jasonh's 29 gal (56k warning) update 10-27-06

[fshfanatic]

I live down the street from Pets Inc. Nice place but over priced. Nice tank there..

[jasonh]

Originally Posted by fshfanatic

I live down the street from Pets Inc. Nice place but over priced. Nice tank there..

overpriced on fish, plants, equipment, all of the above? I like it because it's one of the cleaner places I've been to, and has a good selection. I got the Aqualight there as well. It cost $80....I know I overpaid, but I wanted it right then and there, so it works for me. Any recommendations for other places?

thanks

[fshfanatic]

Originally Posted by jasonh

overpriced on fish, plants, equipment, all of the above? I like it because it's one of the cleaner places I've been to, and has a good selection. I got the Aqualight there as well. It cost $80....I know I overpaid, but I wanted it right then and there, so it works for me. Any recommendations for other places?

thanks

I was referring to their equiptment. For plants you really dont have anywhere else around here with the selection they have. So I get mine there. I get all my equiptment at Petsmart. I get the price off their website and then print it and take it in, they match the price. I saved almost $80 on my eheim pro II 2026 (paid 135)and I got my fluval 304 for $75.

I am fairly new to the area, so I too an looking still. For fish there is a place in Phoenix. Cant remember the name but the shop is in his backyard in a large room. Awesome prices and his his are by far the healthiest I have seen.. Cant remember the name. I will ask my buddy and get back to you.

[jasonh]

I believe you are referring to Phoenix Tropicals That place isn't bad...definately good fish there. Only been there once though, haven't bought anything. I haven't really bought any fish for quite some time..

[fshfanatic]

Ya thats it. I havent been there but everyone I have talked to says it is "the" place for fish.

[Nightshop]

Those cichlids will grow fast. I have 30lbs of rockwork in my 50 gallon and that's barely enough cover for my 5 malawai cichlids.

[jasonh]

Originally Posted by Nightshop

Those cichlids will grow fast. I have 30lbs of rockwork in my 50 gallon and that's barely enough cover for my 5 malawai cichlids.

yeah, that's why I got rid of them *reads back to 5 months ago*

[jasonh]

Phew.....been a while. Things have changed. We moved again, this time to a 4th floor apartment, so the 125 had to go bye-bye before it was even fully setup and stocked. Oh well, live and learn.

During the move, the plants dried out way too much (whoops, my bad) and kind of reset things big time. Also added anubias nana before the move. Things have been growing back, and we just replaced the pool filter sand with Flourite last night. Looks good. Hopefully this will work better than the sand with the occasional root tabs...We threw an extra 20W T-12 for a little more even lighting on the tank. So that's 65w PC + 20W T12...going to need to upgrade the CO2 soon...I hate DIY CO2.

The crypts are doing good. I split my initial 2 into 6 today. Made me a happy camper for sure. They are kind of ratty still, but are coming back really well.

Anyway, picture.



Well, that's all for now folks.

Oh, and the tank now holds 25-30 Endlers and 2 clown loaches (for the snails, which were really bad at one point. All but eradicated now.) Will loaches eat shrimp? I'd like to put some ghost shrimp and a couple bamboo shrimp in the tank...They don't eat fry either, do they?

[Y0uH0]

I have a feeling they will.Not that sure though,u have to consult the rest.

[g8wayg8r]

Originally Posted by jasonh

Everything else I've read is to not use the standard airline tubing and get some specifically for CO2, or at least use silicone. As for the airstone, we'll see how it performs. I really probably don't even need it.

Clear or black vinyl air line tubing will work as well as anything sold as "CO2 proof" and save you a bunch of money and time. Yellow fuel line tubing for RC airplanes is much better as far as permiability goes and you can get it at any hobby shop. BUT, if you don't have high pressure, use what ever you have. With a few inches of water pressure, you should have to worry about losing much gas through the line. Even with high pressure, I wouldn't suspect great losses with vinyl at the rate most people would use CO2 from a 5-pound tank; much less a significant differences due to the type of plastic you are using (excluding silicone). If you're still not sure about what to use, run copper from the water line to a foot or two from you sourse.

P.S. : Put the rotala rotundifolia back in your tank

[jasonh]

Originally Posted by g8wayg8r

P.S. : Put the rotala rotundifolia back in your tank

The rotala was one of those plants that got beat up during the move. There is hardly anything left of it (along with my corkscrew vals). It's currently in my growout tank (a 10gal that does surprisingly well with just two screw-in CF's) recouperating. I'm not sure if I'll put it back in. I'd like to try some different types of plants to fill in the bare areas, so I need to go shopping soon.

As for the CO2 line, I'll most likely use the black stuff once I switch to pressurized, but for now, the blue is working good enough with my DIY CO2, so I'd rather not mess with it

[jasonh]

Man, here I am, all excited that the plants in my 10g are pearling...my first ever pearling experience, and then I notice this crap in my 29 (click for full size)



My algae is pearling. Figures.

On the upside of today though, I got a black background (finally) and it helps the look of the tank. I'll get a pic of that later. I also picked up some stump remover and fleet enema, so I'll begin dosing tomorrow. Just using Flourish for micros. When I get some spare cash, I'll order from GW.

[jasonh]

Finally got a background...Yay, no more seeing tubes and wires!

Also, put in some of the plants that I got off a fellow member here. I drew out an aquascape a few days ago, but didn't stick to it completely. But somewhat. I don't feel like adding a whole bunch of details right now, so I'll do that later.

I need to get more jungle vals.



http://synthetix.org/pics/tank/9-5-06/aquascape.jpg

[Y0uH0]

Looking good. Hmm,i don't think you need to get anymore jungle vals. Just leave them to spread on their own. You will be amazed at how fast they can grow.Before long,you will find that they grow like weeds and are a hassle to keep neatly growing.

[jasonh]

Originally Posted by Y0uH0

Looking good. Hmm,i don't think you need to get anymore jungle vals. Just leave them to spread on their own. You will be amazed at how fast they can grow.Before long,you will find that they grow like weeds and are a hassle to keep neatly growing.

I guess it just boils down to me being impatient

I have a novel today ...

Anyway, when I made the original aquascape linked to in my last post (pretty artistically talented, aren't I?), I forgot that I had some giant hygro. So I'm using it instead of the jungle val on the left in the back...figure I'll just have a big hygro area. I also decided that since I can't draw to scale worth a hoot, I'd leave out the rotala rotundifolia. I don't think there's really any place for it in the actual tank.

I'm kind of surprised to see how quickly the anubias develops. It takes a while between shooting out new leaves, but when it starts a new leaf, it grows pretty quickly....only took a couple days for a new leaf to develop.

I've had to cut numerous crypt leaves off because of some bad algae. There are still more I really should remove, butI just don't like the idea of having only 1 or 2 leaves on a plant. luckily, I'm getting new leaves in right now (finally).

I get a lot of evaporation now, which bothers me. The tank is situated right between two ceiling fans that are on high 24/7 (I have a passive A/C system here). I think once I can get an inline heater, I'm going to seal up the gap behind the glass tops as well as I can. I filled the tank to 1/4" above the bottom of the rim on Saturday, and it's already 1/2" below.

My Endler's are finally popping out a decent amount of babies. Right now I think I have around 15 fry, but still have a couple fat mommas that don't look like they've given birth yet...only a matter of time. Too bad they can't just go and spit out 45 babies like the guppies in the 10 did. With that said, I'm thinking of selling the Endler's to my LFS. I really like them, but they just make this tank too chaotic. There's no real order to them; it's just kind of a mess of fish going every direction. Not sure what I'd like to try though.

I'm now dosing N and P. I don't have anything for K right now. We'll see how this works out for a bit. I decided I really should start dosing when I was getting algae super quick, things were dying, and the tank just looked bad...so I cut down the PC to 2 hours a day till I got something to dose. It's up to 6 hours a day with PC, the other 4 just with 20w. For now. Just to keep things manageable.

Here are the mixes I'm using for the ferts right now, someone tell me if I should change them at all...

30ml fleet enema into 420ml water. Dose 5ml. This should effectively be like dosing 0.3ml of fleet each dose.

1 Tbs of KN03 (Grant's stump remover) into 100ml water. Dose 8ml. If my calculations are correct, that should give mearound 1/4tsp of KN03 per dose. I can't dose the stump remover dry, because it is large granules and won't dissolve in 78 degree water...need to use hot water.

We'll see how this works out....

Sorry for my rambling. I'm done now.