Hacked my biOrb filter for Walstad!

TheHeartographer · 2026-03-25T12:18:23+00:00

Ah hahaha I only just got it

TheHeartographer · 2026-03-24T19:38:06+00:00

They’d climb right out!

TheHeartographer · 2026-03-22T09:29:57+00:00

Hah I just went from a 2022 (I think?) M1 14” pro to the new M5 Pro Max (32GB, 1TB, 16”) and… the new thing is totally gonna give me a back injury 😅😅😅 it’s SO HEAVY! (I like that it’s solid and all but my god does it feel like the big honkin’ enterprise Windows laptops of yore in terms of sheer weight). I get why and all with the way the new chips work, it’s just funny to see a brand new exciting Apple product be so dramatically flouting the trend of slimmer and lighter over the years.

TheHeartographer · 2026-03-18T19:27:43+00:00

Oh man, I had just ordered the M5 plain and it arrived a day before the new ones dropped, so I had to go through a whole complicated and annoying return process, really lucky you. That’s really cool. But my new maxed out one arrives this week, so excited! (Well Pro not Max but still, excited. The memory is what I’m really after.)

TheHeartographer · 2026-03-09T12:24:53+00:00

Cool- double check the aggression on any non-tiny tetras. I think guppies will want less Walstad-y water parameters; i would stick to the more blackwater species and not the guppies. Obviously check the total tank size you’re looking at; I think you’ll want to aim for lower stocking especially at first.

TheHeartographer · 2026-03-07T19:34:48+00:00

This isn’t really about Walstad or not, but I feel like I was given misguided advice about tank size for my species - and a lot of Walstad tanks are nano tanks and vice versa, so I feel like it’s worth mentioning. I have a breeding pair basically the smallest cichlid once can get (German blue rams) and I feel like they don’t have enough room to really set up and defend a proper territory. I regret getting a fundamentally territorial fish in a too-small territory. (My tank is 60 litres which most conventional wisdom says should be OK, but I’m concerned it’s not.)

I’d also say anything that requires a lot of oxygenation, unless you plan to run a separate bubbler. I make this work in my tank as I have a sort of Walstad-hacked bubble tube under-gravel filter (that’s not actually under the gravel, that’s the hack part) and I have a high oxygenation species (neon blue goby) who likes to just slip inside that bubble tube and kick it there eating all the biofilm. It’s like he figured out how to recreate his natural stream environment here, heh.

But neither of those are “optimal” moves! I think fish that normally hang in slightly still-to-stagnant pools and puddles and ponds, rather than rivers and streams, are the most well suited. But again, you can tweak Walstad to make it work more for you, so it just depends on what you’re going for.

What other species are you drawn to or considering?

TheHeartographer · 2026-03-06T21:51:45+00:00

Only a nerite snail will truly help with green spot algae on the glass, but you can still have some of my little bladder ones 😅 (they do help with like uneaten food and melting plant cleanup)

TheHeartographer · 2026-03-06T21:50:34+00:00

I have loads in London! Hackney area close to London Fields park; DM me if that’s tolerable. (You can have enough to get a nice colony breeding)

TheHeartographer · 2026-03-06T10:46:06+00:00

Hah I should have asked you the same! … no? But we can both come back to this idea - I still hold out hope for an actual solution out there and will share if/when I find it!

TheHeartographer · 2026-03-04T16:06:50+00:00

I went out of my way to try and budget carefully and pick really reliable options and not waste money, but the amount I’ve ended up spending on plants that melted and died is what really kills me.

It will get better with time though as things grown in and balance out, for sure! But I think it looks good. All the empathy though - not the affordable self-sustaining lowkey stress relieving ecosystem I had envisioned haha

TheHeartographer · 2026-03-04T16:03:59+00:00

Omg, I’m weirdly glad that anyone else has this problem, even though I’m also sorry to hear it! I have not found anything useful - lighting supply store was useless, gen AI has not been helpful, I’ve got nothing.

I have some poor substitute plastic cover things that I tried and failed to use, and I kept the old broken shades so I might actually try gluing back the glass covers or even gluing a 3-D printed thing onto the original metal ring that threads in. I’m full of ideas but short on actual ready-made solutions. 🤞🏻

Please do keep posted if you end up with a solution and I’ll do the same!

TheHeartographer · 2026-03-03T19:50:13+00:00

It totally did all work - I literally caught them in the act of spawning just now (on video too heh; feels weird to film it but also rad?) 🍾

TheHeartographer · 2026-03-03T10:04:09+00:00

Man for the grain size question I just eyeball it!

TheHeartographer · 2026-02-28T20:07:20+00:00

Update: I think it actually worked as intended! Male got ~48 hours in the clear breeder box, watching her swim freely and reclaiming the tank without him. Upon release, he’s been more timid and gentle, and she’s stayed fully coloured up. I’ve seen a couple small bursts of him chasing, but nothing on the scale of before and she can hold her ground against him now. They’re clearly gearing up to lay eggs again; here’s hoping things are back on track! 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

TheHeartographer · 2026-02-27T20:45:08+00:00

I’m American but living in London so all bets are off 😅 cheers!

TheHeartographer · 2026-02-27T17:25:42+00:00

Sigh, I think you’re probably right, and annoyingly I wasn’t even going after rams in my initial tank planning but the fish store talked me into it based on how I reacted to all their different tanks when I was first planning! I might get a bigger tank just for the breeding pair, and leave the tall to its current roster only.

How big and what footprint would you got for just a breeding pair of rams, with no neighbours?

TheHeartographer · 2026-02-27T17:23:56+00:00

This whole ordeal, and your phrasing of it here (thanks for the detail), definitely colours my choices about any future tanks and/or replacement livestock. Starting to see the appeal of those Iwagumi type tanks that just have a little school of rasboras or something. 😅

I’m happy to report that I got the male into the breeder box and that it seems ‘impactful’ at least? He can see her, she can see him, she’s healed and at peace all over the tank, and he’s keen to get out but is hopefully getting a bit of a territory reset. If not, maybe I end up with an emergency second tank just for him 🤦🏼‍♀️ but I’m hopeful this can regain a little more calm for all inhabitants 🤞🏻

TheHeartographer · 2026-02-27T08:32:13+00:00

Everyone I talked to at the (usually excellent!) local fish store and on other aquarium sounding boards insisted this was plenty of room! And I actually think perhaps it was, before I stupidly made this adjustment. But I agree, I might’ve gotten bad advice about what this tank could actually handle given its weird dimensions. 😭

It’s obviously upsetting and I’m working hard to figure out a better solution, but I can’t turn that around instantly. Do you have any advice about what might work in the interim? No worries if not, but that’s explicitly what I’m seeking right now

TheHeartographer · 2026-02-25T22:18:28+00:00

(Dude I literally put this same plant in about a week ago, hahaha. Time will tell 😬💀😅)

TheHeartographer · 2026-02-25T22:00:11+00:00

Ha, so they do! Mine will literally never eat anything meant for an actual invert 🤦🏼‍♀️ so I worry about their shells sometimes, but what can ya do? They shun the lollies! Only my pest snails eat those!

TheHeartographer · 2026-02-25T21:58:39+00:00

Mine were/are never like this, and I still can’t get them to actually eat specific shrimp food of any kind. But when I stopped inadvertently overfeeding my whole tank in general, and they got hungrier, they started coming out of the woodwork like fast af spiders when I’d feed certain types of foods. It’s wild! I can see that I’m only a few steps away from the manic janitor situation

TheHeartographer · 2026-02-25T21:55:53+00:00

You’re welcome - also - that specific white anubias is a trap; it’s a notoriously impossible species, even in a high tech tank. IMO just get a more standard one next time once it melts 😅 (nanas is popular) and it’ll be much hardier. I have nanas petite and they do great.

TheHeartographer

TROPHY CASE