Sand for substrate

[PBirdsong]

Yeah. And honestly, I will not be planting enough in the beginning to make too much of a difference in the cycle anyways.

Travis: what do you feed your mts?

 

[greenmaji]

MTS eat the food that doesnt get eaten by the fish..

 

[PBirdsong]

Yeah, but can you drop carrats or zucchini in there to supplement their diet if needed?

 

[greenmaji]

I seriously doubt you will need to supplement MTS's diet.. all you would have to do is add more food of anykind... they will eat the veggies.. seen pictures of them eating zucchini..I thought it was funny looking...

 

[PBirdsong]

Well it was kind of a thought based on my girlfriend's tank right now. Her fish will eat everything! And if they miss something, they will search the gravel until they find it. They have all turned into bottom (and top) feeders.

 

[greenmaji]

chances are if your fish eat like that they will eat the veggies as well! LOL

 

[PBirdsong]

Yeah those fish are pigs!
I can't drop anything in there for the bottom feeders unless it's after dark.

 

[PBirdsong]

Okay. So I can't seem to find blasting sand at Home Depot or Lowes. I'm going to try a pool store tomorrow for Pool Filter Sand. :?

 

[krap101]

well.. usually home depot sells play sand, which is practically the same as pool filter sand. both are silica and some other small ?sands?

 

[greenmaji]

did you look for equipment rental places.. ie the place that you would rent a sandblaster from? and good luck finding sand
btw. have you taken the UGF out yet? Im guessing you wouldnt be putting sand over a UGF but its still in your sig..

 

[PBirdsong]

Yeah, my sig if for my girlfriend's tank. The sand is for MY tank that should have water in it tonight . . . IF I EVER FIND ANY SAND!!!
The new 55 has an overflow filter (drilled).
Haven't fixed the girl friend's yet. Working on building the overflow myself with PVC. She still has to buy a water pump too.

Oh and I went to a pool store and they were all out of sand. I'm going to call around a little more, but if I haven't found anything in the next hour I'm going to play sand.

 

[PBirdsong]

Going to get play sand now. I'll try and take pictures.

I'm so excited.

 

[greenmaji]

how big is the overflow pipe.. and what is the standpipe design? just currious..

 

[PBirdsong]

The drain pipe is a 1.25 inch and the return pipe is 3/4 inches.

I have pics I'll post later. Water is still muddy right now.

 

[PBirdsong]

Water has cleared up completely. To speed it up a little I syphoned out the dirty water as I was filling the tank. Took two hours, but it was crystal clear by the time the tank was full. I'm at work right now and can't post the pics, but I will tonight when I get home.

 

[PBirdsong]

Well here's the pics. There are a few more, but there was an error on one of the files. There is a frozen shrimp (not frozen anymore) in the water to start up the cycle.

 

[PBirdsong]

Another Pic

While I was filling the tank I syphoned the dirty water out the back door into the yard. I did this for about two hours and it worked really well. The water is crystal clear now.

 

[PBirdsong]

The old sump plan.

I had two containers (just one was too small) but my syphon that connected the two wasn't keeping up very well. If I had doubled up the syphon it would have been fine, but I just went to a 10 gallon aquarium instead.

 

[PBirdsong]

Cycling

Oh and when do I take the shrimp out?

 

[PBirdsong]

Just an update:

I have finally added my Malaysian Trumpet Snails into my tank. One LFS gave me 8 of them for free. At the risk of sounding dumb: mine are black. I thought MTS had more of a "whiter" shell.