Lennie

Like tetra 6in1 was reading 0-3 gh while I had 7. And as I said, I dose equilibrium personally. Imagine trusting fully to test strips and adding more and more to reach that 7 I already had. Test strips once read I have 9.3 ph!!!!! I was losing my mind lmao. Thank god I had liquid test kit to check. they also show 0 nitrate on app, meanwhile I can clearly see the pink color in person on the strips. So yea.

I watched the video like Noo! Zoom in to the snails! Damnit! 😞 they are so cute 😄

Sera O nip tabs first, bbs second. Idk what is that all about sera o nip tabs, but every fish, snail, and inverts I have kept so far go nuts whenever I drop it into the tank. Giving me a better feeding frenzy than bbs personally. I see it as a weekly treat of my fish tanks.

If you manage to cull them before they get bigger, the chances would be higher I bet. Juviniles tend to get used to different parameters much better. But I personally see molting issues from anything below 6 gh, so I would not advice anything less than 6 gh tbh. Maybe it is my experience

I've never used API MAster Test Kits as they are not available here. I'm using Sera ones in addition to Tetra 6in1 currently. Used JBL test strips before all the time. In addition to test strips, I use ph, gh and ammonia/ammonium liquid test kits. It is not a set and I got them all intentionally and seperately. Test strips are hard to read, and tend to give more false readings in my experience. After dipping, Do you shake them? Do you keep them still and put on a surface? Do you put them on a towel? You don't shake them at all? how long do you wait exactly to see the net result? You are tend to get lots of different readings in each scenario. A slight water drop touching another reading zone and your reading is not accurate anymore. If I had a chance, I would love to have seperate liquid tests for each value, it is just expensive. On the other hand, API test kit readings does not seem as easy as Sera ones to read as well, from what I've been seing online. It seems really hard to tell the numbers sometimes. To me, gh test was a must because all my water sources have 0 gh and I dose Equilibrium with all water changes. I also like using aquasoil and botanicals, and I have 3 different water sources (well, tap and RO), so I wanna know my ph readings and observe any affect of soil and botanicals on my tanks as well. You may be also dosing co2. Or airating/not airating during water changes and need to know your ph differences. I don't have to explain ammonia/ammonium test I guess. Same goes for nitrite and nitrate. Fish acting funny? Test it. Forgot to plug in a filter? test it. Overfeeding, dead fish, medication effects on bb, and so many more. I think these 3 is a must, but I feel like only ammonia as liquid test kit is enough. Others are good to read from test strips anyway. What I don't understand is, how people decided API Master kit is being the "most accurate" in US as this is what I see most commonly used and everyone claims it being the most accurate.

Yeah, when I saw the video last nite I felt so sad. She had amazing mystery snail tanks and she lost 30 to leeches daily?! I was like, why Lav's snails has not been posting for sooo long. That was why it seems. That's just so sad 😞

Bettas and most gouramis are hit or miss when it comes to keeping them in a community tank. Their character changes a lot. If it is an agressive one, then I would recommend keeping it alone. The only thing comes to my mind is "pest snails"? They may also help with algae and clean up crew perspective! Ramshorns are colorful, maybe she likes the look? They may overpopulate easily if stuff goes wrong or there is lots of food available tho. Gourami would probably harm anything bigger like nerites or mysteries tho, if it is an agressive one. And def no to bottom dwellers. You can see how an agressive gourami can bully them here:

From my experience catappa leaves didn’t make any noticable change along with alder cones. My kh was 20 and I’ve never seen in decreasing really. The only time I saw it starting to decrease was combination of aquasoil, catappa leaf and aldercones, and it dropped to 16, ph remained the same as 8.0. I just use them for their benefits and as a grazing spot for my fish, snails and shrimps. I use 2 around 16cm leaves and around 4 aldercones in my tanks ( 29g & 33g), and it still makes the tanks pretty yellow. I would try not to mess around water parameters, but I would still drop a leaf for the benefits. I find catappa leaves to be one of the best things in the hobby personally. I always keep at least one leaf in my tanks and add another whenever the one in the tanks starts decaying. Not to mention it makes fish feel more comfy rather than being under spotlight all the time

If a single male manage to find the single molted female in the tank, they can dance! 😄 Looks pretty young to be berried! My adult females are close to the size of an adult rummynose

I definitely cannot tell what leeches are these in the video and the pic you have shared but seeing this video reminded me of this topic, so I wanted to share. I would get rid of them personally no matter what.

I think it depends on if they will accept any of these. There is no certain way to say. I would consider blanched zucchini and spinach to that list. Otherwise, in general, I find it hard to quarantine grazers like hillstreams, borneos and ottos due to their needs of grazing stuff that naturally grows in a tank nonstop. I feel like 12 ottos would devour everything in a couple days in a 10g, as they eat diatoms, soft green algae and biofilm. And as far as I know, supplying good amount of biofilm in a tank may take months of running fish tank. Especially ottos are harder to feed, as they are generally starving at the point they end up in home tanks, and harder to make them get used to other food. Would it be high risk to not quarantine natural grazers like otos or hillstreams if they show no visible sign of sickness? What do you think? @Colu

Thanks, I will give this one a try I'm worried it causing any bloating issues this way as they take lots of time to soak water meanwhile fish directly eat it dry. Ever experienced anything like that so far? My L199 is the shyest boy ever. On other tanks, Mystery snails would not easily let anyone else come closer to the cone I bet! 😄 But I'm gonna get one cone and give it a try when it is back to stock on my LFS!

They were all gone after an hour after turning the air diffuser off! I plugged it back now after Colu said it is probably not related. So it is on again Many thanks for the explanations

thanks CJ! Most of my fish are bottom feeders so wormers wouldn't work much for me I bet 😞

It is relieving to know!

Hey everyone, Hope you are doing well! Lately I'm having issues finding frozen food. I've been trying to find an appropriate way to feed freeze dried food (I have daphnia and tubifex on hand), however, whatever I try, a good amount of portion keeps floating and never sinks. All fish I have likes eating either in the middle or on the bottom of the tank. So anything floats that remains untouched and mostly I have to clean the leftovers and it is painful. Things I've tried: - Soaking the cube in a small cup for some time and trying to make sure the worms get soaked as much as I can - Cutting the cube into really small pieces before I soak them in a cup, worked better than whole cube, but still not very well. - Directly feeding it. It was the worst option for me I watched videos and Cory's/Dean's recommendation about pressing the cube on the glass but my fish, especially rummynoses tend to overeat a lot, even frozen food, and they get really discomfortable afterwards. I can imagine overeating freeze dried food from the glass could lead to even a worse scenario as these food are really dry, as the name says it all. What is your way to feeding freeze dried food without them floating on the surface?

Many thanks @Colu Turning the air stone back on again then. It being an air "diffuser" worried me a lil. Thought maybe it gives way too much oxygen and I can't measure it.

I made him move a couple times but no bubbles were gone when he swam away, until the diffuser is off. It looked like they were stuck on the fins instead

Update: Maybe it helps to diagnose, it seems like the bubbles have disappeared after keeping the diffuser off for an hour or so.

Hey there, Hope you guys are doing well. Today, I've noticed some really tiny gas bubbles on one of my fish's fins, and only fins nowhere else on the body or eyes. No other fish seems to have such gas bubbles forming anywhere on them in the tank. I've started using Neo's belowmentioned Air diffuser last friday to increase oxygen content, as the only filter I have in this 33g tank is AC50. I am suspecting this might be the reason of potential high gas dissolvement and causing gas bubble disease potentially? The tank has 0 ammonia/ammonium, 0 nitrite and below 10 nitrate. 6 gh, 16 kh. 8.0 ph. Heavily planted. 25C. No water change since last week or temp change. I've tried taking pics the best I can, but I'm not sure to what extend they look like bubbles in the pics. In real life, they just look like real tiny bubbles you see around in the tank released from the CO2 diffusers. They don't look anything like ich or epystylist, just gas bubbles really, at least to me. The light reflects on them make them look white-ish. Any help is appreciated for potential diagnose and treatment. I've turned the air diffuser off for now just in case. This is the air diffuser I've been using since last friday as a replacement of airstone: http://www.aquario.co.kr/neoDiffuser/indexAir.php Should I stop using it, or just use it during night time maybe? Can it be the reason why I'm having this issue as it has micro bubbles compared to an airstone? Heavy plant content worrys me about oxygen content in the water during night time because the tank is a 50cm cube and does not have a that big surface agitation. So I wanna make sure I have good amount of oxygen in the tank. @Colu, @Odd Duck, some help would be appreciated guys. @knee Have you seen anything similar when you have been using co2 diffuser as airstone? Thanks in advance.

Mystery snails just devour anything they can eat 😄 What I personally do to make sure my nocturnal bottom feeders get food in mystery snail tank is, I make sure mystery snails get food more than once a day so they are not super hungry all the time, and I break the bottom feeder pellets in small pieces and spread it around so snails don't eat everything directly and immediately go for the next piece of food in seconds. They really are fast eaters! I sometimes feed sinking pellets and spread it around in the tank. Feed kuhlis when the lights are off as long as they are not coming out during daytime, cause they are nocturnal. Try to observe if you overfeed by the morning to decide how much you gotta feed. But frankly, I don't think mysterys leave any food from my experience anyway lol

I feed mine to my chickens! But that still makes the maintenance painful, you can't limit their position and numbers easily like other floating plants, and it is more like I am trying to create a positive side of having it, as it is almost impossible to get rid of it anyway 😄 I would get rid of it on day one if I had the chance tho. I let it grow intentionally back in the day. Big mistake 😄

I've never seen mine touching it, I have horned and zebras. Interesting

It is duckweed 😄 If you have other good floating plants, and it seems like u have, I would get rid of it. It makes maintenance time painful and compete other plants for nutritions imo. Enjoy your red root floaters and salvinia instead

New fish are always exciting to have, and surely brings lots of enjoyment to the tanks, but my favs hardly change! Pygmy corys are still my fav for a long time since the moment I have seen them 😄