Your current Fish tank Setups!

Ah, guess you are a bit of a expert on them then :)

This is a female ain't it? (ignore the algea, getting ready for a good clean):

mocWOeY.jpg


The fish is not just a failed male that has lost his colour is it? (making him look like a girl). Reason i ask is because the male keeps going for his/her eyes? Seen the odd nip between male and females but not constantly going for the eyes.

Just been sat watching for the last 5 minutes.
 
So one of my black widows decided to take a ride in my syphon into the bucket of old tank water (didn't have a gauze on it silly me) got stuck in the hand pump starter but after about 30 mins he got out into the bucket seemingly unharmed. Put him in a net in isolation for an hour and reintroduced him into tank and turned lighting off for the day.

Anything else I should do for the poor soul? Bet he's petrified
 
Unicorn said:
So one of my black widows decided to take a ride in my syphon into the bucket of old tank water (didn't have a gauze on it silly me) got stuck in the hand pump starter but after about 30 mins he got out into the bucket seemingly unharmed. Put him in a net in isolation for an hour and reintroduced him into tank and turned lighting off for the day.

Anything else I should do for the poor soul? Bet he's petrified
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He should be fine. I can't say I can think of anything else off hand that you could do, though maybe someone else can.

This happened to me early on when I hadn't long begun adding fish to the system. A bronze cory got sucked up when I was vacuuming the substrate, but he was fine and is still going strong today.
 
Does anyone here produce there own RO?

Ive been wanting to keep crystal shrimp for a while now. Ive bought two
Mixed colonys of 15ish only for them to die off gradually for what i thought was no apparant reason. My cherry reds in the same tank have been fine and i couldnt understand why untill i found that the crystals need a lower ph to survive.

I always used treated tap water in my tank and testing the ph today it sits around 7.4 which is too high, crystals need 6.3-6.8, ive got JBL shrimp soil whoch is supposed to buffer the water to slightly acidic but doesnt seem to be doing the job.

So the only option i can see left is to start to phase in RO water but obviously im a complete nub
when it comes to this so looking for advice really

Ive seen this unit on amazon but not sure if its any good http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00...r+(UK)+Ltd&dpPl=1&dpID=41L1zqfg5VL&ref=plSrch

Steve
 
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NoobCannon said:
Does anyone here produce there own RO?

Ive been wanting to keep crystal shrimp for a while now. Ive bought two
Mixed colonys of 15ish only for them to die off gradually for what i thought was no apparant reason. My cherry reds in the same tank have been fine and i couldnt understand why untill i found that the crystals need a lower ph to survive.

I always used treated tap water in my tank and testing the ph today it sits around 7.4 which is too high, crystals need 6.3-6.8, ive got JBL shrimp soil whoch is supposed to buffer the water to slightly acidic but doesnt seem to be doing the job.

So the only option i can see left is to start to phase in RO water but obviously im a complete nub when it comes to this so looking for advice really

Steve
Click to expand...

Yes Steve.

Very simple to do. A decent unit from www.osmotics.co.uk will cost around £80-£100 and is dead easy to plumb in. The units come preassembled so you literally just have to plumb the feed and waste in. Incredibly easy stuff. There is a small piece that you screw on to the feed pipe and it pierces it. I would go for one with a DI stage as well.

I have a 50GPD system and it normally takes 6 hours to run off around 30 litres. Enough for a weekly water change in a 180l tank. This is the one I use http://www.osmotics.co.uk/products/4-Stage-50-Gallon-Per-Day-Reverse-Osmosis-System-with-DI.html
 
Ok thanks, from reading around i think i need to add something to the water to make it safe to use? Remineralise i think it was, what do you use for that? And how would i get it to the right ph etc?

Also is it safe to simply start doing my water changes with the produced water instead of
My usual tap?
 
NoobCannon said:
Ok thanks, from reading around i think i need to add something to the water to make it safe to use? Remineralise i think it was, what do you use for that? And how would i get it to the right ph etc?

Also is it safe to simply start doing my water changes with the produced water instead of
My usual tap?
Click to expand...

Is it planted?
 
Its a freshwater tank, only small 19L and ive got 2 annubias on driftwood, 3 moss balls , and salvinia natans (floating plant) also some cattapa leaves.

Ive got 0 nitrate 0 ammonia and 40nitrite ph 7.4-7.6 (very hard to tell colour difference) i dont have a tds or kh test at the moment but both are on order as i really wanna start getting a crystal colony going
 
robfosters said:
What fish do you have?

I think you may have nitrite and nitrate mixed up.
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Your right sorry other way round for nitrite and nitrate.

Ive got a little group of 10 ember tetras and 2 snails, quite a few cherry reds (no idea how many now) and 5-6 remainig crystal blacks.

7ktzqS9.jpg

Potato phone pic, hopefully you get an idea of my setup
 
OK, so you have SOuth American tetra's, so you want to keep the TDS and PH low.

I also have many tetras, cardinals and lemons, and not to be bigheaded, but I have never lost one through water quality. You want a TDS of around 100ppm. GH and KH softness measurements are OK, but really TDS makes it a lot simpler. Also, the lower the TDS, the lower the PH as a rule.

You can get yourslef a TDS pen from the rainforest easily enough for a few quid. RO water is 0 TDS. To remineralise, I would recommend Seachem Equilibrium. Very simple to use. If you raise the TDS using this to 100ppm, you may find the PH reasonable. If not, you can use another Seachem product called acid buffer to drop it.This needs to be balanced out with Seachem alkaline buffer to get the perfect PH.
 
Rybo89 said:
Just quoting my self. After having a good look around the fish websites i reckon i have been given 2 males.

Giveaway is the long spikey dorsal fin. Females supposedly dont have these, they have a more rounded level dorsal fin. These males that look like females have a name called "sneakers" going by some of the websites i have read.
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Sorry mate forgot to check back yup shes a he.

Here is my male/female

Male


Female
 
Both your male and female are stunning. The big male i have looks awesome when he puffs out his fins, looks like a proper punk rocker.

Managed to catch the smaller male with my hand, which isn't a good sign really is it... Im not at work in the morning so ill take him back to the fish store and see what they have to say :rolleyes:

Put him in a breeding tank for the time being:
hpGZbG9.jpg
 
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