Search the Community

I have never kept a journal so I am not sure if I am going to enjoy doing this or not. I am that… I want to try things at least once type person. I spend a lot of time reading all the fantastic journals on here. Two weeks ago my bearded dragon BOOP’s suddenly passed from a stomach tumor he was diagnosed with last year. Boop’s spent nearly every minute of the day with me including the fish room. He had a shelf in front of each tank he liked to watch his fish and chase shrimp. He was probably a better plant guru than me 🤣 (you have no idea how hard it was finding info on which aquarium plants are dragon toxic) He always tried to eat them when we worked on them. For the two weeks it took me to process the worst of my grief reading everyone’s journals and posts kept me sane and filled the time I normally spent with my dragon. Thank you everyone for sharing your journey. I have had fish since around 7. All whatever I could catch with mom’s kitchen strainer in the creek when I was younger (her rule was no snakes all else I can have) and keep alive using creek water and bugs. This is how I learned anything in nature that fits in something else’s mouth is food. I also developed a weird fascination with all the nifty critters and hitchhikers that end up in aquariums. I’m the weird old lady that even finds value and cool snooping entertainment in hydra. I have been hooked ever since. went through job demands of travel so way more up and down with tanks than I want to think about I watched every video and livestream (although never in live time) the coop had. I wanted more. So I joined the forum. It’s really great as I have no one to talk fish to. Hubby only likes my giant mystery snail but loves that fish make me happy since I rarely leave the house (it’s my garden of eden why would I venture into societies current chaos) I’m new to the internet in the past few years since I retired. I used email but mostly fax before I retired but that’s it outside of works dedicated computer programs. I have never done any other social media so I feel awkward and was and I guess still am a bit intimidated most of the time trying to convey things to others in a way that seems friendly and helpful as typing seems so blunt and impersonal. I try and use a lot of the cute face cartoons. I hate offending others so I hope the cartoon faces convey niceness. Most of my fish keeping knowledge (if you want to call it that and not just ok this worked for me and this distinctly did not) comes strictly from Observations of my tanks over my life, trial error heartbreak National Geographic magazines learning about fish not aquariums and other assorted magazines in the mail. Finding the internet fish keeping prescribed guidelines baffled me and I still wonder if some of the people doing the articles ever actually kept the fish they were writing the article on. Seems fish are supposedly super delicate??? 🤣 I never knew that I always loved fish because they were so amazingly resilient. Silly me. That’s why I got hooked on Cory’s videos he seems to go with what he has seen with his own eyes and learned instead of what the internet spews and is willing to try things just to see what happens. (He also finds benefit in hitchhiking micro fauna and snails 😁) So enough about who I am…just an eccentric old lady who loves fish ….here we go…. My multi tank syndrome has taken a drastic turn since my health declined 6 years ago. Getting old stinks but is also the greatest. I cannot physically take care of large tanks anymore so now it is how many fish and different things can I keep in each tank and healthy. My current tanks that I have up and not in storage are standard 29 gal, 20long, 2 x 10g 8.75 gallon shrimp tank I got on sale and hate but guppies and snails have too many babies and it’s handy for a dozen or more things, 5G QT 2.5G QT i do not ever actually plant plants i float them tie them to something or suction cup them on the wall. Even root feeders do great that way for me. I don’t use fertilizers or chemicals I am afraid of them. I tried easy green half dose in 2 tanks and panicked after 6 hours and did late evening water changes so I could sleep. I admire the fabulous aquascapers I’m not one of them I love plants they keep my fish happy and healthy and grow well for me i stuff every tank to the gills because our water is miserable even in tanks years old with so many plants I can barely see my fish brown diatoms live on. I tried recently using jugged spring water from the store for wc and it all went away … came right back when I used hose water 🤷‍♀️ over the years I’ve come to appreciate the benefits of it though 🤪 the fish and assorted critters like it YUMMY 😋 29 g stock 11 panda corydora, 6f/1m guppy(the wolf pack and Little Boy, Nemo the nerite snail, 3 female magenta mystery snails (the wonder twins and microdot) bladder snails and some stray shrimp that migrated on a coop large sponge filter. I stopped there because my 2 longfin lemon blue eye bristlenose plecos are trying a second time he has not left the cave in 3 days other than to get a quick nibble of the green bean I put outside his door. I’m hoping it’s a fruitful spawn and may need to rehome the pandas and set up another 20 long for them? This is a newer tank set up with established filters gravel plants from other tanks and such so we are waiting for the micro fauna to establish. I think the Pandas and guppies are eating most of it so I may not get much. 20 long is my pleco pair (sweet pea and baby girl) 4 huge male mystery snails 2 magenta (the baby boys) 2 chestnut (chestnut and bandit) 10 celestial pearl danio(only one has a name she is huge and eats everything Meg as in megalodon) more neocaridina shrimp of every color than I can count. Some bladder snails (someone keeps eating them I do believe 😕) many random assorted micro fauna and a gorgeous little colony of tiny green hydra in one corner that never seems to travel or grow bigger even though I feed cpd bbs. I may actually like this journal thing. I’ll detail the rest another day and add more pictures. my pointer/typing finger is cramping at this point 🤣

We recently consolidated three tanks down to two, larger tanks. In doing so, we combined fish originating from three continents and environments but possessing very similar personalities. We relocated the inhabitants of a 75G, a 125G and a 120G into the 125G and a new, 200G acrylic. The fish are Asian, African and South American but share very similar temperaments. The pH is 7.8 and we keep the temperatures at 77*F. This pH and temperature are compromise values. While they may not be physically ideal for any one type, they have been healthy, happy, growing, breeding and fearless for about two years, even before this consolidation. There’s no fighting, no chasing, and virtually no hiding. About the only peril we encounter is preventing jumping during feedings. I cannot qualify or quantify the value of a near stress-free environment, but it seems more important for their health than I previously realized. The sole exception here was my Oscar. He's infamously aggressive and ill-tempered. To the point I could barely find tankmates. He killed or attempted to kill much larger Oscars, bichirs, Pacu’s, plecos and even some very aggressive mbunas as I kept trying to find something, anything that could live with him. Aside from the parrots he grew up with, he would only tolerate a dither group of Silver Dollars and most likely, only because there were 12 of them to share the abuse. Apparently, I failed to do read the room, and for some time. There was a dramatic change in my Oscar’s temperament when going from a 6’ tank to an 8’ tank, nothing less than Hyde to Jekyll. Once he had the space, it was like a different fish. Tethys As mentioned above, the water between the two types is basically a compromise. Part of the reason we set this rig up was the rapid growth of our fish. Most are now huge and were raised from juveniles such that, we really didn’t want to part with any of them. To that end, we adopted an “overstock/over-filter” approach. In an attempt to keep the water pristine, we set up a large filtration and huge UV sterilization system. All of the filtration and aeration is hidden behind furniture. Each tank uses two Fluval FX6’s and a SunSun704b, the latter being carbon-filled and feeding a whole-house, 55W, UV light rated at 700GPH on each tank, for a total of over 2400GPH/tank. Pillars of Strength We design high-end, high-fidelity equipment and in part of our HIFI work, our loudspeaker designs, use large PVC pipes as loudspeaker enclosures rather than wood as it is light weight but much stronger than concrete, yet acoustically inert. As such, I had a great deal of giant PVC in storage and so we made these columns. The tanks themselves stand on giant PVC columns. Continental Drift Some days after filling, we noticed the water level was increasingly askew. The floor began to sink! Apparently when placing the columns, we missed the joists below. The columns were slowly sinking through the floor, between two joists. Pangea was sinking. The sinking 200-gallon aquarium, now filled with fish needed the columns relocated precisely over the floor joists. To lift a 2200lbs aquarium filled with fish was at least to me, a daunting endeavor but our choice was who to stress out more, the fish or ourselves! The fish had already been moved once so lifting the tank was still preferable to draining it and moving the fish twice more. Lifting a 2200lbs aquarium was pretty scary. To lighten the load and reduce stress and splashing, we drained half of the water. Yet it still weighed about 1400lbs. The only device we had available that can lift thousands of pounds was a truck jack. And to our relief and surprise, the truck jack worked beautifully. A stud-finder and the jack made this much easier than we expected. We were able to lift both aquariums several times and reposition every column over a joist as well as shim non-level areas with ease. The fish never even noticed. Laurasia The 125G Asian and South American fishes of similar personalities, sizes ranging from 2” – 4”: German Blue Rams, Mystery Snails, Plecos, Rainbows, Shubunkins, Dojo Loaches, Electric Blue Acaras, Severum, Silver Dollars and an old stowaway, a Chinese Algae Eater in a 125G standing on 18” diameter PVC columns: No Topless The 200G acrylic tank was purchased used and had no tops. But these guys jump. As we planned on using emergent plants, we made the entire top out of plastic lighting grid to support them and allow light through. Gondwana The 200G In the 200G are African and South American fishes of similar personalities, sizes ranging from; a 14” Oscar, 14” Plecos, 8” Red & Gold Severums, 6” Silver Dollars, 6” Geophagus Hecklii, a 5” Parrot, a 10” King Kong Parrot and 5” Burundi Frontosas, standing on eight, 8” PVC columns. Deep Blue See Reducing the number of tanks yielded some additional equipment, so we mounted three layers of lights with descending intensity and ascending color temperature. The front lights being warmer and brighter, the middle being neutral in color and subdued, and the rear being dark and blue creating an illusion of much greater depth. Placing two air stones under the center lights made for a natural looking, rippling water lighting effect on the stalks of bamboo. Burundi Frontosas & Geophagus Hecklii Silver Dollars Severum, Parrot & Pleco Geophagus Hecklii-Male Burundi Frontosa King Kong Parrot Burundi Frontosas Red Severum Oscar (Tank Boss) Severums at Night Severums at Dawn The Curmudgeons (Oscar, Parrot, King Kong Parrot) Narcissus Macro Through Water Droplet Electric Blue Acaras, Red & Gold Severums Dojo Loach Photobombing Severums Gondwana (Apologies for reusing some old photos!)

I noticed some different methods to raise and lower lights, and I thought I'd share some info about ratcheting light clips. I have had these for a few years. I got them for a grow light I use in the garage to start vegetable seeds. This is what they look like. One caribiner clips to your light and the other clips to whatever is up above. You'd use the second one for the other side of your light so it stays level. As you pull the string to raise your light, it clicks and saves that height. The more you pull on the string, the more clicks you will hear, and it stays where it is when you let it go. To lower your light, keep hold of the string that hangs freely, and use the button. This puts slack on the line. Works kinda like a rock climbing rope. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Hydro-Crunch-1-8-in-Heavy-Duty-Ratchet-Hanger-Adjustable-Grow-Light-Rope-Clip-Carabiner-Light-Hanger-Pair-D940003500/302974668 I also found this video that demonstrates how these work. If your tank is in a living space, you can use something like a pair of these attached to your ceiling. Just ensure you have an appropriate drywall anchor or affix each hook to a stud. Plant hook