Fish tank pics...

[Cornholio]

I add some beneficial bacteria once a week to help keep the tank clean, you can get it in the pond section of your pet store. It's not to expensive and the bottle lasts for quite some time.

 

[SchrodeMode]

I add some beneficial bacteria once a week to help keep the tank clean, you can get it in the pond section of your pet store. It's not to expensive and the bottle lasts for quite some time.

Thanks, I believe that's in the filter booster.

 

[h8z2luze]

Well that girl turned out to be like the rest... Wont get into that but I do have a tank up. Its a 20G Long. Going to go bigger this winter but for now its cool. Its been up since February.

From june to august sure made a transformation...

June...

August...

 

[slowngreen]

Looks good man. What substrate did you use?

 

[h8z2luze]

Just aragonite. Mix of coarse and semi fine.

 

[Nedly]

This is my tank. 50 gallon I think. Sits on a cabinet. This tank is still pretty new, I finished cycling after swapping out the substrate and converting to live plants like a month ago. I also picked up a Whistler 400watt inverter and some International car batteries in case I lose power! Runs two filters, 200 watt heater, and lights with out flinching for hours.

I have a couple loaches, 3 cafish (pictus & bumblebee & cory), two ottos, and a few platy, mollie, and swordtail fish, silver dollar (or brown bottom gourami) and a rainbow gourami.

 

[slowngreen]

Looks good! Good idea for a power outage. I panic when it goes off. Had a scary day during the winter where it was off for 14 hours. Just kept heating some dry rock on the wood stove and submerging it until the power finally came back on but my reef tank got to 62*! Didnt lose any live stock but they werent happy for a couple weeks after that.

 

[Nedly]

I was panicking thinking about this winter. I live in Maine so I was thinking about blizzards and power outages lasting 3 days. Ouch! And you know, on a fish forum I suggested the inverter and they mentioned cooking rocks. I never thought to try it because I tried freezing rocks once to cool the tank and it never worked. So I assumed it worked both ways.

Other people suggested cooking water, but if you have a heavy water then it stirs the minerals up too much, not too mention if you use any chems like PH down then the regular water changes would be a hassle.

So I decided to go with the inverter. I did some math and found most power filters run max 50 watts, and my lights are roughly 15 watts each, with a 200 watt heater. So I found the whistler for 25$ and was on it. Now I have it, a charger, and several batteries under the cabinet ready to go! My first tests were flawless, the whole system ran for hours without issue. I have not tested my full capabilities yet, but I have about 5 different batteries and one will last 5+ hours!!

So now, blizzard and all, the fishies can chill in their oasis!!

 

[slowngreen]

I just may to a similar setup myself. I bought a used generator this summer but it only runs for a few minutes then dies lol.

 

[Nedly]

I agree, we have a generator but it is a royal pain to set up, we usually do not pull it out unless stuff in the freezer is going bad.....I mean sure, I have a portable generator that would run the fish tank, but I would be in out of the blizzard dealing with gas/oil and wires under the doors ect...And the bigger one (an industrial one) will run the house and fish tank, but it uses so much gas I definitely pay for it!!

I have actually meant to buy a solar panel to charge the batteries. If I could regulate that, this tank would be based on free energy by now. Just working on gathering the supplies...

 

[hamz9561]

You might consider a trickle or maintenance charger for the batteries you've got there. It can keep the batteries topped off before the power failure. Another idea is a solar charging array from places like Harbor Freight that keep the batteries charged using sunlight...

 

[Nedly]

Thats exactly what I have been thinking! I have been looking at the battery balancers as well to manage charging on Ebay, thinking about grabbing one of those..

 

[SchrodeMode]

Well, I've got some updates and questions.

We lost Olaf, the middle one in the above picture, the first or second week that we had them. I'm not sure what happened, but I think he had issues before we got him, or the swap messed him up because he wasn't acting right from the get go. The water levels have been doing great, but we're having snail issues. I noticed a couple during my first full water change, and then I noticed more every change. During my last change, I swapped the stones and ditched the live plant, and did a thorough cleaning of the tank. I just looked in there tonight and there's over 20 sliding around, where in the hell do they keep coming from? This morning, my daughter came up freaking out because "Elsa doesn't have a tail". Elsa is the one on the left and has a pretty translucent tail to begin with, but I'm thinking Anna (on the right) may have been picking at it and eaten some of it, because now it is pretty much a straight line.

What should I do about the tail? Is it something that will heal, or will she just deal with it? How do I teach Anna not to bite her sister, do I use a Dixie cup for time out?

What about the snails? I've read that they'll help with the water, but they're getting out of control, 20 in a 12l tank is a bit much.

 

[Nedly]

Ouch!! What kind of snails are they? Some of those snails will not hesitate to over populate a tank! Like the Malaysian trumpet snails, I know a guy local to my area works at a pet store and sells these year around on Craigslist just to keep his tank from over populating, and I have refrained from buying them with this fear in mind!

The fish you had die, it is quite often a toss up when buying fish and most times you want to find the healthiest. You also want to check the stores water when you get home, I had one pet store my fish would die over and over again, I never had one survive from the specific store. So I went in and got a fish just to test their water and I found it was so acidic with a reading of 6.2!!!! So I flipped and emailed them and everything because a .2 change or more in PH within 24 hours can hurt / kill a fish, meaning if you got one in acidic water it would take a week or more to properly acclimate. This store only offered a 48 hour warranty, so I stopped shopping there period. Only shop if there is at least a 2 week period to return the fish, bring in your water and let them test it. Most fish stores offer this warranty because they know how fish can die or be a toss up. I have bought many that did not survive the night.

As far as your missing tail, your other fish may be a bully to it. And if that happens, the tail will heal but it wont if the other bullies it. The more damaged it gets the more the other will bully it and the more it cannot evade the bully. It is like one fish slowly pounding the other to death so it can eat it. It is common, but it only gets worse from there. There may be a mis-balance somewhere causing it to feel flustered. Are they all males? If you have all one sex, you need all female, if it is males, you need a good 2-3 females per male. This will reduce tension.

Also make sure there are decorations for the fish to evade and hide with. That plant you tossed was probably a help to the hurt fish because it can dodge and hide behind plants... But as far as the bully fish, I would keep an eye on them. The weaker fish get more of the beef because they are already beat up. Fish will kick other fish while they are down, and that is what they prefer to do. Your hurt fish will heal if it is left alone by the bully fish... That is split / damaged fins, if the fin is missing entirely it may not grow back completely, or if it did it would take the length of the fish's existence to make progress with the growth...

 

[Nedly]

It is tough to gain a balance in your....'eco-system', which is how it should be thought of. If you want snails but they over populate, you need a predator. If you get an aggressive fish or crab, it may eat your other fish. If your males are flustered and you get females they will reproduce. If they do that, the babies either have to be rehomed, eaten by other fish, or over populate your tank.....etc

It took me months to find a decent balance and once you do you will find yourself calculating any single fish of any size / type before buying...

 

[SchrodeMode]

Thanks @Nedly. From what I can tell, they're pond snails and probably hitched a ride on the live plant I had in there. I my daughter's tank is too small for the live plant, it took up too much space and was folded over at the top (too tall to stay under water). I did replace it with an artificial plant, when I took it out, so the fish should still have hiding spots. I don't know if they're male or female, I haven't seen them swimming around with a "red rocket" slowing them down. I'm not sure how to separate them though, I only have the one tank.

 

[Nedly]

I actually have some aquarium updates. I found this tree and boy have I been stoked. I saw pictures of it before online but I never knew if it were real or fake. So I searched it online as a aquarium decoration and found nothing 'quite' like it. So I did some more searching and found it was an outdoor/indoor decoration. Well I found it intriguing because the design of it was identical to an aquarium decoration, even the green stuff would pop right off of stems in the same fashion.

So after some more searching I found that this model is from some company who is essentially taking these aquarium decorations and making a pot of styrofoam and gluing in a fake soil for decor. So I gave it a small bleach bath and did some tds testing, scrubbed, washed it, removed it from the glue pot and managed to mount it into my hollow log. It has been amazing and seems to be leaching nothing, it is a basic plastic with a non soluble paint.

So my goal now is to get a second to balance out the 50 gal, remove the fake green stuff and start strapping java moss to it so eventually only the main stock and branches will be fake.. I am also working on putting in a sand substrate, and recently rescued a bunch of fish from a few people who got in over their heads..

 

[slowngreen]

Perfect goal! can't wait till a year from now when the java is growing well! I dig planted tanks, need to start one lol.

Heres my 5g all in one. One month old. Horribly shaky picture though its cold here lol.

My 75g last week. I've changed some more stuff though, get a pic later.

 

[Nedly]

That looks amazing! I have had a couple tanks offered to me recently and I might set up a salt tank myself. I have wanted to pretty bad and I guess the big issue is making space for it. One of the tanks I will be taking in may be coming with salt supplies and if it does I intend to get into it. I have only done fresh water so far but I have tried to learn about salt, and I always check out those sections of the pet stores..

 

[Nedly]

I took the past couple days to make the big switch to sand. I don't think I will ever use gravel again, this stuff has been amazing. I also got a mini crab, my first, it is from Florida. I will have to give it a salt bath once a week but it has been pretty funny to watch this thing run around...