nabokovfan87

rainbow, barb, sunfish, and something from that family would work at lower temps. Cyrpanidae usually.

The go to for me in a tank like that is going to be a ram. German varieties or bolivian variety is up to you. Second to that, I would do something like a dwarf rainbow in a longer tank. https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/top-10-rainbowfish Another great option is a pygmy sunfish I will expand this to a certain size of barb or tetra also. If you keep mostly nano fish, having a larger emperor tetra or a larger barb would also work very well to me visually. As a centerpiece, my mindset is something that pushes you as the viewer to focus on the fine details of the fish itself.

This week I've spent a bit of time, well the past few months really, moving tanks around. One of my big concerns with setup after we moved has always been floor and tank stability, physically speaking. The real challenge is that whatever the heck was done to this house prior to my being able to see the space has been very detrimental to things being flat and or stable. I could link the holmes episode where he had to replace an entire floor support system.... that's what parts feel like. All the tanks are on the flattest part of the house (vinyl flooring) and are shimmed in such a way where they should be flat and they should be ok. In the deepest recesses of my mind, that is always a concern, especially given where I live and things that can happen with tectonic movements. I have a curtain rod all ready to go which I need to get some blackout curtains for. That will hopefully help to regulate light, but especially heat! There's no access to water easily, so everything I do in the fish tanks is manually with buckets and that isn't a bad thing at all. It is demotivating at times, but there is the other aspects, exercise, that are beneficial. I am working to manage methods, efficiency, accuracy, and effectiveness a lot more this time. Something like a dosing pump would be a wonderful tool for me to feel like I am not missing things. There's just many things going on day to day and it's the scenario of trying to keep it straight. It's not easy for me to do something like feed the shrimp every other day because each day feels like a week of events sometimes. But, trying to schedule things for particular days of week has been a little bit more effective for me. I have specific days for cleaning the tanks and I am working on keeping that schedule. I am also being very particular about what work I am signing myself up for because there really are only so many hours in the day. Switching from a weekly to a bi-weekly schedule for certain maintenance things has caused issues trying to just recall how much I need to do. I've got dry erase markers for writing on the tanks, notepads, and I just need to complete that loop. I am slowly succeeding with plants again. That statement isn't a light one and it's something where I feel a sense of doing certain things correctly. I absolutely do know that I need to be a bit better about certain things, but I am learning. That feels good. I am working on fixing issues, but I need to follow through and test my water more often. Honestly, I've lot confidence in testing. I've lost the energy to do it because I have lost the sense that the results I am seeing have any sort of accuracy and relevant data. I am using strips to test for nitrates and nitrites ONLY. I am using a GH and KH test kit when I need to.... and I need to more often than I would like. I have a phosphate test kit that is particularly useful checking for certain things, but only really required once in a while. My main day to day challenge is my CO2 system. I absolutely know that I am not dosing in enough CO2. I know that I am dosing enough to encourage growth, but not enough to the point where I am seeing the results in PH or drop checker testing. Yet again we have to back to those errors in my PH testing tools right now. This past week I had to sit and observe one major issue and I think it's down to the amount of surface movement. I don't have enough, which means that the water cannot cycle through gasses enough to absorb enough CO2. Hopefully that makes sense! I am running the new setup with a little bit more effective placement of the spraybar to move CO2 and I just need to monitor how the diffuser itself is operating. I have a setup now where I can essentially remove the need for a diffuser and plug it directly into the spraybar, but I don't really know if that is a good idea or not. Like always, I am still learning some things. The fish are doing good. I have the first good spawn of black corydoras to a good size and I need to get them to trigger a big spawn for me. Plants arriving within a few hours for the sake of that project as well, which has me insanely excited to see progress and growth (plant growth). I have had a gut feeling, a hunch about what texture and scenario the corydoras want when it comes to laying some eggs and I cannot wait to test that theory out. It will be great to see more plants in the big tank and I'm excited to see something to trim that isn't just moss and S.Repens. 😂 Two of my tanks will have their own needs when it comes to plants, but the 29G I just got going will particularly be dedicated to a single plant. I hope I can grow it in buckets full and use it for many many things with my shrimp and corydoras. Now I just need to find those bricks that Mark uses. In terms of fish, I am always waiting for more of them to show up. I have the space, I have the setups, and I can't even get the swordtails to drop fry for me. It's very likely a dietary thing and I just need to inject in a bit more frozen and protein based foods. Any day now I should have some fry and it will be exciting to have them. Changing out the setup for the CO2 has the added benefit of helping the fish in the tank to have a much calmer spot to basque and relax. I will be great for them to have a section of the tank that is dramatically different in terms of water movement than what they have had the past 2-3 months. This isn't a means to say they were struggling, but it is something where I wake up and just watch their behavior. I want to see how they are interacting with the tank and the surroundings. That's the enjoyment for me right now. Whether it's the shrimp, the swords, the corydoras, or just hanging out to watch Grace, Luigi, and Riddick, I really enjoy those moments when I get to interact with them. It's a refreshing conversation so to speak.

I would essentially categorize things like this: You have three factors at play here for any tank with any light: refraction, power, and quantity. Refraction: How effective does the light energy work when trying tor reach the plants themselves. Power: How "strong" and "intense" are the LEDs in the light. This is normally reported out as your light PAR or your spec on the particular LED used to produce that light. Quantity: How many of said LEDs are there. How many red vs. blue vs. green vs. cool white vs. warm white vs. etc...... and how do those are impact what you are trying to do. The real context here is when someone says something like "turn off all the blues" because if you have 100 blue LEDs, yeah that matters a lot more than if you have one LED set to 5%. I am sure there is some sort of a formula you can tie those three design parameters into in order to get a certain value on the spectrum for low, medium, or high light categories. Having X amount of LEDs in a certain power range would give you a value, and then using that against something like tank height and light mounting setup would then give you further detail on how effective that light is at getting to the plants. Cory did make a video on this.

Ah ok. I'm assuming she looks a bit more calm now? lower stress?

That thing in the decor was what was stuck? Cool. Yay shrimp! I see all those little egg casings too. 🙂

This is wonderful... I also would add Cory's TDS comments right there with it for further context. This entirely all wraps into that first video of "what are your water parameters" and why it matters!

ORD. Good to hear!

Even just trying to remove eggs on the females that passed was ridiculously tough. Very sticky and they don't come off easily. That whole section of molt hopefully comes off. At the least, having something for her to hold onto and flick her swimmerets will help as much as you can. Hopefully she's able to eject as need be.

That's beautiful! It's the little things, as you mentioned, and having the tanks as an outlet creatively for me has been such a good tool for me. Be it emotionally or mentally, having that place to go and focus a bit, breathe a bit, just to be in this room and in this box and in the moment.... It's a good value activity for me. It's like a hike through the woods in some ways for me or that moment having a bit of a snack on the beach watching them crash and thinking about sharks and life. Maybe it's something where someone locally has space and the care practices to hell ensure yours are doing well? I wouldn't force a bigger tank or a certain species without a strong dedicated energy to do so. The hobby is filled with interesting life and there's so much more to experience that may help with care of some puffers in the future. There are so many things I've learned just by trying to step out of the norm of "I have a tank, I like barbs, let's get some barbs". Heck... I don't even have any barbs right now! Make a thread and we'll have to dive into that with full parameters and so on. Not having enough snails.... It's one of those, wait 5 minutes and another 100 showed up type of things. The nice thing is you can feed frozen for now if you need to. This is a wonderful thought. It's something that reminded me of a post I made 2-3 days ago while watching a video and reflecting on my algae issues. (Link to that in my signature now) Which brings me to where I am at now..... How things are going. *Coffee first*

ORD. Those Bettas are wonderful! You're doing well with the blackwater style and it's always enjoyable for me to see a tank with that sort of a hue. Loving the stuff you're doing. Keep it coming!

You're safe to add a bigger pinch of food too. Not going to hurt anything by doing so.

I haven't had to do this personally, but that's my resource for when I do. The main thing here is the peace of mind. There is a YouTuber named aquarium adventures, I'm in his discord and stuff, but he built a tank and has had leak after leak after leak and it took about 6 of them to really diagnose the issue over time. You can just do the "inner seam" and that should be good. The removal and resealing of the tank is basically just because of that effort to make sure every aspect is sound. You would be resetting the timer on when the tank has to be resealed and given the job is done without issues, long term that is setting the tank up like new again. You can prep and clean the surfaces a bit easier and all of those aspects. Trafish has another video replacing a rim on a tank, and that's sort of a deeper dive into repairing a tank. It's a lot of precision work and it's just the type of thing where I don't really know if I'm at that level yet. The internal seam stuff feels a bit achievable if that make sense. Holding panels parallel and true and level is a difficult skill without a workbench or level surface to operate from. Not something I have around personally. That totally makes sense. You can always email or call marineland and talk to the technical team.

It's very difficult to tell what is going on. What I think I'm looking at is a piece of the "undercarriage" on the last molt that is stuck on the bottom of the shrimp and she's unable to fully remove it. When shrimp are berries they can molt and they can molt all of the eggs off in that process. If the shell wasn't thick enough then potentially it breaks in a weird way and could get stuck. The light sensitivity and behavior is her indicating high stress. She's trying to say that she's vulnerable and in a tough situation. When you look at the next couple of photos I see a clear egg shape on the back side, but I Don't know if that color is correct. The usual "advice" is that someone will try to manually remove a bit of the shell or just leave the shrimp. Either method has a very high chance of the the shrimp passing unfortunately. If you accidentally remove something unintentional, the body is compromised, and if they can't move around properly or remove the molt herself, then she's going to end up being too stressed and pass from that. Fungus on shrimp can be that color and so the texture of what you're seeing is critical here as well. It doesn't look cotton or wool in texture, so I lean towards its being a molt issue. It would look like a simple egg fungus on a fish egg basically. @Chick-In-Of-TheSea in that first video she is flapping her swimmerets trying hard to get that chunk of stuff off. Try to hold it with a pair of tweezers gently and see what she does. Having that being held might give her the ability to detach herself from it. If that fungused over (like a bad egg or something) it would also explain what you're seeing. A little bit of salt + IAL might be useful for recovery if you're able to get that off.

I'll check out the thread. I think the shrimp molted already elsewhere and it's "stuck" or some of the shell didn't break off right on some section. It's difficult to say with absolute certainty what it is specifically. There are some other conditioy, I'll check my notes and see if there's anything else to look into. A pair of tweezers may help with shell removal but it's obviously risky.

😂 Reminds me of someone I know.

Looks like a Graham (get it?). Beautiful little shrimp. 🙂

Well, I have to share the "tree man" with you! He is known for using trees i this manor. It's a beautiful resource photo. 🙂 I especially enjoy the moss, the way it's trimmed, and the shrimp up top there hanging out. Green aqua has a series with Felipe when he was at their facility. All of those videos are wonderful and I highly recommend them just for the fun and enjoyment. Yes, just biofilm. You can remove it with a paper towel or toothbrush pretty easily. That piece of wood is pretty epic. It's a wonderful form for the project you have in mind and generally speaking, it's a wonderful piece of wood for aquascaping in general. Considering the tank is new, water changes are your friend to remove any excess nutrients from the aquasoil. I learned a trick from Mark's Shrimp Tanks on youtube. I use a piece of styrafoam on the water surface to diffuse the harsh flow.

Hey all, I'm mostly just asking for the sake of curiosity, but sometimes it's good to get an idea of how things are going. We all have our challenges and our accomplishments and it would be cool to sit down and really just have an open conversation about things. How is the hobby going for you? How do you feel about the hobby? How are your tanks doing?

I feed mine once a day. When I am trying to breed and get a spawn I will condition them by feeding them a bit more at night. I've been doing it this way for months and months. As long as the fish are healthy, you can feed once a day. Fritz aquatics has a very good article on how to handle and what to expect with chloramines. Essentially, you add a little bit more dechlorinator and you're fine. You can also pre-condition your water for the sake of letting an outside tank without fish process the ammonia and off-gas things like chloramines. The most common way to do this is to use a big trashcan and add lava rock to the base with an airstone. fill it up and after a few days you can test for the normal things to verify that what you're trying to avoid has off-gassed. Depends on the source. There's a lot of controversy over bottled water and the sources. CBC News has some quality reporting on youtube regarding the topic as well as things like Last week tonight which do a detailed reporting, investigative style of journalism on a specific topic.

ACO video released today:

you would need to see either nitrite or nitrate to consider the tank as starting to or being cycled. As you're seeing 0's across the board it's likely nothing has happened yet. Keep an eye on things, keep doing what you're doing. Let us know when results change. Welcome to the forums @OrangeBlossom! 🙂

I vote some nice shrimp and some lovely green low demand plants and some white cloud minnows. Beautiful stocking. I think the minnows would be ok with shrimp, but I am uncertain. Endlers are another beautiful option for that setup. I would get the tank going, get the algae and "seasoning" going, plants going, and then get the shrimp colony going. Once the colony is established, then I would add in some fish. Also. Shrimp tank.. Wood. Add a clown pleco 🙂

For sure! To be honest, I'm a bit jealous, I love the quality and black seams on a marineland. I had a bowfront and I couldn't stand seeing into the tank, but the quality was great! Best tank I've ever had that wasn't a custom job.

This is what I would do if I was just wanting to improve aesthetics. I ended up removing the old silicone and resealing my old tank when the edges started looking like your tank but much worse. Yeah. 100%. Sorry, I'm back and forth working and on the forums so I missed the comments earlier. I saw that back corner where there's a big chunk missing, probably compromising things. The seam may hold for a day, a week, a month, maybe a few months, maybe a year, but it's just a note that it is compromised and potentially a risk. It's that peace of mind thing, that's all. If you clean / prep, adding the new stuff shouldn't be difficult!!!! That video and guide by trafish is really awesome and it takes away a lot of the intimidation factor when I saw it. As long as you're not removing glass panels, it's an easier fix!!!