Recent content by VTDrew

So the official numbers: NH4 - 0 NO2 - Purple (I'm not going to even attempt to give a number) NO3 - 10ish (I'm going to let these get dangerously high for the plants to snack on) pH - don't care, will adjust when the NO2 crisis is over.   I have a bag of peat in the filter.  Not doing RO...

hmmm, I haven't added it in a while (3 weeks), but are you 100% sure?  I did a lot of research prior to adding it but found nothing to substantiate that it kills.  Being a chemist, and Citric being quite mild, I figured it would work great to get my pH down to 6.5 (tap is about 8.0).  If you say...

Ammonia - Yes.  It is declining as normal.  Probably at zero right now as it was close a few days ago, but not testing daily as with the nitrites (because they are behaving normal).   Water Changes - As I said, water changes have no effect.  There are only two possible outcomes from that. 1. The...

Water change slowly.  Fish are just as sensitive to filthy water as they are clean.  If your levels have been high for a long time, you want to bring it down gently over a few days or weeks.  60/80 is nothing to completely freak about, yeah, its not clean, but its not deadly.

Little update to this old thread.  All fish died.  After loading them in the truck, we had an unexpected snow storm, the heater killed the battery faster then I could charge it as a result.  Following that, we hit unexpected freezing weather for the first three days.   HOWEVER....the fish...

Hey All, My nitrites are through the roof, above 5ppm according the API test kit.  I've never had a nitrite issue on any tank before so I'm lost. New tank, running about 4 weeks.  Levels have been up high for about two weeks.  Been adding bacteria like a champ.   Here's the catch....there have...

A fish dying in one of these would be no different then one dying in your tank.  Open the lid, net it out.  I personally thing this is far better than bags in styro, but we will find out next Monday.  It's not worth speculating when we have a real test on the horizon.  We can do a fun bet...

So I'll let the secret out.  The base part for this is a cooler.  I then built a chamber into the lid where you can put your hot or cold packs and it drops down into the water such that I hope the heat gets transferred throught the plastic. you got your battery powered air built right in.   I...

Lunar, great point.  While it does have wheels and a drag handle, I am concerned about the up to 240lbs it is going to weigh.

That van, or the service offered by that van are definately well out of my price range, what I assembled would actually fulfil a similar option.   This thing I'm doing is not much different then a play on the styro theory.  It's actually how I got the idea when staring at my styro's for hours...

Pictures when its done and my apartment isn't a disaster from moving.   I also don't want to start any real hype until my fish survive the 5-6 day journey.

Hey Guys,   So in previous posts you would read that I'm moving cross country and want to take several of my more beloved fish with me.  My transport ideas started at a bucket, moved to a styrofoam shipping box (for fish) and now....the portable aquarium.  I'm building two, and its coming along...

Before I begin, please insert generic insult pertaining to your tap as any American would make to you after learing your tap is weird.   You can build your own adapter.  Get a Y Junction fitting and some pipes from home depot and create a single tap adapter that goes into one. 

OK, already got the battery pump.  Let me re-phrase.  Is there anything in the plastic of a brand new, cleaned, beer cooler that could hurt my fish.   Here is the plan, in detail. 1. Get two coolers. 15 gallons each.  One has 4 Rainbows, 1 pictus cat, 1 lg pleco, 1 sm pleco.  The other has my...

Simple questions.  Can I transport fish in a new-clean standard beer cooler with no lining.  I am moving 3000 miles, I think I can build a better life support system that way without bags.