PBucch

two bulbs ~20" i dunno the specs, how can I look them up?

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BustedS13

^dunno. i just know i'm going to need more light... although this oddly exposed picture would tell you differently



put sand in today and installed a Penn Plax Cascade 700. i almost wish i'd gone with the 1000 for that third media tray, but i'm sure two will be fine. as you can see the water is still super cloudy. hopefully that'll clear up in a few days without disturbance

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alindeman1989

lol nice, did you wash the sand and wait for it to settle for a while before you tuned on the filter?

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BustedS13

yeah i washed all the sand in a five gallon bucket, just let the hose run in it with it tilted until it drained clear. and then i let it sit for like half an hour before turning the filter back on.

do you guys use an air pump or do you think the return on the filter causes enough oxygen exchange at the surface? if you use an air pump, what do you use? i've got some crappy little guy and a whisper filter, and they're both loud as hell.

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alindeman1989

i dont use a air pump i just use a power head to keep the water moving. works great! try to see if the water flowin out of the filter is enough if not then just get a power head

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PBucch

Word^


I have an air pump but dont turn it on too much, i think i need mroe co2 because my plants dont really last and my lights are hella bright.

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BustedS13

good plan. do you guys have a brand preference? i'll probably just get whatever the old dude at my LFS recommends.

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Deftec

Tried dosing some ferts to your plants? If you increase the lighting you really gotta start looking into fertilizing/co2 to balance it out. Vice versa.

Here's my 75gal F/W. I also don't fertilize this, but it's mostly low light plants lol.

BustedS13

^what plants are those? i haven't learned aquatic plant names yet. what are some easy to keep plants you'd recommend?

water's starting to clear up, the canister filter is really doing its job

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Deftec

The tall ones are just labeled "swords" at the LFS. I have a few java ferns in there and some other random plants.

As for using netting/etc to secure java moss, take into consideration what kind of fish you have in your tank. Some can/will get caught in it fairly easy and can start damaging shit quite quickly.

But, as for easy plants, java ferns/moss, and I believe Anubias(sp?) are fairly easy to take care of. Just a matter of what your tank is like, they make grow very slowly, or quickly with a little bit of light.

Also curious about your canister setup....get me some pics

BustedS13

i'd take better pics but i'm at work... there's one a few posts up, here

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Deftec

I saw that pic, which is why I was curious about it....backside pics/etc.

BustedS13

fair enough, i'll take some pics when i get home

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240AE86drifter

thats awesome! Looking at all these pics makes me want to buy another tank and buy tropical fish again! The lobster is badass.

alindeman1989

the swords are prob amazon swords. i love those. hey busted can you take some more pics of the tank with the sand in it. maybe not turn the lights on lol cause its like glowing in the pi lol.

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BustedS13

yeah, i was going to take some shitty camera phone pics last night but we had no internet... grumble

i'll take some pics tonight, hopefully with my new G1 :O OMGGG

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alindeman1989

nice cant wait

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tofu man: Don't be cheap, and buy shitty high offset rims

alindeman1989

take those photos yet?

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BustedS13

my camera phone is too shitty to even try to take closeups of anything, it turns out. give me a while to find a real camera and i'll take some decent pictures of everything

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BustedS13

got rid of the fish on craigslist today. good thing too, i was starting to get attached to that pleco. once the dude came and picked them up, though, i went to the fish store and bought two amazon sword plants and a vallisneria, and four corydoras acuatus, aka "skunk cories". they were out of neon tetras so i went to petsmart. fucking petsmart wanted 2 bucks a pop but i wanted them bad enough, so i picked out a half dozen... then the chick at the register rang me up for one fish, so six neons for two bucks. good times

i still don't have a camera worth a shit so there's no way i'm going to be able to take pics of these tiny fish. here's a stock photo of a skunk cory. i'd never seen this breed before, i had to have some

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alindeman1989

fucking sick, i cant wait for pics of the tank. how are the new fish liking the tank? how the plant adapting to the sand?

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jeeper_x

i had a RTC, a school of pacus, and an juvenile arapaima in my backyard pond before in thailand...

and the coldest winter of 10 years came by and froze my babies up...

busteds13: you should get a RTC for your tank...

you can feed it with your hands when it used to you...

also, look like kinda like puppy with a red tail....

and that shit will swallow anything that can fit its mouth....

including ur fishies....

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hahaha

BustedS13

plants are doing fine as far as i can tell, but they've only been in there for like 8 hours, so we'll see i guess. worst case scenario, i pull up all the sand and put down a layer of gravel, then sand on top.
the fish are doing all right, both the cories and neons are cruising the tank in their little shoals. they aren't hiding, just zipping around. i feel i need another half dozen neons though.


that's kind of a problem, i'm filling this tank with tiny fish >.<

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alindeman1989

lol you know no one with a digital camera? dam i hella want to see the tank sounds sick

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BustedS13

eh, deftec's tank is more populated and nice looking than mine is right now. mine's super sparse, but i'll fill it in with plenty more plants and such over the next week or so. has anybody ever used grapevines in their tank? the pet store sells chunks of it next to the driftwood, it's nice and windy and huge.

edit: LFS up by my work has neons, i'm picking up another half dozen when i get off, possibly some more plants.

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alindeman1989

lol dam we need pics!!!! get your new g1 yet?

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BustedS13

nah. i'm holding out for a white one now.
had my first fatality last night though. neon got sucked into the filter. do you guys wrap your filter intake? there's going to be a lot of small critters in this tank, i don't want them all getting filtered

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alindeman1989

umm take like cheese cloth and wrap that around it. idk most my fish are fairly large and have not had that problem. how are the rest of the fish adapting to their new tank? how do the cat fish like the sand? for cat fish i use sinking pellets like the ones they make for loachs. man i would punch a nun to see pics of the tank lol.

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BustedS13

came home and found another neon on the filter. this is what i get for buying petsmart fish i guess.
moved the intake from the center of the tank to the far left corner in hopes that since they won't swim by it as much, they won't die. i stuck a couple of my fake plants in front of it for added shielding until i figure out something better. i'm thinking i might take some metal mesh or chicken wire or similar, and make a cage for the intake. that'd keep 'em well away from it.

i also came home to my new att phone stuffed in the front door. so here's what a blackjack 2 can do (not much):


i've added a black background. in the tank right now are 10 neons and four skunk cories. i'm going to get at least another half dozen neons, a couple more skunk cories, and then a half dozen cories of another breed. i hear they all play nice and school together. i like emerald cories, maybe some of those. i'm also thinking about some danios, maybe some shrimp, and i'd like to find a nice discus as a centerpiece.

anyway in the pic, the far left is fake plants, then two valisneria americana, then two sword plants, then a chunk of store bought driftwood, then some more fakes. i'm not sure if the sand is proper for the plants' roots or not. let them go a couple weeks and see what happens, i guess....
i really need to paint this tank, it looks like ass



here's the closest my shitty phone cam can get to an action shot. you can barely make out a cory between the two rocks there. but you can see the grain size of this play sand. it's pretty big. there's finer stuff but it all settled to the bottom. not that it matters, i plan to have most of this tank overrun with moss and such eventually.


sorry, i'll get a camera sooner or later. i never should have sold my old one without lining up a new one. i'm going to take pics of my s13 resto, which starts this weekend, so maybe i'll just go pick up something decent in the next couple days.

oh, and i'm picking up some driftwood from some chick on craigslist. pretty good sized like 3 foot logs. it'll be a nice piece to grow moss on

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alindeman1989

o man looks great, need some more plants/vegitation. any pics of the cat fish?

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tofu man: Don't be cheap, and buy shitty high offset rims