Blue Base Arowana head scrape

[islandguy11]

BBXB is healing up nice and quick, most of the dead skin has already gone away and the white gash is changing back to brown now.



Can't say exactly how much it is a factor, but imho the Cattapa leaf extract solution is helping in this regard. Some might have seen my other thread about this product somewhere in the Arowana sub-forum, but for those who haven't this is what I like to use.



That said it's often hard to tell what exactly is working and how much during healing processes; since the injury I've also temporarily increased supplementing of vitamins and spirulina to her food.

 

[islandguy11]

Well I tried putting hosing around the edge of the bracing. At first I thought ok, it doesn't look great but as long as it works.



Unfortunately while I had used a blow dryer to try and straighten the pieces, I guess due to heat/humidity here they still curved back a bit after a few hours and either popped off or got knocked off easily. Cutting them shorter helped a bit but not much. I still think this is a good potential solution for some, but esp. with me going in every day for siphoning tank bottoms not so workable, I'll stop by HomePro tomorrow, got another idea.

 

[Yaponchik]

That is a beautiful BBXB mate. I did away with the braces and actually built the tank re enforced by L Beams so that they serve as the frame and "brace" of the tank. They are welded as is.

What I did before though was use the same edge foam that I had removed (I originally foam padded everything with sharp edges to protect my son, who was just learning how to walk at the time)

Since he ripped them all off by himself, instead of tossing them I just bought new double sided tape and found a use for them. Just in my experience, some biofilm grows on the inside, so it's necessary to clean them every few months.

 

[islandguy11]

That is a beautiful BBXB mate. I did away with the braces and actually built the tank re enforced by L Beams so that they serve as the frame and "brace" of the tank. They are welded as is.

What I did before though was use the same edge foam that I had removed (I originally foam padded everything with sharp edges to protect my son, who was just learning how to walk at the time)

Since he ripped them all off by himself, instead of tossing them I just bought new double sided tape and found a use for them. Just in my experience, some biofilm grows on the inside, so it's necessary to clean them every few months.

Thx for good input! Actually I saw some edge foam like that at HomePro the other day but passed on it at the time because it was kinda pricey (imported from USA) and I wasn't sure if the double sided tape would keep stuck to glass bracing -- did you have any problems with it coming off?

 

[flukeone]

Thx for good input! Actually I saw some edge foam like that at HomePro the other day but passed on it at the time because it was kinda pricey (imported from USA) and I wasn't sure if the double sided tape would keep stuck to glass bracing -- did you have any problems with it coming off?

If it's for the braces you could wrap the foam with zip ties.

Gonna go check my local hardware store for some foam tubing.

... Suddenly this makes sense ?

 

[islandguy11]

If it's for the braces you could wrap the foam with zip ties.

Gonna go check my local hardware store for some foam tubing.

... Suddenly this makes sense ?

Yep that guy's post pretty much says it all lol -- in fact when I received notification of your post I was coincidentally wading through an online scientific paper about "Probiotic Bacteria as Biological Control Agents in Aquaculture" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC99008/) while trying to learn whether it's better to use a gram positive bacteria like Bacillus subtilis or a gram negative one like Rhodospirillaceae to facilitate organic waste removal and competitive exclusion in my tanks. Ha ha ha, would probably make me sound like a scientist to someone outside the hobby, which couldn't be farther from the truth lol, it was for sure one of my more challenging subjects in school.

Insofar as the braces, good suggestion: the center ones were already done similarly with yoga mat since I started the tanks, but the braces around the perimeter are flush against the sides, so I can't use anything that wraps around like a zip tie. As such it's either glue, silicone or adhesives, with the latter being the overall easiest to install/remove I'm thinking.

 

[flukeone]

Found this. It's not padded but at least it's rounded

 

[Yaponchik]

Thx for good input! Actually I saw some edge foam like that at HomePro the other day but passed on it at the time because it was kinda pricey (imported from USA) and I wasn't sure if the double sided tape would keep stuck to glass bracing -- did you have any problems with it coming off?

Yes they actually do, but it was all in good maintenance as it meant that the adhesive was starting to rot and it was time to replace it. It was a different question though when the actual foam started to rot (disintegrate) - probably from being subject to too much humidity. When that became the case we redid the whole tank. It was a breeze removing silicone and quite fun. But we can't do it any more due to the nature of how it's built now, so it always has to hold water lest the silicone "rot" due to absence of pressure.

 

[islandguy11]

That's actually a pretty good solution flukeone , perhaps better than mine but I couldn't find similar to what you're using that was big enough to fit around my thicker bracing.

So I eventually went with this adhesive rubber padding. It only has a tiny bit of padding (about 1/3 thickness of a yoga mat), but it goes on easily and so far has stayed in place nicely. So while it doesn't do much in the way of impact absorption, like your solution at least it protects the fish against being sliced or scraped by the thin, rather sharp edge of the bracing.