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titan wrote:

Here we go again. I think I have brown algae growing in my tank. A few spots of it was growing on the front of the tank that I wiped off pretty easily. Now, short of cleaning the fake plants, is there a fish that will clean this off for me? My Pepper Corys aren't doing anything about it.

A Pleco or some Otocinclus might help.

Some of my pepper cories apparently reproduced this spring or summer. A while back I started seeing at least one swimming around that is much smaller than the others. It's always fun to see stuff that's smaller than anything you've put in the aquarium swimming around.

That's great. Lol! So, the Peppers breed easily then?

I'm thinking in the next month or so I'll be switching over to a new light fixture so I can get real plants. Remember, I'm getting the <A HREF="http://www.azgardens.com/habitats_easy.php">Easy Life Habitat</A>, so it doesn't need to be very bright. Under 2 watts per gallon.

If I'm understanding the AHsupply.com website properly, the enclosure, the light kits, and bulbs all come separately. Obviously, I need the 20" enclosure. the Two 13W Kit, but what about the bulbs? I want a white light. Not off-white, white. I use Reala in my other light fixtures where I can. I've got white fluorescents in the kitchen. What color temp bulb do I want: 5500K, 6700K or 10000K? What about the 10000K/Deep Blue 03 Combo? Where would I find these bulbs locally?

Hey guys,

I haven't read all 7 pages of this thread, so maybe this is redundant, but I just thought of a neato idea. What if you combined your love of freshwater fishies with your love of enthusiast PC hardware? That's right, using your fifty-something gallon tank as a reservoir for your water-cooled PC!

A simple flowchart:


╔==→outgoing(warm)water→==Fishtank==→ingoing(cool)water→==╗
║.........................................................................................................║
╠================←CPU Block←=====================╣
╚===============←GPU Block←======================╝

Because of the sheer volume of the water, you wouldn't need worry about running the water through a radiator block. In a way, you kill two birds with one stone because you don't have to get an expensive water heater for your aquarium. Water too cold for the fish? Just crank up the OC! Too warm? Crank it back down.

Again, if someone else has already suggested this then stop me here. Seems like an obvious match made in heaven. Heck, you could even sandwich your ATX tower between two aquariums to help shed the heat off as long as the case airflow didn't rely on going out the sides.

C'mon guys, it could be cool.

ssidbroadcast wrote:

Hey guys,

I haven't read all 7 pages of this thread, so maybe this is redundant, but I just thought of a neato idea. What if you combined your love of freshwater fishies with your love of enthusiast PC hardware? That's right, using your fifty-something gallon tank as a reservoir for your water-cooled PC!

A simple flowchart:


╔==→outgoing(warm)water→==Fishtank==→ingoing(cool)water→==╗
║.........................................................................................................║
╠================←CPU Block←=====================╣
╚===============←GPU Block←======================╝

Because of the sheer volume of the water, you wouldn't need worry about running the water through a radiator block. In a way, you kill two birds with one stone because you don't have to get an expensive water heater for your aquarium. Water too cold for the fish? Just crank up the OC! Too warm? Crank it back down.

Again, if someone else has already suggested this then stop me here. Seems like an obvious match made in heaven. Heck, you could even sandwich your ATX tower between two aquariums to help shed the heat off as long as the case airflow didn't rely on going out the sides.

C'mon guys, it could be cool.

Couple of problems:
1) I already have to take care that my aquarium doesn't overheat.
2) Algae will clog the line. You won't get buy without a heat exchanger to run a closed loop for cooling.

A couple days ago I was at PetSmart picking up some supplies for my fish tank. (I'm down to an angelfish and two corys now. ) I saw this thing when I was there, Betta Plant Bulbs. I thought it'd be nice to make my Betta's bowl a bit more attractive. It was only a few bucks, so I grabbed it. Thing is, the directions aren't very clear. Well, at least not to me. On the back it says to remove the bulb from the package -- duh -- and submerge them under the gravel. That's it. No lighting conditions or anything else.

The package says the plant is an Aponogeton Ulvaceus. The bulbs look like a cross between a coconut and a peanut. What I could find, people have said to just let them float in the water before planting them. What do you guys think?

They sound hardy, and that sounds like it should work. Picked up some ghost shrimp for one tank today and have my other inching ever closer to being ready to go.

mattsteg wrote:

They sound hardy, and that sounds like it should work. Picked up some ghost shrimp for one tank today and have my other inching ever closer to being ready to go.

Huh, what?

What should work: putting them in the sand right away, or letting them float before putting them in the sand?

Where did you get your ghost shrimp? I'm starting to get green algae. Or should I look for a different kind of fish?

titan wrote:

mattsteg wrote:

They sound hardy, and that sounds like it should work. Picked up some ghost shrimp for one tank today and have my other inching ever closer to being ready to go.

Huh, what?

What should work: putting them in the sand right away, or letting them float before putting them in the sand?

Where did you get your ghost shrimp? I'm starting to get green algae. Or should I look for a different kind of fish?

Ghost shrimp are more ornamental (or feeders) than algae eaters. There are others (amano, etc. ) that are more inclined to eat algae. I just like them because they offer a bit of subtle activity in the tank that you're unlikely to notice unless you watch for a while (plus they're cheap).

I suspect either planting method will work just fine.

We got a fish tank and 4 fish. I took pictures today, so I'll post them when I upload them to my site

I put up a little 5-gallon tank in my son's room, it went from 4 fish, and now is at 24 or so. Live-bearers are so much fun! A long ways from my 150 gallon tank that Gleek owns now.

-LS

titan wrote:

Where did you get your ghost shrimp? I'm starting to get green algae. Or should I look for a different kind of fish?

The best for algae are snails. Although they breed like rabbits. Also if your tank is big enough a pleco does wonders.

A way to get cheap snails is to go to various pet stores that sell live aquarium plants and look closely to see if they have small snails on them. If so they also have eggs on them and for a couple bucks you get a nice live plant and some new critter for the tank.

Getting rid of the snails can be a problem. I used to feed them to my turtle and give them to people for their tanks or for people who had bigger fish that would eat the snails.

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

We got a fish tank and 4 fish. I took pictures today, so I'll post them when I upload them to my site

Fun stuff.

liquidsquid wrote:

I put up a little 5-gallon tank in my son's room, it went from 4 fish, and now is at 24 or so. Live-bearers are so much fun! A long ways from my 150 gallon tank that Gleek owns now.

Quite a difference indeed. I'm just getting set to put my 120 (marine, semi-reef) online now - filling it for the first time (except for test-fills) right now. Getting ~150 gal out of a 75GPD RO/DI unit that's being fed MN winter cold water takes a long, long time. Probably throw up a photo or 2 once the tank is full and the sediment from the sand settles out.

PRIME1 wrote:

titan wrote:

Where did you get your ghost shrimp? I'm starting to get green algae. Or should I look for a different kind of fish?

The best for algae are snails. Although they breed like rabbits. Also if your tank is big enough a pleco does wonders.

A way to get cheap snails is to go to various pet stores that sell live aquarium plants and look closely to see if they have small snails on them. If so they also have eggs on them and for a couple bucks you get a nice live plant and some new critter for the tank.

Getting rid of the snails can be a problem. I used to feed them to my turtle and give them to people for their tanks or for people who had bigger fish that would eat the snails.

Snails are great. They'll mow through most kinds of algae and clean up any left-over food. If you don' overfeed your tank they won't overreproduce either.

Joe's little tank had two snails ride in on some plants. Now there is an egg sack on a leaf, so that means another 30 snails coming right up. They are doing wonders on the algae though, so they get to stick around. The "spare" fish will get a romp in the garden pond this summer, should be interesting to see how many are in there come fall. My wife vetoed getting Joe a larger aquarium as she rightly concluded it would have been for me.

Some day I hope he will be into it, and we can all get a nice, big tall plexiglass corner bow. Then fill it with discus and fleets of schooling fish like Neons.

-LS

We have a catfish (named Steve) and 3 platy's, 2 of which are Mickey Mouse platy's. Enjoy.

Hey guys,

Forgive me for butting in. I'm not a fish person and I didn't read the whole thread... but have you guys seen this wacky fish tank?

Darkmage wrote:

Hey guys,

Forgive me for butting in. I'm not a fish person and I didn't read the whole thread... but have you guys seen this wacky fish tank?

I want it.

titan wrote:

I want it.

Hmm, Habitrail for fishies.

Apparently one of our fish was pregnant because we now have 3 1/4" long fishies floating around. Woohoo. We'll see how many make it through the night.

Both Mickey Mouse Platy's bit the dust tonight. Fortunately we have 5 surviving babies, but it's heartbreaking. I have no idea what my wife is going to say when she wakes up and notices.

We think they both were males while the other was a female.
So may questions going through my head. Did we feed them too much? Not clean the tank enough? Were the snails too overwhelming? Were the babies too draining? Was something not chemically right with the water? Temperature hasn't changed, I don't know why now.

Fortunately they're only a couple bucks, but still. Sadness.

Until you've established your tank things are rather hazardous. They probably got killed by high ammonia levels, and I doubt the babies will live long. The snails aren't an issue.

Yeah, I know the feeling. With well over 20 years of aquariums under my belt, I still inexplicably loose fish. It is as if there is an ammonia explosion or some other chemical issue which happens so fast it cannot be detected apart from the floaters. Fish seem fine at night, wake up, dead as a doornail.

-LS

Yeah, even with my fish of choice, Ciclids, which are extremely hardy, I will sometimes go to bed with a healthy tank, then wake up to a floater.

It does, however, help a lot now that I have them in a 55 gallon tank. In the smaller tanks they would go zero to toxic before I could do anything about it. With the larger ones it is a lot easier to see if the tank is going south, and to fix it before the fish start to suffer.

I also found the catfish sucked up into one of the tubes in the pump this morning. He was still wiggling a little when I let him out, but I don't know if he survived the day. Going to put some better netting on that.

We're also going to probably invest in one of those $20 things that shows the pH, temperature and ammonia.

Well we got a couple more platy's today from Petsmart. One's a gold mickey and the other is a white mickey. We also spent the $12 and picked up a 6-week temperature/ph/amonia meter thing. We'll see what it says.

I also figured out that I had the large-item filter on the pump upside-down which is why stuff was getting sucked into it. Turned that around and now the pump works alot better. Go figured.

We got some of the snail-b-gone stuff (I dont' remember the actual name of the product) and that did a darn good job of clearing the snails up. There are only about 4-5 left. We threw some penny's into the water b/c apparently they don't like the copper. *shrug*

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

We threw some penny's into the water b/c apparently they don't like the copper. *shrug*

Hmm, wonder why wooden ship bottoms were covered with copper for the last 250 years or so.

Well, I am giving up on <20 gal aquariums. The tiny, cheap heater in my son's stuck on today and roasted the fish. Only about 5 babies are left and one catfish. At least a 2-yo doesn't quite get why there are floaters in his aquarium. Grrr...

My 120 marine tank has been making some great progress and is finally to the point where I'm starting to stock it. I'm very thrilled that I'm almost through testing my wife's patience/tolerance of random bits of aquarium paraphernalia scattered about our living room. Current residents are a dozen hermit crabs, a dozen snails, and a lawnmower blenny. They're on the job making sure algae doesn't get out of hand.

I guess it's sort of like a teaser - here's my current night-lighting setup, with a bonus inclusion of me since I neglected to step out of the way. I'll take some daytime and critter shots later.

What a stud!
Are you using those fans I sold you to cool the lighting?

SpotTheCat wrote:

What a stud!
Are you using those fans I sold you to cool the lighting?

Yep, they work beautifully for circulating air through the hood.

So it turns out that we had overfed our fish and put the nitrate/nitrite levels through the roof. Whoops. We switched to crisps from flakes and haven't had any more problems. We also got a couple more platy's and the 3 baby's are still great. So the stock is 3 adult platy's, 3 baby platy's, my catfish, and then the mother platy who is dying. I want to feed her to the cats.