Mespe's 50 Gallon Aquarium setup in Progress

[Big Al]

hi mespe, yeah butch is a good guy. he's got real good hardy fish. and he'll probably
deliver them to you. i keep trying to find time to get hooked up with you to show you
around. we are constantly on the run until dark everynight. my kids are in baseball,track,
and golf. well got to go. later Big Al

[mespe]

WE GOT FISH!

I netted a couple blue gill from a friends pond. Wanted more, but the water was murky and the fish didn't get excited about the bread we threw in the pond. So now I have 2 bluegill in my 50 gallon tank. They seem kinda lonely, but I don't want to overload the system with ammonia.

[keith_r]

that's a good way to start cycling the system.. i started cycling mine with minnows last year

[urbanfarmer]

I have NEVER seen one THAT BIG!!! and, if I ever did I would eat it immediately. It would never make it to the tanks! HAHAHA

[keith_r]

really? wanna see some big 'gills, check out bigbluegill.com..
or search for the "condello strain" bluegill.. about a pound in a year.. not hybrids!

[mespe]

The fish came out of my buddy's pond. he dug the pond maybe 10 years ago, and I guess ducks populated it with fish. He thinks he migth have some small mouth bass in the pond too.

Fish have been in the tank for 3 days nw, and no floaters, I'm doing good. now to feed them. I was a nice host and in the rain yesterday picked up a few worms from the sidewalk. bought some kitten food, it might be rough getting them to eat kitten food, but it's got about 40% protein.

[keith_r]

i've got some silvercup my gills do fine with - it's 42% protein i think, 2 or 3 mm.. i can fill you a gallon bag for a couple bucks, just let me know

[mespe]

Added a FT heater, got down to frost levels last night, the two fishies hung around the heater mst of the night. I think I might have a pair of fish, or a couple, i.e 1 male one female. I noticed that one of them has much more pronounced vertical stripes than the other. The one without the pronouned stripes has been staying in the 3 1/2 inch PVC hotel, while the pronounced stripes has been at the other end of the tank near the pickup tube. I've also seen the female (larger of the my two fish) swim up to the male and bump fish lips to fish lips, I wonder if there is some affection there.

I'm having problems with the sequencing, when the water level in the sump is too high, the 2 liter bottles down have as much pull. I also noticed that the valve was twisting as I could not find any glue that sticks to both PVC, and the black plastic of the valve, so I put a small screw in and that has prevented it from twisting.

I also noticed that if the bobbin pulleys are out of alignment, the sequencing is disrupted. Thing I'm going to have to re-engineer the sequencing.

[mespe]

The sequencing has improved after I increased the strength of the hardware as can be seen in the following pictures.






And here's a picture of my lettuce.

[mespe]

And my two fishy's

HPIM6212.JPG
HPIM6212.JPG


HPIM6225.JPG
HPIM6225.jpg

The top one is the one I believe to be female, and the bottom picture is the one I'm thinking is male. The top picture the fish is not spooked easily, in fact she comes to see me. The male is easily spooked.

As you can tell, the water has started to get murky, what to do?