[Advice for tank sanitization - spray option?]

Concentration of bleach necessary for disinfecting is a little stronger than sanitizing:

https://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Documents/8340/970-216-Disinfect-en-L.pdf

You can see that straight bleach from the bottle is way too strong and unnecessary (and potentially dangerous to you!). 

Make sure to rinse the tank very well afterwards. Probably you also should mix a 5-10x dose of dechlorinator with some water and wet everything down as well. Or for small tank you could fill the tank, overdose dechlor, stir for a few minutes, and drain.

Bleach in fish tanks makes me nervous. I tend to use only white vinegar, but I've also never suspected any truly nasty bacterial/viral diseases in my tanks.

[What's your favorite anubias]

I had good luck with barteri and nana in the past. I bought some nangi recently because Cory recommend it, but the plants were dead in a couple weeks from the infamous "anubias rot". I decided not to replace it for now.

[Tank Stands; Will it withstand the weight?]

On 7/15/2021 at 1:56 AM, HenryC said:

I've read that the rule is to make the stand be able to take 4 times the weight of your tank filled with water... Just to be sure in case a eartquake or a kid bumping on it.

I always construct my stands with 4x2s. I do not trust at all the compressed wood material commercials stands are made of. They might hold the tank withotu a problem but they don't give me peace of mind.

a 4x2 apparently can hold 1000 pounds vertically, when 8 feet long. Obviously I'm not making an 8' tall stand, so I'm not sure how the capacity if affected when you cut it. But I haven't had any problems, my stands are rock solid, with triple 4x2s at the 4 corners, and doubles on the center of the stand. Pretty sure they can hold several times the weight of the aquarium.

I am a structural engineer, that stand looks to have 16(?) vertical 2x4 members? Wood strength depends on a lot of factors I can't tell from a picture, but...

That being said, compressive strength of a dry pine 2x4, parallel to the grain, for a short column will be in the thousands of pounds. You have 16 of them, so it's definitely going to hold up a fish tank.

You can see, for example, that a structural 4x4 column can hold over 10,000 lb if it is short enough to avoid stability concerns. That should give you an idea of how strong a short 2x4 might be.

I suspect the issue with stands is likely flatness, not strength. I am entirely speculating here, but I could see that if the top of a stand were creating significant torsion or other unintended loads on the tank, that could potentially cause seals to fail. But again, I do not design fish tanks, so I really have no idea.

[Friendly local fish store guy]

I generally avoid making a point by referring to authorities, since they can be wrong.

On the other hand, I know Dean, Cory, and many other "internet famous" fish breeders have said that chasing hardness/pH is not necessary in the vast majority of cases, and in fact can be harmful due to lack of water parameter stability. I believe Dean's results breeding a number of Central/South American species speak for themselves.

The water in my area has a GH/KH in range of 6-8 and a pH of 7.8 to 8.0 most of the time, and I never had a problem keeping anything, from Central/South American species to Lake Tanganyika cichlids. In fact, many of my fish tended breed even when I did not necessarily want them to do so. I even had otoclinus juveniles magically appear in one of my tanks.

A discussion below:

 

[What is your favorite species to keep that is native to North America?]

Anybody have rainbow shiners? I am super curious, but do not really have a tank to try them out right now.

[Buying fish online]

In addition to the places others have mentioned, Rachel O'Leary (Invertebrates by Msjinkzd) used to have some really nice fish. I think she isn't selling as much these days.

Recently I have purchased some cichlids from Sand City Cichlids and had no problem at all dealing with them. The fish arrived safely and had good genes by all appearances.

[Show me your brown-colored substrates?]

I also have Caribsea Peace River in the new unheated tank I am seasoning, and I quite like it. Easier to work with than sand in my opinion, seems traps less debris than larger gravel, and good looks as well.

I had aragonite sand in my multifasciatus tank to ensure the water was well-buffered, which I also liked. They seemed to enjoy digging around in it.

[A white film since adding fish/frogbit]

On 7/8/2021 at 4:04 PM, Fresh said:

Well it never had it before the fish/frogbit were added last week. I had an air stone but the pump is too big for the tank size so I had to remove it, the current was too much. It's a 27g cube so doesn't take much to get the current strong

I believe Cory attributes the film to fish and/or fish food in the video, so that makes sense.

Looks like you have a canister filter from the photo (?). For now you could try increasing your surface agitation by aiming your output at the surface to really agitate it as much as possible.

I seem to recall that never totally resolved the issue for me, but it's worth a shot. Might depend on the filter, height of the output, angle of the output, etc.

[Hello from Virginia, USA]

On 7/8/2021 at 12:52 PM, Odd Duck said:

@Ozymandias My hubby has more expensive hobbies, so as long as I keep up with the tanks, he’s OK with it.  I have no more room for tanks, so I think I’m at my limit.  😆 

I seem to be the one with the hobbies in my house. I just need to get rid of that pesky day job so I can focus on the stuff that really matters, like more fish tanks!

[Easy Green]

Like many others have said, algae issues are very often traced to too much light. Green water like this happens from exposure to natural sunlight in my experience, or WAY too much artificial light.

In your case the Fluval 3.0 is a super bright light, and you are almost surely running it for too long and at too high of an intensity.

If you do not run pressurized CO2 and have slow-growing plants I find it helps to be very conservative with the lighting. Then, if that light proves okay, one can experiment with slow increases in either intensity or duration of lighting. On my new tank I am starting with only 7 hours total, 2 hours of which are ramp-up/ramp-down. I won't say what my settings are because I have a different light.

I think this video by @Irene will be very helpful. Note that she has a similar height  tank (I think?) and the same light, but she is using 30% of the total intensity for less than 8 hours (plus blue LED is not turned on).

Also check out this thread for settings other folks use. Pay special attention to the height of a person's aquarium when comparing light settings. The intensity of light is proportional to the square of the distance, which means there is a huge difference between the light received at a range of 12 inches, 16 inches, 21 inches, etc.

 

[A white film since adding fish/frogbit]

@Cory has a video about this. This looks like normal surface film to me. 

With an air stone in the tank and/or sponge filters this never happens in my experience. Back in my younger days when I had canister filters this was present to some degree in all my tanks.

 

[Hello from Virginia, USA]

On 7/7/2021 at 8:17 PM, Odd Duck said:

@CalmedByFish I know that feeling with the algae.  Founding member of Overfeeders Anonymous right here.  I’ve had to relearn how much fish, shrimp, and snails actually *need* to eat.
 

@Ozymandias  I also stepped away from fishkeeping.  Around 10 years off for me.  I loaded myself up too much with reef tanks, Betta grow out tanks, paludariums, and too many hours working.  Just got back into fish again a little over a year ago and I’m already back to 20 tanks.  🤷🏻‍♀️  But they’re lower maintenance tanks and no salt!

Welcome back to the hobby and I’m glad to help any way I can.  I’ve given myself a very intensive refresher on low maintenance planted tanks over the last year and have been exploring the incredible variety of plants that are now available.  There are loads of very experienced and helpful people on this forum and this is by far the kindest, most helpful and intelligent forum I’ve found.

Oh my, 20 tanks! At this point in my life, if I got even half that many I would also need to get divorce papers. 🤣

[Hello from Virginia, USA]

On 7/7/2021 at 1:14 PM, CalmedByFish said:

Welcome back!

I used to do things in a way that was harder than necessary. It was a lot more of a chore than a joy. Now I aim for, "If it's not easy, it's not fun." It really is working better. I'm guessing your focus on the ecosystem and fish is going to be good for you. 🙂 

Yes! I am aiming for "if it's not easy, it's not fun" as well.

Actually, I am setting up my first ever unheated tank. The temperature is quite low on our bottom floor in winter, probably 65 F (18 C) or less. I am going with white cloud minnows to start with.

[Hello from Virginia, USA]

Hello everyone, yet another relapsed aquarium hobbiest here. Cory is probably the one that convinced me to get back into it, so thanks to him I think?!

To be honest, what drove me away from the hobby was this right here:

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is a pressure-regulated 5-lb bottle of liquid CO2 and associated raw fertilizers (there was no EZ Green back then). At the time, high tech tanks were all the rage. Takashi Amano had shown everyone what was possible, and we all wanted to be the next ADA aquascaper.

Don't get me wrong, a "high-tech" tank can be a thing of beauty at times, and entertaining.

My first tank, a 30 gallon.
This was the "plant a bunch of stuff and see what happens" tank. Turns out everything grew, and grew very quickly!

Second tank, a 40 gallon "breeder".
This was the "I don't want two tanks full of insanely fast-growing stem plants" tank.

Unfortunately, when things go badly with a high-tech tank, they go badly fast. The slightest imbalance can result in algae explosions. The tanks require constant trimming and maintenance to the point where it feels like a job instead of a hobby. I got rid of my aquariums when we moved and just did not have the heart to start up again at the new house for many years.

And then along came Cory and Aquarium Co-op and their addictive YouTube videos...

This time I am focusing on keeping the maintenance as low as possible, and the headaches as well. No more pressurized CO2, no more high lights, etc. This time I want to focus on the ecosystem and the fish. I do not have tank pictures yet, but soon I hope to have some nice ones! Without all that CO2 injection it's going to be slow and steady this time around.

A couple of my favorites fishies from past and present below.

Apistogramma agassizi male

Pearl Gourami male

Neolamprologus multifasciatus female