10 Tank's fish and tanks

[10 Tanks]

Tuesday supplement. The 45 gallon is draining and am waiting for a small filter to arrive, hopefully this morning. Am moving some Dwarf Water Lettuce plants from a 55 gallon to the 45. The lettuce is one of the best, water filters in nature and I'm relying on it to help the filter maintain optimum water conditions for the fish. Mechanical filtration is fine, but it can't compete with some floating plants and large, frequent water changes.

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[10 Tanks]

Wednesday morning. We're doing the next two tanks on the schedule. A 55 gallon and a 50. We're also adding a small filter to the 45 gallon. We're removing the current aeration which is simply the plastic piece of a large sponge filter and putting in a small internal filter used for turtle tanks. We're not overpopulated with fish in any tank, so we'll drop the water level by a few inches to allow the filter to operate properly. We'll still remove and replace the same amount of water, so the water chemistry will remain constant.

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[10 Tanks]

Wednesday supplement. The internal filter is in the 45 now and it's working fine. Needed to drop the water a few inches, but the fish seem to like the improved aeration. We're just now filling the 55 gallon and the 50 gallon is draining. Trying to see where we could save a little more time on tank maintenance. Things are pretty streamlined, but there are always alternatives. So, we'll spend some time looking for them.

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[10 Tanks]

Thursday morning and it's coffee time. Two more tanks for today that will need large water changes and filters cleaned. These small terrarium filters work great for aquarium. They'll filter enough water to keep the water clear of small debris that can make the water hazy and mixes a bit more oxygen into the water as well. They're not as inexpensive as sponges, but are well made and worth a bit more money.

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[10 Tanks]

Another Thursday post. Got a little energetic, so am working on the outdoor 300 gallon tank. The Koi are here to stay. Apparently, the botanical garden people have decided to go another direction with their water feature. So, I'll make sure all outdoor fish get a lot of their water changed out a couple of times a week. The Anacharis is starting to grow again. It looked a little sad earlier after all the cold days from this past Winter. Also, I think we had some fry fairly recently, there appear to be more dark Goldfish than I'm used to seeing. The others are growing nicely and we have have quite a variety of colors. We even have one that's tri-colored.

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[10 Tanks]

Friday morning. A nice, cool morning after a fairly heavy rain storm last night. The storm filled up the 300 gallon outdoor tank, so the fish are happy about it. Three tanks to do today and will add a couple of small filters to two 55 gallon tanks. We'll get over to the government office and check on their tank and change out the water.

We have a large grape vine in the back yard and we'll see some grapes in a few weeks. They're so sweet! If I was a wine drinker, I might be tempted to try my hand at making wine. But, my alcohol drinking days are over. I'm getting too old for this sort of thing. Anyway, we'll get the tanks done and move on to whatever else needs to be done around here.

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[10 Tanks]

Saturday morning and having the morning coffee. Will work on three tanks this morning, I think. Have some errands coming up in the next few days, so trying to squeeze it all in can be challenging. The water changes really need to be done in the morning if possible. The afternoons can get pretty busy and no one likes to be stressed. I was never one that worked well when I had to do several things all at once. Just don't do the whole "multi tasking" thing very well.

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[10 Tanks]

Saturday supplement. Tanks are done. We try to get all the scheduled work done in the morning. So, we have most of the afternoon to do whatever comes up. Sometimes nothing pressing happens, so we read mostly. Don't know if I mentioned this, but we did away with cable TV. Decided it was too expensive for what we were getting. TV really isn't very good from our standpoint. If we want to watch a movie, we'll stream it from the computer. Cable TV is pretty pricey here and we've saved quite a bit by dropping it. Does that mean there's more money for tank stuff. Well, maybe.

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[Oldspartan]

Yeah, cable is a waste on so many levels. I put up an antenna on the roof and turned the clock back to the 60’s TV wise. TV gets in the way in activity.

 

[10 Tanks]

Sunday morning. We'll be working on a couple of tanks today. We'll also put in a small filter in a 55 gallon tank. The water changes make all the difference between success and failure in the water keeping hobby. I wonder how many more hobbyists would have stayed with this activity if they'd just removed and replaced most of the water in their fish tanks more often? It's such a simple thing, but one that seems to be neglected more than anything.

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[10 Tanks]

Monday morning and it's going to be a busy one. We have some errands to run later this week, so we'll see if we can squeeze in five tanks today. That's a bunch even for someone who is used to doing tanks most days. But, we'll see how the time goes. The good thing is, since we change the water so often, if we miss a day, it won't matter much to the fish. The water will be in near nitrogen free conditions. This is also a feeding day, so the fish will be getting a little nourishment.

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[10 Tanks]

Monday supplemental post. The water in the outdoor 300 gallon is getting a little green. Algae will remove oxygen from the water in no time, so you should make it a priority to remove and replace a lot of water and do it frequently. The water change will remove the dissolved fish waste and replace both oxygen and other nutrients the fish are constantly removing from the water. I'm in the process of doing a large water change on my outdoor tank.

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[10 Tanks]

Tuesday morning. Errands to run this morning, so yesterday we did a couple of extra tanks yesterday. That was a little bit busy, I can tell you. We've finished the early morning chores and now we're getting our posts in for today. I'm trying to add some things I've learned about keeping fish in these posts. The most important of course, is the water change. If you can find the time to change half the tank water every few days and don't have too many fish or feed them too much. You'll be successful.

On the side, we have these two male cats that showed up at the house about a dozen years ago. They've never really liked one another, but they've lived together in our garage for all these years. They used to fight all the time when they were younger, but they're both coming up on 15 years old and now, they just growl at each other. They won't drink clean water. One prefers to drink the water out of the outdoor fish tank. Go figure. The other drinks the water in the bird bath. I don't know why, but after all these years, I still have a separate pans of clean water in the garage for the cats. I'm wondering why and the cats are wondering why too!

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[10 Tanks]

This is Wednesday morning and we're experiencing a heat wave. Nearly 100 degrees yesterday! So, today we have two tanks that will require a large water change. We've added small, terrarium filters to several tanks and the water is nice and clear. We've lowered the water level in those tanks so the filters work well and so the water changes aren't as large or as time consuming. We're keeping to the water change routine by removing and replacing at least half every five days. The feeding routine has remained the same. We're feeding a little flaked food on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Because we don't feed much, the snail population is very minimal. Snails are nice to have and do a decent job of keeping the tank clean, but they also add to the nitrogen in the water and that's a bad thing. So, we're constantly removing the old, dirty water and replacing that with clean, treated tap water.

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[10 Tanks]

Thursday. A nice morning after a bit of rain last night. Whoa! The temperatures have been a lot hotter than I can ever recall! Anyway, we'll work on a couple of tanks this morning. The fish are doing well and that's because we remove and replace a lot of tank water and don't feed the fish too much. We've started to consider downsizing. We could really combine the contents of a couple of the smaller tanks into one of the larger ones, but we haven't done anything yet. That's something to be considered later.

On a side post, we're donating some things to the Vietnam Veterans next week. If you have things that you don't use anymore, please consider donating them. The Vietnam Veterans can take a wide variety of things. We're donating some shop lights we no longer use, some rugs and kitchen utensils. The Vets will take these items and clean them up and sell them, it's a great cause!

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