Styrofoam/Cement Background

Okay, time for another update.

The water chemistry has not quite settled down, but it is not nearly as erratic as I was expecting.

As of today:
pH 8.1
dKH 19.0
Ca 120 ppm

I did notice a slight rise in pH, but my lousy test kit (Red Sea) is so imprecise that I can't tell what it's exactly at. It looks a little higher than the 8.0 color, but not quite at 8.2, so I'm calling it 8.1.

I don't know exactly what is happening with the rest of the water chemistry right now, all I can do is report what the test results were...

Also, I was about to add my fish to the tank, but I noticed that the tank looked a bit too empty. It neeed something... ROCKS! Maybe a cave structure, ...and a few more bigger rocks for decoration.... I went outside hunting for some good rocks, when it hit me: why don't I just MAKE the rocks! :)

So, following the same routine as I did with the background, I made a tall rock, and two smaller rocks leaning against each other to form a cave - all out of styrofoam and then painted over with cement.

I could get some fairly decent pics with my webcam this time because the rocks are mobile so I can bring them in the room, instead of the tank which I can't easily get to from my bedroom.

The tall rock:
Rock1.jpg



The two cave rocks:
Rock2.jpg


Note with the cave, I set the two rocks on a platform for stability. If you look also, the base of the platform is red (or whatever color the webcam thought it was...:p) This is to match the lava rocks that I am using for my substrate. There was some leftover "sand" residue in the bottom of the bucket from the rocks, so I sprinkled this over the wet cement to give it its color.

Now... to drain the whole tank so I can silicone these things to the bottom!:rolleyes:
 
The rocks are coming along nicely, Ej. One more test is needed. Leave a bucket of your tapwater standing overnight and report the test results from that. Then we can determine what effect the cement mixture had.

Keep up the good work!
 
Wouldn't the overnight bucket be basically the same thing as my current tank? (It is only a temporary tank to house my fish until the "real" tank is done.) There is no substrate in the holding tank, and the only rock is a large piece of petrified wood. Of course, there is a filter on the tank, but none of this should effect the water chemistry.

Anyway, I tested the tank's water right after I had tested my tapwater, and the parameters were the same.

But this point is moot because I have been conditioning my fish up to a pH of 8 by using water from the tank with the curing cement. As a matter of fact, I moved two Gold Gouramis into the new tank last night, and they're doing just fine and dandy.:)
 
Good to hear things are going well. About the overnight water test, I thought that it was necessary to wait a bit to test tap water as the chemical readings might be skewed right from the tap. :confused:
*edit* I really don't know enough about chemistry to say. I thought I had heard that tests should be done this way :)

If the tank chemistry hasn't been changed significantly, then you should be good to go.
 
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Well, all of the fish have been moved into the new tank.

I wish that I could say that everything is fine, but I can't.:(

When I was transferring the fish from one tank to the other, I simply netted each one, and plopped them into the new tank. It was almost humorous to see how quickly the fish acclimated themselves to the new tank. One second the clown loaches were squirming in the net, the next they were foraging through the rocks for food.

However, when it came time to move my Tiger Oscar, I couldn't use my net. My plan was to wrangle him into a bucket and lift the bucket from the water, then pour him into the new tank. Well, when I went to herd him into the bucket, (I used my net for this), he got spooked and swam headfirst into the net - and I mean HARD!

He was completely stuck and tangled in the net, and only about 1/3 of his body could fit in there. As long as I had him, I lifted him to the new tank, hoping he would free himself when he got there. No such luck. He continued thrashing and bumping into all sorts of stuff. There were huge puddles on the ground from all of his splashing. I finally had to grab a pair of scissors and literally cut the net off of him.

Now my Tiger Oscar is twitching and swimming in circles. All other fish are doing fine. This is difficult to diagnose because there are two factors that I have to deal with - the curing cement, and the netting episode. It may be a concussion or brain damage from the thrashing that he did in the net, or it may be some sort of toxic effect from the cement.

I decided that since no other fish are effected, it is probably some sort of injury caused by the netting fiasco. I have chosen to keep him in the tank in order to prevent further stress. I can't think of anything else to do... (I did some water changes, but I still don't think that it has anything to do with the cement.)
 
Well, I think I may have overstated the problem, or perhaps right after I had posted the symptoms may have subsided.

I have upgraded his condition from "injured and not doing so well" to "doing pretty good, still a bit sluggish."

I think he is going to be A-OK!:) :D ;) :p

I noticed that when I turned off the lights, he would stop acting so weird, so this showed me that the problem was probably not with the water, or with any sort of uncontrollable injury. I think he was just being a big baby.:)

I think he was severely traumatized by all of this, and he somehow went from seeing me as "the guy who feeds me" to "the guy who is a terrorist!"

I think that in a few days more he will come around, and he is already starting to act a bit more normal. I did a lot of research on this before I posted, otherwise I would've asked for help here. Interesting though, seems like you're the only one who is reading this stuff Matak, Thanks!:)
 
Originally posted by ejmeier
...I did a lot of research on this before I posted, otherwise I would've asked for help here. Interesting though, seems like you're the only one who is reading this stuff Matak, Thanks!:)
Click to expand...
It's not that no-one else cares, it's just that when two get on a topic 'till it looks like a tennis match, no-one wnat's to interrupt. :)
 
I have taken down the previously posted pictures of the rocks, tank, etc. The pics were posted on my nano-reef site, which allows for storage of things only pertaining to a nano-reef, so I couldn't really keep them posted on the site in good conscience.

So.... I decided to repost them as attachments. I'll start with a new one, taken just moments ago. It is a little better than the other tank shot, but the only visable fish is the Tiger Oscar (doing much better BTW!)

tank02.jpg
 
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