KoolFish97

First up. Well done congratulations getting through it and getting work done on it. I know its always a challenge and pushes you when you design and make your own science experiment Dont forget in turth this was a pilot study! We all have grand plans for success and getting world changing results but this is what is called a pilot study you tested out the idea to see in the end how could it be done better to get meaningful results! I can see that so much of it made a lot of sense and was done well. Sadly sometimes simple things which you a. Didnt have time for or b. Could obtain may have made it better! All of your improvments you listed i agreed with! But 2 obvious ones are obviously more time! But another is a super accurate ammonia test too maybe on a smaller scale 0.01 the ammonia was different but the test kits couldnt show that accuracy! Another could also be the temperature! Colder water less active plant growth? What about if you had consitent 12 hours of unchanging light? What about if the ammonia was only at a 0.25 concentration? What about if you did have flow for gas exchange to add some co2 to the water? This is how science work even if you had perfect world changing results there is always more to learn and more to test. All in all though you did do a fantastic job and i can see you really tried. I know science is super challenging. Even for my Honours grade (like a published paper here in australia before PhD) i had massive problems with my experiment that i wish i could have fixed! But that is science and the way you explain how it could be better where it went wrong and why you think you results didnt get what you thought is a huge (cannont understate) huge part of science. Im glad i could have helped where i could and that i was a part of it ive been honoured to help you out

Slightly more related to aquarium keeping and one that eats a lot of algae. Check out the Marine trochus snail... No not the normal small-ish conical snails.. there GIANT cousins. 15cm (6 inches) diameter bases let alone height. Just a cool thing sold them a couple of times at my work haha. Algae munching powerhouses. 🐌🌿

So my opinions would be do water sprite or another equally fast growing stem plant. You could easily do water sprite. Fast growing and you can get a single bunch but treat a Stem as a single plant. Therefore 1 plant might make 3-5 "samples" therefore more economic and more samples for spread. Weight would be good but it would be absolutely possible to use the water sprite but cut it let's say in pieces 10cm long (random size) and at the end of the time take a measurement of how long they ended up being. In all I would probly do something like 1-3 stems against 6-9 so like a single stem in 1 x (2 containers) and 6 stems x (2 containers) and then 2 containers with no stems The standardised size should be sufficient as your main principle is the ammonia being cycled not the plant growth. It's just a way you could measure it and make sure your taking a standard approach. Of course more than happy for you to contact me privately would love to assist in anyway I can. I'm afraid I'm a bit of a social media hermit/recluse and I don't have Instagram. I'm happy to exchange emails, messenger etc. If that doesn't work more than happy to create a Instagram just to assist!

This would be my favourite my Fahaka (I've never actually named her) she's laid eggs before so I know it's a she! This is a old photo (6-8 months ago now) and her tank is now fully planted with around 100 rainbow fish/Congo tetras, gudgeons, Siamese algae eaters and bristlenose. As in the second photo (she's hiding up in the corner is massively camera shy 😅) I just had to show the first photo as it's the one time I caught her puffed up!

Do exactly what Cory does. Crushed coral!!! (He has a dose he recommends on his website to buff it) His tap water is pretty much RO from the tap as he has stated in many videos that's what he does to make it good for fish

Sorry I wrote it out a little confusing. Any aquarium salt is perfectly fine! But use aquarium coops salt treatment guide and go with the gentlest dose https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/aquarium-salt-for-sick-fish

I would actually leave it still as previously recommend and 110% use salt. They are quite salt tolerant (here on Australia we have them on mass in dams rivers streams lakes etc everywhere) some places are actually quite saline. I'd add aquarium coops Precautionary salt treatment just to help prevent any infection. The extra minerals may even help the shed.

Always happy to help, any questions you have to let me know! Have a soft spot for turtles. An Australian Eastern Long neck turtle (Tommy, I was 5) was my first pet I ever owned. And from there my life's always been about and around animals.

@Sol absolutely would love to be a part of it and assist in anyway I can. For ammonia dosage I would highly suggest seeing if you can find another experiment similar that has doses that they use. Or another way might be to find what the "standard" ammonia concentration are for a brand/s that they recommend for cycling an aquarium. Though not a super awesome way about it, it will be based of a industry standard! My advice with plants would be see what is the most cost effective for you where your local too then we could easily chose from that list viable plant decisions. (For example maybe not java as it's a relative slow grower when compared to many other choices, not saying a bad choice just might be viable to chose a cost effective fast growing species). You could even slightly adjust the experiment and do the same amount of plants (by mass or individual plants) but do different species to see which is the most "effective" out of what you test. (Maybe even do similar growth styles but different choices like stem plants against eachother etc etc. Or even floating plants against one another) But both ways would work well if planned out accordingly!

They would be an excellent test subject as long as the variable wasn't to difficult to measure/control. (That can be said for any experiment!) For example if you tried to do individuals hatching rates that might be a difficult challenge if you tried to count them (though not impossible just a bit more complex) It would come down to what variable you wanted to test. Temperature? Salinity? What about light? (One in 24 hour light, one in 12 he and one in no light then repeated 3 times) then what "measure" would you use. Maybe it would be amount of hatched eggs in dry weight? Skim them off the surface and dry them through a sieve and you could see a relationship with the largest volume of hatched eggs being the "best" hatch rate. About the things to test and ways to measure it the slightly adjusted adage goes "there is lots of ways to feed a fish 😅" It would all come down in short to what you wanted to test and how readily you could "quantitfy" or objectively qualify the data. But brine shrimp are often used for experimental work due to the things you mentioned!

More than happy to assist with any experiment you chose. Always want to inspire science! I would agree with @TheDuke about the plant issues that it can be difficult if you only use a single plant per tank. but I will say with experience animals can be incredibly difficult if they run into any issues also. It's part of the problem with any experiment! However science experiments aren't just about the "answer" sometimes the real exciting stuff is the problems/developments that happen. Let's say you natural light one died? You can write multiple reasons and do a tonne of research! Was it a natural variable? Genetic? Did algae out compete? Did it grow more roots rather then leaves? Even though it's less growth is it "healthier?" Not to mention this is why you repeat an experiment 3 times or more times to give you an "Average" (mean) of a population sample (obviously more is better but 3 is more than sufficient for what you need) so if one test they die but the other 2 times it works its okay! You still have an average and you get to try to explain why it happened you don't have to have the right answer just show you understand there is reasons it did happen! I will say one thing about animal research (which I have undertaken and have assisted others on it) The old circus/TV adage of "don't work with children OR animals" is very true it can be even more complicated to get results on animals as their is a lot of little variables and sometimes animals will do much the opposite you intend. Or possess another variable you can't control. But that should not discourage you! Always do an experiment that excites and interests you! You'll always put more effort into it and enjoy it more Just when you write up about it definantly make sure to address any of the issues you face (flora or fauna) and possible reasons why. Presenting plausible and realistic reasons as to why something didn't go as intended is exactly what science is built on! Don't forget though (it may or may not matter) but it's not just good to have a few samples per "experiment" but also to repeat that whole experiment 3 times. This helps mitigate the "control error" of an experiment. For example if you have snails in 3 seperate tanks and you finish up with one tank doing well for population and another 2 did bad. How can you clearly say it wasn't something in the fish tank silicone of those 2 tanks that's caused the problem or a spray that fell in, or that you didn't clean it properly before use etc etc? (You can't!) Therefore if you randomise the tanks another 2 times and the same happens each time you can say with certainty the tank had no effect and it was the treatment! Sorry if this was a large message science does excite me!

I am a biologist (ecologist actually) and I have done some recent growth experiments on Hornwort. (Fast growing so is easy to do in experiments) but it was for a specific reason. To keep it simple but interesting maybe see if you can get a fast growing plant that is grown out of water and work out the conditions they more quickly convert to aquatic form. Like maybe a sword plant for example. Could simply use any Glass vessel. Same room (for temperature concistency) buy 3 of them do one in artificial light one in natural light and one with no light. (No light would be control) (repeating it with 3 times for each would be a reliable experiment but if not the end of the world if it's not as imperative) See which is better at conversion. Nothing mind blowing I know but a simple and interesting experiment none the less! I'd even be open to helping you design the experiment if you needed any help! For example hypothesis: natural sunlight would provide the most beneficial lighting level to convert emergent growth to aquatic growth. even if thats wrong that's the fun of science! again more than happy to help if you need it.

I agree with Cory. Leave it bet and let her work it out. Just to let you know if she struggles to and she somehow looses the claw it is okay! They will grow it back it just may take a few sheds to grow back to a normal size. I used to look after a clawless yabby when I was little (the place I got him the others ripped it's claws off) and he never grew them back! But he lived for years and seemed happy none the less! Let it be and if worse comes to worse the claw might be lost but don't worry! It'll be okay! Just keep it comfy and safe and let it do it's thing.

I use a auto water change carbon filter for my large 1000L (265 gallon) aquarium. Changes at most 8L (2 gallons) a minute. But normally much less. I use ONLY carbon to dechlorinate. (Here in Australia chloromines are not purposefully added only "naturally" created so are very rare and normally non existent for us) But it goes through a Metre (3.3 feet) of PVC tube at 50mm round (2inch) so it isn't anywhere near a fridge filter. I wouldn't trust it to pass along the carbon (trick to using it to dechlorinate) enough for it all to be 99% gone or that it would get used up way to quickly to have to replace it regularly (carbon is "active" but once it hits chlorine debris etc it de-activates). Mine could according to my calculations get away with an easy and safe 6 months. But I change 1Kg of carbon (2.2 pounds) every 3 months to be sure incase anything crazy happened I didn't account for. So as you can see wouldn't trust it for regular reliable water changes. If your really concerned get rainwater! But really unless it's crazy over 1ppm ammonia your more than fine not to water change. You need ammonia in there anyhow haha. (Hopefully my conversions from metric make sense for everyone in the US or non-metric countries! 😊)

From my experience as long as you don't have ridiculous levels of ammonia plants can be added straight away to help cycle an aquarium! I always do it, always have really and always recommend it. Many old school methods/aquarists recommend them to be the way to "cycle" aquariums. Some even plant it till their Is nothing but plants and basically straight after added fish straight away with no loss or even registered ammonia. Plants are just wonderful! P.S Let your food supply the nutrients for initial growth don't go adding more complexity to a new tank while your learning just let them grow off the food and once it's all settled and cycled and fish are healthy and happy start to get into all that if you wish too!

I'd try crypts and anubias. Emergent I'd try dwarf papyrus, peace Lily's, synogoniums, swamp lilies, anubias, aluminium, pretty much any of the aquarium plants that grow emergent would work and you know their fish/turtle safe.

This is only going of my understanding of breeding and genetics. Snails may be different keep that in mind. I would seperate all the ones with the desired shells and place them in their own tank. Keep them super well fed and breeding and the moment you see one without the colour put it back to the original tank to try and keep only genetics of the red trait going in their own tank. If it's genetic this should work well to encourage that trait. I believe something was done to get some of the Ramshorns morphs. Also to feeding colour enhancing foods may also be a great way to keep the colour levels stronger and encourage it. Pretty much keep it like shrimp to keep a strong and nice red you take out the shrimp that aren't showing as nice a colour and just keep "stronger" desired genetics Pretty cool! I really like it if it works out for you that would be awesome! Best of luck!

From time to time I openly vocalise my thought on the aquarium or something around that to the fish. Not directly to them as "talking" but just in that direction. I'm probly a bad fish owner I have lots of individual large fish and ones you can clearly tell apart (Fahaka, goldfish, rays etc) and I don't even name then I just call them the species names or common names for example I just say the "puffer" haha. In my eyes if it cant "respond" I don't see the reason to name them or talk to them haha. Doesn't mean I don't love them just don't need to say come here (insert name here) because I know it's not the name that calls it but the actions or recognition of food source haha.

I would like to say over 20 is perfectly fine. For planted tanks that's an ideal PPM. But many MANY fish can be kept in much higher nitrates without any issues. Many scientific studies I've read shown that dangerous and detrimental levels are well above what can be tested by hobbiests (over 200ppm) and only chronic over long extended periods of time. The worst downside is if you have "high" nitrates and other problems it's not going to help them. And that more nitrates you have it can result in more algae. Honestly water changes will help but also will plants which is strongly advised. If you can't keep aquatic plants then water change or grow emergent plants is a great way to keep aquarium nutirents low.

I want to second everything you've said. I completely agree. The only thing I'd like to add is I believe a lot of it sadly comes down to prestige from my personal experience If you tell everyone how hard it is to keep them then you can tell people how amazing you are because you keep them as there "so" difficult. That's not everyone some people just follow the rules that were "established" and just had great success but thats not the only way to keep discus and it hurts the hobby to say things like that. We as hobbiests (as is done in this forum) should be encouraging people advising help but don't scare them away with "how there elitist some things are to keep"

Stop feeding completely for a few days (3 or so)then feed lightly do a few water changes and just make sure your not over cleaning the filter/tank and causing "mini cycles" where the system struggles to catch back up also make sure your not washing your filter in tap water which can cause these mini cycles

This link should help you out!

Ah bugger. If you ever luck out and get him a bigger home I know he would appreciate it! But you've done a hell of a lot for him regardless. He's already going to be healthier and happier with the work you've done.

Looking really good. I think what you've just rigged up will be a lot more reliable. You could use the mopani timber as a landing for the turtle if you wanted too. Good to see things progressing well.

I'm also for chopping parents from buds. They feed of the parent if not enough food which is detrimental plus mother plants won't make more if they are feeding a one or two so dividing helps encourage more. Ive seen wild Val forests in the wild and they readily split by choice or get broken apart by flow etc. The ones that don't they sort of take a lot longer to grow more vals but I do notice the difference is they have a tonne of food/nutrients in the soil/substrate compares to our aquariums.