Your current Fish tank Setups!

Botia loaches demolish snail infestations.
Used them myself before, failing that get a snail away treatment if you don't mind chemicals.
They will be falling from the glass in seconds. Just remember to clean up the carcasses as they will kill your water quality.
 
Did a complete teardown last week, in preparation for a re-stock/sort/adding second filter.

Decided to move away from odd-balls and back into a fairly mainstream community tank
2 x Angels (existing)
7 x Columbian Tetra (1 was existing)
6 x Kuhli loach

New DIY moonlight now makes the tank look like this, although the camera makes it look much more blue than it actually is!

Took out a load of the floating plants, and reduce the cover, and testing out a silk plant (which I subsequently arranged to be "growing" up through various parts around the bogwood) to see how it gets on.

tankmoon.jpg


So, now running a Fluval 205 through the default outlet, and the new EFX 200 via a submerged spray bar to keep the floating plants at one end of the tank, this means the moonlight is more effective, and gives an area of fairly static cover.

Once the new stock has settled, I will look at adding something top swimming to enjoy the floating plant roots :)
 
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Ace Modder said:
40% water every 2 weeks. The tank is this
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Bacterial bloom... Your tank is not cycled.

You might want to increase aeration in the tank to help the fish, as left unchecked the heterotrophic bloom will strip out the oxygen, and the fish will die.

Then you need to fix the bloom. Most likely from what you have said, you are overfeeding the fish. My tropicals only get fed twice a week, and i quite often do starve weeks to help simulate the real world. Also, only feed as much as they eat, and remove any waste. Once you know the amounts they eat its easier and removal is not needed.

You are going to be doing a fish in cycle now, so reducing the food to bare minimum and using an API test kit to check the levels, and change water as and when appropriate. If you can get some seeded filter media from another already cycled tank and put it in your filter (or at least in the water somewhere), its going to speed this process us significantly.
 
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I did my last water-change 3 months ago. This was just down to a re-model of the tank. I usually don't do one till the tank get's dirty, and it very rarely does now. Mostly its dead leaf matter from plants that makes me do a quick clean after quite some time. Not unusual to go 6 months for me.

Reading this thread made me dig out the kit for the first time in ages. Never really had any problems with water quality, and only check periodically.

I am big on low maintenance with floating plants, low stock, and overfiltration.

Here are my results:

tanktestsmall.jpg


PH is higher than expected, not quite sure whats going on there, as I have a lot of bogwood, which is known for dropping PH. The chem levels are all low and within tolerance. 7.8 is not catastrophic for PH, but i will test my tap water when I can be bothered, and see whats going on there.
 
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Haggisman said:
I'll post some pics when I get home :)
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I found that a 7 day blackout after a good clean is great at killing off the algae resurgance whatever type it is.

Fix the cause (the extra gunk) then do a blackout.

No light at all for 7 days (I think it was 7 days, check it out online). I put a blanket over mine when I did them many years ago.



I also tested my tap water pH and found it came in at 7.6- to 7.8. So that explain my higher then I expected pH.
 
I still don't get it. I made and ran my own syphon overflow's. I don't understand how they can make a wet floor? When the rank level gets too low, they stop.

Get your levels right and there is no risk.

I only got rid of mine as I bought another branded under tank pump.
 
That's just wrong.

You need only 1 pump and it's impossible to overflow a tank if the sump is the correct size. Sure if you set it up like a nut with a huge sump it can overflow if the drain gets plugged up somehow (unlikely!). But failure to set up correctly is not the fault of the system equipment.

Have you ever set up an overflow yourself. When done correctly it's self priming, and no different (other than more piping) in function to a drilled tank.

Either I am getting the wrong end of the stick here or this is a wind up :D


*edit wait...wait..wait* Are you telling me people set up a basic gravity fed syphon with a return pump?? If so, I think I get what you are on about, but you would have to be mental to rely on that sort of system?!

I always used a double loop with the second loop open to air above the waterlevel. That way it self primes and self regulates flow.
 
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NoobCannon said:
Be interested to see a few pics of your setup.

Havent seen one that id be happy to leave on its own yet!
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Mine looked near identical to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DFk4bnIxEg

Worked perfectly, and no way it can overflow/flood the room. Even if the entry got blocked, it would just cease when the waterlevel in the sump got too low (pump with auto cut-off), and even if it didnt stop the pump would not pump water once the level was too low. I just had a 90 degree on the inlet, and some mesh in front of it.

It was failsafe, cheap, and easy to do.
 
Yup, they are a labyrinth fish, so must have access to the air at the top.

If you want the tank to look busy without being overcrowded you could look at a dwarf rasbora species, which may allow you to run a decent size school. Just make sure you use fake plants to give them a lot of cover. It will also make the tank look more complete and full.

Kuhli loaches can be fun, but they are amazing escpae artists, I had some in my tank and they all ended up in the filter, i released them a number of times, and had to add a pre-fitler to my inlets to stop them going awol.

However, a tank of just them is going to be pretty dull and have a lot of empty middle swimming space.

http://www.myaquariumclub.com/nano-fish-for-small-aquariums-5134.html - take a look here for some more nano tank suggestions. You may be able to run a decent number of these in your small (but not nano!) tank.
 
If the fish are eating, then you have a "fish in" cycle going on.
You will need to keep on top of water conditions if you want them to survive.
Usually a fish in cycle is done with a hardy variety, so with fry it will need carefull work to keep parameters safe.
That said, the bio load they produce should be low, so just keep feeding to a minimum and ensure to do regular 20% water changes. I would go daily with fry that small.
 
Rainmaker, if you say water is coming out of the seal, then it's almost certain air is getting in. This can cause a lot of noise, but that sounds like the impeller is having issues too. Might be the air going in causing the issues, but could also be some junk around the impeller throwing it off balance.

Still, sort the leak first. Clean and lightly lube the seal(s), make sure it is seated correctly and holding water.

Give the impeller a good clean too.

Also, i think you mentioned putting in a lot of media to slow flow. Rebuild the thing with minimum media, you may be stressing the pump too hard and it's causing issues with the impeller.

See if this helps. If you do all of the above and it's not fixed, it's most likley knackered or just poor quality and need replacing.
 
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