meadeam

ok, so mine do all of those things. And I do pick them up and check from time to time, making sure they retreat into their shell when touched. I'm going to clean and rearrange their living space today, I will check them all. Some need the algae cleaned off the shells; I leave the lights on too long and since it isn't a display tank I let the algae get a little crazy.

Sometimes my snails are roaming about the tank. Sometimes they have their doors closed tight. Sometimes they are not roaming or feeding, but just sort of laying there on their side, part way out of the shell, but not doing anything. Do any of these various dispositions mean something, or is it just snails being snails? I hope the laying around not doing anything snails are not ill.

Side note, but I'm always fascinated by the filtration, aeration, lighting, CO2 injection and auto-change systems on aquariums. I would love to build a large, naturalistic, biotope inspired tank with all of the systems visible but very neatly and attractively done. The contrast of nature and technology/engineering is so interesting to me.

I have a 20 long on an Ikea bookshelf 🤫. I glued and screwed on a pine top, and reinforced it with 4 steel corner brackets glued and screwed to the sides, top, and bottom. The material is plastic skinned, hollow-core honey-comb design. I used sheet metal screws and Gorilla Glue on the brackets. There is absolutely no movement on any axis. It's like a single piece of material. That said, Ikea furniture is not synonymous with strength. I like the piece though, and for the amount of weight on it I think the modifications are more than adequate. If I ever replace it, I may destroy it to see how strong it actually was. Note the construction in the background... that room will house a 5 foot 120 gallon tank. I can't really put a 6 foot tank where I want it, or I'd go larger. I'll be building a proper stand for that one!

I think anything that will eat small fry will probably eat small shrimp. Then again, I am often surprised. I don't have a UPS, just a fancy power strip with some wifi enabled plugs for scheduled remote control of air and CO2. In addition to the canister, I have a sponge filter running on a cycle alternating with the CO2. In a power outage, I drive the sponge filter with a USB pump hooked up to a power brick that will last a few days. If the power is out for that long, I may lose the bacteria in the canister, but at least the sponge will stay alive. I have one running in all tanks, regardless of primary filtration. I need more power bricks though. As for heat in an outage, I don't have a great solution. I need a space heater that doesn't run on electricity. I am currently planning on adding solar and auxiliary battery storage to my house though. When I do that, I may also add ambient wall heat. Not just for the fish, but it would handle that use case.

I love a tank that is absolutely teaming with life, and this one is full. I need to trim some of the stems and find a new home for a lot of them. I planted a tiger lotus and dwarf lily to0 close to each other, and they're likely too intertwined to separate now or else I'd move the lotus probably. As for fish, I'm still in the process of separating my hard and soft water fish. The tetras are joining their cousins in a blackwater tank I started up a few weeks ago. The rasboras will go into a different tank with the cories, and maybe the pleco. I haven't seen the pleco in months; she is in a hollow piece of driftwood that is completely consumed by plants and covered in java moss. This tank is currently pH 7.2 and GH of 12. Good for mollies and snails, but could be better. My soft water tank is pH 6.5 and GH of 2, so better for the tetras. I'm planning another tank that will be soft-ish water as well. And I've got to start separating the mollies! I have 11 adults, at least 12 of their first batch of babies, and probably that many of their second batch. I am sure there is a third batch I haven't seen yet. I think the big adults have eaten some, and I don't see as many shrimplets as I used to. Still a ton of adult shrimps though. I think I'll move the shrimp and leave the culls with the mollies. So many things to do out of this one tank! I am still avoiding catch the fish that I have to move, but sooner or later it has to happen. Oh, the snails... there are 10 of them in there somewhere. 9 adults, and a blue baby that managed to hatch in spite of the fact I have been removing eggs. And probably 100 various hitch hiker snails. I have to feed this tank a ton to make sure enough gets past the mollies. The upside of that is no added fertilizer necessary, but water changes every 5 days to keep the nitrates at bay.

Obviously a Bristlenose Pleco, it says so right on the tank. 🤪

Roger dodger. Did >=33% water change and dosed ich-x according to bottle. Will repeat at 24hr intervals.

If I'm following the med trio procedure, and on the 3rd day after adding meds find what looks very clearly to be ich on a few fish, should I stop the med trio plan and start treating specifically for ich, or continue on the original plan and leave the trio in the water for several more days before changing?

I know I've lost fish that I never found in my most heavily planted tank. Once I found a deceased black neon completely covered in tiny snails and shrimp, almost totally consumed by the time I noticed it missing. Those bottom feeders earn their keep.

This snail somehow managed to stay in the tank and hatch when I had been removing all of the eggs. I did hatch one clutch in an incubator, and they are currently in a snail-only tank awaiting re-homing, or to go into another of my tanks. This guy is at least 3X the size of his clutch mates; apparently this tank has been good to him. He is also one of very, very few who aren't golden, the dominant variety of all of my snails.

I've got them all over the place. this particular tank is fairly new, but I put in some plants from a long established tank. I don't mind them at all. In another tank I recently found a baby mystery snail which is odd because I have been removing all of the eggs, and the only clutch I hatched I incubated in an entirely different tank. So this one snail egg managed to stay behind and hatch. I do hope to breed some egg layers who aren't snails someday.

rats. Just what I didn't want. oh well, they don't hurt anything. I liked to think my fish were laying eggs though.

Top are on the uplift tube, lower on the glass. I've seen these in another tank that contains black neons, and harlequin rasbora. I wonder if I could try to hatch them eventually, or if they are even fish eggs?

I never thought I'd be interested in "making" water, but I'm starting down that path. My fish are doing great without it, it's just more a desire on my part to get closer to whatever version of perfect I have in my head. It is a hobby after all, so we embrace the parts of it that we enjoy doing. If that means constructing water, then that's fine. The only exception would be if you were keeping fish that just can't thrive at all in your tap water which doesn't seem to be the case.

Hooking this up is going to be more involved than I originally hoped... but isn't everything? I'm actually reconsidering plans for the 120 gallon tank I plan to put in a room addition that is going on my house right now. I'd planned on an Amazon biotope inspired tank, but my water doesn't favor it. We'll see how challenging the 20 long is to soften/acidify. I may have to opt for harder water fish in the 120.

Very interesting. If my needs for softer water grow I will consider this an option.

I didn't read all the responses, but a text search didn't turn up Magnifying Glass. I like having one nearby to look at things in a specimen container, or sometimes on the tank glass.

yeah, I hate to waste it as well. Definitely will water some plants but even in the summer months I will have more than I can use. My GH is so high there aren't may fish I could keep that would want it mixed in with their water. They'd have to grow legs and walk on it.

Do you find yourself overrun with wastewater, or are you able to put it to use? I intend to save the waste water for plants, but I don't have enough for the amount I will likely generate. Maybe in the summer months for watering outdoor containers, but definitely not in the winter. I'm not going to use a ton of RO water. I currently have a 20 long that is converting to blackwater, and I've started mixing in distilled, but will soon be using my newly purchased RO filter. I've cut the GH in the tank by half from my tap, from 14 down to 7. KH has been halved as well, down to 2.

I may place mine behind a medium sponge with a power head. The LED will not distract from the main viewing angle, and flow around the heater will be less of a concern.

Mine partially exists... I would like the Aquarium Coop Heater to either A) Have the temperature readout on the remote, or B) Program the readout to turn off after a set period of time until the button is pressed again. I really like the heater and will be using them, but I don't like the readout to be lit 24/7. I just have to position mine to be hidden from the primary viewing angle.

There is no intake ala HOB or canister. It's an internal filter that fits tight in the corner, but not so tight that a small fish can't wriggle between the filter and the glass. It's really very thin clearance; maybe a few millimeters. It is Seemingly too tight for anything small enough to get in without being able to get out. But fish find a way to to get stuck. Photo is not my tank, but another user illustrating the problem.

It is disappointing to have spent money on a filter that I now know cannot be used with fry, or smaller nano fish. I think some full-grown smaller fish would be ok. I could stuff the back of the filter with filter floss, but I think that would impede the intended flow considering the internal heater. It is a shame because I do like the design of the filter. When I have some larger fish in a tank that will never contain fry, shrimp, or small fish I may be able to use it again.

I started a new tank a few weeks ago. It's a 20 long in which I'll be experimenting with blackwater. I started it up with pre-cycled media including bio-rings, course sponge, fine sponge, and because I like to run air in all of my tanks regardless of filtration, an ACO nano sponge filter. The rings and sponge I loaded into a newly purchased Oase Bioplus thermo. I admit to being a sucker for clever design, and the all-in-oneness of this particular filter. Residents include 6 mid-size julli cories, and a mixed batch of a dozen neons and green neons. It had crossed my mind that a small fish could get behind the Bioplus filter, but I think I liked the design so much and wanted it to work so badly that I ignored that voice. I hadn't read any reviews that included fish getting stuck behind the filter, but I may have been unconsciously selective in my reading as well. It's been a couple weeks that the tank has been running. The cories have been glass surfing a lot as cories sometimes do in a new tank. I'd been in the habit of counting fish each time I walk past (tank is in the dining/kitchen) and this morning there weren't enough fish. I got the flashlight and started looking closer and sure enough to my horror I saw two cories trapped behind the filter. I quickly and carefully pulled the filter to release them. A trapped neon emerged as well. I cursed myself for wanting that filter to work so badly that I ignored an obvious design flaw (or the directions, as I rarely RTFM). As of now the cories are all swimming, and the neon is probably not going to make it. Each time I am sure he is dead and I approach with the net, he starts swimming again. I submerged the cursed filter in a snail tank to keep the media alive while I decide what to do. In the 20 Long I removed it from I have the nano sponge that has always been there, and a small sponge that had been running in another tank for several weeks. I know this probably isn't enough, and the tank will re-cycle. I have a cheapo HOB that I could load with the media from the from the evil fish killing bioplus while I decide what the ultimate solution is. For heat in the 20 Long (the heater left with the cursed filter) I happen to have an ACO heater I put straight in. This may mark my switch to air-driven filtration exclusively. I have ACO sponges running as secondary in every tank anyway, so I'd just add another to each, or perhaps upsize the sponges as well.