What Did You do With Your Tank Today?

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Thanks Autumn!

Today I put in the substrate and found a piece of driftwood I might use as a centerpiece. Not too sure about it yet but here’s the tank! Thinking about switching out the hood for a glass top and a few CFLs instead. Probably better for plant growth and looks pretty cool too.

IMG_1528079767.182751.jpg

Can’t wait to start planting.
 
Thanks Autumn!

Today I put in the substrate and found a piece of driftwood I might use as a centerpiece. Not too sure about it yet but here’s the tank! Thinking about switching out the hood for a glass top and a few CFLs instead. Probably better for plant growth and looks pretty cool too.

View attachment 309182

Can’t wait to start planting.

Dark and mysterious photo...

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Ordered Cobalt Coral Food, a frozen food and got a call that it arrived. When ordering it told the guy I would come not that next weekend but the one after because it is sort of far and I had plans, not in that direction.

But it had been sold so they are reordering it. Picked up A 5G of both RO and SW for the tanks. Looked at fish including some really huge and beautiful Koi.

Hermit Crabs knocked off one of the corals I just got, the red Acan. Retrieved it.

Did a pwc on the 12G SW tank. Refilled evap with RO on 5 tanks.

Fed my largest Rock Flower a food disk.
 
Setting up a 75 G for my Comets. Have 15 juveniles in a 38 G and they are quickly outgrowing it. Am using small polished pebbles as the bottom material this time in place of the pea sized gravel. The gravel is just a bit rough and these fish love to forage around the bottom for leftovers. Am adding Anubias on the bottom and a combination of Hornwort and Anacharis on top. Will instantly cycle the new tank with used sponges from my other tanks. This really takes the time and effort out of the cycling process.

B
 
Setting up a 75 G for my Comets. Have 15 juveniles in a 38 G and they are quickly outgrowing it. Am using small polished pebbles as the bottom material this time in place of the pea sized gravel. The gravel is just a bit rough and these fish love to forage around the bottom for leftovers. Am adding Anubias on the bottom and a combination of Hornwort and Anacharis on top. Will instantly cycle the new tank with used sponges from my other tanks. This really takes the time and effort out of the cycling process.

B

Caution on the small stones if Comet mouth sized. They will suck them up and can get them stuck in their throat. Have had that happen on a GF or young Koi
slurping up a stone from a water lily pot I bought. Had the small rounded stones on top to help hold the lily in its pot. Had to remove the fish and use a tweezer to get the stone out!!!

Ordering a batch of foods for the fish and more Prime. Been using it up faster than usual. With sick fish, pond use and recycling tank after meds.
 
Good morning Autumn...

Thanks for the info. Yes, the polished stones are larger than the standard gravel, Never had a problem with the pea-sized gravel though. The stones will make vacuuming easier too. Never vacuumed my tropical tanks, but the Goldfish are messier than the tropicals as you know.

B
 
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Good morning Autumn...

Thanks for the info. Yes, the polished stones are larger than the standard gravel, Never had a problem with the pea-sized gravel though. The stones will make vacuuming easier too. Never vacuumed my tropical tanks, but the Goldfish are messier than the tropicals as you know.

B

Yes indeed!

I kind of want a couple fancy GF for my pond, put I am considering a change as the present one is a plastic preformed one and is sitting on the river rock under my deck. I would like to sell it I think and get a round livestock watering container. Thinking it over still, but if I keep the pond it will change, tired of it and it is really meant to be dug into the ground. It was an impulse to re set it up after moving and deciding not to dig a big pond.

There are Heron and birds of prey and Raccoons and little kids to be concerned with. I sent my young but 6-8 inch koi and GF to a friend of the family when we moved but they got eaten by the Herons in the neighboring town and I was really sad about it. It just happens sometimes. 2 of the Koi were pretty special ones. Disappointing to be sure.

Now only have Red Ramshorns and some pond snails with a dozen or so Rosy Red Minnows. The golden rosy ones are really pretty, can't even see the golden brown pond muck colored ones, they blend in perfectly to the bottom of the pond.

BB - sent you a PM.
 
Took down the 30L Biorb today and put it in storage. Red passed and the new job is keeping me busy. So I am down to 3 tanks now. Did a full tear down on the Biube and rinsed the substrate and sponges. Moved it to the living room and put it all back together.IMG_3585.jpg
 
Tmaier - Sorry to hear about Red. Your pic of the Biube looks nice - always bright and pretty.
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Also have been really busy with so many things.

Got a 2L container of Prime online and came in 2 days but I have been out of the house and haven't had time to work on the tanks. Just got it out of the mail box. Usually they put that stuff on the porch. It's later now and I am tired.

Tomorrow will try for the filter cleans.

Have been feeding light to moderately and skipped a couple normal feedings to keep the water levels better by not putting too much into the system.

The QT 46G cleared of its cloudiness, just a bit left. I can tell but most people, not fish keepers, wouldn't think anything of it.

Planning on getting to a few changes in the next couple weeks. Will report if and when the changes happen.

Shut down a tank, get rid of a couple tanks, get a new SW tank, move around the furniture (again) and figure out the pond situation. Trying to get done by the end of the month. (Laughing to myself... setting a completely arbitrary deadline just in hopes of getting it done.)

Get rid of a few more baskets of fish keeping things I do not need any longer.
 
No Water Change Tanks

Aa...

This weekend, I set up most of my tanks with Chinese evergreens and will change the tanks to a "Terraphyte" system. These are no water change tanks and run with distilled water. The plants use up the nitrogen as it's produced by the fish and the fish provide the minerals through their waste material. The distilled water is used to replace evaporation, which is considerable because the tanks are uncovered to allow the plants to grow. The tanks range in size from 20 to 60 gallons and the "Ag" house plants get quite large. Still have a couple of large Goldfish tanks that will run on the weekly water changes.

B
 
Pretty much the aquatic day.

Something toxic was in the water today. Can not nail down yet what it is.

Water supplier flushing lines with poison, some odd thing on my hand or the container/water change cup, Prime not shaken enough???

Two tanks were involved. Angel QT and they seem to be recovering.

The PRL shrimp tank was near completely wiped out. My heart has been crushed to 165 pieces of which I think only 10 are trying to hold it together.

There really aren't words to describe it adequately. Watching in horror as handfuls of shrimp were dying - trying to fix the problem. Water changing only causing it to happen more quickly.

They would have all died including all the Chili Rasboras if I hadn't started removing everything in the tank and grabbed a 5G bottled drinking water poured into a fresh bucket and scooping all I could, poured through a net discarding the tank water and moving the shrimp and fish to the fresh bucket.

I have counted 6 Chilis alive and maybe 6-10 shrimp. There are tons of plants and I can't really see.

Got a bunch of new supplies and Polyfilter, different water conditioner and lots of carbon.

A test on a feeder shrimp indicated one bottle of Prime was not a killer.

I have bought more bottled water and a spare tub. Have to move the living shrimp as there are too many dead in the bucket and will cause ammonia poisoning if I don't.

Running the 2 tanks with the Carbon and Poly Filter. Unfortunately I can not get out of work and will have to just see how it all goes by tomorrow night.

It is a horrible, horrible nightmare. I sort of know what I will do, but don't know what to do at all, if you even half understand the life sucking mind numbing tragedy.

Looked for a different tank at the 2 lfs, 2 big box stores and Walmart. Didn't want any of them. Numb.

Will be watching the Poly Filter to see if it indicates copper or other identifiable toxin. Honestly feel like it was the water, but can't pin anything down.

Earlier had done water change on the pond (maybe an hour or more), no deaths, no apparent issues.
 
After moving the shrimp to the tote and the fish to the Endler Spec V, was over joyed to find 27 shrimp alive and the tally of dead is right around 150. The Boraras Brigittae seemed to recover and I didn't see any dead but also didn't count them as I was counting the shrimp. Probably 10-12.

Happy for the ones alive.
 
Yes, thank you. It is so terrible.

Today the shrimp are crawling around on the plants in the plastic tote/ makeshift safe zone. Didn't see any floating. :thumbs:

Will be doing a bucket of water change on the Angels. Their bucket hasn't been checked as it is orange and covered by a towel to prevent jumpers. Added the polyfiber in there to help absorb the additional load.

The Poly fiber in the 46G is brown hint of pinkish red undertone, unclear if the water had iron which too much is bad for shrimp. But wouldn't it normally be taken care of with Prime? Also could be tannins and there is a lot of DW in that tank. So not clear still. Darkish brown in 12 hours running FX-5 so circulating the water at a high gph amount. 450-500 gph perhaps seemed to get brown fast.

Probably tannins / tank looks pretty clear!

Unknown what the deadly component is. So frustrating.

Will likely move Angels and Raphael Catfish to the new bottled water bucket for at least overnight. I might also divide them to help with the crowding of big fish in a 5G bucket. What a headache.
 
Poly filter says red is iron and yellow is ammonia /amines or a solvent.
Might have been both iron and ammonia from a flush ?
Prime would only remove what ever you dosed for .If you didn't know there was more in the system then you would not have dosed enough possibly.IMO it would definitely take more prime under those conditions.
That's rough to get losses doing the right thing .:banghead:
 
Yes true. I usually add a bit extra just for the Chloramines but not that much for the little 1G water exchanges.

One Koi Angel died on the 2nd day after changing the buckets with 5G bottled water.

Had to euthanize the Silver Angel the day after that, it had been having health issues over the past months as I just couldn't watch it suffer, floating sideways and being blown around the tank.

Put the 2 one Koi and the Silver back to the 46G after checking the water. It was really below the test kit pH as I added in some Replenish and some Epsom salts to the water.

The last Koi Angel seems okay, but not quite well. Looks better today than yesterday too. Smell strong smell of chemicals in the tap water and didn't do any pwc this weekend. Have to get some RODI Monday.

Pretty sure the city changed the water to the stone bowl reservoir as the pH in the tap is now 7.8, the highest I have ever seen it. I must have just caught the change time.

My FW tanks run around 6.5 pH normally when it is lake water time and below 6 for the PRL. The Guppy wine glass is higher as it has the Seriyu stone and I let it evap some and get harder. Now I won't need to I guess. The normal higher pH I had seen before was around 7.4-7.5.

It's messed up.

Planning on doing remineralized small pwc with the RODI this week end and try to figure out what else to do. Maybe just add remineralizer to the tanks small amounts over the next week or so to get the water more similar to the new tap water.

I had done about 20 pH tests all around and retested as I had done some changes the other day.

Will try doing the GH / KH on the tap water tomorrow as company and family stuff is priority atm.
 
Hello...

Started using the Tetra "EasyStrips" to test the water in my tanks. I like the 6-In-1 strips. You can test the six items in about 30 seconds. A real time saver if you have multiple tanks.

B
 
Hello...

Started using the Tetra "EasyStrips" to test the water in my tanks. I like the 6-In-1 strips. You can test the six items in about 30 seconds. A real time saver if you have multiple tanks.

B

I love those strips. ???
 
Hello...

Started using the Tetra "EasyStrips" to test the water in my tanks. I like the 6-In-1 strips. You can test the six items in about 30 seconds. A real time saver if you have multiple tanks.

B
Just make sure to take a sample from the tank and dip in that.
IMO dipping in tank could leach chemicals from test strip pads ?.
Many say they are not as accurate but if your system is running steady and you still need to test they are handy..
For accurate readings I would still use the liquid master kit.
 
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