[Italionstallion888]

If it stalls, I will give is 2ml of ammonia and a 50% water change. Should finish it off.

 

[Italionstallion888]

We've had rain 20 days out of the last 28 this month and it's suppose to continue through the weekend.

Kentucky blue grass I put down in feb. This yard was BARE and 90% weeds

Don't you want to just go waller in it?

 

[AquaAurora]

FFFFFFF give me your rain!!! Or better yet mail me your lawn! We're having droughts here, didn't mow the lawn for 2 weeks because it'd just turn yellow if short >.<

 

[Freemananana]

Rough luck on the banana! I would try suspending that fixture, but a Planted+ is probably a sound investment. Maybe a Ray2 since you thinking of CO2. It may be too much light though.

Bump: I think I have decided on the aquatek mini co2 regulator and 2 24oz paintball tanks. I hope the dicks down the street can fill them for me.

This line made me laugh out loud. I would suggest giving dicks a proper name, Dicks. I forgot it was a sporting goods store.

3 weeks as of yesterday

Cute kid! If you are worried about the rash on the cheek, some time in the sun will clear it right up. Well, if it is that new born rash stuff and not something else. I'm going with Blue eyes too, give it another 23 weeks and you'll know! 6 months is kind of the area they take root and stay one color.

My wife left her old job when our daughter was born and was a stay at home mom for about a year. That REALLY helped us get through it. I was able to get off work and invest a hour or so after work into a hobby. It really helps when you know you'll only be getting off and on sleep throughout the night.

 

[Italionstallion888]

I call them dicks, because the employees at that Dicks location are kind of dicks lol

we had the docs check out her cheek on Tuesday, they said it is just newborn achne, and suggested giving her some time in the sun and more lotion to the face. Time outside would be great if it would stop freaking raining every day. Good lord I wake up and it's raining, go to sleep and it's raining. I feel like I moved to Seattle lol.

I'm 100% Italian, and the wife is Irish. Who knows on her hair color. It was black when we brought her home, not it's getting lighter and we are seeing some curls show up.

Our goal is to have me do the "stay at home dad" or part time stay at home in the next 2 years. We just need to tidey up our finances a bit and get some debt paid down. I've been in retail banking sales for the last 10 years with the same company. Started off as a teller and moved my way up to branch manager. It's coming close needing a change time.

 

[Positron]

Wow, man very interesting story here. I'm very interested in seeing the move to a 90 gallon tank. Moving up to my 75 gallon was lots of fun. Great looking baby and I envy your backyard! Wish we could have a bit of your rain though. Here in Maine we've been pretty dry and hot (85 degrees isn't norm for mid to late may)

First thing I did when I moved to the new place was send some water to be lab tested. Have you gotten around to doing it yet? What's the new KH and GH? Sometimes a water test turns up some interesting things. I'm not sure how it is around Ks, but here in maine I've got trace amounts of iron in the water. It helps!

 

[Freemananana]

If she's anything like my daughter, she'll end up bald soon! A lot of babies lose their newborn hair for some reason.

Testing the water is a good idea actually. I'm not sure about lab test, but I'd run at home tests at least! haha.

 

[Italionstallion888]

oh yeah, the night before we closed we did a walk through with our realtor. I took my testing kit with me and tested the water. Olathe water (old house) was prestine water, we are now on Water One, and it's actually better water than Olathe. I had water one send me a water condition report.

Out of the tap, my gh is around 9, and kh about 6 drops. Beyond that I have not tested any further. I plan on sending in some soil samples of the back yard and tap water to see what I'm working with. I've been doing straight tap water changes without conditioner since we moved in, no issue and the fish actually look healthier. The 55g gets a 50% water change every 2-3 weeks, and I top off about a gallon, well with all the rain about every week now, during winter it was 2-3 gallons every 2 days.

Until I can figure out where and how to set up my r/o unit, I think I'm going to stick my 50g trashcan out in the back yard and collect some rain water. I have 300gph pond bump I can use to transfer the water to the tanks. If this were to be our forever home I would have zero issue cutting a few holes and running pvc from the garage storage area to the tanks. I have 1 water hook up at the front of the garage and 1 next to the back door on the patio. Neither are ideal locations for my r/o set up. I'm a bit scared to see the estimate to have one either relocated or an additional spout put in. The house has a whole house soft water system built into the storage area in the garage. It's currently not hooked up/working and I really don't care to mess with it. If I could figure out a way to remove it all, I would have plenty of space to make water, buy a longer pump hose and just pump from the garage. I just have to keep telling myself we have only been here since Feb, I have plenty of time for projects.

The move to a 90g will be a birthday present to myself in October. I turn the big 30! I have 2 canister filters I'm no longer using (eheim ecco pro and fluval 106) that were on the 29g, the 55g has a fluval 305 and 106, aqua clear 30 on it. If I need more filtration on the 90g I can run 4 filters on it lol.

 

[Freemananana]

Sump sump sump sump sump...

You hear that chanting? haha. Sumps are way more fun than canisters if you decide you want to start fresh on the next filtration system

 

[Italionstallion888]

I explored the sump option, while it does sound ideal, I did not like the amount of water loss people saw. I like having the ability to specialize each canister. The 305 is all media and pillow stuffing. The 106 has a bit of media, pit of pillow stuffing and 80% peet moss. I have better control over flow in the tank (minimize dead spots) that and I don't trust myself drilling into a brand new tank for bulk heads. I can get a brand new 90g for 235 shipped, pre drilled add about 150.00 to that price tag. Figuring new substrate, another box of manzanita from Tom barr, it will start to add up quickly.

What should I stock in the 20g? I love blue rams, have had them before with no issues. I tried the appistos, while I love the color and attitude of them, they seemed to be more issue prone than my rams. My goal is to get some breeding going on in the 20g. I wanted to breed the bolivians, but alas what I thought were 3 male and 3 female ended up being 6 males lol, Sebastian rules them all.

 

[Italionstallion888]

Found a guy local that breeds apistos. Once the tank cycles I have a young pair of apistogramma macmasteri with my name on it.

 

[Italionstallion888]

Added my sad looking anubias back in. Hopefully when the co2 gets added they will bounce back. Stargrass is next to go in. I did a 75% water change. Ammonia was gone, nitrates were at 10ppm, but nitrite was still holding at 1ppm. Going to test again here tonight.

55g after I removed the load of floating plant mass.

8.7g dirt tank

 

[Italionstallion888]

Last stem and hope of hygro sunset. This took a hard hit.

 

[Italionstallion888]

Shopping list complete

Aquatek mini regulator
24oz paintball tank
Co2 tubing
30 inch finnex stingray

Reuse my hagen bubble ladder until I can figure out an inline diffuser and heater that will work with 9/12 mm eheim tubing. Going on order this week.

 

[Italionstallion888]

Did some clean up, topped the plants, cleaned up the hob, moved some scape around and placed the diffuser directly under the aquaclear.

 

[Italionstallion888]

order placed! Co2 stuff will be here by Thursday. I decided just to use brackets and a pipe to suspend my t8's above the tank. Better than the finnex fugeray and will hold me over until I can decide on what direction the tank will go.

 

[Italionstallion888]

 

[Italionstallion888]

all of my co2 stuff arrived by fedex today while I was home for lunch. I called the 3 dfferent stores that have the ability to fill this 24oz bottle for me. All 3 locations have broken parts on their machines. So what would have been a quick 5 min drive, will now turn into an hour round trip just to get this stupid bottle filled. So much for getting it all hooked up tonight. I have to run to walmart and homedepot to get items to suspend the light anyways, but ugh just my luck.

 

[Freemananana]

Did you ask what the turn around time on fixing their machine was? I've seen many 'broken' machines get fixed on the next shift. Then again, I've seen machines actually bust and take a week or so to fix.

 

[Italionstallion888]

Dicks said the hose is broke and they are waiting on the co2 company to come out and replace it, no eta. Sport authority said the machince is broke and has been for awhile with no eta on getting it fixed. I found a fire and safety place close by that has food grade co2 and they actually fill the bottle, unlike the home brew store that I was using that just swaps them out. This place charges 1.00 /lbs on the refill or 3.50 for a paintball tank. but alas they close at 5. Might try and run over there on my lunch tomorrow.