ronrca

Same! I love seeing other peoples setups.

Im actually also considering upgrading my air pump. I like going to jehmco.com to see whats out there. Here are some links fyi: http://www.jehmco.com/PRODUCTS_/HARDWARE_/..._air_pumps.html http://www.jehmco.com/PRODUCTS_/HARDWARE_/...ve_blowers.html http://www.jehmco.com/PRODUCTS_/HARDWARE_/..._air_pumps.html Now to find them in Canada would be nice! HTH

Theres 5 outlets, maybe a 6th somewhere. 2 busiest are on one breaker, along with the room lights and not sure what else. 2 more that I also use, are on separate breakers from the first, and separate from each other , but each tied into some lighting in different parts of the house it seems. The other1-2 plug ins I'm not sure what they are tied to... So, it seems 4 outlets to 3 different breakers. The heaviest loaded one only blew when everything, including a plug in room heater, was turned on. I got rid of it, hasnt tripped since. i'm making a point of using other plugs when possible. I have about 30 tanks going, each with heaters, about 20 powerfilters, a few powerheads, a few small air pumps and one large airpump running undergravels on about a dozen tanks. Sorry, cant give much more right now, my little boy is in hospital and i need to get back First, take care of your little one. I do hope that he will be alright. Second, wow! Your overloaded or very near overloaded. By code, 12Amps is max on a 15A breaker. After that its tripping. Best thing to do is turn a breaker off and count everything thats on it making sure to include other rooms in the house. Find out the wattage or amp rating for each equipment. This way you can determine how to balance your circuits if possible. Btw, how old is your main panel and the breakers? Third, evaluate the possiblity of pulling a wire from your main panel to a location near your fishroom for a subpanel. Thats going to be the hard part perhaps. Installing it is the easy part imo. A subpanel will save you a lot of headaches. If you dont want to perhaps spend that much money, you can always pull a 2cct 3wire into the fishroom.

Imo, no because if there be electrical problems, its because the equipment is faulty and needs to be replaced! If you do want to use one however, you need to use it with a GFI. A grounding probe will prevent you from getting a shock in the event of equipment failure. Typically however, you providing an alternative route to ground is high on resistance so you most likely will not experience a big shock. I suppose some are paranoid of shocks so a ground probe will be an ease of mind.

RO is the best to soften water! Much more reliable and stable than other methods.

By code you are only allowed 12 amps per breaker or 80% of the rated amps. The Acs should have a rated output printed on them somewhere most likely in amps. Add the load together that you have on one circuit and see if your over. If your house panel is really really old and you have never changed breakers, you may need a new breaker.

Id catch the starter as well. Home Depot may have replaces or you can phone any electrical store. It will be cheaper and easier than replacing the ballast. Typically on the older canopys they used starters. Not sure if they still do or not. If that doesnt work, change the ballast. HTH

Good questions! I dont know but rather feel comfortable with glass instead.

Thanks for the concerns. Not really that worried about the bottom support after seeing the original setups at Aquagiant. The glass is thick enough to support the weight of the water as long as the weight is evenly distributed. If you look at the commerical tanks being made, they have no bottom support. The bottom glass is actually an inch off the bottom. Check out the pic of the setups without any bottom supports: http://albertaaquatica.com/index.php?showtopic=4399&hl=

Check out this calc for glass thickness: http://www.garf.org/Tank/BuildTank.asp HTH

I believe your looking for a sump? There are many different ways to build a sump. Some ppl use tanks or rubbermaid containers. Some build fancy boxes! To keep it simple, you can use anything you want or have available. In my fishroom, my sumps are rubbermaids, 40G with heaters and pumps in them. Work great and cheap. You can check out my yahoo album to see the sumps. Check out this web site! He custom builds sumps from plexi. Perhaps not what your looking for however gives you some ideas of what you can do. http://melevsreef.com/ An article on the cichlid forum regarding building sumps: http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/diy_sumps.php

lol! Im quite sure that you always will get conflicting answers. In reality, there is no right or wrong answer....well except perhaps doing no maintaince. There are a lot of factors involving the tank maintaince like species, feeding, etc. The best indicator will be your water parameters and the fish themselves. It is important to keep a tank 'clean' however to what point becomes the question. Does this mean daily cleanings? Bi-weekly? Weekly? Monthly? Again, depends on your tank and what your putting in like food. If you tend to feed a lot, you will need more maintaince as there is more uneaten food perhaps and more fish waste aka pooh! % of wc? Again, dependant on your water parameters and feedings. Naturally, there are many factors but it comes down to your responsibilty and decision. Some ppl are 'hardcore' fish keepers that keep their tanks immaculatly clean and will strongly suggest you must do the same. While tank maintainance is a very important part of keeping fish, you dont want it to become a boring, time consuming chore that becomes a pita. Since I raise discus, my wcs are 50-75% daily and cleaning the bottoms/filters (not bio filters however) daily as well. In my 90G planted, its weekly to every 2 weeks with a 40% wc plus vacuuming and cleaning mechanical filters.

Sorry for the delay! Discus, imo, are one of the most debated and priced difference in the fish business. There are a few valid reasons for this and there are also many myths. Where do I start? I mentioned 4 factors in my previous post that I will try to expand on. Size Lets start at the fry stage. At this stage, the price is the cheapest for the obvious reason. Discus are usually sold starting around 1.5"-2" and start at around $10 each from breeders. A lot of lfs start pricing these at perhaps $40+ depending on the strain. Naturally, as the discus grows, more food, water and maintance is involved so the price increases until the discus becomes adult. Adults usually start at $80 from local breeders of course depending on the strain. In lfs, adults probably start at $120. Then you can even get into pairs and proven pairs from which the sky is the limit on these guys. Who Origin plays a huge factor as well on the price of discus. I think it is quite obvious that here in N. America, raising discus is more expensive than in warmer countries and cheaper utilities. The biggest producers of discus are in Asia where there are massive farms set up for breeding discus along with many other types of fish. Therefore, asian imported discus will be cheaper as N. America breeders cannot compete dollar for dollar in breeding fish. Also, there is a significant difference between lfs and breeders/hobbyists when buying discus as well. Quality Next, quality plays an important role with breeders/hobbyists in determining price. The eye-body ratio being the most important, then the round shape (almost like a CD) and other factors like fins, gill plates, stripes, peppering, etc. This unfortunately is an often overlooked factor in the price of discus being offer in many lfs. I have seen many discus with a top dollar price tag that are stunted, football shaped, large eyes, peppering, uneven stripes, etc in lfs. Im sure this fact is not only apparent in discus but other types of fish as well. As with many things, quality suffers in the face of quantity. Many quantity breeders are using some sort of hormone, natural or man made, to grow them quickly to get them out of their tanks and money in their pockets. This unfortunately affects the quality of the discus soon afterwards like being sterile, kidney problems, etc which affects life span and growth. Strain Like many things, new is expensive in the beginning. In discus, its primary color with a few shape differences as well (ie. bulldogs) that will be fetching top dollar until something new becomes popular or the particular strain becomes 'common'. The 'base' strains on which the discus originated from before cross breeding are the cheapest for a couple of reasons. The base strains breed 100% true and they are 'common' in the trade. Then you start getting into crossed strains which do not breed 100% true, one reason they start fetching higher prices. The more exotic the color/pattern, the more the price. After the base strains, I think solid colors are next in the price followed by spotteds, leopards and any variation between. As you can see, there are many factors that can affected the price of a discus. Another factor that I didnt mention is market value or what people are willing to pay for them. This however is usually different depending on where in the world you are. I mentioned in the beginning that there are also myths that affect the price. One of these myths are that discus are finiky, fragile, sensitive, etc. Once you give discus the appropriate conditions, they are not therefore lfs can not justify asking higher prices for them. Fortunately with the age of information access aka the internet, discus are becoming 'easier' to keep as people are becoming informed on how to keep discus. Another myth that keeps people away from discus as well is that they must be kept in soft, acidic water which, unless you are blessed with this water, means RO. I know many, many successful breeders/hobbyists that keep their discus in tap water. I also keep my discus in aged tap water and have so for a couple of years. HTH and answers some of your questions. If you have more, just keep asking. Im sure there is a number of things I forgot to mention and by no means am I the expert. I pale in comparison to many and only hope that I can learn from those that are. Btw, if you would like to see some different strains, look here: http://www.discusnada.org/discus/classification.html Take care, Ron

Well, quick answer $10-150 depending on size, strain, quality and who you are buying from. The base strain are usually the cheapest. Some of the spotteds, leopards, etc are usually on the top of the scale. There are a lot of varities. Best to shop around.

:thumbs: I have also switched over to NLS for my discus. In the beginning, my discus didnt eat it but patience and perserviance (sp?) won out. They are eating however not the feeding frenzy as described or seen at Neils. Maybe time will change that or once I start fry on it. One big difference I noticed is I feed less than the other brands and they get just as full. Thats a big plus for sure.

I boil my driftwood and then bake it! Btw, thats the only thing I cook! I remember boiling the big trunk stump that is in my 90G. I still can see the bugs crawling out! :guns: Took care of them. :boxer: Other than that, there shouldnt be anything in the wood after that. :thumbs:

Wow! Do you have some references? I know of some discus breeders that are using softeners and telling the rest of the world to use them. I like some info on them if you have. Thanks Ron

Uneven weight distribution on the bottom glass which may cause the bottom to crack. This is especially important in larger tanks due to the increased weight of the water. I dont like to take chances!

Last pic

Second Pic

Thank you Darren for offering those tanks (Thread Link). I managed to get 4 tanks and I am slowly rebuilding them for a couple of reasons. First being the black silicon, second I didnt like the all sides resting on the bottom glass and third to customize to my fishroom (drilled overflows). I have build 7 tanks before this however only 20Gs. This is my first larger capacity tank. I still plan on putting together another 60G and 90G. So here is a 60G that I completed this last weekend and ready for use (minus center brace and plumbing hookups yet).

Are you doing wc's from tap? Im wondering if the tap parameters change like chlorine or something. Just a thought!

http://www.russellwatergardens.com/pipe.htm#flow%20rates Skroll to the bottom to check the flow rates for pipes or overflows. Remember, your flow rate will be whatever pipe size is the smallest in the water path. As an example, even if you have a 1" overflow but are reducing to 1/2" somewhere, the flow rate will be limited by the 1/2" pipe.

More votes! :thumbs: Up to 20 now. Those that perhaps are interested in getting RO, what kind of system are you looking at. Perhaps shoot me a pm and I can put together a quote from what your looking at. You can compare it with whatever locals are selling.

Welcome to the forum! Offically!