drewzero1
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Posts posted by drewzero1
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On 2/25/2022 at 9:01 PM, Minanora said:
Why don't hang on back filters have an inline power switch? We have to unplug them to do water changes, same with traditional heaters! I may just splice my own in....
If you have an Ace near you, see if they have sku# 3235231. (I think I've seen them at True Value as well.) I haven't tried them on aquarium aquipment but I've found them to work very well for lamps and small tools, and a bit of forum diving suggests that a 3 amp switch should be good for up to a 300W heater (drawing 2.5A @ 120V). I haven't found a waterproof version though so make sure to install it after the drop loop!
I may actually try this on my canister filter. It's the only thing I need to unplug to do a WC on my 40, and the outlet is behind something.
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I enjoyed your conversation... I'm always too nervous to talk on camera. 😳
It's so amazing to watch toddlers develop interests! Mine has been coming down to the basement with me to watch the fish since he was an infant. Now he asks to go down and feed them an algae wafer ("shish foof"). He gets very excited when they nibble on his (clean!) fingers.
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Some kind of tracking chip so I can find fish that go 'missing', whether dead, jumped, or just hiding really well!
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On 2/14/2022 at 1:46 PM, Odd Duck said:
This! So much this! 🤣 🤣 🤣
You can have my picture if you want it, but you gotta provide your own darts! 😂
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On 2/13/2022 at 2:04 PM, Odd Duck said:
Funny you should mention IDEXX integrations. We’re beta testing for them integrating into our ER software. Fairly new program but by far the easiest I’ve ever had to learn and my first clinic was in DOS.
Ha, I debated whether to include that in case you didn't deal with them. I dreaded those calls because the IDEXX rep would be at the clinic expecting to get helped right away, and I'd have to try to schedule a senior tech to give them a call back. The worst part was that it looked like mostly simple IP address stuff I could probably do in my sleep, but they didn't train me on that part of the software.
We had a couple of older techs still supporting the DOS stuff but they were planning to pull the plug around the time I left.
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On 2/12/2022 at 8:09 PM, Odd Duck said:On 2/12/2022 at 8:09 PM, Odd Duck said:
It’s definitely a bit of a strange critter, this COVID.
The rest of this is not aimed at anyone, just an in general FYI and soapbox rant from me.
COVID has been very hard on the vet community. Many vets or staff members retired, many clinics closed, and there seems to have been about the same death rate in vets and staff as the general populace, maybe a bit more since the vets that stayed open mostly stayed open right through the thick of it since most states deemed us essential personnel. Many vets and staff members moved to jobs with less public contact. So vet clinics are busier than ever and have more staff shortages than ever before.
Plus lots of people got COVID puppies who are now poorly socialized to non-family members and to non-family dogs (or other dogs in general). So these dogs are more difficult to handle and therefore take more time. Lots of people have been out of work so they don’t have as much disposable income and when people can’t afford vet care they get angry at the vet/staff for being so expensive.
Remember that bit about being short staffed? Well, vets are forced to pay more in wages and offer better benefits in order to keep existing employees. Prices go up in order to stay open, people yell at staff, staff gets fed up and quits the profession, things get worse on being short staffed, etc, etc. It all becomes a vicious cycle. There’s so much mean-ness in the world these days. I am fiercely protective of my staff, even more so now with so many people that seem to have lost all sense of good manners. It’s truly shocking how many people yell at the staff for the clinic’s prices - the staff doesn’t set the prices and has no control over them. Don’t yell at the staff about prices. They’re just trying to help your pet. Some people are downright cruel. It’s very sad.
If your local clinics are seeing anything like this, I feel their pain. I’m pretty sure this is a nationwide and international thing if the vet forums are anything to go by. Most clinics are absolutely buried under work with vets working 50-80 hours a week depending on how much they can tolerate. Most vets have to stay late to complete charts or have days worth of,charts waiting for them to complete. My short shifts are scheduled as 10 hours but I rarely work less than 12. My long shifts are 14 hours and sometimes I end up going over, but I usually get out close to on time from my overnights (the 14 hour shifts). I worked a 17 hour day shift the other day that was scheduled as 10.
So I understand that people are concerned about finding low cost vet care. I get it. But there is a point where you get what you pay for. Some lower cost clinics are cutting corners you might not be comfortable with cutting if you knew what means they were using to reduce costs.
Rant over.
This brought back a lot for me. Several years ago I spent a summer working at a veterinary software company and provided tech support for practices across the US and Canada. Talking to the vet techs and vets I started to get a sense of the struggle involved in keeping a practice running, the nasty clients, the piles of paperwork (and on top of that, the computer wasn't working). I always got in trouble for staying on the line too long, but I just couldn't tell a desperate vet to wait for an eventual call back on a software issue that they needed fixed to keep doing their work.
I don't miss that job, but I do miss some of the people who called in. I wonder how my callers are doing now, and I hope they're okay. Bless you Odd Duck, may your printers keep printing and your IDEXX integrations stay integrated.
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@Teri I haven't noticed a difference in filter function with or without the airstone. I like to use an airstone because it disturbs the water surface less and I like the smaller bubbles... but my filter and fish don't really seem to care.
If you're using a multi-gang manifold/needle valve dealie to run multiple filters off of one pump, I've found it a lot easier to balance the airflow if there's an airstone providing some resistance on each hose-- without them the bubbles seem to only come out of one filter or the other.
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On 2/11/2022 at 1:20 PM, WhitecloudDynasty said:
Why not both? Lol
True, and that's the dream lol. Maybe some hillstream loaches too while I'm at it. Right now I'm enjoying my white clouds as a species tank but I'm taking notes to expand my coldwater stocking in the future.
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I love the way they flip out their pectoral fins periodically (in the video). Kind of reminds me of how White Cloud minnows twitch and show off their fins.
If I ever get tired of just keeping WCMM in my cold tanks, these are now definitely on my list!
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@Torrey Wow! I bought six endlers in September and now I just have four. I'm still hoping for *some* fry but I can't imagine that many babies!
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@TorreyI had a still-photo (every 30s) webcam of my aquarium on my personal website for a few years, but had to be very careful about camera angle and reflections to avoid being caught on camera getting dressed or something like that.
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I've been using scraps of Plaskolite twinwall sheeting for lids on a few of my tanks for the last year or so. Haven't had any warping but they can get some algae in the inside channels if they get wet... hasn't bothered me yet. I like that they float for a bit if I drop them in. I used a knurled thumbscrew from a scrap computer as a handle, just poked a little hole and screwed it in.
I think it's also sold as coroplast but that also comes in materials other than poly which will probably warp.
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@TorreyOoh, good question. I don't have much (or possibly any) of it left but I found some more pictures that show branching at leaf nodes. I seem to remember only seeing roots at the base of the stem (though I could be mistaken).
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On 1/26/2022 at 5:01 PM, Torrey said:
Since frost doesn't kill off the duckweed in the local acequias, I don't think cold alone kills it.
Maybe too rapid a temp change, or too rapid a humidity drop?🤔
I agree, those are both likely culprits. We have duckweed in farm ponds around here that freeze solid in the winter, and it comes back strong every year. My money's on humidity or nutrient deficiency.
Here's a plant ID request: can anybody tell me what the light green stem plant is on the left of this photo? I've got guppy grass and I know it isn't that. It grows roots and it has alternating opposed pairs of leaves. The guy at the store didn't seem too sure but thought it might be some kind of ludwigia, which hasn't been borne out by further research. This photo was taken shortly after planting.
Here's a comparison with guppy grass, mystery plant below left, guppy grass floating above.
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Brought home the grown-out WCMM fry from my tank at the office. I've got some new babies to go in there on Monday, probably. It's fun to have tiny fish on my desk but I think at some point I'll want to switch to something big enough to see. 🙈
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On 2/2/2022 at 1:21 PM, Odd Duck said:
There are such things as vibrating test tube mixers. I can’t remember their official name and they’re probably stupid cost, but you would only have to be able to hold the tubes down against it. The slots in a towel is very clever! I have a silverware roll for taking your silverware camping that would be a similar idea/shape. I wonder if you could but something like that pre-made? My mom made mine.
Let me see if I can find something. Here, it’s a Vortex mixer.
And you can buy the silverware rolls.
There's a university surplus auction near me that I often watch for equipment for work. I'll keep an eye out for one of these 😜
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On 1/31/2022 at 9:31 PM, lefty o said:
i knew reading this thread recently was a bad omen. mine died today, 6 or 7 months old. i tapped it a few times and it started up, dead again a short while later.
I'm in the same boat! I hadn't thought about the possibility of failure until I read this thread, and a week after that I noticed mine was getting louder and putting out fewer (and shortly after, zero) bubbles. I was able to get it started by tapping as well. I opened it up and relubed the rotor, but it quit again over the weekend. It appears to be a dead spot on the armature. (I may try to open it up and take a look, since part of my work is fixing larger brushed DC motors.)
I was running with a check valve and no airstone, and removed the check valve when I noticed the motor starting to fail. Needing a quick replacement, I pulled the eject motor out of an old CD drive and soldered it in. So far so good but it runs a bit warm.
On 1/31/2022 at 9:49 PM, CT_ said:It's kinda ironic, I've disabled 2 of 3 of the bellows on multiple pumps to lower the air volume and motor load because I like lower air volume and restricting them with a needle valve was turning out to be bad for them.
I don't like air in general but I feel it's good insurance.
When I bought my 2-outlet pump one of the owners of the LFS warned me I couldn't restrict the pump with a valve, but to instead bleed off extra air into the room to avoid restricting the pump. I ended up just adding an extra sponge filter to one of my tanks.
Personally I love air as long as the bubbles aren't too big. I've got two tanks that only have air (plus a low-voltage light over the tank). The lines are easier to hide and can be cut to length. If there was a heater powered by air, I'd probably use that too!
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One thing I've read a few places online is that gouramis can sometimes pick on livebearers. I've got one female pearl gourami and one male molly, and the gourami seems to ignore the other fish and chase the molly around. (I've mostly noticed it around feeding time, so it could be food aggression. They tend to have similar eating habits vs. the danios and cories that I also have in there.)
I don't think it's likely to be a problem in your tank, especially with multiple platies, but something to watch for.
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On 10/4/2021 at 2:55 PM, KaitieG said:
South Central Wisconsin, near the Wisconsin River, since I was 6 months old--my parents escaped Chicagoland and took me along!
I'm in the Fox Valley WI area, also with a Chicagoland connection-- my dad's from Waukegan and my parents lived there a while before I was born.
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On 1/26/2022 at 7:34 AM, Guppy Guy said:
Not exactly a mystery plant, but I somehow killed duckweed once. If I knew what happened, I would share it, as I know some of you can’t get rid of it, but it happened while the tank it was in was empty, so a nutrient deficiency is the only thing I can think of. Strange though, how there were no problems with the pothos, java moss, and salvinia.
I have also killed duckweed. I had full cover in my 10 gallon coolwater tank for a summer, then it all died off over the winter. My first guess is that it got too cold, but the duckweed never came back the next summer. I haven't been able to rule out nutrient deficiency, since the guppy grass has also been doing poorly in that tank.
This fall I was rearranging the tanks and found a clump of ~6 duckweed leaves, so I stuck them in my 40. They're making a slow comeback, up to ~30-50 duckweed leaves a few months later. I'm glad I've got them in a heated tank now, since the 49°F ambient temp in the fish room today would probably kill them off again. 😳
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On 1/26/2022 at 9:57 AM, Tanked said:
Not a bulb plant, but the Banana plant I purchased in October put out 1 leaf and went dormant. All of the leaves eventually died, but the tubers are still green and firm. So if someone knows how to wake it up...
The same thing happened with my anubias, the leaves have been gone for a few years now but the rhizome is still firm and green. I see little stubs starting to grow but nothing yet.
I recently removed a mushy, rotten aponogeton bulb from my tank and it's like a snail: as soon as it's out of water you'll know it's dead. 🤮
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On 1/23/2022 at 4:01 PM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:
Ok, explain this to me gamers.....an aquarium game...but you already have ACTUAL aquariums.....isn't this equivalent of a race car driver playing a racing game? 😂 Whyyyyyy
Beyond the reasons already mentioned, aquarists with tight budgetary or space constraints might use it to play around with tanks we couldn't otherwise allow ourselves to imagine. (I've been looking into this game or one like it; however I've got even tighter time constraints, so I'll have to stick to the limits of what I can imagine.) It all costs money and takes up room in my house!
In 2020 some racing leagues were turning to esports racing to compete virtually. It's pretty clearly not the same thing (regardless of what the marketing copy on the box may say) and there was one case of a driver getting fired from his team after hiring a professional sim racer to impersonate him in a virtual race. Wild stuff! And maybe something to be careful of if we ever do a virtual aquascaping challenge...
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I personally love WCMM and they've been my most troublefree fish, but they're not big or flashy so most people I've shown them to IRL seem a little bored. I've got a group in a 10 gallon that I've barely had to touch in two years.
If the beginner can get a medium-sized tank, I had pretty good experience with mollies. They were my introduction to tropical fish and I loved seeing all the babies! They were very interactive and would swim up and eat pellets off of my fingers. I had mine in a 20 long and would definitely recommend a larger tank.
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Did a water change last night and pulled the aponogeton flower into view. It's (they're?) very pretty when it's not hiding behind the filter.
I kind of like the half-full look. Maybe I'll try setting up a paludarium someday. It definitely gives a better view of the water lilies! I can hardly see them during normal visiting hours, but the fish seem to appreciate their hiding place potential.
And speaking of hiding places, here's a teacup picture for @Flynn Naysmith :
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What's your dream aquarium product that doesn’t exist?
in General Discussion
Posted
I don't remember the math exactly, but I know to check the ratings before hooking things together. 👍 I repair power tools as part of my job, and I've seen more melted plugs and fried switches than I'd care to admit. (*Most* of them weren't caused by me.)