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nabokovfan87

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Everything posted by nabokovfan87

  1. nabokovfan87
    Hopefully things improve for you @FLFishChik. I had similar issue with my black corydoras and they eat like hogs now. When I had the pea puffers they ignored the snails, ate bloodworms, and went after each other until there was one left. The above directions are awesome and got my corydoras on track, they are doing wonderful now. Fingers crossed!
  2. nabokovfan87
    I can't say. I would verify things with a liquid test kit for the sake of it. KH for me at 40 (tested at the tap on an off-gas test) meant that my PH dropped to ~6.3 pretty easily. I added 20-30 ppm of buffer to get it stable.
  3. nabokovfan87
    What are the ones you have? I see SAE and False SAE mixed up all the time. https://www.aquatic-gardeners.org/Articles/cyprinid/
  4. nabokovfan87
    Maybe there is a tub / tote that you can get to house the fish while you work on the tanks. I'm very sorry for all of your struggles @KittenFishMom . There are some dewormers that should work for leeches, but I understand wanting to basically start over. I used a bunch of the 40G or so black totes from the hardware store to hold my fish for a few months while I was working on construction issues at the house.
  5. nabokovfan87
    The last 2 bags of coffee went right into the cold brew machine 🙂 I definitely enjoy that stuff too and it's easy to make at home, generally cheap! Alright.... Today's delight is Tazo Wild Sweet Orange Tea. It was on sale at the store and I got 3 different types. This is one of the morning teas that I do enjoy. Some people have orange juice, but this is a lot less sugar intake! The tea is cold at the time of tasting, but it's quite interesting. Orange + Clove is something my mind goes into from cooking. My brain is trained to like those two things together for whatever reason. Some of the notes above remind me of that duality and I have to train my pallet to distinguish what's going on. Grounds: Smells like you just cut into orange zest while cooking some Mediterranean food. Delightful. Nose: Slightly artificial or medicinal orange scent. The lemongrass does shade the aromatics too. First Sip: There is a lot going on and it's difficult to discern. The orange is hidden with other "earthy" spices. Seems very acidic, but I am certain it's just that spice profile impacting me. (I had to double check what was in the ingredients list just for my own sanity after tasting, I'll attach that below) Finish: If the start to the tea is very intense orange and spice flavor, the finish is of that lemongrass and clove (licorice root) flavor. Very soft finish to compliment the initial harshness. Very good for waking you up!
  6. nabokovfan87
    Yeah, definitely! That's all I was saying. Apart from plants and filter, I would think all of that is fine to add to the tank right away. The only thing I would be cautious about is some sort of active substrate. Edit: If you do add some sort of planted substrate, stratum or something, then you'd only have to do water changes which may go in the way of meds, but probably helps everything too. When I was setting up mine, I did changes every 2-3 days for the first week, then doubled it the following week, etc.
  7. nabokovfan87
    I’m not following. The QT tank is the tank he is in and also the tank that I hope to make his permanent home because it’s bigger. I see him using it a lot, actually. Sorry, I thought you had a QT Tote? Good to hear!
  8. nabokovfan87
    Ah ok. Given all of the circumstances I wouldn't be afraid to get things going. You do have the QT setup if you need it as a backup. Hopefully the interaction and the care on his tank makes him happy enough not to bite. Has the shelf been helping at all?
  9. nabokovfan87
    @Seattle_Aquarist can you help guide us here? We have a ton of great plant minds on these forums as well that would be extremely helpful too! A small example here is my water, which is (or was) seemingly very different than yours and now is very similar to yours. Initially... GH: 450-550 ppm KH: 100-150 ppm Now I have to use buffers: GH: 150-200 ppm KH: 60-80 ppm There are a few places like flowgrow.de that have a very robust plant database and they do list hardness values for a lot of plant species. Tropica also has the information on their website, I am sure there are others. On either set of parameters the plants were growing and doing fine. Tank was moved, plants and CO2 crashed, I lost about 75% of the leaves on the plants due to all the issues I was having with TDS and plant damage. After a few months I have GH>KH again with the buffers and we're back to seeing the plants growing well. As always, be very careful using TDS as an indication of any sort of hardness in your water. Cory has videos showing what TDS meters can be fooled by and it's a critical lesson. As hobbyists we like things to be easy, but knowing GH/KH definitively in lieu of just TDS is important for success. Using RO water with a buffer with TDS as a metric makes sense because that is a very controlled situation. As soon as you use tap water in place of RO+Buffers the TDS loses a lot of it's value. You always should (a lot of people don't) default back to individual testing for GH and KH.
  10. nabokovfan87
    Lol @Lennie I have a feeding tube and dish. Sometimes the food is powder and or floats. Can't help that.... The distribution and battle for food is kind of why I prefer the setup to have multiple dishes. That would definitely be an easy way to overfeed, but may help better distribute the food to different shrimp over time a bit better.
  11. nabokovfan87
    I would use the dorsal as a tracking point. Something like tigerbarbs and other semi aggressive it's common to have meds on hand and add them to the tank on a need be basis for healing. There are some meds that would impact plants, but it's overall a better environment for the fish to be treated in their usual tank with all the things (I assume). It's difficult to say. I would definitely try to get the tank cycling and plants going either way.
  12. nabokovfan87
    At first, the adults eat and then the little shrimp would go in there at night to get their food. Now they are big enough to just get in and go for it themselves.
  13. nabokovfan87
    He uses the dehydrator a lot for his foods due to longevity and storage. From before, here's the video on the clay balls
  14. nabokovfan87
    Chasing Coral on Netflix is very insightful about this topic from a hobbyist perspective.
  15. nabokovfan87
    Some yes. A lot of them just go for their own grazing spots. Be it the back glass, filter sponge, rock caves, moss or other plants, or just random bits of wood. It was nice to see all of the little ones with the parents.
  16. nabokovfan87
    I would get moss going in it. Maybe use it as a fry tank, but mostly plants. It's so tiny!
  17. nabokovfan87
    Moss features are pretty neat! Get a piece of wood and some screws (just to mount the power) and you can raise the power strip off the ground. It's a common thing with that stand in particular, especially if you decide to turn it into a bookshelf in the future! Edit: I see that photo with the 1.2G on the bottom of the stand there. Yeah! it'll be interesting to see where you put that power. Mine is tied into the wall left/right of all my filters so I don't have a tendency to splash them when pulling media.
  18. nabokovfan87
    Oh... yes. Brilliant idea. One of the hairy puffers maybe! Exodons / buck tooth tetra are pretty unique! Straight up Piranha attitude it's a very difficult challenge to keep them from thinning their own herd out. I would say maybe something like pipefish. I don't know if they would fit that tank but a ghost knife might fit the bill too. I would check into goby species as well.
  19. nabokovfan87
    Buck-tooth tetras is the usual go to. Honestly, get yourself a bunch of barbs. They are feisty feisty eaters.
  20. nabokovfan87
    @Pepere can you help us out herre?
  21. nabokovfan87
    I turn mine off when feeding for 20-30 minutes. I use the kasa timers and the switch buttons.
  22. nabokovfan87
    Fed the tank today and went ahead and did my weekly cleaning. Water change and siphon today because it's been a few weeks. The shrimp are doing better now with the GH up. Lots of saddled adolescent shrimp ready to go and I should be able to get a bit more aggressive with feeding and stuff eventually to compensate for the boom. I had to wrangle 3 shrimp from the filter. A few were in the tank and I got them out of the sponge there, but I ended up with 3 that were a bit more tricky to get. Not difficult at all and the constant cleaning is making it so that pretty much nothing comes off the sand and the filter. I have to keep an eye on algae at this point, but everything is doing ok. Test Results: GH: 7 Deg (125 ppm) KH: 6 Deg (107 ppm)
  23. nabokovfan87
    ? Wonderful stuff. Made by UNS as a planted tank substrate. The "black" is a dark brown however.
  24. nabokovfan87
    This is a common misconception. the fittings are often brass. The water is not in contact long enough to cause any issues. These fittings are internally there on the sink as well as any hoses you may use in the yard. It's a common material, but the water is not in contact long enough to cause those types of issues for shrimp.
  25. nabokovfan87
    There's definitely a bit of confusion here as I read this.... Let me break down the layers and let's get the key details clarified. I would suggest by starting here: Most catfish species are very nocturnal. They will be a lot more active after the lights are dim and after the lights go out. Some species as well as individual fish can just be more brave while others are very timid. You'll almost never see a clown pleco out during the day, same with a lot of the hillstream species, but as soon as the lights go down a little they will instantly pop out and start grazing. My hillstreams sat on the back glass during the day and I had one that would hide in and around a pleco cave. If they feel safe, they will be out more, but the main focus here is that a lot of your algae eaters will graze constantly. Regardless of feeding, you may never see them eat! Sometimes you will. Using the light to grow algae for them is a great tip, but do keep in mind that they often ignore algae once it grows in a bit thicker. Foods like repashy, spirulina, and other omnivore foods are great to supplement them with. Otos do really well when you have a seasoned tank, but being sure to feed them every few days (almost the same way you care for shrimp) is a good idea. It gives them the option to get some of those added nutrients and proteins into their diet. Secondly, when you discussed above the issue of them eating off the glass vs. the plants. There are plants they will eat on, but they have to be able to support themselves on the leaves. Otos are very content this way to feed off of larger leaved plants like anubias, S.Repens, ferns, and many other plants. I would opt for using those kinds of brushes only on hard surfaces. Anything delicate definitely can be damaged. Given the issue with bleach there are other products you can use in lieu of the bleach. And yes, please don't boil plastics. It will cause them to leech chemicals. I feed my tanks once a day. When I am trying to breed I will feed in the morning and afternoon. The key being to offer them food, but keep an eye on if they prefer that food, dislike it, or if they just don't want to eat at that time (likely due to light). You can play with feeding the tank at different times to see if you notice any behavior changes. It's likely that type of algae yes. The otos tend to like the brown diatoms and green diatoms algae which GSA would fall into. As it grows it will get long and stringy and they won't touch it. Scraping the glass once in a while will help them to have that spot for grazing. You can also add some sort of cover to that side of the tank to block or limit the light. I use velimax window cling films. They have black and opaque white. People use posterboard and other things as well, simply taping them to the tank to help reduce algae issues. This video might help with how to feed your fish too.
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