Brandy

I could be mistaken, but the flowers seem to say to me that this was previously grown emmersed. It may take a bit of time to convert and become etablished.

I am actually ridiculously reassured by all the above. I would MUCH rather see topsoil than "potting soil" that has some time release fertilizer in it. Your tank looks like it cycled, and I DO get more cloudiness with maracyn + paraclense. I think you are going at this exactly right by using both, and I would do a full round, rather than the one dose and soak method that works well as a preventative, since you are actively losing fish. As far as more plants, with a dirted tank, you really want to just pack them in--you can wait for them to grow out, but often that leads to fighting algae until they get going. If you cannot afford to buy a bunch more, one trick is to temporarily throw in some kind of floating plant that will suck up nutrients in the water column. However, you don't have any nitrates, so that is not going to be your primary concern.

They should not do this. Contact customer service.

You can silicone and attach glass to the inside and out. The thing to remember is that the edges will need to be smoothed on the glass so it is not sharp for you or the fish. I would do it, but I am crazy also. @MJV Aquatics has the truely correct solution though.

I think I would do option A with an adjustment: 1 bolivian ram, 2 platies, 6-8 panda or pygmy cories. With a male and female platy you will have more eventually. In a 20 long, you have lots of room for more stock. I would increase the corys, who really like to be in groups, and consider a second ram eventually. The rams will keep the platies from overpopulating.

If they all stay that small and when they are on the glass their shells flop over to the side, you have mini ramshorn snails. They are my favorite because they are so insignificant you rarely notice them, and lots of fish like to eat them.

Large tank with lots of plants can do no filter, just airstones or a recirculating pump. @Daniel has pretty much proved it, and he has just hardscape now, not even a jungle of plants anymore. I think it just depends on what you want the filter to do. Fish need circulation. Most of our filters do that. Some of them also polish the water so it looks pretty to us. Sponges are usually less good at that, but my tanks are clear enough for me.

ebay is also a great place to look at lots of fun pics. But if you are breeding mutts, I would just treat them like an impulse buy. pick them up when you see an amazing one. Kinda the best sort of fun.

Re: Nerites, I have overstocked at 1snail/2 gallon, but after they plowed thru the algae I had to feed them. It really depends on how much you want to feed and how much of their favorite algae, there is. Be aware that mine eat driftwood also, especially softer types like cholla wood.

So, funny thing, in a 10g my val stays shorter, under 10 inches, and in a 20high my dwarf sag is over 18 inches tall. I thought it was supposed to stay shorter too. If it hadn't come from the co-op I would doubt what I had been sold. It is under the brightest lights I own, so it isn't reaching, It is in a lightly dirted tank with a sand cap. I think it is just happy.

Keep testing. Maracyn can cause a little cloudiness, and a little bubbling, but that looks like a lot? you may want to add an additional airstone. If test parrameters indicate an ammonia spike, change water and redose. Next I would want to do some basic trouble shooting, sorry for the barrage of questions: You have a dirted tank--where is the dirt from, topsoil? garden center? what kind? You are using "treated well water"--treated with what? And why? Where are the rocks and hunks of wood from? Do you know exactly what they are? Finally, since you are on well water, with hard water, what type of hard water is it do you think? Lots of white on shower heads indicate calcium, rust stains mean iron, green stains mean copper, sulfur scent--you get the picture. I am trying to rule out a water quality issue that we are not going to be able to test for. It could be chemical, bacterial, fungal, who knows. If we can be sure that is not the case, humor me once more--has your kit EVER showed ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate? If not, be sure you use both bottles (1 & 2, as indicated in instructions) for the tests, and follow directions EXACTLY. Not common, but everyonce in a while... 🙂

I think a great trick in your situation would be to add some floating plants. They will add shade for the low light plants, can be discarded in lieu of water changes (as they multiply), and will require more fertilizer, so they tend to starve algae also. Unless you REALLY love it, avoid duckweed. All other floaters can be easily removed if you decide you don't like them. An alternative is to add a piece of standard window screen to your tank while you are at work, thus lowering light intensity, or get a light timer and and break your photoperiod into 2 periods, am on/mid-day siesta/pm on. I know the tank lights you mean though, and they kinda suck. you may want to eventually enter the realm of exteme DIY and rewire them. Leds are pretty easy actually.

I think it is Vallisnaria? I would say dwarf saggitaria, but compared to the snails the leaf looks too wide.

Not the same. Photos stolen from the internet, but I have been to the store and seen them in person before also. A borneo is more narrow: Hillstream has a butterfly shape--wider fins, and gives the impression of being flatter:

Yes, that is it. I hope you don't either! Maracyn is good for bacteria, Salt or IchX are good to try for suspected fungus. Keep in mind it can be both and they are hard to tell apart. If you are not sure of the disease Salt is great for bettas--some fish are sensitve, but bettas are pretty happy in salt.

I used a siphon and a razorblade to clear the glass--I held the siphon right next to the blade, taking them out as soon as they were free of the glass. I waited a week, and then fed MUCH less, but more often. Using the same theory as other fish feeding, I started feeding tiny quantities that they clean up in under a minute. So far, so good.

@gardenman I don't have enough reactions to give here!! I don't know if I should laugh at the spot on description of the fearmongers, or cheer for your willingness to point it out. Also grateful to @Cory for his common sense response.

It could just be the photo, but I don't see Ich on that fish. It would look like grains of sand/salt stuck to the fish that you feel like you could just brush off. Thru the course of the 5 days you would see more ich, and different arrangements of dots. I don't know what is going on, but I would guess "something else"--possibly a bacterial or fungal infection if the pinkish spots look like wounds--and second the idea of adding crushed coral due to low pH. Maybe another photo?

I had pretty much given up on social media due to the divisiveness it seems to foster. I like that here everyone is supportive. It is far better, in my opinion, to spend your time trying to better your own knowlege and efforts than tearing others down, and listening to that is just giving those people a platform for bullying. I won't participate in that, I want to leave my high school days behind. It has also been wonderful to find people who dive as deeply into things as I like to, and don't mind my occaisional tangent into science nerd. I am accustomed to being mocked for talking about things like that, and here I am at least cheerfully tolerated, and sometimes even appreciated for my penchant for diving into math/chemistry/genetics at the drop of a hat. With regard to fishkeeping, the very best part has been realizing we all have bad days, even people who have been doing it forever, like Cory. I am not as hard on myself when something isn't just working perfectly now.

Have you thought about doing a photo family tree, with representatives of all the fish you have crossed and the outcome? I am really interested in this cross, I assumed if I crossed "regular" GBR with anything else, I would get regular offspring in the F1, and 75% regular:25% the other color morph in the F2. Clearly this is not mendelian, and has more complex factors at play, with much more genetic plasticity than I realized.

The white stuff sounds like bacterial bloom and the bubbles could be caused by biofilm. It is an indication that your cycle is on its way, but it can build up on the surface. It is not terribly useful there, so if the surface appears to have a film you can just lay a paper towel on it and suck it up. That will assure good air exchange for your fish, which they will need right now. However, your airstone is great insurance, and you probably don't HAVE to do anything.

However, I would not call that a significant source of ammonia in the scale of an aquarium. Unless we are talking about plants fully melting back...Which is more than the subcellular process I just described.

Probably a typo. should read RNA. DNA is in the nuclei, and is the master plan. It is transcribed to short mRNA to make "temporary" copies which are a scaffold template for building proteins (enzymes are proteins). When the surroundings change, mRNA copies can be downregulated and tagged for deletion to make room for the new, more pertinant mRNA for more relevant protein building. This happens in plants as well as animals, and is how every protein is built.

I have only noticed issues with molts in brand new shrimp, which I presume is an acclimation issue--could also be shipping stress for all I know. Shrimp bred in my tanks are almost unkillable. I sometimes see them locally on craigslist...

Shrimp have their own specific dieases. Not cross species contagious for vertebrates as far as I am aware. But generally no, I don't find that neocaridina shrimp are particularly sensitive, and I would only quarentine if they were going in with other shrimp. I have called them little cockroaches. Other shrimp are more sensitive. However, they do need the water chemistry to be pretty close to their water of origin, and your main losses will be from stock that comes from far away. If you do order shrimp (and I recommend ordering from someone reputable over a big box store, but locally bred is the very best) then the breeder should have very specific water parameters listed on their site, and you should try to match those in your water to begin with, gradually shifting them to your local parameters within reason. The reason I would avoid a big box would be that you don't know where those shrimp were bred, and so you have to just guess at their parameters. If it is all you have availble, try to at least find out what part of the country they are ordering from, and expect some losses.