Tony s

for the quarantine method of using med trio, you're using only a partial dosage, not the full dose. so really shouldn't be harmful at all. but I'm not a proponent of using meds at a less than prescription dosage. so, I'd just quarantine them normally and keep an eye out for problems. treat only if needed, full strength. I run a USDA licensed medicated feed mill. Using meds under strength is a big no no. it can lead to antibiotic resistance in most pathogens. including pathogenic parasites

one near the plant center of each plant should be enough for now. until it gets more established. i just planted my first microsword 2 weeks ago in gravel. most of it is now floating. be extra careful getting it in. haven't done rotala yet. but i believe it's mostly a water column feeder and may not need or benefit from tabs

nitrite cycles about a week behind ammonia. nitrates begin to cycle about a week after that. different strains of bacteria. so, you're right on track now it is possible to get a faulty bottle of bacteria. I had one shipped and somewhere along the line it has to have gotten frozen, it never did work. to be honest, mine was a bottle of fritz7, shipped by amazon

neos would like slightly higher gh, rasboras will be fine as well. if you have a hob, you can use cuttlebone made for birds to raise it. remove the metal clip and put it in the hob where it wont float. between the plastic and cartridge if its built that way. replace when it dissolves away.

yeah, mine always do 15 gh and 12 kh. have stopped using strips for that. they seem to be less accurate. have went to kh and gh tests from Sera not a problem for most fish, anyway. jw carlson keeps his discus and rams in his tap water which is harder yet

Hence gh should be the higher one

My thoughts on this is that kh is a function of gh. Gh contains magnesium sulfate and calcium carbonate. Kh is only a measure of calcium carbonate. It is actually possible to be missing the magnesium. But either way it’s not really a problem.

Seems backwards. Gh is usually higher than kh

can add skunk corys and peppered corys (paleatus) to that list. platys love this water all rainbow fish (not sure about the psuedomugils) gourami's both dwarf and honey. black and white skirt tetras. danios and rasboras of all kinds and so far, bolivian rams well... they're still here so far, need a bit more history on them

without kids it's kind of hard to drag yourself back to these places. even if we love them. Fortunately, I have an 8 yr old daughter we adopted. So we go to zoos whenever we can. between gymnastic meets and dance contests. That's why 5 memberships. doesn't cost much to go anymore.

They still have. With their manatee rescue. One of our 5 memberships. Takes us 3.5 hours to get there. Newport is nice. Been meaning to get back

They sell it by the bottle. Dr Tim’s. Fritzyme7. Seachem stability. Even petsmart/petco have their own brand. The first 3 work best

Looking again at your test strips. What you really need is the gh to be higher. @Guppysnail has a method for using cuttlebone in a hob that works perfectly for your water The rest of the parameters look very good

Ooh, I see a problem right off. I believe severums will eat anything green in their tank. That’s why most tanks you see severums in are sand, rock, and wood only. Been looking at this a while cause I really want one. Also, what type of substrate. Coarse sand or fine gravel won’t necessarily hold onto the roots. I had Monte Carlo in gravel, it let go and became a floater. Currently my micro sword is having the same issue.

You’re very welcome but… now I’m really confused as to what I should/could be doing. I thought I had my situation figured out. But maybe I’m causing myself more trouble than it’s worth?

Sometimes feeding bottom dwellers can be a bit of an art. You want to feed daily, but don’t want food rotting on the bottom. I usually give one wafer to each tank that has corys daily. Your other fish could clean up after the corys. Mine do. Most regular people think there’s enough food from what falls down after your other fish. Unfortunately, that’s usually not the case

Salt doesn’t evaporate, so topping off should be regular water. Water changes can be done, but salt needs to be added to the correct amounts In only the water you put back in. Adding some more good bacteria as well could help. Depends on whether you have any metals in your well. I usually do not use it with my well. If you’re still seeing ammonia or nitrite , I’d do about 50%, then use prime to detoxify the rest of it.

I would have thought so too. But everyone says no. But…. What does everyone know 🤣 we finally gave up with it. May have been the insane iron causing our issue. Even with the softener, things turned red from the iron bacteria. We eventually added a hydrogen peroxide system as well. To eliminate it. Also eliminates the cycle. We have our RO system plumbed into the refrigerator and drinking water. It has 3 pressurized tanks that give me around 20 gallons in 10 minutes.

Have never seen anything try to eat it before, but goldfish gonna be goldfish. usually makes a good hiding place for small fish and fry. Looks a bit unkempt, but I like the look.

Hornwort will very quickly use up all available nitrogen from a low nitrogen tank. It can actually starve and melt away. Which is not good as its leaves will shed like dried Christmas tree needles and get everywhere.

They would be great at 20. They should even slow down the rate at which you need to do changes. As long as they have a constant source of food. They are strictly water column feeders, so depend on having the nitrates The roots are mainly used as a holdfast for grabbing onto objects they have been glued to. They can even be grown as floaters, but they lose their normal structure that way. And grow In every direction at once

For a faster plant, you could try floating some hornwort. It may grow faster than they eat it. Or even duckweed at the surface. As long as you leave open ares for gas exchange. Duckweed would provide a food source as well.

They can be glued directly onto any object in your tank, so no substrate required. They will need a minimum amount of nitrate, usually around 10 will work as they are very slow growers. Other micros will come from the new minerals at water changes. Unless you’re going to use RO. Then you would need to reminerize it. You could use some of the very tall types and create sort of an Anubias forest as it were. Would look very cool glued to a large piece of driftwood.

You could do the colony raising, but that depends on the amount of cover the eggs will have. Species only should work, but not mixed species. Corys favorite foods include eggs, even their own. So if you’re not having luck, you’ll need to start collecting the eggs as soon as you see them. You could also use an egg tumbler on low to increase the survival of the eggs. That’s for sale on coop’s website

@Mikon77 yeah, mixing will work fine. And give greater options. It’s personal choice at this point. Not entirely necessary, but easily doable as long as you’re consistent. The thing to be careful with. Gh and kh don’t evaporate. So just tank top offs should be from Ro only water. Or both will rise quickly. A problem I was having. I used reminerized Ro to top off and pushed my gh very high. Still didn’t cause an issue though. Which goes back to the original question. And no, you don’t really need ro. Higher gh/kh isn’t really going to be an issue. Even for angels. You’d be surprised. I have tanks on end tables, kitchen counters, dressers. As long as they’re well built. A 20 with everything weighs about 200lb. A 10 is even easier. Around 100lbs