KittenFishMom

I'm guessing a Diplopoda? I was wrong, I think. It is a "house something or other" if that helps.

@Tazalanche This is a great idea. I wasn't thinking, but it would also help me catch the hill stream loach that keeps slipping away when I approach with a net. I didn't think shrimp would go into a bottle trap. but I guess they probably would.

My guess is "Not on Earth ! On Mars !" Is it "The Dawning of The Age of Aquarius" ?

I have 10 Amano shrimp in a planted QT tank that I want to move. I can hardly see them. I haven't any idea how to catch them without hurting them or having the leap out of the net and be off to the races across the room. The shrimp food I have on have is powdered. So there is no way to make a pile of it in a net. All ideas are welcome. KittenFishMom

@Tanked Yes, it was up and running. Then I added seaweed from the lake and it got leeches. Now the fish are in QT tanks all over the living room and the plants have been treated with RR twice and are in buckets. The substrate is in the garden. The tank has been clean with salt and vinegar and then rinsed and treated with peroxide. I'm planning to bring it up with UGF once I get the uplift tubes I need. After the tank is up and stable, I'll start on the sump set up. I figure the plants will clog the UGF over time, but the sump should take over be then and I can remover the uplift tubes. I'm crossing my fingers and toes that it all works.

@Tanked I do use dim lights, so I haven't gotten good photos. I've played with different colors and brightness. I only have it on for 15 or 20 minutes before bed, and only now and then, not every evening. I'll turn it on and tinker with it and watch and turn it off and go to bed. It is very much a journey. The tall ripple glass shows light at each ripple. the middle was just a tad above the black sand. the one on the right was about an inch and a half. They really disappear in the day light. The snails and the hill stream loaches kept the algae off. The ponds are small compared to the tank, so the fish swim through the light and back out in just a few moments. What was really fun to watch was the cories "hopping" in and out of the low ponds. They made it look like a steeple chase. They were always checking to see if something yummy got traps in the bowls. if one went in often others would follow. They did this day and night, but it was hard to see why they were jumping and disappearing if you watched at eye level(on a low foot stool)

@_Eric_ We are planning to getting float switches to turn things off if the water in the sump or the tank get too high. Haven't thought it all through. that is why the UGF are going into the tank, to give us time to work out the details.

@Chick-In-Of-TheSea Wonderful. I have craft mesh. thanks !

@Lennie I have a lid, and an HOB. Guess it is time to remove HOB.

@TOtrees Yes, you are right. I'll wait until my big tank is going again and try to start a colony in one of my many QT tanks. I'm just grasping at straws to try to make summer seem to last a little longer.

I have lifted them off the table on put them on a damp folded paper towel in a container. I hope they will be OK. The mom seems fine.

@TOtrees I'm in central New York. zone 5 I think. Everything freezes outside in February, if not before. I would expect to have daphnia to feed when the sun is low in the sky, but it would be cool to get some this fall and next spring, if the make it through the winter.

When I took my heater out of my big tank, it was crammed full of little ramshorn snails. Most were dead. I think they get in there and get cooked and the dead bodies drawn more snails. I don't think the heater was very efficient with all those snails shells in there. I need to check my other heaters before the weather gets cool.

This morning I found a mystery snail and her clutch of eggs on the table, next to the aquarium. I put the snail back in the tank and she puttered away after she got her bearings. The eggs are sitting there. I know you shouldn't mover them for 24 hours or so, but I am worried they will dry out. should I try moving them or just cover them with a damp paper towel, or do something else. I don't need the baby snails, so I give the eggs to a friend when I see her. Which might be 5 or 6 days from now. Normally I put them in a container with damp paper towels, but they have always been on the inside wall of a tank when I have found them in the past. I'm open to suggestions. Thanks, KittenFishMom

@Tanked Was your 24' light above or below the water. My idea was to produce something that looked like moon light reflective off the ponds in the still of the night. "Remember, the North wind drops at sunset"

I have some green water in my row boat. I want to capture it in a 5 gallon transparent jug and start some daphnia in it. Right now I know there are mosquito larva swimming in the water. I'm guessing that if I cover the jug tightly with window screen and wait for all the adult to emerge and starve to death, it could become mosquito free. Has anyone tried this or have you tried something else that worked? A couple of summers ago, I fed live mosquito larva to a tank of fish and the clouds of indoor mosquitoes that hatched and bit and produced more eggs was unbelievable. I would love to try daphnia as a live feed without turning me into a live food for mosquitoes. I see videos with large outdoor tubs of daphnia, many overwintering and open to the air for rain water and leaves. No one talks about mosquitoes. How do they avoid them? Thanks so much, KittenFishMom.

@GalabarWe are planning to getting float switches to turn things off if the water in the sump or the tank get too high. Haven't thought it all through. that is why the UGF are going into the tank, to give us time to work out the details.

I read the feed back for the big box store about them shipping fish. most complain of DOA fish, so I will wait until I can see them swim to buy them, even if it costs more.

A big box store is having a sale. Can I put neon teras in with cardinal tetra and a male betta? I want colorful non breeding fish in the 9 gallon tank with a few mystery snails and maybe some Amano shrimp for the algae clean up crew. Would neo cardia colored shrimp work in this tank as well? Thanks, KittenFishMom

@Odd Duck yes I am waiting for them to arrive. there will be 5, so I could have a forest of them in the tank. I might plant a bit of val in front of each one to hide them a bit. I'm not sure I will use all 5.

@Odd DuckThe "ponds" are lit from below the bottom of the tank. The are suppose to look like moon lit ponds when all the other lights are out. You see the under side of the plants and fish that swim over them and the silhouettes fish as they swim by. It is even more relaxing to watch than the fish in day light. The UGF plate would block the light from below the tank if I put the ponds on top of the plates. I had it set up, but never got any good photos to post. It is magical looking with white lights and even more magical looking when the lights are set to drift from one color to the next. The hill stream loaches love going up and down and round and round in the ponds, which is fun to watch day or night. I only set it up with the "moon light when I have time ti sit and watch the tanks after "lights out". usually only 20 minutes or so now and then, not every night. It was just a fun idea. I have air stones in the 2 deeper "ponds" to keep the water moving and for a cool visual effect.

@madmark285 I am buy parts and putting them together. My husband calls 1/4ed chickens "chicken kits" and complain that they never include the needed feathers. I don't know what my "sump kit" will be missing. I chickened out and bought an expensive siphon with a built in restart vacuum. I bought a 10 gallon kit of a some walls and a sock hanger. I bought some socks. Need to research pumps. I have a few, but am not sure they will be right. Then I need to do the math etc so the siphon doesn't out pace the pump and the sump overflows and the pump doesn't outpace the siphon and the tank overflows. I also want the power out/restores to be graceful. This project should keep my too busy to get introuble, except for sump troubles.

@BF McUmber HI, They way I understand UGF is that they suck mum and O2 and other good things from the water column into the gravel and plants do much better over UGF. So much so that the roots tend to clog the UGF space. I would think you would want your plant near the edge of the UGF, not on the other side of the tank. But then again, I am new at this, so maybe you don't want your plant in the way so you can do maintenance on the UGF. I game plan is for the plants to benefit from the UGF and by the time the UG needs maintenance, I'll have my sump in full swing with the UGF as secondary. But who knows, I could have it all wrong. Instead of an air stone, I am using @Tommy Vercetti jet lifters to make sure there is extra flow through the UGF. I have to stop the air when I feed the fish or the food gets sucked into the gravel faster than the fish can catch it. Tommy and I work together to make jet lifters that fit the 1 inch tube on the Lee's UGF. I'm hoping it will also fit the Penn-Plax 1 inch tubes. We are going to work together to make some that fit the tubes for the modular black plates you see in the tank. their uplift tube is much higher, and teamed with the jet lifter, should really help the flow in the black plates. To use the jet lifters, I cut about a 2 inch piece of the tube that goes in the adjuster, then put the jet lifter on, then the rest of the cut tube. He has even made airline clips and a plug for the top of the tube. I'm filling gallon jugs with RO water, so every 6 minutes I have to jump up and change the bottle. Please excuse the choppiness of this post. Where I had to cut a plate for the UGF in my half cylinder tank, I cut a stiff piece of filter media sponge and put it across the opening to keep gravel and such out from under the UGF plate. If you get gravel under the plate is slows the flow and everything clogs sooner. I have decided to wait until the new tubes and new jet lifters come before I add anything to the tank. Jumping over bucks of plants and maintaining QT tanks all over the living room has already gotten old, but such is life at times.

Sorry this post is so long, but it is a rather complicated problem due to a complicated design. The glass "ponds" won't have anything but water in them so light can shine up through the bottom of the tank to light the plants and fish from underneath, the way moon lit ponds light the under side of tress) I am planning a sump for my 55 tank, but being a "belt and suspender" sort, I thought I would try to work as much UGF in around my glued in place glass "ponds" to help with the health of the talk. I found a UGF online with small plates that fit together nicely around my "ponds". The problem is that the plates only came with only one uplift tube. I was also able to get a Penn-Plax UGF plate in there, which has an uplift tube. This plate causes the other plates to be in 2 sections. I add some photos below. Given the tank is 4 feet long. I don't think one uplift tube would be able to handle the whole job. I have order some more uplift tube with a different vendor name, but I think they are the same thing. (One is feneci, the other is XMHF) The other problem with the additional uplift tubes is they won't arrive until Sept 14-19. That is a minimum of 2 weeks, when I had hoped to pour substrate today. I need to know if having the plates in place with out any uplift tubes (I believe this is called a plenum ) is good for the tank, or if it is apt to cause problems. Also I would like to get a feel for the benefit of waiting 2 plus weeks to set up the tank to get the extra uplift tubes vs taking the plates out of that area of the tank. I wanted to avoid a sponge filter because I am already working around the "ponds". Front left of tank: Front right of tank with black UGF without uplift tube: Top view left of tank: Top view right of tank with section of black UGF without uplift tube:

@nabokovfan87 I am wondering which is better, UGF with uplift tubes or without the the uplift tubes.