What did you get done today?

[nabokovfan87]

On 5/13/2022 at 9:33 PM, Torrey said:

I rearranged my bedroom, so tanks got redone😁

Actually started yesterday, this is the current status of the only tank I have finished.

To be continued....

Looks good.  Definitely will be interesting to see what else you do with the setups.

As for me....

I had a big long spiel last time, I'll try to be "brief".

Got the lid in today, it "fits" but it's not an amazing fit.  I might have to get some better tape for the handle, we'll see how the heat and the lid being flat changes things over time.  New light comes tomorrow, so I'm pretty frickin excited to have a  "whole new sun" for the ecosystem and to figure out how things change as a result of the boost.

I cleaned out the tank tonight, Tested the water probably 2-3 times today.  I am waiting to dose here shortly.  I have the most wonderful thing to say about the tank so far.... (you can see why if you hit up the struggle I've been going through in the journal).

I see growth!

I am very excited by this and it's so nice to see 0 Nitrates and new growth.  This tells me I am balancing things the way I need to, I can dump in food if I really wanted to.  But, what this really means is I am going to be keeping a very close eye on this staghorn algae and hoping to see it retreat back.

I need to get a pump, entirely slipped my mind going into the store this week.  The new 29G is on the stand in the dining area/living room and I have my old lid, old light ready to go for that tank.  I have some dragon stone, wood, and a lot of things I want to get going with that setup.  I do have some shims on hand now, but I don't know if they will slip on the floor.  Both of the tanks are slowly progressing with crushed coral.  I may end up having a different filter out here in the family area just to avoid all the bypass issues.

I am probably going to hook up the CO2 diffuser tonight. Potentially run things into the tank and get it going for the morning.  I don't really want to turn it on until I give the tank time to adjust to the new light. Not sure how I feel about it.  I'll end up grabbing photos and stuff and posting a more detailed breakdown of everything that happened.

Found the leak, the issue with the CO2, parts are here, the NFL schedule is out, let's go!

😂

Edited May 14, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[SpacedCadette]

On 5/13/2022 at 9:30 PM, Juancho said:

I was actually thinking about ordering the Brazilian pennywort. Nice to see it up in something. 

It’s a neat plant! I love using it as a float (as you can see lol). I really like the top coverage it provides and my fish love swimming through all the roots. My betta sleeps in it pretty regularly. 😊

[Juancho]

On 5/14/2022 at 2:20 AM, SpacedCadette said:

It’s a neat plant! I love using it as a float (as you can see lol). I really like the top coverage it provides and my fish love swimming through all the roots. My betta sleeps in it pretty regularly. 😊

That’s awesome 

[PithyUserName]

Tested parameters and did a 30% water change. Cool part was unboxing the Fluval Flex 32g I picked up this week. I just started keeping fish a month ago for my kids in a Flex 15…got hooked. I haven’t even set up the beta tank I got as a gift yet and I already bought this one…I see a hole in my wallet brewing.

I am going to move some driftwood and rocks into the big tank to get it going and ad some live plants to the 15 to replace them. Should be a fun experiment.

[TheDukeAnumber1]

My Medaka have eggs! Daily BBS continues to live up to expectations. When Dean one said "I doubt there is a successful breeder that doesn't hatch BBS daily" My experience continually confirms this to be true. The spawning mop is now in and I am ready for harvest! ٩(❛ᴗ❛)۶

 

I love keeping medaka and least killies together. They are such chill fish that will eat right out of you hand.

[Jenja]

I found out that the marsilea crenata was a dream to plant in my flourite sand. It was the gratiola viscidula that made me question my sanity (and realize I should've had a bit more sand...a chronic underestimation of substrate is becoming my trademark, lol).

Still a lot to be done but at least plants are in water so there's that. One being my spiderwood, on the right, it looks vaguely obscene to my eye for some reason, so might need to address that before I start liking it 😄

[Baphijmm]

Been doing water changes on all my tanks here at the observatory, mostly trying to get GH back in control; basically, I collect 12 gallons of RO water a night, then either do a ~25% water change on one of the two 55-gallons, or a ~25% water change on the 20-gallon and ~50% water changes on the three 5-gallon betta tanks. Last night (early this morning), I did the change on the Rio Negro tank, and this afternoon its GH is finally below the upper threshold of the test strips. Still gonna take a few changes to get it down to an acceptable range, but it's nice to finally be able to measure that progress. Tonight after work, probably gonna do the 20-gallon and betta tanks, since the former needs its GH lowered quite a bit too, though it too finally crossed into the threshold of measurable a few nights ago, during its last water change.

The last tank in-question is the 55-gallon mbuna tank; while it's quite acceptable and even rather good for it to have a high GH, its nitrates are actually getting kinda high. All I've got in that tank in the way of plants are two Java ferns, which were in fact propagated from the aforementioned 20-gallon. It's also the only tank on which I don't have Biohome Ultimate media in the filter (since I've got a Marineland C-530 on the thing, and that monster will need probably on the order of 6 kg of the stuff on its own, just baseline bare minimum), so I don't have any anaerobic bacteria helping out with that. But, nitrates are presently at a safe level, so it's not terribly urgent, not as urgent as trying to get the GH down in the others.

[Torrey]

I participated in the secret Livestream today! <shhh!>

 

[Torrey]

On 5/14/2022 at 5:26 PM, TheDukeAnumber1 said:

My Medaka have eggs! Daily BBS continues to live up to expectations. When Dean one said "I doubt there is a successful breeder that doesn't hatch BBS daily" My experience continually confirms this to be true. The spawning mop is now in and I am ready for harvest! ٩(❛ᴗ❛)۶

 

I love keeping medaka and least killies together. They are such chill fish that will eat right out of you hand.

It was great to read you in the Livestream tonight!

[CornAndCrawlers]

Went out to collect scuds for my darter tank, instead I found a bunch of water boatman I gathered and tossed in my darter tank—they love chasing live bugs. 

[PineSong]

Today I tested water, added Easy Green, stared into the pond to make sure the guppies are still alive (they are!) and added some plants to the pond.

Sadly, I also said goodbye to my last remaining betta, Fireworks. Brought him home 4th of July weekend 2018 and although I could tell he was slowing down I was really hoping he'd make it until his 'birthday' this July, but he did not. He was a trooper and I'll miss his grouchy face. Not the best photo, but the most recent.

I don't think I'll plan for any more bettas right now, so I'll have to take his tank apart and relocate his mystery snail, but not today.

 

[Juancho]

On 5/14/2022 at 2:20 AM, SpacedCadette said:

It’s a neat plant! I love using it as a float (as you can see lol). I really like the top coverage it provides and my fish love swimming through all the roots. My betta sleeps in it pretty regularly. 😊

That’s awesome 

[Juancho]

Well when it rains it pours. Just a few days ago I said my plecos were not spawning even though there was lots of spawning activity. Well we had a few storms pass through so I did water changes and fed a lot. And today well I have my super reds sitting in eggs. I have albinos siting on eggs and a brown and albino sitting in eggs lol. Then I looked in a tank were the mom and dad just finish a week ago with a clutch and one day to the next they were gone. So I figured they were eaten or something. Well today I found the fry sitting at the top of the tank wow. Here we go. 

[nabokovfan87]

I'll edit and drop a comparison photo if I can find one.

I was watching Pecktec and got inspired. He was doing a deep clean on plants, algae tank issues, I wanted to try out some of his techniques. I grabbed a cup of tea and sat in front of the tank in search of those pesky snails I might need to watch for.  (none spotted)

I kept staring at the anubias leaves and the wood, the filter, the rocks and I could tell that my lighting upgrade was giving the algae a bit of a "hold".  I looked into the opening of the HoB and saw the usual waterfall of bypass in the back of the tidal and knew this wasn't going to be a quick fix.  I wanted to do my darnedest to keep it from taking a hold and give the hairgrass it's best chance of thriving.  I scraped the glass, grabbed the toothbrush as shown off by Mr. Peck and went to work.  I got to the intake tube and a lot of mulm was stuck, cleaned that out, cleaned out the grate right above the intake and a bit of much and plants had been sucked into that grate area as well.  I took that all to the sink and then went ahead and disassembled the pump.

I went full on "not today Mr. BBA" and scrubbed the living heck out of the surfaces to try to get it cleaned off. I *finally* saw progress removing it and feel really good about the cleanliness of the HoB container itself.  I returned the plastic glory back to the tank and then proceeded to clean the basket and media in tank water.  The Sponge was pretty much clean, as I had literally just cleaned everything 48 hours before.

I took the brush and scrubbed each piece of seiryu, wood, and the intake for the ziss bubble bio.  I cleaned out everything I could and then proceeded to change water with all that algae floating in the water column.

Added water, turned on the filter and it was feisty this time. So glad to know the filter it clean and working as it should!

I cleaned the glass and observed the chaos.  I knew the filter needed time to do it's thing.  I saw one of the clumps of DHG was smooshed by some wood so I reached in to adjust it and the popped off a plant in the process so had to reattach that.

In all, It's a lot of work I need to do, probably daily or every other day at this point.  I'm gonna defeat this stinking algae....

Edit.  Here's the before/after.  Yesterday it was completely clogged (hard to tell in this photo, but you can see how bad the algae is.  The white fuzzy looking stuff is just oxygen bubbles from the new water.



The Amano's are going to town right now!  Love to see that, and it's also something Pecktec mentioned he notices after he scrubs down hardscape with the toothbrush.

Edited May 16, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[SpacedCadette]

Introduced an assassin snail to the tank. The welcoming committee was a little overzealous about saying hi. 😆

https://imgur.com/KfaoF0z

 

Welcome to the tank, Hannibal.

Edited May 16, 2022 by SpacedCadette

[Juancho]

On 5/16/2022 at 4:56 PM, SpacedCadette said:

Introduced an assassin snail to the tank. The welcoming committee was a little overzealous about saying hi. 😆

https://imgur.com/KfaoF0z

 

Welcome to the tank, Hannibal.

Love that name, Perfect! 

[Juancho]

Received a new breeder box to accommodate the cave/ water spike I use for plecos I like it so far so good.  It didn’t quite fit in my other caves. Still learning it’s a process. 

[Torrey]

Finished up the bedside tank and the T4' tank:

I'm waiting on a plant delivery, and waiting on 2 species to come back in stock, so lightly planted right now.

Spouse's tank got a new pump for the waterfall, 10 gallons worth of plants removed, and a 50% water change over the course of yesterday and today.

I have to cover the top half with a towel to get a decent underwater picture.

Here's the top and bottom:

 

 

 

[nabokovfan87]

On 5/16/2022 at 2:53 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

I went full on "not today Mr. BBA" and scrubbed the living heck out of the surfaces to try to get it cleaned off.

I got another chunk of time and cleaned out the QT tank, repeated the same thing. Call this a reminder to everyone, clean out your pumps!

I cannot recommend it enough, to go and find a little impeller cleaner kit. Q-Tips work, but these little things are just so useful and randomly so hard to find.

https://www.amazon.com/Marina-10680-Impeller-Brush/dp/B0002AQEI0/ref=pd_lpo_2?pd_rd_i=B0002AQEI0&psc=1

I observed the tanks and was just, very satisfied today with how clean they were. I watched the corys do up-downs for about 20-30 minutes.  I don't know what they are looking for, besides a spawn location, but they do it all day long!

My other task for the day was moving a few things around and setting up the cafe.  It feels so nice to have it back and to be able to use the grinder and have real coffee again.  This is where my QT tank used to sit, which is now on a much stronger surface. 


I got the new filter and the goop to fix the filter (more on that in the experiments section when I have time to sit and work on it).  The goal being, within a few weeks I can drop in some new media in the old tanks, move older media to the new tank with the new filter, and it's going to be so exciting to be able to pull out some rocks and scape this thing.

I also got the shims someone had recommended me, those arrived today.  I can *finally* setup the stand and feel comfortable with the placement. Small steps, but so many things finally happening.

part of the day.... "monitoring growth". 

On 5/17/2022 at 10:14 PM, Torrey said:

Finished up the bedside tank and the T4' tank:

Looks really good! Nice setup.  Feels like a shrimp heaven now.  Definitely will be fun to see where it goes. 🙂

Edited May 18, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[anewbie]

No pictures yet; but i spent a bit of time whipping my 5 gallon aquarium into a 10 gallon aquarium. It is amazing what a little bit of persuasion can do to an aquarium. Still a bit of a mess and the scaping isn't great. Bit concern because the fishes like to hide under the heater - need to add a bit of additional structure to encourage them to hide elsewhere.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Did my water tests!  We are in good shape!

[SpacedCadette]

Ordered a hodgepodge of things online in hopes that I could MacGyver a way to mount my Fluval 3.0 light. 

And it worked out! Yay! So much cleaner looking now. 

Edited May 18, 2022 by SpacedCadette

[Torrey]

I'm taking a break to rehydrate, a whopping 6% humidity outside🤣

Setting up my pond now that I have enough floating plants to keep the surface mostly covered to reduce evaporation. Picking up a temporary air pump this evening for the porch pond.

Have a great day everybody!

[Torrey]

On 5/18/2022 at 1:15 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

I got another chunk of time and cleaned out the QT tank, repeated the same thing. Call this a reminder to everyone, clean out your pumps!

I cannot recommend it enough, to go and find a little impeller cleaner kit. Q-Tips work, but these little things are just so useful and randomly so hard to find.

https://www.amazon.com/Marina-10680-Impeller-Brush/dp/B0002AQEI0/ref=pd_lpo_2?pd_rd_i=B0002AQEI0&psc=1

Yes so much to this!!! Although my impeller was clean on the pump? But a pump I had pulled from another tank when I was sick, and didn't have the spoons (or patience) to figure out why it was making a *noise*... was gunked up and baby snails had decided it was their ideal buffet.

Took me 15 minutes to get it clean and functional again, longer to get it properly wrapped in sponge to [hopefully] keep any more snails out...

[Juancho]

Just a few pics of feeding.  Not much going. But I do have wigglers. So that’s exciting.