nabokovfan87

it's be directly from Aquarium Co-Op right now. As Mmiller had mentioned, you really have to dose the water column in addition to root tabs. It's the type of thing where you want to give the plants time to acclimate to your tank and their new surroundings but you should be seeing some growth. You're giving them nutrients, but you want to give them something available in the water as well. This also gives them nutrients you might not have in the root tabs. Be sure to dose easy green once a week and try to keep a regular schedule with it. 🙂

It would take time, but there's a few. I think it was @Minanora and there was a tank in a bathroom with a low tech carpet that looked pretty dope. I'll try to find a photo. That is Hydrocotyle tripartita 'Japan' I believe. I would also point you toward micro sword. That plant tends to do well for a lot of people and gives the look you'd want. If you can't get that to work, try Dwarf Hairgrass, but usually that plant can be a bit finicky, it has been for me. Lastly, potentially look into monte carlo.

You might have to meet bob the sponge. I am very unsure of what that is, but.... reminds me of this thing.

Sweet! Thanks for letting us know. Keep checking on things, but good to hear things are sliding in the right direction for you. 🙂

All of these look good. Parameters look good. I wouldn't be too alarmed by the behavior in the substrate. It's a loach species, and that's a behavior I see from them, corydoras, and even my RTBS. They might be chasing something, smell something, and are trying to dig for it. I think your initial assumption there at the top is probably accurate. It's also a new tank so to speak. Think of it this way, you had to mix up the substrate to change tanks so all the stuff on the bottom is mixed. You made an omnivore / Aufwuchs lasanga bake and the fish might just be trying to sort through the plate to chase down something. At the end of the video, looks like it's chewing to me. 🙂 Agreed, definitely keep this in check. Especially given the scaleless species. What caught my eye was this photo and that substrate. It's rounded (the rocks) and it's a big fish! I would just keep an eye on the nose of the fish and the barbells. Make sure the belly, the face, and the bottom fins on the body aren't showing any signs of disease or bacterial issues. Is the fish only doing this behavior where you have that big line of algae on the glass? If yes, I would give em a little bit of repashy soilent green or veggie based foods. Scrape that glass for the fish and let the tank go ahead and get that algae snack. It's just a different strip because the ammonia pads interfere with the other tests.

I can't say it's from the clowns, but they definitely have made some progress on mine too. One of those things where the wood is rotting in the tank, but yeah.... they like caves and making those caves deeper / wider. Such a fun process to watch.

There is a few things going on, but photos help! First things first, get a clear reading using this specific technique to avoid contamination. Secondly, use a timer and test it on time. Don't let results sit too long and don't let the pads get dry. I try to have a way to read the strip and either take a photo (no flash) with decent light and be able to compare. I also tend to have paper or something so I can write down the results for the sake of writing them out later (usually the journal tank). For something like GH as a good example, let's check the color scales. It goes from a pretty clean blue to a purple color. Eventually it will go to a light purple (less blue as you go higher). So if you see something "off the scale" just check what the colors are doing and you'll get a bit better at understanding what you're looking at. Another one.... PH goes from yellow to red. More of a red-orange would be higher PH while more of a muted yellow orange is a lower PH result. Finally... If you have anything weird going on with your results, test them against your tap water and an off gas test. What this means is that you: A. Take a sample of water from your source of water that you use for water changes. Test it for everything. B. Aerate that sample of water for 24 hours with an air stone. Repeat all tests for everything. C. Test your tank and compare those to results from B. This should give you a trend and you should see, optimally, your results from B very close to your tank. If they are out of wack it could mean old tank syndrome or it could be an indication of your plants or other things using up minerals. Performing this off gas test every 3-6 months is a good way to keep yourself in check and to keep an eye on your water parameters from the water company or well source.

Welcome to the forums! I would do one of two things, probably both. Take the existing sponge filter apart, remove the sponge and leave it at the bottom of the tank but near where you plan to keep it. Then install the new one (rinse it before adding to the tank, get your airstone setup, etc.). Take the existing/old sponge and set that near or around the new sponge filter and squeeze out the gunk trying to get some of that into the new ACO filter. Let the old sponge sit in the tank for a few weeks near the new sponge filter (fish will eat off it, no biggie there) and then remove it. You'll have the new filter, remember it's courser, providing flow to that old sponge which keeps that bacteria happy. It also will end up feeding/seeding the new filter.

I think there's a few stories like this I've heard and I really couldn't have imagined something like this happening to me. Those familiar with my ramblings will know that I literally don't have a local store, local being down the mountain pass and then still a 30-40 mile drive. So I have found "the good one" in terms of the big box store, but I'm much happier these days to hand pick what I want and only go to the store for emergency or specific items I don't want to buy from ACO or other online breeders (or Aquahuna). Getting a chance to go was nice, it's the 50% off sale, but that wasn't happening today.... I was trying to see what food was in stock and then go ahead and just be one my way. I walked back to the fish section and they had a cart of junk in the way for the "please help us get rid of this stuff" clearance sale. Most of that was filter cartridges and stuff you can't really use at all. I went past the cart, beyond the stack of tanks and there were a few customers there trying to decide which tank to get. I went across the aisle to the food and there was 3-4 people staring at filters. I saw a guy standing where the food is and he had a filter in his hand trying to read the fine print on the box. I just sort of smiled and thought to myself, "yeah, I've had that one, it broke the first time I tried to get the sponge out to clean it". I took a second to read the body language of the guy and he seemed like he was just really, really confused about what to get. Back and forth between a few boxes and he kept going back to that one. "If you get that one just be really careful with it. I had one and I broke the little tab trying to get it apart" "Oh, ok thanks" he said. "How big is your tank?" I asked. The man took his arms as wide as he could. "oh a 4 foot tank?" "Yeah, I just got a few fish in there so I don't need a big crazy filter." "Oh they should have them here, have you heard of Aquarium Co-Op?" I inquired. He asked me where that store was, and I explained about how they have a youtube channel and all of that. We scoured the store trying to find a sponge filter, I couldn't even find the air pumps. Eventually we found the pumps and then I showed him a picture of the Co-Op filter on the phone. I explained to him about a gang valve and using one pumps to hook up multiple items on the airline. No big deal, just trying to be helpful to someone who just wasn't sure how to make heads or tails of things. Hopefully he checks out some videos. I get to the car and my family tells me "There was those girls that saw you helping and they were asking if you worked there." 😂 They were the ones looking at tanks and trying to decide which one when I had walked in to the fish area. Totally would've helped pretty much anyone just because it was packed and people had questions! It's amazing to me how much it would help to slap a "Have questions? Check out Aquarium Co-Op!" sign or sticker in some of the big box stores just to get people on the path towards some semblance of help. Have it on a TV in the store and just show some fish videos talking about things. One day....

Yeah, higher quality strains for sure. Gotta see what snoopy looks like all colored up and flaring around. Those rear fins (sorry, I have the mixup issues from the dyslexia on names of them) caudal fins I think you said, they are very specifically shaped. The shot of the confirmed female shown, the vent photo we had on snoopy, definitely indicative of a female. Other features look like a male to me that hasn't grown out enough. Will be fun to see! (sort of like how some swordtails don't really have a sword when subdominant) What stood out to me a lot was the tail on snoopy vs. the tail shape on your male vs. the tail shape on your female. Very specific, might be nothing indicative of gender, but it stood out. That's why I love rams, the same fish but so much variety and difference between each one and each line.

Will be veeeeeeeery interesting to see how the vibra bites colors snoopy up 🙂

I have two separate tanks, so one of them has a ghostwood (similar to manzanita) and then the other has my mopani pieces as well as a chunk of "pacific driftwood" that I added. It's not really anything to do with the type of wood, but I link it more towards whatever organic thing isn't doing well. I have the stuff growing on pumps / plastic where there is high flow. Cory also made a video (2nd from last) showing it in his 800G where it's only growing where the output flow is for him. It's a weird puzzle and it's a very bizarre resistant strain of this stuff. I think it's staghorn, but it's some form of red algae. Whether it's BBA or Staghorn or something else, it's probably both. Just an annoyance. I still have it, still deal with it. Something I'm trying to dive into a bit further on the algae experiments link in my journal. Spot dosing Gluteraldehyde (Easy Carbon / Excel) works well. You also need to be able to dose in enough that you actually make progress before it blooms. Feasible? yeah, in time, as long as plants are growing and you're out competing it, starving it out. In my case, I have the stuff growing on the seams of the tank, Kind of difficult to spot dose when it's THAT BAD, even it's not prevalent it's still going to always have some place to hide. I have removed the parts on the substrate (hopefully) and then going thorough the S.Repens helped a lot to clean up that section. It's a lot of day to day eyes on the tank and work to figure out where it pops up, how it progresses, and push back. Take the rocks out and treat those. In my case, difficult because the plants are on them and it nuked my moss when I tried that. It's back now, cleaning things up still, but definitely not over and done with..... not at all. It's tolerable, but it's still an issue and I do need to add some more plants in there to choke things out. Plans in the works, we'll see how cost helps or hinders that. (I would drip the rocks in a solution of water + Peroxide).

Reminds me of some of Pecktec's stuff 🙂 I dig it.

Males often get these dots too. I don't know if snoopy has em, but something to check for.

Yep, Third fin ray on the dorsal is longer / pronounced, fully black to the body too. The last 2 photos you can see the anal fin difference as well. Really nice side by side 🙂

One of the techniques Jimmy recommends is to tuck your elbows in to try to stabilize when you take a photo. Hopefully that helps in future when you get some burry images. For me, I know it took a lot of practice to try to get clear images. I had to giggle at the "good luck finding them" with regards to the corydoras because they sure are hidden!

Yeah there was one from canada I saw I wanted to try too. 😞 I am very tempted to order some foods from amazon.de / amazon.co.uk but I do have plenty of other things to try for the next few months that I can source locally. I appreciate it @Colu Thanks. I did sort of get some clarity on the question above, for those following along I'll try to clarify. The brand in question has a link on their website (but they won't tell you the ingredients) about how good the quality is and so on. They talk about some of the things in the food and they make news style posts about the processes they use. One of those being a marketing type page about how they don't use "fillers" for their form of fish meal but they use whole fish. I take that to mean, they purposefully buy the whole fish so you're not just getting a head / carcass and condensing that down. So in my mind, that tells me that yeah, it's a whole fish, not a processed fish with some things cleaned / removed. I can't verify that, but that's how the article / information was presented. This is akin to the human side of things when you purchase something with "beef" and it's not very clear on which cut or % fat and so forth. Hard to say anything beyond that, but more research to do and I will try to reach out to some of these brands to get more clarity on things.

In my "extensive research" of the junk in my tank tormenting me, BBA/Staghorn thrives on rotting organic material. It will go to the old / dying leaves, choke out the plant, and then move up until it's overrun everything. Wood is rotting material, so yeah, it definitely will go ahead and use that surface. To give you an idea of how much I was frustrated with the stuff:

Don't have a picture but I think @Chick-In-Of-TheSea has the picture and video. I either get a pleco cave or I use a pottery plant and then cut it to fit the substrate like this: I prefer the straight edge ones like this, they have them in a few sizes. Leave the base and you have a cave, cut it out and you have a tunnel for rams or cichlids https://www.homedepot.com/p/Pennington-10-in-Terra-Cotta-Clay-Flair-Pot-Cabo-100523388/314324784

@Odd Duck should know the name of the moss. I think it's one in their tank! I do think that you also have some staghorn algae in between the moss there.

Kind of an annoyance, but have the filtration so that you can let it get to the substrate and hardscape. Cut the air for 10-20 minutes after feeding, then turn it off. For heavier foods it takes about a minute for that to happen. Why we can't have a "feed button" is really weird to me on some filtration types. You can also treat it like cocoa powder or cinnamon powder. Get a small dish and try to make a very loose paste. Similar amounts of food to water and then try to whisk it really well. Then add more water and repeat. Then more. Eventually it will dissolve easier if it's the type of thing that doesn't enjoy dissolving in water easily. Then dump that in. That's how I feed in repashy powder too. Some are easier than others.

How does your food with pollen compare to something like the ingredients in.... Repashy super gold. I do see some crossover with the stinging nettle and other things. Was curious how it would do with shrimp when I saw some of the things in there.

A lot of the research I've run into this week, studies, research papers, and from people much smarter than me with experience from the species basically says to feed them 2x a week, generally speaking. The reason for that is because they want to avoid ammonia and nitrite, and to keep nitrates low for as long as possible. If you have a bigger tank (not a nano one) then you have more dilution so you can feed slightly more. If you have a group that ignores the food, that means a few things, but I would argue it's a good thing. It speaks to their natural behavior of wanting aufwuchs and other organisms in the tank as a good source compared to something like a shrimp stick or wafer. In my own experiences I have had a lot of issues feeding "algae wafers" vs. "spirulina wafers". I have that in quotes there because you really do need to check the ingredients for what is in there. I recommend feeding repashy soilent green. If you can find it Chris' food is simple and clear what's in it and it's a good choice too. Some cichlid or discus food might work for shrimp as well. They tend to be either smaller pellets (good) or tend to have the omnivore ingredients of things that shrimp usually prefer. As always, check what is in the ingredients and see what you think. I try to feed shrimp specific food with added calcium once a week. I'm not great about it, but the attempt to do so is there. I usually feed repashy 1-2x a week and I'll feed something like frozen foods that same pace which also gives them some of the vitamins and minerals needed. (Especially spirulina brine) I have a few more papers to read through, but if there's something worth posting I'll toss that in here too. I've been finding some interesting stuff.

Late to see this, but yeah. Basically they are similar family, but a different species. Mine definitely didn't do well when PH climbed. Could've been the swing in parameters, but above 7.4-7.6 And they weren't happy. I lost about 30%. Caridina are a lot more, and I mean a lot more notorious for being sensitive. Just keep that in mind when considering what to keep them in and how to do so. For most shrimp keepers the difference between Neocaridina vs. Caridina is about as plain as what water goes into the tank and what substrate is used. Neos would use the inert substrate while the Caridina would use the variety that shifts PH down. Check out Saluwesi before going right to Caradina. Might or might not fit better.

How are they doing? How do you handle water changes in that tank? (Asking for a friend! 🙂 )