Update on 75 gallon *bichir* tank, Pics and Videos

[FrogSplash]

Twin dragons are my favorite part =D

I ordered those for my husband, he loves dragons. It actually has 3 heads and no bum bum.

just saw the third! still my favorite part. ive been contemplating buying a dragon fixture for my amazon community tank, but it would be for decor only as when im finished with my pvc filter itll have a port for airlines/stones

[sevenyearnight]

That sounds cool

[FrogSplash]

I'll make sure to post a guide when its done so everyone can share the experience of building a simple filter that is ultra efficient as those filter 3-5x the cost. I might just get the dragon too.

I love what youve done with the tank and i cant stress enough how i would like an exact copy

[sevenyearnight]

I'll make sure to post a guide when its done so everyone can share the experience of building a simple filter that is ultra efficient as those filter 3-5x the cost. I might just get the dragon too.

I love what youve done with the tank and i cant stress enough how i would like an exact copy

"Minus the hair algae" lol
Thank you!
It's a huge PITA so far to up keep, hopefully I can get my nutrient/co2/light so on balanced soon because the algae is growing on everything, and starting to smother.

[FrogSplash]

tell me about the hair algae lol i had that problem in my downstairs tank. but it seems the taiwanese moss over came it. as for nutrients and such, my tap water (yes tap!) is filtered through a high end water softener with an activated carbon filter too. but the ph comes out around 7.4 or so. So in my main i have spagnum peat moss to keep the hardness and ph down for my silver dollars and bolivian rams, and i am using purigen to battle the ammonia and nitrites. did a reading this morning and the ammonia/nitrites/nitrates were all at 0. as for phosphate and such im not sure as my test kit is rather limited. but if your fish are showing their colors then your doing just fine. I started adding flourish excel (im a big believer in seachem products) so im curious to see how that works out in conjunction with everything else in my fangs puffer tank.

How do you have your filtration set up?

And lights too? i abandoned the watts/gallon rule and moved on to the lumens/gallon theory and so far in my puffer tank with 8-10 hours of light (10 gallon temp. tank with about 800 lumens or less total) the tall hairgrass and wisteria are looking greener than ever

[sevenyearnight]

My ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates are all 0, I guess between the daily water partials, only having 3 fish, and all the plants, it's been pretty consistent. My Ph is 6, and I've been dosing with Fluorish Excel with a co2 monitor. I used to have a Magnum 350 hooked up to it, but I got POed at it, took it down, cleaned it, and sold it. Then I've had an aquaclear powerhead with a sponge set up. The guy I sold the canister filter to emailed me wanting to return it because he said he couldn't get it to stop leaking. When he returned it, one of the hoses wasn't connected correctly, and he had it level with his tank, which bent the hoses and forced the lid to bend ever so slightly to break the air tight seal. I'm still testing it, but so far it hasn't leaked with the bucket test. So I'm going to set it back up again even though I kind of hate it.
In addition to the excel, I have the fluorish tabs in the substrate, and I had the fluorish liquid. This is where I erred I believe. I over fertilized thinking my lighting was more on the mod-high, when it's more on the low-mod.
I have no idea about the phosphates, I have yet to get that test. I don't know of my lumens, but I have 4 6500k T8. The plants are growing, and sending off shoots, but just recently the hair algae has been getting troublesome. I will get it under control though.
Oh, I also have some peat nugget product I can add to my canister filter. I've never tried it before, lets just hope it doesn't make the algae worse lol.

Other than Mortimer biting his own tail today, the fish seem to be very content and active. There is no aggression, and L-Seven still has her weird attachment to Mortimer, following him around and snuggling on him sometimes.

You should post some pics of your tanks!

[FADE2BLACK_1973]

Ph at 6? Wow them are Discus ph levels...lol. Btw, I think canister filters with media baskets are great to add all kinds of different filter media. I hate how Marineland Magnum canister are set-up compare to the ones with the no bypass baskets.

[Pufferpunk]

The pH of urine is ~6. What's the pH of your tap water?

[sevenyearnight]

My tap water basically is urine. It has ammonia of .25, and the ph is lower than 6. The tank reads a little higher than 6, but not by much.
Let me test it again right now brb

[sevenyearnight]

Just tested my tank, Ph is at 6.4.
Is that too low?

[FADE2BLACK_1973]

Perfect ph for Discus but Im not sure about those you have in the tank. Btw, I would not want to any peat to the filter. Oh and are you using Prime during WC's? I would also cut back on those daily WC's. It might help with the low ph problems, imo though.

[Pufferpunk]

You might want to consider doing 1/2 tap, 1/2 RO water.

[sevenyearnight]

Oh yeah, not adding peat with that Ph. I'll check my tap again because it unfortunately does not have consistent parameters.
My husband called the water company and they said they have an acceptable range that is safe for human consumption, and it's not any exact number hence the variations.
But I have purified mineralized water I can use from now on. RO is a bit more difficult, I've only been using that for the marine tanks so it has salt in it of course.
My CO2 Was too high too. :/
I set the magnum back up, it just need the hoses to be connected properly, so far no leaking. I really want yo get a Sun sun though.

Would 6.5 be ok? I've read that 6.5 to 7.4 is acceptable.

[Pufferpunk]

It doesn't have salt in it until you add salt, right?

[sevenyearnight]

Yes, but I've already added the salt :/