Oneiroid

The Edmonton fish club has a Yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ACE_fish_club/ It's not a very active group, but many members who are not on AA will see questions and requests made here.

Throw them in for sure. I keep MTS in all my planted tanks. They will not eat your plants, but will clean up some algae and bottom detritus, and turn over your substrate. All good things.

Congrats! What a stunning little fellow.

I recently purchased some plants from another forum member as a result of my WTB classified and was absolutely impressed. I came back home with the plants and (after adding the plants to the aquarium) I edited my WTB classified title to indicate that I've found what I was wanting to buy. I then wanted to add an additional reply to the classified's thread to say thank you to the seller and let everyone else know that it had been a more than successful transaction. Unfortunately, my classified had already been sent to the archives and I was unable to post my reply. I think that it would be very beneficial to have some mechanism of posting feedback about a transaction. Several other aquaria-related forums use iTrader (looks like it’s an exclusive add-on to the vBulletin forum engine) and I have observed that it is used and referenced with great success. I don’t know if there is an analog for the IP.Board engine that AA uses, but I suspect that other members might find it helpful to find and add member transaction feedback in a central location… be it a simple moderated forum, or some spiffy add-on function. My two cents. I am now going to PM my kudos to the member who sold me the plants **coughcoughjvisioncoughcough**.

You can grow many different kinds of mosses in a low tech tank, but many will melt if dosed with Excel. Make sure you plan to add plants that are equally as happy with the lighting as well as any additives you add to the water. Arguably, setting up a DIY pop-bottle CO2 system is low tech (and inexpensive). I like using this option on my 10g planted tanks, combined with ferts. I totally agree with jvision on the lighting. It is easy to get up to 3 watts/gallon using coiled fluorescents in a standard 10g incandescent hood. Make sure you get the daylight or hard-white variety which will give your plants a fuller light spectrum than the soft-whites.

OOOooooohhh. So that's what my problem is!

Yep, that looks like it. I'd much rather have duckweed then this stuff. Haha... me too. That stuff grows fast and gets tangled in whatever it reaches.

Well, if you keep it in your shrimp tank, let us know if you experience any problems with your shrimp fry. I'd certainly be interested in your feedback

Yup... keep it out of your shrimp tank!

Thanks for the tip algae_farmer... I will definitely check that connection before I try changing the whole ballast. That would be much more convenient

Well, I just bought and tried a new bulb in it (I thought that might have been the problem but the lamp is acting the same as with the old bulb) and I'd say I bought the lamp about 3 years ago.

I have a Coralife 65 watt PC lamp that has started flickering every so often, making crackly sounds at the same time. Is this a ballast problem? Is is safe to use until I can fix or replace it? Can I fix it? Arg - this is not even the same lamp that I am having fan issues with, bah.

Nice crinum werner!

I checked memory express (my candy store), and they do have the 50mm fans, but they are $10 each. There are a ouple eBay retailers that I can get them in bulk for about $3.50 each including shipping. Princess auto is a good idea though... I'll check there before I order online.

Yeah, I think canned air is my first line of attack. I did come across a good discussion on the topic here: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/equipmen...n-solution.html I might end up just replacing them myself.

Thanks for all the help guys. I think I'm on the right track now

Has anyone tried cleaning out the fans on their Coralife hoods? I have a couple that are getting pretty noisy and I'm sure could use a good cleaning on the inside. Just thought I'd ask before I break something. Any tips out there?

I ended up buying an Eheim 2217. It came with all the media so it came out to being about the same price as the Rena. It also came with a couple nice sets of quick disconnect valves. The flow rate on the Eheim is lower than the Rena, but it looks like I am getting some pretty good circulation in the tank. And no leaks! As I am new to canister filters, I have a question about maintenance. What is the best way to 'clean' the filter, and how often should I do it? With my aquaclears, I rinse out the media in aquarium water every time I do a water change...

Thanks guys! For the moment, I am looking at combining a cherry and tiger population. Jason - what do you mean they bread in your filter? Like they got sucked through the impellor and hung out inside the canister? I've heard of shrimp doing that with Aquaclears, but I was (for some reason) more concerned about the canisters.

With little bioload, I'd still like to run some kind of filter (all about the overkill and flexibility). Is there a reason to go with a Rena canister rather than something like an Eheim 2217? Also, what kind of precautions should I take to maintain the breeding shrimp population and the babies with a canister filter?

The tank is 90g, not drilled (no sump), planted to the hilt, houses a few tiny fish and a breeding colony of shrimps. Any suggestions for filtration and circulation?

Terrie Lee: PM me if you'd like to pick up some MTS. I have a few...

Mechanical removal works well too, if you're persistant. Snails tend to 'stampede' (albeit slowly) to a tastey food source. Place a saucer of sorts with a pile of tastey food on it, shut of the aquarium lights, then extract the saucer and all other snails you find in the area an hour or teo later. This tequnique requires that you do not have fish in there that will immediately devour or scatter the saucer of food. Otherwise, I agree with the above suggestions. Avoid using snail-be-gone chamicals (I know, it's tempting) as the stuff could destroy a lot more than just snails.

A very leggy little girl. Thanks for sharing!

This looks like an AquaGiant tank, is it? If so, I am not surprised that the glass has cracked so easily. I've heard of several of those AG corner tanks blowing out in the Edmonton area. Not to mention the AG 400 gallon saltwater tank at the Golden Rice Bowl which poured its contents into the lunch crowd not too long ago. I'd keep an eye on it for sure.