David W

I am not sure that the dennerle shrimp king soil is the right choice for neocaridina shrimp like the red cherries. They like harder water, than the caridina shrimp. The shrimp king soil appears to be formulated to drop the PH for Caridina shrimp. I am only 6 months in to keeping Cherry shrimp so please verify.

This is the first in a series called Planted Aquarium basics. I found them when I got started. It’s a good place to start. Keep at it, plants have turned into my favorite part of fish keeping.

What are you using for a stand? The tank looks level from the waterline. The picture looks like there is a seam in the middle or two surfaces slid together. If that the case the tank may not have been supported evenly leading to early failure.

One LFS around me has terrible looking plants near me. The other is kind of a tough drive in the snow, and is hit and miss with their selection. I have 3 tanks primarily filled with co-op plants. I am setting up a 10 gallon in my office at work. I have all the plants I want in my cart, and am confident they will show up healthy. The packaging is always what is needed, but shipping to the Cleveland area from Washington in this weather is tough. It is taking all my will power to wait until the weather is better and the mail is not delivering stuff super late. I am still getting stuff mailed in December about once a week. Patience will set me up for success, but me being patient not as likely as it should be.

I use Purigen in a hob filter. It does a great job removing tannins. https://www.aquariumcoop.com/products/seachem-purigen

I have an update and a question. First I want to say thank you to everyone for the advice. It all made the process go very smooth and helped set up the tank for success. So far so good. I have had shrimp in for a few weeks. Plants and shrimp are doing well. Snails are doing a little too well, I am working on finding the balance with the food. I ordered 20 shrimp from a breeder in Ohio, figuring the water would be sort of close to mine. They came in a variety of sizes, and have acclimated well. I don't believe I have lost any. They have began breeding fairly quickly. Over the last week four of them has become berried. So far everything is going very well. I do have some hitch hikers. It appears a few eggs came over in some plants. They have hatched and I have four small fry. They are about 3/8 in / 10mm long. I think they are Australian Rainbows. I pulled plants from two tanks, One has the rainbows, and the other has neon tetras. They are definitely not corys or ottos, and my water isn't ideal for neon breeding. So, I am concerned that the fry will start to go after the shrimplets, after they hatch. How big will shrimplets be when they hatch? How big should the fry get before I need to remove them from the tank? Initially I was going to wait until I could move them to the tank with the adults. With the shrimp colony just starting to breed, I want to keep the best chance for success. I did notice that the fry started picking at the detritus worms today. The detritus worms are at most 1 mm long. Thanks in advance for any help.

Yes and No. I often tell them hello, good night, how are you, or stop begging, you already had your dinner. They are as bad as Pugs most days. However, I am not on speaking terms with Lorenzo. He gets the cold shoulder after murdering his friends.

You can try cutting back on the light. It doesn't sound like you have live plants. If you don't have live plants you only really need the light when you want to look at your fish. You can shorten the timer or just click the light on when you are around.

Welcome to fish keeping. If you are not familiar with the nitrogen cycle here is a really good place to start. Your Tank needs to build up beneficial bacteria in order to process the the ammonia. There are some products to help get this going, some seem to work better than others. I have not had luck with API's version, but Tetra Safe start seemed to work. The biggest factor is time. Try to feed lightly and keep testing and keep up with water changes. First tanks always seem hard, but like anything else it gets easier with some practice.

Jorge, how long has your tank been up and running. Are you new to fish keeping? Have you changed filter media or made any other changes that may have crashed your cycle?

I have used the api kit. It seems works as well as the other api kits. API Phosphate Test Kit WWW.AQUARIUMCOOP.COM This liquid kit is used to test for phosphate in the water. Often used to see if your source of water has phosphates in it. Used a lot in freshwater planted aquariums and saltwater aquariums. Too many phosphates is...

Earlier in the year. I thought I had Anubias rot. After after doing some research, It was more likely that I got overzealous with the glue, and got too much on the roots. Here is a good blog post about Anubias Rot. Anubias Rot: Symptoms, Causes, and Solutions WWW.AQUARIUMCOOP.COM Anubias rot is an uncommon disease that can affect anubias plants in the aquarium hobby. Unfortunately, there is very little information about how it starts and how to stop its spread. In this article, let's talk about the...

I would add more neon tetras. One huge school of small fish is fun to watch.

Corys are almost always a good choice. Lots of fun to watch and they will be at a different level. Just be careful over stocking can get pretty easy in a 20 long with multiple types of schooling fish.

I used on of these before I did planted tanks. It worked well on old school gravel. After I switched to Sand, the small particles jammed up the motor and it was never the same.

Cory has stated that if the Co-op list their number, it rings off the hook because of the you tube channel. They do not have the resources to keep up with it. I would suggest going to the store with questions or Emil like Mychala suggested. Or ask them here, there are many very experienced fish keepers here that can help you diagnose the problem. Start with sharing as much as you can about your tank Size of tank What species of fish and how many how long you have had your tank running, Is it planted? Water parameters.

Maybe try dropping off a sample to your LFS with a card with your name / phone number / email. It will be good gesture towards building a relationship. If they like what you bring they will call you back. You won’t be taking a chance on getting the wrong person, or the right person in the wrong mood. Building a positive business relationship is as as important as providing a quality product.

I have no problems with under gravel filters. Just throwing in some good info on making HOB filters work like sponge filters.

I don’t have a python, I made a DIY set up that’s similar. Lookin at a few you tube videos , it should be very east to shorten the hose. Make sure you take it apart by unscrewing the end. Note how it was assembled and put it back the same way after cutting to length. You shouldn’t heat up hose. It may make it brittle leading early failure. Just push it on then screw the backing collar on. If it is too hard to push on to the barb, I would put a little soapy water as a lubricant. A drop or two of dish soap in a cup of water.

Think of them as bonus snails. They help much more than they hurt. I think they are a big part of transitioning a fish tank into an ecosystem. Remember most things that seem out of control in an aquarium are a symptom not a disease. Out of control algae or bonus snails are likely due to something being out of balance.

I did this yesterday, after the family fell into a turkey coma. I spent a very relaxing hour listening to Jazz and watching a little snail moving across the tank.

I am thinking minimum 10 probably 20. I will definitely get red. Red is my and daughters favorite color. I set up the substrate and hardscape colors to let the red stand out. Co-op was out of the Indian almond leaves when I ordered the plants, but they are on the way with cholla wood. Thanks for the suggestion on the food.

Streetwise, I have some driftwood in there and some cholla wood on the way. I really like having it in my tanks. Ken, I will definitely give it a go. I have a couple pre-filter sponges that will definitely will do the job. Nothing wrong with some superstition to give you peace of mind.

A school of small Corydoras are always great fun to watch. A lot of activity and character and they would fill in the lower third of the tank.

Thank you for the feed back. I am going to start with getting an air stone in the tank to help with the gas exchange. I’ll swap it with the sponge filter later. I will let the plants do their thing. I am not in a hurry. If there are no snails in the plants, I’ll move over some rams horns from the other tanks. I’m hoping some MTS eggs snuck in with this batch. I am not comfortable shipping live fish to Cleveland during holiday shopping season, and the two LFS I frequent sell out of shrimp very quickly. So I’m probably looking at January or February. Thanks.