pvc pipe safe?

[Gilraen Took]

Well, okay, 2 questions. First, the back story. I've got a cowardly oscar, and to try to reduce stress on him I'm going to try to just rig up an easy water change pipe, so I can just do little bits at a time with a big water change once every couple of weeks instead of once a week. I was thinking about making a pvc pipe frame that just runs out of the tank with a cutoff valve that I can use to drain a bit of the water out. Would it be safe, or would it leech chemicals into the water? I seem to remember reading both ways online, so I figured I'd ask somewhere I trust

ALSO, I've started putting a few hard to kill plants in the tank for him to take cover in since I can't find any good rock or driftwood for a freshwater tank without breaking my bank account. They're all low light plants and have been growing ever so slightly in the 30 watts of NO light I have now. Like a leaf every couple weeks sort of ever so slightly. Not horrid, but I'm sure more light would be welcome. If I were to combine that 30 watts on one side of the tank and get something like an 18 watt pc light, would that give me a pretty good boost, or just a tiny bit of one? I'm worried about it being TOO bright since he's an albino, but I do want enough for the low light stuffs to grow too.

TIA

[Wiskey]

Plants are not the greatest thing to have in an oscar tank because when he gets a bit older he will start nesting, when he does this he digs down to the bottom pane of glass, and he will also shread all the plants.

How big of a tank is this? For Oscars you really want a Min of a 6 foot tank; I had mine in a 125, but I really should have had a 210 or something I think.

The PVC will be just fine in the tank, but with oscars once again you need to be careful; first off try not to have sharp edges because they can cut themselfs, plus mine would take whatever was sticking into the tank and throw it out, they knocked their HOB filters off a couple times before I could get them secure, broke a couple heaters by smashing into them (thankfully it was summer and they were unplugged) and knocked there tops off a few times.

These are big fish; cool; but powerfull lol. Here's one other thing, I learned this the hard way. If they have eggs, don't put your hand in the tank

Whiskey

[Gilraen Took]

He's got a 60 gallon tank. The minimum recommended by oscar sites. So he'll be fine. And he's also got a slate bottom, all the plants are on driftwood, so IF he starts to get rough on them they can be taken out easily.

I dunno. I just don't like this guy as much as my old one. I had that guy from the time he was an inch and a half and once I got started back in college, was working full time and was moving I didn't have time to keep up with the water. Not a good combo. So I gave him away, and ended up tearing out my planted tank to get myself a new oscar. This guy seems to HATE me. I made a few threads on forums about how to get him out of his shell. He literally asks for food every other day. The rest of the time when he sees me he goes into hiding. I've never done anything different with him than my other guy, the nitrates haven't gotten past 5, there isn't any ammonia or nitrite in the water, the ph is a constant 7.0, the lights are on as long as any of my other tanks, the temp is a bit varied, 76-78 degrees, but the other fish don't have any problems with it. None of them are big enough to mess with him(2 guppies, a small raphael catfish, 4 rosy barbs. The guppies were from my planted tank,left in for him to eat, he never has. The cat is there for a cleaner. I assumed I'd need one since my last guy showed how much he liked his food by getting half of it down his throat and the rest all over the tank, the rosys are supposed to be dither fish) there are 2 10 gallons with bettas in them and there WAS a planted tank there for months with no issues whatsoever with anything from fish hiding too much to fish dying mysteriously.

He's about 5" now and was about 2.5 or so when I got him. I've had him in that tank for about 4 months now. I've gotten more driftwood for him. He hides behind it. I got some rosy barbs as dither fish. He snacked on 2 of them, has left the other 4 alone for nearly a week now(and the other two were small, like I told the person Not to get. Which is weird since he doesn't care about the guppies and never has) The thing that makes me mad though is that my last guy was ALWAYS begging me to feed him. EVERY single time he saw me he'd be wiggling in front of the glass for me. If I was at my desk and turned towards him he'd shoot over to look at me. When I got home from work or class he'd be begging. When I had just fed him something like a crawdad that was too big for him to swallow he'd be begging for food with its tail hanging out of his mouth(not a common happening. He'd usually get small meals) When I go by ANY of the local fish stores, what are their baby oscars doing? Begging to be fed. I've literally walked up after someone netted one out and had them begging for food from me. Yet MINE hides 85%+ of the time that he sees me! I've watched him when I'm hiding behind a corner where he can't see me and he's usually out and about and then he notices me and it's off behind his java ferns again. Once in a while he'll stay out and look at me for a couple of minutes, but it is more of a "hm, maybe she'll feed me?" sort of thing instead of a "HEY!!!! OMG IT'S YOU!!!!!!!!! You should soooooooooooo give me some food!!!!! I'm such a GOOD oscar, and you haven't fed me in, like, 5 minutes, and that's soooooo starving me to death!!!!!!!!!" sort of thing. Which is what attracted me to oscars in the first place. And once he gets fed he goes and sulks behind his plants until he can't see me anymore. I've tried to get him out to feed him in the past and wiggled the food bag in front of his nose and he still sulks, even though from day one I've showed him the food bag before I feed him so he knows, or at least SHOULD know that that's what the yummy stuff comes out of. When I feed him crickets he can't see the bag out or he goes running, when I've given him earthworms I have to make sure they drop right on his nose or he hides and they go crawling around the tank for the next 3 hours or so until something else figures out that they can eat them. Haven't tried mealworms, but I'm assuming it'd be the same deal. I don't "do" feeder fish, especially since I want to keep his dither fish.

I swear, I'm extremely tempted to call one of the local petstores tomorrow afternoon that had some amazing coloured baby oscars in and see if they'd trade my 5" albino for a 2" black tiger. Or give me half off or something. That store would probably sell him for close to $20 anyway, so I don't see why not. . . With my last guy I did nearly everything wrong. I listened to a person at a pet store who told me to get 2 for a 10 gallon uncycled tank with a 20 gallon powerfilter. Done. Wait, 2 months later found a fish forum and found out not only why every fish(no cycle!) other than my bettas had ever died on me AND found out my fish mistake. Used my x-mas money to get a bigger tank and a nice filter for him. Took the other guy back to the store. Was talked into a common pleco and a second big cichlid. Took back the other cichlid after a while and got silver dollars on trade. Started taking classes, packing the room. The nitrates shot up to turning blood red on the test kit after doing a 75% water change(I DID way overfeed the last guy. A mistake I promised myself I wouldn't make with this one, also promised to get a smaller less messy bottom feeder!) and he was still always thrilled to see me. . . The only other suggestion I got from fish forums was to lower the light, though with him out and about whenever he can't see me, I'm going to assume it isn't that his lights are too bright.

On a side note, I'd love a bigger tank for him, but don't have any sort of room for it. Or the money unless a good one goes on craigslist someday, but even the used 10 gallons go for $35+ around here *rolls eyes* the only one I've seen lately which was bigger than my current one and wasn't more expensive than they cost in the pet store was a 75 which didn't hold water anymore.

[Gilraen Took]

Hummm. Sorry to have ranted about that last night. Had too long of a day at work

Anyway, I got the piping tonight and just need to figure out how to make it work. I'm thinking I set it up incorrectly. I was assuming it would be rather like a gravel vacuum where I could just suck the start into the bucket and then hit the ball valve to shut it off with minimal work to restart it later. But I can't seem to get the suction to start. Would filling the pipe with water first be better? I had the guy at the store cut me off a few inches(which seems to be too much!) to make an elbow out of, should I shorten that and the intake? Or do I have my idea thought out all wrong? Basically I just made a bridge with it so I could drape it over the side and have water run into a bucket.