nabokovfan87

If only we had a planet catfish for loaches.... 🙂

I think some of Pecktec's Anubias videos might be a good place to get some inspiration. That PSO is going to overtake that tank pretty hard. I would.... A. Move the rock in the middle directly in front of the sponge / heater. B. Move the PSO to one of the back corners, not directly under the light. C. Move all anubias or java fern to the outside somewhere, slower / smaller ones can go up front on the front face of the rock like this: Flip the wood so that the spot that is directly up in this photo is directly facing down on the top surface of that rock, see how that looks visually to you in the tank. That plant in the back left is nice, will be cool when it grows. The plant on the far right (big sword?) Might be a nice focal plant directly under the light.... meaning just in the middle of the tank as opposed to the edge. PSO - Back right corner, I'd remove it from the betta tank in lieu of other plants Val - Center back Sword - Slightly right of center, middle of the tank Anachris - Left side in front of the bulb (maybe move it a little forward, placement looks good if I am seeing it right. Crispus - Right side in front of the PSO, give it some space away from the PSO). When you have some to propogate, good for th e 5g tank Scarlet Temple - Right behind the rock (once moved) to the right of the bulb plant but to the left of the val Java Fern - Front of the sword, front edge of the tank Pearlweed - Middle / front and center of the tank, under the wood in the middle (let it carpet where the wood touches the ground) Anubias Coffeefolia - THE BEST of Anubias for me, hm... In front of the scarlet temple would really make it pop, similar to the photo above, use the rock as a background and let the texture of the anubias in particular show off. Crypts would go in the front/middle-right of the tank, smaller is better. Larger ones I would move to the 5g tank. Gold coin - Betta tank Barteri - Betta tank STD Java Fern - Betta tank I'd recommend looking at the Seachem Flourite black. It's what I use. It isn't rounded, but it definitely is not sharp. I got it for mine because it has a good CEC number. They have a few different porosities available as well, I use the standard black size (not black sand) 3" is good, adequate. If you are using gravel, you could add some planted stuff on the base, then cap it with gravel. Again, look up some of pecktec's videos when it comes to setting up tanks. You can pull some, but not mandatory at all. I change substrate when need be and I don't really ever care about the BB in the substrate. I rely on the filtration itself and the biological media in the filter moreso than anything else. Even that rock alone should have enough BB to keep that tank happy. Crypts can stay in the pots, absolutely fine. When you get them, add a root tab to the pot and let them melt / convert to your water.

Kind of reminds me of a goby. Stiphodon pelewensis? Nah... the head shape is all different. Very interesting. Hopefully we can get an ID!

I watched this video, it's pretty interesting. One of the "rules" they mention is for GH > KH. So getting your GH up a bit should help with plants to have the minerals available needed. This could also be from the substrate and other methods, but in general it could lead to issues, theoretically. As far as how... I would recommend using stone in the tank. GH should be up using something like Seiryu while for KH you'd use crushed coral.

Apisto and SAEs would concern me. The tank looks good. Excited to see how it goes for you!

Yeah. I just posted a video of mine in the clicking thread. I am going to try to keep track and note if the heater is actively on when it clicks, etc. After each WC I am going to disturb and release all the bubbles internally if there are any that get trapped. I didn't see any on mine when I did that. Hopefully it's a break-in issue and goes away. Very weird.

The scientific name they list of "Poecilia reticulata" comes back as guppy. so maybe they mistakenly put sword tail in lieu of lyretail.

Yeah... this is why I have such a hard time naming anything in the tank. I have had some good and bad omens with names. Congratulations on your new fry. As a bit of catharsis.... YOU AREN'T the only one to go through this... and thankfully you didn't have it this bad. What a story. 😞 Part 1 of his story: Poo-nami Part 2 of his story: Looks like a form of lyretail

Looking forward to what's next. Nice plan!

ALRIGHT. I'm calling it. And the winner is...... Found the video! Ignore the emoji, on mobile. 😞 I do like the idea of bubble wrap, not for dumping in 5G of water in 15 seconds, but it is a very elegant, simple solution to this issue. This is what I went with.... Cut it as big as you can because it does float and will move. Cork is a good option / replicate as well. I saw it on a Mark's Shrimp Tanks video and had a bunch of it sitting around for fish boxes. As long as it's "fish safe" yeah, best thing to use.

Hoping this noise goes away over time after break in. It's not from air. It's not from circulation issues due to detritus. I can't explain it. Very eerie like I was saying.

This is the brand / style that I have. I use it on glass tanks and it works very well. https://www.amazon.com/VELIMAX-Blackout-Darkening-Removable-Blocking/dp/B07Q29NBH7 If you're using acrylic I would guess that acrylic is an option as well as spraypaint. I would do a bit of research on how those interact with the material over time... something like acrylic isn't as "sealed" as something like lexan. You might be better off tracking down a lexan sheet or some black sheet and just using acrylic glue to bond it to the back. Not ideal, but I would think you can bond acrylic sheet to it. There's got to be some nice solutions that people have come up with.

Heavy metals in general do some "fun things" with algae. Could be.

You're better off using booster filters.

Yeah, this is similar to what mine is doing. Thread here. I thought at first it was the coolant in the minifridge.

Well said. Definitely have some amano's that will jump in and steal the food and run to hide, but most of the time they just ignore it and do their thing. Nice analogy!

Looks like a really good setup for them. 🙂 I'm excited to see where you take things!

Very well could be. Is the QT tank in question seasoned? Does it have wood or rocks? Where does the loach hang out in general? Temp? Some of the time you will get loaches that can be pretty active, but there are plenty of loaches, grazers, catfish, and species like them that would much rather wait until the lights are out and they feel a bit more comfortable to be active. Mine would basically be in one of two spots, on the top of a pleco cave, on mopani, or on the back of the tank where the flow output was. 95% of the time during the day, they were on the back glass. They graze constantly, and so seeing them not eating is fine as long as you're seeing them active and moving. Try a small amount of brine shrimp in a few days and see if you can get it to eat. Even feeding with tongs might work. The sort of light up they belly to reveal their mouth then suck food in. Really cool.

Tank looks really good! Looking forward to seeing more.

It looks like a very crazy type of moss, but I can't say that with any sort of certainty. Green Beard Algae is an interesting one. Not sure I've seen a lot of it. Most of the time it looks like this, long strands, edges then the internal structure of things... I would lean towards moss or "something else" here. Might even be some sort of a fungus. Keep a very close eye. research mosses/fungus and if it spreads, especially in the 7-10 day timeframe, you'd want to remove it and do a good size WC/siphon and clean. Edit... Yeah I agree with @FLFishChik on the ID. It's that stuff. http://www.aquascapingworld.com/images/green_beard_algae.jpg I would remove it. Here is a word of caution from another forum:

very sorry about your loss. If you want to make a thread in the diseases section maybe we can try to offer some advice about what happened. (Would need to know the KH, GH, PH, volume of water change, type of shrimp involved, etc.) Adding some wood / rocks for the shrimp to graze on might be helpful, but yeah.... very sorry for your losses. It's never easy.

I would advise 2 doses minimum, might take more. If you do need to do more, then you can give the fish a few days to recover, water changes, etc. and then go back into another treatment. The wording on the package is basically advising you that if you are still having issues and you need to perform back to back dosing that you would use the fish as an indicator. If the fish is acting normally, then you should be ok to do so. Hopefully that phrasing makes sense! Yes, we have, and we've seen worse. Keep doing the right things and see how it goes. You'd just have to verify temps are ok. Some loaches don't want betta temps.

I had a slightly busy week, but I did make a bit of progress with this tank. I setup a little bit of a "holder" for my stuff by the tank. Until I move things, the door hits the table, which knocks things and just isn't great. The table was missing one of the cam locking nuts on it, fixed that as well. Today i setup a jar for plants that sits under the "extra" section of light. I am guessing I don't need the airstone and having a clear lid would be better, but for now that's the setup. Maybe that's a way to get the S.Repens to stay in place and grow a bit for the pieces that aren't quite ready for planting. I had an issue with the spraybar+pumphead where there was an air pocket and the pump wasn't able to push the I drained out 10G of water and the corydoras looked like they were about ready to spawn or like they were having water issues. Very, very, very active and everyone darting around. I cleaned the filter earlier in the day, came back tonight to clean the prefilter and change water over. I will test tomorrow once the dechlorinator and everything wears off as well as dose in the normal buffers. I have opted to dose in EG / Seachem Iron 24 hours after water changes simply because I do tend to dose in extra dechlorinator and I don't want that to interfere with any other dosing chemicals. Might mean nothing, but it is something that isn't a big deal to change. I recorded a brief video to try to show the fry and their size. Just a fun tank right now. Moss is back to being longer and the glue is now mostly hidden. I'll toss in some test results tomorrow on this post. I will also be adding in a calculation for CO2 from now on as a part of the gamut of tests. Test Results Temp: 71.6 Phosphate: 1.0 Nitrite: 0 Nitrate: 25 PH: 6.8 KH: 60 GH: 400+ (YAY!) CO2 (Calculated): 18.7

I prescribe you a 20L with some corydoras panda and some shrimp (amano or pick something that fits). Keep it at 72-74. Add in some plants, moss, anubias, and maybe something like white clouds once the shrimp grow in. She will hopefully fall for the panda corydoras. Who wouldn't! Best of luck, glad you both have something you are both enjoying.

@knee This one is all yours! Show us your setup. 🙂