Cgy_Betta_Guy

Hey salon_1928... sorry I musta missed your post. Like The-Influence mine is a planted tank stocked with shrimp and I agree that the stock filter does the job and planting and cleaning it can be a challenge in the front corners. If you have a chunk of driftwood in there it can get in the way of a gravel vac at the front corners of the tank. I also agree that upgrading the lighting somehow is a must if you are putting plants in the tank. You can check out our tanks in the Show off your Fluval Edge tank thread for inspiration. If you do get one please post a full tank shot in there! the more the merrier!

I was there just last week. Maybe its just down for maintenance or they forgot to pay their site hosting service. One can hope they are going to be starting to update it more regularly.

click the multi quote button on the lower right corner of each of the posts you want to quote... it change color to indicate you have selected that post. Then either press the 'Add reply' or the 'Use full editor' button and it will bring all the quote HTML into the post editor for you.

Welcome to the forum!

Cool mb3k! I myself have a 10lb cylinder hooked up to the edge tank with a super super slow trickle of CO2 bubbles coming out of my nano diffuser. I let the bubbles surface to the top but my filter blows them across the water surface and underneath the glass. Due to evaporation my water level is not always right to the top but I think for such a small tank you really dont need a lot of CO2. My plants grew really fast after adding the CO2 to the point that I might have to replace the crypts and java ferns shortly because they are starting to fill up too much space in the tank.

Hey Jewels.. Good eye! Lower right just right of the Indian Almond Leaf is Hydrocotyle Verticilata and there is a stem of it on the lower left floating around upside down for some reason. The lower left and upper right (perched on the driftwood) are both Microsorum Pteropus (Java Fern) Windelov wrapped onto lava rocks. Other plants are Anacharis, echinodorus bleherae, valisneria, cryptocoryne Undulata and Bekketi, Marimo Moss ball and a wort of some kind. Hopefully there are some more Edge owners out there that want to show off their tanks too!

sounds like it is water marks/mineral deposits from water getting between the background and the glass... I had similar issue with a used tank I bought a while back but probably not to the degree that you have on your tank as mine came off relatively easy. Glass is porous to some extent so it might take lots of soaking and elbow grease to get that white film off and you still might not be able to get it all. Maybe try laying a paper towel very wet with vinegar flat over the area and leave it to sit on the spot for a few hours then come at it with a razor and scrubbies. That seemed to help me on the harder to clean spots. Hope it helps. I have also hear Lime Away works well but have never tried it. btw... have you filled the tank to see if the marks are noticeable when full of water?

ah yes... sorry... I recognized the name but didnt make the connection with your thread. Looks good!

Influence: My light strip is a DIY chop of a automotive LED light strip... I made it U shaped to wrap around the top of the tank. You can see the lights shining into the water in the upper right corner of my pic. I am also toying with the idea of picking up another Edge tank for fun. AvianAquatics: Thanks for the comments, unfortunately I havent been able to get my baby shrimps to survive for some reason so I dont have any to sell. I might have to get a bigger sponge on my uptake. mb3k: my tank has been running since mid January. Dont be shy! post a pic of your tank!

Nice fish.... the rainbow wolf is mean lookin!

decided to start a show off thread for edge owners and posted a pic of mine there if anyone is interested. :smokey:

The Fluval Edge has been out for quite some time now and figured there has to be a fair amount of people with this tank by now. Many people love the looks while others just are not impressed with its cost, size and configuration. I decided it was time for a thread to show off the various aquascapes that people have achieved in this little tank. Perhaps it will provide decoration ideas and maybe even some inspiration to those thinking of picking one up. I guess I will get this started... here is my tank. Please feel free to post pics of yours because I am curious to see what others have done to their tank! Edit: some additional pics and comments as I had posted to another forum I frequent Here are some shots of my LED light strip. They are originally 3 ft long and water proof but I had to cut it shorter and into pieces so I could make it into the U shape. Soldering the corners was the biggest challenge. The white plastic is shelf edging that you can buy at the hardware store and power source is a simple 12V wall adapter soldered directly to the connectors. Still need to make minor adjustments so the strips sit in the edging a bit better but that can wait for another day.

Looks good! That fish really brings a pop of color against the black substrate. How long has the tank been running? Did you bury the rhizome on the Anubias? Burying the rhizome can cause the plant to rot out. I find it strange that the plant would have melted so easily as they seem to be extremely impervious to problems in the tank. I should try to put some of my helferi in my edge too but I seem to have run out of room in there.

Was at Pisces and Petsmart last friday and saw the new Fluval Chi tank which is 5 gallons for $80. The filter and lights are clipped to the back and suspended in the center square that sits partially out of the water. The water is pumped up and over the top edges like a water fall to make the sounds of flowing water. Pisces has a filled one on display if anyone is interested in checking it out. Kind of neat but I think the evaporation in Calgary during the winter would be a bit of a pain in the butt since its not covered. I think I still like the Edge better. Has anyone seen the Ebi or Flora tanks anywhere locally?? From the pictures they look to be 7-8 Gallons and the Ebi Nano Shrimp Habitat comes with tubes for critters to hide in and the Flora Aquatic Plant kit looks to come with a mini CO2 kit. I think I would be more interested in these 2 if they are covered tanks. here are a couple links to some articles: Chi Chi Ebi & Flora

I use the medium size Mag float on my tanks( I think one of them has 10mm glass) and they seem to work fairly well but I dont have too much algae growth on my glass as my ottos and nerite snails seem to be able to manage eating most of it off. One thing to be aware of with these is if you have fluorite or fluorite sand (and probably plain sand) in your tanks. The high iron content in the fluorite can cause the grains or pebbles to stick to the magnet between glass and scrubbing material on the mag float which I imagine risks scratching your tank. Just make sure you dont scrub super aggressively near the substrate and you wont kick up the sand etc and everything should be fine.

Besides carpet surfing, the cories may have found a hidden spot to pass so you might want to check under in or around any decorations you have in the tank. I have had a panda cory burrow into a gap on my driftwood along side the rhizome of my anubias... didnt notice until I saw the eye peeking out of a hole in the wood which at the time I thought was kinda humorous. I managed to coax him out and a few days after I found his body there again but wedged even further down. Some of the others seemed to seek secluded spots in the tank to pass on so maybe it is something they do when they sense they are about to go. His death was the start of some sort of bacterial infection that only affected and claimed 2 other of my panda cories. Also if you have any amount of snails in the tank they along with the other fish in the tank can swarm a dead body and eat it pretty quickly which could explain the missing bodies.

Was reading a while back that BGA finds oxygen to be toxic to itself which is why it tends to grow in areas of low water movement. If the tank is fishless cycling is there a chance there isnt enough gas exchange at the surface providing oxygen in the water since the plants are also not established yet? In addition to all the solutions mentioned above, could it be as easy as adding an air stone and spot treating with hydrogen peroxide after the black outs and water changes? Just throwing that out there for opinions in case I ever get a bad case of BGA. Edit: found the article I had been reading... Blue Green Algae control in freshwater aquarium

That is awesome! :thumbs:

Ikea has dial timers 2 for about $7 in their home marketplace on the main floor. Basically a 24hr dial in half hour increments that you push up or down depending on what times you want it to turn on or off. These have no ground input but the majority of the equipment I have for the tanks dont have grounds on them anyways.

Greetings and welcome to the forum... I hope your name/alias doesn't indicate how well you are doing in this hobby... :P

Sorry to hear about the tank. I noticed you have a couple of tanks and have been in the hobby for a few years but from your original post it sounded like your tank was only a couple weeks old.... and since no one else has asked, the obvious question here would be was the tank properly cycled and did you do any water condition readings on ammonia etc after the big die off? Also since you mentioned cleaning off the white build up on your tank, did you clean it with anything that might have gotten into the tank? I have never experienced a DIY CO2 overdose but my tanks are heavily planted and bigger so I cant contribute on that point but I imagine that it could probably happen quite easily in a 20 Gallon.

welcome to the forum. I like the old school heater you have there on your 20.

Good that you have DIY CO2... I hear the key is to keep the CO2 levels consistent which means staying on top of changing the mixture when its running low. I was pretty bad about that so I moved to compressed CO2. The liquid fertilizer is probably more convenient than a dry. As long as you have decent light and a carbon source I think you wont have any issues with growing the plants you have. What kind of light fixture you have in there?

I assume you are talking about the stem plants that you have in your tank. The stem plants that I have had usually end up growing roots above the substrate and I believe its a natural thing for them to do. Probably a natural survival thing that ensures that the plants can propagate should it break and float down the stream. Just a guess cuz I am no botanist. With fertilizers you will need to make sure you have a good balance of light and carbon source so that you dont get bad algae problems. I started with a bottle of Plant Gro NPK and Seachem Fluorish which has lasted me a year so far but I dont dose it that often. Maybe every 2-3 weeks I put some of one or the other in. Of course there are also other fertilizer components that Seachem sells which you can dose individually like potassium or iron if you ever notice nutrient deficiencies. Each bottle probably runs about $15 on average. I invested in a bottle of each just to have around and experiment with. You can probably find some cheap dry fertilizers but I have no knowledge of those but am sure someone here will be able to give you some info about that. I used Seachem Fluorish Excel as my carbon source for the first number of months until I started using DIY CO2 yeast since it worked out to be a bit cheaper in the long run. That probably lasted about 6 months before I got my hands on a compressed CO2 Cylinder.

I have a number of females in with one of my males and he chases them around a bit when he is feeling amorous but generally there is no fighting between the male and the females. I find that the females can easily outrun the male and I have plenty of spots for them to hide if needed. The male is slightly smaller, younger and much more sedate than the females and I have actually seen the females gang up on the poor boy on one occasion. There is often more confrontations between females (often resulting in fin damage) probably as a result of them trying to establish pecking order than there are with the male. IMO I would say its a combination of size, sex and individual personality that should be the determining factor on whether you can or can not house them together.