Melkor

Yeah, shrimp will look like that pretty quickly after passing. Its probably just his time, but keep an eye on parameters and other livestock.

Its been 8 months since I removed the nerites from my planted tank. The eggs on glass long gone, the wood however has little white rings still. I imagine more acidic tanks they vanish faster lol.

I could definitely see you selling out quickly if you sold your work. Plus commissions for days.

My lfs charge $3.50 a pound and up for most stone. I unfortunately heard far too late about lowes and home depot selling 44lb boxes of dragon stone for like $50. They never have it in stock anymore and prices doubled when they caught on. A certain large pet chain store has been on and off doing a 50% off 2nd aquarium decor. So 50 pounds of dragon stone for $87 i think. So I have enough for a while. Stock up on good deals and save for future projects.

Looks like rhabdocoela. I have them as well. They eat waste and biofilm, harmless mini clean up crew. If you are getting a lot of them cut back on feeding.

I'm partial to fritz accr. But I've used prime, stress coat and a few others. Dechlorinators are all pretty similar and work regardless. Though I believe some types will affect certain meds, so check when medicating. Brightwell is a reputable company, so I'd imagine its fine.

No real wrong answer. But java fern, anubias, cryptocoryne, all super easy and look great. If there's enough room under the lid, some floating plants are great for water quality. Bonus is most fish, including betas, feel more at ease with cover.

I have heard of people leaving jars of water in the sun. The algae coats the glass. Set jar in tank for nerites. Though if it goes green water I wouldn't put it in your tank.

Could leave it in a bucket of water or a tank with just water and that media for a few months. Then have an ICP analysis done on your normal water source, and the experiment water. Icp analysis is like 40 bucks for 2 samples.

You could occasionally add a bit of blanched organic kale or spinach. Both are pretty high in calcium. Mineral junkie bites or pearls are a good supplementary food as well.

I was looking into the sicce syncra silent. They work fully submerged, or dry and in line. So plop it in a bucket or tank. Or have it pump water with a tube and or gravel vacuum while its outside the tank. Aren't all that cheap, but sicce seems to make good pumps.

Not sure about spandex. However media bags come in a lot of sizes, mesh hole sizes, and options for plastic zippers, for reasonable prices. Or go to a fabric and or hobby store and pick up a roll of nylon netting for dirt cheap to make your own.

I have read of people doing just that, YouTube vids as well. There is no reason it wouldn't work. Use different pore sizes and it should be a most excellent filter system.

In a few ACO videos they have mentioned a neat tip. Use a needle to poke a hole into each end of the capsule. Then with planting tweezers, or fingers gently squeeze the capsule underwater to release any air. Then bury for your hungry plants enjoyment.

You could use 40ish ppi matten filters. Bonus is its lots of surface area for biofilm for shrimp to graze on(and Beneficial bacteria).

Its not a great idea. A small amount of certain contaminants in a closed system can be devastating. Do you have other tanks? Can some if not all of the fish from the contaminated media tank temporarily go in those if so?

How old is your api nitrate kit? Mine was fine for 6 months after purchase. But then no matter what it was showing 20+. Tap water, tank water before and after water change. So I got ACO test strips to compare and it was in line to what I'm used to seeing. From a bit of reading I saw api had issues with their ammonia and nitrate liquid test kits reliability over time. My ph and nitrite from my master test kit seem fine, and so is the kh and gh tests I bought separately. Maybe try a new liquid kit, or another brand. I am hearing good things about sera and salifert freshwater nitrate kits.

Looks like it's good. Should fill out nicely.

Definitely salvinia, with the hair fibers on the tops.

It's going to be more viable if the temperature is low 70s, or lower Fahrenheit. My betta tank cherry shrimp had a fairly constant stream of escapees. It had air through the sponge filters, but it was also around 80 degrees for the fish. Now that he has passed away, I stopped heating it, and they are much happier, no escaping anymore. Better oxygenation at lower Temps. So, doable but I'd imagine they would thrive with surface agitation.

There's a speaker scheduled for the ACO members only presentations that will be discussing daphnia culturing on 8/22/2022.

I had similar ph drops, 7.2-7.4, dropping down to 6.6, months ago. I was baffled, and eventually got a kh and gh test kit. My tap water both immediately from the faucet, and sitting out were both the same, gh 5dkh, kh 6dkh. ACO test strips show gh out of the tap like, 150, kh 40. Anywho my tank water was like 0 kh, and higher gh because I was using wonder shells at the time. After some research I removed the wonder shells. I also read that plants can pull carbonates if they aren't getting enough nutrients. So I started slowly upping my fertilizer over the next month or two, and am now double what I was originally dosing, with happier plants, and no crazy algae. My ph is now back to its stable 7.2 for some time now. I asked about hardscape because wood can lower ph(you don't have a ton, so its almost certainly not the issue I'd imagine). And the gravel and stones look inert, so that probably isn't affecting anything. I'd suggest at least consider getting a dedicated gh/kh liquid test kit, and test your tap and tank water. Perhaps if its a kh problem like I had, you can try bumping up fertilizer slowly, maybe root tabs (if you aren't already for the sword).

What substrate and hardscape is in the tank? How densely planted, and do you have more fast growing plants or slow?

Any with an aquarium probe. There are ones with 2 heating outlets, and ones with 1 cooling, 1 heating. So whichever of those types that works with you.

I would highly recommend getting a temperature controller, like an inkbird. Adds a safety net so you hopefully don't cook your tank. Plus it can alert you if temps are too high or low (you can customize it). I wish I had known about those a decade ago when I lost all but one fish. That made me quit until last year.