Ragnarok12

If you are using the aquarium coop test strips, make sure that you are waiting the full 60 seconds to color compare. If you look to early, it will appear that the pH is on the low end. I have 7.5 pH (per API water test kit), but kept thinking I had lower from the AC test strips. Turns out I just wasn't waiting long enough to color compare. Regardless, I agree with Rory that it should be a huge issue as long as you acclimate your livestock slowly and don't allow for any rapid parameter changes.

I just got some Anubias Lanceolata and I'm a huge fan. I really like the full and pointed leaves and it contrasts nicely to varieties with rounded leaves like coffeefolia

I just got a hillstream loach two days ago for my 12 gallon long, and he's been in hiding ever since. I don't think it's anything alarming, some loaches just like to hide more than others, especially when the lights are on. I would give it some time and not worry about it too much.

Hi everyone. I'm considering my first foray into endler breeding, but I'm hesitant to commit to getting some breeding pairs because of that whole "what to do with fry" question. I have several local fish stores in the area and I have not doubt I will be able to sell the males, but I'm concerned about whether they will be interested in taking the females as well? Does anyone have experience with this? I want to avoid having nowhere to offload all of the female fry and being stuck with an exploding population. Will fish stores purchase them at a reduced rate? Or could I sell the males and give away the females at the same time? I have my eye on some breeding pairs on AquaBid but I want a plan in place first. Thanks

Alright everyone, open question. What is your favorite tank size and why? I'm really into nano tanks at the moment (5-10 gallons) because I like experimenting with everything you can do in such a small ecosystem. And because they are small, there is a guaranteed interaction between all of the denizens of the tank, which I also enjoy experimenting with. Who else has a favorite?

No experience yet, but I put up a picture of what as my profile pic so that I remind myself of how much I want to try them out! It a goal fish that I want to try to breed but I don't have the setup for it yet. One of these days I'll get around to it.

I always disagree with people who say a five gallon is too small to keep a lot of fish. All of those fish could comfortably work in a five gallon. Sure, I would love a 5 bedroom house on 6 acres of land, but I can also live happily in a studio apartment in the right conditions. I would 100% go for micro rasboras. I have 7 kubotai in my planted Spec V right now with shrimp and a crayfish, and everyone is thriving. I would actually go up to 9 or 10 kubotai if I could find a few more. 10-12 chili rasboras would be absolutely perfect in a five gallon aquarium. I feed my kubotai crushed up Extreme krill flakes and the Coop fry food and they couldn't be happier. Here is a picture of my tank for reference

I would second the suggestion to get some micro rasboras, though it comes with some caveats. I'm thinking like chilis, kubotai, emerald dwarf, etc. Keep in mind though that most of these species are schooling/shoaling fish, so you'll want to get a group of like 6 to make it work out for them. Also, a 5 gallon is tight, so if you do end up with a territorial betta, there isn't a lot of space for them to cohabitate. Chilis are pretty tight schoolers, so they would probably be your ideal candidate, though they are really hard to find anywhere at the moment. You could also look into a Mexican Dwarf Crayfish. They are slow enough that they won't mess with your betta, but they can also defend themselves if the betta decides to get nippy. Don't let people tell you that a 5 gallon is too small for anything but a single betta, you can really do a lot with that little space if you set it up right. Get lots of live plants in there (especially floating plants) if you can manage it, and that will help make the fish more comfortable and help fight off buildup of waste that could kill off your fish. good luck, and let us know what you go with!

I know this thread header probably reads as one of those, "Which one should I get, shrimp or crayfish?" kinds of posts. WRONG I just observed what I'm pretty sure was an epic fight to the death between my VERY pregnant carbon rili shrimp and my 1.5 inch Mexican Dwarf Crayfish. And by epic battle, I mean I'm pretty sure my crayfish just murdered my rili shrimp in cold blood (well techincally 78.2F blood, given my tank temp, but you know what I mean). It all went down in my 5 gallon planted desktop aquarium with the shrimp, the crayfish, a nerite snail, an amano, and a small school of kubotoi rasbora that have shown no interest whatsoever in the shrimp. I'm 100% positive I saw this rili shrimp swimming around the tank three minutes before, then I look back and the crayfish is trying to eat the body of this rili shrimp. All of this to say, my question is this: Have people found mexican dwarf crayfish to be aggressive to pregnant adult shrimp? I was hoping to have a small colony of shrimp going in there with my crayfish, but if he is actually a shrimp murderer, then I need to kiss that dream goodbye. I'm actually really bummed because I'm now down to four rili shrimp and none of the others appear to be females, so that one pregnant one was likely my only shot at getting a colony going.

Okay I'm staring extremely closely at my aquarium and it looks like I have a decently sized hydra infestation going on, but no planaria that I see. Would hydra be causing the death of adult shrimp? It could explain why I haven't seen babies in weeks, but then so too could the soft water and lack of molting. Should I just do a hydrogen peroxide treatment and see if that helps? Any other advice?

So as an update, I added crushed wondershell a week ago and got an overnight jump in my GH from 4-5 to approximately 14. I haven't done a water change yet but I intend to do so today. I'm still seeing shrimp die-off at about the same right, and I have to be down to under 15 shrimp total now. Anyone have any advice before my colony gets completed wiped out? I'm honestly not sure what else to try.

This is what I've got going in my 5 gallon. Mostly crypts and buce. The dwarf sag is also quite happy. I opted for all driftwood rather than rocks. I opted for micro Rasboras and cherry shrimp instead of a betta, but considered a betta long and hard as well.

Hey everyone. I have a 12 gallon long and have a colony of orange cherry shrimp that have been thriving for about three months. I started with 10 shrimp and worked my way up to about 60, but I have been slowly but surely seeing a die-off this past week. I've had about one loss per day, though today I have had 3 that I can see. I estimate I have about 25 left, and I'm worried of losing the colony if I can't solve the problem. I have seen no new babies for about 2-3 weeks, and all die-off is in adults. Waters parameters (according to API liquid test kit) are: pH = 7.0-7.5 Temp = 77F Nitrates = 30 ppm Nitrites = 0 ppm Ammonia = 0 ppm gH = 5 degrees of hardness kH = 4 degrees of hardness The death conditions I'm seeing lead me to believe it is a molting issue, but I didn't think my water classified as overly soft or hard. I feed a rotation of krill flakes, algae wafers, and Hikari shrimp bites, and the tank is very well seasoned. The only other inhabitants are 1 Amano shrimp, 3 Oto cats, and 8 juvenile emerald dwarf rasboras I added literally 3 days ago. No CO2 injection, heavily planted tank with floating plant coverage on the surface. Running a sponge filter and an Aquaclear 20 HOB. Dosing all of the EZ line of products. 30% water change once a week on average. Here are some photos: Full tank Shrimp at feeding time Live shrimp that looks ready to molt (white ring of death???) Dead shrimp (with tell-tale boomerang shape) I'm considering goi ng to PetCo and getting some wondershells to toss in there. Nothing has changed in my tank in a while, and I'm honestly not sure what to try. Any help you have would be very much appreciated.

It sounds like you definitely need fertilizers if those tanks have been established for that long and you are still experiencing algae growth. Get those ferts in there and it should help a lot. Also, try root tabs if your stem plants aren't growing. What species of stem plant are you trying to grow?

What kind of growth are you seeing on your other plants? The scarlet templates are looking a little stringy and not very bushy, which makes me think they may not be very happy overall. You've also got a lot of aerial roots coming out of the plant, which makes me think maybe it is lacking nutrients in the soil? I agree with the easy iron, but it could also be that the plant just isn't growing very well more than it not having enough iron specifically. I think I would try some root tabs at the base of the scarlets. and maybe trim back the aerial roots to encouraging rooting below. Once they are established and feeding from their anchoring roots, I have found that the plant starts doing better overall and will produce more vibrant and bushy leaves without any of the aerial roots. Good luck figuring it out! Gorgeous layout on this tank btw

If you've got plants in thank small tank, I would definitely start dosing ferts. 0 ppm nitrates is going to leave your plants unable to use any of that light energy coming in from your stingray, so the algae are going to have a field day. Water changes are a treatment for symptoms, but they will never address to core problem. 10 ppm in the other tank is pretty solid, but if you've got plants and 9 hours of light, you could afford to push it up to 20 ppm and it will make your plants more productive, which will then make your algae less productive. A 40% water change per week is a lot, so if you are able to address the algae problem through boosted ferts, I would do it.

Hey everyone, I just wanted to provide an update on the tank and let folks know the direction I've decided to go in. This tank is becoming an experiment in "What root feeders won't implode in fine sand." I've got C. parva, C. lucens, C. Wendtii (classic and green), dwarf sag, and microsword. I also tossed in red root floaters and floating fern (Salvinia Natans) which are extremely happy. I've had a good bit of melt on two of my 5 buce, but the other 2 are holding up super well. So far so good. I'll report back with more updates. I have so far managed to avoid any algae in the first two weeks of having the tank up and running and I'd guess I'm about a week or maybe two away from having the tank sufficiently cycled for livestock according to my current parameters. Thanks again for all of the input so far!

I agree with darkG about the rock wool. You will be fine with the water sprite, no worries. It can pull nutrients from the water column or the soil, so the easy green will be sufficient. The stuff can even grow just floating at the surface in your tank, and a lot of people choose to grow it like this to provide shade or cover for fish fry. I would be shocked if you manage to hurt it enough to do any lasting damage, a lot of people end up fighting it to not grow too fast rather than having the opposite problem. You picked a great starter plant.

It's up to you. Cory has a couple of videos about this that you might go look for. The main point, though, is that carbon should be used for a specific, targeted reason. It essentially is a mechanism to chemically strip things from your water that you don't want in it. If you don't have anything in the water that you specifically want to remove (tannins from driftwood, medication, impurities in your tap water, etc.), then there is no reason to run it. You can also put in carbon for like a month after dosing meds if you want to remove it, and then go back to biological filtration media. I'm not sure, but I think carbon will also strip fertilizers that you add to the tank, but double check that one. I run extra biological filtration in all of my tanks because I want to maximize bacterial cleaning in my tank to remove nitrites and ammonium. This would allow you to have fewer changes or increase the bio-load in your tank, if you want. This is extra true in a planted tank, because plants are already nature's chemical filtration. Keep the carbon filter lying around in case you need it for something, but I vote for removing it from your current setup

You certainly don't need leave it in the pot, but I guess you could? Local fish stores leave their plants in pots for long periods of time, so it isn't going to hurt anything. You may just see better growth if you get the plant out and settled in your tank, though. I immediately unpot all of my plants and get them where they need to go. The plant will grow air roots regardless of whether you have it in the pot or plop it in the substrate. Water sprite is very hardy, so it should be able to handle some abuse. Honestly though, if you just pop your plant out of the pot and carefully unwrap it from the wool, you shouldn't have any issue with damaging the roots. If you do leave it in the pot indefinitely, you are likely to not see the plant reach its full potential. It will eventually exhaust the nutrients in the pot.

You're good, the Co-op created the root tabs so that nothing catastrophic would happen if they did fail, like in your case. The gel caps are harmless. The fertilizer within the caps is also not going to harm anything, it's fish/shrimp/snail safe too. You have a large volume of water in that tank, so the nutrients in those two root tabs shouldn't cause any spikes or anything. You have enough epiphytes in there that they'll suck them right up. To avoid this in the future, take a a needle and poke a few holes in the capsules before plopping them in the water and let the air escape before planting them. You shouldn't have the same issue with them floating if you do that. I use them in my tank in this way and never have a problem. Gorgeous tank by the way, I love the balance you have in there. What are the stem plants you have in the foreground just to the left of the central driftwood?

I also wouldn't worry too much about those black spots, it doesn't raise any alarms for me. Otherwise, the plant looks pretty good. I would just plant it, treat it like normal, and then post back here if anything unexpected or suspicious happens.

I am considering buying crypts and this post is extremely helpful 😄 Not that I would ever doubt the Co-op's quality, but still nice to have confirmed that you had the best buying experience from them as opposed to other boutique vendors.

I think Easy Carbon is totally fine. I dose about a pump a day into my tank and it certainly isn't hurting anything. That combined with water changes and less intense lightening has appeared to have mostly halted algae growth in my own tank, though I'm still working on eliminating existing algae.

Thank you all, your feedback is very appreciated and gives me a lot to consider. I think I will stay away from the swords because I fear they won't great in the sand, but I'm going to give it a go with the crypts and see what happens. I'm glad some people have had success with this setup. I might also try out that chain sword that Jungle Fan mentioned Noted on the root tabs, I'll up the dosage I had planned. Re; algae on the buce, this is my #1 anxiety at the moment. I had buce in another tank that got murdered by the trifecta of green spot, staghorn, and hair algae, so I'm trying to figure out how to avoid this. Great tip from Hobbit on the high water flow, I'll keep that in mind. I'll provide updates as the tank gets settled, thanks everyone for your advice!