Setting up my second loach tank.

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

but personally I do not like it at all.

That was my initial thought. But, although everyone's tastes are different, I found in the end I didn't really mind blue.

I do not put backgrounds on tanks. Tanks are made of glass on all four sides, so let natural light shine in from all four. Even if one side is against the wall, then pull it away a little.

This tank is in my basement, against a light colored wall. Natural light is entirely off the table (and given what color the wall was painted, surely you can see why I am looking into a dark background).

 

[cockroach]

How dare both of you Midwater M MultipleTankSyndrome . Lol

If your background ain't black it's whack. ha

I am not a fan of the blue backgrounds. It is too unnatural and bright for me. M MultipleTankSyndrome The first background is nice. I saw a guy here who painted his background on paper or cardboard but it was a grey and dark green dapple effect. looked pretty neat. I have wanted to cut thin, but rigid, plastic sheets to fit on the outside backwall of my tanks. Then paint one side black for photo time and paint the other similar to your first pic. So it can be changed at will.

 

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

I'll be honest, my preference is the greenish-brown/grey and dark green dapple to blue (since it looks more natural even though I don't mind the blue). So painting is a great way to achieve the shade I want, and sheets are easy to use.

 

[Wideglide04]

I painted mine blue. Its ok and fish look great so... I'd do a mix of black and green if I ever do another background, but not for natural look. I mean glass box and all lol, but it would look nice with the plants I have and make some of the greens pop off of the darker background

 

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

Degunking day for the Sicce pumps today! Ick!
The sheer amount of gunk was horrifying, considering they're not designed to hold onto it like a filter sponge. 4 big paper towels were soiled in order to get rid of it, and there is still some in the narrow gaps that I couldn't get out no matter how I tried. Not sharing any pictures of course.

Any other users of Sicce pumps finding them to get super gunky super fast?

Funny enough though, the filter and prefilter gunk is drastically decreasing even though I haven't decreased feeding. Only 4-4.5 liters of poop water at today's cleaning and the previous, so a big drop from the 9.5 liters......not that I'm complaining!

 

[esoxlucius]

Degunking day for the Sicce pumps today! Ick!
The sheer amount of gunk was horrifying, considering they're not designed to hold onto it like a filter sponge. 4 big paper towels were soiled in order to get rid of it, and there is still some in the narrow gaps that I couldn't get out no matter how I tried. Not sharing any pictures of course.

Any other users of Sicce pumps finding them to get super gunky super fast?

Funny enough though, the filter and prefilter gunk is drastically decreasing even though I haven't decreased feeding. Only 4-4.5 liters of poop water at today's cleaning and the previous, so a big drop from the 9.5 liters......not that I'm complaining!

When you have plants in the house, and are a keen gardener too, you should be thankful that your fish are providing you with this valuable source of crappy filter water. I can't get enough of it! Keeping fish and being green fingered go hand in hand. They accompany each other perfectly.

The tub below is an old 3 litre milk carton. I have literally dozens and dozens of these stored all over. The water absolutely stinks of planty nutrition and goodness, lol. And at the local garden centre they charge about £10 for a tub of plant grow fertiliser similar to this, and they smell so similar, what a rip off, lol.

 

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

When you have plants in the house, and are a keen gardener too, you should be thankful that your fish are providing you with this valuable source of crappy filter water. I can't get enough of it! Keeping fish and being green fingered go hand in hand. They accompany each other perfectly.

The tub below is an old 3 litre milk carton. I have literally dozens and dozens of these stored all over. The water absolutely stinks of planty nutrition and goodness, lol. And at the local garden centre they charge about £10 for a tub of plant grow fertiliser similar to this, and they smell so similar, what a rip off, lol.

View attachment 1502082

Lol, I suppose some of those came from when you still had the 5 ludicrous bioload fish in your 1636.59 liter? I can easily see how they would provide so much if you had to do fin level every 2-3 days.

I don't have any green body parts but my cousin does. Their houseplants, garden and the lawn get the poop water, although they don't seem to understand just how good it is for the plants yet lol.

Talk about a ripoff! May I suggest telling the garden center about your cheap alternative and reporting back here with what they say?

 

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

Couple of various updates.

Picked up the half-grown Odessa barbs last Wednesday, and would have immediately commented with that update were it not for all the following. One did not make it past the 5 day survive warranty, so I returned it and intended to get a replacement this Wednesday, and then maybe share a photo.
When I went yesterday they were no longer pre-quarantined - the tank was full of some new arulius barbs, many dead or dying! Apparently it was the worst shipment they got in a while!?

So I'll wait a while to pick up any more. Otherwise, I've decided to up the amount to 15 (since the Odessas will enjoy it more than being in numbers of 9-12, but it doesn't seem to be overstocking the top-mid level with the 9 roselines to me), and the ones that did survive are very washed out in the holding 110 liter - hopefully they will color up when either settled in, grown up, or moved to the darker main 473 liter.

Did a little experimentation with the SIcce pumps. It seems like the kuhlis are most active and the pumps' current most effective at getting detritus into the filters when the 2 Voyagers are turned to the 4th mode on this chart.


Finally, New Life Spectrum Grow is proving to be a better kuhli food than the Tropical Krill Gran/Tropical Discus Gran, because of its smaller size.
They can eat and swallow it a lot faster compared to the above 2 foods (think of the difference between chocolate chips and kisses). Plus, it eliminates competition with the faster-eating, bigger fish in this tank (roseline sharks, Botia) for it, because it's too small for them to eat.

I'm sure they'll still manage to eat some Tropical Krill Gran/Tropical Discus Gran when I feed it to the bigger fish, but New Life Spectrum Grow will certainly make things much easier.

 

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

Did a little experimentation with the SIcce pumps. It seems like the kuhlis are most active and the pumps' current most effective at getting detritus into the filters when the 2 Voyagers are turned to the 4th mode on this chart.
View attachment 1502293

I think I know why this is. Having the pumps set up in this way gives what I just learned is called undertow (even though these are not wavemakers).
Turning the pumps back on when the fish are still eating and observing the direction the fake plants' leaves are what got me to that conclusion. The fish don't have a problem with it, it seems, but it is most definitely there.

In a closed body of water, powerful pumps push water across the tank, while at the same time dragging water across the substrate in the opposite direction.

This is called undertow and can easily be demonstrated by putting food into the tank and watching where it goes. If there is good undertow the pump will shoot it across the tank where it will travel in a big loop and float just across the sand at speed, returning back to the pump.

Good undertow is linked to good water movement and helps to prevent dead spots of water. This will also mean that detritus or food will remain in suspension, which is good, and strong water flow across the substrate can also help prevent slime algae.

Use pumps with wave maker devices and the undertow may even rock across the substrate, really dragging up any dirt or algae as it goes. This is a positive.

The flow must go on!

www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk

 

[Midwater]

What you describe - where the flow goes the opposite way across the bottom of the tank, so broadly the flow of the water follows a sqaure-ish path around the tank - is very similar to the path taken by almost all loaches when in groups, especially in the early morning.