My Gear

[Kalavek]

I've noticed a lot of people around here have a degree of brand loyalty and strong opinions on what you should/shouldn't have for your tank. Since my tank has been hobbled together from used equipment, I thought I'd post my equipment list and see if anyone has any warnings or recommendations.

Tank - used, unknown brand, volume works out to 25 gallons at my usual water level. It was filthy, and I was told it had a leak - so I stripped out the silicone, scrubbed it clean (razor blades and fine steel wool does wonders on tempered glass in my experience), and put a thick bead of new silicone in. This included the top and bottom plastic retaining frames. I put a good bead of silicone underneath the floor of the tank too, just to be sure. Aside from a couple scratches and chips, the tank is in excellent condition.

Filter - TopFin 60, also used, but scrubbed clean. It's quiet, works great. No idea how fast it runs, but it sets up a good current when wide open. I've been putting one pre-measured pouch of carbon into each filter, changing them only when they clog up. Are there advantages/disadvantages to increasing or decreasing the amount of carbon you put in the filters?

Heater - Hydor Theo 150watt. It's supposed to have a temperature range of about 68 degrees F to 90 degrees, but I've found it to be somewhat out of calibration. At it's absolute minimum setting, my tank consistently reads within a degree of 78, measured about 15 inches away from the heater at mid-tank level.

Air Pump - After going through two other pumps (an Elite799 from 2002 which was noisy and failed to deliver, and a Stylette pump that failed within a year due to a split in the diaphram), I picked up a Whisper 40. Much better air pressure, and very quiet.

Lighting - aside from ambient light, the day lighting consists of a single 20watt florescent (probably 3200k color temp), while the night lighting is a blue cold-cathode from a car accessory kit. The blue is pretty dim, and the fish don't seem to mind them being on at night.

I also have a 5 gallon tank that I use for water conditioning, and quarantine if its ever needed. It has an air line and a submersible water pump, and that's it. The water pump keeps the water circulating, and when I want to move water into the larger tank I just attach a hose to it. Not the fastest way to add water to my tank, but it does ease any temperature change in the large tank quite a bit.

I use Prime to condition tap water in the 5-gal, even though our water is pretty clean here - testing it shows a pH of 6.8, with minimal or no amounts of ammonia, chlorine, alkalinity or hardness. I use Cycle in the main tank's filter when I top it up.

For testing I use an API Master Test Kit to check my pH, ammonia, nitrate and nitrite levels. I use Jungle Labs' quick-dip test strips to check for hardness, chlorine, and alkalinity. (These also measure ammonia, nitrate and nitrite, but the API kit seems much more accurate.)

I test the water in both tanks at least once a week, more if I find levels are changing. So far the only level that seems to move is the pH. I have been told that small amounts of baking soda can be used to help fix pH, can anyone confirm this? Since my fresh conditioned water has a pH of about 6.8, I will perform vacuuming/water changes as needed to keep the main tank around a pH of 7.2.

That's about it - any recommendations or concerns? I don't have a fish-keeper's common sense yet, so if I'm doing anything drastically wrong, please let me know.