jwcarlson

Found that two of my pitch black ram pairs had spawned.

Interesting. I have had some of these installed since release and haven't noticed any plugging off and I have rock hard water.

It's all about your goals. If you have mature fish in a community tank that you're simply enjoying. I don't think there's anything wrong with every other day. In general, I think there's more stuff that fish graze on in a tank than we might realize. I feed almost everything twice a day. But that's because almost everything is growing out or attempting to breed. So that aligns with my goals. I also thrive on a routine. So that is a factor for me too.

The issue is it just moves the thing you've got to lift up. I'd argue and a bunch of single scoops of sand is lighter than a shop vac with all the sand in it. However, if that's not a concern. I have used a shop vac whenever I'm emptying a tank. I find scooping more efficient, but once it gets to a certain level, the shop vac is the way to go. The only thing is that you want to make sure you don't just bury it as the more narrow hosed ones can plug off. Mine is a 3" hose, I think. Maybe 2.5". Either way, if you are careful not to suck up too much, it should work fine.

^this. If you're happy reading it, who cares if anyone else enjoys it! I've recently read One Piece volumes 4, 5, and 6. And last night finished Blake Crouch's The Last Town - the third book in the Wayward Pines Trilogy. I loved the series. Blake Crouch is an absolute must read, in my opinion.

Staghorn Algae I think it's my favorite algae. 😄

Looking good! It's wild how slow they grow! 😄

I agree, that doesn't seem like that pH shift would cause an issue.

I'm not saying this could be causing it (especially at only 20% water changes), but it might be a factor... if the water comes out of the tap at 8.2 pH, what does it "age" to? You can do this by putting some tap water in a jar with an airstone and then measuring the pH after you let it bubble away overnight or eight hours or so. If there's a significant shift, it could be causing some water change relate stress. How often are you doing water changes?

Any sort of spots, fuzz, discoloration... lack of appetite or always spitting out food. Flashing (where a fish swims up to something like a rock or wood and dashes off of it quickly). White, stringy looking poop. Any general lethargy. Any gasping at the surface. Constant rapid breathing. Some of these things can just be stress related, so it takes some figuring out. My personal opinion is that I always worm my fish (with levamisole). I don't use any of the antibiotics or IchX unless there's something noticed.

I just did this with almost 30 cories. Going from 76 to 82. Netted them all out into a half gallon container with a couple inches of water in it. Moved them over to the new tank and set them on top. Took a cup and dumped another inch of water into it from the new tank. Let them set for 5 minutes or so and then released them. They were eating 30 seconds after release and none appeared even remotely stressed.

Yeah, gotta use it on municipal water, for sure. I even age all my water 24 hours and still can't get away without using it.

I still dip a test strip every once in awhile. It's like Groundhog Day... if I see any of the "bad stuff", I just keep doing daily changes. If it's looking good, I wait a couple days and test again. If still good... probably cycled, but check again in a few days. If not good... change water again. In general the world seems more and more water-change averse and I don't quite understand it. Especially as the hobby seems to be moving at least a bit towards the more nano sized tank. Anyway, I'm not trying to argue. I just think it's astronomically easier to cycle a tank with fish in and doing daily water changes in most cases. Outside of some outliers (like a huge tank or something). It takes all of the understanding of toxicity and all that noise away. It also helps lean away from the idea that you can just dump something in your water and solve all the maintenance you should be doing. And to be clear, I'm not saying anyone in this thread is saying to do this, but as you can see... it's a VERY common thought process out in the real world. Plus, you get really efficient at changing water. 🙂

It certainly won't be ideal long-term. So, if that's not what you want to do, then perhaps it would be best to rehome them. I don't know if you're going to find a LFS that's going to take surrenders for credit, but maybe you know of a place. In the meantime, fish-in cycling is easy as pie in a small tank. Change 50% of the water every day, it takes a matter of minutes in a small aquarium like that. I do them in some of my 10 gallon grow outs every morning. It takes a few minutes and the most intensive part is vacuuming the bottom. The rest is hands off. While I'm refilling the bucket from my aging barrel I can do get the baby brine ready to feed and/or do a load of laundry. It's close enough in time to doing a water test to see if anything is building up, it's just more efficient to do the water change.

That's the way I run all my regular heaters, too. But occasionally, I do run them dry because I do a lot of 90-100% changes. Whoops.

What's the draw of using a heater like that when you already have an InkBird? The appearance or footprint? Something else? Just curious.

Salt and water ratio should stay the same and you can put any amount of eggs in (within reason, don't put a tablespoon in that little hatcher). Once you get the hang of it, it's easy. I have found that hatcher cleanliness is very important to hatch rate.

The problem is that almost anything you're breeding will end up needing some sort of grow out space, typically. Other than shrimp, perhaps.

Upgraded from the tray to a 10 gallon where they'll get daily 50-100% water changes. There's so many of these things. Very light colored, but they've been in an all white tray, so I am interested if they color up. They have the pattern, just washed out.

I'd probably do it sooner. Parasite live cycles aren't waiting! If he is growing that's a good sign. He isn't going to reach his full potential, but he will eventually put on weight if the care stays up. Needs lots of new water while growing too. That's an easy one to skimp on. Glad to hear he's doing well!

Now, live BBS twice a day. When they're first hatched, Sera Micron twice a day. Maybe three times a day on the weekends or days I'm at home, but I wiped a ton of them out when I did that on my first batch. I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, but I bet I was feeding ten times the fry powder compared to what I feed now.

Yes, I think the same guy gave the talk to ACO club.

He certainly looks better, I wouldn't be afraid to do another round.

How has Pod been, @PluckyD?