# the trick thread...



## Auban (Aug 8, 2010)

so, for a little while now i have been turning this idea around in my head about writing a book, a big compilation of all the tricks and crazy things i have learned through my experiments. then just a few minutes ago, i thought to myself "self, why not start a thread on it?"

so i am. this thread will be a compilation of the crazy little tricks that i have learned through experimentation. they will come in no particular order, pretty much as i remember them and find the time to write them all down. they will cover no particular topic, pretty much anything and everything in the aquarium hobby. from making your own black water extract to using 24/7 lighting cycles to induce spawning, ill put them down for everyone to enjoy.

i wont be able to write them all at once, since i have done a LOT of experimentation throughout my life, so bear with me and tune in every week to see what new craziness i come up with.


so, trick number*ONE*: black water extract.
black water extract is pretty simple. its just tannins dissolved in water, kinda like tea. the easiest source to use for black water extract just so happen to be those things that have the most of it, such as indian almond leaves and alder cones. now, what else do we have readily available to most of us? 

hardwoods! yep, if you have access to hardwood trees, you have access to all the tannins you will ever need. personally, i prefer oak, but just about any hardwood bark you can get will usually suffice. the bark has the highest concentration, so use that. i find that the best bark to use is that of dead trees, or bark that has fallen off the tree and began to break down. the real reason i prefer it is because it is much easier to ground, but really any bark will work. 

basically, just grind up small bits of the oak bark in a coffee grinder or a magic bullet, etc, and then brew it in hot water on the stove for a while. when the water is nice and dark, as dark as you want it, just strain the oak bark pieces out and set them aside to dry. dont throw them away, since they work kinda like alder cones, they dont release all their tannins all at once. usually, you can make a second batch of black water extract from the same oak bark. 
so, with this in mind, you can make your own blackwater extract.

right now, i am also experimenting with chicory, which seems to be working well. so far, none of my fish seem to be suffering ill affects, and i have stained the water even darker than the black water i used to wade into in north carolina. i have yet to determine if it has any of the stringent qualities of tannin sources, but it seems to be making the fish more calm in general. 

my oak bark boiling in water:









the black water extract after i condensed it down quite a bit:









my 40 breeder after adding an ounce or so of the condensed black water extract:









stay tuned folks, more to come.

-----trick number *TWO*-------
using hair algae to raise fry, create algaescapes, etc. since it would be a bit redundant to write all this again, ill just link the thread i already wrote about it. 
http://www.aquariumforum.com/f2/ramblings-algae-46538.html

-------trick number *THREE*--------
using a maxijet 400 and a water bottle as a quick and convenient power filter or CO2 diffuser. 
it just so happens that the power head modification for the maxijet 400 slips snugly into the mouth of a 20oz dasani water bottle. it will fit into a 20oz coke bottle too, but its a bit of a tight fit. basically, this allows you to do a lot of things with it. if you cut the bottom of a coke bottle off, and fill it with filter media, you can attach it to the maxijet and use it as a filter. if you run a ceramic disk type diffuser(or any other for that matter) into the coke bottle, it will direct all the tiny CO2 bubbles up into the maxijet, where they will be chopped up and dispersed all over the tank. this will make your DIY CO2 FAR more efficient than just using a disk type diffuser alone, since it forces all the tiny bubbles into the tank, which causes them to spend more time in the water dissolving. this leads to more CO2 in the water for your plants. and besides that, a lot of the smallest bubbles will get stuck on the plants, which further drives their growth.

a couple pics of my set up when i had it running as a diffuser:


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## majerah1 (Oct 29, 2010)

That looks lovely! I feel calmed by it myself


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## Nave (May 28, 2013)

Sounds interesting I'm just wondering, why would you want to make your water dark? Is it healthier for your fish because its more natural?


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## Auban (Aug 8, 2010)

Nave said:


> Sounds interesting I'm just wondering, why would you want to make your water dark? Is it healthier for your fish because its more natural?


some fish do much better with tannins in their water. there are many species that come from black water streams that benefit quite a bit from it, and some almost seem to need it to induce spawning.

besides that, its pretty good at reducing fungus due to its astringent properties. so, good for healing fish and young fish where you might have to worry about the occasional leftover food. and most fish seem to calm down in darker water and seem less stressed.


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## Raymond S. (Jan 11, 2013)

With all this info being mixed together, it may get cross related accidentally. So does this being added to your water(notice I said "your" water...LOL)
do we feel that you can expect a drop in Ph ?
Next on the list of curiosities is...given that you have a coffee grinder to do this with, could you not purchase a $15 "Mr. Coffee" maker(the basic unit without timer etc)
and just use it as though you were making coffee ? With the ground up bark in a coffee filter, in the coffee maker ? Well as long as you were using a coffee grinder...
might as well make it unanimous LOL...

Just installed a 2 bulb T5 light in a ten gallon which had 2 T8 bulbs in it. Likely catering to my impulse buying being the underlining cause, I had focused on plant growth as the excuse for it.
This fish calming effect thing...I have Banded Pigmy sunfish in that tank(species tank) and have not seen them since installing the T5's. Been only 13 days but I hope they "get used to it".
Might this "dark water" help this ? And what effect would it have on the plant growth ?
BTW...that Ph question was not intended as a retorical question.


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## Auban (Aug 8, 2010)

Raymond S. said:


> With all this info being mixed together, it may get cross related accidentally. So does this being added to your water(notice I said "your" water...LOL)
> do we feel that you can expect a drop in Ph ?
> Next on the list of curiosities is...given that you have a coffee grinder to do this with, could you not purchase a $15 "Mr. Coffee" maker(the basic unit without timer etc)
> and just use it as though you were making coffee ? With the ground up bark in a coffee filter, in the coffee maker ? Well as long as you were using a coffee grinder...
> ...


yes, it will affect the ph. to what degree really depends on how your water is buffered. it barely touches the ph in the hard alkaline water in my area, but in other places, i would expect it to drop the ph some. its one of those things that you will have to just test and see what it does to your water, just like adding peat granules. 

as for making it, you really don't even have to grind up the oak bark, it will still work if you just drop some bark in a pot and let it boil. i just find the yield to be much higher when it is ground up in tiny pieces. 

as for your fish, i would imagine that it would help him feel a bit more relaxed. most E. zonatums come from relatively swampy murky water anyway, so depending on where it came from, it may be more natural for him. elassoma species aren't exactly known for their bravery, however...

edit: added more to the first post. up to three tricks now


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## Raymond S. (Jan 11, 2013)

Finally, a true confederate. Just read your "ramblings on algae". I silicon rochs(shale) and fine gravel to my walls in my tanks to give something for the algae to cling to.
Though my mind is not near as prolific as yours on that subject, it has caused my to ask myself..."so who goes into the lakes/ponds and streams to clean off the algae"?
So I've conclude it not to be natural to have a crystal clear tank. The AMA and Aquascape tanks look beautiful(BTW I talked to one major seller of that "style" of tank
and they admit using heavy levels of algae killing chemicals in their display tanks). By incorporating it into an "aquascape" you have excelled my highest 
expectation for my tanks. Not at all that I have tried your version and chose otherwise as I have all along gone strictly natural/w mine.
Here are 3 pictures of my oldest tank...first established / side view of DIY built in bio-filter still evolving / latest shot of same tank.


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## Auban (Aug 8, 2010)

trick number *FOUR*
using hang-on-back breeder boxes to keep your live blackworms in.
many of us love keeping blackworms for our fish, but we usually dont have an extra tank that we can devote to keeping the blackworms in, and keeping them in a refrigerator only keeps them alive for a week or so. well, there is a pretty easy way to deal with that. the hang on back breeder boxes, like the ones i have decorating this ten gallon shrimp tank,








can easily accommodate enough black worms to feed your fish for quite a while. you could realistically keep a pound of black worms in them, hanging on the side of your tank, ready to be eaten by your fish. there is just one caution, however. if you keep a LOT of blackworms in one, watch your ammonia levels in your tank. generally speaking, i would say its best to do this only on larger planted tanks with fast growing plants(cuz they eat ammonia like kittens eat attention), but if you just buy your black worms a few ounces at a time, it shouldn't be much of an issue. just be sure to rinse them off real well in some old tank water(or anything without chlorine) before you put them in the box. the worms have a tendency to get to you in less than desirable conditions...

now, the reason the worms will survive in the boxes is because of the level of water exchange they get. if you have a ten gallon tank, and you only buy a couple ounces of worms, this allows you to keep your worms alive in a ten gallon system, without having to keep them in the refrigerator, and without your fish gobbling them up on day one.

unfortunately, the boxes can be a bit pricey if you want to equip several tanks with them, but in my experience it works much better to keep them this way than to try and set up a new tank for them. 

its also a good way to not tick off your significant other, if he or she is adverse to housing blackworms in the fridge.


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## Auban (Aug 8, 2010)

----trick number *FIVE*-----

acquiring your own live food cultures, for FREE!

many of us like to keep live foods for our fish, or at least feed live foods to our fish. there is certainly no doubt to the importance of live foods for picky eaters and wild caught fish, but as hobbiests, we usually expect to pay for our live foods. well, what if that wasn't the case? what if we could just go collect some live foods for ourselves and culture them on our own? 

you can. the most commonly kept live foods would be vernal pool critters. those include brine shrimp, fairy shrimp, daphnia, ostracods, etc etc etc. of those, only brine shrimp is commonly available, and even that is hit or miss. well, believe it or not, you probably live pretty close to a live food source, or at least a place to get starter cultures from.

vernal pools are the places that dry up every year. they flood during the rainy season, persist for a few months, and then dry up until next year. if you know of such a place, it will almost certainly have the eggs of vernal pool critters at the bottom of it. even lakes that are attached to a little swampy area that dries out every year will usually leave behind the eggs of such critters. that means that if you want to try your hand at a live food culture, all you really have to do is go collect some of the dry dirt and put it in a tub or a tank full of water and shine a light on it(or put it outside). within a few days, the daphnia/moina/ostracods/whatever your dirt has, will hatch out and begin to grow.
now, dont expect your new live food culture to instantly boom. they usually go through stages before leveling out. the good news though, is that you didnt spend a dime on it and if you fail, you know exactly where to go to get more. 

there is another source for free live food. as offensive as it sounds, wastewater treatment plants. 
yep, thats right. they have large circular basins called "clarifiers", which are nearly always populated by insanely huge numbers of daphnids. if you can get a proper net to collect them with(fine mesh and a LONG handle) its not hard to collect several pounds of daphnia from them in just a few minutes. you have to gain permission to go onto the treatment plant, but my experience is that the personnel working at the treatment plants are usually very curious and friendly, and have no problem letting you in and helping you collect the odd little water bugs.

just be sure to wear some protective gear to avoid contact with the dirty water, and give the daphnia a GOOD rinse when you get them back home. i wouldnt feed them directly to your fish, but when all else fails, its a place you can get a huge starter colony for free.

here is a pic of how i culture a lot of my live foods:


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## Raymond S. (Jan 11, 2013)

Well Auban, I don't have a back yard, only a balcony which gets to about 105F at least in summer here. Too involved to build even a painters drop cloth type roof over.
So nix on the yard culture. But where do you guys get these Black worms from as I'm setting up a critter tank in a 2.5 Betta tank(has two slots for glass dividers to
make it into 3 compartments if you want to). Had hoped to start a scud/daphnia culture in there with a couple of inches of dead leaves scooped up from a local
pond. But would it be also possible to get a couple of ozs of these Black worms and put them in/w the other critters ?
Saw them advertised on e-bay once but I'm getting tired of dropping $20 a pop for this type of thing only to loose them because of lack of proper environment
for them to be raised in. If these Black Worms live in water like the scuds do it may work. The tank is here now but without water so far.


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## Auban (Aug 8, 2010)

i doubt you will find California blackworms, but you ARE likely to find dero worms or tubifex worms out in the mud of a lake. i say just keep trying. black worms grow pretty slow when it comes to culturing, so not really the greatest live food to home culture.

oh, and that pic was taken in north carolina, when the temp was 108. you would be surprised at how much stuff just wants to grow sometimes.

we get our blackworms at a local pet store here, but we are going to start ordering them in bulk soon.


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## Kehy (Apr 19, 2011)

I can vouch for the live food. I keep a container pond, and it's very easy to skim off a few critters every other day. My fish go nuts for them, even the pickiest of them! Great way to keep mosquito larva down too.


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## Auban (Aug 8, 2010)

trick number *SIX*

using kava kava root for anesthetizing shrimp.

now, normally you would never need to do this, but i recently started looking at shrimp under my microscope and wanted to show people what i was seeing, so i had to come up with something. well, after experimenting with a lot of different things, i would have to say that kava root works the best. basically, brew a teaspoon of the stuff in about 8 ounces of water and let it settle. once it does, pour the clear liquid off and add it to a dish with the shrimp you want to photograph under a microscope(or just look at closely). the next part takes a little patients and a lot of diligence. at first, the shrimp will be swimming around everywhere, but within a few minutes it will slow down and even roll over on its back. as soon as it does, remove it from the water its in and put it in a dish with clean water. it will be paralyzed for quite some time, but will recover as long as it is placed in clean water.

it allows you to really take a close look at a shrimps chromatophores, which are the pigment cells responsible for their color. all shrimp have them, even clear ghost shrimp. 

i only do it so that i can get a better idea of how shirmp genetics are expressed with color. so far, ive come up with this:
shrimp have multiple types of color pigments and cells that contain them come in different sizes and shapes, and the color blue is not caused by a pigment at all. blue can present in the form of tiny granules in the shrimps body, similar to pigments, or it can present as an over all tint of the shrimps tissue underneath its skin(pigments are in the skin).

these are chromatophores of a *ghost shrimp* at 1000x and 400x respectively. notice the similarity to the next pic...

















low grade cherry shrimp at 400x:
















from what i can tell the chromatophores grow in yellow between molts(new branches and such), and when they molt they turn red. so, the yellow areas are the new growth. chromatophores typically get larger in shrimp as they age.


now, the color blue usually comes in the granule form for wild shrimp, as in this amano shrimp at 1000x:









what does all this mean? 

well, for one you could theoretically produce a red ghost shrimp if you could breed them easily. also, you may be able to predict what your possibilities are if you take a closer look and see what kind of colors the shrimp are actually capable of producing. 

neat stuff i think.

the kava root only helps with photographing them. shrimp dont like to stand still...

i like to think that my experiments led to this green Neocardinia. probably a fluke, but still cool.


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## Auban (Aug 8, 2010)

almost forgot, high grade cherry shrimp look like they have a mutation that causes the chromatophores to be elongated and web-like.




















if i breed certain low grades to high grades(that come from the same line of shrimp), i get all low grades that are capable of producing the high grades, so im assuming the "Painted fire red" look comes from a recessive gene.


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## Auban (Aug 8, 2010)

trick number *SEVEN*:
using astaxanthin powder to create green water.

ok, so most of us dont want green water. but, what about those of use who like to raise our own live foods? well, there is a product available on the market that you can use to make green water for your daphnia and moinas. astaxanthin powder is made from the micro algae Haematococcus pluvialis. it is a unique micro algae that lives in tiny pools of water that dry out regularly. in order to survive desiccation, the algae has adapted to be able to go into cyst form incredibly fast when conditions start to get harsh... literally overnight. when it does this, it produces a lot of the red pigment called astaxanthin. 

so what does all this mean? it means that astaxanthin is a micro algae that is literally alive. it is just in cyst form. when you add it to water, it comes back to life and produces green water in a few days. 

for those of you who want to make green water in fresh water, i really cant recommend a better algae. even if your daphnia can eat it all before it really comes back to life, it still works great. its so small that it stays suspended in the water column where it can be eaten. 

and all that isnt even mentioning the benefits it has on your fish in terms of color. feed your fish some astaxanthin locked up in the bellies of some plump daphnia and the colors will blow your mind. astaxanthin is a pigment that takes a pretty fish and turns it into an enviously gorgeous fish.


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## Auban (Aug 8, 2010)

trick number *EIGHT*:
Vodka dosing your fresh water tank.

yep, you read that correctly. if any of you have kept salt water tanks, you may have heard of the vodka method for reducing nitrates. the idea is that the vodka is an organic source of carbon that the bacteria in your tank can use. the bacteria eats the carbon in the alcohol and binds up nitrates into the form of proteins. in marine tanks, the proteins are usually removed in a protein skimmer. 

in a freshwater tank, it has the same effect. the only difference that i have noticed is that it causes biofilms to form on the various surfaces of the tank. for the most part, they are invisible, but if you have a problem with "diatoms" it could make it more obvious. otherwise, it seems to work great. just stick to a similar dosage as salt water tanks, if not less. 

well, i guess i should mention that i tried it on warm tanks and a couple cold tanks. in the warm tanks, it seems more volatile. so, it WILL reduce nitrates, but it CAN cause a drop in oxygen levels as the bacteria have a field day eating up all the carbon in the alcohol. 
the one caution i have for you is to start SMALL! its much better to dose very little and see no results at first than to dose high right of the get go and see your tank turn to soup. i currently go with about 3ml in my 55 gallon planted guppy tank, per day. once a day. 

start small, like 1ml for 50 gallons. step it up from there, until you see beneficial results. step it up a ml per day until you find out what will help you. 

just be sure to watch your fish to make sure that in the event the bacteria blooms out of control, you can do a water change. 


now, all that said, i did at one point have an entire gallon of liquid from an spent DIY reactor siphon into my tank. i lost a few fish out of about 90... not too bad i think, considering how much went into the tank. fresh water fish are just tough i guess.


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## Auban (Aug 8, 2010)

trick number NINE
using seltzer water to nuke your tank.

sometimes, our tanks can become infected with bad little critters, like planaria, pest snails, or scuds. if we are running a planted shrimp tank, they can quickly overrun the tank and produce an appearance that is anything but what we want. so, what to do in these situations?

well, one route would be to use harsh chemicals. but, what if we have critters that would die from the residue left over by the harsh chemicals? what then? we could use bleach and then treat the tank with dechlor, but what about the plants? the bleach will kill them. we could use copper, but it could kill the shrimp after the treatment is done. what do you do when you just want to kill everything without removing the plants?

well, thats where seltzer water comes in. and by seltzer water, i mean regular carbonated water. think about it. we can gas out our shrimp pretty easily if we let the CO2 run too high. in order to do that, however, we have to dissolve the CO2 into the water. think about carbonated water... it already has the CO2 dissolved into it. 

if you take a two liter bottle of carbonated water(seltzer water or club soda) you can spike the CO2 levels in the tank instantaneously. normally, this would be extremely dangerous for fish and inverts, so you would have to remove them. but, its just as dangerous to the pest critters as it is to the fish and inverts that you actually want to keep. so, this means that you can dump a LOT of CO2 into the water, drop the ph below the chart in an instant, and start starving the little pest critters for oxygen. the plants will be ok as long as you leave on the lights. some might suffer from the low ph, but even if they do, the treatment lasts a very short time. once its done(after a few hours), the CO2 will have completely dissipated and the tank returns back to normal. 

im talking about raising the CO2 to well over 600 ppm instantaneously, before all those pest critters even have the slightest hope of being able to adjust. after they die, let the system go back to normal. the critters will be dead, the plants will still be alive, and you can add your fish and shrimp back into the tank.

personally, this is my favorite technique for getting rid of snails. the snails simply cannot handle a blast of carbonated water. as soon as i pour it into a tank, every one of them starts racing for the surface, or dies trying to get there. whatever does manage to escape gets scooped up and converted into shrimp food(crushed).

no residue, no harsh chemicals, and it doesn't kill the plants. 
whats not to love?


now if i can only find a specific dosage for each kind of pest critter...


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## Threnjen (Jan 10, 2013)

The seltzer water thing is absolutely amazing.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

If you have an empty tank or capable of getting it that way, I like the idea of the seltzer water. For me, I would destroy my planted tanks trying to catch my fish and in my shrimp tanks it would be impossible to remove them all. I actually like killing the pond snails. In all cases, the smashed carcass gets eaten. My fish love them.


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## Auban (Aug 8, 2010)

jrman83 said:


> If you have an empty tank or capable of getting it that way, I like the idea of the seltzer water. For me, I would destroy my planted tanks trying to catch my fish and in my shrimp tanks it would be impossible to remove them all. I actually like killing the pond snails. In all cases, the smashed carcass gets eaten. My fish love them.


lol, to be honest, thats my favorite way to deal with them too. the snails love it too. sometimes the fish go after them, but its usually the shrimp that eats them.

i use the carbonated water when i want to move plants from a tank with pond snails into a new tank where i dont want pond snails.


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## Deng09 (Apr 28, 2012)

I have a question about killing the scuds with the carbonated water. 

I just emptied my shrimp tank and started gassing it with co2 to kill them off. It has been a few hours and I can see most of the scuds dead at the bottom, or on the ground twitching about to die. 

Will this be enough or should I get some carbonated water too? How long should I continue these treatments for in either case? I want the scuds COMPLETELY wiped out. They were so over populated that they were destroying my plants. 

Is this a situation where I have to wait a while until all scud eggs have hatched before I can stop the treatment? 

Please help. I am very frustrated by these stupid scuds!!!


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## Auban (Aug 8, 2010)

Deng09 said:


> I have a question about killing the scuds with the carbonated water.
> 
> I just emptied my shrimp tank and started gassing it with co2 to kill them off. It has been a few hours and I can see most of the scuds dead at the bottom, or on the ground twitching about to die.
> 
> ...


i wouldnt stop until not a single one of them is moving. scuds are tough little SOBs...

if you see some later, treat again. they can hide in the substrate, so there is no way to know for certain that they are all dead. that said, mine did not come back in the tank i nuked with the soda water after the first treatment.


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## Auban (Aug 8, 2010)

trick number TEN: cycling a new tank with vernal pool critters!

ok, so its been a while since i posted a "trick". truth is, i was still coming up with stuff, but i was so busy that i only had time to try things that i could spend very little time at. basically, set and forget type experiments and trials. for the year 2015, i was only home for a few months. between starting a business, preparing for TDY/Deployments, settling into a new house, etc... well, lets just say that a lot of things have taken a back seat to life. but that doesn't mean i stopped... i couldn't if i wanted to. 


so, the next trick is an odd one. one that i doubt many will try, but so be it. that's fine with me. basically, i decided to try and set up a new fish tank, fishless, but with a twist: i used live critters to "start" it. the idea was to create a tank that would cycle itself with practically no input, no care whatsoever besides the occasional water top off. why would anyone do this? well, think about it. how are we told to cycle new tanks? if we do it with a fish, we are supposed to add just one or two poor fish into a tank with wildly swinging water parameters, change water often, filter the absolute crap out of it, and monitor the aquarium water every day until the parameters "level off". we have to stay really vigilant or our poor little pioneer fish will perish and we will end up with a mess. the preferred alternative is to go with a fishless cycle, which also requires close monitoring of the aquarium parameters. it is usually faster because you can add more ammonia to kick start the nitrogen cycle faster, but to be honest, i find it pretty boring. and since i'm so freaking busy all the time, i wanted to find a better way. 


so i thought... what if i could cycle a tank in a way that allowed me something interesting to look at? something that would give me a visual way to know that its ready for fish, but doesn't require any monitoring or water changes? something for someone like me, in my situation... what if i could do it with all new equipment and substrate? i don't know if there is an existing method that meets those criteria, but since i didn't know of one, i decided to come up with my own. so here is how it went...


i set up a 75 gallon aquarium. i poured the sand in, added an airstone, and turned the lights on. then i added about half a pound of blackworms that i harvested from my pond. in another tiny tank, i started a batch of daphnia and moina. in about a week, the blackworms and lighting turned the water a nice pea soup color. the tank was completely green. i then added the daphnia and moina into it and also tossed in some sand that i had from an old batch of red tail fairy shrimp. i took the tiny tank i started the daphnia in and used it to hatch out some triops from sand that was, again, from an earlier triops culture. both the fairy shrimp and triops sand were chalk full of eggs... 36 hours later, i poured all the tiny triops into the 75 gallon. then i did nothing at all. it may seem like a lot of steps, but starting each culture was just a matter of adding sand to water and turning on a light. took about five minutes. well, over the next couple weeks, the daphnia and fairy shrimp wiped out all the green water and then starved. what i was left with was a bunch of hair algae on the substrate and tiny triops. well, the triops made short work of the algae. once they got to egg laying size, they pretty much decimated it. they also did something interesting... they kicked up all the mulm that had accumulated on the bottom of the tank. it was constantly cloudy. so, i turned the filter on. most of the triops were, by that point, strong enough to avoid getting sucked up. within a day of turning the filter on, the water was completely crystal clear and there wasn't any mulm or detritus at the bottom of the tank. i tested the water and, go figure, no ammonia, no nitrite. even nitrate was negligible. the tank was not only fully cycled, but clean to boot. and best part, in my opinion at least, was that the whole time, i had something to watch. it was crawling with cool little critters the entire time. not a single water change. 


here is a video of it:
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYyDyKJz5fs[/ame]


now, in case your wondering what i did with the tank, i actually set it up so that my wife will have to do minimal work with it while i am gone. i added the one secret ingredient that makes my hair algae flourish(crushed coral) and left the lights on so that the hair algae will grow. then i seeded it with several different species of ostracods, copepods, etc. 
then i deployed... lol


well, my wife sent me a pic of the tank. so far so good, there is a nice carpet of algae, plenty of worms still in the substrate, and lots and lots of tiny critters for the fish to graze. she hasn't fed them very often, but they are quite fat and happy. the worms have been slowly crawling out of the substrate into the algae, and the fish graze them. she hasn't done a single water change, and probably wont. this tank will essentially be a tank for project fish. as it is now, it can produce extremely healthy fish that grow FAST! did i mention no water changes? im glad she wasn't partial to the plants though... they are healthy and growing, but are kinda... buried...

folks, i wanted something very specific. i wanted a way to set up a tank with practically no input, and no work. not because i don't like maintaining my tanks, but because i still wanted to be able to set up a healthy tank while i have very little time. and i wanted to do it without any special equipment. that is exactly what i did. there is NO reason why you cant do something. there is ALWAYS a way to make it happen. you just gotta figure it out. so if you have an idea, TRY IT! even if you don't succeed, you will learn something useful if you pay attention to what happens. just think of what might be possible if i had started the algae in a refugium and planted the tank up top. maybe the hair algae would outcompete other kinds of algae, keeping the main tank algae free? maybe there is a way to set up a beautiful planted tank that can grow on its own with far less maintenance than is typically needed? only one way to find out!


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## FishFlow (Sep 13, 2011)

Nice BOOK!  

I’mma attempt to restate in an outline. 

1)	Day 1: Blackworms, sand, airstone, light.
2)	Day 1: In a separate *tank*, Start making critters (daphnia, moina)
3)	Day 7: Put critters into blackworm tank.
4)	Day 7: Make triops in tank you made daphnia.
5)	Day 8.5: Add triops to blackworm tank.
6)	Done.

Questions.
1)	Where do you procure, how to you make/grow: Daphnia, Moina, Fairy shrimp, Triops. 
2)	Blackworms. I know the lfs sells these by the *cup*, a very tiny cup, either ½ ounce or 1 ounce. Did you really only add 8 oz to a 75 gallon tank? Means I would need to only put an ounce or two in a ten?
3)	Sand: Any reason I couldn’t use the sand in my backyard? I don’t have dirt, I have sand. How deep? 2” ? Does it matter?
4)	What kind of light?

Everything you stated, I have not done before.


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## Auban (Aug 8, 2010)

i got the triops from a triassic triops kit, available at hobby lobby, or you can buy them online.

the fairy shrimp came from Arizona Fairy Shrimp, Clam Shrimp, Triops, Water Flea Information
you could actually buy all your vernal pool critters from them. 

so far as raising them, i hatch them in bottled water with a light on it, and as soon as they start hatching, i pour them into an larger tank. preferably one with green water and plenty of algae, detritus, etc. from there they pretty much take care of themselves. 

they do seem to benefit quite a bit from having crushed coral added to their water. so far as the black worms go, a single ounce in a ten gallon would probably work. they will produce some ammonia to get the cycle started, but i think their greatest benefit is the bacteria they carry in their gut. they will eat detritus, mulm, algae, etc. if you think about it, an ounce of animal weight is an ounce of animal weight either way, whether it be a fish or a worm. and the worms are better suited for a brand new tank. 

sand from your back yard is fine as long as you rinse it and its not laden with insecticides. normally, i just use sand that i dig up myself, but this time i was in a hurry so i used play sand from lowes home improvement that i picked up on my way home from work. i didnt even bother rinsing it. you could probably get buy without rinsing your sand if you dont have any chemicals in it, but it will look really messy at first.


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## majerah1 (Oct 29, 2010)

If you still have blackworms, I would love to buy from you, as I dont want them shipped from CA LOL. 

I have some scuds. Would they work as well as the daphnia? For some reason I cannot keep daphnia LOL. However these eat leaf litter pretty well.


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## FishFlow (Sep 13, 2011)

Website was helpful. Thank you.

Triops, Fairy Shrimp, Clam Shrimp mixture, $7. Contains 10 triops, 100 RTFS, and clam shrimp eggs. 
50 flea egges (daphnia, Moira equivalent) for $5.


Light: What type of lights. How long a photo period? (Are the light requirements the same for both the WormTank and the vernal pool critter hatching *tank*?) Ie, I'll just put the bottle water next to the tank until they hatch, then dump them into tank.

Once *done*, how long do the lights need to be on to sustain the algae i see in your tank?


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## Auban (Aug 8, 2010)

FishFlow said:


> Website was helpful. Thank you.
> 
> Triops, Fairy Shrimp, Clam Shrimp mixture, $7. Contains 10 triops, 100 RTFS, and clam shrimp eggs.
> 50 flea egges (daphnia, Moira equivalent) for $5.
> ...


any bright light will do. usually, i use a regular shop light. the one in the last pic is actually a marine light with 6 t5 bulbs. its overkill, really. 


so far as hatching them, you could probably get away with just letting them soak for about ten hours in bottled water and then just pouring them into the tank before they even hatch. i just started some triops that way a few days ago and a LOT of them hatched in the tank(which, in my case, is just a plastic TUB i found in my CHU).


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## Auban (Aug 8, 2010)

majerah1 said:


> If you still have blackworms, I would love to buy from you, as I dont want them shipped from CA LOL.
> 
> I have some scuds. Would they work as well as the daphnia? For some reason I cannot keep daphnia LOL. However these eat leaf litter pretty well.


scuds will certainly add biodiversity, but they wont touch green water. they will eat some algae, but they arent filter feeders. 


when i get back next spring ill have to collect some worms for you. i have found a pretty easy way to harvest worms from my pond... 

when the pond is overgrown with duckweed, the worms migrate to the duckweed looking for oxygen. i just collect the duckweed, float it in a tank, shock them, and siphon them off the bottom of the tank. 

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed2e2f-ktjs[/ame]


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## majerah1 (Oct 29, 2010)

Nice video!


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## Auban (Aug 8, 2010)

good lord, it has been too darn long since i logged in!

a LOT has happened since i was last here. i was in afghanistan when i last posted. since then, i have deployed to several countries all over the northern half of africa. i am in a position now that keeps me deployed or TDY for all but about 2 months out of the year. i had to ditch all of my personal devices for reasons when i was in afghanistan, and then things were just hectic as can be. my parents went bankrupt and moved in with my wife and i for about a year, and then i took in my half sister and her daughter for a year while my sister was getting clean from a 15 year meth addiction. 

anyway, my hobbies pretty much had to take a back seat to my job and everything else. i also had to pick up a new hobby... electronics. as in, building my own. it is not nearly as difficult as i used to think. its basically just math. 

anyway, im back. i am still keeping triops, just dried out some sand from my last triops "tank". here is a pic of it...










fancy, amiright? lol, hey, dont laugh. im deployed and i work with what i got. im starting to wonder if my triops have a higher than normal hatch rate. i realized something recently... i only keep the triops that hatch from their first hydration, and then i start a new batch of sand. i have been doing this for about 20 years, so i have probably unwittingly selected for triops that have a high hatch rate for their first hydration.


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## majerah1 (Oct 29, 2010)

Been quite a while! Nice to see you back.


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## Auban (Aug 8, 2010)

wow, this forum really has kinda died down...


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## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

yup, pretty much


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## lonedove55 (Jan 25, 2012)

I've been wondering about you Auban! Nice to hear from you and glad you're back! I have been AWOL on here myself for quite awhile..


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