Scott Stevenson

Hey sorry I havent been around but in a very belated response, I'll just update the situation and start by saying that diet and water quality was never a issue. I don't have a current photo but the goldfish in question has completely recovered the "tumor" disintegrated and fell away, this coincided with a complete color change of the fish, It is now 100% white.

I keep my substrate a good 2 inches and never had issue. hope things work out better for you.

I know this is off on a tangent, but I'm trying to understand the floating root tabs, part of this story. I've used root tabs in the past without putting holes in them. never had a floating root tab. Is the tank bare bottom, is the layer of substrate very thin or did you maybe not bury them very deep? This is not me trying to be judgmental, just trying to understand.

Interesting. does carbon than do a good job of removing chlorine and chloramine? I run water straight from the tap into my tanks and then use water conditioner and that seems to work fine, but I know my town "messes" with the water in the spring/summer and I have been considering setting up some type of water holding/conditioning tank for the summer.

Ok cool, I knew carbon did not absorb the bacteria, but I thought that maybe it absorbed the ammonia to a point that BB would not have a chance to colonize the tank.

I use mechanical and biological filtration and have a solid understanding of the nitrogen cycle, but I am trying to understand how things work if I were to set up a tank with carbon filtration. I have no plans to start using carbon filtration and am just trying to add to my knowledge base. Is it even possible for a tank to be cycled using a carbon filter and can live plants do well in a carbon filter situation? Would ferts even be effective or would the carbon just neutralize them?

got a few khuli loaches just yesterday, poured the bag into a container through a net took the net and dumped the loaches into their new tank. I put the net back into a container that had a bit of of water and went to open the next bag, went to get the net again and realized there was still a loach wiggling in the net. Not as dramatic as the rest of your stories, gut the situation is relatable.

Judging by the feedback, I'll give it a go. If it doesn't work out I'll dump the pygmies in a different tank.

Reading up on Otos and Pygmy cories it looks like max temperature is 74 degrees. has anyone had success keeping either of these species at slightly higher temps, specifically 76/77 degrees? I'm wanting to possibly keep both with Platys in the nearish future.

BN or BNP - bushy nosed plecos

@Jennifer V...although Maybe at some point Ill set up an experiment tank and see what I can find to introduce that way.

Ill probably just work with the brown that I have and try to work towards green

@PineSongwas there a point when you noticed that you went from brown diatom to green or has your experience always been with the green kind? My main tank is well cycled and has 3 albino BN plecos in it, no algae issues there. I have two tanks that are low-key cycled and with out fish at the moment. One of them has pest snails helping to keep the cycle going and some plants. The other has Pothos and some mulm (bare bottom), no algae issues to speak of in either of them. I started a qt a couple months ago. it gets indirect sunlight and I ghost feed it. I for sure have algae in that one (which as I said before is not an issue to me). I assume cycling is beginning per the algae. I'm going to get some otos to put in there and toss in some pest snails. I would love to go from the brown to green. I like the idea of the blanched spinach to promote greening. Oh I also easy green my tanks except the qt

I don't have a algae problem and the algae I do have is fine with me, but would love if I could get it to be that healthy, vibrant looking green algae. How do I go from newbie brown to that SWANKY green stuff?

oh boy, i have multiple Seiryu rocks, some surely 5lbs or more sitting on a bare bottom, old 40g tank right now. I plan on putting gravel in within the next couple months, but now im worried.

I know that this thread is about utility tanks in general, but what are folks opinion on dealing with Chloramine. I saw another thread where the gentleman believed he was able to off gas chloramine, but most did not think that it was doable. how do you all deal with chloramine? Do you all just go the Prime/safe route? can chloramine be broken down?

Hey just wondering if anyone has feelings, opinions or experience with API, Melafix. Do you think its effective and for what? is it detrimental to Beneficial Bacteria? Is it good for de-stressing fish?

@Streetwisecan you explain your "Gasing Off" process? do you just let the water sit or is there more to it?

In addition to what Guppysnail has said, The process isn't necessarily always 100 percent efficient. and as I said before the waste laying around is just going to continue to decay into additional ammonia. also if the mulm is just allowed to build and build those gas pockets that were talked about could eventually be dangerous to your fish. Likewise in large amounts it will eventually overwhelm your gravel, making your water column full of debris and taxing your mechanical and even your biological filtration/nitrogen cycle and possibly sparking run away algae growth. Heterotropic bacteria is necessary for the process, but if you give it too much fuel it can get out of hand. Heterotropic bacteria seems to multiply much faster than Autotropic, meaning that if there is abundant food sources for the HB it can potentially multiply out of control causing a bacteria bloom, making your water column a cloudy, milky color. The AB will not be able to catch up any time soon and your ammonia will spike. Ammonia spike equals dead fish. There is a phenomenon known as "old tank syndrome". After a tank is cycling well for many many months it is sometimes called "well seasoned", this is a good thing. it allows the natural ecosystem that you created to do much of the work (in the best case).If there are live plants and algae is kept in reasonable check you can potentially go longer periods between water changes and gravel vaccing, however what tends to happen is that as you go longer and longer between water changes/gravel vaccing, those ammonia and Nitrite and nitrate levels will start to creep up, if you're not keeping an eye on your water parameters. you're long time fish can adapt to this SOMEWHAT but it is not really good for them and even then it will eventually be lethal to them. Additionally, adding new fish that are not accustomed to the water parameters of an old tank usually die. regular water changes and gravel vaccing can help keep this from happening.

In my limited experience, I've never noticed a sulfer smell when doing water changes/grav vacing. It usually smells like not overly offensive lake water...to me anyway. As far as the bacteria go; That's what Heterotropic bacteria does. It lives off of organic matter and it's waste is ammonia. Ammonia is only converted to nitrites by Autotropic (beneficial) bacteria. The Nitrites are then in turn converted to Nitrates, again by beneficial bacteria (BB). The Nitrates can then be used by live plants or algae as fertilizer. All of that together is called the Nitrogen cycle. That's what "an established tank" means. Ppl refer to this as a cycled tank. If this is not happening in the tank, than it's not really "established"...again I hope this helps

I assume that when you say the water is brown you mean the water that ran into your bucket from the gravel vacing, not the actual water column of your tank. One of the reasons to have gravel in your tank is to hold down all the fish waste, uneaten fish food and potentially any decaying plant matter. really any detritus that finds it's way into your tank. When you grav vac you are pulling all that matter out of the gravel and out of your tank. It's why you grav vac. That's why ppl might distinguish between, purely water changing and gravel vacing. Additionally, all of that "brown stuff" decays and releases more ammonia, also heterotropic bacteria will feed off of it and release additional ammonia. I hope that's helpful.

I would think that you could add fish yet. I would consider a group of corys. I would also consider upping the plant count. Whatever you do, have fun.

@_DiAm0nDs_ Nice! Frogs you say! interesting. I like your take on doing your own thing and trying new things out. I'll probably start out by the book and go from there.

what did you do for ph, gH and temp?

wow very cool. I have some albino BN plecos. I didn't realize that they could hold up against such territorial fish. Looks like you had a couple large sponge filters and a couple hang on backs, seems like they worked well for you.