Tedrock

I wouldn’t chase ph here. Your numbers are stable. And what I have heard from many experienced aquarists is change is what harms fish the most. So if the ph is stable and the gh and oh are spot on then I wouldn’t make quick changes. If you want to add coral allow me to recommend slowly. I hope this is of help. Tedrock

I have been down that path with Rabbit snail breeding groups. I understand.

So what is your story? What fish purchased did you make that you are embarrassed to tell others you made but likely do it again. I just spent $90.00 on six koi rice fish. I am glad I did it but I have secret shame.

Allow me to give you a little guidance on rabbit snails. First they like it warm at 80. Second water needs to be hard or treated to be constant hardness. Crush coral mixed into the substrate in 3 parts sand one part coral. If you don’t do this their shells will decay from the tip up and you can’t repair the damage. This a bigger problem for rabbits. If you have any other questions let me know and I can share more info. goodluck!

Howdy Nerms, These longfin Dark night rams were local bred lfs find at a well known store in Massachusetts. Are these a real strain? Are the super new? I don’t know anything about them. I bought two pair. Can you share your thoughts on authenticity on this strain and quality? many thanks! tedrock

Howdy Nerms, I hacked my coop fish feeder for outside duty on my 150 gallon rubber made tub. Disclaimer - the coop fish feeder is designed for indoor use only. I imagine It’s design and construction was not meant for outside elements but humidity from a tank was considered so I took a chance. I am in New England (Mass to more clear) and our tub season no heater is four months tops. I have guppies and rice fish and dream of lots of fry. Well I am going away for 10 days and I needed them fed several times a day to keep them happy hence the feeder. So I needed a feeder enclosure. I didn’t want to build a wood barn for the feeder because heck that would be so much work and I would have needed to start that a month ago and that would have cut in to my staring at fish time. I will skip the rest of the narrative - recycle bin found a one liter seltzer bottle cut a “t” slot in as long as feeder. The top of the t at bottom of the bottle. The t shape allows barrel food slot to dispense all the food. I inserted the feeder in the bootle. I used a one litter Poland springs seltzer bottle. Snug but no touching the sides of feeder. You slide the feeder back and the bracket can lock it in to place. You may have to make this part work for you, this could be trial and error. The bracket will stick out to attach to rail you have. As you can see in my night photos sorry. Totally see through and rain hits it and rolls off. I let you know how it does.

I have raised rice fish and found that flake food is tough for them to eat. Grinding it up for them helps. Also switch to like a extreme nano slow falling pellet. They respond well to it.

My only cautionary word of experience is don’t pack in the filter too tight. No water will move through it. I speak from experience. You can just see me packing it down there, stuffing it tight. Keep it loose, it will fill up soon enough.

Anther factor to consider is the lid, is there one? That limits side choices if you have one. The plecos can be messy so the HOB may be necessary. I think two sponge filters are two many but can you have too much bacteria filtration? It ultimately is your preference.

Started with aqua-clear liked them a ton then caught filter envy. The newest and bestest came - Seachem Tidals. I bought three over time because i am a NERM, two 55's and a 75. Never bought a 35 - no tube for bottom of the tank filter suction , they only have the skimmer filter input. All of the good points mentioned are true. Here are some draw backs. 1. When you change the filter media basket you can't see the dirt and gunk left in the filter. We all are lazy and don't always drain this tank of murky water. Well with the Tidal you have no idea how dirty that water really is or if there are shrimp or other life in there unless you take the whole filter off the tank. (I know aquaclear bonus) When you start that puppy up again whooosh gunk ahoy goes into that tank, and you smack yourself in the head. 2. When packing the filter basket you may do so that the water flows around and up over the basket at high flow rates. I believe this means the water is bypassing the filter media all together. So you need to pack the basket loosely and watch the water pumping speed. This should not happen right away but I found this to happen too many times after cleaning. And no I didn't over pack the basket. 3. Clearing the pump and impeller stinks ... well putting it back together does. You pull the cover off the impeller and the pump, there with the wire wrapped around it. Good luck getting it back in and the cover back on the first time. Your are going to pinch the cord and mix up the placement of said cord. It is not intuitive. Now mind you there are some of you that will say "hey, I get it on the first try every-time." Well you are amazing - the average person, like myself, is ready to huck this filter across the room after the tenth try. 4. The pump flow adjustment wheel didn't seem to make a difference in two of my units (the 55's). It didn't seem to move it up or down. I expected more from the units in this area. 5. Also the weird shaped media basket is sooooo annoying, if you use your own media. The "design" forces you to buy their sponges, ya right. It then is a pain to cut rolled filter floss in a weird shape to fit the basket. In conclusion are Tidals good filter sure but, they definitely have to be finessed and handled with tender loving care. If you want to spend time Nerming out cleaning and min maxing you filter this filter might be for you. If you want to get it clean quickly, walk way and enjoy your fish, there are other filters for you. Remember you don't have to pay any attention to me what do I know. Many thanks for reading, Tedrock

Hi DebSills! Welcome back to the hobby! I too am from the great state of Mass. While I don't have a community tank quite that large it sounds great. I am more into breeding fish and shrimp. It must be so exciting for you to be starting fresh. If I can be of any assistance with a question, I can assure you together we can find an answer. Good luck! Tedrock

Thanks for the info. I was just going off what LRB was saying. Didn’t mean to misinform.

Howdy Nerms, I was watching an LR Bretz unboxing and he bought a ton of the coop coarse sponge pads. He said he was going to use them for egg scatters like corys to lay in. Has anyone else done this with success? Let me know how it went for you. Many thanks, Tedrock

I totally agree just looking for new ideas besides guppies, rice fish, and white clouds.

I struggled with the mops as well. I went to Java moss only. I used to try and separate the eggs from the moss too much work and failure. Now I place all the small patch of moss in a shrimp tank once a week and let them hatch out. Then I feed them at the top with fry foods. Good luck it has been a journey for me as well.

Howdy fellow Nerms, I am looking for some new ideas for stock for summer tubs. So let’s turn to the forum to see what gets recommended. I don’t want to limit suggestions but please keep in mind I live in the northeast and my window really runs from June to October so I am limited. Yet this discussion isn’t just for me please allow it to run the gamut for all readers sake. many thanks, Tedrock

Good news the guppies are showing the way to the rams. The rams are much more social thanks to the coop for the education about dither fish. They also be loving the brine shrimp but the nano pellets are being eaten as well. I am waiting on my coop order for the vibra bites so I can crush them up into tiny pieces. That is my next play.

Howdy Nerms, I recently added 10 juvenile Blue Rams to grow out. I have never had them before and I was trying to vary their diet. They love the blood worms and fresh baby brine but The dry food appears to sit there. Krill flakes were a dud so I tried nano fish food. They would eat it, chew it, and it looked like they would spit it out. Now I imagine that they are getting some of that food but just wondering am I really off course here. Your guidiance is appreciated. I also added some dither guppy fry to make them not so nervous and help them come out more. Many thanks, Tedrock

Howdy fellow Nerms! I have feed a lot of types of food to fish to my shrimp but I have discovered a new food that causes a stampede. This is fresh repashy - morning wood. See these pictures. I was using shrimp sticks from extreme very popular with the shrimp but a little debris pops off during eating. This isn’t a problem with the fresh morning wood. Any other thoughts on the subject of shrimp food? Many thanks, tedrock

Finally put together the nursery tank as I like to call it. Super clean water and eye level attention. I struggled with creating a fry grow out system after seeing Dean’s fry rack and other’s DIY systems. I started gathering the parts for mine a year ago and it is up today. I even ordered directly from Ziss in South Korea for some parts. Soon enough it will be full with breeding projects.

I use drip irrigation for my garden and flowers now I need to engineer fish waste water into rain barrels then into the drip system. Too many layers but I am determined to make it work. I have an RODI system too and will not loose do the that water down the drain either. NERM ahoy!!

Howdy Nerms, I was just pondering about a good book about fresh water fish or aquariums. If you have any recommendations that would be great. Many thanks! Tedrock. Meme was posted by Kevin Green - July 10, 2020. It makes me laugh because it is true.

You are so right that was the best part of it I was amazed at how he kept on going doing the teaching thing. I was in awe. His push forward ever forward.

I have been watching Youtube updates of the Goliad farms response to the Valentine's day fish massacre of 2021 for TX. I knew TX was hit so hard but I never anticipated this sort of disaster for the industry there. I don't know how you recover from this I really don't. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-fe8ErLGb8&t=2062s

I go through this thing each time they have a sale. They make it so hard for us. Then after them my other local chain does the same thing. We have it so rough. Yeah right.