Myrium

Turns out Wonder Shell is for GH, and Crushed Coral is for KH. Time to buy some crushed coral! Details in this thread:

I have the same "problem." If your nitrates stay low all the time from greedy plants, how often do you do routine water changes? This is assuming minimal evaporation losses due to glass lid, and no obvious emergency situations like an ammonia spike from a bacterial bloom or something.

That's quite reassuring that it's more likely to be snail poo than worms. Regarding KH, I had the same concern, which is why I tried the Wonder Shell (and removed it a few hours later when the mysteries changed their behavior so dramatically). I thought WS and Crushed Coral served similar purposes? Do you know if either WS or CC can be overdosed? E.g. GH goes too high while trying to bring up KH? Is CC "safer" in this case? (Moderate GH, low KH to start.) Would you say to try WS again, or just forget it and go with CC already? I will keep reading on iron fertilizer vs. invertebrates. I know copper is bad news for them, which is why I was hesitating with another metal. Thank you for your reply. Back to Google for me!

So I added the first fauna: 3 male guppies and 2 mystery snails to start stocking this newly cycled, low tech, planted tank last week. Used a modified quarantine med trio on whole tank because it’s only 10 gallons and they’re the first fauna: PraziPro, Ich-X, and Maracyn. (LFS doesn’t stock Paraclense.) Noticed 4 or 5 tiny ramshorn snail hatchlings at this time. At least, I think they’re ramshorns… Concern 1: At least one seems to have some kind of worm a week AFTER PraziPro treatment? Snail in pic is about 1cm in diameter and no more than 10 - 14 days old. Last pic might be a sibling, included just to help with species ID. Is white worm looking thing a worm or snail innards? If worm, will another dose of PraziPro next week take it out or do I need a different med or strategy? Goal is for non transparent lifeforms in tank to be worm free. Especially with incoming guppies and Neocaridina (next week, probably 3 of each). or is this just a nice view of snail guts and I can ignore? Snail is active and feeding as far as I can tell. If parasite, should I treat or euthanize snail given new tanks mates inbound? I don’t have a quarantine tank. Concern 2 Originally GH was 80ppm and KH less than 40 (but more than 0) according to ACO strips Because this will be a guppy/snail/shrimp tank, thought I would increase KH and hardness a touch and put in 1 small Wonder Shell in corner near sponge filter. By that that evening (16 hrs later) fish & ramshorns seemed okay behaviorally, but both mystery snails were shut tightly in their shells and one was floating (Very unusual behavior for both, one of whom can’t sit still and is always exploring/eating.) Was concerned, so removed wonder shell, did 50% water change, vacuuming up residual bits of Wonder Shell. Mystery snails came out of hiding as soon as water was diluted with treated tap water. As in, I still had more than an inch or two to go before tank was full and they both were peaking out and exploring again. GH tested >301 right before change, and is hanging out between 150 & 300 after. KH went to 40 and stayed there. All creatures seem okay, but I’m surprised the Wonder Shell did that. What happened? The parameters below are about 48 hours after water change. Tank details: new tank (about 1 month old) planted (low tech, root tabs + easy green, sand) plants are actively growing 10 gallons sponge filter (sized for 20gallon) some brown algae on glass/rocks (not sure if enough for snails as sole food source… going to try community repashy unless forum things otherwise?) Water Details: Ammonia/nitrites = 0 nitrates won't go over 5ppm (plants too greedy… 3 more guppies and some Neocaridina to be added soon will help I hope) pH no idea. API master kit says 7.8, ACO strips say 6.8, JNW strips say 7.2???? GH 150-300 ppm (ACO strips) KH 40ppm (ACO strips) temperature 74deg F Comment Holy cow guppies are beggars! Everyone acts like I don’t feed them once a day. How do you know if guppies and/or snails are genuinely underfed? Currently giving bug bite flakes once a day but soon will offer community repashy on a stick (project for tomorrow). Tank can process ammonia into nitrates at current level but want to ramp up bioload slowly to final capacity: 6-7 male fancy guppies, 2 mystery snails, a handful of ramshorn snails, and a hoarde or Neocaridina shrimp. Last questions. I bought Easy Iron for the plants… I thought it was okay for guppies, snails, shrimp at 1, maybe 2 doses a week? Haven’t used it yet. Should be okay?? Finally, if nitrates never get above 20ppm, how often to do 10-20% water changes? Tank doesn’t really evaporate much at all because glass lid. Thoughts?

(Tried to just post the link, but was flagged as spam.) This guide from the Shrimp Farm website is handy.

@Ryan1988 A quick test you can do to see if the strips are working is to dilute some household ammonia into a glass (i.e., NOT your aquarium) and dip a new test strip in that. If you get a color change, you know the strips are working. If you want to be fancy, you can dilute the ammonia precisely to a known concentration (by doing 1 part ammonia and ___ parts water) and check if the strip turns to the correct color, but that's overkill.

My beloved cat's obsession with random bubbles in my room humidifier has led me on an odyssey/new obsession to build a fancy guppy bachelor pad/tiny shrimp aquarium for her terrorize... er... watch VERY CLOSELY. May need to start a separate thread on the availability/construction of cat-proof aquarium lids. Current plan is to (continue to) cycle the tank with plants only. When ammonia/nitrites go to zero, I'll add a trio of guppies (male), and build the bio-load slowly from there, as the tank chemistry will support. The final tank (10 gallon) will be 6-8 guppies (bachelors), a colony of neocaridina shrimp, and maybe a rabbit snail or two?? Question I have not been able to answer: At what NITRITE (NO2-) level do I need to do a water change to protect the health of the PLANTS? There is NO ANIMAL LIFE in this aquarium (yet). I have resisted water changes thus far because the total ammonia levels (API master test kit) barely reached 0.5 ppm today (this is the max so far... usually closer to 0.25ppm, steady) and I am seeing nitrates being produced. Nitrates finally reached 20 ppm this morning, after being stuck at 5ppm for a few days. (There are no nitrates in the tap water, and I haven't added any water since set up.) My concern is that the nitrites spiked to 2 ppm this morning. According to: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/fish-tank-cycling ("Cycling with Plants" section) you're cycled when you see new plant growth. The cycling is NOT done in my case, because although I do have plant growth, I also have high levels of nitrites (and some ammonia). I don't want high nitrite levels to hurt the plants. Although they are growing, they seem to be quite fragile yet: shipping from the Etsy Seller's place was TOUGH on them, even though the weather was mild. (I won't be doing that again!) I don't want to reduce the nitrates if I don't have to for the sake of the plants. The ammonia/nitrates (and root tabs) are all the plants have to eat until the Easy Green gets here (delayed until Monday 😢). Current plant status: The lace leaf water sprites are growing fast enough to watch in real time (almost). All the leaves they arrived with are dead/dying, but they're putting out new shoots like kudzu... I might have a monster in a few weeks. The leaves of the lemon bacopa turned from sickly yellow to either brown mush or green, and I am seeing new growth including baby leaves and a root that has embarked on an ambitious 2 inch journey to find the sand. The rest of the stem's roots are buried; he's just really high up and apparently chose the wrong career... But he's halfway there and I'm cheering for him (and avoiding the obvious pun). The weeping moss MIGHT be growing? It's hard to tell, but I chopped it up and tied it to the spider wood decoration today anyway. The corkscrew vesuvius seems to be in stasis. No additional leaf death beyond what was dead/dying when it got here, but also not sending out new leaves after 8 days. Also, I have removed a dead bacopa leaf here and there, but have mostly left them as a source of ammonia for the bacteria. What does the ACO hive mind suggest? Tank was sized at 1 gallon/pound of cat. Added air stone to sponge filter after this pic was taken to improve performance, but at the cost of making it less interesting to cat. Cloudy because mid setup (sand fines in water column). This is the way it looks today. Will be repositioning small rock in back corner to make it less of a death trap before the fish are added. Examples of new growth...

@modified lung Thank you (18 months later!) for a very interesting discussion/conclusion regarding NH3 vs (NH3 + NH4+) testing. Were you ever able to find a cheap, lay person accessible buffer at pH 10 to use for water sampling via the ACO strips? If so, do you still use it (what's your protocol)? If not, I'm still glad to have found this thread.