nabokovfan87

Yep! I got a "green" tube cleaning kit for the 407 tubes, it lasted 2 uses and the python tubing killed it. It was also blue, so there's that. It came with two little brushes for straws, I just used that, worked fine. It was working at... 95% capacity? never been cleaned before. Might've reduced some sort of back pressure, but it wasn't restricting flow in any way. I need to find a new tube cleaner, but yeah... project for another day! I will let them know! 🙂

I can *absolutely* relate to these photos. So... Step 1 for the "let's get the tank doing it's own thing" method and have a situation where the plants are actively working hard to filter things for you. Pull that piece of PSO on the far left (dark corner) and move it towards the center back of the tank. Take all of your PSO stems and trim off 12" sections, plant those ~4" deep in the substrate if you can. You want to have enough in there that they don't get pulled up by the fish. You're dealing with BBA it looks like as well as some green dust algae. Your anubias is rooted to that rock, but that rock is right under the middle of the tank which is the brightest part. you have some java ferns in the front of the tank, also low demand plants. Take that rock that has the anubias, or just the anubias itself and relocate it to one of the ends of the tank (left or right) and that will give you lower light and help to shade out that plant. That should help to let it recover. Pull about half of the dying/dead leaves with the worse algae and you can even cut off that section of rhizome to allow it to use maximum energy on new, algae-free growth. With your sword, drop some root tabs around it in the substrate and then go ahead and pull off the worst couple of leaves. Finally, push your light towards the rear 1/2 of the aquarium to focus the light on the PSO stems and to avoid having it centered above the rocks, ferns, anubias. Your anubias on the right is a sight to behold. Well done! Pull off the dying leaves and let it focus on repairing itself with healthy, new growth. In terms of algae fighting crew, some amano shrimp would love the rocks. Otos would be great in this tank as well as ~1-3 SAEs. They would actually enjoy the setup you have and just do their thing eating on surfaces. Hillstreams or borneo loaches might be a fun add too. There's always something, but it's just about finding the "right things". Focus your energy on cleaning filtration. Do your water changes when you can. If you're doing less of them, then do 50% or larger. Preferably 75% if you're only doing it once every couple of months. Once a month, that's a typical schedule a lot of people have. Keep on focusing on the good things, find something to enjoy about the tank and dwell on that. Find a reason to smile when you look at the tank and go from there. That's how you get through those difficult times.

The salt is definitely causing some form of an issue and legitimately using tap water (unsoftened) might increase your success, even if the KH is higher. I would try to get a line to bypass the softener. There is a lot of smarter people than myself that could break down the chemistry of what is going on, but the big picture here is that the water itself is pretty unstable. This means things are unstable and that leads to issues with the amanos reacting to stress. Immediate deaths like you're experiencing are almost always going to be a sign of water issues or a contaminant. Something like copper is what is often pointed to, but any excess heavy metals could be a major issue for shrimp. 2 - I use iron in my tanks, it's not going to cause any issues. 3 - nitrate levels that high is absolutely a risk. Let's dive into maintenance schedules, water volume that is being changes, filtration that you're using and how it's setup. You have plants in the tank, but you don't have a massive plant load. Hopefully that makes sense.

It's just a note. Having those guppies in there will absolutely change how the shrimp behave. It's best if you can move them out of the tank for a little while, let the shrimp populate, and then try to introduce in some fish. I would recommend starting with this and just for sanity sake check it against how you are specifically acclimating your shrimp. One of the things people use is time. 2 hours, etc. But the main thing to keep in mind is water volume. Slowly adjusting the GH/KH to stable is the key. I use the above method where you double or triple the water volume, then you drain off as much water as you can, repeat that process. (double/triple the water volume again) I've seen one person, they drip for 2 days. I've acclimated shrimp a ton, sensitive fish as well using the same method. The biggest thing I run into is an issue of keeping the drip acclimation chamber up to temp. Keywords here "out of the tap is very high". Given my own experience, this could shed some light. Alright so, when you get shrimp in, ignoring any DOA issues, I would assume for most deaths to occur either in the first 24 hours or the first ~2 months. Essentially, you are trying to reduce stress and reduce shock as much as possible. Any sort of travel+acclimation could lead towards stress, which leads to a molt. That in turn leads to a situation where the shrimp themselves are vulnerable and stressed, which leads to death. I would be very interested to see the tank itself and your setup. Is there a feeding dish? What sort of foods are you using once the shrimp arrive? Have they been eating aggressively for you on something like an algae wafer/shrimp pellet or do they basically just graze on surfaces? Given that the tank has fish in there, they were traveling, getting the shrimp acclimated is the first hurdle, but getting them eating is going to be critical. Because of the gravel substrate, I recommend using a feeding tube and feeding dish.

Doing alright! Life stuff just happens. 🙂 I got a chance to take apart my easy-super-duper-flow thingamajig and checked it based on your recommendation to do so. A little bit of gunk... knowing my tank, worms, but it was cleaned and no real issues. It was essentially just minimal stuff. The sponge is set to churn so much air that I swear the sponge weighed a good 5 lbs. 😂 I appreciate the kind words. Trying to get them healed up and healthy!

Please try to attach some photos if you can.

it's not anubias rot, it's something else. Almost looks like a fungal issue or worms.

@Max W. try to get some more photos. Don't zoom in, just take them at normal mode. Essentially on some phones, the zoom is literally just making it blurry. I have some cherry barbs that are holding eggs for comparison sake.

This was really fun and I sort of had to pause when it got to a few scenes. It's absolutely geared towards a more younger audience and the idea being wide-eyed awe amongst traveling around to see some cool things. The idea of "you just have to go do things and go with the flow" is something I did for about 2 years. It got me out of my funk and it was a means for me to experience things I would absolutely say no to normally. It was a good way to get out of my shell. This episode in particular though is something that I admire. Whale sharks are some of the most beautiful animals on the planet and they are so unique, special. I cherish sharks, but I do especially cherish whale sharks. The net scene.... I love that she was there for him. It was a powerful moment because of how she acted and how she handled every aspect of the situation. It makes you pause, think about life a bit, and I really enjoyed that aspect of the episode. It was something I've never seen, someone describing what it's like to swim with the sharks and the power of their tail blowing you around in the water. Some fun little tidbits in there and I enjoyed it!

I've had some of mine going on ~10 years. KH is actually higher than 80 for most of their life, but the pH is way, way lower. 6.8-7.2 range. It's sort of weird what you're experiencing. Hopefully we can figure it out! They are some of my favorite things I've ever kept in the hobby.

Yes detritus worms. I am just unsure if they would eat them. Not a lot of fish do. 🙂 I would enjoy the contrast a lot as well.

I will read the thread when I get a moment, but it is very, very likely that you cannot keep amano at this pH. Mine turned red, molted, and I lost a few. Max is about 7.6 for the ones that I have. This is purely tied to KH, as they can tolerate very, very high GH parameters. Edit: With your KH being only 80, I would ask to verify this with a liquid kit or take it in to have a shop to run it through a secondary test to verify the results. 80 isn't very high for KH to get you up into the 8.0+ range. I see mentions of a water softener, but I'll take a deep dive into the thread when I get a moment. Using CO2 to drop the pH isn't reliable long term and I would opt for something like RODI or seachem acid buffer.

"So you're saying there's a chance..." What do you mean? Sorry, I'm just a bit confused. There's a ton of worms all over the tank, there always seems to be a ton. The amount I pulled didn't even make a dent in them. I was thinking I might be able to add 3-5 fish? Right now it is either (or both) white clouds and the elassoma species.

@Chick-In-Of-TheSea Omg..... A. Botanicals B. Shrimp only tank C. "No water changes" because floating plants D. Wasn't able to siphon the substrate for weeks. (Or clean filter) Results: @Fish Folk what are the odds I add some elasomma species to this tank and they eat my worm enemies?

Nope. Looks fine. Keep it rinsed off and setup the filtration to filter out those fines. Please feel free to post details on setup and we can adjust the canister setup if there is any improvement to be made there. On my 407, I run into the issue where theres a bit of an issue of bypass that causes the top media tray to get covered in some junk like yours was. It's really annoying to clean if it's not in a media bag, but it does "rinse" very easily, thankfully. As far as why it seems ok to me, it's because you have good size media there and the media doesn't look caked in gunk. It has some stuff in there, but with that stuff removed you can see that yeast colored layer, which is your bacteria. Pull out the very, very small pieces that are in there as well as the black stones, then add in some fresh media to refil the tray. It'll last quite a few more years without issue.

It was in one of his newer QandA style vids, basically talked about the misnomer or confusion behind shrimp and protein. I can dig it up, but it's a great question to bring up or ask whenever he does the next one! From what my sleepy mind can recall, the female shrimp especially need protein for the sake of egg production and overall strength. I don't feed bacteria at all, but I do have the botanicals creating that mix in the sand which is helpful with that bacteria growth. I also have the wood in there, similar thing going on for biofilm which feeds all the meiofauna that the shrimp would be going after in the wild. I've got two detailed studies on that topic specifically that are a fun read. As far as molting... The stuff you sent definitely helped and I do think my GH/KH was causing a bit of the issues. The other issue that I was having was that my mindset was that feeding a "complete food" meant that they had enough calcium and I didn't need to really stress over dietary issues apart from rotation of complete foods. Come to find out that there might not be enough calcium in there.... Or not feeding enough in general.... Which lead to vitamin and mineral issues. Not having what they need to have the strength to get through the molting, which is where that protein comes into play. It's much improved, but I did pull a body out yesterday. With things going on my care and eyes on the tank have been lacking. BUT! The floating plants might be growing decently well enough now with the light adjustment. Zoey just took the last of her meds tonight, Buddy has 2.5 days left. They are just needing to recover, relax, but doing ok. Best guess is that the other puppy didn't get sick, but the trips to and from for getting shots and checked out from the vet/store may have been where we tracked it into the house. It's really tough to say. My energy has been really just focused on 24/7 care for them and hoping they are ok in the end.

I will post thoughts tomorrow. I've been all over the place! Dogs have been a full time job and my tanks are even hurting because of it. SO..... We will get those notes for feb when we can, but I wanted to post March before it got too deep into the month and I forgot to again. This is an easy one, Youtube! Courtesy of a channel called biotopia This is much more of a journey in a natural habitat more than anything, but hopefully it sparks some thoughts!

Plants, basically.

Filter floss would be at most every 14 days.

It really depends. Let's say you have the bags they use in the tidals (you can buy matrix in that method just to get the bags), then you have something that will attempt to protect the media from being clogged with debris. It isn't perfect, but it helps. If you have a very coarse mesh bag, it's practically useless (aquaclear has some weird "media bags"), which just means that you would want to clean it off in a bucket or in a faucet whenever you clean the filter itself. If you're seeing the media that dirty then just try to rinse it and go from there. Start with a bucket of tank water and rinse it a few times like you would substrate. See how dirty the media really is. If you had to make me choose, I would replace the media.... or some of it.... every 1.5-3 years. The better you care for it, the better off you are. I have media that's been running for years at this point and it's perfectly fine, but I've also added new media to the system, lava rock hardscape rocks also helps, there's a lot of variables.

caribsea has a new midnight river black substrate. They also have others like jungle river that might give you some of the variation in color you are looking for. This is mine in my tanks, it's a very good size sand. Visually fine, just not powder, but a fine sand. This is the new stuff.

PH is pretty low. What is your KH and GH at the tap? Perhaps the KH is dropping over time and turning to 0, leading to a PH crash. https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/ph-gh-kh Secondarily, you may not be changing enough water which exacerbates the KH issue (if it's on the margins of stable). https://www.hamzasreef.com/Contents/Calculators/EffectiveWaterChange.php

leeches.

It also keeps if from drying out and becoming brittle, cracking.