Isaac M

Update on the 40 gallon reef tank, the tank has been progressing well. The algae is beginning to subside which is expected as it is still a new tank that is still maturing. Most of the algae growth has been on the sand bed however, the rocks never got too bad in my opinion. I only do a 4 gallon weekly water change which is probably more than what is needed right now given the low stocking level. It helps me keep focused on the tank however to spend that time with my hands in the tank. The clownfish is still doing great, he is extremely personable and always greets me when I look into the aquarium. It is extremely difficult to take a picture of him though as he is very active. It is likely that I will be getting him another companion soon in the form of a royal gramma. The corals have begun to spread onto the rocks a bit which is encouraging to see. Here are some pictures of some of the corals during the water change today:

The java fern is looking great! It would look great growing on the new coconut hut too haha

@PineSong I believe the recommendation for a pound for 10 gallons is when you are using it mixed in with your substrate. When you put it in a hob, I believe you can use a lot less as it will dissolve faster being in a higher flow area. I would definitely make sure your kH is actually 40ppm before adding this to your aquarium though. If your aquariums are doing well and testing well (fish and snail doing well, pH is not dropping/ kH is not dropping), I do not see why you would need to add anything to it. This is good information to know however if your aquarium begins experiencing a dropping kH/ pH. You can also read up on “old tank syndrome” to learn more about this sort of thing.

Thank you @PineSong! It is definitely much more peaceful now that it is not a leaking tank 😂

Hello @PineSong, a kH of 40ppm is rather low as that is about a kH of 2 dkH. It is rather odd to me that your aquarium that gets no water changes has the same kH of the new water. Unless those no water change aquariums have very low stocking levels and are decently planted, usually the nitrogen cycle over time will lower the kH and acidify the water (lower the pH). Water can also change seasonally. The city water report could also be taking an average of multiple sources. Water chemistry can even change between the treatment plant and your house. As far as the livebearers go, the kH of the water is the buffering capacity. The gH of the water is the hardness. Given that your gH is high, I would say your water is certainly hard enough for livebearers. I am not too well versed with calcium levels in a freshwater aquarium. But generally speaking, if it is only one mystery snail, I think it would be fine especially if you fed it calcium enriched foods. There are many snail and invertebrate based foods (crabs, shrimps, etc) that are calcium enriched. If you do find that your kH is actually that low, I would recommend some crushed coral to keep the pH from dropping as livebearers tend to like a higher pH (above 7).

Hello @Nick H., I think you would be able to use the light, I would just use it for a limited amount of time. I grow both pothos and bamboo in my aquariums as well and they do not seem to require a whole lot of light. If I were you, I would begin running it maybe 2-4 hours a day and see how it does. If algae begins to grow in the area with extra light, then you can just dial it back a bit or dim it if possible. I know the grow light I had was able to be dimmed down. I always try to use the least amount of light possible to grow my plants. The school of angels look great by the way!

Thanks @Patrick_G! I have grown Pearlweed in a bare tank (floating) before that was from LRB. It was beautiful but unfortunately I ordered plants from another site that was infested with various bugs and dragonfly nymphs so I had to get rid of it all. This Pearlweed and all the plants other than the bamboo are from the Aquarium Co-op.

Hello everyone, its been awhile… Lots of things going on in life the past month or 2 and I am still incredibly busy but want to provide at least a partial update today with the rest likely coming on Sunday. The main focus of this post will be the 10 gallon aquarium. Unfortunately, it developed a leak in one of the bottom seams. The leak was not terrible so I did not have to rush fixing it. Instead, I decided to break down this aquarium and start fresh. Here is one last look at the 10 gallon: It is always sad to see one of your aquariums get torn down. Given that this tank is for my girlfriend, we went to a local pet store and she saw an aquarium with dragon stone that she loved. Given that I have dragon stone already sitting in a bucket, I decided to scape the tank with it. Here is what I came up with yesterday: Egg crate was added to the bottom of the tank to help spread the weight of the dragon stone, mostly done to protect the tank from the large piece I will be adding. Also added a “rice paper” window film as the background. I then added the gravel along with the dragon stone. The statue and large dragon stone are the focus of the aquarium so they were placed using the rule of thirds. Smaller stones were added throughout to accent the focus pieces. I also graded the gravel to very low in the front and center to very high at the corners to give more depth. A big difference between this aquarium and the last aquarium is that this will not have soil under the gravel. I chose no soil this time just so I can keep experimenting with different type of setups. I also added buce wavy green onto the large stone. Then the bamboo was transferred over from the old aquarium. I also added 3 pots of pearlweed in the back along with 3 pots of crypt lucens in various locations. I wanted this tank to be much more clean and open so the bamboo has a chance to shine. The old aquarium just grew vallisneria way too fast for me to keep up with. I also noticed that without the tall vallisneria, the light (finnex stingray) was no longer being diffused. The aquarium looked too bright to me so I added some black plastic canvas with double sided tape to diffuse the light. This will help keep the algae down. The old aquaclear filter was added to this tank as well with the same old media in it. And there you have it, a simple to build 10 gallon planted tank. I added root tabs below the crypts and will be adding easy green as needed for the bamboo and pearlweed. Here is the fresh start to the 10 gallon:

I assume the rock you are using is “dry rock” which often has lots of silicates and causes lots of diatoms so you should be good to go there. This is a point that is always mentioned on the saltwater side when using dry rock vs live rock.

I would let it recover as it is just adjusting to your aquarium. It should grow back. I imagine if you add hornwort from a different tank it would do the same as it adjusts. Not sure how much hornwort is shedding but I would remove some of the fallen leaves/ needles just to keep the nitrates from building up to excessively high levels. You can definitely leave some though to get the mulm going.

The tank is looking great! I think if you are going for a reef look, I would definitely increase the blue lights. Most reef tanks have very low red and green, moderate white and high blue/ violet/ royal/ etc. It looks like to me that you had more blue in the initial light that went out so I would increase the blue or just reduce the white some more. Often our phone cameras need those orange lenses for getting the true color we see in person when the light is a little more blue. That is why it looked so blue in the picture with the initial light. The süßwassertang should do better though now that you have some of the “white” color spectrum. It does not need much light though to grow typically.

@Guppysnail @Patrick_G thank you both so much! I really appreciate your comments, they truly brightened my day! Hi @Marcy! I have done this many times, I recently redid my 55 gallon. I find that completely reaquascaping an aquarium can be more stressful for me than the aquarium inhabitants however haha given that your aquariums are not very large, I think you will be able to do this rather easily. The most important thing would be keeping the bacteria in your filters and other items(plants, decor, etc) you will be reusing alive. This can be done by moving the fish, shrimp, snails, etc to a different tank, tub or bucket filled with tank water, the decor you will be reusing and the filter running in it. I am with you on keeping the scuba diver and floating logs in there! Haha if you would like to make it look more natural, maybe you could wrap the floating log in a mesh with moss in it? Then the moss can grow through the mesh and cover the log? You could even take apart the moss balls you have and glue them to the log in a somewhat natural patchy pattern. Just some thoughts. I would be more than happy to help you come up with designs/ ideas to rescape your aquarium! I have been very busy as of lately with life and my personal aquariums so I have not been posting much but I always make an effort to answer the personal messages I receive. Here are some pictures of my aquariums to possibly get some ideas from: 5 Gallon with Bonsai Tree 10 Gallon 40 Gallon Breeder 55 Gallon

@CitizenSneaky first of all, nice aquarium! I like the big piece of driftwood! Here is an article on hydra and how to get rid of it by the aquarium co-op: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/hydra As mentioned in the article, it is possible that your future betta may consume the hydra. But also not overfeeding of smaller foods in general is typically a good way to reduce the population of hydra. Either way, I have not seen hydra really negatively impact my aquariums when I have had it.

Hello @erik.hueno, do you happen to know your water parameters? Also, what is your lighting and lighting schedule like? Is your aquarium getting additional light from an outside source like through a window for example? Often greenwater develops due to too much light. Like @Guppysnail mentioned, the uv sterilizer will get rid of the greenwater but it is not addressing the root cause of the issue. It will also not do anything to address the green spot algae.

I agree with @Patrick_G about removing plants before they die off. I also agree with @HH Morant about the amount of feeding. How are you testing your nitrates? If you are using an API test kit, it is very important to follow the instructions exactly and shake the second bottle for the instructed time or else you will get a false 0 reading every time.

40 Gallon Reef Update: The clean up crew was added almost a week ago. Different types of snails(Trochus, Dwarf Cerith and Nassarius), Blue-Legged Hermit crabs and an Emerald crab were added. Everyone has been doing great. I must say, hermit crabs are one of my favorite creatures to have in an aquarium. I have always enjoyed their antics, even way back in my first reef tank. But this Emerald crab is giving them a run for their money, this crab is very active and always getting into trouble! Haha They have also done a great job of cleaning the sand bed of the diatom algae. @Streetwise the Tunze internal filter has been working great. The diy aquarium lid has kept evaporation at a minimum so water depth has not been an issue.

@smoore she is definitely a healthy girl! I may need to do an order from The Wet Spot, I have heard and now seen great things from them haha

@smoore thank you! And very fun haha wow, she has absolutely beautiful coloration, I do not think I have seen a paleatus with that type of striping color before, great job on caring for that fish!

@smoore that male with the high fin looks awesome! I agree, this hobby is a lot of fun haha My aquarium also has tannins, I think they mostly come from the organic soil in the substrate however. My aquarium is a 40 breeder: Here are the male and female chasing each other around looking for a place to spawn (if you look closely, you can see the clamped fins of the female holding the egg): This is the most recent corydora fry I found in my display tank:

@smoore oh my, nice!!! I did the same but my tank has shrimp in it so I just assume the shrimp get to the eggs haha I have only had 2 fry grow to adult size in the display tank. That is so cool about the leopard danios though! It is amazing the little ecosystems we can create inside of a glass box haha

@smoore it does sound like we are doing many of the same things! My tank does not have a top so I get some evaporation as well, I top off maybe once a week or every other week. My tank is also heavily planted. The tank being heavily planted does make it difficult to get all the eggs though, I found a cory fry that has made it to a decent size in the display tank a few days ago haha

I also use my finger to roll the cory eggs off of the glass, it provides the most control. @ChemBob I also had success breeding my sterbai corydoras using heavy feedings with freeze dried tubifix worms. I got the idea from eric bodrock, the aquarium co-op have a video uploaded of one of his talks discussing all things corydoras. I am now using frozen tubifex worms and boy do they love them haha It is also kind of funny because your water parameters are similar to mine. I do not run a heater though so my water temperature was like 68-70 degrees Fahrenheit when they initially spawned. I also do not do water changes too often but the corys keep spawning nonetheless. @Casual aquatics I would recommend feeding heavy to get your corys to breed. I have been using one of the aquarium co-op automatic feeders to feed twice a day, once with the feeder (Carnivore pellets and broken up bug bites wafers) and another time later in the day manually with frozen foods (Tubifex worms or blood worms). With this schedule, they are spawning at least once a week with 20-30+ eggs.

@Hobbit 😂 no I just recently turned 25 in April, I have quite a ways until I become 60 years old haha I do not know why I found this so funny haha but maybe @xXInkedPhoenixX is right, I am probably just an old soul haha

@Hobbit I 100% agree with you with how amazing this forum has been with curing the loneliness of fishkeeping for some of us. I have been keeping aquariums for over half of my life now (I am 25 years old) and I have been on my own really for that entire time. The forum has been so great and welcoming to someone new to forums like me. This forum really is something special. Thank you for posting that thank you video and for everything that you do on the forum including helping with nerm week. I have always enjoyed seeing your stand build updates as well!

@xXInkedPhoenixX haha I think I need one as well 😂