110gal Rimless

[Phillydubs]

Bummer... most HOBs can be had for rather cheap and are a nice backup to have around, so may be a wise investment anyway, but I see your point. I also see no reason the Hydro's can't do the job, maybe just go with those 2 and ditch the canister so you know the tank is squeaky clean!

[Demosthenes]

I also see no reason the Hydro's can't do the job, maybe just go with those 2 and ditch the canister so you know the tank is squeaky clean!

Precisely my plan, and Amazon delivered a day early! Canister is out, putting in the second Hydro IV now.

[Demosthenes]

I am tentatively optimistic that I've found out the source of my continued gill problems, and I think it's high levels of chloramines in my tap water. I pulled up the water quality report for my location and last year chloramines peaked at 3.2ppm. Since chloramine is normally added during hot weather to combat bacterial blooms, I'm guessing it's pretty high right now. I was treating for chloramines all along, but I don't think I was dosing enough. I had been using API Tap Water Conditioner, now I switched to Prime because it covers more bases. But I can't find info regarding dosage according to ppm of chloramines for either of them, it doesn't seem to be publicly posted. For right now I'm just going to double dose prime to be safe.

So, here's my 8 week update, with some angry looking gills but otherwise not too shabby looking fish. I'm impressed with their continued progress when they're clearly not doing so hot.

[Demosthenes]

It's been a little while since I updated here. I spent a long time over in the disease section trying to figure out why I couldn't get their gills to look better. Lots of good advice and a new test kit later, and the short version is that my tap water is garbage. I test nitrites at .5ppm and ammonia at .5ppm (ammonia in tap is actually chloramine) in my tap water. So my strategy of a smallish grow-out tank with lots of water changes backfired. Every time I did my daily water change I was dumping nitrites in the tank, and the bio-filter wasn't keeping up so the fish were just sitting in it. So even though I never got them looking 100%, I decided this past weekend to move them into the display tank. With the larger water volume and filter capacity I can go a few days in between water changes to minimize their exposure to nitrites. It's a gamble, but so far so good.

Here's how things look today: