SugarBassJoe

Sorry for the delayed reply, holiday weekend and all. Use regular inert substrates, gravel and sand. Now that i'm back i will aerate my tap water and get a reading tomorrow. I do have a lot of plants, so most of the nitrates are coming from the fertilizer, i never let it get above 50, if that. I'll clean the sponges maybe once a month, if needed. I wouldn't say i'm chasing perfect water, but i do want to keep it closer to the parameters of the tap, because i know i'm going to start trading/ giving away fish and i don't want them to die off right away on anyone, so this is the main reason for my concern. The fish themselves do well for me, no noticeable signs of stress. I can see the bio load being an issue for the guppies i'm raising, i'm always trying to maintain their tank, but that would be the only tank i would consider over stocked, i have other tanks with a few fish and snails and see the same readings, really want to avoid adding things to the water, but hoping to avoid restarting the tanks all together, though, i'm not opposed to this.

That all makes sense, the tanks are fairly heavily planted, I'm usually vacuuming the gravel when I do change water, but I do see dead/dying leaves, ill make sure to be more diligent on removing those. I didn't think to aerate the water before testing, ill make sure to do that soon, thank you all. At this point is using crushed coral a waste of time?

Is the KH in the tap not enough? and should I add more coral to the HOB? I started with a pound for a 10G a few month back, there's still a good amount in there.

1. Live Bearers ( If I had to choose just one though, Guppies) 2. Cherry Shrimp 3. Water Sprite 4. 40G 5. Gravel 6. Stone 7. Finnex Stingrays 8. Sponge 9. Siphon 10. Fritz Complete

I've been having trouble raising the Ph in three of my tanks, they are the three longest running tanks if that can help, The oldest being a year, the youngest being 3 months. Water out of the tap reads: Nitrate-0ppm Nitrite-0pm GH-300ppm+(maxes out the strip) KH-Between 80-120ppm Ph-8.0 But now the tanks sit around: Nitrate-25ppm Nitrite-0ppm GH-300ppm KH-0ppm PH-6.5 I'm trying not to overdo the water changes, I would normally do around a 1/4 of each tank every week, if needed that is, they were really stable for a while, the guppy tank was the first to start dropping, I figured it was due to the extra bio load from the all the fry coming in every month. I increased the water changes to twice a week, 1/4 of the tank at a time, feel like I made a mistake last week doing a 40% change, had a big bacteria bloom. I've been running crushed coral in a hang on back for a couple months to increase the KH, but now I'm still reading 0ppm KH. After each water change ill increase the KH to about 80ppm and raise the PH to 6.8, but the next day it'll go back to reading KH-0ppm and PH-6.5. Same story for the other two, but I don't do the extra water changes or run crushed coral in them. I've been considering using Seachem neutral PH and Alkaline Buffer, but I'm weary since my tap water reads the way it does, I don't want to overload the water with extra stuff if I don't have to, but my current methods seem unsuccessful for now. Hoping someone can steer me in the right direction, thanks!

Well that's awesome, we have a lack of great accordion players, well maybe not a lack of, but none I could name. Ill admit I haven't been as disciplined with my harmonica, especially after I lost my favorite one. I would stick to the rock genre for that, tried to get into blues but it would never stick. Bass I still try to play everyday. While I like a wide array of genres, I'm a Metalhead at heart 🤘, that being said my two biggest influences are Iron Maiden and Primus.

This ACO article might help. https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/ph-gh-kh

Any fellow bassist/harmonicist's?

My news feed has been buzzing with your earthquake all morning, didn't realize it was that big, hope you guys are all aright and they can get you guys back in order soon.

I've used poly carbonate sheets to make some custom lids, I believe its a little more expensive than acrylic, but easier to cut yourself, especially if you have tools, but I've used tin snips to cut it, even some heavy duty scissors (though that wasn't easy) and a cheap soldering iron to melt away sections I couldn't cut, and superglued cheap drawer knobs for handles, I believe you could drill small holes for small hinges if you were so inclined but I haven't tried that, I prefer to remove the whole lid than just a section. Otherwise, I agree with nabokovfan87, Lowes or home depot would be your best bet

Not proud of myself, but I've done this, what's worse is I was employee working the overnight stocking shift at the local target (keep in mind I was around 20 at the time). There was a bit of a rivalry between Graveyard and Day shift, any chance we got to mess with each other was pretty standard. I forget what dayshift did to us but I remember working the electronics section for a while, so we turned all the DVDs upside down, we got a talking to the next night, worth it though. Don't feel to bad for day shift though, their big thing was to rearrange sections of the store, knowing we'd have to put it back together in order to do our job, good times.

Haha!😄 My favorite part is standing next to it waiving my hands around like its magic.

I'm in So Cal, so earthquakes are always in the back of my mind. For stabilization I've installed wall anchors to keep my shelves from tipping (also heavier items on the bottom most shelf (substrate, rocks, wood etc.), I figure if those rip out I have bigger issues to worry about. As far as power, I have a 100W back up battery pack, which I hope is enough to run emergency air to my tanks if needed. Then I save all the insulated packaging I get, that foil wrapped bubble wrap looking stuff, so if needed I can wrap my tanks with it and throw a heavy towel or blanket over. If worst comes to worst we have a big gas powered generator in the back with the wall socket installed in the side of the house for emergencies, again if it comes to that I feel like ill have bigger problems.

No special types, Ramshorn's, bladder snails and MTS's. I'm guessing there must be food there, I'm assuming I must of dropped more in that spot instead of spreading it through out the tank like normal, I normally don't see such a congregation.

I got a dumb one, well more like useless. I can stand most brooms up, some are easier than others, push brooms give me a hard time.

I get it, I can get Amazon swords, anubias's and java ferns growing strong, and I've made so much anacharis and water sprite I have to pay to get rid of it (not literally, figure of speech), but it seems moss is my great white buffalo (or green buffalo in this case).

I've read bettas are best bred under a year of age. Recently acquired a female koi betta with an idea in the back of my mind to breed her with my male halfmoon, however it'll be a year with him in January, I couldn't tell you how long he had been at the store before I picked him up (I'm guessing he was already a year old at that time). So would it be unethical to attempt this? I've no experience with breeding bettas, and I don't want to do any harm to either, or consequently breed a high number of unhealthy fish. I'm not entirely sold on this idea at the moment, as I have 4 other breeding projects I'm currently engaged in, so I wont be disappointed if this is a bad idea, so no need to sugar coat anything for me. Eventually I do plan to do breed a pair of bettas, though it doesn't have to be this pair, but I am interested to hear from anyone who has bred them. Thanks!

Just a pic of a gang of snails in one of the tanks, I don't know, thought it was an interesting picture.

I've never tried your method, so i don't know if that would be the best way to go, it very well could be. Ive done a few fish in cycles, coincidentally I've done it with my hasbrosus corys. as well. I agree with lefty O, dose your tank with the fritzzyme sooner than later, get the bacteria started as soon as possible. Then i would test the water daily, be prepared to make smaller water changes daily, in my experience i was doing this for about two weeks until i started seeing the cycle begin to set in(not completely, but that's when i would see the test levels begin to normalize). Keep testing daily until you see consistent water parameters, then i would test every other day for a week or so, making small water changes as necessary. After about a month, my tank would stabilize, hopefully it will be the same for you. Side note- don't forget to test for ammonia, especially at the beginning, you wont start seeing any nitrite/nitrate changes until this stage is done, if you see super high levels, then your water conditioner should only be a temporary fix, it will lock up that ammonia for a bit but wont get rid of it, change out a bigger portion of water to lower it. Also consider getting a few more corys to keep your pair company, i would recommend 5-6 for a 10G. I realize many would not recommend stocking a uncycled tank, but it can be done, good luck!

I used to do the 50/50 split between tap and RO, but have moved away from it. Haven't tried plant substrate yet, i will admit plants are secondary to me, big fan of the cover and extra bit of filtration they provide, them looking good is a happy bonus, that being said i still want them to grow.

straight out of the tap my water has a ph of about 8.0, GH is off the chart with a KH between 40-80 if i remember correctly. As far as my tanks go they generally sit at Nitrate- 25ppm Nitrite-0ppm GH- 300+ppm KH-40ppm PH-6.8 (The exceptions being my smaller aquariums, which sit around 7.5 PH) I am interested in the lower PH in some of them, its the main reason I have to do water changes (not the only reason, but a big one), if not, it consistently creeps down. I use crushed coral to help buffer some of the tanks.

couldn't say really, they would melt back and never recover, I use root tabs at the base of all my plants, and generally try to keep the nitrates around 25ppm with easy green, im familliar with the potassium and phosphate deficiencies since its the most common with my java ferns and swords, but the others not so much. The java moss is slowly turning brown and into mulm.

Different sizes of Finnex Stingray lights on all of them, probably one of the few of us that don't keep Plecos.

Trying to grow Java Moss for the second time, and its seems its just not happening. I expected melt back, but in two months I'm losing more than I'm growing, even with easy green. Not the only species I've yet to have success with, so I'm a bit curious, are there any plants that anyone seemingly cant grow? and on the flip side, are there plants you seemingly cant kill? My list is as follows: No luck with: Java Moss St. Repens Pogostemon Stellatus Octopus Dwarf Aquarium lily Tiger Lotus Most Crypts. Hygrophila Corymbosa Success with: Java Ferns Amazon Swords Anubias's Water Sprite Anacharis Banana Plants Dwarf Sagittaria And of course Duckweed (love/hate relationship with that)

I cant say to much about kuhli loaches, I've never kept them, but I've usually kept bettas as centerpieces for community tanks, always done well with most fish (some of the higher energy fish, not so much). As for shrimp, I've gotten it to work, but the shrimp population never exploded, could, and do keep a stable colony in a tank with a betta in it, I will say it does seem natural selection is at work in there, as in the shrimps with a more natural coloration are less noticed, while the brighter colored ones are the first to go, with an exception to the black rose variety, they do well. If you do want to try putting them together, I would actually start with the shrimp, get them established then add the fish, with the hopes of them seeing the shrimp as part of their new territory, and not food being given to them. As much cover as you can stand (hardscape/plants/décor) will increase the odds in your favor. Note: I currently have a Betta/cherry shrimp set up in a 10G, I think you'll have more success in a 20 long if you try it.