Help! J-P's Set up

[J-P]

Is something like this photo unmanageable for 210 gallons?

I has hoping for something similar but not exact.

Maybe I'll just stick with moss on the rocks & patches here and there.

BUT... that "rolling it up" gave me a quirky idea... a horozontal moss wall that can be rolled up like astro turf, cleaned and then laid back down .. definately doable in a small tank. Just maybe not for my set up.

[Flutter]

I only very rarely had to trim a SAPs teeth. I fed mine a diet of at least 95% cultured snails, primarily ramshorns, but some percentage common pond snails. I have been saying this for years, but nobody else seems to try it.

I take offense to that! Well not really (as I've never posted this) This is -exactly- what I'm planning on doing with my SAPs. Got some snails this weekend, hoping they'll start breeding like crazy so the SAPs can get some decent meals from them. Probably going to buy a bunch of snails too as I'll get more faster with a large initial population. The only problem is that the SAPs are in the snail tank so the snails are in a bucket. Going to do a water change and move them into the 50gal tonight.

[J-P]

My first thought with a snail steak diet was "do we add vitimes or just let the snails do their thing on the veggies we supply them?"

Do we have to suppliment the puffers diet with vitimen water ar anything else?

As a P.S. Plants and parts arrived today! Once the water clears up a little more I will take some more pics.

I am still not certain what are the best types for the veggie filter / refrigerium.

I have my older plants in there and will see how they do before I transplant them to other the tanks.

[RTR]

First you have to remember how many tanks I run and it was more and more water volume, plus massive veggie filters (the T.mbu alone had 3 veggie filters - a 120 and 2 each 40 gallons = 200 gallons of water planted densely to help control pollution and provide extra O2 for a jumbo fish). The veggie filters were mostly ramhorns, with some common pond snails. Without hundreds of gallons of veggie filters I could never have fed the SAPs and all the F-8s (many tanks with a long-term trial) routinely with snails.

The best plant for the veggie filters depends on the tank size and shape and lighting. In the mbu's veggie filters I used my standard Italian Val -it grows well and easily for me in decent current tanks, thinned out plants are trade goods ($$ credits at the LFS), and it self-propagates well by runners. I could just go in and thin out the thickest clumps when needed and it would fill back in - the lazy man's way to grow plants and absorb excess nutrients. The 120 was reverse light cycle (more O2 for the fish during the dark) and the 2 - 40s were the same light cycle as the mbu's 180 (also planted with Crinum). I've never supplemented the snails I rear myself, as they get all the out-of-date prepared fish food plus all the algae they want. I would no doubt keep any purchased snails in QT for quite some time before I would use them - and likely only as breeders. I am unbelievably neurotic about QT - as you need to be with a circulating range. Introduce one SE Asian bred fish with pathogens and you can lose everything. NIMFT.

On the moss carpets, for me it is easier to use multiple moderately sized plastic mesh grids (used for needlepoint?) at the craft store. They are semi-rigid, so ca be lifted and leaned against the tank wall while you vacuum underneath them (very fine silt/mulm in quantity - mosses are mulm magnets). You can also remove them to a deepish tray for trimming - avoids the trimmings loose in the system and no Python or filter intake clogs. Always do everything that looks like extra work but that saves you work and nasty surprises. It is faster and easier in the long run. But the soft mesh walls could be rolled handled pretty much the same way. It is just more awkward than the smaller individual pieces for me. Your call on that.

HTH

[J-P]

at the moment I don't have hearly enough moss to make a "carpet", but later I'll be asking about plant division and identification


For the referigerium portion are tall "quick grow" worts and mosses better than slow growing plants?

[J-P]

Ok got some plants in, and I hope I am doing things right so they will start growing out soon. I have also added some liquid ferts as recommended so that they may take root sooner than later.

[J-P]

The best plant for the veggie filters depends on the tank size and shape and lighting. Italian Val -it grows well and easily for me in decent current tanks, thinned out plants are trade goods ($$ credits at the LFS), and it self-propagates well by runners. I could just go in and thin out the thickest clumps when needed and it would fill back in - the lazy man's way to grow plants and absorb excess nutrients.

Thank you! I looked up the pics for the Italian Val and it is a very pretty plant. I will look for something similar.

The 120 was reverse light cycle (more O2 for the fish during the dark) and the 2 - 40s were the same light cycle as the mbu's 180 (also planted with Crinum). I've never supplemented the snails I rear myself, as they get all the out-of-date prepared fish food plus all the algae they want.

How does a reverse light cycle work? I was thinking of having the lights on during the day and the moon lights at night. On the flip side, having the lights on during the day kind of seems pointless. The room the tank is in recieves very little natural sunlight at the moment. At most 1.5~2 hours on a sunny day and only during sunrise. In the summer it will recieve more as the angle shifts.

On the moss carpets, for me it is easier to use multiple moderately sized plastic mesh grids (used for needlepoint?) at the craft store.

That's brilliant! Exactly the idea I was looking for! I have some stainless steel sink strainers I have attached some moss to to help give a "hilly" effect.

[RTR]

The Java ferns and its varieties are not in the substrate are they? That can kill them. The rhizome from which they grow absolutely positively MUST be fully exposed to the water, or it will rot. It is possible to grow them as carpets, but tricky - you take the shed babies (just wait, you will have many of them) and hold them just at or barely above the substrate with wire loops. They put out their holdfasts (no true roots) and attach to the substrate (gravel is better than sand for this) and grow nicely, but the shed babies are a pest.You cannot convert a rhizome to subsurface existence. It dies. In the wild, these are waterfall plants - they live in the spray, never in the substrate.

There are many faster-growing plants than Val, but it is really easy for me and I like it, but it does want a medium to tall tank. Anacharis is faster and a super nutrient sponge, but you have to secure it and the lower part tends to die off, plus it is sensitive to Excel (more than val). Some of the other stem plants also grow like weds, but I don't like the minimum weekly pruning, so don.t use them.

Reverse light cycles., just like "regular" light cycles are all timer controlled, and so are easy. My tank room has no windows, although the adjacent pool room has four plus a slider - but, there are ten-foot wide decks above those, so direct sun only gets in in the mid-winter - right now the room is bright mid-day. By April it will be dim at best. The displays all face and are viewed from the pool room (wall of tanks). The reverse-cycle veggie filters are the bottom tier, all black from the "view" side, maintained and seen from within the tank room. I have some out in the house that have blackout shades that can be pulled down to screen them. The displays tend to be lighted afternoon and evening - the PM; the veggie filters/refugia in general are lighted during the dark and light AM.. But any cycle that suits your schedule will do. You do need to be around during the overlap time at one end or the other, or tend tanks twice a day (NIMFT), I am strictly once a day.

HTH

[J-P]

the only plant "planted" in the sand is the Barclaya Red everything else is resting on top

now here is the silly part:
I had ordered 2 packs of the lead weights for the plants .. all fine and dandy .. and a moment ago I realized that I could have used my fishing weights and some simple line.

I hate it when that happens!

[RTR]

Why are you using lead weights? Under acid conditions (all substrate tend to go acid BTW), lead becomes soluble and therefore potentially toxic to anything and everything in the tank. It is not going to wipe out your tank, but it is not going to do it any good either. I I absolutely had to weigh down a plant (it happens), I would tie it to a (safe) rock. If/when I think I must use lead, I keep it on top of the substrate and count the strips and get them out ASAP and make sure I got them all.

Lead is universally toxic. It is one of the only if not the only common element which had absolutely no role in animal metabolism at any level. Avoid it whenevr possible and limit its time in your tank.

The Romans used lead to line some aqueducts, and stored wine it it to make it sweeter. You do know what happened to the Roman Empire don't you?

Lead fishing weights are not supposed to be lead anymore. Lead pellets in shotguns are not either. Lead solder is long gone. Leaded gasoline should be history as well. Dangerous stuff, lead is.In the late 20th century, after thousands of years, civilization finally got the message on lead. Join the party!

[J-P]

Thank you for helping me avoid a possible disaster!

I don't know if my fishing wights are actually lead or not. I know some are, but I do have others that are considerably more shiny which, possibly, are not.

[RTR]

The shiney weighs should not be lead - or they are jacketed in some other metal which presumably is not subject to dissolving/corrosion in acid water conditions or substrates.

[J-P]

I stitched around the filter media and something just doesn't look right. Well maybe look isn't the workd.. feel right?

I put the bio ball in the top as suggested. The bottom section is layered into 4 areas:
Bio Balls
Pot scrubbers
Floss Media
(not shown) sponge media along the side walls

Any input would be highly valued.


P.S. the last photo is of a sprout that I noticed yesterday! It is so tiny! I can't beleive I got a sprout after only having plants a couple days!

[RTR]

Flow is from the top down? I like a prefilter before bioballs to keep them clear of macroscopic debris, then an air space (perhaps support a floss pad on eggcrate? That would help distribute the flow more evenly also - in the photo it looks very uneven to me.) and then the balls. The top floss pad could be peeled off for rinsing as frequently as required without disturbing the bio-filter below it.

What is the floss, etc. below to do? I mean, what it the job for each? More mechanical media? (If so, I don't like that idea - that means you have to dig the balls out to clean mechanical media - wrong end up to me.) Or more bio-media? Why are there three varieties?

I'm confused.

[J-P]

Yes the flow is to down.

The floss is generic filter floss media. I am not sure if floss is ment to be mechenical or biological. I am going to assume biological because of the desnity. I is very similar to sponge media.

The pot scrubbers are ment to catch large particles, the floss fine particles.

In my HOB filter it is layered: Bio media at the bottom, chemical (carbon) in the middle and mechanical? (pummice stone) at the top.

condidering the flow is top down I thought it was reversed: Bio-balls (bio), scrubbers(mechanical) and floss (boi+mechanical) since there is no carbon.

haha see that's why I am confused also!

Also sorry .. the forum posts the latest photos first .. I forgot about that.