ChefConfit

Personally I would do a "working" tank of some sort. Either a permanent hospital/quarantine tank or a for profit/breeding setup. The poor viewing angle would annoy me if I put a ton of effort into scaping a bottom shelf display tank.

@James Black out of curiosity what ingredients are you considering not natural in those foods? By my count 10/10 are natural in nls and 8/10 in xtreme

I'm just confused by their labeling. You'd think they would come up with another name for their freshwater line instead of labeling it Kent Marine.

Originally went to school to be an automotive engineer before I had the boneheaded idea to be a chef instead. Worked at a very well regarded restaurant for 2 years then helped open 2 new restaurants in 2 years then started at a luxury retirement community about a year ago. I also run a knife sharpening business that is where most of my spending money comes from. Also trying to start a breeding for profit setup so the hobby can fund itself.

Expanding on what @Superjoepez said Most plants will experience some level of melt back when put in a new tank. Either because they need to convert to their submerged form or because of a change in water parameters. As long as they are receiving proper nutrients they should grow back stronger. I'm horrible at plant ID but the one with the branched leaves looks like water wisteria to me. Both of your unidentified plants appear to be stem plants which means they are most likely water column feeders. Lastly as superjoepez said the fertilizer you are using is not a complete fertilizer. Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium are the 3 main macronutrients (nutrients needed in large amounts) we worry about when fertilizing along with many different micronutrients (nutrients needed in smaller amounts). The only macro mentioned on the product page for Plantamin is Potassium which means it's not a complete fertilizer like Easy green. That doesn't mean it won't work, just that you need another source of nitrogen and phosphorus. Fish food and poop may be adequate for your tank depending on stocking levels and what you feed, but most here find it easier to use a complete fert like Easygreen. I'm not telling you you need to buy a different fert or that the one you're using can't work, just letting you know to keep that in mind if your plants continue to struggle beyond the initial melt back. There are several charts online to help identify plant deficiencies if problems continue. Here's a coop blog article about them Nutrient Deficiencies: Why Your Aquarium Plants Are Dying WWW.AQUARIUMCOOP.COM Do you have the perfect planted aquarium setup, but your plants are still dying one by one? Even if you’re...

I fully understand. Just wanted to ask incase you thought about it like you do the dollar per gallon sales.

@CoryI know promoting the coops competition is against the rules except for a few exceptions like the dollar per gallon sale. Would there be a similar exception for Black Friday deals? I'd imagine the effects on your sales would theoretically be limited because the deals are for a very limited time and ircc the coop doesn't have a Black Friday sale. I wanted to check before starting one. Also is there a way to DM a user on the forum? I would have asked privately if I could figure out how.

You can plant rhizome plants in the substrate. You just need to be sure not to bury the rhizome. Only put the roots in the substrate. And since we can't see the rhizome in the picture we can't be so sure that's the problem. Java Fern will create plantlets for several reasons including new water conditions such as being placed in a new tank. Where other plants melt in a new tank Java Fern often puts off plantlets. It's a survival mechanic, when the leaf begins to die it produces babies that will hopefully survive. I've also found my Windelov Java Fern just produces them after awhile regardless of how the parent leaf is doing.

Glad they are doing well! It seems that it was just a settling in period, but I'd continue to monitor ammonia. Hopefully it was just a mini cycle while BB caught up to the new bioload.

9 otos is a fine number to keep together. They will probably like larger numbers because schools in the wild are in the thousands but anything over 5 or 6 should be enough to avoid stress from having to few. If you have the tank space though get the extra fish. They're on of my favorites to watch in my tank

Yes they will be tasty snacks

Coop packages are the only ones that somehow don't get lost by usps for me. They lost 35 of my wedding invitations, 5 or 6 $100+ pocket knives, a custom chef knife, my wife's ballot and almost every other eBay purchase I make. I know it's actually the post office in my town that's incompetent though. Ever since they lost a ton of my wedding invitations we drive to the next towns post office to mail anything and have never had mail we send get lost again just mail addressed to us.

It sounds like you most likely killed of your beneficial bacteria while treating the bacterial infection. Do a 75-90% water change and run charcoal for a while to remove any traces of medication then get a bottle of beneficial bacteria to help jumpstart a new cycle. You'll probably have to do large water changes and/or use ammonia controlling products until the tank is fully cycled again. Next time I'd remove the affected fish and treat in a quarantine tank to avoid crashing the tank.

With such light stocking your cycle probably won't crash if you just switch them out without seeding the new filter, but I'd run them together for a week anyway to be safe.

The anubias and Java Fern are extremely slow growers which also means they pull nutrients from the water very slowly and don't even really need ferts, the swords are primarily root feeding so they aren't taking much of the easy green, that leaves you with the Monte Carlo to use up all that nutrients you're putting in with the easy green. You're most likely over dosing the easy green. The dosing on the bottle is just a general starting point for moderately planted tanks. I'm pretty sure @Irene did a video on how to find the proper dosing for your tank recently but I can't find it. Basically after a water change test your water. Record your Nitrate level. Add easy green to increase your nitrate by 20 (1 squirt per 10 gallons). Test every day recording the nitrate level until it returns to the original number. You now know how long it takes your tank to consume a dose of easy green. I also like to keep my nutrient levels even so once I figured out how long my tank takes to consume a dose. I spread that dose out over that amount of time. For example rather than 3 pumps every 6 days I'd do 1 pump every other day. I feel like that also helps prevent algae by eliminating extra nutrients in the water but I have nothing scientific to back it up with.

I've tried a feeding ring made out of airline tubing around the plants and also around the Hob outlet. I found using it around the plants to be the better option. Putting it around the outflow eliminated all surface agitation since the tank didn't have an air stone and an oil film developed within days.

Cooking, hiking/backpacking, video games (mostly Destiny 2 on Xbox if anyone else plays), knife collecting and knife sharpening. I used to also enjoy gardening and sailing, but we moved into our house to late to plant this year and I don't have a boat right now. After we finish the work we want to do on the house I'll start saving for a boat. I've only purchased one knife in the last year and it was a beater for work because I spend all my budget on this hobby and I haven't had a weekend to go backpacking since my 2 year old was born so I'm not sure I can still say I'm in those hobbies.

You need some buffer to prevent swings, and wood/almond leaves are natural ways by to help lower pH. Seachem makes several pH lowering and/or stabilizing products, I'm sure other manufacturers do as well. Acid buffer and neutral regulator are the first 2 that come to mind from seachem. There are also products for Blackwater that lower pH like Fritz Darkwater.

The original is no longer available unfortunately. The Coop no longer sells it but if you Google Sera O-nip it will come up. It's available from one of the big box pet stores and a huge online retailer.

They should do fine if corys and tetras are doing good. They all come from the amazon so are used to similar water conditions. I've even read about otos schooling with corys in the wild for protection.

Yea they switch to an all natural formula that falls apart much faster and the fish don't seem to go crazy for it anymore. They eat it, but they don't swarm in like they've never eaten before.

Sounds like a reason not to label them to me, but I'm just as likely to forget and eat them as my wife

I mean 2 angels are already a great centerpiece on that size tank. Those a school of like 12-18 rummy nose and some bottom feeders (I'd do 4-6 of both corydoras and otocinclus) with some plants is a pretty awesome tank as long as there's no aggression from the angels. If you wanted another showpiece I'd do something small but eye grabbing like a ram or gourami

I'm a huge fan of dirted tanks but I don't really follow the wastad method. I try to fully mineralize my soil before setting up the tank. Meaning I try to get all the organics in the soil to break down fully. This results in a very nutrient and mineral rich soil that is (mostly) inert meaning that while it contains many elements plants need and will help them grow it will not be a significant source of ammonia/nitrite/nitrate because there is no decaying organic material. To my understanding this is similar to products like Ecocomplete which is also a mineral rich planted substrate that is actually inert. The pros of my method is its dirt cheap (pun intended) compared to planted tank substrates like ecocomplete and it halps avoid the huge paramater swings and early stage algae blooms for a true wastad tank. The cons are it still needs an nitrogen source (I use easy green) and unlike ecocomplete it needs to be capped.

KGTropicals started selling some preset heaters on their website keepfishkeeping.com. They are/were (not sure if they still are now that they have their own store) brand ambassadors for the coop with a popular YouTube channel that recently started selling fish keeping supplies. They used to own a fish store but I believe this is their first online store. The heater they sell is what I plan on getting for my next nano tank.