Rube_Goldfish

Up until I'd read the part on A Brief History of Prime (you know, two days ago) I would have said the same thing about the oxygen depletion!

My family knows that fish shouldn't be an impulse purchase, but they said they couldn't resist this no-filter, no-heater nano tank for my desktop. I know it's overstocked, but the bioload is very manageable!

@Irene 's video is great, and I can also recommend @Cory 's: How about placing the HOB on one if the sides? I've never tried it but I know @nabokovfan87 is a HOB-side-placement partisan.

I think it's useful for beginners, who don't have any frame of reference and also often have a tendency to want to both overstock a tank and put incompatible fish in it. I also still use it to double-check things like temperature and parameter compatibility. Like any tool, it's all in how you use it, but it's nice to hedge against overlooking something.

I second the Imagitarium recommendation. I used a 2:1 ratio of Aztec Bronze:Nutmeg (which is slightly coarser) but only because the Petco I was in had a buy-two-get-one-free sale and only two bags of Aztec Bronze. Anyway, I have had no real issues planting anything in it except that the cories sometimes disagree with my placement! (Photo is from the side of the tank to more clearly show coloration.)

I know this isn't the point of the thread, but if I may, @dasaltemelosguy just posted "A Brief History of Prime" that contained this: "A normal dose of Prime® reduces O2 by about 0.5 PPM yet returns to full oxygen saturation in only 15 minutes (or a full 4 hours with Prime®’s 5X Emergency Dose): From LOW O2 - Diseases - C.A.R.E. (aquariumcoop.com)" I assume that the API dechlorinator is similar enough that if you're using the recommended amount and using an airstone, you'd likely not have to worry about dissolved oxygen. If what you're doing is working, by all means keep at it (if it ain't broke, don't fix it) but I thought I'd point it out.

Thanks. I have no actual evidence that any of the apistos killed the oto, or indeed any real evidence that the oto was killed. I thought I saw a red spot/wound on its body, but I don't really know for sure. I was speculating because the addition of the apistos has been the only change for the last couple weeks, and the other five are totally normal. The apistos were actually ignoring the body, and they mostly ignore all the non-apisto fish and invertebrates in the tank. I don't know if they've spawned, though this is all new to me so I guess it's possible. I put two ACO apisto caves in the tank and one of the females quickly claimed and spends most of her day in and around it, but she's never gotten any yellow coloration and I've definitely not seen any fry or anything. So I guess we'll see, and I'll just have to hope the derpy fish learn to stay away from the caves. I've got backup plans, just in case.

Huh, that's really something. If the microbes aren't eating the ammonia, and the plants aren't eating it,* and you're not removing a significant amount via water changes, then I wonder what's happening to it. That seems like a low stocking, which I guess helps, but my layman's understanding is that it would only slow down accumulation, not eliminate it. My next guess would be either that the conventional wisdom about low pH harming a biofilter is incorrect or overblown or that there are other acid-loving nitrifying microbes. But obviously I don't have the wherewithal to test that either way. The mystery continues! Thanks for testing and reporting back! *I'm assuming that a single Anubias isn't consuming enough ammonia to account for it, but maybe if it's big enough? But no, they're slow-growing plants, so I doubt it.

Thanks @Fish Folk , @Odd Duck , @Andy's Fish Den ! I missed my local club's auction for January, so I'll have to see if I can get there in February.

If it works, it works! I'll be curious to see the results of your ammonia test, but I'm guessing it'll be low somehow. Or maybe at that low pH it's all ammonium and no big deal? Life, uh, finds a way!

I thought I'd heard that nitrifying bacteria/archaea can't work as a biofilter below something like 5.0 pH. I don't know if they're supposedly dead at that acidity or dormant or just metabolize too slowly to be an effective biofilter, but if that's the case, how do you prevent ammonia build up at 4.6? Just frequent water changes? Will plants grow at that level?

By "check on them at night" do you mean shine a flashlight in the tank after the light goes out?

I've de-potted and planted right away and I've let them sit in water in the pots for a couple days until I had time to plant, and I've never noticed a difference either way in plant growth or melt. I'd say it doesn't seem to matter.

Like a bisected cholla wood log!

Any advice for a first time attendee/bidder? I've never been to any auction before, let alone a fish club auction.

Well, i just found an Otocinclus dead (all six otos had been home from my LFS for about two months and in the 55 gallon for about a month; the other five are just fine). I'm no fish coroner but I don't see any obvious signs of illness. It looks like there might be some kind of wound on its body, but I'm not really confident in stating that. Anyway, can an apisto kill an oto? Would it? They've got about the same body size. Adding the apistos six days ago is the only recent change the tank has had, though I know that might be coincidental.

I have what look like super small white sesame seeds scooting around on the glass and substrate in a tank that no longer has any animals bigger than small bladder snails (that is, nothing is eating them). After some anxious research, I think I've concluded that they are rhabdocoela, a harmless flatworm. Do yours look like that? Does your fish show any signs of distress? Has she noticed them at all? @cinnanoodles , @Colu For copepods/amphipods, can you actually see the body segments or antennae or anything with the naked eye?

It looks like, yes, crustacean blood is copper-based hemocyanin rather than iron-based hemoglobin: "There are three components that can be present in crustacean blood, including (1) hemolymph – ‘colorless’ blood that is nutrient carrier component of blood; it also may carry some oxygen, and is involved in clotting; (2) hemocyanin – a true copper-based pigment that carries oxygen found in developed Crustacea; (3) and hemoglobin – a true iron-based pigment found in underdeveloped Crustacea. Most species have hemocyanin in their blood (Joel, 2013; Urich, 1994)." https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/crustacea

Their blood is based on copper instead of iron, right?

Since I upgraded my humble 10 gallon community tank to a 55 gallon, I now have a planted, stable, 18-month old tank with no fish or shrimp in it. I'd like to re-set it for either caridina or neocaridina shrimp. I first set it up with plastic plants and campy decorations, which I still like, in their own way, but my tastes and the tank have evolved a lot over that time to the planted nature style, and I have a vision of how I'd like to re-scape and re-plant it for its new life. I know the importance of Seasoned Tank Time, though, and would like to preserve as much of that maturity as possible. Specifically, the last bit I'd like to remove from the tank is this coarse blue gravel (the brown gravel would stay, and I have new, finer, matching gravel to replace the blue: Petco Imagitarium Aztec Bronze and Nutmeg). But I see a lot of accumulated mulm and detritus under the gravel, along with robust populations of detritus worms and what I think are rhabdocoela. I see that as free fertilizer and an established microecosytem and would also like to preserve as much as I can, along with keeping as much of it out of the water column as possible. My plan is to gently uproot the plants to a bucket, take the water level down to right about the level of the gravel, scoop out the blue gravel, backfill the new gravel in its place, slope the whole substrate, then re-scape, re-plant, and gently refill the tank. So my questions are, I guess, am I over thinking this? Is there a better way? Am I overly optimistic that this process won't be too disruptive? And since I know that shrimp love stable, mature environments, how long after the this reboot would I need to run the tank before I could consider it seasoned enough to add shrimp? Last question: any idea how to upload photos that aren't upside down?

I think hanging lights might be the way to go. Especially with low light plants like Java fern, you wouldn't even need a light bar or light strip. You can hang two or three fairly cheap, bright LED shop lights. See the 1:36 mark of this MD Fishtanks build video to see what I mean:

The answer will depend, of course, on your planting and stocking levels. I'd heed the low-flow warnings across such a long tank, though, unless that's what you're trying for. Generally, though, some disadvantages of two HOBs are increased cost to buy and run them (though in such a big tank it's likely to be a negligible increase), and increased "stuff" sticking into your tank. Advantages, though, would include the chance to clean only one filter at a time to minimize the impact on your biofilter, to have redundancy in the event of mechanical failure, and greater opportunity to increase customize your media. For example, you can run one with an emphasis on biofiltration and the other could be nothing but mechanical filtration/water polishing.

If I'm remembering my Walstad correctly, plants actually prefer ammonia to nitrates as a source of nitrogen, but there does reach a point of toxicity. So their presence, once they settle in, will directly bring your ammonia down, too.

At my LFS, you can special order fish in and then pick them up when they arrive. Yours might do the same.

If there is a Lowe's near you, they have in their landscaping section "Brown Garden Rock" and "Gray Garden Rock" that look to my eyes like dragon stone and seiryu/ryouh stone, respectively, at 44 pounds for about $150, with free in-store pickup. My LFS charges $3 per pound, so it's not any cheaper, and I'm assuming it's just the one big lot and not WYSIWYG, but if you need a whole bunch or maybe you can split it with a friend, and don't have any better options, you could do worse. They also have what looks like spider wood under "terrarium tools". For the record, I didn't go this route, so I have no first hand experience with it. But there is a year-old video from Prime Time Aquatics about it that I remember from my hardscape search: