Pepere

In all fairness, I believe Jason has fairly hard tap water, and Neons tend to be a softwater fish. While Neons and such can adapt, I believe Neons are predominantly wild caught. I usually get better than 90% survival on green neon tetras shipped from Aqua Huna. They have very soft water very close to my tap and tank water. I raise my GH to around 4-5 degrees and my KH is kept at around 1-2 degrees. I have very little ongoing mortality of them as well. I think I have had two pass from swim bladder issue out of about 30 in 2 years that have made it past quarantine.

Your first post referenced it pumping air and cust support reccomended changing seals…I guess I presumed from reading that, you were seeing air vent out the outlet into the tank as well.. But if thats not the case,one can ceck voltage at the outlet and at the mains… Loose terminals can easily induce voltage loss, as well as marginally sized wire and long runs etc… As can power strips…

Two weeks later… In addition to Two weeks of growth, I added 2 tissue culture cups to the foreground. 1 of AR mini to right foreground in front of a different AR, with remaining plant mass to left foreground in front of anubias. The other TC cup was S Repens planted in bare spot under the Tiger Lotus and coming forward a bit between the Tiger Lotus and Pink Flamingo crypt… Waiting for them to grow in and establish. They were planted a week ago.

Yep. Last time I serviced 1 of my 207s and cleaned all the tubing and spray bar etc… i reversed them. And wondered why one hose was the right length and the other one was 8 inches too long… hint, if this ever happens to one of you check to make sure you are hooking it up right before whipping out the utility knife to shorten the hose…. Like I did…. Then, the filter would not prime or run…. And when the brain cells woke up and I reconnected everything… well one hose was annoyingly 8 inches too short…. Now I might not always be the brightest, but I am pretty strong on keeping back up parts on hand for emergencies… I had a spare ribbed hose set… I measured twice, cut once and hooked it all up right and it primed wonderfully and ran like it should…. Then I went and ordered a replacement hose set….

I would look over the entire suction side. You can have an air leak into the stream with no water leak out. You would only see a leak which might only be a seep, when the pump is off and then only at lower elevation where sufficient head occurs. regardless, if air is purging out, it is getting in somehow. I am assuming there is no air stone near the water pickup… have you lubricated the seals with silicone grease?checked mating surfaces for nicks, cracks deformation?

Well, air is getting in somewhere…have you checked all of the hose connections as well?

It is a relative risk insofar as it is dose dependent. If you have a well cycled tank and filter, and you are excavating say 10-12 square inches of substrate and placing maybe a 1/3 to 1/2 cup of aquasoil and recovering with substrate I have not been able to discern any ammonia issues with ADA ammazonia. Neither have I picked up with issues after placing 1/4 in thick layer of ADAAmazonia over 24 square inches of substrate and using an aquascaping tool to stir standard aquarium gravel to let the soil granules to sink below the gravel. Other soils might pose more of an issue, and I would not advocate a wholesale excavation of entire substrate in short time period.. To simply supplement a single plant with Ammazonia, I have not seen a problem even when testing afterward. Ymmv…

Sure. You dont need to remove and replace everything to get benefit. I have simply excavated and area I wanted some, poured in that area and capped with the pre existing substrate. I have also placed a little aquasoil in a mesh bag and rolled it up like a log and made a trenchin the substrate and put it in and covered it. I have also simply covered gravel substrate with it to about 1/4 inch and then used an aquascaping tool to push up and down over area till soil was pushed down below substrate level fo planting a foreground carpet…

By golly there are a lot of fish in there..

I heard one for the first time last night. They were tiny when I got them definitely very young. I think I have 2 male and 2 female. Of the two suspected males 1 is about 50% bigger. They are kept in my 17 gallon fish bowl in the kitchen and last night I was sitting at the kitchen table and heard one for the first time. I know the sound from FootheFlowerhorn walstead tank videos. That video is largely what inspired me to get back into the hobby…

I would. Plants tend to do better in cooler water. Algae tends to like warmer. I us an Inkbird controller on my tanks that turns on the heater when the tank drops to 74 degrees and turns it off when the tank gets up to 76. This way you leave the thermostat on the heater just above that temp and it provides a failsafe in case of the Inkbird controller not shutting off. Ie 2 thermostats..,

I would be wanting to add some Calcium and Magnesium to the RO water to feed the plants. You could buy some epsom salt for the magnesium and a calcium supplement, or you could add Seachem Equilibrium… there is no question Seachem Equilibrium will cost a lot more per dose, but it doesnt require much math or measuring… it has the calcium and magnesium at correct ratio and also supplements potassium and iron… I cant speak to the shrimp myself… basically you will look for healthy new growth. It may take weeks… patience is the hardest skill to develop… I would keep up with 50% weekly changes until you have healthy vibrant growth with no visible algae. After that you could reduce to 30%, but your not talking a big difference in gallons. 51/2 vs 8 gallons…

I have used No Planaria to deal with a hydra infestation and did not see it cause any harm to Ramshorn snails that hitchiked in on a plant order…

$12.00 now. Money isnt worth what it used to be…

You could use only cold water and then heat it. Big plastic tub with an aquarium heater in it to raise the temps….

I have 4 of them. I guess I will look up to see how to tell them apart.

Any time you alter your water parameters, nutrition etc, the plats will need to do work reconfiguring their leaves to optimize for the new conditions. This takes 2-3 weeks. You will slowly be changing things over about a month if you do 50% water changes weekly. The first change will be the biggest. Try to do each change as closely the same as possible.. give the plants 6 weeks before evaluating how well it works. Change will first show up in new growth…

There can be people who would do differently, and I am not arguing they would be wrong, but it is a small tank at 5 gallons. I would just mix up water change water and dose it with equilibrium to desired GH target. personally I would dose to about a GH of 5 degrees. Per label 1 tablespoon weighs 16 grams and raises 20 gallons of water 3 degrees gh. So, 1 teaspoon would weigh a little over 5 grams and raise 6 gallons about 3 degrees. And a hair under a teaspoon would raise 3 gallons about 6 degrees. Etc… I would not personally be raising KH much if at all. I used to add Alkalinity booster to my very soft tapwater to raise kh from 1 degree to 6, but I have ceased doing such and basically just water changing it lower over time. Lowering your Kh over time will also allow ph to lower so that the iron in Easy Green becomes more accesible. So I personally in your situation just use distilled or RO, dose it with Equilibrium to target GH and use that solely for water changes. And dose easy green to a target Nitrate level.

You have plenty of gh, though you dont know what the calcium magnesium ratio is. I would not dose Equilibrium to your source water, though if you were to use ro water, you could use Equilibrium. Equilibrium adds calcium and magnesium in an appropriate ratio and it also provides potassium and iron. you could get a calcium test to tell what portion of your gh is calcium. livestock waste and fish food provides nitrates and phosphorus but not potassium. Iirc, Easy Green might be a little light on potassium. you can mix equal parts of tank water with water that is nitrate free and test that resultant mix for nitrate levels to clear up ambiguity of test results. Ie, if a 50% dillution looks very similar color, than your original test was likely closer to 20 ppm than 10. If it is obviously paler and close to the 5 ppm swatch than tank is closer to 10 ppm… I like to front load my dosing after doing a 50% water change. I target dose about 20-30 ppm nitrates. In essence if my tank currently has 10 ppm nitrate before dosing I will add 6 ml of Easy green per 10 gallons of water in tank. That will get me to close to 30 ppm. It is preferable to add Easy Green to slightly acidic water as the form of iron in Easy Green gets bound up in alkaline water and plants can not utilize it. If it was me and just a 5 gallon tank I think I would dose my water change water with equilibrium and RO water and increase Easy Green dosing with 50% water changes weekly.

I bought some Sparkling Gouramis from Aqua Huna that arrived about 2-3 months ago. They are certainly bigger when they arrived, and are all getting along fine currently. No croaking perceived yet. Any idea how old , mature they need to be before they start making audible sounds?

Baking soda raises kh. Beneficial bacteria consume carbonates as part of their replication. it would not be unusual for kh to diminish from establishing a cycle. I would doubt any harm was done.

Personally I would do one, wait half an hour and test the results. You can always add more.

I would recommend an internet search “baking soda to raise aquarium ph. I use Seachem Alkalinity buffer which is different, so I dont know the volume of baking soda. I mentioned baking soda because you likely have it in your home today.

Baking soda will add carbonates and raise ph.

AR does seem to like to have aquasoil by its roots from what I have read. I bought TC AR mini atmy local Petco too last night. The plants seemed to be healthy stock.