Mmiller2001

It's always a challenge when working with tap water because so much can be a mystery. You can definitely reach out to the water company and get a report listing what's in the water. This will help those who try to help you. Knowing the TDS and GH/KH is very important and is a great starting point.

What's the TDS of your tap water?

All you need for snails is 5dGH. And if for some reason you are worried, use this. GlasGarten Mineral Junkie Bites (Sticks) for Shrimps, Crayfish, Crabs, Snails (50g) https://a.co/d/ei78NBp

It's only because it's new. I assure you it's easy. How many gallons is the tank? What is the GH of the tank? And how many degrees do you want to raise GH?

This depends on how much you want to raise GH. And you want to add Ca:Mg in a ratio. I will explain how I set my GH. I use RO water which is 0 TDS (plain old H2O). I want my tanks to be 4.5dGH. I know that a 4:1, 3:1 and 2:1 ratios are recommended. I've found, through trial and error, my tanks do well at 3:1. So that's 3 parts Ca to 1 part Mg. I use large water storage I fill and it's 32 gallons. I use rotalabutterfly calculator to make the calculation. So here, if I add 10.6g of CaSO4, I get the results to the right. I can see Ca ppm, S ppm and the degrees GH that the water will be. I record the dGH. Now I will do the same for Mg Altering my calculator for magnesium, you can see that 8.3g MgSO4 adds the Mg ppm, S ppm and the dGH. I add the Ca dGH to Mg dGH. 2.85+1.56=4.41dGH So now I have water that's 4.41dGH with 20.37ppm Ca and 6.76ppm Mg. My numbers don't have to be exact, but close enough is good enough. So checking the ratio, 6.76x3=20.28. That verifies a 3:1 ratio. You can use the calculator to work in the other direct. Say you want a specific ppm in ratio. You can change the calculator to tell you how many grams will dose 20ppm of Calcium. Then you know you need 6.67ppm of Mg to get to the 3:1 ratio. I know this seems too complicated (maybe) but it's not. It's just new. Once you do it a few times, it's super easy. I also use this same calculator to dose my dry powder fertilizer, this way I know exactly what's going into the tank and how my water changes changes these numbers so I can dose the correct amount to maintain Xppm all the time.. This is STABILITY.

I'm note sure the cost per gram, but you can get a bag at a grocery store or pharmacy for a few dollars. It would probably last you many years. Remember, it's just magnesium and sulfur and is 1 component of GH. You use Calcium and Magnesium (in combination) to raise or set a specific GH. Just buy the plain Epsom Salt, no scent added. It will say 100% MgSO4.

I would remove the CC if you can. It's also safe to use with the above mentioned. I used Equilibrium for a while and once I understood a few things, it was clear Equilibrium has a few problems. The biggest problem was the additional TDS it added to the water. Keep in mind it has iron and I believe potassium included. If you want to really dial in, plain old CaSO4 and MgSO4 are the best route. Epsom salt is straight MgSO4 and CaSO4 is maybe 4 dollars online. Equilibrium also leaves a residue behind when used and if added directly to the tank, leaves the water cloudy for a bit. Here's what 1g adds to 10 gallons.

Lightly planted Heavy planted

I would treat for flukes as a precaution.

Fertilize right away. If the tank is new, go lean on dosing.

My initial guess was bacterial, but flashing indicates flukes. Flukes can get into their eyes and cause cloudiness. Just keep an eye on things. So, crush Coral has a problem that it increases GH and KH at a rate that's unpredictable. So in many fish tanks you already have a high GH so why would you want to increase that when you're trying to add a little bit of buffer to the water? This is the downfall of crushed coral. In all honesty, pH is not important, what's important is GH and KH. So if you have livestock that enjoy high GH and high KH, coral can make sense there, but when dealing with soft water tropical fish it makes no sense to have any KH and you want to keep GH lower (3 to 5dGH). PH fluctuation definitely does not hurt fish. Many aquarists, who inject CO2, see pH fluctuations between 1.5 and 1 twice a day. And this fluctuation has absolutely no detrimental effect on fish. But it's important to understand what your fish like. If a fish likes higher pH what's really being said is that the fish likes a higher KH. Remember, KH sets the PH range. It used to be easier to test pH, so people have fallen into this trap that a dropping pH is some type of crash and is detrimental to the tank. This is just simply untrue; what they didn't understand what was happening. It was KH dropping. If you have fish that require KH and you have no KH, you may have problems. Hence the "crash". If your tank is full of soft water fish then zero KH is no problem. I run 0dKH in all of my aquariums even while injecting CO2. This results in a very low ph yet my soft water fish have absolutely no problems, no cloudy eyes and so on. Here's a picture of my pH after about an hour of CO2 injection. I have even gone as low as 4.9.

Adding crushed coral will not balance your tank. Quite the opposite actually. I would keep the tank at 6.5.

If this was me, I would treat for flukes and do a round of antibiotics. I would use API General Cure or Paracleanse and I would use Seachem Focus and Kanaplex mixed into food. I would use them simultaneously. There's no such thing as a pH crash. The pH of the tank is nothing more than a result of a tanks parameters and these are soft water fish who's natural habitats consist of low pH water. I would make sure you are using enough dechlorinator before water changes just incase the tap water contains higher amounts of chlorine or chloramines. I would do a few extra low volume water changes to improve water quality as well. Follow direction for both treatments and repeat the GC/Paracleanse treatment in 2 weeks.

I haven't used it. @Streetwise

I'm not familiar with it. I just know it can track and graph. It's quite expensive. Bulk Reef Supply has videos on YouTube that go into using it. I would look there.

Apex Neptune

Looks like I get an extra week! Good, because my street is a bit overgrown now! Hmm, 7 gallons. That's like 3 plants! 😁

I was wondering if you were going to bust out the the 20 gallon and cram a bunch of 75 plants in there! But I really want to see what you will do with the 75. Are you sure it's the 12th? The 3rd keeps popping up in my head.

Here's a good example of trimming the tops only. I will loose points for this mistake, but it's too late to fix it. I can only hope the replanted stalks down low can fill in on time. I should have trimmed lower but failed. So top is trimmed and lower topped and replanted. Look how bushy the top is compared to tops replanted lower. This picture was taken just now.

It definitely depends on the plant. Some plants respond to a good hair cut and grow back bushier. Some have to be removed and the bottoms removed. I then replant those nice tops. The challenge is to get them all to look nice and clean without growing too much and not look freshly cut.

I should also mention how different this tank looks lol. I may have something special, as far as I'm concerned lol. Can't wait to finally show it to the Journal. My Dutch street has grown too tall and I will be redoing it Tuesday. One week of growth should be enough! I hope! It is for sure, thank you.

@nabokovfan87I use Luminar AI. Cool program. It takes some time to learn what it's doing but I'm happy with it's simplicity. I kind of went back to using my phone camera but I'm real close to taking my AGA shots and will be using the Nikon. I should have been practicing and I hope I can get 3 quality shots and decent editing.

It looks like my neon rainbows are starting to mature. They have started to really color up. The males are brilliant red and blue and the females have a yellow sheen.

Stargrass and Hygrophila Polysperma

They look like dwarf rainbows. But it's a bit hard to see.