[Pond without electricity?]

7 hours ago, Daniel said:

Admittedly, I do have a low threshold for happiness.

This I think is the secret to living.  I'm still working on it though 🙂

[falling nitrates, should I dose more ferts?]

So in my new tank last week I was fighting the beginnings of every algae out there.  I lowered my photo period and now things seem to at least not be out of control.  I'm not waking up to see 10" strands or new thread algae or significant increases in green spot. 

But Last night I checked my chemistry and I'm down to 5 nitrate (was about 20 last week) and I got my phosphate test yesterday and had 0 phosphate.  From reading it seems like I should aim for "some" phosphate (I've read anywhere from 0.25 to 5 online).  I dosed one pump (in about 12 gallons of water in my 15g tank) easy green because that same like the least i could do.

I think I'm going to feed a tad more to my fish. 

Any suggestion on how to use easy green here though?  The directions sort of conflict.  It says one pump/week/10g but it also say dose unit you hit 20ppm nitrate from easy green: "20ppm and 50ppm of nitrates in your aquarium from dosing Easy Green "  The "from easy green" part implies you should be dosing 20-50 on top of whatever you already have which sounds excessive, and even in my case to get up to 20ppm total that's 5 pumps/10g which is 5x the first part of the dosing directions.

 

edit: here's a bit more info on stocking

plant wise I have

1 java fern

bacopa caroliniana culture with maybe a month growth

monte carlo culture with no growth, still settling in i think

5 valisnaria (2 plants turned into 5 in the first week and stabilized) all on the small side still.

about 1/2 square foot of floaters

9-11 cardinal tetras (I put in 11 but have no clue where 2 of them are now, i've looked!)

3 guppies

3 otos

10-20 Neo shrimp

1 nerite

 

[Shrimp sick?]

It's hard to make out but the white stuff is still there.  After her salt bath all she wants to do is sit on the surface, which seems weird.

[What is a fish you’ve always wanted but never get and can’t see yourself getting soon]

for me its a pea puffer.  I love those little guys but the wife says I can only have one tank, not counting the "temporary" quarantine tank on MY side of the bathroom, and the barrel pond in the back yard, and the secret fry tank under my desk.

[Does light have to come from above?]

I was reading about raising medaka fry and it said they need a light and that increases survival.  Generally do fish need the light to be above?  The storage tote that I got that was the size I wanted only came with a black lid, but clear sides.  Can I just put a lamp on the floor and shine light in the side?  Is there any fish that this bothers?

[Nicrew Budget Lights for plants]

OK I looked it up I have the classicLED plus.  You can press buttons to dim "white" (which includes red and green) and a different button to dim blue.  It also remembers your setting when you power it off so it still works with a wall plug timer.  My only gripe is I had to buy the 18" version because they don't make a 24 inch version and the next size up is 30.

[Suggestion Box]

Sometimes photos are not showing up in the forum.  Some times those photos will render on my phone but not my PC and vice versa.  Not sure what the reason is:  Here's an example where the first photo is just jibberish on my PC but works fine on my phone.

 

[Nicrew Budget Lights for plants]

I forget which one I have but it let's me adjust the white+red and blue independently.  I set the blue how I like it visually and I'm very happy with it. 

[HELP Plants are dying!]

I'd try the api liquid test for gh.  I have soft water and my test strips act weird for gh kh.  I'm a big fan of equilibrium too it's got a lot of the minerals you need beyond Ca Mg like Potassium.

[Aquarium Co-Op's logistics are so good they're bending space-time]

According to their tracking they informed USPS of my shipment even before I ordered!

[What are mini catappa leaves?]

I just bought some catappa leaves and then realized they're "mini"  apparently 2" tall.  Is this something different from the regular 5" ones or are they just young?  do they have the same properties?

[Surprises in the canister filter part 2]

Woah.  You should leave them in there and breed a population of blind cave dwelling corys! 😅

[Shrimp sick?]

Really hard to say.  To me it just looks like fuzz.  I pulled the shrimp as she was the only one with it.  She got a salt bath and is in a jar for today.  I'm going to keep an eye on her and hopefully she'll get better.

[Shrimp sick?]

Is my shrimp sick?  He's got a kinda white looking growth or something.  Is there a treatment?  Should I isolate it?

[Cycling with purigen]

18 minutes ago, Streetwise said:

I could be wrong. I had a bad experience recharging it. I never should have used it for my tanks.

Oh yeah I didn't even know you could recharge it.  I thought you just had to pitch it in the bin.

7 minutes ago, Frank said:

It's outside of my sphere, but I don't agree with the use of Purigen on a continual basis. I think that it does rob the benificial bacteria of their food. 

On the other hand, I will always keep some on hand. It saved me, and my charges, from a possible disaster recently.

I agree.  I think its more of an emergency use kinda thing if you have a spike.  I also don't see a problem with using it during cycling so long as there's still some ammonia in there to keep the bacteria population increasing.  My experience with heterotrophs at least is that when concentrations of essential nutrients get low they upregulate importers and their absorption can happen REALLY fast.  Assuming these autotrophs are similar any ammonia you can measure means they're not limited by it.  I could be wrong though.  I haven't cultured nitrogen fixing bacteria out side of a fish tank before.

[Quick Acclimation Question--Help!]

1 minute ago, AquaAggie said:

But you are simultaneously diluting the ammonia at the same time. Especially if you added extra prime (which I have seen suggested before). So the question really is weather or not you raise pH faster than diluting the ammonia. 

at 50/50 with well buffered tank water you could be close to the tank ph already with 2.5ppm ammonia still. 

[Quick Acclimation Question--Help!]

1 minute ago, AquaAggie said:

I can’t say what the right answer is one way or the other. I definitely would not have added the bag water, but kind of wonder about not drip acclimating them. I understand wanting to get them out of the situation they were in, but worry now about temperature or pH shock. But drip acclimating would have only taken an hour or two and let them adjust to their new water parameters more gradually. I mean we say this all the time about acclimating fish, but can meaningful physiological changes happen that quickly? To some extent yes and to some extent no depending on the situation at least for human physiology. Not judging one way or the other but wondering what others rational would be for the benefit or damage of drip acclimating in this specific situation  

I think drip acclimating them might be the worst option depending on the buffering capacity of tank water.  There's a good chance it'll raise the ph which would make that 5ppm ammonia way toxic.

[Cycling with purigen]

3 minutes ago, Streetwise said:

I don't like Purigen. It seems like part of the micro-plastics problem.

can you elaborate?  Of all sources of micro-plastics it seems to me purigen is near the bottom of the list.

[Quick Acclimation Question--Help!]

WOW.  All things considered that's pretty good news.  Once one fish dies the decay process starts and in those little bags it isn't pretty so I'm not surprised it's all or nothing. 

 

Keep us updated how they do over the following days.

[Cycling with purigen]

2 hours ago, Sblev said:

Ph is ~7.2 and I have the tank set at 76°. I am able to adjust temp if you think I should. I only have little of the fritz left ill go ahead and use it up. Thank you both for all the input. 

You can check out this chart.  It says "ideal" but 0.5 is never ideal.  I'd read anything above 0 but "ideal" on this chart as "fine"

[Amount of red, blue, green, and white light]

This may be a hot take but plants aren't that picky.  Imo you should adjust the colors until you get what YOU like visually.  Then adjust the photoperiod or overall intensity as needed.

[Cycling with purigen]

1 hour ago, Sblev said:

Ammonia is .5 ppm, nitrite is 0. My other dilemma is I've already added two neon tetras and a black neon. It's a 10 gal. Would you recommend just keeping the purigen?

yeah.  Lots of people a fish-in cycling process.  0.5 ammonia isn't good for fish but its not too bad.  my guppies survived 1+ ppm at a ph in the mid 7's (but they weren't happy about it)

BTW Do you know your ph?  the lower the ph the less toxic "ammonia" is (as it spends it's time with an extra proton and becomes ammonium).  Also a lower temp helps a tiny bit with ammonia toxicity, but obviously don't go colder than whats okay for the fish.

[Cycling with purigen]

2 minutes ago, Sblev said:

Thanks for the response.. Haven't tested yet but I'll check it. So if there is still some ammonia the cycle should continue? 

yep!  Roughly speaking, the bacteria will increase in population until ammonia gets to 0.  If you see 0 or close to zero you can take the purigen out.

[Cycling with purigen]

Did you do any testing?  If there's still ammonia in there then your cycle will continue.

 

Those resins were originally designed for water purification at crazy high (300ppm) ammonia levels and not to help aquarium fish.   The kinetics down in the 1-2ppm ammonia are pretty slow so I suspect you'll still have some ammonia.

 

In any case the only way you'll know is to test (I recommend the API "master" test kit).

[Advice on probable DOA fish]

could keep them in a 5$ storage bin for quarantine.  8 days is a lot though.  Let us know if there's any survivors.