nabokovfan87

Eco complete is lava rock. It can be sharp. Otos generally won't lay on substrate at all. They tend to lay on plants, glass, and decor. PH is going to be way too high for corydoras. I wouldn't go into the upper 7s and would try to keep it 7.2 or lower. Most sites list the limit as 7.4.

It was an army until the water company decided to fight then off. 😞 I lost a few. I am trying to grow an amano as gigantic as pecktec has his, definitely not an easy challenge.

Community blend this week. I need to get some spawn+grow. I am going to have to find a store local to get some igapo explorer. I think they'd lose their mind. They went NUTS for the bug food the first time they had it. (bottom scratcher). I've never fed em bug bites, but I have tried to find it.

If you can. Show us the setup please. I'm assuming it's a HoB with an air stone to help with the bacteria doing well and provide some oxygenation. You basically never need to (or should) turn off the air. Just let it run even during changes. I usually have the air stone in the tank for that reason so I can take my time with cleaning and trimming. Entirely up to you on your setup, but I believe you should be able to just run air without issue. You can turn off the HoBs for 15-20 minutes with feeding without issues. I do it all the time. On the kasa plugs it's a great feature to have the timer--turn on function for that. The secondary failsafe is to have a schedule set repeated to turn the filters on at various times just in case you forget. Like say midnight, turn it on. Just in case it's accidentally left off. Sounds good. Be careful using prime and stress guard together. Both will remove oxygen from the water (most dechlorinators do this). You should just in case something weird happened, especially with a catastrophic event like this. Aerate it for 24 hours, then test everything and compare that to the tank or your prep container. That's what the tank should be seeing. If not, you're dosing in buffers or you're basically at the point of old tank syndrome and causing some stress that way. 8.2 vs 7.4 pH is a big swing. Keep in mind it's an exponential scale. Going from 7.4 to 7.5 is 10x greater and so on. Your water might gain PH from aging, so we need to test. The second question is basically, what do the fish in the tank need, 7.4 or 8.0+?

Mine still needs help. 😂 It looked terrible, horrible, tragic, and kaputt. It's a fish tank now with some mosses. 😍

Feeding repashy tonight I see!????!!!???

😂 They are called "the panda horde" for a reason!

That's too adorable. Otos are the best. That is a huge female! Alright, now I know what an oto with eggs looks like. Can confirm, those pandas will breed. Happy to hear the fry have arrived and everything is going well. I enjoy watching them so much at that stage. They remind me of a little army of bandits or zorro or something. 😂

Is there anything else in the tank? Replace the substrate (what kind is it?) And then use salt. Salt will dehydrate them. Especially in high doses they cannot survive. This is my worm adventure. I understand it. It's really troubling when you don't have anything to eat them and help to rid the tank or keep them in check.

You can also use styrofoam.

I've used it many times. Silicone will have a blue tint. It's really not that big of a deal and doesn't ruin the aquarium. Both of my tanks have had it. So you can see the color of the silicone in the videos and photos on my journal.

Add an air stone. When you can check PH. Things happen. Give the tank time to do it's thing and keep an eye on parameters for the fish you're keeping. Stay positive!

Yep. Anubias will do the same thing. Plants are doing well and happy, so flowers!

Yes but it had spices and yes. That cat LOVED her salmon food. Can confirm a sheepdog will whoof down two lbs in one bite without flinching. 😂

I'd say 8 just to be on the safe side if one of them doesn't make it through acclimation.

I tend to just let corys do their thing as well. Started with 10+ black corys, ended up with 4 after losing far too many. Now I have much more. My pandas were the same thing. I had 5-6, ended up with 3 that made it through acclimation and then I had ~30 of them when they started spawning. They will figure it out, just keep them happy and watch them (enjoy them) doing their thing.

Hello, Welcome. It could be some sort of lateral line issue. Can you try to post a photo or video?

This could be explaining what's going on. Especially the second part of this video. For stuff like this. Use a toothbrush on the leaves and rocks to get everything off surfaces and into the water column. Then a good siphon will do wonders.

Can you have them run a test on the tap water so we can double check the tank parameters. Your GH and KH results are pretty high off the chart.

LOL We had a cat who enjoyed herself a fry from jack in the box every once in a while. She didn't get treats or anything like that, just an old cat who enjoyed the naps and peaceful quiet. One day I was watching tv with my mom, I was a kid. We'd JUST sat down for lunch. Eating on the carpet watching TV. My mom had her plate of salmon she just cooked. She went to grab something for a second and it didn't take that cat but a few seconds to nab it and run off before either of us knew what happened.

I see your tidal's have an appetite for moss. That thing on the right side of the pump, is that more moss? Welcome to the forums!

At least 5+ I have 3 swordtails in my tank (all male) and they are doing fine. Larger numbers helps, similar to barbs and other species.

It's been a weird one, but productive I think. Last night the black corydoras were spawning, but I also did not want to interfere to fix this issue. Overnight you can see the air building up on the surface due to the bubbles being shot out of the filter. This is an annoyance of sorts. As I woke up and checked on the tank what I saw was bubbles clearly shooting out of the filter and blowing into the moss near the output. The filter would clear itself and then a few second later that air would shoot out again. Clearly something was going on. Air was in the filter housing and it was making it's way into the pump, into the filter box. It was good to see this because we know where the air is, but not how to stop it. The main reason this air showed itself was because the waterline in the tank is about 1" below the rim. It's a bit lower than normal. Again, easy fix, but I would like to figure out a way to purge that air. Let's run a test and see if I can simply remove all restrictions from the input and force the air out that way. The first thing I am trying to show here is that I do not have any intake in the tank right now. The pipe is removed and the pump has direct access to water. I am using two fingers to restrict flow into the filter. This forces it to try to pull water from elsewhere (not sure where or how) and there is a bit of air getting in somehow. I think there is a pinhole in the silicone somewhere by the skimmer, but I really cannot tell when I view it. I would need a worm light or something to check for spots. It's a very, very minor issue. The crux of it is this.... If you have the water level low, and you have the intake sponge full of stuff, then you can get air bubbles in the filter housing. When I removed the intake it did not "fix" anything. There is air getting into the housing somehow and once the restriction is removed (and the air level is low enough) this means that if can push out that air. There is nowhere for the air to go except through the pump. Think of it this way as well. If you take a bucket or cup and try to submerge it upside down, you're going to trap air in the cup. This is common with canisters and will be common if the design of the filter in question doesn't accommodate removing all of the air. This isn't something ANY hob filters do. The "best" design in terms of pump and air is very likely going to be the aqueon. The way those are setup you have an intake tube and that directly feeds into the pump which directly goes into the pipe into the pump itself. There isn't rectangles and air traps, it's a direct path from the tank into the pump and the air has nowhere to go but out. So.... the real question is, does this air damage the pump. Can it? I just don't know. Some pumps are designed for air to pass through (Sicce Syncra nano) and others are not. Most submersible pumps are not meant to "run dry". This is also true of heaters and other equipment we commonly use in the hobby. For those familiar with PC Hardware, watercooling, those pumps have an impeller that floats and will destroy itself if there is not water to reduce friction in the pump housing. Similar in concept to how you use water/lubricant when you machine certain materials to reduce heat. The water needs to be in the pump to reduce heat. There is an adjustment and what I would view as the "final version" in place now. I am going to run a test without any intake skimmer on the intake pipe. The sponge is directly around the intake and that is going to make things a lot easier to maintain as well as ensure no restriction is happening. The "guard" is my intake sponge now.

I had a leak somewhere... it lasted maybe 1-2 weeks. BE SURE to soap test and check your seals on everything. I have had 10lb tanks last about 3-6 months on average. I just got a backup and will make note on when things are used up. There's a few factors that go into it, the seals, tubing, your diffuser, and how much you're dosing. Needless to say, I'd recommend having something you can use as a backup / swap when you do run out of CO2 in the bigger main tank. I fully expect my tank to last a LOT longer than I am experiencing.

What!? I've never heard this. Interesting..... One thing to keep in mind that salt might also just be slightly more abrasive. The ocean definitely has lava rock. It definitely has coral. I would keep in mind that we generally know and accept what is in coral while lava rock can be inconsistent but is generally rules as inert. Maybe black rock can release particles differently than red. Maybe red has more iron. I'm willing to bet there is a way to find out the composition of each, but I also would argue that a lot of saltwater people tend to stick to what everyone else does. Generally they'd be used to having coral or "saltwater rock". https://volcano.oregonstate.edu/faq/what-lava-made Just like everything, if you have sensitive species use the most safe stuff you can. If you have more forgiving species, it's probably fine, but you won't know until it's been tested and verified.