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.