Rycraft

@jwcarlsonfirst food was frozen rotifers 3-4x a day. I also had them in there with some catappa leaves so there were some microorganisms to eat as the leaves broke down. As they got bigger I started introducing frozen BBS and crushed up bug bites and flakes. The 3 guys left seem to be growing some it's just VERY slowly. The largest of the three appears to be the size the original big boys hit at around day 60 or so. Also since it's just the three left I've started doing more targeted feedings and putting the food in the same spots which they have seemed to figure out.

@AllFishNoBrakes thank you for reaffirming. That was very helpful. Figured they might just be the runts/slow growers. The larger ones that I brought to the local fish store were definitely gobbling up all the food when they were still in there together. And to clarify the second pic of the larger one was still 4-5 weeks before I brought them in to the LFS. The ones left over are definitely very active and are eager eaters as soon as the food enters the tank so it looks like I just get to enjoy them in baby form for a bit longer.

I would be shocked if it was water quality. When they first hatched I was doing water changes every day at first and every other day around the 45 day period onward. Here is a pick of the larger ones that were sold. This is at about 60 days and you can see this one is clearly much larger than the one in the background. I originally had them in a 6 gallon cube that was bare bottom before moving them to the 10 gallon with sand at around 70 days or so because I felt the 6 gallon was too small with the larger ones getting so much bigger than the others. Should these smaller ones that are left eventually start growing? They seem quite healthy and active. They're always scooting around the tank and sifting through the sand.

First try raising corydoras fry. I only grabbed around 20 eggs because I wasn't sure how it would go. Had a pretty good hatch rate back in late January 2024. I had 6 that made it to the juvenile size after 90 days or so and that were "tank safe", so I sold them to my LFS as I don't have room for all of them. The LFS said they were a great size and looked really healthy for reference. I kept the rest that were much smaller as the ones I would keep for myself. A couple have since died and now I only have 3 left. It's now almost four months in and these three are still quite small. Is that normal? Should I expect this process to take upwards of six months or more? These are Corydoras Aeneus. Being kept in a 10 gallon only 3/4 full so they have easier surface access for air if needed. Had them with a cycled sponge filter from the beginning. There's also some healthy bunches of java fern and some ramshorn snails as a clean up crew. I do water changes twice a week as there are not many in there now and I don't believe water quality has ever been the issue. The ones that died never moved around well and generally didn't look as healthy as the others. I'm feeding four times a day. Switching between frozen BBS and rotifers and also adding in crushed up bug bites and flake food to keep variety. Attached are pics and you can see the one next to an alder cone for some sense of scale.

@twodaend I went back to having two AC 50s on the tank for a while but they're propensity to just send the water crashing downward onto my plants was causing lots of BBA issues. I ended up going back to the Tidal 55 a couple months ago and although the water isn't quite as crystal clear I'm going to stick with it. I made some modifications to the basket by cutting out some of the bottom slats and that seems to have help some of the bypass issues. I have an OASE biomaster 250 on my 20 gallon high tech set up and really that's the one filter I am most happy with. The heater goes right in the filter instead of the tank and the prefilter does such a good job of grabbing detritus that I only have to clean the main filter every 3-4 months. I could probably even stretch that to 6 if I wanted but I'd rather not risk the algae issues from a dirty filter. The prefilter is so easy to pull out and clean it takes all of 5 minutes and I can just easily do it while the tank is refilling with water. I eventually want to upgrade the 36 gallon to a 40+ gallon and will definitely just be spending the money to put a Biomaster on that as well.

@Fish Folk thanks! Currently running without a lid at the moment. I may add one, I may not. Right now it's definitely easier without as I'm doing minor maintenance almost daily since the tank is only a little over 3 weeks old. Those Rainbow shiners are really cool looking. Appreciate all the suggestions! @Biotope Biologist one of the LFS here actually does get in some pretty interesting stuff. I'll have to ask him about the different Betta species as I know he stocks quite a few things that you wouldn't normally see. I may end up going with the Celestial Pearl Danios. Then I can run the tank on the cooler side to keep algae at bay. This is my first aquascape and am running CO2 still learning a lot as I go. This is my first time keeping Otos and they are such fun little guys. The tank is right next to my desk in my home office and I've enjoyed watching them swim around all day. Here's a pick of one enjoying a little relaxation in the Rotala forest. Thanks again!

So I recently set up a 20 gallon planted tank aquascape (picture attached). Plants are starting to fill in (there is a large group of various Rotala species to the left that you can't really see) and so far I have 10 Amano shrimp in there and 4 otocinclus. When I was working on the hardscape I ended up creating two caves. When trying to think of what to put in the tank I was doing research and found that Apistogrammas would appreciate a cave. I was specifically looking at either a pair of Agassizzii, Macmasteri or Viejita. I've never kept a Apistogrammas before but looking for opinions of those that have. Will these make dinner out of my Amanos or is this one of those depends on the individual fish situations? I don't mind if the Amano shrimp are more stealth to hide from the Apistos but I don't want them living in fear and ultimately they are there to eat algae which they won't do a great job of if they are constantly hiding. So do I have a shot with the Apistos or should I move on and try something like a school of Celestial Pearl Danios instead?

@Clovissure thing! Sponge I used on the outside of the skimmer: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/collections/filter-media/products/sponge-pad-coarse Sponge over the intake tube: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/collections/sponge-filters/products/medium-pre-filter-sponge Just cleaned the Tidal yesterday and it's already sending a bunch of water bypass through the sides of the basket. Can't win with this thing. Probably going back to the Aquaclear 😑

@Clovis I'm currently running coarse sponge on the intake tube and over the surface skimmer (bought from Aquarium co-op). I changed the skimmer sponge to the aquarium Co-Op stuff yesterday when doing maintenance and that seems to have helped. I think I had more of a 'medium' sponge on there before which was getting clogged and the Tidal definitely draws more water from the skimmer than the intake which is incredibly annoying. As for the media box I have the original blue sponge in there with an additional sponge over it and a bag of seachem carbon and a bag of matrix on top but was running into the same issues where it was overflowing and not running through the media. The AC mechanical sponge is far superior and I would only have to clean it once a month. I feel like I'm going to be cleaning the Tidal sponge weekly which is again very annoying. I think I'm just going to save my pennies for the OASE Biomaster. The prefilter on it does most of the heavy lifting and you can just pull it out separate from everything else to clean.

@Garren B the Tidal definitely has a large media basket, however I'm not sure it does much good if the filter doesn't draw in the detritus to run through your sponge/filter floss. Very frustrating. I may go back to the AC or sprint for an OASE Biomaster thermo. Expensive but I'm not sure it gets an easier for filter maintenance and time is money!

So I got a Tidal 55 as I had seen very positive things about it and it helps me sleep a little easier knowing a late night power outage won't effect it like it would for the bio filter in my Aquaclear 50. So I've had the Tidal 55 up and running for about 2-3 weeks now and I have to say I like almost everything about it but I feel like it does a terrible job of actually pulling floating debris out of the water column (which is kind of the whole purpose of having a filter, right?). Anyone else have any experience with this? I have coarse sponge attached to the surface skimmer and the intake tube (which I really wish was longer! I had extensions on my AC that got right near the substrate). Having the debris floating has been so bothersome I'm thinking of going back to my AC and just dealing with repriming. I could keep the thing running the entire time I did water changes too with the intake extension. I have to turn the Tidal off for even a small water change.

@Roko appreciate the feedback! Definitely don't want to spend $120 if I'm not going to see any real benefit. I feel like that money would be better applied to better lighting and filter/nutrients.

Anyone have any experience with the Twinstar Algae Inhibitor? I am in the planning stages for my first aquascape aquarium (looking at doing a 20 gallon). I've read some about these and it seems like if you're going to use it you will find the best results if used right at tank start up as it's designed to be an inhibitor, not necessarily kill all the algae that has already grown in the tank. $120 or so isn't cheap, but time is money and if it means doing less scrubbing of the green garbage that could be worth it. And the second thought I had was I was going to try keeping shrimp for the first time (probably Amano or another easier care neocaridina). These guys will still have biofilm and stuff to feed off of, right? I'm fine feeding them but I know algae is a good food source for them as well.

Forgot to mention my GH is 8 and ph around 7.2 in the tank if that helps.

So my tank KH is 3 (tap is generally around 5) and I'm looking to buffer the KH a bit for my live bearers. Water changes don't seem to be able to increase it and I don't want to do large water changes all the time. I have media bags and aragonite. Am I better off putting the media bags below my imagitarium black sand substrate or putting some in a smaller media bag in my filter? I don't want to litter the substrate with it because I want my Corys to be able to happily sift through the sand. I just didn't know if it would still buffer the KH if it's buried under the sand. Any advise would be appreciated. Thanks!