tolstoy21

Thanks again varanidguy! So much on the internet seems to conflate hardness/softness with alkalinity/acidity in a way that was confusing the heck out of me. When I'm thinking about my water in terms of fish keeping, I kept asking myself -- "Is my water hard or soft?" I know it's hard given the GH, but then was stumped as to how to figure in the almost non-existent KH in terms of what is mentioned when people say a specific fish species prefers 'soft water', and then what they go on to describe seems to relate more to acidity/Ph. For me personally, I have a few tanks I add crushed coral or aragonite to, and I also use RO for caradina shrimp. But when pondering my plain, unfiltered well water, what I was reading online in terms of fish keeping seemed clear as mud. Something like this on the other hand (taken from non-aquarium literature), seemed more accurate to how I was thinking about the topic: I grabbed this snippet from: https://extension.usu.edu/waterquality/learnaboutsurfacewater/propertiesofwater/alkalinity

Thanks for the reply varanidguy. So when people refer to fish 'soft water' is this specifically in reference to KH/PH/acidity irrespective of GH? Are their instances where GH becomes a factor in terms of long term fish health? Are their GH sensitive species? I don't really have any specific issues I'm looking to fix. I'm just looking to get some clarity around this topic.

Is hardness GH? KH? Both? I ask this because when I read fish keeping articles, they all seem to suggest different things. Some reference only KH as being soft and make no reference to GH. Others suggest GH. Others mention TDS/PPM. My well water is below 1 KH but has a GH of 9. Is this hard or soft? Both? Doesn’t really matter? I understand the difference between GH and KH and what they do and are composed of. Just totally confused by the loose and various use of the term ‘hardness’ in reference to those. According to my well test company I have hard, acidic water. My house has both a water softener and a PH neutralizer for tap water. (The low Ph - 5.0 out of the tap - does a number on my pipes). But like I said, I get confused by what I read in various articles in relation to fish keeping and hardness. For instance, when someone references ‘soft water species’ is this in reference it KH alone? Because they all seem to mention Ph in conjunction with that, yet my water has both a low Ph and is moderately hard. Right? The inter webs is totally confusing me!

Started feeding these yesterday and fish gobbled them up. However, one observation for anyone interested -- if you don't cut them up and throw them in whole and live, the ones that make it to the bottom burrow into the substrate very fast. Im guessing they die and rot down there.

I culture them with a stackable homemade system made from plastic totes and wire mesh. Super easy and super inexpensive. There are many examples and instructions on how to make these online. I roughly followed this --> https://www.instructables.com/Make-Black-Gold-With-DIY-Worm-Compost-Bins/ In my experience, worms are difficult to maintain and harvest the compost from if you don't have a stackable system that allows them to migrate upwards as food is added over time. Also, it takes a little while to get the hang of maintaining the bins, adding the right amount of food waste, cardboard, grit and water so as to not create a 'hot' compost. And, to figure out how to balance the whole thing without inadvertently creating a massive fly outbreak (if you're doing it indoors . . . done this twice!). Like everything else, it's a lot of trial and error before you dial it in. My bins probably have many thousands of wigglers, too many to count. They reproduce like mad.

I could be crazy or speculating but I just noticed something these past few weeks . . . . I have a moderately planted 125 gallon. About two years back, when I set it up, I moved about a dozen otos into it. Over that time, their numbers appeared to dwindle. I re-scaped the tank about 6 month ago and as the new plants were settling in, I had a large algae outbreak so I figured I'd replace my missing otos. I went to my LFS, got a dozen more and added those into the tank. Since I've added these new ones, it appears the others were there all along, just hiding and not very active. However, now I just counted a school of over 20+. I don't have any aggressive fish in this aquarium that would force anything into hiding in my experience, nor anything that's much larger than an oto. Zebra Danios are probably the largest fish i currently have in that specific tank. So what I'm observing in my tank at least is that they appear to be more highly active in this larger school (20+ members) and eating more algae. Obviously there's more of them so of course more algae gets consumed. But I never saw the older ones grazing at all, and this this lead me to the impression that I only had 2 or so left in the aquarium. Am I crazy, or has anyone else had experience with this? Do larger school numbers encourage more activity in terms of not hiding as well as actively consuming more? For me I'm going to speculate the tipping point was getting the school above a dozen members. Before I upped the numbers, algae was overtaking everything. Every surface was coated. A week after upping the oto numbers, the algea was completely consumed. Why were the original dozen so reclusive and apparently not very hungry?

I've had a worm composting system running in my basement for years now to recycle my home's organic waste and to use the output in my rose garden (rose gardening being my other, and probably longest-lived hobby; been at it a few decades now!). It just dawned on me to ask . . . can I use these as live food? I have a bajillion, more or less an endless supply. Anyone have experience with this? Pros? Cons? Tips? Don't know why I never thought to ask this before.

. . . you go to put your container of fish food on your tank lid, except you forgot you just took the lid off? I just dumped about half a container of Xtreme flake into a 29 gallon. Looked like a snow globe full of red snow!

The main reason I got holey rock was because I liked the way it looked. The buffering capacity was really just a secondary benefit in my mind.

Ed, Thanks for the reply. I was under the impression (and hoping) that Texas holey rock would be enough to buffer the Ph to 8. I do want to get a colony going from an initial six multis i have coming soon, so I think I'll just mix some aragonite sand into the existing inert sand.

Is a ph of 7.4 for a neolamprologus multifasciatus tank bad? Nothing to worry about? I'm starting a shell tank and have a bunch of texts holey rock in it and some Carib Sea Florida Crushed Coral. The Ph has stabilized around 7.4. The tank is a 40 breeder with about 20 lbs of holey rock and inert sand. I have maybe a pound of the florida coral in a medium-sized box filter, bubbling water through that. I was hoping the Florida coral would buffer to around 8 since it has aragonite, but so far I'm sitting at 7.4. I was also under the assumption the the holey rock would have the same effect. My tap water is pretty acidic, has KH lower than 1, and stabilizes at around 6.6 - 6.8 if unbuffered. Any advice? Just roll with 7.4? Do the coral and rock take longer to buffer than I am anticipating?

I’ve had good luck recently with a batch of otos. Got 12, gave them the med trio for a week and then moved them into the community tank where they joined 6 other existing ones. I have lots of large algae covered rocks and some wood, and they grazed on that all and cleaned it in about 2 weeks. Have not had a single oto die on me. Mine don’t seem to be fussy eaters. Being the algae is getting scarce, I also feed them Hakari algae wafers, and just tried Repashi super green today and they ate that as well. However, mine are surprisingly not fussy and are also eating the flake food that gathers in an dead spot in my tank. They eat both Tetra color flakes and Xtreme flakes. Whenever I feed the tank, they all rush to the corner and wait on the substrate for leftovers and sift the sand with the Cory cats for the leftovers. At first I thought they did this cause they were starved, but they’re all about as fat as can be.

I’ll also vote for sump. I use a 29 aqueon as a DIY sump on a 125. Very useful for hiding heaters, co2 reactor, plumbing in UV if you want to go that route. Either way, it’s super easy to work with and service. Sumps also increase the total system water volume, which is an added benefit. I use fluorite black sand because I like the way it looks. It can be pricey to fill a large tank with it, but I just like the black sandy look. Stem plants grow very well in it, once they get established, but sometimes they are hard to keep in the substrate until that time.

I resealed a used 125 I got off Craig’s list last summer. My advice — watch a lot of you tube videos on the subject. Joey the king of DIY has a few good videos on the topic. There’s a lot out there you can use to get the gist. Lesson I learned the hard way is this — with a large tank and one person, you have to go quicker than you think. Silicon can set up faster than you think, at least in terms of a being able to smooth it with your finger. Once it gels, there’s no smoothing it without ruining it. Once it starts to gel, it’s also hard to remove the tape, if you used any to get clean lines. I made this mistake and had to strip the tank down and start anew a second time. Once I knew the pace I hard to go at, the second try came out perfect. Your tank looks huge, so If you can have a buddy smooth and remove tape behind you as you lay down a caulk bead (or vice verse), that might be the best route I’d definitely tape the verticals corners, but not worry about taping the bottom. You want clean lines where it’s going to be visible. The bottom will be under substrate, so if the lines aren’t perfect, whose going to see? Also, if you’ve never worked with caulk before, maybe practice on something so you get a good idea exactly how much chalk to spread in the joints. Too little is no good for obvious reasons. Too much is also bad cause the cleanup of the excess slows you down a lot and makes a huge mess. Hope this helps.

I use a Pentair UV sterilizer on a 125. The instructions on those are pretty good at outlining what flow rates you need to maintain through the sterilizer to be affective against different types of problems. As stated above, exposure time is everything, so the flow rates are much lower than what your return pump may de doing, so these may require a dedicated small pump tuned to the rate you want to achieve for effectiveness. I will admit, that sterilizer is pricey, but it's well made. Also, to reiterate what was said above, they only work on organisms in the water column. So internal parasites, and things in the substrate or anywhere else remain unaffected.

Thanks for the reply. I'm not worried about getting rid of them, just trying to grow the population a tad in my larger tank. I did a weeks worth of daily, manual removal in the shrimp tank and then decreased the feeding a bit and that's all under control. Honestly, I think the use of Mineral Junkie caused my spike (probably feeding too much of that) because before that, their numbers were low and they didn't do well in the low Ph of the tank. I'm going to guess the addition of excess calcium and other minerals that they could scavenge helped them thrive, whereas before that they were barely getting a foothold. As for the 125, something must be feeding on them because there is plenty for them to eat and thrive on in that tank.

Do clown plecos or kuhli loaches eat pond snails? I ask because my shrimp tank is full of them to an annoying degree, and they live in the sump on my 125. But the display main 125 itself has almost none. I was hoping to get some pink ramshorns populating in the 125 to clean the anubias, but now I'm wondering if something in the tank snacks on the young RHS before they grow. Thoughts?

Dorkula, I just got one of those the other week, along with a lamacorn! However, our lamacron is a rainbow variant.

That happens to me with Zerba Danios and Salt and Pepper Corys. I'll go to set up a new tank, transfer some java moss, next thing I know, there are babies. I Oops spawned about 25 danios while cycling a crystal red shrimp tank. I also had a single cory fry hatch and grow out large enough for me to see and transfer it while I was doing a month long fishless ammonia cycle. I neglected this tank a lot, restarted the cycle once and let the nitrates hit 100ppm. I have no idea how this little guy endured the prolonged ammonia and nitrite spikes, and lack of food (must have survived on infusoria and melting java moss) but lil' guy is in the community tank now with relatives and thriving.

Couple of questions about the Apistogramma cacatuoides . . . What is a 'super red'? is that another way of saying either double red or triple red? Or is it some other red variant? Do they have a specific substrate requirement, or are they more or less happy in any substrate as long as they have plants and wood and a cave and leaf litter etc? Or do they require sand or a small pebble size for a specific reason?

Yeah I'm just thinking about this for 20 gallons, not larger tanks. I could cut another piece of plywood, but I'm looking to avoid a Home Depot visit and spending more money if the difference of an inch overhang is negligible for a 20 gallon.

I believe the Seachem nitrate test requires no shaking at all.

From time to time, I see videos of fishrooms where there are aquariums in racks that don't have their frame supported fully underneath. In these instances, the frames may stick out from the edge of shelf rack by an inch or two. I'm guessing this is OK to a certain extent? The reason I ask is because I wanted to fit some 20 talls on an approx .22-inch deep shelf, which means the front and back will stick out past the shelf by maybe an inch. The tanks will be fully supported by 1/2 plywood sitting on top of a wire rack capable of holding a ridiculous amount of weight (meaning its sturdy, level shelving). Is this anything to be concerned about? or will the tank be adequately supported? Any advice by anyone with experience in these regards would be greatly appreciated.

Fish

Which Repashi would people recommend for otocinculus? Super green or solvent green (or something else)?