flyingcow

Will do. I don't have salt, but have some coming tomorrow. Of course I'm stuck on a 5 day a week travel cycle right now, but my wife can get some salt in the tank and keep an eye on the little guy.

This tank will be the death of me... Finally seem to have stopped the neverending cycle of fish wasting and mystery death, and now this little guy... I have Maracyn and Kanaplex as well as Paraclense and Expel-P (and ich-x, but this ain't ich). Thoughts? He's acting fine and eating well. I'm gonna check the water in my 5 gallon tank and move him there.

I put stratum in mesh bags under my sand cap. Got a little brown water the first time, but then it stopped.

So with parameters like that, the world is pretty much your oyster. Unless you're looking at fish on the extreme ends, you should have to mess with your water at all. A reasonable amount of rock won't raise it too much, and most fish are way more tolerant of elevated pH than you'd think. The pH will also drop a bit as the tank ages and gets some nitrate levels up. I mess with RO because 1) I'm a nerd, and 2) I have insanely hard water that also has heavy metals in it. RO is a project in and of itself, and if you're in this good of shape, I wouldn't mess with it.

Ok. I did the first round of Paraclense last week. I haven't seen the female in about 4 days now, and I don't see a sign of her body, so I'm wondering if it was eaten. I now have a male losing color and starting to behave like she did (staying in a single spot losing weight etc.) He did join the rest to eat this morning, but then went right back to his corner. The plan as noted above by @Colu was to do Paraclense again starting next week. I did order some expel P, so I could do that instead. Thoughts? Any thoughts on how to determine if I'm battling parasites vs TB? Pardon the algae... the struggle is real...

Do you have a phosphate test kit? When I was battling cyano (admittedly still am a bit), everything looked good until I tested phosphates and they were at almost 5ppm. Got them below 2 (shooting for less than 1), and the cyano slowed down a ton.

Just wanted to follow up and say thank you! She's already starting to show signs of improvement, so I'm gonna keep going down this path!

I dosed round one tonight! 3 packets in a 36 gallon. I'll keep you posted. Thanks so much for your help!

That makes sense. Are there side effects I should watch out for when treating the whole tank?

So this is my first foray into isolating and trying to help a fish. I have a female Black Phantom who has always been a little small, and now she's getting tiny and looking very distressed. I've had her for about 8 months. I have erythromycin and paraclense (I have ich-x as well, but there is no sign of ich). She currently has a long stringy poop she's working out. I'm going to remove the plants and do a quick water change and then move her to the quarantine tank (it's currently plant storage B). Thoughts? I think she might be beyond saving, but I'd love to try. Pardon the algae. My tank is a lifelong work in progress. EDIT: My apologies: Ammonia / Nitrite: 0ppm Nitrate: 20-30 ppm Kh: 4 degrees Gh: 8 degrees pH: 7.4 I did lose a snail last week (about 7 months) but everyone else in the tank (the other snail and the other 9 Black Phantoms plus 5 pandas, 9 Black Neons, and a Bolivian Ram) all look great. I also lost a panda and a black neon on separate occasions within the past 2 months.

I don't believe so. But I can't be sure. Next time I'm at my LFS, I can ask.

I did just find the remains of one, so I have either 10 or 11. They have always been SUPER shy with me

Ok haven't posted in a while. Honestly, I thought I was losing Pygmys like crazy and the Amano shrimp were eating their bodies. I thought I was down to two. A few days ago, I saw three. Today I pulled a bunch of hardscape to clean the tank. I found 9. While cleaning driftwood, I noticed one flopping around in the bucket, clearly having somehow clung to a rock to escape the tank. After that mild heart attack, I quickly ran the bucket back upstairs, poured some aquarium water into the bucket and got him to safety. I have at least 10 Pygmys. I now believe I still have all 12 in there. They hide that well. I went over a week without seeing a single one. 12 fish in a 20 long and they are all capable of COMPLETELY DISAPPEARING! ...at least they're healthy and happy... I'm going to have a beer after cleaning this tank...

YAY!!!!!

wow. my 10 are happy as clams. I did lose one a while back, and when I found it, it was missing chunks, but I assumed it became dinner after it died. I might be wrong.

Zero health problems with mine!

Mine did that for a while then just stopped when I moved it out of the 10 and into the 20L. I think that says something for it possibly being trapped air.

1. When I was really little, I won a fish at a carnival. You can guess how well that went. I named it Fish. I think that was a big red flag to my parents that they gave birth to yet another engineer 2. I think it's my 20 long pygmy cory and ember tank. I learned so much and am still learning so much with that one. First time using sand, first time using aqua soil. First time I made changes based on fish behavior (changed from a 10 to a 20L because the pygmys were freaking out... it worked) 3. Not sure if I found the website or the Youtube channel first, but I was definitely looking for plants. 4. Well I'd use the term "easier" loosely, but I have crappy water, so I remineralize RO. It's very nice not having to panic about water quality during a water change. It leaves me with rock solid parameters which does a great job of putting that piece of the puzzle in place. 5. Cichlid behavior. It still intimidates the hell out of me, which is why I currently only have one little cichlid, who is easily my favorite fish. 6. The other Ram who didn't make it. He was so cute. 7. Weekly in my 36 gallon because... phosphates. more like every 3 weeks in my 20L since there's damn near no bioload in it. 8. Both. One big because it makes maintenance so much easier, a rack of 20's to do science! 9. About 3 minutes ago. 10. Frozen Brine Shrimp. Big Buddy gets so excited when he sees me walk over with a plate of brine shrimp.

Yeah, I decided not to add more when I know my water is off. I'll give it a few weeks before I go Amano Shrimp shopping!

I feel like I'm making progress on the algae battle on this tank. Phosphates are clearly my enemy. They were at 5ppm yesterday before my water change. My last water change had only been 7 days ago. I'm not sure what I can change to reduce it. They're finishing almost all of their food, so there isn't much waste around. The tank is reasonably clean except for all the dang algae, and the water is all remineralized RO. Unsurprisingly with 5ppm of Phosphates, I had another cyano outbreak, which Slime Out is dutifully taking care of. A dose of gluteraldehyde every other day seems to be making a dent on all the other stuff. I finally decided to add a phosphate pad to the filter after yesterday's water change. I'll test again today and for the next few days to see where it goes. I'm glad that at least the source of my algae problems is reasonable obvious. Nitrates at ~10ppm and Phosphates at ~5ppm will do it!

Usually I see that when there's a bit of air in it. I give mine a few pumps of the priming pump, and it usually stops.

Parts for my RO remineralization system that I'm designing... Or that semi-auto water change system mentioned above, as I need to top off my 20 long AGAIN today (every 48 hours! YAY!).

Let me know if you unlock the secrets! I'm battling hair algae like none other and cyano in one of my tanks! It ain't perfect, but at least my plants stopped dying!

In my case, my stem plant debacles were entirely related to light. When I increased light, stem plants stopped dying. they're still growing slowly, but I'm battling algae again, so I'm trying to strike a balance.

Yeah, I have high iron, slightly elevated arsenic, and the marvelous wonder that is a KH significantly higher than my GH (neither are low). I use an RO and re-mineralize with seachem stuff. I've been able to make very stable, consistent, middle of the road water which is good enough for me! Bless your heart... I used to live up in St. Lawrence County where the water had a reddish tint from all the freakin iron. My town water pH in Potsdam was regularly below 5. Upstate is the best place on earth and we're trying to move back there eventually (in NH now), but damn, I don't miss that water.