jamesbarr

Sweet. Next time Im in edmonton Ill see if you are available. If you want I can PM you or you can pm me your number and Ill get ahold of you that way. Thanks Jason

Just so that you know in regards to getting things in the early part of the auction, i believe that you can request that certain items be 'bumped' in order to have them bid on earlier so that you get a chance at them before you need to leave. Youd have to double check on the protocol, but I think it can be done. In regards to your mystery snails, Im reading that they are prominently herbivores, tho they seem to be naturally kind of a scavenger. Im seeing that they prefer to eat algae, dead plants, and the occasional bit of decaying fish food. It seems that they will attack your plants when starved much sooner than your mts. I have had them in my tank, but my observations are limited because I have so many mts in my tank. Thats another thing to bring up. Mts will reproduce prolifically in a tank that has adequate amounts of food for that to happen, which seems (ime) to be a very easy thing to have in a tank. As a matter of fact, I know when I am over feeding my fish within a few days because the mts will become quite prominent in my tank. I got mts snails from a lfs, who sold me 5 for $2. I have never needed more. They populated my tank quite well. That being said, I think that youd have to have a massively carnivorous apple before youd have any problems. Hope that helps a bit.

is there a source is edmonton, or is someone willing to sell some to me? I have a bit right now but if Im to start dosing this every other day I think Im going to need more. Plus I read in a previous thread that the shipping cost from calgary to edmonton is the same as the cost of the product itself. Thanks

in you guys experience, how long is a good amount of time to determine if the carbon is effective? Im reading online that people are seeing results in a couple days all the way to a couple weeks. The other thing that I am reading is that yellowing in leaves is generally a iron deficiency, is this something that you guys would agree with? In particular I mean with my pygmy swords but for future reference as well. Ive started dosing seachems flourish supplement, which has iron in it, but maybe I should think about having more? I like being lowtech, but it seems that I will just not see the results I want without dosing something in my tank. I really want to see my tank sub carpetted in pygmy swords in the end. I say this because I think it may effect the answers I get. Thanks a bunch guys.

hey, glad to hear that you are thinking about jumping into the wonderful world of planted tanks. It can be very rewarding. If you are thinking that there may be a snail outbreak in your tank, I would recommend that you check out the container plants at PJs. They are guaranteed snail and algea free. I believe that they are grown in hydroponics set ups, tho I could be wrong about that. They tend to be a little more money but from what I hear they have a lot of plant in the containers. So they could be a good bang for your buck, tho I have no experience to draw from. I only have hear say. The other thing that you may consider is that if you fertilize, you can really monitor the amount of snail population in your tank with the amount you feed your fish. Snails can be quite beneficial for algae control if kept in check.

In a previous post, I was having trouble with my pygmy swords yellowing. Thanks for the advice here on AA, my swords are in much better condition now. It was recommended to me that I add root fert tabs to the sub around my chains. I did this, along with my crypts and jungle swords. This has been yielding results, however not as nicely as I had hoped. Realising that the next thing to think about was light, I began to think of an economical way to get the par that I need for my tank. I found an led bar at my local hardware store that I thought would do the trick. I didnt end up with the led fixture as the one I found was too warm in spectrum . Didnt like the look of it. wound up buying an under cabinet mount t8 fixture, put a 18w daylight bulb (generally between 5500k and 6500k from what I can gather) in it and a 20w 18000k plant spectrum bulb in my previous t8 fixture. I now have 38 watts over my tank. I know the thumb rule says that I need more but I dont know how I could get to a medium level of par in my tank without having it appear too bright. My tank dimensions are 36x24x18. My lights are 3/4 inch over the glass and my surface agitation is what I would call medium. I know that I cant expect my chain swords to do really well in a low maintenance tank. I realise that I may eventually need to dose excel to get things really going but I just want to make sure that co2 is the only thing really missing. What are some recommendations that you guys have to get the lighting that I need and not break the bank. Or is what I have good enough? Can I accomplish what I have to with the equipment I have and only change bulbs?

lol The best!

whats the hold up on the l shaped one? jk jk but seriously the anticipation is killing me.

ive been watching oliver knotts videos after I read your first post. I like his approach, but my favourite thing that I learned from him was the most simple thing ever. His newspaper trick upon filling the tank after scaping is spot on. I know for sure I will be doing that when I set up my next tank. He also layered his sub in one video that I watched, which is something Im looking at as well. Nice little set ups

have you built those other tanks yet?

time to build number 2!

Thanks Val and Tanker. Thanks for the search guidance Tanker, honestly its been a long time since I have had to use quotations so I didnt even think to try it out. Will do.

hey ive been noticing that when I search for something in the search bar, it only chooses 1 word to look for rather than the whole thing. ei, if I look up '90 gallon', trying to see if there are any archived prices, all it looks up is 'gallon'. Im not sure if this is something that you guys are aware of or not but wanted to bring it up cuz it makes searching the site harder. Otherwise super happy with the site, keep up the good work

just an update. My swords are spreading out and coloring up a little. I have a small LED fixture coming to supplement my t8 light for this tank. I think that is that next thing that needs updating to get them going really nice. Thanks for the advice

thanks for the guidance.

Mullin, I know little about most supplements. Can you recommend a good site to read up on this kind of stuff? Im finding predominantly places to find mixing instructions for liquid dosing.

i would consider making the wholes in more of a diffuser styles to minimize concentrated flow areas. In a small tank like you are running you wont need a lot of pressure. Good luck should post some pics when you get it figured out. I love seeing nano tanks doing well.

Im making my own worm compost right now. well, my worms are all from vegetables, eggshells and some coffee. Nothing fish toxic would be in there. Im waiting to get a couple more items in order to set up an experimental tank to try some of it out in there to see what it does to my parameters when added in a media bag to my hob. Just want to know if it will cause a spike or anything before I put it into something that I would invest a lot of time and $$$ into. Glad to hear that youve seen good results. Im looking forward to trying it out.

+1 caine. only problem is that he is running a nano, so he likely has no sump. as mullin said, if he created a multi outlet return line it would help. One idea that I batted around when I was thinking about putting an over sized filter on a tank I had was making a spray bar that was in two pieces so that you could direct part of the return water down and part up just by swivelling the two parts how you wanted. Some for oxygenation some for circulation. Just a thought. Fat puffer what kind of nano are you running?

in your ebi, is that a fluval sub in there? have you used it before?

ok, so another question. Im seeing that people are using a soil substrate in their iwagumis, with a layer of gravel or sand on top and mts to keep from becoming anaerobic. Is this a good practise and if so what are the kinds of soil that people are using? Some folks are putting in a mix of compost, topsoil and peat moss. Others Im seeing using a special organic soil recommended by some Walstad lady. Both seem to yield great results.

well, spikes are in. now to see what happens.

Im thinking that the marsilea is a good shot. How available is it at a lfs? Im from out of edmonton, should I order it ahead of time?

im under the understanding that there are larger co2 requirements after immersion? can i start high maintenance plants and wean them off? i gather that there is no way to get that super dense carpet that is so awesome in the iwagumis in a low tech way?

another thing i would be interested in knowing is if there are low maintenance plants that would work well to carpet a tank which is so impressive in a iwagumi.