nabokovfan87

Depends on the stool you have and the actual tools you have, but based on my experience with mine I would highly recommend that you make sure you get the siphon for deep tanks, long net handles and all of that. Lifting the lid for me and having room to work is anywhere from 9-12" above the rim. Something like.... if you had a HoB, being able to lift those parts up you're at minimum talking a good 12-16" depending on which one you're using. Let's say it's light mounted on the "ceiling" of the lower tank so it's out of the way. Somewhere in the range of ~10-16" of room to work with is best. The larger value is better. From the floor itself, if the tank is too low then it's just a pain to drain the tank without using pumps and that sort of thing. I would say minimum 12" off the ground. Preferably 16-18" if you can. High enough where you can sit with a decent stool (like a mechanics one) and enjoy the tank. That gives you an idea of the height/room needed above each tank, from the floor is set, as well as the tank dimensions themselves. That being said, if you're not finding enough space, you can always try a 75G on the bottom and a 60B on top.

That's it. yes! It's a SNES RPG.

They do! I think I have to order 3 parts though. One is for with hob, one without. (one full cover + the hob one just in case.) I was trying to figure out if they are made of lexan, but I think I finally figured it out recently.

I think that's definitely the right approach. If anything else, maybe do a blackout, but given the setup and how dialed in you have everything.... I think you're right. That plant in the middle that has the bright orange/yellow, the pogostemon looking one. It's not pogo, right? I think you have the pogostemon dassen on the left there? (I'm sorry, trying to learn all the new plants and get better about what I'm looking at.) Have you ever kept Rotala macrandra 'Bangladesh'? Any tips for rotala or macandra varieties in terms of care? I imagine as long as the system works well, they'll do just fine in a lot of scenarios.

That looks like too much fun!!! Did you decide on a name? Also... have to share this with you... it's too good!!!

Grace is doing a bit of "dancing" this morning. Lights pop on and she's swimming around checking on everything. She's going through the swords and I see the corydoras somewhat active and one or two swimming midwater. I had fed some repashy so I assume they were going after food remnants. What is super interesting is that I see the otos shoaling like crazy. I think the amano were moving and spooked them or it might be a little bit of breeding behavior. I see them swimming around and then I see Grace doing her thing. A little bit of grazing on algae on the glass before she runs to bed and she's just exploring, seemingly, every surface. She's a happy little fish this morning. 🙂

The co-op does have their own sand they sell in the store. This may have changed, but essentially it is similar to lapis lustre sans which is now no longer available due to sourcing concerns and environmental damage. It was sold at hardware stores and it's been a major issue in California where the sand originated. Anyways, if you're looking for something similar.. Caribsea Carolina Creek, torpedo beach, or Crystal River would all be extremely similar in size and work well.

Honestly, and this is something I hope you take to heart, things happen beyond our control. All we can do is process it, try to understand it, and try to learn from it. Sometimes it's an accident. Some fish can be skiddish. The noise of a door opening in my tank usually sends the fish darting. That might cause one of them to jump up. There are always going to be some things beyond your control. These are animals and they are not something we can simply control in the sense of training or other things. Sometimes their wild nature and natural instincts come out. Maybe that is what happened and the fish darted and bumped into something. If the fish is able to recover, it will and the advice above is great for getting the fish on that path. That being said, you might be dealing with permanent damage and it might not be something where the fish recovers. Keep an eye on the tank and let us know. Chin up, stay strong. Take a breath.... you didn't do anything incorrect, things just happen sometimes.

You forget how long Miami has stunk up the joint!!!! They could've gone for the record, but that's not really applicable. It "got out of hand" but it was still a really fun game. Denver defense was having some fun. It felt like every other college football game I've seen highlights for.

back in the day, it was nat geo from the big box store. great stuff!

Honestly, it was just another game. Both teams have a ways to go before they feel "solid". Denver definitely has some work to do and things to work out, but... it's good. Passionate fanbase for sure! For sure! That's why I was thinking about moving that one. The big indication is BBA. I have 2-3 stems I want to be in the "background" and I need to keep an eye on how they compose themselves in the flow. The way the filter is setup it's almost like a peninsula tank and I may have to scape it that way with an open space to the right end where the flow goes down the glass. Speaking of flow, I went ahead and checked the filtration as well as rinsed what need be. All looks basically new and I don't see a ton of anything going up into the foams yet. Not sure what to think about that, but we'll keep an eye on it and check it in two weeks. (prefilter weekly) Here's a video showing how things flow behaves going lengthwise and showing it at spraybar level and at fill height.

Based on the way the fish is curved I would think maybe it was injured and ran into something.

Reminds me of earthbound. 🙂 Good food takes time. Welcome, happy to see what you do with the tank in future!

Cc @Odd Duck So I will say that in my own experience I ran into a bad batch and some issues. OD runs most/all their tanks with BDBS and has for years. I think from all of our discussions that region of where you get the media is critical. It is a recycled, unknown, inconsistent media and it's tough for me to be certain. What I will say, is that if you put your hand in the bucket when cleaning... after you have gloves and rinse it a ton.... and you're ready to put it into a tank. If anything feels sharp, I would look for something else. Getting dark/black substrate is thankfully becoming a bit easier. One of my other major concerns was planting, the weight of the substrate, the amount of flow I like to run, and how easily it gets pushed around. I don't know how much it would compact and densely hold plants compared to other choices.

I would've done the same thing. I like to have eye level middle of the glass panel if I can. Sitting there, able to view it without doing too much straining on the neck. It looks good. It'll be great to see when you have some things in place!

Pretty sure I talked myself out of it. 😞 ALRIGHT everyone, it's time to show the sunday funday update (Go Dolphins! 🙂 ) I wanted to start by saying that this would not be possible at all without the help of many people, but I want to specifically say thank you to @mountaintoppufferkeeper , @KittenFishMom , and @AllFishNoBrakes for sending me some of the supplies and things for this tweak on the tank. It means a ton to be a part of a community where a small bit of help can go such a long way. Let's rewind.... One of my favorite things is the kelp forest and it's also something that I recently found out is having as much of an environmental issue as things like coral reefs. Tragically so, it's a unique and wonderful habitat that I have always enjoyed ever since I was yay tall. I think of myself as the shark / seal cruising through the tall plumes of kelp and I just can't imagine anything else like it. A long walk down a forest trail, a nice dip through the kelp forest, a nap on top of a mountain pass looking down into the valley, all of those things are peaceful for me. One thing I have always wanted to do was get better at stems for the sake of having tall plants. Seeing dutch style tanks from others on the forums as well has been a huge eye opener for me. I dig the pruned, pleasing placement of different textures, especially when they are allowed to intertwine and flow with one another... much like that kelp forest. That being said a little bit ago MTPK had sent me some "Kelp" for my scape and it was something that had it's own story thanks to the summer heat, but I am happy to say that it's actually doing alright. This will be my first time trying to grow it properly, propagate it, and even have the ability to scape with it. I think I've tried to order it 2-3 separate times and ran into what amounts to glitter as opposed to an actual plant that I can apply to a piece of mesh. I got my moss thread and some quilting mesh with the cups for the glass, finally, and yesterday I gave it my best attempt to tie the moss to the grid. I started with a very long needle and thread and tying the moss the traditional route using normal sewing techniques. Over under and stitching X's where need be to keep things in place. Needless to say it didn't go well at all, but it worked for some sections. Attempt 2 was to use a ton more thread and to go through the process of trying to wrap the plant against the grid and just going around it a few dozen times in each direction. The grid warped, the thread slipped, and then I couldn't tie a knot to save my life! 😞 😞 😞 Attempt 2, zip ties, use two sheets, and then go ahead and just see how well the suss growing through the grid works... This is where grid size is critical and hopefully the size of grid I have isn't too small. I had planned on three vertical grids in the back of the tank, but due to needs like a heater I think I will just keep two. Once I get some more zip ties I'll go ahead and "repair" the grid with thread. I do have an idea on how to use the grids and thread without any other issues, but for right now... today, we're just going to have to go with the traditional sandwich method. I don't want a fish getting stuck in the grid and I need to go to the hardware store anyways. I put together a little moss ledge that I was sent as well and it was so much easier! I think if I cut notches in the grid I'll be able to tie the moss a lot better! we'll see. I plan to add one to the shrimp tank with that moss as well. I do like the idea of feeding the thread through the grid every so often to keep things stable, but it's just like an episode of lucy at some point! It's much easier to tie this thread when it's thread on thread as opposed to just tying the end to the grid square at the end of the run. Maybe I just need to practice a lot more... which will happen. The next issue I wanted to tackle, the big project before the major plant order arrives is that I need to stop this BBA in it's tracks. I have been dosing in hydrogen peroxide to the tank.... to no avail.... and my comment earlier about mixing the substrate is because it seems like the seachem flourite black loves to grow bba, directly, on the substrate itself. I'm not sure why. I don't see that same behavior on the contrasoil, but I can also imagine the same thing will happen. As for the swords, they have been doing well. The one on the right is a bit "unhappy" and that just because it's in slightly more flow than the other two. I am considering if/when to move it and where it would go. I pulled 1-2 leaves that were a bit beat up, but I did want to pause and take a bit of photos of the swords themselves just for the sake of tracking progress on them. They have everything they could ever need and I know the light is dialed in. It's all a matter of CO2 balance and circulation right now.... so let's check out how we can improve that. One thing I needed to do was to stop having multiple sources of flow and have a bit more uniform flow direction. Whether it's front to back or left to right, the goal being that I need to have a spraybar go across the tank and have a pump strong enough to do so. The pump I have now goes about... a foot and a half across the tank and then it's not really doing much. That pump is now removed. On the right side we have the co2 being dosed in all by itself with nothing but movement across the top of the tank down the side glass, pushing the co2 bubbles around the tank. For the placement of the co2, reducing BBA on the spraybar and co2 tubing, this seeems like the only way I can realistically run this setup. On the right side of the tank there is some movement, but it's not as much as I would like. Based on the way that sword plant is moving, I honestly don't know how much more I can actually push out. All that being said.... the only way I can reliably run a spraybar is to either make one, or use the stuff I have on hand and plum all that down to an empty tank/sump. I just do not have the knowledge or parts to build a sump, but I am absolutely certain that is where the long term setup for this tank may go. For now, I tried to use "the trick" and the sales in place to get the canister that everyone seemingly loves. After a lot of frustration, fear of breaking crap, this is all the equipment we have in the tank for filtration now. I'll post more about the pump and filter setup itself at a later date in a separate thread. For now, this is just in place, working, and it'll run until I have the patience to fix the issues. You see the spraybar there, pushing all the way across the length of the tank. The flow cascades down the glass and it does indeed help to circulate the co2. After about 2-3 weeks I'll decide on how things are doing and if that is a benefit or if I need to mount the bar across the entire length of the back of the tank. I would very much want to move to in-line diffusion, but for right now, this works and it's a massive step up from the last setup in terms of being able to push as much CO2 as I want. I don't have a bin right now, so the canister is on my plant table (please send help for those plants!) and it's just in place. I do like the look on the top of the tank and I've tried to seal off the gaps in the lid as best I can. I think I ended up using my trim piece on the 29G and that's siliconed into place. I will try to cut that apart as I am breaking down that lid as well. I'm ready to get rid of the glass lids on that tank as well, provided that there is a better solution. I do think I am going to have to take @Chick-In-Of-TheSea's advice and just get the ones from CPK. I like the idea of having stuff that "just works" and makes my life easy. That's the goal anyways. 🙂 Thanks for reading, more in future, but for today that's where we're at! I'll clean out the prefilters and I'll check how things are doing internally on the foams. I honestly don't know what the schedule will be for cleaning it right now. I definitely am not waiting 1-3 years like some people out there. I'll get into my setup, layout of the media, but for right now... it was all about just getting it to work and running.

@Odd Duck Just in case you hadn't seen this I wanted to share with you! Given the conversation we had this week, maybe this is an interesting topic.

Well.... I posted this in the wrong thread initially. My apologies! It's been one of those weeks where there's a lot going on. I'll start by expressing that it's been a very enjoyable, enlightening, and interesting experience working on the filtration in my tank in this way. Ultimately it has lead me to learn a lot more about circulation, flow, and how particles move around in the tank. With that being said, I have officially removed and retired my modded Tidal 75. There's a few key reasons for this and I feel like it's worth sharing with everyone for the sake of full disclosure. First, the mod was done a filter that was cleaned as best as possible, but it was not a new filter out of the box. The pump was new, some parts were previously modified, but for all major... critical... uses here in this experiment, the parts were in working order and they were working as expected when new. Because they were used there was one thing that seriously had some age on it. The basket itself. In the initial post on this version 2.0 of the testing I opted to cut out the middle rib of the base of the basket. In the end, that wasn't the best choice. I think having at least one central support for the sponge works extremely well to support the weight of the sponge when it's loaded with water and gunk. It keeps things in place. The other issue with the basket is the handles to remove it were damaged. One was completely broken off and the other was partially snapped off. That's lead to some damage on the mod longer term, which we'll dive into. as it stands, the overall "purpose" of the mod was to remove the skimmer. This means that the most important thing here is about how well that works and how well that part of the filter is to mod. There's a few ways to achieve this, but I think for the most part the skimmer being filled with silicone works pretty well. It could always look better and it could always be done with a more permanent material, but this one works and I would expect it to work pretty well long term. I would also say that having some extra silicone on hand isn't a bad idea. It is necessary if you are going to go down that route. I have had a few times where you put your hand in just the wrong place and then you end up with a section of silicone being torn off or falling into the tank. Last time this happened all I had on hand was superglue and about half of the mods I had completed ended up falling apart. I ended up having to take some precautions, but the basket in the filter did end up being a bit stuck into the HOB housing. Other sections of the filter did have the pieces of silicone separate off the housing during normal maintenance sections. The goal through all of this and the underlying concern was about how the pump held up, performed over the longevity of the mod. If I was to run this long term or even permanently I would have paused everything, taken it apart properly, replaced the basket, and started over. Scuff the surface or even use something like fine mesh over large areas (think patching drywall) so that the material has some structure to it and can support itself when being moved around. This is at around 1 month of use with the pump on a pretty high quality prefilter (a decent medium porosity sponge) and you can see there is some stuff in the pump due to the small gap by the heater clip, but generally speaking this is very normal. Make sure you clean your impellers and pumps! I hope this helps someone down the road if they run into issues with their Tidal. Ultimately, it's a wonderful pump, but I really do feel like the experience and understanding of the filter while being modded is a valuable one for me personally. I realize now how much I was dealing with the issues of the filter as opposed to simply being able to perform my maintenance. Even algae issues, I think something like the bypass and poor mechanical filtration side of things plays a role. Time will tell. Thanks for following along and talking through all of the thoughts and decisions here. It really helped and more than anything it was fun. 🙂

100%. I would love to link the actual web version, but when they updated the internet to remove flash and update codecs it was a casualty. For reference for those who may not have seen it before:

This is going to vary from shrimp to shrimp. If you're feeding a bit heavier the days before that time is going to change. I would be sure to control consistency, size of the blocks, as well as feeding before the event. I would think the "nano ice trays" with the small little cubes that people use for brine shrimp... 1 per 5-10 shrimp is about right.

I've heard it as they need circulation and can't be "choked off". You can absolutely bury the roots, but it's like a lot of terrestrial plants where the crown/rhizome needs certain things just to stay sound. Would you recommend trimming off the damaged/highly damaged leaves right now or just let the plants do their thing?

Rivers in taiwan, origins of the neo shrimp, were around 12-13 GH when I saw water test results. Reliability of that information is about the best I could find. There's definitely a range! But, the biggest tip/advice is always going to be adjust slowly over time. Don't jump a few degrees in a week, the slow climb over a few weeks is much easier on them.

Yep. Very normal. Female shrimp will do it more often before depositing eggs on their swimmerets.

Just double checking....?

Honestly, I started breeding shrimp because it seemed like the lowest risk choice to potentially help keep the tanks going in future. I changed from a few tanks down to 1, added a shrimp colony to the side. (at most, in this house I have avg'd 3-4 tanks, working on breaking down the last one now) There are a lot of great people on the forum here. I would recommend making a journal, post about the things you enjoy and what you like about your tanks. Focus on the good. Plenty of people are willing and have absolutely donated things to me for the sake of helping out! It's an amazing thing when someone goes out of their way for the sake of others, and it's one of the cool things in this community and hobby. 🙂 Do you have a LFS or just big box stores near you?