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hobbies New aquarium!

Tested nitrite a little while ago since it's not time-dependent like the ammonia. Still way high. It'll drop exponentially once it starts. I don't recall ever having seen it drop in the past. Test one day and it's bright purple, test the next day and it's sky blue. Maybe tomorrow.
 
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Just took this with the omniglow at high noon. Needs fish, better lighting. Glass is dirty.
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I just changed 50% of the water and the nitrites still read off the chart. I'll have to change out nearly all of it later today. Daughter asks me why so many of my hobbies involve moving large amounts of water, lol.
 
Grass Snake said:
Are you running a sump tank?
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Yep. 10g

Okay, changed >80% this time and nitrites are still reading around the top of the scale, but the levels have got to be greatly reduced. I mean.. I took out 50% and then more than 80% of what was left. I hope this clears up in the next couple days.
 
Great looking tank mate 👌 👌👌
 
Changed ~90% of the water this afternoon. Nitrites are still high, but I'm confident it's below 5ppm now. So check again tomorrow. If I get fuchsia again I'll have to perform another huge water change.

Did some figuring and worked out that the nitrite level was around 400ppm yesterday morning. :shocked:
 
I never have, either. This has easily been my most difficult new cycle. 400ppm is way too high, inhibits bacterial growth. I'm converting 4ppm of ammonia into nitrites every 24 hours, but the nitrite-eating guys' population isn't strong enough to keep pace. I could back off on ammonia, but I'd rather do the water changes than have to grow them back out to 4ppm after the second group has caught up. The bacteria should grow in as long as I keep nitrites at or below 5ppm.
 
CaneDog said:
Hey Unc. How easily/quickly will you be able to get stock once the aquarium is ready to go?

How many individuals do you plan to start with in the community?
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It should be pretty easy. This is a very popular species and my vendor almost always has them. However, I won't buy fish from anybody else, so if he happens to be out I'll have to wait. Once I've got my order in, the fish will take a couple/few days to prepare for shipment. Weather will be considered. On a good enough day (pretty much anything short of a strong storm) the fish will be packed and sent overnight.

I'll be dropping 20 of the little monsters in there. :twisted: I expect them all to survive; it's been a long time since I've lost a fish starting a new group. But you never know.. Whoever's still alive when the dust settles will be my group. Trying to add new fish won't do - they'd tear him apart.
 
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Here we go. This is P. saulosi, a different mbuna species generally considered fairly less aggressive than C. demasoni. Dominant males are blue/black and females/"hiding" males are yellow. The dorsal fin tells the difference between the hiders and the females - "real" females will have no black on the dorsal fin. Anyway, this is a fairly typical challenge. When they grab hold of each other's mouths like that what they're trying to do is break their opponent's lower jaw. If one manages it, the other can't fight anymore. He also can't eat anymore. He will either be allowed to slink away and starve, or (more often) he'll be savaged by the rest of the fish in the tank. Notice how even the females take little sucker punches here and there, goading them on. (Neither of these males look quite right to me, btw, probably inadvertently hybridized somewhere along the line. One is worse than the other, with almost no barring across the forehead.)
Reading the description on the video, this guy effectively instigated this fight by removing a male. Not to say that was the wrong thing to do - ratio looks pretty male-heavy from what we can see.
 
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