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I assumed you were young if it makes you feel any better!

Yeah, I should have said gate valve. A ball valve cannot be adjusted fine enough.

Ask and you shall recieve... 6 months later... Just tore out a lot of plants, cleaned the glass and sump and weeded through a lot of the dead leaves. Pretty large overhaul actually; probably pulled out half the plants. It's a little awkward looking until the plants settle back in. I'm thinking of selling the tank. I want something like a 24" cube for the corner maybe. Not sure yet.

I myself would put a ball valve on the 1" for the main full syphon drain and use the 1 1/4" pipe for the back up that is plumbed straight into the sump.. It's really a perfect setup for a Herbie style overflow. My 160 gal has only 1" drains and they are more than sufficient.

I've noticed similar issues on most forums, and I don't think it's the forums fault, but the engine seems to be very basic. If you type whatever you want to search in Google and type the forum name afterwards the hit quality tends to improve. i.e. 90 gallon albertaaquatica You don't get a ton of hits but they are sometimes closer to what you are after. The big forum names give a lot of bang on results.

Thanks! The araguaia is pretty sweet. If you hack it back it crawls and forms a neat little bush. I let it grow really tall so last the other night I trimmed it up and planted it in the back/center where I want a bush. I was going to remove it with the rest of my stems but I love it too much. The gracilis prefers to be topped (cut and replant the top) but I did just hack it down everyone in a while too. The issue is that it doesn't like to be hacked much and it would often stunt. The new tips usually didn't look great and it took a loooong time for the plant to rebound. I recommend topping if you want it to look good. I pulled it because gracilis is a very large plant. It was getting 4" or more in diameter. Much too big. Thanks homie. Take a look at the updated pic below. I'm moving to more of a jungle feel with the ferns and more slow grower to reduce the work load. More crypts and anubias and something to fill in the back a little. The foreground is in rough shape from being shaded... oh the joys of point source lighting.

Thanks.

Can anyone advise me what I would use for a heat pack to ship some plants from Calgary to Vancouver? I'm planning on using standard mail and a flat bubble mailer so it would need to stay thin. I have no clue what to use and I don't want to freeze or cook the plants. I'm not even sure if a heat pack is safe in a package so small. Thanks.

Thought I'd add one of my current layout at it's prime. I'm getting close to doing a rescape. 160 gallon. Really bad photo, but you can see how the ferns filled in. I let the stem plants go though and now the tank is drastically different. There is about double the ferns again since this photo.

I'll just second some stores... Bulkheads - Concept Aquatics. Pretty close to cost pricing. Regular pvc fittings - Lowe's. Relatively cheap union ball valves too. Irregular stuff and FLEX PVC - Western Pump. Be nice and they will often do contractor pricing.

I have one that does that. Just a cheap white one from HD or Rona or someplace. On/off/auto and the auto never works the day I set it unless I set it before the lights are supposed to come on. Try setting it to come on a few minutes in the future and see if it works. If so, set it normally and check it the next day. Just in case, make sure you are in the proper outlets. I believe one side is switched (aka, always on unless you flip the red power switch) and the other is timed.

Yeah, that's a pretty solid article. It's an easy read and is pretty bang on.

I like Jager because the quality is pretty good and you can calibrate them so they match your thermometer. My Jagers are the only heaters that read 77 degrees when the water is actually 77 degrees. I like the Hydro ETH inlines if you want an inline heater. They work well and shut off if the water stops flowing.

:thumbs:

Dirty tank. Organics in the water is a big inducer. Dead spots are places it likes to colonize, so it does well around the substrate and under it. You need to be doing manual removal of any visible cyano, as well as removing the dead stuff. Hydrogen peroxide or Excel will help if spot dosed. I find H2O2 much better than Excel as it breaks down to water and O2 and really does a number to the cyano. The blackouts can help but if you don't fix the root of the issue it will easily come back. I find a drop KNO3 helps induce the cyano, but I've found the organics to be the root cause. Circulation helps keep it at bay, but I haven't found the lack of circulation to be a cause. If you have a sponge filter you will have very gentle flow, but you don't see cyano in every tank with a sponge filter or under gravel filters. Clean your filter, get all the dead, dying plant matter out, and vacuum any mulm settling on the substrate and that should help. Also get your KNO3 levels up and do lots of water changes to bring up the water quality. Purigen or carbon will help as well. I do 50% water changes once per week and I still need a nice cleaning after 1.5 months. Generally, if you fix the root issue the cyano growth will stop, but you usually have to manually remove it. If you use the erythromycin it will KILL the cyano and you really need to do lots of water changes so you don't foul up the water as it releases all the proteins back into the column. Use the erythromycin as a last resort, but it's pretty easy on the filter. It kills MOSTLY gram positive bacteria, like cyano while most gram negative (in your filter) bacteria will be fine. I beat the cyano in my tank without antibiotics or a blackout. Personally, I don't recommend blackout for much. They weaken the plants and if you don't kill the algae/bacteria then, your weakened plants open the door for everything else after a blackout. Stem heavy tanks also don't fare well with 2-3 day blackouts whereas ferns can do weeks.

But they might melt anyway when you move them from the other tank. There is a chance they won't melt which is nice. But if you put them in a dry start and then flood they will very likely melt.

Make it Calgary/ Edmonton and done. Or north/south. Or just leave it alone.

I get my new tanks from the recharge center. I haven't found many tanks for less than $100 even used, and I have four myself. I like to own them outright though, I don't have any rentals all though I hear delivery can be nice.

Cherry shrimp can be bullet proof sometimes. I know some people who literally cannot kill them, others that cannot keep them alive. I wouldn't use them as a gauge.

Am I the only person who would choose 500x 2" fish over 5x 15" fish? Awesome tank. Let us know how the first water change goes.

The kits vary a lot. What you are ready as 2ppm might be nil. Are you getting nitrate readings at all?

Not banned, just hard to import. I use kno3. $5/ POUND at Canadian Aquatics http://www.canadianaquatics.com/equipment/equipment.htm

The ph swings from co2 wont really be reduces. Straight RO or really low kh can increase the risk of ph crashes but as far as your co2 concentration to ph drop relationship - it's pretty linear. 1 drop in ph due to co2 = 10x the co2 concentration (or pretty close) That's why we usually aim for 1ph drop. Water usually has 2-3ppm when well airated so if you drop the ph by 1.0 you will have 20-30ppm. So: Tank one has ph of 7.8 and 5dkh. You drop the ph to 6.8 with co2 and the co2 level will be about 20-30ppm. Tank two had ph of 7.2 and 1.5dkh. You drop the ph to 6.2 and co2 level will be about 20-30ppm. Tank three has ph of 6.6 an 0dkh. This tank is just plain risky as it has no buffer ability and the ph can easily crash. Not sure why the shrimp are dying. Maybe the tank is overstocked... maybe they don't have enough food, maybe they are molting and not making it. Not really sure what to tell you. No minerals in the water would be my best bet assuming you haven't been reconstituting the water and have been using straight RO. Hope this helps.

I would think that the easiest way for mass culling (live) would be to feed the shrimp and wait till they all gather over the food. Then do a big scoop and put them into a container that is easy to look into so you can sort them with a tiny shrimp net.