Torrey

What Odd Duck said. This is why i got the ZeroWater: Get everything as stable as possible, top off with the desert responsible version of RO, and minimize what my hobby is taking from the desert. Monsoons are actually happening this year (finally) and after a week of rain, the fire closest to us is still out. The biggest fire we have ever had is finally 70% contained. This year is going to be rough.... Take care.

I kept large vals and swords with my discus. It takes longer to acclimate the plants to warmer water than the discus to harder water... and totally worth it. Duckweed works too🤣 Test with lettuce, first. If they don't eat the lettuce, plants will probably be safe as long as fish aren't underfed *and* plants are well established before fish are added (or plants are established when fish are small).

I was beginning to wonder if Houdini was going senile. I got him 2 years ago, and his prior owner had him 10 years. Maybe zebra nerites just like to hang out on their backs? (White areas on shell developed during my cyanobacteria removal struggle, may be related or may be age) I love the so-called "pests" so much, they get their own, dedicated containers. (Scuds and snails condo hang out spot) They have also adopted Guppysnail as family, an honorary malacologist! (Mainly because she teaches the rest of us how to properly feed our snails, so they don't get a bad rap for eating plants). I was talking with a Fish and Wildlife/forestry friend about how much worse the tree... pollen... has been due to the weather and climate change. We discussed how much better my tanks are looking now that I'm following Guppysnail's advice on feeding, which reduces stress... and has resulted in a balance in my tanks. Animals will reproduce in direct response to being overly stressed. Our overpopulated tanks may be an indicator of not just overfeeding... but an imbalance making the snails think they need to overpopulate to ensure survival of the species. Don't know for sure, just something to think about.

That's a big eared radix!!!! Our original matriarch is called Pebbles, and is the snail that helped bring Patient Spouse™ over to the nerm-side, lol!

Yes, it was experience! I brought in some plants from the pond (azolla) that had more larvae than I realized....🧐🤣

Your fish are big for 6 months. California just heated up, plus some barometric changes. May have triggered some hormones and fish are feeling frisky (heavy breathing can be a thing just before sparring and pairing up for breeding). The fact that no one is near the surface would make me think your 6 months of calm fish may be about to come to an end. Are the colors more vibrant than they have been in the past?

My proven discus pairs sold for $300/pair back when I bred, because they were proven, and their offspring were consistent and bred true. A "pair" is just 1 male & 1 female, most of the time. Sometimes they are juveniles and won't be. Most of the time, the mistake is honest.

Bless her heart, lol

I think something similar happened... I would need to read back through over a years worth of posts in another group... essentially what Odd Duck said above. Many of the offspring made it to our local fish club auction.

Malaysian trunpet, or possibly a Hercules snail. MTS like to stay buried in the substrate, unless water quality if poor. Hercules will crawl all over everything. If it's a Hercules, it's a juvenile. I suspect Hercules based on the length/width ratio. I didn't know the difference until recently.

Scuds don't even need sunlight. They are omnivores, so they'll need meaty foods occasionally. Consider them the scavengers of your tanks. I find they seem to stay a little healthier if you keep snails with them, to let you know if you are feeding enough. I keep at least 2 dedicated containers (a 5 gallon and a 2 gallon), some plants (if you underffed they will eat your plants), and a solid calcium source (crushed coral, cuttlebone, or oystershells). Make sure your water doesn't go acidic, the colony will crash. The babies eat biofilm, Repashy, and the liquid beneficial bacteria we can buy.

Sounds like your water authority does similar magic to my water authority. KH showed up on my tap water last night, first time since March. We also finally have rain in significant amounts, first time in several years. Still have fires going, finally ~ 70% contained (first time since March). Not sure what/if each component plays in our overall water quality...

Y'all have no idea how wonderful it is to wake up and see this exchange! @drewzero1 there's a post near the beginning of this content about hornwort. I'm on the cell sitting in the doc's waiting room, so not conducive for looking for links. Just scroll back to the 1st page I think?

I have a link for everyone, that while it's not technically a plant, it is the secret to plant success!

I would probably remove from the pond, and watch the goldfish. I never kept goldies, comets or koi, so I don't have any first hand knowledge on what they need... therefore I would defer to someone like Cory who keeps koi regarding how soft their water can be. My daughters are thriving with endlers, so I know they can adapt to harder water. Zebra danios are incredibly resilient fish, and can handle *slow* changes. Like months. That being said, you like your snails, and soft acidic water will erode their snails. I would keep oyster shell in the 10 gallon. Malaysians give live birth, so population control is a little harder. You can't just get rid of eggs. A single assassin snail will keep them in a state of balance. The assassin will also ned the calcium in the water, so 10 gallon might be worth keeping at different parameters *if* you have 2 to 4 gallon water jugs you can keep oyster shells in with water, so it's ready for both top offs and water changes. I found a really cool video while doing research for another project, that may explain in a different perspective why we all see problems after we disturb soil outside, or substrate in our tanks. Not telling anyone what to do, just dropping a video here I'm about to post in my journal, that might keep things in perspective: Everything is interconnected, and disturbing one thing may disturb things we can't see. So, slow really is the fastest way to reach stability.

Remember the recommendation about syringe feeding? If you slowly and carefully syringe larvae onto plants, they don't end up in the water column. They will hide in the plants. Just be sure to check they have all been eaten before feeding more, or you wake up in the middle of the night with a mosquito in your ear....

If you have room to get hay bales that aren't worth feeding to the herd around your pond, that will keep them around freezing. We would surround the duck pond with the decomposing bales closest to the pond, and the more intact further away. We had weeks at -5 F and the action of the ducks kept them from refreezing during the day. I had to break ice in the morning. Koi above a certain size can handle pretty cold water. Unlike ducks, you don't have to worry about curiosity burning their mouth (or them dragging a heater out of the pond, lol) A cattle stock tank heater can work, but if you are going to have to buy something, why not keep it cheaper and go with a heater in a cage? Repto heater, or even the Co-op heater set to 35 F (I am looking at mine, I think an Inkbird or a Pymeter control unit, and set that to 35 F to 40 F will keep you from needing to move the pond. Or buy the cattle stock tank heater, they work (my daughter uses them in the horse troughs when temps drop below 40 F for the endlers and comets she keeps in the troughs) as long as there aren't any ducks to pull them out and catch the grass on fire (ask me how I know. Actually... don't🤣) If you don't have room for bales around the pond, you can wrap in the heater tape used for water pipes, and then wrap with some insulation.

It is absolutely fabulous to see betta folx willing to listen to their bettas, instead of "my parameters are stable and within range" and therefore not change anything. Number one thing any of us can do, is be willing to change our approach, and both of you are willing. Cattapa/IAL have to be at a really strong solution (meaning lots dissolved in the water, giving a tannin appearance) to make a difference. Smaller containers are therefore much easier to get the stronger concentration than larger, so I am sure you will see a difference. Plus, the majority of big box store bettas come from various Pacific Islands, where water is brackish, so they have never been exposed to pathogens we have in our freshwater tanks here. My last 2 bettas had to always be in therapeutic levels of aquarium salt. Within 48 hours of trying to decrease salt levels, they would regress, and each time faster than the time before. My crowntail female I am 90% sure died from old age when I had my TIA (I came home from the hospital and she had passed). My moontail was ~half her age, and passed 6 months later. He was also a special pumpkin, who was regualrly trying to remove himself from the gene pool (entertained himself by jumping into the tank with a very strong pond pump, so he could do the equivalent of a fish roller coaster ride. I finally let him stay there, and he died happy). Hornwort can be acclimated to therapeutic levels of aquarium salt, as well as a few other plants (mostly similar plants with needle shaped leaves, makes it easier to control osmotic pressure), so you don't have to choose between the salt the betta needs, and plants. You can have both, if you are willing to take some time to acclimate. May both of you see full recoveries in your fish!

ORD Will add: I followed some other forums before Cory posted a link to this forum in a live stream.... They emphasized a goal of "Zero nitrates indicates a balanced tank" so despite having pretty happy, healthy tanks I started aspiring to that lofty goal... I got there, and now my plants got unhappy because they were starving... so leaves weren't healthy, so snails and shrimp did their job and ate them.... So take external advice with a grain of salt. None of us are there, looking at your tanks, or doing your tank maintenance for you. The best advoce is always going to start with some caveatabout "each tank is different". As long as you are taking time to sit with, obsrerve, and listen to your tanks, you and your tanks will do well. Ultimately, that is the secret to Cory's success, too. His willingness to listen. (I'm ORD for everyone who posted something along the lines of "Is your tank okay now? 6 amano won't make a difference. Are you paying attention to your tanks now? You'll be okay. etc.😉)

I use plants as my primary filters, sponge filters and pond pumps provide the sound of water I need for my mental health. Plants do the heavy lifting. In other words, I think there are a gazillion ways to do it, and using sustainability as the long term yard stick helps us identify what is right for our tanks and our needs.

Sweet!!! I had to come see what all you were doing after answering your questions about your 10 gallon. Goldfish in your 300 gallon, how do you keep the water accessbile to your herd? (Former farmer from the WA/Canadian border. How deep your water freezes in WV determines a lot of your options, you may already have everything you need due to the dairy farm) In other words, they may be able to stay where they are.

Forgot to add, when I am doing water changes, I pour water through a sieve that catches all the oyster shell, so I can put it back in the gallon jug. When there's no longer enough to cover the bottom, I add more so the bottom og the jug is covered thinly.

I agree with everything above *and* I am going to add some things (since your question was for your 10 gallon specifically, and others may be reading along) For smaller tanks, it's easier to establish a water parameter vastly different from our source water, as long as we aren't doing the chemistry in our tank (we can... fish and other living things will rightfully voice protest) What is in the tank needs to be for maintenance of parameters Crushed coral, oyster shell, etc, will dissolve faster the more acidic the water. So 1 lb/10 gallons in my tank of source water that is 300+ GH, and pH of 7.4 doesn't affect pH or GH much, but does bring my KH up from 0-40 ppm (tap) to 120-180 ppm (tank) which stabilizes *everything* I used to live on a farm, 2 hours away from anything (except more farms, even if I crossed the border to Canada) I had to schedule all purchases in advance, based on avaiable space for storage/needs/cost/affordability/space in vehicle (once a month trips to town) It's much easier to use Cory's 1200 MaxiJet on a hose to pump pre-treated water into a storage container, and less stressful on plants and animals to pretreat water Dropping an airstone and oyster shell (cheaper than the crushed coral, same effects) in the pretreatment will get all the swings done in pretreat container. Shell in the tank will keep it stable after it gets there Can still use the gallon container to refill, from a pretreatment, or see my current solution below Initially, water will erode oyster shell rapidly. Once it hits homeostasis, it will only erode when you add fresh water to the system. This can happen in your tank (swings) or an external storage container More acidic the water, the more oyster shell is needed to maintain stability Choosing what one wants long term, sitting with: What do I want? Is this sustainable? Am I willing to do what is needed to keep it sustainable? This is how I maintain diffeent parametrs in different tanks now that I can't keep a 55 gallon Rubbermaid trash can of prepared water on hand: I have a ZeroWater (pH 7.0, 0 GH, 0 KH, 0 TDS) for top offs in my tanks. I prefill 5 gallon jugs (I intially bought 10) with ZeroWater, and the rest with a 50/50 blend of ZeroWater and Pur filtered tap (my tap is liquid calcium, with jet fuel that has dissolved other minerals, but insufficient KH for stability). and crushed oyster shell (I don't measure, I just make sure it's in there) plus 1/2 teaspoon pure epsom salt (took a bit of trial and error, but plants, snails, fish and shrimp are all looking better, so this is the right balance) and depending on chlorine content 1 drop up to 10 drops of Prime. These jugs stay uncapped until needed, and if too much has evaporated, I top off with Zero Water. When I top off, I top off with zeroWater. When I do a water change, I measure how much I take out, replace *exactly that much* with pre-treated water, and *then* top off tank (if it needs more water) with ZeroWater. Hope all of that helps! It reads like a lot of work, and initially it was (to set everything up, initial purchase and carrying that many gallons in from the car, etc). Short term expenditure bought long term gains: When I had surgery, when I have a flare, I know my tanks are stable. I can visually see how the oyster shell in tanks is doing, and add more when we get down to half. Water stays stable between water changes if I get sick. I no longer get worn out when I do a water change, because water is already prepped. So, just something to think about, if you like shrimp, snails or livebearers. You can commit larger tanks to discus and soft water fish, and your 10 gallon to what doesn't thrive in your "straight from the tap" water.

Oh yes! And have to sit with them for a while to determine if this is something that *needs* to happen, ot is just something I <want> to happen.😅

You might be a Nerm if you post on several different fish groups "Do you want to be a part of a breeding project" because there's no space to responsibly breed with suffficient genetics a pure strain of (originally) wild fish, while responsibly culling😁