madcracked

I know bubbles can be a sign of some medicens in tank but I haven't put anything in.all parameters seem to be normal. Wondering if this is a fish bubble nest?. Congo tetras, opaline guramis, neon tetras, hillstream loaches, yellow rainbowfish ramshorn snails, cory doras, otocinlous. Non that I'm aware of that do this. Any thoughts

Just looking to start a conversation on peoples setups and opinions about sump vs HOB, sponge and canisters. Personally I have used all but sponge. Love my wisper ex70 got it from Amazon for only 35bucks has very high amount of surface area for biological filtration and alot of flow for the cost. A larger tank that has both a sunsun canister filter for fine filter polish as well as a 30g tank for a sump. Always made my own overflows from pvc because I love having the top oil scum be churned into the filter media. My other pros for a sump are that my tank looks cleaner without a heater in the back to be seen and my water level always stays above the bottom lip of the tank top support. Not sure if that last one bothers anyone else but seeing the top of the water line just drives me absolutely insane. So no daily water top ups since the sump level is what will change not the tank level. By will pay someone a million if they can get a protein skimmer to work with freshwater systems lol. Did a shared water setup once with a few 55g that was fun. Used a common sump to split water from one tank that had a lonely Oscar and another that was a community. Someone give me their weird setup that shouldn't have worked but does.

I would keep nitrates to a minimum until you have no amonia or nitrite and the plants are fully established. Your plants are just starting out. The leaves dying are normal. They will melt back and the leaves dying will add to the avail nitrates in the tank.

To make sure we have all the info how long ago did you add the root tabs. I wouldn't want any amonia or nitrites. To me sounds like either you have something leeching from the root tabs and hasn't been broken down yet or your tank isn't cycled or seasoned yet. My situation may be different from yours since my tank isn't stocked heavy and have alot of ways for my tank to remove waste and is heavily planted.

Yes definitely meant 100g as ten pumps worth. Finally got some results last night after adding 100g dose in the morning and then another 150g dose. Test late last night and got 10ppm. In total this week my tank has been treated with around 500gal worth. I think fish folk has it right. My substrate which is very think and a type that can trap nutrients is to blame. I may have to have saturated my substrate before seeing result will test every few days and see how it drops

Yes I do know red plants are slower in growing and most prefer low nitrates. As far as I know many people have said to get them to be deep red low nitrates are best if not zero. But if you see they are shooting out roots along their stems. I guess what I'm really trying to say I would feel alot better knowing that there are at least some nitrates available to the plants instead of each plant fighting for any that may be available.

Haven't done a direct test of control from tap water to tank water but did do a test with tank water after girst day of treatment and then another with the easy green in just the tube as an additive to see if I got a boost in levels. Still good idea to eliminate variables. And no I'm not treating water other than declorinator. Storage of the easy green is out of sunlight in a controlled room and I've made it a habit to always shake all my test bottles before running tests. Will post update about LFS results later.

Hello I'm having no problems with my tank except my scarlet temple isn't growing like I want it to. I have a 70g tank with a 30g sump used really only for equipment and extra water capacity. I have full spectrum lights on my tank set to about 50% intensity. Substrate is eco complete black which is on avg 4 inchs deep. Stocking is moderately light at the moment besides the sump I do have a canister filter which is left alone and hasn't been cleaned for 4 month+. Like cory I belive heavily let nature do its thing. Ph is very stable @7.4 no amonia no nitrites. Haven't tested gh or kh recently but do have 1.5lbs of crushed coral as my buffer. So with all that said. For the past 2 months I have had 0ppm nitrates. I stopped water changes and have been dosing easy green very heavily this past week. Started with a 100g dosed then tested with no change then did a 150g dosed then got 5ppm waited 2 days and tested to find 2.5ish ppm not avail. Dosed another 100g no change waited 2 hour then dosed another 100g. I'm starting to suspect either my easy green is bad or my api master kit is. The ease green is only 2 months old and the master kit doesn't expire till 2028. I suspect this because I had put a few drops of easy green in my test viles and did not see a significant test change. Any thoughts. Was going to have my water tested at a local shop and see what they come up with.