lion_crazz
Active Member
Wow, thanks for sharing those pictures of the birds. They are truly wonderful! I also commend you for giving them a chance and taking them home. More people in this world should strive to be like you.
sleasia's tank
- Thread starter sleasia
- Start date
sleasia
Active Member
mystic7 remember that blue face angel?...we were all talking about whether and when it will ever become an adult...its been in my tank at least 8 months and is a good 4"....You have an adult I think? A beautiful one...Hopefully one day mine will change and we can get serial pics of the changing?!
sleasia
Active Member
Any of you guys would have done the same thing if you had seen the cage they were originally in about 20" square...with 9 birds!!!!! Parakeets have deep family ties apparently, all of the birds are related in the cage. apparently if you separate them, they are likely to "get depressed and stop eating". Males and females mate for life, unless a partner gets killed, and once the chick leaves the nest, the father feeds it and takes care of it exclusively until it is ready to take care of itself....pretty cool.
sleasia
Active Member
peter....the tank actually kindof straddles the kitchen floor and the family room floor. the family room is slab and the kitchen is double jousted, because we have tile in the kitchen. Its a 200 gallon measures 84" l x 18" depth x 24" height. So its basically 7ft x 2 ft. Initially there was a little half wall about 7ft x 6-8" deep. I had two 55's side by side on it previously, one saltwater and one goldfish...but it all looked precarious since the actual wall was much thinner than the width of the tanks...so when I had the basement fixed up, I asked the guy who did the work to make a larger counter size wall and put an extra slab of granite on it so If I ever move, it can actually be a counter for the next owners. and then I got a tank from acrylic tank manufacturers acrylicaquariums.com
and tankslave...(love that name, says it all!!!) i top off about 5 gallons of R/O a day,
( probably because I have a big asm-g 4x skimmer )and change 20-30 gallons every week. My home made filter does fantastically well...always 0 nitrites, 0 nitrates...even though I sometimes feed the fish 3 and 4 x day. I am now reading all the "plumb to the basement threads" and am planning to do this in the next month or so....but my problem is my pottery studio (amateur) is below the tank, so this is where the sump will need to be placed and I'm a little concerned because of the dust down there. I have to figure out a way to build a closet or armoire or something to protect the sump from the clay dust....When you see a thread called "Mayday, Mayday, girl plumbing to the basement" you will know that is me.
and tankslave...(love that name, says it all!!!) i top off about 5 gallons of R/O a day,
( probably because I have a big asm-g 4x skimmer )and change 20-30 gallons every week. My home made filter does fantastically well...always 0 nitrites, 0 nitrates...even though I sometimes feed the fish 3 and 4 x day. I am now reading all the "plumb to the basement threads" and am planning to do this in the next month or so....but my problem is my pottery studio (amateur) is below the tank, so this is where the sump will need to be placed and I'm a little concerned because of the dust down there. I have to figure out a way to build a closet or armoire or something to protect the sump from the clay dust....When you see a thread called "Mayday, Mayday, girl plumbing to the basement" you will know that is me.
peter1215
Member
Sleasia
it doesnt look like you use much LR at all. Do you use bioballs and can you tell me what type of chemical filtration you use. if so , it them seems like the secret to 0 nitrates is to have a great skimmer and plenty of water changes ! your tank is awesome. this is excatly how i want my 125 tank to look . not too much LR and decent amount of fish without overloading. I just need to get a good skimmer. My red sea is not pulling much.
it doesnt look like you use much LR at all. Do you use bioballs and can you tell me what type of chemical filtration you use. if so , it them seems like the secret to 0 nitrates is to have a great skimmer and plenty of water changes ! your tank is awesome. this is excatly how i want my 125 tank to look . not too much LR and decent amount of fish without overloading. I just need to get a good skimmer. My red sea is not pulling much.
sleasia
Active Member
PETER1215... I'm not sure how many pounds of live rock I have...probably 75 or so, because I have some in the sump as well. But I also have some shells and bleached coral which has been in the tank so long its probably live by now and I have 4 big pieces of reef replica, which is probably growing some bacteria at this point. I have 4" of crushed coral, and a 20 gallon container filled with bio balls. I put a media bag over my drain to catch large debris, then a 100 micron filter pad over a drip plate, then the water goes over the 20 gallons of bio balls then through a 4" thick sponge, then to the skimmer ASM-G 4x then to the chiller then to the tank. A separate power head pumps tank water continuously through the UV sterilizer (36 watt turbo twist.)
I think I was dumb to buy reef replica and I will likely remove those 4 pieces and replace them with live rock...but for now it all seems to work ok....I do vacume the gravel every week with my water change, but I only do the surface down to about 1 " or so. I feed 3 cubes of frozen food soaked with vitamins in the morning and evening. then in the afternoon I clip on a few varieties of algae purple green brown...sometimes I do a 4th feed with a small amount of pellet.
I think I was dumb to buy reef replica and I will likely remove those 4 pieces and replace them with live rock...but for now it all seems to work ok....I do vacume the gravel every week with my water change, but I only do the surface down to about 1 " or so. I feed 3 cubes of frozen food soaked with vitamins in the morning and evening. then in the afternoon I clip on a few varieties of algae purple green brown...sometimes I do a 4th feed with a small amount of pellet.
sleasia
Active Member
Also in terms of the skimmers there is alot of input on this subject in the equipment threads. I like the asm-g series....but all I had previously was a berlin airlift 60 which I never realized is not a skimmer at all until I got the asm. I usually filter with purigen which I reclaim using bleach, then soak in water+prime to take out the bleach before using again
sleasia
Active Member
Ok everyone...I'm finding out I don't have 0 nitrates, at least not before my water change is due....I ordered all the salifert tests since many people think they are more accurate, and though saltwater master tests my main tank to have 0 nitrates today, the salifert no3 test is showing 10 on the same batch of water.....My water is due for a 10% change tomarrow...I'll test it again after the water change to see how it fares....But definately frequent water changes will reduce nitrates.
Also I was trying to think if there is anything different I am doing, and the only thing is, that when I built my own wet dry...I thought about it, and the point of having a wet dry is to optimize both the anaeorobic (non o2 dependent) and aeorobic (o2 dependent)bacteria...The bioballs are supposed to grow the aeorobic and the sponge etc, the anaeorobics...so I said it can't hurt to try and improve the circulation of oxygen to and through the bioballs...so instead of just throwing all the bioballs into a container, I built an egg crate crate for the bioballs which sits inside of a container leaving a 1" space around all 4 sides between the wall of the egg crate crate and the container it sits in. in this way oxygen can more easily circulate down to even the lowest level of bioballs. I don't know if this has anything to do with why this filter seems to work so well, but who knows, it might.
Also I was trying to think if there is anything different I am doing, and the only thing is, that when I built my own wet dry...I thought about it, and the point of having a wet dry is to optimize both the anaeorobic (non o2 dependent) and aeorobic (o2 dependent)bacteria...The bioballs are supposed to grow the aeorobic and the sponge etc, the anaeorobics...so I said it can't hurt to try and improve the circulation of oxygen to and through the bioballs...so instead of just throwing all the bioballs into a container, I built an egg crate crate for the bioballs which sits inside of a container leaving a 1" space around all 4 sides between the wall of the egg crate crate and the container it sits in. in this way oxygen can more easily circulate down to even the lowest level of bioballs. I don't know if this has anything to do with why this filter seems to work so well, but who knows, it might.
