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Thanks! I feel like "rotundifolia" is an ironic species name for something with not-round leaves. I'll post again when it establishes (hopefully sooner than later!). I'm trying out Flourish advance in this tank. one week in I see nothing but melting, but we'll see how it goes. I have no control, but if all the plants die I probably won't use it again ;).

Does anyone have photos or links of what happens when you mix different color forms of fish. eg black platy and orange platy? I'm sure every possible thing that can happen will happen depending on the fish, but I'm curious if its more common to get color patterns, or if its more common to get solid fish children still.

I think the word you're looking for is "spawning"? Without video or pictures its hard to saw what they're doing but you might want to check youtube videos. search for "fish spawning" and you should find a lot.

Here's the row i planted. I cut them short because the rest looked pretty rough

been a weekish. still have nitrite. I've been doing occasional 15-20% water changes to try to get the nitrate down too, presumably from the root tabs. crypt parva is kinda melty no growth yet, but the ones in my other tank is doing great so I expect them to bounce back. I adding something that was just labeled "stem plant" from my LFS. it looks a lot like the rotalla that Crash_2011 pictured above. I haven't seen the male and I've only ever seen two of three females together so there's between 2 and 4 still alive. I guess the good news is the 2 or 3 females I do see are of awesome quality. Once Nitrite hits 0 I'll pick up some friends. Here's a fun photo of someone lurking in the shadows

I love the voyeuristic orange shrimp just hanging out.

not a stupid question. The unhindered movement of the bubbles is really important in creating flow through the sponge. You don't need crazy flow generally. just enough to keep the water circulated and to move enough across the filter so that the bacteria can get to the ammonia and nitrite. you'll get less mechanical filtration from the sponge with less flow though so your water may be a "dirtier" looking. but that's subjective and up to you; it won't harm the fish.

I suspect blocking the uplift tube with mesh or foam would restrict the flow more than just not having an uplift tube, but the only way to know is to test it. Another option if you really want the flow is to use the ACO power head. There's pros and cons to that but it is an option.

You'd be surprised. It doesn't always make the 5-o-clock news but it does happen and often times companies fix or settle things out of court. If you look close advertisers will often toe the line between puffery (a legal term, apparently) and lies. Outright lies are not okay. That's not saying seachem doesn't lie, just saying it is a deterrent, if only an imperfect one. No. but people do this was in context of arguing that he has not motives to lie. Which is something that I'm not arguing for or against its easy to be wrong without lying. laughing at me I guess appeals to my ego so I can't argue with that point. He does thank people some times says they're wrong other times. I don't blame him either way. It doesn't change the original point though. And on at least on point that seachem themselves corrected him he said they were wrong. I already said I believe this and as far as I can tell its true. I've read a lot of that site and find it intriguing and full of good ideas. I just don't take everything it says as canon and find portions of whats written unsupported to my personal satisfaction.

I'm dubious of a lot of their claims. and the FTC, and local and state laws. AFAIK the AG in every state will prosecute companies that are behaving badly. These claims if wrong would be false advertising (I think, IANAL), but someone would have to prosecute, either the FTC or the GA attorney general's office, or I think a citizen that's been harmed by the claim. I'd love to see that happen. We may learn through a lawsuit how prime and others work or don't work. Tone and style can speak to motivation or potential bias or affinity for conspiratorial thinking. Its a very soft indicator but I feel it does weaken his/her credibility, deserved or not. Money isn't everything. He could genuinely be trying to help the community. But by the same logic as above that doesn't make him right. This is true as far as I can tell, but its not because it changes the nitrite. Something similar may be true for ammonia and trade secret chemical X.

If I remember what I read of that website they overtly state they're not against seachem but there's STRONG subtext against seachem as an entity. But that's subjective, especially in writing. I think that depends on what you call a chemical compound. I think the (intended or not) reading of that sentence sounds like you're saying you can't "detoxify ammonia" without converting it to something else. Ammonia hydrogen bound to something else is still ammonia and may still assay as ammonia if its energetically favorable but could be non toxic. But without a proposed mechanism I'm really just speculating. I'd give him/her more space than that. Individuals can publish in journals but the academic system doesn't support that or make it easy. And on the flip side anyone can dump something into a predatory journal. I'd be happy with good, well described methodology, citations for all the "scientific facts", actual data rather than conclusions, and maybe some figures (other than random fish photos every 3 paragraphs) and photos of setups for clarity. Science relies on idea that the person writing it is honest so IMO that gets the benefit of the doubt unless things can't be reproduced, and even then I'd err on honest mistake first. I think "works on the fish" is just an intuitive way of thinking about on possible mechanism and not a literal thing. "detoxify" is a vague word that speaks to the toxicity, which itself is kinda vague, so there's a lot of rhetorical wiggle room.

I know admins don't need the reaction points, but I still wish I could "love" or "thank you" for great info zenzo! Anyway I'm surprised a tablespoon per 5-gallon is okay. That's still a fifth of the standard "medical dose" iirc, but more than I would have though (about 900ppm or close to 0.1% w/v).

Its difficult to evaluate because the ingredients are "trade secret". His/her "tests" just show that they do not decrease the measured amount of ammonia on those assays. They don't prove one way or another that they detoxify ammonia. You'd need animals to do that study. That author also claims that he knows prime et al are "100% a chemical called sodium dithionite (Na2S2O4)." He claims to have proof but won't share the data and claims he's right because he used an expensive spectrometer (which can show two things are different, but can't prove two things are the same). It's also suspicious when someone says something is a "fact of science". There are also other ways "detoxification" happens. Look up how adding salt "detoxifies" nitrite. or how febreeze works (its actually not just a smell to cover up other smells). He or she claims to be a "degreed professional chemist". Thank can mean a lot of things and you can have a lot or a little knowledge of chemistry and still describe yourself that way. I've shared my opinion about the author of aquarium science before but in short I don't trust him any more than seachem. In the end, I'm not convinced one way or the other on this. Until someone does a study with live animals, or provides the ingredients and plausible chemistry, I'm not going to be satisfied I know one way or the other.

I think it depends on why you want the salt in the first place. And I assume you mean sea salt or "aquarium salt" and not things that we normally lump into GH. I think most plants don't tolerate much and may just be incompatible with the amount of salt you need for other purposes. There are a few plants that will grow or at least live in brackish water though. I think @Zenzo has experience with them.

Aquarium science has a lot of information, some of it good, but you have to be very critical when looking at that website. Much of it is written in stilted language that leads me to believe he or she has an axe to grind with some groups or ideas. It's also full of quasi-scientific arguments and experiments and "appeal to (his/her) authority" type arguments. There are things I've seen in there that are also 100% wrong. All that said I actually do like the site and it has been a lot of food for thought for me, I just don't find it reliable. Back to the topic at hand. Being a polymer doesn't really tell you much more than the fact that it's a largish molecule made of multiple (poly-) subunits(-mer). Common examples are plastics, the laxative miraLAX, and your own DNA. This is seachem's description of purigen: If you take this at face value it sounds like it works much like activated carbon, but doesn't adsorb things like like "trace elements" (I don't think the micro-nutrients aquariums need are in elemental from though). It also claims to adsorb ammonia, and nitrites and nitrates. To "clean" that off of purigen you'd have to have something that reacts with those. H2O2 Might oxidize ammonia, but then you're left with nitrite and nitrate, which, I assume, would stay on the purigen. bleaching those would create chloramine, which I assume purigen doesn't have an affinity for and will dissolve into the water and off gas eventually. H2O2 might break down other things that purigen adsorbs but its hard to say exactly what without going on a case by case basis. I think at the end of the day you'd really have to just test it. 😕 It sounds like seachem tested it with bleach and is confident there, but they either didn't test it with h2o2 or it didn't work when they did. Depending on how nice your friends or partner are you could ask someone else to refresh it for you outside the house and bring it back rinsed and de-chlorinated. HA! "Computer Scientist Syndrome" is the worst kind of syndrome.

I think 1 pump is supposed to be 1ml so a pipette or 1ml syringe might be a better choice if you're dosing the recommended 0.3ml for that tank size

I think the breeding for "profit" series said something like 33% of retail. IME I got 25% of retail as credit for my shrimp. It was disappointing at first but I realized at that price its hopefully helping support my LFS and I'm not really trying to get rich. And i got some fun stuff with the credit ;).

thats rough 😞 hopefully you still have at least one M and F!

Sorry to necro- a thread but I'm curious how these guys are doing and what they look like now!

oh that's a good idea. I don't like snails but in a plant "tank" that seems okay. As long as they lay conspicuous eggs that I can remove when taking plants out.

Those were some awesome posters. I don't want to add to his email volume but I really want that pdf so I can make a print. The talk was amazing too. Everyone remotely interested should join and watch it! There were some great details that cleared some things up for me like that picture of the eggs on the back and the fact that planaria reallydo eat shrimp!

I've had good success cleaning and greasing one and failed greasing and cleaning another. So at least for me its always worth a try but not a guarantee.

I'm not beta expert but that very well could just be his color. It looks like you got a great tank going from him so i suspect you're set. If he's acting lethargic make sure he's not cold. beta fish usually like things a bit warmer than room temp

I think with some prime or complete 0.5ppm ammonia isn't much to worry about in a fully cycled tank. unless the ph is also like 8.5 and you do an 80% water change. but everyone has their own risk tolerance.

what I think of as a "hillstream loach" is the kind with the "reticulated" pattern. those have spots. calling out differences between common names can be tricky too. Often many species will be under one common name or one species will have many common names.