AndEEss

Beet leaf stalks. My snails love them.

Because I don't want to start another thread about things relating to this tank: I'm considering getting a Fluval FX4 for this tank. I've become addicted to how incredibly clear the water in my current setup is, and want to keep that going with the increased bioload of the new fish, snails, etc. However, I have some space restrictions due to the custom stand I am building for it. Does anyone know the height to the top of the FX4 canister, or the highest point on top of the lid, without the AquaStop attachments/hoses?

I'll be ordering plenty of stuff from the Co-Op this winter, but being able to pick up stuff they don't carry is a perk, too.

I don’t know how they get “clogged”; I put a pre-filter sponge on mine and have had zero flow issues. I’m running two 110s, FWIW. Also, I use a piece of graphite window screen material to cover the skimmer section.

A fully grown clown loach might be too much fish for a 6’ tank. They are not small.

My yoyos didn't start eating snails until they were 2.5" long. The best way to get them up to size, quickly (IME) is with mini blood worms. They love them.

Awesome post. Does the bamboo grow roots?

That's what happens to the biggest of my younger yoyo loaches. It gets super swollen on blood worms, then it poops and slims down again. It eats at an alarming rate sometimes. That particular fish is also 8x the size of it's siblings now; twice the length, width and depth, despite them all being more or less the same size when I got them. Its growth rate is amazing. I'll take a picture tonight if I remember.

What was the resolution to this? I have a good number of cory cats that occasionally flash like this. But there are not other apparent problems; everyone appears to be quite healthy. Big appetites, very active, etc.

My cory cats have been laying eggs since about a month after I got them. The peppered in particular, with the bronze/albinos doing a bit of mating as well. I'm fairly certain that my Colombian tetras and yoyo loach are keeping the eggs from becoming fry, and any surviving fry from reaching the juvenile stage.

I’ve had a quarantine tank going for months without any fish in it. Add a pinch of food once or twice a week. Zero ammonia or nitrite, ever.

You could also use a HOB overflow box into (small) sump. With that, the water is always pumping back up to the tank from the pump in the sump, and only enters the sump if water flows over the top of the overflow box's inlet. So, not only do you get additional water volume and filtration, but it automatically keeps your water level stable.

So, you want a Tidal 75 or 110?

Turns out my local Ace Hardware has livestock troughs for the same price as the totes I was considering, and they are obviously designed for holding water and NOT collapsing. So, I'll be going that route for temporary housing purposes.

Ah. That's very good to know. I'd be very sad if the container gave way in the middle of the night. Any other problems with using my "active", fully seeded filters and hardscape materials in a makeshift container? I'd think they would be fine to handle the bioload, right? Shouldn't be any different than normal, aside from the lack of BB on the substrate, etc.

One last question re: tank set up. Between my two tanks, I currently have three HOBs, a cannister and a sponge going. Due to space constraints, the 75g is going to go in the same location as the 36g. So, I have to drain and move the 36g before I can set up the 75g, cycle it, etc. My plan, as of now at least, is to take the fish out of the 36g and put them in a large plastic Tupperware style tote of around 50g. I'll move the water heater, both filters (Fluval 207 and Tidal 110) over. I'll also move all of the rocks and wood. I also add some BB (Fritz Turbo Start) just in case the BB suffer for some reason. Then, I'll take a sponge filter, a used/active HOB and the new Tidal 110 (seeded with one of two Tidal blue sponges currently in it) and get the 75g going with those three, using Fritz Turbo Start and Fritz ammonia. Once fully cycled, I'll slowly transfer fish over. Any holes in my plan?

I'm a bit leery of gouramis as a lot of people say they can be terrors to other fish. And dwarf gouramis seem to commonly have the iridovirus. I have pretty harmonious tanks right now so I'm not sure that I want to disrupt that.

Not sure if mine are an odd group or what, but they seem relatively mellow. They don't really interact with the yoyo, despite it swimming through their shoal while snail hunting, and they don't bother the cory cats if/when they go looking for food on the rocks.

When I bought my 5 panda cory, 2 of them had tiny little nubs for barbels. Same with 1 of my peppered. The LFS had them on that crappy blue gravel stuff. After a month or so on fine sand, all three have a full, glorious mustache again.

Hello all. First topic I've created here. I have a 75g Clear for Life acrylic tank (b/c of 1 year old son who has already learned to throw) on the way. I've got my stand secured and I have two tanks of fish that I'm going to combine into this tank. They currently run the same water parameters and have compatible fish. Tank 1: 20g. 5x Panda cory, 2x peppered cory. Tank 2: 36g bowfront. 7x peppered cory, 5x bronze cory, 1x 4" yoyo loach, 8x Colombian tetra. Tanks are both WAY overfiltered for their size/stocking, but no fish has ever complained about water being too clean, I'd think. My filtration on the 75g, when assembled, will be 2x Tidal 110s, each with prefilter sponge, additional sponges inside the filter and additional biomedia, plus a Fluval 207 stuffed to the gills with sponges and biomedia, and a prefilter sponge. Hardscape: sand bottom, with rocks and driftwood. Plants: I've had anacharis, dwarf hairgrass and hornwort in both of my tanks, and I'm not a fan of how much they shed, particularly the hornwort. Someone has repeatedly dug up one of the sections of hairgrass, too. None of those will be in the new tank. I have anubias, java fern, vallisneria and pogostemon stellatus octopus in there right now. I'm liking what I'm seeing from all of them, and will likely add more of those to fill out the 75g footprint. I'll glue some java moss and anubias to the driftwood, and everything else will be in the sand, fed with root tabs. Per the (rather conservative, I know) calculator from AqAdvisor, I'll be at 374% filtration, 16% water change per week and 62% stocking level. So, naturally, I'd like to get more fish. The first concern is the single, solitary yoyo loach. I haven't seen him actually hurt anyone yet, but he's twice the length of any of my other fish and likes to play "chase the cory cat", perhaps a bit too vigorously; he ends up body checking one of them. So, I'll likely get some more yoyos. But, how many? Some people say they are best kept in odd numbers, some people say 6 is the minimum. Let's say I get 5 more, and they all grow out to 5" long. Still only at 82% stocking, plenty of filtration and less than 25% water change a week (I'd do 25g, minimum, anyways). Next, I want a "centerpiece" fish. Cichlids? A school of Denison barb/redline shark? I want something that can coexist with my current fish, obviously, but the bottom of the tank will be on the crowded side, so that might rule out a couple of Bolivian rams, as I'm not sure that they'll be pumped about the yoyos prowling around for egg snacks. Denison barbs look great, but they are pretty big, and bump my stocking level over 100% if I go with 6 of them. Any suggestions?

What is the plant going from the bottom to the top in your first picture?

Hello! I'm Andy. I've got a 36g bowfront and a 20H that I'm planning on combining into a single 75g that's currently being built. It will have cory cats, yoyo loaches, some tetras and a school of fish yet to be determined.