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Joined: Aug 2003
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Campfire Outfitter
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Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Aug 2003
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Got a 10 gallon set up in my classroom. The trick to keeping it “clean”’ is to stay away from natural light, LED lighting and plastic plants are your friend, No algae no need for snails or algae eaters.
We have real hard water here, so I use “drinking water” from the store to set up the tank, top off the maybe 1/2 gallon evaporation loss per week with distilled. Once a month 1/2 water replacement with drinking water from the store.
Do not overload with fish. Got eight neon tetras, four little panda corydoras cats and a betta. The neons demonstrate schooling behavior and actually they are native to cloudywater hence their bright colors. The panda corys demonstrate disruptive coloration, with their two big black spots they just disappear against the gravel when they ain’t swimming, plus they school too on the bottom, feeding as a group.
The betta demonstrates adaptations to low oxygen swamps, breathing air and making bubble nests like they do. Plus, for a cheap fish that only lives like two years, I ain’t seen a betta yet that weren’t loaded with personality.
End of the school year I just give the whole set-up to some deserving kid, start over in the fall. Less than $100 out of pocket, worth it. The male Betta makes the bubble nest. It's hard to find female Betta probably because they aren't anywhere near as beautifully colored and entertaining to watch as the males are but if you can find a female their whole mating/nesting/spawning ritual is interesting to watch. The female gradually changes color and stripe patterns and the male arches it's body around the female again and again squeezing the eggs out of her then takes them in his mouth and places them in the floating bubble nest.
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Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 26,097 Likes: 20
Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 26,097 Likes: 20 |
Yes, there are lots of very interesting fish behavior patterns to observe. Many of the cichlids guard their eggs and fry like a banty hen. I have kept breeding pairs of a couple mouth brooders. Where the parents actually take the entire brood up into the oral cavity anytime danger threatens.
BW, I might suggest next year that you place four to six "Electric Yellow Cichlids" into your little ten gallon tank.They are from Lake Malwi in Africa and can take any hardness levels you can find on tap. The male will have broader and more definite black marking on his dorsal and pectoral fins. The adults will not grow over about three inches in length. The juveniles will cost eight to ten bucks each.
A typical breeding setup would be one or two females with a male in a ten gallon tank. If you keep a little castle or other hollow shelter at each end of the tank, a female will take up residence in each shelter and raise a brood within. They are very attentive mothers and are mouth brooders.
People who choose to brew up their own storms bitch loudest about the rain.
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 12,893 Likes: 5
Campfire Outfitter
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Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 12,893 Likes: 5 |
Got a 10 gallon set up in my classroom. The trick to keeping it “clean”’ is to stay away from natural light, LED lighting and plastic plants are your friend, No algae no need for snails or algae eaters.
We have real hard water here, so I use “drinking water” from the store to set up the tank, top off the maybe 1/2 gallon evaporation loss per week with distilled. Once a month 1/2 water replacement with drinking water from the store.
Do not overload with fish. Got eight neon tetras, four little panda corydoras cats and a betta. The neons demonstrate schooling behavior and actually they are native to cloudywater hence their bright colors. The panda corys demonstrate disruptive coloration, with their two big black spots they just disappear against the gravel when they ain’t swimming, plus they school too on the bottom, feeding as a group.
The betta demonstrates adaptations to low oxygen swamps, breathing air and making bubble nests like they do. Plus, for a cheap fish that only lives like two years, I ain’t seen a betta yet that weren’t loaded with personality.
End of the school year I just give the whole set-up to some deserving kid, start over in the fall. Less than $100 out of pocket, worth it. You may want to double check your hardness through the year, because the bacteria in the bio filter (often the gravel) consume carbonate in the process of the nitrification process, so over time your hardness (and the pH with it) will shift down wards. If you run out of carbonate ("hardness") you will severely curtail the activity of the nitrifying bacteria. A couple of alkalinity test strips may save you a few trips to the store hauling water. Or just add baking soda (a little at a time) to bring hardness and pH back up.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
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Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 26,097 Likes: 20
Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 26,097 Likes: 20 |
That is an excellent point.
Even though I am using 80% RO water in my tank to control pH and hardness, I keep a half dozen fist sized rocks of limestone in the tank as a buffering agent.
They serve to hold pH stable, without being so reactive as to drive hardness levels through the roof.
People who choose to brew up their own storms bitch loudest about the rain.
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 12,893 Likes: 5
Campfire Outfitter
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Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Jan 2002
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That would work, since it's going to take CO2 from respiration (i.e. carbonic acid) to dissolve the lime stone, and the CO2 is going to be limited because it is off-gassed through the aeration system as well.
Technically, though, it's not a buffer, as it doesn't keep the pH in a narrow range, it only increases pH. But that's what you are looking for in this case.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
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Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 26,097 Likes: 20
Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 26,097 Likes: 20 |
Yes, it works quite well to prevent pH "crashing" which is an ever present danger in a small closed system like this. And unlike commercial chemical additives marketed to the aquarium industry, the lime rock does not spike pH up or down.
Tap water is Ph 7.8-8.0 with gh of16.
The aquarium holds at pH 6.7-6.8 with kh of 1 and gh close to 1.
People who choose to brew up their own storms bitch loudest about the rain.
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 12,893 Likes: 5
Campfire Outfitter
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Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 12,893 Likes: 5 |
That's still crazy soft in my eyes..... ammonia would be completely non-toxic at that level, but nitriffying bacteria are probably running at below 50% at that pH. For a commercial producer like me, that low a level of hardness would scare the bejeebers out of me! My spring water runs 478 PPM carbonate (i.e. 28 grains per gallon), so when you talk about a hardness of 1, it blows my mind....
Sic Semper Tyrannis
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Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 26,097 Likes: 20
Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 26,097 Likes: 20 |
Dutch,
I have prepared the tank for Discus, which really thrive in low pH and low carbonate waters similar to the brown water runoff of the Amazon. A peat filter is often used to condition their water. I just have not worked up the courage to dispose of all my present livestock.
I thought most hatcheries and fish rearing systems ran on a flow through system. I had wondered how the NH3 levels were lowered before flowing into run off.
It sounds like you recirculate your water? Is it used for irrigation of crops to dispose of Nitrates? I am trying to imagine the aerobic filters needed to deal with outflow on rearing tanks as large as yours.
People who choose to brew up their own storms bitch loudest about the rain.
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 12,893 Likes: 5
Campfire Outfitter
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Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 12,893 Likes: 5 |
We do both, our old facility is a simple raceway system, but the new stuff is all recirc. All the water is used for irrigation during the season, but we also store all the recirc system discharge in the off season and use if for irrigation in the summer. Before Trump, we weren't allowed to expand, but the EPA finally agreed that if a farm doesn't discharge, it doesn't need to meet outflow standards........
Ammonia concentrations are so low, they are not a concern from the raceways, and from the recirc system its just good fertilizer.
The biofilters will be somewhat large....... About a cubic foot per pound of feed per day, and we'll start building those in about six months. We feed about a ton a day right now, and any expansion is going to push us into filtering.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
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Joined: Dec 2007
Posts: 6,755
Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
Joined: Dec 2007
Posts: 6,755 |
You can watch a virtual fish tank on You Tube and not bother with cleaning a tank and feeding. When you go on vacation, you can take your laptop and watch the virtual fish tank in your hotel room if you need it to keep your blood pressure down.
He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.
- Albert Einstein
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