CT_

So I made a floater corral which can auto adjust to water levels during water changes similar to one of @Irene's videos, but as built, it only allowed me to do ~20% water changes, which so far has been fine. 10ppm nitrate is the max I've seen, but I just doubled my bioload so I want the option of _easy_ higher water changers. I tried to make the sticks longer but then they become very prominent in my view and they look ugly. So I replaced the suction cups with clips that hold bamboo skewers along the wall but they still stick out like a sore thumb. Having just got some airline though I found I could run the air line over the bamboo to make it black and nearly invisible against my background. Here's photos of what I mean.

I presume that's to prevent bots from doing funky stuff. Seem innocuous but people find ways to exploit innocent features all the time.

I did worry about it not "cooking" long enough. I made a small quantity and preheated my bowl then mixed boiling water and the powder. probably didn't get enough time to really dissolve at high temp. I hear some people microwave it. I may try that to get a bit more heat into it

IMO sponge counts as biomedia too as long as its not clogged.

IMO the only disposable filter media that are worth it is cut to size floss. And really that's my preference. I'll spend 50c on floss a month and be okay with it. Is my tank better because of it? I think so. But I'd say there's a good chance the floss just makes me feel better. I'd also add the resin/absorbers in there too. but their time and place I think is very niche and probably only for short term use. You could easily go your whole life without needing them.

Yeah those are photos are today and the monte carlo is 3-2 weeks old now. They are actually in the substrate pretty good. The "trick" I saw was from a Japanese video where the guy actually burred each bit of it down much further than I would have expected and at plunged them at a 45 degree angle. I'm dosing easy green one pump a week. Once I get my floaters propagated out how I want and the val fills in my plan is to add a second pump/week. My biggest concern is that I'm somehow killing the monte carlo, but it sounds like the best course of action is to wait and see how it looks in another few weeks/month. I love the monte carlo (assuming it does well) so I'm going to give it time then.

The Japanese double sword tail (lyretail?) I think is the name. Mine photographs as a blur (I think it's part bigfoot). I'm not sure if I have a pure bread one or some mutt version but it looks pretty close to this I found on google and its staying smaller than the other guppies I have. I try not to look too hard at other guppies though. I prefer it if I own the best one already 🙂 .

WOW thanks for taking the time to write all that out! Here's what I've got going at various levels of zoom. Don't mind the stressed tetras they're only an hour old to this tank in these photos. The monte carlo came from an ADA culture cup and I followed a youtube video instructions on how to break it up and spread it around. There's also co-op root tabs every 5ish inches under the monte carlo. This is also a day after I vacced over the monte carlo swirling the water and actually picked up a lot of poop and mulm but the substrate and monte carlo and still diatom brown. 😕

So in my 3 week old 15g tank I planted half with monte carlo that I'm hoping will grow out into a carpet. Last week I started getting the typical-new-tank-diatom-bloom but my new otos took care of it right after introduction, all of it but my monte carlo which as of today is brown from diatoms. Its not as easy as I had hoped to "just wipe off" and I'm afraid if I just leave it be the monte carlo will just die. Also, frankly I hate how brown it looks and I can't properly vacuum that area either. Does anyone have advice on how to clean it off? My shrimp pick at it but don't make a dent, the otos also pick at it a bit but i'm not sure they're actually eating it. Alternative I could cut my losses, pull up the monte carlo and put down a broader leaf carpeter. Does anyone have a suggestion on a replacement. I don't want it to grow much taller than 1".

I just made my first batch ever. The bottle said 3:1. For me it just sits there for about an hour then starts dissolving and settles into the substrate. It's at that point my otos decide they're interested and eat it. Still takes them about 12 hrs to eat as they come and go from it. It's this how it's supposed to work? It seems to be all eaten so I guess that's good?

It's always a compromise between surface area and maintenance. You can get a ton of area from fine sponge but you'll be cleaning out clogged sponge all the time. clogged sponge isn't doing anything for you.

Easily choice: "Helping" my mom dig our fish pond. I was 5 I think so I probably wasn't actually helping.

I like that website a lot but I have reason to be skeptical of some of the things there so don't take it all as hard truth, or even science, take it as another resource. I love his advice on using pot scrubbers as filter media though. I'd use them except I already have a lot of sponge that's good enough and will last forever

I have the 35 which is the same but missing the downward tube. If you pop the motor out (really easy) you can fill the void behind the "skimmer" section with sponge (I used the coop sponge) to prefilter and keep fish, fry, and shrimp out. I've heard a lot of people say you can't prefilter this HOB but I think its because they lack imagination :). You just have to do it differently. EDIT: Here's seachem's instructions for disassembly of the 75 and 110. after step 4 you should have access to the skimmer area where you can cram whatever you want in there to either close it off entirely or pre-filter it. Its the same but 1 step faster for the 35 and hopefully the same for the 55. https://seachem.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360022536073-FAQ-How-do-I-remove-the-impeller-of-the-Tidal-75-and-Tidal-110-filters-

I'd also add a couple check valves if you haven't already. last thing you want to do is accidentally siphon your whole tank into the brine hatchery

So, I checked online prices, and the one place that i could find that had multiple grades you actually paid more per hatchling for the LOWER grades. weird. I guess the question is moot if its always better to buy the top grade ones, unless there's a reason to prefer low hatch rates. Perhaps its just a matter of supply and demand and cheapskates are driving up the prices of the low grade stuff to irrational levels?

You raise a good point. In that scenario can i just add 33% more eggs from the 75,000 batch to make it a 100,000 batch with zero extra effort?

Yeah I feel like there needs to be a special page where members can submit their alum dip experiences, maybe time, concentration, and species. I'm constantly scouring the internet for people's dip experiences and coming up with not much good info. Since co-op specializes in plants I feel like it would be doubly good for them to collect that info.

Besides the obvious: more BBS, is there an advantage to having 90% hatch rate eggs vs 80% or 75%? Going from 75% to 90% you'd get 20% more hatches but is there a reason to pay more than 20% more for that? Are they more nutritious? Hatch faster? last longer? Secret option D that I can't think of?

yikes. Is this a big problem? I'm pretty careful during water changes but I still inadvertently submerge a floater that escapes here or there (especially when refilling). My thought was "it rains outdoors I'm fine", but then again there's warm sun, not just visible light and wind (i have a lid) outdoors.

People don't commonly use the "Latin" names for things. I'm sure they've had names in every language of people that encountered them. Marimo just stuck in English given the time and place it got popular in the US.

ah okay thanks! Most of whats pictured are the children of an alum dipped salvinia. 2 days of alum turns them brow and they slowly die but make last ditch baby plants that have been doing well. I bet the white ones are just the last parents that I hadn't removed.

Anyone know whats going on with my salvia? Some of them turn white or maybe have white mold or something growing on them? To be safe I cut out the white leaves but I'm wondering if I should be concerned.

Thanks for that!! Looks like I've got some reading to do 🙂

How does that work? Why can plants grow but algae can't?