nabokovfan87

Fertilizer - nitrates Root tabs can leech ammonia if not deep enough. If you have chloramines in the water then it can release into the water column (just means you have to double dose dechlorinator) The substrate can leech ammonia. Everything else should be fine to use.

Nope. Stress coat is a dechlorinator, so it's something like Seachem prime but it just happens to have some aloe in there for the slime coat on the fish.

The main thing is that water changes are your friend. Do one today, and if possible before you leave tomorrow. I would highly recommend just finding some aquarium salt as opposed to anything intended for cooking. Dosage would be ~1/3 cup per 10G, this is right near the level 2 dose in this article: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/aquarium-salt-for-sick-fish Fritz salt you can get in a variety of places as well as the Co-Op, API salt is the other stuff I've used. Avoid rock salt and anything marked "not intended for human consumption" as it very likely has some trace or contamination risks. Sea salt would have minerals, which may or may not cause issues. You're basically looking for non-iodized, basic NaCl.

Nice!

First, hello and welcome to the forums. The main thing I'm seeing is the gill redness which is usually a sign of ammonia or nitrite burning. The main method here is to do a good water change initially and then dose in aquarium salt and then proceed with daily 50% water changes. You may need to verify filtration is adequate and or working properly, but given it's a new tank it might just be a slower cycle. Keep testing your nitrite and your ammonia morning and night if possible, at least once a day. During that water change you would be dosing in your normal dechlorinator and that would also help with some of the issues. Do not dose it more than once every 24 hours typically. Hopefully things improve quickly, keep us posted!

For anyone who wants to play along.... This is the site I use and it's always worked fine for me. https://ezgif.com/maker This is my "display tank" I have and this is the chronological order of changes over the past several years. Please enjoy and feel free to share your own! I fed some repashy today, so the tank is a "bit" cloudy. 😂

Sounds good! Congratulations on the success!!! ORD as always, but that is awesome. I am right there with you as far as the admiration of "keeping things good for the fish and good things will happen" and it is the only way I've spawned some of my fish.

Alright so I think there is potentially 3 things at play here: 1. It's getting warmer, which means less oxygen in the water. This impact was reduced by adding the additional air and filter to the opposite side of the tank. 2. New tank, new substrate, and you do have active substrate that can be leeching ammonia on you. 3. Whatever is being fed to the tank might be too much and far too often, causing the ammonia. Let's break down everything, see if there is any bodies, then we can talk about the 3 above and make sure nothing out of the ordinary is going on here.

*rewinding to the beginning* (let me go back and re-read through all of the setup!) Do you have a bucket where you can fill it with tank water and move all of the hardscape and what not to check for everything? Maybe there is something under / inside of something? Move everything in the tank and check for bodies. Do you have a mesh bag of biorings or media you can add onto the top of the sponge filter?

This is not included in the normal test kits and is usually bought as a separate (very cheap) GH or KH+GH test kit. In the EU it is much more common to get a GH/KH and other items as part of the master kit.

I can tell you I will NEVER use Fluval again in any of my tanks. It's ridiculous to me that it's been leaching ammonia for 3 months now. By the time it finally stops, it will be time to replace it because it will have worn out. I used Controsoil in my other tank and it never leached like this - - it's been much better on the whole. Agreed, contrasoil is pretty awesome! Ultimately, the leeching is a good thing, just a bit of a pain up front. Keep doing daily water changes for the next 1-2 weeks and you'll get the soil where you need it to be. It's part of the process.... this applies to any sort of active soil aquarium substrate. Week 1: As close to daily water changes as possible Week 2: Water changes every other day Week 3: 2-3 water changes per week Week 4: 1-2 water changes ^^ This is from George Farmer and it's how most places like Green Aqua and others "set up" and cycle in the new soil substrate.

Revisiting a classic and I wanted to share something for anyone who hasn't heard Eric speak before. He does have a talk on the channel, and heck.... maybe he will be on the club side of things for members talks soon! "Be the Fish" - It isn't just a simple statement, but a mindset, philosophy, and a book title of sorts for approaching the hobby. I emplore you to check this out, listed to at least the first 20 minutes and see the little nuggets of wisdom. Everyone is saying "it's been done before" or "fishtube is dead/boring" and all I can say is that we all have so much to push ourselves to learn.... every chance you get. There's so many videos that the algorithm doesn't share anymore and something that Corvus is working on is making shorts to share some of that content again. It's a wonderful approach. Please feel free to chime in below and help out some newer hobbyists with content you seriously wish you'd seen when starting out.

Temp? Ultimately it sounds like some sort of internal issue where the fish ran into something or tried to jump and hit the lid. It's likely internal damage and so you'd want to check for swelling, redness, etc. The best course of action for me would be to net the fish to eliminate any issues and to give the angel a tank with as minimal water height as you can. This reduces the pressure on the swim bladder and might help. Using something like aquarium salt can also reduce stress as well as good aeration (as you mentioned) and adding in some botanicals. Monitor for changes and hopefully there is some improvement over the next couple of days.

Certain filtration methods can have a bit of a struggle trying to form those bacteria colonies. Material types and media selection, each different method of filtration has its pros and cons. The main thing I would do is just daily water changes and track everything for a week. Let us know what the test is over that time, day to day. If you're seeing ammonia skyrocket then you very likely have some type of leeching from the soil or from something that died. The usual is to smell the tank and check for snails. Definitely don't rush it until you've have 1-2 weeks of good water parameters. Give it some time and keep doing your water changes. Especially with new soil it's just mandatory setup time.

Ammonia - 0 Nitrite - 0 Nitrate - anywhere from 5-20 ppm (I tend to keep mine under 20. If I can start near 0 and it slowly roses through the week of feeding)

Sometimes it happens. Please don't think that just because the fish went home and you're learning, that is the cause. Fish are extremely stressed prior to arrival at the store and sometimes that stress can have a delayed impact. We've all lost fish due to issues and it's one of those situations where trying to improve moving forward is the motivation for change. No one is perfect, not even the amazing fish we find. For now, you can do water changes to keep things clean. Do a good size water change, a good clean on the substrate and filtration and just make sure everything is ok. Monitor the tank and the rest of the fish for issues. If anything fed off the body it could spread disease or something may have been released into the water. This would be the same treatments as mentioned above in that case. Seriously, welcome to the forums and happy to have you. Without new hobbyists it isn't a hobby and it's just something we all do until we don't anymore. It's great to have new inspiration and new eyes into everything. Sometimes that helps everyone see things from a different perspective.

Better now? 😂 And none of this ever came up when you were having coffee with TeeJay (and friends!)? 😂

They look like what is called detritus worms. It's hard to tell due to the focus on the camera. Check out some YouTube videos and compare that to what you're seeing on person.

But the lights are off!

The old puppers and some of the cats. I definitely miss them! My tanks. Bonus points if you can see Grace. I'll call this the "current iteration" of the setup as it's still under construction and there's stuff everywhere! It is a bit more space than I had earlier, thankfully.

Yeah, you're at the fun part of the tank setup. Research! Anything you can stock in a 20H or 20L you can stock into a 29G without issues. A 29G does give you a little bit more vertical space, which is helpful. Depending on which cichlids you're interested in, that's a good place to enter the hobby, but the main thing is compatibility, what's available, and what you want to try out. Be sure to check out a ton of fish and ask lots of questions. There is always the "what should I put into my tank" and I often respond with that question by asking about favorite colors. Hopefully your local shops have some great, interesting things available. Looking forward to seeing the tank when you're ready to show it.

Yes they are fine with salt. You don't want to use it regularly or anything, but for disease or if you see something, it's a valid tool. Carbon pad usually isn't required and you can place it with some more sponge if you need to. You should have enough media. Yes.

Yeah, there's a lot of different forms! 🙂 Pecktec has some videos, I've seen a few different setups using the DIY methods. If it works, all good!

There is no need to add auxiliary filtration, but it doesn't hurt. I think adding an airstone is a nice balance, especially in a low-tech tank with plants or in a tank where you have fish that come from rivers and like that higher oxygenation. Salt... Well salt does a lot of things and I'll try to dig up some research studies here to demonstrate a few points. Research study regarding adding salt when shipping fish: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4332845/ Research study regarding salt impact on plants and substrate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332335333_Testing_salt_stress_on_aquatic_plants_effect_of_salt_source_and_substrate General article about salt use in the industry: https://fisheries.tamu.edu/files/2013/09/The-Use-of-Salt-in-Aquaculture.pdf Article / Study based around salt use with Corydoras species (common stated as sensitive to salt, without evidence): https://www.vin.com/apputil/content/defaultadv1.aspx?id=3981357&pid=11114& Some benefits of salt use: -Reduces Osmotic stress on fish -Increases the ability for the fish to intake oxygen (increased gill function) -Removes or Eliminates parasites and Protozoans -Adds minerals to the water Some risks of salt use: -Some species are sensitive! (knowing what to dose, how much, is critical for it's use, just like everything you add to the tank) -Some plants are sensitive! (echo the above, it is often recommended to remove plants) -Some species are sensitive due to TDS (GH and KH) changes due to adding salt. (This is a species by species thing and is due to osmoregulation biology differences) -Changes the water viscosity and can reduce overall circulation (so add an airstone whenever you use salt!)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6663029/ I was doing a bit of research study research and I came across this one. I wanted to share it for those interesting in checking it out. Please feel free to check it out and post your own thoughts or experiences on the topic! Here is another, related study as well. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0013916515597512