jwcarlson

Says every 24 at least or sooner. 12 hours works pretty well for me, I can do a quick change in the morning and redose. Would anyone suggest that or just wait 24?

Are these shipping prices for real? Just out of curiosity I plopped 20 cardinal tetras in cart and shipping was only $13? That hardly seems possible!

I don't mean to derail the thread, but I've read in other places that high concentrations of these things are adverse to bacteria growth (basically poisoning the ability of the bacteria to multiply and in some cases kill them). Can anyone comment on that being true and/or if that might be the case here?

I'm not sure the canisters are "better" in a way we'd traditionally think of them. But they certainly have a lot of space for biological media (in my opinion). And because of that I'd imagine they can handle converting a lot of waste into nitrates, but I really wonder how much is necessary. The filter is of unknown age. Honestly, if I'd have known it would be a headache I would have just bought something else. At this point I'd just bought spares of things if I end up buying another of the same. I would guess that the seal hasn't been replaced and, honestly, it might have sat for years for all I know. So the seal could be dry it just "feels" good to me but it isn't. The first time I put it into service it didn't leak. But maybe it was a little brittle and there's some damage now. *shrug* I'll eventually get it sorted out (or replaced). 🙂

I think Amazon has them cheapest. That said, you can do water changes without a python. If you for some reason absolutely had to have a pump to do it, you could get a bilge pump from Walmart (I think most of them carry one, or at least they do around here, but we live basically on the Mississippi River). You'd need to power it with 12V DC (car battery). I *think* Python connections are just standard hose connections, so if all you need is 50 feet of hose, you can probably find that somewhere easy to pick up today.

You know, I keep telling myself that. The thing is... bees really take care of themselves in most all of the most important ways. Discus do the same (in nature). Now if I brought a colony of bees into, say, a large building and was going to get them to grow and thrive like that, I think they'd be very difficult to keep. Maybe once I get discus I'll realize it wasn't quite such a big deal after all. 😄

I'm trying to suss out what advice is "idealism" and what is hearsay... the fact that discus have been "kept" in probably just about any water is probably true. I'm trying to discern the sweet spot and how big it is. I'm usually pretty good at doing that. It's a lot easier being successful if you start pretty close to dead center of that sweet spot instead of sitting right on the fringe where maybe it's not the pH that kills your discus, but it's a bacterial infection that would normally have been benign @ ~7 pH, but thrives at 8 (totally made up example, but I know acidity typically helps limit bacterial growth). When you're on the edge it's easy to get pushed off and have no idea what actually caused the issue. I also keep about 40 honey bee colonies and graft/raise all of my own queen bees. So I understand nuance and trial/error. I was originally thinking about a sump, but I don't think that's in the cards where the tank is at (living room). I have thought about moving it to the basement, but our basement is just and unfinished cement room and I do not care to spend much time down there. No one would see the fish unless purposefully going to do so and that defeats the whole purpose, really. If I were breeding them or something that would be a different case. Regarding water changes, the draining of water will be no big deal... laundry sink and I'm going to plumb my python so that it's more or less permanently installed and all I have to do is screw in my gravel vac 'pig tail' and open a valve, start the siphon, and go. Filling will be more complicated as I'll have to pump the RO water out of storage (big garbage can) in the basement and up into the tank. I think that I can probably plumb most of that part in so just go downstairs, start the pump, and do some valve line-up changes and pump the water back in. In my head it's all relatively uncomplicated. Once I start thinking it through more I might find that it's a big pain. We have a home water softener (which is just an ion exchanging resin that replaces minerals with sodium). I'm not sure if that would be better water to run through the RO or if I should just do the regular tap water. Our tap water is something like 600 ppm and the 'softened water' is more like 1100 ppm. My understanding is that it takes roughly 2 sodium ions to replace each one removed, so that checks out if that's in fact true.

You can get them from Discus Hans (Stendker Discus imported to the US). But even Stendker says that above 8 pH, they're not well and at 8.5, they die. I've been nerding out trying to come up with a way. It's going to require RO and I think I've been slowly coming to that conclusion. I don't mind that... I don't think... I can set something up easily enough and have the storage capacity. I've been kicking around putting one in just for our drinking water, actually. I have absolutely zero desire to even attempt doing any of the other ways of lowering pH. But I think doing RO is reasonable and would be stable once I figure out "the mix". Meaning 30 gallons of RO to 5 gallons of tap (to make sure there's minerals). Lots of thinking to do and still very much in the planning stage. Originally I was thinking 4-6 weeks before I would be ready for discus, but I just keep digging. No rush, I've been wanting to keep them for 15-20 years... what's another six months? 🙂

Long term, discus. But it's not like their on order or in quarantine. Have wanted to keep them and kept running into this wall (our tap water is VERY hard. I never much cared about water parameters other than ammonia/nitrite/nitrate when I was fishkeeping more heavily years ago (mostly oscars, livebearers, and african cichlids). Kept hitting this "wall" because I have always been really nervous about our tap water here with hardness and pH. That's a different discussion (the discus), thanks for your help everyone! Just wanted a sanity check. Yep, not chasing anything, but maybe slowly coming to the realization that discus aren't going to work for me without a lot of dinking around with water.

I've got two gaskets on the way. Plumber's grease is silicone grease (so far as I know).

The blue is the "normal range" pH test and the browner one is the "high range" pH test. What do you mean it's high? I mean, it is... it's off range for that test. Both are testing the same water. To me it looks like 8.0, right? There's no fish in this tank, it's just tap water that's been circulating in my new 75. The water in my other tank has Fluval Stratum and it's at 6.x.

Thanks 🙂 Was planning on doing vaseline only as something to try with this gasket I am replacing. But am getting plumbers grease today when I go to the hardware store so will not bother with the vaseline at all. Also found a video of someone loosening some screws at SunSun's recommendation, so will try that tonight probably.

I put everyone in quarantine Sunday and dosed with all three of the "med trio". Didn't notice ich until this AM. Have plenty of meds to redose. No activated carbon in the tank. Should I redose Ich-X? Change water and redose everything? No other fish have it so far except the rummy nose. And it looks like all of them have it. Thanks for looking!

I am so terrible at reading these things. Also have master test kit I will do and see if that's enlightening. We have fantastically hard water here if that helps frame the question at all.

I'd still trim them back and drop them in, as long as the roots/rhizome are salvageable it should be OK. It will be a long road to recovery for it either way, though. (not saying they shouldn't be replaced)

I think that fish (and animals in general) are exceedingly more observant and interactive than we give them credit for. I had a couple of oscars many years ago and they were awesome as far as interaction. And they recognized me compared to other members of the family.

Spoke too soon, when I went to bed last night there was no leakage and it had been 5-6 hours. But this morning it's leaked out into the tub again. Strange. Guess I'll wait and see if the seal fixes it when it arrives (or maybe vasoline it up and see if that helps). Making me miss my "Penguin" filters on my old 75 circa 15 years ago. 😄

Have a lead on an aquarium friendly apartment? Might be looking for one if anything else shows up in the mail. 😄 😄

Minor update: There is a shut off. I was playing with it without it being on and thought it was a clamp keeping the hose barb assembly in. So that helped a lot. But there was still a slow drip leak from the seal area. I bought a replacement seal even though the seal seems absolutely fine and flexible. I removed/rearranged a bit of the bio rings. I think the top wasn't seating fully because it was hitting on some of the rings. No more dripping at this point. Now if I can sort out how to get the intake and outlet held down to the tank I'd be good to go. Didn't come with that part of it.

Breaking the siphon is really a royal pain unless there's a trick I don't know. I might have to do some thinking about how to sort that out easier. I checked out what I could before filling it up, everything is in pretty good shape, honestly. I don't think he used it very much (maybe because it was a pain?). It's nothing I can't deal with, in any event.

I bought an unused (but pre-owned) 75 gallon tank and the guy threw in a used SunSun HW-304B. I fired it up a few days ago after testing tank for leaks. Ran two+ days without issue. Bought some new filter pads for it and wanted to rearrange some media. So I shut it off and popped the top. In a total brain-dead moment I did not consider that it has an active siphon in both tubes and when I popped the top it, um... Siphoned a good amount of water all over until I could get it sorted out. Totally my fault. Cleaned up, rearranged media, closed it up, and good to go. A few hours later my wife wakes me up (we have a sick kid and she fell asleep on me and I dosed off watching an old Cory live stream)..."There's water all over again!" So another big cleanup. Took it all back apart again. Something must have been holding one side of the top up a little bit. So now it is in a plastic tub in "time out". Everything is cleaned up, no leaks out of it yet. Are these things always this big of a pain in the rear or will I get used to it doing enough maintenance on it? I've always had HOBs on everything when I was younger. The amount of biological filtration you can fit in this thing is something to behold, honestly. Just wondering if I should drain it all and move everything from the living room to the unfinished basement. 🤣

Yep, that's one of the sites I keep checking out lol... 🙂 There's about five types that I think I really absolutely want. And it's about another $100 to pick out ten for myself. In the grand scheme of things what's another $10/fish? 😄

I'm at least a month out from ordering discus, but I am haunting websites looking at them. I cannot pick out ten to grow out. I just want them all. I think I decide and then I pick out ten more and it's a different mix. They're just all so stinking cool.

You'll know when you get them, I'd imagine. They'll either have been frozen and then thawed (most plants get stringy and soupy leaves when that happens) or they'll have avoided major damage. If the heat pack is "done" and they're still bouncing around in largely non-climate controlled trucks/warehouses they're probably toast. I got a shipment of plants from Aquarium Co-Op kind of in the middle of whatever bug wasn't telling them to do the insulated pouches. Actually two shipments without pouches. First one it was colder out, a couple of plants had some minor damage, dwarf baby tears was pretty rough, but had some salvageable parts in it still. They're hanging on. Second shipment was fine, but it was a little warmer. Not bitterly cold for either of them, but certainly nights well below freezing in the area. I live in Iowa. I would bring the box in as soon as it's delivered and then let it sit (without opening it) for a few hours to let things get back up to temp and then take a look. Plants are a bit more resilient than we give them credit for sometimes, but cold is one thing that can really wipe them out in a hurry. It's possible the roots might fare better if they're packed in rock wool, but even then it is going to be a long road to recovery for them.