Recent content by kc2ped

I have five X-ray Tetras. Four of them follow the standard description. The fifth, and smallest, has on orange tag on the anal fin in place of the usual yellow. I know the conventional wisdom is that males are smaller than females but I don't know the relative ages of the fish in my school...

I just bought 5 at Petco for $2.99 each

Congratulations. I know the tank looks much better without those black dots crawling all over the glass. Just out of curiosity, what did they cost?

I have a heavily planted BioCUBE 14. My fish store has been encouraging me to replace the bioballs with ceramic noodles. I can't see where it makes much difference which is in there as long as there is something for the bacteria to grow on. And my ammonia is never higher than the 0.25 ppm...

I have a heavily planted BioCUBE 14 and love it except that the fish look strange in pictures when they are in the rounded corners at the front of the tank. The supplied lighting (10,000k and actinic) is more suited to marine tanks but it isn't hard to swap the bulbs out if you can find 6700k...

I had healthy fish with no additions to the tank until my first feeding of frozen blood worms. Then I started seeing fungus infections that I could not attribute to anything else since that was the only change. It is always possible that there is something in the food that doesn't belong...

The pH in my heavily planted nano community tank has been in the low 6s and my pico shrimp tank has been steady at 6.5 and my KH is 1st or below. The other day I noticed that the tow whorls of my Nerite Snale had disolved so I figured it was time to try something other Thames my weekly 50%...

I had a Siamese Algae Eater that I liked but he was getting too big for my 10 gal tank so I took him back to the shop to trade him in for a smaller version. They gave me a Chinese Algae Eater instead of a Siamese and I didn't check it until I dumped it into the tank. It quickly grew larger...

No problem with Bamboo Shrimp, Amano Shrimp, Ghost Shrimp, Red Cherry Shrimp or even young Red Cherry Shrimp Not sure about Ghost Shrimp larvae though

My Chi has small pebbles as the primary substrate with Flourite in the planter box. The Assassin Snail has no trouble disappearing in the gravel. I am not sure I have ever seen him partially buried in the Flourite though. The only time I have seen the snails in my Biocube, which has an all...

I have been running DIY for the past 9 months or so and can't see that it has caused any problems in my BioCUBE 14 I don't run an air pump or have water surface agitation Any external (other than CO2 injection and plant respiration) gas is a result of the water trickling over the bioballs When I...

A drop checker is a clear, inverted cup that sits on top of an inverted funnel and is attached to the inside of the tank below the waterline When you recharge the CO2 system you put a small quantity of tank water and indicator solution in the device As CO2 concentration in the tank water changes...

I got a UV when I first got my tank I still had algal blooms Then the bulb reached the end if it's very short useful life and I found out what it was going to cost to replace it Now I try to figure out what I am doing that is causing my water to start to get cloudy and stop doing it before the...

That picture reminds me of what tanks looked like in the old days when they had painted steel frames (not even stainless) that always rusted out around the top edge where the water got on them They were sealed with black tar and if you left them empty for any appreciable period of time the tar...

I was successfully growing Dwarf Baby Tears in my BioCUBE 14 with the stock actinic and 10,000 K bulbs, Flourite substrate and no fertilizers or CO2 The only reason it isn't still there is that the shallow roots couldn't stand up to the rooting of the Corydoras and Siamese Algae Eater