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May 19, 2006
DIY
Woke up yesterday morning to the sound of splashing water coming from downstairs so I rushed down to check it out. Turns out that the tube connecting the Nanocube's pump to the outlet came loose so instead of being pumped back directly into the tank it was splashing out of the back and side. Luckily it seemed to have happened relatively recently so cleaning up wasn't too bad. I think I'll need to get some sort of tube clamp to make sure it doesn't happen again cause after I connected the tube and started the pump again, it came loose in the afternoon. Good thing Erin was around to catch it this time.
Anyway, in the evening I decided I might as well spend the time to swap out the pump with the Marineland Maxi-Jet 900 that I had just purchased off of eBay. The ACCELA powerhead that comes with the Nanocube puts out 266 gph which I felt was a bit too strong for freshwater fish (unless you only keep ones that like extremely strong current) so following the advice of the JBJLighting support guy, I replaced it with the Maxi-Jet 900 which clocks in at 230 gph. Not a huge change but the next model down would have been only 160 gph which would be too low.
Swapping the pumps was pretty easy and hopefully the tube will stay in place until I get the clamps since I installed the pump higher up along the wall instead of at the very bottom of the compartment like the original pump was.
Posted by ronin at May 19, 2006 11:57 AM
Comments
Ronin,
I came across your thoughts as I was searching for a solution to a snail problem I had. I really enjoyed reading and furthering my knowledge. I only recently started keeping a fish tank, having gotten one for Christmas and a couple of fish. It's only a 5 gallon tank but good enough for me to start off with. Currently I have 8 small fish and a sucker fish. Mostly Danio's and a couple of Tetra's.
3 weeks ago I purchased a couple of plants to put in the tank and after my sucker fish tore them up I removed them. However, last week I started noticing a couple of snails in the tank. I didn't think it was a problem until I went to clean the tank out and pulled out almost 2 dozen snails. They seem to have a hard shell so I'm unsure of what to do about them. I have searched for solutions and have read that "Loaches" would be the best idea. But in a 5 gallon tank with 8 smaller fish would this be advisable?
Any thoughts or suggestions on what I could do? I'm really getting obsessed with these fish and wish to expand my tank in the future so I want to make sure I understand different problems and solutions as they may occur.
Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you.
Chris
Posted by: Chris at June 9, 2006 6:05 AM
Heya Chris,
Your 5 gal tank sounds like mine in fish count. If you can find one or two small loaches (not clowns, those can get huge), I think it should be fine. Yoyo loaches I think are pretty great but are relatively rare still so may be hard to find. I currently only have 1 in my 5 gal but I've had him since he was like an inch long and now's he around 2 inches. Been meaning to move him to my Nanocube but have kept him around just to make sure there's no snail reoccurences and he seems happy where he is.
Another thing you may want to be aware of if you do find loaches is that they do jump. I've lost a few that way, kinda annoying.
Posted by: Ben at June 9, 2006 11:12 AM