Minor Improvement, Elevated KH

There seems to be a minor improvement in the "carbonated" look the 150-gallon has had. The bubbles are still present but not so many. I also tested my KH and found it to be 8, which is much higher than typical (4) and the tap is higher than usual as well at 6, though not as high as the 150.

I don't particularly mind higher KH, as it lends stability to pH, but I think it is time to remove the calciferous rock I placed in the tank a few months ago to deal with an almost unmeasurable KH - it took only one drop to turn the solution yellow/orange, and it seemed like it was turning even before the full drop was dissipated, which I would call a value of <1 degree KH. I did not like that and am not sure at all why it was the case. Tap, at that time, measured solid 4 dKH. I think perhaps the tap KH may rise in the summer versus winter, but I will have to measure this over a period of years to see if there is a pattern.

When I talk to the water treatment people they deny that there is any fluctuations and they seem to read from a script when answering questions. I don't think they understand the purpose behind my questions, but rather are automatically defensive when discussing the quality of water with their customers. Nobody I have spoken to can relate to an aquarist manipulating pH and trying to have an understanding of the chemical makeup of tap water.

I recognize, too, that I ought to be using RO water and treating it ahead of time, getting the values I desire before it goes into my tank. However, I am just not interested in keeping 30-gallon tubs of water in m living room. It is not practical. I don't keep a fish room, but instead my aquariums are living art that are part of how I decorate my living space. If I had a basement I might consider setting up a mini water treatment plant, but I don't, and my home is spacious but lacks any kind of utility space or storage space.

So, I can't keep delicate species but am trying to compromise when it comes to the P. leopoldi. I don't think my chances of them breeding are very high in this setup, but I am okay with that right now. I would like to be able to drop the pH and raise the CO2 concentration, as this has helped immeasurably in keeping algae at bay, and I have been able to do that for years in this and other tanks, so my current issues with pH and CO2 are puzzling. Mainly, I find the bubbles annoying!

Agnes & Frank 'n Fry

Here are pics of the breeding angels in the 40-gallon.

The plants in this tank have grown markedly in the past few weeks, I am assuming from the extra nutrients provided by the fry and the frequent feedings. The fry are numerous and all look like miniature angels, with ventral fins and all. Most appear to be marble, but they may wind up being silver if the striations consolidate into stripes.



Here is one of Agnes, and though the fry do not show up very well they are literally everywhere in this pic if you look closely.

They have turned out to be most excellent parents, and will bite you if they can when you put a hand in the tank. They attack the glass when you approach, and I am very pleased with how well they are handling their job.

I do believe I will pull the next batch of eggs and give them a break. They have spent so much time tending eggs and looking after fry, most of that time spent with lights on 24/7, that I feel they need a break. It must be a strain on them physically. I do try to keep their diet varied and high quality. I do daily PWCs on this tank.

Carbonation!

So the latest news is that the female Ancistrus has not expired, and I have seen her recently. She does not look that different but maybe perhaps a little less rotund. Not so much like a Weebil anymore....

Also, the 150-gallon tank appears to be full of carbonated water. There are tiny bubbles everywhere. This is not a case of excess waste that can contribute to a collection of filmy bubbles at the top of the tank on the surface, but this is in the water column. I did a big PWC after I found the dead cory (see below) and moved the CO2 diffuser into a less visible location, which was next to the intake for the Fluval XF5. It could be nothing more than the bubbles collecting in the filter and being dispersed, though the quantity of bubbles seems excessive.

I am, at the same time, having trouble getting my pH to drop with CO2. It would typically run for a while and then shut off, and turn back on only when the pH crept up past 6.4, but now it has to run all the time, and I can scarcely get it below 6.9. Not sure about that, other than that my tap water is moderately hard and alkaline (buffered) and this recent PWC sent the KH and GH up (possibly, did not test), making it difficult to manipulate pH with acid. That seems like a stretch but my chemistry is rusty. I have added more Indian almond leaves, which ought to contribute to lowering pH but no dice. Incidentally, I did calibrate my pH sensor and it was not off at all - it was exactly correct.

So, the tank looks cloudy with the tiny bubbles. The fish are acting normally. The tank used to be rather clear prior to this episode.

I have also fixed my old Rena Filstar XP4 that I had running on the 55 prior to getting the 150, and got some new tubing for it, and have started that running on the 150 as well in case that will assist with resolving the bubbles issue. It mainly has mechanical filtration to remove fine particles and we will see if that helps. There is right much water movement in this tank, which is not necessarily what the leopoldi would prefer, but it seemed like I was not getting adequate turnover with the FX5. This is likely my imagination, since the thing is the size of a large Shop Vac and must be blasting water in and out. I thought there was too much debris not getting filtered out.

Updates and Additions

I added 8 more C. trilineatus to my group of what I think must be 6-7 in the 150-gallon tank. The school hides so effectively and often that I go for days or a week at a time without seeing them. I am hoping these new guys will coax the rest out. The new ones are very small - almost half the size of the adults I have in residence. Almost a day later it does not appear to be working, but we shall see....

Also, I am dismayed to see that my female Ancistrus has some sort of bloat. Her belly is distended and she is on the sand, poised atop the belly so that her mouth does not quite reach the sand when resting so. I have been feeding zucchini and romaine, along with veggie wafers, but the bristlenoses do not seem terribly interested in them. I have put bell pepper in there from time to time as well with minimal attention by the catfish. The snails enjoy these offerings, however.

I am assuming she is not going to pull through but I have been unable to catch her, even to put her in another tank on her own to observe her. She will be out in the front and as soon as I approach she zips into the depths. I would have to dismantle the tank completely to be able to catch her and I am not willing to do that. More PWCs and hoping for the best.

The Drama Continues, sort of...

I decided it was high time I rinsed out the filters for the 37-gallon angel breeding tank. The two canister filters have been working overtime lately with all of the extra feeding of the fry, and the sponge prefilters on the intakes don't catch everything.

I have two Eheim canisters on this tank, one big old classic (love it - still going strong after ~12 years) and a newer Eheim Ecco filter (do NOT love it - very poorly designed and prone to problems). I thought it had been longer since I cleaned out the Classic than the Ecco, so rather than rinse them both out and risk triggering a cycle I'd clean out one, wait a week and do the other. I shut them down, clamped the valves shut and got the Classic out from under the cabinet.

Wait, what's that I see through the translucent outer body of the filter? Are you kidding me? Fry in the Ecco? Yep. OK. I guess I'm rinsing out both filters then.

I open the Ecco and pull out the trays that are snapped together, and in the space beween the tray assembly and the filter body about 25 fry are swimming around, apparently in good health. I have had the sponge prefilters on the intakes for a while now, ever since they became free swimming and started moving around the tank, so I don't know how to explain it, other than shortly after wiggler stage they traveled the distance through plants and behind large rocks to get to the intakes, and got sucked in, then continued to develop while inside the filter. Amazing. I netted them back into the tank and rinsed out the filter, which was not at all dirty as it should have been (due to what I consider a poor design - lots of open space where the water does not get filtered at all).

I opened the Classic, and of course that one was very dirty. There is no open space - the water must be shoved through the layers of filtration - nowhere else for it to go. Also, there would be no spot for fry to survive either, but quite honestly I'd rather have an efficient filter.

In the bottom of the bucket I had used to collect the fry, after I had gotten them out and emptied it the rest of the way, there was a bit of debris left in the bottom, and I noticed one particle was moving. Now I apparently have leeches. Or some sort of flat worm. It looks like a flattened out earthworm, except the head is vaguely spade shaped and the tail is more pointed, but you have to look at it VERY closely to determine that. Otherwise it is the shape and size of a thistle seed or something, except dark reddish brown. I figure it came in with the live blackworms I have fed the adult angels. *Sigh*

I am sure this is not the only one in the tank, but hopefully they will not do too much damage. I might have to go ahead and get the babies out and into their own tank. I still have many, many babies - too many to count.

What's That Sound?

Thank goodness my husband had a grueling flight out to Portland, Oregon, filled with many hours of delays, his plane sitting on the tarmac for a ridiculously long time, and an arrival in Oregon at 3:15 a.m. EST.

Why would I be glad of such a nightmare travel experience? Well, he gave me a call at that wee hour of the morning to let me know he had finally arrived, and literally 5 minutes after I got off the phone with him, drifting back to sleep, I suddenly heard the sound that no fishkeeper ever wants to hear - the sound of a garden hose full blast on the floor - in my office???

Rush out of bed, tear into the office and hit the power switch on the surge protector strip and shut the valves to the canister filter that was draining my 37-gallon tank contents onto the floor - this was done in record time.

The outflow hose had somehow come loose from the suction cup connection to the top back of the tank. If I had not already been awake I don't know that I would have heard the sound of the water at that hour of the night. It was serendipitous, to be sure, though I doubt my husband would agree that his horrible experience was for the good.

I pulled out the contents of the tank stand and mop up the mess (too close to the wall to try to get the Shop Vac back there) and leave the stand doors open with a massive floor fan running on it. I reconnected the filter outflow in a more secure fashion (I hope!) and got things up and running. Took me a bit to get back to sleep after that, though.

Swamp Filter!

I hate to say it, hate to, because I am a grown woman, but OMG is all that comes to mind.

I have a Rena Filstar XP4 that I have had for almost 10 years, and has served me very well. A most excellent filter. It was running on my 55-gallon tank when I transferred the contents of it to the 150-gallon, so I used the XP4 on my 150 initially (along with the brand new Fluval XF5 monster) to seed the new filter and jump-start the cycle on the new tank. I never noticed a cycle, since all of the objects, plants and fish in the 150 came straight from the 55, with nothing new, so with gradual additions I slowly built my biocolonies and never had a spike of any ammonia or nitrite. Over time, the new filter was seeded and I did not really need the old XP4, which seemed miniature in comparison, so I kept it running but figured I'd use it for very specific media, like peat, polishing, etc.

At some point not too long after I had the new tank up and running, I noticed the XP4 was getting loud. It was obvious that with the new substrate of play sand that tends to get into the water column initially, some grit had gotten into the impeller and was making more noise than I cared to put up with on a continuous basis. I shut it down and took it completely apart, removed the impeller, flushed everything out, greased the gaskets and started over. No dice. Still a loud, grinding noise when the filter was running. I was in a hurry, or something, shut it down, and left it where it was. Bad idea.

I got inspired last night to take the filter down again and clean it out a second time, giving things another chance. I disconnected everything, managed not to siphon the contents of the 150 out onto the floor in the process (don't ask) and hauled it to the sink. Everything stank to high heaven with that swampy, anaerobic sulfur smell you get when you dig into stinky black sand at the beach, and indeed, everything was covered in a fine black film. It reeked. The entire house reeked, and the kids were holding their noses for hours, even after I bleached everything and took all offending components outside, including emptying the trash with the floss. I also dumped baking soda and dish soap down both sides of the sink drain.

It took me a while to resolve that issue, late into the night, and even so, I still have the ceramic "noodle" filter media that has a black haze on it, and I am loath to soak that in bleach, since I fear bleach will get into the pores and be difficult to dechlorinate. I will rinse them and leave them out in the sun and see if good old UV and O2 will handle that problem. I am in no rush to set up the filter again, though I would like to do so at some point.

I hooked the filter, sans media, up to a large cooler I had on the deck, and ran it to be sure it was running properly and to flush out any residual soap or bleach that might be contained within, and at some point the pump seized. I bailed on the project, as it was after 11:00 p.m. and I was too tired to fool with it any more. I left the pump assembly out in the sun today and then packed everything up and put it away for another time, when I shall again take it apart and flush it out and see if I can get it running, or find a replacement pump housing. I don't need an entirely new filter, but only the very top part that holds the actual pump.

This weekend, hopefully (busy social schedule) I will try to get into the Fluval filter and see if it is indeed obstructed or if it is moving water like it should. I had a dream that there was a clog in one of the intake pipes and I might take that stuff off the tank and flush it out as well, though I can't imagine what could clog such large diameter hoses. They are like vacuum cleaner hoses, so it would have to be quite a bit of debris!

Time (Not) on My Side

Well, it appears that if these babies continue to grow as they have, in two weeks I'm going to need to split up the batch of them, but that might work out okay. I think that will be enough time in quarantine for the festivum. They will be small still, but there is plenty of cover for them in the 150 and I think they will do okay. These are cichlids, closely related to angels, so it might be different with them, but currently the leopoldi have eyes only for each other, and essentially ignore all of the other species in the tank.

I am not happy with the flow from the giant canister filter that is the Fluval XF5. I will probably clean it again, having done so a few weeks ago, but when I turn off the powerhead the water almost appears stagnant, though I know it is not so. You can feel decent pressure from the outflow. It may be that there is too much obstruction from plants and such, though I placed the intake at the center of and behind an archway of driftwood, so it is in deep shadow and not really visible but is not physically obstructed. I will look into it. I have my Rena Filstar XP4 (a wee tiny and adorable box next to the monster Fluval) that has grit (sand) in the pump housing, I believe, from when I used it on the new 150 setup. It works but is VERY noisy. I need to investigate cleaning that out and maybe using that for additional water flow and to house almond leaves or peat or something.

In my spare time....