Thursday, July 14, 2011

Order is in; tweaking filters

Well today I bit the bullet and made my fish order! So next week I'll be having nine new fish arriving. Now to really find somebody to take the 5 extras off my hands. Hmm. Gotta call around the LFS in the area, see if either of them might give me some store credit if I give them these fish!

On the filter front, I haven't been too happy with the surface skimming on the cichlid tank - it appears that having the skimmer "behind" the outflow sets up a surface current that doesn't bring the water by the skimmer very much. It's not bad at all, I'm just feeling perfectionist. Probably a sign that I need to clean that filter's sponges anyway. But since I was in a meddling mood, I swapped around some of the filter pieces and raised the outflow to only a couple inches below the water line, for increased surface agitation, hoping that it would aid the skimmer. Even if it doesn't, more potential oxygenation can't hurt! Especially in the summer. After the air conditioner quit. This weekend probably won't be too bad but it's going to go back up into the 90's next week - and the fish can't sweat to cool themselves down! If it does get too hot, I'll have to run the tanks "topless" until we get the AC fixed. And figure out something for the planted tank, because I can't run the lights without a splash guard!

The XP3 on the planted tank is having its own issues - I've got an air leak somewhere, not sure where yet. It's the one I bought secondhand, so I'm hoping I'll be able to fix it without having to replace any of the seals. I've tried plastic wrap under the priming cap, next will be reseating the quick-disconnect to make sure the o-rings are sealing properly. I'm not getting any water leaking, which is good. Just air getting into the system - and it can't be the CO2, the diffuser is on the other side of the tank!

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