# can I add more fish with what I have ?



## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

I'd like to get some small tetras for this tank.. probably neons, but am unsure there is room. It's a 30G tank, fairly well planted, lots of wood and rocks, mosses, ferns and floaters, crypts, assorted stem plants like ambulia, hygros, etc. Current inhabitants are mainly shrimp, but there are some fish too.
I have 2 young vampire shrimp, 3 fair sized bamboo shrimp, 12 Blue Claw Whisker Shrimp, approx. 18 adult Ghost shrimp, approx. 7 juvenile Ghost shrimp, approx. 6 Snowball shrimp. It is very hard to count accurately since they are rarely still for long. I take berried females out whenever I find them to hatch in a brood tank, the juvenile ghosts were a real surprise when they showed up.

Fish include approx. 12 kuhlie loaches - had 3, just added 9 younger ones, if they all survive it would be 12. 5 danios, 2 Otos.

3 small clams, 8 horned nerite snails, they are very small, 2 zebra nerites, also not very big and about 10 mystery snails. Most of them are an inch or less in size, but there are 3 golf ball size. I will be taking most of the mystery snails out to keep in a separate tank, but not right away.

Filtration has been a inside corner canister plus a big sponge, but I am adding a very large AquaClear HOB filter this weekend. Parameters have been stable since the tank cycled, no algae issues or other problems. Regular WC, water tests weekly, Excel and Flourish, but not as much as they recommend, I don't always remember them. 

I feed crustacean pellets, algae tabs, very small amt. of flakes, tropical and veggie, some fresh veg like spinach, and phytoplankton and spirulina mixed in water for the filter feeders. Going to get some golden pearls for the clams and filter shrimp too.

I believe shrimp have a lower bio load than most fish, but I'm also fairly sure that snails, mystery snails especially, which are messy, are a bigger load, most particularly when they are large sized. So I am unsure if it would be safe to add a small school of neons.. I was hoping to add 6 - 9 neons, if the tank can support them.

Opinions ?


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## RevoBuda (Sep 3, 2011)

I'd say reading how much you have going on you're probably close to max. But since you say your parameters are stable, I'd assume that since Neons tend to be low bioload fish, you could probably add a small school of them and stop there.

Normally overstocking a tank depends a lot on filtration and upkeep by the owner. Not to mention, you want your fish to have swimming room... 
Like some stores keeping massive fish in tiny tanks... only issue is that the fish is truly not happy.

I have a lot of fish in my 150 g.... parameters dont budge- but they are all tiny buggers.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Thanks. That is exactly why I was thinking of neons rather than anything else. I just want some flashes of bright colour amongst the plantings. Most of my creatures are relatively colourless. The shrimp are more or less transparent and vanish in the plants easily. The Gold danies show up nicely but the Leopard danies are less visible,especially with my big water sprite roots hanging down. 

And this is why I decided I'd have to add more filtration, hence the big Aquaclear HOB, since the rest of the filtration system must be pretty much maxed out, I'd think. 

I don't think swimming room will be a problem. From what I've observed, my Ghost shrimp tend to spend most of their time simply going up and down the tank walls. The Whiskers are most often picking in the substrate or the wood. The danies spend a majority of their time in the top 3 inches of the column and the kuhlies and Otos are almost always on the bottom. The larger filter feeding shrimp tend to spend a lot of their time hanging off the pump or some roots, doing their 'fan' thing, and the clams, well, I hardly ever see the clams ! I am hoping the loaches may start to show themselves more now they have a nice group of pals to play with, but for now, there is really nothing that swims in the middle of the column, and nothing at all with nice bright colour other than the two Gold danios. It makes me wish I could have started with a slightly larger tank, but you can't always get what you want, right ?

As soon as I can, I also plan to remove at least half of the Whisker and Ghost shrimp to another tank. It will make it easier to catch the pregnant females for hatching. I want to try a brackish set up for the Whisker larvae, and I want to raise more Ghost shrimplets too. Be nice if I could get enough babies growing up to provide both replacements and a few for sale.


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## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

try this to get an idea:
http://aqadvisor.com/

This doesnt take into account plants and probably gives too much weight to shrimps, but just to get a general idea. I am runing at 100-120 % capacity from this calculator based on fish / shrimps only.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

What is your nitrate level just before water change, and how frequently and what % of water changes are you willing to do?


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

I'm willing to change water as often as need be. I have only the one 30 G, two 5Gs and one huge vase full of growing snails, so it's not a big chore to do WC. Only one of the 5Gs has critters in it anyway, it's the brood tank for my Ghost shrimp. I'll have to do a water test again to get an exact reading on nitrates. My memory is not cooperating just now. However, I am reasonably sure it has never gone higher than 20 ppm for nitrates and there is usually very little variation in the readings from one test to the next one.. I do them weekly. And I no longer have 2 Otos.. poor little guys, the shrimp were feasting on a newly dead one last night, and the other is nowhere to be seen, I fear he shared the same fate. Otoh, the filter shrimp appear to be fine, they're feeding from the current much more than they were, all the other shrimp are in good shape and it looks like I have not lost any of the new loaches. Found one wriggling around in the floating watersprite yesterday, first time I've seen one out in the daytime, but he appeared to be fine. 

I'll check the water tonight, and check that estimate link as well. I am going to have to take some of the Whisker shrimp out of this tank regardless, as they appear to be still growing. I think they'll be happier with fewer of them in the one tank. When I got them they were roughly twice the size of an adult Ghost shrimp, but now they're noticeably larger than that, especially the females. The only good thing is that they don't moult very often, so I hope that means they have more or less reached their adult size.

Oddly, I just ran across some info on the Whisker shrimp, when I checked that aquarium stocking link.. seems the whiskers will most assuredly get quite a big larger.. and it warns they will eat almost everything else I have stocked. So far they have not been that aggressive, but if they get much larger, it could be real issue, so I'll have to get them a separate tank asap.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

Hmm... any idea why the otos died? I would be hesitant to add more fish without having a good idea why an existing fish died.

20ppm nitrates with a weekly water change could be a sign of high bioload. You didn't mention what % of water you change every time. I assume somewhere near 30%?

What it boils down to is, larger bioload = more frequent or bigger water changes necessary. It also means less stability and more risk of a chain reaction should something bad happen unexpectedly.

Nitrates of 20ppm is a good target to maintain, but ideally, you should have 10ppm or less. Also note that what you think is 20ppm could be anywhere between 20 to 30 ppm, so adding some tetras could very well bump you to the next color level.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Good point.. and that's why I'm asking the question instead of jogging out to the LFS and grabbing a bunch of neons. I am truly not sure why the Otos died.. they appeared to be doing well, eating well, and then suddenly, gone. The day before I saw the one being eaten I saw both of them appearing lively and well. I've read that it is not uncommon for Otos to die suddenly within a month of purchase. This is about the third week I've had them, and they'd been in the store for about two weeks when I bought them. I would not get them again, at least, not for this tank. I do wonder if the Whisker shrimp may have harassed the Otos to the point they died of stress, but I saw no sign of any such harassment when I was observing the tank. There are lots of hiding places and plants to escape into.

I usually do about a 30% WC at a time. 

Perhaps it is time to consider selling some of the shrimp.. if the Ghosts continue to reproduce at the rate they are now, I will have a tank with far more Ghosts than it can support. For some reason, they breed like rabbits in there.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

Show us a picture of your tank. It would be much easier to tell.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

I'll see if I can arrange that. Still trying to figure out how to download pics from my new camera.. I may have to upgrade my OS to do it, there seems to be some incompatibility issue going on, cause it shouldn't [ famous terrible word] be that hard to do.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Water test tonight.. nitrites, 0, nitrates 20, ph has dropped.. it's been around 7.4, now it's reading slightly acidic, which is a change I hadn't expected. Due tomorrow for another WC. I use conditioned tap water only, there is very little to no evaporation when the hood is kept shut.. and not a lot when I leave the front half of the lid open during the day when it's hot outside. If needed I top up with distilled water. I have a lot of wood in the tank, I wonder if that is what is dropping the pH ? And I now keep the temperature a bit higher. I raised it to suit the Otos, not that is seems to have helped much. I used to keep it at 70 F, now it's about 76, and it has gone up a few degrees on the hot days we've had.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

I did a larger than usual WC today as I was trying out a gravel vacuum I got. There's a more or less vacant spot in the front corner where I drop most of the food.. and it looks like there was not only a lot of grunge under the gravel, there were also some gas pockets. Swampy smelling gas pockets. I wonder if those might have been what did in the Otos ?.. I'll vacuum the rest of it in sections to make sure there's no more gas pockets and cut down again on the amount I feed. I don't feed much, but apparently it is still more than is required. Shrimp really don't eat much, it's always been difficult to gauge how much to give them. I was going to rescape it soon anyway, so it's not a big deal that the plants are going to be uprooted by vacuuming, as I would have moved a lot of them to new places.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Well, I still have one Oto.. I found him today while doing more gravel vacuuming. He is most definitely hiding, perhaps because he is alone now. I know they do better in groups. Or possibly the Whisker shrimps have been bothering him, though I've not seen them bother any of the fish at all. The loaches are coming out of hiding, and they are not being bothered by any of the shrimps. Once I take out most of the Whisker shrimp and get the gunge and swampy bits in the gravel cleaned up, I hope maybe I can get a few more Otos, so the one I have left won't be lonely. Then I'll see if there is any room for some neons.

The loaches certainly seem to be happy campers, I saw most of them out tonight when I fed the tank, for the first time, so I think they must be reasonably content in there. I'm being very careful how much I feed so as to avoid any more buildup of left over food in the gravel and I've got the Aquaclear 70 set up and running now, in addition to the large sponge and a corner filter. 

But I won't add any more fish until I get the Whisker shrimp out and into a tank of their own, and I think I'll have to sell some of the Ghosts as well, to keep their numbers under control. I must admit I was quite surprised to find that some of the Ghost eggs that were dropped in this tank survived. Must have been more than a hundred eggs; total number of juvie shrimp is around 8 - 10.. it's very hard to count them, they never stop moving ! But now they are nearly grown, they'll be having a greater effect on the bioload in the tank.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

Fishfur said:


> I did a larger than usual WC today as I was trying out a gravel vacuum I got. There's a more or less vacant spot in the front corner where I drop most of the food.. and it looks like there was not only a lot of grunge under the gravel, there were also some gas pockets. Swampy smelling gas pockets. I wonder if those might have been what did in the Otos ?.. I'll vacuum the rest of it in sections to make sure there's no more gas pockets and cut down again on the amount I feed. I don't feed much, but apparently it is still more than is required. Shrimp really don't eat much, it's always been difficult to gauge how much to give them. I was going to rescape it soon anyway, so it's not a big deal that the plants are going to be uprooted by vacuuming, as I would have moved a lot of them to new places.


Okay, that really doesn't sound good.

What kind of filtration are you using again? How deep is your substrate? What type of substrate is it?


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

I didn't think swampy gas bubbles could possibly be a good thing. I have eco complete, black, with some Flourite black sand, and it was quite deep to start with. I wanted to have it higher at the back and slope toward the front. But the depth has helped to make this problem worse. So I have removed enough of the substrate to do a 5G tank, and may remove even more, so the overall thickness is reduced. But the vacuum is pulling a lot of crud out, and I did another big WC, about 40%. Rinsed out the filter media in tank water, and got the Aquaclear running, so it is looking much better now. I still have to vacuum about a third of the tank gravel, but I believe I got the worst of it out today. I know overfeeding is bad.. but as I said, it's been difficult to know what is enough and what is too much. It always seemed to me I was feeding very little, but clearly, it was too much and I have cut back a lot on what I put in. Also have changed foods.. using mainly Omega now, which has no starches in it and that may help. I will check for uneaten food in the morning and depending what I find, adjust quantities again. Found one deceased snail and one deceased shrimp in the corner filter, but the snail was cleaned right out and the shrimp had not been gone long. No clue how he got in, I have the grates stuffed with sponge to prevent this sort of thing. Anything that does die gets eaten by Whisker shrimp and Ghosts and Snowballs, very quickly indeed.

Summary.. eco complete + Flourite sand, about 3 in deep at the back, less at the front. One air powered corner filter with filter floss only, one large air driven sponge filter, and an Aquaclear 70 with biomedia, sponge and filter floss, plus a Koralia nano pump, which I was using for circulation before I put the Aquaclear in. Filter feeders like the current, shrimp don't seem to mind it.
Ph 7, nitrite 0, nitrate <20, GH high.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

It sounds like you don't have enough plants in there. A true planted tank would never have problems with anaerobic buildup in the substrate, and you would never need to vacuum it either.

My advice is to add more rooted plants. What kind of light do you have?


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

For now I have pretty low light. A single, new, [ less than 4 months in use ] 6500 K tube in a low rise hood. It pretty much only lights the rear half of the tank. There are plenty of heavily rooted floaters, particularly watersprite, which has done very well in here, plus giant and some minor duckweed and salvinia. The current pushes them all into a ball that goes around and around slowly. Does shade the bottom some, but not all the time, because it's always moving. Frogbit does not fare well under this light, though.I have to keep taking it out to recover in a small tank that has much better light, before they melt. I do have rooted plants all along the back wall, which are doing quite well and have nice, healthy, established root systems on them, but almost all of the stuff in the middle and foreground is on wood or rocks. Assorted mosses, a couple of mid size anubias, a bolbitis and a large number of java ferns from tiny to full grown and making babies. So you're right, there's not much in the way of rooted growth in the front or middle. Only the lowest of low light plants will grow in the front of this tank as it is now, and this was true even before I got the watersprites I have now. I've got a very few stems of Brazilian pennywort I keep trying to get going along the front side walls, but it tends to float back up, and does better floating. Back tank wall is only a few inches from a south window, and the plants in the rear do surprisingly well. Rotala, the pinky orange one with small leaves, sorry, the name escapes me just now, but it has a nice pink colour to it for almost the entire stem length and nearly everything on that wall is hitting the top of the water column now. I am building a new hood, but I've no clue how long it will take me to complete it. It will upgrade the lighting substantially and I'll add DIY C02 when the new hood goes on. I have plenty of other plants to put in this tank but few will survive in the front with this lighting arrangement. It's my understanding is that anubias does not like to be planted in substrate at all, preferring, like the ferns, to be on wood or rock. I am not sure what I could put in the foreground that would root well and grow.. everything I've tried so far has done very poorly, not grown much by way of roots, and either melted or ended up floating.

This is my first venture at a planted tank of any kind, and clearly I have made some mistakes. I thought, being in the south window, that I'd have serious algae problems due to the sunlight but that has not happened. But that is why I have all the shrimp.. got them to eat all the algae I figured I'd have. I have virtually no algae at all. A few shreds of the brown stuff in the uplift tubes is about all there is. Thus I fed algae tabs to the shrimp and snails so they would not starve. I likely fed too many, though they did seem to eat it all, so far as I could see.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

Again, a picture is worth a thousand words. 

It sounds like there simply isn't enough root mass to properly aerate the substrate, and that is why you are getting anaerobic buildup (swampy gas smell).

Unfortunately, the substrate you chose is pretty inappropriate for your setup. If you didn't have the fluorite sand, your substrate would not have been compact enough for you to worry about going anaerobic.

That's not to sand fluorite sand is bad. It's just inappropriate for your current setup.

If you really plan to have a nice planted tank, the best investment you can make is better lights. You don't need anything fancy. A 2-bulb T5HO should be just fine.

I used to grow plants under a stock fluorescent as well, so I know the frustration. Getting a better light was the single best purchase ever for that tank.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Well, I'm working on the light. The reason I put in the sand with the eco complete was because the eco seemed very, very coarse, with rather sharp edges. The bag said it was fine, but once I got it into the tank, it clearly was nothing close to 'fine'. I knew I'd want kuhlies, and their barbels can be damaged by coarse substrate, and I knew I'd want shrimp and from what I'd read, they seemed to also prefer a sandier substrate. Thus the mixture. Though I have read a fair bit on growing various plants in water, it's mostly been about their specific growing needs. I have not seen much mention about anaerobic problems. The mix is about 3/4 eco 1/4 flourite. I've removed about an inch layer, to reduce the total depth. Once I finish vacuuming all the detritus out of the remaining substrate, which I pray will also reduce the anaerobic population, I'll plant a bunch of the water sprites, which have huge root systems and appear to do well in any light situation. That will also let more light from the existing set up to reach the tank bottom, without the shading from the floating sprites. And then I'll go from there, get the new hood built as soon as I can. Unfortunately, buying a T5 lighting system is simply not in the budget. I just had to drop a grand on car repairs, so right now I can't afford to even put a few clamp lamps with higher output spiral daylight bulbs on this tank, like I have with my 5Gs. Everything in the 5Gs is growing like weeds, no aerobic problems.
Pics, yes, working on that. The optic drive in my laptop died. In fact, my Macbook is on it's last legs and needs to be replaced as soon as I can save up enough for that. Meantime, I was able to get a USB type drive, so now I can install the software that came with the new camera, and find out why I'm not having success downloading pics from the camera. For some reason, the Mac is not 'seeing' the camera.. it should show up like an external drive but it doesn't.. sigh. Technology is fun but not when it doesn't work the way you expect it to.

Just out of curiosity, might it be better if I were simply to take all the critters out of the tank and wash the substrate clean ? I was just thinking, because clearly it is stressing the animals when I vacuum and stir up the gunge, and might have killed the Otos, and it's going to take a few more rounds to finish the job. I know netting everything is stressful too, but it would be a one off

I'd keep as much of the existing clean tank water as possible, put the critters in a couple of 5 G buckets with air stones running. I'd use fresh dechlorinated water to wash all substrate. Then replace it, replant the plants. Replace the water and animals, top up and let the filters run to clear whatever I missed.. rinse out the filter floss. Then hope having planted all the water sprites will help keep things under control until I get the hood built ? A fair bit of work but perhaps better in the long run ? What do you think ?


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

Fishfur said:


> Just out of curiosity, might it be better if I were simply to take all the critters out of the tank and wash the substrate clean ? I was just thinking, because clearly it is stressing the animals when I vacuum and stir up the gunge, and might have killed the Otos, and it's going to take a few more rounds to finish the job. I know netting everything is stressful too, but it would be a one off


No, that would be a very bad idea. One rookie mistake in this hobby is to overreact, and what you're proposing certainly qualifies!

The "grunge" is just soil. Or mud, rather. Have you ever seen fish getting stressed or killed by mud? No, the reason anaerobic pockets are dangerous is because the anaerobic decomposition creates toxic gases (the "swampy" smell), and once released, it will dissolve into the water column.

By doing a thorough gravel vacuuming and removing a layer of substrate, you've already released whatever gas pockets there were to release. I would do a few more 30-50% water changes, just to dilute any toxins dissolved by the release of the gas pockets.

Go ahead and plant the water sprites, but they're probably not grow too well without decent lights.

Not sure what your budget is, but you can get some good lights for around 100$, maybe even less. I wouldn't bother with clamp on lights, unless you had some just lying around. I would rather spend 100$ and get the right thing, than spend 20-30$ for something that I'm going to replace down the road.

What are the dimensions of your tank?


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Well, that's good to know and saves me some work. Tank is 30 long x 12 x 18 height. I'm much more used to simply keeping fish and turtles, rather than plants. Plants are certainly very different from straight fish keeping. Mind, that was back in high school and college, when nobody knew much, if anything, about cycling and a filter change meant you tossed everything in the filter out, washed it and started over. Gravel was just for decoration and plants invariably died under the pitiful little lights they used to have in the hoods. You left your water out overnight before you changed it and that was about all there was to it. Nobody I knew ever did a water test, I'm not sure you could even buy them back then at most pet shops. 

But with any luck, as I live, I learn.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

Fishfur said:


> Well, that's good to know and saves me some work. Tank is 30 long x 12 x 18 height.


Something like this would be sufficient for your purposes:

http://aquainspiration.com/nproductdetail.asp?PIN=LS&PNAME=OD&PSIZE=24TWO&PTYPE=Lights


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## missindifferent (Jun 25, 2010)

Fishfur: did you open image capture/iPhoto after plugging in the camera? You can set it up so that either image capture or iPhoto opens automatically when it detects a device.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Didn't get a chance to open iphoto.. laptop is saying there is no device it can find.. it's as if the camera isn't even plugged in. It also can't detect the little gadget I have that fits an assortment of media card, which it could see before. I am not sure what it's problem is. It's missing a couple of keys and there may some contamination issues, perhaps. It's old and well traveled, for sure. It was from the very first generation of Macbooks, nearly 6 years old. It's already had some major $ issues and I just can't afford to spend any more on it. It truly does need to be replaced. Just a matter of money - like everything else .


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Yeah, that's a nice light fixture, but as I said about the computer, right now, money is a problem. I have everything I need to build my new hood.. I just have to build the thing and it will have at least four daylight 23 watt spiral bulbs in it, and when I can afford them I'll put fans in it too. Meantime, with the vacuuming done and the plants replanted, the water smells pretty good again, no swamp smell coming up, no bubbles from the bottom at all. Did another fairly major water change. Discovered I have more than one Oto left, and also one large dead snail but he'd been completely eaten. I guess the shrimp enjoyed the treat. I've put all the larger water sprites in the gravel, and every stem plant I had with roots is now in the gravel also. Cut some of them back and planted the cuttings too. Took out all the moss, which had all come off the rocks I tied it to. I think I didn't tie it very well. I'll reattach it to some rock and put it back. Found a nice big ball of pellia stuck at the bottom of some stem plants in the back, so I'll net that to a rock too. Still have floaters, just fewer of them, so less shading of the available light. I may try aiming a lamp I've got at the tank front while I'm working on the hood. If I put one of those daylight spirals in it, it would help some with the very low light there. Also feeding very carefully, to avoid having any leftovers.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

sounds good, once you get that new hood up, you should be in business.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Thanks for the helpful comments, much appreciated.


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