fleshgear

i cant get the knife in at all

i have a 180 gallon tank with cracked glass, and i am trying to take it apart. it had an overflow. i was able to get that apart.

but now i am trying separate the rest of the glass, and i cant do it. i have taken many tanks apart but i have never seen one with so tight clearances.

i cant get my knife blade in between the glass. i tried guitar wire and that worked great until the glass got too tight. i tried using a feeler gauge to cut the silicone but that doesn't work so good. it is hard to hang onto. what else can i use? the clearances are .008 ish. the guitar string was .011 i was thinking about trying one of those super thin razor blades that come with those white aquarium scrapers and use pliers to hang on to it. but i think they would be too hard to hang onto. and might just break.

has any one else had this problem? any suggestions?

well i added a bunch of dry rock to my tank, i will wait and see what happens,

thanks

Is it billy mays super glue?

check it out! http://s1029.photobucket.com/albums/y352/munstertanks/?action=view&current=Orcasealinganaquarium.flv

where do you get that from? what is it? how long does it last?

how does it compare to silicone?

i recently got some live rock that has been dry for a long time, over a year or more.

i was doing some searching on the net and a lot of reading. i found some people saying that if the rock is dry and has been for some time i can add it too the tank right away, without having to recycle the tank.

or should i just put it in a bin with a piece of my old live rock and a heater and a power head. and if this is they way i should go, how long does it take? should i be doing water changes in the bin?

how are the gold fish doing that you put in the pond? it has been cold out.

i have made one, i would say 10 gallons the only problem i had. i cut all the peices to fit into the container when it was empty. and i fill it up with water and now the parts are too small. i might redo it with a stronger container. i will post some pics when i can.

i never have a heater in their tank. and their tank is on the concrete floor the temp is normally around 65.

as long as it doesnt snow they would probably be fine. i was thinking about it today, if you had a cover that you could put on it if there was a chance of snow that would be best. i dont have any cover now, but i was thinking about using a piece of 2" styrofoam you can get them in 4X8 sheets. i guess also plywood would work.

they can stay in the pond all winter as long as it doesnt freeze solid and you have a bubbler. the fish go dormant and dont need to be fed.

i dont know about putting them out if they have been inside. if they were outside over the winter they would probably still be almost dormant stage and wouldnt need to be feed that much or at all at this time of the year.

when i got my first pond and fish, i got them from a guy who was moving and couldn't take them with him. they were outside all winter and the ice had just come off of the pond. when i got there he had a 30 gallon tank beside the pond that he filled with cold water right out of the tap not dechlorinated or anything. he put about 30 6-7 inch long goldfish in there. and then we put all of the fish into 2 bags and 1 bucket.

when i got home i put them inside in the basement in unheated tanks. i think 1 fish died.

a few weeks later i dug a hole and put the pond tubs in the ground, made sure the filter worked and a few days later i put 15 of the fish outside and gave away the rest of the fish. it was way too many fish for my pond. i think a few fish died.

so that is my experience with gold fish, they are extremely hardy fish. i couldn't believe how hardy.

i think koi are similar i now have a few koi with the gold fish. this weekend i cleaned out the pond and got the filter up and running. and am now wondering when i can put them out. if it will be nice like it has been in calgary. i think they could go out very soon. i wish i had a heater.

last fall they stayed out untill there was ice on the pond.

i just tested the water and it is...

nitrite 0

nitrate 10

i also checked a tank that is very healthy and the filter is working great

nitrite 0

nitrate is crazy high, around 160 somewhere. i havent fertalized for quite a while. i have lots of slow growing plants in here and the other i have lots of fast growing plants.. that i think explains the low nitrate with the fast growing plants.

i will throw some fast growing plants in the high nitrate tank and see what happens in a week

Fix the filter or you lose your "fish nerd" status. Has all this "salt water" talk gone to your head??

the filter kind of works, maybe an 1/8 of what it is capable of. and it works as a walstad tank. just without the dirt. maybe i will test the water to see what the numbers are.

too many to count, 40 neon tetras, 20+ corydoras, 3 syno petricolas, 2 young bn albino pleco, 1 rainbow fish, 2 peacock gobies, 3 plume tail platies, there was 1 other small pleco, but i havent seen it for several months, many many baby guppies, 1 killifish that has a bent spine(i didnt want to kill it so i put it in there), i think that is all

it is more of a walstad tank now.

do you let the plant reach the surface? i didn't really do much, actually nothing at all. the canister filter stop working a while ago, maybe a month or more. i haven't got around to cleaning it yet. i haven't even fertilized it for a month or so.

once this flower goes away i will be trimming all of the leaves that are on the surface to retrain the plant to not go to the surface, and then maybe fix the filter

my red tiger lotus flower finally opened last night, they are night bloomers.

it got a little burnt from the light, but i have moved it out now.

77 gallon tank, i had a different light on it, but i took it off so i could see the flower.

up until recently i had about an inch of duck weed on the surface. and the lotus leaves are huge, about 10 inches in diameter.

the flower is about 2 1/2 to 3" in diameter

what do you use for filter media?

The media was gravel and sand. The sand also has a polishing effect. You can see in the pictures the water clarity.

what about the prefilter? to take out the large organic material?

for mine i was thinking about not having a prefilter, more of just a basket to keep the end of the hose in so the fish dont get stuck to the hose and to prevent large things from blocking the inlet

where do you get 100% black silicone? i have resealed a few tanks, some i took completely apart. i dont use the masking tape method. i would prefer the black silicone but where to find it. and the stuff from the lfs is too much money. i use clear ge silicone 1 windows and doors

I went a little different route. I had the prefilter and pump in the pond. The water was pumped into my filter and using PVC pipe had the water coming out on the bottom. The water then percolated up through a layer of gravel, then a layer of sand. I left room for several inches of water then overflowed into the pond. I also grew marginal and floating plants in the filter. Both the pond and the filter were wood sided and lined. It worked great. I used the same concept for and indoor pond of 300 g. as well.

Here's some pictures. The filter is on the right.

what do you use for filter media?

new silicone apparently does not stick to old silicone that well. you can cut out the silicone in the corners with out going in between the glass. and then re apply the new silicone. this can get messy. and isn't as easy as it seems unless you have experience applying silicone.

the trick is not to apply to much silicone in the first place. or use the tape method i havent tried it that way but it should work. plus it would serve as a guide as to where the silicone should tapper down to nothing.

also having a small hole in the silicone tube with a nice angle is the key.

i found the guy i was talking about on aquabid. at least he is local and you dont have to worry about the eggs sitting in the mail for too long.

killikarl

i have been searching the internet for a diy pond filter for a while now, i have seen a few good ones but i was wondering if anyone else know where to get some ideas from.

i was thinking about using a rubber made container that will be above ground and the water will fall into the pond. i might make a little rock water fall or something like that. i was thinking about using around the size of the 68L rubbermaid bin. i just got a new pump that has a Flow rate @ 1 ft: 1,325 gph. it was cheap, other wise i probably wouldnt have gotten such a big pump. my pond is about 200 - 300 gallons.

i was also wondering about keeping the pump in the pond or in the filter. i am thinking it is probably a better idea to keep it in the filter.

now what could i use as a prescreen thing where the water will come out of the pond and not get plugged up. i dont know what they are called.

here is one website i found. i would keep the water exit at the top of the filter

pond filter build

what do you think about one like this? what changes would you make? i wouldn't use the lava rock. i would use bio balls or pot scrubbers

any good ideas for the mechanical filtration pads? i liked the furnace filter idea

and should the bin be black ideally? to prevent algae growth in the filter? could i paint it or suround it with something?

i have ordered some from Thailand and bc - killifish karl i think. both were ok. mine didnt live probably cause i neglected them. they did hatch. have micro worms ready!

killifish karl is on aquabid.

lol, ya i was going to change that.

i have a fluval 405 running and a aquaclear 30 power head and some other unlabled power head that came with some stuff i bought. it never worked, and then i changed the impeller to an old fluval 405 on i had laying around. and now, wow it pumps a lot. more than both of the other filters i have.

i was still thinking of getting rid of the two power heads and getting a koralia 3 power head

here is what i got so far, it is a 46 gallon bow front

i took a few days to clear up from the sand that i put in there

there is also a ufa in airdre if that is closer to you