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Daniel

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Everything posted by Daniel

  1. Daniel
    @MAC I am going with Xiphophorus hellerii on the wild type green swordtails. Very pretty fish! How about eggs? I found these a few minutes ago in the 1930s Historically Accurate Planted Aquarium: I think it is @Aubrey's turn to stump us. Or anyone else for that matter.
  2. Daniel
    @Aubrey Yes! That’s what I think it is.
  3. Daniel
    @Streetwise has suggested themed daily photo threads so I thought I would start it off with the top-view of the 1930s Historically Accurate Planted Aquarium. It is nearly ready to roll. As you can tell it gets a lot of direct sunlight.
  4. Daniel
    The one above I think is a juvenile of this adult. The adult coloration is more intense. This what is it looked like the moment I caught it. Notice the wild caught hornwort too. The fish were hiding in the hornwort.
  5. Daniel
    I don't believe so, but the reason I hedge is I haven't ID'd it yet. It is not Elassoma sp.
  6. Daniel
    @Taylor Blake I got this one last week. What could it be?
  7. Daniel
    Dwarf chain loach?
  8. Daniel
    Probably 1 medium size one. Think about what the filter actually does. It moves water and is a home for bacteria. If I have large high input/output (dirty) fish, I might need to up the filtration some. But, if I have mostly plants and invertebrates, the bio-load on the tank will be fairly light. Why throw on filtration that isn't really serving a purpose?
  9. Daniel
    In a heavily planted 75 gallon tank what is the proper amount of filtration needed? For the biological filtration the plants and the gravel will provide all the surface area and more for the beneficial bacteria that convert nitrogen. A sponge filter could serve 2 purposes. It would provide additional substrate for the beneficial bacteria to live on and it could trap some particulate matter. And the bubbling and the water flow provided by the sponge filter are good all around. That's probably all you need for filtration in a 75 gallon shrimp tank.
  10. Daniel
    @ange Is your order an interesting mix of Aquarium Co-Op items, including maybe a towel?
  11. Daniel
    You can really see the progress!
  12. Daniel
    I frequently put leaves from the woods in my tanks. I prefer oak, beech, hickory, but some even have a bit of pine straw, stay away from black walnut, but everything else is probably either good or harmless. The fish and shrimp both seem to love it. The shrimp eat it and the fish hide in it. Snails like it too. With fish With shrimp With snails
  13. Daniel
    See through (not a) discus tank! Looks fabulous, what an asset.
  14. Daniel
    White is alright. I like the brightness of it.
  15. Daniel
    The Funky tanks look like an apartment complex. Any second thoughts on pulling the trigger and adding even more tanks to your fishroom?
  16. Daniel
    @Sliceofnature had some success with Hillstream loach fry. I wonder what he did?
  17. Daniel
    I just moved some juvenile angelfish in to a different tank and I noticed they were lethargic. I put my fingers in the aquarium and it felt too cool. I needed to add heat, but I don't have a spare heater controller. There is a work around to make heaters slightly less dangerous. Use a couple of heaters that are under powered in tandem. That way should one of them fail it would it take a long time for that one broken heater to heat the aquarium to fatal levels. This isn't a fool proof solution, it is merely an improvement on the single heater solution. Dual thermometers? Well lets just saying I am crowd sourcing the temperature measurement. Also just ordered a couple of Inkbird heater controllers to see what all the buzz is about and so I can lessen the chance of boiling my baby angelfish.
  18. Daniel
    A good guide is that @Cory and @Dean’s Fishroom and other's who have years of experience have found the least expensive, most reliable solution is linear piston air pump designed for just for this purpose. An air compressor might work great and maybe it is only something like noise which limits their use, but if the air compressor guy @FrostiesFishes wouldn't use one, that would be good enough for me. What have you got in your 20 gallon tank?
  19. Daniel
    My general theory of life is leave things alone, although I am very inconsistent and violate this all the time. For me, if the pH is above 6 then I am okay. A better indicator than a test is plant and fish health. If they seem healthy, then they probably are and you shouldn't worry. Both routes have risks. Not paying attention as your aquarium deteriorates is risky, but often I see on this forum too much concern with an easy to measure number and the vicious cycle people get into trying to push those numbers around. You can lose track of the big picture. A couple of caveats, I do relatively frequent water changes using aged water, usually at least once a week, occasionally twice a week. Why? I like doing water changes, most people don't. Because the changes are frequent the new water is very similar to the old water so I may not be changing my water chemistry much (which is often the whole point of a water change, that is you are trying to improve your water chemistry), but the flip side of that is my water chemistry never changes very much which is also a good thing in its own right. Plants like it better when the pH is somewhere on either side of neutral, so if it goes down too low your plants may not grow as well. But since many of my plants like hornwort, bacopa, ludwigia, banana plants, etc. were wild collected in acidic, tea colored ditch water they don't care if the pH is a bit on the low end. All biology has way too many variables and what works for me, might not work for you. I am probably not aware of many of the things I do because they are just habits that have built up over the years. All in all there is a lot to be said for if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The key is to know when it is broken. Go with you gut on your aquarium, if what you have been doing has worked, keep doing that.
  20. Daniel
    Apistogramma nijsseni in non-breeding colors
  21. Daniel
    In a planted aquarium pH tends to drift down as organic acids build up over time. Water changes can bring the pH back up because this dilutes the organics acids. It doesn't sound like you are having any problem with your water chemistry. I assume your fish are healthy and you are otherwise happy with the tank. pH also varies over the course of the day, so it depends on when you measure it. As you can see from last week in one my aquariums the pH is lowest in the early morning everyday. This is because during nighttime photosynthesis runs in reverse and plants take in oxygen and give off carbon dioxide with the peak build up of CO2 being in the early morning thereby lowering the pH. Once the lights are on (or the sun is up in the case of the graph below) plants begin to photosynthesize and thus begin to consume carbon dioxide and release O2 again. As you can see below, my lowest pH occurs at 8 am in the morning and the highest pH occurs at 4 pm in the afternoon just like clockwork.
  22. Daniel
    North Carolina, the piedmont of region in central North Carolina.
  23. Daniel
    I have never seen a betta eat a decaying fish. I wonder if there is a connection between the high nitrates and the fatalities, meaning could the first fatality caused the high nitrates (death → ammonia → nitrate)?
  24. Daniel
    October is garlic planting time. Found this little red belly snake (Storeria occipitomaculata) while putting the cloves in. @Taylor Blake might know more about the ID if I am not right.
  25. Daniel
    As fair as I can tell the Ricefish out in my summer pool are not eating the baby ricefish or at least not many. There is plenty of other stuff in the pool for them to eat including Daphnia so maybe that's it, but I never see them look a baby ricefish. There are very few places for the baby ricefish to hide in my pool, so if you have floating plants, I bet those babies are safe in with the parents. My ricefish numbers are growing exponentially.
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