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Aquarium Homies Thread


El Diablo

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My buddy Todd, the outdoors write for the local newspaper, he and I were roommates for a short while in North Carolina. We were living in a trailer park and it was rural as fuck. There was a tank pretty close by and we'd fish there some. I had bought a 10 gallon aquarium with plans of setting it up but before I could fulfill that dream it became a temporary home for minnows. Then Todd brought home "Ernest T", a small black bass he'd caught out of the pond. As he explained it to me, if we saw Ernest eating a minnow then that meant it was fishing time.

A 10 gallon tank isn't nearly large enough for even a fish as small as Ernest was and it was only a day or two before he ran out of oxygen and died. Dead fish in the tank killed all of the minnows. So we've got this stinking glass box full of dead shit in it and Todd won't get off his ass to do something about it. He finally took the whole thing out behind the house and turned it upside down at the edge of a field. I waited to see when he'd finish cleaning it out and bring it back in but it never happened. Then one day the farmer went around the field and plowed my little glass box into the dirt.

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If you're considering a freshwater planted tank I recommend having a good number of plants that are either rhizome types or stem plants that feed from the water column. Why? Because you can tie them to rocks and move them as needed. I only have 3 root feeders - some Val on the far left of the tank, the Amazon Sword in the middle of the tank and a clump of grass in the right corner. Everything else can be moved as needed which is handy as hell when it comes time to clean. Vacuuming around plants can be tricky, especially for someone like me who has less than perfect eyesight. I just did a water change and vacuumed one half of the tank. This picture is before moving everything back into place. I find creative ways to hide the rocks that the plants are tied to and voila, natural looking aquarium.

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This is what my snail eggs look like. Mostly they lay on the driftwood but I have some on the glass too. Supposedly each one contains about 50-100 potential baby snails, they're more an egg sack than individual eggs. Some people consider them unsightly, I figure they give the tank some character.  I wonder if Chad Briscoe is interested in selling my egg.

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On 4/9/2019 at 9:40 PM, thunderlounge said:

I had a river/pond tank about 15 years ago. I’d catch small bluegill/bass in my pond out back and put em in the tank. When they got too big I would move them back to the pond and do it again. It was fun. 

 

Same here.

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Purchased a used AI prime HD for the nano tank. The flexability with regard to programming is endless, you have lunar cycles, are able to inject weather and dictate intensity and probability all with the app. I've set up my schedule and light intensity based upon the bulk reef supply suggestions via their youtube video. Love the color that it puts out. I'll grab some pictures tomrrow.

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15 hours ago, Mother mopar said:

Purchased a used AI prime HD for the nano tank. The flexability with regard to programming is endless, you have lunar cycles, are able to inject weather and dictate intensity and probability all with the app. I've set up my schedule and light intensity based upon the bulk reef supply suggestions via their youtube video. Love the color that it puts out. I'll grab some pictures tomrrow.

I subscribe to TFH magazine and got a new copy the other day. One of the ads in it is for a light that also has some sound interface. Not sure if it makes sounds or the lights react to sounds. Whole thing sounded silly as shit. Some of the Chinese made lights are fairly cheap cost-wise but I've heard good things about them though the quality can be hit or miss.

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Lookin' good, mang!

I threw together another tank this week. I had bought several during the $1 gallon sale at Petco back last August and they've been just sitting around. I had a 20lb bag of CaribSea gravel left over from when I redid the substrate in my 55 so I dumped that into this tank. It's a 20 long which has somewhat strange dimensions. A bit like my 55 but in miniature but the height is a bit less, relative to the length.

Anyway, gravel, water, some driftwood, a couple of double sponge filters and a light and I've got it bubbling along with no real plans. Might just grow algae on the driftwood to swap out with the driftwood in the 55. Or crank up the light and grow out red plants to swap out with the ones in the 55, they tend to fade in there. Might just throw some Guppies in here in a month or so. The short term plan is to just let it idle along and develop some bio-film and figure it out later.

 

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5 minutes ago, Mother mopar said:

Looks legit, I like the driftwood. Have you ever messed with C02 in freshwater tanks. I've seen a few at the LFS that look amazing.

I haven't done CO2. The plants I'm growing don't really need it and I don't know if I want to get off into plants that heavily. I might give it a try at some point but probably not real soon.

A close inspection would reveal that my plants are pretty much covered in funk and algae and aren't the healthiest that they could be with better attention but I just kind of look at it as a more natural environment. Only real problem I've seen from it is higher nitrate levels due to decomposing vegetation. When I first started this I wasn't paying close attention to that but I do pretty large water changes now so that isn't really an issue since I got it under control, it just means I can't go a month between water changes without elevating nitrate levels. I'm more concerned about the livestock than the vegetables.

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  • 2 weeks later...

So it's been 2 weeks since I slapped the 20 gallon tank together and I guess an update is due. It's just growing algae like a sonuvabitch, lol. I haven't done squat to it other than pour the light to it. No plan yet on what it's going to be but I think a healthy biofilm will help it cycle once I do decide to put some livestock in it. Anyone have any thoughts on that theory? Oh, here's a pic.

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9 minutes ago, Mother mopar said:

Algae feeds off nutrients in the tank and that looks pretty bad. What are your water parameters? Maybe time for a lights out period of 48-72 hours.

I haven't checked the water since I filled it up. I added a good dose of liquid fertilizer along with some calcium and magnesium though when I started it. I intended to grow the algae so I'm not worried about the parameters, yet. If the stuff starts dying and the water gets foul then I'll look at it. For right now it's just something I'm messing with. 

I might ought to clarify, before I do add livestock I'll do like a 95% water change and let that simmer a few days, cut the lights back to a normal 6 or so hours. I'm pretty sure the nitrates are fairly high already.

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11 hours ago, Mother mopar said:

Ok, seems like you kinda knew this was going to happen,haha. That big of a water change normal in the freshwater hobby? I'd assume you want to keep some of the excess nutrients to propagate for fish food sustainment.

Not that large, no, not normally done. I just wanted to start a new tank and see how it progresses. I kinda expect it to collapse in some way at some point. The tank sits near a north facing window and as the days get longer it gets some light in the afternoons so I might just kill the artificial light soon. My thought is that a "mature" tank is more stable than a new tank and maybe by doing this little pre-treatment I can "age" the tank a bit before actually putting any fish at risk. Basically I'm just playing in the water for my own education.

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I pulled the trigger on a Milwaukee digital refractometer and some Instant Ocean salt. No real definite plans yet but I'm still toying with the idea of these snails, lol. I found what I think might be some reliable information on their breeding and may give it a shot. If it works then I could maybe have a little breeding setup to generate a few dollars from this hobby to plow back into it. MTS! 

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9 hours ago, Mother mopar said:

Hell yeah, I've used instant ocean salt at a atleast their Instant Ocean Reef Cystals verison. Higher in calcium, magnesium and alkalinity is at 13...then supplement race minerals and iodine for the inverts.

I wasn't real sure what the differences were when I was looking at their salt products. I knew I wasn't going to do a reef so figured that this would be okay. I've been using Seachem Equilibrium in my FW tanks already because some of my fish supposedly do better in a harder water. It's a blend of calcium sulfate and magnesium sulfate plus trace minerals, I may add a shot of that to whatever I mix up, maybe not. I've got a digital TDS meter already, I don't know if that is of any use in SW.

 From what little I can find, these snails aren't terribly particular. They live and lay eggs in my FW tanks but the eggs will only hatch in SW so here I go. I've been conversing online with some guy who lives in India near a river and the ocean. He collects his snails from the river (they're native) and collects ocean water to hatch them in. 

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That's the opposite of what I do with my FW tank, I keep the TDS ~300. For whatever reason I would have thought that salt+minerals would have a higher level of TDS. Anyway, as I've mentioned before, this tank will be cooked up using tap water. The snails dgaf and I just need it to be salty.

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On 5/5/2019 at 6:26 PM, Mother mopar said:

I utilize a TDS meter in my tank, usually runs around 16-20. Try to do my best to keep it low by using RO/DI water or for top off I use distilled water fro the local grocery story. 

Finally clicked, you're talking dGH, right? My meter reads in ppm so I had to think about it. 

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Total dissolved solvents (TDS) is the instrument that I use. Higher TDS means there's a greater amount of phosphates in the tank thus higher possibility of algae growth. Freshwater folks use something similar?

On another note scored a 4 month old eshopps nano tank skimmer off reef central.com. in the past 6 hours it's already pull some decent skim.

https://www.saltwateraquarium.com/nano-protein-skimmer-10-35-gallon-eshopps/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwn8_mBRCLARIsAKxi0GLuCp_5B1NCXhziFaABkcbXSQ04R0MojOcLP6Q3p9kLfOQrN-11i2UaAsGrEALw_wcB

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I've never heard of those for TDS. Multiple ways to skin a cat, in the end as long as the numbers are tolerable then all is well. I measured alkalinity yesterday and I was at 11, calicum was at 420 and magnesium was 1420ppm. I supplement on my non water change week with trace minerals and iodine. So far so good!

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So I built myself a brine shrimp hatchery. It was stupid easy, I had everything I needed here at the house and hopefully this time tomorrow we'll all be eating skrimps!  First I watched this video. This chick, I thought she was like 15? Nope, in her 30's. Creepy.

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Mother mopar said:

Damn, that's awesome cant wait to see how it turn out.

I bought the eggs a while back (not from Chad Briscoe). They keep for a year or more in the fridge. Fish breeders hatch these shrimp to feed their fry, I'm just doing it to have something different to feed to my fish. Plus if I ever do decide to separate one of my preggos into another tank just to raise the fry I'll already know how to feed 'em.

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Not sure what I did wrong but I got very few skrimps to hatch. I finally got around to unboxing my spectrometer and checked the salinity and it was pretty low so I upped that, added some more eggs and am letting it bubble until I get home from work and we'll see then.

I think these brine shrimp are the same thing they used to sell as Sea Monkeys when I was a kid. Some folks keep feeding them and say they'll get about 1/4" when fully grown and once you get an established colony they'll just reproduce like crazy.

As for my snail project I'm not sure if it's ever going to get off the ground. I spent a good bit of yesterday trying to unwrap the mystery of these things and with one exception everything I saw says that only a couple species (which aren't the ones we get here in the US) have ever been bred in captivity. All the ones we see in the stores are wild caught. Most of those come from the Caribbean and Central to South America. Some from Florida and the East Coast too but still all harvested from tidal pools and the like.

I may have just bought a bunch of saltwater gear for the fuck of it. Maybe I'll start a shrimp farm.

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Since I had the 20 gallon tank somewhat up and running and the snail project is a no-go I decided to put some of the cheap decor that I had here to good use. It's stuff I bought when I first started keeping the Betta fish. I'm going to have a Guppy tank. I've got enough cycled sponge filters in my other tanks that I can just rob one from each tank and this thing is fish ready. I painted that back with cobalt blue acrylic. Pain in the ass painting on glass but I like the finished look. I'll go to PetSmart tomorrow and grab some Guppies.

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I went to Psmart after work and picked up a half dozen fish. 4 Guppies and 2 Endlers. Pretty little fish, the 20 gallons kinda swallows 'em up though. I could probably fit another dozen without any issues. They only had I think 3 varieties so I kinda had to take what was there. Not my favorite but I was just snapping pictures and this pic happened to come out better than the others.

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The water cleared up and everybody survived the first 24 hours. Parameters are fine, little bit of ammonia so I treated the water with Prime but everything else looks good. I'll keep an eye on it for awhile but I think we're alright. Tank could use some more fish though. 

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I hit a couple of different stores today and picked up 8 more Endlers in various colors/patterns. One of the stores had a Betta in with other fish, not unheard of but not all Bettas can get along with other fish. They generally are too aggressive and have to be kept alone. This guy was pretty cool looking though and didn't seem to have an aggression towards his tankmates so I bought him. He's what they consider a Koi color form. Ima name him Colt. Colt McKoi.

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Drove down to Pensacola to check out a new saltwater fish store. Very small mom & pop place which is fine by me. Had a nice collection of corals and my wife (pix already posted) spotted a small clam. Chat w/the girl and she says it's a maxium clam, asked how much and she says $85. Done deal, take it and I don't say shit as I knew it wasn't a maxium clam.

Maxs are blue/black this one was gold/brown with a green lip. It was a less commonly found squamosa clam. Talk about a score!

He's acclimating fine in the tank. He's repositioned himself to oriente to the water flow (assumption) but looking good. Lights will be on in a few hours and I'll snack a better picture with his mantle out. e41ad9900217cd0ad028efb5f039e1a5.jpg

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Maximas, dersa are more delicate than the others. Clams under 4" filter feed 90% of the time so you'll need special food like Rotifers, marine snow, plankton etc. I've had a clam before in a 90gal reef tank and he died. Biggest issue with claims are sufficient lighting, as the get bigger than 4" they need intense lighting to survive/grow.

I just fed the corals with reef roids and he started filter feeding few minutes later. He opened up and his slit widened and you could seem him expel the water out the top tube. Pyramid snails are also a threat to snails, they will kill them don't let the small size fool ya. 019192368d73e9f32c5a3349912c6ae1.jpg

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Hoo-boy, did I ever just scare myself! I've been deep cleaning the Betta tanks this week and while I was draining the tank with the Dumbo in it he decided to take a ride up the vacuum. One second he was there and then POOF! He was GONE! Luckily I was using the little vacuum that I put together for these small tanks and was draining it into a 5 gallon bucket.

I took it outside in the light and sure enough, there he was. The hose only has an ID of 1/2". I have no idea how he didn't get stuck though he did go in head first. I named him Runt for a reason, he's pretty dang small for a Betta but still...

So he's back in his tank now and I'm hoping he didn't get damaged physically. I'm pretty sure he's scarred mentally now, lol. Wow. I still can't believe that just happened. Holy shit, siphon, you scary.

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27 minutes ago, Mother mopar said:

Free water rides,lol

Yep. I guess he thought it was some amusement park shit. I'm not sure now if he's going to make it or not. No way to tell really if he got messed up or not. He's breathing fine but just resting on things in the tank. Fins all drooped and his color is faded from what it normally is. At least he's got clean water and plenty of it all to himself to recuperate. Keeping my fingers crossed. 

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