[...neon...tetras...you know the rest]

Glad to hear it. 

[Kribensis Female? Sick?]

I’d recommend aquarium salt as it looks like her find at beat up a bit. 

[The Sticker Whine Line]

1 hour ago, MickS77 said:

I had an idea, I think it would be cool if Aquarium Co-op sold stickers featuring the logos of their "Brand Ambassadors" 

This is something we could do, however this would potentially take away a revenue source from that creator. If we say share the profits, it then enters into an accounting and different tax issue which is probably not worth it to the creator for just the one item. 

[Kribensis Female? Sick?]

Do you happen to have a QT tank? I'd put 1 tablespoon of salt per 2 gallons and keep the temp at 80 degrees, with a cave like a coconut hut or something and see if she can recover. For sure she is at least stressed right now, could she be getting aggression from the male?

[Sick discus insight needed!!!!]

UV can help, but the fish look to be infected already. The one in the second picture is very under weight. I'd make sure temps were at 85 or so, and use something like Paracleans to try and get rid of worms. If they are still eating you have a chance, if they've stopped already it's pretty hard to get them back.

[Looking for inspiration for 75-80 gallon tanks!]

Sounds like some rainbow fish and some roselink sharks may be considered as well.

[New Aquarium or Used Aquarium?]

Really these days, waiting for a dollar a gallon sale up to 40 gallons. And after that buying new at full price is what I'd do.

[Where to buy . . .]

This isn’t a suitable topic for this forum. As it would be against the rules to link any competitor outside of eBay or amazon. Locking this thread.

[Build a Stand for a 45 bow front]

A rectangle one built correctly would hold fine, yes. 

[Too low pH]

I use crushed coral mixed into my gravel to accomplish this. 1 pound per 10 gallons of water sprinkled into the gravel. This is regulated by how often you change water.

[Build a Stand for a 45 bow front]

I've seen people just build rectangle stands and put it on top, making it a bow front is skill intensive. Maybe look on craigslist for a used bowfront stand?

[Anyone else likes mutt guppies?]

I'm a huge fan of mutt guppies. I essentially always have a tank of them going to cull from the pure strains I work with. 

[Any help? Fluval Aquaclear 20 Filter Impeller Noise Rattling.]

The o ring would be on the outside of the filter if you removed the motor. If you haven't removed it, then that's likely not the problem. 

[Any help? Fluval Aquaclear 20 Filter Impeller Noise Rattling.]

Try reseating it with the o ring? Also make sure you have the shaft installed correctly. If it's missing a rubber grommet on the bottom it'll rattle like that as well. 

[Sponge filter ppi]

You can find this information typically in the details sections of products. 

[Content Moderation]

Yeah that pic got cropped smaller than I'd of liked. 

[Ferts question]

Well fertilizer is like maintaining a bank account. If you want to keep 20 dollars in your bank account, and you're putting in $1 in each week, but spending 1 dollar each week you'll never get there. So I myself dose heavily to get to 20. Then I can monitor how much the tank is consuming. If we find out we are spending $7 a week, I'm gonna need to make sure I put $7 back in each week. Water changes would be like giving money away to charity. Giving 50% of whatever I have away each week. If I start with $20, spend $7, I'm left with $13. I give half away to charity. I'm left with $6.50. Now I spend $7 this week and am out of money. Without the water change/charity i'd be at $13, and have an additional week to bring in the difference.

 

I find most people try to just put in the right chemicals, when they could be looking at their ecosystem and tweaking it. An example would be with potassium you could work in some banana baby food into repashy. Or if you had pacus, just feed them bananas. Now this isn't 100% practical for everyone, but if I had a tank that was light on phosphate, and high in nitrates, i'd make sure I was feeding more flake food and less frozen food.

In another thread, someone said they were dosing micro nutrients twice a week for their planted tank, this is why I let the brine shrimp water into my tanks as i use marine reef salt which is full of micronutrients. While Dean, rinses his brine shrimp, and doesn't want ammonia and the nutrients because of his small plant loads, I want the opposite knowing that if I rinse all of that off, I am dosing more fertilizer and other nutrients to make up for it.

I try to blend the line between what nature does and what is visually acceptable to me. A rotting banana  in the corner of my tank won't look very good, but  in nature it would work. Every aquarium is different, even in the same fish room. I enjoy tweaking that system to be optimal while "adding" the least amount of raw chemicals.

I strive to put the least amount of things into my aquariums. Even in the ponds that have never had a water change, they've gotten Easy green maybe 5 times in the 6-7 months they've been setup. There is tons of guppy grass in there and they produce a ton of fish. However at the warehouse, I dose fertilizer daily as that is what it takes to provide healthy plants without fish to possibly bring disease. In my 800g, currently there is only fish poop from the fish from before, no fertilizer in over a year. However once I add fish and push the plants to grow more than they are, I'll start dosing lightly as plant bio mass will increase. 

[Fertilizer recommendation that is not heavy in Nitrogen?]

Do you have a picture of the tanks? Different plants have different nutrient requirements so you may be able to solve it by switching some plants. Also Seachem makes just potassium and phosphate. Have you tested for these? As something like flake food would be high in phosphate if you are feeding that. 

[Ferts question]

1 hour ago, MickS77 said:

If you really want to crank up the Nitrate I would get a bag of dry Nitrogen fertilizer and dose that too.

In my experience, Upping just nitrogen will just expose other deficiencies. For most people this is a water change issue.

 

For reference my ponds with thick plant growth have never had a water change.

 

The goal is a balance of nutrients, simply changing water or adding one specific macronutrient doesn’t solve the equation for most people. A tempered approach of studying how your tank is getting there works well long term as then you understand how the tank is running. 
 

my first step would be getting nitrates to 20ppm and the. Watching how many days it takes to consume that. From there you can adjust lighting, water changes, dosing and plant types to get the desired result.

[[Journal] Polishing/reinforcing an acrylic 100g tank for an oscar!]

Everyone should do this once, so they can appreciate the true value of a non scratched acrylic tank lol. It can be brutal when you have to be inside one. I've done a 180g before, you sweat so much being trapped inside working.

[Brown Hornwort?]

its a fast growing plant that really like lots of nitrogen in the water, its easy to starve. I've seen it grow a foot a day.

[Overflow design to also allow for larger water changes, advice sought]

All of my tanks in my fish room and store are setup this way. Not really to do the larger water changes, mostly out of no reason to glue in the stand pipes. 
 

I don’t have a need for large water changes with an auto water change system. Rarely do I utilize the feature of being able to make them do larger water changes, only when I glued in my back grounds really. 

[Heater controller]

10 hours ago, MickS77 said:

 I wonder if @Cory has ever considered bring a heater controller to the market?

I have talked about it in a live stream. Everything just takes time and money. Eventually.

[Brine Shrimp saltwater outdoor Pond Build Log]

14 hours ago, Devlin Mc said:

dude this is awesome! now that its really booming after 30 days and the numbers are only going up by thr day, at about what day do you think youll need to start feeding? or do you think the foliage breaking down will sustain until the winter?

 

also this is the nerd in me tryna maximize outcomes, do you think there are things you could feed to maybe gut load them in a sense? like feed them nicer things than foliage waste or do you think it wouldn't really matter much for the nutritional transfer from brine to fish.

You can definitely maximize here, but for me I like it to be super easy. I sprinkle fry food and green water in there to feed them.

[Tapwater for daphnia]

From my testing over the years, there is a chemical in a lot of the common dechlorinators that kills the daphnia. This is why "aged" water is recommended. I don't know which specific chemical it is. It would be worth someone figuring that out I suppose as new clean water would be much easier with the right dechlorinator.