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Hmm. Well j just got It so I want to play with it for a couple days before I lend it. Ate you doing the home tour? I was gonna bring it along.

Is this your Oddysea fixture? It's likely driving them at NO. You should be pulling 112 watts plus change for waste and the fans. I just got a DIY "Good enough par meter" today that I can use to measure your par. I want to gather as much info as possible about different light sources.

Have the XML at about 1500mA with 40 degree optics. Xpg at around 1000mA with 60 degree optics. Fixture about 20" off the tank, 40" off substrate. PREPARE TO HAVE MIND BLOWN!

Um, so far it's looking like 8 roseline barbs, about 30 corydoras sterbai, a dozen ottos, a dozen amano shrimp, hopefully a colony of orange eye blue tiger shrimp and an undecided school of fish. I need ideas for them. Harold recommended his blue tetras but I've never seen them.

Yeah, tell us about your current tank. How long have you been in the hobby?

Cheater. :P

Wait no more! I had a half dozen plants from Aquatic Central, the crypts are from my other tank and the rest is tissue cultered plants from Aqua Flora. I got 23 tubs total, five of which were needle leaf java fern. I couldn't fit three tubs in there and I planted very dense. Just so you can get an idea of how much you get for your money from Aqua Flora. People think the tubs are expensive at $14 each, but they are really rather cheap for the quantity. Plus, no snails or algae!

I had an outbreak and I couldn't treat the tank with any substrate. I thought I was free and clear for about 4 months before the worms were back. I'd bet my last dollar that any tank treated with substrate will have a new infestation within a year. Anyone made it a year yet? By the time I went bare bottom and took out the worms, the damage was done and the fish were hit with everything from pop eye to open sores/ wounds. Put down all my fish except my angels and plecos. The angels don't show until much later and the plecos always looked healthy.

Not gonna! in the video you can see the running water level (I might add a touch more) and there is zero splashing, just a few ripples. I can't see any need to seal it. If I had a wet dry I would use duck tape or a rubber gasket if I wanted a project to work on. Sealing my sump will only prevent more fresh O2 getting into the water and wont really prevent much co2 from escaping. I want all the surface area I can get for O2 exchange. If I had splashing, or white water (breaking waves) I would be gassing off a lot but there isn't really any falling water in the system. The weir would be the worst for it, but even there the water or more like a slick... no noise or turbulence really. Now, if my system wouldn't prime with the drain submerged like it is, then I would have a problem. But, as luck would have it... the drain primes just fine so no worries.

Same thing essentially. I can't really think of any differences. The bulkheads could point out the bottom or back if the tank, if it's external you usually come out the bottom of the overflow. If the tank was built without the overflow it is easier to add an internal. But you lose the volume/ it's more unsightly. If you understand the concept of the overflow well, they are easy to set up. The challenge to some is understanding how everything works. It's always made sense to me, so I was lucky. It was still nerve racking to fire up, but my original design worked flawlessly without issues. My box is pretty tight but the weir and drains are working well.

A little vid of the plumbing and the rest of the setup. I'm mumbling along the whole way (just got up), but at least there's a little commentary and info/thoughts about the setup. I still need to adjust the plumbing, lengthening of the drain and adding a filter sock, etc.

Hasn't yet... still considering what I want to do. Spray painting them would be soooo much cheaper.

Not ideally. Most of the plants we grow where dry starts are effective don't do well without co2 injection. They will dry start fine but most will fail in the weeks/ months after filling. Pumping the co2 after filling helps the transition to submersed growth. Most non co2 setups will not sustain carpets, at least not thick healthy ones. Dwarf sag seems to work well as the exception. No need to dry start there.

Is it a ceramic disc? Did you soak it for a bit first?

Bettas do like airspace though so a full surface would probably be preferred. My buddy has a betta in a chi he got for his girlfriend. He runs it stock and the betta seems to do well.

Consider a frosted glass background. I put a window effects frosted glass thingy on my tank and it looks pretty cool. Kinda like the tank goes on forever.

Ironically, I see it as the dumb way to have a planted tank. No offence intended. I just don't understand why anyone would only want to do water changes twice a year. Go stand in the closet... now open the door once around xmas and look out. Close the door and don't open it again until the following summer. Eww. Also, soil is a pain in the butt to deal with. Chances are you'll have some sort of issue, algae, issues uprooting plants, etc. Lastly, I've never seen a pretty natural planted tank although this is a personal thing. It's just, you don't typically have fantastic, perfect, healthy growth in a Walstad tank. The plants generally grow slowly and it literally takes you six months to develop a scape, if you even have the patience to get there. And really, natural isn't a word that really describes a Walstad tank. Natural is non-limiting light, ferts and co2 and heavy water changes. As far as natural is concerned, a "natural", "Walstad", or "low tech" tank is as far as it gets from nature. If you want to imitate nature you must provide lots of co2, lots of fertilizers and lots of light. Only the light will get you into trouble with algae so it's good to tone it down.

Three gallons is pretty tiny.

I've heard, not measured personally, that dirty glass tops will block around 20% of the light. Window screen is commonly used to block the light on purpose if you have a bit too much and don't want to swap or raise the fixture. Jewels, that was big of you ^. But you are right... misinformation spreads like the plague online. Numbers don't lie though.

Ah, I see what you mean. I thought of too cool being as having too low a current. Because the lack of head they would product. I wouldn't think it would be very realistic to get the temperature lower than room temp. It didn't occur to me because who would bother cooling them to say freezing temp?

Okay OP. You say you have a 55 gallon. You cleared out those 17 fish how long before you got your first rainbows? Over what period did you stock up to what number of rainbows? A quarantine should take about 1.5- 2 months before you add those fish to your tank. After that amount of time the new fish will have regained their immune system strength (bad wording) and likely shown any diseases/ parasites they have been carrying. Moving fish is stressful and can knock down the immune system of said fish and bring can bring issues to the surface. There are many things in a normal healthy tank that can plague a fish. Normally this is not an issue as the fish are all strong and healthy. Ich is a perfect example. Cysts are found in water everywhere, including our tank. But it doesn't show it's face until a fish has a weakened immune system. Clown loaches are notorious for this. Add on top that you may have transferred out fish and waited a few days or weeks before restocking and your bio load may have been pretty heavy for that tank. The bacteria doesn't take long to die back without food, ammonia. And yes, rinsing out the media under the tap could do damage to the biological filter. So can having a filter turned off for more than 30min+ as well as other things. On top of that, unless you are heavily planted the tank was probably overstocked at the end there.

Jerry is saying running them at super low currents doesn't hurt them like you said a few posts back.