DIY decorations and other stuffs - 1. Get small clay pots for plants, rinse well and place in aquarium. (You may see bubbles for a little bit, it is completely harmless). Siliconeyour substrate onto them if you want it to blend in. Smaller fish will enjoy swimming through the bottom hole.
Feel free to add any other decorating tips here...just number them...(hit edit, then select this post and add to it)
2. (taken from the board) Make decorations out of Sculpey or Fimo. (taken from Andrew ---->)"Once it is baked it should be fine. It is a polymer based clay, so it shouldn't have anything in it that is dangerous." Use your imagination
3. Instead of buying those replacement media bags, use nylons. Works great and can be alot cheaper. Watch for runs though
4. To avoid fry getting sucked up the syphon tubes on filters, use some pantyhose, and an elastic. Cut a piece of hose big enough to cover any slots big enough for fry to get in, elastic to hold it there. The filter still works well and you won't lose fry through it. (speaking from experience on this one)
5. For a Duetto Multifilter filter, instead of shelling out $4 per replacement sponge/media parts, use an Aquaclear 200 sponge cut to shape. you can get 2 replacement sponges this way. For the carbon insert, use a screwdriver and a hammer to break off the top part, dump out the charcoal, fill it back up and use a rubber band to secure it back on.
6. For the Eternally Floating Driftwood, use silicon and glue the wood to a peice of slate. Also, silicon rocks together in a formation; this helps to keep those impossible positions that look good but just don't work, as well as preventing any accidents in cases where a cave could collapse in on itself if a rock moved out of position (potentially killing something in the process!)
7. For replacement filter pads for your Penguin Mini's on up. Go to Wal-Mart and look at the filter pads that they have there. These filter replacement pads are made by Marineland and are the same thing as the Penguin Replacement pads at half the price. The Bio-Wheel tank kits at Wal-Mart are also made by Marineland.
