Bullsnark
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Everything posted by Bullsnark
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pH 8.0 hardness 300ppm total alkalinity 720 pom nitrate 0 ppm nitrite 0 ppm temps 73 and 79 OK so I have two different tanks that my plecos died in the last 24 hours. Last Sunday, I found tiny white spots on the fins of one of my female beta, so I hit all 4 tanks with the med trio to put a stop to everything. The fish had all been in two tanks previously, so I knew the chance of contamination was high. This Sunday, I changed about 50% of the water in both my 20 and 10 gallon tank, and found the first of the dead pleco while gravel vaccing. He had not been doing great from the beginning, so it wasn’t a surprise. What was a surprise is that 4 more pleco died in those 2 tanks within 24 hours of the water change. The water was treated with prime, and sat for 45 minutes before being added back to the tank(s). All of the other beta and guppies are doing fine, but what would be causing this plecocide? I didn’t include pictures, but that’s because the fish are in a plastic bag frozen right now.
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Ich-x, para cleanse, and maracyn2 are the trio. There are videos on quarantine and medication procedures that give the step by step. You could use salt as well, but that’s not as safe with certain fish/invertebrates/plants
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I moved a couple things around and put sand under it. Added water and salt so it can sit overnight. Tomorrow I am going to drain it all, add plants, and refill. Hopefully in a few weeks I can put some fish in there.
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Salt is a lot safer. A strong salt solution will kill any non-saltwater organism and won’t kill your fish if you have traces of it left afterwards.
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OK, so I’m setting up at 55, and I have the most gorgeous rocks I’ve ever seen. They called him sponge boulders, but they are extremely hard rock that is partially lava rock, partially some other rock, and a lot of crystals. The crystals don’t appear to be water-soluble at all, so I am going to set up the placement of the rocks before they go into a salt bath so I can work on the base+ substrates while they soak. Pictures will be left to right from above, then the front. I tried to make the big rock on the left-hand side where you can see it from three directions because it has great features on all three sides and the top, and the rock on the right side has stuff on the front and side. A couple of the other rocks could be flipped or turned, but I’m not an artist, so I am open to suggestions
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My fiancé got a beta at random after a new pet store came to her hometown. After watching a few videos and seeing people’s tanks and fish I was hooked (pun intended). I was a plumber for years and I wanted to do aqua escaping for peoples homes, but I ended up getting injured before I could start my own company. I wanted to install water features on a larger scale, but this is probably the next best thing. We started with 13 gallon tank, now we have a 20, two 10s, a 40, and a 55.
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Yeah I am going out in the morning with a saw. These are both root systems, so that should help, and I can put a few holes through some of it for hiding spots to help reduce buoyancy as well. I hope to get decent pictures. I found some stellar rock today at a landscaping supply that I need to power wash and soak.
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I will use hot water on the rocks and scrub them, but hot water won’t penetrate wood in any reasonable length of time. That’s why they use it for cooking utensils.
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Actually let me rephrase: I’m not going to be able to sterilize it, but I’m going to clean it to the best of my ability. I am trying to get the most dangerous things off that will endanger the tank and fish. If this were a native tank, I would just toss it in and not worry since they live in the water anyway.
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No I’m definitely sterilizing anything in this area. Everything around here is dirty, and there’s fertilizer runoff as well as any amount of sewage runoff around here. At least minimal precautions have to be taken
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This is out of a local dirty river, so you have to be really careful. I had a cousin that lost everything in his 75 because he used a piece of wood full of parasites and it infected everything.
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Has anyone ever harvested wood from the wild for their aquariums? I found a fantastic piece that I plan on going back for later once I have my saw with me. I’m not 100% sure how I’m going to prep this monstrosity. I know I’m going to take it to a car wash and pressure wash it, then it’s probably going to sit in a 55 gallon trashcan full of salt water with the lid attached for two months so that it stays underwater. After that, I will pressure wash it and soak it in freshwater water. The first picture is the entire root mass, but the second picture is closer to how I plan on trimming it. The third picture is a second tree that I plan on going back for later tonight. Does this sound reasonable, or does anyone else have recommendations?
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Help me build the ultimate nitrate-sucking setup
Bullsnark replied to B1gJ4k3's topic in Plants, Algae, and Fertilizers
No filter over the overflow? -
Help me build the ultimate nitrate-sucking setup
Bullsnark replied to B1gJ4k3's topic in Plants, Algae, and Fertilizers
I think I would go a bit larger than a 20 gallon tank myself and get a couple of big totes to run the plants in. If you use the same concept, but split the flow between two tanks/totes, it would give more time for uptake as well. This is the same basic idea that aquaponics systems use, and some of them can house large numbers of large talapia. With one small pump and float driving the draw from the supply tank, the rest of the system typically runs off of a siphon and gravity to take care of the rest. Media beds that flood can house rooted plants of your choice as well as floating plants in your holding tank from the pump. Check out aquaponic systems on YouTube for additional ideas. -
And here is Gretchen
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I turned the big one off for the picture so you could see the details better without agitation. There is a 14” air stone running down the center
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Sometimes in the middle of nowhere, it’s either read the fine print of every tube with a magnifying glass, or hit up Amazon.. There are several that ARE aquarium safe that state “not for aquarium use” because of liability reasons however.
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I called SASHCO’s customer support team to get confirmation, but I wasn’t sure until today. Lexel is an excellent high quality sealant that has excellent adhesion even on wet surfaces, but according to their staff, it hasn’t been tested below the water line for more than 30 days, but more importantly, it isn’t actually silicone at all, it is rubber. It does in fact release chemicals over time and would kill aquatic life. they claimed that this was on the packaging, but I could not find it anywhere on the packaging, the website, or anywhere else available. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to read a tube of clear caulking, but it’s not exactly easy. Especially when the tube itself is clear and the writing is black and you can see the writing on the opposite side at the same time.
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- resealing aquariums
- resealing tanks
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It was treated with prime to start with, but no test kit.
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Once I get back home I’ll take a picture of the other one. Gretchen is sexy too. I plan on breeding them together later and we wanted to make sure they wouldn’t be hostile, so we put them in together and watched. There’s plenty of cover and sight line breaks now, and more to come
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It’s a 20 gallon tank and the two beta are happy together. The guppies haven’t been nipping at the beta at all. The male is Gilbert “Gill” and is a Dumbo Half—Moon, the female is Gretchen, a dragonscale
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I was referring to whether adding more plants during the bloom would cause any adverse effects. From some further looking, it appears that this bacteria is simply in the water column and hasn’t made its way into the media and onto surfaces in a permanent biofilm yet, so it’s just visually displeasing more than anything. The bacteria will do their job, and hopefully take up residence outside the water column soon. The plants were going to happen regardless, I just didn’t want to disrupt the cycling of the tank adversely if it needed to happen the way it was going; as in if it needed to clear first before adding the plants
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I have another sponge filter and dual outlet air pump coming on Friday, so hopefully that will help. I am also getting more plants this weekend, so that can’t hurt anything can it?
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I can’t upload the video from iPhone because it is the wrong file type, but it swirls around in the water and is leaving a slick film on the inside of the glass. It looks like bacteria or something from what the rocks look like, and this tank is a new tank with the gravel, filter, fish, live and plastic plants all from a smaller tank that was about three weeks old. There are nine guppies, one gold mystery snail, one albino pleco, and two betta in this tank. The filter has three sponges, and the bottom is filled with bio rings and gravel.
