29 Gallon Endlers

[Dawn T]

Cleared up. Except for the reflections from the room. 🙄 The plants have relaxed fully back into their natural state, too.

[eatyourpeas]

Looking great! 😍

[Odd Duck]

@Dawn T Very nice!

[Dawn T]

I added a school of lemon tetras and 2 gold honey gouramis to this tank today, along with 3 more cherry shrimp. They've been in quarantine about the last month, so they were ready to come out. My QT popped a seal this morning, so I had no choice but to go ahead and move them. Good thing they were ready!

[Dawn T]

When my 10g QT sprung a leak last month, and I moved the fish that were in there into this tank, I also transferred the sponge filter from the QT to this tank. Two weeks ago, I removed the Tidal 35 HOB, which I haven't been happy with (the media compartment is a horrible pain in that thing and required a LOT more maintenance than my previous Aquaclear). So, right now, this tank has only an ACO medium-sized sponge filter being run by a nano USB pump. Working well, except for the fact the sponge hasn't removed all the floating debris from the tank that I stirred up when I removed the Tidal.

Also, 2 weeks ago, I added a rooted cutting of Syngonium (arrowhead vine) as an emergent plant, as well as a cutting of Money Plant into one of the baskets. I've also added a few cuttings of pink polka dot plant. The emergent plants have been very happy in this tank since I added the light just for them a while back. Thankfully, placement of that light, and the fact it's on longer than my tank light, hasn't created any algae issues in the tank. I think I got it placed just right to benefit the plants without feeding algae.

A week ago, I thinned out the 'octopus' and adding some cuttings of Hygrophila difformis, which I've wanted to try. Those are already growing great! I noticed when I put them in, though, that some of the emergent plants have put roots down deep enough now to reach the substrate.

Yesterday morning, for the first time in months, the nitrates were below 25. They've tended for all these months to stay between 25-50, no matter what I did, and I couldn't figure out why with any certainty. I THINK it's because I set this tank up with an established substrate from a tank that had a common pleco (LOTS of mulm) and didn't cap it quite deep enough with sand. I put the old substrate in media bags to keep it from blending with the sand, and I KNOW I didn't get the sand deep enough because I had some difficulty planting stem plants. So I'm thinking the nutrients released from the old substrate was just too much. I used less old substrate and more cap sand on more recent projects and haven't had that same problem. Coincidence, or the source of the problem? Not sure, but I'm erring on the side of "Don't do it quite that way again!" LOL Even when the tank was super lightly stocked, those nitrates were up there. Adding the new fish last month didn't raise it higher, though I actually expected it to.

Anyway, yesterday, nitrates were down to 10 ppm. I suspect that's a combination of factors, including the addition of the Syngonium. That plant tends to be like pothos in being a heavy nitrogen feeder. I've found, it, pothos, and peace lily all are great for lowering nitrate levels naturally. And the cherry shrimp and Amanos love the roots for picking at.

Edited April 25, 2022 by Dawn T

[Guppysnail]

Where do you get your baskets? I read your other thread and spent half an hour looking for black plastic shower caddie to no avail. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 4/24/2022 at 5:40 PM, Dawn T said:

Two weeks ago, I removed the Tidal 35 HOB, which I haven't been happy with (the media compartment is a horrible pain in that thing and required a LOT more maintenance than my previous Aquaclear).

I can verify, it's weird. The whole bypass thing is so bad sometimes.  There is a way to "salvage" it if you need to me take some pictures of mine. I totally understand the annoyance of trying to keep the tidals clean.  Amazing pumps, close to a "good design", but it's just a hassle sometimes.  In my case every time I would clean the impeller on an aquaclear it would literally just stop working. After 5 replacements I ended up just deciding to deal with the reliability (and priming) of the tidal and leave it be.

I really enjoy the Anubias and Hygro bunches you have in your scape.  Those are the two that grab my attention and pull me in. 

 

On 4/24/2022 at 5:40 PM, Dawn T said:

Anyway, yesterday, nitrates were down to 10 ppm. I suspect that's a combination of factors, including the addition of the Syngonium. That plant tends to be like pothos in being a heavy nitrogen feeder. I've found, it, pothos, and peace lily all are great for lowering nitrate levels naturally. And the cherry shrimp and Amanos love the roots for picking at.

From your sentence above you said you have had the tank in the 25-50 range. Is that usually the highest value where you try to keep the tank or given the load you have do you have a specific value you're trying to monitor and keep the tank at?  (asking for my algae farm, lol)

[Dawn T]

I try to keep nitrates no more than 25 ppm in my tanks. I've found the cherry shrimp seem to do best that way. They stop breeding on me when it hits 50. As long as it stays 25 or lower, they breed like gangbusters. The fish don't seem to care a bit about 50 ppm, so I keep it lower for the shrimp.

@GuppysnailThe shower caddies I bought don't come in black. I had to spray paint them. I use Krylon Fusion All-In-One Paint & Primer in satin black. Once it's cured for 24 hours, it's totally fish safe. Works great on plastics. The larger baskets in my aquaponics setup are amazon.com/dp/B0986KSBGC spray-painted black. They were 3 for about $15. They worked great for plants with more roots, plus the media I had been using in the original aquaponics box. For this Endler tank, I used smaller drawer storage baskets from Walmart. They were 3 for less than $1. Work great for smaller cuttings.

[Dawn T]

@nabokovfan87Info for the Tidal 35 would be great. I don't know when/if I'll use it again, but I'd appreciate knowing how to make it more useful and less of a pain should I decide to use it on another tank at some point. I never had any trouble with my Aquaclear, except for restarting properly after power outages if the tank wasn't completely full (it wouldn't prime itself). It always ran quietly and reliably. Little work horse for me. I decided to try the Tidal because of the pump being inside the tank so it would restart/prime itself after an outage. Wasn't worth the hassle of the maintenance though, I decided. That bypass is definitely a pain in the butt, along with the screwball shape of the sponges (which didn't fit snug into the basket either). What were they thinking on THAT?

[nabokovfan87]

On 4/24/2022 at 7:03 PM, Dawn T said:

I decided to try the Tidal because of the pump being inside the tank so it would restart/prime itself after an outage. Wasn't worth the hassle of the maintenance though, I decided. That bypass is definitely a pain in the butt, along with the screwball shape of the sponges (which didn't fit snug into the basket either). What were they thinking on THAT?

Hahaha I mean.... There is absolutely some measurement issues with their sponge tolerances. Pretty sure it's by design. Do you have any sponge on hand, any pond foams with the little bumps or no?

[Dawn T]

Oh, one other thing about the baskets, I used plastic s-hooks for hanging the larger baskets in the aquaponics setup, also spray painted black. For the smaller baskets in THIS Endler tank, I made s-hooks by hand with simple plastic coated wire sold for garden use (those baskets don't have a lot of weight in them).

@nabokovfan87I always have coarse sponge on hand. The 9"x9"x1" type stuff. I make custom sponges for "kit" type filters that use cartridges, so I keep that sort of thing on hand. No pond foams though. Haven't looked into that type of sponge to know which is good and which isn't. ??

[nabokovfan87]

On 4/24/2022 at 7:14 PM, Dawn T said:

I always have coarse sponge on hand. The 9"x9"x1" type stuff. I make custom sponges for "kit" type filters that use cartridges, so I keep that sort of thing on hand. No pond foams though. Haven't looked into that type of sponge to know which is good and which isn't. ??

All good, There is basically a variety of issues but let's dive in. I apologize for the info dump!

Common issues (bypass on the tidal):
1. Front right (window cutout)
2. Back right (narrow slots in the container on each side)
3. Water flow chute (tolerance issue / flex issue)

Shown below is a tidal 55, we'll get back to this shortly.  I am showing this to give everyone an idea of the overall layout.  There is a mod here you may or may not see that fixed a LOT of the issues here.



This is my 10G tank running the Tidal 35.  Yes, the water change is absolutely past due. I had to move the tank 1 AM due to the dresser it was on deciding it was time for me to do so. I let the fish settle, water change day! Happy fish.

What we don't have here in this filter compared to the tidal 55 is the blue lockdown tab that pushes the basket down to a specific height.  The media basket here is basically pushed down as far as it will go and pressure/friction is your fitment force.  This resulted in the Tidal 35 having bypass in the blue chute region moreso than any of my other tidal filters and you can see the muck pooled on the chute area where the water should be flowing in and downward to the sponge. This happens no matter what you do and if I throw a chunk of sponge into this chute (i.e. Pondguru mod) the filter laughed at me and shot water up toward the lid.



In terms of what I'm running currently, I do need to cut more sponge and I have been running the current setup for over 6 months.  I ran the included blue sponge from seachem, but mine was not long enough so there was bypass. I always run two sponges to try to stop the flow as much as I can (a losing battle here) before the water gets to my media.  THANKFULLY the media bag that comes with these filters is actually good and works well. It does not protect the media entirely, but it is my favorite media bag available.  I have ended up with a medium and fine sponge as my main mode of filtration.  I will eventually cut another fine sponge (black material) for the window cutout as shown on the tidal 55. 

For the 35, right now, this is what I'm doing:

What I recommend to "fix" a majority of the issues is to reduce the flow slightly (I'll explain why in a moment) and to add this piece of sponge here....  What this does is significantly eliminate bypass on the filter until you *actually need to* clean it out or it will cause bypass in the region shown. 

So, add the sponge and monitor bypass in the region indicated, if you have bypass there you need to then move/adjust the sponge you've added so that bypass happens only in the rear of the HoB basket.  Once bypass is only in the back of the basket you can add fine pad to the top of your basket and protect the media or reduce the flow.  When bypass is back, it means it's time to clean everything out.

One final note, on the tidal 35 the media bag is very small. What this means is that you do have this open space on the left of the container. This will cause some bypass which you can either accept or try your best to spread out the media bag and even out the flow on the basket.



So now we have out cleaned out basket with bypass right on the window where you expect it to be... thanks seachem. (front center of the basket)



This video, for anyone who is curious, breaks out the "best method" to cure all of these issues and completely eliminate bypass.  I would've cut out the basket a bit differently than shown, but the idea being that there are so many little cutouts to fill up just to force the water where you really want it to go.
 

 

It's a great HoB pump.... The filter works if you fix it, which is really frustrating.

I also assume that seachem designed this thing to run 1 sponge and the media included and nothing else. Adding more sponge or media ends up filling up the water level, causing a LOT of these issues.  The cutouts are all above where the media "normally" would be out of box.  Take that for what you will. I've never ran these things without 2 of the sponges out of the box because the included sponge clogs in about 48 hours on a planted tank.

Edited April 25, 2022 by nabokovfan87
spelling

[Dawn T]

You're so right about the sponge that came with the filter. It had so much slop in it that water went right around it instead of through it. I ended up adding a flatter piece of sponge between it and the back wall of the basket just to get water to actually to go (mostly) through the Seachem sponge. So many ways for water to go around the media. Thanks for the insights into how to fix that!

I really wish these companies would actually talk to actual hobbyists about we really need/like/want in various equipment, or listen to those like Cory who can tell them how to make their products better. That's one of the things I like about the items that Cory designs and sells through ACO. It's equipment designed for aquarists BY an aquarist. What a concept. LOL

[nabokovfan87]

On 4/24/2022 at 8:16 PM, Dawn T said:

I really wish these companies would actually talk to actual hobbyists about we really need/like/want in various equipment, or listen to those like Cory who can tell them how to make their products better. That's one of the things I like about the items that Cory designs and sells through ACO. It's equipment designed for aquarists BY an aquarist. What a concept. LOL

It's amazing to me.... I see commercials you'd only ever see because the robots on youtube saw you watch a fluval video.  Then they talk about how they innovated 30-50 years ago.... The product to this day is mostly unchanged. I WISH companies really understood an engineers job to the extent of design constraints and things like kits for repair/servicing. Mod kits. One of the easiest things you could do (and literally ANY company could do it) sell a plug for the pump hole in the AC filters, then re-design and create a new intake. The box is "fine" but there's so many small ways to improve a product without modifying tooling or minimally modifying tooling.

A great example. The seachem filters, we all have issues with the holes in the box, with the surface skimmer slots.  It actually does not modify tooling to remove those holes. It makes the part *easier* to manufacture, costs less to manufacture, and improves the flow of the plastic in the mold when you manufacture it.  It's ironic how they won't create a "planted tank" version or modify some of these cutouts. Like the basket, the large cutouts. It's actually cheaper to not cut all of those holes and the product would actually work a lot better.

Edited April 25, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[Dawn T]

You'd think they'd be keen on a simple fix that would end up costing the company less AND make hobbyists like their product even more (and thus purchase it instead of products by competitors), but apparently... LOL

[Dawn T]

I guess I must've looked at this tank funny, because the Crypt wendtii forest in the one corner suddenly decided to melt. And only the ones in that corner melted. The one in the center foreground continues to thrive. That back corner is regrowing in again, but I have no idea why those plants suddenly melted. There haven't been any changes to this tank, so no differences in lighting, nutrients, water parameters, temperature. No clue.

Oh, the melt happened about 2 weeks ago. Sudden, mass die-off.