[Anyone experienced with Finnex Planted+ CRV?]

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!

[Using UVB lights for planted tanks?]

On 12/28/2021 at 6:26 PM, Guppysnail said:

I use a uva/uvb mercury vapor light borrowed from my bearded dragon on occasion for a plant qt/grow out. I’m careful because of the heat those emit but I also use a full spectrum hydroponic grow lights that are led. Both grow algae better than plants. My best growth is from ordinary white with blue and red shut off I can grow reds and most stems love it. 

 

On 12/29/2021 at 3:38 AM, Expectorating_Aubergine said:

Yeah, anytime I've had turtles that bask, the uvb light generates a TON of algae....

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

[Using UVB lights for planted tanks?]

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?

[Background or No Background.]

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.

[Betta fish tank mates.]

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.

[Phosphates get absorbed within a day?!]

On 7/20/2021 at 5:32 PM, Mmiller2001 said:

Dose more, I'm dosing 8ppm a week. There's no problem dosing all your Macro nutrients up front (first day after water change).

I'm going to give it a go!

[Phosphates get absorbed within a day?!]

On 7/20/2021 at 2:58 PM, Guppysnail said:

Your gsa is most likely devouring your phos and growing

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.

[Phosphates get absorbed within a day?!]

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)

[Reptiles?]

On 7/9/2021 at 6:20 PM, Guppysnail said:

Bearded dragon and northeastern grey tree frog

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 😅

[Where can you get plant weights?]

On 7/9/2021 at 4:41 AM, Hobbit said:

I use bulky glass beads as plant weights. I’m sure you can find some that will ship to you! Here’s the ones I ordered long ago:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07L3Q2Q3K/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Just be careful and make sure they don’t come with powder on the inside. Some beads are powdered—I think it has something to do with the production process—and that powder is a PAIN to get out.

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

[Where can you get plant weights?]

On 7/8/2021 at 6:02 PM, Guppysnail said:

Amazon also has ceramic plant weights like you were looking at

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.

[Where can you get plant weights?]

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.

 

[Nitrates and Plants]

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.

[Found a new creature in my tank. What is that?]

On 7/4/2021 at 6:29 PM, Griznatch said:

Those are awesome, were they hitch hikers you think?

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

[Found a new creature in my tank. What is that?]

On 7/4/2021 at 6:02 PM, Nirvanaquatics said:

Freshwater limpet! It's a friend, don't worry 😊

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

[Found a new creature in my tank. What is that?]

Those appeared about a week ago. They seem like some kind of a slug if you look at them from above, but l caught one eating algae from the glass so I got a picture of it. Looks like a baby snail, it moves and eats like a snail, but its shell is clam-like? What is this thing?

Snails I keep/have seen in my tank before are malaysian trumpet snails and pond snails.

P.S. sorry for the bad GIF quality, that's the best I could make to upload here.

 

[Deficiency or Snail Damage?]

Can you take a picture of the whole plant in the aquarium? It's going to be easier to tell if there's a deficiency like this.

 

[How Far Is Your LFS?]

The one closest to me is 3 minutes away, but they don't even take out dead or sick fish out of their aquariums so instead I drive to a one located 40 minutes drive away.

[Easy Green]

I think Dean would love to buy all of that green water from you! 😆

 

On a more serious note, I'll add to what others have said here.

I'd say you should shorten the light period. Make it 8 hours total.

Also, stop doing daily water changes, you might kill your fish like that. You should approach this problem slower if you don't want to stress your fish too much.

If you decide on doing the blackout method, make sure you test you water daily for ammonia and nitrite, because dead algae will quickly degrade into these.

You could also try something like Easy Carbon, Seachem Excel, or API CO2 Booster. Those help reduce algae.

[Help me help my customers understand the nitrogen cycle]

The people who need that information are most likely getting their first fish ever. If you drop a ton of information on them before they even get their own fish, it will definitely discourage them from getting one - because you'll be focusing on the negative rather than on the positive, which is enjoying a new pet.

It's like telling the parents of child, while they are getting a puppy, that the dog will require lots of attention, walks, etc. Plus, within a few weeks their child, like most children, will lose his motivation for caring for the dog and the parents will end up waking up early in the morning to take the dog for a walk. Obviously parents know that, but not many will still buy a puppy if this is all they are being reminded of.

Now, are you trying to make sure the sold fish stay healthy, or are you trying to sell more fish?

If it's the former then you should think about all the people who get a fish, realize it's not as easy of a task as they originally thought, and then they either end up returning/selling their fish or the fish end up dead. Inevitably, many fish will die in the hands of a new owner, so yes you should educate them, but I believe it's a part of the process. People learn best from mistakes I think. If a fish gets sick or not eating or dies early, it is much more likely that the owner will start learning willingly about fish keeping and their next fish will be in much better hands.

If it's the latter (which by the context of your post seems unlikely), then you just let them pick whatever they want, it will probably die, and they might come back for advice/a new fish. Therefore, it might be a bad idea getting attached to pets you are selling.

Overall, I think the best course of action is to give the absolute minimal of necessary information, so make every word count. I'd say feeding amount and frequency, preferable tank size, tank mates if they are planning on more fish down the road, temperature, filtration (only if it's something like a goldfish), and the last one should be water changes.

You should focus on how this will keep the fish healthy and happy, and therefore more colorful and active so it's more fun to watch, rather than going into details as to why they should keep up with the maintenance. You could also let them know that if they have any questions down the road they can call the shop/walk in and ask.

[What was in your first tank]

It was a 3 gallon with 2 young goldfish ☹️

[Snails]

On 6/22/2021 at 9:34 PM, CalmedByFish said:

I hadn't yet formed an opinion about this when I had a bare-bottom tank, with a big pile of fish poo piled on the floor of it. (I didn't remotely know what I was doing at the time.) I added about a dozen malaysian trumpets, and within a day, that big pile of poo was a little pile of sand - 1/10 or less the volume of the poo. Though I don't like malaysian trumpets, I'll always keep them for that 1 reason.

Oh, I wasn't talking about MTS. I was talking about the bladder snails that were mentioned by the original poster.

I actually love malaysian trumpet snails and I keep them in my aquariums, because I can barely ever see them, and like you mentioned they love eating fish/shrimp poop. On the other hand, I had a shrimp bowl that was overrun by bladder snails and pond snails. Even just 2 of them were enough to cover the whole substrate with poop within a few days.

[Snails]

Sorry, I don't like them. They generate SO MUCH waste, and they multiply so quickly that the whole glass is covered with them. Luckily my betta killed all of them for me. 😅

[Dwarf Water Lettuce and Mysterious Objects]

On 6/22/2021 at 4:13 PM, laritheloud said:

It absolutely will drop to nothing soon enough @Tyler LaZerte. Less than a week after transferring Water Lettuce into my main tank, my nitrates dropped from 20 to zero in a few days. I have since then struggled with keeping nitrates high enough to be detectable on a test strip (reading between 0 and 5 ppm on the liquid test kit), and I have what I consider a fully-stocked tank!

EDIT: I also fertilize 3 times a week now.

 

On 6/22/2021 at 4:15 PM, Tyler LaZerte said:

@laritheloud Holy buckets. I may have to step up my Easy Green game. Good thing I started with a layer of Aquasoil haha 

 

If you have trouble keeping up the nitrates at a good level (although if you have red plants you want them as close to 0ppm as possible) you should consider using a nitrogen only fertilizer. I started using Seachem Nitrogen when floaters began melting and it's great.

[Dwarf Water Lettuce and Mysterious Objects]

On 6/22/2021 at 3:37 PM, Tyler LaZerte said:

@BaRanchik Currently 20 ppm, I believe. I'm sure it will go up with time because the tank is only 1 month old. 

20 should be plenty. Just keep an eye on it for a while, and possibly dose an extra amount of nitrates if needed (floaters are sponges for nitrates, so you might see your nitrates drop quickly soon).