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Eric R

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Everything posted by Eric R

  1. Eric R
    Bummer to hear, sounds like you have a plan to address the outbreak though. Best of luck, let us know how it goes!
  2. Eric R
    In addition to any of the commercially available planted tank substrates, you can use potting soil, just be sure to do your research and buy an aquarium safe soil. You could also use safetsorb and cap it with pool filter sand, which is what I've used, I add osmocote+ to the substrate since it's inert. A lot of it comes down to what plants you want, what fish you want, what your budget is, and what look you like. If you're keeping corydoras, you should make sure to cap your substrate with sand.
  3. Eric R
    All planted substrates will eventually have their nutrients used up, at which point you'll need to replace the substrate, use roots tabs, or substitute with a liquid fertilizer. Just an fyi.
  4. Eric R
    What was your nitrate and phosphate levels before you started dosing with easy green?
  5. Eric R
    Other than @Brandy, noone mentioned what type of shrimp. Is everyone else's experience with Neocaridina sp. as well?
  6. Eric R
    There are different types of cyanobacteria, but some types do produce neurotoxins that have been known to cause dogs to die, usually from exposure at lakes or ponds where there is an active bloom occurring. I for one would 100% make sure my pets weren't drinking water with a cyanobacteria outbreak occurring. They also aren't great to expose yourself to, but as long as you wash your hands, aren't drinking the water, and aren't exposed to it repeatedly for a number of years I doubt it would cause you harm. There is research that is linking neurological disease to aerosolized cyanotoxins in people that live near regularly occurring cyanobacteria blooms.
  7. Eric R
    One tank has become two already! 😂 Sounds like some good ideas all around.
  8. Eric R
    Were you using a preset heater or an adjustable one? Here's a care guide on GBRs: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/ram-cichlid-care-guide As long as you keep up with water changes and maintain good water quality, feed a variety of high quality food, keep the tank parameters within the proper range, source well bred fish (best from a breeder instead of a domestic or overseas fish farm), hopefully you should be successful. I haven't personally kept rams, I don't have a local breeder near me. That tank to me seems too small for a group of cardinals. You could do a school of ember tetras, they also can handle warmer temps and are quite a bit smaller. You could also potentially do endlers. What are the display area dimensions and the overall tank dimensions? Also, do you have your own RODI setup, or do you buy it?
  9. Eric R
    I haven't personally had to deal with this, so I can only share what I've read online. The Coop has an article on it, in case you haven't read it: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/blue-green-algae Has it spread at all? What are your tank parameters? Can you post pictures of the affected java moss?
  10. Eric R
    I think your AIO would work great for nano fish, and there are a lot of options. It tends to be easiest to match fish to your water parameters (though doing SW I'm sure you'd be able to tweak them as needed). Most FW tropical fish do fine between 75-78 degrees, so unless your room gets really hot during the summer, you should have a pretty decent selection. What are your water parameters from the tap? Ph, kh, gh, nitrates would be useful to know. Also, what tank do you have? Go ahead and posts pics if you'd like as well.
  11. Eric R
    I believe that someone said they were able to take off the cover over the skimmer intake and add a sponge to stop fry from getting into the intake. I haven't tried yet but will post if I do.
  12. Eric R
    FWIW, I as well as many others have copper in our house piping and do fine with inverts. Copper only tends to be troublesome when intentionally dosed at levels high enough to medicate with.
  13. Eric R
    The larger the filter, generally the more room for media. Adding a prefilter on the intake is an excellent way to increase your media as well as protect your tank inhabitants. I like some of the features on the tidal series HOBs, but I think you'll want to go larger, both to increase your flow rate as well as your media capacity, so I'd recommend the tidal 110.
  14. Eric R
    I agree with @Daniel, in general you should be very careful with what you put in your tank, and varnish is not a good idea. Soaking in a large tub and changing the water when it gets dark will eventually get rid of the tannins, though it could take a while. This will also help to waterlog the wood so it will sink instead of float. Change the water every day to a few days for several weeks, depending on how darkly tinted the water is. You can try using hot water instead of cold to accelerate the process. The type of wood, and how aged it is already will affect how much leeching of tannins you'll have. You can also try running purigen or carbon in your filter, as this will help remove any remaining tannins from your tank water. FWIW, the tannins tends to have a positive affect on most aquarium fish, and it more closely replicates the environment they come from.
  15. Eric R
    Also, what sort of system are you running: lights, co2, etc.? I also use heater controllers on a few on my tanks as extra peace of mind in case of a heater failure. All mine are currently inkbirds, but I'm considering trying Ranco; it's more expensive, but considered to be the highest quality and reliability.
  16. Eric R
    I'm not very familiar with this device, though it sounds similar to Apex controllers which are commonly used in saltwater systems. Generally controllers can be useful to track tank parameters, run lights or heaters, or as safety measures to stop things from happening if detected (leaks, power shorts, overheating, ph imbalances, etc.). I have a couple used Apex systems that I've bought that I'm waiting to setup on my saltwater tanks. I was going to use one of them as a ph and temp controller when I was going to setup co2 on my planted tank, but I never setup the co2 system. I for one wouldn't be that interested in the underwater VR cam or the voice control on the Felix. For the price, you can get a lot of features from the Apex controller line, so if you haven't checked that out as well, I'd recommend doing so and comparing the two.
  17. Eric R
    This is interesting, I'm not sure whether it has been settled that Orange Lasers (CW010) are actually a variant of C. aeneus: https://www.scotcat.com/factsheets/corydoras_sp_cw010.htm
  18. Eric R
  19. Eric R
    Nice list @Kirsten! Though even with snails I find I'm using my algae scraper often. I agree with @Daniel and @Maggie, I have a deeper planted tank, and the stainless steel planted tank kit with tweezers and scissors comes in helpful often. I also like to keep some extra tubing on hand for drip acclimating, and I keep a few costco 1 gallon glass pickle jars (well cleaned with label removed in soapy water) on hand for top offs and for the random planted jar shrimp tank that strikes my fancy.
  20. Eric R
    Looks like this could be an endler hybrid, both based on the tail as well as you saying that they stay smaller.
  21. Eric R
    I always find cherry shrimp in my canister filter when I clean it. I just pour the dirty water through a mesh sieve and toss them back in the tank. They're always alive and doing well.
  22. Eric R
    My understanding is that there is very little beneficial bacteria suspended in the water column, it's mostly on surfaces. I'd recommend taking some of the media from your cycled aquarium filter, and add that in with your new media on the filter for your new tank. Continue adding an ammonia source to help promote the beneficial bacteria to reproduce.
  23. Eric R
    Also, what are you using to cycle your tank? Did you add bottled bacteria and an ammonia source? I find it interesting that you have 0 ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate.
  24. Eric R
    My cherry shrimp do well at 7.4. I've had so-so luck with cardinal tetras, so I'm softening my water using RO to see if it helps. I wouldn't worry about the shrimp, just acclimate them slowly. If you can find captive bred tetras that were bred in water parameters similar to yours, they'll likely do better than wild caught. I've also read speculation that hardness/mineral content can be harder on fish than ph. Most important thing is to keep parameters stable, and most folks seem to recommend not to chase certain parameters with chemicals.
  25. Eric R
    If you want to lower the kh or ph more, you can probably do so using more RO water. Also, are you using RO or RODI water?
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