Confessions of a Bad Aquarist

[Sleepy]

5 minutes ago, MattyIce said:

2 that sit on the rim, 3 that clamp on the edge, and 12 hanging above.

Only had fish jump from tanks they didn't want to be in, too small of tank, not cycled, other fish terrorizing.

outside those conditions, Some fish might do a little glass surfing and go too far up, but with a rimmed tank they hit the rim and fall back it, so its only really an issue with rimless tanks.  but even then, if the fish are happy fish they don't tend to glass surf.

For humidity I use a dehumidifier. 



 

Gotcha, I've got double digit tanks in an apartment for right now running a dehumidifier would be terrible for me lol!

[Daniel]

3 hours ago, Sleepy said:

For those that dont keep lids on their aquariums I'm curious as to why is it just costs or? Does get expensive with proper lids for a lot of tanks but I've gone the DIY method.

I hate opening lids! I am always putting food in multiple times a day, sometimes with bbs in a siphon tube in one hand and a handful of wiggling live blackworms in the other hand. Like @MattyIce I have a lot of floating plants that keeps the jumping down a little bit.

I do not run dehumidifiers in my house. Even though I have lids for the 500 gallon aquarium in the living room, I last used them in 2007, so that horse left the humidity barn for me 13 years.

[Sleepy]

11 minutes ago, Daniel said:

I hate opening lids! I am always putting food in multiple times a day, sometimes with bbs in a siphon tube in one hand and a handful of wiggling live blackworms in the other hand. Like @MattyIce I have a lot of floating plants that keeps the jumping down a little bit.

I do not run dehumidifiers in my house. Even though I have lids for the 500 gallon aquarium in the living room, I last used them in 2007, so that horse left the humidity barn for me 13 years.

Hmmmm interesting makes me think......In your opinion does having the floating plants help with evaporation and top offs or no?

[Daniel]

Just now, Sleepy said:

Hmmmm interesting makes me think......In your opinion does having the floating plants help with evaporation and top offs or no?

It does not help at all with evaporation. Water evaporates at pretty much at the same rate plants or not.  So no.
 

[MattyIce]

Now I’m wondering if floating plants also help with evaporation and in turn humidity at all, I feel like it should, but I’m not sure if there is science to back it up.

160 ml of water in each, no floaters in one, a canopy of red root floaters in the other.  
 

Gonna give it 24-48 hours depending on how fast they evaporate, and see which one has less water. 

 

I see some flaws where the plants could cause a change the amount of water in ways other than evaporation but I think it’s still worth doing.

[Sleepy]

1 minute ago, MattyIce said:

Now I’m wondering if floating plants also help with evaporation and in turn humidity at all, I feel like it should, but I’m not sure if there is science to back it up.

160 ml of water in each, no floaters in one, a canopy of red root floaters in the other.  
 

Gonna give it 24-48 hours depending on how fast they evaporate, and see which one has less water. 

 

I see some flaws where the plants could cause a change the amount of water in ways other than evaporation but I think it’s still worth doing.

Nice! Yeah I'm going to be really curious how that turns out like you said no science just some intuition I guess lol I would think at the very least with floaters cutting out light in theory it would help?

[Daniel]

4 minutes ago, MattyIce said:

Now I’m wondering if floating plants also help with evaporation and in turn humidity at all, I feel like it should, but I’m not sure if there is science to back it up.

160 ml of water in each, no floaters in one, a canopy of red root floaters in the other.  
 

Gonna give it 24-48 hours depending on how fast they evaporate, and see which one has less water. 

 

I see some flaws where the plants could cause a change the amount of water in ways other than evaporation but I think it’s still worth doing.

I love an experiment!

[MattyIce]

9 minutes ago, Sleepy said:

Nice! Yeah I'm going to be really curious how that turns out like you said no science just some intuition I guess lol I would think at the very least with floaters cutting out light in theory it would help?

I thought about the light thing, but then one tank would be lower temperature so in that situation with a heater making both tanks the same temp, I don't know if there would still be a difference.

If it does help, my guess is it is because of reduced surface area. in the same way I would think water would evaporate faster in a bucket than in a jug, though I don't know if that would be any different either.

Edited October 27, 2020 by MattyIce

[Sleepy]

1 minute ago, MattyIce said:

I thought about the light thing, but then one tank would be lower temperature so in that situation with a heater making both tanks the same temp, I don't know if there would still be a difference.

If it does help, my guess is it is because of reduced surface area. in the same way I would thinks water would evaporate faster in a bucket than in a jug, though I don't know if that would be any different either.

Please be sure to update us I like experiments too lol!

[Andy's Fish Den]

4 hours ago, Sleepy said:

For those that dont keep lids on their aquariums I'm curious as to why is it just costs or? Does get expensive with proper lids for a lot of tanks but I've gone the DIY method.

I used to not have lids on my tanks, but now most of them do. I didn't have them because I hate cleaning the glass as mineral deposits build up and cut down the light. I ended up making DIY lids from the twin wall polycarbonate and wish I had done it sooner. Yes I have to wipe them down every so often, but it has helped a ton with evaporation issues and humidity in my fish room. My fishroom used to always run in the upper 40s percent humidity, now that I have lids on all but two tanks I am down to almost 30%.

I would always cover tanks that had fish that were known jumpers such as killies and bettas, but I never really had much of an issue with jumping.

[clovenpine]

New confession: I'm a fish murderer. I set up my quarantine tub to try and isolate my aggressive molly (Molly Hatchet) for a while. Used a seeded sponge, checked water parameters and temp, etc. I came back 45 minutes later and he was upside down at the bottom! I tried popping him back in the tank to let him shake it off, but no luck.

Best I can figure is that something toxic leached out of the plastic? I've never used the tub (sterilite 8g) before, but I did clean and rinse it thoroughly beforehand.

This guy, despite (or maybe because of) his bad attitude, was my favorite fish. I just wanted him to stop bullying my platies! I'm really upset and feeling guilty.

RIP, Molly Hatchet, now flirting with disaster in that big fishbowl in the sky. 😓

[Bill Calvert]

I managed to nearly kill java moss recently (not out of the woods yet).

[Aubrey]

I'm breeding/have bred fish and have no plan for their offspring. I don't have a LFS closer than 75 miles one way and I don't know anyone locally that is interested in fish. I don't have the space to set up anymore tanks. I'm simply doing it for myself, not for money, just to see what I will learn and to say that I have done it and not with the fish's best interest in mind. I'll figure something out, but I do feel some guilt from doing this.

[Daniel]

8 minutes ago, Aubrey said:

I'm breeding/have bred fish and have no plan for their offspring. I don't have a LFS closer than 75 miles one way and I don't know anyone locally that is interested in fish. I don't have the space to set up anymore tanks. I'm simply doing it for myself, not for money, just to see what I will learn and to say that I have done it and not with the fish's best interest in mind. I'll figure something out, but I do feel some guilt from doing this.

In the wild hardly 1 in a 100 angelfish fry might survive. Every breeding is a shot in the dark. We don’t know yet what the future holds and if you learn and then we learn, then that’s not nothing.

[varanidguy]

According to some, I'm a bad keeper for doing large water changes and filter maintenance at the same time.

 

I've done the fish in cycle thing and feel terrible for it. I didn't really understand the process entirely and figured if I just changed water it would be okay. 

[Alec2cool]

I have a few confessions myself

- I do not temp match the water during a water change
- I dump the bag water from new fish directly into the tank
- I overfeed
- I put fish together that shouldn't be together
- I move fish, decorations and/or plants from tank to tank weekly

Now there are a few habits I did eliminate when I got negative results

- Lack of lids. I've had 2 fish jump to their deaths
- Excessive filtration. I had a hefty power bill
- Lights on for 16+ hours. I had an algae outbreak that spread like wildfire
- Aggressive fish in small tanks. Their aggression goes through the roof
- Thin substrates. Plants constantly found themselves uprooted from tankmates
- Excessive water changes. Well water is loaded with nutrients, sustained the algae outbreak after cutting down light time

I'll likely eliminate how often I move things around in my tanks. The fish don't mind, they are used to it at this point but the plants seem to be very unhappy from being moved. They'll stop growing as fast and sometimes even die back. Plus, I feel like it's ruining my experience in the hobby. I'll have an idea of how I want a tank to look once I set it up but I never reach that point, always changing this or that. Heck, I even change substrates pretty often.

[MattyIce]

On 10/27/2020 at 1:50 PM, Sleepy said:

Please be sure to update us I like experiments too lol!

 

On 10/27/2020 at 1:40 PM, Daniel said:

I love an experiment!

Let it go for 26 hours, the control lost 12 ml and the one with floaters lost 10 ml.  I also took temperatures through out, didn’t notice a difference when the light was on, but after turning it off, the one with floaters seemed to stay about 1 degree higher than the other.  My guess is that the canopy of red root floaters worked almost like insulation baffles keeping it warmer while also reducing evaporation.

 

I am retesting with duck weed against a control, to try and remove the insulation effect and see if I have similar numbers:

I measured the 160 ml with the duck weed In, so I don’t have to remove it to measure the water tomorrow.

[Sleepy]

Awesome thank you for the update!

[StephenP2003]

Bad fishkeeping with consequences. I was in a rush the other day and dumped my new corydoras in the quarantine tank with the water from the bag. And the LFS water came with free gifts:

 

[Daniel]

1 minute ago, StephenP2003 said:

Bad fishkeeping with consequences. I was in a rush the other day and dumped my new corydoras in the quarantine tank with the water from the bag. And the LFS water came with free gifts:

On the good side, now your tank is seasoned(ish).

[Forthejoy]

On 10/27/2020 at 1:35 PM, MattyIce said:

Now I’m wondering if floating plants also help with evaporation and in turn humidity at all, I feel like it should, but I’m not sure if there is science to back it up.

160 ml of water in each, no floaters in one, a canopy of red root floaters in the other.  
 

Gonna give it 24-48 hours depending on how fast they evaporate, and see which one has less water. 

 

I see some flaws where the plants could cause a change the amount of water in ways other than evaporation but I think it’s still worth doing.

This an awesome idea!

I like how you're trying with different plants. I'm anticipating there will be a big difference in evaporation loss by using a different plant. 

 

When I measured evapotranspiration with land plants, the broad leafier plants often give off a lot more water while they breathe unless they have a waxier coating that prevents water loss.

 

I'm wondering if since the duckweed lays lower in the water with less exposed surface area if it will lose less water than the other floaters 😁 keep us posted!

[MattyIce]

18 minutes ago, Forthejoy said:

This an awesome idea!

I like how you're trying with different plants. I'm anticipating there will be a big difference in evaporation loss by using a different plant. 

 

When I measured evapotranspiration with land plants, the broad leafier plants often give off a lot more water while they breathe unless they have a waxier coating that prevents water loss.

 

I'm wondering if since the duckweed lays lower in the water with less exposed surface area if it will lose less water than the other floaters 😁 keep us posted!

Been testing different room temps in the effort to remove heaters from tanks, with the first test overnight room temp was around 72, last night it was closer to 75, which explains for the difference in the control form the prior test.

Control lost 20ml and duckweed only lost 10ml

Did not notice a temperature difference between the 2 like I did with the red root floaters.

My guess is the duck weed is able to cover more exposed water surface than the red root floaters since they are smaller and fit together more tightly so there is reduced evaporation and also with it not having the insulation effect, the lower stored energy might be causing less evaporation.



A good layer of duck weed can reduce evaporation by up to 50% and a good canopy of red root floaters can reduce evaporation by around 17% and insulate a tank well enough to bring its average temp up by almost a degree.  Good to know.

Edited October 29, 2020 by MattyIce

[Hobbit]

On 10/27/2020 at 1:27 AM, ange said:

If you must clean your tools, try using a spray bottle with hydrogen peroxide? It's easier than taking them to the sink so more likely you'll maintain the habit

I just filled a small spray bottle with rubbing alcohol. Used it twice already! 💪

 

On 10/27/2020 at 10:11 AM, Sleepy said:

I'm also curious then are your lights sitting on the rim or do you have them installed above somehow? I would just be too worried about fishing jumping out and humidity

I use the LED lights that suction to the walls of the tanks and sit under the water level. I lose less light to reflection that way. But maybe there’s a reason other people don’t use them? I’ve never seen an experienced aquarist use them so maybe this, too, is something I need to confess...

[Forthejoy]

2 hours ago, MattyIce said:

Been testing different room temps in the effort to remove heaters from tanks, with the first test overnight room temp was around 72, last night it was closer to 75, which explains for the difference in the control form the prior test.

Control lost 20ml and duckweed only lost 10ml

Did not notice a temperature difference between the 2 like I did with the red root floaters.

My guess is the duck weed is able to cover more exposed water surface than the red root floaters since they are smaller and fit together more tightly so there is reduced evaporation and also with it not having the insulation effect, the lower stored energy might be causing less evaporation.



A good layer of duck weed can reduce evaporation by up to 50% and a good canopy of red root floaters can reduce evaporation by around 17% and insulate a tank well enough to bring its average temp up by almost a degree.  Good to know.

Thanks for the follow up! 

I'll definitely need to find some more floaters for energy saving 🙂

[Daniel]

In my Dirted tank project this afternoon, I calmly and deliberately added 1 angelfish to each tank, you know, the take it slow approach. Don't add too many fish, let the tank acclimate to the fish. My plan is to add another angelfish in a day or two if all goes well.

Holy smokes, the first fish look fine, wouldn't hurt to add a second one to each tank. No, wait. Be patient. Slow and steady wins the race.

I am the little boy in the marshmallow project. As soon as the researcher leaves the room, I eat the marshmallow.

I just added a second angelfish to each tank....