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

Don’t wonder shells contain both calcium and magnesium?

The bare bottom tank was around 4 months old when I added nerites. The other two were 1 month old cycled using filter media from other tanks. All had algae growing as well as fish and plants thriving.

This current tank has a layer of baked clay cat litter, then a layer of Seachem Flourite, and finally a lot of Fluval Stratum on top. Another tank has CaribSea Eco-Complete with Black Diamond blasting sand. Another tank has no substrate at all. Nerites died in all three tanks.

The moist paper towel was in a ziplock. I could have done what you said for acclimation, but its too late now 😞 I did put effort into positioning the snails so that they didn’t have to roll over. They all started moving immediately. They just stopped after an hour or two. One of them even managed to climb around 3 inches up the glass before falling down, and never got back up.

There are so many diatoms that I had to use a toothbrush to remove most of it during a water change the day before. If it was a food issue, wouldn’t the snails first try to find food before dying? They couldn’t even move 6 inches… Never added any planaria treatment. The snails did not come in a bag of water. They came in a moist paper towel.

Here are photos of the tank. I dropped the snails in the bottom right corner five hours ago, and I made sure they were upright. They barely crawled any distance at all. One has even fallen off the glass and can’t get back up. My GH shouldn’t be zero anymore after adding a wonder shell though, right? Also GH being zero shouldn’t cause immediate death?

There are multiple tanks. All planted, none with salt nor meds (never added them ever). One has CO2 injection, the others don't. KH is 5, GH is close to zero, but this time I added a giant wonder shell a few days before adding the nerites. My tap water PH is between 7.8 and 8.2. The one tank with CO2 probably has a lower PH, the other tanks are probably still between 7.8 and 8.2. Temperature 76-78F. Nerites came in a moist paper towel, not in water. The diatoms are on plants, rocks, wood, AND glass. But I don't think that matters since the nerites only move a maximum of 6 inches before they stop moving and eventually die.

My nerite snails keep dying within 24 hours of adding to any of my tanks. I've gotten nerites from at least 4 different sources, this latest one from Aqua Huna. All of my fish and plants are doing fine. There are also brown diatoms everywhere for the nerites to eat. I tested copper using the API copper test kit, it came back 0ppm. Does anyone know what else could cause nerite deaths?

Update here: after the ParaCleanse treatment, things were good for about a month. Now the deaths have started again. I'm seeing 5-7 dead bodies every morning. Should I treat again using the same method?

I don't really know of any centerpiece fish that wouldn't attempt to eat shrimp.