Dipink

I'd do the pea puffer. I had CPD's in a 5 gallon, and eventually they were not happy, one male got bullied to death, and even 7 gallons wasn't enough for them. I now have them in a 48 gallon. I have a pea puffer as well, he was happier in the 7 gallon, and now that I have fewer tanks, I'm scrambling to find enough pest snails to keep him happy. All the articles that say you can keep CPD's in a 5 gallon are lying. They need room for territories.

I think I need a crash course in cannister filter maintenance. I changed the water and cleaned the pre-filter, because the filter was running slow. When I hooked the filter back up, it barfed up a bunch of degraded plant material into the tank. Possibly the source of the extra nitrites? It's only been running for 20 days, I didn't think I'd need to clean the filter this early.

Thanks. My new planted tank is throwing off a lot of nitrite, and I worry about the algae eating crew in there. Just need more water changes I guess.

If you are setting up a brand new tank, do you start with Purigen in the filter right away, or do you let the BB set up shop first?

I was wondering about general advice for power outages. I have a 48 gallon planted tank that is just getting started. I have a OASE 350 thermo cannister filter on it. I just read in another part of the forum about how short power outages are no problem (several hours). Could I shove just the sponge part of a sponge filter into one of the trays, and have a cycled filter to pull out and hook to an airstone for longer outages? I really don't like the look of sponge filters inside a planted tank, but like the idea of a pre-cycled filter for quarantine or emergencies. I've also read about pulling out the bag of bio filter material from an internal cannister, and placing it over an airstream to keep oxygen flowing through the media. What set-ups do people have for power outages?

I will be transferring them to a 9 gallon tank, from a 5 gallon tank, but would like to reduce before that. I've given some away to all of the fish enthusiasts at my office, now they all have enough.

Too many = moving red carpet.

I have taken some to my lfs, but they don't want them as fast as I want to depopulate. I do have some breather bags, so I could try mailing them. Anyone interested?

Any suggestions on what to do with too many cherry shrimp? I've got a thankful of the bloody Mary colored shrimp, and no room for another tank. How about suggestions on limiting breeding? I'm trying not to feed them too much.

Through some spectacular mistiming, I have a load of mail ordered aquarium plants 2 months before I can set up the aquarium that they go into. Perfect for quarantining! My question is, for that long a time, do I need to plant the stem plants in substrate, or can I just leave them as bunches? I'll have a light and air stone going, with liquid fertilizer. Light no more than 6-8 hours. Since they will have time to adapt to water, should I run CO2, or can I just let them poke along with short light and fertilizer?

If you are quarantining plants, or keeping them in a tub until you are ready to plant, does this work with bunched stem plants? They don't typically have much in the way of roots. I ask because I tried to hold over a shipment of plants once until I could plant, had them in an empty tank with a filter, and a light, and I lost the bunched plants. I'm abut to start a 48 gallon planted tank, and I'd like to pre-buy the plants, quarantine them for pests (no planaria!), and let them convert to underwater foliage before I plant them. If I need to avoid bunched plants, so be it.

Cool, but what I meant is, why'd I get BBA on there in the first place? How do I prevent it from happening again? I'd like to break down my current tank and set up another one for the shrimp, without the planaria. I'd rather use the sponge filters, but I took them out to eliminate one food source for the planaria. I've learned my lesson about lighting, no more than 8 hours per day in a new set up. The BBA happens in a different tank where there is low flow, but on the filter, that's another story. Did I not clean the filter often enough? The tank I'm using it on was more or less a Walstad tank, and I was only vacuuming the small area up front that was exposed sand, the plants were supposed to take care of the rest?

I had 2 nano sponge filters going in my planted shrimp tank. They got covered in black beard algae. I also had a big problem with planaria, which were feeding off the filters (and everything else). I removed the sponge filters, but would like to use them again in another shrimp set up. How can I prevent black beard algae on other sponge filters?

PS forgot to say that I have a bio CO2 setup on the 7 gallon

I have two tanks that are still relatively new, that I am battling algae in. One is a 7 gal cube, with a Twinstar 300, and Rotala, (several species), Alternathera reinickii, Staurogyne repens, Elodea, Japanese pennywort, Cryptocoryne mioya, Anubias nana petite, and various bucephalandra. Fluval stratum and Eco Complete capped with sand, 2 nano sponge filters. I have 6 pygmy cories, 1 pea puffer, 6 nerite snails, some cherry shrimp. The second tank is 5 gallons, with an ONF Flat nano, Eco complete substrate, and a similar mix of plants, minus the Elodea. Both tanks have duckweed, Salvinia rotundifolium and Salvinia cucullata. The 5 gallon has Celestial pearl Danios, a horned nerite, and 3 blue dream shrimp. A Dymax Slim Flo filters the 5 gallon. Whew! OK, I have programmable dimmers on both tanks that I just installed. I have them newly set to 8 am 30% 9am 50% 10 am 75% 6 pm 50% 7pm 30 % 8 pm dark This means that during the work week I won't see my critters much, but I'm restricting the light to cut back on algae. Think this will work? Too restricted? I've seen Irene's video on balancing the tank, and I have several tests coming to check for nutrient imbalance. I use Easy Green and Root tabs in both. Thanks for any advice.

Okay, I have a 7 gallon planted cube, with 6 pygmy cories, 1 juvenile pea puffer, and several snails, intentional and unintentional. I was debating about whether I should have another pea puffer in there, because it is tiny and seems like there is room for more, but I was told by the place where I got her that I shouldn't put another one in there. She spends a fair amount of time surfing in the outwash from the sponge filter, also some glass surfing, and I was worried that she is not having enough enrichment (can hunt all the snails she wants, ignores the corries. I'm stuffing a few more plants in there for cover, but should I get another puffer to be social with? It's a new tank, so I want to be careful about stocking, I did actually put more fish in it sooner than I would have liked, but it seems to have settled down now, no ammonia no nitrite.