nabokovfan87

Sorry about this, I just now saw the post! I think the only real way is to build or use a snail trap. There are also hand tools from Dennerle that you use along the glass to trap the snails for removal. We can talk about this in your shrimp journal thread, but I would start with testing GH and KH via liquid test. I think your setup is correct, food looks good, and it's tied to the water in some capacity.

Maybe it was stuck trying to molt? I haven't dealt with that particular issue in my tank. I have simply lost shrimp due to not being able to molt properly. 😞 .

https://www.tfhmagazine.com/articles/saltwater/so-you-want-to-keep-a-shark-full It would take a bit of research as to what species are available, for me personally it would be something like this. The tank does need to have rounded corners I believe. I think having a really nice reef, corals, especially after watching chasing coral, would be the dream.

Let's use a bit of a real world example to try to break down the method and some of the logic behind the decision tree. Example: KH in the tank is 20 ppm, KH from the tap is 80 ppm. What we see in this case is a gradual decline of KH due to organics and waste building up and water changes being minimal (or not at all). The hobbyist in this case wants to recover the KH a little bit, but you don't want to affect KH immediately due to how it impacts the PH of the tank. This means you want to do so gradually over several days or 1-2 weeks. First water change is 50%, KH goes from 20 up to 30. Next time it goes from 30 up to 40, etc. This is where you slowly see the organics removes via siphon and filter cleanings, improved maintenance. Then you see the water chemistry itself recover. This is the main method for recovering from Old Tank Syndrome. Example: KH in the tank is 30 ppm, KH from the tap is 40 ppm. There is a slight drop in KH here between the tank and the tap, but the fish in this tank need to have 7.4+ PH. Due to the ppm of the KH being low, the water is going to have too low of a PH. Ultimately, the only solution is to use a buffer like crushed coral or something like alkalinity buffer to raise the KH. By raising the KH in the tank, you have the PH slowly rising as well. For the same reason as mentioned above, you don't want to have the PH rise too swiftly so you would slowly add in your buffer until you reach the level you're happy with. Crushed coral goes to the filter like a chemical media or into the substrate layer in the aquarium and slowly dissolves over time. Using a powdered buffer it would be slowly adding the powder over several days or weeks. Once your KH is at the right level in the aquarium, then you are going to be focused on maintenance of the KH water parameters. You are preconditioning your water for water changes by adding the buffer, then using that for your water changes as you would normally. Over time, in the case from my earlier post with evaporation, the KH will build up over time. This just means monitoring things month to month (or week to week) to keep track of how the stability of the tank is doing. Overall, water change schedule is up to you. It could be monthly, every few weeks, or weekly. The dosing schedule is up to you and the livestock in the tank. Some people dose in KH/GH just for the sake of plants to have the correct nutrient mix. In terms of daily water changes, I would not be dosing buffers in daily. They take time to dissolve and impact water parameters. If you're in a situation where you need to perform more constant water changes, the main thing is to match the water from the tap. Once you have things stabilized, then you can go back to using buffers and loosed schedule. I was not preconditioning my water for water changes, but I was dosing it directly into the tank, minimally. If I knew I needed say 5 scoops, I would dose in 2-3 scoops. That is because my fish in my tank prefer lower PH, but I need to raise it enough to keep the tank from PH crashes.

I noticed this too 🙂 Would you care to elaborate? I don't think I know the story. There was a quote from George Farmer in that video I linked. I highly recommend hearing that conversation and I think it's a great conversation to have as a hobbyist. Be it with your family who doesn't keep fish or yourself. He was discussing his history and how he got started in the hobby. Something along the lines of learning to enjoy the process of maintaining your tank. "One message I'm trying to get across. It's very easy to appreciate the visual beauty. But, I think if you go a step beyond that, dig a bit deeper, there's so much more beauty in in the processes." -George Farmer

Stuff like aquasoil. The video above describes what "active" means and how that works. Briefly thought, it is a soil that has an ion exchange component. Common brands would be fluval stratum, tropica, ADA Amazonia, UNS Contrasoil, etc. The second half of this video discusses a little bit of what you're dealing with. The goal being that when you aren't using any buffers or additives, that your KH from the tap is what you see and test in the tank. You can do daily water changes if you really need to (30-50%) for most fish without any harm to the tank. For shrimp it is often cautioned to be a bit more careful with water changes. With regards to buffers, I use the same stuff. I test, decide if I need to add some in. I also track before or after each water change to try to understand what is going on with my water. I ran into an issue where I stopped testing and my KH was about 2x what I expected. Strips told me one thing, liquid KH test and PH told me another. The main thing is to test if you're using buffers and having a lot helps. It's very straightforward. If your goal is 8 degrees of GH, and you're testing 6, you can add a little bit, give it a few days and add more. Same thing with KH, a little bit of buffer can keep the tank stable and it's not really complicated at all. I was adding a few scoops of 1/8 tsp per 5G per water change to get my KH stable. Based on that recent issue I would only do a single scoop per water change regardless and follow up with testing after 24 hours.

I feel you. I've been recovering some of my anubias for what feels like 2 years now.

Zenzo just released a video discussing using amano shrimp in brackish. Maybe he can chime in for us here and help with stuff like salinity level and any tips and tricks. Some species might need a transition to brackish, others may not tolerate it. @Zenzo how did you get your amanos in the brackish tank going?

Yes and no. There are three things at play. Evaporation, Fertilization, and Dilution. Evaporation. The water in the tank evaporates to the air and then you have the minerals in the tank compounding. In cooking this same mechanic is used to make sauces, reductions. This will raise the amount of minerals in the tank, creating what is called old tank syndrome. There is also no real certainty to guarantee what is left in the tank because of the next issue. Fertilization. Plants will pull minerals as they need them. This could be from the substrate. Especially an active substrate can pull those ions from the water column. If you have a planted tank, the best thing to realize is that this is constantly happening and that change in chemistry is going to impact a variety of things in the tank. There is such a way with something like a bog filter to pull so much of these things from the water that you are left with none over time. Eventually, that could theoretically happen as the plants and substrates filter those things. Dilution. One of the common methods for a reef tank is to refill your tank with RODI water as to not impact any of their water chemistry. Doing this ignores the tank itself using certain minerals. If we all had a reef, some method to test every single pertinent mineral in the water, then that would be the best way to determine input vs. output and how the water going in will dilute what is already there in terms of PPM. The other side of the coin is that organics in the water use up KH ions. This means, let's say you add in your water and you see a KH drop after 24 hours. This makes sense in some situations. This is explained in this blog article pertaining to KH. https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/ph-gh-kh With those caveats aside, it is absolutely possible to use water changes to stabilize KH in your tank. Cory mentioned this in one of his older vlog videos where he was doing such a thing in one of his tanks. As long as the waste and organics in the tank don't use up the KH in the tap too quickly, yes, viable option. In your big tank is there an active substrate?

I seriously do.... Find out how to spend a day working with Matt Draper.

I would think they can grow on any sort of hardscape if need be. If you're having issues, specifically with shrimp tanks, I would try to find some way to siphon the substrate thoroughly more often to keep it clean.

What a majestic day. 🙂

This video discusses the impact and operation of active substrate. The impact of that on your water. Wood adds organics to the water, which does consume some KH. I have wood in every single one of my tanks and I really don't plan to run a tank without it. What is the KH you're seeing via testing and what sort of stress issues with the tank were you seeing? Ultimately, water changes are your friend here to get the PH/KH stable.

Leave everything else running as normal. All you do is block out light from the tank. Keep any heater and filtration running.

It's good to see the growth and the consistency in coloration. It's been a process. The last video I sent gave a technique for salt treating the entire tank! Really useful and is likely how I handle things if I ever have to duel with this stuff. One day at a time. Hopefully your dive was amazing and you brought back some fun photos for us of the adventures 🙂 .

I'm not sure how I am going to get through this month without some ricefish showing up.

One piece of wood and some Val. The conversation they have it very interesting. George talks about tours of the tropica farm. He mentions that they do them as a reminder and to keep enthusiasm for the hobby going for the business mindsets.

Congratulations. That is wonderful.

I've never had an issue with wood affecting water parameters. Be it manzanita, ghostwood, mopani, etc. We just, or maybe I just don't, use the sheer amount of wood that causes issues. It would take a very large amount. When you say the piece you used previously affected water parameters I assume the change was with your KH, affecting your PH. This may or may not be a symptom of the setup, not necessarily of the wood being there. That change may also be beneficial to the fish as opposed to causing any sort of issues. What specifically did you see change with regards to the tank when adding wood? We're there any fish showing issues with PH levels? https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/ph-gh-kh The wood is a type of organic material that breaks down over time. Those tannins do reduce over time. The impact that you see does reduce over time if you are using a good hard wood. If you have a softer wood, it basically just turns to mush and causes so much mulm and waste that it just clogs filtration and other things. That definitely would be a negative impact on the system. My suggestion would be to look for a piece of Malaysian or pacific driftwood that you like. I believe zoo med and mopani do see them, but it should be pretty common as a general hardscape item.

There is a variety of options, what is available locally for you? I am just sharing this for clarity so you are aware it is not liquid CO2.

Back is stiff! OK so.... Let me try to remember everything I did. I started work in the fish tanks by trimming the S.Repens in the big tank and planting all of the new stems. A little bit of work, but rewarding and interesting. I took all the stuff below the window, threw all that on the bed. I moved the sidetable out of the way and that made room for me to move the desk I have over into the corner. Right now it's in front of the window, with shutters, and so I cannot open the window. That got moved which means a lot of my fish stuff had to move to above the fridge that was formerly where the chair would be going on the desk. The desk is only there for the sake of having a table for things in the room. I moved all of that which let me move my old 55G tank stand (which is just now shelving) to below the window and move a bunch of boxes from the closet to that shelf. This looks terrible, but the bed is there to block that stuff. This meant I could then get to work on moving the dresser which had a fish tank on it. I drained the tank into two buckets, removed the hardscape and then removed the fish. I moved the filter to the bucket with the fish and then went ahead and set that aside with a lid. I removed the tank off the dresser and then placed the dresser in the "closet". The goal is to move my coffee stuff to the dresser and then go ahead and attempt to setup the desk for the use of work, livestreams, ambient noise, music, etc. I moved my table of fish tools into the back corner and hopefully that isn't too difficult for me to use day to day. The hope is also that it's off to the side without the concern of being knocked over easily. I setup my 29G from the hallway in lieu of the 10G tank. I can setup the 10G tank on the bottom of the stand if need be. My hope is that I can store it there after I clean it out. The tank that is setup is designed to be a plants only tank. For the sake of argument it can be a cull tank for shrimp and it can be a grow out for corydoras fry. Either use is fine and planned. I do want to replace it with a 20L instead of a 29G tank, but that's for another day. I can also use the 55G stand, with a 30L tank as a place to grow plants for profit. One day... Tomorrow I have to move the bed over, if possible, and move some electrical. I need to get the back of the tank covered with the window tint and go from there. I have to find a place for my fish tote of many things as it no longer has a place to be. I also need to find a place for a few other things, but for the most part the room is back to being a room. Ultimately, it will be a lot easier to care for this tank just because I can do so without spilling a bunch of water. The houseplants have a home now and I'm happy about that. I can't get them to grow, but I'm happy they have a place to be that is their own. More to work on tomorrow. We will see how it all goes.

I would trim that plant right above where all of those leaves with the algae are. That entire section looks really healthy. The leaves with the thick green algae you'd want to dip with something like this: The algae you're dealing with should be a lot easier to remove as it is green spot algae (green diatoms), but this method does work. Just a heads up, leaf zone is not a full all-in-one fertilizer. It contains potassium and iron. Switching to an all-in-one fertilizer might be the way to improve plant health and get ahead of the algae. I wouldn't mess with your lighting. Manually remove the algae as best you can, as often as you can, and focus on nutrients, trimming, plant growth. Just out of curiosity, what light are you using (what intensity?) and what is the substrate in your tank?

Those fish are often nocturnal, so they won't mind at all! They will spend the time being active and lower stress, able to explore 24/7 without light. 🙂 No worries at all, it should be on the first post, please feel free to DM regarding the filter if you need anything Easy carbon is an algaecide, so that would be used as need be, not really something that "counts" towards your dosing. Yes it is something you dose in, but you're not using that as basis to add iron. I've seen people add small amounts of iron daily, every few days, I only add it once a week. I dose in my stuff 1x a week, at most I dose in 2x a week if the tank demands it. The phosguard might be useful and I wouldn't be afraid to use it. Fixing filtration, removing things manually, blackout the tank, there's a few things going on to do first, but yes.... useful tool for this issue. After a series of water changes, potentially that's when you would use it.

This is little buddy. Shrimp wrangler in training. He decided to help me out today with the fish chores.