Heater on the Fritz

The 200W heater I got for my 48 gallon tank lasted almost long enough to get it through the first cold snap. About a week ago I went to feed my fish and when I opened the hood I got a blast of hot moist air in my face. This has been pretty normal since the tank was supposed to be almost 80 in a room that was maybe 65 degrees. This was HOT though. Looking at the thermometer I saw the temp was all the way up to 86 degrees. Yikes. I quickly unplugged the heater and let the temp settle down. I spent a while monkeying with the heater but nothing seemed to work. Since the temperature was so low I couldn't just switch back to my 100W heater, it didn't have the grunt to deal with the low temperatures.

So for about a week Angela and I kept the temp in the safe zone by monitoring the thermometer and plugging in and unplugging the heater. Not fun. Thankfully the temperature has come up so my 100 and 50W heaters can keep things ok. I'll need to get a new heater either with a warranty on this one or just buying one.

Ammonia Spike

I've been fighting a bit of a conundrum with my Eclipse at the moment. For some reason I'm having to deal with an ammonia spike. Given that the tank is over six weeks old, almost seven actually, and it's not big and well stocked it's odd that this would show up now. It's been three weeks since the rasboras were added. The two things I've done lately are starting a proper vacuuming routine (not the epic failure that was the turkey baster. Fish poo shows up remarkably well on white sand, on black... not so much) and adding the diverter.

It wouldn't make a lot of sense for the vacuuming to be the cause, I'm removing things that make ammonia. The diverter doesn't make sense either. Potentially there could be fungicides in it but the packaging makes no mention of it and the diverter is the same material as the old one that's been in the tank for four weeks.

Consider me stumped.

The downside is that the growths on the rasboras are back. he upside is it looks like the ammonia is coming back down. With any luck this spike will be over soon.

There is more good news though, it looks like the algae problem is about beat. After a good scrub about two weeks ago the brown algae is not making a come back. There's small spots here and there but it's not expanding. Also the filamentous stuff on the driftwood is looking pretty bad. It is no longer gauzy and swallowing the piece, it's stringy, weak, and looks to be barely holding on. My new crypt is also looking good as well. It hasn't grown or anything but after a week in the tank it's holding steady.

Green Life!

I haven't updated a whole lot lately. Frankly there's not much to say. The fish keep swimming, I keep feeding them, things keep on keeping on. My 48 gallon is going well. Mekong, my red tailed black shark, is behaving herself very well. She keeps to herself and to her side of the tank. She doesn't even get in the face of the other fish if they wander in to "her" territory. She does occasionally bum rush a serpae but in her defense they are usually asking for it.

My eclipse is also going very well. I added a diverter to the output of the filter to reduce the current so that Shark doesn't get knocked around. I made it myself and it works great. There's very little flow in front of the filter where previously it'd drive him to the bottom of the tank.


I had a situation with the rasboras at the end of last week. One of them developed a white lump under his mouth, about 1 to 2mm in size. A day or two later they all had it. I was nervous about it but rather than try to medicate it without a clue I just made sure the water was as good as it could be. Today I found that three of them had cleared up completely and the other was down to just 1mm in size.


I also got my first live plant today. It's a crypt, a low light simple to keep plant. Oddly enough it's the most expensive living thing in any of my tanks. Here's hoping it does alright and helps out with keeping the algae down.

Shark's New Roomies

I decided to go ahead and add a few new room mates for Shark. I added in four harlequin rasboras. They're small now and will max out at just over an inch. They're peaceful and calm, so they won't stress out Shark. Finally they're a nice silvery color so they're a nice counter-point to Shark's dark color.

Next up I'll update you on a DIY project I embarked on with their filter.