Cory

Sounds like now you just need to wait and see how they react to the salt. Hopefully theyll recover over the next week.

If I had to guess, it's run down immune system from the low PH. Is your pH above 7 now? How is the hardness in the tank? I'd probably move em to quarantine if you had it and dose aquarium salt and let em sit in that with extra minerals and a ph above 7.

welcome, is this piece of wood real or fake? Kind hoping fake cause it looks cool 😄

I thought I'd make a thread announcing we have launched the new Aquarium Co-Op heater. Dean and I along with a few others have been testing this heater for quite a while now. We fell in love with it then modified it to have a longer cord, selected which type of heater guard etc. It comes with a 1 year warranty. Unfortunately a feature got snuck into manufacturing we weren't expecting. This would be the End of Life counter. Which at 10,000 hours it displays "EL" on the digital display, while flashing the temperature. It takes 14 months of continuous use to hit 10,000 hours. After that the heater will still work as normal, but it will flash to remind you that it's reached it's end of life and you should think about replacing it. All heaters have a life expectancy, but as hobbyists we just use them until they break normally. I figured this thread could collect feedback by those who choose to try out this heater, so that we can ensure the next run of manufacturing is the best it can be. As always if you have any problems with our products, contact customer service and we'll take care of you. This first run of heaters are also discounted $5. Some will see the EL feature as a good thing, like Dean who has had 2 groups of Zebra plecos die due to heaters. Others will find the reminder annoying if you're used to using heaters until the day they die. Here is the link for those who are interested in reading more about em. https://www.aquariumcoop.com/collections/equipment/products/aquarium-co-op-heater

I think a proper fitting lid is the answer here. Also with the hang on back filter falling into the tank, it's doing evaporative cooling. I'm not a fan of rimless tanks without lids for these reasons as they are a pain to keep temp. In a pinch you could try saran wrap to see if that fixes the escaping heat problem.

Hi Rachel, Thanks for the pic, that helps quite a bit. For lighting I'd limit it to 12 hours or so. If you can set it up on a timer that would do well for you. What i find odd is that you have had a light on 24/7 and the algae grow is minimal, did you replace the white substrate or anything recently? As for the two java ferns, the way they are planted currently. They'll most likely rot and die. The rhizome which is the horizontal part of the roots needs to be above the gravel. Or you could poke them into the holes on your decoration. I personally would fill the water up the rest of the way to create less downward motion from the filter return. Lastly, I'd get another test done on the water besides your own and if the pH is lower than 7, I'd add a bit of crushed coral to raise the pH a bit. Being that you only have 2 java ferns, I'd also add a tablespoon of aquarium salt per 3 gallons to help fight off any bacterial/fungal that could be present. I think the goal here is going to be to reduce stress, light off 12 hours a day, getting pH up to 7.0. Lessening the downward pressure from the filter falling in. Then I'd personally get a background. Even a black trashcan bag with some tape can do wonders to it not feeling as out in the open. Lastly what food are you feeding and how long have you had it?

I find the main benefits for me are. It can stay in the water loosing minimal nutrition for like 24 hours. This allows me to power feed catfish and other fish I'd like to bread. Especially those fish that prefer to graze over the entire day instead of get their food in 5 minutes. The next benefit for me is that I find there is less bloating. Some fish like cichlids, goldfish, bala sharks etc, they will eat pellets so fast, that they aren't hydrated yet, and then can expand inside the fish. Being that repashy is already hydrated I find it helps against this quite a bit. A fish who wants to overeat though will still overeat.

If it were my fish, I would increase the pH to 7.0-7.2 or so. It looks like it may have live plants, if it didn't I'd be using aquarium salt as a long form treatment to fight off what ever it is, then helping in healing the wound. The picture makes it kinda hard to see what's going on there.

Do you have another source to test the water like a local fish store? That pH looks pretty low. Do you have a picture of the overall tank? How do we know if this is fin rot and not tail biting? Ideally we'd find the cause of the problem before treating it, as blind treating is guessing. Sounds like first guess wasn't right. What is the tank temp? How long is the light on? Looks like no brackground on the tank possibly. I'd be seeing what things could be causing stress. Which could lead to immune system compromised or tail biting. As for maracyn only treating gram positive. This hasn't been our experience in treating thousands of bettas over the years with it.

I personally always use a sponge filter. I'm not sure it's 100% needed but I feel better having it on the hottest days and such.

As for using the water year after year. I do this. Typically I'll do a largish water change by cleaning a sponge filter, netting out gunk build up. Then top it off again. This allows it to be well seasoned. As for shrimp outside. I find cherry shrimp to get much brighter red when exposed to sunlight. Mixing them with the platies you can try. if you have a ton of plants it might work well. Otherwise I'd do a separate pond for them. I've had cherry shrimp make it through with a couple inches of ice on the pond before.

@Seattle_AquaristAre any of your tanks still running undergravel filters with the plants? I'd love to see a write up similar to your experience with the osmocote tabs but on planted tanks and your undergravel findings.

What about a cinder blocks with a board across it. Then you paint the blocks and wood to stress it up to be inside. This tends to be pretty study once the tank weight is on it and can be made easily with custom heights. Can use the flat topper type blocks if 2 cinder blocks or 3 blocks is too high. As for feeding, I'm not sure on the mobility of the hands, but would something like a battery powered pepper grinder work? You can load fish food into it and as you press the button it grinds the fish food and releases it slowly. Another idea for feeding would be using an app with a timer with a fish food feeder.

This is easy. You will fail. Every event does. Something can and will always go wrong. It could be big and a downer or something small, like how could I leave X on my kitchen counter? Someone run to the store and buy more. However with each event you'll be more confident in what needs to happen to make the event a success. Also as an event grows you'll learn what can grow into a problem. For instance how good are your auctioneers? How many items per minute will be they be able to auction off? If there are 500 items and it takes 1 minute per. That event is now over 4 hours of just auctioneering. I believe our club with experienced auctioneers can break 3 items per minute. When there are new people doing it, it's more like 2 per minute. The way you fail will be important. The goal is to fail in ways that it doesn't inconvenience the whole event. Also things like too many people showing up? Have a canned response of, next time pre register, we planned this event to be double what registered, that was 30. If drunks show up, most times people in the audience don't like that either and someone will be directing them to leave. Prepare yourself for a long stressful day. You'll get few thank yous, but people will have a great time. There will be a handful of ungrateful people, whether it's they bought a bunk item or their items didn't sell for as much as they wanted. Find the fastest and easiest way to deal with these people so that you may focus on people who are having a great time. The good news is, each one you do gets easier and you'll have more help. I'd say the one thing I've seen that does fail is a "it's my way or the highway attitude". A club is usually a collection of people from all walks of life. Think of it as you need to dig a giant pond. 1 Person wants to dig with a shovel. The next wants to turn it into mud and pump it out. The next guy wants to use his machinery to dig it out faster etc. It doesn't really matter so long as the hole gets dug. If a family wants to move items from the donation truck to the auction site 1 items at a time, let them do it. Even though you have a cart that is 10 times more efficient. You can move on to another task 😉 Good luck and report back with how it went. If anything it'll be nice to vent on what went right and wrong 😉 Don't forget to document what goes right so you can easily hand that off to someone next time. Work on the parts that didn't go so well. Something always goes wrong with our events, the trick is to learn how to make the best of it 😉

I'd have to dig it up, but I believe it's like 1ml is 2.3 ppm of nitrate at 10 gallons if I'm recalling off the top of my head correctly. The challenge is most test kits can't test that low and start at about 10ppm. That aside, I wouldn't try to get your nitrates to 50. Instead I would try to keep them at 20+ but below 50. The goal is to not run out is all. Having 50 vs 20, doesn't improve anything.

Just been trying to spruce the place up a little bit.

I vote for a black background with some neon or cardinal tetras.

Igapo is the slowest seller, I think followed by grub pie. My favorite is community plus.

Yesterday @Bob and I caught the rosy barbs out of the 800g. Also removed a couple of the decorations and planted some plants. Next up, I want to add another row of lights from the ceiling as I am enjoying the shimmer. Rosy barbs were nipping at Ladybird's tail. The Juruparis are now more active and coloring up more, I think the rosy barbs were harassing them too.

I love it when I see people buy the co-op towel. I love them and we tried so many towels before settling on these. Most people however skip over em lol.

Fed out today but forgot to take pictures lol.

Are you running an air stone? When adding chemicals to a fish tank, it's recommended to have an air stone. Chemicals can often use up oxygen, which can change the ph.

@JoCinWBI believe, and I may be crazy, so take it with a grain of aquarium salt. But I find inverts like shrimp and snails do best when they have calcium in the water, to keep their shelves from dissolving. However I believe they also need a source of calcium in their food, so that they can digest it and use it to build new shell. We know that shells on a snail for instance can't be repaired. But you can have acidic water eating away at the shell, and new growth being great because you're feeding calcium. Or instead of saying we know, I should have stated, I have seen in my experience.

As part of my staying active in the community but out of the comments section of social media, I wanted to start some posts/talk about things I find important in my hobby. The story starts Monday. Randy and I were in a business meeting and I say, I sure do wish we could get Repashy Shrimp Souffle. I loved that stuff, when they discontinued it, I just used Community Plus as it was the closest to that. I then said, why did we stop using it? I remember the fish going nuts for community plus. As does Randy. Fast forward 2 days and I order some up from our warehouse because I remember that I do love it and only stopped feeding it for a couple of reasons. Biggest reason, most days I'm feeding 3+ different test foods from different brands. Always trying to evaluate what is good and we should offer. Also to help develop foods for brands. However I realized that I'm too far into the weeds. 75% of my foods being fed out are testers and not known winners. It used to be that 90% of the foods I fed were known winners like Repashy, xtreme krill flake, hikari fancy guppy food, etc. Boiling water when you don't have it in the fish room is a pain. My new house even has instant hot water. I could now be making repashy in the span of 60 seconds. This removes most of the prep time of boiling water. Now it's just mix, let sit. So I am excited to feed it again as I believe so many species of fish, shrimp and snails thrive in the environment where repashy can be in a tank for many hours continuously feeding these grazers. Plecos, corydoras, livebearers, snails, shrimp are all grazing feeders that do best eating for many hours each day. I believe that making batches a few times a week, and keeping it in the fridge will bring a glow to my fish room that it's been missing. Frozen foods I thought would fill that role but I believe they are in addition to, not instead of Repashy. Another thing that makes me crack up. I had fallen in love with xtreme Krill flakes so much because of the high krill content and that fish love it. Well the main ingredient in the Repashy Community Plus is krill, no wonder it's loved as well. I guess this is like human food, sometimes you forget you love a certain food just because you haven't had it in a long time. I'll take some action shots in the next few days of fish going nuts for it. Should arrive today for me to prepare again. Also while we were "digging into it" we decided to lower prices on Repashy foods. So they are now quite a bit cheaper than previous. We are also bringing back some 3oz containers for the few most popular blends, and are ditching 1 or 2 blends. ones that sold very few each month. If you feed repashy, take some pictures of the fish going nuts and post em up here to share. I suppose I should leave a link to the food so people can look at it easily. https://www.aquariumcoop.com/products/repashy-community-plus

@JoCinWBlet me pose a different question, What is enough calcium? I find most people worry about something without understanding what it is they are trying to achieve. But yes, in my experience it does well with calcium, it has 2.5% on average of calcium in it. Another product would be like zoo med banquet blocks, it's like 90%+ calcium, however I think this is more than needed by my experiences. I'm actually not sure what the correct amount of calcium intake is per day per shrimp.