OnlyGenusCaps
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Posts posted by OnlyGenusCaps
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You are a bottomless pit of creativity and ingenuity, sir! Annoying as they may have been to create, those are some sweet looking candles! I wish I had neighbors like you! My neighbors are fine. But this is next level!
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1. Cyprinodon longidorsalis - They are extinct in the wild with a small group of keepers in Europe, and two sustaining breeders in the US (one of who expects to age out of keeping in the next year or two).
2. I love pupfish. I lived in Arizona and the native pupfish there are simply the most wonderful fish in the world in my opinion. But, you can't own those. So, this was the nearest I could get, and I had hoped to be one more person to help maintain them.
3. Yes, please! Everyone should keep them. I would love for these hardy, charismatic, and so very threatened fish to be kept more widely. It is genuinely rare for hobbyists to actually make a difference in conservation (despite our soothing words to ourselves). But in this rare care, it could.
4. Yes, I have a few left. Much to my same and chagrin, they don't do well for me despite being easy for others. I bred them, with much difficulty, and passed the offspring along. But my last stragglers will be gone soon, and I will miss them greatly.
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On 5/10/2024 at 3:10 AM, madmark285 said:
while making Harry Potter candles
I feel like while that statement does not surprise me coming from you, it also deserves an explanation. 🤪
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I don't know anyone that keeps them in culture. I know people who have had them in tanks. But not succeeded long-term. I think you are correct, they would make a great live feeder. The trouble is culturing them, especially at a density that would make the effort worth it. That latter bit ends up dropping out many potential feeders from being contenders for successful culture. I'm attempting the process right now with a new feeder. Well, I've been working on it for 2 years. I can keep them. But they rarely reach a density that makes sense to continue for the effort I put into the endeavor. It is my windmill to tilt at!
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On 5/3/2024 at 6:32 AM, anewbie said:
Not sure - i looked at some and they are not very large relative to the sock used by custom aquarium.
Ah! Please excuse my laziness. I'll admit I didn't go all the way through the thread. I did realize you had a Seamless Sump. From what I understand, that company does live up to the "custom" part of their name, so it's totally possible that standard products may not be easily substituted. You better than I on that.
On 5/3/2024 at 6:32 AM, anewbie said:True I would have 4 cups but still it doesn't look that promising to myself. The socks themselves are more than 4x larger than a cup.
If it's of any interest (and it may not be to be fair), my plan is to cut in an inverted cone shape to the sponge. That way I am presenting more surface area to the water, which should increase flow capacity and reduce the likelihood of the surface getting clogged. That's how I am going to address it - but mine is with a much lower flow rate! I want enough flow to keep the K1 moving from the downflow pipes, but once I get good rotation, I prefer lower flow rates in my sumps overall (though there is much that can be discussed about this either way for sure). I'm curious, are you relying on your filtration to be the main source of the flow in your tank, or are you going to be putting in power heads given the size of this tank?
On 5/3/2024 at 9:41 AM, anewbie said:Actually I'm not sure if there is a loss in clarity - i'm looking through 10 feet of water when i make my comment.
Seems to me there is a good chance you already know this, but if you find a reduced clarity from tinting agents in the tank over time, I've found a UV sterilizer does wonders to keep the water clear! I also have friends who swear by ozone, but I don't have experience with that yet. This is a really cool tank you have going there!
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On 4/29/2024 at 11:06 AM, anewbie said:
I'll have to take a look at these holders one day - they are only going to work if they force all the water through the cup and then you would need tight fitting sponges - else the water will try to flow around the sponges.
Absolutely true! The cups are not expensive and are designed to fit into the holes for the socks. The Poret can be cut down to size and you can select the porosity you want. I'm almost certainly going to go this route as I change over to my new tank/sump. At the very least, it'll be a cheap thing to try, which might work better.
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That tank looks really nice, @madmark285!!! You are always the PVC king! If the screening becomes a problem, I wonder if Poret cut to fit in between the PVC might work better? Not for more biofiltration surface area, obviously. But, it would hold the gravel up, and if it got clogged, you could pull sections out to rinse them, in a pinch. Just a through. Like I said, it looks great!
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On 1/28/2024 at 5:52 PM, anewbie said:
I've been using jeabo pumps with my sump and i wonder if i could rig something up - basically a canister filter is just a sump that is a sealed box
Sumps are better than canisters. Full stop. If you are looking for a DIY vertical sump/can substitute @eatyourpeas built a nice one! Long live the V-sump!
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'Tis the season:
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You, sir, remind me of a friend of mine in our local club. He bred more ACA recognized cichlids than anyone outside of Chicago last year (what is it with Chicago and cichlids?!). He's always got his eyes on the next project, but loves each species along the way. It takes a special kind of dedication and passion to do what you do. And I wouldn't have fully recognized it if I hadn't seen someone similarly driven locally. Hats off to you, sir!
To the folks reading here, it's even more impressive than you think. I assure you!
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And now for something completely different!
Edgard Varèse, Ionisation:
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Well, slow but steady. I've got a few other irons in the fire, so I shoot to cycle between them all as time allows. I recently built, what I think anyhow, is a decent stand for over and under 75 gallons. Once I had the height figured out, it was pretty easy. I thought I would share the joints I used here, just in case someone else wants to build an easy but overbuilt stand.
So this is the joint over all. I used 2x6 boards out of an abundance of caution. What I like about this system is that I have mostly separated holding the structure together from the weight bearing aspect of the stand.
Not the cleanest holes, or saw lines. I'm no carpenter! The internal frame that will hold the tank is held together by 2 1/2" deck screws. Get the star drive. Makes a big difference! Once those were together, I attached the uprights with more deck screws, which you can see better below. On the left side of the upright. With just 2 deck screws per corner that would be bearing the full weight of the tank (these would be the only pieces between the tank frame and the supporting uprights at this stage), I wouldn't trust this stand to hold a 75 gallon tank. But you can see there is more.
Those two bolts were then added. Well the one on the right is actually some sort of screw, but a big one! It is 4" long and passes through the first two boards into the long part of the frame. These two chunky pieces of metal are now there to hold the majority of the weight of the tank as they are now the largest pieces that will transfer the mass of the full aquarium to the uprights. They are each about 3/8" thick stainless. I'm thinking that will suffice. I inset them (poorly I know! again, not a carpenter) because I have very little wiggle room for extra width. But the nut on the inside is allowed to protrude as you can see here:
I specifically chose to have the short side be the one that runs the full distance and long side to be affixed inside of that. This replicates the short side support that Cory has in his shop to hold up the tanks, but provides extra support along the long face of a 4' tank. At least that was my rational. Anyhow, I hope this perhaps overly detailed discussion about aquarium stand joints helps someone. Someday. Somewhere.
Thanks for looking!
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On 10/2/2023 at 12:07 PM, Tanked said:
My 75 tops out at 60". At that height I can do most maintenance without a step ladder. Detailed work involving the hardscape/substrate requires a short step ladder/stool.
That height allows for comfortable viewing seated or standing.
Thanks! I took that into account when building the rack. Mine will top out a little higher, but the bottom tank is still very low. Oh well. No way to get around it without making maintenance on the top one a real pain in the keester, I suppose.
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I'm looking for opinions here. I am about to build a stand to stack two of my 75 gallon tanks. I hate that my current setup puts one of them like 2" off the ground. It's hard to clean under there, and they fish hide at the site of legs (I find some do this more than others, but in my experience fish seem to hate being too low - don't know why). So, let me know what the center point height of the two tanks would be, in an idea world, in your opinion!
I realize that there are a number of factors that go into this decision, but I'm purposefully not going into the construction right now because I'd like to hear optimal heights in folks' opinions. I will say, the tanks are 21" tall and I am 6' if that helps. I'll talk about construction once I get some thoughts, and I'll let you know what I go with in the end. Thanks in advance for all the input!
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Perhaps my favorite Scottish fiddle player, Jenna Reid. I had the good fortune to run into her on one lovely, blustery October day in Steòrnabhagh on the Outer Hebrides. In case you are wondering, she was lovely, wonderful woman.
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In honor of yesterday's passing of Steve Harwell, here is a lesser known song from Smash Mouth "Waste":
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Nice! Thanks for posting about this!
I'll be trying this with my viv plants for dart frogs next time I set up a viv. Right now the standard protocol is to bleach all the plants for fear of transferring some terrible pathogens like chytrid. I've been taking some risks, because I'm not super on board with the whole bleaching of plants that frogs will then hangout on. So, I figure this might help. Will RR eliminate fungal spores? Don't know. But I'll still QT the plants post treatment. At least no slugs, snails, and plant insect pests are likely to be introduced with this method!
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On 8/10/2023 at 10:47 PM, RennjiDK said:
At this point I'm just going to stop responding
How wonderful to hear. I fully support your decision. *Even if you have now reconsidered and edited this part of your comment out.*
@Galabar, so it seems a generally respectful discussion can be had about filtration, but perhaps not on the "hot button issue" of Prime. 🤣 In all seriousness, this was a wonderful social experiment in addition to being a good discussion topic! Plus, as someone who enjoys thinking about and discussing filtration, it's nice to know that filtration generally seems to get people less red faced these days. Thanks for starting this topic!
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On 8/10/2023 at 3:54 PM, RennjiDK said:
Prime is chemically incapable of binding to or converting NH3/4. It absolutely will not stall your cycle, because it has no effect on ammonia. It's just marketing lies from Seachem.
The thread was shut down because people got max aggro about it, but there are chemical means that suggest Prime could work pretty well as the label says. Up front I'll say, I am not here to argue about this with anyone. I just thought you might be interested in some of the chemistry and patents related to that and similar products. If not, feel free to ignore it and move on. No hurt feeling from me if that's what you decide. (I know it's a lot of hedging language, but this topic seems to bring out something in a few folks like they have a dog in that fight or something. I don't know why. But now I do a bit of this first. Sorry.)
It's a long read, but I really like the post:
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On 8/9/2023 at 8:48 AM, Biotope Biologist said:
Customer demand was high which drove prices down
Wait a minute. I'm no economist, but doesn't higher demand typically result in higher prices? If that's not the standard view, I think I might be onto something here! 🤪
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I've got a nice M. veitchiana. It's a bit of a sentimental plant for me. When I was in high school, my mother met an older woman in line at the grocery store who was having trouble maintaining her orchid collection. My mother selflessly volunteered me to help her because I liked "stuff that's alive". Well, it turns out this woman and her husband were in their 90's at the time and had traveled throughout Latin America in the 1930's collecting orchids (they had the absolute best and craziest stories!!!). They had one of the largest private collections of orchids on the West Coast; it covered 4 large greenhouses on their property. Anyhow, I've never been super big into orchids, though I've had to care for hundreds of species in my career. But they have never been my thing, if that makes sense. Well, after 3 years of helping her out for at least a few hours each weekend, I was headed off to college. She asked me which orchid I wanted when I got back as a gift. I told her I liked the M. veitchiana most; when in truth it was about the only one I cared about at all. She promised me she'd divide her only plant for me. Unfortunately, she and her husband died before I could get this kind gift. Her family, not caring for her collection, sold it off piecemeal to the highest bidders. I never got to say goodbye, and never got the plant as a memory of this kind and adventurous woman. So, I decided I wanted to one day grow this plant again. I have essentially built a whole room to optimally house it. I think she'd be proud. 🙂
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On 8/9/2023 at 11:33 AM, MattyM said:
Biohome and makes a really nice profit off of its inflated price.
So, I ran Biohome for awhile in my sumps. The pores are larger than those on ceramic rings, but they seem just large enough to capture lots of uneaten food. I found I had trouble keeping my nitrates under control, even with quite large water changes after a fair bit of time. I ended up replacing them with the old, plastic, pond "bio-balls", and I never encountered the issue again. Mulm built up around the balls as well, so I'm not sure why the difference, but I won't use ceramic type medias again.
On 8/9/2023 at 3:07 PM, Guppysnail said:Moral of my story. They all work just fine.
This is likely the moral of the story. Reefers, who need to keep insanely low N and P values, don't use any biomedia typically. The rocks they use are sufficient to house the bacteria that convert the most toxic forms of N to less toxic species. Most FW hobbyists probably have more media devoted to bio-conversion of N than necessary. Now there might be something to be said about heterotrophic bacteria and whether you might want more area to support this function, but I digress. Anyhow, nothing wrong with having more, or seeing the most efficient means, but loads of methods likely work just fine.
That said, I still like knowing, and I get a little filtration obsessed. 🤭
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I've been absent on the forum with only intermittent involvement of late. There are a number of reasons for why Ive had less time to be on here, but really only one relevant to the topic of this forum. I have been turning a bit of bad luck into an opportunity. When I set up my aquariums under my basement stairs, I did so because I have had to move my tanks around my house repeatedly because of necessary maintenance or repairs to my "fixer-upper" house. So, I specifically picked a spot where there was only one utility anywhere near the tanks. A plan for a permanent home if you will. The only thing in the area was the main soil pipe under the foundation headed out to the road. Safe. Or so I thought... Turns out, this spring I learned, much to my horror, that the soil pipe had corroded and would need to be replaced. This would mean using a jackhammer to excise the section of the foundation directly under where my aquarium are. Figures.
I was lamenting this one evening to my wife in our basement, where we spend most of our evenings, when she suggested that the display tanks (aquariums and vivariums) would be welcome to move into the finished part of the basement. I was elated, but realized too, that we were wasting this space essentially. It's 1/3 of our house's footprint, and is just one big room. It acts to hold exercise equipment, the rack for coats/mudroom from the tuck-under garage, and the only TV in the house. It has always felt like a jumbled purpose room. So, in a bold stroke we decided to put in a wall to divide the room, making the back half a den. I would get a spot to put my display worthy tanks (breeding setups will need to remains back under the stairs later), and she'll get a newer TV out of the deal (ours is the one we bought when my TV/VCR combo from under grad broke and her desktop monitor at work is larger), and a big comfy corner couch. As a bonus, this will mean we will get to spend our evenings together; her watching whatever terrible drama she wants, and me cleaning algae. Wedded bliss! But we've had to build it.
Just to give you a perspective, here is the before photo looking from the back of the room to the front:
Full disclosure, we hired someone to build the wall. But here it is in process:
But we are painting this ourselves. The idea is that for both a gallery-like display of tanks, and for a room to watch movies in, dark wall are best. But they started out very, very light as we primed them. Yikes! I now remember why I have a disdain for white walls.
A very dark, windowless room, though, can be quite uninviting to enter when you first open the door. So we have plans (even if the dog is not sure about them!):
A slash of color to help make the room seem more welcoming:
We finally got to the darker paint stage last night. I wanted a dark gun metal grey, and piked out on from the line up at "big box store". Unfortunately, it looks more brown on the wall to me. What do you think?
After the paint is done, I am going to have to build stands for the tanks. So, let me get some input from you all. If you had to stack 2 75 gallon aquariums as a double rack, what would be the shelf height you would pick for each, and why? I'll be curious to hear what folks think.
In the meantime, thanks for looking! And hopefully I'll be able to be back on here more often once this nears completion. The whole process had made me wonder what has become of @Brandy's basement build.
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On 8/6/2023 at 9:31 PM, Biotope Biologist said:
I keep it outside during the summer and the birds here…. Bathe in it?
Think of the added biodiversity you've added. 🤣
What music are you listening to these days?
in Off Topic General
Posted
Perhaps time for some more quirky Nordic music again? Delivered in the for of Daði Freyr!
Think about things (a song that is not quite what it seems to be - written by a guy about seeing is baby daughter for the first time)
And this is why Iceland doesn't make Godzilla movies!