theotheragentm

In my office, I have a 20 gallon long (see photo) and an empty 5 gallon. I was considering putting a pea puffer into this 5 gallon, but I had a few questions for those of you that have kept them. This is an office tank, meaning I'm gone on weekends, potentially up to 4 days off without food because no one will be in the office. Anything longer than that, and I have someone in the office that can fill in for me. Any issues with this particular fish and skipping meal days? The 20L has pond snails in it. Can I feed the puffer on that alone? I plan to use Vibra Bites to supplement if necessary. Should I move snails a few at a time as to eliminate the chance the puffer would massacre and not eat the snails, leading to ammonia problems? How many would you move over at a time? What kind of cover do they like? I have a clump of Subwassertang that would cover the bottom of the tank about 3/4" deep. Would that do well in this tank? My concern would be the snail being able to find snails in the clump or losing them after biting into them. My other options would likely be crypts. What kind of flow do pea puffers like? This tank has a false back with a tiny circulator, but I can always just use a sponge filter instead. Any other thoughts/tips?

Thanks, @Irene! I have pond snails I'm working with so I'm going to give it a go next week. That's a bit harder to figure out whether I missed small snails or eggs. Any guesses as to how often would you think I could do a 4-hour exposure time? Every 3 days, assuming I changed out the water completely after the dosing?

I might do a trial run with a small portion and see.

I saw this, but my concern was Subwassertang, which I don't think is necessarily hardier than Val. I was hoping someone had done some tests specifically on Subwassertang.

I have a softball-sized clump of Subwassertang that I want to treat for snails and other pests. I wasn't sure if it would melt back under certain treatments like H2O2. Has anyone treated Subwassertang for snails? Thanks!

Not sure if this is off topic, but this would make a great design tool if it ends up being fairly comprehensive with the fish/plants available. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1339000/Aquarium_Designer/

@Cory mentioned freezing brine shrimp in his last live stream. Was that freezing eggs to keep them fresh for later hatching or freezing hatched brine shrimp to keep them as a cubed food that retains most of the nutrition? I would assume the latter, but I was not sure.

I would definitely love a betta if I thought it wouldn't run through most of my shrimp population. I was afraid CPDs would be hidden most of the time.

I have an office tank (see photo). It's a 20L with a Dwarf Sag carpet, a bunch of crypts, lucky bamboo growing out the back, and a dwarf lily. The current inhabitants are a colony of cherry shrimp, a single amano shrimp, about a dozen ember tetras, and pond snails. Recently I've been wanting a different color of fish as the shrimp are already red. Does anyone have any suggestions with the following considerations? My water change schedule is about 12% weekly because the bioload is so small. It's very ideal for me since it's an office tank, so I'd like to keep it that way. The back of the tank is open to allow the bamboo to stick out, so while all fish jump, no prolific jumpers. I don't wait the fish to eat my shrimp. My water is hard here in Southern California, coming out at 8.0 from the tap. I've found most fish adjust okay. I'm not running the tank very warm, currently 72F, but that can be raised, or the heater can be removed if we need to run it cold. I know the shrimp will do fine. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

In tank. I plugged in the heater Monday morning, and it was reading 64F. I'm guessing at the 72F starting point, but based on the weather and office temperature it's approximately right.

I have an office tank with shrimp and 9 ember tetras. It believe it to be heavily planted for this bioload, Dwarf Sag carpet, random crypts, and a dwarf aquarium lily. I feed it during work days, feeding a little heavier on Fridays since I won't be around during the weekend. When I came in on Monday this week, the tank was a little cloudy-white, which I chalked up to a bacterial bloom, but nothing had really changed in my schedule. All the fish are accounted for, and no shrimp corpses seem to be laying around. I'm not overly concerned, more curious. It's Tuesday now, and it appears to be clear again. Right now I'm assuming I didn't over feed and didn't lose a bunch of shrimp all at once. There is one thing I think might be a factor here. I didn't have the heater on in this tank. This past weekend, the temperature dropped a lot in Southern California for a couple days, so the tank probably dropped from 72F to 64F through the weekend. Would this have any effect on the bacteria? I lean towards no because the temperature swing isn't that large, but I was curious if anyone else experienced something like this or had any insight.

This idea came to mind, because every month or so when a certain rock in my tank gets too green for my tastes, I pull it and leave it in the sun for half a day. Obviously that would not work for plants as it would kill them, but it sounds like you are suggesting that drying a plant out for a half hour a few times a day may not provide an environment to kill algae. Thanks for the response. I may still experiment with this in the future to satiate my own curiosity.

In hydroponics, I know they do flood and drain systems. I was curious if anyone has tried this with an aquarium. It would likely be a drain and flood system, since you would want it flooded more often than drained. You would also have to make sure your livestock (if any) and plants would be able to handle the time out of water. I would imagine no more than thirty minutes out in the air at a time. This is probably something most feasible with smaller tanks, pumping the water level down, and then having it drip back into the tank over 20 minutes or so, I'm curious how this would affect algae and general plant growth as it would be exposed to more CO2 in the air than underwater. Thoughts?

Thanks for the reply. My water is 8.0 out of the tap, so it's probably not going to leech much it sounds like from your research. I may end up coating anyway. Tossing the idea back and forth in my head right now. This will likely be a winter project for me anyway. What do you have in your pond that goes through the winter up there? I'm in Southern CA by the beach, so if it overwinters for you, it'll definitely work for me.

Does anyone have experience using a galvanized container for a pond without a liner or would I need to epoxy coat it? If epoxy is necessary, is there a link to the product and a tutorial on application? I would use soap and water to wash it out initially to make sure I removed any oils whether or not I put an epoxy layer over it.