Tommy Vercetti

I have used the small Honda generator this way. Works good and you can use it to power other things.

my favorite algae is Dead Algae! Kidding aside, I have seen unbelievably beautiful sheets of black beard algae in photos and videos

I want to print a canopy that covers the light and the top so tha I won't need to use the lid. I have the fluval EBI tank. If I make a canopy, I will share the stl.

If you print a canopy before me, please share the .stl file.

I bought my GBR from a local fish shop. And I asked what temperature they are keeping the tank that the Rams came out of, they said 78. I knew that was low but the fish seemed healthy and even tried to spawn twice.

Baby brine shrimp because the tank stays clean and it is hard to overfeed.

Do you think that it could be my nitrates at 30ppm? I could lower this by adjusting my fertilizers. Or maybe my Rams were sick and I could not tell. I am feeling frustrated and would like to succeed with Rams. I am feeding live baby brine shimp, twice a day. Feeding with xtreme food nano sinking pellets and or bug bites in the evening to supplement the BBS.

Thanks @Mmiller2001 that makes perfect sense. I appreciate you taking the time to help.

@Mmiller2001 do you use RO/DI water in your tanks? Do you have any advice that you can share to help me with this endeavor?

I just want to keep German Blue Rams alive in my setup. I might be missing something but it just seems that my water is way too hard for GBR. Thanks again for all of your help.

I am going to count that as 1 vote for 50/50 RO / tap. Thanks for the information. At 50/50 I would be slightly out of my ideal ranges for GH and KH. I wonder if that would be "close enough" for my needs.

Thanks for sharing your setup. Do you use Seachem alkaline buffer and Equilibrium?

Hello fellow fish nerms! I have a few questions about RO / DI water. Why?: I have not had success with German Blue Rams. I had a pair and the male died in 2 weeks and the female died in 4 weeks. Their color was good and they were active and eating until they would just stop eating and then about 3 days later they would die. Tank Setup: 16 Gallon Cube with Co2 reactor (home made out of abs pipe fittings) and canister filter (Fluval 107) Lily pipes with surface skimmer Dosing EI method fertilizers on a dosing pump 50% WC every Sunday Logic?: My parameters are good except for water hardness (too hard): Temperature 80F CO2 30ppm Ammonia 0ppm Nitrite 0ppm Nitrate 30ppm PH 7.2 Phosphates 2ppm GH 21d/375ppm KH 9d/161ppm Questions: I have decided to invest in an RO/DI system and I had originally planned on using a 50/50 mix of Tap and RO/DI but the maths show that would leave me with GH 10.5 and KH 4.5 and also leave me with less control of hardness than if I remineralize the RO/DI water myself. Which leave me with the following questions: 1. What is the best way remineralize the water? 2. What is the most cost effective way? 3. What is the easiest way? 4. Should I buy a container to store the RO/DI water and remineralize the water in this container, then pump it to my aquarium for water change? 5. Reserved for the things that I don't yet know that I don't know 😉 Thank you for sharing your help and knowledge on this subject

Your nitrite spike is expected. Continue with the water changes daily. And my guess is in 3 or 4 days you will have 0 Nitrites.

They hang out together in my wife's tanks.

Is that happened to my Aquarium Co-Op towel!? Well now I know. I bought a new one and will be careful with the water conditioner. Thanks!

I personally would do 50% daily water changes until I could no longer detect ammonia and/or nitrites. This has worked for me with out losses on my new setups of the past year (8 aquariums total. It's not a lot of experience but it has worked every time).

Stratum brings my PH from 8.0 at the tap to 6.8 to 6.5 when the Stratum is new.

That power of the stratum to lower the ph will diminish in a few months. If you really want to raise your PH you can use sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). There is a formula to how much to add. But I never ise it. In my opinion, stable PH is much better than chasing any given number. Yes, new stratum can easily bring your ph to 6.6 to 6.2. I would not be too concerned because I have used it for two tanks for over 1 year and have had no losses in either set up.

The fluval substrate, is that fluval stratum? Fluval stratum is made to reduce PH. "Helps support neutral to slightly acidic pH - ideal for most plants, tropical fish and shrimp normally kept in planted aquariums"

My Amano shrimp will not eat hair algae but I have had success with direct applications of seachem excel and floating plants.

16 gallon running at 30ppm. 5lbs co2 tank last about 10 months. I bought 2 tanks so that I always have a full one on hand.

They look like Black Bean aphids to me. I would manually remove them. Anything you use to kill them will likely kill your shrimp because they are both invertebrates. I had some on my fountain about 2 years ago but my fish ate them. I would push them off the floating plants and the fish (guppies) would attack immediately.

I have my fluval 107 canister filter filled with lava rock for bio media on my 16 gallon cube. And it would be an understatement to say that my Red Rili Shrimp are doing well.

Ammonia and nitrites should read zero in a cycled tank. The Nitrate could be very close to zero depending on how many plants and how much you feed the aquarium. Also regarding the api test kit: I like them and use them but find often times that the Nitrate test is not very repeatable. The bottles require (at least) 1 minute of vigorous shaking before adding to the test tube. You could try to skip a water change and then test right before the next scheduled water change. I would still not be surprised to see 0 nitrates in a highly planted tank. Those floating plants are probably doing their job and eating the Nitrate.