RichNJ

Anyone ever use the dolly attachment for the Brute garbage cans? Can the full 32 gallon can be moved with the dolly? Or too heavy/risky to wheel around without breaking the dolly or can?

@nabokovfan87 @Supermassive @Rube_Goldfish Here is an update. Throughout July and August I slowly water changed out my 20L livebearer from post-water softener water to bypassed water straight from the tap. On August 31st I bought 3 small amanos and 3 yellow neocaridina from one of my local stores. All Amanos are fine, growing, molting, eating! At least 2 of 3 neocaridinas are good too (maybe all 3...hard to tell them apart and to find them). So I think the verdict after six weeks of shrimp success is....drum roll...it's the dreaded water softener after all!! Now I want to buy more and maybe breed cherry shrimp. I might also by a 32 Brute garbage can to change water changes going forward. I am hopping the dolly attachment would help with wheeling the can around.

All of my Florida flagfish...harassers and small plant destroyers if the tank gets too active. Had to banish them to their own tank. I think guppies and platies make them nervous too, anything fast moving.

Or maybe cod fish filets?

I usually wait a week and than hit the QT with ExpelP at the end of the quartine....lately I've been doing this: Week 1 - Aquarium Coop Trio - then do a 50% water change at end of week 1, Week 2 - no meds, feed well Week 3 - one round of ParaCleanse, then 50% water change at end of week 2 Week 4 - no meds, feed well at first...half way through week 4 do ExpelP for 1 day to rule out worms, 50% water change with gravel vac 24 hours after ExpelP Move fish to display after week 4 is over (or wait longer if you don't have time) This has worked well lately, and I am doing it now on Week 1 for some new panda garras.

Agree completely! My personal experience with that is in a 3yr old planted tank. When I had a canister filter, one time I forgot to plug it back in after routine maintenance. 24hrs later, the substrate bacteria and plants handled everything just fine, and I had no ammonia or nitrites. Nitrates were a normal level for that tank. That experience gave me peace of mind for when something fails, or after a mistake like mine.

I think swordtails and pre-cox would both be adequate fry hunters. I've used zerbra danios recently for the same fry control reason (fast and hardy fish), and thinking about swordtails too. Want to see if I can get amanos to survive in my first prior to adding swordtails. I think swordtails might go after small amanos if they had a chance.

So what is the effect of 18-22gh hardness and 8.0ph on tetras, cardinal tetras specifically...but also corydoras. Does it do harm or just prevent them from breeding? Shorten lifespan?

Hi all - trying something new in my 20L which I'd love to eventually add Amano shrimp to, but have failed. I am slowly transitioning the tank from post-water softer water (see above for the story for background) to bypassed water. I'll eventually test for copper too, but haven't yet. There has been some debate above if the added sodium from water softener source water adds too much sodium. Based on my hardness levels pre-water softener from a bypassed tap, I am at 18dh (which is about 19 grains per gallon or 321ppm, so pretty hard). My water softener manufacturer has a chart published that shows 20 grains of hardness results in softened water containing just under 600mg of sodium, so I am more or less around there. Is that too much for Amanos? If so, maybe the 600mg was the culprit all along. Once I water change this out (one 5g bucket per week), I'll remove all sodium from the tank. I may even run a little internal Sicce filter with a carbon pad to clean it out further, but haven't decided. I treated the tank once 18 months ago with Expel P since I had a camallanus worm outbreak. But that was a long time ago, and you'd think I've water changed all of the meds out at this point, plus they breakdown over time. The meds worked great too and purchased from the Coop. Worms never returned. @nabokovfan87 @Lennie @Supermassive

@Lennie yeah I tend to agree with you here. Something probably changed with our local water and maybe there is some copper showing up. Also, there has been chatter of PFOA and PFOS showing up.

@Rube_Goldfish not well. Bought a new batch of young Amanos for my QT and they wiped out two days. Many years ago when I first started bought two full grown Amanos from an LFS. They lived for 2.5 years or so. I am tempted to test that again, but haven’t. overall there probably is something in my water they don’t like.

Looking for opinions on Trout Goodeid (Ameca Splendens) vs. American Flagfish. Which is more aggressive and nippy? Which is better at hair algae control?

@DBrown918 @Chris thank you both. if the unit lays on the floor, is there enough pressure for the waste water return to work it's way up to the sink (while still having enough pressure to flow the RO water into a brute can?)

Any recommendations for a DIY portable RO system that can be attached to a bathroom faucet, and where waste water drains into the sink and treated water into a large bucket.

@nabokovfan87 @Supermassive Update to this thread.....so overtime with water changes and more plant growth in my 20L i have Nitrates down to 40 (confirmed with an API test using 25%/75% tank/tap combo at about 10ppm, so therefore its 40). That's an improvement from the 60-80+ we were seeing about 6 weeks ago. My quarantine tank with floating plants became available so I just bought 8 medium size Amanos from my LFS. This QT has only 20ppm nitrates and is well cycled and established. There are also 3 old guppies, 1 old lemon tetra and 2 mystery snails in here as well. This will be my test. The tank has established algae and I will supplement feed too. If the Amanos do well here for a month or so, I will test them in the 20L (providing I have nitrates there 40 or less). This will confirm that my issue was nitrates all a long. If they don't do well in the QT, that it's my tap water and/or water softener combo and RODI would be needed for shrimp. Will report back when I know more.