tolstoy21

I would imagine this is sufficient. I had a fluval spec V a while back and never had problems with O2 exchange. You can also point the return up a little so that also makes a small amount of ripple on the surface.

Actually, that single neon tetra is showing a lot of aggression and has claimed one half of the tank to itself. I've already lost about a dozen makos to stress. 😞

Ok, I've just stocked the tank! However, I'm wondering if I overstocked it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

That was the exact number I was thinking! Yeah I had some ideas for this. Perhaps cardinal tetras, or, I would really like to get, and attempt to breed, some Red Cherry Tetras (Hyphessobrycon sp. MZUEL 17771). However, I will need to save up my nickels for a dozen or so of those. I'm trying to keep the number of different species minimal in this setup.

My plan is the following: Sizeable herd of panda corys Pair of L183 plecos Trumpet snails A bunch of various colored Discus Just took my 40w UV sterilizer out of retirement and plumbed it into the sump. Tank is also on a slow, continuous water change system that I've been running on it for years now. Water stays clean and stable with a Ph around 6.4-6.6 and a moderate level Gh. It's been low maintenance in the past. Here's to hoping it stays that way! This is actually the only aquarium I have in the house if I don't count the breeding tanks in my basement fish room.

Here is my latest rescape of the display tank in my home office. Now it just needs fish! And, alas, I sure will cry when the diatom phase begins.

Tannins and RO water. I find it best to start with water with little or no mineral content. This means a Kh of 0, or as close to 0 as possible. Gh between 1 - 3. After that you can use peat pellets, leaves, or any botanical. For some aquariums, I'll also keep the Gh at 0 when I want the super acid loving, softwate fish to breed. What has worked for me is to use 100% straight RO water, then use a box filter filled with Fluval peat granules. I also scatter a decent amount of leaf litter in the tank. Oak leaves work, as well ad Indian Almond leaves. This gets my Ph down to 4.5 - 5.5. For other tanks where I don't want to bottom the Ph as much, I will start with RO water and then mix in some Seachem American Cichlid Salt, according to instructions. Last I checked, this gets mer to to the low 6's. That should work fine, so long as your tap water does not have a lot of Kh. The more Kh it has, the more you will need to acidify it. Rather than make blackwater, I will dose with Brightwell Black Water Extract. I mix this in with the change water.

Learn something new every day! Thanks.

Technically, RO has no Ph, or is Ph neutral (7.0) until acted upon by something that either acidifies or alkalizes it. It's kind of like a blank slate waiting to be influenced. More often than not, in situations where aquarists use it, it gets acidified by wastes in the tank, unless the tank is full of crushed coral or aragonite, or some other non-inert rock. If you make RO in a bucket and let it sit a day, its Ph should read 7.0 after it gasses off any CO2 that might be dissolved in it. You are correct, RO water has no buffers, which is why it's completely neutral in its pure state. Yup. That's exactly what you should do, and what many people do, especially those keeping reef tanks. This way, the parameters of the water stay the same because you're adding pure water, and not something with mineral content that would add to the already present mineral content of your aquarium. In a reef tank, RO top offs keep the salinity from increasing. Whatever is already in your tank will influence the Ph of the RO water either up or down so that it matches the existing water params. However, if you displace your tank water with RO water (meaning do a water change), you would be diluting the buffers, so this would drive the Ph down.

Alas, I don't breed those. But I do breed a few other black water species that require super low Ph, so I can answer any questions on how to achieve that if needed. Should I breed them? 🙂

There are some places online that have a pretty good reputation -- The Garden of Eder, Shrimpy Business, So Shrimp, Billy Boi Aquatics, Flip Aquatics, etc. Pretty much I read the reviews and follow, or have seen, some of these sellers on YouTube.

I used to sell shrimp on CraigsList. There always seems to be a bunch of shrimp for sale on there in my area. I don't love CL, but it works if there are no other selling methods available to you.

The only worry I think you have about pouring seltzer in a garden is that it could (maybe?) affect the Ph. Ph extremes in soil can affect a plant's uptake of certain nutrients. But honestly, this is just 100% speculation on my part. Seltzer might not affect the Ph at all. Seltzer is just water that's been injected with CO2. Some sparkling water companies do put a little salt in their product to boost the taste, but I doubt it's enough to hurt a plant ( but it's also not much benefit to them either). In the end, I don't see any benefit of using it a garden, other than the fact that it's water.

These shrimp have never successfully bred in my tap water, though there are about 1 bazillion Orange Rili's in the tank. When I emptied the tank, I found a handful of full adult caridinas, but no juveniles, no shrimplets, etc.--nothing but full-sized adults--which leads me to believe these are the original dozen or so I threw in. I've bred this specific line of CRS for maybe 5 or 6 or more years (I'm losing tracking of time), and their color never changes away from a pretty solid red and white. This is the first time I've seen any of the shrimp from this line be all red like that. I have never seen a single shrimp look close to how these look close, and I've bred and sold probably a few thousand of these over the years. To go from what are typically S - SSS+ shrimp to super red in the course of one or two generations seems unlikely in my experience selective breeding these. I put the shrimp back in with their original colony. I'm curious to see if their coloration/pigmentation shifts back. My bet is that this odd pigmentation was influenced by environmental factors, or food. The water they were in is close to 400 TDS, and as far as I've read, CRS should croak in that water (despite my empirical evidence that suggests otherwise!). Actually, my water is KH 0/Gh 9ish, and probably has a bunch of other crap in it from my well. Anyway those are my thoughts on this whole mystery.

I'm probably dating myself here with the reference to 'Encyclopedia Brown', but anyway . . . . I threw some crystal red shrimp in my community tank just for the heck of it about a year ago. Today I'm emptying the tank out and am noticing something I have never seen before . . . . my shrimp have changed color! When I put these shrimp in, they were your standard very white and red shrimp, like the one 'before' example pic I'm including along with the pics of these shrimp today. I'll admit that I did notice these slowly transforming when they occasionally ventured out from the dense planting of anubias, but I didn't notice the extent until I started emptying the tank out. As you can see in the pictures, they have lost most of their white pigmentation, but have acquired a lot more red -- kind of like that are transforming into 'super red' crystals. These shrimp have never bred in this aquarium to my knowledge so these are the original shrimp and not the result of selective breeding. Does anyone know if this could be caused by water parameters? These specific shrimp have been living in tap water and eating fish food and whatever else they could find in my aquarium. Weird, huh? Or is this totally normal?

Hi all, I'm getting ready to venture into the world of discus. So I'm wondering a simple question (yes, I know, I can also Google this), but figured I'd ask the community as well. The question is -- what cories will do well in 82-86F? Any advice? Any tips?

Mako sharks. I'm growing out a couple dozen of them in a ten gallon right now. It's an impressive sight! However, the feathers kind of block up an HOB's intake, as well as gunk up a course sponge filter really fast.

Yeah I really like Jungle River and Peace River, but the win goes to Jungle River for the reasons you mentioned. Also, a 40lb bag of Jungle River is only like $10 more than a 20lb bag of Peace River.

I just started using Carribsea's Jungle River as a substrate in many of my tanks. If you havent seen this substrate, it's a kind of sand made up of a billion teeny-tiny-little-itty-bitty pebbles. Its very light weight and attractive lookin. Now, I have a specific 40 breeder where I'm growing out a decent amount of Agassizii and Baenschi. Whenever I go to net out fish, half of them quickly dive down into the substrate, burrowing deep, completely underneath, and hide. Has anyone else seen this kind of lunatic behavior?

Man I keep failing at this method! I have no problem culturing them in bottles of vinegar, but the bottles sure do take up a lot of space. Oh, paramecium are easy to culture and are waaaaaaaay less smelly than infusoria cultures.

In terms of carriers here is my experience: UPS is the best in terms or rates and delivery times. However, when temps reaching 90F+ at the destination, you want to stick with Next-Day Air. All other UPS shipping methods tend to spend a lot of time cooking in the UPS vehicle and will lead to DOAs. Only Next-Day Air will get the fish to your customer before noon, and before the daily temps start spiking. If the temps are under 90F, you're fine with 2nd-Day Air or Next-Day Air Saver. Ground also works well if the recipient is in your vicinity. FedEx has the quickest shipping time for Overnight, but they are $$$$$. I don't use USPS because, in my area, they have a abysmal record of delivering anything even remotely on time. I am sure the level of quality varies from area to area, but I don't trust them because shipments to me via USPS always get lost in the system and never achieve their delivery objective. Also, they like to ignore 'hold for customer pickup' and will leave fish on my porch in sweltering heat as well as blistering cold. However, they are probably the least expensive option. When temps cool in the fall, they are a decent option since DOAs from weather are much less likely then. As for packaging, I have specific preferences, but lots of different options certainly work. My personal preference is to use #200 boxes. I inject O2 into the bags and use 1" thick stryo for insulation. I always double bag if using poly bags. I pack one-fish-per-bag when I can, and put a few drops of Kordon Amquel+ and Fish Protector in the water (I mix this in a 2qt pitcher since a little of both products goes a long way). I always pack shrimp in breather bags with a little square of bug netting in the bag for the shrimp to hold onto during the journey. For filler I use blank white sheets of newsprint that I get in bulk. So essentially I use newspaper, minus any inks. (Newspaper ink is not a problem, I just don't use leftover newspapers). This all works for me, but isn't the only way to do things.

@Odd Duck I have two medicated food on the way from Angels Plus. One is praziquantel based, the other levamisole based. I think at this point I'm going to just break down the tank and start anew, and will treat the fish separately, in different aquariums. I've had a lot of different fish in this tank over the years and haven't changed the substrate since I set it up (Seachem Black Fluorite Sand). What fish recover I plan on breeding (cardinal tetras, silver tipped tetras, some cories, etc.). Then I'll move their young back to this system. There isn't a ton of fish in it now as I was gearing up for discus. Just the last round of fish I got from my LFS seem to have brought in the plague with them despite my efforts to quarantine them.

I got mine because 1) I love seltzer and drink it all day long instead of water 2) Was making too much aluminum and plastic waste buying cases of it from the store 3) It's not cost effective if you refill the co2 canisters one-at-a-time through the traditional means. The initial outlay is a tad pricey, but in the long run I feel it's well worth it if you drink/use a lot of seltzer. Refills of my 20lb tank are about $40, whereas the refill price of a 12oz canister through SodaStream is like $17 a pop! I personally use the Aarke Carbonator 3 and cannot recommend it highly enough.

Already ahead of ya on that front. I've been using SodaMod's stuff for a while now and refilling canisters from a 20lb CO2 tank. I think I'd need to inject CO2 directly into the aquarium sump to pull this off without a lot of labor on my end. I do have an unused CO2/solenoid/diffuser setup for planted tanks on hand. Any advice on using something like that to jack the CO2 through the roof? I probably didn't mention it.

125 gallons of seltzer? That's a lot of seltzer! Should I add a twist of lime? 😛