jwcarlson

Looks nice, I don't think I would replace your light. But buy an AC light for your NEXT tank.

Yours take breaks from laying eggs long enough to do something else?!

Yes, that was part of the perplexing part because when I couldn't find him Sunday afternoon I checked ammonia and it was 0. Wish he would have showed some signs of issues, though. I think if I get another betta I will try to find someone breeding them locally so I know how old they are. It makes perfect sense that a breeding facility would shuffle out their old stock and sell them... egg laying facilities do it with their spent hens. You'd hope that they'd be honest about it, but I think there's enough middlemen and inherent loss that most people wouldn't really question problems. There could, of course, be issues that caused the death that I'm just not seeing/noticing, though... don't want to make it sound like I'm just throwing my hands up blaming some outside force.

@Chick-In-Of-TheSea Yes, and quite a lot of them. In the past when fish have died they do eat them pretty quickly (though haven't had that happen in this tank that I remember), but usually there's a skeleton left over. It's possible he could have died the night before we left. We left the house before lights come on and got back after they turn off. Kids left for sleepover and Gpa/Gma's... now that I'm thinking about it, we probably didn't have many eyes on the tank at all for closer to 48 hours with the lights on. They could certainly take care of a fish that fast. I'm thinking I fed them before we left for the day Saturday, but that's not the case upon further reflection. Days are starting to run together between me being off a bit on vacation and wife (teacher) and kids being off school for the last few weeks.

I was wondering the same thing. We left for a day on Saturday and came home. No betta. No body. Don't feel he could have jumped and not been found unless cat ate him, but that seems a bit tough to imagine as tank is in an infrequently used spot for cats. If it died in tank its tough to imagine it was entirely consumed in the 10 or 12 hours we were gone, but I guess more like 24 hours because lights were off when we got home. Only had him a few months, day before he was just fine, interacting, eating, etc. Don't get it. Daughter was pretty upset, but I have been wondering the exact same thing the last few days... How old was he when we got him?

In that aquarium.

@OnlyGenusCaps I am using gel, I believe the root of the issue was trying to make sure everything was dry based on my initial experience, which was with regular, liquid super glue. But even with the gel, trying to glue dry is absolutely depressing. I'm OK with little white spots where the plants are held, it doesn't take too long before the plants cover most things up. Sounds like you might be talking about activator. I could see that being helpful if doing something big.

Put glue on the plant and bee-line it to where you want it. Press it to wood/rock for 5-10 seconds. Voila. Meanwhile I spent like 90 minutes trying to get eight anubias to stick to the piece of driftwood a month ago when I first made this post. 🤣 And more than half of the dang things still fell off within a week. I had a super glue tube sitting on top of my discus tank because it was happening so frequently 😄

To follow-up on this. I just redid some of my large anubias as they were too close to the light. And put new higher light plants in their place hygro p-something. 100% of super gluing done underwater in a full tank and it was SO SO SO much better/easier. First one I used a little too much glue, but after that realized it took so much less. Bigger plants were tougher, but still worked fine.

Is it a stand assembly issue? I am unfamiliar with the product, but it could be an error made when it was being assembled.

Ok, I had not watched LRB's tour yet, but had been planning on getting to it. I'm halfway through it... couple thoughts: 1) I don't hate how the giant algae tanks look, they're not bad. 2) What the heck am I doing wrong, this guy has algae covering everything and/or floating plants blacking out the tanks and his plants seem to be doing just fine. 😄

If I keep struggling with plants maybe I'll make a tank full of algae.

I don't disagree, but some people absolutely have some crossover hobby with the tech. I don't think sponge filters are going anywhere anytime soon. 😄 Is it a touch screen, though?

I was talking specifically about the shift from CO2 offgasing. I don't do anything to raise mine from 7 to 8.3 other than aerate in my aging bucket. I agree with @Rube_Goldfish, don't be afraid (weird line break from edit lol) of doing a fish in cycle as long as you commit to daily water changes, it can be done without hurting the fish. I did it for my discus grow outs and for my initial QT setup about a year ago when I got back into the hobby. Prime and Stability (both Seachem products) at every water change will get things rolling well. In my 10 gallon I was doing two 50% changes daily, with my discus in 75 it was one 60% daily. Never showed signs of stress in any of these cases. I think fish in cycling got a bad reputation at some point, probably because most people don't change water very often things get toxic quickly. Have the goldfish shown any signs of stress when you're reading ammonia as you describe above?

If it's still in the 6s it probably won't shift much, but the advice above is good to aerate and see what it looks like after 24 hours. Mine shifts from 7 to 8.3.

Your test strips look a lot like mine, I think. Hard water, high pH.

@anewbie where are Macmasteri on the spectrum of polygamous to pair forming? I'm becoming pretty interested in trying to breed some and I like the way the Macmasteri look, but want to make sure I don't bite off more than I can chew from an aggression standpoint. I don't mind a challenge, though.

It wouldn't be tough to use 5 gallon buckets. Frankly, you wouldn't even need a filter in the bucket, maybe just an airstone in each. I'd volunteer because I have a ton of them laying around, but frankly, I don't feel like doing the experiment. 😄 The testing required to do it right would take way too long for me to jump in.

Low pH is absolutely a factor. At some point you basically "can't" cycle a tank below a certain pH (around 5.5, I think?). Don't quote me on that as my water is 8.3 so I have no experience with low pH water. Not all of the bacterial develops at the same rate and certain concentrations of the bacterias' "food" (ammonia or nitrites) actually makes it so they cannot grow. So sometimes it's a waiting game and sometimes there's too much working against the bacterial growth and it never really takes off. I'd start changing some water to get the nitrates down as that's sky high. I'd be suspicious of the zero nitrites. What kit are you using? API? Additionally, you should check your tap water independently. Know also that certain test kits pick up ammonia when using Prime (or maybe other dechlorinators as well?). Though you didn't mention any water changing, so maybe that's not a concern here.

In my limited experience with them (using the Tetra version available at Walmart) and Fritz Zyme 7, I think they're pretty good at starter colonies to get the ball rolling. But the bacteria converting ammonia to nitrite or is it nitrite to nitrate? Either way, one of those is slower to develop and the starters I have used are good at the fast one (like instantly, basically). But overall don't terribly greatly decrease the time. I've also used Seachem Stability and did a fish-in cycle with my discus without issue. But also changing 90% of the water every night, so not a lot of chance for things to build up to high concentrations. I know it's not "acceptable" to say... but fish-in cycling with daily water changes isn't that big of a deal as long as you commit to it and follow through. On a huge tank, it might be a pain. But for your first 10 or 20 gallon tank, it doesn't take much effort or time at all to change 25-50% of the water daily for the first few weeks until things catch up. There's a lot of factors in how long that takes, however, so you should still test daily to make track how things are going. I'm surprised there's not more "business" surrounding the sale of cycled media instead of bacterial starters. But from a packaging standpoint that's probably a bit more difficult and less marketable.

I was only asking because there's an older lady on SimplyDiscus forum that sometimes sells pairs of midnight rams from CoralBandit's line. She might sell on Aquabid too for all I know. Liz Streithorst is her name, she's from somewhere down south, I believe. Mississippi, if memory serves. Hope you have luck breeding them! 🙂

Where did you get your rams, @DiscusLover? If you don't mind me asking, of course.

My house isn't too old (early 70s), and I haven't tested for copper. But I have copper pipes and would guess tons of people here do as well. Test straight from the tap after running water for a bit too, eliminate something in the tank causing it.

Darn... Is there copper that high right out of your tap?

About two weeks, as I recall. But it's been a lot of years since I've had guppies! 😄