Biggest Mistakes?

[fishdance]

Why get your source water from a desalination plant? Your softening then having to harden water again...

I've been breeding wild caught moba and other front variants for 20+ years without needing to tweak water.

Yes the constant drip removes sudden water changes and saves time/labour as well as adding in reliability.

If you prefer to manually mix your water, get a resevoir tank. (IBC, joined barrels, rainwater tank etc). This can be gravity fed or peristaltic pump fed. Mix up your water once a week/month depending on your volumes.

I grow green water in 3 x 10K liter outdoor aquaculture tubs (harvested weekly in rotation) to flood feed one of my fish rooms. Just turn on an incoming tap to slowly push the green water out to the fish room. Different but similar.

 

[ken31cay]

Everyone here gets their water from desalination plants. I wish I had the option for hard water. I don't want to go the reservoir route. Thanks for your help.

 

[fishdance]

I'm not sure what your water chemistry expertise is but it's relatively easy to make your own slow dissolving plaster of paris blocks with your custom mix of baking soda and epsom salt. This would require your incoming water to be relatively consistent though but would allow auto water changes.

 

[Gershom]

40 years ago I built two plywood 180-200 gallon tanks with no instructions, no examples, nothing. I got good marine plywood, glued and screwed sheets together to make the tanks 4 feet wide, 3 feet front to back, and 2 feet tall. (That is best I remember, but it calculates to 180 gal, and I thought they were 200.). I bought a couple pieces of 1/4 inch glass and siliconed them to the inner front of each tank (after cutting out a large window in the plywood.)

No structural wood, except a 1x 4 across the top, front-to-back, in the middle, to prevent bowing. Then I sealed with silicone and covered with a waterproof marine paint. Set up on concrete blocks—all done!!!

No, I added water, then was all done. It took a week or so, working evenings for the whole project.

I immediately put a whole batch of 2-3 inch G. juruparis in. It was the only time I successfully raised the species, and in about 15 minutes they all began to swim sideways and die!!!
I moved them back out in a rush, but too late; I lost ALL 40-50 OF THEM…
I was devastated, bought some different paint, and recoated, and successfully used the tanks for many years with no leaks. Eventually I left them behind on a cross-country move. I think now that the problem may have been that the silicone was not fully cured and was giving off acetic acid, but not sure.
Anyway, impatience still remains as one of my character flaws…

 

[ken31cay]

I think now that the problem may have been that the silicone was not fully cured and was giving off acetic acid, but not sure.
Anyway, impatience still remains as one of my character flaws…

Not waiting for silicone to fully cure causing fish to die; check. You're not alone.

 

[Gershom]

Getting distracted during water changes is an on-going problem for me. Because water changes involves only opening and closing valves, even a momentary distraction can result in hundreds of gallons of water on the wood floors. Over the years, thousands of gallons of water have been dumped on the floors. We have left the filling holding tank unattended for many hours forgetting to turn the water off. One of the worst distractive events I had was when I was doing a water change. As the main tank was draining, I made a quick phone call to the Polygem technical support specialist.. I heard my husband bringing in and stacking firewood in the living room. After finishing a long conversation, I walked into the living room. Unfortunately, my husband had not been bringing in and stacking firewood. The thumping sounds I had heard were my two fish flopping around on a dry tank floor for 15 minutes. They were both bleeding, and one was alive but unresponsive. Because the tank was completely dry, we were not able to pump in water from the holding tank. Instead we had to dump water with a 5 gallon bucket until there was enough water in the tank to prime the mechanical pump. 30 minutes later when both fish were swimming and eating, I stopped kicking and berating myself for nearly killing them. It was a heart sickening experience which I do not ever want to repeat.

Maybe you should get one of these?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0C6ZF145D?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_image