Pepere

I don’t know if the species themselves are weak, but the ones I bought at Petco were weak as heck. First batch of 6 one survived 6 week quarantine and quarantine meds. Second batch of 6 saw50% mortality.. I wanted a school of 12. It took a while. Best batch I bought was 25% mortality… And I have had several batches of fish I bought see 100% survival through quarantine… of the ones that survived quarantine, none have died since.. I have dedicated, very well cycled quarantine/hospital tanks.

I agree fully.. which is why I would be happy to purchase from the co op at a 50% premium over the price I am paying.. I love the function and utility of the design…. I do miss the confidence I had in a co op branded unit. One notable deviation from the Co Op version is that the cord only measures 7 feet. This is not a problem for me as a practical measure but it does indicate they were looking for corners to cut… personally with the state of heaters on the market I would never put any heater in a tank not controlled by an Inkbird controller. I am curious though @Cory, what is the lowest failure rate you would think it would be feasible to build an aquarium heater that would retail for say $50.00?

Yes but it is fairly light in phospates. If you were to dose 10 gallons of distilled water to 30 ppm nitrates, you would only be adding 1.62 ppm of phosphates.

Do you have had water? if so cleaning the felts in vinegar could dissolve deposits.

I am willing to absorb the cost of a 5% failure rate. Esp since other heaters seem to perform about the same.

Yes, but reportedly failure rate was no better and no worse than any other heater the co op has sold… If it is as good as any other heater out there, the ability to remain submerged when doing a 50% water change, be hidden from view and have an external temp controller still makes it a win to me.

It is easily tucked low behind a plant making it invisible when not running. Being low in the tank, I can do a 50% water change without uncovering it too, so no fear of running dry.

Clearly it is a limiting nutrient, essential for photosynthesis to occur. Throttle its availability and you throttle the plants ability to grow and ability to take up nutrients. considering plant matter comprises roughly 40-50% carbon… it has to come from somewhere…. There is no question that injecting CO2 makes healthy vibrant plant growth much easier, and vibrant healthy plants defend themselves well against algae….

I loved the 50 watt co op heater and hated to see it discontinued. I bought a 50 watt AQQA look alike heater off of Amazon and got it today.. I thought I would share my findings on it. Other than the logo it looks identical. The manual is written with rather poor English Grammar and parts are hard to understand what they are trying to say. The Error codes are the same. This model reverts to the flashing EL when the internal clock reaches its limit. I run my on Inkbirds, letting the Inkbird control it and using the internal temp control as a failsafe temp limiter. As such it will take longer for the clock to accumulate run hours as it only runs when power is supplied to it. And, once the clock time has accumulated, the flashing EL will only appear when it is actively heating. The AQQA unit is less money than the co op heater sold for, but I would pay 50% more to be able to buy from the co op instead.

I am doing 50% water changes weekly. It is in a 17 gallon spherical fish bowl. I am running an undergravel filter using an easy flow kit adapted to the ugf tube. being a relatively small sphere, increasing flow is problematic.. It would be hard to find a powerhead that wouldnt whip the water around. Possibly another sponge filter with easy flow kit, but being a sphere it doesnt have much footprint space open to it. I am going to try running leaner on ferts. Not injecting co2, the co2 levels are a definite limiting nutrient..,

Or not… I have very low phosphates in my tap water. I had it before going pressure co2. I am running another low tech tank trying to “balance” it without co2. It has shown up in the tank along with staghorn algae. Other than CO2 injection, I have not figured out how to keep it at bay…. But I havent given up ….yet….

I tried keeping algae under control with daily “liquid carbon” solutions, tweaking light settings, fertilizer schedules, frequent spot dosing of peroxide and algae eating American Flag Fish, manual removal…. I was never satisfied with the results and I was constantly struggling. Life is easier with co2 injection, better flow and flow distribution via canister filter, and weekly 50% water changes. My plants are thriving and are free of visible algae, and I enjoy the tanks much more. My lights are high intensity 8 hours a day. I front load Easy Green to raise nitrates in tank to 30 ppm after doing a water change. I am again trying to “balance” a low tech tank… Lets just say it is still an “attempt”. I am trying to get it free from visually noticeable algae on plants via weekly 50% water changes, dense planting and good growth. The deficit of co2 is noticeable. It is not over run with algae infestation on the plants, but neither is it free from it. This is one of my high tech tanks.

It is best to stock fish in stages. Ie add 6 fish or so and give the tank around 4-6 weeks to adjust to new bioload before adding more fish…. Your beneficial bacteria grows to the available ammonia load in tank. Add more fish, hence more ammonia and it takes time for beneficial bacteria colony to grow. I really do not worry about 1 ppm ammonia by itself. My tap water chronically has 1 ppm ammonia in it S a function of where I am located in the distribution system. Municipalities do not inject chloramines to water, rather they inject chlorine and ammonia to water and they combine to form chloramines in the pipes. After a water change I have detectable ammonia for about 8 hours before the tank metabolizes it. Remember it is free amonia that is toxic to fish not total ammonia. In water some of the total ammonia will be free ammonia and some will be ammonium. The ratio is dependent on temperature and ph. My tank water is 24 c and the ph is around 7.2. As such it would take a total ammonia of 2.41 for the free ammonia to rise to 0.02 ppm that poses a problem. Yeah. This is the reason I never use dechlorinator to “detoxify” ammonia. Nobody knows, nobody will say. There is no available testing to verify. Unlike just about every other item we dose in our tank, there is no dosing recommendation other than the vague “ up to 5 times normal dosing every 24 hours. No information as to how many ppm of ammonia that dosing will “detoxify” No information as to how many ppm of free ammonia a 5 times dosing will “detoxify”… I have asked people at what ppm of ammonia they will not solely rely on Dechlorinators to “detoxify” the ammonia and at what point they will do a water change to lower the level, and I dont think I ever got an answer. If you have ammonia free water, I would suggest a 50% water change if the tank gets to 1 ppm. This lowers it to 0.5 ppm. Presumably you will use dechlorinator with that water change and you will dose to the gallonage of the tank. If the Dechlorinator really does “detoxify” ammonia, great, it will help with the remaining. Where my tap water has 1 ppm ammonia, if I have a tank where the cycle has been thrown off kilter due to meds etc, I cant do a tap water exchange to drop 1 ppm ammonia, so, I will do a water change from another cycled tank.. ie, I drain water from the problem tank, and then get replacement water from a well cycled tank, and then top off with tap water to the cycled tank… I am not stating dechlorinators such as Prime and Fritz do not have any facility in detoxifying ammonia or nitrite, I am simply stating I would never simply dose the water with dechlorinator without lowering the levels with a water change as well. If other people have more confidence in the “detoxifying” abilities of dechlorinators, I would be interested to know how high a total ammonia ppm and at what temperature and ph they are comfortable relying solely on dosing dechlorinator to “detoxify” the ammonia. The reason I place “detoxify” in quotations is that we have no idea what the supposed “detoxified” compound is. We know it is not converted from free ammonia to ammonium, because it is possible to test for free ammonia and tests have been done after dosing with dechlorinator and does not show a shift. Personally I prefer to trust processes that can be measured and replicated, and water changes fit that category.

At first glance they are easy to disregard. Somewhat bland without much coloration… But at other times you see the sparkling blue and red tints… And sometimes they flare their fins and the light catches them just right… and.. OH MY! They also have more personality than you would think could fit in their tiny body… Curious, inquisitive, Bold… a lot of fish in a Nano package…

I am not sure, but it is entirely possible the co op heater has a glass tube inside the plastic housing… when I first bought heaters, I purchased Aqueon pro heaters as they marketed them as shatterproof since they dont have glass, but metal. Aluminum I believe, which that metal has a tendency to brittleness. True enough, but the metal does not mean the metal tube is free from catastrophic failure. I am not certain of the failure mechanism, but the have had incidences of the metal swelling at a point that results in a catastrophic failure of the metal tube splitting open. Cases where this killed all tank inhabitants… I removed all of the aqueon pro heaters… There are metal tube heaters constructed of Titanium as well. I don’t know if those are free from tube failure… without question the safest most reliable aquarium heater is one that is not in your tank, but rather heating your room the aquarium resides in. Unfortunately I prefer keeping my aquarium water about 3-4 degrees warmer than I like keeping the air temperature in the room my aquariums are kept in…

I only have 50 watt heaters on my 29 gallon tanks.. I have them controlled by Inkbird controls programmed to turn on the heater when the tank drops to 74 degrees and turn them off when the tank hits 76. This works well with room temp as low as 66 degrees.

I kind of like them, though primarily , I got them for my two nearly 5 year old grandsons. The tank is 4 inches above floor level so they can enjoy it while they play with my early 1970s Lesney Matchbox cars and Tonka Trucks… And since it is a tank for them I also have 2 Paw Patrol character ornaments in the tank and I have a black light I can turn on fir them along with a setting on my finnex planted plus of a blue green mix that makes them really pop… I drew the line against glo decor and gaudy fake Glo plants, and Glo substrate…

It has been about a year and maintenance free. I have literally done nothing to it. bear in ind though the gravel is separated from it by essentially a wall of rocks. Idid have another tank I excavated out some gravel and put in sand and that would continually get covered by gravel… so same level would be different than different elevation with a rock wall separating…

Who knows. My experience with crypts gives me little to judge by. I initially bought 3 Pink Flamingo crypts from the co op and placed 1 each in 3 different tanks. Two looked to be heathy enough the third looked rather week with minimal root. 1 healthy one melted away within a few weeks or so never to rise again. The other healthy looking one just stagnated there for like 9 months running in place… a new leaf popped up, an old leaf melted, another new leaf, two more melted… just pitiful… the weakest looking one melted to nothing and then the roots strated sending out new leaves and in a couple months time it was spreading all over and over powering the tank…. All three tanks have aquasoil supplement near plants, weekly water changes, front loading water column ferts, and strong co2…. I harvested some bits of the best one and planted it in a new low tech tank and all of the leVes promptly melted away, but the roots are shooting up thriving new leaves.. I also bought a crypt Wendetti red and lutea and planted those in the low tech tank that also melted away quickly. And are growing new leaves nicely…

Wow. I wish I had known about ebay as a source to buy from the vendor..I bought 6 through Amazon and could have saveda fair amount…

I have done it. Rather than covering the entire bottom of the tank with flat mesh bags of substrate, I prefer to place long thin rolled up bags of a little aquasoil. Sort of like sausages strategically placed in the tank. This allows me to places stems/ roots between the bags allowing less height of substrate over the bags. yes the roots do migrate toward the bags and into them. I like this as it allows me to keep my soil and gravel separate easier to repurpose if redoing the tank and uses oh so much less, expensive aquasoil, (A bag goes a long, long way… By the same token, the vast majority of plants can grow exceedingly well without any active substrate or root tabs or such. For inspiration, check out @Mmiller2001 build journal of his 120 gallon dutch style tank with no soil, or active substrate or root tabs. I would love to have his skills and abilities with aquascaping and plant husbandry… He has accomplished amazing things using cheap inert pool sand with no root tabs or soil… I would take his tank over any of mine any dayso long as I could afford to hire someone of his skill to keep it looking like that for me, cause I am nowheres near that level… photo from his build journal to whet your appetite…

I dearly appreciate the 50 watt units. I have inkbird controllers for all of my tanks. I would definitely prefer buying these heaters from the Co op, but will try the AQQA ones to replace them as needed. The plastic pieces and functionality seems to be near identical. No idea if they have cut corners on the inside though, but the inkbird will at least protect against overheating. Clearly I would prefer to get the same co op 50 watt heater from the co op rather than a look alike with same functionality and know that corners were not cut to reduce cost… I hope @Cory is following this thread and sees the affection for this unit.

Idont for a second think it means they cant survive hard water, but it might be that it is an added stressor in addition to the stress of shipping, comingling and handling from farm or wc through wholesalers to store and to new tank.

“In their native habitat, these tetras are used to soft, acidic water and dimly lit conditions. Thus, it’s crucial to mimic these conditions in your breeding tank. Use dark-colored substrate at the bottom of the tank, and add plants to provide hiding spots and to help dim the light. You can also add a sponge filter for gentle filtration that won’t suck up the fry once they’re born. Proper water conditions are vital for encouraging them to breed. The water should be soft and slightly acidic, mimicking the tetras’ natural Amazonian habitat. Aim for a pH between 5.0 and 6.0 and a water hardness (dH) around 1.0.“ I read this on a site describing how to breed Green Neon Tetras… I will grant it was one site and I don’t have experience breeding and raising fry other than Cories. If it is factual though, would it be likely that a farm who recreated this environment would then go to the effort to acclimate the fish to higher hardness water? I have had five batches of Green Neon Tetra and only 1 batch suffered any mortality. One would think this to be a significant outlier if normal expectation was 60% mortality at best or as mentioned higher in post the need to buy 20-30 if you want to stock 10….

Are the Brazil and Columbia farms using river water which would also be soft?