Schwack

I think it's been mentioned on a few live streams that Fluval is inconsistent when it comes to fulfilling orders. Most people are chalking up the supply problems to COVID related issues with staffing/production/shipping. Lots of odd products seem to have had their supply chain interrupted by COVID. For example, I buy specific coffee filters for a pour-over coffee brewer. About 4 months ago, there were NONE to be found. Amazon carried them, but marked up 300%. The pandemic has just made a mess of things in general. Hopefully that'll turn around by the end of this year as production and shipping can ramp back up.

I'm sure someone with more knowledge will come along and offer more in-depth advice, but I'd be a bit nervous about trusting 80ish pounds to what looks like dowels, fairly short screws and possibly glue. I'm assuming you added the extra piece of wood (some kind of composite?) to add rigidity to the shelf then screwed in some half sheets of the same material below, yeah? To my eye, it looks like the entire thing is held up by screws, rather than material in contact with the ground. My concern would be with screws tearing out of the shelf, since they likely had to be less than 1" long. I suppose having them shear could be an issue too, but I'd imagine most screws can handle 80 pounds. I wouldn't risk it, but I'm more paranoid than most when it comes to tank stands.

You can test this by sliding a piece of paper under a tank on a flat surface. I can easily slide a sheet under the center of my tanks, but the corners are tight to the surface. Definitely find a different surface for your new tank.

We had a similar experience with something much less time sensitive, but much bulkier. Ordered a mattress in a box which was shipped in a 5ft long, 200 pound box and FedEx lost it for almost two weeks. We went back and forth with the vendor and FedEx the entire time, since their system no longer had tracking data after the first few days. Nothing like having a CS rep ask you to check all around your house for a missed package even after you explain that the thing would be impossible to miss. When it did finally arrive, it had clearly seen better days. Fortunately, it had been well packed and arrived undamaged. Hearing these experiences with "two day shipping" of live animals has made me extra nervous to try buying online.

Yep, most of the cycle is just a waiting game. Assuming you've got stuff living and pooping in the tank, ammonia is being produced. With a couple of snails, it's probably not much, but it's there. Things are generally considered "cycled" once you're detecting nitrate but not ammonia or nitrite. I've had mixed results using handfuls of cycled substrate, these days I typically add an entire cycled sponge filter to get things rocking right away. Once you're seeing nitrates, you'll know things are getting close. It might be worthwhile to continue adding food to the tank to help increase ammonia production. You'll also want to stock the tank slowly once things are cycled. These bacteria can double in number every 7 hours, or so I've read, and going from processing the waste from a few nerites to the waste produced by a bunch of fish could create a bit of a problem in terms of keeping your water suitable for fish.

I've been saving the huge clumps of snails that have been accumulating while my CPD fry fatten up for exactly this. The downside is that I'll need to get another aquarium to use as a grow out tank in the future. Shucks.

The instructions from Select Aquatics essentially call for leaving the fish in the treated water and then following your typical water change schedule. That is, avoid doing water changes just to remove the medication. I waited two weeks or so and then added a bag of carbon to the HOB to help remove all the medication from the tank. I believe the idea is to ensure that all worms in the tank are exposed to the levamisole, even those still in eggs during your first dose. They seem very confident that one dose will wipe out the worms, and Select Aquatics seems to have a ton of experience dealing with this parasite, so I trust their judgement. You're almost certainly safe to add fish shortly after dosing the tank, but my advice would be to wait 4-6 weeks. This gives you a chance to monitor your remaining fish and re-stabilize the tank. If you were so inclined, you could probably fill your 10 gallon to the brim once you've removed the fish and add a final dose of levamisole. That way you could leave it at full strength for a few weeks to ensure all the parasites are cleared. Dealing with these things is a huge pain.

The fish food method is going to take a fair amount of time. You're just stuck waiting on things to rot, which is something of an inexact science. I've seen folks talk about it taking 6-8 weeks using only fish food. I pride myself on being patient with this hobby, but I'm not that patient. If you can, I'd recommend getting your hands on some ammonium chloride. I ended up ordering a 1lbs bag of the powdered stuff and I'll almost certainly drop dead before I finish the bag. As far as a fish-in cycle... I guess? Assuming you're performing water changes to keep levels in check, feeding lightly and being observant it's certainly possible. I think @Danielhas posted before about a tank that was allowed to just sort itself out. My opinion would be that things like that are best left to experienced and knowledgeable fish-keepers, people who have seen enough tanks cycle to know how to handle any bumps in the road, but assuming you chose a hardy fish it's an option.

You don't need to divide it unless you've got an oddly sized tank. I'm guessing that is a bit of older information from before they began sending out the measuring spoons. I ended up just using the spoon included from Select Aquatics. If you've got a very precise scale that can handle mg, you could use that as well. If you want to be extremely precise, you could divide it up to suit the actual volume of water in your tank (for example, my 10 gallon only has ~7 3/4 gallons in it after substrate, hardscape and an air gap at the top.) My internet research suggested that this wasn't necessary, as people have dosed much higher than the 100mg/10 gal recommended by Select Aquatics. Fritz has the dosage at something like 113mg/10 gal. I saw reports of people dosing 10-12x that amount and reporting only spotty invertebrate deaths. It seems unwise, however, since the lower dosage appears to be just as effective. Both Fritz and Select Aquatics recommend two doses. Select Aquatics suggests a 25% water change, dose, 24 hour wait, 25% water change, dose and then water change as normal. This is the schedule I followed. Fritz is similar, but they recommend dosing once, waiting a week and then adding the second dose. Both suggest thoroughly cleaning your substrate after each dose. My tank is planted and I just got what my vac could reach. I moved some the hardscape which could easily be replaced, but otherwise just tried to be methodical and work in the best grid possible. I still ended up with an intake filler covered in worms 3 days later. You might be able to search for camallanus worms on the forum and find my experience with them. I tried to document how things were going in case other folks ran into these things. It's strange that they're a common parasite, but the treatment for them is very difficult to find. Best of luck getting through this rough patch. The worms in my largest tank killed all but 3 fish, left one with a secondary infection that I can't seem to beat and were just generally exhausting. I'm happy to answer any questions I can, I'm not an expert by any means, but I have spent an inordinate amount of time reading about parasites recently.

My adults seem to completely ignore hydra. I've had a breeder box with fry attached to their tank for a few months, and a hydra outbreak started in there and spread to the larger tank. I've been clearing the breeder box as best I can with a pipette, but the actual tank is still full of hydra. I'm in the process of moving the fry into a larger tank so I can totally cut off the baby brine shrimp and hopefully wipe out the hydra.

CPDs are egg scatterers, that location doesn't really strike me as the kind of spot they'd spawn. Mine will only do it in dense foliage. The eggs are non-adhesive, clear and teeny tiny. If you're pointing at the little brown bits on the glass, I can say definitively they aren't CPD eggs. No idea what might've laid them, however.

I just went through a battle with these critters, and they're a huge pain in the butt. Levamisole knocked them out, fortunately, but getting your hands on the stuff can be a challenge. Fritz sells it as Expel-P, Greg Sage at Select Aquatics is another good source. You can also try to find it as LevaMed, which is a goat dewormer. If you get your hands on some I can pass along the instructions I got in terms of dosing. Like @Brandymentioned, Fritz recommends doing a second dose but Select Aquatics advised against it unless you see symptoms. I opted for one dose and things seem to be in the clear, but I'm still watching my fish like a hawk. In one tank, I experienced a mini cycle crash after medicating, almost certainly due to the large amount of decaying organics expelled from my fish. The second tank I dosed is still in the process of re-establishing its cycle. It was a less seasoned tank, so I'm guessing that fed into the problems I've had since. edit: I used mine with Nerite snails, Ramshorn snails, Cherry Shrimp and Amano shrimp. All of my inverts made it through the treatment with seemingly no ill effects.

Did you notice any effects on other tank inhabitants? Namely, snails. I've heard Planaria Zero and Fenbendazole can be hard on snails, and nerites in particular. On top of that, folks often report that it seems to stick around in the water column for 3+ months. I'd dose my tank to clear these buggers up, but I like my snails too much to do it (Yes, even my bladder snails). This is disappointing to hear, I was looking into picking up a pair of guppies to keep in a smaller tank just for hydra duty. Guess that can go out the window.

Only downside I've run into to feeding bbs all the time is a hydra outbreak. Stupid things spring up like weeds. It's worth it to get the baby fish to fatten up though.

1/4" would make them only slightly larger than the 6-7 week old CPD fry I'm raising right now. They're tiny fish when adults, but 1/4" sounds... really tiny. Mine were quite small when I bought them. Probably 3/4" long and drab gray. I was concerned about feeding them, but the people at my LFS advised just grinding up flake/pellets with my fingers until they put on some size. I supplemented that with BBS and frozen daphnia and they've grown and colored up beautifully. If you've got baby brine on hand, they'll be fine to eat that. Mine have been eating bbs since ~week 2 of life when they were little more than a pair of eyeballs and a tail. I still feed my adults baby brine 2-3x a week. As far as temps go... maybe? I keep mine unheated at room temp. Their water temperature sort of hovers between 71-72F. I know temps in the wild can dip into the 50s so it seems reasonable that they could manage a couple days of low temp, but I'm not sure why they would risk fish arriving DOA when a heat pack is such a simple addition.

I have a similar issue in my cpd tank. I'm sort of stuck continuing to feed small food because of the batch of fry growing out in a breeder box attached to the tank. I think the little buggers are occasionally stinging fry, but I hate the idea of medicating just to be rid of them. I'm assuming guppy's won't work in the breeder box (I pipette them out wherever I see em), but could they work with adult cpds? The tank is unheated and hangs around 71F. The hydra don't seem to bug the adult cpd, but I don't like seeing them!

I ended up doing this with the last couple of fish I lost. It isn't pleasant, but being able to confirm a diagnosis of internal parasites means you can narrow your focus in terms of meds.

Gonna second @Colu's suggestion of levamisole. I'm not sure if you've been able to get a good look at the worms, but I just went through a battle with camallanus worms a few weeks back. My infestation started about the same as yours. I'd lose ~1 fish a month, typically smaller fish. Bodies almost always looked totally normal, if a bit thin behind their bellies. Finally, I spotted a tiny, read thread dangling from a fish hanging at the bottom of the tank and was able to get a concrete diagnosis. I still lost several fish who had been heavily infected by the worms, but treatment saved the others. My understanding, based on reading way too much about worms lately, is that some of the most common dewormers (fenbendazole and praziquel) are ineffective at treating camallanus worms or only temporarily paralyze the worms. Levamisole is dosed into the water column and, according to the instructions from Select Aquatics, will actually kill the worms. I think the Coop recommends getting levamisole from Select Aquatics. A quick google search will bring them up. I had a bit of an issue with the levamisole spiking my cycle after treatment, but that's much easier to deal with than worms slowly killing your fish. Best of luck getting things right. Losing so many fish was super discouraging for me, but being able to look back on it as a learning experience has helped lessen the blow a bit. I don't know that there's any hard and fast data on how long they can survive without fish as hosts, but lots of folks claim they can piggyback on inverts for a while. It may be worthwhile to treat the empty tank just to be sure you're in the clear to add fish back.

I have a drain line T'd off the air supply line but in front of the air valve. When it's time to harvest, I close up the air line and open up the drain. Gravity forces the water in the container out the drain.

I've used both https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:20839 and https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3313194 I had a bit of trouble getting the first one to sit water tight, but an appropriately sized O ring from the hardware store took care of that.

I'm sure you'll get lots of positive notes on the Ziss hatcher, and I have no doubt it's great, but after seeing one in person it looked way too large for my needs. So far, I've used an inverted 2L/1L bottle with a 1/4" airline cap from Amazon and a 3D printed version which incorporates a stand. I only hatch ~1/4tsp at a time and the smaller volume helps keep hatch rates high with minimal waste. I can hatch plenty of BBS with only 16oz of water. So far, I prefer the 3D printed hatcher because the footprint is more compact, but hatch rates with both were close to identical. If I recall correctly, the 2L cap was $4 and the 3D printed hatchers were free from friends with printers, both hard prices to beat if you're working with small volume. If I had more fish to feed I'd almost certainly own a Ziss blender, but right now it would be like buying a Ferrari to drive to my mailbox.

I end up using Dr Bronner's unscented soap or plain Dawn dish soap whenever I'm gonna get my hands wet. I've got nothing to back this up, but I feel like if there's scent on my hand some of it is gonna end up in the water. For me, Dr Bronner's/Dawn rinses cleanly and doesn't leave any residue I can feel. Having to use so much hand sanitizer these days has my super paranoid about keeping my hands clean when I'm working in my tanks too. I scrub like crazy after I go out, hand sanitizer just feels like it's impossible to get off!

I've been growing out my first batch of CPD fry for ~6 weeks now. They're definitely too small for BBS right after hatching. I tried culturing infusoria, but just ended up with disgusting water. Hikari First Bites worked OK, but the Sera Micron fry food is much smaller and better suited to newly hatched CPD fry. It took 2-3 weeks before they were big enough for baby brine shrimp, but now that they are, they're packing on weight and size very quickly. As far as hatching smaller batches, I use a homemade hatcher made from a 2 liter pop bottle and a screw top with a 1/4" airline hose tip. It lets me run air through the eggs while they hatch and I can do 1/4 tsp at a time with great results.

My bettas do ok with a combo of a sponge filter for bio filtration and AquaClear HOB's to keep the water nice and clear for me. The AquaClear's are adjustable, so you can turn the flow down to a near drip. The adjustment plus the customizable filter media is hard to beat. They're also relatively easy to baffle if the lowest setting is too much for your fish. I've heard a few folks say they've had overflows with them, but after a year of running two of them I haven't had that problem. Strangely, both bettas I keep seem to really enjoy swimming into the waterfall from the HOB filters. Occasionally, I turn up the flow (after a water change, for example) and both of them will sit under the heavier splash and swim straight up.

I'm almost certain I ran into this with the first tank I set up. I used rocks from an old pond in my yard. Some were a bit porous, but I scrubbed and soaked them for a couple days to try and get any residue off. After I put them in the tank, I noticed changes to fish behavior within ~24 hours. At the time, my aquarium problem solving skills were in their nascent stage and I didn't connect the dots quickly enough to remove them ASAP. Lost two fish to that, but a big water change and removing the rocks cleared things right up. I've since used rocks from my yard again, but only after multiple scrubbings/soakings. I also avoid rocks with porosity like the plague. If I'm looking for swiss cheese rocks they'll come from my LFS or local wooded areas.