nabokovfan87

100% Just to give you an idea of how I view the tank(s): Light: anywhere from $10-15 depending on how long it's been used and the model number. Tank: no more than $10 for the tank, especially if it's dirty. Lid: same as the tank, no more than $5-10, especially if it's dirty. 20L lids don't really fit so the versatops just have issues in general. Gravel: none / I will either use it or toss it Plants: some value, probably the one thing that matters most. $15-25 Fish: really depends. Filter: $1-5, they aren't expensive and it's used equipment. Heater: $5-15, depends on model and age. Hardscape: used, $5 or so per piece, potentially less. Given the two setups, the right is the only one I'd be interested just because of the plants involved.

I would definitely be using 1-2 dewormers. Essentially there's the common stuff, but a round of paracleanse and expel-p are likely in order. I do not know if puffers would be safe with salt and I am fairly certain one (or both) of those you'd want to have via food to be taken internally. The fish has a sunken belly, parasites are extremely common, and it's the type of thing where long term you want to be able to feel confident that isn't a lingering issue. Puffers, especially the pea puffers are so finicky in my view and it's not easy to get them to eat. For the time being, make sure it's eating!

Definitely. Check out a bunch of Mark's videos. He's the best source I know of. He's got a video for literally everything and has a website to try to get all of that stuff easier to find.

The type of shrimp definitely plays a role here. Sometimes you need RO water for consistency sake, sometimes it is not critical of your tap has specific traits. This is very much incorrect! Unfortunately. This goes back to what type of shrimp, but it depends on how sensitive they are and how you're performing those water changes. Some can handle normal water changes like any sort of community tank while others need the water added back drip by drip. This isn't a mistake, but moreso just a mix of everything above and the complex nature of using an active substrate. It changes over time, especially initially. You would level things out by using water changes and allowing the substrate to absorb minerals and release organics (that's why the PH drops really hard initially). I will like the above YouTube creator and this video in particular. He has a ton of content on caridina shrimp as well as tank setup, substrate setup, and issues that you're facing. For the short term, remove the shrimp and keep them in a bucket with some plants or decor and an air stone. You can add some substrate to that bucket, but it shouldn't be mandatory. Ultimately, they will be in there short term while you fix the tank. The tank will take about a few weeks, maybe less to stabilize itself. The way you do this is via water changes. At first you're talking near daily water changer for a week, then a few through the next week, and then weekly changes. This is not great for the shrimp and it's something that causes a lot of stress. Second thing you have to handle is the pH of the fish balanced with the care of the shrimp. The shrimp want stability!!!!! If the PH is low, that's not really a bad thing. For some fish though once you get below 6.5 it can be difficult. As I haven't kept them personally, refer to MSTs videos, I cannot say if that is ok for the caridina species long term. Ultimately, the best setup is a shrimp only tank to meet that care need and a setup with fish only while the colony of shrimp can establish itself. This video points to a playlist about shrimp basics, but the first one linked below is all about fish and shrimp together. UNS isn't known to leech a ton of ammonia.

For flat bodied fish, In my case it was tiger barbs, they can get stuck to the side of the filter when they sleep. That may have been what caused the damage. I just want to mention that in case you can't find another explanation.

Mixing two (or three) lines to start this colony. The goal was to have good quality but freshen up the genes a bit.

What is your substrate you're using, is it an aquasoil or active substrate?

There's a couple different forms of planaria... I think that could be one of them. https://www.beanelab.org/planaria You could also look into types of rhabdocoela species, but I don't think that's what it is.

Just a heads up that in future you can use what is called botanicals. This is introduced into the aquarium to provide humates.... think tea, but for fish. It has antifungal properties and helps with general issues for most fish. The other thing you could use is aquarium salt for other issues. If you had a QT tank, given that the plants are in the tank currently, you could dose in some salt and botanicals and give the fish a place to recover. Those are just general tips if you run into some issues. Aquarium co-op has some blog articles on these things and videos. Common botanicals you'd see available are alder cones or indian almond leaves, also called catappa leaves. I think the fish may have hurt itself on the hardscape and lost a scale. I have heard this can be permanent, but let's hope that it is able to recover. I would check the tank for thin / pokey decor or something like a skimmer or other equipment that could suck the fish onto it. By chance do you have a tidal filter on this tank? I think right now, exactly what you're doing is perfect for the fish and you should see some recovery from the injury. Keep an eye on and look for any fuzziness (like cotton balls) or for any sort of redness in the area that could indicate a fungal or bacterial infection is forming.

Perfect. So what you'd want to do is monitor GH / KH. lots of water changes up front to pull the excess organics (from causing algae) and then you'd monitor how fast the tank is stabilizing. Once the substrate is don't altering the GH and KH, then you would have those resources in the soil for the plants to access. Secondarily you can also add in root tabs as well. Considering time may be of an issue, that may be the route to go. Can you let us know your tank parameters so we can get an idea of how "seasoned" the soil substrate is? How long has it been setup?

Hello hello and welcome! 🙂

Very awesome painting. Welcome!

Sounds like a very worthwhile project! Very excited for you and looking forward to see the progress. Welcome to the forums! 🙂

Very cool to see you found your way here. Welcome! I'm excited to see what you end up doing.

Fill it up with water and a filter. add in a ton of salt. You can also do this with bleach or vinegar.

Oh.... I like this challenge! My only comment on your list would be to not include the seachem tidal 35 just due to the issues it can present. For mine, I want it to focus on a specific setup, but to ensure that you also have partnerships and benefits that make sense! Certain things I would include and other things I would specifically avoid. Here's what I mean: Items Included in the box: -20G Long aquarium -Glass lid, custom made to actually fit. This would be a side mount lid, not a front to back lid. -Substrate, preferably something like UNS black Contrasoil -Pinsettes and s-wave scissors for planting, heck let's get some nice UNS ones. -A piece of mopani wood -A packet of Alder cones -Seachem Net -Marineland Penguin pro filter, including the prefilter sponge added -Dechlorinator (fritz / seachem) -All in one fertilizer (preferably easy green) -Aquarium salt (2 lb bag of fritz salt) -Fluval E-Series 50w Heater (YEP, let's actually get this thing available in the US) -2-3 "aquascaping rocks" that vary between lava rock, dragon stone, seiryu stone -Medium size python -Diffuser for refilling aquarium -Specimen container -Towel -Handbook / guide to all items included and why some items were omitted. I would add in that book a few scaping examples, using this actual kit, as well as a list of some recommended plants. Main talking points include cycling a tank, setup process, how to clean a tank, how to care for fish, how to deal with common issues, how to find help, how to plant a tank, recommended plants, hardscape details, and where to go if you want to learn more (i.e. recommended youtube resources and online information that is trusted and reliable) Coupons for items specifically omitted: -Test kit (I want it to not be expired) -Fish food (recommend certain foods, but I want it to be fresh food) -Plants (buy 2-3, get a discount) -Aquarium meds (buy 2-3, get a discount, not expired) -Fish (just a general coupon here for a discount on certain types of "community fish", i.e. buy 5 get 1-2 free, to help people have a good school size easier) -Light (this is sort of where a big partnership can either be included or not, trying to alleviate the cost of other products. My preference is to recommend a few lights available at places that have this product) -Aquarium related books -Stand The tidal 35 isn't like any of the other tidals or pretty much any filter at all. It's definitely all skimmer because the pump is basically the entire intake.

The next time you're sitting at the tank you'll have to take a bunch of photos for us and show how your colors are doing. I'm starting to see the "culls" in my line and I'm extremely curious about that process for colonies. Size is a big factor, but I've even seen pretty crazy differences with very young shrimp! Some of my BM look like these ones when smaller, others look deep red, and then I have some that look like a rili pattern.

What is the substrate? @ouray1 ? Welcome to the forums. If anything happens or she ever needs help please feel free to let her know we are here to help as a resource!

https://phys.org/news/2023-06-sharks-humans-california-coast-previously.html I will start with the above, pretty awesome to see new technology applied in this fashion, especially when we have access to really useful photo analysis tools. I will also put this here because it's kind of cool. Research trying to save whale sharks using tags, trying to find out where they go for juveniles (basically breeding ground) and finding them in a new location. I know this is immensely old. I would love to see a newer study or newer information based on the species. They are highly endangered and it's not looking good because of the size of the fish and the size of the fin.... https://phys.org/news/2014-08-newly-juvenile-whale-shark-aggregation.html Here's two really cool brief articles showing whale sharks doing cool things 🙂 https://phys.org/news/2023-06-whale-shark-bottom-feeding.html https://phys.org/news/2023-05-whale-sharks-parasites.html

I get a lot in the sponge filters for some reason or by the moss / alder cone piles! I fed them some bee pollen today, hoping to help balance out the nutrients a bit. The amanos were very confused by it.

I would highly recommend that you don't use sunset gold.... it is such a pain to clean and could damage your equipment! Let me explain... The "moonlight sand" is practically dust. Some of their sand is more of a gravel, etc. Here is a side by side of two of the ones you mentioned. They key there being the size they list: The left one Is more of a fine gravel. The pebbles are basically closer to that 2mm in consistency while the sunset gold is really close to that 0.25-0.5 on average. As those particles are much finer it is easier for them to float in the water and for the filtration to take up sand which will basically act like a fine sandpaper in your equipment. If you have something like a sponge filter, this isn't a major concern, but once you add a pump it definitely is! The substrates I recommend based on this above issue in my own tanks / experience cleaning them: Avoid: Moonlight sand, Sunset Gold, USE!: Peace river, Crystal River, Torpedo Beach, Jungle River, Carolina Creek I absolutely loved the look of all of the caribsea substrates. Moonlight I hate working with and can't wait to replace it! With the sunset gold I had my 75G tank with it and absolutely loved it, seriously, but it just isn't as easy to work with now that I have used larger particle sizes. Right now my 2 favorites are Crystal River and Torpedo Beach. I saw these somewhere! Maybe it was green aqua? Maybe it was an ada site or something similar. Yes, very beautiful rock and that color.... the green on anubias, that'll be quite wonderful. There are two tanks / sources I would recommend you check out. Anything anubias I automatically encourage people to check out Pecktec! His tanks are stuffed with it and it's wonderful. The other is George Farmers fern/crypt setup. Very similar in demand, but it's just a different selection of plants. The care and treatment of the plants would be very similar and it's just a visually beautiful setup with the coloration. (I'll grab the links and add them below)

One of the big things I didn't quite understand was the time to see results. Something like salt for some parasites can be instant. Sometimes it takes 2-4 treatments to see the full impact. This was a new thing for me and seeing the SJ in the first place, only on a few shrimp, not seeing a lot of molting due to WC or meds, and feeling like I need to change water to encourage molting are all factors here that go into how I handle the treatment on this one. The plan is to do a water change tomorrow (5 days with meds) and repeat that to fully get rid of the eggs and the parasites that are on the shrimp. I need to go through the lifecycle to understand if this is a weekly or bi-weekly treatment. bi-weekly would be better for me. I also do not intent to add the plants and stuff back into the tank just because I will likely be adding salt. They are in a bucket right now and they are going to sit near the 75G tank and get some light from that source for now. It isn't optimal and it's not a perfect situation, but my hope is that the at the end of this: -I have confidence the shrimp are healthy, especially when it comes to internal or external issues. I would like to see better overall health of the colony when it comes to the patterns on the shrimp and those yellow sections I've noted before. -I will be better about feeding, what I am feeding, and how that is impacting their health -I will have wood and plants without any algae that has survived the time elsewhere during this treatment -I am able to better clean the tank and can use that technique moving forward. -no parasites

A massive thank you to @mountaintoppufferkeeper for sending me some sußwassertang to play with! It was lost by the local post office for nearly a week! I'm excited. It's beautiful. And hopefully I can do something fun and exciting with it.

I don't see any issue with your food selections. Betta fish, from what little I have researched, they do like to eat bugs. I would recommend checking out some of the bug based foods and trying out the "grub pie" version of repashy if you feel so inclined. Depending on what is being fed, how often and how much, that could lead to bloating. Whether it was extreme enough to cause pineconing and technically be called dropsy is not really the point though. If you saw bloating, the fish may have had some sort of internal discomfort from the food, internal parasites, or internal organ issues. Unfortunately, I have seen it happen. I moved a fish and it immediately deteriorated due to temperature issues. I understand the frustration and hopefully through discussing everything that happened the forums can help shed some light on everything. It's not easy, and again, I'm sorry for your loss and the struggles you've undergone.

Yep! Unfortunately I am not sure who or where to ask. Planetcatfish, Eric Bodrock, or maybe someone who has given the corydoras talks on the co-op channel?