Monkeypoint

I added Amano shrimp to my 15 gallon setup 3 days ago. They've been hanging out in the guppy grass or perching on top of the heater switch. Is this normal? I thought they normally scurry around the bottom of the tank. I've never had shrimp before (other than with cocktail sauce) so I'm not sure what to watch out for.

My Corys keep dying and I have no idea why. I started with 9 (3 from my LFS and 6 from a reputable online vendor). Within days, most of them died. I drip-acclimated them. My tank is fully cycled with 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, nitrates between 10 - 30, PH consistently at 7.8, temp always at 78.3 at the lowest and 78.5 at the highest. It's a 55 gallon tank with 6 angelfish, 5 SAE, 2 Mollies, and 2 Plecos. The angels never bothered the corys. I have no idea what's going on. I had Otos and they didn't make it either. I love corys but I until I figure out why they keep dying, I'll have to stare longingly at your images and videos. Also, any advice would be very much appreciated!

Interesting. I'm using Thrive All-In-One liquid. Normal dosage adds 7ppm (3%) N. I'm just testing regularly for nitrates and doing 30% water changes when they hit 40ppm. I have a lot of plants.

Awesome, thanks! I'd hate to have to toss the entire jug out. It was pricey.

I bought a jug of the stuff before I stumbled across A-C, so I'd rather use it up before switching to Easy Green. It contains Cu 0.009% copper. Is it safe for snails & shrimp? It looks like Easy Green All in One has zero copper.

Thanks for sharing that. Great to know and it sounds like you live in a beautiful area.

Nothing beats the smell of freshly boiled rocks!

I found 4 beautiful rocks. One looks a lot like a perfectly shaped potato. They're boiling now. I have one old pot that the dedicated boiling pot of aquarium items and for making homemade dog food. I weighed the lid down with 2 25 lb sandbags.

Heading out in a few to look for rocks! There are some really gorgeous ones in the park near my house. I am going to boil them, but I'll be very careful. I'm going to put one of my light stand sandbags on top of the lid, just in case there's a boom.

Thank you! This is great advice. I can’t hear the word igneous rocks without thinking of What’s Up Doc and how hilarious Madeline Kahn was in that film. And Babs was outstanding as well - one of her best roles. Tomorrow, my quest for rocks begins! I did read about the vinegar fizz test so I’ll be sure to check them out before disinfecting. I love that you can share this with your grandson and that each rock is attached to a memory.

In resetting my 10 gallon tank, I'm considering looking for rocks locally (as in, from a nearby creek a few blocks from my house). Is this too risky, even if the rocks are boiled? Can pathogens or bacteria still exist? Is it simply not worth the risk? I know certain types of rocks can alter PH and water hardness. I'm planning on keeping the Fluval Stratum that's currently in the tank and adding Eco Complete on top of that. The Stratum has brought the PH in my tank down to 6.6 (PH in my 55 gallon is always at a steady 7.8).

Theoretically! But, yeah - now that I've had the Ah Ha! moment, I can let the aesthetic sensibility part of my brain get to work. I also wish I had done more research before setting up the tank so I wouldn't be dealing with an algae problem. The good news is the tank is fully cycled. The bad news is there's a lot of diatom type algae, which I'm not sure what to do about. I'll be removing all the plants, rocks, driftwood, equipment, but wouldn't algae spores still be present in the filter media? I'm also going to scale way back on the light intensity and hours of light. I got a Fluval 3.0 and watched setup tutorial so that all makes a lot more sense to me. But I love the idea of keeping a journal on this, starting with some detailed before images.

Patrick_G, Gorgeous tank and it's giving me ideas about how to rearrange things to better hide some of the clutter. Re: photography and aquariums: photography is a visual medium (the word literally means painting with light), so when I watched some of Cory's videos about maintaining a balanced, healthy ecosystem, the part that light plays in the aesthetics of the tank resonated with me. I'm always yammering at my students to be mindful of light - not necessarily the quantity of light, rather the quality of it. Light and composition - avoiding visual noise, clutter, distracting elements. So, then I look at my tanks and think, do as I say, not as I do.

We're neighbors!

Okay, so here's the current setup of both the 55 gallon and the 10 gallon. A bit of a hot mess, but I'm going to completely redo the 10g, hopefully this weekend. I'm going to put up a background on the 55g to hide some of the hardware and I need some sort of curtain or cloth to drape along the front. I kind of like seeing the canister filter, but all of those cords are an eyesore. Am I the only weirdo who likes duckweed? Or is the world a dichotomy of People Who Hate Duckweed and People Who Don't Hate Duckweed Yet? I added 6 Otos and 3 Panda Corys. I'm going to add another 3 Corys and a Pleco. I already have a variety of bottom feeder food for them. I have 6 juvenile Angelfish, which may be too many once they get bigger.

I'm a documentary photographer and educator from the Washington, DC area. I've kept freshwater aquariums for most of my adult life. I've been adulting for a long time, but I recently discovered I've pretty much been clueless about maintaining freshwater aquariums. I equate my fundamental understanding of this closed system aquatic microcosm with the hobbyist photographer who's been snapping pictures for decades without understanding the basic grammar of photography: they've stuck to a few automatic camera settings and have had some successes. But it's mostly art by accident. Since the pandemic, I've learned a lot, but I'm still a newbie. I stumbled upon Aquarium Co-Op and got hooked on the videos. I think I've probably learned more over the past couple of months than I have over the past 3.5 decades. I recently set up a new 10 gallon planted tank. I did this before watching the aquascaping videos. That was dumb. I'd include a picture of it, but it's too embarrassing. I'm going to rip it all apart, start from scratch, and then post a picture. Or maybe I'll do a before/after. I also have a 55 g aquarium that I set up 21 years ago when I bought my house. Someday I'll tear it down and rebuild it, or replace it with a frameless tank. I love the clean lines. But that'll be some time in the future after squirreling away a lot of ca-ching.