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Looks amazing I built these ponds over the weekend decided I would have a go at a real pond aswell Let me know what you guys think and what plants I should add to it Planning on putting rocks around the edges and something like pea gravel

Hi all, <"Crangonyx psuedogracilis">? much safer than Hyalella. <"Asellus aquaticus">, absolutely fits the brief, but is a trifle <"aesthetically challenged">. They would work and are "cat-nip" to most fish. cheers Darrel

Yep, no issues there. Yep - the larger vessel you can put them in the more stable they will be. I always found yeast fouled the water far too fast. Spirulina was better but the end result still the same. For longevity you really need to see if you can culture some green water. Certainly...

Hi all, I think a lot of people enjoy the initial buzz of high tech., but realise that low tech. <"can be just as satisfying"> and much <"easier to manage"> when life intrudes. This was about ponds but the same applies to tanks. cheers Darrel

Hi all, Welcome to UKAPS. It is very likely to be. Have a look at <"Curly Waterweed | NatureSpot"> & <"Curly Waterweed » NNSS">. I'm originally from nr. Kington. cheers Darrel

My point is that mg/L is not the same as PPM_mass (which is mg/kg). In water, since the density is very close to 1kg/L, both values (PPM and mg/L) are numerically equal, but they are still different in meaning. One is mass/mass, the other is mass/volume. The concentration of CO2 in PPM_mass for...

More progress! Aqua Rocks Colorado has developed a prototype they will be offering for sale: Review, testing, discussion and video here!

Somewhere in France?

Hi all, I still think we are in <"Apples and Oranges">* territory, because we are comparing a dense medium (water density ~ 1000 kg/m³) with a much less dense medium (Dry air at 20°C and standard atmospheric pressure (1.013 bar) has a density of 1.204 kg/m³.) <"Air Density">. *edit what...

Hi all, I use the same sponges as <"pre-filters on canister filters etc">. Once it is wet all <"mechanical filtration media"> is <"biological filtration media"> as well, <"if that makes sense">? cheers Darrel

Hi all, They sell them as 4" x 4" x 4" cubes etc. as well, I just buy the big ones (it is cheaper) and cut them down to size. I think these are good, they are all based on on the ones that Stephan Tanner (<"Swiss Tropicals">) sell in the USA. I've got a <"lot of time for Dr Tanner"> -...

You make a very interesting point, especially regarding the biochambers' redundancy. I suppose the main reason I was invested in this filter model was that I believed the biochambers would free up the sponges to do more mechanical filtration, which I've heard is often a weakness with sponge...

Your math is wrong. The math is complex, so don’t do the math yourself but use the conversion calculator in this link. https://www.lenntech.com/calculators/ppm/converter-parts-per-million.htm If you pug in 426 ppm for CO2, the calculator will spit out 826 mg/m3. Since 1 m3=1000L, the...

Hi all, Yes, you would, but I use these <"big sponge blocks they sell for Koi"> etc. They are £10 for a 12" x 4" x 4" sponge with a 1" central hole 3/4 of the way to the bottom of the sponge <"Consistency Deficiency">. They are really just a gimmick, the <"prime metric in nitrification"> is...

Hi all, It is probably preferable to using sodium (Na+) based salts. Even though sodium isn't toxic to plants, they don't have a requirement for it either and it could build up over time. Potassium (K+) and ammonium (NH4+) have the advantages of being plant nutrients. Even "sodium build...

I got the tank aquascaped with a simple stone layout, plants and fish. It would look better with more variety of rounded lava stone sizes and I might buy another bag in the 1"-2" size. I had hoped for better water caustics definition on the sand, but the effect on the ceiling is pretty nice...

Morning All, I live near Hereford and have a garden pond and 13 goldfish, which are the descendants of some I had nearly 40 years ago. My question is Where can I send a sample of pond weed to get an absolute identification please? It was purchased as Elodea densa but I fear it is Lagarosiphon...

Hi Darrel, thanks for your feedback. If I'm understanding you correctly, I could attach a sponge directly to the powerhead, but I would only be able to attach one sponge rather than two (the intake attached to the bottom of the powerhead isn't long enough for two), plus I would be losing the...

Ooh. I'll PM you. At first glance logistics looks tricky though.

Can anyone recommend a bright green moss for attaching to branches in a terrarium immersed setting? I’m looking to get some contrast against the dark green Java moss background.

It's definitely a trade-off. I'm managing my aquarium to a relatively tight budget, and managed to get a great deal on my D-D pump off ebay. I don't mind taking up another socket / timer slot for a DIY pump. I recon I could get mini Kamoer delivered for £12, an enclosure for £5 from Screwfix...

Hi all, Either will do, the finer sponge will need cleaning a bit more regularly. I like <"Eheim Substrat Pro">, but not if I have to buy it. <"Could you do this?"> It will give you a lot more sponge area. cheers Darrel

Hi all, You can. Ideally you need to thin the Moinia pretty much every day and the easiest way to do this is just to feed the fish. You should, they are very prone to <"boom and bust">, have a look at <"Feeding daphnia with crushed fish flakes">. cheers Darrel

At the weekend after taking some scrapes and viewing under a microscope, I found gill flukes on some of my koi. Treatment is going in this morning. I've never tried taking mucous scrapes on aquarium fish though:confused:

Ok great, thanks!

Otocinclus are sensitive to ammonia, so they often don't do well in new set ups.

Hi all, Because they are sensitive fish, and eat a limited range of aufwuchs. You would need a huge tank to generate enough natural food for them. They will graze on <"structural leaf litter">and I would definitely offer them some. They often don't recognise Algal Wafers etc as food, but...

Thank you! Shout when you want some postage!

No problem. I haven’t had any takers for a wee while so I’ve been composting it. I’ll get some out the end of the week and send it to you.

May I ask for advice, having read the thread? I'm quite clueless about this and it's a bit trial and error. I acquired some live moina macrocopa three weeks ago (from a bloke on eBay, as you do), and split the 200-ish moina between 2 1-litre kilner jars as instructed, in rainwater from my water...

Oh damn — how come you're worried about the Otocinclus? Is there not enough biofilm etc for them to eat without extra food? I bought algae wafers for them, so can start feeding that

Not quite the update I was planning.. but the tank hasn't moved on from the previous posts due to life stuff getting in the way. I am debating abandoning the project, so curious if anyone would be interested in the tank as-is. I'm based in Essex and it probably owes me about £400-500 so far, and...

Hi all, They are <"Fragilaria (Synedra), a filamentous diatom">. I'd keep manually removing them and <"they should go away"> as the tank matures. I know it is difficult, but you really need to concentrate on plant health and not the algae. The test strips may or may not be right, but I...

Could be either or both. If it were me I'd treat with a combination of eSHa Exit and eSHa gdex, to cover my bets. Or alternatively, it could possibly be some sort of skin irritation in response to poor water quality caused by high ammonia or chlorine etc.

Thank you Simon, I have only just seen this. I would love that if the offer is still open. I had some water lettuce in my first tank and it melted, so I'm only got the ubiquitous duckweed -- I'm developing a theory that after the apocalypse it will just be cockroaches and duckweed, all the way...

Mine are for sale. Make me an offer ? https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/ei-liquid-carbon-peristaltic-dosing-pumps.74232/post-749277

Obtained some metronidazole and have dosed the tank with it. I soaked some frozen bloodworms with it and fed it to the fish as well. Am using medication from a local brand which a lot of local hobbyists trust. Have only heard good things about their meds and I've used their praziquantel product...

You could build your own, probably not that much cheaper, if you include delivery and your time, than buying a second D_D P1 which would run from the same App ?

I know many of the common 3D printing materials such as PLA do not perform well when constantly exposed to moisture. I'm amazed how things have moved forward however, and my Bambu Lab machine is capable of (easily) printing a wider array of plastics. I guess you know all this - Markforged is a...

Thanks, I decided to use WiFi switching on all the power supplies so everything is remotely activated and hidden away. I've found this to be really helpful, particularly during maintenance. At some point prior to this I managed to melt the bottom two trays in my Biomaster when I must have left...

Day 10: Planting complete I forgot to rinse the Seachem Purigen before putting it in the filter, so I had cloudy water for a few days but it cleared up Day 24: Couple of weeks in (no CO2 yet) Annoyingly I was missing a part for my CO2 regulator and was having trouble finding it, so ran the...

Hi all, I've bought a Superfish double sponge filter with two biochambers (pic below) to put in a 60-70 litre low-tech tank, which will be planted with Anubias & floating plants, and will eventually be stocked with some Pygmy Corydoras. The filter will be hooked up to a 500 lph powerhead with a...

My fish did this years ago and it was gill flukes.

You could slow the Co2 injection bubble count to 1 BPS... and monitor the Co2 Drop checker!

Try raising the lily pipe/outlet for the night and see what happens next morning

Use the below article. https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/using-stem-plants-as-a-filtering-aid-at-start-up.62966/

Hi I would stop using the water purifier. Use the local tap water. Rotata Macranda...is a difficult plant to keep healthy! It does best in a soft water and Co2 enriched aquarium. Blyxya japonica needs similar in requirements!

I didn't get the chance to find out Tim, it was closed. Only here for a 2 day visit but should hopefully get some free time during the day tomorrow to have a peek inside.

Hi. 1. Size of tank. Length: 35cm Width 22cm Height 24cm Aquarium soil height : 5cm 2. Age of the system approximately. Four weeks have passed since the start of the aquarium 3. Tap water parameters. I use city water for the aquarium. But there is also a water purifier at home and I use its...

I don’t think it would. As long as the animals continue to be ok. You could try to reduce to 1bps and see the effect.

Hi, I have noticed that the solufeed tec sodium free has ammonia in it now? Thoughts? Solufeed tec sodium free link

The updates will become less frequent as I know tank progress will be pretty slow. I'm extremely happy I started my journey using high tech equipment because I would have always had that voice in my mind asking was I truely happy with low tech, the answer to that is an astounding yes! Very...

Purchased this filter 2023 after 8 months uv lamp failed thought it was the lamp, but on investigating it was what Sera calls an inverter for the supply to the uv lamp it had in my terms melted, they sent me a new one that I installed I have electrical background, all fine but after 8 months...

thanks a lot! I didn't realise that it could be ich as I can't see any white spots

Ich https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichthyophthirius_multifiliis https://eshalabs.com/esha-exit/

I have had a small group of neolamprologus multifasciatus for around a year now and they have been doing great up until a week or two ago when I saw one of the fish flick itself off one of the shells. I thought nothing of it but as time went on i saw it happening more often and they seem to be...

Nice architecture. What’s it like inside John?

Church Saint Lauren parthenay

Decided that I really do prefer my little aquaels, so taken the Twinstar off (which at some point I’m going to sell if anyone is interested…). Actually did some pruning! Trimmed off the biggest and ropiest looking crypt leaves, and fished about to remove some clumps of algae from the substrate...

I think he might have very tiny front legs but couldn’t see any back ones. I have confirmation however that he came from my pond! My wife took this photo of our pond this afternoon: I think that’s fairly conclusive evidence. 👍🏻 P.S. Apologies for the non-native floaters in the pond. Just a...

Absolutely nothing lol, it's just kind of doing it's thing since I have nowhere else to put it 😂

Hey guys. For some reason i cant use the addons anymore when replying on a thread. For instance, when you 'needed' a smiley i tapped the 3 dots and when you clicked the smiley you got all the smileys available. Same with the pics and links etc... Im sure its something simple but i can't figure...

Ugh.... C. Flamingo had a nice start from his invitro tub but unfortunally things are going not so good now for the little guy :(

You could gift it to someone, that's always a handy way to have the opportunity to make more tanks without the hassle of keeping them!

It seems that way. Personally, it was not really about the money. I just initially felt a bit of sadness at the idea of stripping down something that took a lot of work to make. Also that maybe someone would enjoy it. I have since pivoted my thinking and am much more comfortable with the...

I think you should maybe break up that straight line into more of a wondering path...

If you want to get the most money out of a tank selling as a full set up is not the way to go unfortunately. You're almost guaranteed to make more selling individual bits unless you find one particular buyer who wants exactly what you've got, or that you've built the tank for on commission

@Mike Singh that's the one I use. The app is simple and easy to use. The only issue is that it took me a few tries before I could connect it to my WiFi. The connection is solid and use really unproblematic.

I have just started using pressurised CO2 on my 125l Juwel Rio tank, via an in-tank Twinstar diffuser. 6 hrs of lights on, 4-10pm, with CO2 on 2hrs before the start and off 2hrs before the end, 2bps for whatever that's worth. There is an in-tank drop checker with brand new CO2 Art premixed drop...

Same. Installing windows on 30 floppy disks right? :) I am lucky as many of the people interested are parents from my kids classes when they come and visit. The kids and parents tend to be drawn into the 350l tank and the various tanks I have in each of the rooms. So curiosity goes from there...

I am in the same camp. I believe it helps reducing pathogens and algae spores in the water column, but the efficiency is definitely hard to quantify. I run mine (GMK 9w) 24/7 and change the bulb every 8 month or so. The GMK got a very low turnover which means the water that passes through the...

What’s the Buce attached to? 👍

As is the way of things, my attempts at aquascaping have quickly given way to removing hardscape to make way for more biomass 😂 Not quite sure what this tank wants to be, but it's nice and healthy looking I think. The bare patch in the middle is just waiting for some cryptocoryne flamingo...

I too want to try and get red red root floaters but I feel as though my tap water won't let me as the nitrates are around 15-20ppm but there is no harm in trying. Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk

...but not so lo-tech as to be manual! I'm looking into a second dosing pump (for my micros), to go alongside my D-D P1 pump that I use for my macros. Inspired by @ian_m 's comments (below) could a bare-bones solution be to DIY something with: a DC peristaltic pump head + 12v DC motor (with...

I’ve got some hair grass which came from my pond. Also collected some leaves and sticks from the local river. He seems quite happy in the tank. I’m a little concerned he may become a shrimp baby predator but I have time to catch him and relocate him to the pond at some point. 👍🏻

So I have two breeder box's that I have filled with aquasoil and use to grow terrestrial plants. Some of the roots of the plants have decayed and I was wondering what micro fauna I can add that will eat the decaying litter. I tried pond snails but that was a huge mistake as they have now...

Awesome! That's a newt eft. Really cool. *Edit: not quite an eft yet- doesn't look like it's got legs + it's too early. Probably a Smooth or Palmate- definitely not a Great Crested.

I like using a UV sterilizer because I find that it helps alot with reducing disease causing pathogens and thus keeping fish healthier. I used to keep rare wildcaught fish so it was important to have even with proper quarantine. I just bought a new unit before deciding to go planted for this...

Always like to see this and having a pictorial history with all information in one place is a boon!

Tut tut John!

Snort. Long running forums are excellent. On Downsized, people talked about The Great Roast Potato Argument for Years afterwards :).

Hobbit looking nice, still fairly small in comparison to the other plants.

Got off work late. The shop I visited did not have metro. Have no time left tonight to head to another shop they will close by the time i head there. A different branch of this shop has metro in stock. Will head out early tomorrow to get some.

Pointless as it may be, I think it is a good to add a remark, considering that this topic was brought up. The PPM we use for ferts is not mg/l, as PPM is dimensionless. PPM is mg/kg, and we only adapt it to our hobby as mg/l because the density of water is very close to 1kg/l, so it is...

There is also unfortunately a bubble within the front glass, nothing i have done, it has no surface wound so its not like I chipped it or anything its a fault in the glass its self. Waiting to see what Oli Betta will do or if they advise that I don't use this tank.

I hope not. I’m not on any social media (does this forum count?) and haven’t been for years now. I have a ghost account I briefly used to buy some things but otherwise, I’m free from the drama. I particularly enjoy a discussion which starts like “Which fish is bigger?” and within a couple of...

Second rendition im trying to find smaller pieces for detailing in the front still. I like this version better. Perhaps a sand path running from middle to front? Thinking about getting another bag of substrate too so i can get more height and a more steep slope perhaps. I can imagine either...

I’m betting on the Ancistrus, mine were a pain in the back side.

Sold to me a seiryu stones from Oli Betta.

I agree with this, I think the front left large piece is a bit much. Make sure you leave enough planting space. Like the overall idea though. I think you're right about too much symmetry/balance, you don't want to lose the impact of the main stone if this is the vibe you're after. They're cool...

Would be great if you could return the clips to Tropica retailers to return to the Tropica farm for reuse. Perhaps they could promote it with a penny per clip to a charity or something.

Tropica ahead of me here with these interesting clips not pots. This is the kind of thing I expect from the industry but don't come across that often

Also, I have a few more plants coming to squeeze in so here are a few current tanks shots before they arrive and are planted. I should really learn how to take proper pictures. Random point and click on an iPhone is probably not the way.

Anomalochromis thomasi. Aka African butterfly cichlid. Absolutely correct. The result of a 2week holiday and no veggie treats. I'm glad they found something to nibble on in my absence to be honest.

I think we're still doing okay especially since we have so many knowledgeable and helpful members, and more joining all the time. In fact someone commented on another forum regarding UKAPS, that, 'I've never seen a more technically oriented forum with so many knowledgeable members' :) I'm...

Thank you both. I will get some metronidazole and give that a try tonight. I am hoping that i'm not dealing with any terribly stubborn parasites. If there's no improvement, will follow up with levamisole. I suspect parasites for just 2 of the fish but I will dose the entire tank.

Hi all, That looks like plec (Loricariid) feeding damage. You have a choice of plecs. cheers Darrel

Hi all, That was a lot of people's reservations about having a planted <"quarantine"> tank. I'd just come from it from a different direction, the question is: "What is the best environment for your fish?" and the answer is "an established planted tank with good quality water and a variety of...