KittenFishMom

I am setting up my half cylinder tank. I want to use a UGF in there, and some eco-complete where I will be planting plants to give them a good start. I don't want the Eco-complete to clog up the UGF. Should I cover the areas of the UGF with stiff plastic (say a cut down deli container) where I plan to put the eco-complete, or will that negate the value of the UGF for the plant roots? Would a few layers of cotton cheesecloth be better? I welcome any ideas on this I'm new to UGF. I expect I will need to cut back the front corners of the UGF to get it to sit flat in the tank. I think I may need to put a "rim" on the areas I cut so I don't clog the UGF with stuff coming in these open edges. Again, I welcome any advice. Do folks have a method for cleaning under the UGF? I use one in my snail bucket. It is too small and the snails climb down the uplift and hang out under the filter. It is always really gross when I give away the snails and clean out under the UGF, but it has a big bioload, so I'm not too surprised. I plan to keep the bioload in my half cylinder low. Thank you for read, and even more for replying. KittenFishMom

@Shadow Our water is well water with a lot of ammonia in it, no chlorine. I do add 2 drops of chlorine per liter of water for hatching bbs. I forgot to mention it above.

I also vote for a healthy dose of "Fritz Zyme 7 Live Bacteria (Freshwater)" ACO and Amazon and lots of other places carry it. It helps me sleep at night if the tanks are overstocked.

I'm working at taking down my 55 gallon to clean out all the leeches. I have been doing this for several days. I took out all the floating and drifting plants, and all the fish I could catch with my feeder trap(which worded well.) Plant wise: I am down to a huge Amazon sword plant that grow in a media bag of potting soil under sand. I will post photos in another thread. Fish wise: I have at least 3 tiny cory fry that flit about but probably never noticed the feeder and at least 3 probably 4 khuli loaches I was sure had died that were doing zoomies yesterday morning. I put the plants I removed through RR and and tempted to do it again in a few days just to be sure. The fish I caught are doing well in other tanks. I'm not sure about the next step. I think the next step will be trying to get the remaining plants and random litter out of the tank, which will muddy the water. Then set my smaller fedder traps and wait a few days, rebaiting the traps every day with bbs. Having everyplace they like to hide is apt to stress the fish, but maybe they will try to hid in the traps if I put some bio rings and IALs in with the bbs. I could take most of the water out and use air stones, but I won't have any way to filter the water. All ideas and advice are welcome at this point. Thanks so much KittenFishMom

My first tank was a 120 gallon with several HOBS and sponge filters and a canister filter. I think of it like the song "Wide Open Spaces" with needing room to make the big mistakes. The big tank was very forgiving about my steady changing of livestock (fish I caught went in, fish we ate come out. fish that did not get along came out. Eventually most fish would come out and I would clean the tank and start catching fish again. Everything from the minnow traps, including mud puppys, snails and crayfish went in. some big fish ate smaller fish. I fed local worms and lots of floating weeds from the lake almost daily. I tried growing garden cuttings and had a 10 gallon grow out tank for brine shrimp. I tested the water a lot and did 50% changes often with lake water. (sometimes we would use a sump pump, other times it was carrying all clean lake water from the dock. I also raised about 70 wild day old Bullhead catfish I caught in the boat ramp. (thus my screen name KittenFishMom) They started in a 10 gallon, then as they grew, I added more 10 gallons until the bi fish stopped trying to eat them. Then the babies moved to the big tank. It was a great summer project. then I found out in the fall that you can't keep New York State native fish in a tank. How the law deals with fish native in New York but hatched in other state, I don't know. At that point I went tropical. I loved my huge tank. watching the big fish interact and being able to study them while feeding helped my fishing a lot. Now I don't fish often. I am too busy with the tropical fish

@Shadow I always use my water change water on plants inside and out. Wasn't sure about seltzer, but now I am. Thanks so much.

I was running low on bbs eggs so I just placed an order with ACO for eggs and their special salt. I have been using Instant Ocean, and adding Epsom Salt and baking soda and chlorine to my RO water. It works well, but I am very curious to see if this salt makes much difference. I wish ACO sold it in 1 or even 5 pound amounts. at a Tablespoon per litter, 14 pounds will last a lifetime. I would have bought it the first time I saw it if it was only a pound, like the crushed coral. I think the price must reflect some of the cost of shipping. I hope the plants I ordered to get free shipping don't get smashed during shipping. Has anyone else trIed it with RO water? Does it need any tinkering with RO water?

I did RR on plants and wondered if the liquid (selter) could go on the garden or was better to pour in the drive or down the drain? I know seltzer has some salt, but not how much.

@Guppysnail I don't mind soaking for hours if I can feel confident thatl the leeches will be gone !

@Guppysnail Will H2O2 kill leech eggs?

@Pepere I am a daughter of a daughter of the depression. I am always saving things just in case. I like your game plan. I will replace the sponge filters. All the substrate will go to the rose bushes and lavender plot. I think I will plant the plants in soil and not try to RR them. I will also buy new heaters and clean the ones I have and the set the up in a bare bottom tank in the fall and see what develops. Thanks for your input.

@mynameisnobody Would you toss the 55-gallon customized tank and 6 month old ACO heaters?

I have a large, or maybe extra large, ACO sponge filter that was in a tank with leeches. Is there a recommended method for RR cleaning to make sure the inside of the base gets completely cleaned and all the leeches that might be hiding in the base are killed I am tempted to buy new sponge filters for all my tanks, but I feel like putting that much plastic into a landfill is not what should happen. Is it best to have the sponge off the plastic parts? Is it best to have the base on its side or flat on the bottom of the bucket? Will putting a bag of rock on the sponge to keep it submerged prevent the flow of CO2 to all the parts of the sponge? I'm also doing ACO heaters and a bucket or 2 of plants. Once I can move the life stock out of the 55 gallon tank with leeches, I will be doing some huge plants, that are 3/4 or of the water. figuring out how to submerge enough of the plant and cover everything is still beyond me. I think about it every time I look at the tank. Catching the kuhli loaches will be tricky. I thought they died, then they started coming out for brine shrimp. catching the hillstream loach also looks tricky. I'm hoping to get the in the feeder trap, but the have lots of algae to munch on, so I will need to remove a lot of that to get them hungry. Anyone recommend a cheap source for a lot of seltzer? We can't seem to find it in 2 liter bottles around here. 1-liter bottles are also a lot of plastic, even if it gets recycled. Thanks for your input KittenFishMom and her crew

@Chick-In-Of-TheSea I just use a few drops and work it up om my hands first, wash my scalp and hair. Rinse completely. Then comb while very wet to be sure there are no suds on the comb. Rinse until the suds are all gone. There were times my scalp looked like "hot spots" on our dog. I wonder if dawn might have helped her.

@Guppysnail "Been there, Done that, Didn't get a tee-shirt" or the dimensions. That was why I asked here. I have ordered a jetlift (jet-lift?) and will use my air pump to run it instead. It will get more O2 into the water and shouldn't need as much cleaning out as a pump would. So I'm happy. When the jet lift arrives, the fish will be happy too.

@rockfisher and @Tommy Vercetti I would love to buy one of these for a fish that that no longer has it's tiny submersible water pump. How can I go about getting one? I know I need to get in ID and OD of the tube I would be putting it on. I would need it to be fish tank safe. Thank you so much ! KittenFishMom

@Lennie How is the cold mist made? That is tank is very facinating to look at.

@lennie Thanks, I was afraid everything would feel like the water wasn't deep enough.

I have an opportunity to buy an aquascape style rimless tank that is 26 by 26 by 12 high. What fish would work well in a tank that is only 12 inches high? It has a lid, but I think that is a gap that shrimp could get out of. Thanks in advance, KittenFishMom

This is WAY off topic, but I think some might like to know about it. I have had extremely bothersome scarp on the back of my head for decades. I tried all different shampoos and conditioners. Many prescription treatments recommended by my Primary Care doctor and my Dermatologist. The itching drove me nuts on hot days. I had been washing fish equipment in the bathtub with Dawn. and was thinking about how clean it rinsed and figured I didn't have much to lose. If they use it on ducklings in oil spills, it probably wouldn't make my scalp worse. It worked wonders. I won't rattle off all the symptoms my scalp had, because some may find it gross. I will answer PMs if people want to know. You never know what joys fish keeping might bring to your life ! KittenFishMom

I bought a used Top/Fin rimless 5 gallon aquarium item (#5230342 at Petsmart) They said the pump broke and they no longer had it. I am looking for the dimensions so I buy a replacement submersible pump. I think an uplift tube might work as well. I read a while back about a printable uplift tube that had multi-air holes around the bottom of the tube, I might try to find that on the forum. If someone remembers what that uplift was called, please let me know. Currently using and HOB, but would like to use the original design. All Ideas are very welcome !!! Thanks KittenFishMom

@Colu and @nabokovfan87 and @Torrey and @Guppysnail at Everyone else: I am looking for the right ratio of aquarium salt to gallon of water for an adult male betta. I also want the Espom salt bath instructions. (I can find them in an instant when it is someone else's fish, but when my fish is my search never works right.) I have a male betta happily swimming around a 55 gallon planted tank with a distended belly. I'll get the water parms in a few minutes. The temp is 79f. Just added 2 photos. I am cleaning a QT tank and going to set him up with RO mixed with seachem chemicals, and some tank water. I will also add a bunch of IALs and a cube of frozen bbs. I want to add the right about of aquarium salt to the tank, then later set up an Epsom bath for him. I'll add the water parms with an edit after I post this. You can answer or wait for the parm info. Thanks KittenFishMom water parms: 1st his tank, then mixed new water RO NO3 25, 0 NO2 0, 0 Cl2 0.8, 0 (These strips always show Cl a few days in? Cats hid ACO strips, so I am using back "Future Care" strips)) GH 75, 50 TA 180, 200 KH 120, 180 pH 7.2 , 7.8 adding photos, but they don't show the belly well: Will get better photos once the QT is set up. Thanks for looking

@Allan I had great luck with the weeping willow outside in a tote full of water and duckweed and some guppies. I think the frogs ate the guppies. I had an airstone in the tote. The willows rooted very well and we potted them in a cool greenhouse and will plant them this summer. All the branches in the heated tropical tanks died rather quickly. I don't think they liked the warm water. I have have red emerald philodendrons growing like mad in my tropical tanks now. Good luck.

@nabokovfan87 I didn't notice white stuff, there were all those fry and fish food and bbs in the water. There might have been white stuff, but I didn't notice. I just wanted to get them into the bucket as fast as I could.

If you remember my bottle trap feeder: I used it without the cap on the left end for about a week as a feeder. The fish quickly learned that if I monkeyed with it in any way, it was worth swimming in the right side and checking for yummies. This first time I wanted to trap, I left the cap off for a few minutes to let the water current through the bottle leave a yummy tail up to the right side of the bottle. I screwed the left cap on and in 10 minutes I had 45 calm cory fry munching away. Of course they panicked when I picked up the trap, but the 2 litter bottles diluted the toxins enough until I poured them into a bucket. Not one acted the least bit dizzle. I still use it open as a feeder. I often pop frozen bbs cubes in from the left as the bottle sits on the bottom of the tank. I have found it easy to pop dry tubifex cubes in from the left as well. The yummy food only makes it out of the bottles inside a fish, keeping the filters much cleaner. (No this may not be "display tank" quality, but I'm sure someone could hide it behind plants, Or paint a few mermaids or mermen on it. depending on you taste) Next time my photogragher spouce is awake when I feed cubes, I'll ask him to get some pictures. Anyway. the tubifex worm cubes float in the bottle. The corys can smell them and work their way up the side of the bottle and hang upside down nursing from the cubes. I am sure they would not find them in open water, but in the bottle trap, they find them quickly. Some find them so quickly, the swim in the small left opening. Others when they realize they swam out the left opening, turn around and go back for more. For my next experiment: I am going to make one out of square gallon water bottles to see how quickly the hillstream loaches figure it out. My smallest one has figured this one out, but is not as good as finding the exit as the cory fry are. The square gallon bottle have a nice wide flat opening and a much larger cap, so I think the bigger loaches should catch on quickly. Note: I use 2 ceramic bio rings to hold this stedy on the bottom. I'm sure some chunks of substate or such could be the same. Make sure the cap is off before you tip the trap into the bucket so the weight doesn't bump into you fish.