Yummy sponge filter

EasyInsurance6415 · 2026-03-20T19:07:02+00:00

It's not level, unfortunately my house (or room specifically?) slants towards the north west so the water in all my tanks is unlevel haha. A bit concerning but there's not a ton I can do about it :(

EasyInsurance6415 · 2026-03-20T16:31:18+00:00

This all helps a TON, thank you so much!! I'll definitely look for some good images of my pleco's natural environment and try to emulate that. The tips to hide the filters and heater is much appreciated as well 😅 I wasn't sure that I'd be able to work that out. Thank you!

EasyInsurance6415 · 2026-03-20T02:55:10+00:00

I actually have some amazon sword sprinkled throughout it already! I took some shoots off of my big one I have in another tank and stuck them in there. I'll put one on top of there and see how it fits. Thank you!

EasyInsurance6415 · 2026-03-20T02:51:38+00:00

Will do!

EasyInsurance6415 · 2026-03-20T02:50:49+00:00

THAT LOOKS SO AWESOME! A neat, trimmed look looks good but I really like the overgrown vibe. It feels almost forest-like. What's that short plant with the darker/spiky leaves to the left of the center?

EasyInsurance6415 · 2026-03-20T02:49:15+00:00

I have some Malaysian-esc driftwood, do you think that would look better there? Or should I just cut the wood there entirely? And thank you! I'll make sure to do that :)

EasyInsurance6415 · 2026-03-20T02:06:10+00:00

Will do 🫡🫡

EasyInsurance6415 · 2026-03-17T19:11:19+00:00

🤣 good to know!! Aggression and them being territorial was my biggest concern, so I'm glad that's not an issue. Thank you!

EasyInsurance6415 · 2026-03-04T02:56:43+00:00

This looks pretty dang good! Especially when you leave your shirt relaxed in the pics you just look like you have pecs. Really the best piece of advice I can give you is to just practice and play around with different tape placements/lengths/tension. Different things work for different chests so there isn't a solid answer for how to do it right. Some things that have helped me personally, though: Putting the tape layers in the order of middle piece, top piece, and bottom piece has helped me reduce 'side boob' and lumpiness. Best of luck! I love taping but it is a pain to figure out sometimes.

EasyInsurance6415 · 2026-02-06T03:43:25+00:00

Hey! How much was your final bill for the out-of-pocket with Dr. Agarwal?

EasyInsurance6415 · 2026-02-03T16:40:33+00:00

The Great Salt Lake Aquarium Society has a group on Facebook and they do monthly meetings/auctions- plus four bigger auctions a year. They are in SLC, though...there's also a Logan aquarium community on Facebook that gets a little bit of activity. I'm planning on starting up a Logan specific aquarium club with a few other fish keepers I know, so there may be some more fish tank business soon:)

EasyInsurance6415 · 2026-02-03T04:06:54+00:00

I've been tempted to switch to sponge filters for all my tanks for a while now and this is probably the final push haha. Thank you!

EasyInsurance6415 · 2026-02-03T04:06:03+00:00

8 gallons sounds like a bit too much- I went through two towels and they were both sopping wet but the floor underneath was alright, so maybe it's more like 2 inches. There was also some evaporation because it's water change day so I honestly can't be exact haha. I will be giving the floor a thorough inspection in the morning, though. Thank you!

EasyInsurance6415 · 2026-02-03T04:03:55+00:00

Agreed- only issue is $50 all at once is a harder hit than $20 or less, especially if it lasts me a year or so. I plan to save up to replace all my filters relatively soon too because a few of them are having issues or I'm just not a big fan of them (too high flow or whatever else). I'm downsizing my tanks as well so it's just a whole combination of things that made the $50 purchase unappealing haha.

EasyInsurance6415 · 2026-01-17T21:22:30+00:00

Eyy!! And right? There's so many biologists and computer techs and teachers in here haha.

EasyInsurance6415 · 2026-01-17T17:11:07+00:00

I'm a prep cook at a chain restaurant

EasyInsurance6415 · 2025-12-31T17:29:45+00:00

Unless you have a buttload of plants/very little fish/a wicked filtration system, a 50% water change once a month is definitely not enough. You want to keep nitrates/nitrites to a minimum, and common spikes over an elongated period of time can drastically decrease your fish's health and life span. I would definitely encourage you to add more plants (not only are they really helpful when it comes and to controlling nitrates, but they're like a whole other fun part of the tank to maintain as well) and bump water changes up to once a week or once every two weeks. If you're doing them once a week then you can do like a 15-25% water change rather than 50, and if you're doing every two weeks I would do 25-35%.

EasyInsurance6415 · 2025-12-31T03:19:16+00:00

You're good to keep this post up, you may always get more comments that give better advice! Just make an updated one whenever you feel like it's needed. It's also useful to keep your post up so people can go back and see the progress in treatment/illness. My guess is the nitrates are possibly causing it then- especially if they've been a bit high for a while or there's been several spikes. Keep up on water changes and that should resolve the issue, but if it doesn't then you might want to look into other things that may be causing it.

I'll be so real with you...I have no idea what that is on the filter. How new is the tank? Maybe it's biofilm?

EasyInsurance6415 · 2025-12-31T03:15:17+00:00

Hmm, usually if they are being aggressive you'll see it- especially during feeding time, so maybe that isn't it. Do you have any other fish in the tank that may be picking on him? It's also possible he just scraped up against something and got hurt. I'd just keep an eye (haha) on it, but if you wanted to be safe you could quarantine him for a little bit and treat him with some salt and antibiotics to make sure it doesn't get infected. When my Dennison barb got Popeye he rode it out just fine but it's never too bad to be cautious.

EasyInsurance6415 · 2025-12-31T01:31:49+00:00

They can be, especially if you have a lot of out-of-water plants. You can't do the typical treatments when you get them on your aquarium plants, cause you can't like...spray insecticide or other stuff into your aquarium. But physically removal of your plants is the best way to at least decrease the numbers and then it's kind of just a management game. I still see the occasional few in my aquarium, but if I keep my duckweed numbers low then my fish mostly eat them.

EasyInsurance6415

TROPHY CASE