the_greg

I have a three-month-old south American cichlid tank. Water parameters: pH 7.5 Nitrates <20 Hardness Nitrite 0 Ammonia 0 KH/Buffer Water Temperature 80 degrees I was away for a few days and returned to one sick fish in the tank. Does anyone know what this is?

I know at ACO, they have tanks that are only supported on the ends. See the attached photo. Two questions: Does anyone know what size tanks are in the photos? They look like 20-gallon highs to me. Can you do that with a 40-gallon breeder? I'm setting up a new rack system and would ideally support only the ends to save room between tanks.

I’m gone for 5 days about once a month. I turn lights off and CO2 off and don’t feed the fish. They are fine for 5 days if they are normally well cared for.

Following this thread and I’m also curious about what people do for long term plant storage. It seems helpful to have extra plants around.

Hi All- I am an aquarium newbie. Well maybe not completely new. I had an aquarium 20+ years ago for a few years but that was a lifetime ago and I enjoyed it but when we moved to a new house we didn't have room for it while we renovated. I stumbled back into this. Before Christmas I had googled "presents for old people" looking for a gift for my 80+ year old parents. One of the ideas on the list was this. I thought that was a great idea. My parents are animal lovers, live in a retirement community, lots of time, low maintenance. So I bought one, set it up, let it run for a while, and stocked it. It is still at my house as they have had covid for the last two weeks. I'll be dropping it off at their place next week. Once I had it setup I remembered how much I loved having fish before and since then have gone a little nuts and have added three more tanks. I started with the Betta tank (Mr. Blue) Then I made a tank in our family room: Then I put a tank of pea puffers on my desk where I work all day (my personal favorite): Last thing I've done so far is buy another 14g cube like above and a 10g quarantine tank. It's been fun. Really into learning about plants. I never did that before. Now for the challenges: Back in the old days I never quarantined anything. I think I was just young, lacking internet, and didn't know better. So I've filled each tank without quarantining and without medicine. I lost 1 fish in the biorb, 7 fish in the family room, and 1 pea puffer. So I'm currently doing the med trio on everything. I also didn't cycle (again didn't recall that was a thing). So I got things to temp, added de-chlorinator and bio kickstarter. Learning my lessons. I'm getting ready to build a 40g breader for 2 pairs of blue rams. Going to do that one right. Build next week, wait a few weeks, quarantine and med the fish, and hopefully have much better success. The forum has been exceptionally helpful teaching this dog new tricks. Nice to have a community like this. I'm also going for customer of the month with Aquarium COOP I think. I've been placing an order every other day it seems. I don't know what the sticker thing is all about but I've gotten a lot of stickers. Nice job running the business @Cory. I've owned a bunch of different businesses and I am sure this one is challenging and rewarding. Also have a well stocked local fish shop, House of Tropicals, in Baltimore. Can't speak to how they run things yet, but they have a ton of fish and supplies which is also nice. Looking forward to meeting people.