90g Malawi (improved! Lol)

[Crude]

Yeah, thats what I'm doing now!

[eklikewhoa]

I try to leave one canister for only bio-media and the other for mechanical/chemical media.

This way you can leave one alone to keep the tank in perfect order.

[Crude]

Hah nice. Just using the shell, really

I don't think I'm suffering from a lack of mechanical or chemical filtration. In fact, I might switch out my excess carbon and add in some additional bio-media, but I'm hesitant to remove any of the biological that may have already built up on the carbon until I've given both filters some additional time to mature.

[HERM]

MacGyver !

[tunedis95]

first off let me start with the fact that i have a lot of free time and a lot of time to just think about crap all day...

mmmmm, well the 405 crapped out, so i used the intake/return lines as intakes only, drilled an outlet on the bottom of the canister and bolted the 1465gph pump to the bottom of that sucker to feed the water back to the tank. I also did away with the media trays and only use carbon and quilt batting for filtration. In two weeks its freaken crazy how much crap is caught. Frankenstein pump i guess.

[Crude]

How did you modify your 405? I'm running two... at significantly less gph...

[tunedis95]

a modified +1300gph fluval 405 for filtering
Rena with different media
and 4 powerheads

about to switch to a 55 gallon sump system with two intakes coming from the tank and 2 pumps pumping back to the tank and just keep the Rena running along with sump.

[beto]

What filtration do you have on the 240g ?

[tunedis95]

I change out the carbon along with filter pads every other week in my 240 gallon. Use about 1/3cup of carbon. Sometimes i leave it alone longer but Carbon buffs my water out over one night. And i only do water changes once a month now.

[Crude]

Ammonia tested in the 0-.25ppm range, but has been zero for every test up to this point. Nitrate and Nitrites were both 0ppm.

Normally I'm all about recycling, but this isn't the sort I support, haha. I think I cleaned out too much of my bacteria when I did a double filter clean, and added a bit more livestock at the same time.

Water change hooooo

[Crude]

Boo, tank is still cloudy :( Water changes and carbon have had little effect.

[barrettsline]

Bro the tank looks great. Yeah its really blue but at least its better than the green you used to have.

[Crude]

FTS with the new lights...

Tank is now lit by a 48" 8000k Stunner, and a 24" 445nm Stunner. The blue isn't as apparent in real life as it is in the picture, but its more noticible with the new 48" whites, as they do not drown out the blue as much as the florescents did. The fluorescents were much brighter - myjohnson was def right on that. A single 48" stunner does not look like it would support plants. Hopefully it won't support my brown algae either

I get the shimmer and shadows which I'm very happy with.



Also added some carbon back to the filters (removed some floss) as suggested. Thanks!

[Complexity]

The Auratus will chase each other in tight circles for a few minutes straight, but never actually seem to catch each other

Any chance they're breeding?

Are my auratus large enough that the males should be showing their colors?

I honestly couldn't say. I don't know these fish. Perhaps someone else can answer or you can find the info by googling. I know with peacocks, they mature at different ages with some showing their colors faster than others. But they start out very plain as juveniles so it's very clear when they color up.

[Crude]

The Auratus will chase each other in tight circles for a few minutes straight, but never actually seem to catch each other My dominant Chilumba will get aggressive with anything near him, but I haven't noticed a pattern in when or where he gets aggressive. Its not like he's guarding a territory or a female.

Are my auratus large enough that the males should be showing their colors?