My 5ft System Journal

The best way to clear that milkiness is most likely lots and lots of filter floss. I get the same thing with my Flourite every time I start my tank fresh. Pack the powerhead with floss and put a whole lot in the first sump compartment. Then rinse it out every few hours initially and once or twice a day after that. It's basically just to catch the fine suspended particles.

 

Will rinse them tonight.. first compartment is jam packed with filter floss as well as some pieces in the overflow box, will remove that and rinse nicely as well..

Think this Seachem Purigen sounds like a winner though.. one can re-use it as well.. by rinsing with 1:1 bleach and water.

Will update as I go along.

Thanks for the reply.

 

I'm not convinced that Purigen will be any use at removing fine particles, only chemical impurities.
Seachem Clarity on the other hand is a flocculant that might do the trick

 

agree. +1

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Ah okay..

Will try some clarity.

Thanks for the heads up!!

 

So bought some clarity and treated my tank quickly before I went to a supplier.. tank looks like a muddy river at the moment and all my filter floss is going brown, but according to the directions, that means it's busy working.

Anyone who used this got an idea as to how long it takes to clear everything up?

 

Checked this morning, tank is almost 100% clear.. still some fine particles, but I need to rinse all the filter floss.. everything is BROWN!! Meaning it now flocculated the small particles and got caught in my filter floss.

Shot for the info, Clarity works great!!

 

Hi all,

So time for a quick update. Cleaned all my filter floss and drained the sump this past Sunday to get rid of all the orange/brown water due to the clarity doing it's thing..

I then added the bigish piece of wood I will be using in the tank, I also bought 3 x lighting units and 3 x 36W Cool White T8 bulbs for now (will add some more later), to run along side my 36W T5, as I am planning on planting some of my plants in the small existing tank over into the big one.

Will let the tank run for a bit and then start looking at stocking the tank.

I'm really keen on getting some nice Gouramis. Saw some stunning pearl/silver gouramis and golden/yellow gouramis, but I'm actually looking for dwarf gouramis like in my avatar picture, but I was thinking of keeping Angels as well, and the dwarf gourami might be a bit small to keep with angels.

On that note, I have created a seperate thread here (<-- Click), and would appreciate if you experts would give me some info on the subject.

Will update with some pics a little later tonight or tomorrow at work.

Regards,

M

 

Decided to replant all my existing plants from my small tank into the big one, as you can see, still need HUGE amount of plants, rocks and wood to fill out the space..

Tested the water parameters and everything is great, so decided to move everything from my small tank to the big one.. Zebra Danios are LOVING the extra space to swim!!

Neons and Glowlights seem happy and the German Blue Ram also seems fine.

Most of these guys will be needing new homes soon as I am going to restock the tank, as well as my old small tank and all equipment will be going up for sale soon, will post it up on the forum once I'm ready.

Water is also a bit brown from the wood leeching.

Not too sure what I want to do with the scape, but will be rescaping once I have everything I need.

Eish.. big tank.. big scape.. big amount of work!

Sure in the end it'll be big reward!!

Anyhow, pic for now:

As you can see.. no canopy yet.. will make a nice one that'll house my T5, and the 3 x 36W T8s, with a reflective material on the inside. Also need to get an idea of what plants I want and where I can get them from.

Will also be running DIY CO2 in this tank, have a lovely glass diffuser I'll be installing into the tank.



Will update once I make some more changes.

 

Checked the tank this morning before work.. cleared up beautifully!! Can't wait to scape some more and add some nice plants!!

Only thing, 5 of my Zebra Danios and a few neons and glowlights went down the overflow box and into the sump. Is there something one can do to keep this from happening?

Felt sorry for the poor guys sitting in the sump in between all the filter floss. Suspect the supertube ride must've been quite terrifying for them.

Thanks.

 

Sponges on your overflow are the only thing I can think of. I have a few layers of course sponge behind the holes for my nano's intake that prevents my Gobies from ending up in the filtration. I made it a few layers so I can easily take them out to rinse. I'd imagine you'd need one or two course pieces that fit into the square of your overflow and a way to keep them right at the top of the space. Should solve all your supertube problems

 

Thanks man. I actually did exactly that.. I put some course sponge on the lip of the overflow box. Seems to work like a charm.

Also cut some pieces into the exact shape and size needed to fill the bottom of the overflow tank to keep the noise to a minimum.

Cheers,

M

 

pics for reference?

 

Will take a couple of pics tonight and upload.

Back at the office now.

 

Pics:

Cut the sponge to fill the gaps next to my fitting, then cut a big piece that sits over the top of everything with a square hole in the middle, just to muffle the sound of the water running into the water at the bottom of the overflow box.





Then just a pic of the sponge sitting on top of the lip of the overflow box, the one piece is tightly pushed in between the bracers and overflow box, the other piece is tied to the connected piece with some string. Thankfully one can't see the sponge as I've got some black perspex covering the water line.



Cheers,

M

 

If it works that's awesome, just watch your sponge, you really don't want that clogging up and starving your sump

 

Hi all,

Finally update time..

I went away for business to Mpumalanga 2 weeks back, and my girlfriend was in charge of feeding my fish whilst I was away.. unfortunately things went south really badly.

The sponge I had ontop of the overflow box fell into the overflow box, almost all my fish ended up dying in the sump or overflow box.

She also overfed quite a bit and on top of that, I had a MASSIVE algae outbreak.. when I came back on the Sunday, I felt really upset about seeing my tank in such a state. I just left it as is and removed the only 3 survivors (2x glow lights & my zebra loach), moved them to my quarantine tank, I also witched off the lights.

I then went the Monday and bought some Robalon Enterprises Crystal Algae Clear, started treating and by the weekend it seemed much better.

I also noticed during the course of the week that I had around 15 Neon & Glowlight fry swiming in the last compartment of my sump. I'm not sure if they hatched in the tank, or if they hatched out of their decaying parents' bodies whilst in the sump, but not the less, I was happy to see some youngsters in the sump.

So this Saturday, I was busy with operation cleanup and restore.. started at 11am and only finished at 15:30. I cleaned all the glass, removed all my old yucky filter floss, removed my 2 Java Ferns that seemed to still be infected by algae a little bit, did a BIG water change and cleaned the entire sump.

Also added some more wood and the scape is looking quite nice.

Before the cleanup, I made some overflow covers that wouldn't starve the sump nor let my fish go down the falls of death, and the won't go anywhere as I used aquarium silicone to keep them in place:





Basically it's just a ice cream tub that I cut to size and then cut the slats, then siliconed to the inside of the overflow box.

I then left the tank to run over night and checked everything in the morning, and decided to go look for some mates for my poor survivors.

So what I added:

6 x Corydoras Aeneus (I think)
5 x Zebra Loaches
3 x Neon Red Dwarf Gourami
12 x Neon Tetra

Still looking to get some more Glowlights, but none of the shops I visited yesterday had any.

Will snap some pics when I get time and update.

 

Ah dude that sucks. Prevention is key I suppose so don't blame the wife.. Anyways you had the oppertunety to rescape and clean and do a revamp on the tank so that is the 'bonus' in this bad scenario.. Good luck dude.

 

hi @WaRnOOb, can u tell me where u found zebra loaches. I am in cape town and have been looking to get some. Kind regards

 

Thanks for the comment @hein24

Not blaming the wife at all.

Luck of the draw I suppose, the sponge was a poo idea from the start, should've done something like this, but I guess that's how I had to learn.

@disco PM sent.