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Daniel

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Everything posted by Daniel

  1. Daniel
    I have rice fish and cherry shrimp outside now. I see the rice fish daily, but almost never see the cherry shrimp. I plan to let both stay outside all winter. My cherry shrimp overwinter for me here in North Carolina even though on the coldest days there is ice on the pond.
  2. Daniel
    I can't reliably make green water every time I want to, but here's what usually works for me. Aged water like from an aquarium Weeds, dried will give green water, fresh still green weeds will give mosquito larva. Exact choice of organic matter not critical. Fertilizer, can be artificial but natural works too. The green water fish tank I have has lots of hungry swordtails that poop a lot. Somehow being outside works better. I am not sure why. Maybe sunlight is stronger, or stuff just blows in on the wind?
  3. Daniel
    Do you ever find an old photo and say to yourself, I don't remember this. The photo is from Christmas of 2009. Everything looks right about the big aquarium, I remember the runaway plant growth. But the 1930's fish tank is in the living room and has discus in it? Beats me!
  4. Daniel
    One the best ways to determine the tint of your water is to view the water against a white background. In the ramekin on the left is 1" of clear water and in the ramekin on the right is 1" of green water. The photo below is from the same green water source as in the photo above. Viewed through several inches of water you can see just how green it really is. I use this as my green water source for feeding my smallest fry. I never thought about measuring the water chemistry in the green water aquarium, but now you have got me thinking, so I might do that later today.
  5. Daniel
    And one final thing (hopefully). Imagine you are taking pH readings on your aquarium. If you only measured in the morning, you would think your pH was 6.6. If you only measured in the evening, you would think your pH was 8.2. And if you took a reading in the morning and another one in the afternoon (and didn't factor in photosynthesis), you would think your test kit was broken!
  6. Daniel
    @Streetwise You got me thinking about the heat aspect. One of things I noticed on the dissolved oxygen vs. pH vs. temperature graphs is that there is much more dissolved oxygen as the temperature rises and less dissolved oxygen as the temperature falls. This is the total opposite of what one would naively expect as cold water holds more oxygen than warmer water. Again, we have yet another fingerprint of photosynthesis and plant growth. I'd had not ever thought of looking at that way before we started having this discussion. Another day on the Forum and another thing I have learned.🙂
  7. Daniel
    @Streetwise and here is dissolved oxygen vs. pH for the same time period: I didn't put temp on this one because you can see it above in the 2 Sep through 9 Sep graph. It looks temp, pH and dissolved oxygen track in complete lockstep on the 1930's bare box of water in the sunlight.
  8. Daniel
    And @Streetwise another graph from a few days before.
  9. Daniel
    @Streetwise I found some data that is apples to apples. This data is from the 1930s aquarium. As you know this tank is a bare box of water with no heater, filters or lights other than sunlight (and lights in the house). The pH wasn't calibrated (but probably close to accurate) so don't read anything into the absolute numbers, but that doesn't matter, it is the trend we are looking for. What do you make of this data?
  10. Daniel
    Yes, sorry I got distracted by the runaway plant growth graph. I have a thing for shiny objects. At least in the 3 dirt project tanks the general trend was the pH went down at night for reasons we both agree are likely related to photosynthesis and CO2. My heaters are intentionally undersized and without additional lights the poor little 50 watt heater can only manage to get the 40 gallon aquarium heated to about 5° F over the 70° F we keep our home at. The net result is there is not any offset at all for me. As soon as the lights go on the temperature goes up. As soon as the lights go off, the temperature goes down with pH and temperature tracking with each other closely. It seems to similar to the fact that ice cream sales and drownings are closely correlated. Does eating ice cream cause drowning? It more likely that summertime is the cause as warm weather can lead to both swimming and eating ice cream. I did drop probes in the past into the 1930s aquarium and I will look for that data. Currently the 1930s aquarium is about 40 feet away from the Apex control board and I cannot put probes into it without pulling them from the dirt project tanks. I am putting the 1930s aquarium pH temp data on my to do list now.
  11. Daniel
    I had the best luck with nickel size or smaller discus when starting with discus.
  12. Daniel
    Typically to propagate banana plants you break off a leaf near the base of the leaf stem (petiole). Eventually if you are lucky, roots and then a new banana plant will grow from here.
  13. Daniel
    @Lizzie Block had a couple of very helpful posts showing how to upload a picture: And a video (upload to YouTube and then paste the link back into your post):
  14. Daniel
    @Streetwise While looking at your post above, I realized I could tell the story of what too much light looks like in numbers and pictures. I had been running two 36" Finnex Stingrays on each tank which is probably the correct number of lights. Then I unexpectedly ended up with a few more lights so I put a third Finnex Stingray on each. I thought it would be too much light. It was! First the numbers. Now the pictures. EcoComplete aquarium on November 6th: EcoComplete aquarium on November 9th: EcoComplete aquarium on November 11th: The story is precisely the same on the other 2 aquariums Nerm, and Dirt. If I were advising another aquarist, I would tell them to reduce the amount of light. 🙂
  15. Daniel
    This guy was a definite WTF the first time I saw him.
  16. Daniel
    No CO2. Each tank is a 40 breeder with a heater and sponge filter and same plants in same layout. The only thing that is different is the substrate. In my experience healthy fish in good water can take wild swings in temperature and pH and not bat an eye. When the pH was 8.2 they ate voraciously out of my hand and were perky. When the pH was 7.2 a half hour later they at voraciously and were perky. If I had dropped the pH to 6.8 it wouldn't have mattered to them. Was the pH measured correctly? All three probes were calibrated recently and give correct readings in 4.0 and 7.0 buffers. And the probe readings match the pH readings on Tetra strips and also the API liquid tests I do each afternoon. And if that wasn't enough I also have a Seneye in each tank and its readings also agree. The reason I am over-measuring is I am watching the evolution of these three tanks to see what the differences and similarities are on a day by day basis. It might not yield any results or it might.
  17. Daniel
    I think @Streetwise nailed it. It has the fingerprints of photosynthesis. I was just asked about this in another thread so I have labelled when the lights go on and off. When the lights come on the plants consume all the CO2 which causes the pH to rise. When lights go off the plants give off CO2, which causes the pH to drop.
  18. Daniel
    The 2 spikes are the pH beginning to rise in morning as the plants begin to photosynthesize and consume all the CO2. As the CO2 drops the pH spikes. When it is dark the plants give off CO2 and the pH drops. Then near noon today I did a water change and the pH drops dramatically. And on the EcoComplete tank, I had only completed about 80% of the water change when I had to go away for a couple hours, so the dropping stopped for a bit. I just got back, finished the water change and it dropped a little more as a result.
  19. Daniel
    If I am concerned about siphoning up small fish, I nestle the business end of the siphon in a fine mesh fish net until I am done siphoning.
  20. Daniel
    Correct, Correct and Nermal is regular quartzite substrate with root tabs for fertilizer.
  21. Daniel
    I just did this a couple of hours ago in three aquariums. Brought the pH from 8 something to 7 something. The graph represents about 24 hours of time and a 30% water change on each aquarium.
  22. Daniel
    More is betta.
  23. Daniel
    Yes, they love Daphnia and mosquito larva! I’m a live food guy too so keeping Pygmy sunfish is very easy for me. I think the longest I ever had one was about 24 months. They don’t mind other fish in the tank at all, but if you wanna get babies, obviously don’t put anything in there that will eat the babies.
  24. Daniel
    I’ve had collected these from the wild and kept several species over the years. They are one of my favorite kinds of fish to keep and breed. They very much remind me of cichlids and until recent DNA analysis some people thought it was possible they were cichlids. Pygmy sunfish are very undemanding except for one important factor, and that is they will need live foods They are true ambush hunters and if it isn’t wiggling they don’t want it. Fortunately they eagerly eat baby brine shrimp. Another thing is they can be very reclusive. My wife calls them ‘the fish you never see.’ But that’s not completely true, it really just depends on the set up. What Elassoma seem to like is dense bunches of plants to hide in and then a little open display area to come out where males can court females. You may have to fiddle with your set up until get one where they feel comfortable. The male courting dance is a sight to behold with undulating waggling combined with staccato fin flicking. In my aquariums the males would lure the females into a dense bunch of hornwort where the females would deposit their eggs, often day after day. The males would guard the nest area, but not really pay attention to any resulting fry. Fortunately, the fry are rather large and can also take baby brine shrimp not too long after they are free swimming. They also remind me of annual flowers. They are definitely not like angelfish or discus which will live for many years. In the wild they usually just live for one season, in an aquarium they live longer. They are hard to find for sale.
  25. Daniel
    Back in 2007 I started with metal halides but they hot and noisy. I soon switched to LEDs and have been through a series of those. Currently I am using three Kessil a360x's with beam focusers. Without a tight beam it is hard to push light down through 3 feet of water.
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