Chad

Love it, it's always some little thing that sparks a memory and, in my case, style be damned... sometimes 😉

Ha! Yeah @Odd Duck, check out the pic. It's in the lower left corner, the water wheel (red). It's purely a nostalgia thing for me. The first aquarium I ever saw was in our public library and I was amazed at how this water wheel spun and bubbled. Preschooler age so I was easily impressed. Anyway, I saw it and wanted it in my tank to remind me of those times. Also how cool I thought an aquarium was then, and now.

@Odd DuckThat was a direction I considered going, more for mechanical filtration reasons, early on. I opted not to because I didn't like the look of the HOB's. Not because they're not good and work great. It was solely a visual reason and I thought I could get away from them. But, I made a few other mistakes early on for the sake of visual style that I regretted later and this may be another one I need to concede to. It's a learning process and a balance between wants and needs. Again, thanks for the insight, good thought.

I'm a broken record here @gardenman, but thanks! That's a great article. I wonder if it didn't play some role in my situation. I do have a lid on my tank and the surface outside of the sponge filters was extremely calm. Now that I've controlled the surface plants and ramped up the toy bubbler I notice the surface is vibrating and the lid is wet, never was the case before. Always misted over the filters but not the front half of the lid. My gut tells me this may be one of a couple issues I have going on but I'm keeping my eyes peeled for any signs of stress in the fish and so far they're doing great on day 3.

Thanks @Guppysnail, done and done. And nice journal! Been reading it, you have a great set-up. At least to page 2 🙂 I'll read the rest today.

Thanks @Guppysnail! I love the long and low tank too, been thinking of upgrading to a 33 long, someday. So you're thinking maybe any airstone in the center and back, correct? I've got my floating plants all bunched up in the back center now to stay away from the sponge filters and still be under the light. I did just bump up the air flow to the bubbler toy in the hope that this helps more (located off-center but still in the mid area of the tank).

Thanks @Hobbit, it's day two and they are doing better. They're swimming more energetically, their fins are all up, and they're their derpy guppy selves. I can't ever be absolute as to what the cause was. They'd lose energy, all their dorsal fins were clamped, they wouldn't just hover at the top but again low energy. The tailfins would get ragged and then overnight they'd die. It was almost always overnight. That's when I read about how plants take in oxygen at night and it got me thinking the symptoms all pointed to this being the problem. But again, how could it be? I've seen the set-ups like you have and they cover waayy more surface area than mine did. But something about my tank and set up seems to be different. Thanks for your sharing, it's appreciated.

In the immediate sense, it seems to have fixed the problem, but I'll need a few more days to sure. So fingers crossed and I thought I'd ask you experts in the meantime.

This one had my attention too, and it may be the culprit. I do use Fritz complete but try to use two drops per gallon to the water before I add it to the tank when I clean. Wait five minutes and pour it in. I just set up a holding bucket for water changes with an airstone and heater to stop using this altogether or at least off gas it while it sits in my basement. We'll see how that goes. I did also check with my water municipality and they use chlorine and not chloramine. But I thought I better use this stuff anyway since they might change this in the future without my knowing it?

My temp has been stable at 77-78 degrees, but that's a good call and one of the first things I looked at.

I've been trying like crazy to figure out what's been killing my guppies for a month now. Tested water for every parameter I could think of. All great. Thought maybe I had parasites? Tank too dirty? Nothing changed. I then saw signs that it might be low oxygen (heavy breathing at top, hanging near filter) but I told myself no way. I had some floating plants but they only took up less than half the tank top. Besides, I have two sponge filters and a bubbler toy (nostalgia-inspired, don't judge;). No chance, right? Anyway, another dies and I decide to reign in the floating plants (amazon frogbit mixed in with wisteria and watersprite) with some airline tube. I wake up to the remaining fish active, good color and their dorsal fins are up! I hadn't seen that for too long. At the moment, it seems this was my problem but I'm still confounded how I had so much aeration going on in a 20 gallon long and still had an oxygen issue? Can anyone share some insight if they've experienced this too? Here's a pic of my tank last week before the fencing off of the floaters. It's only 12 hours in so it could be something else, but I noticed a big change in their behavior this morning. I've seen so many pics and vids of tanks with far more floating plants that I figured it couldn't be the issue. Thoughts?

Thanks @Biotope Biologist, your insight is appreciated and helps. So to help me understand fully, the drop in ph is likely an additive weakening from the tap water? I was curious how the fish and plants affected the water but since the resting water and tank water were so closely aligned I didn't know what think.

I'm scratching my head trying to understand how ph works. I've attached a pic of what I'm seeing in my water testing. Number 1 is a ph test straight from my tap. It's high, looks like 8.4. My 2nd and 3rd test are from my aquarium. The high ph test seems off the charts low, while the regular ph test seems off the charts high. What does this mean exactly? I figured the tests showed that my ph in the tank is somewhere between 7.4 and 7.6. But since they're at both ends of their respective testing spectrum I'm unsure. I also tested water that's been sitting for 24 hours and got the exact same readings as #'s 2 and 3. I've tested gh (8-10 degrees) and kh (5-6 degrees) in the past and they always show hard, but not crazy hard, water. Any insights you might have are greatly appreciated. It's been like this for some time, finally got around to fully testing my AQ and sitting water at the same time.

Thanks @Streetwise! I can do that. Curious how often I should be thinking of doing this? A couple times a week?

Oh, and since you're here @Streetwise, your fluval 3.0 guide was HUGE in helping me figure out a workable solution for running that light. Can't thank you enough for that, it's how I came to this forum in the first place.

I like the woodsy smell too, the "septic" smell on the other hand is not good. I just did a 10% water change and gravel vac. And yes, the septic smell was going strong. The sponges I squeezed out were heavy with the scent too. Once done, and everything settled down, I'm smelling soil again. I have that store-bought, black painted gravel from a pet store. 2 inches deep. It is what it is for now, I do like the look.

I appreciate all the insights, truly. I've been trying to figure out what's been making my fish "off". Clamped fins, some deaths, and then some doing great. Columnaris, parasites, water quality? Nope. My last theory was old tank syndrome, and everyone's advice kinda points to that a bit. With a heavily planted tank it's hard to really get into the substrate and not derail all the decorations and plants. I wonder if oxygenation might be a culprit? Better/more thorough substrate cleaning? More flow? These are all great pieces of advice. I've added a lot of floater plants to help offset nitrates as guppies do what guppies do. I've been doing 10% water changes every other day (any more and the shrimp die, ring of death hit the first time I did a 20% change). Maybe up that to every day for a week and see what happens? Corral and remove some floaters? Bump up the air to the sponge filters a bit? Seems to be a decent place to start. Thanks again everybody!

That's a great question! I recently added some cholla wood when I added the shrimp. But I've had some spider wood in the tank for quite some time. Maybe 8-9 months now?

Thanks for the tip. I don't think I have this issue but I'll look closely to see if I'm missing anything. The smell came AFTER I started gravel vacuuming the substrate and it came heavily from the bucket it was going into. Of course, the tank smelled too but I figured I'd add that detail considering the tips provided.

I do, frog bit, wisteria, and tiger lotus lily pads. It covers almost half my tank top.

Hmm, interesting. This is my first foray into sponge filters. I have two co-op large ones set up on opposite ends of the tank. Figured two would help with flow and be a good back up in case I need to set up an emergency tank.

I'm trying to track down a stressor/problem in my aquarium and I could use some insight regarding the smell of a tank. My tank smells earthy, like dirt, most of the time. I believe that's good, planted tank (20 gal long, floating, mosses and ferns), populated with 15 guppies, a bristle pleco, 15 shrimp and 4 mystery snails. But when I clean it, specifically gravel vac it, it smells like sulphur (rotten eggs). Is that an indicator of something bad? Seems like it would be. Are more water changes the answer? My levels are all good I think (amm 0%, nitrite 0%, nitrate 10%, ph 7.4, kh 5, gh 9) except for phosphate which comes out of the tap at 1.0 ppm and is currently 3-4 ppm in my tank. Don't know what I should be looking for but generally the fish have clamped fins except for a couple of them. I worry I overfeed them but it's not excessive, meaning there isn't food in the tank after five minutes, but I have dealt with swollen bladder issues in the past so I'm working on it and still trying to find the perfect amount. Any insights are hugely appreciated, thanks so much!

I started my 20 gallon long with a seeded filter, plants, substrate, fritz turbo 700, and too many fish (guppies). The ammonia levels never got above .5 ppm but it stayed there for weeks. I used prime to ensure the ammonia and nitrites were detoxed. Maybe that added to the cycling period, no idea. All I can say is the process was more stressful and took far longer than I thought it would. My advice, test often (I did every day), research how to do a fish in cycle with prime and keep cool. It will all work out, but again, it took longer than I thought it would.