flyingcow

I'll get some pictures when the lights are on tomorrow, so posting this to remind myself! I have a Wendtii Green, a Lucens, a Pink Flamingo, a Tropica... *checks old ACO orders* ... a Lutea that's struggling a tad, but doing ok, and a Spiralis. Your Pink Flamingo is killing it! EDIT: Scratch that... the Lutea looks fantastic today after a fresh root tab. Don't believe its sob story, it gets fed.

When they are active, they definitely make their way higher than other Corys, but they still spend most of their day in the plants or on the bottom.

I rearranged the driftwood piece I have in there, and there's just a tiny bit more current hitting the center of the tank, and ever since I did that, I have seen all 7 together and active all over the tank! ...until they see me move, then they hide again. It's becoming apparent to me that Pygmys like a bit of current.

What's funny is we have a dog and a cat, and the only animal interested in the tree is Big Buddy. He keeps stopping and staring at it!

I don't think we are gonna have a problem.

Did that a couple of weeks ago. It's a Ziss, so it doesn't seem to throw much air, but it's doing something.

Well I woke up to a very lethargic cory hanging out in the front of the tank. I lost the Endler fry a few weeks ago. She started panicking near the top of the tank at night. I gave her a bit of food and she ate, but she was dead the next morning. I tested then, and all was normal. Now this little one is kinda dark in color and I thought was dead. He moved when I brought the net down, and he's still holding his fins up and occasionally moving. No nitites or ammonia, Nitrates are between 10 and 20. I am getting quite a bit of algae, so I'm gonna clean it up and do a water change even though it's testing well. I'm wondering if I'm back to too little flow in the tank.

Here's 1 thread, and there might be some more in my 36 gallon journal. When I do it again, it will be a bigger tank with 4 or more. https://forum.aquariumcoop.com/topic/27032-ram-not-eating-well/

Confirmed count of 7, so I only lost one.

I wish I had gotten a video of this, but my phone and camera were both upstairs. So when I first got my Pandas, my Bolivian Ram tried to boss them around. Once he realized they couldn't possibly care less about him, he gave up and kind of took on a fatherly role. He'd follow them around and just watch them and make sure they were ok. This morning as they were happily snorfling on their sinking wafers, a couple of my Black Phantoms came over to try to get a piece of the action. My Ram IMMEDIATELY chased them off so the Pandas could snorfle in peace. Don't worry, the Black Phantoms have their own damn food.

No, it's turned way down and they all seem happy. They do go over and play in it on once side of the tank, but then they just swim away and take a break. I think they do it for fun. I now have the outlet lower in the tank and pointed more upward, so its even less current than it was.

Don't know yet. I was messing with the filter flow when cleaning, and their body was right below the intake (Gonna install the sponge today), but I was only able to count 7 well before then. But now, I haven't been able to count 7 all morning, so I might be down two.

I did a search of the thread and didn't see mentions on the effect of RR on Cyanobacteria. So I figured I's show you what I've seen! I can't confirm this is Cyano, but the color and stench certainly makes me think it is. It has impacted a pad of Java Moss in my 10 gallon Pygmy Cory tank, and hasn't really spread beyond that. So I put it in seltzer overnight (wound up being a hair over 12 hours) and gave it aerated water for a little while this morning. There's still a bit of Cyano, where I believe the moss may have floated, but the reduction is pretty dramatic. I'm going to give it a week to see if the remainder dies off. If it starts growing again, I'll repeat but with it weighed down. Before After After

RR Results are... promising? The reduction in cyano is dramatic. There's still a few spots, but I think that was a function of my not making sure it was 100% submerged. I'm gonna see how those go for a week or so. If they start growing again, I'll do it again and weigh it down. But well... y'all be the judges.

Found a Pygmy who passed away this morning. I could only account for 7 when I was cleaning, so I think they were already gone before I started. No sign of anything bad. Immediately tested Ammonia and Nitrite and found none. What a bummer.

While I love a good New England IPA (I used to live 3 miles from the Alchemist) a good German Helles or Dunkel will make my day! I didn't know Pico went under! We had one in the research lab. It was a great unit, but absolutely awful to keep clean. The SS brewtech stuff is about as good as it gets for lab scale work. I love them! yeah, I had like a half inch dollop... apparently I may have sniffed some of it before I laid down that bead!

Started as a homebrewer. stumbled into it professionally in the weirdest way possible. Worked as a R&D brewer for 8 years also doing some distilled spirits work. Now I'm a consultant engineer who works mostly in brewing and beverage! I haven't home brewed in a long time since I got really spoiled by adequate temperature control in the research brewery. It would cost me a LOT of money to get that at home!

Wait! How could I forget after pictures???

Well, yesterday was a relatively uneventful cleaning day on the big tank, but today, the Pygmy Party joined in the fun! The tank didn't need a water change per my NO3 test, but it was just getting gross! Some of my old leaves were covered in schmutz, My driftwood fuzz started making an encore appearance, and what appears to be Yeah, you know this leaf got clipped. Fuzz Everlasting. Cyanobacteria has basically invaded my Java Moss. I reduced light several weeks ago, and algae growth really slowed down (well... stopped), but this past week, the cyano really boomed. I was gonna get some Fritz Slime Out, but my LFS didn't have any, so you know what? We're gonna do some freakin SCIENCE! In looking at the Reverse Respiration thread, there doesn't seem to be any information on its effect on Cyanobacteria. So I hope to at least get a rough data point. Since it's a 12 hour thing, I'm gonna wait until this evening to get it in seltzer, and we will see what pops up in the morning. ew. SCIENCE! And I gotta give a shoutout to ACO's customer service here. I'm having a bit of an Anubias problem, and I reached out to them, and Candi was in touch with me in literally an hour. I had a Nana Petite, a Gold Coin, and a Nangi in this tank. A couple of weeks ago, I noticed the Nana Petite had completely rotted out with all but the tiniest bit of rhizome gone. The Gold Coin near it started following suit. Additonally, I had a Coffeefolia that I put in my quarantine/grow out tank since it came in looking very rough. At this point I was very worried I was dealing with Anubias rot and got in touch with ACO. Candi pointed out that one other possible cause of rhizome rot was using too much super glue. She still offered to replace them. I looked at the white mess on my driftwood and realized this was probably my doing and declined a replacement. I put what was left of the Nana Petite rhizome into a glass, and lo and behold, it split into two tiny rhizomes and started growing and sprouting roots! The Gold Coin seems to be recovering now that I have whats left of its rhizome less entrenched in glue. ACO quickly replaced the Coffeefolia since that one died before it ever made it out of its mineral wool. So thanks Candi! You all are awesome!!! Still two good leaves! And of course, the little dudes say hi. Fry Gal is doing great as well. Shh, I'm hiding! Stop pointing that thing in my face! I'll post results of my RR attempts here and on that thread! TTFN!

Cleaning day! Nitrates got over 40ppm for the first time in this tank! I guess doubling the fish load finally made my Pothos meet its match. I've been measuring TDS to start getting some inferences between it and my test results. I didn't test phosphate before the water change and should have... whoops. Before the water change, NO3 was a bit above 40 and TDS was 420. After taking out about 7 gallons and putting in about 9 (it was low), NO3 was between 20 and 40, and TDS was 381. Probably could have afforded to take more water out, but that's fine. I'll fertilize with Flourish instead of Easy Green this week and check it before I leave for work travel on Tuesday. The tank is getting cleaner and cleaner and requiring less and less work. I hope that continues. I did a VERY deep clean of the gravel and hardscape before adding the neons and the pandas. The Snorfle Squad (pandas) are doing a great job preventing mulm buildup on the gravel. It looks great! They also devour a couple of wafers a day, so these little buggers love to eat! The only challenge I'm working on right now is getting the algae off of older leaves. The new growth is coming in and staying pretty clean, but getting algae off of planted stuff is hard yo! Anyhoo, here's some pictures of what's left of my algae battle. Please note, the Ludwiga Repens isn't dead yet! I HAVE ONE STEM PLANT! Oh yeah. I forgot. I also got my heater safety system up and running! So now, if my temperature gets too hot, my heaters will be shut off by a smart plug. And if the power goes out and comes back on and the smart plug turns itself off (dammit), once the temperature goes out of range on the cool side, it alerts me and automatically turns the smart plugs back on. Basically, I made a DIY Inkbird for a little less money*, a lot more time, and it makes my phone yell at me when something's wrong! *not counting the Raspberry Pi, SSD, and Zigbee dongle that run Home Assistant for me since I'm counting that as a sunk cost

They do like to gather. They will split apart and do their thing, but then they have Cory Committee meetings a few times a day!

Team Snoozin

My buckets are on a big yellow drum spill containment platform from Grainger with a flood sensor in it attached to my Home Assistant to yell at me when I overflow.

Yeah, I just moved mine to the basement on a tap next to the furnace. No drain down there, but the previous homeowner drilled a hole in the outside wall to run a generator cable, so my waste hose goes that way.

Hot dang! I thought my 8.8 was bad! I can at least run my water through the pipes. I use under sink filters since I hate the idea of a whole house RO.