lmhicks101

Just got mine a few days ago. He’s more black then in the picture. I wanted to call him Stormy since he’s dark and has the blue lightning stripes but little man chose Shadow. He’s feisty and eats everything he sees but so curious and intelligent. Though he has gotten himself stuck upside down when he was exploring the chain swords that are against the glass.

@Beccs410 that’s hilarious you got some today too. Mine have been at the fish store for 2 weeks before I got them to let my new tank cycle and introduce them all slowly. I’m still going to dose the whole tank on Saturday with the trio meds. I love them already. I really thought it would be the khulis I liked more but the Pygmy’s got me. Enjoy you’re little guys.

I got 6 khuli loaches too and I thought they would be super timid and hide too. Yeah half did but the other half just sit up front. When the betta tried his whole biggest in the tank routine, they took it a little while but eventually 2 of them just head butted him and he hasn’t tired that again. I’m really looking forward to seeing this tank grow and mature.

@Guppysnail thank you. I’ll keep an eye out. I turned the lights out and fed them a little brine shrimp. He started leaving them alone a bit ago and only bothers them if they get in his way or get close to him when he’s rooting in plants.

Today I became the proud caretaker of 8 of these little crack fairies and boy was I not ready for that. Let’s start out with the size. First, I had to special order them from my lfs and I was expecting something about an inch. Yeah there’s not even half an inch. I thought oh boy. I’ll lose them in the tank and never see them. That was my first mistake. Second, I thought oh they’ll get along great with my betta and cardinals. Yeah my betta hates them and goes out of his way to make sure they know they’re disrespected. Third, I thought oh they’ll behave and just sit around and eat. Nope. Every 2 minutes one goes up like a ballistic missile breaching the surface from a nuclear attack sub. Fourth, okay I have the equivalent of squirrels in my tank so if they’re moving they’re happy. I come back from class and ones sitting still at the bottom for like 5 minutes with no movement at all. Well crap one died. I go to fish it out next to a very annoying Amazon Flame sword that for some reason decides to have 50 roots all 1/2 inch long so my cardinals could uproot it if they wanted too. I go to fish it out and boy there goes a torpedo. That causes me to slightly tap that damn plant and uproot it for the 7th time this week. Fifth, I finally got to sit and watch them and they’re kinda interesting. They hover in place and all their fins go crazy and from an angle they look like little fairies. Fingers crossed I still have them in the morning. ps: the pics the best I could get with them flying around.

@Fish Folk & @Colu Thank you very much

Hello, I’m sorry if this was already discussed but I searched and couldn’t find anything related online or on here. I’m doing a fish in cycle and using stability and I’m on the 3rd day. Do I also dose with Prime? No signs of distress and this is a heavily planted 29 gallon. Started cycling 12 days ago with no fish but got and no nitrites yet other then .25 the first day after adding Stability. Used fritz zone before and filter sponge water from the local store and nothings happened. Since adding stability the ammonia has gone from 2 to 1 then back to 1.5 Water Ammonia - 1.5 Nitrites - 0 Nitrates - 5-10 pH - 6.6 GH - 6-7 KH - 2 fish Cardinals - 19 Betta - 1

What is this white filmy stuff and this white puffy stuff and is it okay for my fish? I’m in the middle of cycling with fish in. I just added seachem stability yesterday and today. I’ve been trying regular cycling before but nothing. The tanks heavily planted and has fluvial stratum. HOB filter and sponge filter. This has been building up for a few days. I did try food in cycling and it took forever to rot and finally had to suck it all out. As well as with the stability I’m on day 2 of broad medicating with the trio from co-op. 29 gallon with 19 cardinals and 1 betta. water ammonia - 1 ph - 6.6 nitrite - 0 nitrate - 5-10 gh - 6-7 kh - 2

Is the Aqueon Aquarium Black 30" Fluorescent bulb considered medium or low light? Aqueon Aquarium Black 30" Fluorescent Deluxe Full Hood | Petco

@lefty o I appreciate it. Thank you. Should I just cut the leaves off at the base or wait a bit?

I'm currently cycling my first tank. Messed around with the who Fritz ammonia and fritz zyme 7 and after 11 days I not a bit of Nitrites. I even had food and stuff in there but started over yesterday with a water change and put some cardinals and Sea Chem Stability. Already have a little Nitrite action.

West Virginia

@lefty o I have a question about my red flame melon sword. It's longer leaves are yellowing at the edges. This plant was in the stores aquarium for probably a few months. Should I just let go for a week and see what else turns yellow or dose it with some iron. Just got it the other day so no new growth to see if they turn yellow as well and nothing else in the tank is yellow. All these plants came out of the same tank at the store.

@lefty o I put them in before I thought I was going to get more plants. Definitely will next time though. What am I monitoring in my tests? I’m guessing I need to get a test just for iron?

@Hayleythank you for that. I started out with just a sword, the 2 Wendtii on the right and the chain at the bottom but every time I go to my local shop I stop and get another plant. Finally said screw it and moved my plants around to make the most room and filled every inch I could while still give room for them to go. I told the guy at the store I was done and he just laughed and said we’ll see. Here’s the progress pics of my tank to what it is now.

I have a 29 gallon non fully cycled tank with the plants below. I got Seachem flourish for free so I'm dosing it to the tank size once a week. I now have some red plants and wanted to make sure using prime and flourish with easy Iron would be safe. I also use root tabs. I have 3 on each side of the tank spaced out, so 6 total in it. I'm also getting a GH and KH API test kit in the mail tomorrow as the tetra strips don't seem right. I currently have 6 cardinals in the tank for a fish in cycle and double dosing with prime every 48 hours and no water changes. This is my 11th day cycling the tank and 4th with fish in. My substrate is half gravel and half Fluval Stratum. Water Ammonia - 2 Nitrites - 2 Nitrates - 5-10 - same as tap pH - 6.6 Temp - 76 GH - 75 Kh - 0 Plants Lobelia Cardinalis x3 Narrow leaf Chain Sword x2 Spiralis x2 Java moss x2 Anacharis x2 Normal Amazon Sword Flame Amazon Sword Red Melon Sword Bronze Wendtii Green Wendtii Red Wendtii Stocking 1 Beta 12 Cardinals - 6 in already 6 Harlequin Rasboras 8 Pygmy Cories 6 Khuli Loaches 1 Borneo loach Snails for days

So I got the fish and will dose with prime. I’ve been told that every dose of prime negates 1ppm of ammonia. My tank is at 2 so I’m double dipping. It lasts 24-72 hours. After 24 hours do I do a water change or dose again until I see nitrites and the. Nothing but nitrates? Also got another cardinal plant and leaving it in the rock wool as none of the plants suggested here are at my store. Current water tests ammonia - 2 ppm Nitrite - 0 ppm Nitrates - 10 ppm - went up 5 pH - 6.8 - went up .2

Thank you everyone for the help. Fingers crossed the fish make it and the tank thrives just fine. I’m making as may hiding spots as possible to get the Khulis to come out more. Not gonna lie they’re probably gonna be my favorite if they’re active.

Is the food supposed to look like that when breaking down or is this the bad bacteria from the chicken?

@laritheloud would 12 cardinals with 6 harlequins for schooling. 4 pygmies, 1 Borneo hillstream, 3 Khuli, and 1 beta? I love odd ball fish so that’s why I have the loaches. Also someone told me to get rid of the carbon filter and just load more media. Should I?

@Intuos thank you. How do you get the cardinals to get bushy? I hope I didn’t plant it to close to the swords.

I went to the store and got a couple small pieces of Anacharis and a lobelia cardinalis as everything else you guys suggested they didn’t have. After testing again I got the following. pH - 6.6 Ammonia - 1.5 even though it was a 2 this morning Nitrite - 0 Nitrates - 5 The fish came in today so I paid for them and the owner is going to keep them for a couple weeks but I’m going to bring home 6 cardinals as they’re tiny right now and dose with prime each day and not change the water. There’s plenty of food at the bottom for them to eat so not gonna feed them for a week. I also got a large bag of old filter water again and poured into the filter again. Fingers crossed

@Intuos what plants would you suggest? I got some root tabs to put in last night. The tank has a bottom layer of gravel then a layer of soil then gravel on top in some areas.

@Odd Duck I appreciate the advise. I had already took out most of the chicken but had a tiny piece still floating around and just took it out. I tested this morning and I’m still at 1 ppm ammonia and no nitrite so I put some more fish food in and dosed 1ppm with of the fishless fuel. I think you’re right about the chicken not helping and was kinda worried about the ammonia being high but no nitrites yet. I didn’t think it was the plants that was doing anything. @Guppysnail thank you for the link. I picked up Ich-x, paraclense, and maracyn from the shop. Should be getting it today or tomorrow. I’m having the fish store hold the other fish for my for at least a week and quarantine them and I’ll dose them again when I get them.

I just set up my 29 gallon fresh water tank 7 days ago. My current water parameters are below. I currently have half gravel and half Fluval Stratum. I'm using the API master test kit and Tetra strips to monitor everyday before and after water changes. This tank is planted as well and I'm getting the below fish. Besides lowering my ammonia to below .25 what else needs to be done with this tank? I'm planning on stocking 12 Cardinals on Wednesday and feeding them after 4 days then waiting a week then feeding them again then twice the next week and so on until each day. I will be getting the other fish the following week or so as I had to special order all these fish because the local stores only do Cichlids and a few others I don't want and Petco doesn't have them either. I plan to water change every day and treat fully with Prime. The plants are doing great and no issues I see. I have the 3 snails in it already since day 2. I seeded the tank with Fritz fishless fuel and Fritzyme 700 on the first day and then got filter sponge water from a koi tank at the local fish store the next day and added a few small pieces of raw chicken that I just took out today. The tank topped at 5 ppm ammonia but never touched any Nitrite or raised the Nitrate. I just started doing 50% water changes yesterday and today and dropped it from 5 ppm ammonia to 1.5. Today it got to 2 ppm and I changed and its at 1ppm. I'm also using Prime at every change a little over the normal dose. On day 3 or 4, I did clean the filter and sponge out in a bucket of tank water just to get the mass amount of dirt from the substrate out and then put them back and I left the tank light on from day 3-5 24/7 to try and get allege and left the window blind open as well but none grew so I went back to 12-14 hours of light. This tank is for my son's birthday and was a last minute idea as we just went to the aquarium and he absolutely loved them and is so excited for this tank. Otherwise I would of done this the right way and let the tank cycle over several weeks before stocking anything. Tank pH - 6.6 Ammonia - 1 ppm Nitrite - 0 ppm Nitrate - 5 ppm GH - 75 KH - below 20 Temp - 76-78 Tap pH - 7 Ammonia - 0 Nitrite - 0 Nitrate 5 GH - 150 KH - 30-40 Fish 12 Cardinals 6 Rummies 6 Harlequins 3 Pygmy Corries 3 Khuli loaches 2 Hillstream loaches 3 Nerite Snails Plants 1 medium Amazon Sword 1 small Flame Sword 1 medium Narrow leaf chain sword with 2 off shoots I replanted 1 Bronze Wendtii 1 Green Wendtii 2 small cups of Java moss split into 4-5 patches Filter 1 medium sponge air filter 1 Aqueon QuietFlow LED PRO 20 with a sponge over the intake 1 Fluval small bio ball in the filter 1 small Fluval polishing pad cut up to fit in the filter 1 Carbon filter that came with the filter