Loaches Online Forum

I have a 55 gallon with an aquaclear 110. Wood, pvc hidey pipes and lots of messy watersprite and java moss. Temperatures are between 76 and 78 F. Inhabitants are a 6" senegal bichir and a slightly longer but skinnier peacock eel. I was thinking of getting a pearl gourami or two. They're beautiful, ...

Breed or hatch?

My pleasure.

I put a hole in one and then put it over the the intake whole - In my experience if you cut them small they tend to clog. I guess it isn't that pretty, but it turns a canister or HOB intake into a sponge filter, with all of a sponge filter's benefits; fry safe, fish will pick from it, and a fine bio...

I also found that pantyhose clogged too fast. I use loose, coarse sponge to cover filter intakes The sort of sponge that goes in the fluval internal filters, or the aquaclear HOBs does well, so does this - http://www.bigalsonline.com/BigAlsUS/ctl3684/cp18430/si1383279/cl0/bigalsfoaminsert20x35x525 I...

Maybe in US gallons!

You got me.

Hmm i usually do 20% weekly for water changes, would it be worth upping this?

It couldn't hurt. If it doesn't help at all then it's probably too much light or something in your source water.

It could be phosphate related, I don't track phosphates.

6 hours isn't very long, no, but my feeling, and someone may disagree, is that 39 watts is a bit high if you aren't heavily planted.

Also, a 36x12x18 tank is closer to 30 than 20 gallons.

This is what I would do: Clean up as much of the Cyanobacteria as you can. Do a three or four day blackout, take a black garbage bag or 2 and tape them over the tops and sides of the tank. The fish and plants will be fine with this, the bacteria not so much. Afterwards, I'd either reduce the light t...

I understand how high surface area products are useful if you haven't cycled and stocked your aquarium already. I was more pointing out to the salesman that since I already had zero ammonia and nitrites, that I couldn't possibly need more bacteria, or surface area for it. I wasn't going to get those...

I asked this of a shop keeper who was trying to sell me some new media with some ridiculously high surface area, and it stumped him - so I'm tossing it out here. The selling point on a lot of biological media is surface area - X has more surface area than Y, so you get better bio-filtration. My ques...

Francois van Brederode wrote:Blue filter sponge me thinks

Well, that makes a lot of sense, thank you.

That is so cool! I looked at it with google-translate, but that only helps a little. Does he explain what exactly he did to achieve the tides. And what's a Blauenfilterschwamm, if you know?

Thank you.

I'll know for sure when I have it set up, but I was thinking 10-12" of water, or about half a tank. I'll be sure and have a tight lid, maybe just a screen instead of glass. As for the mud, I've done it in planted tanks covered with gravel, and out door tanks without gravel or filtration, but I think...

Thanks to Matt and Odyssey for pics and advice. Personally I wouldn't keep other fishes in with them to maximise the amount of available floor space and inverts are probably best avoided too. I'd also be a bit wary about using mud; where will it be taken from? I'll probably keep some guppies in the ...

Thank you both.