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Daniel

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Posts posted by Daniel

    1930s historically accurate planted aquarium

    in Photos, Videos & Journals

    Posted

    Temperature in the tank is probably about 70 – 71°F, it feels cool to my hand. The growth on the Vallisneria has been fantastic (after months of not doing anything). All the growth on the Vallisnera is just due to being near a south facing window. There was another thread on the forum talking about how nice sunlight looks in an aquarium, and I have to agree it's my favorite. I haven't done anything at all for algae control including even cleaning the glass. The tank still looks pretty good though.

    image.png.62777126a9307f16feec0fe9e626bcaf.png

    I cut back on feeding, just some mosquito larva a couple of times a week, and they have cut back on breeding. But I'm thinking when fall comes, I may stop running the air conditioner and let the tank warm up a little bit, and start giving them some black worms. It would be nice to see a tankful of baby angelfish.

    • Like 7
    • Love 4

    Fish recommendations

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    On 8/7/2021 at 3:22 PM, Stephen Zawacki said:

    Ok so I need to find out the answer I have already done the borelli I would like to do the cacatoides what I need to know is can they live their life happily and healthy and grow to full size in a 10 cube.  It is heavily planted I have a twistar s series light and the caves already. It would be species only. Also I always check parameters and change water.  Can someone please answer 

     

    Thankyou

    What numbers did you get when you last checked your water parameters? That might be helpful in answering your Apistogramma cacatuoides question.

    Flashing

    in Diseases

    Posted

    I agree with @HH Morant , flashing could be so many things. I see every once in a while with my fish, but I don't apply any treatments because I don't know what I am treating. Eventually the flashing goes away.

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1

    Is ambient light too low?

    in Plants, Algae, and Fertilizers

    Posted

    Ambient light is probably too low for most plants.

    Here is a tank I have at room temperature but it gets sunlight through a window. Vallisneria grows well in this tank.

    image.png.1cf02a8db6106cc40a906d4816f310

    Here is another room temperature tank that has pygmy sunfish and shrimp in it. It is in a north facing room and not near the window. It only gets ambient light north light. Hornwort and anacharis/elodea (and duckweed) grow, but very slowly.

    image.png.3b0333411ce552dcc859c9cf23893ebe.png

    I agree with @Expectorating_Aubergine that dwarf Saggitaria would be a good plant to try also.

     

    • Like 2

    Needed new product

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    On 8/2/2021 at 5:12 PM, Jason A. said:

    I've tried taking organic lettuce and putting it in a half gallon jar then pouring boiling water over it filling halfway then letting it fully cool and next day filling rest with tank Water and even some plant trimmings, and set it by the window but with second and third time that I tried I had used a lamp to give some extra light did that with my tank water twice and then 3rd time I got tank water from my local fish store and ended all same, stuff decayed and water turned brown and I got b.... talked to by the wife

    Put dirt/ditch soil/grass clippings in a 5 gallon bucket in bright sunlight for a couple weeks and if that doesn't turn green, I'll give you your money back. 🙂

    Or put excess aquarium plant fertilizer in a 10 gallon aquarium with something like a Fluval 3.0 running 18 hours a day and if that doesn't give you green water....

    • Like 1

    Funny feeding behavior

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    On 8/2/2021 at 4:45 PM, ThomasLC said:

    So I have a Dicus Community tank with a couple gold nugget plecos.  So I try and provide food for the Plecos with Algae wafers.  Well it seems the Angles, the rainbows and the dicus all enjoy nibbling on the wafers.  Not sure if this is 'normal' or not My Dicus are not full adults yet.

    Seems normal. My discus love live foods like blackworms and mosquito larva the best, but they will also eat prepared fishfoods, vegetable matter, and detritus too. They are really fairly omnivorous.

    Needed new product

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    In a nutshell, search for the tag 'green water' on this forum. Read what to do to get rid of it, and then do the complete opposite and you will have infusoria out the yin yang.

    One of the frequent problems encountered on the forum is what do about 'green water'. The cool thing about the 'green water' is that it is really just a microscopic free floating algae bloom that serves as the food for paramecium and rotifers, i.e. infusoria.

    Here is what green water looks like under the microscope.

    The standard solutions for getting rid of green water are to cut back on light and remove the source of the excess fertilizer from the tank.

    You can see where I am going with this. Excess light and a source of nitrogen are the recipe to produce a lot of infusoria in a short amount of time. The usual formula is a lettuce leaf in a jar placed in sunlight and left until the water is cloudy. But what I use is an overly well lit aquarium with soil for substrate. Sort of a Walstad gone wild type setup. These things turn green in a heart beat and will stay that way for months.

    Dirt plus sunlight in an aquarium equals green water, it is almost mathematical. Here is what my 1930s tank (in front of a south facing window) looked like for a few months after I put an inch of dirt in as substrate.

    IMG_2832.JPG.b41be9c0ff61fc4277d1de6198a

    In the meantime, I used that green water, which also had paramecium and rotifers in it to feed fry, like baby sparkling gouramis.

     It is a paradox that the people who don't want green water can't get rid it, while others can't seem to make it happen. 🙂

     

     

    • Like 2
    • Love 1

    What's your dream aquarium product that doesn’t exist?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    On 8/2/2021 at 2:47 PM, CT_ said:

    For those who want underwater cameras, whats the advantage vs putting the camera out side of the tank.  I've gotten good results spying on my fish using a camera looking in from the side.

    Reflections and glare in a nutshell.

    That is a good question. I keep honeybees and tropical fish in glass boxes in my home. With my honeybees, I have used a camera to stream video from the outside of the glass observation hive looking in out to YouTube. But some of the biggest obstacles to overcome when videoing through a pane of glass are reflections and glare bouncing off the glass and ruining the shot. Even polarized lens only help marginally. It still takes a long time to properly setup a quality shot for the observation hive.

    I have used a wireless underwater camera to stream video from inside some of my aquariums. There was no glare and no reflections, but the video quality of the camera and the bandwidth of the wireless stream was marginal at best, really not good enough. In the end videoing from the outside, using the same reflection minimization techniques I use with the honeybee observation hive yielded the best results.

    So in the end I agree with you @CT_, a camera on the outside still yields the highest quality results.

    • Like 2
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