The more I clean, the messier it gets!

It seems like the more I clean my apartment, the worse it gets. I worked hard last week to get the living room and my bedroom cleared out. I also had the spare bedroom organized enough you could walk between the boxes to get to the fish tank.

Yesterday and today changed all that. Yesterday I dug out all computer gear and the desk and set that all up where it will go. I have yet to plug in a cable - they are in a few differnet boxes that I had to dig out tonight, but that 'area' is set up.

Tonight I moved all the boxes around so I could put my Electronics Hutch along the back wall where it will reside. That invloved filling the living room and my bedroom back up. I tried to move just boxes that will ultimatly get unloaded into the respective rooms, but a few extra ended up in each room.

I got the hutch moved, and unloaded off the carts. I have a really cool idea for building bookshelves around the hutch that will match it. But when I look at the rest of the room, I am not sure if I could utilize the space better or not.

I also put my 110 gallon fish tank in its final resting spot. It's just setting on some sawhorses for now, but I really like it in that spot. I think I will set the big tank up as a Paludarium. I have a basement under me again, and so I can't really set it up as a fish tank without risk of it falling through the floor. I am thinking of doing a waterfall that extends up and out the top of the tank, and having the plants 'grow' beyond the tank to take some of the squareness of the tank away.
We shall see what it turns out like. I need a stand first.

I am really in need of a couch. And a TV. I was looking around, and those new 32 inch LCDs would work out really nice. My entertainment center is occupied with the TV fish tank, but I left enough room to the right to hang a flat TV on the wall. That would work out to be directly in front of the couch that I don't own. The couch I want would be a sleeper sofa, so friends & family have a place to sleep without listening to the computers all night long.

Oh well, one of these days...

Week in Review

It's been a busy week!
Sorry about the lack of photos, I still haven't gotten my desktop set up. It has the memory card reader in it.

Last weekend I spent a bunch of time with CVS, it was his birthday, a bunch of us went out to eat. It was good times. I had met everyone but one at least once, so it was good seeing old friends again.

I went to a grocery store this week on some co-workers suggestion. Elgin Fresh Market. They said it has great prices for produce and nothing else. I must say I agree. A can of corn was a $1.37, but mangos where a dozen for four bucks and some change. I picked up the veggies I needed to make a pot-roast out of a steak Katie had bought that the cats tried to ruin. I had gone to my parents 2 weekends ago, and when I came back, the freezer door was open. The steak was defrosted, but still cool, so I figured it was safe. The Chicken, no way!

The roast turned out really well. I invited a guy from work over for dinner. Trying to make new friends. He is a pretty cool guy. Likes camping, so we have something in commmon. Before he came over (he works later then I do) I did a rushed pickup of the apartment, so it's actually kinda clean, well, at least picked up. Most all of the trash got hauled out, and you can walk around in it. He helped me move the TV tank into it's spot in the TV stand. I am going to get water in that next week so I can get fish for it in a month or two.

It's been raining out the last couple of days. I walk to work - it's only a block away. My feet got wet today. I hate wet feet. My shoes are shot - the lowers are worn so bad they look like slicks, and they evendently split at the ball of the foot during the move. The uppers where still in good shape, I actually took care of them, so I was milking the bottoms out as long as I could. Wet feet, time for new shoes.

I went to walmart tonight, and found the pair I like. They look nice, almost like dress shoes, as I wear them to work. Waterproof and steal toe, they also claim to be electrical isolators. Sweet! Right up my alley. Kinda spendy, $52.73, and I picked up a set of gel arch supports for $5.97. $60 for shoes that, judging from my last pair will last me a year and a half or so. That works out to be, what, ten cents a day? So my shoots cost me a penny an hour. I can deal with that.

I also picked up a couple of fish, most all of mine died during the trip - there went my perfect shipping record. I had forgotten to plug in the tank heater one night, and the tank got really cold. Anyway, I was down to my Pleco and a femail guppy. Too few to feed with my automatic feeder, I simply can't turn it down that low. So I picked up to quarter sized angel fish and a male guppy. Still a bit thin for the feeder, but the angels should grow fast enough that it will be ok. The guppies will probably get moved before the angles are big enough to tear the male up, so I am not worried about that.

I had hoped to be able to water-change my way into local water before I bought fish, but that isn't the case. I am going to be acclimating the fish slowly to the Florida water. Tney are getting put into a bucket tonight with just enough water to cover the heater. Most of it will be the water from the pet store. Right before I got to bed, they will be getting a few cups from the tank. When I get up, maybe a quart. Lunch, a quart or more, and into the tank they will go tomorrow night before I leave for my folk's place.

Going to the folk's this weekend. Maybe. It's supposed to snow pretty bad tomorrow I guess. I am supposed to help mom go through the house being that it's her weekend off. They are wanting to get the last of the salvageable stuff out and a list of what's still inside so they can buldoze the place.

I need to get the oil changed on the truck, it's been like 6k miles. I have been so busy with the move, and now this week, working late, that It hasn't been taken in. The smell from the fish tank spilling in the truck is gone (at least to my nose, but I don't smell very well [hrmm, that doesn't sound quite right - LOL]). I guess mom will have to stick her head in the truck and see if it still makes her eyes water.

Mom, why did you email me your weather?

Cold... it was 45 in my kitchen this morning. I went and bought some fish tank heaters for my aquariums last night, but the water was so cold that I am afraid to use them. I am concerned that the heaters will warm the tanks up so fast that it may kill the fish. Fish don't like drastic temperature changes and I am looking at 15-20 degrees or even more in how ever fast it takes the little heater to work.

It looks to be warming back up a bit for this weekend. So maybe if I am lucky I won't end up with fishcicles.

DIY Homemade Custom 110 gallon Aquarium Stand Plans

I brought my 110 gallon fish tank to FL from storage in WI. This post is going to be as large as my tank!

I have big plans for my big aquarium. I have a pass-thru from the kitchen to the living room. I am going to build a stand that is tall enough to put the tank so it fills the 'window' in the pass-thru so I can watch my tank from the kitchen. This tank stand will be custom built for this specific space, but I will also take into consideration the need to move. It will be against a wall, or possibly BE a wall in the future.

This 1 tank stand will actually house 5 or 6 different tanks. It will also house as much extra water as I can put into it as part of a sump filter. I am also going to have some built in planters that will utilize water from the tank to water the plants - probably straight up hydroponics. I doubt I will use it for foodstuffs, but it would be fun to experiment.

Download Google Sketchup File

Tank 1 will be the 110 gallon tank. This will be the display tank. Decked out. Live plants. Under-gravel heating coils. LOTS of light. CO2 injection. Basically, a thing of beauty. I will have lots of little fish - the largest fish I will have in it will be a breading pair of Angel fish.

Tank 2 will be a 55 gallon tank. This will be the only tank I will need to purchase. This will be housed in the cabinet. It will also be a planted tank. No under-gravel heating. It will be a plant rearing tank. It will only have bottom feeder type fish in it and few at that. It's main purpose is to run (lit up) at night to maintain CO2 and oxygen levels in the system. It would actually be considered to be part of the 'sump' filter.

Tank 3 and 4 will be 10 gallon tanks. These will also be planted tanks. One will be hooked into the main tank water supply; the other will be independent, but able to accept water from the main tank. The one piped into the main system will be my fish rearing tank. I can keep delicate fish in this tank or use it for rearing fry. The other tank, which will posses it's own filter system, will be my sick tank. I will probably be able to attach/detach it from the water system. I may get a UV sterilizer for it to keep it as a sick tank, but keep the main water system hooked up to it on low flow, primarily utilizing it's own filtering. Not sure yet on that part. Gotta research that idea. These two tanks would be in each end of the stand. They will probably both be set up to slide out on drawer hinges. Make it easier to access the tanks as there will be limited room above the tanks.

Tanks 5 and 6 will be my 4 foot by 4 inch by 4 inch nano tanks. By coupling them to my big fish tank, I don't need to worry about all the little problems that come from a very small water volume tank. One will be incorporated into the fish tank stand on the 'front' underneath the main tank. The other will sit in the passthrough. These will be both set up as stream tanks with a decent amount of water 'current' running though them. With 2 of them, I may set them up differently. The one in the stand will probably be planted, as I can hide a light in the stand, and the one on the pass-thru will probably be just piled rocks.

The main filtering will be done by a type of filter called a wet/dry filter or sump. These sump filters look to be sized about 20-40 percent of the tank volume. I will see if I can push mine to be at least 50%. Each 'stage' of my sump might actually end up being separate containers nippled together with PVC pipe. I will probably end up using garbage cans due to their tall size and square form factor. That and they are cheap! The first section will hold bioballs. This is the one that the 110 gallon tank will flush into. I will probably have this one taller then the rest to support an extra column height of the bioballs to splash the water and air around in. This will probably flow into a second one, into a third, into a fourth, etc. The final stage of this sump filter will be the 55 gallon fish tank. I will pump water out of this 55 gallon tank into the rest of the tanks. And the water will gravity & siphon feed back into this tank through the rest of the sump filter. The water level in the 55 gallon tank will be the only water level that will fluctuate. I will probably position the pump pickup 1/3 to 1/2 half the way up this tank so I have room for 25-30 gallons of evaporation loss.

All the tanks will be filtered using a internal/external weir or sump overflow box that leads to the central sump filter. These are boxes that hang on both the inside and outside of the tank. They operate by creating a siphon from the inside to the outside box. As you drain water out of the outside box, the water flows out of the tank. These will be set up so that if the power were to go out, they would not siphon all of the water out of the tank. I will accomplish this by having the pickup tube either be a stand-pipe in the outside box or have a 2 chamber, outside box with the siphon leading into one part of the box and the water flows over an internal wall into the drain half. If the tank were to stop receiving water from the pump for whatever reason, the tanks will drain down to the top of the standoff or the inner wall height in the overflow box. By building the overflow boxes so they can handle several times the water flow of the water pump, I don't need to worry about any clogged overflow boxes causing a tank to overflow.

I am thinking of building a storage tank automatic re-filler. I can't plumb the tank to the water supply directly (as I live in an apartment). I like to 'treat' my water by aging it with an aerator. This aerator(s) will be the only aerator in the system - well maybe I might have one available for the rearing and sick tanks. The premise here is you let all the chlorine that the city may add to the water out-gas into the air. I also am not precipitating out any trace minerals out of the water that those treatment drops can do. This is important for raising live plants. I will use a toilet float (actually 2 in series) to allow water from the aging tank to flow into the 55 gallon tank to top it off. The aging tank will probably be a large, shallow tank/tub or two right below the main tank, above all the sump tanks and gear. This will have many baffles in it to force water to travel a long path to get from the entrance to the exit point. This will help prevent freshly added water to race it's way to the 55 gallon tank and enter it un-aged. I will add a manual cut-off valve so if I allow the aging tank to drain completely, I can shut off the flow into the 55 gallon tank and fill the aging tank. This will force the water to age for 24 hours to out-gas and temperature acclimate. Then I can top off the 55 gallon tank, shut off the aging tank, age the water, turn the auto-fill valve on, and go back to my regular topping off routine. Kinda complex, I know, but call me paranoid. I just don't like adding 'fresh' water to my tanks, either from the tap or from a pet store! I float my fish in a bucket of water that I siphon tank water into, and then net the fish into the main tank, so I don't add any fish store water to my aquariums.

The main structure will be of treated lumber designed so that all load bearing surfaces have a direct path through ground. This basically means that there won't be any screws or hanging brackets that bear weight. These are only to hold the thing together. I should be able to assemble the whole frame without any screws and it should be free standing. This baby will have a LOT of weight! 110+55+10+10+3.5+3.5 X 8.34 lbs/gal = about 1600 pounds of water, not including what is in the sumps, piping, etc. This is in addition to the roughly 275 of glass in the 110 gal tank, hundreds of pounds of rock at the bottom of the tanks, etc. As one website put it, it's like standing your vehicle on it's nose in your living room.

I will probably trim out the stand using oak, which, while not cheap, seems to be readily available here.

As for the lighting, I haven't figured out exactly all the details of this. 3 watts of florescent per gallon is nearly 600 watts of lighting with the possibility of dimming lighting to simulate sunrise/sunset and blue/red/black lights for night viewing. The one thing I thought of, though, is that I am not going to want to pay the electric bill for this thing! I may end up seeing if I can run the bulk of it off of solar panels. The bulk of the lighting is during the day and into the evening, so I think this may work out. I am also thinking of running all the water pumps at 12v and running these off of solar charged batteries as well. I will probably run the two separately, or if combined, allow the lighting to drag the battery down through an inverter only so far before switching over to 110v from the power grid. Another benefit to this is that WHEN the power goes out (it does it a lot down here in Florida), my pumps have an inherent backup system. Additionally, if the batteries are running low and 110v is available, I will at least partially charge them back up. Just in-case it's been rainy all week, etc. I could also top the batteries off before a hurricane, so I can run just the pumps for an extended period of time.

I plan to have this tank 'wired' to the internet. I will be making leak detectors, water level sensors, lighting sensors, temperature sensors etc. and wiring them into a rabbitcore Ethernet enabled micro-controller. This will allow me to 'page' my cell phone via its email address if there are problems with the tank. While the tank should be able to find it's own safe 'stasis' level, maybe one of my cat's could get inside and really bugger things up! I am also probably going to wire in at least one webcam into the tank. I may include a pan/tilt inside the cabinet as well. The feeders will all be the automatic feeders I am building. The lighting will be controlled as well, so if I want to watch a movie, I can turn the lights down low on the tank.

I am thinking of building the tank stand about 4-6 inches larger then the tank on the 'front' 3 sides and build into it a hydroponics setup around the base of the tank. The tank will feed the plants water and food and I can utilize the stray light coming off of the tank for the plants. I probably won't use this for edible plants, but at the very least, I can have some nice low flowers like violets that will be 0 work plants.

I really like the looks of my CO2 reactor. I am thinking I may incorporate two of them into the outside corners of the stand and backlight them with black light or something. If I did that, I would probably bubble them up from the bottom or somehow make a separate bubble counter.

I have always wanted to incorporate a small bookcase into this stand. It is starting to get a little full, so I may do a book display type concept instead. I can display a few fish/aquarium related books on it. Maybe something low so the little kids have something to read - and identification books. Oh, maybe a photo album type book with photos of all my fish and a little about each type. That might be cool.

Anyway... what are your thoughts?

My Microtank

 Well, Here it is. I think it fits quite nicely in the passthrough.

 The view from my living room into the Kitchen.

 The view from my Kitchen into the living room. I am planning on making a tall bar to go against the wall. The tank will be quite dramatic there.

 I am going to plant microsword and Glosso from this tank into the new microtank once I can get the goofy thing lit up well enough. I am thinking of getting a 2 bulb 4 foot fixture and making an oak hood. I will need to run the filtering through the hood too I think, so I only have 1 place for power and water lines.

Leaking Tank

 What is the first thing you do after coming home the night after making a new fish tank? Fill it full of water of course! It leaks. Not bad though. I filled it with 3 gallons of water to see if it was water tight, and I had a slow leak. about 1 drip a second. Not to bad considering how messed up the silicone turned out after my trying to smooth it too late into the curing process.
 So, I cut the sealent out. I left it assembled, just cut out the inside silicone and trimed up the outside as well. I re-sealed it tonight. I am thinking tonight I put down a good bead and it should be 100% water tight now. It all LOOKS much better at least.

My First Microtank

I am going to make a new aquarium that is what is called a 'microtank' or 'nanotank'. This is a VERY small planted freshwater fish tank. The two I am going to make are going to be 3.5 gallons each. I am going to set them up as "stream" type tanks, with a pretty stiff current to them. The water will be pumped out one end, and put back in on the other end. This should create a nice "stream" type environment. I will put fish that are suitable for the swift water in the tank. It will also have a lot of rocks and short live plants like Glossostigma and Microsword if I can get them to grow in the water current.


 My dad had cut me glass and mirror pieces to use for shelving. They are 4 feet long and 4 3/8 inches wide. It went into a window and worked really nice. I have moved the glass shelves 3 times for a total of around 2500 miles. I finially have a new use for them. I am curious to see how a green tinted glass tank will turn out.


 I saved some panes out of the windows of my old work when they installed new hurricane windows. I had a bit of trouble cutting the glass down to the right size. A few practice tries and I got it down.


 I tried to put the silicone down first so the pieces would get a good bond together. This didn't work so well, I ended up needing a hand from Katie so I could get it all together and taped up so it would all stay put. I am going to need to cut out the silicone on the inside so I can get a good sealing bead down.


 This is the assembled tank. I will re-seal it tomorrow night, and Wednesday night it will get some water put in it. Cross your toes it doesn't leak.


The first tank I made is glass on both sides and mirror on the bottom. The other tank I will build will only have 1 piece of glass, with a mirror back.

Aqurium update.

 I bought a new stand for the planted tank. It fits really nice between the bedroom and bathroom doors. I replanted the whole tank. my microsord really took off, while my glosso has all but died off. I moved all the fish into this tank. I know have Khuli loaches running around in the microsword - that looks pretty cool. I am going to re-set up the CO2 reactor this week, I have it piped in, I just don't have the Yeast Bottles set up yet. I have to finish drinking the juice!


 I put my TV tank into my entertainment center. I REALLY like how this turned out. Katie isn't so thrilled about the TV not getting cable. The tank is just sitting empty for right now, I am not sure how I want to stock this tank. I may see about upgradig the lighting, or running crypts in it under the current low lighting.


 Here you see the 2 tanks together. I have an opening between the kitchen and the living room. I am thinking about either putting my 110 gallon tank in that area, or make a small 6" tall microtank to go into that space. I am leaning towards the micro tank. Not sure where I am going to put the 110. I guess they can both sit in that spot. We shall see.

Second load moving into my new place.

Katie and I dropped off my second load of stuff today. This was the truckload that Bill was so kind enough to let me store in his garage for a year and a half. The only thing broken out of all the glass was a chipped mug that could have come from the store that way.
I haven't decided how to do the living room but I have awesome ideas for the kitchen. Matt and Jessica left a rolling dishwasher for me, so I have a dishwasher now. It isn't built in so I am going to make a small cutting boad surfaced island to put against one wall to wheel it into. I will get another folding barstool and I can use it as a breakfast table too. I am going to make it nice and tall so it will be a great prep area for me.
The coolest idea is for the computer in the kitchen. I will put each of my 19 inch monitors into the two corners of the kitchen on those wall TV shelves even with the top of the cabinets. They will both show the same screen, and each end of the kitchen will have a wireless keyboard and mouse in a tray under the cabinets. I will use my current Media Center PC so I can watch the food network or have a recepe on the screen. I am thinking it will be cool.
I am also going to build a storage shelf that is strong enough to put the fridge and a chest freezer ontop of so I don't need to squat down to look into the fridge.

I am going to make another trip this weekend for my junk. I will be moving my fish tanks. That will be a chore. I am thinking all the fish will end up in the planted tank for the time being. I want to put the tv tank into my entertinment center. I think I want a stand for my planted tank and put that between the doors to the bedroom and bathroom. I may break down and buy that instead of building it.g it.

Updated Aquarium Time Lapse

Here is the latest time lapse of my fish tank.


I need to make a few changes,
1) I need to change how the camera is set, so I don't keep tripping over the cable and moving the camera.
2) I think I need to take a pic every half an hour instead of every hour. It's currently less then a second a day I think.
3) I need to tune the camera before I start the timelapse so there isn't these color changes part way through.
4) I need to find something cool to take a picture of. Maybe where my fish are hiding?
5) I think I need a camera with a wider field of view, or figure out how to move the camera further from the tank.

Adding new fish

I add fish to my tank differently then anybody else I know. I usually have pretty good luck too.

I put the fish into my cleaning bucket with the petstore water. They all go into the bucket. I then use a piece of airline tubing to siphon a small amount of water out of the tank into the bucket. Done slowly, I acclimate the fish over several hours in a nice, gradual way. After sometimes as much as 4-5 hours, I net the fish out of the bucket, and dump them into the tank.

Kuhlie Loaches

Here are a couple of my Kuhlie Loaches in my TV tank. I love these little buggers. They can be so much fun to watch flit around in the rocks.

Tiger Barb Video

Here is a quick video of the tiger barbs. They are just hiding. Cory Cats are so much fun to watch. They never sit still.

Fish!

I picked up half a dozen Tiger Barbs and a couple of cool looking Cory Cats last night. I have always liked tiger barbs. A lot of people complain that they can be pretty mean. I think I always have so many that they never bother anybody else but themselves.

My Amazon Sword Plant looks to flower soon?

Timelapse Aqurium Video

This is a timelapse of my fishtank.



I am futzing with the camera to see what cool things I can do with it. I am thinking that a timelapse of the Amazon Sword plant flowering would be pretty cool.

Aquarium Update

Well, I had planted some new plants into my fish tank right before I left for vacation, wished them luck, and left them alone for almost 3 weeks.

I didn't expect to need to weed my fish tank when I got back!


This is what the tank looked like the day I planted it.


This is the tank 3 days later, notice that the red leaved plants (Narrowleaf Ludwigia) has started to grow a lot already. I also went and tried to train my glossostigma to form a carpet.


Two and a half weeks later. The Narrowleaf Ludwigia grew a phenomenal amount. That green smear in the center is a long hair algae I think. The green on the top is a form of duckweed of some sort. The roots are pretty cool though, they form curlies. My Glosso really took off, it is already too thick to really get to mat down well into a carpet. My Microsword didn't seem to really take off like I would have liked, but it is probably being shaded out by the Ludwigia.


Here is the tank after some weeding. I have a large bundle of Ludwigia in the back left corner. Kinda shady, but I don't think it will be staying there long. I tried to push the Glossostigma down, but I don't think that will stay well, maybe after pushing it down for a couple of weeks I can keep it down.


when I was pruning my Amazon Sword, I noticed the funny shaped stalk pictured above. It looks like it may be flowering soon.


I pointed the camera further up the tank so I can watch the flower stalk. It is in the lower left corner. Lets see if we can get a good time lapse of it growing and flowering.

If anybody wants some plants let me know. I am going to start tossing my culls here in a few weeks it looks like. If you want some cheap plants and are willing to wait until I do my weeding, contact me and we can make arrangements.

Creuzer's 'Quarium Cam

Well, I found a camera that is small enough to slip between my fish tank and the tank stand. It wasn't as cheap as I was hoping, $28, but it wasn't bad either. The camera I got is a GE MiniCam Pro.

I have it basically wedged between the tank and the stand. It is propped up on an extra suction cup thingy for holding the filter inlet and outlet pipes to the tank. It is on the right side of the tank looking left. I picked direction because the tank isn't quite in the middle of the stand and there was more room.

The camera is focusable, so I focused it in about 1/2 way into the tank. I am hoping that this will be enough for the tank.

I have set up my template to include a photo that updates every 30 seconds on the top of my blog. Not many people visit my blog, so it isn't going to create a lot of traffic.

The tank cleared up a lot in the last couple of days, which is good.

I really had to futz with the settings on the camera to convince it to take a photo that wasn't hard to look at. I still don't think it is great, but, hey, nobody is perfect.

I am not really happy with the view. A closeup of that large piece of driftwood isn't all that exciting. And don't hold your breath for any fish, they aren't coming before I get back from vacation.

It looks like I need to clean the glass in front of the camera, it is smudged.

What do you think? Fun investment of $28? The camera I really want is $280, but then you would be able pan and tilt and zoom in and all kinds of fun stuff with that one!

Replanting my planted tank

I did a lot of research yesterday, looking at getting new plants for my aquarium. I ripped most everything up after Thanksgiving. I gave the 2 best looking swords to a guy from work - one of which was the original stem I bought 3 years ago. I am back down to 3 of them. Anybody want a Amazon Sword plant or two? I just want one. I tossed 95% of the Pennywort. Well, actually I pulled it ALL out, and left whatever little pieces where still in the tank. Well, some of those are now over a foot long again. I am kinda leery about leaving this in the tank as it grows so well. It is the bulk of what caused my tank to turn into a swamp (besides my neglect of course).

I am wanting to make my tank look "nice", you know them pretty tanks, with all the fancy plants and what not. This tank has always been very green, what with 9 full Amazon Sword plants. I rather liked that look, but I am going to try something different. I am cordoning off the Amazons so they stay on their half of the tank. I am keeping the one for when I set my 110 gallon tank up again.

I am thinking, with me leaving on Thursday, I will have a few days to make sure the plants take, and then I will be hands off for 2 weeks, and see what they look like when I come back. I won't micromanage them to death this way.

I went to Big Al's today. I bought 3 types of plants for $12. I got 2 bunches of Glossostigma, 1 bunch of Microsword, and 1 bunch of Narrowleaf Ludwigia.

Glossostigma (Glossostigma elatinoides)- From what I have read, this plant likes a PH of mid to high 6, soft water, and LOTS of light. It appears to come from Australia. It appears to have hit the US markets in 1996 or 1997. It can grow into a tight turf, but seems to need some coaxing first. If it doesn't "take", it will die off from the bottom up, like the roots just rot away. It will also tend to grow straight up, however putting pebbles on it to try to get it to lay down will eventually get it to grow horizontally.

I had tried this plant before, maybe six months ago, but the bunch I had gotten the roots where already rotting away. It also didn't get much light as the swords where shading it out.

Microsword (Lillaeopsis ???) - This plant seems to be one of a couple of species, but most likely from Brazil. This plant looks like it likes harder water then the Glossostigma does. The brighter the light, the shorter it grows it looks like.

This one is new to me. I picked it because it seems a lot of people have luck with either this or the Glosso. Between the two, I should get a good ground cover on my tank.

Narrowleaf Ludwigia (Ludwigia arcuata?) - Another bright light lover. This one will get taller, about 15 inches it looks like.

I picked this because I seemed to recall that it liked bright light. I also liked the red color, I think it will play well with the other plants. It is a stem plant, but the leaves are smaller and thinner, kinda reminiscent of the other plants in the tank.

I took some photos of me ripping the tank apart and replanting it.


Here is the tank before I started replanting it. notice where the 3 Amazon Swords are and the Pennywort starting to fill in again.


Look at how much muck I kicked up while moving 2 of the Amazon Swords closer to the left of the tank. You can tell this tank is 3 years old. I had done 50% water changes sucking up all the mulm with my Python siphon. I was trying to go in and get at it deep down. My rocks are over 4 inches deep. I was worried about the deep parts getting really bad and killing off the rest of the tank. The one amazon sword had enough root to completely fill a mason jar. That is a LOT of roots!


This is the clump of pennywort that I missed last week. I clumped it together and weighted it down with some lead plant weights. Lets see how long they stay put.


This is the Microsword clump I got. Nice, clean roots. You can see how tight they will grow in once they get going.


I worried the whole knotted mess apart into individual pieces. If you are patient, and work from the roots and not the plants, it's pretty easy. You can pull the leaves down, through the roots easily, you can't pull the roots up, through the other roots.


You can see I planted the Microsword in the back right third of the tank. I didn't put it too close to the driftwood, as it starts to get shady there. I took each piece and whorled it together and planted it as a clump. They are spaced about as close together as I can get them without pushing the prior one out. I have a few stray pieces in the front left, just for fun. I half expect the Amazon Swords to shade them out before they get started.


This is one of the two Glossostigma clumps. The roots on this one are much more developed then with the other clump. I am thinking this one is starting to rot back. We shall see.


Here the other bunch of Glossostigma is broken apart. I planted each piece (or 2 smaller pieces) individually.


Here is the results of nearly 3 hours of planting and moving, and whatnot. The water is still a little hazy.

I am hoping that the Glosso and Microsword fill in nicely. I am going to move the driftwood somewhere else once I get rid of 2 of the Amazon sword plants. I have the Narrowleaf Ludwigia in the back right, about 1/3 of the way from the edge of the tank. I think it will fill in nicely and balance the heights of the tank out. The tank is a little lopsided looking right now with all that Amazon Sword on the one end.


Check back the first weekend of the new year and see how it looks.

'Tis the season...

I needed a timer for my fish tank lights. My big Coral Life Light Fixture has 2 grounded plugs so I need a heavy duty timer.

Christmas time is the best time to buy timers because it's about the only time most people need one. You can find some that are pretty fancy.

I found this one at Target. It looked really promising. Digital timer, 3 grounded outlets, and when I replace it with my homebrew controller, it will still be very useful.



It is fairly easy to program, not as easy as dials to switches to set. It is set like a watch is. Set a few buttons and your done.
This one has 3 modes, pure timer (up to 8 of them, so I can set them daily, weekday, weekend, and all week). It also has a photo eye, so it can turn lights on at night. It can also turn on with the photoeye, and turn off by the timer. Pretty cool actually.



I liked the look of this one, I can hang it on the back of my aquarium stand. I picked up a small package of wood screws to hang it.

It works. It turned my big lights off tonight. I think the lights running constant for 5 days straight over Thanksgiving lead to the aquarium turning on me.

Time will tell.

My very own swamp!

I admit it, I have been neglecting my fish tanks. They just usually run themselves so well by themselves now that I try not to mess with them. (that's my story and I am sticking to it)
Thanksgiving weekend, my planted tank finally turned into a swamp. It quickly proceeded to turn septic, killing all the fish in it. Katie came down this weekend to the most aweful stench!
I had cleaned the tank on Friday before she arrived, and it is just finally clearing up today. I give full credit to 2 Eheim canister filters, one set up for filtering (no charcoal even with this disaster), and the other to water conditioning (and light filtering) combined with my CO2 reactor uncapped so it sucked in normal air and nocked out the protien ( I am assuming that is all the white foam that formed in it is).
What happened is this surface plant, moneywort I think it is, grew so well, it sufficated off the rest of the tank underneith. Combined with one of the lights being plugged in for nearly a week straight while I was out for thanksgiving, it killed the rest of the tank off. Oohps. Time to either finish my computer programmed light controller box or invest in a timer with a ground plug so I can plug in my big aquarium lights into it.

It truly did smell like one of those, vile, evil smelling swamps. How many of you keep a pet swamp inches from your bed? Plants climbing out of it and everything - some where already about 3 feet from the tank behind the bed!

Homemade DIY CO2 Reactor Video

Here is a video of my brand spanking new, already modified Carbon DiOxide aquarium reactor.

The water flows into the top in the big hose, which is coming from my external canister filter. The CO2 is coming from a pair of old juice bottles which have water, baking yeast and sugar in them. This all gets mixed up in all the splashing fun as it goes down the tube with the bio-balls.

At the end of the video you can see my little CO₂ monitor in the fish tank - that little bell thingy stuck to the side of the tank. Blue means low CO2, green means good CO2, and if you notice it is more green then it is blue. This is even after the old method of CO2 injection was showing blue, and I hadn't refreshed my Yeast Bottles yet. This new device appears to be more effective at CO2 Injection then the old feed-it-through-the-canistor-filter method. 

CO2 Reactor Modifications

I did a little research last night on the internet about how other people where building their CO₂ reactors. Nothing like researching after the fact, right? I was looking to see if anybody else was building their reactor the same way I was. I didn't find reference to it, but, there are hundreds of DIY Reactors out there, so I not too worried about not finding one. I did stumble across a person who used an RC airplane part called a Bulkhead Fitting. This looked to be a much cleaner way of attaching the airline tubing to my reactor.

Big Al's was having it's 1 year anniversary this weekend, and the "plant guy" was giving a demonstration on how to build a proper planted tank. I figured I wouldn't learn much, but it was something to do with my Saterday, so I went. I was right, his song and dance was for new peeps, and not experienced planted tank creators. More importantly, there is a hobby shop next to Big Al's, so I could pick up this part.

At the hobby store, in the RC airplane section, I found my new fitting. It is a "Large Bulkhead Fitting, 1/8 inch I.D." packaged by a company called "Fourmost Products". It is designed to be used as a fuel line connector.

These modifications replace the previous steps I have posted to my blog.


Here is my old (heh, 2 whole days!) airline connection using a airline tube elbow fitting. I had zip-tied it together. I had managed to make the whole reactor without any glue, and it didn't leak (much)!

Here is the top part of my new fitting. I think this looks much better then the old fitting did. I used the old part of the hose that had the old fitting cut into it to make a seal for my new fitting. I don't have any small O-rings for this yet, so I had to improvise. Getting proper O-Rings is on my todo list.

Here is the inside view of my new fitting. Don't do what I did, and make the hole too close to the outside of the endcap so the nut won't set square. I still put it together like this because I am way to impatient to go get some silicone, and seal the hole up, and drill a new one. My fitting does leak just a tiny little bit, but not enough to worry about it today.

Here is the finished reactor modification. I really like that the blue fitting matches the blue bioballs. The fitting seems just the right size for my airline tubing.

I am going to use the other fitting that came in the two-pack and replace one of my CO₂ bottles where the current glued together mess is coming apart. 

Do It Yourself CO2 Reactor Construction Details

As promised, here are some more details on the construction of my Home Made CO₂ Reactor. This CO₂ Reactor is made from a couple of aquarium siphons, and an airline tubing splice connector.

I drilled a hole in the top Siphon Cap the same size as the airline tubing splice connector. I chose to drill the hole as close to the edge of the ridged plastic in hopes that I can give the connection some mechanical strength. I left as much room as I could so there would be enough surface area to make a watertight connection.

Here I am drilling a hole through the plastic siphon hose after I had slipped it back onto the end of the siphon cap. This hole is the same size as the inside of the plastic airline splice peice. I wanted the rubbery hose to form a tight seal around the airline splice.

After a lot of cleaning of the burs in the hose and pushing hard, I finally got the splice to fit inside the hole.

I made an improvised clamp system out of 3 nylon zip ties to hold this whole area toghether. This area leaked a little bit, so I ended up wrapping another zip tie around the elbow of the airline tubing and the siphon tube, to press the airline tubing more tightly against the rubbery hose in hopes of creating a better seal. The water leak seems to have stopped.

In looking at how the completed arrangement thing functions, I may move the airline tubing down into the larger part of the siphon tube. With the airline tubing fitting where it currently is in the hose, a lot of water preasure is trying to make the whole thing leak. I think by moving the airline fitting out of the hose, and into the larger tube, where there is mostly gas as opposed to moving water, I can eleminate the chance of this fitting creating a leak. I also think that I would be able be able to change out one of my Yeast & Sugar CO₂ bottles without water trying to flow down the airline tubes when the whole thing is mounted higher then the water level on the fish tank. 

Home Made CO2 Reactor

My friend Matt flew in yesterday from Arizona. We ended up going to Big Al's pet store. We where looking at the planted tank accessories, and noticed that they want $130 for a CO2 Reactor. We put one together for under $40.

A CO2 Reactor is a device used with planted tanks that will help push Carbon Dioxide into the aquarium water. Plants LOVE carbon dioxide. It is a major fertilizer.


Here are the $40 worth of parts I needed to make my Homemade CO2 Reactor. These parts include a couple of Siphon aquarium Cleaners, some Bio-Balls, airline tubing and couplers, and an Eheim Filter part I used for a water line splice.

We disasembled one of the aquarium siphons and attached the hose to the other siphon. These are Python brand siphons, they are fitted by compression - no glue, so just pull hard, they will come apart. There are enough bio-balls inside to completely fill the tube.

Here Matt and I are leak-testing the Do It Yourself CO2 Reactor in my bathroom. We hooked it up to my Ehiem Canistor Filter, ran it into a bucket of water, and turned it on. Can you believe? It works! Only a minor leak too!

Here you can see the CO2 Reactor installed on my fish tank. I wanted it to be visable, so I mounted it right up front. I just think this gadget looks so darn cool!

More complete assembly details to be coming soon.