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Isaac M

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Everything posted by Isaac M

  1. Isaac M
    I think I know the issue guys, there is no sink being proposed in the fish room, how could anyone live there having to carry buckets of water up and down those stairs?
  2. Isaac M
    This sounds like a beautiful opportunity to try different ways of planting. I am a little biased too but I agree with @Streetwise, gotta have at least one organic soil pot. A organic soil pot with either crypts, a sword, vallisneria or even a crinum. You can also do aquasoil, plants should be fine in the rock wool, normal gravel or sand for the stems, eco-complete, etc. Pennywort would look nice, you can even float it. Plants that I would go with would be dwarf aquarium lillies and/ or a red tiger lotus, ludwigia (grown under and/ or above water), giant hygrophila (corymbosa, above water will flower as well), cabomba, water wisteria and a larger leafed anubias. I would also take this opportunity to grow marginal/ bog aquatic plants.
  3. Isaac M
    No problem! Just a suggestion but the crypts can be used in the foreground as they are shorter plants (especially since your aquarium looks to be on the taller side). The anubias can be used somewhere in the front to the middle of the aquarium. The vallisneria grows very tall and should be placed in the back of the tank. The amazon sword grows tall and wide and should be placed in the middle to back of the tank. All of the rest of the plants are stem plants (including the pennywort but the pennywort can also be grown horizontally) and will grow as tall as you let them so they can be placed anywhere. However, it is most common to place them in the middle to back of the tank. The reason for these recommendations based on the plant height is so the plants do not obstruct your view of the aquarium and to help with depth perception. Good luck and enjoy your research!
  4. Isaac M
    Adding a lot of plants to my aquariums with the aerial advantage. Plants like pothos, peace lilly, small palms, etc. growing out of the top of the aquarium suck the ammonia/ nitrates out of the water so well and helps to balance my aquariums. The shade they cast into the aquarium on the overhead lighting also minimize algae growth and make the fish feel safe as well. Overall adding these plants have added more beautiful foliage to my aquariums, made maintenance much easier and made the fish feel much more comfortable.
  5. Isaac M
    1. A vallisneria runner? Not sure which exact type, I would guess jungle val though 2. cypt wendtii 3. I cannot tell, the picture looks a little blurry in that area 4. Water wisteria 5. crypt wendtii bronze 6. Jungle Vallisneria 7. crypt wendtii bronze 8. Anacharis 9. Some type of ludwigia, repens perhaps? 10. Type of anubias, likely coffeefolia 11. Small amazon sword 12. crypt wendtii 13. Not sure if you are circling the ludwigia or pennywort in this one 14. Hornwort 15. Some sort of Cryptocoryne, I want to say wendtii again but the one really tall leaf is throwing me off haha 16. Ludwigia repens Have fun with creating your new aquascape, you have a good variety to work with!
  6. Isaac M
    Generally I have some sort of concept or design in my head and try to find things that will fit my vision. Once I have the items, then I will do a “dry run” either in the aquarium or just anywhere large enough to put everything on. Here is an example of my most recent aquarium: Figured a rough look for the driftwood that somewhat matched what I had in my head. Put it together with the final look dry in the actual aquarium: Planted it and added water: Aquarium still in progress and growing:
  7. Isaac M
    @quirkylemon103 yes exactly like that. I am not home right now but this is the best picture I have on my phone of it: @Robert a zoa garden is always cool and you can always do GSP encrusted on the back wall. All I do is softies because I love the color, movement and ease of care. For me, I do not think I could ever do a FOWLR (unless it is some sort of predator aquarium). It would be like doing a freshwater aquarium without plants, it just does not feel right to me haha
  8. Isaac M
    @quirkylemon103 I made the lid for my 40 breeder reef out of a polycarbonate greenhouse panel. It works great, there is hardly any evaporation so my salinity stays consistent(I don't have an auto top-off). I would highly recommend it if you need a special size or shape aquarium lid.
  9. Isaac M
    I recently got back into reef keeping a few months ago. I need to take an updated picture but here it is a couple months in: This is only my second reef tank ever though, my first one was a 10 gallon that I had 10 years ago (I was only 15 years old at the time and I know better now, fish selection was not great haha):
  10. Isaac M
    I have only had an issue with the test strips on the following occasions: 1. Using bottled ammonia (ammonium chloride) 2. Not holding the strip horizontal like the instructions tell you to (the color of the pad above will change the color of the pad below as the water drips) Other than that, I use the test strips to see the behavior of the water chemistry, not to get exact numbers as that does not really concern me. For example, seeing ph and kh decrease drastically may make me do a water change or a few water changes to move away from old tank syndrome. Or to check nitrates for plant growth. However, I have never had this nitrite issue.
  11. Isaac M
    Hi @Losjohnsons, beautiful 20 gallon! That is definitely a 60 gallon. I would go with 2 medium sponge filters, one at each corner for redundancy and water flow.
  12. Isaac M
    Sounds like a plan! And no problem, I am very happy to see the progress haha I always look forward to your aquarium updates!
  13. Isaac M
    I did make a post about it on my first journal but for some reason my pictures are not loading up on that post when I checked right now so I just took some new ones right now. So what I do is use this stainless steel wire: And I wrap it in the location that the suction cup would be in like so: Then I cut the wire a little long and bend it over the rim so it hangs like this: I use Leica expanded clay balls now to fill the planters because they are super light but I have older ones that I made with gravel and large plants and they are holding up very well with this system:
  14. Isaac M
    @Guppysnail the planters look awesome! I love all the diy stuff. Just be careful when doing a water change, my planters with suction cups always slide down without the help of buoyancy but maybe mine are too old now haha I used stainless steel wire on my diy planters that I keep at the water level and they have done great for the past year or 2 now. Your baby plecos look great!
  15. Isaac M
    Hi @Hunter Dishner, it looks great! Reminds me of a “J-Cup” used on power racks for weightlifting!
  16. Isaac M
    Hi everyone, nothing too exciting has happened with the aquariums but I did make a feeder for freeze dried tubifex worms. I have been wanting to make something like this for a long time, especially after seeing a version of this that Dean made. I have always put my hands in the aquarium and pressed the tubifex worms against the glass so the corys can eat them, even then sometimes they would float up, plus I never liked putting my arm into the aquarium to feed. I ended up superglueing some plant weights onto a feeder cone so that it stays upside down underwater. I also tied some fishing line to the tip of the feeder cone. At the other end of the fishing line I tied a short piece of airline tubing. I cut the fishing line long enough so that the cone can stay underwater and the piece of airline tubing can hang outside of the rim of the aquarium. However, if the airline tubing ever falls into the aquarium, it floats so you can easily grab it to take the cone out without getting your arm wet. And you can easily hang it from a command hook attached to your aquarium stand for storage/ drying. Mine is hanging in a difficult to photograph area so I just held the hook with my hand for demonstration purposes haha But there you have it, now my freeze dried tubifex worms stay submerged at the bottom without needing to get my arms wet. I should have done this a lot sooner! haha
  17. Isaac M
    I haven’t sketched a fish in many many years but I was able to find this largemouth bass drawing I did as a kid: I do not draw very often anymore but my most recent drawing is of Kobe Bryant which I actually drew before his tragic accident early last year. I know it is not directly fish related but his passion for his craft is relatable to our passion for the aquarium hobby(or anything else really).
  18. Isaac M
    @eatyourpeas thank you so much! I appreciate it! I love your Puget Sound Biotope aquarium, it is so incredibly unique and interesting, I feel like a diver looking at that aquarium haha
  19. Isaac M
    Wow @Colu, thank you for all the support/ reactions, I appreciate that very much! Thank you for your comment, this forum (and especially very active and helpful members like you) has really inspired me and reignited my passion for my aquariums more than it has ever been in the past 15 years.
  20. Isaac M
    @eatyourpeas 😂 no wonder fish are so scared of our phones if it looks like that to them 😂
  21. Isaac M
    @Hobbit you know that actually makes sense, my phone has two lenses as well, maybe it looks like a flounder to them 😂
  22. Isaac M
    @Guppysnail I know you could not see it but I ran away from your phone when I saw the picture, just kidding 😂😂
  23. Isaac M
    @Guppysnail I have an iphone that is black with a red rim around the case so the red probably does not help me either 😂 that is an interesting thought though, I wonder if a darker less reflective colored phone scares fish off less? 😂
  24. Isaac M
    @Patrick_G thank you! This is another way to get a great picture of your fish @Guppysnail, feed them and they will come out of hiding haha
  25. Isaac M
    @Guppysnail thank you! They are awesome little fish, I usually just try to approach them slowly and have the lights turned off in the room to minimize casting any shadows on them. This normally reduces any startling with the camera. Fish can be very camera shy though haha
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