der Amazonas Fluß
May. 13th, 2006 04:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
opabiniaThe System 1 Pressure Filter is an awesome piece of machinery. It compensates for parts quality in brute force. (Apart from the monstrous electric motor, its manufacture is an exercise in cutting corners.) It's noisy, messy, fast, and strong.
It looks clunky and ungraceful, because it is. Boy, does it work, though.
Here's the tank as of yesterday, during another drain/fill cycle. It always looks better immediately after a refill, of course:
The corys make mischief and suspend a new cloud of mud overnight, as expected. (At first, I didn't realize just how helpful they'd be in this respect.)
This morning the brown cloud was back, slightly thinner than before. Here's the tank right now, after several charges with the System 1, plus a weak dose of a flocculating agent I bought yesterday. I did not drain the tank today, so this represents tremendous progress:
Ansible spent the night in there, and he looks content. I understand his kind comes from fairly muddy parts of the Great River, so he probably feels at home. The plants will need psychotherapy, but they will survive.
It looks clunky and ungraceful, because it is. Boy, does it work, though.
Here's the tank as of yesterday, during another drain/fill cycle. It always looks better immediately after a refill, of course:
The corys make mischief and suspend a new cloud of mud overnight, as expected. (At first, I didn't realize just how helpful they'd be in this respect.)
This morning the brown cloud was back, slightly thinner than before. Here's the tank right now, after several charges with the System 1, plus a weak dose of a flocculating agent I bought yesterday. I did not drain the tank today, so this represents tremendous progress:
Ansible spent the night in there, and he looks content. I understand his kind comes from fairly muddy parts of the Great River, so he probably feels at home. The plants will need psychotherapy, but they will survive.
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no subject
Date: 2006-05-13 08:51 pm (UTC)when i still had my 55 gallon
with the sand over clay substrate,
the clay was always the bane of my existance
in terms of water clarity.
the cory's and others were constantly stirring the sand
until it exposed the clay
which brought up the film
that i see in your lower photo, there.
but then,
i didn't spend weeks
trying to clear it all out
before i covered it and put the fish in.
maybe that would have made the difference.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-13 09:00 pm (UTC)*bad influence vibes* ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
no subject
Date: 2006-05-13 09:10 pm (UTC)i gave up the tank when we moved to our current place
because its a very small, very tight apartment
and space and storage was at a premium.
our new place (moving on the 27th)
will be a bit more spaceous,
but,
with aiden planning to re-apply to PhD progams in the fall,
potentially setting us up to move out of new england in a year's time,
i'm not sure i'm quite ready to get back into a rig right away.
that being said,
i definitely want another tank "someday"
i just don't know for sure when that will be.
i had planned to just try to avoid clay altogether,
although i'm not sure that'll work
if i want to bring in live plants...
anyway.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-13 09:22 pm (UTC)Sorry about that... I'm a little obsessive. (There's only one "t" in "editing." ;p )
...potentially setting us up to move out of new england in a year's time,
i'm not sure i'm quite ready to get back into a rig right away.
Make it a 10-gallon "nano." All you need is one bag of Flourite... :)