StephenP2003

I got my first ramshorn from the co op. I wish they reproduced a little faster. I have assassin snails in one tank, and they seem to target ramshorns first.

What are your parameters? Anytime I buy a batch of rummynose or cardinal tetra, I lose some. My water is 7 dKH out of the tap, and I usually add minerals to keep a dGH of 6. It's just one of those things. I usually buy more of a schooling fish than I intended to keep, especially tetras and corydoras.

I have a lot of favorites, but I'd have to put pearl weed at number 1. It grows really well in my water, and if you're diligent and okay with the initial tedium of trimming and planting stems, it makes for an excellent medium light carpet. The carpet in all these tanks is a year's worth of pearl weed from a single aquarium co-op pot.

Cleaning your filters too much would potentially have the opposite effect on your parameters, depending on the type of media you use. I only clean my HOBs when there's noticeable reduced flow/clogging.

Goodness gracious. Hashbrown plantgoals

I heard about it being illegal on Cory's live stream recently and immediately looked it up; all clear in Louisiana. Water lettuce is banned here, but I've seen my LFS with it.

I have 3 of those inkbirds, one of them dedicated to the brine hatchery though. I plan to accumulate more in the coming weeks, prioritized by cost of livestock. Sorry for your loss. I know it was 20ish years ago, but that must've really stung.

Some updates on my tanks: Living Room 40 Breeder Display 11 Weeks Ago: Today: So this one is not going in the direction I'd hoped. The christmas moss ball is no more as I expected. My crypts... shrunk? And my aquarium lily and lotus died back. I think the lily and crypts on the left were just competing too much for nutrients in the substrate, and even though this is seachem flourite, I really should loaded these down with root tabs months ago. Plenty of root tabs in there now, so hoping for some bounce back. Likewise, the red sword in the back was losing leaf structure at the tips; it probably needed like a thousand root tabs, and I deprived it for too long. Also got more tiger lotus bulbs to fill the space there. Added a few more scarlet temple stems the other day. And tomorrow, when my regulator comes in, I am starting CO2 for the first time, and it's going on this tank since it's the display tank - the one every visitor would see. Hoping I can turn things in the right direction and even opt for some higher tech plants now that I'm getting CO2. Dining Room, 20 tall 11 weeks ago: Today: Endler explosion! Stagnated plant growth, but that's fine. I keep the lights low. I added a clump of java moss on the top of the sponge filter, and it seems to be going in the right direction. There are some baby plecos in there, but I moved the cave (with the male) out of there. But yep, I have baby plecos. If you read my first post, you'd know that I only got one spawn last year, lost them all (because I didn't know how to feed them enough) except for one. I decided to remove the planaria from the tank after reading that it's maybe possible perhaps planaria were eating the eggs. And within a week, I had 70+ pleco fry. And then another batch just a couple weeks later, because silly me forgot that the one survivor from last year is also female. The 40 breeder live-bearer tank: 11 weeks ago: Today: Yeah, no complaints here. Every plant is doing great. Added a few crappy stems of hygrophila and cabomba to see if I can get them to bounce back as well. Ludwigia excess trimmings are now floating plants. There's a nice little ecosystem here, and I only change water to help them grow faster. Bedroom tank, 90 gallon community: 11 weeks ago: Today: Ugh... First the hygrophila started to deteriorate, the moneywort developed spot algae, and now I've got diatoms. I think it may be related to the background - whatever silica might be leaching from the sand, the polyurethane, the foam itself... I don't know why it's happening 10 months later, or if it's even diatoms? Just keeping an eye on it now and scrubbing it off when convenient. Betta tank, Bedroom, 16G: 11 weeks ago: Today: No complaints here. The crypt tropica melted quite a bit from being moved from aquarium to another, so it'll be a bit before that comes back. The hygrophila looked miserable so I replaced with cabomba which I'm trimming weekly, along with the pearl weed. I moved some of the anubias out of here, and added some buce at the top of the left branch. Made a new christmas moss ball that's doing a lot better. Pleco growout, 29 gallon: I'll be throwing plant trimmings in here as floaters. Feeding is going to be an adventure in a few months. Over 100 pleco from two different spawns in here. I'm feeding algae wafers, zucchini, green beans, broccoli, and repashy mixes. Hoping that window will give me some algae too. That center wood piece just won't sink. Quarantine tank: 11 weeks ago: Today: Yep, replaced it with a glass 10 gallon with eco-complete. I'm going to grow plants to trade in here, and cabomba seems to fetch more and be more in demand at my LFS, so I might make even more room for it. Also, the platys in here are getting ready to go to my LFS. Definitely need to scrape the glass, eventually. No update on the kids tanks, all the same there.

I'm one year into using several of the cheap Orlushy heaters from Amazon, and they've been working great. They've survived a few dumb moments of mine, i.e. draining the aquarium too low and smelling smoke. Running some aqueons and eheims, same "reliability" so far. How long do heaters typically last? Or is it like a hard drive -- between 20 seconds and 20 years.

I always leave my back walls coated in algae/biofilm, as well as any decor. Depending on viewing positions of various tanks, I'll keep one or both side walls coated as well.

I check the unanswered topics page daily for stuff I can actually answer. Interestingly it shows topics from hidden forums (i.e., there is an ambassador discussion forum for brand ambassadors I assume).

I run a low light setup in my endler tank, a 20 tall, with these settings on my aquasky: I have the colors at slightly different settings just so I can see them on the timeline. The tank has pearl weed, anubias, java fern, java moss, marimo moss, pogostemon octopus, and corkscrew val.

I have chloramine tap water in the 1-2 ppm range, and I use it to rinse the baby brine, freeze them, and mix with them when feeding fresh and dividing among tanks. I also use it to make repashy. In these cases it's never more than a few ounces of water being divided among 3 tanks, no issues so far in several months.

I have a stockpile of unopened usb nano pumps and never clog air stones. I tend to keep a surplus of easy iron and easy green, too. A lot of times I only need a couple of things legitimately, and then I pile on the "cart fillers" like pumps, air stones, wonder shell, etc. to hit the free shipping mark.

Looks like staghorn. It appears in every planted tank I set up within the first couple months. Really seems to want to take advantage of the light and nutrients during the period plants adjust to new water and/or convert. Is this is a new setup? Hydrogen peroxide spot treatment will get it out. Most of the plants I've had good results just removing them from the tank, dunking them in 3% hydrogen peroxide for 5 minutes, and then putting them back in the tank.

A lot of the plants named are slow-growers and don't seem to be nitrate hogs. The roots may be pulling in nutrients from the substrate. Nitrogen added by way of fertilizer would be absorbed more readily (from what I've read, plants have to use more energy to absorb nitrate produced by organics in the water column). Overfiltration can actually be counterproductive in feeding plants, since they much prefer to absorb ammonia/ammonium and nitrite, where literally your beneficial bacteria are outcompeting your plants. And if you're doing low-light, your plants aren't super nutrient hungry in the first place. That's the case in pretty much all my aquariums as well. Other than that, I agree with the above -- fast-growing floaters has helped me tremendously in some of my insane "holy-crap-that's-a-lot-of-fish" setups.

Ok, my qualifications are: I built one aquarium - a 90 gallon - and there's still water in it after 10 months. But, this is relevant to one mistake I made initially, which was not perfectly sealing the rim that I made for it. I run air stones at night, and the bit of splash that comes with air breaching the surface was accumulating in certain crevices between the glass and the rim, and after a few days, a bead of water would emerge from an area between the outside of the glass and the rim, which would run down the side and leave behind unsightly mineral streaks when it dried. Had to fix it, because I like keeping my water level high. But if that rim on your 55 is already in pretty good shape, the odds of it leaking from some little splashies here and there are low. Just figured I'd share that tidbit of annoyance I encountered.

@Streetwise@Daniel Hey, thanks guys. Obviously y'all are among the top dawgs here and I'm learning at a much faster rate thanks to your contributions. I'm just happy to be at a stage where I know enough to help somebody else every now and then.

Both are fine once fully cured. Long-term, the oil-based will last longer (no idea how much longer in this particular environment where it's exposed to more moisture). With oil, the cure time will be a lot longer, and the smell will linger for longer.

I use a low wattage heater with a temperature controller, since I keep my house at 68. Cory is right; it's kind of a pain to unplug and rinse the heater every day. And then there was that one time I forgot to put the temp probe back in the hatchery and woke up to brine shrimp bathwater. If I find a low-profile incandescent lamp I can mount on the wall, I might switch to that long-term.

I wonder if water clarifier would help bind the dust better to get picked up your filter floss. One time I added a bag of purigen that I didn't realize had a small tear in the seam of the bag. Sudden burst of tiny purigen beads in the water column, fish trying to eat it over and over. Looked like my plants had ich. Total mess. Luckily the stuff is completely harmless, just took a few gravel vacs over the weeks to get it out.

When I run purigen, especially in my small filters like my aquaclear 30 (i dont have a 20), I run it as loosely as possible -- typically letting it rest on top of everything in the media basket including the biomedia. In small filters, I just shove it under the two tabs you use to pull the basket out, on top. Not all the water will pass through the purigen, but that's not important. You really want gentle flow through it anyway. It won't take long to saturate.

It's fine, just ugly looking. It will settle, and if it doesn't, take care of it at your next scheduled water change. Not harmful.

Are you using the aquarium co-op eggs? I'm also curious if you've tried to simplify the additives (say, just adding the rock salt) and if it affected your hatch rate noticeably. I was trying different combos of salts, added minerals, buffers, amped up the aeration, etc., but the easiest solution to getting a high hatch rate was to just buy the co-op eggs. I'm now doing 3 tablespoons of instant ocean marine salt, that's all. Not sure how your water is. My ph out of the tap is 7.8, and all that's in it is chloramines and calcium carbonate.

Is the betta already with the schooling fish and cories? Because it really just depends on your betta's temperament. The honey gourami won't be the one to pick a fight; it'll just hide all the time if it's being bullied.