jwcarlson

I am not religious about root tabs, basically because of the lack of water changes. But I have been trying to do a WC every two weeks (about 50%) and adding root tabs at that time. Similar issue in a 10 gallon with the stem plants, but they're in Fluval Stratum. Dosing I am also not perfect on because I frequently forget. I'd say on average I'm doing a pump of Easy Green per day, but usually doing it every 3-4 days. Meaning that I'll do 4-6 pumps in the 37 gallon every 3-6 days. And I don't necessarily feed all the fish every day. I would really benefit from an autodosing system because even with two separate bottles, I am still almost never remembering to dose. 😄 Lighting in the 37 gallon is from 11 AM to 7:30. 10 gallon is 2 PM to 7:30 because there was some staghorn and hair algae that showed up, but that was (I believe) existing from my bucket'o'plants which was a lawless bucket of primordial goo that had all sorts of bad stuff going on. I've been removing that algae when I see it and haven't noticed much anymore. When I initially set the tanks but, I did have some algae, but I cut off the blue lights to "off" instead of them running automatically for like an hour or more for "dusk". I will say that the 37's HOB does have quite the algae-fall growing on the outfall of the filter. This happened when I bumped the light up. I just occasionally pull it off it it gets too long, but I honestly kind of like it because the shrimp and snails are always jumping up into the filter and are neat to watch surfing around up there. I would assume when I knock the light down it will eventually die off.

No real algae issues after I turned lights down in the initial 10 gallon. There's some green spot (I think) on the anubias that are highest up. But it's not super bad. I bought a couple of nerites because I read they liked green spot algae and they do seem to have been grazing on it, because it isn't gone, but it seems to be changing. I cannot scrub or scrape it off. I was going to try the "reverse respiration" to kill it and see if the shrimp will eat it. But honestly, it isn't bad enough to bother. It's not like it's a show tank! There was some algae growing on one of the sides, but the snails, adult bristlenose, additional borneo suckers, and now a few very small bristlenose someone sent me have the sides all squeaky clean (on the inside, the outside is still a water spotted mess three minutes after I wipe it down haha). I'll poke my head over to your journal and give it a look. Sometimes just thinking through and writing out all off the stuff I've done helps me figure out what the probable issues are. I think because there's so many water lettuce now, they'll basically out compete everything for the additional ferts because they're also way more able to soak the light.

Well... thanks a lot, now I need to find where to order these. 🙂

The weird part is that usually they arrive, go gang-busters and then die. I moved most of this from a 10 gallon into this 37 (about same footprint as 29, but like 3" or so deeper, I think). It has a 30" Hygger 957 (48 watts). Tanks looks wildly different now, the pogo is totally gone, it exploded in the new tank from about where the gourami is to what you see in like a week or so? The stuff on the log is all doing very well. The sword in back corner is roughly the same, crypts roughly the same. All the floating stuff is gone, but replaced with dwarf water lettuce. Thinking back on the changes, I really think I'm going to remove all but a small hoop of aquarium tubing full of water lettuce. It obviously soaks up a ton of light. There's val in the way back that never gets any taller, but does spread and has several plants along the back now. Good sized bush of java moss on top of the big log now. I do regret a few things - indian almond leaves this worked really well for shrimp and overall looked neat. But between that and the driftwood, even now the water is still tea stained when I change it. Surprisingly so. The almond leaves are gone, so it must be the wood now. That has to block a lot of light (not in picture as the leaves were pretty new). Also regret putting the light up on stilts, I did it thinking it would more evenly light everything, but didn't fully think what that would do to the light intensity. I will say that it did really make the duckweed and the water lettuce I replaced it with really go crazy. I appreciate the discussion. I do use AC root tabs, but I also struggle with keeping nitrate level in the tank so there's a lot going on here, I realize. I don't think I have a single surviving pogo even a shrimpy one... which is a shame because I really like that plant. February '22: July '22 (glass not cleaned between February and July? you tell me lol): I am ashamed to say that I don't have a more recent picture of what's in there now. Fish stocking is quite different. The rummys went to my discus tank, gourami had some disease and died after this pic within a day or two, in place of the rummys there are now eight kerri tetras. Betta in place of the gourami went from 1 to 3 borneo suckers. Will take a picture tonight or at least before I revamp the floaters and then see if I can't better wrangle in what I've got going on. Bottom line, I think I've convinced myself to put the light back on the rim of the tank and to pull all the floaters except a small amount that I can better control. I remove TONS of water lettuce every couple weeks and it's just packed back in almost immediately.

I don't think they've been over fed, but I suppose it's possible (or that diet change has backed them up). I had thought to just kind of wait for a bit, but it's been going on several days now. I'll cut feed for a few days and see if that makes any difference then move on to epsom salt bath. Thanks!

Does anyone know how to burn water with materials readily available at home?

I'm not joking, I went to check my tank after this and found five big pieces of duckweed amongst the water lettuce. This is not good, @Tanked. We've got some bad ju-ju here. 🤣

I got these CPDs from AquaHuna about a week ago. One was DOA and one was a furcata rainbow, but otherwise the six CPDs were in good shape for a few days. Then this guy started doing this. His color is still pretty good and he eats. But, as you can see, he's pogo sticking around. Tank temp is at 74, I haven't done a recent water test, but I can do that tonight. Please forgive the absolutely filthy front glass. I've got a separate, empty 10 gallon right next to this tank that I could move him into as needed.

Thank you for not posting a picture. I want to make sure my tanks don't catch it again. 😆

If you figure it out, let me know. I had a beautiful pogo that basically poofed overnight and I can't get anything to grow much except dwarf water lettuce. Anubias looks good in mine and growing faster than anything else (make no sense). The stem plants seem to do really well for 2-3 weeks and then - gone. Have tried pumping lots of easy green to it and it doesn't seem to really help. So I've kind of adopted a survival of the fittest regiment. If it lives, great, if it dies... OK. Kinda stinks. I'm cutting back on the water lettuce to see if it's just slurping up too much light and nutrients. It doesn't look like much is stocked in your tank for fish. I have had better luck letting sprite float and someone told me it is better for them if they glue or tie it off like anubias. Good luck!

Excellent, thanks!

It does look a bit like that, I will get a better picture. He is an active dude.

Got a shipment of Celestial Pearl Danios from Aqua Huna this morning. After acclimation we dumped them into a net and released them. Lights killed so hard to see. My daughter said "one of them was upside down". Thinking maybe he died I said we'll look later. Gave them a few hours and turned lights on, couldn't find the last fish. Finally got a glimpse of him up top. Picture is terrible, but is it a Pacific Blue Eyes? He has fins on top about equal to on bottom when he is fanned out, which is why my daughter thought he was upside down. He has spent most of his time right in the boil of the sponge filter. That's not poop coming out of him, but some debris.

I do darn near 100% water changes on my discus every evening (laying on side, having to kick around) and they do just fine. I do large water changes (50%+) in my planted tanks as well, but do not vacuum the gravel. Haven't had any issues. The discus sure seem to like their changes, they are happy and eating during it.

I did not like Blood Meridian at all and I absolutely love The Road. I listen to the audiobook once or twice a year (and read it in print originally). I think I donated Blood Meridian.

I read Uzumaki and it was... OK, I guess. I didn't find anything contained within horrific in any way, but I guess it was semi-interesting. After that I read The End of Alice by A.M. Homes. This was one of the most disturbing/"messed up" books I have ever read. It was unsettling. I purchased it after hearing it was a very disturbing book and I like disturbing. I thought it was about an eating disorder and that is not at all what it was about. Then I read Vinland Saga #4 - I am really liking this series and other than Uzumaki it's the only manga I have ever read. Currently reading The Fall of Babel (Books of Babel #4) by Josiah Bancroft - I've enjoyed 1-3 quite a bit and am curious to see how it ends!

I expected to see a heavily planted tank, I've got two that I can't keep much for nitrates in. But I would guess as those above have stated - the test method might be at fault here.

RIP that leaf, we hardly knew thee! One of my discus is ROUTINELY laying on its side trying to eat stuff from under the filter and I have thought it is dead about a half dozen times. 🤣

Stephen King's Revival was quite good. Starting a manga called Uzumaki today as I continue down the spooky season road.

Two purposes - easier to spot them and to track their age. In honey bee queen marking there is a "standard" based on the last digit of the year. In this case that queen is from 2019. Everything I marked this year was yellow. I've got this card in my wallet, even though I have it memorized. Forgot about it until now. 🙂 Be (blue) Warned (white) You (yellow) Require (red) Gloves (green) Is the acronym starting with year 0.

I have heard of them. There's another Weaver too, right? R Weaver, maybe... I prefer darker queens like the one in the first pic, but I am not too picky. As long as they're calm and productive, I'm happy. And it's not like I'm running some big breeding program. One year I reared about 200 queens, but I'm winding my little operation down even farther. This year I only made maybe 30 or so. What kind of cows?

Honey bees!

I hadn't really thought about it that way. Beekeeping is much the same. In the 70s and 80s when my grandpa and dad were keeping them it was basically you just chucked them in a box and they just... lived. In the 90s a parasite called varroa was introduced and became widespread. Honey bees, as a host, didn't evolve alongside varroa and it decimated populations and made keeping bees alive overwinter very very difficult. My grandpa and dad quit beekeeping because of it.