thedarkstar

The concept of a river tank has been tempting me for the past few months. Just looking at all the different types of hillstream and fast-water loaches has made me appreciate this type of tank. I do enjoy seeing all the different progressions, you did a wonderful job. But something in me seems to scream 30 gal just isn't a large enough tank for a river tank. I've actually been looking into construction to build my own large stream tank someday.

You can get a cheap little filtration system (bubbler) from walmart for a few bucks, probably nothing too great but it helps my betta

Crypts are a big one for melting...

Same with me, but shouldn't stop me from finding some room somewhere lol

I'm sure they will. They have a mom willing to spend to keep em safe lol

I wish I knew more about disease, cause that sounds exactly like what happened with one of my white clouds. All my other fish are alright.

One suggestion is to make sure your shrimp are adults cause I have a feeling the guppys are one of those fish that might harass and eat smaller shrimp.

I still really like that "brickwork" background

I like to run mine ~ 12 sometimes a bit longer if I forget to shut off the light. Usually 2pm-2am but of late its been ~10am-midnight or so.

Doesn't matter either way, poor sick guy passed on to fish heaven. No problems in the other 8 fish.

You'd think there's alot of work but its no different than a basic planted, lots of light + CO2 + ferts and frequent trimming. Its getting the right combination of plants and layout that's the tricky part. Taking a look at Amano's work, the tank and setup are rather basic but his eye for detail and design were what set him apart.

No other fish near the top other than some new-born livebearers in the riccia. As for oxygen, planted tank with a bubbler... I think that's more than enough oxygen given the small fish in the tank. Eyes seemed to look normal, kinda looked rolled back in the head at times.

I purchased a cluster of White clouds a month+ ago from Natures corner store and havn't had any problems with this hardy little fish until last night. Essentially I have found no real physical concerns, ick, fungus, etc... But her? tail seems to be limp and she appears to just float along at the top and when she does swim even a bubbler will be enough to send her flying to the top of the tank. The difference I have noted is towards the head, her jaw seems almost swollen and see through in places, constantly "gasping" for air at the top of the tank. I removed this fish to a sickbay and tested my water... Normal pH, 0 ammonia/nitrites and 5 on the nitrates. Anyone have any idea what this can be?

Dimensions for your sump could be anywhere from.... 50" + long and something like 12" or so wide and 20" or so high Granted you'd definitely need to build the stand around the sump... with those plans...

Atleast the theory behind a sump is easy... Gravity (and pump) draw in your water and the pump shoots it up... In between you have sponge and such lol

What is it... a substitute for CO2, basically liquidized carbon for the plants. How much depends on your bottle size. Where, is basically any aqua store. And how to use it, read the bottle

I love that site for stand frames, never built one but bookmarked it a few times

Where all the other plants in my tank have flourished... the duckweed I got from Jerry with the shrimp hasn't lol Also using excel... maybe there's something to that?

Pretty much just dirt, its another way of adding nutrients and junk, because i added itwith a tank full of water it made a huge mess (that the shrimp cleaned up after lol). I'd gladly try it again only using more peat to form a bottom layer and then sand ontop.

Just gotta make sure that you rinse the sand out well and that there are no harmful chemicals in it if you go colored sand. MTS = malaysian trumpet snail

Locally for glass, you can either call those same two glass comapnies and ask or check around for windows/etc that are the correct thickness/length/etc. In terms of rounded edge, most glass places should be able to sand it for you.

Yes, I found that as well. I will preform a similar process, but I'm having a hard time tracking down a local suppler for a large amount of Cerium oxide. Like it says in that site, you may have to resort to online.

is having sand in there better than flourite or all that kinda stuff? can I add JUST sand (and fert tabs of course), is that enough? what if i want to slope it and stuff; will there be problems if I have really thick spots? is silica traction sand the same as that target play sand? I don't think any substrate is truely better than another except some of the aquasoil and stuff. For the most part flourite would probably be better for the plants than sand in terms of nutrients if I'm not mistaken. I've also heard of people using it for the underlaying level of substrate to give nutrients with sand ontop. Its easy enough to just add sand, I changed my entire tank from aquarium gravel to peatmoss/sand without removing all the water. But getting a slope might be tricky, might even level out unless you make levels with rocks, like a rice field lol. Thickness won't matter for your plants, it'll just give a little less swimming room for the fish. Some sites I've read say to use up to 6 inches of substrate. Silica sand will work, not sure if its the same as play sand, but I use silica sand in my tank. Just make sure that if its "traction" sand that it doesn't have salt in it cause I'd assume you use it on sidewalks lol.

This is a link to a scratch removal site I found via another forum... It's got the same process you're looking to do to remove scratches. Might wanna try checking with glass shops? scratch removal

That'd be the one, haha I swear I had that bookmarked