Aquarium "Life Hacks"

[GOT MTS?]

I am starting this thread as a fun way to share simple tips and tricks with my fellow aquarium enthusiasts. I will try to post at least one new tip each week. I encourage everyone to post your simple tips here as well. Even if you believe everyone already knows the tip post it any way, you might have a little spin on an old trick that we had never thought of. And to get us started...




Tip# 37 Plant dip


5 teaspoons citric acid to 6 cups of water, soak plant for 10 to 20 minutes to kill algae then rinse.
I use this to kill BBA if I get it on my anubias or bucephalandra. Once dead my shrimp will eat the algae and I have a clean plant in just a few days.

[GOT MTS?]

Tip#16 Painting tanks


I like to paint the backs of my tanks but hate it when the paint gets scratched off from moving equipment. To prevent this I apply vinyl contact paper (shelf paper) after my paint has thoroughly dried. You don't have to worry about any bubbles or wrinkles, they wont show through the paint. You may ask why not just use the contact paper. The answer is it that it doesn't take long to paint first but trying to get all those little bubbles out is a real bother and if you get a wrinkle, forget about it.

[Jim Miller]

I found that using black sign vinyl worked well. No painting, no smell. Available at any sign shop. Did it in my family room with the help of my wife as a big piece of paper was difficult to handle by my self. The two of us did it in 15 minutes or so.

Jim

[GOT MTS?]

Thanks Jim

[krisw]

Tip #66: Mixed Dry ferts

I dose my macro-nutrients (KNO3 / KH2PO4 / K2SO4) as dry crystals because I don't have the time or motivation to mix them into liquid solutions that I need to redo every few weeks. To simplify things further for my morning routine when I dose, I don't want to have to pull out three different containers for each chemical, and make sure I eyeball the right ratio of ferts at 5:30am when I'm tired.

So, I premix the three dry ferts into a single fish-food container, shaking before dosing to undo any settling, and can dose all of my tanks from that container. For my water solution, I've found that the following ratio works pretty well:

12 - 4 - 1 (KNO3 / KH2PO4 / K2SO4)

I usually dose between 1/8 - 1/4 tsp daily for my 33-75g tanks, and water change weekly.

[GOT MTS?]

Never thought about mixing them together. Great tip. I'll have to try that.

[GOT MTS?]

Tip# 11 Cheap root tabs


I got this one from another member.
Instead of buying expensive root tabs, buy house plant spikes at your local box store. Miracle Grow and Jobe's both make them. I like the Jobe's because you get 50 for under 2 bucks. I use a pair of scissors to cut 1 stick into 4 pieces and then push them into the substrate with long tweezers. My crypts love them, their roots grow right into the pieces.

[tug]

I love "Life Hacks". This is a particularly good idea for me to try. It seems a nutrient rich substrate and water column just begin to provide non-limiting nutrients, in some tanks. One of the topics at this years AGA… http://www.barrreport.com/forum/barr-re ... holz/page2

[tug]

CO2 Hack
I'm going to say I do this and believe it's fairly accurate, irregardless of KH. I check the pH of the water in the tank and compare it to the tank water's pH after it's sat outside the tank and reached ambient CO2 levels, 2-7ppm, generally 3ppm. From those readings, I realized my CO2 wasn't anywhere near 30ppm more importantly, the test suggested CO2 was hanging around in the tank after it should have gassed off over night.

This is my first pressurized CO2 tank. My diy CO2 was on a 20H. Forgot, forgot, forgot, this was no longer for a 20 gallon tank. I started to test my pH and now my tank looks like soda water. My poor little reactor.

Just comparing those two or three pH tests, I can check for CO2 and quickly balance my CO2 levels. It's also forced me to deal with my reactor and it is going to guide my regulator adjustment when I add the new reactor.

As an example, a pH of 6.9 directly from the tank and 7.6 from the acclimated water is around 15ppm of CO2. A drop in pH of 0.7 due to CO2, is around 10 to the .7 power, or about a factor of 5, if I understand the math correctly. Assuming the acclimated water had 3 ppm, this could mean about 15 ppm of CO2 is in the tank before the CO2 and lights ever come on.

[Becca]

I found that using black sign vinyl worked well. No painting, no smell. Available at any sign shop. Did it in my family room with the help of my wife as a big piece of paper was difficult to handle by my self. The two of us did it in 15 minutes or so.

Jim

I use Gila window film in black. I've also heard from people who use Plasti-dip. You can spray it on, it doesn't scratch easily, and you can peel if off if you decide it's time for a change.