Mighty Prawn

I've read a lot lot lot lot lot of stuff on people making their own live-rock and calling it agrocrete. However, I've never really read much of anything about its use in a freshwater tank. I'm very interested in making my own rock for use in a freshwater aquarium. Has anyone done it themselves? Anyone know enough about this agrocrete substance to tell me if it would be safe in freshwater? I'd be making some cave like pieces mostly, and I'd like to be able to make them as smooth as possible. I've heard that using concrete mixed with sand is decent, but has to cure for months and months and months in constant fresh water changes. That's something I won't be able to commit to due to school unfortunately. I don't mind if it's curing for about a month or so. Anyone? Either way, I'll be documenting my process with photos and a write up for a DIY post I'll make. -Hideo

You can't get a macro lens for that price, but you CAN get an extension tube. Just go into a camera store (Robinson's Camera for example) and ask them for an extension tube for your rebel. -Hideo

I have a piece of driftwood that took a month before it would sink on its own. Weigh it down and give it time :-) -Hideo

But just think, you could start up a little bakery. Fish flavoured buns! -Hideo

I saw an ad in the Sobey's in my neighborhood and someone was selling 2 10 feet long metal shelving units for aquariums. They were 6 feet high, 10 feet long and 2 and a half feet deep. It was advertised directly for aquariums, so I am assuming the weight load is adequate. I have to go pick up some groceries tonight I'll see if I can get a price and a phone number in case you are interested. -Hideo

I'm just curious, is it cheaper directly through them? You can pm it to me if you'd like. I need some lids made, but I'll do it directly through Riverfront but only if they get something for it. If it does nothing but give you guys more work I'll just call directly :-) -Hideo

I friggin loooooove laminate flooring. I haven't had issues with spills myself, though I used to be quite the messy water changer. I keep a stack of towels stored underneath my tank, and have a biiiiig squeegee thing in case of a huge spill. All my tanks are in my basement now, and the second basement has a drain in the floor. If I ever get a massive spill, I'll throw towels all around the edges of the wall, and use the squeegee to push all the water into my second basement, than into the drain. The second basement is unfinished so it's not a big deal if water is everywhere. I read on another forum that some guy keeps a few bags of flower handy in case of a tank breakage, and tossing the flower on it will soak up the water and prevent it from seeping into cracks. I don't know about that, seems like it'd fail to me, but just an idea. -Hideo

Film speed is way the wrong answer. The faster the film, the more noise present, and the more "grany" your images will look. The key is slow film speed and proper use of flash. Point and shoot is okay, what camera is it? -Hideo

Or I'll tell you for free. What kind of camera do you have? SLR or point and shoot? Easier with an SLR and an external flash, but point and shoot is possible as well. Maybe I'll swing by Riverfront sometime when you're there and give you a crash course. -Hideo

I am getting ready to start pricing out an inground/outground pond. I am trying to compile a list of everything I could possibly need for Calgary. I'll do up some quick sketches later, but it will be 3 depths, probably at its deepest 3 to 3 and a half feet in the ground, 2 to 2 and a half feet, and than a foot to a foot and a half deep. The walls will all be the same height, probably 1 to 2 feet high. I plant to build a small "bird bath" type deal that will also be a little water fountain pouring into the deepest part of the pond. I am not well versed in ponds, however. Do I need some kind of sump like I would an indoor aquarium? Or do I simply need a pump to move the water so it doesn't become stagnant? I also imagine I will need some kind of UV steralizer to eliminate extreme algae. For winter, I am hoping to leave my fish as is in the pond. Either with a pond heater, or a combo of pond heater, and one of those things that floats around the surface all the time. Any reccomendations on things not to forget, "must haves" or filtration? I've read that as long as your pond is 3 feet or so in ground you can let the surface freeze and the fish will be fine. I'd still like to keep the water unfrozen however, as long as it won't negatively affect the fish. The fish will be koi mostly, and some other goldfish that will over winter indoors in an aquarium, or possibly an indoor pond I'd also like to build. Is there a Gold's or Riverfront of ponds? What I mean by that is independantly owned, operated and with non-big box store prices? -Hideo

I have had mostly bad luck with mystery snail eggs. Aside from a few, I've had about 15 batches of eggs that did not make it. Some of them I left where they were and did nothing to them. Some I floated on a piece of styrofoam and did nothing else to them, and some I floated on an angled piece of styrofoam and misted them twice daily. None of them worked out. In fact, I still have the dried remains of an egg clutch above my water line. I plan to try again later in a tank specifically for mystery snails. It's going to be a real utopia for snails. But not for a bit. -Hideo

So, would trumpet snails keep a 180 full of sand aerated? Or would they just end up adding so much bio-waste that it wouldn't be worth it? I kind of want to do sand in my 180 but once the fish are all in there, I really don't want to have to move them all if I want to switch back to gravel. Gravel is just realllllly expensive in that quantity and gets a real pain to vacuum it all in a big tank. If that's what I end up having to do it's fine, but if I can find a better alternative, I'd take it. So far with sand in my smaller tanks, the waste sits right on the top and I just have to skim the vacuum over top of it, and if the snails don't keep it aerated I just stir it up a bit everytime I do a water change. Sand seems like it'd be easier, but what do those of you with larger tanks think? Sand or gravel? -Hideo

Actually it's not for me at all, I thought I would ask though as in all my fish knowledge, only about 1% of that is about cichlids ;-) A friend of mine wants to put some in a 15 gallon. He's from winnipeg, said the fish store there called Nestors or something suggested electric yellows, and I am trying to steer him to shell dwellers instead. (I just don't love elec yellows) -Hideo

What are some ideas for a small cichlid community in a 15 gallon standard? Julies maybe? -Hideo

My bet is your guppies are dying from PH shock when you do water changes. Or the general hardness may also be a cause. Perhaps doing frequent, smaller water changes rather than 50% a week would help. If the nitrates and nitrites are 0, doesn't sound like those are a problem. Perhaps try 5-10% water changes a day, or every couple days rather than one huge one once a week. For my guppies, that's what I do. I found when I did a regular 50% change every saturday, the guppies were not doing well immediately after. I switched it up to 10% every 3 days, and they breed like mad now. I believe hardness/ph is also a contributing factor to the guppies never breeding again. I'm not 100% on the exact number but I think guppies like a ph of 6.8 and a hardness level of 6 or so. I don't have a fish book on me right now so I can't be sure of those numbers :-( -Hideo

Given the vast amount of water many of us use for water changes, what kinds of things do you, or have you done in the past, to conserve water? I know Calgary has had some instances where we had to conserve water. With my conservation habits I have managed to keep my water bill lower than my parents, who have a 10 foot by 10 foot lawn to water. Essentially, instead of using my python in the sink when vacuuming, I instead syphon the water out into my backyard in a rain barrel, and if it's a tank in my basement, I vacuum all of the tanks into a large rubbermaid garbage can, and use a sump pump to pump the water out through my basement window into another rain barrel. (I pump the water into a garbage can first just in case the sump pump leeches something back into the water, as it's not aquarium grade, but from Rona) Not only does it re-use tons of water that would otherwise be wasted, but my plants loooooove the water. The only other major thing I do is take "japanese" style showers that I learned from some exchange students. (Future exchange students were impressed that my family showered this way). Basically, you get into the shower, run the water for a second until your body is soaked, lather with soap and shampoo, turn the water back on and rinse. I've timed myself with a typical shower vs. this style shower, and a "normal" shower usually lasted 15 minutes, sometimes 20 or 25. My wife and mother also seem to take much longer showers, 20-25 usually sometimes 30-35. That's just in the shower time. Comparing the "japanese" style showering, the water is running for usually 3-4 minutes. With an average low-flow shower head, that's 2.5 gallons per minute. Japanese style clocks in at 10 gallons used. "Canadian" style clocks in at a ridiculous 37.5 gallons on the low side, 87.5 on the extremely high side. I find that makes a huge difference, and isn't gross like some other water saving shower styles. (Another japanese style has you sponging off/cleaning outside the bath, and the entire family sharing the bath water throughout the night) And the last thing is shaving. Instead of running the tap, I fill a cup with hot water, and rinse my razor off inside vigorously, and rinse with running water. Small amount saved compared to the shower, but still a bit. I've heard of some people having a big wash basin in their shower, and catching the excess water when they're not at the soap stage, and pouring that water into a rain barrel. As a note, when it was raining in Calgary lately, I had no room in my rain barrels. I am considering buying 2 more. I have no idea what to do with all the excess aquarium water in the winter time, however. Anyone have any good suggestions? Any other water saving tips? -Hideo

I loooooooove the sound. I have 5 tanks in my living room, all with hang on backs, 1 with a cannister. The cannister filter has the spray bar pointing slightly up so the jets shoot out of the water and back in. I also have 2 tanks in my recording studio, I like having the water sound in the backround sometimes. Otherwise it's as simple as putting up a foam wall if I don't want it. Only 1 tank in the bedroom, and the sound can't be heard due to my air conditioner. Thankfully, my wife doesn't notice it, or it doesn't bother her, either way, I'm happy! -Hideo

Plumbing is pretty simple, just the pipe running from the overflow down, an elbow joint, than a capped off pipe at the end with some largish holes drilled into the pipe like a spray bar, but it's more of a, pour bar, if that makes sense. And the return is a pipe on the mag 17, immediate elbow joint, and 3 other elbow joints on the way back up. I had quite a few baffles I think, I had 5 different pieces of acrylic set up. I'll try moving 3. -Hideo

Petcetera at Sunridge has 2 marble shrimp right now. Kind of cool, look like detritus feeders to me. Bigger than your average shrimp, yellowish kind of colour to them, 15$ each. -Hideo

I've got a mag 17 in a 55 gallon sump, filled about halfway. It seems to empty itself out before the overflow can fill it. Should I raise the water level? It's hard to do as the filter media needs to be out of the water to keep bacteria, correct? Or so I am told... I think if I had the tank nearly full it would be alright. I've considered putting my rena cannister into the sump as well to add more water, but I like using it for some more aeration/flow in the tank itself. Any other ways around this? Will it really be such a bad thing if I have half of the media submerged? -Hideo

Well the problem with the eclipse, is the filter is the lid. So I just moved them all to a spare tank I have set up and running (just for this reason!) -Hideo

So, I walk over to look into my snail/shrimp tank. Every single snail, and every shrimp, and all high in the tank. All the trumpet and pond snails are on the glass about halfway to the top, just sitting there, and all the shrimp are sitting in the plants at the same level. I have no idea why. There are hundreds or snails I didn't even know were in my tank. I thought maybe the water. Did a test, nitrates, ammonia etc. are all perfect. Temperature is 80 as usual. Usually I see about 10, maybe 15 snails at a time. But it's like every single one is out. There are those little worms I posted about once, they are out, too, and eating a dead snail on the bottom. That's the only other odd thing I can think of. Any idea what is going on? -Hideo Crap, that might be it. The filter has stopped running (eclipse tank), so there probably isn't any oxygen. -Hideo

I used to have a ton of cherry shrimp, but they all died from what I assume was a heater malfunction. I am going to be moving them to a larger tank and attempt breeding them for profit. If it works out I will sell you some for cheap. Otherwise, Riverfront usually has some kind of shrimp. -Hideo

Hopefully someone doesn't buy em and throw in in a local lake when it gets 2 feet long :-) -Hideo

Congrats on the new house! Welcome to Calgary! -Hideo