SandSea

Does anyone know what kind of rainbow fish these are? I'd like to get them some females just to keep them company. But I want to get the right kind. Right now the two biggest ones are constantly doing the flare dance I figured some girls would distract them.

@Tayturs ya, wow your water, lugging it, no fun! thanks for the compliment on my fish, I LOVE that guy! I'd stick with smaller fish too if I had to lug water

whats bdbs? whats the big sponge divider doing? interesting. to original poster i looked up that uns controsoil, it looks interesting. i wonder if it just gradually falls apart like reg soil?

i wonder if this would help, 50% water change, lower temp to 76, try to keep pH around 7. super nice looking tank btw oh and some live worms, from like petco

i asked bcuz i have several types of ferts. often times i dose less than half a dose of two different ones at the same time, cuz sometimes they have a few of the same ingredients, but not all of the same ingredients. once, after a dosing recently, all my shrimp acted sick and alllll hung at the top of the plants at the very top of the tank, i removed them all too late and only one lived. but ever since, still a few die a day or two after a dose, or they and the snails come to the top. some of my ferts do not say they have copper, so i dont necessarily think it's that. but i like the idea of @Torrey mini dose regime. seems safer I only recently bought easy green, is why i asked.

sameeeeeee thing happened to me yearsssssss ago. mine grew lightening fast, i mean every week or two i could SEE how big he was by having him in my palm, he is very friendly. i ended up keeping him, he is my favorite fish. he NEVER ate other fish. but i did a LOT of water changes until i could afford a bigger tank. i got mine in november of 2008, he is still going strong, lol 14 years old ❤️ here he is as a babe, and now

This is THE easiest tank in my home, bought it at the Publix grocery store. Just sayin'

How do you clean your bare bottom tank? IF you use a sponge filter, OR IF you have a sponge on your intake (canister or hang on back swirling the h2o works if you expect it to be sucked in the filter, but with sponges do you vacuum everyday? I hate to see my Corys or bristlenose, or synos swimming around in "waste" I have sponges on my intake (thanks aquariumcoop, I like my sponges)

yes, I do

interesting article, thx 4 sharing

Laritheloud, did the spots go away?

what a great idea Torrey!

is easy green safe , at the recommended dosage, in a shrimp only planted tank?

Maracyn 1 or 2

Aco???

put tubing to each airhole, then connect them to a gang valve, the gang valve will have knob for each air tube, so you may turn one off

What is a nerm? Also I absolutely love watching the sun come through my vals too! Of course the plants in that tank do the best and I’m sure all the little creatures in there just love the sunshine . it’s a 20 gallon long it’s always been one of my favorite sized tanks, A perfect size to put anywhere in the house and not too deep so that any aquarium lamp will send light to the bottom plants

My mail lady always used pre-treated water in buckets just like you. One day I had her come into my house and showed her how the python worked she was like what in the heck are you kidding me right now? She bought one, and I went over to her house to show her how to use it lol. She said I cannot believe how easy it is to change the water on my fish tanks now and vacuum ,my back thanks you

Good to know if you decide to use a python. I used a python for years in Michigan,at the time, we only had chlorinated water. I dosed the tank then put the water in slowly. When I moved to a different state I did not know the water treatment was chloramine, and I would lose fish every time I did a water change as i only used wardley dechlorinator. I Finally went to a local fish store owner who said not only did I need to use a de-chloraminator, but I had to use a triple dose. They were still losing fish when they did water changes even though they used the proper dechloraminator. So they called one of the city water engineers. He took a look at a couple of things they used such as prime. It states how much ammonia or chlorine that it will bind to, based on the parts per million in the water being treated. We live far from the city and we were told they add extra Chloramine to ensure stability at long distances or somesuch thing. And based on the amount of chloramine a triple dose was required . the prime at the usual dose would unbind the ammonia and chlorine, then bind with the chlorine, thus, leaving ammonia in the tank (hopefully I am explaining all this exactly as it was explained to me) which either killed some fish or stressed them to the points of illness if you did more than just a small water change. Or if you did a fast water change. At the time I had 125 gallon aquarium with three large goldfish two large synodontis fish and several small fish, sometimes I would change as much as 70 gallons at a time. Here’s what worked for me after talking with that local fish store. Assume I am changing 70 gallons,I get my glass Pyrex 16 ounce measuring cup with the pour spout, I add enough prime for 70 gallons and I do that three times, so it is a triple dose for the amount of tap water i am adding. I mix the prime with some tapwater. (One of my family owned local stores still has a lot of python equipment I think they started making it again , it was hard to find for awhile, but they also have the same thing made by Lee)When I start to fill the tank with the python, I have it go extremely slow, in other words, not too much water coming out of the python & into my tank at a time just a slow stream. I then add maybe a quarter of my prime and water mixture into my tank and I swish it around with a big wooden spoon which is dedicated to my tank.sometimes I will add a little bit more of the tank water into my Pyrex cup. When I have about a quarter of The 70 gallons in the tank I add more of the prime mixture and stir it around. And then I continue this way until it’s done. (I sit right next to the tank and either read a book or watch a movie on my iPad because there has been too many times where I forgot what I was doing after I left the room L O L) Sometimes I just add all of my prime mixture right at the start if I am not doing that large of a water change that’s up to you. It takes, from what I understand approximately an hour for the prime to completely bind to the ammonia molecules and chlorine molecules in chloaramine(which may be why people dose the whole tank instead of just what they’re adding, I choose to just fill the tank more slowly which does the same thing in my opinion) once I started doing my water changes this way I have not lost a fish again from a water change. The reason I only add some of the prime and not all of it at one time, and why i dose, based on the amount of water i am adding, is because it lowers the amount of oxygen in the tank for a short period of time & and the fish will either be breathing hard or will come up to the top of the tank if I put too much prime in at once so I usually don’t do that unless I’m only changing 20 gallons of water. I just thought I’d throw that in there in case you decide to use a python type of system. I’m sure the way you do it is just fine especially if you ever want to add buffers or make it the same temperature as you said you do.

Thanks for all the info. Omg 9 tanks, lol, when do you eat and sleep? Congo tetras are beautiful, I have thought of them! But I might loose my spouse, if I gain anymore pets! 😁😆

Wow ya sounds complicated. Well if you do add crushed coral, yes do be careful I would never put more than a few tablespoons in at a time for a 20 gallon and maybe 1 tablespoon or less in the 3 gallon. I have a small handful of aragonite in all of my tanks for the snails and shrimp and just for buffering and for calcium etc, but once I added a big handful to my five gallon planted amano tank, within an hour they were all acting really weird and way up at the top of the tank. I took them all out promptly and put them in a bowl with water from my big fish tank. I took all that extra aragonite out and did a huge water change and vacuum. After several hours I put them back in but one of them had passed away. So even though I always still have a tad of aragonite in each tank it’s never more than a sprinkling

I used to have 1 male betta and 3 females, now it’s just 2 girls. About a week ago our male disappeared, I mean I tore that tank apart and even looked inside of both canister filters. Throughout the years fish have died in that tank and no one has bothered to even try to eat them so I doubt that from the time I fed him, and then he was gone in the morning, I doubt that he was eaten. EXCEPT, The evening that he disappeared I had left the lid propped open for a while while I did some thing and instead of closing the lid right away, I walked out of the room and did not come back for a few hours. We have two birds and a cat, I have a feeling that one of them is a kidnapper, which is why I always close the lid , I don’t know maybe my phone rang and I forgot to close the lid right away 😕

Exactly, although with dechloraminators ( which can be used to lock ammonia) plants, water changes I try not to worry too much about ammonia. But ya never know, like if you ever have to treat with meds, or if sometimes you lack in your water change schedule . After having some of the same fish for so long, I am attached to them, especially my syno boy, so I contemplate his life and surroundings, just trying to do a good job for him. Don’t have a water softener right now, but years ago when we did, I actually did half of a water change with the softened water , then I would bypass it and do half with tap, every time I did a water change. I mean that must’ve added salt to his water. Poor kid. He’s even lived in a couple of different houses with us and he had to spend about three days living in a Storage tote with an air stone , then when his glass tank leaked they all lived in a kiddie pool on the screened in porch with a noisey pond pump/waterfall and heater, when I commissioned his acrylic tank and it was getting cold outside, they lived in our sunken bathtub for a dang month! At least the tub was raised so I was able to use one of the canister filters lol.

I use a python, and i dose for the volume I'm adding, HOWEVER, i dose extra bcuz we have high chloramines

My fav fish is Mr Big Fish, "Mr Big" for short. He eats from my hand, swims fast over to me when i pop in view, (comes when i call and tap if he was cave napping) and we play roll the marble back and forth to each other. He swims into the palm of my hand when I am gravel vacuuming. We love each other. He has two blue marbles, and sometimes we play until my hands are crinkly. He used to swim around a lot more but when his lady friend decided a few years ago that she was going to be bossy and not so very nice to him, he spends most of his time in one of his caves now. I even bought a kiddy pool and a pond fountain and I thought I would put her in it out on the screened in Lanai. But just as soon as I decided I may do that, she suddenly started behaving a bit more like him towards me. Now she eats out of my hand occasionally and comes out to say hello to me. Amazing because I have had her for years and she just did not give a hoot about me. She Likes music maybe that is what started it. I play music next to the tank sometimes and she likes to come out and " sit " where the speaker is. Do you have a fav fish? I do love all of my fish , but Mr. Big is my number one son 🙂