Ceej

(smug, satisfied nodding): "Thank you very much."

I'm not worried about the fish watching television, I'm wondering if their ability to rest is ruined by all that additional light. Sure, the tank lights are off, but the ceiling and TV are on, etc.

I was going to put a graphic "Shhh... fish sleeping" on it and everything. Ok, so I won't be doing that. Thanks for the feedback.

Ok, so... my tank is a 10 gallon Aqueon LED and it is situated in my living room. Light cycle is 10am to 8pm. Lights are all on a timer for the sake of consistency. I want a good 2-3 hours a day with the ability to see the tank. But after the lights go out at 8pm my family and I watch television, and so there is additional ambient light/noise, etc. My idea: make a foldout 3 sectioned 'screen' that I could place around the aquarium to block out at least the excess light. Am I crazy? Will this have any practical effect whatsoever?

Thank you for the help! Yeah, I think you're right that it is java fern. I bought these plants and really should have kept the container label so I'd know exactly what they are. Since researching 'java fern' online I see photos that resemble what's happening in my tank. I have been adding Seachem 'Flourish' for about 3 weeks and added the root tabs about a week ago. So I guess I'll wait to let those little plantlets grow a bit more and then try to pry them off and tie them to something. I will run the bubbler 24/7. Thanks again for the insight guys.

Ok, so this is my current tank. It's a 10 gallon Aqueon LED and is doing a whole lot better than when I started. My water params are all fine, with the exception of my pH which feels a tad low (6.4) and sometimes fluctuates a bit. Inhabitants are 3 female guppies (pink tuxedos) and 1 blue male guppy (he's skinny, I'm fattening him up and it also may be a female) and 5 neon tetras. For the Amazon Swords I added fertilizer tabs and I dose with a liquid carbon fertilizer every other day. Lights are on for 12 hours, 7:30 am to 7:30 pm. I have tried keeping the bubbler on and off, alternating days as I think it might be a bit strong, maybe forcing the CO2 out of the water? Anyway, these swords have been in the tank for over a month now, were in the tank during the initial cycling (fishless) and ... I'd like them to look healthier to thrive a bit more but I'm not sure how. I'm also concerned about these weird root structures on the leaves. I assume this is how the plant can propagate -- leaf falls over to the bottom and sends out runners in the substrate, from which new plants form? Ok, so please have a gander: So you can see on the top middle section these roots growing out of the top of the leaf. You will also notice on the leaf at the right a very clean cut -- I over-reacted, thinking this was some kind of exotic algae and snipped off the tip of that leaf. 😞 You can also see at the base of the leaf on the left a huge tangle of more roots. So ... assuming I'm correct and this is an attempt at propagation... what do I do? Should I try to remove these little bundles and try to plant them elsewhere? Should I bend the leaf over and tuck that end into the substrate? Or do nothing and just leave it alone? This is about 4 days after I reworked the layout of the plants in the aquarium. I was away for a week and so figured I'd do a major water change (40%) and used that as an opportunity to put in the root tabs and space the plants out a bit better. When I removed the plants I looked them all over, the roots clusters seemed larger than I remember, so I think they are healthy, but feel free to tell me otherwise. Also ... I see these small orange nodules on another leaf: Right in the middle, you will see these tiny orange nodules... are those root systems waiting to grow as well? Does this signal something about my plants that is unhealthy? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I love my plants, I want them to grow more.

Yeah, see -- that's what I worry about with GMO, that it happens so quickly (as opposed to basic animal husbandry / breeding, which can take many generations) that we cannot really know what the long-term ramifications will be. Is it possible that mosquitoes serve some vital function of which we are unaware (probably not)? Also, the law needs to catch up to the realities of genetic engineering. Does a person have the exclusive rights to their own DNA? Are all extant species DNA essentially public domain? It seems to me that some of these corporations are aware of how wary the public is and so they introduce these developments in clever way, PR positive ways -- glowfish helping us find toxic waste, etc.

I've been reading and hearing this about larger tanks as well - that because of the larger volume of water the tank can be more stable. Found this youtube video: Silvertips are beautiful!

So I'm very new to the aquarium hobby and I am enjoying my travels in the rabbit hole. My tank is only 10G and I'm already imagining larger tanks. I'll wait until I can prove to myself that I can handle my current tank. So my question is in the title: does anyone here have any experience with a relatively large tank (55G+) stocked mostly with small schooling fish? Is it viable? Are there any special considerations? To me, the schooling of these kinds of fish are beautiful!

OP, maybe this well help you. I've found it useful: https://aqadvisor.com/ What I am doing for my 10G is to add a few fish at a time and monitor the water levels. I started 2 weeks ago by adding two neon tetras (I know, I should have added more so they can school...) and then just sitting back. Then a week later, with tank water stats stable, I then added 3 female guppies. If the tank holds steady (aside from some pH fluctuations) I'll end up adding a single male guppy. :) Good luck with your tank!

Well, the addition of the crushed shells in a bag seemed to have been helping pH, which moved from 6.0 to 6.6 ... but then plunged yesterday back to 6.0 again. The tank is very newly cycled, a week in, so there are still plants that are struggling. Algae has backed off significantly after I removed it. I think the drop could be due excess food from overfeeding and maybe some of that decaying plant matter that I've been vacuuming up. Thanks to everyone for the great advice.

What exactly is 'compaction'?

I do not yet have a KH test, but the pH has improved over the last three days from 6 to 6.4, so I am hoping it will continue to trend upwards. My substrates is rainbow colored stock aquarium gravel from PetCo. This is a concession to my daughter, lol. I would love a more naturalistic aquascape. I tried finding some space in Aqueon QuietFlow 10 for the baggie of crushed seashells, but no luck. I am thinking maybe just mix in some pH-raising gravel of some sort. Any recommendations? Oh, and I also turned off my bubbler to see if that helps reduce the pH. I'm thinking it could also be the giant red stone. Branch was boiled and scrubbed multiple times to remove tannins. Occupants right now are two neon tetras and 3 female guppies. I have read that guppies greatly prefer and react well to higher pH and harder water, so I'm on the verge of removing the rock, I think it really must be the culprit.

I am having a similar issue, thanks for this post. My 10G tank is consistently showing low pH, as low as the API test will show, so it could perhaps even be lower. I've used bottled additives to increase the pH but within a few days it always drops back down. I'm wondering what the cause would be? When I tested straight tap water (no dechlorinator) I get a pH reading of 7, perfect. Can dechlorination lower pH? Anyway, aquarium water pH is consistently 6, so I crushed down some seashells with a mallet, placed in a mesh bag and placed in the tank (no space in the filter itself, unfortunately) but I didn't realize that two weeks is the kind of time frame to see a change.

You have my sympathy Eagle -- hang in there. 😞

But it is fascinating; to create and maintain these little worlds, these little ecologies. So far I'm learning to be patient more than anything else.

PatrickG: Thanks, that's what I'll do. The reason I'm so gun shy is that when I was attempting a fish-in cycle I vacuumed my gravel and later learned that was inadvisable while cycling.

Thanks for the video and the responses! Ok, so the water flow is still good on it, so I'll hang tight on changing it until after I've cycled the tank. DaveO: Ok, thanks for clarifying that. So when I've verified my nitrogen cycle I can change (well, now hotrod) my existing filter and I won't be undoing the work of the bacteria. I'm sure there has to be a video out there for my particular HOB filter, love the fact that people 'hotrod' these filters to improve them and save money.

Hello fellow fishkeepers! I'm new to the aquarium hobby and I'm excited to find this forum. My 8-year-old daughter decided she definitely wanted a tank, but it has somehow hooked me a lot more deeply than I initially expected. My current tank is a 10 Gallon Aqueon LED that I am currently cycling without any fish -- because they died about two weeks ago when I tried to cycle the tank with them inside it. 😞 So, seeing them die despite water changes, etc. really pushed me to get into the chemistry behind the hobby to NOT have that ever happen again. I've got my API Test set and am hoping to get my nitrogen cycle going. I take readings every day, log them and yesterday.... magic when I got home. Wife and daughter told me in dire terms that there was algae forming on the underwater driftwood. But to me, this was great: LIVING THINGS CAN GROW IN MY TANK. Never thought I'd be so happy. Then, on top of that, after two weeks of testing, adding bacteria, I saw evidence of nitrites in the sampled water. Never thought I'd be so excited about bacteria, lol. So anyway, now I'm going to keep testing, wait to see the second form of bacteria form, will continue to ghost feed the tank. I am wondering what I should do about the HOB filter that came with the tank -- since most of the bacteria I'm trying to develop 'live' in the filter media I'm leery of changing it. I have read that the bacteria exist on any biofilms on tank items, but unsure how to change the filter without disturbing the biofilter. I bought extra filters weeks ago, but I don't want to interrupt the cycle by changing the media before the tank is cycled. Does anyone here have any advice on how/when to swap out the replaceable filter media on one of these kinds of tanks? There are no fish in the tank, and won't be for weeks until my tank is cycled. So how do I change the filter without really destroying my biofilter? Here's a picture of my-- my daughter's -- aquarium. Ok, so ... yeah, the rainbow gravel is a concession. This is probably what the riverbed of Willy Wonka's Chocolate River looks like, with Nerd candies as gravel, but I had to bend somewhere. Any tips or suggestions are very welcome. Excited to read the forums, any advice would be greatly appreciated!