Rycraft

@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!

@StephenP2003 I have a never clog as well so good to hear they actually never clog. 😂 Appreciate the insight. I'll just run at night with my timer. Thanks!

I was running the airstone 24/7 but have to admit I like the tank being a little quieter (it's in our living room) during the day time/early evening. I was thinking of just running it at night when the aquarium light is off. Are there any pros or cons to 24/7 vs just at night? Our aquaclear 50 does a great job of filtering but I thought some extra surface disturbance never hurts. I realize the airstone is likely to build up with algae quicker if it's not on all the time but I don't mind giving it a scrub every month or so to make sure it's clear. We run the tank around 76-77 degrees so not too hot. We have a very lightly planted tank currently. Some floating water sprite, a small java fern, and some Christmas moss. I think we will eventually add some hornwort or some other stem plants but that won't be any time soon. Still learning the ropes on aquarium plants.

My PH has been steady at about 7.8. I do have some crushed coral mixed in with my imagitarium black sand. I measured GH and KH about a week ago. GH was 6 and KH was 4. According to the reading that is between 50-100ppm for both which is right in line with where I want to be at least according to the API instruction sheet. I have been testing nitrites every other day but it has been at zero since about day three of the tank being started.

I've been getting consistent Nitrate readings of around 10ppm. I'll back off on treating and see how it goes. I work from home and with Covid don't really go anywhere anyway so I'll just keep a close eye on the fish. As I said they show zero signs of ammonia poisoning and everyone is super healthy and active. Appreciate the insight

Forgot to mention I just started running a Ziss airstone last night. I don't think that helps speed up the process but wanted to make sure there's plenty of oxygen in the tank with constant Prime treatments.

I'm a bit of a novice so looking for some guidance. I've had my 36 gallon for just over a month now. Initially added some water sprite and Christmas moss and a whole bottle of Fritz zyme. Running an aquaclear 50 filter with intake sponge. Initially Ammonia jumped to 1ppm and nitrites got to about .5ppm. After about a week ammonia dropped to .25ppm and nitries to 0ppm so we added our school of 13 neon tetras. Ammonia stayed at .25ppm with nitrites still at 0ppm so we added our Honey Gourami and 6 emerald Corys. Same readings so we added our 2 zebra Loaches, adult bristle nose Pleco and a baby koi angel. Ammonia has now floated between .5ppm and 1ppm. I'm doing larger water changes (30-40%) every couple days and treating the water with prime and everyone in the tank is doing fine, however the ammonia is still not dropping. I'm definitely not over feeding and am only feeding 6 days a week. Nitrates are consistently around 10ppm and the plants are thriving and we've recently had a brown algae bloom. I just added some extra bio media to the filter 2 days ago since there was room in there. I had ammonia pads in there but that didn't seem to help. Am I just being impatient here? Shouldn't my ammonia levels be dropping? They've never surpassed 1ppm and based on using an ammonia calculator my free ammonia level should be safe for the fish but I'm still treating with Prime out of an abundance of caution. I just tested again this morning and got 1ppm so gonna do another large water change. I realize I probably jumped the gun a bit on adding fish but the bottom of the tank is definitely clear of detritus with all the water changes I'm doing and like I said I am sure I am not over feeding. Do I just need to allow more time for the cycle to complete?

Here's another picture where you can see how it starts and stops.

So I just brought home a new 36 gallon glass bow front aquarium. While cleaning everything off I noticed what I think is a very long scratch on the bottom. It's in a curved shape and there is no spidering. I can feel it lightly on the inside of the tank but not on the outside. It's also starts and stops a few times which is why I think it's a scratch and not a crack. Will this effect the integrity of the tank? Should I bite the bullet and just drag it back to the store. Aesthetically I could care less since it will be covered by substrate but the last thing I want is a year down the line to have a 36 gallon water explosion in my living room and all my fish die. Pic attached. Sorry, it's very difficult to get a good pic so not sure if it will help or not.