nabokovfan87

I wonder if there is a way to force it to re-update itself. I think there's something wrong with the circuitry on your light unfortunately. I've got 3 lights, 2 of the planted and 1 aquasky and they all work generally the same way. If I turn the blue lights off, they go off completely. Please feel free to share your app settings / screenshots that you think might help to try to show what's going on. @wuht

Amano shrimp would work. However, I will share this for the sake of trying to understand what you're wanting. As far as moving / living in the substrate I think the only real option for eating food and stuff on the bottom is some kind of shrimp. Cleaning the bottom of the tank isn't easy, but what most people will do is just try to suck off the layer without disrupting the plants. Once the plants have a good root structure, this is a bit easier to do.

Are you using the app or the light itself? Did you update the firmware?

I took the correct length trim piece for my lid size and had to literally glue it to the glass lid itself so I don't have to mess with having a gap anymore. I tried superglue and that didn't work too well. I just took some silicone (black is all I had) and used that to attach it. You can see the old pieces under the glass in the middle there, but I was glad it didn't look too messy or too bad when it was all put together. I'll let it cure for a bit, then all good. I do have one more trim piece to use on the other tank, it's from marineland, but I do need to trim it slightly to fit well enough and have glass cut. The lid I have now is so cheap the glass is bowing (from amazon) I cleaned out the main tank with the black corys and recording things for the filter testing. Things are still doing well and the fish are still doing well. I am going to do a water change on the panda tank, swap out the filter to a much smaller one for the time being, and then some much needed relaxation time!

Well..... This one is going to be a pretty critical update to the project! First, I want to show the status of the "stuff in the bottom of the basket to slow down the flow" test I was running. As mentioned above I had used what I had on hand which means it wasn't optimal. I went ahead and tracked down some mech and mech-type media that I can test with for the sake of trying something heavier. After about 2-3 days I noticed that the flow itself was completely cut off on one side of the HoB output. The right side of the waterfall was missing and it seemed to be a pretty glaring issue. I didn't want to move things around and I tried to disassemble the filter without disrupting everything beneath the sponge and basket. My assumption was that all of the media was so light that it was pushed to the right side of the basket and then that meant that the flow itself was choosing the easiest path with was the pump side of the basket and the left side of the output. Visually, this is what I saw: I put the basket back in and just wanted to take a look after things settled, this is what I saw. You can see it in the video, but this is pretty clear showing the gap on one side and the media stacked on the right side. As I moved the basket, things do float and do move around so it's hard to be certain. I will end up trying to sort out if heavier media will resolve the issue as well as media with a hole in it compared to something solid. I might have to try crushed coral just for the sake of it or some gravel. I was looking up weight of media, it looks like the mech is about 30-40% heavier. I'll measure things when I get them on hand for comparison sake as well. I removed the filter media from the bottom of the hang on back and proceeded to clean out the filter basket. I will wait until the new stuff arrives before I run anything further. The fish are in the middle of meds, so it's possible the difference in viscosity of the water is also relevant here. The other thing of note was that the sponge was full of stuff! It was good to see it completely clogged again. I cleaned the sponge, and I added a piece of fine pad above it, then the bag of matrix. I turned the pump back on and noticed right away it was bypassing worse than before I had done anything! If you'll notice, the filter is adjusted down to about 5% flow and then the bypass stops and the water level drops. Because this is specific to the water level, I assumed it was air or it was because of the added displacement by having the fine pad in the basket. I tucked the media into the basket and made sure it was below the line I try to recommend. Essentially I made sure it was in there a "bit neater" and lowered the height of the media itself in the basket. This did help with the bypass!!!! What an annoying thing to have to deal with. Here is the results following the adjustment. Flow was able to be adjusted down to about 15-20% before I saw the bypass stopping. It's still not acceptable, but I do want to point this slight difference out for the sake of how critical something so trivial can be. I am going to take the Tidal 75 I have off of my other tank and replace it with my Tidal 35. I already have 2 sponges and another filter on the tank, so the Tidal is there just to allow me to run carbon when need be. I'll attach some photos, potentially play around with that one a bit as well, but I wanted to mention it for the sake of clarity if you see a post about it. I have been running that filter for years previously, but it's been sitting unused for a little while once I had moved the fish out of my QT tank. It is very different than the other tidals, so I think it's a good one to highlight here as well.

I think it just sits on the ground.

I think there's a lot of information that might be helpful for you. Specifically something like Goliad farms content in their blog, Greg Sage and his articles, and there's a ton of other resources. Here's another that a lot of people might not have seen and it was such an insightful conversation about the hobby and the "farming side" of things. I wish you the best of luck!

That's tough. I'm glad they are ok. Hopefully things on the tank settle out for you. If you're not able to spend as much time with the tank as you'd like I would suggest getting a bunch of anubias to help out. Pretty robust plant that doesn't require much to do really well.

I usually try to have enough patience to let it run for 3-5 weeks. On the last one I did, I dumped the bacteria in, ran it for a week. It had already been running for a while, but that was just to give the filters some time. I added hardscape, added media and all that. I added 3-5 of the fish planned for the tank, then let it run, then added the rest. I was in a rush because I needed to move the fish, but it took me forever it seemed like.

Add water, add some food, add the filter, let it run for a few days. Add substrate, hardscape, plants, etc. and let it run for a little bit. Add your bacteria, add more food, let it run. Time and patience. NBD. Congratulations on the new tank, very cool stuff.

They take up different parts of the tank. They'll be fine. I have 2 clowns in mine. Just keep an eye on the mulm and make sure you siphon it regularly during cleaning.

Probably due to the shape itself. It almost looks like plastic/treated or something. I cant see how thick it is or anything, but it shouldn't have any issues sinking. If it does, just put it vertical / stack some rocks under and on top of it. If you keep having issues, drill some small holes in it. 1/16 or 1/8"

We can't zoom in on the photo because it's compressed or something. If you can upload a new one it might help 🙂

Same thing happened to cory. Pond froze over and pinched the line, then it started to siphon out of the tank. 😞 It happens.... Good to hear some / all of the fish are ok. Glad you caught it in time. Something I do, whenever I am using a siphon is I'll wedge it somewhere if I ever step away. Usually on a branch or a rock or something and then I make sure it's sturdy, then I walk away.

epsom salt baths.

I dig it. That's a super helpful method!

I flip back and forth and I've settled on mid-week dosing. (dosing 2x a week). My logic is that I can dose less and better test / track how the plants are doing. If I do a WC and I see 0 nitrates or I see 10-20 nitrates, then I dose and things go up to 40 ppm or so, I still have a ton of nitrates in the water day to day and I'm not doing a good job of keeping "clean water". The goal is to make sure the plants have access to nutrients, not just nitrates. So keeping the nitrates lower, dosing more often, tracking that food source for the plants a bit better, it means that I know the plants have the micro/macro they need at a bare minimum and that the nutrients are coming from dosing and not something like overfeeding, stress, bad water, etc.

Might have been the same thing as what happened with ladybird. Cory took about a week to treat with meds and stuff. I would try to check, low stress of course, but just make sure you don't see anything that is stuck in the fish's mouth and continuing to cause damage. Maybe if you put him in a specimen container or something clear (glass dish) you can see his mouth more clearly and take some video / photos.

Nice work, very happy to hear the good news 🙂

with corys or which specifically? If you haven't seen it, this is a very helpful topic for anyone trying to breed fish.

This is the same water I have. It's great for fish that like hard water and the KH is just stable enough to keep PH right under 7. You can mix it with RO water if you want to lower hardness, run a moderate amount of crushed coral in the tanks to buffer KH back up to a stable level and your PH will sit at around 6.8-7.2

I used to work in aerospace, airplane seats. Went to college for computer engineering. Filters were "easy" for me to understand in terms of just how to fix them. 🙂 That's awesome. Recycling at it's finest!

I can't even get my big tank setup 😞..... The people where I am can't even tolerate the buckets let alone the python. At the old house I has a utility sink I used, here, no dice. The house is under constant construction and all of the bathrooms are being worked on / fixed. (an ongoing project for quite a while already) Unfortunately most sinks these days don't really allow you to hookup a python due to space for it to fit or the faucet. Easiest way to run it would be to set it up with the shower itself or running 100' of hose to the hose out front. Then I get jumped on because the door is open and a fly might get in. 😂 I have one tank literally next to the door. I fill it up with the hose / python hook now.

Got it, thank you!

Sicce has some nice looking ones! Just saying. I don't like the ones that are round because it's a pain to cut foams. The rectangular ones I prefer but there is often weird issues like tubes going right through the foams. Some of the eheim and others avoid this and you're left with a pretty easy shape to cut out. Sicce Whale I think is the one I keep eyeballing or the Fluval 407 series. I don't really understand the logic for some of these in terms of the design and I'd always try to buy the one with the most trays no matter what and find some other way to diffuse flow. Buying something, especially as some of these prices, and getting 1-2 trays just feels like a waste to me. Something like a booster canister comes in handy in that situation as well. I also would prefer to diffuse CO2 in-line or use an in-line UV sterilizer.