xXInkedPhoenixX

Well they don't look quite as bad as I thought they might. What are you medicating with now? Fish in cycling- basically it's a delicate process that when a cycle has never happened or did but was delicate and waivered- it requires a LOT of water parameter monitoring and frequent water changes. Think of it like this- you basically have a toilet without a handle (aka bacteria which are your friendly tank cleaners) when a tank is not cycled- bad stuff just continues to pile up on the residents (food, pee, poop) which if you were hanging out in a toilet that dirty would make you sick right? Maybe even kill you? No worries, you are the flusher- with lots of water changes- basically taking out all the bad stuff. UNTIL you get AMMONIA (water changes), then NITRITES (still water changing), then finally none of the first two and between 5-40 Nitrates! Yay toilet handle! Make sense?

Ah yeah. I suspect with the overfeeding you never truly cycled. What you are doing now my friend is a fish-in cycle combined with whatever illness you've run into. Can you post pics of the sick fish?

@J Holmes are you feeding fertilizers? That to me would explain never having nitrite/ammonia but some nitrates.

I'm sorry you're going through this. One of the first questions I have is did your tank ever cycle? Did you get Nitrates? Right now you said your levels are all 0- if that includes Nitrates then your tank is having a cycle issue- which can cause stress and illness. Overfeeding I suspect is a problem but not the only one.

How much water did you lose?

Depends on the snail, most prefer 7 and up. There are some who are ok with ph in the 6s. I believe Nerites and Mysteries prefer 7 and up.

I have a car wash bucket- I found them better than the hardware store buckets as the handle is infinitely more comfortable to use, it has markings on the inside for volume (not that others don't) and it's an oval, which makes dumping a whole lot easier. (I do bucket changes on my small tanks- no fancy python stuff)

I'm also a rodent fan! Welcome to the forum!

@castiel talk about a tiny kingdom ! Will be cool to see what happens with it!

I would never recommend only 1 Oto, they are shoaling fish. Like Cory they are best kept in groups and are such low bioloads that a small group is not an issue. I have about 50 in a 10 gallon and never have a parameter issue.

I have CPDs, Endlers and Guppies. The last 2 are in a tank together. My tanks are low tech, unheated and planted. I have hard water but not off the charts. Both the tanks I have with the above mentioned are small. The Guppies/Endlers in a Fluval Flex 9 (with Ember Tetras, 1x Hillstream and a Nerite). This is a fun tank to watch- the Guppies/Enders NON stop. All the ones I have are distinct individuals (all different patterns and colors). They are all males. I keep a close eye on chronic aggression but I haven't had that issue- there are lots of places to hide with plants and sculptures in the tank. The guppies/endlers come to the front of the tank any time I come by and watch (the Ember Tetras do too) and they interact with me when I go hands in the tank to clean. I'd highly recommend this kind of combination for a tank you want a lot of action in. My CPDs are in a 4.12 gallon Aquatop low iron glass rimless cube. There are 9 adults and recently 1 fry! I don't know what other peoples' experience with them is but mine will dart for cover every time I walk by. If I want to watch them I sit motionless in front of the tank and they eventually come out and do their thing. They are beautiful fish their red really pops but they're a little camouflage on dark substrates so just something to think about. I wouldn't change the species in this tank- they are great fish- and perfect for this tank. It just to me depends on what you want out of the fish in your tank.

Great update! I love that Squidward is still doing well too! I'll cross my fingers for your patients!

OTOCINCLUS VITATTUS: The Parent Tank Today I spent some time with the Parent Tank to prep for the future move of the Accidental Otos. First on the agenda was to purge some of the glass river and redirect the rest of it to make a bit more room for more plants (from the Accidental Tank)- maybe even another small food bowl. I had debated whether I was going to keep any of it at all but I decided that since it's really the only thing left that reminds me of when I first set it up (happy stuff!) I wanted to keep some. So from this, off I went: I took a large floating breeder and sunk it in the tank so I could dig up all the glass I wanted to remove and I started loading it. That kicked up a WHOLE lot of mulm. This tank does "suffer" from a lot of mulmy "dust" that tends to sit on the plants (the Otos are really good at moving it around) so I have to shake them and dust them off on a semi- regular basis (the small leaves suffer the most from this). It was a cloud of brown chunky mulm for some time which concerned me a little bit- BUT my other task was to add my back-up HOB (Aqueon Quietflow 10). I figure 3 filters for this tank will be a good thing in the near future- I find that the HOBs help more with this sort of dusty issue (as evidenced by the fact that the Accidental Oto tank has the same HOB and I have to clean it every week due to the detrius it vacuums up for me). So that was set up as well- before I put the prefilter on I let it run a good length of time to suck in the mulm I kicked up by the move. I've put in a glass feeder dish since the bowl now is out in the open so it's less obvious. I only had a little bit of the original gravel for the Parent Tank left and some left over from a Betta tank from times past that is similar but a lot smaller, so they got mixed and put on the left of the river. I like the contrast between the two "landscapes" on either side of the glass. Toothbrushed a lot of the broad leaves of the biggest Amazon and Anubias species and trimmed a few plants as well. I pulled only 1 plant today from the Accidental tank (a small Anubias on a rock now front center next to the new river). If the tank tests well in the next couple of weeks I will try and start adding Otos from Accidental here a little at a time. This is today's result:

Welcome to to forum! Pics pics pics!! 🙃

@Cbass it's fun! 🥳 The building up to the ultimate tank goals is part of it.

It's ok, your tank is still new, it's just a goal to work up to. No rush. Patience is a virtue in this hobby.

I love me some Nerites, they are some of my most favorite tank inhabitants, let alone super helpful.

Come to the dark side, we have 🍪 🙃

let us know what your results are!

Red plants, especially AR (just ask @Mmiller2001 he loves the stuff 🤣) are going to do best in co2 set ups. I have a tiny piece of AR (I'm super low tech, no ferts no heaters, just lights and fish poop) that is sort of hanging on because it has a high intensity plant light and a siesta period. Other than that and Ludwigia Super Red I don't have much luck with red plants in my set up.

Well you know, every tank despite similar water sources, rooms, equipment, plant load etc can test entirely different. Stranger things have happened! I used to use the hot water to refill my water change bottles from the tap. Someone had mentioned maybe not do that as that could help the copper on the hot side leach. I figured that could be a possiblity so I stopped doing that.

You should be able to troubleshoot that on google or youtube 🙂 I can't help ya with apple products! 🙃

Copper could be an issue definitely. Since we're going into a new season, municipal water can change. There are all sorts of factors that could effect the little guys.

ugh that sucks! I access the site on my tablet and I'm always logged in. There should be a way but some phones kick you off if you're using one when cookies or password remembering is turned off

I love the colorful rocks, will be great to see what you do with them! Forum tip on how to find your threads: You can also add a link to your signature for others to be able to find your regular journals and it helps you too. 😉