Jack.of.all.aquariums

My zebra ottos have been doing great in my unheated tank for a couple years now. I keep my house around 68F in the winter and 72F in the summer. Laser thermometer shows the water temp is 70F right now.

I'm around but have been somewhat idle in the hobby. Happy to answer any questions and clarify my method though. I'll try to check the forum a bit more frequently. I always hatched my babies in a jar with methylene blue. Fungus was regularly an issue but I didn't have the nice newer hatching rings. Once the babies were born I didn't have any issue with snails. I don't think shrimp would be of concern but I would still wait on adding them. I thought about moving the babies to a shrimp tank but they are so tiny I didn't want to lose track of them. Collecting eggs was always a struggle for me. The easiest way I found was to gravel vac, then suck up the mulm from the bottom of the bucket and then squeeze that into a baby brine sieve. It would catch the eggs. I never managed to collect the numbers Preston did though.

You might lose a little efficiency but you can run CO2 with a HOB no problem. I always shoot to maximize how long the bubbles stay in the water. If there is flow going in downward anywhere that would be the most ideal spot for co2. I have also ran the CO2 so it bubbled into the flow coming from the filter so it mixes a bit more rather than just bubbling straight to the top.

With larger tanks (40 gal+) C02 reactors become more and more useful. Cerges reactors are my preferred. I struggled for a long time to get co2 levels up in my 125 gallon. I was running multiple diffusers and wasn't get anywhere close to the levels I wanted. Built a cerges reactor and got to turn my co2 way down and while also getting higher co2 levels since no co2 was able to escape.

The brown you are getting is diatoms. There is a dusty kind and a filamentous kind. I tend to get the filamentous types in my fresh setups. In my experience, it does fade away after some time. Snails love it so I usually just toss in a bunch of 'pest' snails into my new tanks to speed up the process but they are not required to make it go away.

My first thought is something is wrong with your RO system. Have you tired replacing the cartridges/membranes in it?

@Minanora Thanks! The light is a 36" Beamswork DA Fspec I've got too many tanks for fancy lights with dimmers and have ended up not liking them every time I've bought one. Blyxa is an interesting plant. Once it's happy it really takes off. I have a bunch of it that sort of just came out of no where after a long time of not having it, it just started growing in my shrimp tank. 🤷‍♂️

@Guppysnail Samolus parviflorus 'red'

Not too much to report. Basically it's working. Only 2 plants seems to be having issues so far but have not out right died yet just seem to be taking a while to get established. Only having minor algae showing up but it seems to mostly just be on exposed roots and dying leaves. The meta grows so crazy fast I've trimmed and planted the tops twice now and haven't had to trim any of the other plants really.

Maybe is the only fair answer. I'm not sure there is any way to actually answer these questions definitively. So you kept nitrates at 10 but what other things were you also removing that could have had an impact? Hormones, phosphates, tons of various micro nutrients, etc. There are just too many variables, especially in a home aquarium to be able to say it was specifically organic or inorganic nitrate that was affecting fish health or longevity.

If those are the only 2 options I'm going seiryu. But my honest opinion as a semi experience aquascaper is neither. Unless you are getting it for really cheap and get to pick through a mountain of the stuff it's just not worth the money. I bought something like $450 in bulk seiryu stone that I got a great deal on because it was tacked onto an international order. I ended up not using it in any serious aquascapes after practicing with it. The problem is you need to be able to pick through tons and tons of stone if you really want your rock work to look incredible like competitive scapes do and it can get frustrating when you have a couple of good piece but not enough to complete your design. It's to hard to get enough pieces that match well with the right shapes, then after your plants grow in it's like 50%+ covered up anyway. Home depot sells black lava rock online for pretty dang cheap. I bought a whole bunch of it and I was super happy with everything I got. I got a bunch of the bigger stuff and then they have smaller and smaller sizes. I wish I would have bought more because I wanted to rescape all of my tanks with it. https://www.homedepot.com/p/American-Fire-Glass-XXL-Black-Lava-Rock-4-in-6-in-20-lbs-Bag-LAVA-XXL-20/304078212 The photos are of my 95 gallon that is about 48x24x20. 4 boxes of the 4-6 inch lava rock and 1 of the 1-3 inch. About $150 and I had some left over. So much more bang for the buck. I also bought a couple bags of the smaller sizes to fill in behind my rock work so I didn't need as much substrate those were another $20ish

Feel free to tag me. I don't mind helping 😁 @Mmiller2001 has got you covered with dosing. I'll add a few things outside of dosing strategies because my methods are quite a bit different and I don't want to make it more confusing haha More plants! In my opinion your tank is still pretty lightly planted. Start propagating what you can. If you have questions about propagating any species I'm happy to help. Don't fear trimming. The plant leaves that are fully covered in algae are a lost cause. Just trim them off. Ignoring the algae most of your plants look very healthy. You're on a great path!

The dwarf umbrella palm in my puffer tank has been extremely prolific grown under some hardware store led shop lights. I haven't done a great job monitoring nitrates though. It's pretty easy to find too. Might be another species for you to look into.

I had a small pond on my deck that I ran with just a regular air pump. Pump was inside in the utility room and I drilled a tiny hole through the wall and ran the airline out to the pond. If I was going to do it without drilling a hole in the house I would probably pick up 2 of the cheaper usb airpumps and then DIY some kind of weather proof box that would allow the power in, air line to go out, and some air to get in that would also block water.

In my experience, it hasn't really made a huge difference in how the tank runs but does affect maintenance. Sand keeps all the mulm on the surface so you can end up with areas full of gunk but its easy to target a siphon to suck it out. Gravel tends to let stuff settle in so gravel vaccing is necessary to get it out. My personal preference is sand. I know Cory prefers small gravel/large sand for plants but I've been able to grow plenty of species in fine sand plus it's easier for me to find it in colors I like.