tolstoy21

When you can no longer see the substrate! 😁😛

As others said, hatch and feed them to fish right away. If you are attempting to grow them out--which isn't the easiest thing, but certainly not impossible--you can feed them small pinches of sera micron or fine spirulina powder.

I've used UV and not used UV (not currently using one). I used a very reputable, large UV sterilizer that I paid a premium for. I ran the light 24x7. The bulb's replacement cycle was about every 9 months, if I remember correctly. It didn't burn out, but the manufacturer had a recommended useful lifespan documented in their literature. The sterilizer hooked up to a dedicated pump that was tweaked to the manufacturer's recommended flow rates for water born pathogens. My empirical observations after running UV for a couple years: I did not notice any detriment to the tank health or the health of the inhabitants. I also did not notice a quantifiable improvement, see point #2. Had the occasional sick fish at the same frequency with and without one. Brought the water temp up a tad (no big deal). A good, properly sized sterilizer on a larger tank is an electricity hog. Also had a tendency to trip GFIs. Does nothing for surface growing algae (for obvious reasons) Kept water crystal clear 100% of the time. (As opposed to most of the time in a good, balanced aquarium). I would imagine it's AOK to use one as a temporary measure to solve a problem. Personally, I don't think they are a necessity. But I also have not noticed any harm in using one. My advice would be if someone is going to use one, make sure it's sized and set up correctly. Otherwise you're just burning money running it.

Ah the deed is done! Please ignore my tongue-in-cheek (yet totally serious) comment above!

If no one is going to re-use the gravel, I'd just dump it--snails and all--into the trash. Save yourself the hassle of the other options. I cant imagine being boiled alive, cooked alive, or poisoned and burned alive by bleach is any more humane than being put in the trash. At least this way, they have a chance to get their affairs in order, revisit any profound moments of joy experienced in life, and then hug their loved ones goodbye before shuffling off this mortal coil. Honestly, just get rid of them the easiest way for you and don't beat yourself up with guilt over it. Did I just nudge this topic into that thread-locking area of aquarium ethics? Probably. 😉

I see it said from time to time that multis are 'sensitive' fish and don't do well in the mail. However, I see them listed for sale online in many places. Does anyone have experience or information with this and can shed light on the subject?

Well that's what I started with. Can't say for sure that's what's in there now.

Ha! Sounds like my sole kuhli loach and clown pleco. In fact, I forgot I even had a clown pleco until I just started typing this! That fish has been around my tanks since the beginning of time it seems, and yet I think I see him once a year. I'm guessing we all have those "Oh yeah, forgot I even had you!" fish.

I had about 2 dozen ottos in planted community tank that, over the course of about year, all disappeared. I started feeling guilty that perhaps I neglected feeding them enough, even though I have been feeding Repashy super green somewhat regularly. I thought maybe they were stressed by all the other rambunctious fish (lots of barb species). Or maybe they are just as fragile as people say. I thought -- am I really just using these like a disposable cleanup crew? Clean up the algae outbreak, then good luck to ya, you're on your own. However, in the middle of last night, I had to grab something from the room where my aquarium sits. When I turned on the light, there were all the ottos -- I quickly counted at least a dozen -- lounging around on sword leaves, manzanita wood branches, hanging off the glass. What gives? Why do they snub me all day long and then wait till I'm fast asleep to come out and party? (Hmmm . . . come to think of it . . .where the heck are my corys? I know there is at least 2 dozen of those ever multiplying little buggers in there!)

You know, everyone says they stop eating algae when they grow up. But in my experience, I've seen the adults happily munch away on my hair algae etc. In fact, I had one die on me a year or so ago and with it gone, my hair algae started coming back almost immediately. Maybe they eat less algae when they are older? Or maybe they eat the same amount, just not proportional to their body size? Maybe we just don't see them eating it if there is less around and they are doing a good job? Maybe I'm completely wrong or crazy or just lucky? Either way, I love SAEs, if you have a tank that's not too small for their adult bloated piggy sausage size.

Do you have the ability to run electricity or plumbing up through the floor via a basement or crawlspace? For a filter I guess you could easily do a canister or sump if you can drill the bottom the the aquarium, if the bottom panel isn't made of tempered glass.

Exactly. This is the best setup if your designing this from scratch, or modifying an existing one. In fact, it’s good to have gate a valve on the plumbing leading into the sump so you can adjust not only the flow rate of the DC return pump (these typically have a super fine adjustment for flow rate), but you can also tweak the rate of return out of the tank and back into the sump. @Mr.Dropp Again, glad to hear you got it all setup. Sumps are great! And for freshwater setups, they can be fairly simplistic, easy to maintain and cost effective, while adding overall volume to your tank’s total capacity.

Glad to hear you figured it out. Typically you have to adjust the rate of the water flowing out of the tank to match the rate that the sump pump is putting water back into the tank. If one is mismatched you tend to experience what you detailed

I don’t think you can I overdose crushed coral. I will only release so much minerals until the water equalizes around 7.4 ish ph, in my experience. However if you use too little, you’ll have to replace it sooner rather than later depending on how soft your water currently is.

I run one in my Caridina shrimp tank and from what I’ve observed, minimally they aren’t harmed by it, but honestly I think they do better with the increased oxygenation. Now should, or must, you use one? I don’t think they require it.

Just thought I'd share the UFG I put together this weekend. Nothing fancy, and I wont go into much detail as this is the standard PVC DIY UGF. Instructions for this can be all over the internet and YouTube. But I will add the following . . . I used 3/4" furniture grade black schedule 40 PVC for the uplift tube since it was more attractive and had no printing, etc. This kind of PVC can be found in a good reef store, or ordered pretty inexpensively through Home Depot. The air is driven currently by a Coop USB pump with a very slender air stone I salvaged from a broken Lee's box filter. My feeling was that a standard air stone might not have enough clearance around it to updraft water correctly. To cut the slats in the PVC under the gravel, I used my Dewalt mitre saw. I can set the depth of the cut on this so every cut is the same (give or take). I used a fine-toothed blade (the same blade I used to do finish work like cutting moulding). The larger toothed blades can shatter the PVC instead of cutting it, which can be quite dangerous . Yes I found this out the hard way a few years back! A good mitre saw makes many tedious jobs much easier and faster. You'll never regret the money spent on one. Next step is driftwood and some plants. Ok enough talk, now for some pics . . .

I feed my crystal shrimp Mineral Junkie 2x a week with their other foods. Quality product. As others have said, crab cuisine is another good option.

Thanks. Yeah, I've seen a lot of people say they do the same with success on the internet. I was just wondering if anyone knows for sure, definitively, if the presence of water on the outside of a breather bag (like a closed breather bag submerged in water) can or cannot exchange O2 and CO2 through the bag walls. I could always bag up a fish and keep the bag underwater for a day and see what happens. But that wouldn't really answer my question. It would only tell me what happened in my scenario. And I could end up with a dead fish! I guess i could also just see if Kordon or Long Life respond to customer inquiries. Doesn't cost anything to ask a question!

What's the official word on how to do this? Do any of the companies who make them post acclimation instructions? (I've been looking and can not find any yet). As usual, I read conflicting information one the internet about how this topic, like "don't float, you'll suffocate fish", "don't float the bags are toxic to the existing aquarium environment" to "I float therm all the time no problem". Like I said, can anyone link me some reputable information, like info from the manufacturers themselves? EDIT - I don't want to start a fish acclimation flame war here. I'm just hoping someone stumbled across something from Kordon, etc. that addresses this topic.

Turn spell check on in your web browser! Most web platforms assume that either your operating system or browser has that capability already, so it's rarely built in these days. But now I'm getting off topic!

I was planning on starting with a 12" uplift tube, which is half the tank depth and I'm guessing should be sufficient to at least start with. I'll be sure to post back some pics and info / observations as I start this (hopefully soon).

Yeah the only thing I'd need to buy is black tube for the uplift since I don't have that on hand. Other PVC, elbows, airline and some random air pumps i all have sitting around already waiting to become useful.

Thanks for the thoughts. However, I'm planning on a very minimal design and wasn't going to do reverse flow. No canister filters or sponge filters, etc. I saw a PVC UGF on amazon and thought, jeeze, I could easily make that with a bunch of scraps I already have.

Yeah I'm going to try to go minimal on this, like probably just an air stone with a USB pump. I'm going to use some furniture-grade black schedule 40 PVC for the construction of this. This tank is going to be in a 'public' area of my house and my wife is a stickler for not seeing lots of equipment or filters inside the tank, hanging off of it, and/or tons of dangling wires and tubes. I don't disagree. For this tank I'm hoping all one will see is the jet-black uplift against black substrate and a black background. This tank is 24" deep. So I guess you're suggesting uplift tube height is not something that needs to be factored into the design? The shorter I can make the uplift, the better hidden it will be within driftwood, rocks, etc. The folk sat Jehmco recommend extending the uplifts on some of their large box filters for better draw. So I was imagining the same would be true here. But, like I said, I have no real experience with this (yet!)

Sounds like when I removed a large sword a year ago. 🙂