New to the forum!

[grayabyss]

Hi!! Hopefully I can manage to avoid making this TOO much of a rehash of my about page- but, hi everyone, my name's Linebeck (they/he pronouns for me, thank youuu)! I'm located in south Texas, and I'm starting community college in the fall! I'm planning to get credits to transfer to TX State for their Aquatic Biology degree, and then I want to pursue certificates and a career in environmental health and safety.

I've been in the hobby for about a year and a half at this point- I wasn't actually very interested in fishkeeping for a while, even after I started, I just saw the poor care my sister was giving to her betta, that didn't have a name yet (I named him Totodile) and refused to let it live a miserable life. He died recently, after the freeze, and so did the ember tetras collectively named Red Basculin.

But on the bright side!!! Most of my neocaridina shrimp and all of my goldfish and white cloud mountain minnows survived!

Which is a good segue into introducing them!

I still haven't named the Shrimp Collective, but I recently moved them into the 10 gal from their fluval Ebi. This setup of plants is REALLY new, and has to grow in, still, because I made so many of the small bushy plants closer to the front (I do not remember what they are at All :'] ) from a few bigger ones. I'm going to be adding chili rasbora once everything grows in, and it'll be a display tank in my mom's office!

And in my 40 gal, I have 3 ranchu goldfish! A dark brown-gold female named Feebas, a white male with an orange tail named Seel, and another male with more mottled coloring of orange and black and white with one completely black eye named Goldeen (sidenote: Should I look for more female goldfish to add with them? I worry about them stressing out Feebas with their chasing). I also have a small school of white cloud mountain minnows collectively named Blue Basculin! I also have a TON of pothos in there, growing completely submerged! All of the pothos you see in there were propagated from 3 plants!

Both of these tanks use matten filters and have dirt beneath their cap of planted substrate and sand respectively!

Anyway- I'm really excited to be a part of this community!

[Fish Folk]

50 minutes ago, Linebeck Aquatics said:

Hi!! Hopefully I can manage to avoid making this TOO much of a rehash of my about page- but, hi everyone, my name's Linebeck (they/he pronouns for me, thank youuu)! I'm located in south Texas, and I'm starting community college in the fall! I'm planning to get credits to transfer to TX State for their Aquatic Biology degree, and then I want to pursue certificates and a career in environmental health and safety.

I've been in the hobby for about a year and a half at this point- I wasn't actually very interested in fishkeeping for a while, even after I started, I just saw the poor care my sister was giving to her betta, that didn't have a name yet (I named him Totodile) and refused to let it live a miserable life. He died recently, after the freeze, and so did the ember tetras collectively named Red Basculin.

But on the bright side!!! Most of my neocaridina shrimp and all of my goldfish and white cloud mountain minnows survived!

Which is a good segue into introducing them!

I still haven't named the Shrimp Collective, but I recently moved them into the 10 gal from their fluval Ebi. This setup of plants is REALLY new, and has to grow in, still, because I made so many of the small bushy plants closer to the front (I do not remember what they are at All :'] ) from a few bigger ones. I'm going to be adding chili rasbora once everything grows in, and it'll be a display tank in my mom's office!

And in my 40 gal, I have 3 ranchu goldfish! A dark brown-gold female named Feebas, a white male with an orange tail named Seel, and another male with more mottled coloring of orange and black and white with one completely black eye named Goldeen (sidenote: Should I look for more female goldfish to add with them? I worry about them stressing out Feebas with their chasing). I also have a small school of white cloud mountain minnows collectively named Blue Basculin! I also have a TON of pothos in there, growing completely submerged! All of the pothos you see in there were propagated from 3 plants!

Both of these tanks use matten filters and have dirt beneath their cap of planted substrate and sand respectively!

Anyway- I'm really excited to be a part of this community!

Welcome! Nice set ups. Love me a planted tank...

[Colu]

Welcome to the forum nice tanks

[Isaac M]

Hi! Welcome to the forum! Beautiful planted aquariums. I have never seen pothos growing completely submerged before, thats amazing. Good to have someone else on the forum that also uses dirt! Haha 

[Nanotanks]

I'm really interested in both matten filters and striated substrates. 

How hard is it to keep the layers of substrate layered when gravel vaccing or with normal turnover from fauna?

It's hard to see: how deep is your substrate under the sand, and why?

 

And I know zip about mattens, but some questions I have had and haven't seen answered:

Do you put a divider between the filter and substrate?   

Do you have any way besides the flow of your uptake pipes to calculate filtration? I ask because a corner-fitted matten is appealing to me, but I have no way of deciding filtration or stocking from what I've seen.

 

Sorry for all the questions, but you hit on two topics I don't see mentioned much, and that I am very interested in. Thank you!

Edited April 29, 2021 by Nanotanks

[grayabyss]

8 minutes ago, Nanotanks said:

I'm really interested in both matten filters and striated substrates. 

How hard is it to keep the layers of substrate layered when gravel vaccing or with normal turnover from fauna?

It's hard to see: how deep is your substrate under the sand, and why?

 

And I know zip about mattens, but some questions I have had and haven't seen answered:

Do you put a divider between the filter and substrate?   

Do you have any way besides the flow of your uptake pipes to calculate filtration? I ask because a corner-fitted matten is appealing to me, but I have no way of deciding filtration or stocking from what I've seen.

 

Sorry for all the questions, but you hit on two topics I don't see mentioned much, and that I am very interested in. Thank you!

Lol, no worries on the questions!!

So, I’ll answer in order:

Dirt Time

Actually, it’s shockingly easy! Part of the reason I have dirted tanks is because the poop just becomes part of the dirt, so I only target vac poop off of plants or in trouble spots. I even have MTS in there, and they don’t adversely effect things at all! They actually helped the success of my 40 gal, i think, helping root out air pockets!

As for the one about the 40 gal- probably 2 inches max? That was what i figured would be a good depth, but then, because it was my first time trying the walstad method, I went ape with the sand because I was worried about the dirt expanding too much.

 

Matten filters

I did not put down a divider! The reason why is because it’s basically 90% biological filtration- Thats why the mat’s so stinking big! The mat can definitely catch stuff that you can suck off later with a hose, though. But, I didn’t put down a divider because I figured it would be good bacteria food!

For the second question, there really isn’t any other way that I, personally, know of. There probably is but I’m bad at math. It seems as if lower flow is best for them, so the bacteria can get at stuff better! 
 

I would totally recommend these for any planted tank, and double that if its a walstad tank- The combo has been INCREDIBLY stable for me, even with 3 goldfish pooping up a storm in the 40!

Links to some Matten Filter info!

Swisstropicals

Fish2water

Seriouslyfish

[grayabyss]

2 hours ago, Isaac M said:

Hi! Welcome to the forum! Beautiful planted aquariums. I have never seen pothos growing completely submerged before, thats amazing. Good to have someone else on the forum that also uses dirt! Haha 

Haha, thank you!! I’m looking into investigating things regarding other terrestrial plants growing completely submerged- I definitely wanna try Monstera but like, only ONE. Those are big big boys. Another one I want to attempt but succeed at this time is terrestrial moss! i feel like it’d have a super cool unique look that could be done as a carpet. 

[Nanotanks]

Great info, especially the lower flow part, which I really like. I guess I was overstepping when I asked about total filtration: it'd be like asking someone how much their planted aquarium filters and what it could stock. I was just wondering if there was a general equation or rule of thumb when it came to how big the filter was. I guess they're new enough it isn't around yet. 

Edited May 16, 2021 by Nanotanks

[grayabyss]

23 minutes ago, Nanotanks said:

Thanks! I like the Walstad method, read the book, currently rereading, but not sure if all of it really applies to nano tanks, it's just too small a volume of water to apply her method. As a shrimpkeeper, however, those matten filters seem like some good stuff to me.

 

Great info, especially the lower flow part, which I really like. I guess I was overstepping when I asked about total filtration: it'd be like asking someone how much their planted aquarium filters and what it could stock. I was just wondering if there was a general equation or rule of thumb when it came to how big the filter was. I guess they're new enough it isn't around yet. 

I didn’t actually read the books myself- I just followed what foo the flowerhorn does. God I should read them though.  

I did it for my 2.5 gal EBI shrimo tank, and plants and shrimp FLOURISHED in there. I’m only breaking it down because i can move the sheimp into a larger home!

Edited April 29, 2021 by Linebeck Aquatics
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