. I remember guppies and big neon tetras. The teacher and I were not on good terms (totally me being a young troll) but she had a profound effect on the course of my life. Not only did she set the hook on a lifelong quest to keep a planted aquarium, when it came time to pick major in college the answer was...biology. If she only knew.... Looking back, I wonder how she did it. What plants, what lights, did she fertilize, what filter? What ever it was it worked beautifully and was stable.
  23. Daniel
    Pretty much exactly what you said will set it back. Some manual rinsing, some water changes and then keep your fingers crossed. I am mostly the only one who looks at my aquariums so they don't have to look very pretty so I keep a fair amount of biofilm and mulm in my aquariums instead of sponge filters as they handle the biological filtration chores that a sponge filter does. Adding more quickly growing plants (hornwort is my favorite) will also discourage it from coming back as the plants feed off the some of the same nutrients. If you make a lot of changes at once, be prepared for unexpected results, meaning be deliberate as you tackle the problem. To many changes on the same day can knock your system off kilter.
  24. Daniel
    I too have an aquarium that I loathe having to mess with anything on the bottom of the tank. The aquarium is 36 inches deep and the top is 7 1/2 feet above the floor level. I have gone years between reaching as far the substrate. But if I have dropped something in the tank and I really have to fish it out I use tweezers, big ones.
  25. Daniel
    On the photo part of your question, if you have a photo on the device you are posting from Either drag or paste or select your photo using the link in the red circle.
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