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I have plenty of Amazon swords and have never had a problem with my albinos. Could have just gotten lucky, I guess.

For actual cleanup abilities, I've been way more impressed with my bristlenose than I have been with my otos. I put four of them in a new 125 that had some diatoms after I first set it up and within a few days, it was clean. Meanwhile, the 20 that has my otos in it is the dirtiest tank I own. (Insert standard disclaimer about not relying only on fish to clean the tank for you. I stay on top of my water changes, keep my light on a timer, closely monitor my parameters, etc. For as fat as the otos are, I would hope algae wouldn't be such an issue in this tank)

I'm not entirely sure if the wood that's in my tank ever did get fully water logged. I got sick of waiting to setup my new tank, bought some of that egg crate light defuser from Home Depot, drilled a hole in the wood, zip tied the wood to the defuser and covered the difuser with gravel. It still feels very bouyant after almost a year...

Through an incredible stroke of luck, I bought four black rams (or black blue rams, whatever you want to call them) and ended up with two pairs. I noticed two pair off in the tanks and decided to pull the other two into their own 20 long in my garage. This is them pairing off (I think): I think they’ve spawned at least once, but I haven’t seen any fry in their 46 gallon tank with tetras and corys. I’m thinking about separating them into their own tank and spawning that way. But this story isn’t about them… This story is about the other pair that I pulled out and isolated in their own tank. They ended up also pairing off and spawning on their own. I saw them digging pits and guarding an area of the tank, but I couldn’t see any eggs so I didn’t realize they had actually spawned until one day, I noticed about 30-40 fry crowding around the parents. I was a little over-zealous with trying to make everything perfect in the tank, stressed them out and they ended up eating the spawn. I kicked myself, did a water change, ordered some more plants to give the fry stuff to eat and vowed to leave them alone on the next spawn. My plants are suppssed to be delivered tomorrow, but of course, I catch them laying eggs again tonight, which is actually a pretty cool process. I tried to be minimally invasive to avoid spooking them, so I didn’t get the male fertilizing the eggs: There’s obviously a few plants in there (moss balls, an anubias nana petite, and a small clump of java fern) and I have a brine shrimp hatchery I’ve been conditioning them with and First Bites, so I’m not super worried about them having stuff to eat. But this the first time I’ve been able to see the eggs and they’re on an easily-removable piece of wood, so I’m wondering whether I should take them out or not? I’ve watched Dean’s ram breeding video about 20 times, so I know what I’d need to do if I did pull them out but I also know it’s a little easier if the parents can raise the fry. I’m just nervous about them getting eaten again. The tank is in the garage, so their stress level should be minimal, but I also have two very noisy children who aren’t always cognizant of their surroundings. These rams are super cool and I’d love to have more of them and extra space/tanks isn’t an issue. Does anybody have any insight on how to maximize their survival rate or any pertinent advice?

I also have pretty soft water and have had good luck with crushed coral. Personally, I put at bag in my filter, either HOB or canister, because I have black substrate and I don't like to see the little white specs. I've also used Texas Holey Rock, which I think is basically just limestone with similar results. Another thing that I've found that I think actually surprisingly well is seiryu stone. Apparently the white veins in the rock are also limestone. All three of these get my pH up to about 7.6 - 7.8 range, and bump my GH up to about 150 and get my KH up to about 40 (still relatively low, but higher than it was before, for sure). Of course, take these results with as big a grain of salt as you like because (full disclosure) I am using the Co-Op test strips to measure all this and I find them to be somewhat unreliable. However, anecdotally, I had good luck raising (and spawning) platies, mollies, swordtails and rainbowfish in the water with crushed coral and Texas Holey rock it in, so I'd say it's working.

I've done a tablespoon per gallon and left a variety to plants to soak anywhere from 3 to 24 hours. I haven't had any issues with plants being affected yet. I'm fighting a losing battle to snails, though...

I picked up a pair of used FX4s and have become a pretty big fan of them. The media basket criticisms are well-founded and the inlet is very bulky so you can't but a prefilter sponge over it. BUT the nice thing that nobody seems to praise enough is the outlet port that not only lets you drain the canister without making a huge mess, but if you hook up a garden hose to it, it TURNS THE WHOLE THING INTO A SIPHON for simple water changes. For a planted tank that I don't gravel vac, that's been a game-changer. I also have a Fluval 7 series on one of my "smaller" (46 gallon) tank. It's just OK. The connections are secure enough and there's tons of space for pretty much whatever media you can throw into them. Cleaning them is pretty clunky (and messy), though. In my younger, more naive days, I went down the route of the Marineland Magniflow canisters. Do not recommend. Hard to prime, even clunkier to clean, fragile parts, leaky lids, crazy fragile hose connections, parts that are always out of stock...ugh. I'm not sorry to be rid of them.

Just in case anybody is looking for the video that Dean references above (as I was), this is the one: Unfortunately, he doesn't go too in-depth on the system in this video, but it looks like there's a members-only video where it shows you how to actually make them.

I currently use a combination of a few things, depending on my use case. On my desk, I use clear vinyl tablecloth cover so that I can still see the wood underneath and not see an ugly mat. For larger tanks, I use a rubber toolbox liner. This one is neoprene, so I feel better about its water-resistant properties, but it can be challenging to clean, especially if you spill something like flake food on it. This one has been my favorite so far because it's really big and will fit under my 125s, but I recently had to get another one and it was sold out. I ended up going with a large yoga mat and have been pretty happy with it. I can't speak to the long-term water resistance of them if you're really worried about protecting the surface that it's on, but I think you'd have to get a lot of water on there in order to damage anything. The last two are a bit sticky, so I might worry about long-term wood contact. On my main display 125, I use a combination of both. I have a toolbox liner on top of the vinyl tablecloth cover. An added benefit of the toolbox liners is that they'll help to remove pressure points if your surface is a little uneven.

I might need an "Explain it like I'm 5" for this one...but if I'm reading this correctly, the most effective setup for processing nitrates would be terrestrial plants (pothos or lucky bamboo in this case) grown with their roots in the water, blasted with white and red spectrum light? Is that pretty much the long and short of it? (I only ask because I'm at a bit of a crossroads with my own refugium project where I'm not necessarily seeing the results I was initially hoping for and my sump system is precarious at best. So something that I wasn't constantly worrying about flooding my living room would definitely be worth exploring)

I have a platy that's got something weird going on with her head. I initial thought it was just some kind of genetic deformity, but it seems to be kind of split open and possibly flaking off. Maybe it's an injury of some kind? Not sure. I've separated her from my main tank and put her in another tank that I'm using to treat with salt, so I'm hoping if it's an injury that should help, but I want to make sure it's not something more serious. Photos attached. Don't know why they're upside down, but you get it... Parameters: PH: 7.6 Ammonia: 0 Nitrite: 0 Nitrate: 20-30ppm GH: 150 KH: 40 Anybody know what's going on here?

I think it’s definitely a flow thing. I turned the flow on the filter way down and they’ve been much more adventurous. They still aren’t too interested in the more lightly-planted areas of the tank. I guess I’ll just have to go nuts with some plants…😄

My main display tank is a 125 planted community tank that's been setup for about 3 months. It looks like this (with some minor additions/rearranging). Stocking is as follows: 13-ish Red Wag Platies 20-ish Neon Tetras 11 Rummy Nose Tetras 20 Colombian Tetras 8 Boesemani Randowfish 4 Albino Bristlenose Plecos 4-ish Panda Corys 1 Dalmatian Molly 1 Amatitlania Nanolutea (A peaceful community cichild that I've heard called a "Gold Convict") I've recently noticed that the Neon and Rummynose Tetras all kind of congregate in one area of the tank and don't venture too far outside that area, even though they have an entire 6ft tank to swim in. The Neons stay pretty much in the pearlweed under the curved log on the right hand side and the Rummynose pretty much stay in the front right corner in front of the log on the bottom. They come out normally to eat and everything, but otherwise seem to spend their time in those two areas. I'm not positive that either one of them were all that active before, but I definitely remember the Rummynose going back and forth across the whole tank quite a bit. I had a Neon die on me the other day and I'm hoping it was just a fluke and not a matter of stress. My first instinct is to say that they're being bullied and forced into that area, but I really don't know who the culprit would be. The most recent additions are the Rainbows/Plecos about 2 weeks ago and the Colombians about 4 weeks ago. It's my understanding that Rainbows are super peaceful and shouldn't bother anyone. Colombians can have a reputation for being a bit nippy, but I've never observed any of this behavior and they should all be from similar geographic regions and should be compatible. The Gold Convict is very peaceful and I've never seen him messing with anyone. Is it just a matter of plant cover or an area to feel safe? Is it a matter of light? I have very dim lights that are on most of the day and then a brighter plant light that turns on for 4 hours a day in the afternoon, but I've never noticed a difference in behavior in lights on/lights off times. What would anyone recommend as a course of action? I have several other thanks that are empty that I could pull some out and throw into if I needed to, but honestly, I'd rather use those as originally planned. Anybody have any insight here?

A few weeks ago, I picked up 5 black mollies form my LFS and put them into a 75 gallon quarantine tank, along with some others. They seemed OK to start with, but eventually, I started losing them and they seemed to be having trouble swimming, kind of wiggling rapidly from side to side and some of them seemed to have some swim bladder issues because they would have trouble staying horizontal in the water. I moved them to their own 20 gallon quarantine tank, put some salt in, raised the temperature and fed peas (which I don't really think they ate). Two more died in the 20 gallon quarantine, so I went back to normal feeding and temperature, but now I'm down to only 2. One seems OK. She seems to be breathing rather rapidly, but I don't know if that's just stress of me observing her. She's eating normally and is pretty active in the tank. The male, on the other hand, just doesn't seem right. He also breathes somewhat rapidly and also seems to have trouble swimming. He's got a little bit of the wiggle going on (which apparently is called "The Shimmies" or livebearer disease--although I'm not really sure that's the problem based on my water parameters below). His back also seems to be kind of weak and his tail is often either curved up or down and he spends most of his time either at the top or the bottom of the tank. My water parameters are fine. No ammonia or nitrates, really for that matter. Hardness and buffer seem fine (although, that's admittedly an area I don't know much about). PH is buffered up to 7.6 with crushed corral in an HOB filter. Temperature is now 76ish. I'm not really sure where to go from here. At some point, these two obviously bred because I have two little fry swimming around in a breeder net in the same tank. The rule usually seems to be "if they're breeding, they're healthy," but with livebearers, it's not terribly difficult to get them to breed. What should be my course of action here? Do I treat the whole tank (including the fry) for something bacterial? Do I further isolate the male and see if it's a swim bladder issue with some epsom salt baths? Do I risk moving the fry and the female to my display tank? Given the history with the other three that died, is it just a genetic thing and he's a lost cause? Not sure where to go from here, so any advice would be much appreciated.

Yeah, I never really know what to do with mine, especially when the first thing that comes up when I Google some of them is how horribly invasive they are to some environments (Amazon frogbit). My strategy lately has just been to keep a Ziploc bag under the tank and put trimmings in there. When it's full (or I can no longer stand the smell that emanates when I open it), I seal it up and throw it in the trash. Throwing straight in the trash is probably good enough, but I'm paranoid about it.

I think the Fluval Plant lights are kind of overrated. I have a couple of the Plant Nanos and was never that impressed by them. I've had just as much success growing plants as with other "full spectrum" lights. HOWEVER, having said that...I really fell in love with the app functionality. It's sooooooo nice to be able to schedule more than just on/off times and really precisely dial in the levels of light at certain times of the day. For that reason, I really love the Fluval Aquasky lights, which are basically the same thing as the Plant ones, just with red instead of pink, green, and only one white channel. I have them on all my tanks (with the exception of my nano tanks. They don't make an Aquasky nano, unfortunately). All my tanks have plants and all my plants seem to be doing well enough. On my main display tank, I keep the light really low during the morning and gradually ramp it up starting at noon so that it's full brightness at night. On my garage grow out and hospital tanks, I just keep it really low throughout the whole day so I can seem everybody but don't ever have to worry about algae. The fine-tuned control and the ability to experiment with different light levels is clutch. I did have trouble updating the firmware on one of the lights, but Fluval customer service was surprisingly helpful and was able to help me fix the issue, even though I had bought the light secondhand. For my money, the Aquasky ones are the way to go. You get the app control, spend a lot less money and still grow plants just fine.

Can I just say how incredibly satisfying it is that you followed up on this post? Well done!

Funny enough, in the video, you can actually see the powerhead struggling to get the water over the lip of the tank. When the tank is full, it's not a huge problem because the uplift is minimal and the siphon takes care of the rest, but when it's partially empty like that, a mid-sized powerhead like that can't even lift it 6-ish inches.

I think that distance is the maximum length of an uplift tube that it would sit on top of, either on an undergravel filter (as they were originally intended to be used) or on a sponge filter. I don't think that measures it's ability to lift water up that distance.

I've attempted a "power water changer" with a powerhead before with mixed results. In my experience, the powerhead is great for starting a siphon for a downhill water line...and not much else. I haven't had much luck moving water over any sort of incline. I tried it with the refugium I built for one of my 125s and couldn't even get it to lift water through a 1/4" tube over a height of about 8-10 inches with a mid-sized powerhead. Even with a large AquaTop 600 GPH powerhead hooked up to a garden house, the flow rate isn't that much better than just a standard siphon over the same distance. The AC powerhead looks to be about middle of the road as far as flow rate, so I wouldn't trust it to do much lifting, especially over 3 or 4 feet. If I'm understanding you correctly, I would think your money would be better spent looking into a submersible pump of some kind.

I have the hardest time telling if mine are even eating. I try to feed enough so that some of the flakes get down to them. I also feed them a mix of Hikari Sinking Wafers and Omega One Catfish Pellets, but they don't seem overly interested in either of them. They'll swim in the vicinity of them, but it's hard to tell if they're getting anything, especially since all my platies and tetras swarm that area soon after. They must be getting fed somehow if they're continuing to grow, though (albeit slowly)

Whoa. Better buy a lottery ticket...

Regardless of whether or not they actually get "sucked in", fry can definitely get into the filters, especially if they're small enough. I recently had a platy fry get its head stuck in one of my AC sponge filters. I assumed it was dead, went to pull it out and found that was, in fact, alive. However, it didn't last long and soon died. I think it probably stuck its head in there after some food or something, but the coarseness of the sponge definitely contributed to it getting stuck. It's not enough to stop me from using them, but having a fry stuck in a sponge filter is definitely something I've experienced before.

@aquachrisNope, didn't scratch the glass. It's not really any different that using a razor blade. The metal is just smaller, more segmented and and moving really fast. It's also worth noting that I did use a razor blade to remove the bulk of the silicone. I just used those for that stubborn film that you can never really seem to get off with a blade alone. I was careful to keep it out of the seals between the beveled panes in the corners as much as possible, but I was also putting new silicone in there anyway, so I wasn't too concerned about it.

I had good luck resealing a 75 gallon that I got for free recently. I completely redid the seals on the bottom and just the corner seals on the corners (rather than completely taking them apart--they seemed solid enough). It held water nicely for a good 3 or 4 months in my garage. My approach was to do as much as I was comfortable with at a time since I was doing it anyway. The beveled edges on the sides made me nervous, so I stayed away from them. Everything else I made sure to completely clean and reseal. Pro tip: these work 1000 times better for removing old silicone than a razor blade: https://www.amazon.com/TILAX-Cleaning-Stripping-Abrasive-Attachment/dp/B07Z4NLJ2Y/ref=sr_1_3?crid=3PUWU4H24I4C9&dchild=1 Having said that, though, I wouldn't have trusted a tank that big anywhere other than my garage. No matter how good of a job I thought I did, I would always be extra nervous about it leaking. I'm nervous enough about my new tanks leaking after I also had a bran new 75 gallon fail on me...