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nabokovfan87

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Everything posted by nabokovfan87

  1. nabokovfan87
    The usual method with aggression is to re-scape the tank and move things around to set new territory. If you're having say 2-3 guppy males pester one another, you'd want to add more males to diffuse the aggression, similar to barbs. If you have one fish that is being particularly pesty, try putting them into a breeder box for a few day and then releasing them back into the tank with the others. It worked for me to quell a beat up swordtail male. The vise versa can also work. If you have one male that is getting picked on, pull him, let him recover for a week or so, then release him back and monitor.
  2. nabokovfan87
    How quickly did things go from the bag being open to the shrimp being in the tank? Normally you'd want acclimation ok neo shrimp or caridina shrimp to drip for anywhere between 1-3 hours. I tend to go by the volume of water and diluting double the water volume 3-4x. Shrimp can be extremely sensitive to ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate if it's too high. That is how a lot of colonies crash. If they are going into an existing tank with fish or snails and those parameters are pretty intense, then I can see that being the cause. Neos are also very sensitive to certain things we can't test for. Was the tank treated with meds in the past and there could be residue that contains a heavy metal? Maybe copper? Is there hardscape that potentially has an issue, something like blasting sand or another component that may have metals in it causing some sort of sensitivity? Lastly, how did they arrive to you? I assume something in the bag for them to attach to and then you had a generally good arrival? I hope we can figure this out.
  3. nabokovfan87
    I have ordered amano and otos from them. Went well. What is their method for neo shrimp acclimation? What is your tanks GH and KH values? If you don't mind please share a picture of setup.
  4. nabokovfan87
    Knock on wood. Nice work little dude. Keep it up!
  5. nabokovfan87
    I agree. No idea what the issue is with that plant but it hates water. So confusing to me. It must need some intense light and CO2 or something. The tank looks great. Very clean and well kept. That moss is doing its thing, looks perfect.
  6. nabokovfan87
    That's a nice tip. Thank you! I will.
  7. nabokovfan87
    Finish out paracleanse and then do your expel-P treatments after that. It gives you time to get the meds and such. You'll likely be doing anywhere from 3-6 treatments of paracleanse. Odd Duck would be better to explain how you decide how many treatments.
  8. nabokovfan87
    Someone needs to design a boat with a comb attachment to get rid of duckweed. Feed it to compost.... Win win. I first saw this off mark's shrimp tanks video. Here's an example.
  9. nabokovfan87
    I don't think it's an issue, but it doesn't do anything beneficial to the tank. You might be able to get most of it when Doing cleaning and scraping the wood with the end of the siphon. I would tend to just take it out. Go to the front yard, get the fish only scrubber sponge and get what I could off. If it keeps showing up, then I wouldn't use the wood without bleaching or reboiling it. I don't think anything would eat whatever that is. All good. You can do them separately if need be. I had one issue where I didn't have enough on hand, counted the wrong amount of packets to treat the tank and had to do them one then the other. Just longer time to feel like the fish is cured, but it's very promising that you're seeing better behavior. I'm glad to hear it. Amano shrimp are Amazing and wonderful if you want to try an easier to keep shrimp. 🙂
  10. nabokovfan87
    I actually had this same issue! It was so weird. My black corydoras were supposed to be from a good source, but when they got to me they were extremely lethargic. I added more to the group and that didn't really seem to help. I would feed and they never seemed interested, didn't swim a lot either. Very inactive fish, unfortunately. I highly recommend following up with multiple rounds of treatment. My usual method is to do 3-4 rounds. Even if you don't see worms, there can still be things going on that need that treatment to be removed. Good siphons after each med treatment, and then trying to encourage food to push out parasites. Don't overfeed, but just meaning to not hold back food as it were. I ended up doing advice based on @Odd Duck and Colu's advice trying to get them back to normal. It took me almost a year and a half to get the courage to do the full rounds of treatment properly and to really deworm the fish. Odd Ducks method: Day 1: Expel-P (one day treatment, light sensitive so you need to blackout the tank) Day 2-6: Siphon, clean the tank, waterchange, and then Paracleanse treatment Repeat that based on the severity for 4-6 rounds of treatment.
  11. nabokovfan87
    ORD, congrats! That's wonderful. that was also the first fish I bred. :highfive:
  12. nabokovfan87
    Grace the shark likes herself a cave too. She has gotten bigger than the caves and sits there trying to get inside even the large one I have to no avail. Eventually she started just sticking her eyes in and scratching herself all up trying to spend the daylight hours in there hiding. I need a giant one for her! I've opted to make her a few caves out of rocks and wood and such. She's not as happy because she loves those secure caves, but she's doing better now without all the damage to her scales. I totally understand! 😂
  13. nabokovfan87
    Let me give you a few real world examples of the question at hand. There are always going to be multiple ways to view "how to" in this hobby and it's the type of thing where I am not trying to express a favorite towards one individual method. There are many ways to handle your planted tanks and the plants inside that tank can dictate a lot about your methods. Example 1: The low and slow method Mr. Bentley has an aquarium that is used as a "for profit tank". His focus is to be very plant heavy in his setup with slow growing, expensive plants that can be sold once they propagate out. Anubias, ferns, buce, and other low demand plants are in this tank. It has a lot of water column feeding plants, no soil, and there is a low bubble count of CO2 added to the tank which is designed to help the plants along, but not to push them to grow extremely quickly. He doses in following the normal schedule of easy green with one twist. The tank is very low stocking, which means that most or all of the nitrates tested on this tank are specifically indicating the amount of nitrates from the fertilizer only! This allows him to directly track and control algae, lean dosing his tank, if he sees any algae issues, then it's clear that there is an imbalance of nutrients. Testing nitrates, phosphates, and other things, Bentley can very easily adjust his method for these plants. If there is algae growing and the nitrates are very low, he needs to dose in more fertilizer. After a few weeks of testing and monitoring, Bentley has settled in on a schedule of dosing his tank 2x a week with a full doze of easy green. His nitrates are always around the 10 ppm range. Example 2: Community for Nature's Sake Our next tank is called filled with a plethora of nano community fish. The temperature is 78 degrees and the tetras shine and shimmer as they shoal around the tank. Rachel's tank is beautiful though and she wanted to add plants to give the fish a more natural home. She fills the back of the tank with Vallisnaria and the front of the tank is filled with some crypts. In the midground she's planted an amazon sword and a few fancy stem plants. Due to the large bioload on the tank her nitrates weekly when tested before maintenance are at 40 ppm. Knowing this she doesn't plan to use a high dose of fertilizers. She will dose easy green once a week and monitor things going forward. After one month Rachel has noticed that her nitrates aren't going down and she is slowly increasing in nitrates. The vallisnaria is showing a little bit of diatom algae on the leaves, but what is really concerning is the amount of deficiencies showing on the stem plants. After some research she overhauls the tank, adds in an aquasoil substrate, root tabs across the tank and then does a series of water changes as directed on the soil instructions. After 2 months she is seeing great growth but again there are some deficiencies showing on those pesky stem plants. Some of the minerals needed by these plants simply isn't being provided without a liquid fertilizer. She doses in one dose per week of the easy green and everything works out. Her nitrates are showing 50 ppm per week now and the slow decline over a few months of growth the tank settles out at 40 ppm with the new dosing routine. Example 3: The nice indoor pond setup Richard has a fancy new UNS tank. Floating plants, amazing rock work, and a few cooler water species to keep temperatures good for the plants. The tank is filled with a nice carpet of fast growing plants, mosses, and small detail plants that can get out of hand quickly. Richard enjoys the time trimming the tank and feeds any plants he can to his chickens in the backyard or into the compost pile. He spends 1 day a week with trimming and detailing his tank, very focused on a quality aquascape and visual look. His stocking is in the middle somewhere, but not too excessive as to encourage a huge bioload. Richard uses a dosing machine and doses in one half dose of easy green per day! His plants are using up the nutrients very heavily and he is seeing nitrates steadily at 20 ppm per week without any real spikes or drops. There isn't any algae issues and the plants are growing. The quick trims and the constant monitoring allows him to keep every detail in check. In the above 3 scenarios there are various levels of fertilizers, plants, and a few key methods. 1. Monitor your nitrates to determine what is coming from bioload in the tank and what is coming from fertilizers. 2. Make sure your plants have what they specifically need! Some plants want liquid ferts and low light, lean dosing, while other plants want a ton of light, CO2, and will use up a lot of ferts day to day. 3. Your maintenance and your method plays a role! If you are doing constant work with the plants, they will grow as a result in a specific way. Some trimmings will encourage plants to split. Propagating the plants out pushing them to grow in that way. If you have a more relaxed approach, trimming every few months, the plants will react accordingly. Once you have growth, it's entirely up to how you want to handle it and the work you want to put in, which does play a role in how much ferts could impact your tank. If you want to have a more relaxed approach, lean dosing is your friend. If you want high tech, daily dosing is your friend. There are so many ways to run a planted tank that not one formula encapsulated the entire spectrum. Overall the advice is to have "enough" to work for "most situations".
  14. nabokovfan87
    What kind of scape do you have planned? What type of hardscape would work best with either color options? Here is a really cool one, There are videos in this tank, similar scape with different color discus. Here is a minimalist design, focuses the viewer really well on just the discus.
  15. nabokovfan87
    Such great finnage and patterns on these two. They do have some taller options if you're trying to find something for him. Maybe the easiest thing is a clay pot upside down that has the door cut in. These are the ones I like just because it's not a typical pot shaped thing.
  16. nabokovfan87
    Go for it! What an adorable little pup. Too cute. I imagine the sunlight and specific foods will help colors pop.
  17. nabokovfan87
    So you're going to leave the most amazing view, hike the Alps, and eat Italian food for lunch!? Definitely a history major and an appreciation for the journey.
  18. nabokovfan87
    Can you post new water test results? Are you showing ammonia, bubbles on the surface? It might be worth adding some carbon to your filtration for the time being until you can identify what's been causing issues.
  19. nabokovfan87
    100% I use a old marina big blue net that I got for $2. Definitely doesn't. A standard 5-7" wide fine mesh net does wonders. I like the long handled seachem ones. A lot of the nets sold are normal or corse nets to reduce drag in the water. Fine mesh let's you be a little more delicate with certain species and it does help for other uses.
  20. nabokovfan87
    Hey everyone, I'm curious if anyone has anything here that fits along the theme. There is one particular bit of advice that I've recently changed my tune on. Not only does it make the job easier, but it does also prevent waste, microplastics, etc. The next time you go to take off a prefilter, sponge filter, or bit of something from a tank that will result in a lot of mulm, use a large fine mesh net instead of a plastic bag to catch all of the much. I take my 7" fine mesh net and I set it below the prefilter sponge. I put the sponge into the net and everything goes into the bucket to be cleaned. Easy. No plastic waste, and it's something I've used for my maintenance routine for several cleanings now to success. What else do you got?
  21. nabokovfan87
    Does the pond need any nutrients to encourage plant growth? Sounds like a good plan!
  22. nabokovfan87
    Good to hear, did you end up putting plywood on the top of the stand to fully support the base?
  23. nabokovfan87
    How is your tank doing @SunBearQ?
  24. nabokovfan87
    What is the temperature of the tank? The rams likely want to be warmer than the other species in your tank. Very peculiar. What you're seeing is signs of stress it sounds like. If the temp is too cold I would expect slow breathing. Have you ever seen them eat or do they eat regularly?
  25. nabokovfan87
    I'm wondering if the fish might be hiding because it's weakened due to an illness and is trying to avoid higher flow. I've seen similar behavior when a subdominant male is trying to avoid aggression. If it gets bad, you might want to put him into a breeder box so he doesn't have to struggle as much with the current or depth of the tank. I don't know what is going on with the wood. Did you boil it before you added it to the tank? It looks like some sort of fungus, but it's difficult to tell. Maybe a photo out of the water would help. Is it easy to remove the orange stuff with a pair of tweezers or pinsettes? Here is a video to help with the paracleanse treatments
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