Ryan S.

Thanks for the advice on both topics. This is the setup I am starting out with. Went ahead and pulled the Pothos as I want to monitor levels without it for awhile. Those can easily go into my fish room tanks. Heres to hoping for success!

Green Phantom was going to be my first suggestion, but since that is taken, I'll follow it up with golden nugget pleco as one that I've always wanted to try. Super cool!

Best I have ever found are yoyo loaches. Those things are snail hunters the likes of which I have never seen. They cleared out my entire display tank of snails. It was glorious. I then put one in a 40 gallon breeder with a TON of ramshorns and they completely took out the entire population in a matter of a week. Not sure how shrimp safe they are though, I have had them with smaller fish and they don't seem to bother them at all, but I haven't done shrimp yet.

I will say after keeping Neos for a couple of years now. It took me finally keeping them on their own with zero fish to finally have that shrimp explosion. I could def get babies with some fish in the tank (rock pile and some heavy cover spots allow for this, but you don't realize how many are likely getting picked off until you try them in their own tank. I will second the comment above about having a mature aquarium. That is very important as well. The third and final thing I'll mention is when I had them in a tank with a substantial snail population, they never did as well as I thought they would. They would reproduce and expand, but never quite thrived. I once saw someone say that while they can easily co-exist, its tough for both populations to thrive together. In the breeding set up I have now, they are many snails, but I would say the shrimp are thriving and the snails are just kind of getting by. I don't know if there is anything to it or not, but I think my ideal setup now if possible would be only with nerites or mystery snails where I could easily control the snail population. Good luck!

This has all been very helpful. Sounds like I may just need to start out at least without the pothos as a part of my plans and then monitor and adjust from there if I think the tank can handle it. I'd rather my plants in the tank get what they need then add to the cool roots effect I was going for. Thank you everyone for the info.... greatly appreciated.

Yeah, good clarification. I am taking the fish out and will house them in my fish room while this is getting established so no worries there. Was just trying to get an idea of how long I should expect. I'm used to doing things pretty quickly with seeded media being available, but figured this might be different. Luckily I don't need to rush things so that is good info. I will just keep my test strips handy and let it do its thing. Hopefully without a crazy amount of algae. I haven't pulled the trigger on going full CO2, but maybe thats where I end up if I cant get things going like I want them too. Thanks for the info!

Starting a new aquascaped aquarium in my main room. Trying active substrate for the first time. For the scape I'm planning a tree root thing in the corner and was planning on using the Pothos roots I currently already have in the tank as part of it. My question is... Will Pothos out compete my plants for the water column ferts? I haven't made the change to the tank yet but currently the Pothos pretty much keeps nitrates at zero but I'm not dosing anything, only about 20 dwarf rainbows and a bristlenose pleco in there. My question on active substrate. I have heard when putting in an active substrate it can take awhile for the cycle to really set in. I am using stratum. Is this still true if I'm able to put my two seeded filters on the tank after? I assume this would help speed up the process but since I haven't done active substrate before, was curious. I'll be monitoring it close and there is no rush.

I just started a similar multi tank in November with 4 from a fish auction. I think I had 3 males and one female. I've got them in a 20 and got my first set of babies after about 2 months. Takes awhile to see them cause they hide so well when young. BBS and micro worms are my live food, then I do a good mix of frozen and dry flake and pellets. Been fun and easy so far. Good luck!!

Couple of things I'll mention that gave me great bang for the buck in my fish room. I make my own sliding glass lids. This is the way to do it if you are having your tank viewing on end. Check out fish boys video on how to make it. If viewing normal I would do the poly as mentioned. If heating the room isn't an option. Look into using heat tape in lieu of individual heaters. That's what I use and it works great for my rack. Check out hoon aquatics for a video explaining it. For lighting I used barrina led t5 48 inch 6500k fixtures. Got 8 for like $55 on Amazon. Super bright, easy to hang and link together. Growing plants like crazy.

Good questions - the tank is filtered by air and has a medium co-op sponge filter and a ziss bubble bio ball filter in addition to plant load so essentially had two airstones going at a pretty high level the whole time. The tank is heated by reptile heat tape which is below the tanks on the rack so no electrical component within the tank. Tank did get some new additions from my local club fish auction about a month prior. 3 additional juvenile rainbows (2.5inch) from same breeder I got the first batch from and a male calico bristlenose pleco (3 inch), but I had kept a pretty close eye on them since I didn't quarantine and there weren't any visible signs of issues with these fish, but I suppose something could have happened fast to one of them. Good news is the 5 cories that survived seem to be doing well. I'm wondering the same thing. I really thought the plant load was so heavy that it would balance out if one fish died, but now the poster above who mentioned oxygen level going low due to a decaying fish makes me think that one of the larger fish dying could have done it.

Yeah I could see a similar scenario. Only thing that makes sense. Thanks for the input! Just a bummer.

Hello all, Looking for some help identifying what may have gone wrong. Just got back from vacation and one of my larger tanks lost almost everything. Here are the details. Lost 2 electric blue acaras, two panda Garra, 6 bosemani rainbow fish and two bristlenose plecos. Surviving were 5 of 6 corydoras. I was gone a full week. Fish looked like they had been dead for awhile, at least 24 hours. Only food was 2 nano banquet ball things. Tank is heavily planted with floaters (broad leaf water Sprite) and is seasoned. Tank parameters were solid. No ammonia, nitrite, low nitrate. No ph crash. I found this to be the most perplexing part as this test was done while fish were still in the water. Temp was 76 degrees normal. All other tanks on the rack were fine with no casualties using the same banquet feeding things. I doubt if my cycle crashed it would have recovered already? Could have been a sick fish I guess or the banquet ball thing.... I'm at a loss. Any thoughts?

My original tank was a bow front and I've still got it running. I don't mind them and think they work well. Only issue is cleaning the glass on the front with a scraper is a pain but that's a small thing.

I breed BN plecos and Kribs in a 36 gallon with no issue. Good to have a lot of cover/areas for the fish to go, but its definitely possible.

Pretty sure this is what dean uses. He paints them white.