AndEEss

I put a suction-cup thermometer on each end of my 75g when I do water changes and keep my powerhead going. The circulation helps get uniform dispersion and I'm able to watch the temperature for any variations when I'm changing the water. Maybe I'm weird, but I pull water out via a siphon at the same time as I'm putting it in via a Python from my sink. I add Prime before and during the water change. My siphon is basically a 2' piece of PVC with an end cap, drilled with a bunch of 1/8" holes just above the end cap, with a ball valve on it at the top, and 5/8" vinyl tubing which heads out my front door and down to my lawn. Fish can't sucked in or stuck to it, but poop can be sucked in just fine. The end cap keeps it from going into the sand or sucking any of it up.

Where did you order your isopods?

Ah. I didn't see that you are running a cannister in addition to sponges. In that case, here's some light reading for you, re: reactors. Reactors are far, far more efficient than diffusers in terms of dissolving CO2 and using less of it to achieve more. https://www.plantedtank.net/threads/critique-my-cerges-please.1316811/

I think you'll get better results with the CO2 if you get a powerhead to generate some current and move it around the tank. Otherwise it's going straight up and out of the water column.

I ordered a dozen about 18 months ago. 10 survived the trip. Of those 10, 1 is still with me. However, they've reproduced enough that I'm now at 20-25+ juveniles/sub-adults. I have them in my 75g and quarantine tank. They seem to like eating the BBA that grows on the large rock in my hardscape.

Yep. You’ve got it. Even after a cleaning (I just squeeze once in bucket of aquarium water), the bacteria will repopulate the sponge on its own, very quickly.

Your BB mostly exist on filter media and surfaces in the aquarium. Not in the water column. TLDR version: not worth it.

You basically have no source of ammonia. What little ammonia the snails produce is almost certainly taken up by the plants. Add a real (2ppm+) concentration of ammonia. Otherwise this will take forever.

Want to sell an FX4? Asking for a friend...

Blue eyed/Lamp eye congo tetras?

Please don’t do fish-in cycling.

Huh? It appears they are trying to crack down on trade of animals that are (already) illegal to own or sell.

How about some equipment names? Or any other details. Or pictures. I have no clue what you are talking about.

Interesting tool. Seems to verify my own work. I recently built a stand out of hickory, with 7/8” x 6” aprons, spanning 39” between legs. Ends of the aprons are glued up using bridle joints, to 2 5/8” square legs. Everything else is 7/8” x 3”, except the feet, which are 3x3”. When I put the top on it (Ash, 25x50x1.5”), there was a tiny gap between the top and the aprons. Fraction of a millimeter. To my surprise, despite ~800lbs of water, stone and sand, the top hasn’t even sagged enough to come into contact with the apron.

The big footprint Euro rimless tanks. 120S, 120U, 150U. I like the basic 75, too.

First and foremost, a Penn Plax 1500 is rated at 350gph. Which means that, when accounting for head and resistance due to filter material, it's pushing about half that. So, at best, 200gph. That's below the level of many HOBs. Also, that flow rate won't prevent BB from growing on your media; I don't know that that's even possible or a legitimate problem or concern.. Plenty of people use FX6s with 2-3x the flow rate. When did you first start adding ammonia and BB to your tank?

My peppered have far and away the most sexual dimorphism of any of the cory species I have (peppered, bronze, panda). I'd estimate that the females are 3-4x the weight of the males. I haven't had any babies yet, though, despite hundreds of eggs. The loaches and tetras take care of that, I'm guessing.

Mid-height (~16"), large footprint, low-iron rimless tanks. Everything out there is either low (120S) or high (120U). I want something in between with the ~4ftx2ft footprint.

Mid-height (~16" or so), large footprint (48x24) rimless, low-iron aquariums.

Are your nitrates 0 or 20ppm? It can't be both.

My 75 is set up with some large rocks, big Val (some are approaching 3ft long now), two pieces of large driftwood and a powerhead on one end to simulate a river current. I have: 9 peppered cory 7 panda cory 5 bronze cory 6 yoyo loaches 8 Colombian tetra 8 Rummynose tetra My intent was to make a biotope-ish tank, but the yoyos kind of throw that off, obviously. I'm pretty pleased with it, though.

Don’t use salt with scaleless fish.

Standard cory catfish behavior. Now, if they are doing it very frequently, that could mean you have poor oxygenation/turnover.

Unless it's a bristlenose, no, a normal pleco will rapidly outgrow a 29 gallon. Re: cycling, Gannon's post is pretty spot on. I'd just add that a liquid testing kit is better than test strips. Don't be afraid to run two or three Ammonia or Nitrite tests simultaneously; nothing worse than getting an inaccurate result that makes you think you're at 0 ammonia or 0 nitrite when you really aren't quite there yet.

I have 6 yoyo loaches of various ages. All of them, when young, would gorge until they looked like they were about to burst. They grow out of that behavior with age, but it's something to keep an eye on.