skipper
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Posts posted by skipper
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I’ve used Leca in net pots at the top of the tank for pothos cuttings. Any time the pot tipped the leca escaped and floated around everywhere... I went with a different set up 😂
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@Guppysnail thanks! I used black foam board, totally opaque lets zero light through. Looks good for now, the long term hold up will likely be questionable. I wanted no parts of trying to shimmy a 4 ft length of static backing on an already set up tank I can’t fit entirely behind. I’ll prolly open the windows and paint the back of the tank *someday*
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You could swap out the particleboard for plywood and finish it with helmsman polyurethane to make it water proof. But then again the last time I went to buy plywood I looked at the price, laughed, and left without it 😂.
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Oh dear... every day is a community tank buffet...
2x repashy; fluval bottom feeder and tropical bug bites; freeze dried brine shrimp/tubifex worms/blood worms; hikari sinking wafers, algae wafers, crab cuisine, fancy guppy, betta bio-gold; co-op easy fry food; frozen blood worms, frozen brine shrimp.
we no longer own mayonnaise. No room on the fridge door.
15 kinds not including the captured fruit flies I throw in my betta tank or blanched veggie medley (fresh from the yard when seasonally available 😂). ...also the occasional fry snack. Nature is brutal, but the danios have colored up beautifully. I’ve watched my micro creatures and baby snails turn a melting crypt leaf into a smorgasbord also.
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Not a fish disease, but a med question nonetheless. Earlier this week I posted about my cloudy water problems in my 55g. Followed the friendly advice I was given to no avail. This morning I caught a waft of the eye-watering stench we all know and love to hate (burnt tires and every poisonous plant on earth steaming in a cesspool? How creative can we get here...)... tank has excellent water flow (hob rated for 75g, internal filter rated for 40g, and a nano sponge filter I keep stashed behind some plants for QT). Crawled around a bit and beheld this lovely site on the back of the tank which faces a window. 🤦🏼♀️
sneaky.so now I’m headed to get some black foam board to tape to the back of the tank to block the light of day from sustaining this mess.
Does anyone know if it is safe to dose erythromycin with <1 week old molly fry?
thank you!
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The new site looks great! Found the specific information I was looking for in <12 seconds.
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@CT_ every time I come here I learn something new. Absolutely love it. I have zero electronics background and found this really interesting and easy to digest. Thanks for the clear explanation! If I do go this route I’m happy with the reassurance that the pump can run on a bank for a week. Add charging the bank to the “water change Wednesday” party I have 😂.
I’m planning on a very small (40-50 gallon) tub so would not feel comfortable with no air. And this is assuming my landlord will let me plop a tub in the garden under the ruse of aquaponics 😂
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Since you mentioned waiting for a good sale on tanks, I’ll mention that the Half off tank sale is going on now at one of the big box stores, I don’t know what the timeframe is. They also sell imagitarium sand, hint hint 😉. I have that brand of sand in my betta tank with elodea and it’s doing great.
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Does anyone know how to calculate the amount of time from the mAh of a power bank? I found a watt-hours to milliamp hours conversion on The Google. Output for the nano pump on the outlet plug says 5 volts, per description on the co-op product page for the nano pump watts is 1/3 (assuming that’s per hour?)... according to the conversion calculator that’s 66.6 mAh. So for a 20000 mAh power bank it can run the nano pump for 300 hours? This is not my area of expertise and I have no idea if any of this is correct. But 12 days of pump operation for 1 bank sounds very convenient if it is correct.
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Just came to say your scape looks awesome. Love what you’ve done with the driftwood! I’ll throw in a vote for cories, they are SO adorably entertaining.
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2 minutes ago, Nirvanaquatics said:
The tub I cleared was 55g, but you can use any flow rate pump you want, it will just take longer if you have less gph. The brand I used was called "uniclife" and I've had good luck with them, however there are many good ones to choose from. It's worth noting that the pump I used was one I had kicking around, if given the choice I probably would have gone with an actual internal filter. Way easier than the water bottle thing I did 😅. This one is rated at 185gph max and the reviews seem pretty decent. I've had good luck with nicrew products and the spray bar it comes with should help keep your fry from getting tossed around.
Nice, thank you! I have a nicrew light on a 15g that I’m really happy with. I’ll give this a try. Hopefully I can reduce the frequency of my water changes.
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@Nirvanaquatics oh wow that’s an amazing transformation! For a 55g tank is there a gph you recommend for an internal filter? I have baby fish I’d like to avoid blowing around if possible. Any particular brand you recommend?
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@Fish Folk and @Nirvanaquatics... thank you so much for reading and replying. I appreciate the help and thoughtful answers! I’ve had the tank planted since it’s inception, the plants seem to be doing fine. I think they are all pretty hardy plants though- elodea, Amazon swords, crypts, anubias. If the fish will only benefit from the higher pH and my plants don’t overtly start dying, I’ll leave the substrate be. I’ll try the internal filter with filter floss and giving the substrate a gentle stir while vacuuming. I’m trying to get this tank to the status of my other tanks- top offs only with minimal/no water changes, effortless clear water 😂. I like the ecosystem vibe and spend more time than I should admit staring at the micro-critters in my 20L. I hate having to do all the water changes because I WANT the build up of good stuff, but I feel bad that the fish are living in a constant fog. Can’t wait for the diatom phase to pass... I am enjoying the stag horn algae though. Thank you so much!
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Commenting to see other comments... I’m interested in this too. At ~7:30 mark Bob talks about his solar panel briefly. Would love if someone has specific product recommendations. (Edit: recommendations for a solar set up to go with nano air pump)
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@NanoNano good advice about the chopsticks, I’ll definitely be doing that ☺️
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Back when I knew absolutely nothing about fish tanks (aka January of this year), I set up a 55g. Watched many videos about substrates. Decided I wanted sand. Ordered pool filter sand on Amazon, received play sand, returned it. Went to LFS, owner of LFS told me the sand I picked out (the only 40 and 20 lb bags they had in the color I wanted) was good for freshwater (I specifically asked) AND told me not to rinse it.
Said sand goes in tank, goldfish go in tank after initial cloudiness dissipates. They live happily for about a month at which point improperly quarantined zebra danios from big box store go in tank (I can’t even). Danios start disappearing, saga of events occur that in sum lead to the death of everything except 1 danio. I felt absolutely horrible.
I leave the tank alone except for Mexican dwarf cpo crayfish and mystery/nerite snails which were entirely unphased by all of these happenings. I add back the lone surviving danio and sit tight for a month. Everyone is fine. Weekly water changes ~30 to 50% because cloudy water is unsightly. I kick myself for not rinsing the sand. Parameters not noteworthy, ammonia/nitrites 0, nitrates 0-5, gH ~7 degrees, kH ~6, pH up there in the high 7s.
about a month ago, I decide to try livebearers bc hard water. I slowly add 6 mollies 3 at a time (quarantined in bare-bottomed tank with gradually increased then decreased salt). I get the zebra danios a handful of friends.
Present day:
stock: 6 adult mollies, 5 zebra danios, 2 mystery snails, 2 nerite snails, 2 CPO crayfish. Bunch of baby mollies. Everyone appears happy and healthy. However. The water is STILL CLOUDY ALL THE TIME. I’ve added multiple brands of water clarifiers, they make it looks like it’s snowed inside the tank. I have to do at least a 50% water change 2x/ week or the pH climbs to 8. I completely dismantle my HOB (tidal 75) every week and it is unbelievably filthy. I have been putting pillow stuffing in the basket for fine filtration. It turns black. I am careful to clean everything with dechlorinated/78 degree water to preserve BB, and also have a separate sponge filter running which stays remarkably clean all things considered (ACO coarse sponge). Thought maybe cloudiness from bacterial bloom and skipped cleaning the filter for a week. Cloudiness only got worse.
I decide to revisit which sand I bought. I go through pictures of Carib sea products to see if I can recognize which one was the one I bought. It was the ocean direct sand. For saltwater tanks 🤦🏼♀️ Based on what I’ve read on saltwater sites, I wonder if the calcium in the aragonite is precipitating into the water. Is that a thing that can happen in freshwater? Aside from tearing down the entire tank and putting new substrate, is there anything that can be done about this? I have a hunch that the only thing that can be done is tearing the tank down. Perhaps I’m telling this story for affirmation of this hypothesis.
I have been battling diatoms recently as well, my tank is in front of an east facing window. Recently upgraded lighting to fluval 3.0, custom schedule with siestas/max power 75%, no blue/red, time 8h/day and I have noticed a gradual improvement in the diatom issue since the light upgrade (plants are doing splendidly, I dose easy green twice a week bc I can’t leave my water alone long enough for nitrates to accumulate).
Parameters below, but note they are pretty close to my tap bc constant water changes. gH/kH/pH slightly higher than tap, I assume because I am a dunce and put saltwater substrate in a freshwater tank. If I skip a water change, gH/kH/pH rise.
If you’ve read all this, you are a saint. Thank you.
gH: ACO test strips: 150 ppm, API 6 degrees
kH: ACO: in between 80 and 120, API 5 degrees
pH: ACO 7.6, API 7.8
phosphate: API 0.5 ppm
ammonia/nitrites/nitrates: API 0, ACO nitrates 10, nitrites 0
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Mine left a trail of them front and center on a brand new piece of mopani... 😒 and INSIDE my hob, no idea how she got in there. Fortunately she found her own way out.
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Looks great! 20L are my favorite 🙂
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Butter-pat would be used to condiment (v) something on the table, fairly applicable. “Second skimmings of milk” under toppings is fairly close to butter. I declare a stalemate. 😂 also I need one of those dictionaries...
edit: upon further investigation TIL “one of those dictionaries” is 20 volumes!! I see why...
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Just now, Daniel said:
I think the definition of 'butter' goes on for 20 pages...
Oh dear. After the topping display, I have no doubt about that.
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So many definitions. I would never have been able to learn English as a second language.
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Hoping the nerm squad can help my newbie self here. Are they etiolated freeze dried blood worms that have attracted detritus worms, or mystery creatures? I haven’t seen them move.
context: 15g with 4 young ADFs, few mystery snails, 2 (for now) ramshorn snails , couple clumps of elodea. Tank is only about 2 months old. 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, 0 nitrates (easy green once a week), pH 7.6. Infrequent water changes because the elodea is nitrate insatiable. Inhabitants diets include freeze dried/frozen blood worms, frozen brine shrimp, algae wafers, repashy, hikari crab bites.
thank you!
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This thread is amazing. I initially went with no, but the thread has been most thought provoking.
I’d have to say one of the many uses for butter is indeed its application as a condiment, but butter is not singularly a condiment. I’m a dietitian, not a linguist 😂
Perhaps @Daniel could be kind enough to post the OED definition of butter to add further clarification to this important issue.
Could one say cucumbers are condimental to relish? I need to integrate this word into my vocabulary. Perhaps make an ornate sign for my cucumber patch that reads “condimentals”? May as well turn it into a noun 😂-
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Glad this is a thing for others as well! @Kirsten I always disclaim to friends who receive my extra seedlings that a fair amount of fish poop went in to the growing 😂. Learned a new thing about potassium and stem growth, thanks!
@Cory I’ll have to try it out on houseplants. My pothos/tradescantia/scindapsis cuttings are growing REALLY well out of my tank since I’ve started using it.
@TheDukeAnumber1 it is my first time growing the sugar rush peach, I am not sure what to expect. I’ve heard jalapeño level heat, I’ve heard very spicy. Apparently they take a long time to ripen fully also, which is a bit of drawback. Sorry yours weren’t sweet, it’s such a bummer spending a lot of time and space growing something and have it not end the way you had hoped.
Let the hobbies collide...
in Off Topic General
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Gardener me pilfered supplies from fish keeping me... the siphon hose has just the right flow to slowly deep water/fertilize at the base off the plants without run-off. Bonus: I get to “multi-task” (aka wander off), and mix up 5G of fertilizer at once. Laziness is the mother off efficiency 😂
Anyone else have hobby mash-ups where another hobby informs the fish keeping, or the fish keeping informs another hobby?
*disclaimer: the siphon has been permanently relegated to the garden shed, the bucket is out only for tank water.