Biotope Biologist

Well there is your first problem you went into aquarium co-op! Every time I go in I struggle with not wanting to buy every fish in stock. And I don't even have any fish tanks setup. Might I recommend this anti-shopping device:

To bounce off @CT_ the hardness of your water affects how much and how quickly your calcium carbonate will dissolve into the water and thus how effective it will be at buffering your pH. Since you have a high gH in your tap water crushed coral is less effective at dissolving into the carbonate ions (kH) . The water already has alot of calcium and/or magnesium (gH) and therefore the equilibrium reaction cannot take place as quickly or effectively. For this reason I would recommend using carbonate salts in conjunction with your crushed coral and water changes to get the desired kH levels

The white things look like molt castings to me. And that is an AWESOME tank wow. Once the plants fill in it will be *chef's kiss*

Not a problem I always welcome a chance to talk about it: It's a 1997 Eagle Talon TSI AWD. It has been turbo swapped and tuned to a very conservative 23psi max boost at 6300 rpm. Redline is 7350rpm.

Hey all I thought maybe I would share this with you all in case someone on this forum is struggling with wanting to stay in whatever hobby it may be, including fish keeping. As some may be aware I enjoy working on cars and I have a heavily modified sports car. I sent my car to the dyno tuning shop after a long 3 years I had finally gotten my car where I wanted it and this was the last thing I needed to "finish" the project. On the final pull on the computer I blew an oil gasket on the timing belt side of my engine. This had me a little defeated but I figured it's not a big deal I can just replace the gasket and be good to go. I had to pull the entire front end of the car apart to get to this gasket. All timing components, exhaust, drive shaft, oil pan, and driver side axle. After doing this all by myself I put my car back together and started it only for the paper gasket to fail (likely due to my incompetence) and oil seeped all over the place. At this point I was beyond frustrated and fed up after a long month of waiting for new parts and researching and wrenching. I wanted to just throw in the towel on the whole hobby itself, after being burnt for my love too many times. I felt like I have done everything by the books and only bought the best things and poured so much energy into this that I should be rewarded with everything just going right. When nothing has gone according to plan. I am also the only one in my family and friend group who enjoys this hobby, so it's hard to keep moving forward when there is no one else in your corner so to speak. It's especially hard when your hobby is supposed to be the place you go to relieve stress, only for that hobby to be the sole cause of all your stress and anxiety. Anyway, I thought I would share my frustration in my hobby with y'all to provide some catharsis, especially for those of us who are experiencing more failures than success in the hobby they hold close to their heart. Hopefully these failures only strengthen our resolve in the future towards our hobbies and make us appreciate the success even more. TLDR; hobbies suck sometimes. And a supposed environmentalist and biologist is a car guy, there goes his credibility in my eyes. I would love if this topic became a place where we could share some frustration/failure stories and reassure each other that it's not us being "bad" at our hobbies, just happy little accidents.

I have never seen that in a fully submerged anubias! Shocked and jealous!

I concur those are aphids very common on frogbit and lily pads. Make great fish food when they accidentally fall in. I doubt you will be able to see but aphids have a proboscis that they use to pierce leaves. They keep these tucked under the body unless feeding. Another way to tell the difference tap one's butt. If it jumps away it's a spring tail. If it turns around and says "hey man why?" it's an aphid. Since aphids and springtails have wildly varying body shapes and segmentation patterns it's hard to ID based on them without a dichotomous key. Especially since the furcula of a spring tail and cornicles of an aphid can be confused with the naked eye. Here is a picture I stole from some old guy on the planted tank forum of his frogbit:

Your pile of crushed coral will just get smaller and smaller over time. Before it "disappears" completely just top off the bag and you're good to go. You can hang the bag anywhere or just use your water test strips to figure out if your kH and gH are getting low. Either way works.

Yes the calcium and the carbonate separate and dissolve into the water slowly over time based on how much already exists in the water. Since you are on the lower side of the kH and gH it will dissolve quicker at first than stabilize. With every water change you are adding new water that will then dissolve more calcium and carbonate ions and remove existing ions. This is why the buffers exist, when you do your water change it will not shock the fish with a pH swing it will simply dissolve more into the water. You will know rather quickly when you need to add more in this case because the shells that the cichlids hide in will start to get chalky or have holes in them. At this point the water is now dissolving the calcium carbonate in the shells because there are not enough ions in the water. It takes a long time for this stuff to dissolve so it's not like you will have to add another 25 lb bag of sand each year to correct for the water. But it is also erroneous to think it will last the life of the tank. Having a bag of crushed coral in your filter as stated above works twofold. It both provides your tank the buffer it needs while also being an indicator for when to add more. Also all calcium carbonate becomes cement like over time. That is how limestone and oolites are formed naturally. Cichlids are constantly digging and moving material around so you shouldn't have an issue with the sand becoming compacted

Best way to find out is grab a sample of acrylic and paint it. then after a 24 hour cure remove the plastidip and see if it damages the acrylic. Plastidip has been used on many forms of thermoplastics in the car world with no effect for ages. Keep in mind toluene and hexane exist in most spray adhesives including spray paint. Not saying you are wrong or trying to argue, but organic chemistry can vary based on what solution was applied to what surface.

I wouldn't say the constipation damaged the swim bladder, but since goldfish are physostomous (open air bladder and esophagus) they commonly have problems with eating and regulating their swim bladder. Their other lobe of the swim bladder is located right next to their anal vent as well so during digestion they can also have troubles regulating their swim bladder. I think your diet and water parameters sounds good. I do also like feeding goldfish broken up hikari algae wafers. They love this stuff and it has a combination of vegetable proteins and fibers to help with digestion. I would also attempt to feed smaller serving sizes and more frequently. This seems to help. You can also buy some cheap (often free) pond weeds such as milfoil, duckweed, and elodea. If the diet change still doesn't help goldfish can often get bacterial infections in their swim bladder. Usually it's hard to tell with ornamental variants, but their abdomen will swell slightly and their vent may turn bright red. At this point using antibiotic medicines will help. Usually it is recommended in this case to soak the food in Erythromycin or other broad spectrum antibiotic. Alongside this a Methylene blue and epsom bath will help as well since these are absorbed through the tissue. Edit: Your goldfish may be suffering from a bacterial infection in the gut or swim bladder itself given the inflamed vent.

If you could test your water parameters and post them I could make a more accurate recommendation but since the peas helped I would say that either your food quality has deteriorated or the fish is suffering from a bacterial infection. The "swim bladder disease" are fairly common in goldfish especially of the "fancy" variety and it may be hard to diagnose it accurately. Starting with changing the diet is an easier fix from there you can try medications if the diet change doesn't work and your water parameters are good.

I prefer static cling or adhesive backed films but I am sure plastidip will have no problem adhering to the acrylic. Rubber is incredibly sticky. It won't have any adverse chemical reactions either if that is what you are concerned with. Also black silicone is nice and easy to apply. I have been told other pigments exist, but they are not readily available at home depot or lowes.

Basically any calcium carbonate (including the shells they dwell in) acts as a pH buffer. Generally the aragonite sands will have magnesium in them as well as the calcium carbonate which will both serve to increase your kH and gH. While you may see a bump in your pH realize that this number is on a logarithmic scale so it may not be reasonable to expect to get your tap water to 8.0 from neutral (7.0). That is OKAY even if it shifts your pH to around 7.6 the cichlids will be more than happy, they may just need a drip acclimation or osmosis acclimation before you add them to the tank. Products with calcium carbonate include; crushed coral, limestone, aragonite sand, oolite, and African cichlid sand mix. Keep in mind when the product descriptions states "increases pH" it is a misnomer unless it literally contains OH- (hydroxide), these products only act to buffer the pH which has the potential to raise pH.

Is that blue on the test strip caused by the oxidation of the reagents in the test strip or did you take this picture directly after pulling it out of the water? I would say if that is a "fresh" strip that Cory's initial thought is likely correct that the test strip is "geeking" out. Either that or your dessicant has failed and your test strips are toast. It happens no matter how good your QC team is. Ammonium chloride dissolves into water extremely well and makes NH4+ and Cl- which are both commonly found in aquarium water so the specific compound is not reacting in a rare fashion to the test strips. For the curious the dissociation chemical reaction is: NH4Cl(solid) = NH4+(aqueous) + Cl-(aqueous). NH4+(aqueous) +H2O(liquid) = NH3(aqueous) +H3O+(aqueous) H3O+ +OH- = 2H2O.

I don't see any visual signs of stress or disease. Betta splendens are weird fish and some behaviors aren't correlated to stress rather a sense of quirkiness. I had a ton of rescue bettas in my time working at national pet store chain and no two exhibited the same behavior. I had one that would fall asleep on a lily leaf close to the surface so part of his body extended above the waters surface. I feel that you have a strong enough background in aquarium keeping that I don't have to explain the woes of 1 gallon water swings. I am sure he will enjoy his new 10g when it's ready.

Big pet stores aren't all bad. If you are looking for neons or other readily available fish often times this is the only place you can find some varieties. I have talked with quite a few LFS in Seattle. Most, including the co-op, won't stock fish that they can't beat the prices of from Petsmart/Petco. It's smart business. Especially fish that don't transport well big chains can eat the cost. When I worked at one of those chains they sold silver-tip sharks (a brackish/saltwater catfish) at a 700% loss. Thankfully they don't sell them anymore. Also yes the water all runs through one filter except the quarantine tanks and goldfish. Although the store I worked at took pride in our fish so we had a chiller for the koi goldfish and dojo loaches. Ran a cold water stream tank for our cloudfin minnows and reticulated hillstream loaches and a brackish tank for our red claw crabs all on separate filters. We also fed our reptiles and rodents garden fresh UV treated vegetables. But I digress. Both chain stores do not care what your water parameters are we are still required to allow returns of deceased fish. Granted if you come in 3-4 times we were allowed to turn you down, especially on big fish orders. While we were also not allowed to sell sick fish to customers for this reason, some inexperienced pet care employees are not trained in that area so if you grab them and have them pick out fish they will just grab whatever you point at. Best way to see if they are experienced is have them try to grab a pictus catfish and see what they reach for. If they reach for the net and only the net, they are most certainly not trained. Long winded way of saying both parties can share the blame here

Having moss balls seems to help keep shrimplet predation down. Subwassertang or flame moss is a favorite among shrimp hoarders as they provide dense coverage and shelter. I believe those are fairly common overseas depending on where in the U.K you hail (assuming based off your £). I would think ember tetras would be the only issue as both hillstream loaches and stiphodons are grazers. Even then they won't be a huge threat.

I agree with @Colu here. Looks like a tumor, seems to be fairly common in Betta splendens. Not much to do here except for monitor for quality of life.

Tank 1: plecostamus do really well in cichlid tanks and I would say you have the tank for it. Just make sure to provide lots of caves. When you move to the 180g I would provide lots of digging substrate and anchor your plants well. As oscars get older they really enjoy making tanks their own. Also as you may be aware oscars are sometimes referred to as underwater dogs. I like to give them neutral buoyancy fishing beads to play with. (https://www.amazon.com/Soft-Beads-Clown-Neutral-Buoyancy/dp/B0775YJF7T). You can get them at most big name outdoors stores. Just make sure they are to big to fit in their mouth. The other thing I like to do is set up a betta hammock at surface level or slightly higher and put insect treats on the leaf. Oscars really enjoy using their natural hunting techniques in the aquarium. Other tankmates to consider: blue acara, silver dollar, banded cichlid, uara cichlid, convict cichlid, hoplo catfish Tank 2: pygmy cories have my vote Tank 3: Definitely neons, always overlooked Tank 4: Banjo catfish will eat fry and are quite unique looking, not to mention absolutely charming. They are naturally found in rivers and estuaries inhabited by livebearers so win-win. Tank 5: I can't think of a calmer fish off hand. If your betta is pretty calm himself glass catfish could be added. They are fragile and usually have to be baster fed frozen worms. Sometimes they take to fish flakes, but I rarely had good luck with them taking to it at the petstore I worked at. Otherwise bottom dwellers might be good Tank 6: Chilli rasboras have my vote. They are so pretty amongst the greens of the plants and always lively.

That is a species of leech. I would have difficulty ID'ing to species without it in hand, but it likely came in with the black worms. Platyhelminthes are not segmented, and leeches uniquely possess a small disc called the posterior or caudal sucker at the end of their body to attach to rocks and vegetation

They exist sort of. This is the only design I could find, but in your application it would be rather bulky. When we were in the field and had to do colorimetry we would use a large piece of parafilm and rubber bands over the top of the tubes. I think in your application the only way this would work is if you had a cradle coming off the wall, in between the color guides, with holes for clasped zip ties. Zip ties hold the test tube against the cradle.

I agree with @Will Billy the pipette is infinitely easier to use. For your test tube holder deal for API master tests could you design in a lid or straps for the tubes so you can invert the tubes all in one go? Test tube racks are more useful if you can do your inversions for all your test tubes in the rack. Also I love this idea. Especially since my stands were always busy holding aquarium equipment, unless I had a full cabinet I couldn't store aquarium supplies in handy locations

The endler's can be fin nippers, smaller faster moving fish would be great compliments to the betta's drifting curious nature. I like rasboras for the job as they are quite hardy stay small and have personality of their own.

You can get a cheap 169 gph Chinese water pump from Amazon. I suppose it depends how quickly you want the water to get into the tank. I have used a dinky 25gph from a reptile water fountain to this effect with no issues. I think you underestimate the power of capillary action. Although the 25gph takes forever and used 1/4" tubing.