wes.crockett

For 8 or 9 months, I have had a 35cube in my garage that I got in a 50% off sale at Petco. This was always intended to replace my 10g community tank that is in the living room of our house. Well, for some reason, while sitting here in my home office working, I got the inclination to wheel it outside and fill it to do a water test. It's only 104 outside, sounds like as good as a time as any! Question: Can I add an additional layer of silicone over the factory silicone as reinforcement or is that pointless? I really don't want to take it apart and re-do it because I have NO idea what I am doing in that sense. The plan is heavily planted with a pretty thick, multi layer, substrate. I have 16lbs or so of Fluval Stratum. I am going to put rock/pebbles underneath. a large amount of area will get taken up by a 3d printed cave structure (9"x7"x4"). I need most of the tanks substrate to be almost 4" tall (which is ok because this is, I think, 21" tall). For filtration, I am going to use an AC Medium Sponge filter (the newer ones with the spout thing). I 3d printed a 4" stand for it, too, so that the 4" under it don't need substrate. I think i'll put my current Aqueon HOB filter (from the 10g) on there too to add some additional filtration (and to transfer over some of the healthy bacteria). Also going to de-snail my existing plants as well as add a bunch more. I have a pretty large wood piece to put in as a centerpiece as well. I picked up a Lominie 30w Freshwater LED light. This is going to be a longer project because I am INCREDIBLY lazy. Any input, advice, etc would be great.

I've started dosing it with Easy Green. Probably too late to salvage though. I believe so... about 8 hours a day.

not looking great here.

Thanks. I'll check it in the morning. I'm sure it's too late for these ones and I'll need to replant since it's such a small tank (2.6g). Look like water changes are the fix then too, which I don't do too often on this tank since it's a SUPER low bio load (shrimp and snail only).

Hey all, I have had this desk tank set up for a couple of months. The plants have remained totally healthy and things looked great. All of a sudden, yesterday, one of the species of plants just started losing all its leaves! I really am not sure what is going on here. Any suggestions? Thanks.

So, I think I have 2 females and 1 male. The male is much smaller than the females. Over the past few days, I haven't really seen the females around but one seemed to reemerge today. Not sure if she's pregnant, but I'm hoping so!

For sure. It is super cool looking. The blue's look so dang good on the green plants in the tank though 😄

It is pretty cool looking, but it doesn't stand out in the tank. I added it to my community tank (to not cross-breed) and I haven't been able to find it since...

For sure then I have one of each. No activity ye though. Do I need to play some Barry Manilowto kick off the festivities?

Is that larger one a female? I wasn't sure. So far, no signs of mating.

Spike is doing great, but I am down to just three Neocaridina. I will be ordering another 10 soon. They can't keep up with the workload, but they're trying!

This is Spike... Spike likes to eat.

I'll check out nerites for sure. The only snail I have, in my other tank, is an assassin snail.. he's awesome, but not a great cleaner. I have 2 oto's in my community tank too, but they like to be in bigger groups... The two of them I have are extremely skittish and, I hear, it's because I have too few of them. Thanks for the suggestion.

Yeah, I'm hoping at least 1 male and 1 female make it. It is newly set up but there is already a lot of algae and such, thought being such a small tank means variables can change easily. I am using active soil and co2 so the oxygen levels and pH may be lower than desirable for sure.

Shrimp Update... Only three are left alive... I don't know what's causing the issue though. Ammonia is zero... my AQ Test strips show no Chlorine, Nitrate, Nitrite. medium hardness and low PH 6.4 territory). buffer is 0 as well. The three that are left all look healthy though, so that is encouraging. my thought is, after a few weeks of them being OK (assuming that they are OK in a few weeks), I will get a few more from a different seller to help mix the gene pool a bit. I also want to get a snail in here... I need an algae eater for the walls but I don't want a bunch of eggs and stuff in the tank. Any recommendations? Magenta Mystery Snails are probably too big, I would assume. Would a Horned Nerite or a King Koopa Nerite be ok for that?