RadMax8

All my food, test kits, medications, etc all reside under my homemade aquarium stand. I'd like to put some racks or shelving in there, but haven't gotten around to it. All my tools and cleaning supplies live in a bucket that I put a Home Depot tool caddy on. The outer pockets hold my siphons really well, and the inner pockets hold my scissors that don't fit in the toolkit. I've also got towels, brushes, and some spare parts in the pockets. Works well for me as I've got a tank in the Living Room and the Bedroom, so the water change stuff needs to be mobile and hidden in the basement when not in use.

@Sandra the fish rookie, at least your heater failed the "right" way! I'll try to answer your questions below. I really don't think you are in major danger of illness. I would imagine the water temp decreased slowly and naturally, so no real risk of temp shock for the fish. If you kept them in suboptimal temps for a long time, they may get stressed, but given how quickly you found the issue I'd say you're ok. Side note, you may want to think about changing the temp to 75-77 degrees, cories typically like the more moderate tropical temps. If kept too high, metabolisms speed up and shorter lifespans can result. I run a single 300W in my 40 gal, so I would assume two 150W would work for you. There's no real hard, fast number, it kind of depends on what temperature your house is. I bought (but don't use yet) an Inkbird Temperature Controller. It has two outlets, so it should run the heaters simultaneously. You should be able to see if one is working or not, and if it breaks the "wrong way" (always on) the controller will keep it from cooking your fish. Seems easy enough to install, I'm just trying to figure out where to route my cables. I'm sure you'll get some more (and maybe better!) advice, but that's just my $0.02.

So apparently it's extremely difficult to get any data on how much Ca and Mg is in Lake Erie. None of the local water districts list it, and any reports I've seen are in scholarly articles that aren't up to date. According to one, in 2009 Ca was 32.11 ppm (trending down at 0.1389 ppm/year) and Mg was 8.89 ppm (trending up at 0.0292 ppm/year). After finding the massively high Fe (no wonder I have such bad hair algae...), I've adjusted my dosing down. I think the big issue was that my dosing method allowed extra CSM+B to be siphoned into the tank. Basically, I'm dosing similar to PPS Pro recommendations with ferts from GLA through a dosing pump rather than pouring stuff in every day. I plan on doing some more testing to make sure that everything stays as expected. The only other place the iron can be coming from is through some iron clay tabs I put in which could be leaching into the water. I'd also like to separate the NO3 and dose according to need rather than just mix it in with the other macros. Thanks for sticking with me on this.

I was able to track down the water report. Our water is pretty good coming right off the lake. If you’re interested in some light reading, here’s the link: https://www.lakecountyohio.gov/utilities/wp-content/uploads/sites/28/2021/04/East-West-Sub-District-2021.pdf When I changed my water I noticed my nitrates were way high (80 ppm or so) and my iron was nearly 3 ppm. Over the last two days I’ve gotten those values to 20 ppm and 0.9 ppm, respectively. I’m beginning to think that plant doesn’t care for high nitrates. My AR is the plant that has me wondering about Ca deficiency though, since the new leave are so curled. Who knows, still working to figure this out.

I’m working with tap. I get my water from Lake Erie on the east side of Cleveland. I measured the tap at 6 dGH the other day.

I've got some plants in my tank which are showing signs of Ca deficiency, namely my AR, Golden Nesaea, and even my Compacta Sword. New growth is a little gnarled, and smaller leaves on the stem plants, and the sword leaves aren't a smooth texture, they're a bit wavy. I tested the water, and my GH was 10-11 degrees, which seems a little high to me but I do have some rock in the tank that might be contributing to that. Tap water is a bit softer at around 6. My nitrates are a bit on the high side so I know I need to change the water out. I've also got a pretty big infestation of hair algae that I'm trying to deal with.My tank is a 40b with two Planted+ 24/7 lights that used to be on MAX at 5 hours per day, but just a day ago I dropped it to about 70% with no blue light. I use the PPS Pro method on Auto-Dose, currently at 6mL per day. I'm running CO2, currently trying to dial that in but the drop checker is green.So what do you guys think I'm dealing with? Any input is welcome!

Thanks, Nooby! I have definitely made some trips to The Hoosier State, both for work and an almost annual pilgrimage to the infield of the Brickyard on Memorial Day weekend. Seems that there's a pretty good fish store in Indy as well that I'll need to make my way to. I've had CPDs for a few years, and while they are probably one of the most beautiful fish I've ever kept, they can be very shy. The larger the group the better.

Hi all, Max here. I've got two tanks, a low tech planted 20L in our bedroom with Celestial Pearl Danios, dwarf shrimp, and plenty of snails as well as a high tech planted 40B in the living room with Cardinal Tetras and a mix of Cories (the matriarch is a Bronze Cory, there's two Panda Cories, and six Sterbai Cories) as well as a Nerite and a couple Amano shrimp. Looking forward to picking some brains and sharing my experiences here.