Redhawk

Just wanted to say you were 100% spot on with your recommendation of the marineland biowheel filter. My tank looks 100 times better since adding it and the fish are now acting more normal. Thank you very much

For PH, I do my best to keep it as close to a 7 as possible. Mind you if its a 7.2 i'm not going to add anything as I've been trying to make the minimum amount of changes to help the tank "do its thing" as its still in the early stages of cycling. For temperature, I have my Betta which prefers high 70's, low 80's so I tend to meet on the middle to high on this. Around 78 to 79 degrees. As far as filtration, I am currently using a Medium sized aquarium co-op sponge filter. I have my male Betta in this tank so my original HOB filter just had to much flow to keep it on this tank. I have a Marineland Penguin 150 coming on Wednesday that I plan to throw on here to help with the mechanical filtration as recommended by someone on a different topic of this forum. Might have to modify it a bit to help keep that flow from being to strong for my Betta's fins though. Waiting to test it first. You are 100% right on the advice. I haven't had time to respond but I have read word for word every single reply on this thread and I can't express my gratitude enough for everyone's advice and stories. While I'm here to find some answers for myself, I truly hope these comments and advice will also help the next person. I couldn't help but chuckle at this but at the same time, your 100% right. (About the efficiency) Looking back, it was a bad move to do both at the same time and I obviously regret it now. It absolutly could have been the difference in temperature or PH of the water coming back into the tank. I'll have to keep a closer eye on that going forward or do my best to match them appropiately. As far as water conditioner, I use this: https://www.petco.com/shop/en/petcostore/product/imagitarium-betta-water-conditioner I've asked Petco the last time I was there if there was anything "specific" that made the water conditioner different for Bettas. They gave me the typical saleperson answer. "Well if it has Betta listed on it then it must be special" I can't say I agree or disagree (With above Petco salesperson statement), but I am probably going to switch to something more popular like Fritz going forward. Again, not to say it was or wasn't the declorinator. It might have been working fine or maybe it needed more time to bind up the Chlorine and Chloramine. Can't say for sure. As everyone has mentioned, I am going to look for other signs of stress, and take a step back and look at the bigger picture for posible stressors and do my diligance to reduce them before making drastic changes such as major water changes.

Hello again, Not sure if I'm just terrible at keeping fish or just have very bad luck. I did some major gravel vaccuming this past weekend on my 20Gallon High tank which was homing a male betta and a couple of corys. While I had not done such a major water change in the past I didn't plan on it being a 100% water change so I did not take the fish out of the tank and kept the water level around 30% at the lowest for a very short peroid of time. (Less than half an hour) All good right? Well.. one of my corys got stressed out with all the movement and ended up passing away on Sunday. I haven't had them long but he defiently seemed fine prior to the water change. I immediately tested my water multiple times and everything was within reason. I have very hard water but PH was 7.4 (ish) again, not great but not terrible, No Nitrates or Nitrites, and no Amonia was detected. Further investigation and research led me to one of the videos by Cory on AquariumCo-Op that mentioned that corydoras have a certain type of toxin that can get released when stressed out that can kill other corydoras. While I'm still a little skeptical on this being the fault it brought me to the bigger question. When doing a major water change, greater than 50% we'll say for example, what is the proper etiquite for handling the fish in the tank? Do you take them out? Do you leave them in? Are there any special precautions that you take to help reduce their stress?

Great! I'll look into those as well as all the feedback from above. Thank you all for your very generous help!

Ok, I can certainly invest in one. Do you have any solid recommendations? As mentioned previously, I'm dealing with a 20 Gallon High tank so i'd be curious to see if I can find one with a extended intake tube to grab the "crud" from the bottom and not just the top portion of the aquarium. I also have a Betta in this tank so I'll try find one that has adjustable flow or I'll DYI something if I need too. EDIT: Just re-read what you posted. I think I see what your saying now. The hob filter will be used to "circulate" the crud to the sponge filter?

Yes, (Mostly) Listed from left to right: Amazon Sword, Pogostemon Stellatus Octopus (front), Fake plant (back), Java fern, and Vallesteria. I could be overfeeding. I've slowed down in the past couple of days to see if it'll clean up. Also thought about getting some shrimp to help keep things picked up more. Havne't fully commited to anything yet though. As far as ferts go, I do 2 squirts on Wednesday and Sunday. I saw in one of the articles it mentioned that I could be over fertilizing.

Its in a 20 Gallon (High) tank so I have a Medium sized Aquarium Co-Op Sponge filter in the tank. (Picture attached for reference of layout) I haven't graveled vac'd yet, but I did anticpate on doing one very soon so I'll get that done.

You have beautiful tanks! I've started low and am slowly ramping it up but I still hate the app with a passion. I've finally realized that even with the numbers at 3 or 4 for intensity it still lit the tank up quite a bit so that was throwing me off for a while. I really hope they make it better in the future. nabo, you were correct. I think I had a bacteria bloom going. My water is still a bit cloudy to some degree but I am just letting the cycle do its thing.

I apologize ahead of time cause my pictures just do not have any sense of quality but I have the brown "stuff" covering alot of the surface area of my planted aquarium. I haven't brought my water to be tested at a fish store yet but I do my weekly water testing and everything is right where I would expect it. No chlorine, PH of 7(ish), Nitrites and Nitrates are both optimum. I do have VERY hard water. Any ideas of what the heck this is? I've considered getting some shrimp to see if they can clean it up some but I don't want to go down the wrong path. If anyone can provide some possible leads to chase, please let me know. Much appreciated, Red

Hello there, Thank you for the warm welcome and info you posted. I'll check those out. I did connect it to my phone via the app and bluetooth and that's where the heart of my frustration seems to be coming from. I think the hardware side is absolutely top notch and have zero complaints but the app just seems undercooked and quite frankly, almost worthless. I'm no stranger to SmartHome/IoT gear and I do have a coupler of smart switches like the kasa laying around that I can use. As far as the app goes, I guess I'm just still not sure on how the light knows that 7am IS 7am. Is it synchronizing with whatever time the phone has? I'm planning on giving them some feedback but I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything first. Is there any feedback from the light to say it has the correct time? I know they have the preview button that lets you cycle through which is helpful but it doesn't help if 7am on the light is 11am in real world time. (Watched the videos) The profiles make more sense now. I'm glad they had that included in their explanations cause I would have never guessed thats how that worked. (The export button). Also instead of making a new post I will just ask here. I have seen a pretty significant change in my water from yesterday to today. Its more "cloudy". I've only had my plants for a couple of days so maybe its just cycling but I want to make sure I am setting my lights appropriately. I did watch a few videos about only having the lights on for 4 to 6 hours to start and also starting them with a much lower level then the final setting. Right now I have mine set to around 17% for all spectrums (except blue.) and this runs for about 5 hours. I'm also dealing with a 20G High tank. I've tested my water this morning, everything looks good. Nitrites and Nitrates, PH and Chlorine all look good. Should I just give it time and see what happens? Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated. I know I'm very new to this and probably asking redundant questions but I don't want to be overcome by algae or any other negative effects that may be resolved now. Thank you,

So! I recently purchased a Fluval 3.0 light for my planted aquarium. I'm still VERY new to this but I think its going pretty well. With that being said, Can someone please tell me what timezone the light uses or how to set it? I set my light to a 5 hour on time and it stayed on well past that. Midly frustrated at the company (Fluval, NOT Aquarium Co-Op) selling such an awesome piece of hardware with crap software. (My opinion) Any help would be very much appreciated!