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    Edmonton

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blink's Achievements

  1. This is looking great, I can't wait to see the finished result!
  2. When we started out the hardest issue I had with salt water was the amount of maintenance, if you fall behind at all things start piling up. And if your water quality falls behind the things that pile up are expensive dead things. To avoid that one suggestion is to set up a mixing station. Automate and regulate your salt mixing and water changing processes as much as possible, make it easy and consistent, do it the same every time and DO IT. For example, my goal was to have a water change done in half an hour on a 165 gallon tank and after a while, I got there. It involved a bunch of spare pumps and taking over half the laundry room, but it went as follows: The day before I'd put the water, a power head and heater into a 40 gallon rubbermaid brute can, pour in my premeasured salt and wait 24 hours to let it mix and warm up. I had a pump set up in the mixing bin with a hose that ran to the sump, and another in the sump that drained to the laundry room drain. I'd start the sump pump up and let it drain the sump, swirling any mung towards the pump outlet, once it was drained then I'd put it pump in the display and drain down to a mark on the side of the glass. As soon as I moved the pump into the display I'd turn on the pump in the mixing bucket and start filling the sump. A quick glass clean, pick up any debris or detritus in the display and once the mixing bin was empty, start the main return pump back up. Fill up the ATO bin and feed the starving buttheads and that was Sunday maintenance done. Also, get a heater controller, Inkbird makes a large variety of options but regardless of what you choose, IMHO they're critical. The one I'm currently using links to my wifi and will alert if the heater fails in addition to preventing it from heating the tank up too much... For the $50 I spent it's well worth it for peace of mind. If you want to dip into salt water I don't have any current resources to suggest but hit up the big forums and search out beginners guides, the experienced people will naysay any poor advice as opposed to a book or independent DIY site where there will be no dissenting voices. I do have two last pieces of advice: 1) Keep your hands out of the tank. The temptation is great to fuss and fiddle and change things. Do not. Try your very hardest to do your maintenance on a strict schedule, and get it all done at once whenever possible. 2) Go as big as you can reasonably afford. This doesn't actually make it "easier" but it gives you a buffer if anything does start to go wrong. A 25 gallon will crash very rapidly if your water quality slips whereas a 125 gallon can absorb a slip up and give you time to correct.
  3. InTank makes baskets and a couple other accessories for the Flex tanks, I've had their product in the past for a Biocube and I found it well made, albeit a little pricey at the time. I can't comment on how well the fit the Flex or if it will truly be an improvement but it's a place to start looking. https://intankaquatics.com/fluval-flex-15-fluval-flex-57l/
  4. Hi folks, nice to see some resurgence in forums after facebook beat the life out of all the fish groups.
  5. I don't like them aesthetically but I have no hands-on experience with them. They looked decently well made when I looked at them in store but that was just a quick 5 minute walk around.
  6. blink

    Deep Blue Tanks

    Tried asking and looking at every fish store in Edmonton several times and no one was interested in my money. IMO the 2.3 gallon 5 bay betta tank is cruelly small for anything other than show display or short term sales display, there's less than half a gallon per fish. If I were you guys I'd talk to Neil Wilson, Aquagiant, Concept or one of the other tank builders around the province and have a proper betta barracks built that gives a reasonable amount of space per fish, but that's just my 2 cents.
  7. Ah, well that's why it reads funny, it's reading flow not pressure. There's no way you'll flow enough CO2 in a properly adjusted aquarium to register on a flow gauge. You can replace the flow gauge with a pressure gauge (about $14 at princess auto) if you intend to keep the regulator. In the meantime you can increase the pressure a little at a time until you can consistently achieve your desired bubble rate, you just won't have an accurate gauge reading.
  8. What is CFH? PSI is pressure measurement. I set my regulator to 30 PSI and it doesn't vary no matter what you do to the needle valve because the regulator is what controls the pressure, not the needle valve. If your regulator won't hold the set pressure then your regulator is probably defective.
  9. Most hydroponic stores should have T5HO bulbs available, I know of a couple here in Edmonton that sell them for about $7-10 depending on size
  10. I'm pretty sure some or several of the stores in Edmonton are infested, people keep getting worms more and more lately and it just seems too suspicious that there would be so many cases in such a short period of time unless the fish were coming in sick.
  11. I believe that blaming the LFS for selling you bad fish is like blaming a used car for breaking down after driving it for years with no maintenance. Yes, you can get sick or weak fish from a LFS, in fact I'll wager MOST fish come from the LFS in a sick and/or weakened state. As some of the previous posts have detailed, the fish trade is very hard on livestock and many fish die to get to our tanks, knowing this you can't really assume that the fish which are left over are healthy, they're just healthier than the ones which didn't survive the trip. Back to my original analogy, if you buy a used car the first thing you should do IMHO, is change the oil and other fluids, yup, even if the slick looking fellow in the polyester suit tells you they've been changed. It's good policy to KNOW that you start with good maintenance practices and to continue them. Same with fish! Sure those new fish are pretty and gosh, they'd look fantastic in your tank but you need to quarantine them, for at least a month or better, two months. Some fish should be treated for camallanus worms (great info here: http://albertaaquatica.com/index.php?showtopic=44503&hl= ), some fish should be treated for wasting (CPD/galaxy rasbora seem to usually have wasting from the factory), other fish just need time to acclimate to your water and husbandry. There are stores which tell you they quarantine and I say hogwash. Putting fish into a random store tank which is used for all new arrivals for a few days or even a week is not long enough to know whether they've got any illnesses or parasites, in fact in the case of camallanus worms you could infect 4 new batches of fish before the first fish start showing visible signs of worms. By that time how many tanks in the store will be infected by the new arrivals? In the case of some of our Edmonton LFS, one batch of fish with camallanus worms could infect ALL of the fish since their tanks are joined into one system. Basically what I'm saying is that you are responsible for your fish, so quarantine them (2 months) and treat them as needed. This forum and the various facebook groups are wonderful resources that let you have an entire fish keepers club at your fingertips, if you can't identify an illness or parasite chances are one of the other keepers can so don't be shy about asking for help.
  12. For that tank I'd get a single bulb T5HO sunblaster fixture and a 6500 K bulb, should cost around $50 and along with your LEDs will give you lots of light without getting too crazy
  13. I'm sorry to hear about your ram, I also lost my favorite fish, a big Bolivian ram to worms. I didn't see your post in time to help but if the worms are visible I'm sorry to say but that fish probably will not survive. Treat the tank and hopefully you can save the female and any wigglers that hatch out.
  14. Take the light and remote to Big Al's, I believe they still sell Satellite+ lights. Ask them nicely if they can help you troubleshoot it, I know Big Al's in Edmonton usually has a Satellite+ on display somewhere in the store which you could use to test your remote, then you could test your light with their remote. Or see if anyone on here has one of the lights and is willing to help in a similar manner.
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