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pH: 7.2
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I ordered a 75 gallon tank from PetCo last week. I'd have preferred to give my business to a local company, if possible, but PetCo's price was half what the other guys were charging. It was a little over $300 (with stand and glass canopy, including tax) from PetCo. It would have been nearly $800 elsewhere. When that much money is at stake, let the free market rule. :-) I had considered getting a 72 gallon bowfront tank. They are gorgeous. But I went with the standard rectangular 75, partly because it was considerably cheaper, partly because the larger footprint offers more aquascaping possibilities (not to mention more room for the fish to swim). The tank arrived yesterday, and I picked it up today. I tried to pick it up at lunchtime, but the manager of PetCo took at look at my car (a Ford Taurus sedan), and said it wouldn't fit. I thought it would, but he said the rear doors didn't open wide enough to get the tank in. So I told him I'd be back. At work, I convinced a nice coworker with a minivan to help me out. Luckily, Carl already had the rear seat out of his Plymouth Voyager. Even so, the tank and stand just barely fit! Then came the really hard part: carrying up the stairs to my apartment. (It's a good thing Carl is such a big, strong guy.) It was heavier than I expected. But we got it into the building and up the stairs without incident. Yay! Now I can work on it over the weekend. Unfortunately, I don't have all my substrate yet. Five out of seven bags of Onyx arrived today. One box is apparently still in transit.
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pH: 7.4
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I also went across the river, to visit the pet stores there. I found a piece of driftwood I couldn't resist at B&G Pet Shop. It has a lot of hollows underneath, which will made great caves for clown loaches. When I got home, I ordered some plants from TrueAquariumPlants.com. The tank should be ready by the time they get here.
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pH: 7.6 ? (off the scale)
Note that this is with no rinsing. I will measure the water parameters again, after I've rinsed the Onyx. (Which probably won't be until the last two bags arrive.)
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If you follow the recommendation on the bag, you only need four bags of Onyx for a 75 gallon tank. But that gives you only a 2" layer; not enough, IMO. I ordered seven bags, and am wondering if I should have gotten eight.
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Also added the driftwood (four pieces). I didn't soak it or even rinse it beforehand. I didn't have any containers large enough, and I don't mind a little tannin. (Yes, the water is turning yellow.)
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Received my order from TrueAquariumPlants.com, as well as a whole bunch of clippings from Chuck. Woo-hoo! I don't really have time to plant the tank properly, but I've put all the plants in the tank, and put the light on for them. (No filtration yet. I was planning to use 2 Aquaclear 300s on this tank, but found they wouldn't fit. The tank lip is too thick. Apparently some people cut the plastic trim on top of the tank to make it fit, but I'm not very hand and don't have any tools. An Aquaclear 500 could fit, but I've heard those are a lot noisier than the 300s. Instead, I ordered an Eheim cannister filter from Big Al's. It hasn't arrived yet, though.) The tank should be fine without a filter for a few days, since there are no fish in it yet, and there won't be for a couple of weeks yet. (There are a few snails, however. I ordered some Pomacea bridgesi and MTS with the plants. And I got some free, as hitchhikers - red ramshorms and pond snails. I'm glad. I like snails, but my clown loaches keep eating them. Now that I have two planted tanks, I'll be able to keep a colony of snails going, safe from the loaches.)
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pH: 7.4
After Carbo-Plus: pH: 7.0
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The Eheim filter arrived from Big Al's tonight. Took me awhile how to figure how to assemble it (and I have a degree in mechanical engineering). The directions aren't very good. However, I'm very happy with how it works. It's so quiet! I can't even tell it's on.
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Seven SAEs, 10 Amano shrimp, and one bristlenose pleco went into the 75 gallon. The others went into my old 29 gallon planted tank.
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The water smells just a little bit stagnant. The tank has become so overgrown that there's not much circulation in there. The fish are alright during the day, when the plants are photosynthesizing, but at night, there's not enough oxygen. I went to PetCo and bought a powerhead. The fish seem much more energetic now. And I think it's time to prune the plants. I'll post a "free plants" notice to rec.aquaria.freshwater.plants this weekend.
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I bought another piece of driftwood, this time from Animabilia. This one is large. I think it suits the scale of the tank better than the ones I had in there. To make room for it, I moved one piece of driftwood to my 29 gallon tank. It looks much better there. It was lost in the 75 gallon. Replanted the tank. I feel like I've been pruning like crazy, but there are still too many plants!
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Bought two bamboo shrimp, and seven rummy-nosed tetras. I've never kept either of these species before, but so far, I like them. The rummy-noses never impressed me in stores, but they look stunning in Amano's photos, and I like the way they look in my tank, too. The bamboo shrimp are not at all shy, perching all over the tank. They are surprisingly social creatures. They go everywhere together. I never expected shrimp to "school."
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I bought 12 cherry barbs, and a set of Miracle Beam lights. (I know, it sounds tacky - but I want to watch my fish at night without disturbing them, and I heard these work great.) The Miracle Beam lights are nearly invisible during the day, but look really cool at night. It looks like moonlight filtering through the plants. Once your eyes adjust, you can what your fish are up to pretty clearly. I put an algae wafer in the tank after dark, and got see the bristlenose pleco and one mystery snail fighting for it. The snail won. It simply folded itself over the wafer, hiding it from the pleco with its body.
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Added a UV sterilizer to the tank. I didn't want to put it on from the beginning, for fear it would interfere with the tank's cycling. But it's going to be time to move the clown loaches in soon, and I want the UV sterilizer set up to prevent an ich outbreak.
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Received my plant order from Rehoboth Aquatics. The green tiger lotus I got from Andy is so impressive, I decided I wanted a red one to go with it. I also ordered some N. daubenyana. They are all very small bulbs now. I hope I don't kill them.
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My first plan was to trap them. I tied a string to an empty plastic Gatorade bottle, put some frozen bloodworms in it, and put it in the tank. After a few minutes, one loach went in, and I pulled the bottle up with the string, with the loach inside. After I caught that one, though, none of the others would go in. Not even when I baited it with their favorite, live blackworms. (On the good side, the bottle proved to be a good way to get food to the other fish, since the loaches usually hog everything. Since they wouldn't go in the bottle, the other fish could eat blackworms, algae wafers, shrimp pellets, etc., at their leisure. The bristlenose pleco actually seemed to like hanging out in the bottle, even staying in it when there was no bait inside.) After a few days of this, I lost patience, and took the top off their favorite cave (a large slab of slate covered with an immense Anubias). I held a large black net where the cave used to be, and first three loaches just swam right into it when I chased them with another, smaller net. The last two were cannier. They kept going around the net, not in it. I was able to fool them by turning the net around, so when they went around in back of it, they were actually in front of it. They got their revenge on me, however. I have a plastic thingie that hangs on the tank, just like those fish scoops pet stores have. The loaches have gotten huge compared to their size when I first put them in the tank. The larger ones barely fit in the scoop. They splashed me thoroughly with their thrashing as I carried them, one by one, to the other tank. Anyway, they are now in their new tank. All hiding, of course. I wonder how long it's going to take them to come out....
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Bought four more rummy-nose tetras. I really like the way they look in a planted tank. They're more active and less skittish than my previous favorite, the neon tetra. I'd like to have a huge school of them in a huge planted tank one day.
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I also bought a digital camera. We recently got Sony Mavica CD-300s at work, and I really like them. They take very high-quality photos (3 Mb), and use mini CDs that can be read on your computer hard drive. No memory sticks, serial port, or USB hassles! I found out that Sony is offering a $100 rebate on this model, but today's the last day. So I took the plunge.
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Unfortunately, the tank badly needs a pruning at the moment. I took a photo anyway!
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Did a massive water change on both tanks, and fed and fertilized heavily. I'll save the pruning for tomorrow.
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I noticed that one of the bamboo shrimp has a chunk taken out of its exoskeleton. I wonder if one of the clown loaches tried to take a bite. The shrimp seemed rather skittish, always hiding. So I netted the shrimp out and moved them to the 29 gallon. They seem much happier, once more sitting out in the open, filtering food from the current. Sheesh. The bamboo shrimp are about the same size as the clown loaches. I'd have thought they'd be safe, but I guess not. I'm kind of worried about the Amano shrimp now, but there seem to be as many as always. Some of them are cavorting right under the noses of the clowns; the clowns are ignoring them. (Of course, they're being fed regularly now.)
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I'd heard that neon rainbows eat duckweed. I'm hoping they'll eat some of the baby Salvinia that threatens to choke my tank if I don't scoop it out every day. I got the otos because the bristlenose pleco is too heavy to clean delicate plant leaves. The snails used to handle that chore, but since I moved the clown loaches into the tank, there are no snails. I also pruned the tank down, mailing out the last of the plant clippings.
| (Yes, that huge red tiger lotus is the one that arrived as a barely sprouted bulb, less than two months ago!) |
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Anyone who claims compressed CO2 is as easy as Carbo-Plus should put down the crack pipe! I ordered a regulator and needle valve from Dave Gomberg, and they arrived last night. He also included a free packet of Jobe's spikes. (Cool! I've been wanting to try them, but they aren't available around here.) Very speedy delivery, and nicely packed. So today, I went in search of a tank of CO2. Turns out there's an Airgas just down the street from me. Walking distance, in fact, though CO2 cylinders are awfully heavy, so I took the car. I bought a 15 lb. tank. (The woman behind the counter thought I was insane, putting CO2 in my fishtank. She kept asking me if I was sure I wanted CO2, and not, say, oxygen.) While carrying the thing across the parking lot and up the stairs, I wished I'd gotten a 5 or 10 lb. instead. It weighed a ton. Dave promised CO2 would be bubbling into my tank in 15 minutes. It was 11 am, so I figured I'd be done by lunch. Wrong. Dinnertime was more like it. I can't blame anyone but myself, really. I should have read the instructions carefully before I started. (You'd think I'd have learned, after that time when I found out I needed a special cable to install my new hard drive...after the computer was in pieces all over the floor.) As I put the stuff together, it dawned on me that I needed equipment I didn't have. Like, wrenches. And something called Teflon tape. And a check valve. (The one that came with the diffuser shouldn't be used with a needle valve, according to Dave's instructions.) I decided to go to the small local hardware store, instead of to Lowe's or Home Depot. It's more expensive, but it's closer. I get two wrenches (one for the coupling nut, one for the adaptors on the needle valve) and a roll of yellow Teflon tape. No check valve, but I figured I could just put a few loops in the tubing, until I get to the LFS. I put everything together, and turn on the CO2. BAM! The hose flies off the needle valve, sending it banging against the wall (and scaring me and the cats half to death). But Dave said that might happen, so I'm not too concerned. I push the hose on more tightly, and try again. There's a leak. I can hear it, but I can't tell where it's coming from. So I brush dish soap over all the fittings. Low and behold, bubbles appear where the hose attaches to the regulator. I get out the Teflon tape. That helps - it takes minutes instead of seconds for the gauges to drop to zero when I turn off the CO2. I brush more dish soap on the fittings. No bubbles. I get a cup of water, and start dipping various connections. Bubbles are coming from the same place I just taped. I add more tape. It still leaks. It occurs to me that maybe that nut needs more than hand-tightening. (I didn't think of it before, because it came attached to the regulator, and I didn't even realize it was a separate piece.) I don't have a wrench of the correct size, of course, and pliers are hopeless. I'm too embarrassed to go back to the small, local hardware store, so I go to Lowe's. It's right by PetCo, so I can get a check valve while I'm there. I get the items. (No brass valves available, unfortunately, so I have to get a Lee plastic one.) And it turns out that it's a good thing I got a check valve. When I cut the tubing to install it, I'm sprayed with water (despite my anti-siphon loops). Luckily, none seems to have gotten as far as the needle valve. I tighten the nut, attach the hosing again, and wrap it with Teflon tape. The good news is that it no longer leaks. But something is. I can tell, because the pressure drops fairly quickly when I turn off the CO2 at the main valve. I can't find where it's leaking. I give up, turn off the CO2, and watch the Yankees game for awhile. Suddenly, I hear a whistling sound. Either someone's using a leafblower outside my window, or... Yup, CO2 is whistling out...but I can't tell from where. All the connections seem tight. I feel along the line, and find it - a pinhole in the silicone tubing. It must have been a thin spot, that blew out. Maybe it's old. Maybe my cat chewed it when I wasn't looking (though I thought I kept it out of his reach). I cut the bad piece out, and try again. The tube is so stretched it won't stay on the barb. I cut some more off. It holds...for a little while. Ten minutes later, BAM! It blows off the check valve. It does this twice more. Finally, I wrap the whole valve with a ton of tape. So far, it's holding. But I think I might still have a slow leak. The gauges have dropped a bit (1 lb. in about an hour). I can't find it, though. Maybe the tubing is bad. I'll try ordering some of that special CO2 tubing, and see if that helps. And I don't like the check valve. It really chokes off the flow of CO2. (I can't get it above 2 bubbles per second with the check valve in.) But I'm afraid to take it out. Guess I'll try ordering a different one of those. So far, the pH hasn't dropped much. The Carbo-Plus, which is still in the tank, seems to be putting out CO2 than I'm getting from the tank. And I'm planning to turn off the CO2 every night, and whenever I'm not at home.
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That meant the problem had to be after the needle valve. I went to the local hardware stores looking for the black vinyl tubing E.W. recommended, but either they didn't carry it, or it was sold out. So I went to PetCo and bought some more green silicone hose. (I notice that even though it's all supposed to be a "standard" size, there seemed to be a lot of variation in diameter, depending on the manufacturer.) I bought the brand with the smallest inner diameter (Aquatic Gardens brand). I replaced the hose piece by piece (out of curiosity more than anything). The new hose was noticeably tighter than the old. I replaced the piece between the between the check valve and the needle valve, and it went from half an hour to two hours before bubbling stopped (after main valve shut off). Replacing the piece between the needle valve and the regulator made it almost three hours. Replacing the last piece, between the check valve and the clear hose, made it over 4 hours. (I got bored and quit timing it. :-) Finally!
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I pulled the huge red tiger lotus out of the tank. Not only did it have numerous baby plants on runners, the main plant had split into eight separate plants. I planted one in each of my tanks, and gave the rest away.
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The red tiger lotus is recovering quickly from its pruning. It's putting out a new leaf every day.
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82 degrees (after fan)
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It worked like a charm. The temperature in the tank dropped 15 degrees or more overnight...and stayed down. I don't even have to leave the air conditioner on any more when I go to work. The fan keeps the tank under 85 degrees, even when the temps are pushing 100 and all 250 watts of light are on. (I guess my thermodynamics professor was right: convection is the most efficient method of heat transfer. :-)
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