HH Morant

I don't think the salt will change the effectiveness of the Maracyn 2. If the fish is eating, the Maracyn 2 (or any other antibiotic) is best given in the food, not by dosing the water. See aquariumscience.org for several ways to prepare medicated food.

UV unit. Reduce lighting: the time the light is on and/or the intensity of the light.

If everybody is starting with zero nitrates in the tap water, then something is happening in their aquariums to cause the nitrates. It seems unlikely that the same thing is happening in all the tanks.

It would be helpful to talk numbers here. What PPM are you talking about when you say "spike?" Your filtration sounds fine, maybe great. An increase in nitrates means that your biological filtration is functioning properly. It shows that ammonia and nitrites are being converted to nitrate, and that is what a biological filter is supposed to do. The filter does not remove nitrates. An increase in nitrates can come from an increase in stocking or an increase in feeding. It can also come from anything in the tank which might be decomposing.

"What I want to do is observe the angelfish raise their own young. I remember years ago, when I bred kribensis, that was part of the attraction. It is tempting to go the easier route though and try to get the hobby to pay for itself a bit." That makes sense, @Phil Harding. My first spawn is 6 weeks old now, and the second one (from a different pair) is 4 weeks old. I know the fry are not going to pay for my hobby, but I think at least they will more than pay for themselves. I can appreciate the urge to see the natural behavior of the parents raising their young. But in nature, angelfish spawns contain hundreds of fry so that maybe one or two will survive. Initially, I took the eggs out because they did not have a chance in the community tank and I was curious to see if I could get them to hatch. After they hatched, my urge was to maximize the survival of the fry. Now that I realize the nature of the commitment - 3 or 4 months to get them to a size to sell, including setting up new tanks, daily water changes, hatching brine shrimp, and multiple feedings daily - I am not sure I will be removing any more eggs.

Looks good so far!

It seems to me that nothing is gained by leaving the eggs with the parents, either in a community tank or in a breeding tank. Why do people want to do that?

"Yes I want to keep the fry. So Y does almost everyone say if you can get the parents to raise the fry it saves a lot of work? I thought if the parents raise them its better." I really don't know why anyone would say that. The parents don't feed them, and they don't change the water. They don't set up the separate tank and they don't hatch the brine shrimp. The parents serve no purpose except to protect the fry from other fish. My angels don't do that, and if they are in a separate tank, you don't need that. If the fish are in a community tank and the angels do protect the fry, I suppose you could say that this saves you the work of setting up a separate tank. But if you are going to raise the fry, you have to set up a separate tank at some point. You are not going to raise 200 angel fry in your community tank.

I don't think you are doing anything wrong. If you really want fry, take the eggs out. Or if you are not particularly interested in raising fry right now (it is a commitment) you can have patience and leave the eggs and fish alone until the fish learn to raise the fry themselves. I don't think having the parents in the same tank as the fry makes it any easier to raise the fry. Because you have the angels in a breeding tank, I assume you want the fry, so you should take the eggs out. My angels lay eggs in a community tank. If I leave the eggs in the tank, the next morning they are gone. Maybe the parents eat them, or maybe the other fish. The parents are only about one year old, so maybe they have not had time to learn not to eat the eggs. So if I want fry, I take the eggs out. If not, I leave them in. I have two spawns right now at 6 weeks old and 4 weeks old. That is enough for me to take care of, so right now I am leaving the eggs in the tank.

I watched Road to Perdition (again) last night. A lesser-known Tom Hanks film, but I think a very good one. It's about organized crime in the 1930's, but it is really a father-son story. Great cast, including Paul Newman, Jude Law, and Daniel Craig.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I am thankful for my wonderful life, my family and friends, this great hobby, and the good people on this forum.

Aquariumscience.org has a long article on keeping discus in which the author argues that it is not as difficult as some say. Even as he describes it, I am not willing to go there now. Maybe someday. They are beautiful fish. My angels are easy.

I have never heard of or seen anything like that. You would want biological filtration but not mechanical, so that would mean 30 ppi foam or 20. I think 30 would be better because more food would stay on the surface rather than sinking down into the foam. Smaller pores (30 ppi) would probably look better. It would be interesting to see if you have to remove it periodically to clean, I am not sure whether you would. I have read that under-gravel filters never need to be moved or cleaned. The less the beneficial bacteria is disturbed, the better, so you don't really want a "clean" filter of any kind. If cleaning is necessary, seems that it would be easy. Just move the foam, let the detritus settle, and suck it out. It might be difficult to find a way to have any kind of aquarium furniture. The weight of wood, rocks, or planters would compress the foam. Maybe you could find a way to do it by resting the furniture on the glass bottom and fitting the foam tightly around it. It might be an interesting experiment.

As Joaquin Andujar once said about baseball, one word says it all - "youneverknow."

Here are some pictures showing the lava rock substrate.

I like the lava rock, and the under-gravel filter should make it work as a filter media. But you can see from the aquariumscience.org chart that lava rock, although it is as good or better than most expensive commercial filter media, is not the best. In my tank, the lava rock and under-gravel filter are supplements to my canister filters with 30 ppi foam, so it is all good. Aquariumscience.org recommends a substrate with smaller particles than my lava rock because food tends to fall into the gaps in the substrate where the fish cannot get to it, increasing the bio-load. Now I am setting up a new tank with a sump and I am using coarse - not fine or medium - coal slag blasting media [Black Diamond] for a substrate. Even the most coarse blasting media has much smaller particles than my lava rock substrate. I expect to have 30 ppi foam and pot scrubbers in the sump. We will see how that works.

Probably lava rock. I have a lava rock substrate (from Bonsai Jack) and I recently put in some under-gravel filters.

Yes, raising the fry is a commitment. First you have to get the tanks, heaters, lights, filters, brine shrimp hatchery. Then water changes every day, hatching brine shrimp, and feeding twice a day (or more). Right now I have two batches of fry - about 150 each. They are fun, but a lot of work.

Pumice is a little hard to work with because it floats, so chips of the pumice will tend to be sucked into the motor rather than sinking to the bottom. I have been persuaded [by aquariumscience.org] that 30 ppi foam is the best canister filter media, followed closely by pot scrubbers and static K-1 media. Better to read the entire article, but see the chart from aquariumscience.org below. I have converted my canisters to 30 ppi foam (a little at a time) and it works. a

Given time, they will probably work it out - both getting along and breeding. If you want them to breed, you could put in a breeding slate or some other almost vertical flat surface. I have a pair that have tried to lay eggs several times, but they just can't seem to make them stick. I think they will eventually get it right. Good luck!

I like the flow. My two 2217s are a couple of years old and are still doing fine, although I think the flow was a little better when they were new. There are some Youtube videos about Eheim filters that you might want to watch. My angels don't like a strong flow, so I made the holes in the spraybar a lot bigger.

I like Eheim classic, but I know the FX series has a lot of fans. Like @Beardedbillygoat1975, I like the complete lack of trays in the Eheim classics. I use 30 ppi foam - and nothing else - in the filters. I cut the foam to fit and put in as much as it will hold.

I agree - probably enough. Nice-looking tank. I think if you put black plasti-dip the visible green parts of the sponge filter it will blend in with your black background. I did that with my black background and the sponge filter became much less noticeable.

I would suggest you read the aquariumscience.org articles regarding cycling.