nabokovfan87

what filter is it?

You could totally do it. What kind of shrimp do you have?

Very good that you got things sorted out. What a difference that bottle shake makes! I would opt for changing water every 24-48 hours if possible to get things back on track. Best of luck.

Ah understood. Please feel better! Setup sounds fine. I also use the wifi timers just to have a button for on/off. I am guessing the lid has a slight disconnect on the wire (strained or accidentally pulled outward with the lid dropping or something). I would go ahead and email fluval and try to get a warranty claim or replacement set. You could also check ebay or something for spare parts potentially. Those tanks are pretty specific, so while I can't say it doesn't exist, potentially you can get a glass replacement top and a standard light.

I've used the fluval/aquaclear, aqueon, tetra, seachem, and marineland (old one). The quietest one I've used is the tidal and it's not close. It's so quiet when setup right that you literally don't know it's on. That being said, you're going to want to seal the skimmer, mod it, that isn't for everyone. I have a very detailed guide and can break down things if you need any help with it. Second to that, I run ACO / sponge filters with the ziss airstones and those as well are near silent with a lid. Even with a very overpowered airpump.

Can you show a photo of the setup with the wifi plug? The light plugs into the wifi plug, the plug plugs into one outlet on the surge protector? Pump has it's own outlet separate from the wifi timer? I would also look into a short, loose wire, or the plug itself getting shorted out (the quick disconnect near the LED strip at the lid) If it's within warranty, email fluval also.

I've gone from (in order): Fluval Planted 3.0 24" light -55% intensity for 6 hours -55% intensity for 8 hours -65% intensity -75% intensity -85% intensity (issues trying to get enough light to substrate growers) Fluval Planted 3.0 36" light -65% intensity for 8 hours -75% intensity for 8 hours -75% intensity for 9 hours (screwed up adjusting things, added CO2) -55% intensity for 8 hours -55% intensity for 6 hours -45% intensity for 6 hours -35% intensity for 6 hours -25% intensity for 6 hours -25% intensity for 4 hours -15% intensity for 4 hours There's a lot going on there, but if this is anywhere related to the stuff I am dealing with, cut the light power and then you'll want to use root tabs as opposed to the liquid dosing for some plants. Algae has less access to that (hopefully) and it seems to help the plants stabilize a bit. I am still dealing with an outbreak, but it's controllable and manageable right now. I would cut your light power if you can, potentially even do a blackout to soften the algae. The Algae is growing on dead leaves, which is a sign to trim and remove those problem spots. Manual removal is almost always critical for some forms of intense algae. Had the same thing happen. Never fun. It's ironic how much algae causes the pumps to fail, but the pump failure helps the algae.

The top fin siphon's are slightly narrower than normal, especially the medium or smaller sizes. I would look into those for a 10G so you have a slower flow of water leaving the tank and can control it slightly better. But yeah, I would just use a big cup / pitcher and a bucket for right now.

It's all good. It's intentional movement of the swimmeretes, which is an indication of breeding. Kind of like seeing the mating dance, releasing hormones, etc.

It could've been something when the lights come on and then the fish got spooked. Wishing for a swift and full recovery!

I even have the new overhead lights, didn't help. We are investigating, so that's a good thing!

It all over the place in central OR. In western WA look for it's cousin, Madrona. Very common in california as well, it is essentially the "most common" fancy aquascaping would I've heard of. It was the first one I've seen whenever I learned about aquascaping. Specifically to the point where you look up "manzanita" you'll find stores for aquascaping supplies that use that word as part of their store name. I just know I need those skills in this house so we can not be under construction for 3 years! EEEEEEESH. I really appreciate the layout, step by step progression, and how well the results turned out.

Living the dream. 🙂

Feel better Colu! Very good progress @AllFishNoBrakes If I had to guess the fish got stuck on something or wounded somehow and it got poked right there. Anything sharp that you might need to look out for?

Very unfortunate, my condolences. Do you have any offspring from dodger? I can't be certain.... If she does have eggs, I think she just released them. Either that or she will very soon. If she doesn't have eggs, I think she will be berried very soon. I am leaning towards not seeing eggs and she will have some soon. Either way, it's a good sign! 🙂

Well, I discovered something new today.... The basket floats. I know, I know.... this isn't a relevation, but it was the first time I've seen it. I did a video showing a few things here. Let's take a look and I'll try to break down what we're seeing. 1. The filter on maintenance day as it was running and how it was set. I wanted to visually check bypass and how things were flowing. Needless to say, there wasn't a ton of bypass and there was a lot of flow going through the sponges. 2. This filter does have slightly more of the matrix in the bag than usual, but turning the filter up I realized it was running at about 30-40% of it's normal flow rate. The interesting thing there being that once I turned things up I saw bypass in a few main sections. The "handle" on the right, the back right corner, the left rear section of the basket, and the chute output. Hopefully all of these sections are shown and easy to see, I apologize if they aren't. 3. I wanted to show the basket itself floating and it doesn't play well on the video at first, but eventually I think I was able to get the shot. 4. I wanted to show what the sponges looked like, amount of junk in them. The basket itself is doing well, the pump is generally clean, and I am happy with this amount of detritus being sucked into the filter per week. 5. I tried to show how much came out of each sponge. I would expect the black (medium-fine) sponge to have the most stuff, but it's often the blue (course) sponge that does end up with a lot of detritus. Generally speaking, the pre-filter has about 50% of the weekly detritus, the blue sponge has another 30-45% of the detritus, and the black sponge is just generally there but has been grabbing a bit more detritus these days, around 5-10%. Let's talk about the specific bypass locations and why those are happening..... A. Chute bypass This is essentially a direct result of the basket floating, water is trying to enter the filter box and is designed to flow downward, some water is pushed up and over the black plastic resulting in pooling near the chute as well as bypass. Without forcing the housing itself to have a piece which forces the water downward, this one is very difficult to fix easily. B. Left Side - Rear bypass This one is where we see water "overflow" beyond the edge of the basked. We can sometimes move this one into the final category of improper setup, but I do want to specifically mention that after the right side - rear bypass is happening and there is some excess flow due to porosity of the sponge, you would then expect to see this secondary bypass as a result. More than anything, seeing this bypass under a correct setup means that you are getting some resistance in the filter foam regions causing an issue where the water must go elsewhere due to the power of the pump. Solution.... turn the pump down or increase porosity of the sponge. C. Right Side - Rear bypass This is just going to be the most common form of bypass we see once you address the window cutout. The flow of the filter box is so designed that water is dumping into the box at a very high rate, it goes down the chute to the right side of the filter box, then upward to this right side corner. Because of that flow path, this is the single easiest way for the water to overflow over the lip of the filter basket. The most common indication that bypass is happening is that your filter media bag will have a lot of detritus on it. This is a clear indication of unfiltered water landing on the topmost surface of the filter bag. This is a type of bypass that has been the focus of these experiments to try to address. One method would be for Seachem to add some baffles to the bottom of the filter box to diffuse and slow down the flow. Secondly, the user can reduce the flow to keep this from happening. Usually you'll need to reduce the flow by 10-20%. D. Right Side - Handle Bypass This one falls into the category of indicating an issue, not a main form of bypass. We have seen it happen a few times. The extent of this is such that the normal main bypass (that back right corner) expands as the foams clog and that bypass widens to include water flowing over the handle. The way to fix this one is going to be similar, increase porosity of the foams or go ahead and slightly reduce the flow. E. Other Bypass (not mentioned or shown in this demo) If you are seeing other bypass, the main thing here is to start by cleaning out the foams. Second, check the level of the filter itself to ensure it's not leaning forwards or backwards. If that doesn't fix the solution, than the issue is very likely that your basket itself is too full. Too much ceramic/matrix in the bag or the bag itself isn't folded over and is holding some air resulting in the displacement where the water level is slightly too high on the filter box. Generally speaking, I do have 1-2 more tests I want to run and see how this helps things. I might even try running just the blue sponge. I don't like running one single layer of sponge because it usually doesn't work well enough with the porosity needed. I will need to, I owe this thread, a breakdown of the things I do in a day to day basis throughout the week of using this filter. I will also need to give out a recommended mods, recommended maintenance plan, as well as (potentially) some sort of a final design analysis and review of the product. The goal here, and the obvious question being, "what filter do you recommend, what works best?" It's not a simple answer and I do feel slightly conflicted with certain recommendations for a variety of reasons. I would be very, very, very interested to run a side by side test with a particular pair of filters and be able to show performance comparisons. In a testing lab, that's an easy task, but for me, right now, it just isn't possible. Maybe that happens in the future.

Interesting. Hopefully it sinks. I would drill some holes if it doesn't sink before giving up on it. I can try to find a guide if that helps. A lot of people use slate tiles for stubborn wood too.

I think @Odd Duck has a really good dry start method with moss. Yogurt I would not touch in my tank. I haven't heard that before and can't comment on what it will do, but I would stick to the other methods I've heard before putting that in the tank. When it comes to the wood sinking, it's hard to tell which piece is which. I would look into cutting it and maybe even drilling some holes or something to let water in. Depending on size and shape, some pieces might not ever sink. Hopefully it sinks soon for you!

Currently sitting here drinking some dark cocoa. If you usually buy the packets, I recommend just getting a good cocoa powder and making it manually. Night and day in terms of flavor and health benefits (less sugar if you want) and you can choose the intensity. The tea is cooling off, but it's next! I just got done doing my weekly maintenance. I recorded a video for the seachem testing to show progress of the experiments. Then, I went ahead and pulled all the wood out of the tank so I can siphon things really well. I tried to scrub off some of the BBA on the rocks to some success, but it really isn't going to do much. Emptied out what I needed to in terms of water, siphoned as best I could with that volume of water being removed. I wish I was taking out more water to siphon more, but it is what it is. the fry need the mulm! I pulled a bunch of junk out of the S. Repens patch and hopefully that gives them a bit more room to swim around without all the balls of BBA floating around. I did some housework moving things and cooking spaghetti. Made my mom's spaghetti sauce recipe and the food was good, so no complaints. Cleaned everything and then gave the pups a bath. Their first one in the new sink and it went well enough. They have their sweaters on now, bundled up for the night and sleeping beside me. A monumentally better day than the one I had previously. Edit: Oh I forgot to share. Meet my dosing funnel. This is what happens when you have saran wrap all over the front of your tank. LOL.

Very normal. Also a good sign they like the surroundings.

You win @WhiteCloud! That is epic workmanship and amazing results. Man.... What a journey, what an epic build. Congratulations on the tank and welcome. @Pepere has to see this!

You can mix it if you want to. It might not look the way you think. I would remove all the sand, clean it, and then go ahead and replace it. If you use the sand, it would be for a cap (need a certain thickness) or you'd want to have a section with sand, a section with substrate. Corvus Oscen has a lot of good videos on this. As far as the process, I know it seems like a lot of work, but it's really easy. 1. Get 2-3 tubs/buckets ready with tank water. 2. Move the plants into one tub 3. Move the rocks and wood into another tub 4. Move the fish into their own tub with an airstone. Optionally add any filter you have to this bucket or pouches of ceramic media. 5. Drain the tank as much as you can 6. Use a cup or scoop or wet/dry vac and get all the sand out. 7. Clean the sand like you would with a brand new batch of sand. 8. Rinse your new substrate, add that in, then add some water and hardscape and plants, 9. Fill the tank all the way, run the filter for a few hours and run a water test. ----> Some planted substrates leech out ammonia, you'd want to be aware of this. Optionally you can test a cup of the substrate soaked in water for an hour or so and see if it leeches before you proceed with the full dismantle. 10. After everything is good, put the fish back in. Acclimate to temp.

Beautiful Betta. Very iridescent. Hm.... Reminds me of this. I vote for "Nova"

@Chick-In-Of-TheSea and @TeeJay have if you're specifically asking for a bit of feedback on how it performs for them. In both cases they used the etsy offerings for their specific HoBs.

I don't have the dimension you're asking or I'd measure it for ya! Here's another resource: