» Main Menu |
|
|
|
 |
|
» Tank of the Month |
|
 Home made fish food |
|
Jun 16, 2008 - 9:25 AM - by wesleydnunder
|
I make a home made food for my discus, and was asked to share the recipe here. This food can be fed to a wide variety of fish and inverts.
1 beef heart
1 pound of peeled shrimp
1 pound of white fish fillets
1 pound fresh spinach
8 Centrum multivitamins
1 cup spirulina powder
1 cup flake fish food
1 cup carrots
1 medium zucchini
1 can of green beans
Trim all fat and gristle from beef heart and cut into cubes. Place multivitamins in a small dish of water to dissolve fully. Cut carrots and zucchini into 1/2 inch pieces. Steam carrots, spinach and zucchini until soft, but not mushy. Separately grind beefheart, shrimp and fish either with benchtop grinder or food processor. If food processor... [Read More]
|
0 Replies | 89 Views
|
|
» Article Archive |
| |
Title, Username, & Date |
Last Post |
Replies |
Views |
|
|
Shipping Shrimp in Breather Bags
01-07-2008 04:09 PM
|
|
11 |
566 |
|
|
Veggie Filters
11-16-2007 11:43 AM
|
|
6 |
972 |
|
|
10 ppm, MR1 - NO3: 10 ppm. Problem solved. I'm happy, the tank is happy, and the tank is cleaner than it was. Note- there was no visible change in the tank. If I had continued the smaller changes, the tank would have continued to decline imperceptibly and I could have experienced less active fish, algae outbreaks, perhaps disease outbreaks. It is best to solve your problems before they become problems.
That was the long slow curve. The fast break is that is that water changes are how you clean UGs. While you are siphoning (or Pythoning) water from the tank, you use the hydrovacuum (the larger diameter tube) on the gravel. If you do small regular changes frequently you may not be able to vacuum the entire substrate in one partial. Again not a problem- start at the left (or right, your choice), work front to back, and when you have removed as much water as you wanted, mark your place with a small rock. Next time start at the rock and continue. Continue re-marking your place until you've covered the tank and start over. This is simple, no-brainer work. If you allow the UG to go without vacuuming for months, then clean it, you will have a major task. You may also reduce the functional capacity of the biofilter. When the gravel is vacuumed regularly, the bacterial film on the gravel will stay young and healthy. A neglected filter may have more bacteria living on the particulates between the grains of gravel than on the gravel itself. This is so because the bacterial film on the gravel will have been smothered by debris, or simply have peeled off the gravel from its own overgrowth. Vacuum that bed and you may cut your handling capacity. If you have a neglected bed and I've inspired you to clean it before it crashes, clean 1/4 every two weeks, or 1/3 every three weeks. After that you can clean as much as you can cover during your regular water change. The other hazard of neglected UG beds is build-up of debris under the plate itself. With regular maintenance, this is unlikely to occur. It may occur under a bed made of oversized gravel matched with an oversized powerhead. In a neglected bed it is inevitable. You can try siphoning from under the plate with flexible airline tubing fed down the riser and under the plate, but I'm uncertain of the effectiveness of this technique.
What tanks should NOT use conventional undergravel filters? There is a short but clearly defined list:
1. Substrate-spawning Cichlids or other fish with major earth-moving tendencies (some large cats) are incompatible with conventional UG. They dig down enough to expose the slots in the plate and short-circuit the water flow.
2. Fish needing or requiring fine to very fine sand [rays, flounders, many "eels" (Mastacembelidae), some catfish, elephant-noses, etc. in which to bury themselves or forage for worms and crustaceans are not suitable for UG, as their substrate will go through the UG plate.
3. Plant tanks historically have been said not suited for this technique. Most root-nourished plants were said not perform as expected over UG plates, and enriched substrates are incompatible with the technique. I formerly accepted this myth, but have since changed my opinion, but that will have to be handled in a separate article.
4. Any tank belonging to a fish keeper who is unable (for whatever reason) to perform regular maintenance. If you are the type of hobbyist who must or does ignore your tanks (except for sporadic feeding) for weeks to months, then goes into a mad flurry of tank cleaning, UGs are not for you.
REVERSE-FLOW UNDERGRAVEL FILTRATION
It is possible to avoid the biggest problem of UGs, their excellent mechanical filtration potential, by reversing the flow. That is, instead of pulling the water down through the gravel, you push it up through the gravel. You also use a sponge pre-filter on the powerhead, so it is pushing pre-filtered water down the riser tube, out under the plate, and up through the gravel. This is reverse-flow undergravel (RFUG) filtration. Several brands of powerheads can be adapted to this, but I only have personal experience with one, Penguin, which offers an accessory kit to convert their conventional pump to reverse flow. The kit has an elbow attachment to mate the pump output tube to the riser tube and a sponge assembly for the intake side of the pump. This is not expensive, and being a lazy man, I haven't tested any other technique since these came on the market. A great advantage to this format is that the pump is still running as intended, pushing water rather than pulling it. The sponges are easily removed for rinsing under the tap. There is no concern with preserving any nitrifying bacteria in residence in the sponge, as the gravel bed is to perform that service. The sponge can function purely as a mechanical filter, and be rinsed weekly, biweekly, or whatever your water change interval may be. I like biweekly at least, weekly better, to get waste out of the tank before it is completely digested in the system. The gravel is still hydrovacuumed, but you will be astonished at how little material comes out of the gravel compared to conventional flow UG.
RTR'S ULTIMATE OVER-ENGINEERED RFUG:
Having removed the primary objection to the technique, we have the problem of digging fish to resolve. It can be done, but is DIY and MUCH more work than either straightforward UG or RFUG. At the time of development of the particular technique I was breeding several substrate-spawners. I despaired over having the tanks a) look decent, b) be easier to maintain, and c) not have bare glass areas on the bottom.
There had been an article, in FAMA I believe, on using floss under the gravel itself over conventional UG plates (my apologies to the author, I don't have the citation at hand). The object of the exercise was to increase the sites available for colonization. Okay, there is more surface to a mat of fiber than to a gravel bed, but I was concerned about clogging the mat with gunk over time, compression of the mat by the overlying gravel, and the Cichlids could still uncover the mat, with double or more gravel depth elsewhere. This would result in uneven flow and potential loss of function.
Enter eggcrate light diffuser. This is a plastic grid, 1/2 inch or less thick, used in some commercial fluorescent light fixtures. The material looks somewhat like a large 3D graph paper. It is available at hardware stores in 2 x 4 foot sheets. So cut a piece of eggcrate with about I/2 inch clearance from the front, back, and side walls of the tank, cut out notches to allow the UG plate riser collars to protrude. Then cut another piece just like it. Cut a sheet of filter floss with less clearance than allowed for the eggcrate, say 1/4" front and sides. If I am working with a tank that is a close fit for the standard sheet size, I don't bother to trim the 1/4" inch off, gravel will conceal it. Make short straight cuts in from the back at the location of each riser collar, then a crosscut out from that to the edge of each collar. This is in effect a "+" with one leg anchored at the back of the floss. I use Marineland's bonded filter pad, which is available in 12 x 24" sheets. It seems the most uncrushable of the types I've tested. If you have a different favorite flavor, by all means use it. Finally, cut a sheet of fiberglass window screen 3" longer and 2 1/2" wider than the eggcrate panels you cut previously.
Assembly is simple. The only non-standard technique I use is to assemble with several inches of water already in the tank. Trapped air under the plate will stay there, so I make sure I have all the air out from the UG plate before I continue. Place the riser tube in whichever collar you wish, but test-fit the reverse-flow powerhead now, before completely filling the tank, to be sure it fits where you want it to be. Remove the pump and its' riser again to have it out of your way. Cap the leftover collars (without trapping air please). Spread the floss and push it down around the collars. Cover that with one of the panels of eggcrate. The bonded fiber sheet will only be lightly compressed if at all, the compression happening only at the foreground maximum elevation of the sheet. Next add the sheet of fiberglass screen. You want about 1 1/2" folded down over the eggcrate front and sides, about 1" folded down at the back wall (less here as there will be no gravel between the grid/plate assembly and the back tank wall). A fist-sized rock sitting on the assembly in the middle of the tank can help hold everything while you make the adjustments. When you are happy with the screen placement, cut an X or + over the chosen riser collar and push down the excess screen. Replace the riser tube. Remove the rock and add the second sheet of eggcrate. Add part of the gravel, mainly around the edges of the tank. Using a flexible spatula, disposable plastic knife, or similar tool, work gravel down at the front and sides, alternating side to side to front frequently so you don't push the whole assembly askew by over-packing any one area. You are NOT forcing gravel into a crevasse; you are working in just enough to conceal the eggcrate. Add enough more gravel to barely fill the eggcrate grid. If the tank is to have significant rockwork for caves, etc., place this now, solidly on the eggcrate for support. Finally add more gravel to cover the eggcrate about 1/4 -1/2". Fill the tank and reposition the pump. Make sure it isn't full of air before plugging it in. You are in business.
Maintenance is easy. Rinse the prefilter sponge, preferably weekly at least, with each water change except when you have small free-swimming fry in the tank- they graze the sponges and I reduce the rinses during this short period. Vacuum the gravel as usual, but you can't go deeply as you really only have a thin veneer of gravel, your real biofilter is the floss. If your fish are mounding too much gravel in corners, just remove some. By this time you won't be shocked to see a white grid in your gravel. I like to leave them some top gravel to move around, it is part of their spawning instinct after all.
If your tank is taller than a 15 or 20L, and if you may have a higher bioload than a spawning pair of fish and their fry, you can double the floss layer. Cut a second sheet of floss and another eggcrate. Layer from the tank bottom up: UG plate, floss, eggcrate, floss, eggcrate, screen, eggcrate, gravel. I just dismantled a 30XH with double floss set 11 years ago. The floss wasn't dirty. It was not pristine white, but for 11 years old it was very clean. My mbuna tank with hundreds of pounds of rocks is set the same way. It is older than the 30XH, but it has been moved, and had to be dismantled for the re-location. Both of those tanks were started with canisters feeding the RFUGs, but that is a real waste of a canister. Besides, I don't like to use canisters as mechanical filters, they are too hard to service as often as I like for mechanicals.
What type of tanks should not use RFUGs? Well, there were four on the conventional UG list presented above. Here I would reduce it to one for the RFUG. Very fine sand will sift through the fiberglass screen, so it is still out. Even those folk who can't manage to do maintenance as often as they should are likely to be no worse off with these than with any other filter. The prefilter sponges have a pretty good capacity for holding particulates, but as those are broken down they will contribute to the nitrate and other dissolved material in the tank water, just as will any other untended mechanical filter.
Just don't dismiss UG biofiltration out of hand as a cheap and ineffective technique for novices. It can, properly set and properly maintained, provide as large a reserve capacity as a fluidized bed or a big Eheim canister, and do so at somewhat to much lower cost. It is unfortunately a DIY technique and not off-the-shelf. However, the skill level required to DIY is much lower than that needed to build a light hood or a tank stand.
I freely admit that I do not use my RFUGs as the sole filter in any of my tanks, nor would I recommend them as sole filter, as they provide no discernible current. On the other hand, neither do I use canisters, power filters, fluidized beds, veggie filters or algae scrubbers, W/Ds or anything else as sole filtration. ALL of my tanks other than the snail tanks (and even most of them) have at least two, and up to four distinct filter types on them (another topic, another time). The mbuna tank mentioned above has a sizable canister thermofilter, RFUGs, two internal canisters, and a W/D. I do believe in redundancy, not often to that extent, but that one is an awfully nice tank and very easy to keep. I would not consider discontinuing use of UGs. They are too valuable to me in several applications, especially in tanks with lots of rockwork. I'm more than willing to do the extra work up front to remove the risk of anaerobic pockets around my base rocks at some unknown time in the future. The UG is, like any filter, a useful tool. Like any tool it can be misused or abused. Certainly it is often misunderstood and condemned by those who do not understand that any filter and any tank requires routine maintenance.
Brackish Water and OE-RFUG:
An added note on brackish water: I use OE-RFUG on all BW tanks. The substrate is aragonite, somewhat finer than standard aquarium gravel, with a non-trivial part of the material small enough to be a problem with bare UG plate slots. With OE-RFUG this fine material is held in place by using two layers of fiberglass screen rather than one, just as is done in the construction of SW plenums. Any fine particulates that pass through that will still be held by the bonded fiber sheet below the screens. In this way I can maximize not only biofiltration, but also buffering or alkalinity support by maximum exposure of the tank water to the aragonite. Two for the price of one as it were.
This article in somewhat different form originally appeared in AquaSource magazine. It has been edited and updated for this site.">Ug, Rfug, & Oe-rfug Fw, Bw
11-12-2007 10:49 PM
|
11-15-2007 08:18 AMby RTR  |
6 |
685 |
|
|
|
» Today's Birthdays |
|
None
|
|
» July 2008 |
| S |
M |
T |
W |
T |
F |
S |
| 29 | 30 |
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
|
|
6
|
7
|
8
|
9
|
10
|
11
|
12
|
|
13
|
14
|
15
|
16
|
17
|
18
|
19
|
|
20
|
21
|
22
|
23
|
24
|
25
|
26
|
|
27
|
28
|
29
|
30
|
31
| 1 | 2 |
|
» Stats |
Members: 1,139
Threads: 7,069
Posts: 88,994
Top Poster: OrionGirl (6,671)
|
| Welcome to our newest member, NAleksahko |
|
AquariumBoard