Percilus

Welcome. Sounds like your suffering from mts worse than I am haha. I only have a chi/ebi/24/5.5 running right now Wish I could do more but other priorities first. 10/20 eventually ! Current living situation I wont be adding anything bigger than a 30 without risking getting the boot haha.

welcome

There are many medicinal options. Most will harm the shrimp though. A quick google search will bring them up. Yer correct everything seems to enjoy eating shrimplets, it is their purpose in the wild after all

I'd add something that will eat them. A small Tetra school would probably do it. They wouldn't harm your shrimp I don't think.

What's a typical wild diet for a fish such as a tetra?

With its iridescent blue and vivid red colors, the cardinal tetra is one of the most striking fishes in the world. Huge numbers are collected and exported each year from their Amazonian home, but although they are a familiar sight in aquarium shops, little is known of their life in the wild. One of the most important steps in finding out about the biology of any species is to find out what it eats.

Researchers examining the diet of cardinal tetras from flooded forests and stream tributaries of the Rio Negro found that the fish were naturally eating a very broad range of foods. The stomach contents of the fish included crustaceans, such as Daphnia species and copepods, the larvae and adults of flies, mosquitoes, beetles, and bugs, as well as ants, shrimps, fish fry, eggs, algae, and fibrous plant matter. The smaller fish -- those measuring 1 inch (2.5 cm) -- also preyed extensively on tiny rotifers. Perhaps most surprisingly, the results also showed up scales and parts of other; larger fish, which suggests that the cardinal tetras are not averse to scavenging on dead fish.

* Source http://infolific.com/pets/fish-in-the-wild/fish-diets-in-the-wild/

You can also in the future dip your plants in a 25/1 solutions of bleach prior to planting to ensure no hitchhikers that are unwanted.

Cool

I run Finnex on all my tanks with plants and have great results for 2.5yrs and have not had an issue yet! I find that if you keep the transformer in an area where it can get some air current it does well. I installed a little micro fan under my stand to circulate air. It's amazing to see how much heat differential there is in an enclosed system. 5-6C.

I grow a lot of plants in tall 120g 4ft tanks - from red Ludwigia to tenellus and Echinodorus with CO2 and fertilizers with a garbage bag of clippings being disposed of weekly.

I don't see anyone bashing Finnex but if you want to see an article on comparing outputs in the aquarium magazine there was one done in Amazonas I believe in the past 12-18 months.

I have had T5HO and Compact Four Pin flourescents as well and prefer the lack of noise and less heat created with LED's. Now I have boughten many generations of LED from Finnex I am most happy with the Planted + lighting system and my only complaint is the chords need to be much longer due to the large tank heights. As well the other issue with the older models is that would heat sink the boards to the aluminum housing but they also had some shielding issues with the internal power wires creating a direct ground to the housing as well. When you were working on the tank and touched the light you could get a good shock!

The point being is that the technology is catching up but the LED's vary and I don't think that they are nearly refined to the point that the current T5HO or Halogen systems have become so the future should be positive. We use LED's in our downhole oilfield equipment (cameras) that can withstand temps of 150C and pressures of 20K psi! So I deal with single point LED's (one bulb of the same size we have in our lights) that puts out 1850 lumens per bulb. It's lifetime is 750-1000 hrs at best but it shows you the extreme side of technology when you are willing to pay 1500.00/bulb.

You are correct in that

Thanks for the info

Yea to help out with

Hey Ron on that note would a Amano or Cherry shrimp do well in a heavily planted chi 6.6? I know the footprint is pretty terrible for stalking fish. Shrimp/snails is what I was thinking or just a single betta or something. Since your a shrimp guy let me know what yea think. Novice here as well. I've heard cherry shrimp are probably my best bet for hardiness? How many could I do?

Either would do fine but depends on what purpose you'd like them for. If it's for algae control, go with Amanos. In my personal experience, Amanos are hardier shrimp.

I was leaning towards Amano for a clean up crew plus sometimes I hear they have interesting behaviour and are fun to watch. Probably some MTS and was contemplating maybe a couple Dario Dario. Anyone that owns Scarlet Badis let me know if you think they would be happy in a 10x10x16 foot print heavily planted.

Welcome! Tanks are way better than tv after a long day I even find the maintenance part helps me focus away from crap and relax.

Hey Ron on that note would a Amano or Cherry shrimp do well in a heavily planted chi 6.6? I know the footprint is pretty terrible for stalking fish. Shrimp/snails is what I was thinking or just a single betta or something. Since your a shrimp guy let me know what yea think. Novice here as well. I've heard cherry shrimp are probably my best bet for hardiness? How many could I do?

So if that goes through I will have first hand experience with Finnex lights and my mini 400 aquaray is in the mail so we shall see!

So you've bought used T5HO fixtures even though you have an Aquaray on its way?

I only bought 1 mini 400. I'll try it on a used chi I bought for $25. Will be a good experiment to because it's the 6.6 chi and it's 16 " high. If i see a cheap Finnex fixture I'll grab that used and try it as well if I can and than I can make a judgement from experience as Blink said you never know for sure until you do it yourself and know for sure. There was a guy selling a 30 " Finnex planted + but he wanted more than I wanted to pay for that experiment. The t5's are fully functional set ups not just lights. Perfect for me to learn with. Mcturtles tanks you probably know her.

Reytube Those are stunning. That discus tank is gorgeous. Great choice on their colour!

I figured I would finally show one of my tanks. This is the one I'm happy with, although it needs a trim right now.

10 gallon

HOB filter with modified inserts

DIY CO2 through an airstone in the bottom of an internal filter - works really well.

2 x T5HO bulbs

fertilizing with PPS pro.

Cherry shrimp

ember tetras

corkscrew valls

Mayaca fluviatilis

java fern

anubias nana

cryptocoryne ?

water wisteria

Bacopa caroliniana

Ludwigia repens

hairgrass

HC

hornwort

pheonix moss

mini fiss - temporary

wow there is ALOT in there.

That algae right in the front is on the way out too!

That is quite possibly for me anyhow one of the best aquascaped 10 gallons I've seen on the internet. Congrats. I don't think it needs a trim at all it was perfect in my opinion.

Thanks for the recommendations guys.

I'm not really sure why you have such a vendetta against Finnex but I bought one of their Ray II lights used at the fall auction and it's doing just fine even though it's at least a year old. It also has no problem growing plants even in my jungle tank.

Finnex is very obtainable in Canada as long as you don't mind shipping it to Montana and picking it up lol, sure it's a pain in the butt but it's not like the border patrol is going to search your car and throw you in jail for trying to import a Finnex light. They don't have CSA certification so they can't sell them here and they are FAR from the only product that is in the same situation, many companies don't bother spending the money to certify something that won't sell in high enough volume to recoup the investment.

I'd politely suggest you get some real world experience and stop believing everything you read, you might just surprise yourself with what you like or don't like once you've tried it.

No vendetta. Just the professionals I talked to all over North America and Europe don't seem to agree with the average forum posters on line about finnex lights. A lot of my information came straight from the people who set this stuff up for a living. I fibbed a lot and had them quote me set ups I never intended to go through with. Picked their brains about lighting among other things. Plus the science on line etc. I never stated I was correct. I don't like to pay $350 for something I know won't do what I want it to do later and than have to upgrade. Wasting time and money is stupid in my opinion and I'm not rich. I overwhelmingly was told to go with T5HO lighting by almost every source in planted tanks I spoke with. For price and for results. So I've decided to go T5HO for now second hand due to a deal presenting itself and the fact that in 5 years LED's might be a hell of a lot farther along and cheaper. About that time I probably will have the skill and know how to do what I want with the equipment I purchase along the way.

I do care about carbon footprint but I'm not going to spend $1000 to get the LED that "may" (that's a strong maybe in most people's opinion) perform as well as a quad T5HO. I intend to one day have a carpet of baby tears a lot deeper than 16 inches and every professional immediately recommended to stay away from LED. Most experienced hobbyist's have told me the same. A couple recommended aquaray for price and for possibly being able to do a high tech set up like say

does. Don't get me wrong that guy has 25 years experience and the best equipment money can buy. But he is one of the main inspirations I have for even pursuing this hobby.

I'm not the type of guy that sits at home and watches tv all night. I don't have a bucket load of money to throw at this hobby I have other goals and aspirations that I work on daily in my life that drain my resources as well. So I won't just drop $150-$350 to try something out. If the equipment can't be put to use later with my end goals I wont purchase it.

I'm happy the Finnex lights work. Talk to a European forum They despise Finnex and love TMC. Come back over here and it's the other way around majorities speaking. I honestly personally don't know the answer like I said earlier. I was trying to find the answer. So basically I said screw LED because no one argues about the capabilities of a T5HO set up haha. So I won't be wasting my money at least. Piece of mind wins out over energy costs this time I would so go LED if I knew for sure.

On a personal note. If a company can't be bothered to get CSA approval for the Canadian market place it not only sends up red flags but also I personally won't give them my business just on general principle. I don't care how good their product is I refuse to jump through hoops for a company who won't provide a warranty for their product in my country and doesn't care about providing good service to my country. Almost everyone else is represented here? Your telling me there isn't a big enough market to give bigals a cut and stock in Canada? I call bullshit. That's just my personal opinion. I would never drive to Montana for a light lol. I'd be the biggest hypocrite ever doing something like that my wife would cuff me in the head haha. I don't expect you to understand. I'm just being honest. I never believe everything I read. I go with my gut on most things and the law of averages. No ones right all the time but it's served me well in the past.

I'd like everyone to know I was not offended in this debate at all and did not intend to offend anyone either. Lighting brings out some strong opinions in the hobby I find and I learned a lot of things from speaking with you guys/gals. Thank you.

Better check with where you buy your lights to make sure that will warranty your lights for the full five years. I know with my Aquaray, J&L covered it for the first year, than after that I had with deal with TMC directly (UK)

The second time my power supply died with them I was cheaper to buy the replacement power supply myself than to ship the light back for RMA.

IMHO there is not point in planning too far ahead with LED lighting - it is changing so quickly at this point. Chances are in 2-3 years the LED will be so much advance than you probably want to upgrade even if your fixture is still working. And of course costs are coming down all the time as well.

Best to buy something that will do what you need it to do now and than some. Pay extra for all the bells and whistles if you like.

Yea I was aware of this. How is the light doing for you? Salt or fresh? I kinda bit the bullet and bought some T5HO set ups second hand I couldn't beat the price and I wont need to replace any equipment for quite some time. Thx for the reply.

I was interested in this title because I'd never used Prime, but then wanted to try it because of good reviews. A couple of my bettas really seemed not to do well with it. A couple went from perfect health to sluggish and bloated.

Considering I didn't change anything else I had to reason it was something to do with the Prime. Notably most recovered when I stopped using it, 1 did not.

I finished the bottle on my non-betta tank, but won't buy it again.

Curious what you use in Edmonton if not prime though. It's common for Edmonton water to test .25 ammonia right out of the tap. Why I use prime to begin with. Nice to have around if you get a unforeseen spike as well. I have not noticed any odd behaviour from my betta. I usually overdose a bit as well.

My guy has always eaten fine. But he used to like to flare at his reflection in his 5.5 g on the sides. So I removed the background, Has been fine since.

He seems to love the floating log thing I bought him at bigals as well. That might calm him down. Check your water if he's spitting out the pellets he may be sick or stressed from a spike that's gone unnoticed. If it's fine and your pellets are not the smallest available try that. If not you may just have to feed him something else. A pack of hikari frozen bloods will last a life time for a betta lol Just use a small water testing pipette to siphon them out of a cup you sliver some into with a knife and aquarium water in it to thaw it out. He will come running right up and you can control the flow of the worms down to 1 or 2 max easy so you don't have to siphon anything he missed or turn your filter off to feed.

A note about the log I find the damn things paint or whatever is wearing away and I have to scrub it off periodically and it's not looking as good now after like 2 months. My boy Vince does love it though. Till I plant a home for him i rested it on a big silk anubias rip off fake plant on the dead side in his tank gives him a nice spot to rest with a breathing or feeding hole at the surface.. As for the flaring if he's in a 5ish size tank I'd either remove the background or background the sides as well so he can't see himself as well High decor on the sides will help as well possibly.

My crowntail does well with the marina slim s10 on a 5.5 g at the moment. Has pretty slow adjustable flow. More so than say a aquaclear

Very true Percilus. I have gone with the Marineland Planted leds and was very happy at first but did not like the light spread at the top of the tank so have added 2 more led lights, one from Stunner and another from U Techology Corporation which was $100 bucks for 14 meters. One is just on for a light for me to see the fish when I feed them before the main lights come on. For me the big switch was because of noise. Hated the fans on the T5. Yes with the LED's my chiller workes less and I use less energy but those are just bonuses. As for switching to LED's for plants just make sure you are over the 6000K range for a start. There are lots of other factors (spread, depth of water penetration, etc) but I see you are in Calgary so if you want send me a pm and you can come by my house and look at my tank and plants and see for yourself. I think it's funny that some people say LED's are 5 years away from growing plants. Yep hate the idea of jumping on the new band wagon. Going to stick with old tried and true. Got my incandescent bulbs any you watch all those people wilth fluorescent lights are going to discover its just a fad. LOL

I'm actually in Edmonton or I would have taken you up on this offer

Unfortunately the par and pur theories have gone the way of the dodo bird. Par is applicable to human sight, not plants. Pur was thought for a long time to be the engine which drove photosynthesis. The reason for this was that the precise wavelength which exactly matched the length of a chlorphyll molecule was thought to transfer the most energy. When the U.S. Universities got deep into determining the photosynthesis reaction they discovered that it was driven by a collection of frequencies which produced a halo. It is this " halo" which energises photosynthesis. There have been a few articles on the internet discusing this phenomen.

Strange I have not found anything talking about this yet in my research. I will search harder. I did order the aquaray mini 400 already. As far as LED options that don't run $1000 a fixture I don't think I'm going to find a better deal unless I want a T5HO set up so hopefully the popular European aquarist opinion on these lights ability to grow plants pretty damn well for a lower priced LED is true.

Welcome there are a bunch of fish nerds on here. Also the Aquarium Club of edmonton meets the first Tuesday of every month at Allendale Hall in the south side of Edmonton.

Address is 6330-105A St and meeting starts at 7:30.

I'll have to check that out.

Hello all couple questions for those with planted tanks. I have been using purigen as biomedia in my hob. I know this might not be a great setup in the future when I plant and possibly use ferts.

What do you guys use for bio media in your filters? I hear filter floss and lava rock might be better choices for bio media.

Also recommend me a good quality canister filter please. I'd like to get away from using hob on my main tanks. My main tanks are only going to be 5-55 gallon sizes but you can never have too much filtration haha! Is there any way you could run 3 small tanks off one beast canister filter. I just think the maintenance on a canister would be less annoying and the filtration would be superior. Correct me if I'm wrong.

As for warranties, Oliver Knott(google him) mentioned that leds are here to stay but the main concern is how long the light is good for. As this is new technology, most of the lights have not been running for 5 years so hence the shorter warranty. I'm sure as they streamline the lights, the warranties will improve and the prices will drop. My suggestion is to visit some of the AA members tanks with leds to see how well they grow plants rather than getting info off the internet. Seeing is believing!!

TMC is confident at least 5 years I'd love to check out some tanks !

Finnex doesn't have CSA approval and have no intention or desire to obtain it, Canada just isn't a big enough market. When they were being sold here, the dealer took care of any problems people had with the lights so saying they had 0 warranty is a lie.

I'm not a Finnex fan and I really don't care what you buy, I'm on the other end of the spectrum. I bought a $700 fixture to grow biofilm on my 35 gallon shrimp tank. It might take a little more juice but I think I've made up for it in my high efficiency home.

Which light do you have? They have a 1 year warranty. Which basically says your poop out of luck because something built badly and cheaply will generally still last for at least a year. That being said LED power supply's are not reliable things and TMC only covers the aquaray power supply for only a year which is also crap. But atleast the rest is covered for 5 years. That's the hard stuff to deal with power supply is whatever if your even semi proficient at diy.

I have an AI Hydra 52. Do you own a flat screen? What kind of warranty came with that? I still have my first Panasonic Plasma which only came with a 1 year warranty and it's going on 7 or 8 years now. Just because it has a one year warranty doesn't mean it gonna break on day 366. I would expect a no frills light to last longer, less options with less things to go wrong, kinda like a flashlight.

It's not that side of the coin I choose to look at regarding warranties. I look at it like if a company wants to guarantee me their product is going to function for at least 5 years by offering me that warranty. It tells me that company believes in the parts and construction of the appliance enough to reasonably believe that on average the product will last for that 5 years and not cost the company much hit on it's bottom line in warranty claims. A 1 year warranty paints a much different picture.

Any ways this is my last post here unless someone asks me something. My goal was to put the brand of lights out there. Before someone new like me would have defaulted to trying to somehow purchase Finnex or most likely just going T8 or T5 cfl or HO now they will also see this here. Agree disagree like you said it's just a matter of ones priorities haha.