Mike_M

Planted shrimp tank maybe? I get a lot of enjoyment out of mine.

I don't know a heck of a lot about fish breeding, I have a few month old breeding colony of cherry shrimp and I bred kribs a couple years ago with decent success. I wasn't aware of this technique of using a shrimp as a "nurse" for eggs. How cool is that? I'm wanting to start breeding some rainbowfish soon. Think putting a cherry shrimp in with the eggs is a good idea?

Maracyn from the coop works. Never tried melafix. https://www.aquariumcoop.com/products/mardel-maracyn?variant=19081316565061

Dragonfly nymph? Reminds me of a stonefly nymph or something like that I've used for flyfishing. Probably brought it in on some plants?

Keep it simple. Try an easy plant first, maybe anacharis or water wisteria that can grow fast almost anywhere. Do an easy fish, harlequin rasboras for example. Go slow. This hobby rewards patience, and practice. We could read for a thousand hours how to hit a home run, but we have to get out there and swing the bat a while before we can do it ourselves.

He said they have been edited. If that isn't "outright mentioning" I don't know what is.

For a tank as deep as your 45g with co2 I would use a fluval 3.0 for sure, unless your budget is tight. It's a great light, but they get so bright they can be overkill. In my experience 20 longs don't need ultra bright lights because they are so shallow. But if you are liking the growth you are currently getting in your 45 then just get a cheaper light for your 20L and save some bucks.

Thsnks for the ideas guys. Now I'm considering a substrate swap to some very dark or black sand. My other tanks have all had really dark plant substrate like eco complete etc, and I think that look just clicks with me better.

I think people might not fully recognize that this is a business's forum. Cory's decision to create this forum was no doubt, at least in large part, a business decision. He has people contacting the coop all the time saying "my neon tetras look weird! Are they dying? What's going on??" Etc. With this forum they can direct this sort of thing here. We can answer these types of questions for these people, and also discuss all kinds of other things related to our hobby/obsession and have a good time. What I think he wants to avoid is it becoming counter productive for him by it getting loaded with what basically amounts to advertisements for other retailers, or for products he doesn't recommend or sell. This is the aquarium coop forum. Obviously we shouldn't say "hey they have a sale on vallisneria on blankety blank.com go get some!" Not having very clearly defined rules is going to be tough. It's the internet. People need rules or things can get crazy. 😄

One of my tanks I've had going for a couple of years has a sand substrate and I have just never much liked it. It always looks dirty even if I just cleaned it, and when I try to vacuum it either sucks it up or doesn't suck up enough to get it clean. Sand is so popular, there must be some tips on how to make this sand thing work for me. Could I mix it with another substrate? Would that work? Something darker maybe? Hide my shameful laziness not wanting to constantly clean this thing lol? Any thoughts appreciated.

Seachem potassium would do the trick. I always do easy green, iron and seachem postassium. Extra potassium on top of what is in easy green works for me. YMMV

Potassium deficiency would be my first guess.

2 55 gallon 1 20 long 1 10 gallon Plans for two more 75 gallon tanks. Then I'm done, I swear lol

This is what I do. No airstones except in sponge filters. Extra filtration, plus it's nice having sponge filters around for seeding tanks when the time to start a new one inevitably comes lol.

Gary Lange!

The Baensch Aquarium Atlas books are pretty great. Sooooo much information.

Similar experience. I've never had fish get too excited about NLS food. Xtreme is more popular with my fish for sure.