mudboots

Just adding an image of my DIY sump. The glass is a basic 29gallon and I am just using eggcrate for my dividers. They are not glued in place...just held by pressure from the first frame which has "feet" against the left side of the sump, and the weight of all the biomedia against the last frame, which also has feet beneath the biomedia.

I've been over-feeding the past week and a half heavily to get the system ready for new arrivals soon.

mudboots

The two pieces of filter pad next to the return pump are just remnant trimmings and really don't serve much purpose other than additional biomedia.

davemonkey

Did you play around any more on light schedule? Or are you sticking to your current one for a bit more?

mudboots

I can't recall if it was when you had first got to TX or when y'all were getting ready for the drive back to OH, but I increased my first "on" to 4.5 hours, so I've got it on a 4.5-2-4 schedule. The water is not crystal clear, but I've also added fish so there's a huge bio-load the tank will have to get used to. I had been overfeeding to get the biomedia ready and that turns out to have been a good thing, as I did not loose a single critter (added 50 pearl danios, 12 panda cories, and already had a female betta, some cory habrosus and some neocaridina shrimp. I'll give it another few days for things to acclimate and post some pics then).

As a note, danios LOVE water movement and had been finding their way into the sump intake, surviving my entrance cell for two days (a couple dozen of them). So I had to buy some sponge pads to line my overflow. Silly fellas...

mudboots

Davemonkey - forgot to mention the obvious implied question related to the light cycle...so far I do not have any algae aside from some green coating on my driftwood...makes me wish I had some little otocinclus or a small bristlenose to enjoy it, but I'm afraid they might get hungry after a few days.

davemonkey

Yeah, for your tank maybe a Bristlenose? Mine seems to eat just about anything, including leftover foods. I started tossing in algae wafers for my school of Otos, but not 100% sure they actually need that yet.

Michael

Mudboots, remember I have a yellow bristlenose factory going.

mudboots

I may reach out to you when I return from a trip I'll be heading on next week. I took a few pics (will post in a moment) and I think I could support a couple of them pretty easy.

mudboots

Starting today my light schedule is 4.5 - 2 - 4.5 with a 30 minute delay between left and right halves. So pretty close to a 12-hour day. Left is on at 10:15 and right comes on at 10:45, then the siesta starts at 2:45 (with the right going out at 3:15). Then back on at 4:45 and 5:15 respectively, winding down at 9:15 with final lights out at 9:45. I do not plan to adjust for spring time change or fall time change. I am still only running a single row of FugeRay P+ (2 36" fixutres) across the top, and I still wonder if I ought to buy a couple 20" for the back...this is just a LOT of width and depth to cover. I dose potassium and "Flourish" micros a couple times a week, and an occassional carbon source when it occurs to me to do that. Otherwise just feeding the system with food and letting the critters do their thing.

Anyway, here are the algae pics I mentioned...

mudboots

and some critter pics (it is not easy taking a picture of danios by the way)