Tony s

Completely off topic. We have a relatively young holland lop whose teeth line up perfectly bottom directly under tops. Perfect smile! Unfortunately, they’re not supposed to. Almost got a dq at country fair. Anything we could do for him. He’s such a sweetheart. When put on the bed for attention, he flops down and spreads out for attention 😂 sorry for a bit of a hijack @Gannon

@Lennie I wondering now, if switching to a higher plant based wafer would work. Something like northfins algae wafer or veggie flakes. The primary ingredient in Hikari being fish meal.

You may be correct. I have had tons of mystery snails and just a few nerites. Nerites always seemed more fragile for some reason. Possibly the fact they were running out of food. Not as much algae. I know all my mysteries eat everything. Including high protein fish remains. They have been known to find the algae wafers before Cory’s.

As long as it’s pure calcium carbonate and doesn’t have any additives, it should be just fine. There are several other sources of calcium carbonate, including wonder shell, crushed eggshells, cuttlebones, aragonite, crushed oystershell, and even chicken grit. They all do basically the same thing. Assuming there are no additives. Dissolve in water and raise your gh, kh, ph. This is a new one for me, but really shouldn’t be a problem. Again, assuming that there isn’t anything else in it. Yeah, a lot of this is an incorrect assumption that all aquarium water has to be soft water. At the very least, it makes for an interesting test run. Just watch your parameters and be prepared if it doesn’t work as we’re thinking. and have a backup plan

Could be, sitting right at the top where you would notice it most

Do you have a way to test for ammonia? either drops or strips would work. Petsmart/petco would have these. if not

smells like fertilizer kind of has me baffled, honestly. Have you done a large water change recently? sometimes municipal sources will surge a lot of chlorine through at one time

no. That's just fine. it's a bacterial bloom. not a big deal. How long has the tank been running? What did you use to cycle it . Is it confirmed cycle? no ammonia no nitrites? Blue green slime is mostly on the parts of your tank with low turnover and low oxygen. Usually not on a recent tank. The stuff coming off the wood is completely normal for all new driftwood. It's not harmless. In fact, fish and snails will both eat it

Not normal. Do you see any brown sludgy looking algae or film coating stuff? If so, grab a finger full of it and smell that. If it's horrible, it's very likely blue green algae. which is a bacteria. Several people in the last week have had it, including me.

Not going to be a problem. Corys won’t care. They just might not school together. Albino aeneus will school together. Same fish. Different colors.

You don’t really, it’s just luck. I usually have 4bettas around most of the time. And have only had 2 I couldn’t trust with anything else. Most of my bettas are in community tanks. Most are not aggressive towards non bettas. But some are. A.H. Could work. The is a higher end betta shop in dekalb Illinois. She has stunning bettas. You could google it.

Sorry to hear about that 😪 he was a cute. Especially the way he’d take the brine shrimp. the room looks fantastic! You’ll have a lot of fun in there. Lot of work too, but it all goes together

Some bettas are born with a screw loose. Not all. Honestly, I’d leave him in there by himself. He won’t care. If you have a 10 gallon, you could try another betta in there, or try a honey gourami instead If you have success with a new one in your 10g, you could mix in some tank mates. Green neon tetras or harlequin rasboras. Or do those with the gourami

Got to explore every avenue 😁

Needs professional help? @mountaintoppufferkeeper

@procyg This was my first thought. I had 6 skunks that used to hide a lot in my 75g. I doubled it and they were everywhere. Other thoughts 1)columbians would be good. 2) just one angelfish for color 3) outside the box... a school of 8-10 rasbora borapatensis one of the tightest schoolers there are. 8-10 would occupy a whole 5 gallon section of the tank at any given time.

Yeah, I get that. But if there is actually a center steel brace, the size of each "hole" between braces is 30" x 24". not much room for deflection at all. Alternative scenario, I'd just ditch the wire and use 3/4" plywood. Is not any reason to do both materials.

Well, ideal for South American anyway. Guppies and snails would be different and require higher gh as well

Short answer to that is it depends. Most fish are very adaptable to ph. Most of the country has high ph. We still keep fish just fine. Fry may fall apart under higher gh and kh, but adults are usually just fine. Some examples of more sensitive fish- discus, apistos, german rams, some dwarf species as well. Most things are going to be fine. Just looking at your test strip above. It looks like your gh is zero (blue)and your kh (green) is 80-120 which is more than enough to keep your ph stable. And explains the higher ph. so you end up with very soft water with a good buffer. Honestly, that’s pretty ideal

That’s completely up to you, of course. The fish can be crowded into the 2 tanks for a small bit with no harm. But, I think I might just as well get all 3 tanks going. Just to save time and work later. I’d for sure do a big water change on the 29g to eliminate any potential problems. And possibly use some prime to detox whatever is left. Fish in cycle is not a lot harder than fish less as long as you keep an eye on the ammonia and nitrites. Nitrates are much less toxic, so a bit of a buildup is not going to be an issue. Don’t worry about your ph, most of the country has the same. Most Fish easily adapt.

Honestly, this may not be necessary. Those wire support shelves are usually tough and don’t really bow any at all. Especially if you’re going to have a hard center support as shown. We use a different brand than u-line for supporting industrial 1 ton pallets. The goal ,for us because of the weight, is to stack as close to the edges as possible. But with small weight tanks and extra support in the middle, the wire is more than sufficient. Most people are usually thinking of the wooden shelves or the cheap shelves that come with standard rack. Wire is completely different

Huh, never thought of it that way. Most people are trying to keep soft water fish in harder water. Which is doable. But if you’re trying to keep rift lake fish in soft water… I’m guessing that’s a serious issue. Well, I suppose live bearers and snails as well. For that matter Chasing water also depends upon the number of tanks. With 300 gallons of water in boxes, it can take all week to remineralize enough ro

If the test strip shown is from your tap. You’re in excellent shape for rummies. The hardness really shouldn’t fluctuate , if it’s from the tap. Rummies come from a soft water environment. Although they can be raised in harder conditions as well. Most fish will adapt to various levels of hardness. Consistency is the key. and nothing in the treatment plan is going to alter those numbers

If you’re wondering what you have. In general, east Texas has soft water. North and west have hard water

First question is what are those values coming out of your tap water. It’s fine if you don’t know exactly. It’s really best practice to stay relatively close to what you have. If you’re going to change those values, it’s highly doable. But it requires an extra layer of work and consistency. it also depends on what you want to do with your fish. If you want to breed, a lot of fish fry are sensitive to water hardness. And some species require softer water. Discus, German rams, apistogramma. They all really require soft water. Things like live bearers and snails require harder water. But in general most fish can live in most water. As long as it’s consistent for what you want to keep, they all do very well from soft water all the way to liquid rock