Confetto

Thanks for the replies. Picked up the 'best' tank this afternoon and filled it to check for leaks. So far, so good!

I want to take advantage of Petco's clearance sale on their 20L tanks. The ones in stock seemed to have thick silicone in all the corners & seems - is this common? I have Aqueon 3 gallon rimless tank with very little visible silicone. Does it "disappear" when there's water inside?

A bloom would be AWESOME!

Finally! My anubias has sprouted a new leaf! Y'all told me they were slow growers, you weren't kidding 😂

Not yet. I have a 3 gallon tank so I'm limited.

After losing Miso & Zamboni, I let my tank sit for about five weeks. I cleaned it, did water changes and took care of the plants. I wanted to give frogbit another try so I paid my LFS a visit. Frogbit was out of stock, but I didn't leave empty-handed... Zamboni 2.0, a white mystery snail, has entered the ring. I believe I have a girl 🐌 She seems to enjoy the floating log, and has been touring about the tank for the last 24 hours. I went back to the LFS & picked up the frogbit and added a piece of chipped cuttlebone today. Here's to restarting my tank! I really missed having water critters.

Over the last week, both Zamboni and Miso passed. (Mystery snail & Koi Betta) I had posted here about Miso having frayed/blown fins and even with treatment, he stopped swimming about the tank, only responding to me coming up to the tank with for food. Yesterday he didn't eat & last night I discovered he passed. In the past, I kept bettas (veil tails) for years with a lesser quality of care - not a bad fishkeeper, just inexperienced. This time I did more research, better quality tank, parameters, live plants and regular upkeep and didn't make it a year. Tonight my tank houses two anubias plants and a bucephalandra. There's some patches of algae as Zamboni is no longer patrolling, but all the parameters are reading safe. My question now is how do I start over? Do a drain & clean the tank? If so, what do I do about the plants if I remove the gravel to clean it? Now that no one is pooping in the tank, will the plants do alright with limited bio load until I get another fish? Is now the time to get the bigger tank and start from scratch? I suppose I could look all this up online, but today my heart is heavy & I miss my boys.

I can do that. Today is water change day, so my snail tote can be set up quickly. The almond leaves and kanaplex have been ordered as neither of my LFS's carry them. Thank you!

@Colu I use the Tetra easy strips to test my water parameters: Nitrate is 20 PPM, safe - Nitrite 0 - Hardness measures at 75 PPM, soft - Chlorine 0 - Alkalinity is measuring between 40 and 80 PPM, moderate - pH is measuring at 7.2 I use the Seahem alert tab for ammonia & it's measuring safe. I dosed with Imagitarium Bacterial Infection Remedy per the directions. Miso let me take a better picture this evening. As for his flaring, I have tried in the past with frogbit and he just knocks all the roots off causing them to die off. I've been keeping the lights off most of the day, running them 3 hours in the evening.

Miso's fins have holes in them. They look like there are bubbles inside his fins, and now there are holes. I treated for fin-rot & doing water changes. He's gotten a few salt baths as he shares the tank with Zamboni (mystery snail) He has been flaring at the corner of the tank even with the lights off. I put black paper on the outside, by that doesn't seem to stop him. He's eating fine, but he stopped hanging out in his floating log which was has favorite place. I checked the log for pointy parts and there are none. Any suggestions?

This is Zamboni. He's kind of a plain-ish mystery snail, but he has cute freckles.

I tried the ZooMed nano food blocks - mine were pinkish. Within a few days of putting one block in, I started getting water mold forming at the bottom of my tank. A few days after that my Betta's gills & belly swole. Since then I have had nothing but issue after issue. Like I mentioned, I'm trying to get the pH up and the alkalinity under control. I do have soft water however my local fish store where I bought my mystery snail said it would be fine. Guppysnail you recommend doing nothing. I have already boiled the egg shells so should I just grind them up and toss that in the tank for calcium? Believe me, my children officially labeled me as nuts when they asked about the egg shells on the stove and I said I was creating snail Band-Aids. I told them I wasn't going to do anything until I posted in the co-op to be sure this absurdity was correct. Why is this so hard?

Right?!?! Three videos and two articles say it can be done. I check here as this community has always been so very helpful when I have had an issue with my tank.

Zamboni's shell has a chip & cracked. I looked online and it would seem the membrane of an eggshell can serve as a bandaid. I read you can apply the membrane with super glue gel. Has anyone done this? I know you can use super glue gel to adhere plants to hardscapes. I'm assuming the same gel can be used on my snail. I have The Original Super Glue gel brand on hand. The plan is to adhere the membrane along the crack and use a bit of the eggshell as a patch over the chip. Currently struggling with the levels in my fish tank. My pH is 6.6/6.8 and the water is reading on the acidic side. (If it's not one thing with this tank is another) I have been treating the tank with Imaginariums ph Enhancer and I've also put some baking soda in the water to add calcium. Zamboni enjoys dropping from hardscapes and frogbit in my aquarium, so I assume his shell is weakened and he was injured in a fall.

UPDATE I believe the source of my problems is water mold. I took a water sample to my LFS and levels came back fine/safe. I showed them the picture of the mystery fog in my tank as well as talked about what's been going on: the new sponge filter, the pH spike & drop and the who & what is living in my tank. It would seem Zamboni isn't eating as much as I thought as his food might be getting caught in the gravel substrate and rotting. (Miso is a little prince and gets hand-fed one pellet at a time) This could explain the funky awful stink of my fish water. I'm half tempted of putting a tiny ceramic dish in the tank to put Zamboni's food in to prevent anything from getting lost in the rocks in the future - spoiled boys! For now, LFS suggested I put a nano Chemi-pure green activated carbon packet behind my sponge filter for a few days to handle the smell as well as picking up the debris as I vacuum over the next few days to remove anything that has sunk to the bottom of the gravel. Brown algae on the anubius, detrous worms on the window, pH ping pong and now water mold. Someone please remind me about how fun fish keeping is.

Three gallons is my tank size. When vacuuming, I swap about a gallon of water. This morning I discovered a 'fog' has settled at the bottom of the tank. (photo below)

1. New sponge filter in progress 2. Snail poop 3. Fluctuating pH levels With the addition of a mystery snail, there has been an influx of poop in my tank. To be honest I've never seen my betta void in the eight months that I have had him. In the 4 weeks that I've had my mystery snail, that's a completely different story. A weekly water change is a must rather than an option. (3gal) Within the last two weeks, I have exchanged my sponge filter. The old sponge is still in the tank while the new sponge seeds. Also during this time I had a pH spike followed by a pH drop. I went from 7.4 to 8.2 to 6.2. Last night I had to clean the poop out of my tank. The water that I siphoned out smelled like old milk/fart! Gag worthy! Awful doesn't even cover the smell that had engulfed my kitchen. What could possibly be going wrong and my nano tank? Nitrate 20 ppm - Nitrite 0 - GH 75/soft - Chlorine 0 - KH 0-40 ppm - pH 6.2 As for Miso and Zamboni, no changes in their behaviors. I do my best to remove any uneaten food, but that's not to say some have slipped down in the gravel substrate. I don't know if I'm dealing with an out of balance tank or a bacteria bloom. All I know is that I am not looking forward to next Sunday when I have to vacuum the poop.

I do. I have a preset heater that runs 76-78.

I can't talk you out of it as I ogle over a 20 gallon long myself. I'm at the stage where a Pinterest board has been created.

I got a clown loach sticker too!! I took it as a sign that this year is the year to set up my kuhuli loach tank!

Welcome to my tank. I have two anubias - I believe one is a nana & the other might be a petite, a bucephalandra, a mystery plant that looks like hornwort and frogbit that my Betta enjoys pulling the roots off of. I've had my planted tank up and running since July 2022 and though I know I have slow growing plants, my goodness they are sloooow. I have noticed new roots on buce, and have had new leaves on the anubias but no real size growth. In one of the videos that Irene/Girl Talks Fish hosted, she said slow growing plants are slow to die so I guess the upside to this glacially slow landscape I have created is that in theory, it should be around a while. From other videos that I watched, perhaps the secret to super plant growth may be and CO2 injection. That is a commitment I'm not ready to take on myself. My goal was to have a planted countertop tank that shouldn't take a tremendous amount of time to upkeep. I have a simple natural environment for my betta and my snail to live their best lives.

What a great idea! The Mini might actually fit inside the lower basket of the nano! @TOtrees, I ran the Nano in a container with the 'dirty' tank/sponge water for about an hour before I put it in the tank so it wasn't completely sterile - very similar to your suggestion prior to your post. I will use this method when I set up my Future 20L Tank.

I know, right? I had to double check the box for "nano"

Installed the new filter today. You can see how tiny the mini one truly is compared to the ACO nano! It wasn't until I posted this photo that I realized you had mentioned to put the old filter on the bottom of the tank. I will probably do that in the morning as my betta is having a temper tantrum that I dared to disturb his little universe. I really like the tiny bubbles of the air stone as opposed to the flow that I had in the Aquaneat. I am getting the occasional big bubble from under the uplift tube. I watched Corey's video and followed all his suggestions, however I get one large bubble every 25 seconds - I can live with that. Here's the hoping I don't crash the whole thing🤞🤞🤞

I'm not in love with my original sponge filter. I have been running an Aquaneat mini in my 3gal since July last year. It's just OK. My tank in clear and the levels test well, but it's so tiny that air stones won't fit inside. It has good reviews on Amazon and it hides well in the tank, yet I feel like I'd like the co-op nano sponge better. How do I introduce the filter (sterile) without crashing my cycled tank? I can't run two filters in such a small tank - too much current. Do I just put the new sponge in and let it marinate a couple days? Can I slip the old sponge on the uptake valve and run the new filter?