BaRanchik

This is basically the only non-NICREW light that ships here that seems decent and of a known brand. I use a bunch of NICREWs on my other tanks, and they seem fine but I'm looking for something of possibly a higher quality, and I need it to be water resistant as it will be an open top tank. I don't have experience with this brand though, and I am looking for a good light for a new build (15 gal, 23.19"x11.81"). Is this light worth its price? Are the "True 660nm LEDs" really making a difference? And if anyone specifically has the 24" version, will it fit my tank? Thanks!

Got it, so UVB isn't such a good idea. Thanks for your input!

I was wondering if one could, or even should, use UVB lights, specifically CFL bulbs, for a wider light spectrum in a planted tank. Will plants do better? And is it dangerous to the fish?

I like to have some kind of a background on my tanks, because I can see the cables hanging behind the glass. I am striving for as natural a tank as possible, so I don't really like the printed backgrounds. I use a black one, as it gives more depth for the tank and the sponge filter blends in with it. I'm planning on using a bright colored background for a bigger tank with a canister filter, as I think the bright colors look much more peaceful ans will go better with a school of fish.

I've had a long-finned male betta live peacefully with a mystery snail (the beginning was a bit rough but he soon realized the antennae are not food). Long finned would work well with more kinds of fish/shrimp since they are slower - even if they want to hunt something down they can't and they give up quickly. My female wild betta on the other hand, has short fins and she's super fast. Her mates are 4-5 snowball shrimp, 2 amano shrimp, 1 red nose shrimp and 1 oto. For some reason she'd leave the shrimp alone for the most part (she might show interest in a meal but she just swims away every time), but with the oto - she's a bully. She might chase him down or flare on him (I never knew females can flare before I saw her do that towards him) but she doesn't bite him, she just wants him out of her sight. The oto looks healthy so I don't think he cares too much - I might be more worried than he is. So what's the point of that story? I think it depends on the betta's personality, and on its speed. A chill betta can do well with species that it might consider as food. Slower bettas (longer finned) will work better with peaceful species, but they might be out-competed for food so you have to keep an eye on that.

I'm going to give it a go!

It actually started before I was dosing any phosphorus, and it spread quickly. I read somewhere that this was due to phosphate deficiency so I started dosing it based on the recommended basis. It kept dying and coming back as soon as the phosphates were gone, so I increased the amount.

I'm struggling with GSA now that the amount of plants in my tank is doubled. It's a 10g tank, understocked, with 1 female betta, 1 oto, and about 5 shrimp or so. The oto and shrimp are eating some of the GSA but they barely have any effect on its spread. I am dosing 2ml of Seachem Phosphorus every 2 days (which is about 8 times more than the recommended amount) to get the phosphates from 0.01ppm to around 0.3ppm. Whenever I dose phosphates GSA starts going away, but within a day the phosphates are gone almost completely again. I am getting annoyed with it since I don't like dosing daily, I'm trying to keep it down to twice a week. Anyone have experience with dealing with this problem? Should I just dose 4ml every time instead? (It's not the light because the GSA grows even in completely dark spots in the tank)

Never thought I'd see a cat and a bearded dragon chilling together, very cool! For some reason I'd expect cats to try and kill any live animals around 😅

Those look promising! Do you just order a bunch and use the clean ones?

I have these, but they are really bulky compared to the ones I am talking about. From my experience with these, stems would always float if disturbed a little with these white ones.

I'm looking for a replacement for lead plant weights. I'm afraid of the effects lead has on the water (and on my health in case I have an open wound on my hand while maintaining the tank), and my pH is slightly below 7 so it's worrying me even more. I've been looking for the weights in the picture as a replacement. I use some of these which I got with some of the plants at the LFS, although not all the plants come with those, and they don't sell these separately. I've searched every place I know with international shipping, and couldn't find these.

To get rid of nitrates in my tank I use a floating ring and fill it with duckweed. The duckweed sucks out nitrates SO fast it's letting me skip water changes almost completely. For a big tank like yours you could use a few of those rings. The nice thing about those rings is if you get one that holds the duckweed inside of it - you won't have it spread all over the tank and block light (I got mine from Etsy). However, if your fish is a goldfish or any other fish that will eat duckweed - this will not work. My two juvenile goldfish can devour tons of it a day.

I believe so. Last time I got new plants was about 3 weeks ago, so they could have been on those.

That's cool! Do you have any idea how big they grow? I don't mind having some extra workers for my cleaning crew.