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I hope you name him waldo 😉

This is an interesting question but I don't think there's going to be an easy answer. What were you measuring voltage relative to? Factors such as the conductivity of the water and the current path (if any) probably matter. A static electric field with no current flowing will probably not effect the fish at all for example.

I'd love one with a short cord. I have a power strip strategically placed behind my tank and actually have trouble winding up all the extra cord. I assume its probably too expensive to keep two SKUs of basically the same thing and I'm also guessing I'm in the minority. I see some cable splicing in my future ;).

I see they make a few different sizes of the neo diffuser. Does the size matter or is large always best? Since coop only sells the one size I'm wondering if it's the "best" size and and so Cory only stocks the one size. Edit: OMG I'm a dummy: from the store: "We've found the large size diffuser to work in any aquarium and as such, we only carry the one size...."

Out of curiosity where does flourite fit into the spectrum of planted substrates? It looks appealing to me because it's supposed not degrade and it's heavier than the little ball kind so planting should be easier. At least that's what I've read.

One intermediate option is to hang a cup upsidedown under the water and then bubble CO2 into the cup. You then just add CO2 to the cup every few days. My understanding is this will raise the CO2 but not a crazy ammount so it's pretty safe.

HA. I don't know if you're trolling me or not, but I'm just riffing on the "I'm not a doctor but I play one on TV" line 😉 . What I meant is I'm a researcher at a university and use chemistry and collaborate with chemists so I know a little, but can easily be very wrong; trust me as much as a TV doctor :). What do your equations say for 0ppm carbonate? ph 7? distilled water left out has a pH of 6ish (iirc). Also I wouldn't call 2ppm CO2 trivial. without bothering to do all the math CO2 has a molecular weight less than HCO3- (by one O and one H) so 2ppm CO2 and 20ppm HCO3- is >10% co2/HCO3-. eyeballing that Bjerrum plot i linked above that's a pH just under 7. You can also find precalculated tables of co2, kh, carbonate ppm (in calcium carbonate equivalents). You can see the effect of co2 is non-trivial even down in the 1-4ppm co2 range. Much of what you say surprised and bothered me at first too, so I've spent a lot of time reading, talking and asking questions too. That doesn't make me right though, but hopefully if you find out something more or if/why I'm wrong you'll share it with me too :).

ohh! congrats guys! share pics or a video. I love seeing the unboxings 🙂

I don't have the fully story for you (I'm not a chemist, but I do play one on TV) but there is an equilibrium for pH, carbonate(s), and CO2. Without knowing how much CO2 is absorbed into your water you can't compute pH. Also, from what I can tell CO2 concentrations in an aquarium are rarely at equilibrium with the atmosphere, even with an airstone. You can read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonic_acid#Chemical_equilibria I'd also recheck your math here. 21ppm is a concentration, so it can't be "added to" a volume of water. The conversion form KH to ppm is 17.9ppm per KH unit, but that's in calcium carbonate equivalent units. ie it's the ppm of calcium carbonate required to raise carbonate hardness by one degree KH, so if mixing units you can to use the molecular weight of calcium carbonate.

There are still rice fish in there. And in theory neo shrimp.

I'm not sure what you're getting at. Just take the "free" and buy from coop or don't and if the member only perks aren't good enough for you then don't sign up.

For a while you could get 6mo for 20$ iirc. I don't know if thats still a thing. its up to youtube. I think different people value things differently. GSAS is a bargain IMO. I think the general idea is that Cory wants to keep all the highest value things as public as possible so that its not money gated to the less well off. So I think it's up to you if you value silly updates, some talks, and whatever else bonus happens. Personally, I won't judge anyone for thinking its too expensive for them, but I know a lot of people are happy to pay. To each their own. Side note: its the 20$+ super chats in Cory's live streams that blow my mind. They must be high rollers 😉

I think I'm late to the game here. The plants are dieing so I'm going to pull them but it seems kinda rude to take all the hiding places from the fish. Should I cover it? Its apparently frozen over very thinly this morning... in seattle. Do people pull the air stone too?

OHHH MAN! how did I miss this thread until now! best thing on the entire internet 😉 I'm rooting for tiger oto babies! good to know the O. vittatus will breed in 40ppm nitrate too. There's a lot of anecdotes that they need super pure water, but I think that's just something people say when they don't have anything else to say about what to do.

For powers I'd recommend portioning dry with a mg scale and storing the rest dry and sealed from air. Once mixed a lot of drugs degrade. Without checking literature for a particular drug I'd guess a week in the fridge is okay if you're saving it for a second dose, though some drugs degrade fast (and some practicality never).

I have this kind that hangs over the edge of the tank. The opening is smaller and not conical so I think it would be really hard for a guppy to get in there. Mine ignore it. https://www.amazon.com/DQITJ-Checker-Aquarium-Monitor-Indicator/dp/B093C8RKVV/

Apparently hormones are so commercially relevant that you can just buy them: https://syndel.com/product/ovaprim/ They're sold as an IM injection probably because that's more cost effective vs dumping a ton into the water.

I also just threw in a pothos, which I hope will help a lot too.

It may also depend on the kind of and amount of funding they have and the attitude of the PI. If an undergrad comes with a specific idea, that is sound, and we can make it happen for not too much money we are excited to do it! The other end of the spectrum is very top down, in which case the PI will probably say "do this", and that's it. Have you already met with the PI? Do you know the scope of what you're allowed to do?

Will do... oops! I've always wanted to know (in a controlled study!): Will dechlorinators really detoxify ammonia/nitrite.

I found another dead rice fish and thought "oh no not ammonia again!" I'm doing a 1/3 water change 2x/week now (50ish fry in about 15g muck bucket) which i thought was plenty. I checked levels and it was 0 or at least below 0.25. Then I dipped the coop test strip in, which I hadn't used because i thought it wouldn't cycle that fast (though I did throw in a decent mass of plants.). The nitrate/nitrite pads immediately tuned pink. nitrite was off the charts(>10) and nitrate was at 100ppm. So don't make my mistake and test your water in new setups! I think the root of my problem (ignoring my wilful ignorance of parameters) is I was using the co-op auto feeder and was feeding too much. The opening has a bunch of detents to control the size of the opening, but the door wobbles a bit. I'm sure it doesn't matter for larger feedings but the first notch has wobble in it that effects how much is fed by probably a factor of 3 or 4 (when using easy fry food). The workaround I just found today is to open the door wider but then close it down into a square shape with tape. Another lesson I learned is that the food clumps and gets stuck on the leaves of floaters (in this case broad leaf water sprite). I'm sure uneaten food stuck to leaves also played a big role since none of that protein went into fish and it all became nitrogen. I've now weighed down all my plants. For fun here's a photo of my muck bucket from an earlier post:

I'm not convinced a pump like that can ever be reliable or consistent over time especially if you only use 1-2 pumps a week. I've started to use a dropper bottle instead.

I put the heater there so it's near maximum circulation though it just has the one filter. I have a few plants in there too. I have some photos here. The photo in my top post was from above so the heater looks shiny but face on it's a regular glass heater so I don't think they see reflections. I wonder if they really would rather just be warmer. Maybe I could make a matten style filter and put the heater behind so they can't huddle there. I'm mostly just worried they'd rather hang out there than eat.

What are these guys doing? They really like the heater. I'd guess they are cold but the water temp is 71 hardly cold for them. Any guesses why they're like this? They don't even leave when the feeder goes.

Maybe get a heater that you can set to 60-65 and just throw it in there as insurance if they're all warm water fish