Loaches Online Forum

Beautiful tank!!
What kind of sand is that?
It looks like the red flint sand I put in my Qtank.

Yes Jim, a LFS ordered it for me from the Red Flint sand company. I really like it. It's .5 mm size.

Great tank, Keith. I love to see work by... innovative people. I wanted to say obsessive weirdos, but you know what I mean. Great stuff.

Beautiful set up, well done.

thanks for the easy 20 oz bottle measurement for levimasole.

Beautiful!

Kate

Thanks Kate and you're welcome LoachOrgy (and I hope that it cures your loaches).

I've had a few developments so I thought that I would report the progress.

Today I installed five extra 12 foot 2x8 joists under my living room so that it will be ready to support a 300 gallon tank which I hope to get next Spring. Next I need to get the stand built.

I have also improved the method that I use for water changes. I change 10% each day (and that has kept my nitrates at a steady 6 ppm.) For adding the water, as is shown earlier in the thread, I just have to turn a switch on and then off. For removing water, I was dropping a powerhead into the tank, turning it on and then off with the water going down the drain that I installed (shown earlier in this thread). Now I have a second drain that goes to a 44 gallon plastic trash can on the other side of the wall in my garage and a small plastic trash can mounted on the back of the tank with the powerhead in it so that I can just flip a switch to start and stop removing water from the tank. Here is what it looks like:



This makes the water changes very easy and takes about 2 minutes. The water coming out of the tank goes to the garage trash can and automatically siphons out to water the flowers in my front yard (when it gets cold here, I will divert it back to the drain). I just periodically move the hose around the yard so everything gets watered (there is no grass since we changed to all flowers when we tore up the yard to put in geothermal heating several years ago). On the pump in the picture, I also used killforfood's improvements to speed up the pump (thanks).

I had planned to get Botia Striata's, but was in no hurry and had not found any either. But, the lfs ordered 12 skunks and by mistake got 12 striatas. I could not believe it since I had never seen striatas there. They looked active and healthy so I grabbed them all. I have had them for four days and they are starting to get settled enough that I was able to get a couple of pictures.



They are in a 20 gallon quarantine tank and are getting levamisol and I will follow it with Prazipro. Unfortunately, none have the uncommon and beautiful patterns that Helen's have, but I do like them.

My kubs, sids, dario, SAEs, and danios continue to do well and I have been very happy with the tank. Here are some current pictures.

The fish look excellent.
The 300g tank news, the water change system, and the new Striata's- That is all awesome. I'm really happy for you and your fish. Also looking forward to seeing the progress.

Lovely looking specimens!

I'd rather have striatas than skunks any day of the week.

Great looking bunch of happy fish!

Kate

I dunno about striatas over skunks. I've never had striatas.

My skunks are growing on me though. They're very intelligent if you observe them long enough. So far, no trouble yet but I've got contingency plans. I also love my yoyos. They are now obese... just kidding. But they turn into piranhas every feeding time and its always like I haven't fed them (even if they are getting plump)

Keith, your fish are absolutely beautiful and make me envious. I have to get me more Kubs. The only time I found them at my favorite LFS, there were 3. I told them to get more because I'd buy them all if they did. So far, its been 3 weeks, no Kubs. The ones I have are fat little creeps and I've seen them wrestle food from my clowns and win.

Everybody loves fat botias

Congrats on the striatas. You got lucky! Your loaches look especially healthy and colorful. Good job!

Thanks everyone. Now, to catch up with Graeme, I just need to add about 77 additional species of loaches.

Loaches sure are heavy!!!
I reported here earlier that I had doubled up the joists under my floor to be ready to support a large tank. My brother who is an engineer did calculations for the strength of the floor and told me that it did not meet a recommended 8 times safety factor. On his recommendation, I added a beam consisting of three 16 ft 2x10's under the center of the room. It took three days of hard work, but I finished this afternoon.



I also ordered a tank today. 9ft x 30" wide x 24" high.

Now I just have to build the stand. My brother also did strength calculations for the stand and the plan is: