onlywei

Is there any difference between the Tractor Supply Safe-T-Sorb vs the Oil-Dri Safe-T-Sorb?

It’s green. Not bright green but solid green.

The 407 has 4 trays: 1) sponge 2) polyfil 3&4) bio rings I do use a spraybar for my filter outlet and an inline diffuser for my CO2. I also have a ceramic diffuser inside the tank as well.

I change water once a week. Sometimes 25%, sometimes 50%. It’s a 75g tank with both an under gravel plenum as well as a Fluval 407 for filtration. I am also injecting CO2 and I have a Chihiros WRGB2 at 50% for my light.

The tank has been set up for 4 months. It has gone through the diatom phase already since I did have diatoms all over and now they are gone. I have a lot of green algae and also this dark brown algae as shown in the photo.

Is there such a thing as brown algae that isn’t diatoms? I had diatoms in the tank before but it has all gone away months ago.

The S Repens leaves are so soft I haven’t been successful at rubbing any off. My Panda Garra and hillstream loach also don’t touch it.

It’s all over my S. Repens. If it’s an algae, I don’t recognize it. Does anyone know what this is?

There’s no card with the gH drop kit. It’s the API test kit. What you do is you add drops one by one until the water turns green instead of yellow. That is supposed to tell you your dGH. The PH of my tap water is between 7.8 and 8.4. This specific tank has CO2 injection and Fluval stratum so that should have lowered my pH quite a bit. I would be quite flabbergasted if pH were the problem with the nerite snails, though. I see competition aquascapes with CO2 injection plus nerite snails all over the internet.

I tested my water for GH and used a “Varify” brand strip to test other things. I did three GH tests. The first test turned green after 6 drops. The second turned green after 5 drops, and the third turned green after 4 drops. Iron, lead, copper, manganese, and zinc look like zero or very close to zero to me, but maybe someone can recognize those colors better than me?

They started moving immediately when I put them in the water. Then they stopped moving shortly after. One even fell off the glass it was trying to climb. Will Ramshorn snails be affected in the same way as nerite snails by whatever is in my water? Maybe I can experiment with them by putting them in different water? I’m thinking the different waters will be: 1) my softened water that I have in my aquarium that has a wonder shell in it 2) my pre-softened water 3) my pre-softened water plus dechlorinator 4) my softened water plus equilibrium 5) my softened water plus dechlorinator Pond/bladder snails seem to already survive fine in my softened water. Is there any other water scenario I should test?

Besides Copper, what other heavy metals would we worry about?

I usually don’t dechlorinate. The reason is because I tested my water with strips from three different companies including Aquarium Co-op and they all resulted in zero free and total chlorine. Additionally, I have this Boogie Pop filter attached to the hose that I use to fill up my aquariums: Boogie Blue Plus Garden Hose... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CCG9DF5?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share I will test my GH when I get home to see exactly how much my wonder shell has impacted it so far. It looks like even after a few days, the majority of the shell has not yet dissolved.

I don’t use salt in my water softener. I use potassium and it costs 6x the price. Also, aren’t nerite snails brackish water creatures? Why would they be harmed by salt?

Yes I do. Otherwise my water would be 14dGH