Biotope Biologist

You can also soften water a ton with heavy organic load if that is an option for you. But also angels are not terribly finicky about the gh like common belief. Neither are discus. They possess a remarkable ability to push ions across their gills mechanically when magnesium and calcium are not present in the water, but if the water is not lacking in these then they do not need to use the ability and they live just fine, happy as clams. Many, many people have had success with both angels and discus in hard water.

I wouldn’t worry too much about that gh that is a perfectly fine parameter

Looks like 1/2 tap 1/2 ro is a safe bet! Definitely brought your gh into more manageable territory for certain plants and animals. I would just start using 1/2 ro 1/2 tap in your water changes, your kh might need some buffering but I have similar parameters to yours and my plants are thriving, so just monitor kh and adjust if test strip shows yellow close to water change time

Bubbles like that form for a multitude of reasons. Industrial residue is something I would not be terribly concerned with. Sometimes grease will come off a new motor but the grease they use is aquarium safe and generally hydrophobic. It usually forms an ‘oil slick’ on the surface before dispersing If I had to guess the bubbles are oxygen that gets trapped on the surface by the layer of viscous fatty acids. It’s a layer that forms naturally by certain biological processes. It’s been a long time since I took my water chemistry course so hopefully I used the right name for these processes 😅

I think a Hanna or similar electric test will be your best bet for this application. If the $80 is too rich for your blood, you can break it down into you have to buy $14 nitrate kits every 8-12 months, after ~5 years the Hanna will have paid for itself. They last a long time with very little maintenance required. Then you might just carry it around and zap random bodies of water, muttering “interesting, interesting results” to yourself and never using that practical knowledge anywhere 😋

Don’t ask about fish tanks ask about water beds. If the apartment allows king sized beds they hold 250 gallons. Apartment managers are weird about fish and try to deem them as pets even though most renters laws around them word them as ‘water features’ or ‘water entertainment’ so if you ask you apartment manager ask if they allow water beds and what size water beds. Than you will have your answer. I have kept a 128g aquarium in an apartment space with no issue

Availability and readiness to breed are usually the biggest reasons for cost paired with general interest (or lack there of in the case of Geos)

It’s the same accuracy as before just more liquid required. And more expensive in the long run. If you need to measure low kH accurately taking human error out of the equation is the only way

El nino ferns can be temperamental if they don’t have water running through their roots. I often steered people away from them for that reason. It needs to be a stream, like having a powerhead pointed at the ground. I believe they are actually emergent plants that experience near constant flooding events because they grow on the streams edge in the riparian zone in Indonesia. I may have confused the point further, but just know that compared to other java ferns this species is quite temperamental.

I agree with @nabokovfan87 but I’d like to expand, because Petsmart sold these el nino ferns (which are also called java ferns to confuse people even more). el nino ferns are very similar to epiphyte ferns in that they need water running through their soil to thrive. I have a maiden hair fern growing out of my tank and people long thought this fern was an impossible house plant. Because of that very specific requirement. If they don’t get it they will melt, if they do get it they need little else and will thrive. My maidenhair is s bit temperamental and melted because it got TOO MUCH sun. 😅 but she is coming back in force.

Hanna instruments. Pretty sure they send a control vial too. If you want accuracy you have to step up into kh meters. There is more accurate titration methods but unless you have access to a college or state lab, it’s about $1k for the equipment. We use Hanna instruments often.

It’s not all that uncommon to see water like this especially if you are on well. 6.4 pH isnt anything id be concerned with and you can add carbonate salts to bring the kh up- it will likely raise your pH too as the carbonate will buffer the acidity in the water some.

Also don’t forget about the beauty of Anemoia! My generation is certainly chocked full of it so it may not be all that hard to find buyers. I’ve seen the 40 gallon ones sell for $500 at botique thrift stores depending on the condition of the glass and quality of the restoration!

If you can get some rhyme or reason out of it I imagine some variants might be sellable! They look great!

Sorry I think I might have jumbled words. Let me be clear I would not call myself hardcore biotope. I think if you can loosely get your tank to look like a slice out of the environment than you’re good. My tank plants were easy to source and like my hardiness zone so I have had very good success with them. I have a maidenhair fern that is being a bit temperamental right now but the epiphyte ferns really seem to like having running water through the soil if that seems plausible in your setup I am following because I like your idea!

I use a glass bottle meant for skin care from Ulta. Lol, it works fine and the hole is wide enough that I can stick a toothpick in every so often to clean the gunk out. Those pumps have been failing since Cory invented the dang Easy Green! Its just the best bang for your buck liquid fertilizer there is so everyone I know finds an alternative way of dispensing 😅

With biotopes only hardcore people do local plants. There just isn’t much in the way of native plants regularly traded. I say choose plants that fit with the picture of your biotope or from similar biotopes local to you. For example I have my sub-alpine creek biotope that stocks fish from sub-tropical India/China in the foothills of the Himalayas. But my plants are all NA natives from Clemson that inhabit stream environments. You might find similar species of plants in the foothills of the Himalayas but finding those exact species to ship would have been an absolute nightmare.

I don’t think there will be compatibility issues. Water cleanliness will be the biggest issue. Discus like very clean stable water parameters and puffers are very messy eaters. Even with 180 gallons and plants I think it might be not worth the attempt for the sake of constant water upkeep. You will also have to keep the puffer entertained. When intelligent animals get bored they wreak havoc on the tank regardless of temperament. Personally I would do one or the other, the tank just sounds very time consuming.

The blue ones seem to be the rarest at least with my population. Idk as you are aware snail genetics are very confusing and I attempted to read some genome reports and my head started hurting, so I decided to stop. All colors occur naturally and don’t seem to be influenced by environment or diet factors. My population is as follows with these numbers being guesses: white shell/red foot- 5% grey shell/blue foot- 1% brown shell/red foot- 30% brown shell/ brown foot- 40% gold shell/brown foot- 10% others I can’t remember-14% I have had a mixed population for a year and a half now as they make great goby food! But otherwise I just let them do their thing. I have a beautiful red foot gold shell one that has produced quite a few clutches for me. They are my oldest snail. Thats all I got the rest is 🤷

Fluval used to have something very similar to this that was about this size called the bio-orb. They were very cool but not worth the $149-229 they sold it for. My coworker got some ‘damaged’ ones and used them as nightstand lights and tetra fry grow out tanks. I think they were discontinued almost ten years ago, but if you can thrift or find a used one they are very beautiful tanks and magnify the contents, making if ideal for nano fish edit: looks like another brand bought the patent? And it’s called biOrb?

Physical removal is the only option. Most if not all planaria-X can harm shrimp I have a few species of planaria in my tank and while they have stemmed my ramshorn population my shrimplets can move out of the way. Planaria are slow predators so they rely on slower prey. I still have about 10-15 adult ramshorns but the babies get eaten or go into hiding The planaria also make great fry or small fish food so a bit of the circle of life.

More accurately that is Girardia or brown planarian they get rather larger than most other species encountered in the aquarium. They are predators of snails, worms, and other like organisms.

For hillstream loaches id recommend at minimum 20 gallons. For an old 9 gallon tank, there are some really fun nano fish I can recommend. With a ton of plant cover you could do them and some shrimp species, like neocardinia. Here are my suggestions I’ll attach pics too: Rocket/clown killifish- stays small max out at 3cm chili or exclamation point rasboras- says 1” but they rarely exceed 2 cm. There are so many nano rasboras it’s not even funny. Pick a color you like and there is a species with that color If you have your heart set on catfish, dwarf anchor cats. I believe there are 3-4 species in the hobby. None of them get larger than 5-6 cm- I tend to dissuade people from hillstream loaches in a 10 gallon as they need heavy filtration, clean water, and a bit of swimming room. It’s easier to keep 20 gallons from shifting water parameters than 10 gallons. Welcome to the forums!

Don’t measure ambient measure water temps. Water is a thermal insulator. It does not swing temperature as much as air does. I would say most fish are fine with temperature swings of 5 degrees between night and day. I don’t use a heater and I like my house cooler. Air temperature measures at 65-68 Water temperature measures at 68-70 sometimes 72 if the sun is strong enough. My fish prefer colder water. But there is not a huge difference between night and day temps.

Does it move? I’d imagine it’s a snail egg case. Looks like maybe there was a blockage or excess mucus was built up so it dumped it on the glass