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nabokovfan87

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Everything posted by nabokovfan87

  1. nabokovfan87
    It also presents with frayed / torn fins. I do see the fraying and would lean towards that treatment (kanaplex). Ultimately it can be from stress or decor, just something that happens and the full blown rot might not even present normally given color or severity. Something as simple as a PH shift could cause this too. In the updated photos, especially on the dorsal you can see the improvements. So what you're doing is working. I would just keep an eye on it, keep doing what you're doing and hopefully he's through the worst of it now and this is just recovery time. Old Vs new
  2. nabokovfan87
    I tried to look up Elodie and found an Italian singer. 😂 Elodea (Anachris) yeah it definitely looks like that melting, but there might not be any in the tank. Could've been a rogue plant that got in the shipment and then adjusted very poorly. If it is a plant, floating it should result in some growth and maybe you can ID it.
  3. nabokovfan87
    And to trim them without accidentally uprooting them! 🙂 I very much agree.
  4. nabokovfan87
    Yeah, nothing special. Water at this location is much more inconsistent that the last house and I'm not sure why. Between the previous KH drops, now GH, it's not easy to say something like algae or plant deficiencies is my fault or something that I can retain. I do need to commit to another off gas test and repeat that monthly at thos point. I did one in December just to have a sanity check. Yep, it's dropping. I also switched from the outside hose of freezing water to the sink, now that we have one, and was assuming that some of the changes were due to the water heater. I tested both taps, same water results. I'll repeat that here shortly. I watched this last night, very interesting conversation about planted tank water needs and dosing schedules. Ultimately one thing I do want to take from this video and keep in my setup is the KH < GH rule and that's simply because it makes sense. You do have plants taking up nutrients and GH is one of those things plants do affect. I have seiryu in the tank for that reason, have one more ugly piece I can add, but will likely need to get more if this keeps dropping. I have also ran tests on rain water just to see. Everything was the same as my tap (high GH, mid KH, and very low PH). The volume of water we've had has been pretty drastic and it's cleaned out whatever on the water treatment side resulting in changes. The real question is how long will that last, what happens when we get to end of February... What do parameters look like then. Oh we had a fun time trying to replant last night. They definitely moved some around.
  5. nabokovfan87
    Yeah, definitely doesn't look normal. 😞 Have you treated the fish for any internal issues, are you able to move it to QT tank for treatment?
  6. nabokovfan87
    There is a few things going on to unpack here... 1. Wanting a tank with low PH and tannins (those don't both necessarily have to be true) 2. Wanting to use sphagnum with sand. 3. Wanting to have a swampy/bog style aquascape with plants. When it comes to active substrates (i.e. soil) you have substrates that do lower the PH and act as a buffer. For aquascapes and for Caridina shrimp tanks it is common practice to have that type of substrate to pull the buffer the PH down. This can be done a variety of ways, but in most cases you're talking about a very large amount of active substrate. I can't say this can or can't be done with sphagnum, but I would be weary of too much phosphate using that method resulting in algae issues. https://www.shrimpscience.com/articles/active-substrates-for-bee-shrimp/ Here's a video for some inspiration for you. What are your water parameters from the tap? What are the parameters after your aerate the sample for 24 hours?
  7. nabokovfan87
    Ever considered doing a video showing your tanks and process with Bentley? The plants on the left look like a mix of a few species? Is that the case or are my eyes just messing with me?
  8. nabokovfan87
    Scutariella Japonica or Vorticella seems to be what you're dealing with. https://aquariumbreeder.com/understanding-dwarf-shrimp-diseases-and-parasites/ https://aquariumbreeder.com/shrimp-infection-vorticella-treatment/ https://aquariumbreeder.com/shrimp-disease-scutariella-japonica-treatment/
  9. nabokovfan87
    Another good resource
  10. nabokovfan87
    There is no need to run it through the dishwasher. Bleach is plenty strong enough and it's going to do everything you need to. After 1-3 treatments, then you should be fine in terms of removing anything. If you are worried about filtration, with similar things, then you can completely disassemble it and spray that as well. I would lean towards a sink full (or bucket) of water with a scoop of seachem safe or something else after you rinse everything. That is similar in method to how George Farmer cleans his CO2 diffusers and then gets them "fish safe". Air dry everything completely and rinse it as best as you can to get as much of the bleach off. If I still smell bleach then I'll repeat that process a few more times.
  11. nabokovfan87
    It could just be a female. Mine were pretty chonky SAEs. The photos errored out and didn't embed right, can you re-upload them @Stan Z? Welcome to the forums. Here is a video of a bigger female:
  12. nabokovfan87
    That's terrifying.... I would remove it, move it to a jar or something. Hopefully someone can ID it. @Biotope Biologist have you ever seen anything like this?
  13. nabokovfan87
    This was the last S.Repens trim and cleanout. Night and day difference....
  14. nabokovfan87
    Update.... Light is a little blown out, my apologies about that. I spent the afternoon doing a bit of aquascaping for once. I trimmed off the tops of the Staurogyne Repens and went ahead and propagated that out a little bit. Before: You can see it in the photo above, but there is 2-3 small plants on the front right of the tank that I've gone ahead and tried to expand the S.Repens across the front of the tank. In the back you can see a few shown below as well, they are rooted and doing their thing. I tried to replant them just because the big corydoras do eat food back there and hide from the front of the tank. After: From above, you can see the brown discolorations where the base of the stems were getting choked out. The AMAZING thing this time around compared to the last time, almost no issues with BBA this time. I did not pull leaves because of algae, they were pulled because they were buried in the substrate or were just deficient and needed to be removed. What a nice change to have normal plant maintenance tasks again! I added a little bit more to the dead spots, added some to the bottom left corner in the photo below as well as a little bit further outward to encourage propagation. I added root tabs as well for the hygro and for those places where these new plants would be going. I'm happy with it. I hope they can root in and the fish don't thrash around too much while they do so. The moss replant is on way as well. There is new growth and it is doing it's thing. I hope in about 2-3 months I can look back and see this big mass of moss doing really well and a bit better coverage of other plants. I am keeping an eye on the anubias, lost one, but the others seem to be responding well to dosing in iron now. Especially in my other tank, the anubias is actually showing some signs of life, thankfully. In other news.... My last water test shows a GH of ~50 ppm. I would have to look back on the timeline, but the rain we've had here recently has taken the GH that dropped down from ~400 (which was already down to 150) and shot it way down yet again. It's really hard on the shrimp to see some of these changes and so I've been trying to keep an eye on them, their behavior, and signs of stress from those issues. If I had to guess, about 4 months ago I was at 400 ppm for GH, then down to 250-300, then 150 around the end of November. Now we're down to 50. Just really makes it difficult and I am hoping I don't need to add in some form of GH minerals as well. Edit: Yeah, end of november testing the tank was at ~200-300 GH which is my code for 250 or so, water changes from the tap were with lower GH water which in turn reduced it further. Last time water from the tap was "normal" was..... end of October up towards middle of November. Last clean test was when they first spawned, November 18th.
  15. nabokovfan87
    Yep!!! Welcome to the forums. I have a Red-Tailed Black Shark that is from the same family. She's a hoot, so much fun to watch and have in the tanks. Rainbow Sharks (and other Cyprinidae, including barbs!) are just really fun fish to me. I do enjoy interacting with them, feeding, and all the goofy little things they do. They will definitely learn to avoid the big black thing with the red-orange fins. 😂 SAE can be some of the laziest fish when they nap all day on top of all the hardscape. My RTBS is usually almost always in her cave, but the SAEs would try to sleep and then she'd scoot them on their way when the current took them to close to here part of the tank. They like cover, like to have places to swim through, just a fun fish that doesn't look (or act) like a lot of other fish! Here's a fun video on the species:
  16. nabokovfan87
    Not at all. I appreciate the detailed info and examples. I did end up swapping lights and I did have an issue with enough light getting to the substrate. It's "improved" and plants are growing. I do still have issues, but a lot of my turn around on the tank was when I added the CO2 back in. Even with PH testing, dosing on CO2, I have still not been dosing in enough!
  17. nabokovfan87
    A very good review and thought process, analyzing what is going on with his tanks. If you have the patience, it's worth a watch. Ultimately, plant deficiencies led to issues, which caused phosphates and organics to build up in the water resulting in massive algae growth.
  18. nabokovfan87
    The constant issue I seem to run into is that no matter how much surface agitation, air diffusers, and light I crank into the tank I cannot ever have enough CO2 for the plants to use. Between nutrient issues and lighting, the constant for me has been that the plants have what they need, try to grow, but constantly do so at the cost of the bottom half of the plant. (Carbon + Nitrogen issues, likely) If I was starting over again, right now, I'd use a different substrate, but I would specifically start off trying to simply get the plants growing before doing anything. I had the tank setup, planted, looking awesome, but then everything died and it's been an issue trying to get plants to root ever since. Start: Added the infected hardscape from the tubs to the tank. Notice the second batch of hairgrass in there now. Note: The decision at the time was to move fish out of the tubs, because it was either that or they froze to death. So I am happy they were moved and doing well, but it destroyed my chances at a very fancy tank. I needed to give the plants at least 2-3 months instead of 4-6 weeks.
  19. nabokovfan87
    Very good! 😂 Are you planning to cull the off color ones to a different tank?
  20. nabokovfan87
    Maybe someone can swap you some, might be worth posting in the trade section. I would try to contact some of the shops like Dan's fish where they might be able to special order or hand select something for you. Your best bet is probably to find someone who breeds them and wants to swap for genetics.
  21. nabokovfan87
    Looks like it's 5x the stuff I have locally, really nice shop. As always, good to see the Bettas getting slightly better conditions.
  22. nabokovfan87
    She was a rescue. She had nightmares almost every night, fear of loud noises and bangs. We got her when she was a few years old, but she was with me constantly whenever I was home. That picture is her standing at my doorway at the old house I grew up in waiting for me. She was the most carefree happy dog you could imagine. She got older, stayed with my mom, and got grey and had hip issues. The analogy is how younger family will always be "the kids", how Mike Franks always called Gibbs a Probie, and she'll always be a happy carefree pup (kind-hearted and loving) to me. The dogs we have now are tiny little things by comparison, I've always had bigger dogs, and so they will just always be pups too. Just how it is I guess.... I understand what you're saying though, as they get older their personalities change a little.
  23. nabokovfan87
    Gold form?
  24. nabokovfan87
    If it helps anyone, here's some video. I do have the pandas doing it as well, but I tried to show of where and how frantic spawning can be. They do go from one spot to the next and to the next and eventually can have massive spawns where they circle back through locations. It's a fun, interesting topic and we do have this thread too discussing locations where they might spawn. One of the more interesting things with my last big spawn was that they seemed to prefer the ACO black airline. It was next to the CO2 flow, which could be why, but it was interesting. Dean make's spawning mops out of a variety of items and I have wanted to try out tying a bunch of strands of airline tubing just to see what they do with it! Looking forward to seeing more about this Cinnebuns!
  25. nabokovfan87
    Reminds me of the old pup. 🙂
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