The Office (Tank)

[Robotguy]

Well, the Hydor showed up last night, so it looks like I probably won't spring for the G3 immediately. The flow from the Hydor seems to be OK, but I did have trouble getting the pump to start. The impeller kept sticking when I switched off the pump and I would have to shut everything down, open the canister, fiddle with the impeller, close everything up and try again. Sometimes 4-5 times. I don't know that I am going to trust this thing when I have fish and/or shrimp in the tank.

I spent last evening and this morning making inflow and outflow pipes. The lily pipe I have on there now is temporary. I didn't like the radius of the bend on this one, so I made another and packed the pipe with sand as I bent it, giving me much better bends at the cost of a bit of "orange peel" finish on the inside. I am happy however that I can get the little vortex from a DIY lily pipe:


I also bent some glass pipettes to use for my CO2 to keep the bend radius small without kinking the hose:


I have been waiting for the roots to settle in before I moved the tank to work. I think they're doing well:



Here's a shot of the tank with the new filter.


And the obligatory FTS (I think I'm going to have to trade the diffuser out for a nice unobtrusive pollen glass or something):


I am extremely happy with how fast the glosso is filling in. The narrow leaf micro-sword looks like it's more algae than plant. The blyxa is very dark. Some of it was floating in my 40b right below the lights and it started turning red, but I thought that would go away...

[Couesfanatic]

do you have a par meter? I cannot find the par values for that light anywhere.

[Robotguy]

Originally Posted by Couesfanatic

do you have a par meter? I cannot find the par values for that light anywhere.

Nope, sorry. No PAR meter. If you do manage to find the info, I'd be interested to hear though.

Well, today was the day I moved it to work and added fauna. Here's a shot of the new lily pipe:


And a shot of the entire cubicle:



The cherry shrimp:


And the Badis:

[Robotguy]

Video:
http://youtu.be/U15f52X8cGQ

[GreenBliss]

Your tank is lovely. After seeing the video, I don't know how you can get your work done.

[sugarbyte]

This looks amazing! What are those jars you have set up next to your tank?

[hisxlency]

I googled Varzea and came up with zilch. Do you know who sells it online?

Nice tank btw, really pretty

[Robotguy]

Originally Posted by sugarbyte

This looks amazing! What are those jars you have set up next to your tank?

Thanks! Those are my terrarii (terraria, terrariums?)

Originally Posted by hisxlency

I googled Varzea and came up with zilch. Do you know who sells it online?

Nice tank btw, really pretty

Thanks! I haven't had any luck finding ANY information about it online. I got it from my LFS and I saw one in Aqua Forest Aquarium down in San Francisco, but that's it.

[Green_Flash]

Nice little tank! When I was first reading it I thought you had set it up at your office first and were doing all the cycling waterchanges misc there and was thinking to myself, where is he connecting the python at an office? lol

Now I see you started it at your home and then transferred it. Anyway where did you find the Hydor Prime? I looked and it appears they don't make them anymore. It looks like a nice littler filter, similar to a 2211.

[Robotguy]

Originally Posted by Green_Flash

Nice little tank!

Anyway where did you find the Hydor Prime?

Thanks! I grabbed the last one from Neptune Aquarium through Amazon. Don't try too hard to find one though, it's OK at best. I'll probably upgrade it in the future.

My Scarlet Badis took a header onto my desk this weekend. I had named him Galileo because he was always staring out the top of the tank. Now that I know his true intentions I've posthumously renamed him Icarus.

I've got feelers out to find some more RCS now that it's a "single species" tank (ignoring the snails...)