nabokovfan87

It's not as scary as you think. Best course of action is to remove the snails and plants. With ich or something bacterial/protozoan, you'd want to clean the filtration and siphon the substrate well to remove buildup. I'm sure others can offer the advice on how they handle the snail situations! @Guppysnail@Chick-In-Of-TheSea (and I'm sure a few dozen others) In terms of how to deal with it. Keep an eye on progression, check to make sure the fish didn't poke into anything and hurt itself. Check the floor and behind the tank for any jumpers, which would indicate water parameter issues of some kind. It's a bit of a pain to treat ich, I don't see ich I see a sore, but it's hard to tell. I'm sure that fish is very hard to get to sit still. The wound doesn't look fuzzy (so not fungal). Ich-x + salt would be where I start and see if things improve. I understand the apprehension about using meds though. It's a tough thing to feel comfortable with.

They are doing well, they look great! Are you planning a bigger tank for the group? @foxfair

I've seen GH ranges listed from a minimum of 6, I recommend 8, and then the maximum I've seen is 14-16 degrees. (250-286). From everything I've had hands on and conversations with hobbyists neos are a lot more sensitive to GH being too high than amanos but both of them have a very generous range. Getting them "shrimp food" is helpful with molting issues and often recommended when you run into them. Hopefully these ones do better for you. Every strain has some pretty unique differences and tolerances for some reason. There's about 4-6 strains of amano shrimp I've seen in a research paper and that resulted in 4 different preferences for salt when the zoes are trying to hatch (preferred range for best survival rates). Maybe it's an origin thing. As far as "most hardy" shrimp @Minanora has the orange ones and was in the planning stages for working on a few more. Similar in care to my own where it's a bit looser on the rules of shrimp keeping and very hearty. She has them in a community setup I believe and has basically kept them in a variety of parameters. If you want shrimp that will go through just about anything and he alright, that's where I'd start.

It may not be. Mine was showing different values via the strips compared to the liquid tests. This led me to thinking the GH was fine and it was not. I tried to verify what I was seeing on the strip and it ended up being 50-60% of the value on the strip at its lowest color indication. Even with snails, GH test kit is a handy thing to have. That's what I mean! It's a good setup for them.

I can pretty much my method is the "most harsh" on shrimp in terms of the common advice. Regardless of technique the real basics are simple.... -GH around 8-10 is optimal. It can be slightly lower or slightly higher. -Lots or oxygenation, if you have stress simply add it -Nitrates low (below 30 is best) / make sure they get enough food. In a community setup, feeding shrimp food into the dish at night every other day is probably the cleanest way to handle that.

Looks like a brown or red rili. What is the GH in your tank? They should do fine. There's lots of hides. (history aside)

Macro lens of some type.

I would use a HoB rated for a 20G aquarium. The one I have personally is a tidal 35 filter, but I do not recommend that for most setups. If you have any major issues, using lava rock for the hardscape also helps with stability. Whatever HoB you decide to use I would modify it to include sponge and ceramic media.

I would just use the Caribsea product if it makes more sense to do so. They have two styles of "crushed coral" one of them is Florida, the other is Caribbean. You can see photos on the website for consistency. Aragonite = Fine sand with shells and coral, typically. This is when you're talking aquarium products specifically. As for a more general definition... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aragonite

Most pads are a few mm and won't ever touch the glass. If it does, then it can indeed pop the bottom glass and that's a severe issue.

A bit of a weird request if I may!!! I am interested in, but have never seen rainbow sharks compared to my own RTBS. One day, can you record a video of yours and just show ~5-10 minutes of behavior? I am curious to hear/see the fish and how it acts compared to my own. I have heard so many different things about cypranidae fish and especially the sharkminnow species. It ranges from the most mild mannered scared fish to a tank destroyer. In my experience, they are pretty tame fish, even compared to tiger barbs. (although Grace does enjoy her barb buddies)

Just for the sake of it I was re-reading through everything. The stuff on the wood..... It's a big of a pain, but remove it as best you can and re-boil the wood. 15-20 minutes or so on a simmer, rotate the wood if need be as many times as possible. You don't want to "cook it" but get the water pretty good and hot and then hold the temp there as long as you need it. (We need a fishy sous vide. 😂 ) As long as it isn't sap seeping from the wood you should be able to handle it. this isn't a typical "wood fungus" and it's something you'll want to be sure to remove when you see it.

You have a bit of a lean left to right and front to back.... the result of that is a lean which puts pressure on one corner compared to any of the others. Let me draw you a sketch of your setup so you understand a bit about what is going on. Red = support beams Lines = Load lines Arrows = Stress direction When you have those blue arrows not loading directly into those stress beams you'll have a lot more flex compared to when you have them over those beams. Corvus Oscen just did a stream and he talked about cinder block stands for a bit. I edited it down to a chunk and he may or may not upload that. But, I would encourage you to check out the stream. It may have been 2 or 3 weeks prior. It was the "Juneteenth" stream. Here's an example of "worst case scenario" and this tank will flex/bend the most. There is a higher chance this tank has twisting compared to any of the others.

You would just keep trying. It may take 3-4 "meals" for them to get the proper dose. So you'll make it once and feed it through the week.

Just an FYI on the metal stands. You take fabric and sew magnets into the corners. Then you can cover the base so it doesn't look like just a metal frame.

I have two of those. They work well. One method to help the issue is to replace the 10G with a larger tank. I thought that you could use a 20H in place of a 10G, but it does not appear to be the same floor dimensions. 😕

Not required and you can keep it in the fridge for the time being. There is a date on the bottom of the bottle that gives you a use by date. The idea being that you only need to use it (and it's best to have it available when there are cycling issues, ammonia or nitrite) The main thing is needing to beef up filtration to handle the ammonia quickly from water changes. Once the filtration is modified or increased, then you can use the stability to quickly boost the biological filter in the tank. You'd pour it directly into the filter itself.

It is more effective that way. Sometimes you have to add garlicguard to the food to encourage them to eat it.

What is the tank on? How is it supported?

Can you show me please? There is a reason for asking that may very easily solve your issues.

It's just overstocked a bit, unfortunately. What is the tank currently on? Is it on a stand or? I'd recommend just doing weekly 50% changes. Very true. One of the things a lot of people overlook is the nitrate from bioload compared to the nitrate from fertilizers. I'm ok with 20 ppm from a fert, but if I have 20-40+ from overstocking, it can be a perpetually rising issue.

@Colu would you do a salt dip for ~15 minutes or so, given that they do not want to add salt to the aquarium directly?

Amazon, aquarium co-op, local store, etc. It's a very common test kit, thankfully.

The outside of the surface may be the only thing that is fish safe. So drilling a hole may not be an option.

Yeah. Grub pie is just BSFL. So..... Bug bites.