Lynaea

If you top up with distilled or RO/DI water they are mineral free so nothing builds up. It’s only when topping up with tap water that issues can occur. I have no idea how Walstead tanks work.

They are probably detritus worms, they shouldn’t cause any issues as long as you don’t overfeed.

If it was me I would do some pearl gourami and a large school of rasboras with schools of cories and kuhli loaches for the bottom. But really, start with a larger fish and build a community around it.

Cool tank, you might want to add an ammonia source if you haven’t already. That will speed up the cycle and help your plants some too. Here’s a good primer on Fishless cycling. Good luck! Looking forward to updates.

A complete blackout for several days may help, siphon out as much Cyanobacteria as you can before and after.

Lower the water level as much as you can so there are fewer options for them to escape.

Do you have floaters? It looks kind of like when my duckweed gets pulled/pushed down and stuck in the frog-bit roots.

There are products that will raise GH like Seachem Equilibrium or plain old crushed coral, but readers will really need more information to give good advice: What size tank? Stocking? Low tech or CO2? What are the other parameters? And a picture really is worth a thousand words 😊 Good luck!

Sorry about your tank, hopefully this last little guy makes it. 🤞

I love your tank, it’s very ‘English garden’ with all the different plants.

My orange rili shrimp arrived! I received them late Friday so I spent the evening acclimating them and getting them settled in their quarantine tank. They came from Shrimp Up Aquatics in Michigan, they sent 21 but 3 were doa so I’m getting refunded for those. Unfortunately one also died during acclimation so I have 17 new rili shrimp! I have a link for others to get 10% off, I hope it’s okay to put it here: https://loox.io/z/OnXPMM7_v No new bodies this morning and they are happily eating their dinner now so hopefully the rest are good to go! On to the pictures! Thanks for reading!

As long as it fits your device it should work, doesn’t hurt to try.

I hope so! It only started to worry me because it seems to be spreading, but she did hatch some babies last month and looks to be saddled again. Time will tell I guess. Thanks!

The good news is I don’t see any pitting and she’s had red-brown spots since I got her, albeit smaller. The bad news is I’m seeing small spots on a few others too. I’m treating the entire tank today with H2O2. Any shrimp disease experts in the house? Thanks!

Hi Jennifer, Since there is no product called micro bites from Hikari I’m assuming you’re using This which states it has a special coating to hold in the nutrients. My second guess is that because of this coating your tank isn’t actually cycling and that any nitrate the Easy Green is adding is being used by the plants. It’s also possible that your beneficial bacteria starved several weeks ago because of this coating which I assume, would significantly slow any ammonia production. I'm not sure what’s going on with your pH and hardness levels but my guess there is that those rocks aren’t entirely inert. I’m also confused by your terminology, there are only two types of hardness, GH and KH, although some test strips also list total hardness. What does your strip actually say each measurement is of? My advice would be to add a true ammonia source like those offered by Dr Tim’s or Fritz, at the very least try using finely crushed flake food and add some bacterial starter to get your cycle going. I wouldn’t worry about the pH and hardness until the cycle is completed. Since cycling bacteria use KH and lower pH the situation may resolve itself if you stop doing water changes and just let the tank cycle. Finally, to get us speaking the same language 🤗, these might be helpful: GH & KH, Fishless cycle