Kirsten

LOL I might have to try it just to have somewhere to put them!

This is so cool! Would love to see it as a shippable product some day!

Yeah uhhhhh I think I'm a bit overstocked! Darn endlers. I'm getting some shipping supplies in soon since I've had no luck selling them locally. Worst case scenario I donate a bunch to the pet store to get eaten by crayfish or stuck in with guppies et al.

They find the sinking wafer!

My livebearer tank

Lol you're welcome! The struggle is real!

Yup! Plants and inverts don't like a lot of salt, but I've gone as far as 1 tbsp per every 3 gallons and things were still coping. Apongeton died back a little, but otherwise we got through. If you want to be extra sure, you can try to quarantine the flashing fish so you can play with salt levels as high as 1 tbsp per 1-2 gallons. I think you'll be safe with 1 tbsp per 10g and it'll help the fish's slime coat and gill functions.

I've found there are a lot of different ailments that can cause flashing: gill flukes, ich, probably some kinds of bacteria, even elevated ammonia levels. Some of those ailments, like ammonia, can be treated immediately, but diseases can be stubborn and hard to eradicate, especially if you're unsure what it is. So I say test for any irritants in the water first, maybe add a light amount of aquarium salt (1 tbsp per every 5-10 gallons), and see if you can spot any other symptoms to indicate what's bugging them.

Yeah if you have "live" substrate that you bought wet or something, I'd recommend keeping it that way. You can leave it sealed in the bag until you're ready to go, or you can put it in the tank with a couple inches of conditioned water to wait til you're ready to do the rest of it. If you have the tank ready with the substrate and some water, you can just add a little more water and store the plants in the same tank for now while you wait for the remainder (which will also help get your tank cycled a little sooner). It doesn't have to look pretty and nothing has to be settled into its forever home right away, as long as the plants stay wet.

Wild! You must have some strong acidifying elements in the water. What's your tap water's pH? Do you have a lot of like peat moss or bog wood in there? Do you do CO2 injection? From how I understand it, KH "buffers" by basically raising the pH a certain degree. You could start above neutral, but acidifying elements could build up and bring the pH down, down, down even if the mineral content is still there. Or if your tap water is going through an acidic phase, the KH will only do so much to raise the pH. Like, if you added crushed coral to a cup of vinegar (which would probably be an interesting experiment), it would still read as acidic, just maybe a little less so, and the minerals would still be there, though they'd probably start breaking down in a strongly acidic environment.

Yup! No reason you'd have to wait to plant, especially if you're attaching any plants to the hardscape. Go nuts!

Not much else can survive a convict other than larger, even more aggressive cichlids. I'd opt for small, unobtrusive nerite snails like olive nerites and some burrowing snails like malaysian trumpet snails. I wonder if the horns on horned nerites would dissuade a fish from trying to eat it.

Some tap water with the appropriate amount of Prime is all you'll need. No worries about a light or airstone. Room temp will be fine (assuming the room isn't an outdoor shed or something). But I bet you'll have enough room to just float your plants in their little planters in your 20g for a couple days. That's what I always do if I get shipment before I can devote time to planting them all. Just chuck em in a tank, any tank, and sort them out later 🙂

LOL yeah I've been carefully doling out tiny microspoonfuls of the instant BBS and they're always a hit. Is it harmful to feed almost exclusively BBS (if/when I get the hatcher?)

My community tanks love this stuff! I'm undecided whether to wait for the bulk package to come back in stock or finally take the plunge in the brine shrimp hatchery. Anyone know if it'll be awhile?

Yup, a bit of algae and stuff on the bulb is totally normal and natural. The bulbs may float around if they don't have substrate to root themselves in.

Not sure about failed molt, but all the shrimp I've had who've died of old age / natural causes generally turn white / opaque in their final days. This looks very normal to me.

Ahhh! This is so exciting! Thank you so much! This forum has been so welcoming, helpful and inspiring. It's an honor to help contribute.

I've tried leaving them (and leaving the water a little low to not directly touch them) but I haven't gotten any to hatch yet. Or maybe they've hatched and are too tiny for me to see. In any case, good luck! You can probably sell them to local stores if you can raise them up to a decent size.

Brown algae is a natural, if annoying byproduct in any new tank. Any imbalance of light and nutrients can cause it, and it can take a long time to find the right balance. I'd recommend looking at your lighting settings first. Cut that back to 8 hours a day if you can, and feed fish very lightly. If you still don't see a reduction in a few days, consider some algae eaters and omnivores like snails, shrimp, and livebearers, or break out the big guns and look into a fish like otos that eat algae pretty much exclusively.

Yeah, and I'm all for euthanasia if an animal is obviously suffering, but when we can't get labs run and it's hard to tell if an animal's even sick, much less spiraling the drain, I think it's worth sticking it out to see if a treatment works. It would be awesome to have a practical guide to freshwater fish illness for the average aquarium keeper. Hint, hint @Cory!

LOL

Could be a small cyst or just some irregular growth, maybe the fin's trying to grow back together a bit? If it's going away on its own and the fish seems healthy (sounds like it!), no reason for concern. But if it comes back or multiplies, I'd start with a light dose of aquarium salt and take it from there.

Medical students quickly learn the phrase: when you hear the sound of hooves, think horses, not zebras. Eliminate the more common, more likely culprits first before jumping to worst case scenario. All the same, please be extra careful when handling your tank until you know more about what's going on there, since fish TB can spread to humans.

Nice! Welcome to your planted tank journey! I don't think you should worry about fancy substrate for this tank. Java fern and anubias are both epiphytes and just float above the substrate or attach to rocks or driftwood. Swords are root feeders that should get planted into the substrate, but they're pretty easy care and will be happy just about anywhere, especially if you give them a root tab as fertilizer. Something relatively soft/round and fine for your cories is best. That can be small, round pebble gravel, pool filter sand, or my personal favorite if you live near a Tractor Supply store: 20/40 Black Diamond Blasting sand. All of these options are inexpensive and look great in your tank. The only thing to be aware of is all of these will need a good amount of rinsing before adding them to your tank, especially the black diamond. So pick up a few 5-gallon buckets while you're at Tractor Supply to help with that process! For what you're planning on: gouramis, tetras, a pleco, those fish all enjoy relatively soft water on the neutral to slightly acidic side. So don't worry about crushed coral unless you have extremely soft water and need a buffering agent. Even then, I'd recommend something like seachem equilibrium which is immediate and easy to dose for the level of hardness you want.