Littlefish

Someone very rich 😄 The house sold for millions before our remodel. There were 2 pipes running under the tank in the wall that were just hanging there, never hooked up. If you see the access up top inside the shower, and the acrylic bracing on top, that wouldbe a nightmare to clean. The cabinets for the OP's idea would take his entire budget here, unless the budget is only about the tank and equipment.

I removed a never used 200g acrylic tank from a remodel job. The tank is the shower wall. 2nd pic with tile is from inside the shower looking out.

GH and KH are ppm? Very soft, right? I only have used dkh testers. Would the ph be swinging at night and causing stress induced illness?

KH 40 should be fine for livebearers. I've run several planted tanks at kH 6.

This is 6 mo in. The swamp muck was like grease it had so much fine organic matter. We have no clay in our sandy loam soil. The 2 tupperware are on each side, under each planting. 50/50 muck, sts. And this is the bitter, cyano-filled end 2 ys later. Broke it down last month. I have an almost maintenance free 10 g reef tank with live rock, and I'd like to believe that method could be copied in fw. I suppose Walstad would be closest to that, but I haven't seen any I really like that rival fw high-tech, the way natural sw tanks can rival or be better than sterile-start dead rock (high-tech?) reef tanks. The ideas I hear on the co-op livestreams of low maintenance/low light planted tanks I like.

I have taken scoops of muck from a marsh/swamp for the microfauna, and kept it in tupperware under the substrate. Tank went weird after a great 1st year. We have hard water here, and I couldn't keep my kh up, and ph wouldnt go above 6.4.

At my tractor supply the bags have all those markings, and the one that is in the bag is underlined or has a square around it. Some of the bags aren't clearly marked.

I recieved the co-op test strips several weeks ago and will never use another method again. So easy to use compared with mixing solutions, and therefore more foolproof for me.

How old is the tank? If it is an established tank it really should eliminate nitrite with no water changes or added bacteria needed. Water changes will lower nitrates unless your tap water has high nitrates. Plants (especially floating plants like water lettuce) are great at lowering nitrates. Canisters can keep them a little higher than other filter types imo.

I have 2 outdoor child splash ponds with black bar endlers here on the West coast of FL. I lost hundreds last fall the 1st cold front, which was much colder than expected. I think the air temp dipped to the upper 30's. I dont know how low the water temp was. A handful of juvenile females survived and I now have more than I can count again. Interestingly, the full-sized females and males died, the only survivors were juveniles.

And if you have access to natural salt water, or your lfs has some artificial sw, a cup of that is great for livebearer and snail tanks. Not too much or the plants won't like it.

In the saltwater world api is well known to half the time give a false reading of .25 ammonia. There are long forum threads about it The lack of Nitrites could be a sign it is a false +, but then there is still the snail die-off...

Hi there Jeltz, my little one loves the water too, but that's not FL! Definitely not with the garden, our growing season is fall/winter/spring.

Sounds like Paul B's 50 y/o tank on reef2reef. He has pics of the deep pile of mulm under it away from the power heads when he moved, but he doesnt think it's a problem bcs it is well aerated

10 g reef tank is looking better than it ever has, w 1 g weekly natural saltwater changes. A little h2o2 on any bryopsis or green algae and it gets eaten overnight by cuc. 75 g is worse than ever, and the 50% water changes are a mess. I will be taking the angels in for lfs credit and tearing down and cleaning the tank for storage. No more leaking canisters! I spent half a Sat coping and placing matten filter foam on both sides of the fake back wall. My plan was to put a Sicce 1.5 behind the wall and run the return up to the center top, put a splitter on it and run the length of the back wall with vinal tube. Holes would be cut to allow an even sheet of water to trickle down the wall, and I was thinking of filling it 2/3rds, then put a riot of plants on the back wall. Maybe some other year 🤔 My wife and I will be starting to remodel kitchens and baths again, so there won't be as much tank time in the next year or 2. My plan is to raise the hood on this 6g de-rimmed fluval edge, put a tiny pump inside the leftover matten filter, create a mound of rock and branches on top/around it, and have a low light pond tank. My 18 mo old got ahold of fish food and "fed" the tank this week. Not sure what the theme will be yet, or what livestock. Maybe shrimp, maybe male endlers (there are hundreds in a sunken childs pond out back), maybe a single pygmy sunfish couple.

Get some cheap neo shrimp or scuds or black worms (even mosquito larvae) from your lfs and put them in various places in the tank the day you leave. Some will escape for a few days and provide food days later.

I was an RN. Worst job I ever had, and I washed pots at a family restaurant at 13! (Rules weren't so tight back then)

There sure are a lot of talented and nerdy people on here! The world would be a better place if it were filled with aquarists. Having a toddler means almost all hobbies are gone, but I'm planning on connecting more with the outdoors for my mental health this next year. Shrimping, crabbing, and fishing for meat as a sort of return to the old ways. As my father is slipping away, I am seeing things through his eyes more, and the rightness of getting your food yourself is starting to appeal me.

A well-built acrylic tank...

Cory mentioned today on his "changes" live feed that acrylic tanks should be good for a lifetime.

I find my fw tanks much harder than my reef. Sw tanks can be run cheaply, if stocked correctly. I don't know if links are allowed, but there is an aquarist called wvreefer on nano-reef who runs a tanks with nothing but in-tank circulation. She also is a fw keeper. https://www.nano-reef.com/forums/topic/380786-wv-reefers-12-gallon-long-and-dirty/?tab=comments#comment-5474339

Get an acrylic tank?

Pea puffers are so cool, they move like a reef fish, and constantly hunting. They may kill all your cuc, though, mine wiped out all the amanos and all but 1 snail in my 75g. The amanos would appear wobbling around on fewer and fewer legs, then finally disappear. Caught him taking a leg off one in the act. The mystery snails he would peck at a weak spot in the shell till he had escargot. I fed him blackworms I raise, and live mosquito larvae. When I took him to the lfs they said he was the fattest pea puffer they'd ever seen.

Remove them! Decomposing plants, many ppl think, may cause algae.

Jealous. Florida has no basements, so definitely room for fewer tanks for a couple with children, and no dedicated fishroom. Good luck with the remodel. The ceiling painted charcoal coming down the wall a foot would look greatand hide the janky.