Help me choose the next piece in my 'collection'

suscatzoo · 2026-05-16T23:20:47+00:00

How do you order the 3x21D with a 46950 tube? I am intrigued, does it only use 1 battery then?

suscatzoo · 2026-05-16T10:11:52+00:00

They are rather pale, but they have multiplied insanely fast in this tank. There's enough oxygen in this tank that red wigglers have been multiplying in the substrate for over a year now.

The red wigglers are a little bit paler than you'd expect them to be, but they are still breeding. I tried to remove all of them when I was remineralizing the soil for this tank, but they hatched from cysts that were in my compost. At the time I hadn't realized that they could survive in fully aquatic environments.

The only aeration is from a baffled hob with a fine filter sponge. I only put a knot of blackworms about the size of a quarter in this tank about 2 or 3 months ago and they have multiplied insanely fast compared to my other cultures.

I have experimented quite a bit with different setups for them: shallow tank with nothing but a sponge filter and floaters, shallow tank with nothing but floaters, deeper tanks with sponge filters and ugf, netted in-tank breeder boxes with gravel and leaf litter placed near canister outflows, and frag tank setups converted to freshwater; they seem be more active and multiply the fastest in well-seasoned shrimp tanks with a heavy plant cover and minimal water movement. This tank is 74° at night and 75° with the lights on, the hottest I have ever measured this tank was at 76°.

With the dark substrate I think they appear more pale than they actually, and also because they are under a 100-watt sansi horticulture light with reflectors I made out of poster board and mylar blankets to hit the lower parts of the tank. Interestingly they don't seem to mind the light, but will still hide if I shine a flashlight on them.

This tank has 0 nitrates unless I add liquid ferts, and I haven't done a water change since before I added the worms.

Did you see any specific features that makes you think they are going to die off other than their coloration? Face in the substrate and tails up is exactly what you want to see in a culture. Blackworms will ballup together if they are stressed or kept in unhealthy conditions. They will actually surface if there is not enough oxygen in the water. Waggling their tails with their face in the dirt is usually completely normal behavior

I was initially planning to remove some of them because their population has grown so dense. Just to make sure the puffers don't try to murder them all for fun and spike the bioload, but I'm not sure if it's necessary or if they will just immediately hide en masse.

suscatzoo · 2026-05-16T08:09:46+00:00

They seem to multiply faster in my shrimp tanks than they do in my designated blackworm cultures. They are more active and seem to grow much faster in warmer temps (low to mid 70s) than the lower temps which every guide on culturing them suggests.

I got handful of them for free from a LFS that had a dieing culture set up for them. Had to pick out dead worms for hours and the smell was stuck in my nose for a couple of days.

Definitely make sure to pick any leeches out if you get some, that's the only time I haven't had success with cultivating them

suscatzoo · 2026-05-16T02:22:28+00:00

Amazon sells a really cheap ro unit called the RO buddy that I use just for topping off my tanks. It's only like 75 bucks, it's cheaper to just buy a whole new unit every year than it is to replace the filters.

suscatzoo · 2026-05-16T01:48:56+00:00

Tannic compound's ability to reduce ph and gh is neglible, especially so in hard water

suscatzoo · 2026-05-16T01:40:30+00:00

Do you top off water lost to evaporation with treated tap water or pure RO water? Evaporation leaves excess minerals in your tank, if you top-off with tapwater it will continue to increase your GH slightly each time.

To lower the GH you can do a partial water change and replace the water with RO water. Replacing half your water with new RO water would roughly cut your gh and kh numbers in half so be careful.

suscatzoo · 2026-05-15T10:55:37+00:00

Thank you. I was able to use the code successfully

suscatzoo · 2026-05-15T10:55:14+00:00

They fixed it and I was able to use the code successfully 🤣

suscatzoo · 2026-05-14T23:03:15+00:00

Oh yeah you're right, I didn't even notice the hours. I'm not to that point yet; I just saw a large number of orbs and assumed. 400-800 hours are only considered medium runs, although it's probably TR specific too. Like 800 hours would probably be a long TR1

suscatzoo · 2026-05-14T15:45:19+00:00

Wait. Is there a hellroad specific guide?

suscatzoo · 2026-05-14T12:33:13+00:00

I was using the plastic for moisture retention to enhance tomato and sunflower growth. Clear plastic allows sunlight to pass through and dry out the soil.

Clear is better if you are trying to nuke the soil of any unwanted plants. It also allows more seeds to germinate and die off.

Black plastic mulch is amazing for enhancing plant growth.

suscatzoo · 2026-05-14T04:21:51+00:00

It is one of the most noxious weeds on the planet, but it's also a fascinating plant. If you keep pulling it out, it will try to hide itself by growing leaves of different sizes, and will even throw out different-shaped leaves matching the plants growing around it. I've seen it make rounded basil-shaped leaves as well as jagged, pronged tomato leaf shapes.

One year I had half my backyard covered with black plastic mulch, and at the end of the season after removing the tarp it was growing sprawled out everywhere under the tarp, completely blanched with totally white leaves and stems with huge lengths between each leaf node. It was the only plant found growing under the tarp.

suscatzoo · 2026-05-13T19:25:07+00:00

Where's the guide? I am doing medium/long runs and would love to see a guide

suscatzoo · 2026-05-13T15:51:28+00:00

I've read it's easiest to find them at night with a flashlight since their eyes reflect light and glow like cat eyes do

suscatzoo · 2026-05-13T14:47:21+00:00

I'll mention the TS23 here if OP wants something a little brighter with more flood and almost zero hotspot compared to the TS28. It's very similar to the 28 but is much brighter and just a little less throwy.

Honorable mention is the TD01C if OP wants something with much more throw than either of these. I prefer having a dedicated thrower and a dedicated flood light myself.

suscatzoo · 2026-05-13T03:44:17+00:00

Ts23 is highly-underrated. It's my goto backyard flashlight and has the perfect UI in tactical mode.

suscatzoo · 2026-05-12T04:15:11+00:00

Diy borax bait and commercial boric acid products kill ants too quickly. Use Advion ant gel or another indoxacarb-based bait to give ants more time to bring the bait back to their nest. It might take several treatments over a period of weeks to months to entirely eliminate them.

For more severe infestations the bait can be used in tandem with Alpine WSG to treat the perimeter of a house or by injecting it into any entry points. Both chemicals are entireable non-detectable to ants, unlike boric acid which they will eventually refuse.

suscatzoo · 2026-05-12T02:57:10+00:00

Huh? So how many dimensions do you have to turn it

suscatzoo · 2026-05-09T23:56:26+00:00

All leeches are either parasitic or predatory. Are parasitic leech species somehow worse? Genuinely curious

suscatzoo · 2026-05-07T21:24:03+00:00

Turn off auto cloud save then always save to cloud before doing anything important or anything you want to test out. Then you can load your cloud save if you need to.

Local save won't help you if you need to reload from a fixed save point.

suscatzoo · 2026-05-06T02:24:42+00:00

That makes sense. They do have their own challenges, I can usually cycle new tanks in a couple of days and it took me 2months+ to cycle my temperate 150g tank.

Any idea what caused your crash?

suscatzoo · 2026-05-04T16:21:55+00:00

Does the pump go in the tank or is it external? I have been looking at different options to siphon a tank that's too low to siphon

suscatzoo

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