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Day 15

The new lid for the 20 gallon arrived today! Managed to find it for around $18 on amazon. It's a mesh top that's primarily intended for terrariums but you can get away with using it in an aquarium so long as it's not going to be regularly splashed with water from either jumping frogs or misting from a filter's water output - particularly bad if you have a hanging filter thanks to the waterfall they generate. Generally, gravel filters aren't advised due to the fact that they can't provide the necessary mechanical filtration to properly clean the tank.

Personally, I use a canister filter on my main tank, it's just so much easier overall. Need to clean it? Just close the valve, unhook the cables, and carry it over to the sink to take care of business. With the old hanging filters, you'd have to have a bag on hand during cleanings or else you'd need a mop. Then having to try and reestablish the vacuum was an absolute nightmare; with my current canister filter, all I need to do is use the priming pump on in and in four pumps, the vacuum is reestablished and it will fill itself before you plug it in. To top it all off, with a canister filter, the only things that need to go into the tank are the intake and output tubes, meaning I only needed to cut two tiny slits into the mesh screen in order to place the top on firmly.

Now unfortunately you can't use a filter with tadpoles due to them being too small, the last thing you want is to find them dead in the filter media. Until they're in the froglet stage, it's just going to have to be daily water changes. Although, I do have an advantage in that regard, I can just use some of the media from my current filter, a Fluval 406 and put it into my old 206 when they are filter ready. This will prevent the tank from going into a cycle, which is the process of establishing a beneficial bacteria colony in a newly setup tank. The bacteria convert ammonia into nitrites and nitrites into the much safer nitrates (you can just do a water change to remove the nitrates).

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