Jump to content

Ryan S.

Members
  • Posts

    104
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Feedback

    0%

Everything posted by Ryan S.

  1. Congrats @Emily M! I am growing out some now. Any special tricks or advice on getting them to breed when ready?
  2. If you are using tubs the idea is to heavily plant them up and maybe provide some marble size pebbles on the bottom and the fish will take care of the rest. White clouds will eat eggs but hopefully they will be concealed by all the cover when they scatter them. Including cories is what I don't know about. I feel like that would definitely impact your white cloud breeding as they will also eat eggs they find, but I've never tried it. Truth be told you don't really need a clean up crew in a tub as the plants do so well in the sun but it would be super cool if you could breed both. Hopefully someone who has tried it will pitch in. Good luck.
  3. Seriously fish has info on them. I trust them as a good source. I've looked into them before and they seem to fit in wide array of parameters which is a good thing.
  4. Daniel, what type of plants do you use? I just can't get mine to make much of a dent. I don't know if it's cause they just aren't thriving like they should be or if I just have too much nitrate and not enough plants, maybe my stocking. Probably a bit of everything. I've even guy three pothos in the back of my main tank. No matter what I do I can't get below 40 nitrate.
  5. Thats a pretty cool idea, thanks for pointing me to the article! Good to know this is an option! Have been thinking of putting in a DIY filter system to take out particulates and chloramine from my water so I didn't have to use a conditioner using Bill's idea from the no more Declor thread a couple of months back. Would be pretty easy to put nitra-zorb into the system in a separate canister as a part of this system I think.
  6. Good questions - I typically try to change somewhere between 20-40% in my tanks. The tanks I have had the longest and therefore, have done the most water changes/testing on are a 36 gallon bowfront (change 10-15 gallons - heavily planted w/ eco complete, root tabs, and once a week easy green) and a 20 long (change 5-8 gallons - lightly planted w/ peace river, no root tabs, very little easy green). I have the API test kit as well as the Tetra test strips. I typically have retested the water about a day after performing the water change. It has NOT been scientific, just something I have noticed as I can't get much of a drop in my nitrates. I think that experiment you mention would be fun to run, maybe I can do that here at some point in the next week or two and report back.
  7. Holy cow, I'm in Kansas too so this probably means I'm dealing with the same thing or at least something very similar. I am in the Kansas City area. Had a couple of seasoned fish keepers that warned me early on that our tap water wasn't the greatest for fish keeping. It's not like I am unsuccessful as a fish keeper using the tap water, but I also don't feel like its an ideal environment either. I do run plants in all of my tanks, but haven't really been able to make much of a dent in nitrates doing this. Maybe I just need to find the right combo of plants or go the RODI route with a good remineralization technique. Thanks for the info @ScottieB and @MJV Aquatics
  8. As I have done more research on the chemistry of water, I just now have come to understand that what makes Chloramines so much more difficult to deal with than Chlorine by itself is that Chloramines is chlorine bonded with ammonia. So when you treat water with Chloramines, you are essentially just breaking the bond of the Chlorine/Ammonia and then the chlorine can be handled by the chemicals (prime) and it leaves the ammonia to be handled by your biological filtration in your tank. Is this correct? When I change water in my tanks I notice that is very hard to get the nitrates in the water to lower. Based on my understanding of the above, that is due to the chloramine my city water is treated with. Essentially, this means even though I am putting in new water, because the new water contains ammonia (after I treat with Prime), the new water gets cycled by my biological filter when added and spits back out immediately as Nitrate. Am I tracking this correctly? Ok so my real question - How do I get water to my tank without any effect of the Chloramine? Is the only way to get an RODI system that filters out everything into pure water? Does running my water through a chloramine pre-filter do anything or does it have to be a full RODI system to fully remove both parts of the chemical compound? Really appreciate any help the nerm crew can provide!
  9. I didn't realize how long they could store. I got one mystery snail last summer as a single. It just now deposited eggs on the lid of my tank. I am attempting to hatch them as is on the lid. We'll see how it goes.
  10. I don't have experience with fry and if the hillstream loaches will prey on them but they don't seem to care about baby shrimp and they don't really pay attention to the other fish in the tank at all.
  11. I have both in a 20 long with cherry shrimp. I have yet to breed the loaches but the cherries are breeding. To breed the hillstream loaches I would recommend adding good sized stones to form a rock pile. From what I have researched and seen, I think that helps with them.
  12. Oddly enough just watched a YouTube video where the guy said he boiled the substrate and dried it out for a month and they still survived and are multiplying in the new tank. Sounds like they are the roaches of snails, but way more useful!
  13. I think you will be fine. I use the mediums with no issue in 20s and agree that surface area should be very similar with 2 smalls.
  14. Betta fish.... So naturally I bought one today for my kids first tank. This does not count for wild forms, those are super cool.
  15. Congrats! That's awesome. Gives aspiring fish room builders everywhere just a bit of hope!
  16. Ok, I may have found a solution to heating. Was scouring the depths of youtube and came across a guy who uses reptile heat tape to heat his entire fish tank rack. You get heat tape and plug it into a thermostat and he keeps his whole rack at 76 to 77 degrees no issue. You can get different width and lengths on a reptile website I found and it's cheap. Think I could do the whole rack for about $75 with total wattage of around 300 watts. Curious if anyone has any thoughts on this method.
  17. @Hobbit I got you, that is a great note. Glad you clarified, makes a ton of sense.
  18. Some great thoughts. I drew out a quick pic of what I'm thinking on the stand. On the stand underneath, there is only one cross joint in the middle so I plan on adding several more (maybe every 12 inches) as a part of reinforcing it underneath the shelves for support, these are the blue. I'm also going to put a 2x6 reinforcement up the middle on that center brace that will support the middle of the shelves so they aren't just braced on the edges. Finally, I'm adding edge braces in red both along the back, one in the front, and one on each end. Good thought on painting/sealing. I agree, I am going to paint and seal it with something before putting anything on it. It will slow me down a bit, but definitely the right move long-term. The tent idea or even just some simple fabric hanging might be enough, I think you are right. I have a HVAC vent right next to the middle of that stand, plus I have a portable oil heater and a dehumidifier that might do the trick as well. I think that is the route I will go, just got to figure out what kind of fabric to make the walls from.
  19. @tolstoy21 Man, did not know the stat on $10 a month, definitely something I'll have to keep looking into. I have thought about a central sump or 3 or 4 central sumps so there are at least some different systems. I love the thought of increased volume, but quarantine importance would go up 10-fold. Lots of stuff to figure out, but it is kind of fun. Thanks for the thoughts!
  20. Man, that is the million dollar question - biggest drawback of the ziss in my opinion, drove me nuts when it was in my display tank. I don't have a real answer for you, but yes, closer to the waterline is a little quieter. I tried the lid method similar to what you can see on old LRB videos where he uses lids to deflect bubbles for splashing purposes, but I didn't have a ton of luck with that making it quieter. If you figure out something, let me know. Maybe someone smarter than me has figured it out and will respond. Good luck!
  21. @MickS77 Probably a dumb question but what do you do after you are done feeding them? Do you just siphon the water out and put the bottle back on the shelf?
  22. Agreed with Lizzie. I've played around with different air pumps I had on hand. Whisper 40 works as another option though I would use an aquatop instead if I had one. It just works much better if you put more air through it.
  23. @WhitecloudDynasty I think is needed on egg care. What is your breeding method and tank set up and how do you collect your eggs? Would love to hear.
  24. Thank you for the feedback on the floor drain, that is good to hear! I'm going to have to have a plumber come out regardless to assess some of this so I'll double check with him on if he thinks that is the right move. Want to make sure I'm not overloading that drain, but its definitely the best option on the table. Unfortunately no sump pump at the new house or I would be all over that idea! I had one drilled and put in at my last house so I'm not against adding one if it makes sense but overall house seems to be bone dry (knock on wood) I've looked into a sump bucket as an option for auto water change system where the overflow would collect, could potentially do that on the sink as well if I needed to, but would prefer another option if at all possible, such as floor drain or direct tie-in to my sewer line. The sewer stack line is only about 10 feet away from where the sink would be. I'm just not sure how much tying into the stack would cost, might be my best option though. Thank you for the thoughts, really appreciate it!
×
×
  • Create New...