Torrey

Patient Spouse™ said that's a gorgeous view, and there's still space in the aquarium for fish to swim so why trim?🤣 I believe I've just been exposed as a lazy aquascaper, lol

Congratulations, looks like you got some nerm glitter! Some people hate it, others love it. Will reproduce at the rate of doubling mass each day, as long as their isn't major water agitation. Drops the nitrates in my turtle pond in 24 hours (if I put enough in). It's very protein dense (in some areas of the world it's used as a protein/meat substitute). Can be cooked in stirfry, or dried to a powder and added to Repashy for fish and snails. Please don't allow any down the drain, or in your trash without destroying it first. Makes a great chicken feed, and does wonders for compost.

We've had power out for 10 days before. As long as at least some of the filter material stayed damp, I'm confident you still have plenty of beneficial bacteria @Jacob Hill. I have a Teta ReptiFilter that turns off with the lights, because I need higher filtration during the day time when the turtle likes to tear things up, but no longer run a heater in the turtle pond and the reptifilter would cool the water off too drastically once the lights went out. I over feed the fish and the turtle to preserve plant growth, and never have ammonia or nitrites... I do have a nitrate spike if Karma decides to eat all the vegetation, until I replant. Feed lightly for a couple of days so bacteria can catch up. Feed lightly for 48 hours before and after your move, and run a USB pump for aeration of your filter media during your move (plus run USB pumps for your fish) and all should be fine. If you are moving to someplace nearby, you can give your bacteria an edge by setting up a reservoir container at your new place the day before you move your fish. Dechlorinate the water in advance, and run a seeded sponge filter in there if you can. I've had filter media sitting in 5 gallon buckets for a couple of weeks at a time for various reasons, and as soon as it went in the tank it only took 48 hours to a week to return to pre-5 gallon bucket capabilities.... as long as I fed lightly and didn't crash the bacterial colonies with too much food. Just like we don't take someone who's been on a ventilator in a medical coma for a month to an all you can eat steak dinner immediately, we don't want to overwhelm the beneficial bacteria with too much food right after a move, or a power outtage.

Travelled with a tank in a VW van in Mexico for almost a year. Yes, it is an awesome opportunity! A nano acrylic will work great, small glass tanks don't handle undeveloped roads. If I were to do it again, I would probably use a glass drink serving container (2 gallon to 5 gallon round or hexagon drink dispensers with lids) over BPA free plastic options. Over time, all my BPA free plastic nano tanks the fish have eventually gotten sick. Amphopods and snails seem to do fine in plastics, amphibians, fish, and shrimp do not, over time (my personal experience). With a drink disepenser, water change are easy and don't take as much materials: Just open the spigot, lol. I heard of someone with an RV getting a reinforced steel shelf to support a traditional aquarium in their RV, I haven't seen any follow up for how the aquarium is doing on the travels.

@gjcarew and @modified lung I went back and re-read what you posted (on one screen) with the specific section and its accompanying pdf on another screen. I *think* I understand the concern regarding oversimplification and how the explanation and proofs were laid out. For a peer-reviewed paper, it wouldn't make the cut because this is written for predominantly lay folx here in the forum. @Ken Burke when I went back to college at almost 50, I applied 30 years of facilitating empowered births by translating theory into practicum for hundreds of parents into turning AMU into ants and emus so my classmates passed chemistry (and then most of us went on to o-chem with the same instructor to pass again). Before our study sessions, Khan Academy videos were making most of us feel like we had breathed an entire canister of stupid gas. It's daunting, until it gets broken down into something we can relate to, a feat that academia (as a predominantly gatekeeping institution since before the US became the US) intentionally fails to do. Personally, I think @Odd Duck and @OnlyGenusCaps are selling themselves short for the value of their support in getting this research to last longer than the initial "how can I safely remove pests" into "wow, this is an algaecide &pest remover" it evolved into. I think @dasaltemelosguy and @Guppysnail are underestimating their own ability to translate some pretty complicated theories into actual praxis, and specifically do something 80% of the peer-reviewed papers I review fail to do--give step by step instructions so this is replicable. A lot of lay people are not aware that 90% of the research published was not actually replicable, even though it was quickly elevated to dogma levels (Wakefield's assertion that vaccines cause autism to the meta-analysis that claimed exercise cures myalgic encephalomyelitis [ME/CFS]) and has done a lot of damage in the process. That's why questions like Ken Burke's, @gjcarew's and @modified lung's are so critical to establish good, replicable, and accurate research. I'm willing to help add data for 6,500 feet above sea level. @dasaltemelosguy I am lso willing to help you with writing, if you are interested. I do think in the wake of invasive species wreaking havoc on water filtration systems (among other things) this has excellent potential applicability to solve real world problems. Regarding the potential oversimplification of "everything is energy": First thing we learn in chemistry and physics is matter can neither be created nor destroyed... just like energy. Nuclear energy and hadron colliders aren't "creating energy" they are merely unlocking the potential energy locked inside atoms, similarly to how giant oak trees don't grow out of nothing, they grow out of acorns that are tiny in comparison. How we view the way "science" works is determined by the lens we have been taught to use, and each of us are only able to see the "data" or "facts" our lens has been trained to see. Which is a fancy, academia trained way to say, all of this can be true at the same time. I really look forward to reading and seeing images that anyone else has to add. Anyone interested in learning some cheap alternatives to super expensive equipment, a $12 microscope that attaches to a cell phone and a plastic lid with a little bit of water is a great place to start.

Good to hear about the cytology. If you don't have anyone to help with evaluation, I'm trying to remember what was said regarding imaging and stains on another thread, but you can DM Odd Duck or tag here if you need help with ID of bacteria and best meds options. I've had fish look worse, make full recoveries. Knowing whether the resulting bacterial infection is gram neg or gram positive makes the difference ime.

@Art Aquariums Anime Cobalt1200 in the US might want to order now.

@Jawjagrrl here are your plants, images and lists straight from Oliver: Live for members, right now

Was it a reel dance? Or was it the first school dance since the onset of the pandemic? Either way, awesome!!! Look forward to hearing more! Also, well played, friend. Well played! Wordle guessed in 2/6! Can you do better? Try this wordle: https://mywordle.strivemath.com/?word=oqyrzp 🟩🟨🟨⬜🟨⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 #mywordle I'm still searching for a suitable word, reading Balanchine's "It's like a fish goes through the water. The music is the aquarium and the dancer is the fish" at the moment.... possibly one of the less offensive analogies he used (I still haven't forgiven him for ruining ballet for me).🤣

It was on Amazon a while back, I thought? I can't find it now, and the only US "distributor" I was able to just find hits every flag I have for "not a safe place to order from".... I'm wondering if there are any Netherlands members in here, and if a sealed order could be shipped... and if so, how much it would cost?🧐 Or order directly?

@Odd Duck I just went through my pics: 1 album for grandboos, with 73 pictures 10 albums for tanks, plants, and aspirations, with over 3k pictures A dozen pictures of spouse, and these include the pics we have of the wedding, and documentation images of covid rash we took to the doc 1 album for the dog pics 1 album for my kids.... 1 Memorial album. Yeah. I might be a Nerm🤣

I'm ORD!!!😍 Good news is Waverly has your drape pattern (exact pattern) and offers it in Indigo or Persimmon. If you got the Indigo, it would carry because it's the same pattern. (Who knew summer job for my uncle to pay for college at UNC-SA and my wedding would pay off 30+ years later helping a fellow Nerm, lol). Bad news is, it looks like Waverly isn't making upholstery fabrics any longer... but.... you could match the Indigo in a solid upholstery fabric and get enough fabric from Waverly to make a few throw pillows to tie it all in together. Would also tie the two rooms in, and create a more visual link of warm to colors to the St. Simon theme in the other room. Win-win?

I'm ORD 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Except for @Ken Burke on accidentally squishing corydora eggs😢 It's hard when we are trying to do the right thing and it still goes south. FUBAR gets a whole new meaning when fish are involved.... You might be a Nerm when you identify with everything on this page. You might be a Nerm when you spend two different dinners talking about the implications of Reverse Respiration™ with the Patient Spouse™ who is considering withdrawing their Reluctant Nerm™ status if I keep talking about lysed cells and osmotic pressure🤣, but hasn't yet because I have stuck to the agrrement not to discuss anything that involves words like "wriggling", "worms", "holes" or "squiggles" You might be a Nerm married to a non-Nerm when these things were negotiated with the same passion some couples reserve for prenups.😅 You might be a Nerm when favorite memories of past travels don't start with foods, locations, or people, but with cenotes, streams, rivers and the plants and fish found in the water sources. You might be a Nerm when your reward for writing the 10,000 words today, and completing all my meetings is to hang out in the forum with all my fellow Nerms before I go to bed!

🤷🏼‍♂️ What can I say, lived in enough places where I don't speak the language, and I learned the plants can talk... if I was willing to learn to observe well enough to "listen". Then this study came out, that confirmed plants not only communicate, they have language.🧐 I've been keeping tanks for over 4 decades and I managed a farm with an apple orchard (we focused more on poultry, but that's not the focus of your question) in WA for almost a decade, and while there's a lot of humor in my response to Roy, above, it is humor based on truth. I have been surrounded by people who don't share a common language with me, my entire life. So I had to learn how to "listen" to visual language, and over the past decade I have learned (from science) I read/hear more from my nose and eyes than from my ears. Roy, Mmiller, and others in here have posted great links that have helped me learn how to apply what I learned about terrestrial plants to aquatic plants, and guess what? I still make mistakes that massively damage my plants, and offer me new learning opportunities. So I'm going to second Roy with chasing perfection ==> a balanced tank is *exhausting*! It's a lot more fun to embrace the concept of making lots of mistakes and *enjoy them* as learning opportunities. Here's a "plant to english" translation cheat sheet I use, and then when I get stumped, I come in here and ask questions to help clarify if I am identifying the problem properly (thank you Roy) and specifically if I am taking a good approach to solving the problem. Throw in the fact I have to be more water conscious than a lot of aquarists, because I'm keeping tanks in the desert and water here has never been plentiful, and I can't (responsibly) take the approach of using RO water and remineralizing to "get it perfect". Instead, I have to think outside of the box, and find solutions that work in my environment, with my abilities and access to resources. So, if you are still reading, there's no single, one-size-fits-all approach that works, outside of embrace the concept of making mistakes so you can have fun. (Can it be done other ways? Sure! It just won't be as much fun. And if the hobby isn't fun.... is it really a hobby that we are enjoying?) @Guppysnail, you and your algeacide/pest elimination crew might enjoy the two links above in response to plants talking.

Thank you for the inspiration on how to count vote points. I'll have info up for the "rewriting aquarium directions" this weekend. I like your design, I'm assuming one way viewing glass for the bedrooms?

I have no idea, however, if you can reach out to Dr Sarah Dalesman at the University of Calgary, she might be able to help you and would know more about medications for snails that are available in Canada. I think she's got like 14 years of working in Professor Lukowiak's laboratory. Other options would be Mark Poesch, PhD, and Megan Edgar (if she's still there).

Typically, fish/snails/shrimp only eat our tank plants when they aren't getting their nutritional needs met elsewhere... like my shrimp and snails digging up all my plants and stripping all the leaves while I was recuperating from a flare....🙄

That would mean my entire life before 2017 is a lie then, we lost everything in a house fire.

May be antidotal, may be significant: I have more stability if I dose the water with Prime in a separate container and let sit while I suction the tank. It also allows me to use less Prime, becuase I test my tap for chlorine/chlormine before I treat, and then select 1 drop/2 drops/ up to 10 drops/gallon [of water being replaced] depending on my readings. Chloramine generally won't read as ammonia until after the dechlorinator breaks the molecular bond between the chlorine and ammonia (nitrogen) atoms. I second Guppysnail's experience with high protein powdery foods for fry (I don't really separate my baby snails like the two of you do, I only recently started target feeding my snails😅) quickly raising ammonia levels.

@Guppysnail is my go to for snail questions. You are asking about this: https://extension.umn.edu/nuisance-insects/horsehair-worms From what I have read, this is more common: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/metacercaria Identification generally requires a microscope for accuracy. I found this one for under $15, and since it attaches to the cell phone it's easy to take pictures and share in here for assistance

As much as I struggle with Amazon, I would recommend looking for the Cobalt on Amazon and seeing what they show "other people looked at" It's how we have found work-arounds for friends/family in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Western Samoa.

Welcome to the forum, nice to have another Birb fan in here😁

I wanted to let you know, your excitement is contagious! It's wonderful to see someone get this excited about the hobby! My concern is how much anxiety are you carrying? There aren't any live fish in the aquarium right now, correct?

Waverly is no longer making upholstery fabric??? This was the closest pattern, mine was in upholstery fabric, not quite as busy of a pattern (similar, not identical) and the pattern allowed for the upholstery buttons to be a part of the pattern. Was more teal, less indigo (as indigo at that time period would have been true indigo and *only* afforded by the aristocracy). Imagine a haint blue, with enough teal in it to not be haint blue. https://www.onlinefabricstore.com/waverly-castleford-indigo-fabric-.htm?variant=true&refaction=product-drop-down