jwcarlson

I do not believe that's a legitimate concern. 🙂

You're over complicating it. And making it too big (in my opinion). I would run one header just above your top tank and run all my drops from there. No siphon issue that way.

I'd be more concerned with it draining out onto the floor than into the pump. The problem with check valves is they cause a drop in pressure, which basically "consumes" air. Anything below the water level could get water in it. But if your pump is lower and the PVC header farther up, then you will be fine. The worry would be if it's lower and it could fill up your header and there's inevitably a small leak somewhere. Granted, this is pretty low risk, but you might even decide to shut off the air for maintenance or something.

It's hard to get an exact scale, but they look pretty small? They look most like sterbai, but I'm not an expert by any means. However, the pattern isn't normal if they're sterbai. And they have zero hint of the orange pectoral fins.

I doubt the GH is an issue, but not seeing any nitrates seems like your tank might not be cycled. But it could be that your plants are keeping it all down. On another note, I have had absolutely terrible luck with bettas. I've been keeping fish for 25 years and bettas just never seem to last very long for me. I've only ever had 3 or 4, but they just don't seem to do well for me. Meanwhile some kindergarten teacher probably has one in a quart of water that's never been changed for the last six years. 😄

Ask your co-worker how he got them to quit breeding. 🤣

I don't know that the pipes need to be higher up out of necessity, but mine are up out of the way. It works. Yours could be lower. Mine is not a "loop". It's just a long stretch that I've bent into a U. Maybe I'm getting away with it because my pump is oversized for what I need. I will say that the end of the line does seem to have a bit less pressure. But it's not horrible. I could pretty easily cut into it and complete the "loop". I have no plans on expanding anything, so I should be good like this. I would guess you could get by with the same setup. Here's a way simplified version that's in my fishroom's... side room. 😄 Separate pump, it just a couple tanks, couple aging barrels, and a couple brine shrimp hatchers. This type of setup would be plenty for your setup, I would think. Just make it the width of your tank and pre-assemble two drops per tank on average. There's different colored PVC or paint that sticks to PVC that you could use if you want it to blend in a little better. I didn't glue or seal any of my joints. I don't hear any leaks, but I'm sure there's some loss. If needed I want to be able to disassemble and reconfigure. Both of the airpumps that I'm using are fairly quiet, but I'm not sure they're "living room" quiet. It might make sense to run something through a wall and put your pump in a different room or a closet. Not sure about your house layout, but that's something to consider. Edit to add: one of the benefits of having it all up above water level is there's no chance of a siphon starting if your pump fails.

Those are interesting patterns. How did you get them and how were they labeled when you bought them? They look a little like trilineatus, but no black spot on the dorsal fin. And it doesn't look like yours have any hint of the black spot up there at all. They look a little like sterbai, but sterbai don't really have all that connection in their pattern. Could pretty easily be a hybrid as well.

With that setup, I would run just one PVC header up above and run all the drops off of that one header. Unless you're worried about drop length for some reason? There's no reason to run a header at each level when you can just run a little big longer drop. That way everything is above water level as well. Here's mine. It continues to the right and runs 10' back along the other wall. So it's basically a "U". If I need another drop I just drill/tap a new hole and thread in a valve. I will say it's a bit of a pain to adjust because of how far up I put it. But I rarely adjust anything and this way the kids can't easily get to them. Ignore the paint job. 😄 😄

We use salted minnows to fish for walleye when we go to Canada for fly-in fishing trips. Used to make our own, but Canada changed some laws and I don't think you can bring them over the border anymore. Maybe you could make salted guppies?

To be clear, mine spawn. I would guess the guy at the LFS has too. BUT, they are sneaky spawners, in my experience. Mine spawn, but the eggs can't hatch because *some water issue even if it's soft enough*. So now I've eliminated all caves except one that I can see into. Otherwise, you have to try to spotlight them to see in the cave.

Looks like quite a bit on the eyes, or is that other markings? I don't think paracleanse would help with epistylus in any event. But Colu is steering you right!

Mine aren't borelli... but my hongsloi female is always in some variation of bright yellow and black. Not always super brilliant, but she is VERY very rarely not in those showy covers. And she's never had a successful spawn.

I used to feed guppies to my oscars to keep the numbers in check many years ago. I've actually thought about getting a bigger, predatory fish for just that purpose... to be able to recycle some fry or culls. But those fish come with their own issues and maintenance. It's perfectly OK to feed your extra fish to other fish. Another option would be giving them away, but that's also problematic.

Honestly, it could hold water reliably for the next 20 years. Or it might blow out in 15 minutes. I wouldn't put it somewhere that a blowout would do extensive damage.

I've been keeping fish for 25 years. Occasionally taking breaks or cutting down to one tank, but keeping at some level for a lot of those years. The largest tank I'd ever dealt with was a 75 and the 125 was intimidating for sure. I got it used awhile back and had no plan for it, but it was a friend getting out of the hobby part way and he just wanted it and a 90 and a 55 and a couple 29s and their stands/lids/etc out of his house. I just looked at it and thought... man think of how much water would be on the floor down here if this think blew out. I also elected to put a sump on it. Sumps are pretty intimidating as well. But once you break it down there's nothing special about it, really. I think the reef/saltwater people have had a monopoly on sumps for so long and... no offense to them... but they really like to be a bit extra. It doesn't need to be that complicated. Mine has a couple filter socks, some bags of media, and a sponge filter bubbling away. Now, mine has only been running for a short period of time, but it seems to be OK. I did finally overfill it for the first time a couple of days ago. That's one thing that I don't like is having to top it off fairly frequently. But now that I have lids on the tank it's much better. My piece of mind is that it would be a huge mess if it blew out, but it's in a basement and finished areas in the basement I designed/installed to be able to take close to an inch of water without taking lasting damage. Plus there's a floor drain that most of it would make its way to. All but one of my tanks is in the basement, I actually prefer it that way.

I have no idea what a glass panel would cost these days considering the price of everything else. But it wouldn't be impossible to put a new panel in. If it's used and of the vintage of faux wood trim (my 125 is that vintage), you should probably reseal it anyway.

Could this be epistylis? They look a little fuzzy, maybe. Example of an epistylis infection from my fish a couple of years ago.

From Seachem's website (and the Prime bottle, I think): Maybe I am misunderstanding, though. I'm not sure you'll necessarily get a deep scientific explaination here, but hopefully someone can enlighten us all. Geeze, I see @Lennie already posted this! haha

I dose for the whole volume *unless* I'm topping off the sump on my 125, for instance. I just do a pump in the bucket and go. A couple reasons I do this. First, I have zero idea how much chlorine might be coming into my house through the city water system. Have they flushed pipes? Have they switched from chlorine to chloramine? I want to be sure that I've got enough in the tank to account for fluctuations. I know a discus keeper who lost a ton of fish this winter when his water suddenly had huge amounts of... something... chlorine, maybe as his pH was 14 (and maxed out on his kit). Now, dosing for the whole tank isn't going to fix that problem, but the point being that swings can and do happen. Second, the majority of my water changes are large. And in a lot of cases, they involve full glass/bottom wipe downs. And often, pretty invasive filter cleanings. So it's fully possible that I disrupt the bacteria colony... a little bit... and I'd like there to be some buffer in the ability of Prime to lock those things up (like ammonia, for instance). In short... it's about "insurance" for me. The real answer is that it probably doesn't matter... or at least doesn't matter that much. The cost probably makes almost no difference at all unless you're using Prime in some sort of commercial or very large fish room application. If you're like most of us doing water changes in 1 to 15 tanks it isn't too big of a deal. I do quite a few water changes and I but Prime a gallon at a time and it feels like it last forever. Edit to add: I'm no expert, but this might not be a bad thing to ask Seachem.

Personally, unless you know very well how old the tank is, I think I'd reseal it. I just resealed a 125 this past winter and it was easier than resealing a 29. Big enough that you can get in there and pull/clean the old silicone, tape off seams, etc. I, too, would have reservations putting that many breeding pairs of anything cichlid in a single tank without physical dividers. Even pairs of apistos have periodic spats with each other depending on what's going on in the tank.

Nerites will probably do a decent job cleaning it up. Do you have any "always on" lights in your room that might be giving round-the-clock light on that side? It doesn't need to be particularly bright light either.

Congrats! Is this replacing the existing warehouse, Cory? Or supplementing it?

The vacuuming is important because it removes the paralyzed worms *and* can remove the eggs. There's more than one component to the parasite load. The eggs are not affected by the levamisole, which is why levamisole requires multiple treatments at intervals. I think there's always a parasitic load, it's just a matter of managing it. Normally otherwise healthy fish can deal with worms without showing any symptoms.

I think the first step I'd take is to take a small amount of water (a quart or so) and aerate it overnight like @johnnyxxl mentioned above. If you know it's 7.2 out of the tap that's great, but water can and does "age" or degas depending on your particular water. My water, for example, comes out of the tap at 7.0 and ages up to 8.2/8.3 after aerating it overnight. The goal, here, is to see if you're dumping in vastly different water than is already in your tank. That said, I don't know if what you're having trouble with is caused by water changes or pH shift. But this is an important data point.