Oxquo

Yeah, something like a paragraph in the persons own words of why they do what they do and maybe even a line or two as to why the interviewers pick that person.

Blue meth is getting banned for being a carcinogen (cancer causing agent) If you find it buy lots. I am looking for a litre atleast as we speak.

I like your ideas but was thinking of maybe a group interview, where anyone can ask a question for the interviewer to ask. A simple Q/A would work with maybe a short headline where the Member interviewed could give some insight into his attributes to the hobby. This could all work well. Maybe an even better way to choose would be to have the MOM interviewed by one of the people who voted for them. Q and A point form could even be accomplished on this site and pinned with a ban on adding info afterwards.

What's daylight savings time again? I forgot hahahaha. We here Skatchewanites are too lazy to turn our clocks, I think the whole World should do it.

I did try brewers yeast, but then I discovered the DIY Rye whiskey kits. Make 4 bottles of Rye for $9.99 or CO2? Hahahaa, I'd rather go without bread thanks. The pressure of the reactor I find to be alot greater as well so it is nice on those bigger tanks.

Definitely an awesome idea, to showcase peoples web pages and become more personal and up front. Also allowing others like you said newer people to the site to know which people to ask questions to about what. I say we do this for sure, it would definitely add to the value of the site, but how do you suppose we decide who should be interviewed or showcased? Is it done on simply a vote??? Great idea and I think this would be a great contribution thanks, The Oxman

I just finished running this guy for a week and am so happy I thought I'd share. For people like Garhan who knows how often I get my fish drunk on homemade jail brew trying to add CO2 to my tanks, they know why I made this. I find my pressure is higher and My water stinks less of brew. It's easy and just fricken cool. This is too easy and well worth it. Tools needed, airline tubing. Silicone or crazy glue plastic airstone connectors 2- 2L bottles CO2 mix (yeast, sugar, baking soda, water) cut three pieces of airline, 2", 11", 6" and one long enough to go from reactor to depth in tank you want. drill two holes in a bottle cap just under the size of the plastic fitting, I used Lee's plastic airstone multi pack disposables and it was a nice fit. Next fit the 2" on the out line inside the cap and the 11" on the in line of the inside of the cap. From here your CO2 bottle line, the 6" goes into the connector on top of the cap leading down the 11" line below. Your longer line going to the tank fits on top of the cap right above the 2" line. Now fill the Reactor up to the shoulder of the bottle just above the label, hold the cap and screw the bottle onto it so your tubing doesn't twist. At this point I lift the fittings up slightly and crazy glue just enough below them and then push them down firmly and silicone around them as soon as the glue dries. The next step is filling the CO2 mix bottle. This bottle is created the same way. Drill one hole in the bottle add connector glue and assemble your 6" airline to it. silicone the top to close off leaks. The mix, 2 cups of sugar 1/4 teaspoon of yeast (bakers slow rise) Pinch of baking soda (especially if you have soft water) Warm water to the shoulder (after adding the contents) Shake well and let sit a few minutes so it can begin to rise. Once assembled place airline into the tank and wait for bubbles, count desired bubbles then add airstone and raise the line up an inch or two as the diffuser slows the CO2 pressure a little. CO2 lasts between 2 and 3 weeks on average depending on amount used. I restart a new one every 2 weeks and replace it whether it's empty or not. What happens? The CO2 bottle blows CO2 into the Reactor and mixes in the water creating a higher quantity of CO2 as well as cleaner quality (less odor). The reactor in turn acts as a pressure container and gives more bubbles per second due to pressure and more pure CO2. The end result is a nice soda water which soon forms. The part I like best is if there is blow over, the CO2 mix will rise into the Reactor instead of the tank, that is my over-all most famous thing to do.

Yep, don't worry about them, they come in through almost anything but seem to frequent planted tanks consistently. Add a killie or two and tape down the lid cause there will be some lid smacking going on. Killies love them and even guppies eat a few. They are not easy to net buy even transfering a few to a killie bowl is a good conditioner for breeding. I had a tonne of them at one time after I bought that stupid waterflea package of I think it was Tetra brand and it came in a squishy package. Now whether they can hurt young fry or eggs or not that I am not too sure, though I think they are big enough.

Thanks tanked, still not sure why I want fry from them as they are dirt cheap but thought I'd try. I may have just passed over the fry and dumped them out, I will try them in a tank tomorrow.

I sent a water sample to the University of Regina. Ahhh damn, I still can't say Regina without laughing, how long does one have to live out here before it doesn't make one laugh? Should have called it Runt instead. hahahahaha. Anyways I had it analyzed hahaha Anal yzed in Regina hahahaha, yep had a few myself J buddy. Anyways they said there was long term effects but couldn't say what. A guy suggested a $10,000 system to filter my water hahahaha I am a do it yourselfer, ask my old lady, whatever that means??? I am going to rig up a chlorine drip system from a veggie mister and hook my whole house mainline through a Ocean clear canister and up my pump to a 3/4 horsepower from 1/2 horse. I figure I can buffer most of the manganese out after the chlorine stabalizes it. There should be no reason why this can't work, right? It works for aquariums and the water we drink and give the beloved is R/O with trace elements anyways.

My well water sucks, nice pH. 7.4 hardness about 35ppm. Problem is high manganese and sulfuric acid. The sulfuric acid keeps the pH low and i like it but fear that it releases in clumps altering the pH at bad fluctuations. That aside my iron is lower than my plants desire at 0.5ppm but my manganese is at a high 1.5. I know that manganese is often added to trace but I think this is high. I have heard that there may be long term effects to manganese exposure. Does anyone know what the effects are and how high is high?

What I got so far is this, take a male and female, apparently females are often left behind when stores buy them due to either lack of color or ease of spawning not sure there. condition males and females which I did in separate tanks. females get a huge bloat fast. put them together with some java moss or a spawning bottom mop and voila, problem is that I don't know the best route from there. On the first attempt I put the eggs in a vase and aerated them with fungus cure, the eggs looked good and were killi sized man is there alot of them, must've been 200+. Anyways I am wondering if during the transfer of the moss, the air maybe killed the eggs. Also I am wondering if leaving them in the tank is best and whether like the tetras I spawned if the tank should remain dark. The eggs looked almost as big as notho eggs but how hard are the fry to see? I know my tetras were hard to see without a magnifying glass. Like I said, not sure why i want to spawn them but I think they'd make awesome schooling fish for an SA tank with angels or even a Kribensis tank. As far as barbs go I think I like their temperment best. I'll let you know if the eggs I collect tomorrow go any better with a mop and hatching in the tank. I will try green water and naturose as first foods.

My cherry barbs spawned, supposedly it takes 24 hours to hatch, I never raised these up before so I want to do it just once. I also understand that they spawn often. How do I prepare for the next spawn? Getting eggs is no problem what I want to know is the best way to raise them up. Hatch them in a jar? a ten gallon after removing the folks as I did with my tetras? How big are the fry? bigger than tetras? I never saw fry the first time but maybe the eggs weren't fertile. What to feed the fry, green water or could golden pearls 100-200 microns work? Personally, I don't know why I want to spawn them, I just want to get it over with and say I did. any help is appreciated.

Yeah, go cheap. Truth is that pine and spruce can be stained any color and the grain is much nicer than most of the hardwoods not to mention easier to work with and a fraction of the price. Just remember to buy some Minwax pre stain so you get an even coat. To better hide any staining flaws,you can always go natural with just a few coats of clear. Stay away from particle board and stick to plywood, Fir good one side has awesome grain but is a bit hard to sand smooth, fir is called fir for a reason, the more you work it the more it sucks. Best tip is to remember, you will be the one noticing all the little flaws, the ones you never notice when you buy something. Lumber has flaws no matter how good the quality. I sanded 1/64th down on My counter top and killed a sheet of veneer in my oak ply. You just never know when or where the flaws will show up. If all else fails, add lots of trim. The old if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with......lots of trim lol. Best way to take eyes off your little errors is to add a killer looking tank to the mix, no one will notice then. Never be afraid to add an extra support either. A 2x4 on end with a balanced load can hold 5,000 lbs of weight, Seeing that a tank is never a balanced load due to decor and such, more supports is better. Plan your stand well, but be ready to change it. Use lots of woodscrews "deckscrews" but don't tack them in tight until you are ready to add your veneer, this gives you a chance to make changes. Make sure at that point you can get in to your tank and have room to place decorations in still. Place good overhead supports to hang light fixtures and fan mounts if needed. Best of all enjoy, there is alot of pride in a stand one has made themselves, whether for you or someone else. I have just started working on a retro 50's TV stand for a 30 gallon, the fun never stops, hope to have pics soon. Can't say what kind of stand looks good with a 90 gallon, the fireplace stand might work well but it could be up to 80" long and may not look right, then again I've never made one for that size yet.

Cleaning canisters can be a pain as opposed to unplugging the HOB rinsing the media and carrying on. Also a HOB filter still maintains good air to the media while power is out yet a canister sits and rots until power comes on though most of them do self prime due to being lower than the tank itself. Last but not least, price, normally you can buy atleast two HOB's for the price of 1 canister, or an even better investment in most cases is a powerhead to accompany the HOB with a polishing system set up on it. All this and money for beer afterwards.

God she's turning into a beauty, It took so long to breed all those dorsal spots into them but well worth it, I think I have two females left like her but am still searching for a nice male. That always seems to be the trick with kribs, finding a male that lacks enough color so that the females brilliance shines through in the fry kinda like guppies but in reverse. She is definitely colored up and right full of eggs it looks like, can't wait to see the fry!!! I have a line now on some Cameroons which are just freakin gorgeous, tonnes of blue and red, it's sad you know, no matter how many species a guy breeds, nothing makes him top his first kribensis spawn, or the second or third, etc, etc, etc//// Congrats bud. I think I even have a pic of her father around here, your female though looks even nicer than mine did!!!

Hey I hear ya on the tetra-tec's. I got mine as a promo I am testing it on a 30 gallon as to which I haven't seen any better results than my AC -200 could do. RD, do you have any planted tanks? I find with planted, even with a prefilter I get munged up. I am quite convinced that even though more often used on planted tanks are the canister lines but they get nicely plugged as well, problem is you seldomly know it until two or three days later. At this time I run mostly air driven but on my displays 5 different AC's They are great filters but can improve still, more things than the box and the filter number I mean.

From 1-10, 1 being hard, I would rate this stand a 8, a 9 if you went into extreme detail. It measures, 60" by 16" by 48" high. It could be built with a table saw, mitre saw, a drill and hammer unless you had a brad nailer handy. I would definitely say there is more pride in building your own, flaws or not. Truthfully, only you will notice the flaws, others will notice your Discus.

wish I had more of the building process, I promise to take more next week when I put out the next one. Thing I found most is that plans you draw are not plans that stick, I changed this guy alot inbetween start and finish.

Just a couple more pieces of trim to go across the bottom but had to get the pics out of my system now. The 37 gallon tank stand would have gone alot quicker had it not been for all the other stands I have been making for the store. This one was actually pretty easy, especially the sliding doors biggest set back was trying to use construction grade 2x4's even for the trim and 2x2's. The rest is done with birch plywood, this stuff is by far my favorite ply and the pic does it no justice at all. I had just sent out my first fireplace tank stand done in oak and although easier to work with shop grade lumber found the color half as appealing. Will post the finished pic tomorrow after I get the dog feeding stands done.

As filters advance and Hagen has patented the filter media idea on the AC I still agree it is the best surface area for the size. As for filtering what they say? I use an AC 500 on my 55 gallon and find that after 2 years is having a hard time keeping up. That is seeing that people keep their fish alive for two years and the exact bioload grows as the fish do. I have always been a strict believer that a filter should turn over the tanks water 10 times and not the average suggested 3 times per hour. After 2 years my AC is terribly noisy and alot of my smaller ones seldomly seal after putting the motor back on after a cleaning also the intake tubes seem to loosen in their slots and miss out on alot of the flow. Aside from that, is there really a self priming filter??? Power outages have always meant a 50/50 chance of coming home to find anything more than a blistering hot motor and a gurgling filter. I like AC's and always have but other companies have been improving, whisper is definitely the worst I have tried ever, on the lighter side I am completely amazed on my tests and trials of the Cascade. Penn Plax is known in my books to create terrible products which are easy to bust, undergravel filters are an exception. Yet for some reason, being ranked Number 1 in Japan made me give this little blue devil a try. Of course i cheated to some degree and swapped my carbon for amrid as alwasy but aside from that, this guy is so far really quiet, like the difference between Optima air pumps and Stellar pumps. As for self priming, I killed the power via breaker 10 times, once it was slow to start but even then it did start. I think should the power be out for a week and evaporation get ahold of the water supply this guy might be in trouble but otherwise there is no where but up to go with this product. The cool color and design is to be desired as well. Lets remember though that $55.00 for an AC 500 is not a common price and $109.99 down to sales of $99.00 is a more than average price. Cascade has one draw back in its hang on back filters is that 300 gph is a big one. Still, it has been doing a good job on my 55 gallon though I'd like to double it up. Personally, I've always disliked canisters and would rather have 4 HOB's than 1 canister. Tetra-tec also looks like it has good improvements in the makings. Too bad the heater doesn't come with this filter I see that as a really cool bonus, except for the fact that it never self primes, so if your power comes back on, your heater comes on only inside the filter, not in the tank where it's needed. Maybe someone should combine a few of the top filters and make a great one. I have just recently caved on my hatred of canisters when I discovered some guy selling out a bunch of Ocean Clear canisters he bought for a restaurant to keep his lobsters alive and such. To me this is the God of all filter creation, I will begin writing down results upon it's arrival and set-up. After all that I guess my conclusion is that an AC 500 to me is good for a 50 gallon tank and it's lifespan is on average around here about 3 years.

Ahhh yes, then the finale, that is when Chester cleans too deep and Diesel snaps in a rage!!! At this point Chester rolls over quickly in submission and gets a cleaning of a whole new kind. Personally I think this is the little guys goal right from the beginning. Ahhh to be a dog, no morales, no wrong doings, absolutely no thoughts running through their little heads whatsoever.

If I could only record the lip smacking sounds that go with this cleaning, especially right at supper time.

For those not fortunate enough to see the Canine Q-tip I think this will help you visualize.

I did find a kickin killi calender but after many years of searching. At the same time having photos submitted for a calender contest would be cool Then choosing the top 12, whether it be a tank photo or fish photo. This way we could display AA's very best and show people what we are made of. Whether this should include a prize or not aside from a free calender to the 12 people who have photos in the calender would be a group decision. Of couse having just started the year it may be best to go from June to June 2006. All photos of fish would have to belong to the people who own them to advoid copyright barriers. I know if I could get a calender of Awesome quality fish from people I know or associate with, I would definitely buy one if I couldn't win one and put it right behind my Wet T-shirt calender so that I have a back-up when the ladies run out in December.