cullymoto

naja has grown for me like a weed, at the next auction i will have some for sale lol. if you plant it it will root, but it does just as well as a floating mass of grass. never bothered with co2 or ferts and this stuff thrives in edmonton tap water.

on a side note; if you dont like the Bare bottom look, flip the tank over and spray paint the bottom. I personally like to use a light brown paint with a textured finish to it. It looks like a clay river bottom yet is Bare bottom.

Sorry to hear about your discus. I recently cleaned my 90 gal storage tank with bleach. adding 25ml of household bleach(6%) created a 4ppm solution. 4ppm is what is used in municipal water where chlorine is still used. A single double dose of prime is able to remove 6ppm chlorine. check out the links for the formulas you will need to figure out how much bleach to add in order to stay safe. http://delloyd.50megs.com/ppm.html The website is not a light read, but everything you need is right there. Except of coarse the brain in your head.

Could be a natural occurring organism such as hydra or planaria worms, both are constantly there but so long as feeding is controlled you'll never see them

Pura brand phoslock, Rowa phosphate remover, two little fishes phosphate remover media, sea chem labs phosguard, fluval clear max. Etc etc etc...

There are filter medias that will pull phosphates out, best bet is to limit your light. No more than 8 hours on per day and no direct sunlight ever.

This spring, as with any other the Edmonton treatment plants add extra chlorimine to combat extra ammonia etc from run off. You would be wise to double dose your dechlorinator.

A few dollars spent on some ridged foam insulation, used as a wrap behind your background and on all sides of sumps goes a long way.

It took some serious digging but I found a solution. Places that still use chlorine in municipal water run a 4ppm sodium hypochlorite solution. Using my household bleach (also sodium hypochlorite) at 6% solution I created a 4.5ppm solution in the entire holding tank. 1 double dose of prime nullifies as much as 6.6ppm. This website ( http://delloyd.50megs.com/ppm.html ) was instrumental with it's conversions and formulas as using ppm, mg/l, %, and gallons all in one equation was a little daunting lol.

You could buff it out, basically a super fine sanding of the glass which will produce a clear finish. Talk to people at a glass store about that. Another idea is to fill it with a careful application of super glue. In fact the glass store people can help you there also

Good idea. Thank you, and yes that is a good link.

Hello fellow enthusiasts I have a 90 gal. Storage tank, this tank holds my r/o water and as such it has no chlorimine in it. Over time it has accumulated a bit of a slime on surfaces inside the holding tank, pump, fill valve etc. I've tested the water and all parameters are where they should be so it is'nt immediately harmful but it could develope into a problem. I'm thinking of just adding X amount of chlorine bleach to the tank when full, letting that sit and run the pump a bit, than dose prime or safe, whatever Dechlore at double dose to remove the bleach at next water change. This should be more than suitable to kill off whatever is growing in there, but not harmful enough to kill off my discus, problem Is I have no idea how much bleach should be added. Anyone out there have a formula? Or perhaps a better idea? Thanks for looking in.

I use an under gravel heat system in the planted area of my tank. It is not remote controlled or anything fancy, just a wire and a wall ca unit. It provides nice, gentle even heat and I have never had any problems with it.

If you can get some freeze dried black worms you'll be in business. Fish go crazy for those things, and they are super high in protein.

Eheim makes a nice one. 4 programmable times can be set. Around 50 bucks brand new. Can b bought online or at big al's

An earlier post mentioned amonia/ nitrite poisoning. this may be it actually. We're experiencing a snow melt right now. Meaning that ALL municipal water treatment people go nuts on chlorimine addition to the city water to account for the high levels of ammonia / nitrate entering the system during a melt. with more chlorine/chlorimine in the water the bacteria that keeps fish alive cant live in the municipal system. (those same bacteria make people sick.) if your not overdosing your de-chlore during a melt or immediately after a heavy rain, expect to see some problems. Salt dipping your snails will kill them, adding salt at as high as 1 tablespoon per 5 gal wont harm them. May stop them from breeding but they'll live just fine. ... wish I could get rid of my nuisance snails actually.... ive added a lot of salt to the tank hoping to kill them.... little buggers are still thriving.

I'm sorry I cant help you with Co2, I have no experience with it. And I'm a bit off topic here...if your looking for a plant grow tank r/o may not be the best option... I have a 3 stage r/o (whirlpool), it is a 30 gpd unit with a small booster pump inline to make it run 45 - 50gpd. way more than it was designed to run. I have been running it nearly constantly ( ie; it is always working to refill my storage tank + we drink it, as soon as the storage tank is full I do a large water change on my 125gal discus tank) for a year. the cartridges are designed to run 30 gpd for 6 months then be replaced. I run it at 45 - 50 gpd for 14 months now and still reads 0 ppm gh, 0 kh, 0 chlorine/chlorimine, and ph 6.0. so long as it maintains these kind of figures i do not plan on replacing the cartridges... if they require a change it will cost $100.00 Initial start-up cost was sub $400 + my time to install it (3 on a 1-10 difficulty scale) and a higher water bill since installing it. These test results are not right for african cichlids...or plants. They both need minerals in the water column. You would be adding kh, gh, and ph to your water to make it suitable for them. for south american cichlids this water is much closer to ideal, I just have to add kh. Hope this is of help.

Pima / melafix do nothing. Its tea tree oil, an unproven holistic medicine that is toxic, and fatal at high concentrations. Throw that junk away. 95% of fish problems are caused by a water quality issue. That should be your first step, improve the water quality. If you feel that some kind of "med" is needed than aquarium salt is a great and safe place to start. In severe cases one can perform salt dips. Create a small volume of tank water, at tank temperature. Saturate this water with aquarium salt and let it dissolve. This water should have an air stone to maintain aeration. The fish is moved into this water, the salt environment kills off anything on the fish exterior. When the fish begins to "roll over" or breathing becomes slow or 5 minutes passes the fish is removed and placed back into clean tank water. This can be done once a day. I have salt dipped an extremely sick discus with good results. Tink of this like putting iodine on a cut. Stings a little, but it keeps your wound clean.

Came home with much more than I thought I would! A 20gal drilled tank, a small portion of spikey moss, a big bag of naja grass, the first bag of cherry shrimp ( almost 30 of them in there ), and a small bag of rili shrimp. Both bags of shrimp have some kind of fern plant in there with the shrimps, anyone able to identify the plant that came with the shrimp bags? All in all it was a great experience, and I may have to join up as a seller next time. Thank you to all who make such a event possible.

Hello and thanks for looking in. I'm in a bit of a pickle and could use a 2nd opinion. I have an Eheim pro 3 model 2075 canister filter. While doing maintenence on my tank and filter i re-assembled everything the way ive done a hundred times before. The removable valve assembly piece seems to have stuck at 25% open. the on / off lever now only seems to operate the discharge side, while the intake side remains at 25% open. Anyone familiar with these filters knows that you cannot remove the valve assembly while it is in the open position...... so... the filter now wil only run at 25% (not enough) I cannot remove the assembly from the power head since I cant get the valve to close.... It's sunday so of coarse the eheim people are closed... Anyone have some ideas for getting the valve to close so I can remove it to replace the assembly, or to fix the unit... besides smashing it... cause thats what i feel like doing to it....

please dont take this the wrong way. Water quality is the single largest determining factor in the life / health of any fish. You mention your feeding habits and they're great, you say nothing of water changes. From my own experience - when i didnt know better and had my first few discus and barely did water changes, they took 2 years to grow an inch. I learned more and now do weekly, very large water changes. I have a new herd - have grown over an inch in a month or so. with little to no change in how or what I feed. Its all in the water quality.

Any tips on getting rams to lay? I've had a pair lay in a community tank several times now, the pleco's always get the eggs. So a few times I have moved them to a 10G breeder set-up and they wont lay in there. daily r/o water changes, amazon extract added, lots of fake plants for shelter, lots of high quality frozen food with FDBW as well.... they get a bit stressed with the move of coarse, but they never seem to settle down at all for me. Any advice you could give?

i believe it to be an air tube that you are mistaking for a 2nd container, the red chip is a piece of stone. Rams lay eggs on horizontal flat surfaces. these are my guesses.

Znaika hits the nail on the head. Only thing I would add is to start using a live nitrifying bacteria product with your water changes. Until your BB is established DO NOT clean your filter.

I dont really want to get into details, or a pissing match here. I was in that store once. they had discus and they were not in great shape, if your fine having average fish than buy them. It is great they have fish from a reputable source but, your still overpaying greatly, you still dont know how old the fish is, you still dont know several factors that are critical. I would like to point out that these fish can live for as long as 10 years. You should not get "just any fish" because you want discus. Be patient, watch what the breeders have and make carefull selections. Back to the Original posters questions. You mention peppering. Peppering has very little to do with water quality. Peppering is actually genetics / environmental. If you keep pigeon blood genetically based fish in a dark environment they will pepper. There exceptions to this rule - some breeders have very carefully selective bred PB basses to reduce or eliminate peppering. Your tank ( just like mine ) has black gravel and a dark blue background. Your Pigeon blood fish WILL pepper. (just like my 1 PB fish, and my 1 lemon [ a PB genetically based variant ]) If you don't want peppering, you need a mainly bright environment, and have to select high quality breeds. Alternatively you can avoid PB based fish - no PB, no marlboro, no melon, no yellows etc. Stay with the Turqiouse strains (black bar type) or the solid colors. You mention a nice variety of feed. I have made my own feed to ensure a mixed diet. In my opinion any home made feed for discus should start with fresh garlic, fresh spinach, and paprika. garlic is an immuno booster, spinach is a super food - high in vitamins and minerals - paprika is a natural color enhancer and rich in vitamins also. After those three I add brine shrimp, high protien fry food ( powder ) flake, bloodworms, squid, banana, blueberries, broccoli stalk, and the kitchen sink lol. I put it all in a food prosessor then freeze it in a plastic bag. Smash it up after its frozen and voila. If you suspect flukes, get Prazzi. use 14 days of treatment. it becomes expensive, but with a 14 day treatment you will kill both the active fluke generation, as well as the next generation currently in egg form. Nothing fish safe will kill the eggs, so you must treat long enough that when the eggs hatch they are killed immediately afterwards. Prazzi is both effective and safe. Hope that Helps