Rita

Crispy dry… they were out of the water just sitting on a towel for a few hours.

Hello all! I recently transferred my two bettas from a split 10 gal to their own 6 gal cubes, and in the process of moving over their tank contents I accidentally left all the plants out and they dried up. I didn’t realize this was a problem until recently (thanks to Lizzie for the recent video), so now my plants are melting away. One crypt wendeti has already melted and my anubias gold coin has started losing leaves. The edges of my dwarf saggitaria are also turning transparent. Is there any hope in saving my plants?

Anyone have any idea what’s up with my ember tetra? Looks like there’s redness in his gills and abdomen. He’s still eating but is breathing fast. ph: 8.0 ammonia: maaaybe 0.25? nitrite: 0 nitrate 20 gh: 300 Kh: 120 20 gal long, Temp 77.9 Moderately to heavily planted Tank established Oct - 2020 Currently stocked with 9 embers, 2 mystery, 4 nerite, 1 rabbit and a lone rams horn snail. Also 9 amano shrimp

We have a filter installed in our refrigerator water dispenser… I imagine this has a carbon filter… maybe I can use this for the time being… especially considering it’s only a 5 gal… 25% of 5 is only a little over a gallon.

I use prime, and I have 8.2 pH out of the tap. I have some Java ferns and anubias in a 5 gal. I’m planning on getting a better light for the tank, then I can add some floating plants. Do you think I should just dose prime? Even if my nitrites start to creep up?

Hey everyone! so I’m in a bit of a panic… I have a tank I’m fish in cycling (I set it up with an established sponge filter but I am getting slightly elevated nitrites) so I changed 50% of the water, then on a whim I decided to re-test post change… and I noticed slight ammonia reading. Soo I tested my tap water and it’s 0.5 ammonia!!!! We moved to this place in April and I tested it then with no ammonia…. Am I poisoning my fish trying to change water because of nitrites???

Unfortunately I’ve had lots of issues with panda corydoras… A year ago I bought 12 of them for my 20 gal, just dumped them in, no meds no acclimating… 4 died within 48 hrs, the rest ended up getting what I suspect was colimnaris and dying, I had 3 survivors… and this was with moving them to a treatment tank and treating them with the med trio. The 3 are now in a different tank and doing well. 2 days ago I bought 4 more panda Corydoras, set them up a quarantine tank and drip acclimated (I have hard, high pH water)… and 2 have already died with big red blotches on their flanks. I only dosed the tank with Paracleans because I was expecting them to be sensitive. Moral of the story is even when I think I am doing everything right they still die in my water. I absolutely adore corydoras but they don’t adore my water I guess 😔

Sorry to steal the topic, but would this same trimming technique help new plants try to come back to life from melting?

I think mine is about to flower!

Ok thank you! My plan was for 5 embers and 4 Cory’s in a 10 gal with an established 10 gal sponge filter from one of my other tanks.

Hey guys! so I’d like to add some corydoras and ember tetras to 2 of my established aquariums, and I am planning to putting them in quarantine with the med trio. My question is can I quarantine 2 different kind of fish at the same time? Is there a reason I would need to quarantine them and medicate them separately? Thanks in advance, Rita

Yeah, I added seachem stress guard to the tank in case he is having some kinda slime coat issue. If he starts getting worse I’ll move him to a quarantine tank and maybe treat with maracyn and/or ich X.

It did look like it was coming out of his gills… but as I studied him today it kind of looks like it’s dangling off his fins. I attempted to pick it off with my long plant forceps but the substance dangling off him is to fine for the forceps to grasp. I haven’t seen him flashing or anything either.

No it’s not moving. It’s brown and thin looking. I thought it was poop at first until I saw where it was attached to. And the fact that it’s on both sides of him. None of ember tetras have anything like this.

Hey guys, so it’s hard for me to get good pictures but my betta has something dangling off of both sides of his body… between his gills and his fins. I noticed it 3 days ago… and he was pretty lethargic at first but his activity is better today and he is eating. temp 77f Ammonia 0 Nitrite 0 pH 8.2 Nitrate ~20 I didn’t test Kh or Gh with the API liquid kit, but according to the test strips my Kh is moderate and Gh is high. I have a video that shows it better but I don’t know how to post a video! Thanks for any advice guys!

As I was leaving work this afternoon I passed by someone who said “Hey nice shirt!” The image is the shirt I was wearing. As soon as he said nice shirt I wanted to ask if he was also a nerm, however I quickly came to the conclusion that he might have just liked the design (cuz it’s a cool shirt!) and he would probably think I’m a crazy person asking if he was a nerm 🤣

Can I see some DIY aquarium stands? I’m not very crafty so the easier the better! 😉 Thanks!

Is there a test kit for it? I just diagnosed based on the way my Java ferns look. I bought seachem potassium and it said I could dose up to 3 times per week.

Hey guys, Based on all the pictures/ charts on the inter webs it seems as though my two Java ferns are experiencing potassium deficiency. New leaves look good, then they develop tiny pin holes and eventually look as though the leaf is eroding from the outside in while turning yellowish/ brown. I dose my 20 gal long with the appropriate easy green once weekly and water change about once a month. Nitrates remain a steady 20ppm and all other levels are within normal limits. Is there a product out there that allows me to dose only potassium? Am I stuck dosing easy green more frequently and just keep an eye on my nitrates? Or do I have to water change more often to replenish the minerals present in my hard water? I'm open to suggestions. Thanks!

Hello everyone, I’ve had my tank/s since October, a 20 long and 10 gal. I’ve fretted over all the different types of algae, I’ve religiously done weekly water changes/gravel vacs, kept diligent notes of my water parameters before each water change and various nuances, until now. I love snails (mystery and nerites) and in addition to their relentless deification they started eating my plants... just as I was noticing them eating my pogostemon plants we were packing to move to a neighboring city. I tried to keep up with feeding the snails every day so they would hopefully leave my plants alone but they basically decimated the pogostemon, leaving a barren wasteland of stems on the right half of my 20 gal. After we successfully moved both tanks, I counted fish/ snails/ shrimp and rejoiced that there were no casualties. That’s where the neglect began. I of course made time to feed the fish and snails but that was about it... unpacking and sorting consumed any free time I had. I used the test strips to keep an eye on the parameters and as each week passed I told myself I’d clean the tanks next week. Now, going on 3 weeks with no water changes, I finally had time to sit and stare at my tanks. The stems of my pogostemon had turned translucent, my cryptocoryne’s looked to be melting and my once thriving dwarf aquarium lily had ceased sprouting and has started melting as well. It dawned on me that it wasn’t necessarily the move that shocked my plants... I hadn’t put root tabs in the tank in 4 months! I’m really hoping they bounce back now that I’ve put root tabs in. I’ve kept up with the easy green but it’s obviously not enough for the root feeders. Meanwhile... my 10 gal had become so overrun with water wisteria and green hair algae, I almost couldn’t decipher my heater thermostat under the shroud greenery. I guess the moral of my story is even though I have neglected my tanks, with a light stock of fish in both tanks I’ve discovered I was doing too many water changes. Snail poop is snail poop... and my fish and water parameters seem unaffected. I do feel badly about my plants and hope they can make a come back with some regular root tab feedings. I’ve also learned that water wisteria grows insanely fast and now I am considering putting some in place of the late pogostemon (RIP) and test the snails’ appetite to keep up with that fast growing plant. Thanks for reading if you made it this far!

Interesting! I just added 3 mystery snails (in addition to 4 nerites) and they’ve been work horses for the algae surprisingly... any idea if they’ll eat the stuff?

Hi guys... I cleaned my tank yesterday and wiped the front glass with an algae scrubber, this morning I noticed a couple tiny spots with this... any thoughts on what it is? Almost looks like mold or fungus to me but how? I just wiped the glass! (I had to put my hand up to get the camera to focus on the glass.)

I didn’t test after the water change but before it was pH 8.0, ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, nitrate 5 ppm temp 74. I’m using a sponge filter that had been sitting in my display tank for 3 months. Since they’re in a bare bottom tank I always use a turkey baster to clean up their food mess daily and do a ~30-40 % water change once weekly.

Hi all, So I only have an unhelpful picture of him after the fact because I couldn’t get a video in time. I’ll give some back story though... So I got 7 panda corydoras in the middle of December and I did not quarantine them (I know). Long story short they got some kind of fungal infection. At first sight of the infection I treated the display tank they were in with 1 dose of maracyn and ich x, but after a week they weren’t getting better and started dying. I then moved the remaining pandas to a hospital tank (that I had managed to set up in that week’s time). I only treated the hospital tank with stress guard as these pandas didn’t look very bad. So today I did their water change and I caught one flashing really intensely. The poor guy looked panicked and was frantically rubbing his sides on the (bare) bottom of the hospital tank. There are no visible lesions or redness and no sign of fungus any more. The only thing I haven’t treated them with is Paracleanse for parisites. What could be going on with him? I was really hoping to save my last 4 pandas but I have no clue what I’m doing apparently lol. Would it be worth it to dose the Paracleanse? Should I dose them all again with maracyn and ich x?

Thank you for posting this... I have had my tank set up for 3 months and am going through all the phases of algae... and much to my dismay I’m still struggling to find this mystical creature called “balance” that everyone speaks so fondly of. 😉 I let my 20 gal long planted tank cycle for a month and grew TONS of diatom algae... I then picked up 3 nerite snails and 6 amano shrimp and this algae was nearly gone in a month’s time. I added 7 ember tetras, and a couple weeks after I got the dreaded blue green algae which I treated with Maracyn. That treatment worked and the fish and invertebrates seemed non the wiser. I then added 7 panda corydoras that decided they did not want to live in my tank, so the remaining pandas have been removed. Now I am battling green hair algae, which I agree can look lovely... but it is thickly coating my plants, and largely not touching my decor. In addition, the diatom algae seems to be returning. Throughout this process my lighting has remained the same (FluvalSmart aqua sky) 8hr at 100% with 1 hour ramp up and down. The inconsistent part is I have been altering my dose of easy green dependent on my stock... when the pandas were at full peak I was a achieving 20ppm nitrates with dosing easy green 1x /week. With only the embers and inverts I have to dose easy green at least twice a week to even get close to 20ppm, and my plants start turning translucent and the tips start rotting away to make up for the new growth. So right now is tough because I have the algae, and my plants are starting to suffer as I need to increase my easy green dosage until I can stock more fish. At least that is what I am assuming needs to happen since I am a novice. Thanks for letting me rant guys!