R Budds

13 month update on 20 gallon long. It's still measuring 0 nitrates and the other parameters are stable. The only maintenance I've done has been topping off with distilled water, cleaning the aglea off the glass, and clearing duckweed/trimming the plants. I have taken about 8 gallons from this tank over the past 10 months to use in newly setup tanks, but no other water changes. The only water change this tank had was about a year ago when a CFL bulb dumped it's contents into the tank and I drained it down as low as possible to get the white powder out. The fish seem to be doing very well, for the most part. The Betta I had in here died a few months ago, I had him for a year. He was healthy so I'm pretty sure a Julii Cory killed him. I have 2 Black Neons left from the 5 in my first tank, I got them in Nov 2021. One is fat and active, but has an injury near the base if it's tail, the other has one eye and hides in the plants but seems healthy. The snails have layed eggs twice but nothing came of them. The regular Neon Tetras are doing great although they were getting skinny when I had 6 female guppies in the tank for a few months. The guppies would eat all the food, so they are now with the other females in their 29 gallon tall paludarium. I got a "Mermaid" betta from a big name pet store and he's doing great so far, he matches the Neons well. Now back to the Juliis. I started out with 5, from the LFS, then added 1 from a big box store and now I have 7. The 7th one appeared about 2 weeks after the Betta died. It was about 1/4 the size of the others. I realized that they had babies and one survived. My assumption is that the Betta had eaten one of the baby Juliis and chocked. This picture is from December 3rd the first time I saw the little one. The picture is fuzzy but it's right next to the big one. The plants seem to be growing fairly well. Sorry the pictures aren't too good, I couldn't get the glare to go away. Here are some pictures from today. Here is the little Julii below, the one by the snail, it's almost fully grown.

I didn't put any snails in with them, I was afraid they'd attack them. I said that I'd given them crab cuisine, but I was mistaken, they wouldn't touch the crab cuisine (but my snails love it) I was giving them the shrimp cuisine. They did get baby brine shrimp a few times too, but I haven't had any luck with my last few batches. I got them at the beginning of February and they were fully grown, so the last 2 were probably around a year old.

I am not sure what happened with this tank but I have lost the last crayfish. My only guesses are the temperature was too high or the pH too low. She was carrying eggs (for the second time at the end of October) and I was able to get a few pictures but unfortunately none hatched. I had her and one other crayfish left, it died while she was holding the eggs. The plants were/are doing great, but it did have a strong (but not foul) odor. The nitrates were zero and pH was stable at 6.2, the TDS was stable at around 280ppm with 180ppm being our tapwater hardness. I was feeding them Hikari crab cuisine, micro pellets, and Tetra flakes and they were feeding well until they died. She died a few days ago. As I drained the tank I saw a lot of those tiny white creatures that quickly go around the tank. This is the only tank I've seen them in. With just the crayfish the tank needed more attention than I was able (or know how) to give. The biodiversity of my other tanks is better at keeping things in check, I think.

I think high waste is one of the keys. My best tanks are heavily stocked. My first 20 gallon really took off when I started adding more fish. My tiny 5.5 gallon has 11 fish and the filter can only get the nitrates down 30ppm (about 20 less than my tap water) but that seems ideal for the plants and fish since they all seem to be doing great. My second 20 gallon long is full of algea. It only has about 14 male guppies and 5 corys and I don't think the waste load is enough to really get it going. The fish seem to be doing very well though.

I can't say for sure since all of my tanks have plants. My 1 gallon has the fewest though and it's been stable for months now with only a tiny amount of duckweed, due to its small surface. I can say for sure that I had high nitrates and couldn't grow any plants before, so availability wasn't the issue in my opinion. My nitrates have been at around 30 ppm in my 5.5 gallon for a few months now. It currently had 5 adult guppies, 6 green corys, and a mystery snail. It just has the UGF and an airstone for a couple of months and is doing great. My 20 long has been setup since the first week of January and is looking awesome. It has almost no algea and the plants and animals are thriving. The nitrates jumped up to 10ppm when I added about 20 female guppies to the tank for a while but the system handled the additional load with no problem. I attribute the health of my tanks to the UGF slow flow and SafeTSorb substrate.

It's been almost a month and I'm not sure what happened but we haven't seen any babies yet and she hasn't been carrying the eggs for a while. There are plenty of hiding spots so I'm hoping they are in there somewhere, but it doesn't seem likely. I am setting up my 29 gallon tall as a paludarium for them. It has a larger footprint and I plan to incorporate different levels in the underwater area so they'll have more room to get away from each other.

I've been checking out some local thrift stores and found a nice 3/4 gallon glass jug that I'm going to setup this way. I'd like to find a shorter and more square jar for an actual aquarium with plants and permanent fish, around 3 gallons. The tall one is nice for the fry though because it gives them more time to feed as their food falls to the bottom.

Thanks. Yeah it's been working great. The nitrates are still at zero and I've done nothing but add RO water when it evaporates. Right now I have 7 or 8 babies in there. I just wait until I can tell if they're male or female then move them out. The glass is dirty, but it's crystal clear when I look down through the surface.

One of our crayfish dug out a nice cave under a slate stone about 2 months ago and I think I know why. She has at least 10 eggs under her tail. Sorry for the low quality pictures. Here she is digging out some more. You can see a few eggs from this side. She's going back in to hide for now. I'm not sure what to do about the babies once they hatch, they are in a 10 gallon and that's too small for all of them to grow in and I'm sure the adults will eat them. I may setup a tub in the basement for them to grow in.

Ok good. I have never had a tank that big and that much weight is scary, so I wouldn't have felt right if I didn't mention my concerns. It looks great.

Final update, unless something major happens. The nitrates have stayed at zero for a few weeks now. I've done a few 25% water changes due to the TDS climbing, but no other maintenance. It currently has 21 baby guppies in it. I have been leaving them to mature then I separate the males and females.

This looks like a really nice setup, I look forward to seeing it come together. I just have one major concern. With a 60 gallon tank on top that's 600 pounds. The side boards are more than strong enough up and down, but they could potentially allow the top to shift side to side. It could then collapse (like a cardboard box with both ends open) under the weight. If the water were to shift, due to someone bumping it or whatever, that weight could carry a huge sideload along with the 600lbs download and it would just have to move a couple of inches to get the weight off the side boards. I don't think you could test this with 3 big guys on it since their weight can't really carry side to side like tank water can. I suggest either 4 hefty corner gussets (2 at the top back minimum) made from 1/2 plywood or perhaps some short 2x4s with two 45 degree cuts that can be attached in the upper corners between the sides and top (like under a picnic table), or a full back panel. Like a cardboardbox with one end closed it becomes much more rigid. I would just hate to see the worst happen and you lose both tanks. Good luck. Thanks for the mention. My tanks are all doing great. My 5.5G has to be my favorite. It's so overstocked (11 fish, 2 mystery snails, and at least 4 ghost shrimp) but they all get along and seem very healthy. The nitrates are zero and the plants are doing great, for me at least. The results are so great that I've been sharing it with anyone who will listen. I'm keeping a close eye on them waiting for something to creep in because they all seem too good to be true. I did some minimal water changes just to feel a little better, but otherwise they've been very little maintenance. Scooping the duckweed 2 or 3 times a week is the main thing.

I love internet conspiracy theories especially ones with tangential, but seemingly irrelevant, sources. I'm not recommending pouring undiluted tea tree oil onto a cat's head, lol. Of course appropriate caution should be used, which should go without saying, but people often can't understand or follow directions and that makes life harder for everyone unfortunately.

Update on all 5 of my denitrifying tanks. These are the test strips and the TDS readings. From left to right: they are all around 6.5pH, the KH is low for all 5, no chlorine, the top 4 are hard (180/200ppm) and the bottom one is softer (around 80ppm), the top 4 have no nitrites or nitrates and bottom one is still cycling. The top 20 long has low TDS climb. It's top is surprisingly tight and it grows a lot of duckweed. The only maintenance has been pulling the duckweed and some trimming. The 10 gallon has the tightest top and has the lowest TDS increase. It's high due to the extra iron and regular fertilizer I added when I set it up. I have done little maintenance on this tank besides 2 or 3 filter floss changes and top offs since the beginning of February. One full in-tank filter cleaning due to java moss growing in it. The 5.5 gallon's TDS has been climbing due to the top having gaps, I need RO water to top it off with. The fish and plants look good, but I will probably do a 25-30% water change soon to get it into the 400ppm range. I have only changed the filter floss when it gets floaters and topped it off and trimmed the wisteria, with small incidental water changes that went into the 1 gallon jar until it cycled. The 1 gallon jar's TDS is climbing due to the fry food and its small size. I will probably do a 50% water change on it. Right now it has 17 baby guppies in it. The new 20 long has increased nitrates of about 40ppm from the tap and the nitrites are just showing, so the cycle has started. It only has 6 baby guppies in it for now but they should cycle it. The TDS is (was?) GH from my tap water. I ran an API water softening pillow for 36 hours to lower the GH, it seems to have turned it into something that's still in the water, because most of the TDS of my tap water is GH and the TDS didn't go down to 80ppm. So far the denitrifying filtration seems to be working well.

The jar has had 13 baby guppies in it for a while now. I moved one out about a week ago. Last night I moved 2 into a 20G long I just setup and today I am moving 4 more. The nitrates are barely showing and the nitrites are gone. It never had a bacterial bloom, but seems to have cycled. The 7 youngest ones will stay in the jar for now. Update a few hours later. 9 more guppies were born today and are in the jar, so it has 16 now.