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Daniel

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Everything posted by Daniel

  1. Daniel
    @Streetwise, I keep coming back to this post. The image of Sam in a permanent stretch position as if he were hit by lightning bolt is haunting. Post mortem on the heater: Looks like it got really hot before it failed The stuff on the business end is brown which indicates it was cooked The stuff on the business is bubbly which also indicates high heat over time Could the heater have failed in the on position which led to breakage of the glass, instead of the breakage of the glass leading to the failure of the heater? I don't recall every being shocked by heater, and I think I would remember that, but if it happened in the 1970s it is possible those memories have had their file allocation table over-written if you know what I mean.🙂
  2. Daniel
    The reason the data is not quite proper is that I just plopped all the sensors in the aquariums as soon as they had water in them. The data could be fine for all I know. But I will feel better when all the probes and sensors are all calibrated at the same time and give the same readings if I put them all in the same beaker. The data could still be crap, but it will be very uniform crap. As for the stratification question my thinking was to put the airstone in the far back corner near the probes and put the dissolved oxygen sensor in the front corner diagonally across from the airstone. That way the airstone and the DO sensor are are far apart as you can get in a 10 gallon aquarium. Not sure if that is the right way to do it, it was just the first thing that came to mind. Amazon is now saying all the probe calibration solutions will be here tomorrow and despite previous experience I do believe the package will arrive tomorrow, the tracking just look right this time.
  3. Daniel
    Just like @Maggie I got mine from Marine Depot, unless I got it from Bulk Reef Supply.
  4. Daniel
    It is funny...I am just the opposite, less is better. I am an under-filtration sort of guy. If you hold a gun to my head, I will reluctantly put one filter in a aquarium.🙂 I just counted up by gallons 720 total gallons - no filters 270 total gallons - 5 sponge filters
  5. Daniel
    I usually keep what I call a 'Junk Tank'. I don't quarantine my fish, so maybe if I had a quarantine tank it would be the Junk Tank. These reason for a Junk Tank is have a place to dump things that need to stay wet. In mine I have: plants I never got around to planting spare snails extra mulm Apistogramma eggs I have a pair of Apistogramma nijsenni in a crowded 40 gallon breeder (with no filter and rare water changes for the 'how many filters do I need in X gallons crowd') that spawn relentlessly. Of course the fry don't make because they get eaten by the all the swordtails, zebra danios, sparking gouramis, and guppies. But on a whim I dropped the breeding coconut shell where mom always lays her eggs in the Junk Tank. Problem was I couldn't see them. I think I may have solved the problem with this thing, the 'Flipper', which is a magnifying glass with a double magnet on it. Here is what it looks like looking through the Flipper. I can now see the little red eggs.
  6. Daniel
    One reason to use USB nano air pumps is they your best friends during power outages. You can power them from any USB outlet and they draw very little power. Basically they are little tiny but valuable insurance policies when your power goes out priced at $9.99.
  7. Daniel
    There is a definite pattern emerging. The pattern is the Eco-Complete tank has the clearest water, but is the most sterile and also has the least plant grow. Today's plant is Vallisneria americana. In the Eco-Complete tank the V. americana is pale and thin: In the Dirted tank the V. americana is darker and wider: And in the Nerm tank with Root Tabs under the substrate, V. americana again nice green leaves: My guess based on these very few weeks so far is that because Eco-Complete is an inert substrate with no inherent nutrients, Eco-Complete is not providing food to the plant roots. But the upside of having no food is that the water is clearer as of now.
  8. Daniel
    I couldn't wait for Christmas! I just ordered Rosario LaCorte's book, an Aquarist's Journey, and it should be here by Wednesday.
  9. Daniel
    I give up. I confess that despite setting reminders on my Alexa, despite remaining in the room with any siphoning water, I am a total failure at preventing severe overflows and spills of water. Therefore instead of prevention, from now on it is all about remediation. Starting today, instead of putting laundry away, I have begun to steal towels and hide them in strategic locations around the fish room. No more will I yell, 'Towel! Towel, someone get me a towel!' From now on I will just calmly break out my stash and begin the mop up.
  10. Daniel
    Best acronym I have heard yet on this. Now if we can only get the Oxford English Dictionary to pick this up.
  11. Daniel
    Haven't seen that, very interesting. I wonder if it is developmental or a heritable trait?
  12. Daniel
    Make sure they get plenty of strong light. Don't worry about cycling, water changes or heat.
  13. Daniel
    I used to have some nice attractive green algae in this tank, but recently it is the unattractive brown diatomaceous kind.
  14. Daniel
    I don't know why I think this is funny...but they discovered it was the oldest known tropical reef fish after they had killed it. It reminds me of the graduate student from here at the University of North Carolina who cut down an ancient bristlecone pine named Prometheus only to discover it was 4850 years old, the oldest known tree ever.
  15. Daniel
    I put leaves in my aquariums just the way I find them. I don't remember Hazelnut (genus Corylus) having anything nasty in them so I would be happy to use them the way are now with no further processing.
  16. Daniel
    Here are my catagories: Tropical Fish play key role in plot movie: The Dragon Case (1934) Actual Male Bettas actually fighting movie: The Dragon Case (1934) Accurate description of mouth breeding African cichlids movie: The Dragon Case (1934) Best heist comedy: A Fish Called Wanda
  17. Daniel
    We had a house fire once, and when the fire fighters discovered my lab, I had a whole lot of explaining do. They thought is was a 'Breaking Bad' type situation but eventually understood that I just enjoy running chemistry and biology experiments.
  18. Daniel
    Yes, on Amazon they go from $40 - $400 for a 5 mL one. I don't know if I would trust the $40 one, but who knows it might be great? Just look for "5ml pipette".
  19. Daniel
    It is called a manual pipette. I own several, a 2.5 microliter, a 20 micro liter, a 200 microliter and the one I use most with fish the 1000 microliter which does deliver exactly 1 mL of fluid every time (if it is properly calibrated). I think @Brandy uses stuff like this everyday. When I first started, we pipetted by mouth and sometime you would get chemicals in your mouth, so these sort of pipettes were a great advancement. I don't remember where I bought mine, probably pipette dot com or some such. Any laboratory supply house carries these.
  20. Daniel
    My router skills are not that good. I sketched out what I wanted in program Fusion 360 from Autodesk and then used a Haas Mini Mill to fabricate it. Here is part of the rendered drawing. That little inner lip you can see in the drawing is just enough to keep the test tubes from going any further down the hole. But by having the hole go all the way through I have left myself to option of lighting from below. The bottom groove could potentially hold the LED light strip if I go that route.
  21. Daniel
    Aquarium Co-Op doesn’t carry Black Diamond Blasting sand. I bought mine at the local Tractor Supply store.
  22. Daniel
    I agree with @TheDukeAnumber1. I have always been able to find Daphnia in just about every pond, ditch or creek that I have looked in, even in some heavily polluted ones. I found Daphnia growing in the ditch in front yard recently. And also in roadside ditches while plant collecting last month. This ditch had plenty of Daphnia in it. Also temporary pools of water in the woods have yielded, Daphnia, blood worms, glass worms, fairy shrimp and more. Even if there is no current water in the pool, like the Duke says, take some of the leaf litter from the bottom of the dried up pool and put that in water. Often there are Daphnia cyst that will hatch (just like brine shrimp) and boom, instant Daphnia.
  23. Daniel
    The majority of my aquariums do not have any filter at all except for plants (which are the real filters). If they are well planted I usually don't do much in the way of water changes. I agree with @gardenman that water changes could be beneficial when it come to trace elements, but who really knows about trace elements? I can't see any reason to do water changes on a successful tank like yours.
  24. Daniel
    Crypts have rhizomes, but propagate by runners (technically stolons) and seeds. Like this:
  25. Daniel
    Here is how it turned out. This is the 'sunlight' version. I am thinking of doing the @DaveSamsell 'light enhancer' version also. Holes for the tubes with a slot behind to hold the results card. More than a dozen tube holding holes so I can compare at least 3 tests simultaneously. Indirect light probably gives the best results. But sunlight is the prettiest.
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