egruttum

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07ZNWBK4C is what I bought. The top of my tanks are just under 48" tall. When I have low water level in the bucket the pump slows down greatly, way below the 2.5 GPM that is listed. If this one ever fails I will buy a high capacity pump. I like this pump, I just want it a little faster. The pump is just 120V plug in. Its a sealed motor so its completely submersible. I changed the front from the grills to a PVC street elbow pointed down. That way I can alomsot completely empty the 5-gal buckets I use to change water.

I use nylon pot scrubbers in my filter as media. It has a really high surface area to volume ratio so great for nitrifying bacteria to live on. I also use a sous vide cooker to heat my water before water changes. To avoid using softened water I only have access to 55 degree F water for my water changes. In the past I would use a spare 50 watt heater to heat my bucket up but it took about 6-8 hours. With the sous vide cooker I can go from 55 to 78 in just a little time. (Maybe the sous vide cooker isn't a true grocery store item, but it fits with the kitchen theme)

Funny, I have those EXACT same 3 decals from AC, except they are on my laptop lid.

@stowcenter93Thanks for sharing your experience. I bought three young Peacocks yesterday because that was all my LFS had. When they grow up a bit and i can determine sex my plan is to have three of each sex in the aquarium. Does having equal male and females seem reasonable in your experience? My readings make it sound like it will probably work as long as I have shelter and plants. My aquarium is fairly well planted but currently lacking structures to hide in. I'm working to change that and I have some time before quarantine is over..

@RobertThank you for the reply. I have read some people say they do fine with shrimp, some people say to keep them separate. I've latched on to the theory that if something can fit in a fish's mouth (another fish, shrimp, me) then eventually said object will end up in the bigger fish's mouth at some point, no matter what the fish are. Just look at Jonah and the great fish. Mine are quarantined right now so I have 4-6 weeks to figure out what I am going to do. I was going to keep them with a few guppies (not fancy with long fins, basically just the mutts of guppies), mystery snails, and ghost shrimp. After watching them for the first night it looked like they either laid or hovered just above the sand substrate so maybe keeping them with ghost shrimp who are active at night is not a great idea. I guess I will watch them over the next few weeks and see what I am going to do. The good news is I have plenty of 10 gallon tanks that the shrimp and/or guppies can live in so these guys can be in my 20 gallon tank in my office.

@Robertwould you mind elaborating on this comment a little? I brought home 3 of them from my LFS this afternoon. I have done a lot of reading about them and talked to the owner of the shop but maybe I missed something. Is there something that many people get wrong and fail at for Peacock Gudgeons? I was advised to use frozen baby brine shrimp to start with (they are fairly small) then to move to a alternation between bloodworms and pellets. I have Easy Fry food as well. Can I use that as the pellets? Would peacock gudgeon fry be able to eat Easy Fry if I decided to attempt breeding them? Thank you.

To do complete nitrification of ammonia to nitrate it takes 4.57 mg of O2 per mg of NH3. It also requires a fair amount of alkalinity. 7.14 mg of alkalinity as CaCO3 per mg of NH3 (theoretical). In actuality it takes slightly less alkalinity, probably because when denitrification happens (NO3 to atmospheric N2 gas) that returns a little alkalinity to the water. So yes, proper dissolved oxygen is very important to nitrification.

I have been thinking about finding wild plants this summer as well. Maybe I will do it for my quarantine tank. Thanks for showing us it can be done.

Thanks @Jungle Fan for the info. I have removed it from my aquarium but don't have a quarantine tank yet to put it in. Its a small Anubias and cost like $3 bucks. There looks to be quite a bit of rot on it so I am going to play with it. If it was much bigger or much more expensive I would definitely take your advice on what to try. The weird thing is the leaves look great, its just the rhizome that is rotting. So I guess only time will tell.

To me it looks and feels rotten on the far left end and under the leaf on the right side. Both areas are yellowish and the rhizome used to be bright green. Something has changed. Tomorrow I think I will treat it like a terrestrial epiphyte and try to dry out the rhizome a little bit while keeping the roots moist in soil. I have anything to lose.

I pulled it and it has a rotten smell to it. I'm going to play with it emersed. It's currently soaking in a peroxide solution. I'll add soil to cover the roots and keep the rhizome in the air. I plan to cover the glass container to keep humidity up. Worst case scenario it continues to die. Best case scenario it lives, I patent it, and get rich from the AC forum!

Thanks. Sounds like there is not much I can do. Looks like it's time to play and see what happens. I'm going to try making it emersed and see what happens.

I have two anubias plants in my 20 gallon. My anubias nana (kind of shown in upper right of picture) looks great. This anubias looks like the rhizome is dying. It's either an anubias congensis or frazeri anubias (I forget which one, I planted both but one died a week in). I've had this in my aquarium for about a month now. All other plants look great (java ferns, Amazon sword, hornwort, stem plants) but this one has begun going downhill. I dose two pumps of Easy Green every week. Am I doing something wrong? Should I pull it so it doesn't do something bad to my other plants? Thank you.

Thanks gardenman. Nice to have your long perspective as the technology changed. My playing around is a fun hobby, just trying to see what i can make myself. I'm sure in the long run (probably the short run too) just buying a commercial light is the best way to go. But then what do I have to complain about when things fail? Good luck with your seedlings. I am trying to rescue an azalea from before Christmas with some homemade LED stuff. My office looks like a grow room from the outside so I'm waiting for a neighbor to ask questions. But the azalea has started flowering again so I'm doing something right (or wrong. But I wanted to flower again so I'm going to say right). Anyways, good luck with your flowers. I'm happy to see at least one person is confident that spring is coming.

Do you have a 4-foot level to see what is truly level and what is not? 2x4s of 2x6s (depending on how often you will drop a support to the ground) can certainly be put inside as additional framing but not sure how I would attach them to the existing wood based on how thin it appears. If I did a frame I would probably try to get the wood tight to the top of the inside and then the columns to the floor of the room rather than the floor of the cabinet (assuming there is a bottom to the cabinet part)

I'm all about function over form. If it works it works. I am using the light the came in the aquarium kit for my first planted tank. It seems to work for now. The tank needs some trimming and replanting but I am waiting for my AC sponge filters to arrive. With the weather and the USPS being behind no idea when they will get here. They were shipped same day (Thanks Aquarium Coop) but the mail has them really delayed. Hopefully Monday so I can clean it up.

You are absolutely correct on this. Color temp and spectrum are independent items. The eye pleasing temperature may do little to keep your plants healthy. Especially since some LEDs use a phosphor coating to make the color temperatures and that doesn't necessarily give the correct spectrum. I'm sure I will eventually see the light and purchase a great aquarium light. But for now I am having fun playing around. As for the question on LED strips I haven't paid much attention to them because I am just working to build my own. Unless you purchase sealed ones made for an aquarium I think you will face what I am expecting to face trying to moisture-proof LEDs while still removing heat. Good luck.

Thanks for the responses. When I said low tech I also meant low light plants, sorry for leaving out that piece. I guess I equate low tech to low light as well. My mistake. The LEDs I have coming are full spectrum white lights. My first attempt will be with LED COBs so I don't have to mess around with power supplies and LED constant current drivers. I didn't purchase them from Amazon but if you look for "DynaSquare - 12V LED Light Engine - 5000K Grow Lights" Amazon has them (forum rules appear to allow Amazon links). I am going to try these in a nano aquarium first for fun. I think my biggest problem will be keeping them working with the moisture in the hood. But that's the fun with playing with low voltage and relatively low price items, if they fail not the end of the world. From looking at these forums and pictures I realize that I am in the small minority but I like the look of a black hood on my rimmed aquarium. To me this is the classic aquarium look and I don't have a desire to go rimless with hoodless lights on top. Hence why I am trying to build my own. Again, if I fail, no big deal.

I run a low tech tank and plan to continue low tech for the foreseeable future. I am only using low light plants as well. With aquarium lighting for plants I assume there is a balancing point between duration of daily light and strength/wattage/amount of light. For example can you use really bright lights for a short amount of time and get the same growth as using less powerful lights for longer duration? Obviously there has to be a point where the light is too dim to do anything but lets assume we don't get that low. I'm guessing that with a low tech tank the limiting factor for growth is CO2 so running less light for a longer duration allows the plants more time to absorb the limited amount of CO2 that gets dissolved into the water? Or am I over thinking this? The reason I ask is the engineer in me wants to build my own lights from LED SMDs and I am trying to balance wattage and number of SMDs.

Thanks for the replies. I'm guessing that volume of sponge is the deciding factor for it's biological treatment capability? But surface area is important for pressure drop through the filter (controlling flow rate) as well as velocity through the filter which controls contact time with the biology. Anyone know the biology and kinetics behind filter sizing?

I plan to switch my HOB to sponge filters. I have a 20 gal tall with 8 guppies, 1 bristlenose pleco,, MTS, Ramshorn snails, and some ghost shrimp. Based on other pictures I would say its somewhere between light and medium planted at this point. I purchased three small Aquarium coop sponge filters but plan on using two for this tank and the third for a future tank. Since I am an engineer I did sizing calcs to decide on two smalls instead of one medium. Using just the circumferential surface area two smalls have the same surface area as one medium. With having 4 base surfaces instead of 2 the two smalls should have more surface area than one medium. Are two smalls alright for my aquarium? I plan on one in each back corner. I might keep the HOB as a polishing filter but I want to be able to rely solely on the sponge filters. Will two smalls be alright or do I need to upgrade to two mediums?