AllFishNoBrakes

I wind mine up with straps and bought a hook to hang it against the wall.

Me, and my Pea Puffers, love these specific bloodworms that @nabokovfan87 mentioned. I have 6 in a 29 gallon, and they eat probably 20-25% of one cube per day. I use one cube daily, split between like 5 different tanks. Sometimes 6 if the Betta is getting bloodworms that day.

What up what up? Twas a day of maintenance today. Whew! Normally it takes me like 4 hours. Today was a 6 hour session. All good though, just some additional work. Gonna bag up 20 Panda Angels and take em to the LFS tomorrow. Also offered a ton of plants, for no credit. I said maybe they can give ‘em to employees, or new hobbyists or something. Figured if people could use them, and I’m taking fish anyways, that was better than just tossing them out. Plants all bagged up and ready to go. 5 bunches of Pearl Weed, 2 bags full of Guppy Grass, 5 bunches of 5 PSO stems each, and 8 baby Amazon Swords with roots that I chopped off my mother plant. Hopefully some people can enjoy them. This tank was the most dramatic change. Cleared out about 3/4 of the Guppy Grass. This tank used to be full of PSO but the Guppy Grass choked it out. Happy to clear it out, and happy to clear out another 20 Panda Angels tomorrow. 15-20 at a time we’re getting there! Might actually have to hatch a partial spawn after my vacation. Took a ton of PSO out of this tank preparing to turn it to blackwater tank #2. Dwarf Rainbows got moved to the Angel tank above it, too! Rainbows still a little freaked out, but they’re also having fun swimming against the current from the HOB. Definitely a new behavior for me to see as there was like no current in the other tank. 6 gallon cube got a trim. Man, trimming this thing is such a chore! At least I won’t have to do it again for like another 6 weeks. Baby Pygmy Cory that hatched in my girlfriends shrimp tank still cruising right along! So fun to watch this guy grow up as he was a complete surprise. Blackwater tank also went back to normal from all the bubbles that were on the surface. After a couple of days it was like 80% resolved. After todays water change, and no additional tannins/botanicals we’re back to normal. Cheers, homies.

As long as you have some kH you should be relatively okay. Cory has described kH as money in the bank. As long as you have a little money in the bank, you should be alright. Do you need to raise your kH? My water is naturally lower pH, soft, and very little buffer (kH) and I haven’t had an issue in 3+ years. I have enough, and keep up on maintenance, that I don’t run out so what I have works for me. You have livebearers, and in general they like a little higher pH and higher GH, but kH just keeps your pH from crashing to the best of my knowledge and understanding. I’m all for helping each other and helping everyone achieve what they’d like, but question one, to me, is do you actually need more kH?

Not a bad idea. I have several size small ACO sponge filters, one of which is the only filtration in a 20 long blackwater tank. I love the nano usb pumps, but I agree with everyone else that they tend to not last long. It’s their biggest downside in my opinion! You definitely want to keep a back up on hand, and if you’re gonna spend money on an air pump I agree that the ACO battery back up pump is an excellent investment. Setting any air pump on a folded up hand towel can make a huge difference in the amount of noise it makes. All my nano usb air pumps are hung from the carabiner, and all other air pumps sit on a folded up hand towel and my 14 tanks are mostly silent.

That’s gonna be the most delicious pea that fish has ever eaten! 😉

Just to not worry you, it’s not actually a fungus that comes out of the wood. Well Spider Wood anyways. It’s just referred to as “fungus” as it obviously looks like it. Hopefully the hydrogen peroxide and boiling helped out! The lame thing about wood is that it constantly degrades when under water. Just one of those things…

Your wood looks like Spider Wood. Spider Wood is notorious for having a “fungus” stage. Normally this goes away after a couple of weeks. When I buy Spider Wood I soak it for a few weeks before it goes in the tank. Of all the pieces I have, only 1 small piece continues to fungus. Every other piece stopped and hasn’t been an issue

I’m happy to report that as of tonight I have a 80-90% reduction in bubbles on the surface. Literally didn’t do anything different; just rode it out and observed to gained knowledge. What caused the bubbles? Your guess is as good as mine. I was looking through my pictures and found the first one from when I changed the tank. We went from this: March 2023, pre botanicals To this: Some botanicals and some tint to the water. Pre Anubius. To this: End of July 2023, photo taken 10 minutes ago, with all the botanicals. I also love that you can see the Pothos growing through these pictures. You can hardly see the wood anymore and I love it. Enjoy nature daily, and enjoy your tanks, Nerms.

I will say that when I was frantically setting up tanks in 2020 (I got hit with MTS hard super early on) that my quarantine was much quicker. I’m lucky in that I didn’t have any giant missteps, and didn’t see many illnesses early on. I was doing one week with meds, then one week without meds, and then into the main tank they went. Call it being a little bit older now, call it not wanting to take on as much risk, call it generally not being in a rush in my life anymore, etc but I really look at those early days as just being lucky. I take a lot more time now as, mentioned above, my ecosystems are all 3+ years old and I’ve invested too much time to let them come crashing down. To each their own, though! I don’t judge those that don’t quarantine their fish, and I don’t judge those that do things longer than I do. If it works for you then it works for you!

I quarantine for 1 week with meds, and then continue to quarantine another 3-5 weeks (without meds). So, 4-6 weeks total. As @Mmiller2001 said, patience is key. I have invested too much time in healthy ecosystems to rush the quarantine process and bring that crashing down because I couldn’t be patient.

This morning I went to feed and it looked like 80% of the bubbles were gone. What did I do? Nothing. Nothing at all. We’ll see if it’s the same when I get home from work tonight.

@Chick-In-Of-TheSea Thanks for the advice. I use Prime or Complete. Right now finishing a bottle of Prime (it’s what my LFS that I have credit at had) and then will go back to Complete. While the advice doesn’t directly apply to my situation, still good to know!

@Mmiller2001 Only running a small sponge filter in this tank, and that’s all I intend to run. You’re in agreement that it’s not an issue, other than being unsightly?

This is where my tanks normally sit. I expected the botanicals would take me closer to 6.0, but 5 months in I’m still in the 6.6-6.8 range

My blackwater tank has shown, like, 0 movement in parameters from adding tannins. That being said, my water is basically blackwater out of the tap, minus the tannins. I would EXPECT that higher pH/harder water would shift from adding tannins, but also EXPECTED my parameters to go down even further and all it’s really done in 5 months is tint the water. Who knows 🤷‍♂️. Someone with hard water experience would be better than my $0.02, but just wanted to share my thoughts.

What’s up everyone? A little background info on the tank: 20 gallon long. Tank has been up and running for over 3 years. Started as a shrimp only tank. Then, shrimp and snails. Then, shrimp, snails, and dwarf crayfish. After 3 years of inverts only, it was time to try something new. In March I decided I wanted to try a blackwater tank. I ordered up some botanicals, removed all the plants, found some wood that fit well in the tank, and have been steady chucking botanicals in there every week. Sometime I boiled things and made a tea, other times I just rinsed Catappa leaves and hucked em in there. All has been well. All, I think, is currently still welll. But, I have some bubbles that have developed on the surface. The other day I boiled a bunch of botanicals, after doing maintenance on all my tanks, made a tea, and hucked the botanicals in there. 5 giant Catappa leaves and 4 decent sized seed pods. This isn’t my first time doing this so I thought nothing of it. Went to feed last night and noticed bubbles covering ~1/3 of the top of the tank. I assumed it was ammonia. After all, I did throw a bunch of decaying matter in there, on top of water that was already super dark. I grabbed ye trusty ol’ master test kit, and 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and ~20ppm nitrates. Doesn’t seem to be an ammonia issue as I originally thought. Ammonia made the most sense, both because of what I put in the tank, and because of the bubbles, but alas, testing showed 0. I was doing some general Google searching, as one does, and found that other blackwater/botanical enthusiasts have reported the same. Parameters are normal (again, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and 20 nitrates) but bubbles on the surface. Most have chalked it up to “it’s the tannins” and at this point I have to agree, at least at this point. The ONLY thing that changed is I mixed 2 brands of Catappa leaves. I used the last 3 from one pack, and then 2 leaves from a new pack/brand. Had I not boiled them I would’ve assumed maybe there was something on the new brand, but boiling them should’ve taken care of that problem, right? Idk. At this point I’m chalking it up to “maximum tannin saturation” as the reason for the bubbles, but I can’t help but think it could be something to do with the new Catappa leaves. At this point, everything seems the same, except there’s some bubbles on the surface. Fish look healthy, and all inverts look healthy (shrimp, snails, and crayfish) are still loving life. Testing showed nothing to be concerned about. Happy to take test results again and share pics but as of less than 24 hours ago, and the bubbles being the same, testing was exactly as I expected. If there’s any experienced blackwater vets out there I’d love to hear your thoughts. Regardless, this will be a learning opportunity for all of us Nerms! Not panicking, just seeing what happens. Nature is incredible. Cheers,

@Shadow Thanks! That Angel tank has been up and running for 3 years at this point. Blackwater tank started as a shrimp only tank 3 years ago and got converted to a blackwater tank a couple of months ago. So, while the tank isn’t new, being a blackwater tank is still new to me. Holler if you have any questions! Happy to help if I can!

I kept my ADF with my Betta when the frog was young. In my experience it worked well and I didn’t see any issues. Yes, the frog zooms to the top to gulp air, but other than that he’s chilling on the bottom. The Bert mostly hung in the roots of the Water Lettuce. I also have (way too many) Ramshorn snails in this tank. I’ve been feeding the frog on the same spot, every day, since the day I got him. Snails haven’t been an issue in my experience. I no longer have that Betta, and have had Pygmy Cory’s in the tank for about a year now. Pygmy Cory’s are breeding, with some random fry making it in the tank and joining the group of adults. Overall, it worked for me in a 10 gallon tank.

Then I’d say you’re on the right track. Don’t overfeed, and continue to test. You’ll want to continue seeing ammonia and nitrite at 0 and nitrates only start to go up

Looks to me (strips are hard for me to read, especially cut in half) like both pictures show 0 nitrite. Have you seen nitrite go from 0, spike up, and now they’re back to 0?

With my soft, lower pH, and little to no buffer water, SA cichlids make most sense for me personally as I don’t want to “make” water. Making water would be required for fish that like hard water/higher pH. I love my 55 gallon Angelfish tank, and also recently converted my 20 long to a blackwater tank. The blackwater has been so much fun that I’m about to covert the 29 gallon tank next to it as a second blackwater tank! The 29 will only be as dark as the Aquaneat light will allow. The 20 long is as dark as I can get it! Both types of tanks are super fun. I love my planted tanks (currently 12 of 13 are planted) but the darker water, wood, and very little planting has been a lot of fun, too.

For my smaller tanks I use buckets, and I just squirt the dechlorinator in the bucket as the water runs from the tap. Never had an issue. For my larger tanks I use a Python, and I dose for the whole tank. I put it in as soon as the water starts hitting the tank. Again, I’ve never had an issue.

What up everyone? Another Wednesday; here we are. Water changed everything except the 55 gallon grow out tank. As soon as I was ready to start draining water the Panda Angels started spawning. They literally laid like 5 eggs right as I was going to put the siphon in. Oh well, they skip a week I guess. Gave them a couple hours of privacy as I water changed everything else and pulled out this spawn: Also pulled a Bristlenose spawn yesterday: All of the above eggs didn’t get hatched as I already have Panda Angels and Bristlenose to move. Once I move some I’ll probably hatch a piece of the next spawns. Also had another Angel spawn since the last post; So many eggs this past week! Again, didn’t hatch any of this spawn either. In other news, I pulled out all the Spider Wood from the 55 gallon Angel tank. Rubbed it down, sprayed it down with hydrogen peroxide (BBA) and now it sits to dry out for a couple of weeks. Step 1 of converting the 29 gallon tank to a second blackwater tank has begun! Next week I’ll probably pull the Dwarf Rainbows from the tank. I can easily say that catching fish is my least favorite part of the hobby… it’s SUCH a pain! But it’ll be worth it when it’s done. 55 gallon Angel tank now looks like this: Really no difference as the wood was dwarfed by the plants. Also harvested a batch of BBS tonight: Fresh out of the hatchery. Portioned out and ready to go. Ice tray gets frozen and used throughout the following 8 days 2 rows per day. What’s left in the Tupperware got fed live. Emailed the LFS and for the first time they told me no. Well, they didn’t actually tell me no, what they did tell me is that they just got dumped a bunch of Angels by other customers, so to wait a week and hit them up again. Really hoping they take some Bristlenose; I offered them at a screaming deal just to move hopefully half of them at least. We’ll see when I email then again on Sunday. Cheers, homies. I appreciate you all constantly reading my updates and coming along on the journey! Hope all is well with y’all!

Kribs taught me a valuable lesson early on that it’s difficult to get rid of their giant spawns, and they’re very prolific breeders. They can get out of hand quick! If it was me, I’d do the shrimp. They’re just super easy. Both to breed and to sell. Would be 0 stress when it’s time to move out of the dorms and take it all down. If it absolutely has to be fish, then I’d personally do the Guppies. Just my $0.02.