Rozmere

Cool, if it's only a couple of days I'll be more likely to buy more. Thanks for the reply!

Okay, you have all convinced me, I've ordered an Aquarium Co-Op heater. This is actually my very first order from ACO, I live in Arkansas, does anyone have an idea on how fast the shipping actually is?

I've been wanting to upgrade from that big ugly heater in my 10 gallon to something that isn't super expensive, is safe for my fish/snails, is lower profile, and is reliable. I really like the look of the ACO heater as well as the AQQA, Hygger, and a few other similar ones, but every time I read the reviews on these types of heaters I see the repeating statement, "It boiled my fish". I'm currently not wanting to boil fish so I'm looking for credible information in regards to the quality/safety of the best of these heaters so I don't waste my money on something that will cook my aquatic friends or go off like a mine and destroy my tank as well as my fish/snails and anything else in the area. I know there are always going to be bad apples with any product, I'm just looking for the ones that are "most likely" to be a good reliable heater based on user experience. I wish there was a site that gathered or conducted extensive tests on all aquarium products but as far as I know, there isn't. So I'm looking for advice.

Okay, I'll follow your lead, you have beautiful tanks so you obviously know what you're doing. I just switched the Hygger back onto the tank and programmed it to come on full spectrum and intensity at 12pm and off at 6pm, this will give me the best time to enjoy my fish and plants. However, I'm still not happy with how dim the light is. I'll also be patient with the plants, I was hoping to eventually put more demanding plants in and I would like to have lighting that was as nice as yours but I'll deal with what I have for now and I'll just chill out and wait to see what happens. Where are you seeing the black beard algae and the staghorn, that's concerning. I'm not seeing that in person. I do have some leaf rot and a few strings of green algae that I wiped loose from my HOB return so that the snails could get to it easier to eat, maybe that's what you're seeing? I guess it's obvious that my phone camera is horrible. But I could just be missing what you're seeing, can you point it out? I do have more brown algae than I would like, my snails are doing their best to chew on it so I was sort of playing the waiting game on that, might need to adopt another snail to help them out. Currently, my water parameters are Nitrate: ~25, Nitrite: 0, PH: 7.2, KH: 40 (this won't budge above 40-60 no matter what I do), GH: 140+ (this is actually a bit higher than unusual which is strange because water directly out of my faucet is 0 GH and 0 KH), I might do a small water change tomorrow. I was running my lights for 8 hours but I did try them at 10 hours for two days because I thought the plants weren't getting enough. I went back to 8 hours because I saw an increase in algae. I'll stop stressing over lights and plants for now and just observe. When do you think I should see "something" change?

It generally stays between 75 and 80 degrees F

I'm still trying to figure out the lighting for my standard 10-gallon planted tank and I'm frustrated by the lack of information I can find. But I don't mean that I can't find information about what I need, but rather that the products don't clearly state their specifications. I felt that the regular (non-aquarium) Feit grow light that I've been using (see pictures of box below) was not designed for an aquarium and I wasn't seeing any plant growth so something that was designed for an aquarium seemed like it might work better. After hearing suggestions here and reading things elsewhere I decided that the Hygger 957 - Size: 26W(18"-24") sounded like it might be good. It was only slightly OVER what I could afford without going hungry for the rest of the month so, of course, I bought it. However, once I set it up it was FAR dimmer than the Feit grow light I was already using even at full spectrum and 100% intensity, and unlike the grow light my plants stopped pearling with the Hygger. ☹️ So, fearing for my plants' health and considering that I needed to go on a diet anyway, I removed the Hygger and bought an additional Feit grow light today so that I now have two sitting directly on the glass lid of my tank. But I'm still very unsure if these will get my plants growing. Now, I've heard over and over, "Well pretty much any light will grow your plants." and "You have to be patient and let the plants adapt." but the reason I'm getting discuraged is because I've had all of these plants about a month now and they didn't come off a truck from a seller that grew them outside of water, I picked them up from a near-by(ish) fish store where they've been growing out of control in their tanks for a while; my water parameters are fine; I have them planted in a good plant-supportive substrate; I've dosed the tank with Fluval Grow Plus a handful of times over the last month; there are root tabs in the soil; and some of these plants (like the water wisteria for one example) are known to be fast growers but they haven't even grown as little as an 8th of an inch this entire time. So, the "Any shop-light will do" idea is great to hear but doesn't seem to be working for me for some reason. I've tried to contact Feit a couple of times now to see if they can provide better information about what the PAR of these lights would look like passing through 12" of water, so I can have an idea if this will work, but have yet to hear anything back from them. I guess I'm wanting a little more investigative guidence from those of you who know a considerable amount about lights. All suggestions and questions are welcome. I've provided images of the information on the box for these lights. The Feit website also claims that these are 2400 Lumen, with a 6500 color temperature, and that they have a Lumen Effeciency of 75.0 (whatever that means). I run them at full spectrum (white, blue, red). Note: The picture of my tank was taken after adding the second grow light and right after feeding time so some of the debis on the substrate are flakes that my snails and kuhlies will take care of before morning and some other specks are particles from a Wonder Shell.

I just got this light, I have it on full spectrum and 100% intensity and it is far dimmer than the non-aquarium grow light I was using. I have no way of knowing if it's supposed to be this dim or if I have a defective product. Also, with the previous light my plants would start pearling like crazy after the first hour it was on and with this Hygger they aren't pearling at all. I'm trying to figure out what to do at this point.

THANKS! After reading all your comments and some additional comments online I finally decided that I was going to try a hygger of some sort and I narrowed that down to one that's listed as: "hygger Auto On Off 18-24 Inch LED Aquarium Light Extendable Dimmable 7 Colors Full Spectrum Light Fixture for Freshwater Planted Tank Build in Timer Sunrise Sunset" Which is a RIDICULOUSLY long name for a product! I believe it's also known as a "hygger 957" It's supposed to be here tomorrow and I'll be able to give my first impressions of it. I should state that my current light, the "Feit Electric LED 32W 8" Adjustable Full Spectrum Clamp Grow Light", which I picked up at Walmart, isn't necessarily bad, in fact, it grows algae for my snails and every day, about an hour or more after the light comes on, my plants start pearling like crazy! The problems I have with it are: 1.) It's a round light so it doesn't have adequate coverage at 4-6" above the tank, and 2.) I'm not seeing satisfactory growth from plants that are considered to be "fast growing" varieties. In fact, although they aren't dying by any means, I don't think my water wisteria (for example) have grown even an eighth of an inch in the more than a month that I've had them.

So, money is a BIG factor but I'm looking for a light for my standard 10 gal tank (12" high, 20" long) that will help kick my plant growth into super high gear (along with my ferts, substrate, minerals, etc. obviously). I know there are some great lower cost lights out there (somewhere) but I'm suffering from a case of too little information on every one that I look at. I'm wanting something that's going to have sufficient PAR under 12" of water and a glass lid to make my plants take off like rockets. Right now I have Water Wisteria, Dwarf Sagittaria, and Bacopa which should be growing like crazy considering the other conditions but I have a feeling the light is what's holding them back. I also have Anubias and Java Fern but I'm less concerned with them growing quickly. So any links or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

@xXInkedPhoenixX said I should post an update to my tank, so here is my first one. It's a 10-gal, cycled a few days ago. As of today I have: (plants) 2 Anubias Nana attached to black beach pebbles, 8+ sprigs of Dwarf Sagittaria, 1 bunch of Bacopa (moneywort), 1 Java Fern wedged into central black beach pebbles, 1 Micro Sword in a pot momentarily, and some stems of Wisteria floating closer to light because I wanted to encourage some root growth before planting them. The substrate is Fluval Bio Stratum and I have Fluval Gro + liquid fert which I've only dosed once when i first set up the tank. The light is a Feit Electric LED 32W 8 (a "grow" light i picked up from Walmart claiming to have 2400 lumens, 6500K, and use 32 watts of power) it is about 6-8 inches above the glass lid. I also have plant tabs from Marine World (Hot Springs, Arkansas) below each 6" area of Sagittaria, Bacopa, a,d Java Fern. (Fish) 3 baby long-fin leopard Danios, 1 young Nerite Snail. Suggestions and comments are always welcomed!

Some of you may know me from my recent threads, even though I'm really new here. I just got back into the hobby after 5 years and my 10-gal finished cycling a few days ago. It is far from "matured" yet and I really love Cory's suggestion of "maturing" a tank, but I decided to go ahead and get a few little fish friends to "grow-up" with the maturing tank. I used a new method (for me) of cycling, so I was very surprised that it was done after just a couple of weeks. Anyway, today (even with a very injured right foot) I drove a few hours out of town to "Marine World Tropical Fish" in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and purchased more plants (Java Fern, Wisteria, Micro Sword) as well as 3 baby Long-Fin Leopard Danios, a young Tiger Nerite Snail, and some special plant root tabs. If anyone is wondering about that shop, I'll tell you it is AMAZING! This is the first time I've ever been there but I regret never visiting before! They have everything and all the fish were happy and healthy! Also, if you make a trip there be sure to visit their shop cats, they are extremely cute! Anyway, this is the current state of my first tank after getting back into the hobby. Thank you to everyone for the help and I hope to stay active here! : )

Thanks for the replies! It looks like there is a fairly wide range of ideas here. The most recent report online seems to be from over 2 years ago and no mention of chloramine. Both really. I added Seachem's alkaline buffer the other day to raise the KH to 80 ppm which was inside my target range, but today, according to the tests, for some reason both the GH and KH are right back down to where they've been staying, GH 60-75, KH 40 (ish). The Nitrates have finally started showing a change and read about 10 on both tests, the Nitrite has also finally seemed to show up, on the API it reads at about .5 and on the Tetra it reads about 1.5. The ammonia seems to read between 1 and 2 (?) I find this particular test strip the hardest to decipher but it's all I have to go by at the moment. Yeah, I would like to be able to get an API master test kit but I just can't really afford it right now. I appreciate that and if my tank was fully established with plants and fish I would "somewhat" be the same way, however, right now all I have in there are a few plants which I want to make sure have adequate minerals and nutrients to survive while I'm trying to get through the initial cycle stage. I'm not sure if my sparse sprigs of dwarf sagittaria are just melting back a little or just straight up dying because of the sheer lack of anything in the water other than the initial fluval liquid fert and bio-stratum substrate. The two anubias nana seem to be doing okay but they are a slow-to-grow/slow-to-die plant so it's a bit difficult to detect much with them. So, anyway, right now, there isn't much to observe other than the tests.

Thumbnail: API test of my untreated tap water on March 29, 2023. The water currently in my tank is different. I know it sounds like a strange question, or at least it sounds like a question a beginner might ask and most long-term aquarium keepers should probably have a quick answer based on their experience. However, the reason I'm asking is because I've been out of the aquarium scene for a while and now that I'm getting back into it I've discovered that my municipal water supply has gone through an unfavorable change at some point and it's no longer as easy to create a comfortable environment for my desired fish. Also, I've been testing with two different test strips (API and Tetra) because they are readily available and affordable for me, but receiving "somewhat" different results. I've found myself turned on to newer products that a lot of people say have come a long way in development while I've been gone. For example, Fritz Fishless Fuel and Fritz Zyme 7 for speeding up the cycle, and the Seachem water adjusting products which were around when I was active in the hobby but I never needed before. However, a comment in one of my other threads stated that "hobby-level" water tests (especially the strips) are still highly inaccurate. So that raises the question: how do "YOU" test your water parameters? What do you find most reliable or at least "close-enough" for your peace of mind? As someone who has a very low income and no fish stores for hours around me (virtual aquarium wasteland in this part of the U.S.) I refuse to accept the concept that the hobby is just no longer available to unwealthy people. Since my readings are currently making me scratch my head pretty hard tell me your thoughts and suggestions.

I'm glad to have some people who have similar water conditions to bounce questions off of. Yes, I wanted to get the KH up to between 80-100, I already had a KH of about 40 so I added a carefully measured half tsp and it took it to around 80 or a little over which is within my comfort zone. I'm a bit more at ease now, although I'll be even happier when I get the other minerals in. My dwarf sagittaria seems to be melting a bit, hopefully, the addition of minerals will help. When I can afford it I plan to get some water wisteria as well. I LOVE snails, I particularly love golden apple snails, however, one time one of them made a salad out of a bunch of expensive plants I had bought. I couldn't be mad at him, but wow that was an expensive salad. I guess I shouldn't have left them alone as long as I did XD

Thank you, I will follow that advice. As mentioned I haven't been able to get crushed coral anyway so that isn't a problem and the small bottles of Seachem buffers will last me an eternity with a 10 gallon. I wasn't aware of the epsom salt trick until now (or if I was, I've long forgotten it), I have several local sources for that and I'll keep that in mind! Thank you a million times for your experienced advice, you're awesome!

Yes, I have planted Dwarf Sagittaria and anchored two Anubias Nana to large black river pebbles. The problem with not using a product like Equilibrium is that my water has no minerals or nutrients for plants (or fish) which is I guess evident in the GH and KH levels, some of that is corrected with the substrate, oyster shells (very slowly) and the fertilizer for the plants but I also know (or at least I've come to believe over the years) that the nitrifying bacteria won't do well in such a low KH/low GH environment, so I'm trying to get that fixed so my cycle will actually show some progress. I'm always happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, however.

No, unfortunately, my municipal water supply is very soft. My PH stays at about 6.5-7 no matter what I do but the KH doesn't raise above 40PPM. I do have crushed oyster shells in my bubbler filter, I don't have a nearby source for crushed coral and can't afford to order any right now, I decided to spend my money on the Seachem buffers to try to get this situation locked down as soon as I can. The irritating thing is that I now have two test strip types and they give me somewhat different readings. As of last water change (today) my readings are: On API test strip: Nitrate=0, Nitrite=.5, GH=60, KH=40, PH=6.5 On Tetra test strip: Nitrate=10(ish), Nitrite=.5, GH=75, KH=40, PH=7 I only have an API strip for ammonia and it reads about 3 before the water change (I had already done a few water changes to bring it down from higher levels), and about 1 after today's water change. I tested my water straight from the tap a few more times and the ammonia reads 0 so I'm not sure why my initial reading was around 3, but as previously stated my eyes aren't the greatest and that specific strip seems hard to decipher (as far as I'm concerned). When I can afford it I'll buy Aquarium Co-Op's test strips. I'd love to hear Cory's take on all of this. I say this because I know he has a location that has really soft water too. I might be getting my Seachem Alkaline Buffer sooner than I expected (today in fact) so we'll see if it helps. I won't get my Equilibrium for a while for some reason. I've never had to worry about my water parameters this much in the past and I had happy healthy tanks, so I have no experience with these new products.

After, water changes, getting a different brand of test strips, etc. I've decided I need to turn to Seachem to get this water issue on the lock-down before going any further. Unfortunately, the products I ordered will take over a week to get to me so that puts me ever further behind. I'll be more informative later. thanks for the help so far.

Hey Lennie! I agree with you 100%, isn't it weird that the parimeters changed like that after the water conditioner? I thought so too! I wonder if something is wrong with my test strips, but since they are widely used I assume they are fairly well perfected by now? Maybe my eyes are just crap these days?! :( Anyway, I'll read your comment again once I get home and have a better reply, THANK YOU for helping!

Hopefully, some of you can put your experience to work and help me figure out what to do. I'll start off by giving you some quick background bullet points: I've kept freshwater aquariums/fish for most of my life, I'm 50. I haven't had an aquarium set-up in about 5 years and have decided to get back into it. I have a 10-gallon that I'm trying to get ready for fish, this is currently all I have room for. I live in a very small town without a fish store and I make very little money so I look for the cheapest and easiest solutions. I've never had to worry too much about water parameters in the past but they have appearently changed something with my water supply in the last 5 years. Plans: Plants: Anubias Nana, Dwarf Sagittaria, Water Wisteria Fish: Hoping to have Longfin Leopard Danios, A Chinese Hillstream Loach, and/or maybe Khuli Loaches, and/or some sort of shrimp. My set-up so far: Re-set-up on March 29, 2023 Standard 10-gallon tank with hinged glass lid HOB filter with an aquarium sponge attached to intake (have not modified this filter beyond that yet) Heater (tank tends to stay at around 78F) LED "grow" light mounted about 6-8" above tank (claims to be 2400 lumens, 6500K, and use 32 watts of power) 8.8 lbs. of Fluval Bio-Stratum plant substrate 2 Anubias Nana April 4, 2023 Added: A home-made air-powered submersed bubble filter containing a mixture of ceramic rings and crushed oyster shells (you'll understand why in my tests below), and an air pump (obviously to power the filter) Parameters and chemicals (I'm using API 5-in-1 test strips and API ammonia test strips): Baseline: Water straight from tap (no conditioner): Ammonia=~3, Nitrates=0, Nitrites= 0, GH=0, KH=0, PH=~6 Water from tap (after API water conditioner): Ammonia=0, Nitrates=0, Nitrites=0, GH=0, KH=0, PH=6.5-7 April 5, 2023 Water in aquarium: Ammonia=0, Nitrates=0, Nitrites=0, GH=30, KH=0, PH=7 April 5, 2023 Added: 1ml Fluval Gro+, 40 drops of Fritz Fishless Fuel. Ammonia tested at ~6. Added: 1/2 cup of Fritz Zyme 7 (this is the first time I've ever tried these types of products for fishless cycling) April 6, 2023: Ammonia=3-6(?), Nitrates=0, Nitrites=0, GH=60, KH=0, PH=6.5 April 7, 2023 morning: Ammonia=3-6(?), Nitrates=0, Nitrites=0, GH=60, KH=20-40(?), PH=6.5-7. Night: Ammonia=~4, Nitrates=0, Nitrites=0, GH=120, KH=60, PH=6.5. Now that my KH finally seemed to be rising and out of worry that the low KH may have killed any bacteria I re-dosed 1/2 cup of Fritz Zyme 7. April 8, 2023: Ammonia=3-4(?), Nitrates=0, Nitrites=0, GH=60, KH=40, PH=7 Summary of the problem: So as you can see my GH and especially my KH are very low and this won't do for what I'm wanting in this tank. I added the crushed oyster shells to try to raise these parameters and buffer the PH but as I said I've never had to worry about parameters much in the past so I'm completely lost on if this will work and how long it will take. Also, if I finally get the GH and KH to where I want them are they just going to crash the first time I do a water change? Let me know your thoughts and suggestions, you guys are great!

I've seen this product before, people seem to like it. I'm curious what sets it so far apart from just ammonia. Honestly, I was hoping to find something locally that I could use, which is why I asked about the Alaska Fish Emulsion Plant Food. But, I went ahead and ordered the Fritz. This will unfortunately put me another week behind but considering there is never a consistent timeline for cycling I can't be too bummed about it. Thanks for the suggestion! 🙂

I just got back into aquariums after about 5 years (as stated in my previous post). I'm wanting to get my cycle jump started on a new 10-gallon planted tank but the fish food method does not seem to be doing what is expected so I wanted to use straight ammonia instead but all of the ammonia I can find in my tiny town has extra surfactants and stuff in them. So, I was wondering if anyone knew if I could use the product: "Alaska Fish Emulsion Plant Food, 5-1-1 Fertilizer" to get it started. This is a product used to fertilize regular garden plants and I read something saying that you shouldn't use it in your aquarium because it has ammonia in it (since it's made of fish), but it's the ammonia that I'm needing in this case. Any ideas/suggestions?

Very nice, good work! 🙂

Well, I plan to start with long fin leopard danios, maybe some banded khuli loaches (if I can find them anywhere), not sure beyond that yet, it'll be quite a while before I can afford any other tanks : (

Thank you for the encouraging words. I've had aquariums for most of my 50 years of life but have been out of it for the last 5 so I'm eager to have some fish friends again. 😃