Angel "Goes All Papa Bear" on Me

I am not actively trying to breed my fish right now but I had to move this breeding pair out of my 150 as something of an emergency when I suddenly had a huge fight between this pair and another newly formed pair who were trying to move in on them. I have had angels kill each other in this situation and I had a nearly empty 29 sitting there, so I moved this well established pair into it right away - problem solved. They've been laying eggs forever but in a community tank never had a chance to hatch them out.

I've seen them picking at leaves and doing their thing, but I haven't seen any eggs. Friday afternoon I noticed some brisk activity in the tank and lo and behold, not eggs, but WIGGLERS! They snuck an entire batch of eggs past me (not hard to do) and hatched them out. It was the cutest thing. I haven't had angel babies in at least five years and I was excited, though not eager to deal with babies, with my busy work schedule and summertime family life.

This tank is in a horrible location, by the way, for any breeding pair, and was never meant to be a breeding tank at all, but a planted display, with blissfully ignorant and tolerant tetras or wee goldfish, or something like that. It is in a busy hallway at one end of my kitchen, on the bottom rack of a stand where Otis the F8 puffer resides above. Lots of nearby human and canine foot traffic and activity + close to the floor location = Crummy Breeding Tank.

I was having a party Friday night, and could not resist showing the kids and my other guests the wigglers. Well, gee, where are they? Oh, sorry, folks! Sometimes the parents get panicked and will actually eat their eggs or babies when they feel threatened, and everybody crouching in to take a look has stressed the tank too much. Oh well, nothin' to see here. I felt a little bad about it, but, as I said, I never meant to breed, and next time I'll just call one of my angel breeding friends at the first sign and they'll come by and snag them to raise.

Saturday afternoon I go to feed them and, what do I see? WIGGLERS! The parents had moved them to a more secure location for our party, then moved them BACK to the original leaf when the house calmed down. I should have realized this, because I saw my breeding pair move their brood years ago, but I had forgotten how they can be. It is just adorable.

Somebody needs to come by and get these babies! I know angels are not in short supply by any means, and getting your pair to STOP breeding is harder than getting them to START, but someone may want some wild/zebra DNA in their breeding program, since there are fewer wild strains available than domestic.

Here's Papa trying to run me off

And here's Papa thinking about moving the babies again, lol

Filtration

In reading some of the threads on my fish forum lately (Central Virginia Aquarium Community) I have become very interested in the topic of aquarium filtration. We all do it, in some way shape or form, but there is a lot of diversity in how we all do it, even from one tank to the other for the same fishkeeper.

I have kept super low-tech to NO tech tanks, utilizing plants to take care of a few fish and the fish waste taking care of the plants, low-tech setups with air pumps or water pumps driving small sponge filters, simple HOB medium-tech tanks and higher-tech canister filters with UV sterilization. I'd even consider canisters with UV and heat integrated into the return lines, as a way to streamline tank care and keep equipment hidden away.

I tend to keep aquariums as more of an artistic expression, as a living sculpture or painting that is part of my household decor, but at the same time having a keen interest in the fish themselves and how to make them happy at the same time as creating a visually appealing display. This is why, currently anyway, my goal is to filter the water but to hide the equipment necessary to do so.

However, that's not even the point here - no matter what your focus is in keeping your fish, there are still a ton of options, and several schools of thought on "ideal" filtration. 

I'm of TWO MINDS on the topic. I think simple setups with sponge filters alone are marvelous, time tested and proven, without question, and I have several classic Aquatop sponge filters stored away for use anytime I need to set up something quick (I used to keep one running at all times in the back corner of a tank solely to keep it seeded with bacteria in case I had an issue and needed to pop a fish into a hospital/spawning/fry growout tank). The other part of me LOVES technology and the new developments in filtration that abound today catch my eye and intrigue me - I not-so-secretly want to try out the newest aquarium toy or gadget on the market.

How can it be that for so many people for so many years a simple sponge filter is the way to go, yet others swear by powerful water movers with compartments dedicated to chemical, mechanical and bio filtration? Why do some tanks need all that and others don't? Is all this tech completely unnecessary and just a way to appeal to the personality type that loves technology and is willing to spend $$$ to have it? I have no doubt that there are tanks out there requiring specialized filtration to mimic native conditions for fish or corals, for instance, but does the average FW tank need any tech at all?

I have perfectly happy tanks set up at both ends of the spectrum, and am not sure one way is better than the other, but it is certainly food for thought. 

Fluval FX5 Purge Valve, and Did a Fish Pull a "Nemo" ?

Subject: FX5 overhaul   Yesterday at 4:28 pm
I apologize for not getting pictures, because that would make a huge difference in reviewing my recent experience, but I'm old and am slow to the trend of whipping out my phone for every life event!   I have been running a Fluval (Hagen) FX5 on my 150 for six years. This filter has a handy purge valve at the bottom so you can attach a 5/8" tube to drain the filter and do a water change at the same time. I don't utilize this method, preferring to use a Python and vacuum debris from the tank while I change water. When I clean out the filter every month or so I disconnect the intake and outflow hoses, and drain the filter a bit so I can carry it to the sink or outside on the deck to rinse out the foam pads and rinse out the unit. The filter weighs about 70 pounds full of water, so draining it first is, for me, a must! NOTE:  I know the recommended practice for rinsing out filter media and filters involves using dechlorinated water, and many are careful to stress the importance of this. I do not discourage or dispute the importance of attempting to preserve the bacterial colonies present in the filter media and filter itself, as they work with the mechanical filtration to maintain the cycle of the tank and prevent toxic levels of ammonia and nitrite. That said, I admit freely that I do not, in general, follow this practice at all. I take my FX5 (and my other large canister filters, Eheims and Rena/API  Filstars) outside, weather permitting, and use the hose to rinse them out thoroughly, and use the strong spray from the hose to rinse the foam and ceramic media. I am on a municipal water system, so there is definitely chlorine present. In the cold weather months I do this in the sink, using the sink sprayer attachment to thoroughly clear the unit and the media of debris. I do the same with my HOB filters, running the boxes themselves under the tap and rinsing the media cartridges/foam pads under the tap as well, chlorine and all.  My tanks are well established, and in my own personal experience over the past 30 years I have not had a problem cleaning my filters in this way. I don't tend to clean out filters on new tanks, or tanks that have not "settled in" and are still unstable, 6 months and earlier. After that, I consider the bacterial colonies present inside the tank to be adequate to handle the bioload even if I put a brand new filter on the tank, so killing off bacteria from the filter has never (*knocks wood*) caused a problem for me in all these years. When giving advice to those new to the hobby, however, I would recommend against doing things like I do them, and would always suggest rinsing filters and media in tank water or dechlorinated water, just to take that variable out of the equation, and to support best practices. This is a classic case of "do as I say, not as I do!"  The last time I cleaned the FX5 of the finger tabs for the purge valve snapped cleanly off. I don't know why, since I don't use a tool or other forcible action to turn the valve to open it, but this rendered the valve almost useless, since you can't turn this very stiff valve without twisting using two fingers. Fortunately, you can buy a replacement valve for this filter. I paid $19.95, which is steep, and I'm sure if I went on ebay and shopped around a bit I could have found it for less, but I was impatient. The valve itself was perfectly functional and the filter was not leaking, but to clean the filter I'd be forced to open it up, remove the media baskets and scoop or siphon out the water manually before being able to lift the filter out from under the tank, and that's a pain. I received my replacement purge valve from Aquarium Parts Warehouse promptly, and after removing the media baskets and scooping out more than half the water (saved it in watering cans for my plants - they love the gunky filter water!) I took the unit out onto the deck to clean it and replace the valve. I am so happy when warm weather returns and I can perform this procedure with the garden hose on the deck, instead of my kitchen sink, which is not very large. I need the Utility Sink Fairy to pay me a visit. There's a little tab that keeps the purge valve from spinning in the housing, so you pry back this tab very slightly and the purge valve pulls straight out, and the new one pops right in - no problem. The O-rings are built in so that's all that is required, though I like to use a bit of Vaseline on the O-rings prior to installation. It's almost impossible to put the new valve in wrong, so I was grateful for the design. A little rant here: Anyone who has been in the hobby long enough knows that often the replacement part is a bit sturdier and more solid than the original part being replaced. Not always, but often. I was sure the finger tabs would be thicker and stronger on the replacement, but they are NOT. It is the same valve. I'll just have to be careful, though I don't know what caused the finger tab to break in the first place. I was disappointed, nonetheless. I decided to take this opportunity to remove the pump housing and clean out the impeller, which is not something I do very often. This is what it looks like, on the Hagen/Fluval site: You simply use a Phillips head screwdriver, one that is 4-6" long and skinny, ideally, and remove the 4 small bolts that attach the motor to the filter body. The nuts are held in place on the backside of the fittings with retaining clips, so you don't have to keep track of these very tiny objects, just the tiny bolts. I removed it and looked down into the impeller, and found, to my surprise (and amusement, I have to say), 3 small ceramic filter media balls, Eheim Substrat. You've probably seen the stuff, it looks like this, and they're about 1/4" in diameter: This is the part I wished I had taken a picture of, because the first thing I thought of was the movie Finding Nemo, where in an effort to escape the aquarium in the dentist's office Nemo goes inside the filter box and jams the filter with a piece of gravel from the tank bottom. It looked just like that. Fortunately, this did not render the filter useless, because it was certainly still quite functional and the flow was not terrible, though it had slowed and I thought it just needed cleaning. This is why I could afford to be amused at what I found. I use those media granules for biofiltration, but the basket in the FX5 has holes that are just BARELY smaller than the ceramic balls, and obviously a few got through, and made their way into the impeller. I'm lucky it didn't burn up the entire motor, actually, and I placed circular foam pads (Fluval, designed to fit the filter baskets) in the bottom of the tray that holds this biomedia, to mitigate any migration of media into other parts of the filter. Nylon media bags would be even better. I should have done that to start with, but didn't realize the balls could get through. Live and learn. Now my FX5 is completely rehabbed and ready for action once again. I carried it back in, connected the inflow and outflow hoses, allowing gravity to siphon-fill the filter, did my PWC and started it up. The flow was noticeably stronger, and I'm grateful to have found there was a problem before the filter was ruined. Sometimes I wish that this type of thing was my job, because I could do it all day - PWCs, aquascaping, rearranging, cleaning out filters, solving problems, researching, etc. When I finished with this tank I had not even noticed that it was now about 10 pm, since I started around 6:30. When you completely lose track of time, miss meals and other appointments without realizing it, you know you're doing something you were meant to do. So, don't be like me and put off filter maintenance! It pays to do routine checks of your valuable equipment that needs to be running reliably 24/7, 365.   Thanks to this blog, recording my every waking thought about my tanks as well as every embarrassing mishap, I see that I've had this filter running for 6 years. I still love it, and highly recommend the Hagen Fluval FX5.

Tetraodon biocellatus: The Figure-8 Puffer

The Fish

Tetraodon biolcellatus, commonly known as the figure-8 puffer, is frequently available in the aquarium hobby. It can be a rewarding pet, given their active and curious nature. They are colorful puffers, with pale bellies and green and yellow markings on their backs, typically reaching a size of about 3 inches. Their name comes from the two very dark marks on each side of their caudal (tail) fin, which can form a figure-8 pattern, but often looks like eye spots, or bi-ocellatus (two eyes). This is how you can easily tell whether you have a figure-8 versus some similarly marked puffers that can get much larger. They originate in Southeast Asia in freshwater locations that are slow-moving and shallow, where small crustaceans and snails are found. They enjoy an aquarium of at least 15 gallons, with the footprint longer rather than taller, because they spend time on the bottom and love to swim and explore. Calciferous rock and aragonite sand will help keep the pH raised in the tank to as high as 8 or greater for the health of the puffer, and the water temperature should be kept at 78-84F.  Singletons seem to be the happiest and live the longest, but more than one could be kept if they are raised together from juveniles, and many keep them successfully with other small brackish species. You do not need to be an advanced aquarist to keep them, but you need to be comfortable with the basics and do your research prior to bringing one home. 

 

The Water

You will find much disagreement on the subject of keeping the F8 puffer in brackish or freshwater in the home aquarium. A search on the topic will yield endless articles and forum threads on which is best, and, ultimately, they are frequently kept in both depending on preference. The fact is that they are found in freshwater locations in the Mekong (Cambodia), Malaysia and Borneo, and are shipped to distributors in freshwater, so your local shop will certainly receive them in such conditions. For simplicity’s sake, many shops will maintain them in freshwater and sell them as such, since it is often not cost-effective to set up and maintain a separate brackish tank for these fish. Information collected and reported by nature conservancies and environmental researchers such as FishBase make the distinction that this fish is “not a brackish species.” 

 

However, research and anecdotal evidence compiled for many years on F8 puffers kept in aquaria seem to confirm that this species will enjoy a prolonged life, up to 15 years, if kept in lightly brackish water of around SG 1.005-1.008. Apparently, the immune system of the puffer is boosted and they are able to avoid succumbing to illness and parasites under these conditions, though hard scientific documentation of this circumstance is difficult to find. I personally consider the species to be best kept in brackish conditions, but this is a choice the fishkeeper needs to make on their own. 

 

The Salt Mix

When keeping the puffer in a brackish setup, the salt used ought to be that intended for marine aquarium applications (table or human grade sea salt is not appropriate and lacks trace elements and calcium that is beneficial to the pH and the fish) and there are several ways to prepare the water to be used for future water changes. Some people mix large quantities of brackish water in dedicated trashcans or tubs, using water pumps to circulate the water and to pump it into the tank during water changes. 

 

My method for a 20-long aquarium containing one puffer is to use a full marine mix prepared in 5-gallon plastic water jugs meant for water coolers. I typically purchase whatever marine mix I can find adequate for 10-gallons of water and split it between the two jugs, rotating/shaking the jugs until the salt mix is completely dissolved, and I’m left with full marine water. If you are using municipal water for your stored mix don’t forget to dechlorinate it as you prepare the solution. I stash these jugs in a closet until I’m ready for them. After vacuuming the tank and draining  it by half, I begin to fill the tank with dechlorinated tap water like any other freshwater aquarium, but as I do so I pour in some of the dechlorinated marine mix water, which blends with the freshwater as it goes in, until I achieve the desired SG. I use a floating hydrometer and monitor this during the filling procedure, and keep the hydrometer in a corner of the tank at all times for instant reading. 

 

Water changes are very important for these puffers, which do best with extremely clean water, and I generally change 50% of the water each week. Their meaty, messy diet means there is a lot of waste created by the fish and uneaten particles of food, so the bioload of one puffer is greater than that of a fish of similar size in the average freshwater tank. When doing water changes remember that any evaporation of tank water will concentrate the salts in the water, so you must utilize a hydrometer to monitor SG so it does not rise too much. 

 

Please note that puffers are sensitive to toxins in the water, more so than other species, and must not be used to cycle a tank. The tank needs to be cycled prior to introducing the fish to the aquarium, using whatever cycling method you prefer.

 

The Selection of Your Puffer

At the store, the tank should be clean and not crowded. Look for a young puffer, and be sure to choose one that is active and seeking attention. Look at the belly and avoid the ones with a sunken belly; this is very common to see and is an indication the fish is not eating for one reason or another. If the belly is very slightly concave that is not of concern, since they have a fairly rapid digestive system, in my experience, and not too long after a hearty meal the belly has gone flat again. However, extremely sunken bellies are a common sight, either due to the shopkeeper not realizing what the puffer needs to eat (they will not take flake or pellet/prepared fish food) or due to illness. 

 

Also make sure the puffer’s body is free of signs of ich or bacterial infections, and the fins are not split or cloudy. Some minor fin injuries are not unusual, however, especially when housed with other puffers, so the fish doesn’t have to be perfect, but be sure it is not ill or carrying a disease. The fins and the color of the puffer will improve in the home aquarium with target feeding and clean water, as well as appropriate tankmates or the comfort of a tank to himself. 

 

The Acclimation

Care should be taken when introducing your new puffer to the home aquarium. As mentioned, the tank should be cycled prior to the new fish’s arrival, but keep in mind that the beneficial bacteria that complete the “cycle” of a freshwater aquarium are slightly different from those that cycle a saltwater setup; a sudden switch to brackish could disturb the cycle and harm the fish with toxic levels of ammonia and nitrite. If you determine that the puffer was kept in the shop in freshwater conditions, be sure to start him out in a freshwater tank at home. Gradually increase the specific gravity by 0.001 or 0.002 per week until you reach your goal, and the bacteria will proliferate along with the increase in salinity, keeping your tank healthy and cycled. The fish will also become acclimated to the brackish tank in a gradual fashion, which will result in a smooth transition to his new home.

 

The Tank

These puffers tend to be found in the benthic zone in nature, or the lowest level of the water near the substrate of the aquarium, due to their constant search for crustaceans and snails. They wander around, in continuous motion, searching the sand or gravel for prey. The puffer will appreciate adequate open space, but it is also important to provide rocks, small caves, archways and paths to other areas of the tank, separated by decor, to keep the puffer interested and prevent boredom. For this reason, as well as to provide the additional benefit of buffering the water, I prefer to use buffering sand (“cichlid” sand or aragonite/coral sand) as well as base rock (available for marine setups, used to propagate organisms for “live rock”) or other calciferous rock decor. I stack the rocks down the very center of the tank lengthwise, with caves and empty spaces in between so the puffer is able to travel to the other side of the tank and can enjoy a complex set of paths and trails to explore, with breaks in sight lines. A bored puffer will “pace” back and forth the length of the tank, and will be more likely to attack and disturb tankmates. Some aquarists use plastic tubes and other aquarium-safe objects to occupy the puffer’s time and drain their ample energy. 

 

Filtration of the tank needs to be strong or even overdone in order to create a high turnover of water and maintain pristine water conditions, though a strong current is not appreciated by these fish. Again, Figure-8 puffers have no scales and are intolerant of ammonia or nitrite, so it is important to adhere to a strict maintenance schedule. It is possible to grow plants in brackish tanks, and Java fern (Microsorum pteropus) or Java moss (Taxiphyllum barbieri) is often chosen. Figure-8 puffers will not disturb plants unless they find an unsuspecting snail there. 

 

The Diet

Puffers have teeth that are beak-like, formed by two plates. These teeth grow continually, so without the proper hard diet the teeth will need to be trimmed manually. This procedure can be done, and there is information available on the internet to help educate the puffer owner about it, but I prefer to provide plenty of mollusks, snails and crustaceans in their diet to mitigate the risks associated with teeth trimming. You can buy frozen seafood at the grocery store, like small clams, mussels, shrimp and crab legs, and thaw them out in cool water, breaking them up with a hammer or shears so the puffer has to scrape the meat from the shell, or crunch through the shell, which will keep the teeth pared down. 

 

Another suitable food source is my puffer’s favorite: snails. Since the aquarium hobby is full of snails of varying species, they are usually easy to come by. Ramshorn snails are simple to propagate in a separate tank and fed to the puffer regularly. Pond snails and any other type of aquatic snail are also easily found, as many consider them a nuisance. Some of your fellow fishkeepers may have an unwanted proliferation of snails and will be happy for you to come over and collect them for your puffer. Snails can also be purchased from eBay, Aqua-Bid or other online sources for relatively low cost, added to a small tank of their own, fed veggies and allowed to reproduce for future use. The puffer diet should be varied, though, so alternating the type of meaty foods will ensure a healthy and happy fish. It can be quite fascinating to watch the puffer anticipate and tear into his meal, attacking the shell relentlessly with much vigor and enthusiasm. My own puffer will slap the surface of the water with his tail, sometimes splashing a bit onto the adjacent wall, to indicate that it is feeding time! 

 

When the puffer eats they make a bit of a mess, and do not tend to go around and pick up tiny bits of food, so this is where attention to housekeeping comes in focus. During water changes you’ll be vacuuming up leftovers and bits of shell so they don’t accumulate and foul the water. For a sandy substrate I take my hand and gently wave it to disturb the surface and raise bits of leftovers so I can vacuum them up without siphoning out the sand. You can also use a spatula or other device to stir the water gently to lift debris for removal. 

 

The Puff

Finally, let’s address the issue of puffing. This is, of course, a fish that is known to inflate its body with water or air as a defense mechanism, making it larger and more intimidating, or to make it appear unappetizing and difficult for the predator to swallow. The questions that are always asked of me is, “does it puff up?” or, “can you make it puff up?” The answer to both questions is a firm NO. I never want my puffer to puff up, as it is quite stressful on the animal and there can be complications associated with puffing up, like trapping air inside itself (if it is near the surface) or being unable to deflate properly. This unique behavior is truly a life or death response, and I never want my puffer to feel that it has to resort to inflation. In the approximate six years since I've had him I have moved his tank twice, and he has never inflated, even when being netted and moved. Care is taken to avoid chasing the fish around and causing stress, and to net him as slowly and gently as possible, best done while distracted with a morsel of food. Don’t puff the puffer! He’ll be better for it. 

 

Resources

I am not a scientist, nor an expert on the subject of figure-8 puffer fish. The information provided here is the result of my own experience and my own research, and is based on the experience and research of other, more experienced puffer keepers. Below you will find some excellent sources of additional reading on this most interesting and rewarding aquarium species.

 

Wikipedia

 

Pufferpedia: The Puffer Forum

 

Puffers in Focus: The Puffer Forum

 

Fishlore

 

Ingenious (Stealth) Internal Filter

After watching a couple of Pond Guru videos on YouTube I realized that 1) I need a slow-flow filter that would be quiet and inconspicuous, and 2) I had all the components readily at hand to do it. This very popular YouTuber is an inspiring chap who has some wonderful ideas and hacks for us all to share; they are simple to do and usually cheap to implement. He makes it look very easy.

I recently set up a 29-gallon aquarium on a rack below Otis, the F8 puffer. The 29 contains a modest number of Endler's livebearers, a tiny black Moor goldfish (about 2-2.5" inches long) and some ramshorn snails. The rack is located in a hallway entrance to my kitchen, next to the powder room. This wall is a great location because the tanks are easily viewed from several perspectives, and both tanks are only 12" wide (front to back) so they don't stick out into the room very much, thus not blocking traffic in any way. However, once you start scooting the double tank stand away from the wall to accommodate an HOB filter you lose the streamlined look and it looks cluttered by the equipment, plus it becomes more intrusive into the pathway in and out of the kitchen. Otis has a small Eheim canister filter which sits in a tall, narrow flower pot on the floor next to the tank, and to the casual glance this pot looks like a trashcan or something, and you don't notice the filter. This also enables the stand to be placed close to the wall.

When I set up the 29-gal tank on the rack below Otis' tank I tried to utilize another very small canister filter next to the tanks by placing the flower pot on a plant stand and putting the second filter on the floor beneath Otis' canister filter. This worked, but did not look right, and though it did not intrude into the room very much, you noticed it and you had to avoid it when coming in and out of the powder room. I was not happy with this arrangement, and I knew I could do better. I put an AquaClear HOB on the 29 and did not have to move the stand very far off the wall to accommodate it, and I was content with it. AC filters are not solid black but an opaque grey and it was not very noticeable.

Unfortunately, there was a tiny and nearly invisible crack in the housing of the filter, and a small leak was evident in no time at all. I think I can repair this with epoxy, but it had to go for now. I had a Penguin 300 or something similar, the type with two filter pads on each side of the intake. This is too much filtration for this tank - the flow is too high - and this filter is old and makes a horrible grinding noise. I left the tank unfiltered most of the time, which was okay considering the low bioload. I dug through all my aquarium equipment (I have accumulated quite a lot over the years!) and could not find a filter that I was happy with, so I ordered an inexpensive small Aqueon HOB filter. I have one on my 10-gal snail tank and I'm happy with it.

In the meantime, waiting for the filter to arrive, I came across the video tutorial on making your own internal filter using a resin aquarium/terrarium decoration. Pond Guru used a fake rock with a hole in the bottom, but I realized I had a fake driftwood resin ornament. This thing is meant to stand up, vertically oriented, and is quite tall, which is good, because the 29-gallon aquarium is 30" tall and I could use this to hide the heater in the back corner.

What you do is drill small holes in the top of the ornament, or what will be the "top," depending on how you have it oriented in your tank. Pond Guru installed suction cups so he could attach it to the back glass, but I planned on parking this thing in a "standing" position in the corner, so no suction cups required for my application. The ornament is relatively heavy and won't float up. Since the top of the wood design is quite irregular, with jagged peaks and valleys like a piece of wood, I drilled holes in varying locations at the top. I drilled a total of 6 or 7 holes. This is the "outflow" of the filter.

There is a good-sized hole in the bottom of the ornament, which will be the "intake." I drilled a hole into the back of the ornament to accommodate an airline tubing, larger than the holes drilled in the top, exactly the same diameter as airline tubing, and placed this hole about 4" up from the bottom hole. I turned it upside down and poured in Eheim Substrat, using a mixture of the gravel type and the small "ball" type, filling it to where the airline tubing hole was drilled (holding it upside down). I fed the airline tubing through the hole and on the inside I attached an air stone, the kind that is about the size of a large olive, to diffuse the air inside the filter. Pond Guru did not do this, but used a T connector to hold the airline tubing inside the ornament, so air would come out each arm of the T inside the ornament. I don't know if it makes any difference at all, but for some reason I felt like I ought to diffuse the air. After that I gathered up some foam inserts of varying coarseness and shoved them into the hole in the bottom, holding the coarse media inside the ornament and allowing water to flow up through everything once it is in place in the tank. I used the coarsest foam at the bottom (coarse AquaClear sponges) and got finer as I went up, with the finest blue filter pad, like what is used for HOB cartridges.

Here's a pic of things before I put it in, and I ought to have taken pics of the entire build, but it was done in under 30 minutes and I forgot to get pics.

See the tank in the background close to the floor? That's the tank where I put the filter. I was going through all my aquarium supplies and found the castle ornament, which has multicolored LED lights that fade in and out, and for old time's sake I put it in there, but removed it after I put in this filter, since it really is a bit corny and looked out of place.

The only problem, which is somewhat evident when you look at this pic, is that the fake driftwood is a bit taller than 30"!! So, this means that once installed in the back corner the very top of the ornament is out of the water. There is a hole drilled there, so there is some gurgling/bubbling sounds that are slightly annoying, but can't be helped, lol. I ought to have placed the ornament in the tank prior to using it for this tank, but it will do the job. I used a Rena 400 air pump, since the tank is relatively deep and the small air pumps I have couldn't really get the air all the way down to the bottom. This pump is virtually silent.

Here's how it looks in the tank:

So here it is, located in the back right corner behind the Java. You'd never know there was a filter on this tank at all. The water is a bit cloudy from me shoving things around, but that soon settled. I think it will take quite a while for the media to support a thriving colony of bacteria, but in the meantime I'll continue my water changes and not add any livestock (if I can help it...) other than the Endler's babies. I have places for excess Endler's to go, at any rate.

I know I already credited Richard (Pond Guru), of Tyne Valley Aquatics, an aquatics/pond/landscaping business in the UK, but I want to thank him again for this great hack for those resin ornaments we've all used or are using. There are some very clever ideas to be found on his YouTube channel, so check it out. My daughters thought I was the most brilliant mom ever when I whipped out my drill and my filter media and put this thing together in no time flat, but I had to admit that it wasn't my idea, but something I really wanted to try.

For many years I have been an advocate of robust filtration, usually overfiltering my tanks, out of an abundance of caution that I'd underfilter and create dead spots in the aquarium. If some filtration is good, then more must be better, right? Well, the water rushing past the media at breakneck speed does not really give it a chance to accumulate bacteria in an efficient way, which is, ultimately, what we're looking to do. I do, of course, want to use mechanical filtration to "polish" the water and remove particles, but the primary job of the filter, to my mind, is to support bacteria that remove ammonia and nitrite.

A slow filter such as this could be key, in low bioload applications, to a healthy tank, and since it is such a departure from my normal practices I'm looking forward to seeing the results.

I will keep you posted!

Resurrection of Tank Girl

Anyone who has known me for very long remembers Tank Girl, the avatar I used all over the web for quite a few years. I redrew her from the graphic novel series, copying the image of her kicking one leg up and holding a bat behind her back, wicked grin on her face, as usual! Since I have always been a somewhat rebellious person, a punk rocker from the 80's, this persona fit me, but mainly because I had a lot of fish tanks. For a while my car license tag was "Tank Grrl" or something like it. 

Well, I had stopped using the avatar for some reason, considering myself to be more mature now, or not having as many tanks, or wanting some degree of anonymity after having a very active and widespread presence on quite a few aquarium related forums. 

Recently, with the work I've been doing founding a local aquarium club, I decided to tweak the Tank Girl image and begin using her again. Here she is today: 

I changed the fish in the tank to the fish logo for our club, CVAS, or Central Virginia Aquarium Society, as below:

I designed the fish and my dear friend and other club founder, Deborah, helped design the text, and the photo of the creek is one of hers. 

So, anyone reading this is invited to join us on our active and friendly online forum at cvas.forumotion.com, and get into the discussions. You do not have to be from Central Virginia to join! 

Been gone a YEAR???

I had no idea it had been that long since posting! I suppose things have remained stable and I have not done anything noteworthy with my tanks in that time, which is pretty unusual for me (very unusual!). Typically, I get bored and change up my tanks from time to time, re-scaping them, changing from one species to another due to conflicts or growth of the fish. Also, sadly, my tanks tend to experience disasters from time to time and that prompts a new incarnation. 

That's why I'm sort of NOT sorry that I haven't posted - A YEAR WITHOUT A TANK DISASTER? That's amazing! Also, not wishing to do something different for an entire year is an accomplishment for me; this is an example of patience on my part that I typically do not possess. 

Sooooo, I will post two videos, the usual, one of my 150-gallon SA angel/geophagus tank, and the other my 125-gallon SE Asian loach/gourami/denison barb tank. When comparing them to last year they're not much different, yet they are. Fish and plants are bigger, and the mood of each tank is settled, stable and content. My tanks have become like a cherished piece of art:  it looks good today and will continue to look good long into the future without any changes required. Ultimately, art is what I strive for in my aquarium setups. I'm not particularly interested in breeding my fish, I just want a pretty setup that is relaxing and fun to watch, laid out in a way that is pleasing to the eye, and that may actually look somewhat natural, though my tanks are far from natural. 

That said, one thing I have been dealing with in the 150 is algae on the Anubias. Mostly the algae is the brown diatom type, but there is also some black hard spot algae that cannot be scraped off, and is more frustrating. Also, I have some Anubias growing on the background at the bottom in the center, which is not possible for me to reach to brush off the offending brown coating. 

I know that plants need light and nutrients in balance to do well, and algae does, too. Algae species can usually thrive more easily than many higher order plants, availing themselves to the nutrients before the plants can. So, I have tried cutting back on the already low light, with two 36w CF bulbs lit instead of four, dosing with liquid ferts a couple of times a week, and continuing my 50% weekly water changes. I even cut back on those while the PO3 (phosphate) in the tap water was running quite high. This level has come down lately but through all of this the algae seems to be thriving. I lengthened the photoperiod, shortened it, slipped a "siesta" in the middle of the photoperiod, etc., and nothing changed. 

I have plenty of fish in this tank - plenty - so there ought to be enough CO2 for the plants from the fish, but I decided to try injecting CO2 and see if that alone made any difference in how the plants grew and whether the algae problem improved. 

I dusted off my 5# CO2 tank and had it filled at the local oxygen supply house, attached my regulator with attached solenoid, and dug out my old diffuser, which is a thick plastic tube that has a little Rio water pump attached at the top, and is open on the bottom, suctioning to the inside of the tank, so the bubbles get tossed around inside there for a good long while before getting into the water column, and improving efficiency of delivery of CO2. 

My pH controller (Milwaukee) needs a new probe, since it has been a couple of years since I've used it, and when I went to calibrate it, the probe seemed a bit unpredictable. I fired up the regulator and solenoid, however, and they are working great, so I will be able to control the CO2 by monitoring pH, and being sure there is not a sudden drop in pH that would harm the fish. With a KH of 5 in the tank and a pH of about 7.4 I will need to drop the pH to about 6.8 or 7 to get into a good CO2 level, I think. 

I'll keep the blog posted! 

Video

Here's a couple of videos of the two largest tanks, the 150 and the 125. I have moved out some of the angels from the 125, leaving one singleton behind, and put the rest in the 150. I removed 4 angels from that tank, since I had too many angels and wanted to consolidate them all into the 150.

The 125 is heading towards being an Asian setup, with pearl gouramis and Botia striata (zebra loaches), along with the Denison barbs as the primary inhabitants. I'm considering a trio of clown loaches, but they get so big and 3 might not be enough of a group for them to be happy. I think I just need more zebra loaches. The tank looks so empty!

The 150 is doing great with all the angels and the geophagus. This arrangement is working out great and I see this as being successful long-term, which is rare for me! I don't generally keep the same setup for more than a couple of years, when some tragedy occurs or I get bored and change things up. I can see me keeping the 150 as-is for a good long time, *knocks wood.*

Here's the 125. Gouramis high up at the top, barbs and loaches at the bottom, and the angel all over. The loaches are still pretty shy (there are 5 of them) and I think another 4-5 will help matters. Going on vacation next week (how nervous I am to leave my aquariums for a week is another post entirely!) so I will wait until I get back to look into adding to the group of loaches.

Here is the 150. So active and interesting!

Switch it Up

I was able to obtain 5 small Botia striata, or zebra loaches, yesterday. They look very good and had been in the dealer's tank for about three weeks, so that is encouraging. They have disappeared into the rockwork and wood piles of the 125-gallon and are out and about after lights out, even schooling with the barbs in the dark. 

I also obtained 6 T. leerii, or pearl gouramis. I got a male and 5 females, to go with the male and 2 females I already have. They will replace the angels I removed and sold from the 125 today. I still have angels in the 150 and plan to keep them there. I may not be able to keep all the gouramis in the 125 but they pretty much have the place to themselves, so it might work out. The barbs and loaches all keep to the bottom and the gouramis to the top, and there's plenty of room. 

I'm soaking some driftwood I found in my attic from a previous setup (don't throw anything away - you will want it someday) and will add that to the 125 to create more structure in the upper areas through creative stacking. I have some valisneria and similar plants but they are taking their time growing, but I hope to create a tall stand of this plant for these gouramis. 

I'll get some pics and video up soon. 

Many consider gouramis and loaches to be incompatible, since gouramis appreciate calm waters and loaches do best in fast moving waters. This tank gives me the unique opportunity to have both. There is a lot of filtration on this tank, with two Rena (now API) Filstar XP3 filters. Yes, two. When there is nothing in the tank with the filters on, and the outflow pipes, without spray bars, are pointed in the same direction, and you add fish food, or even colored water, you can see how much current is in this tank! I'm able to aim the current in a particular direction, or break it up by pointing the two outflows in different directions. 

However, I also have the ability to create current breaks, or baffles, with the use of rocks and driftwood, stacked here and there all the way to the top of the tank. Beside and behind these structures the water is calm and undisturbed, and these are the areas the gouramis like to go to when they want a break. Otherwise, the gouramis are all over the tank and do not seem to mind the current much. They travel in groups or singly and explore all areas of the tank. 

I am also considering adding 3 clown loaches to the tank, as well as two or three more zebra loaches. We'll have to see about that, but it is something I'm considering. 

The Loaches are Coming! The Loaches are Coming!

Everything is status quo with Liz's Aquariums these days. I'm very happy with all my setups, and they're all doing great. 

The 150 has several pairs of angels, and they're getting some size on them (there are 5 domestic/wild crosses and one wild P. leopoldi), so I suspect peace will not continue forever, but so far, so good. There is bickering and a lip lock here and there, but there seems to be room for everyone. 

The geophagus seem to be doing fine as well. I have excess females, and they seem to have topped out size-wise at only 2.5-3", with the dominant male being closer to 4. The subdominant males are somewhere in between. I really thought these fish would get bigger, but it does not seem that they will, considering how long I've had them. Ultimately it is better for the tank if they don't, though I would not mind having fewer but larger specimens. 

The 120 also has two pairs of angels that spawn regularly (there are 7 domestic/wild crosses from the same spawning as the ones in the 150) and, again, they bicker but there seems to be enough room for everyone. I know I have had plans to remove them in favor of loaches, but currently I am loath to get rid of them. They are so pretty! I don't think I need all 7, but I would like to keep some if I can. This means it won't be the Asian setup that I promised, but I'm enjoying the angels currently. 

What I ought to do is swap out the angels for pearl gouramis. I have a trio in the 150 that I put there when I took down my 45-gal one day when I'd decided to downsize. I should have put them in the 125 but I did not feel comfortable at the time doing that, since it lacked appropriate cover in the upper strata of the tank, and it still does, and I was not confident about the cycle. Those fish are stunners. True stunners. It took them months to feel comfortable to come out in the open, but now that they do, they are gorgeous. There is a nice male with amazing color, mainly a coral throat/belly, and the iridescent spangling that they are known for. The females are very similarly colored, so you don't miss out on color keeping both sexes. They would make a nice replacement for angels in the 125, especially with their long feelers, similar to angels, and with them I could maintain the Asian theme. The loaches that I plan would be on the middle to bottom, with the Denison's barbs, and the gouramis would be up at the top. 

As for the loaches, I am ready for the zebra loaches, or Botia striata. I have a trip planned to Skoolz of Fish, a local shop that usually carries them. 

New Year's Consolidation

There's been some non-fishy drama around the house, beginning just before Thanksgiving and not winding down until after the New Year, which I touched on in my last post, and I decided I needed to cut back a bit, which is part of my usual cycle. I'll set up new tanks for quarantine or to separate a troublemaker, or when I just get bored, then I'll like the tank so much I leave it up and turn it into a display. This can add up around the house, and it makes maintenance and feeding a bit of a chore, depending on how many tanks I have up and running at one time.

For Christmas we really had no practical place to put a Christmas tree, since any unused space is going to get a tank, right? Well, that's not a huge issue but I started to think about rearranging the furniture, and taking down the 45-gallon planted tank was really key in a more functional flow of household traffic, and a better utilization of space.

I have a friend who was looking for a tank makeover ("Make my tank look like your tanks!") and the timing was right, so I moved the fish, 3 pearl gouramis, a pair of Bolivian rams, 5 Bentosi tetras, a single surviving cardinal from a batch that I lost right after purchase, and a small female bristlenose pleco. The rams, gouramis and 2 of the tetras went into the 150, where I already have rams and more of these tetras (3 of the tetras went to my sister's tank) and the BN went into the 125 where its attention was sorely needed. I used the majority of the wood, rocks and plants in my friend's tank, which was close in size to this one, and took it down. I took everything outside, since with temps in the 60's you'd never know it was January, and hosed everything out, and sun-dried it; sand, filter media, filters, hoses, tank and all.

As an aside:  I don't recommend putting these shy gouramis in a bustling, busy tank like the 150. The 125 is a better choice, especially since I'm converting that tank over to an Asian "biotope" (ha), but that tank has a lot of strife right now with 2 breeding angel pairs, and much less hiding spots for top dwellers. The 150 has quite a bit of wood and rock structures that go all the way to the top, where gouramis like to hang out, so they have shelter there until I move them to the 125 later. Fortunately, they do come out to eat in the 150, and I target feed them where they hide so they're getting what they need. This is not a good long-term solution, though.

My attic eaves have times when they are empty, and times when they are full, and right now they're full! I have a 37-gal, a 40-gal breeder, and now the 45-gal in dry storage currently. I also have an assortment of small tanks, 2-15 gallons waiting for their next use.

I used to think I would sell tanks when I took them down, but now I don't consider it. There have been so many times when I was glad to have these tanks and stands ready and waiting. My husband has already found a temporary use for the 40-gal breeder. He asked me to go "bin shopping" with him one day. I asked him what kind of bin he was looking for, and he described a large tub that would hold two 5-gallon water jugs submerged in water for a project he was working on. He was thinking Rubbermaid, but commented that the sides would likely bow out filled with water. I suggested a glass box designed to hold water, and, lo and behold, a 40-gal breeder fits two 5-gallon water jugs perfectly! Now our hobbies are coming together, finally!

All of the fish are doing great in their new homes. Here's a couple of videos, one of the 150 and one of the 125 as they are currently.

Spawn of the Juvies

I have 7 juvenile half-wild silver angels in the 125 Buddha tank, along with 8 Denison's barbs, an orphaned black neon juvenile and 3 Otocinclus. I have plans in the future to sell the angels and stock with clown loaches, but in the meantime I want to grow out the angels a bit. The orphan black neon came from a Rena Filstar filter I was cleaning out on the deck, and I found it in the canister. The Buddha tank was the closest so I popped it in there. It is still pretty small so I suspect it was from a spawning in the 150 and the fry got sucked into the filter where it hung out for a while. Remarkable!

Over Thanksgiving my husband had a hunting accident, requiring hospitalization and a series of surgeries, and when we finally got home from the hospital I was on the phone with the surgeon when I happened to notice eggs on the valisneria leaves! I almost dropped the phone. "Sorry, Doc, I gotta go - my angels are spawning!"  No, I actually did finish the important conversation (husband doing fine now, by the way) and after hanging up I saw that two leaves were covered in eggs, and the pair were fanning and in the process of laying and fertilizing more. They were chasing off the other angels who approached, but nothing too nasty.

I was surprised, since these fish are only 3" from nose to tail, and have a bit of growing up to do, but I suppose it isn't too unusual. I guess they're happy!

In the video you can see they don't pay much attention to the barbs, but focus on the other angels. They did a pretty good job and kept the eggs going for about 4 days (not sure how long the eggs were present before I noticed them - I was in a hospital with my husband in Harrisonburg for 3 days) before they finally disappeared. I'm sure they'll have several more spawns before they actually get it right. It reminds me of the "Pregnant at 16" TV show - the babies are trying to make babies, lol.

Otos and Pearls

Sounds interesting, right? Actually, I've had a monster diatom outbreak in the 125, which otherwise houses 7 juvie wild-cross silver angels and 8 Denison barbs (adore these fish!). I'm not interested in keeping a pleco in this tank, though I've got plenty in my 150 and could spare at least one. Deborah was looking at the tank, and I was complaining about the diatoms, when she suggested a troop of otocinclus (Otocinclus vittatus, most likely). What a brilliant idea!

This tank is somewhat sparsely decorated, with just a few pieces of wood and rocks, and the Buddha sculpture dominating the back wall. I want to leave plenty of swimming room for the angels as they mature, though I may want to create more areas for them to claim as territories. At any rate, otos did not occur to me, but YIKES there is a lot of diatom algae! I added 5 and they're not exactly "going to town" on the algae like I had hoped, but you can see where work is being done. Fingers crossed.

These fish are notoriously tricky to get established, and, like cardinal tetras, they either die off soon after getting them or they live a nice long life. They are rumored to be collected using cyanide gas in the water to slow them down, which can certainly cause lasting damage, but whether or not that is true they are certainly likely to be somewhat starved while being shipped and kept in a dealer's tank. There is not much to eat for them in these (typically) pristine tanks, since they need algae, which is not usually present. I tried my best to pick some of the more robust of the fish available.

I also obtained a trio of Trichogaster leeri, or the pearl gourami. These fish are in the 45 gallon, recently vacated by the juvie angels. This is a pretty heavily planted tank with a large vertical planted driftwood structure at one end of the tank, going all the way to the surface, and this is ideal for any gourami, since they like to orient themselves next to a structure as they move from the top to the other areas of the tank. Chuck at Azalea Aquariums was able to choose a male and two females for me, and after getting them home I'm sure that's what I have (thanks, Chuck!). They are typically shy and these are no exception. I'm sure they'll relax a bit more in the coming weeks but they colored up beautifully and are very attractive specimens. They are one of my favorite gouramis. I've been wedded to South American species for a good long while now and I wanted to branch out to some Asian species, and that's why I have the Denison barbs as well. I'm not terribly worried about keeping a biotope in either the 45 or the 125, though the 150 is an approximation of one.

I'm hoping my new additions will settle in well and thrive, and I'll try to get some pics and video of these tanks to show off my new additions.

My plants are not doing that great in either setup, though the 45 is having better luck. The 125 is new, so I know the plants need a bit of time to settle in, but I don't think the light is strong enough. With a tank that deep you can't use the typical "watt per gallon" estimation of how much light you need. I'll see how things go after I get through the new tank diatom phase and see if the plants perk up. They're not dying, but they're not growing, either. I have jungle val and regular valisneria, anubias and java fern/moss. The usual suspects! I'm still not sure if I'll add any geophagus or other cichlids to the 125.

Shy Fish

I am accustomed to wild-caught species of aquarium fish showing a tendency to be shy. I believe even domestic discus can be shy as well, rushing off to a corner or turning to face the back glass of the aquarium when the tank is approached. My own wild leopoldi angels got over this, at least with me and my family, though they never showed themselves when I had guests.

Recently I hosted a meeting of my aquarium club, the Central Virginia Aquarium Society, and a good group was in attendance. My normally gregarious and frantic-for-attention orange-head Tapajos were sedate, almost tan in color, and were not looking like they usually do - this went on the entire time I had guests. I knew my leopoldi angel would hide - he always does, but I did not expect the geos to act this way. They didn't hide, but they did not look as glorious as usual. They appeared mildly stressed.

Last night I was looking at them, and the males had iridescent blue/white mustaches, vivid orange heads, iridescent blue stripes mixed in with the deep red stripes on their fins, and the sub-dominant males and females had the spangling and stripes one associates with this species - they were stunning! The mustaches on the males looked artificial - like they had been painted or lit from within like a neon sign.

I wish they'd had this appearance when I had company, but mainly I am intrigued by their response to visitors. Most aquarium fish seem quite oblivious and you assume they don't recognize you, their keeper, but maybe they are smarter than we realize. My wild angel is certainly very discriminating when it comes to being in open water versus hiding in his special cave formed by driftwood pieces. People who don't live with me but are very frequent visitors, like my sister, get to see this beautiful fish. Anyone else can only glimpse a stripe or two in the dim cave in a rear corner.

This is why I need photos and videos to showcase these amazing creatures!

My goldfish, my half domestic angels and my puffer do not seem to discriminate - they never hide or seem shy in the least. They're just always hungry so any being with thumbs is fair game for begging. My Denison's barbs, the lone occupants of my 125 currently, seem to recognize me and come up to the top corner where I usually feed them when I approach, but it took them a bit of time to figure this out. They do not seem to do this with visitors, but rather continue their endless cruising in mid-water.

Maybe it has to do with how many generations away from wild the fish are, but I'm almost certain the Figure-8 puffer was wild caught, since I don't think they're typically bred in captivity, though I might be wrong about that. He's just so desperate to eat that he doesn't seem to care who is doing the feeding, and will shamelessly beg. He's in a very busy part of the house, the kitchen, where two hallways intersect, with frequent foot traffic close by his tank, and I definitely think he prefers this to where his tank used to be, in my office, where there was much less activity.

The Angel Shuffle

Yesterday I added 3 juvenile angels, 50% wild x 50% domestic silvers, to the 150.

The single leopoldi angel rushed out to see, obviously excited to see angels that look similar to him. He has been interacting with them in a semi-aggressive manner, rushing toward them but never coming in contact. I think he is checking them out to see what they have in mind. They pretty much completely ignore him! They continue to poke around, eating voraciously, and don't seem to mind this giant angel getting into their business. I'm still watching things because this wild angel, who has been the only angel in the tank for quite a while, may not take kindly to conspecific interlopers. It might help when I add the extra two tonight, bringing the group of newcomers to 5.

I will then add the rest of the angels from the 45, which will be seven, to the 125 to grow out. Incidentally, when I used an aquarium volume calculator I determined that the 120 is in fact a 125 gallon, so I'll go back and edit my previous posts for continuity. I've got a SCHWEET piece of driftwood, a stumpy, branchy thing, soaking in my pool and I'm eager to get it waterlogged and in place in the 125 as a central feature. I really like how it looks now:

However, I simply must have this stump in the tank so this temporary scape will have to go. I never planned on keeping this arrangement, but was using the rocks from another tank as seed material, and the driftwood along the back is very nice that I collected from the James River, so I'll keep that, and some of the plants. I'll post pics once I get this stump in place.

I'll be adding Acarichthys heckelii (threadfin acara) to the 125 for the bottom. I was going to have them, then I wasn't, and now I think they'll be a good choice for this setup. I'll give up on the rooted plants, I think.

Then I'll have the 45 to empty out and redo. Am thinking about loaches and/or gouramis for that tank, since I have not had an Asian setup since my dwarf puffer tank. I know there are Denison barbs in the 125 (for anyone who is even remotely paying attention to this....) but I still consider the 125 to be essentially a SA tank.

More to come..

Flirting with Ferts

I've decided to start dosing my low-tech tanks with some simple ferts. I have no plan and am only using what I have on hand, which includes:

Seachem Root Tabs
Seachem Flourish Excel
Seachem Flourish Iron

I'm using the package directions and we'll see if I can detect an improvement in plant growth. My tanks have good lighting and no algae problems, so we'll definitely be able to determine if the ferts cause an algae outbreak or if the plants suddenly respond with new growth. I'm too lazy to calculate exact ratios of each specific nutrient and mix up a batch custom for each tank, so we'll see what happens.

If it seems to be helping then to save $$ I will likely need to go back to bulk ferts that I mix up myself in specific ratios, like I used to do when I had high light CO2 injected setups. That was a bit of a pain and, obviously, I gave it up for the time being, but we'll see. I'd like to see my plants look just a bit healthier.

The Trouble With pH

There's no trouble with pH, just kidding!!!

Well, sometimes there is. When you're importing your wild caught Altum angels you're probably going to be using R/O water and keeping your pH at 4-5 because these fish will keel over at the mere mention of neutral pH.

All kidding aside, some species, especially those collected straight from the wild, need to have the pH matched to their habitat to maintain them comfortably or to have them spawn for you, but oftentimes they can adapt slowly to the pH of your tap or well water.

However, for all the rest of us folks who mosey down to the LFS and admire the offerings, with plans to add them to our tank, or to set up a new tank with them, we don't have to worry about pH. I very, very rarely even test for it. When I was dosing CO2 into a high light, heavily planted tank I did measure pH as a way to monitor my CO2, but otherwise I don't test. I don't need to. I do plenty of weekly water changes (see the end of my last post for details about water changes) and this helps avoid Old Tank Syndrome, so I'm not worried about my pH dropping over time. It WILL drop over time in the presence of nitrogenous waste, and our tanks are a nitrogenous waste factory. Keeping up with the debris and excess nitrate will prevent a buildup of decaying material that acidifies the water, dropping the pH, and rendering the tank unstable. We do NOT want this!

So often I hear at pet stores or read it online that people need to adjust their pH. A customer will bring in a water sample to determine why the fish aren't doing well, and they always test the pH. The conversation goes like this: "Oh, I see your pH is at 7.4. We need to get that down to 7. Here's a product you can add to your water and it will take care of that for you. This is your problem." I have to speed walk out of there when I hear that, because I just might blurt something out involuntarily.

On the web I have read this type of thing as basic instructions for setting up a tank, or doing water changes. "Prepare your new water going into the tank with water conditioner for chlorine and chloramines, and then use your pH adjuster to get the pH to 7."  Click. I'm out.

Most currently available species of fish you'll find at the pet store or from your local hobbyist can do just fine in whatever pH your tap water might be. Honestly.

Years ago, in the early 80's when I was new to the hobby, I was told upon arriving at my new home in South Florida, with my fancy goldfish in the Coleman cooler after a 14-hour journey, that the tap water there was moderately hard and had a pH over 7, so it was not good for aquarium fish and would kill them. Wow! I had no idea! I collected 3-4 plastic 5-gallon water cooler jugs (the water was not safe for people, either! Wow!) and even used one glass 6-gallon carboy to tote water home from the grocery store water dispensing machine ($$). I am strong like bull and I did that for 9 years. I actually sold those goldfish when I moved back to Virginia, them having come from Virginia with me originally. Great fish. What I didn't know was that most aquarium fish are bred and raised in Florida, and, in fact, the water in Richmond, where I came from, is moderately hard and has a pH of ~7.4. Boy. I feel like a real dummy now, but, as mentioned in a previous post (kids, brace yourselves) there was no internet in 1984 and I relied upon the information provided in books and from the LFS. (People also did not carry cell phones back then, but I don't like to overwhelm anyone with prehistoric facts so we'll move on)

So, the upshot is, use your tap/well water and see how it goes. You'll need to test it for things like Nitrate (NO3), since excess nitrate is not uncommon in many water systems and even in wells that are close to farms, and that can cause algae problems and even health problems in the fish if it is at high enough levels. The pH is probably fine, and if it is on the alkaline side more's the better, since it will be easier to keep it there. When you start adding pH reducers then you're what we like to call, "chasing the dragon" and that means fighting the natural tendency of the water to creep up to a more alkaline level. Unstable and variable pH is harmful to fish, much more so than a steady higher pH.

I have kept, and still keep to this day, wild caught Leopoldi angelfish from the Rio Negro in Brazil in pH of 7.4 to 7.6 without any problems. I know they won't breed for me at that pH, and that's fine, but it does not affect health or vigor. They were adapted over a period of months and it went just fine.

At this point in my life, with young children at home, it would be too much of a pain for me to try to maintain tanks with low pH, with R/O systems and mixing vats, etc. It is doable, and plenty of people do it with great success, but I don't have the time to fool with it. Right now I am able to maintain 6 large tanks at home and 3 at work with straight tap water PWCs (Partial Water Changes) and everyone's happy and healthy, with an easy regimen that does not take me very long at all.

That's why I'm so glad that I can keep most available species of fish in my tap water just like it is without worry. You probably can too. This is the KISS principle. Keep It Simple, Silly.

Feed Those Hungry Bacteria

I was doing a search on the web recently, trying to collect data about the exact process of seeding a new tank with bacterial colonies. I wasn't looking for information on HOW to do it (I've been doing this for many years) but specific measurements of when and if ammonia and nitrite are measurable, or do they never show up at all, and how many hours/days before nitrate shows up in a new tank that's been properly seeded. We all consider this to be "instantly" or "silently" cycling a tank, and I've never bothered to actually measure the process and see if I can measure anything happening, or if it is truly and indeed silent. My fish don't seem to be affected negatively and the tank seems to be cycled right away, and off I go.

I came up empty in my search, however. There was an abundance of information about seeding a tank, why it was a good idea, and how to do it, but no data collected in the process after it is done, and how long it can take.

What prompted this post was some disappointing advice I found being given over and over on general advice sites like Ask.com, and it is something I have run into frequently on the fish forums I frequent. People new to the hobby who are setting up a brand new tank have enough information to know that the tank has to be cycled, and they know the probably should not do it with fish, and it is at this point they are told to "seed" their new tank. Friends who have aquariums offer to help, and the new person will announce that their buddy is giving them a sack of gravel from their tank and they will pop that sack into their new tank, wait a couple of weeks for the bacterial colonies to grow, and then add their new fish. Another advice site had a person giving out lots of recommendations, since she said she had quite a few aquariums, and she said that you needed to set up your tank and let it run for a couple of weeks without fish to allow the "bacterial colonies" to establish before putting the fish in. She assured the reader that if they had any questions at all about their aquariums she'd be more than happy to help. Bless her heart.

I don't pretend to know everything about the freshwater aquarium hobby. Far from it. The more I learn the less I seem to know. I have killed a lot of fish from pure impatience or ignoring what I know to be true, thinking that maybe this time I can fudge the natural progression of a tank settling into stability. The good thing for me is that there was no internet when I was new to the hobby so I could not embarrass myself too badly on the worldwide web with my ignorance, because I'm arrogant enough to spout off at the mouth without really knowing what I'm talking about. Now I do it on my blog, where I'm allowed to spout whatever the heck I want! LOL!

However, I do know a few things, and one of the few simple truths about an aquarium is the nitrogen cycle. Ammonia produced by fish and inverts or decaying food will foster the colonization of bacteria that consumes this ammonia, which is extremely harmful to fish. The waste product of those bacteria is nitrite  (NO2), and another species of bacteria colonizes to consume that nitrite, which is also harmful to fish. The waste product of those bacteria is nitrate (NO3), which is harmful to fish but less so at low levels, and it is the NO3 that we control with water changes.

So we've got two sets of bacterial colonies that we must wait on to get their act together and make the tank inhabitable for fish. Every established tank you see, with fish swimming happily about in good health and eating well is loaded up with bacteria that render the fishes' waste harmless to them. It can take quite a while for this process to finalize itself - in experiments I've done it has taken as long as six weeks for a fishless cycle to complete. There are other factors, such as temperature and pH that affect the cycle, and different bacteria colonize in brackish and saline environments. It can be frustrating to wait, looking at this glass box of water that has no fish and no apparent purpose. If you don't have a source of seed material then a fishless cycle is the way to go, and that's what I'd do if I found myself with no other tanks and no friends with tanks. Just settle in and wait, and it will eventually happen, dosing the tank daily with pure ammonia. Ammonia is food for the bacteria and is mandatory for the cycle to happen.

What people with more than one tank have done for years is to "seed" the new tank with bacteria from the old tank. The bacteria in the filter of an established tank is a precious commodity, and we take care to protect it. We clean out our filters carefully, avoiding sterilizing techniques and being sure not to use chlorine-laden tap water to rinse out our sponges and pads.

I'm very glad to see lots of advice being given on the web about seeding a new aquarium to avoid New Tank Syndrome. This is great, and I'm glad this bit of news is getting out to newbies right off the bat, since it used to be you had to learn the hard way.

When I started keeping fish in the very early 80's as far as I knew there was no such thing as a "cycle," and ammonia removing chips were my friend. I was constantly battling ammonia spikes, cloudy water, and fish gasping at the surface. The advice I was given at the pet store was the following:

• You have to remove the ammonia with Ammo Chips in your filter. There's no other way to remove it, and if you don't your fish will die (this part, at least, was true).
• Don't do too many water changes - just top off the water when it evaporates for best results. Changing water screws up the natural balance the tank has achieved.
• If your water is even slightly hard out of the tap you can't use it for your aquarium - it will kill your fish. 

So, times have changed and the information has slowly tricked out there, so even though I'm still hearing pet store employees advising people to use pH adjuster to get their tap water to 7 (that is for another post, please don't get me started on that now....), for the most part new people to the hobby are starting out with more knowledge than I did.

What's wrong with the information provided about seeding a new tank? Well, the very important fact that the bacteria needs to be fed to stay alive. It will die (I wish I had a reference for you) within hours without a source of ammonia. When you get that sack of gravel from your buddy be sure the gravel was collected from only the surface, because lower than a few centimeters you've got anaerobic bacteria (reference goes here) and the bacteria we need for cycling a tank is aerobic bacteria (reference goes here). Once you get that gravel it will be better utilized, since the bacteria is aerobic, to place it in a filter, or at least hang the bag in front of the aquarium outflow, so water flows over it. Lying in a lump at the bottom of the aquarium, in a corner where there may be very little water flow depending on the filtration and flow you have in your tank. it will likely do you no good, the bacteria dying without access to the ammonia in the water column.

This is why the advice to set up your tank and run it for a couple of weeks to let the biological bacteria accumulate is nonsense, because in the absence of ammonia, which I presume is the case in a newly set up aquarium, no bacteria will grow. Bacteria needs to be fed, and if you don't have your fish at the ready that seed material is going to go to waste. High or low temps will kill it as well, so be careful when you transport it from one tank to the other.

Think of it like a heart transplant - have the needy patient (your new tank of fish) ready and willing to accept the gift of the new heart (bacteria) and while no ambulance or police escort is required, put the dirty filter material or gravel seed material in a cooler or other container that will maintain the tank temperature and conditions until you can get it into the new tank, where it can go right to work oxidizing ammonia. If you've got your own established tank then you can just walk it over to the new tank and get it in place quickly for the best results. You can start your new tank filter on an established tank for at least two to four weeks to get it seeded, and be sure the filter material has brown goop on it - that's the good stuff! I tend to run at least two filters on most of my tanks so I can mix and match, swap and reap the benefits of bacterial colonies at the ready.

I know that as long as there is the World Wide Web there will be all kinds of information supplied, and it is up to us to do our own research and determine whether the source can be trusted. I'm sitting here polluting the Web with my own opinions and experiences and some may disagree with me (please comment if you do - I'm a big girl and can handle it, and it would let me know that someone out there is reading all this crap I write), but I have achieved some degree of success by doing a few things:

• Protect your bacteria - it can be delicate. Feed it and provide the proper environment for it to thrive and don't disturb the tank much at all for a few months after the cycle is complete. A well intentioned gravel vac on a brand new setup can cause a mini-cycle. Even your betta bowl is cycled, so when you dump it out every week (yes, every week, the betta will thank you for it) don't scrub the sides or the substrate too much. Your bacteria is there doing God's work for you. 
• Change your water. Every week. Even if it is only 10% do it regularly. Once I began doing water changes like clockwork my tanks became very stable, without illness or water quality problems of any kind. This might be the best thing anyone can do to maintain a healthy tank. 
• Overfilter
• Change your water.
• Be patient in all things Aquarium. 
• Stock carefully and pay attention to your fish and their behavior with each other. Remove anybody causing problems. When you remove this troublemaker now you can set up another tank! Yay! 
• Change your water. Every week.
• Plants almost always help keep a tank stable, if you have fish that won't eat them. There are several species of plant that don't require substrate and are hard to kill for all you people out there who think they have Black Thumbs. I'll bet you can do it. Try, anyway. A little bit of fluorescent or natural light and some fish to provide nutrients and you're probably going to have success with plants like Java fern, Java moss, Anubias sp., water sprite and even duckweed. Crypts are pretty easy too, with low lighting requirements for the most part, though they are heavy root feeders and need a good layer of gravel or sand. 
• The final recommendation, if you do NOTHING else, change your water.