nabokovfan87

My female in my colony is definitely old. Just her behavior you can tell she isn't going to put up with too much. I do think there is a point when they stop spawning, but I am not sure how long that would be. My pandas took almost 3 years off of spawning. They would do their up downs, but just never spawn. They would play in the flow, get all the normal things, but the tank wasn't setup for them for spawning and so they just didn't. They were in a tub, they were in a bare tank for a bit. When they did get a little bit of their old tank setup back, I did get one more fry. I've seen breeding / spawning behavior in as little as 4-6 months. This is just behavior, I can't say they are mature enough to spawn. I can say they can spawn in under a year with certainty. This is an excerpt from an article online. As for lifespan... you're going to see estimates all over the place. I imagine things like powerfeeding, water conditions, water quality, setup (stress), and disease all play a role with how well or poorly the corydoras do. I would tent to lean more towards the ~10+ year mark based on my own experiences for lifespan.

Do you happen to have another method for testing KH? It looks like your KH may be very low. (this would indicate a very unstable PH).

Is it possible the substrate is leeching ammonia? Is it an active substrate? Can you provide details on filtration and how it's setup? The tank is processing to nitrate, but this could be from the plant fertilizers or other sources! If you're seeing constant nitrite rising, the key is usually to focus on what is causing ammonia. My second item to check would be if there are any dead snails.

That's very unfortunate and I'm sorry for your loss. Some bettas can be very, very sensitive to certain types of food. In general feeding something high in protein could result in what is known as dropsy. That does appear as a type of bloating which you commonly see in betta fish. This also could be an internal bacterial issue, internal parasites, and other things at play. When it comes to small tanks, 10G and under I would say, is that something like dropping in a little bit too much food could lead to an ammonia spike. The majority of ammonia in our aquariums does come from fish respiration, but there are other causes. Smaller tanks magnify those affects and the time from which your water quality is poor to that spike is very quick. Unfortunately that leads to stress on the fish, which does harm the immune response and can cause some secondary, lingering issues, to result in that disease wearing down the fish even more. I can't say that is what happened here, but if we look at the big picture there is a lot to consider. The only final note here is to try to give the tank time to establish itself. If you have an ammonia spike and the filtration isn't quite able to keep up, then that would result in a lingering ammonia or nitrite reading in your water parameters. That would cause stress over time and can lead to ammonia burn or nitrite toxicity issues from those levels. Adding aquarium salt does alleviate some of those symptoms from ammonia and nitrite, simply meaning that it's good to have on hand.

Ah, that's right. He's got a pretty detailed video on the method.

@Lennie Saw these somewhere else, but it's the second or third time I've seen them. Looking forward to seeing more about your setup @Fish Folk Ain't that the worst..... I think you may have a bit of what I'm seeing now. The BBA literally starting on a single piece of gravel and then going to the next and so on. It might be the flourite black I have. I'm unsure. I just know it's getting annoying! Best of luck in your ongoing battle. You might try the method, I think it was from aquapros, where he drained the tank and added BBA and let it sit. If I can find it, I'll link it. Essentially, pull the fish, dump in a bunch of hydrogen peroxide and let it sit, then do your water change.

silvertips (I know, I know, not silver), reticulated SAE, rummynose, congo tetra, bloodfin tetra, or emperor tetra. I found this, it seems like there's a plethora of hatchetfish: https://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/features/silver-belles-for-your-aquarium/ Depending on your setup and temp, maybe some silver-ish trilineatus corydoras would do well.

My apologies about the confusion! Alright so the main process going on is that when you first add aquasoil (like the stratum substrate) it has a lot of organic particles that are leached out into the water. Sometimes you can just add aquasoil to the tank, depending on which one, but most of the time you want to do water changes to remove all of that excess. When you first add the tank, you'd change water nearly every day. The next week less often, etc. During this process the soil is also absorbing minerals from the water column (KH and GH particles). This has to do with Cation exchange. From Tannin Aquatics Blog, here is a brief explanation of the whole process. In order to add in minerals you would add in new water via water changes, while some of the excess organics are removed during that same progess. This helps to keep algae down and prep the soil for the plants. Ultimately, you're just looking to get the setup phase done and then focus on how the plants do following that. Secondly, you'd want to look into a liquid fertilizer like Easy green to use with your tank. There are a lot of options out there, what you'd want to find is something that is an "all-in-one" fertilizer to make it easy to use. Something like Seachem's line of fertilizers requires a lot of different bottles and can be very difficult to keep consistent.

which one, the first or second? 😉

A TON of people make BBS and then freeze it. It's something I've seen a lot on the forum here as well. Hikari does sell that product as well. One thing to keep in mind with fry is that you want to feed them small amounts multiple times a day. 3-4 times a day. Keep the tank clean as you can, but overfeeding would lead to rotting food and a few other issues if not kept in check. I would recommend using powdered repashy (soilent green or super green) or as Lennie mentioned, the sera micron food is good as well. You can make your own powdered fry food with a spice grinder, the back of a spoon, or something else to crush it. Whatever you're feeding the adults, you can just crush it up as fine as you can and try that.

I don't know which kind you have, but you'd want to calibrate it. The water seems to be ok, just excess waste (ammonia, nitrite, nitrates). This just means it's time for a water change and to get things a bit more clean for the tank. A siphon would help remove waste in the substrate, I understand this isn't the easiest thing. Some people stick a cover over the part of the siphon that goes into the tank and others put a net at where it drains to catch shrimp. I tend to do the MST method of trying to settle the gunk in a bucket over time and finding them when they move. Suck up the babies with a turkey baster or move them with a small net. Hopefully all the steps above you mentioned results in the ammonia production slowing down and tank being stable. If that isn't the case you can try to add some sort of ceramics to the tank to help. One of the big confusion points with shrimp is specifically TDS. Your GH and KH is good. So that means everything else isn't mission critical. The TDS likely went up because of adding something to the tank. It could be anything. Even dechlorinator. I only use, or only would use a TDS meter when seeing issues to do a sanity check and I would follow that with GH and KH testing. I would only regularly use a TDS meter for the sake of making buffered water, starting with RO and adding buffers to an equivalent level.

It's very good to hear that you're doing better. It's definitely a process trying to figure out "what's next".

...or a 45 minute video condensed to a 30 second video with a tank on a turntable. Ah that reminds me of the "playing the pauses" quote. I think each setup is unique and can be it's own thing. Ultimately, some tanks really need to have some open space, others can go full carpet and look amazing. I can seriously appreciate both methods. Considering most of my tanks will always have a corydoras species, I do tend to "setup" the tank for them by having overhangs, shadows, hides, and ope areas for them to swim around. I remember one of the "master series" green aqua talks where the person speaking mentioned a specific plant choice. "If I put this here, when it grows there will be no room for fish." The same thing applies to hardscape and everything else. Biotopes, "nature style", and so many of these different things are intended to be a certain visual aesthetic and maybe there is a scenario where having a plant only setup makes sense! There's always so many perspectives and that is compounded when you're talking about a very subjective hobby. Watching the IAPLC results I would "judge" the works and decide which I liked more than others. The conversation of why is an interesting one! Ultimately, even the content and statements of the aquascapers I watched all day does change over time. You watch a scape from years ago compared to the videos released recently, with contrasting or.... evolved.... more clarity on the statements made. It's like everything else with the hobby. Find who you admire or who has a similar mindset to yourself, then learn what you can. Never stop pushing yourself to learn.

The white exposed shell could be a sign of molting, or trying to molt. I learned about this when I was researching why the shrimp eyes can look a bit wonky and out of sorts. If they are growing and the shell releases a little bit then you get that white ring in the midsection or parts of the shell that are just trying to molt. I hope she pulls through, but keep an eye out and maybe that's all you're dealing with.

Well, we all knew this was a lie. Lol. It looks good. Only a little bit of finishing salt, but your tank is looking good. Any update on the repair?

They have a bug one he might like a lot. 🙂

That poor poor repashy doesn't stand a chance.

Definitely true!! We keep saying that. 🙂

There is a variety of methods but it depends on what you intend. If you just want polishing, go get a marineland magnum filter with the fine polishing cartridge. If you specifically just want something like a HoB but not a HoB you can install something like a shower filter above the tank. That pours onto some filter floss / polyfil and then that drains back into the tank. You'd simply use a little add on pump (like for a fountain) and then that would feed into the reservoir you have to hold the filter floss. You can find videos of people doing this with a fluval (or marina) hang on breeder box. You can also mod something like a planter box to work. There's a lot of different methods. As others have mentioned, I would not put the filter on top of a glass lid. They aren't made to work like that and will break extremely easily. Something like a hang on canister filter might work. There's a ton of different items and methods out there.

That reminds me.... I have to figure out if I have some carbon left just for the sake of it. The big difference between yours and mine is that mine could just change water constantly and be fine. I don't know how to get yours to that point where you don't have to drip and stuff or where you could just constantly drip it in type of thing. 😞 I'm thankful we got the setup sorted out for you and things have been more consistent. I'm excited to siphon the heck out of this tank when I'm able to. LOL

Ah, this is a good thing though! I wasn't sure if the plan was to add more grids or not. If I screw up plant names it's totally fine, but I'm going to try to guess some of them and not goof it up too poorly. I totally did end up going back and looking up at older photos. Don't give me too much credit if they are right! 😂 Red arrow on the foreground, I am just unsure if this is meant to be there and carpet across the entire tank or if it's something that is causing issues for you. I think it looks good as a carpet, but it's still growing it. If you were trying to carpet that out, maybe even out the spacing across the whole front and propagate it out? The red arrows at the top, mainly on the val, it's a very striking visual look and I love the concept for placement that you have. I think that wisteria "bush" you have is competing with that piece of wood and with giving that val a thick enough base. The base of the val might be able to be expanded just slightly. I don't know if it is best to trim off the struggling leaves? Lastly, finding a way to hide or determine if that piece of wood needs to be there? Light blue arrow, the wisteria we've discussed a few times. It goes left and it's making the dutch street, which is your specific intent with that plant. It looks good, the slope is good, it works well and the textures on those 3 plants on the left are complimentary. I don't know what works better, the wisteria contrasting with the val or the contrast of that plant with the Lilly and the limnophila in the back that admire to death. You mentioned separation. My eye went to that chunk of wood in the foreground on the left and I thought it was a plant until I looked closer. My eye keeps trying to trim the wisteria back into a spherical bush, but maybe it's just a matter of the trim on the dutch street aesthetic and letting the limnophila in the back have a bit more height to highlight it's shape. I would consider also, the option of letting the val grow towards the back of the tank a little bit, but keeping it pinned against that wall. Maybe that is another lane in the dutch street? The pink arrow (pointing at the limnophila on the back left corner) is just there to indicate trimming and keeping that as a highlight. It looks great, but it's on the verge of getting hidden. Moving a little bit right of center we have that taller eleocharis species located in the middle of that defined and established.... what I would argue is one of the feature plants in this setup. Looking back, I think it's the hygrophila serpyllum, but I am not sure. It has a unique leaf structure compared to everything else. I would prefer that eleocharis to be either behind that plant or to the right, potentially replacing one of those two plants in its location. If it goes behind the plant in the foreground I would keep it trimmed below the red stem behind it. The shorter red plant up front, I think that's the crypt you're mentioning as well. It's so lost in the substrate unfortunately! It's hard to see it given the color of the substrate. If it was able to grow taller or be lifted in some sort of way it would contrast so well with the bolbitis right behind it. I thing that contrast, being the direct inverse of the contrast you see on the left side of the tank is actually a good thing. Right now the foreground (crypt) is a bit washed though. The hydrocotyle all the way to the right it just looks like it's struggling. It might just be the variegation on the leaves I'm seeing? I don't know if that means swapping a location of one of the other plants, which is thriving, or if there is just a bit of a nutrient adjustment that would fix the issue. Maybe that right wall is where the eleocharis or the crypt can move to replace it and give better contrast with the glass as a background? The Ludwigia repens 'Rubin' in the current photo might just need be adjusted (the stem leaning into the bolbitis). I'm excited to see how that plant looks in the final setup. The white arrow, back left corner, I am excited to see what that does!

If you're up for one of those, "if this was my project, maybe this would make sense to do?" type of feedback posts I can share what I see. I understand it's a very technical setup and something I see might not make much of any sense! Perfectly happy to admit that. 🙂 One day.... One day! 😂 I'll be so happy when my tank is stuffed with plants like both of yours. How are the plants on the grid in the back doing?

First, flourish Excel is an algaecide, similar to something like Easy Carbon. Second, given it's a new setup it will take time for the plants to grow in. If you have something like aqua soil substrate you'd want to track your GH/KH over time and then proceed with water changes: Week 1: nearly every day. For mine I didn't have a ton of soil and a pretty big tank, so I did 2-3 changes the first week. Week 2-3: 1-2x per week Week 4-5: 1x per week. Again, a lot of this is based on the substrate pulling nutrients from your tapwater, how much, etc. This is where monitoring those parameters comes in useful. You would want to have some sort of a liquid fertilizer, potentially root tabs for the plants you mentioned. You'd add in the tabs every 1-3 months based on when you're seeing the plants struggle again. Liquid ferts, I dose in 1-2x per week.

I just wanted to share this for the sake of it being any benefit. I don't want to say that you need to use a certain type of media. Rings, the stuff above, matrix, lava rock, or what was included in the box, I think they all can get the job done, but the main goal here is to just set it up and make sure it works. The FX series isn't cheap and it's the type of thing where the goal is to have something that just works. If it was me personally, I would run it as is for at least 6 months and see how you like everything. If the media breaks down a bit quicker than you'd like, there are options of course.

The moss should be tied with some string on the mesh. Depending on how you plan to attach that moss to the wood is a bit of a key factor here. If you want to glue that moss or tie it, maybe there is a method for you to find the end of the thread and detach it from the mesh.