Ben_RF

Welcome!

Welcome! And thank you for sharing the pics of your tanks. I hope they are bringing you much joy.

Welcome to the forums! It is a great place to be and don't be shy 🙂 THe people here are fantastic

Sort of relating to your question, but I am not sure if it will work for you. Our marvelous @Irene just posted a video about her adventures with black beard algae on her sponge filter. This is how she resolved it when it was in the tank.

Yup its the gel on the outside. Honestly, my bottom feeders make quick work of it within 1 to 4 days typically (or maybe it just fully dissolves?). And yup, the tanks that I have fluval stratum i always get one that floats up out of it due to how light it is. As far as I can tell, the new nutrients remain either in the substrate or just on top. I have had no problem with plants even if the gel tab works it way to the surface. My fish and plants seem to do perfectly fine and I have had this happened numerous times.

I just count it as added fertilizers if I forget 🙂 Plants sure do love mulm.

My rule of thumb that I used is not to exceed 5% - 10% for water changes for 1st and 2nd generation. At 3rd generation and beyond, I will often do 30%-50% if I need to. If you are running a shrimp only tank that is planted, often the parameters remain so pristine that water changes are often done just for the sake of water changes.

What a great livestream. Really enjoyed it!

Welcome!

Wishing you all an incredible happy anniversary with all the festivities. I am at work today before heading off to celebrate my 40th, but I just wanted to wish all my fellow nerms here best wishes. You are the best!

The olive nerite snail should be a good option and thrive in those temperatures.

When I try going down to once a month it begins to yellow and develop holes.

So, I did this in the past and it ended up going not so well. I found these DIY tabs were introducing ammonia into my system. Also I found the Co Op tabs actually produced better result without the ammonia issue.

Hey you wonderful nerms. Do you have any alternatives you would recommend that are like amazon swords but are perhaps not nearly as root tab demanding? Looking for plants that get between 1' to 2 1/2' feet preferrably in height. I love my sword, but right now it is going through about 6 to 8 root tabs weekly.

Since some have mentioned the honey gourami with celestial pearl danios, I made a quick video of mine getting along great as the eat the co op baby brine shrimp. The fish on the substrate are panda cories. My apologies about the quality of the video. Cheap phone and I don't have Jimmy's mad skills

@Rudles, I know I am a little late to the party on this, but yes easy carbon or any of the liquid carbons you buy out there are deadly to ADF. I am ashamed to say I have killed a few by accident in the past this way. If they make it initially past the first dose, you still often endup with organ failures down the line.

Based on your limited availability of food, if I had live beaers who were breeding and I don't mind letting some of the fry get picked off, then I would put them in that tank and make sure to target feed from time to time. I would rotate Xtreme Krill Flakes ( https://www.aquariumcoop.com/products/xtreme-krill-flakes?_pos=2&_psq=xtreme flake&_ss=e&_v=1.0 ) with Hikari Tubifex Worms ( https://www.aquariumcoop.com/collections/fish-food/products/hikari-freeze-dried-tubifex-worms ). If I had access to for salt to do baby brine shrimp, then I would also put in the mix the Cp-Ops baby brine shrimp eggs ( https://www.aquariumcoop.com/collections/fish-food/products/aquarium-co-op-brine-shrimp-eggs ). Assumming you have enough to feed what you could make here and freeze the rest OR you have enough fish tanks that you could feed the rest too. Another option I forgot to mention is the new formula of the sera-o-nip tab which actually works well for my ADF. Right now off of Amazon it is cheap as all get out. If you just have like 1 ADF, you can break it in half. I tend to use one tab to feed 4 to 6 ADF in a tank. This might be your cheapest and one of the most rounded/best options for you to be honest. ( https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00178LEEU/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_NVNYVNND0MEQ06QXVSM4?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1 )

Variety is great for African Dwarf Frogs. As for mine, I have tried to keep a variety of food on hand for them. They particularly like live food. Black worms and brine shrimp (baby or adult) are great options. For freeze-dried foods, I particularly like using freeze-dried tubifex or brine shrimp. Over the years, freeze-dried tubifex has been a great option for mine. They will also eat freeze-dried bloodworms, but you may not want to make that the main staple. I will write more on that later. As for dry foods, I have liked using bug bites, xtreme pellets, and various flakes (the xtreme kreel flake is a great option). For frozen food, mine have taken to frozen brine shrimp, mysis shrimp, daphnia, beef hearts, and blood worms. *** In the ADF circles there is a lot of speculation that high protein items such as blood worms and beef hearts may contribute to bloat. Over the numbers of years I have kept them, I am still not sure if this is true or not. I have had more problems in tanks where I have fed freeze dried and frozen bloodworms, and frozen beaf hearts. But I am not sure if its a direct correlation. I use blood worms more or less as a treat for them, and not as main staple food. African Dwarf Frogs will eat a lot of the left overs that get to the bottom. They scavenge primarily based on the sense of smell. If I am intentionally feeding African Dwarf Frogs, I try to rotate their feedings to be every other day if they are in a species only tank. I do like to keep African Dwarf Frogs with my livebearers to help keep fry population under control. My current feeding schedule for my frogs are as follows: Sunday - Treat Day - Frozen Food that I have on hand. This tends to be blood worms or brine shrimp. Monday - fasting day Tuesday - Freeze Dried Tubifex. Soak the tubifex worms beforehand to get them to seperate. Try not to overfeed. Wednesdsay - fasting day Thursday - A smelly flake food or my mix can of fish food (pellets, flakes, bug bites, etc.) Friday - Live Food (typically baby or adult brine shrimp) Saturday - fasting day

Space is limited for me. What do y'all think would be the minimum size for an outdoor unaerated tub for brine shrimp?

In a lot of the sections of the United States what people actually get for their water is often far different from what water quality reports towns and cities often report. There is a lot of things that can play factors in that. This is one of the main reasons people who install water filtration systems will do their own tests on people's water supply verses trusting what is being reported.

Thank you all. That gives me an idea for a time table. Y'all are the absolute best.

So I thought I had experienced crypt melt in the past. And to be honest I thought most people were exagerrating. Whenever my crypts got a little upset they would just die back just a little bit, maybe a leaf or two. Boy was I wrong. Three weeks ago I attempted to treat some planaria in my shrimp tank. I used the product No Planaria for the first time after hearing so many positive remarks on it. It worked, however, my crypts however within three days melted right to the ground. How long does it take typically for crypts to rebound back (if they do at all?) after a crypt melt? The tank has now had three 40% water changes over the last two weeks in hope to get the no planaria out.

Yes, I have used the med trio a number of times with no ill effects. Just make sure not to overdose.

1 hour 57 minutes for me for a decent LFS. So most of the time I shop at the local Petsmart or order online.

I have not had issues with guppies in hardware, however I have had issues with the first and sometimes second generation of cherry shrimp in hard water. After that they are golden.