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PhillipHols

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Everything posted by PhillipHols

  1. I appreciate some of the responses here. I initially tried using liquid co2 in the water column with little to no effect. I have since been using a small pipette to apply it underwater BUT I didn’t think to do it while the water level is low. Some areas, this won’t be possible but I could treat most of it this way. I saw a huge difference with spot treating under water, I imagine results will be very strong with the direct exposed application. I believe I have my lights and fertilizers almost dialed in as new growth has slowed or stopped all together and the tank is finally improving. This tip should really help kill off what’s remaining
  2. Goldfish in an aquarium? I don’t get it. Fat and dirty. I understand them for ponds, but not my living room. Also oscars and cichlids, don’t get it. I only own 2 aquariums and wouldn’t want to limit myself so much. If I had a bunch of tanks or a fish room, I think I may get it. But I don’t get it right now. Also I’m a fan of shrimp and snails. Those fish in my aquariums would upset me
  3. I’ve heard good things about aquahuna as well. I have ordered from live Aquaria once with mixed results. I can’t speak poorly on them as my tank was just freshly cycled and my experience was 0. Any mishaps may have been my fault but it who knows. Aqua huna offers great prices but you have to buy a decent number of fish sometimes. It may or may not work for you. on a side note, my CPDs aren’t shy, skittish, or easily bullied. Yeah they are tiny but they hold their own amongst some long fin leapord danio and those guys are always hyper. When they first arrived they hid but most fish will. And after a week or so they began to show some great colors. They were rather dull for a while. Mine prefer to eat falling food, they do grab from the surface also, and I’ve seen them nibble at dying algae. They aren’t picky, just in need of the right size food.
  4. I don’t think I can help figure out your issue but may I suggest drip acclimating the next batch? I have a hunch that your LFS may have had a suspect batch which is unfortunate because they aren’t cheap critters. now I suggest drip acclimation only because this is what worked for me with my CPDs. I have ordered them one time so I am by no means an expert (grain of salt please). However, I ordered mine from flip aquatics in the dead of a NY winter. The box came quickly but the heat packs had no life in them. The water temped at 56 degrees upon arrival. Needless to say I was forced to do a very slow drip acclimation. I raised ambient temps in the house, turned heaters in the tank off to drop their temps as much as I reasonably could, and drip acclimated at a rate of one drop per 2-3 seconds. It took a long while and even after hours of the drip, the temps were still far off so from there I re-bagged them and temperature acclimated to close their final temp gap. In the end, 8 out of 8 survived and they are doing very well. They have made it through quarantine and into their new home without an issue. I had a dozen cherry shrimp In the order that needed the same treatment. Also 100% success. with all that said, either flip aquatics delivered better quality fish to me than your store did for you, OR the drip method is the key to success. Mine went though the ringer to make it to my tank and held up fine. TBH, I feel that your LFS owes you some new danios
  5. Could this loft be done with the air still running? That would keep the gunk stuck to the filter while you’re moving it
  6. I was first drawn to the idea of keeping fish and that has developed into keeping and experimenting with plants. I like the fact that it’s not a set it and forget it hobby. These systems take time and energy to execute well and that creates some very rewarding moments. I never anticipated plants being higher maintenance than the fish though! Most of my time spent on the aquariums is in the form of assessing, trimming, and improving the plant life. I love getting in front of the aquariums to simply observe the details, it’s exciting to find changes
  7. Added two Nerite snails to my 20 gallon and replaced the kit hood with a glass top in anticipation of a new light from the co-op. When the light arrives, officially all of the kit components have been swapped out from my marineland 20 Gallon kit. Either due to failure or upgrades, the only thing remaining is the tank itself. Short story, don’t bother with kits
  8. I don’t believe 4 weeks is necessary to seed your sponge but if you can leave it for that long it should improve your chances. My brand new aquariums have taken roughly a month+ to cycle from scratch, and the bacteria that consume nitrites don’t start to take off until week 2, after nitrites are readily available from the ammonia finally being processed at a good rate. roughly 2 weeks after that, the filter is functioning as it should. When adding a sponge to an established aquarium, both bacteria colonies are present in good numbers from day one. My gut tells me that two weeks is enough but more is better
  9. The risk with an over stocked tank is not just the territorial comfort of the fish, but also the rate at which nitrates will build up in your aquarium. Mine is overstocked and I’m tired of large weekly (often more frequent than that) water changes. I’m looking to add another aquarium to reduce the stocking levels of my current one to correct this. I feel that for newbies, the nitrate issue with an overstocked tank is not made clear enough. At least it wasn’t for me. As you know, your filtration eventually converts fish and food waste to nitrates which must be removed via water changes. Yes, plants consume nitrates so a heavily planted tank will handle an overstock better than a lesser planted tank of the same size. The catch to this is that if you’ve got a well planted aquarium, you’re probably dosing fertilizers which also increase the levels of nitrates in the tank. As long as the fish seem to be minding their business and appear comfortable in the spaces provided, you CAN somewhat overstock your aquarium. BUT this only works if you are committed to consistently testing parameters, specifically nitrates, and your doing frequent enough and large enough water changes to keep nitrate levels in check. If this is the route you take, keep in mind that nitrates will rise fast and if you don’t perform water changes of about 50%, you won’t reduce the nitrates fast enough to overcome the rate that they will increase. I know this might sound a little complicated but I’m happy to explain it further, please don’t hesitate to ask me to clear it up if you need. Are you happier doing small 20% water changes once a week? If so then a reduced stock is your only option. Are you ok with changing 50% of your water every 5 days? If you can handle that then the overstock is less of an issue. If you don’t want to get rid of any fish and you don’t want all that maintenance, then your only option that is fair to the animals is to get a larger aquarium without Increasing the stock.
  10. With that hardscape set up, adding natural plants would look awesome! I would recommend at first that you try several types of plants to see what works well in your aquarium before committing to anything specific. I assume that since you currently have artificial plants that you have a fairly low end or “kit” light? I only say that because if I didn’t have plants I wouldn’t give my lighting a second thought. Research your low demand/low light plants and look into your lighting. Something like a finnex stingray that co-op sells may work for you and they are rather affordable. (Stingray 2 may be wise as it’s more powerful and your 36 gallon is a bit tall). Even if it’s in the budget, it may not be wise to go all out with a high end light at first as that will bring you into the world of co2 injection and a more high tech system. With a powerful light, an unbalanced system will cause you some algae headaches for sure. For that reason, for beginners like you and I it’s wise to dumb it down and keep it simple. For me, water sprite has been an easy plant to grow and propagate, my Amazon sword has been trouble free, and Java ferns have grown well for me. The water sprite grows tall and fast, the fish hang out in it, shrinp graze on it, and my endlers rest in it at night. Awesome background plant. I’ve also had success with Crinum callimistratum (sp?) and they have a very unique leaf structure. Almost tentacle like
  11. Adding plants shouldn’t have upset the cycle, and I don’t believe that cloudy water from your substrate would be harmful either. How long did it take to get your aquarium fully cycled? Do you mind going over some of the cycling steps you took to get to this point? Also for the record, have you added fish since cycling the tank?
  12. I’ve got sand substrate and live plants. It’s working for me but I have low demand plants and feed with root tabs. The. Biggest pain is plants floating up before they are Rooted down but plant weights have solved that issue. My biggest problem with the sand is I just added two nerite Snails and these things poop constantly and it’s visible. That’s a problem For me, it’s unsightly
  13. I’m awaiting an order from the co-op that contains a few types of crypts. Wendtii, wendtii green, and lucens. I have sand substrate and some of it is fresh and therefore probably contains little to no nutrients for plants. I’ve had success with root feeders in the sand but I’m wondering, is it wise to “seed” the substrate ahead of time by adding co-op root tabs now instead of when the plants arrive? In theory, it would have released some nutrients into the areas I’m planting before the plants arrive. I know the root tabs don’t work instantly and are somewhat of a slow release and new plants will require some food ASAP. Is it worth it to bury them a few days in advance? My Cory cats smell them and will stand up vertically above them trying to dig them out lmfao. Fun to watch. also to those with experience with crypts, do you subscribe to the method of cutting the leaves before planting in your aquarium? It seems to avoid the crypt melt and produces faster new growth. Thanks ahead of time for the input!
  14. A mini “paint can shaker” style device to shake up the #2 nitrate bottle prior to use. It would just need to vibe and shake with some intensity i have a 3 year old and a baby on the way... I would appreciate a stand or cabinet that has closable doors to cover and protect the glass. Although it would have to open up somehow so the sides of the aquarium are still visible, I don’t want to be limited to one viewing angle. This could protect it from flying toys or even just dirty kid fingers on my glass. A lock option would be cool to resist the temptation for kiddos to feed without supervision or otherwise put unwanted objects in the aquarium. I allow My 3 year old to help with feedings and some maintenance but under close supervision only. Fortunately this little sweetheart knows not to mess with it and I’m comfortable but the bun in the oven is currently a wildcard
  15. Search YouTube for “fish in cycle” videos for some aid. You need to complete you cycle and unfortunately with livestock in the tank, your job is significantly more work than if you performed a “fish-less cycle”. I would assume you have dosed your tank with a beneficial bacteria starter? Prime is good product for dechlorinating your tap water and also neutralizing existing ammonia in the tank. Read dosing instructions on the bottle as the dose will differ from when your simply dechlorinating or trying to squash ammonia. About a month into my first aquarium, I somehow crashed my cycle so I ended up doing both a fish less and fish in cycle. After my crash (the position you are currently In) I did roughly a 50% water change EVERY DAY and dosed with prime according to the instructions. It took about 3-4 weeks of this to get my cycle in check and my parameters where they should be. I’m sorry if this is bad news but you will be rewarded when you make it through the trouble. As for the API kits, the ammonia and nitrite tests are straight forward. The nitrate kit isn’t as clear. The #2 bottle needs to have its but kicked before it decides to give you an accurate reading. This haunted me eventually as my nitrate levels were slowly on the rise and I was unaware because I wasn’t mean enough to the #2 bottle. Smash it, pound it, shake it, slam it... whatever it takes. To illustrate this or to see if your beating the bottle enough, test nitrates before AND after a water change. If the results come out to be the same, you need to bully the bottle more. If the results are different and in line with the % of water changed, you have triumphed over the #2 bottle.
  16. One thing to consider is that when nitrates run very high, other plant deficiencies can pop up. The plants will use up everything not named nitrate at a faster rate when nitrate levels are high and then they begin to suffer. It’s best to knock down the nitrates with a big water change and add fertilizers as to include all the other nutrients your plants need.
  17. I’m in Kingston but I head up to your neck of the woods for salmon fishing from time to time. We stay in Mexico, NY usually when we go up to Lake Ontario. Beautiful area
  18. Hey everyone, my name is Phil and I live wayyyy to far away from Aquarium CO-OP. good thing Cory ships items quickly! I’ve been in the hobby for about a year and a half and I’m still learning all the time. Ive survived some newbie mistakes and I’ve made some good calls along the way as well. I look forward to contributing to the forums and learning from the vets as well of course. This hobby can be frustrating for newbies like myself and I believe there is a niche that could be filled in the education department. For example, I had a nitrate issue becuase I was testing wrong, I didn’t know for my first 16 months in the hobby that the #2 nitrate bottle needed to be bullied in order to be accurate. I feel this type of factoid should have been an in your face, well advertised type of fact but it wasn’t. I had to dig to finally figure this out. I want to spare the next newbie the pain! I enjoy trouble shooting and triumphing over issues that pop up and I would love to help fellow fish keepers and maybe save some fish lives along the way. Btw Cory, I’ll help run your east coast branch when you decide to open one up and also, what’s out your way that my girlfriend would enjoy for a vaca? I need an excuse to fly across the country to see the shop!
  19. With that many pumps of easy green and no major change to nitrate levels, I have a hunch that you may not be shaking the #2 nitrate test bottle enough before using it. I only say this because I ran across a similar issue in my aquarium where I didn’t think I had a nitrate issue. I wouldn’t say my tank is heavily planted but nitrates were always quite low.... until I realized I was using my test kit wrong. If you don’t BEAT UP THE #2 BOTTLE HARD it will never register the nitrates in your test. For example, my testing was showing 0-5 ppm nitrate. Great, right? With that result I did minimal volume water changes until things started to turn for the worst. My plants started failing, my cherry shrimp went from a strong population to just a few adults and my Cory cats were glass surfing. I begun to dig to find out what was wrong. My answer was I needed to seriously shake and smash the nitrate #2 bottle (api kit) and when I finally did this properly I was blown away to find my nitrates were off the charts SKY HIGH. I’m amazed I didn’t lose any fish. I did several large water changes until I got my levels down to earth and now I’m starting to monitor this properly. As someone else said, A very high nitrate level will expose other deficiencies and that’s why my plants went south. Please please please before it’s too late for your livestock, retest after beating that bottle. If you can, follow up and let us know if this is a factor in your testing results
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