nabokovfan87

Yep basically! Just have to do the best you can. The tank looks good. We'll see how it goes.

It's two of them 🙂 The one that is in the middle was in the front, I swapped that with the smallest one that was in the back by the heater with that one. So there's one slightly off the sponge on the left glass, I figured it would fill in well. There is the other big one towards the front to give Grace some cover and a bulb plant next to it. Another towards the opening on her hide as well, with the last one on the back. The bulb plants will hopefully thrive for me and go from there. I am curious to see all of the plant leaves (color and texture) blend in.

You can move the fish to QT for treatment. I would like to see how the fish look and ask more about their behavior. Have they been eating and active? Lethargic? Breathing ok?

Removed as much as I could of the substrate yesterday @anewbie we'll see how it goes. Makes sense. Have to get the plants growing. A technique I had passed to me that worked wonders was to limit light to low, 4 hours max. That way the plants could grow and algae died off. After 2 months the plants were doing ok, recovering, and the algae was dying back. Slow adjustments after that. You could also try a peroxide dose 1-3x a week. See if that helps.

Yep! I've seen it online on one shop, might be on Amazon, but I'm really intrigued to snag some. Tank update. I planted it at about 2.30 last night. Isn't that when everyone gets work done! Blue buddy shrimp is the one I want to make sure is doing ok and he was definitely stunned a little bit from the day. You can see the residue.all over everything, especially the back wall panels.

Well it's a bit complicated, but the short story is that once it started being the source of bba in my tank, time to go. Removed it from every plant, all the wood, I've siphoned the substrate beyond all sort of reason, and it still managed to be a sticking point. Root development also hasn't been up to my standard and was doing better before I had changed from the 29 to the 75G. It's a lot bigger tank to push CO2 in, so things really have to be dialed in. As an example, the 29G w/ CO2: They aren't doing "well" but they are growing and the roots were solid. This was only with the flourite black. It's compressed and worn down over the years. I'm sure if you zoom in too you can see BBA on some pieces as well that I just never caught before. The same plants in the 75G w/ CO2 and it's dialed in really well: I should've seen it carpet or at least double. I've lost the growth I did gain and then some. KH and GH play a role too, but the main issue I've been experiencing is just rooting behavior, how quickly things can thrive. The swords I just pulled had some really long roots, some over a foot, and they are pretty new. I also didn't realize what it was when I bought it. The bag says, and all the marketing repeats, how it's a planted tank substrate. It's really not great and the CEC I was hoping for was extremely minimal compared to something like aquasoil. With the water I have, the aquasoil is actually really perfect and makes things spot on where I need to, and stable, for plants. KH is 4, GH is 8. PH is sub 7. It's really good for a lot of the stems and more difficult plants. I just found out caribsea is rebranding their stuff and they have a new black substrate, midnight river. I'm really excited to see it in person.

Keep in mind that's shooting 4 foot across the tank. I like to see surface movement, but most of the time when you have a guppy or a betta or something I don't think they want a ton of flow pushing them around. Things like redness near the base of the tails or red gills or struggling to stay in place would be the indicator for me on if the flow is too high. Etsy has baffles. You can also check YouTube and stuff for how to make one out of a water bottle.

Can you show a photo of the whole tank? What are your light settings and stuff like? Any other plants in the tank that would need medium or high light?

Basically if you have long fins or tails you'd see the fish struggling to stay in place and getting tossed around. Guppy tails can qualify for that and they aren't the best swimmers. Raising the water line so the water hits the watering when it outputs also helps to "tame" the flow a little bit too and act as a little bit of a baffle. That being said there is flow adjustment and all sorts of things where you want to see some surface movement, but not really see something like the fish being tossed into the wall. This is my tank, what I would consider "pretty decent flow" and most people use less flow than this.

Seachem alkalinity buffer is what I use. KH above 60 ppm or how high did it get? What is your pH now?

Beautiful pattern. Really special fish!

The suction is basically the junk vacuum. Right now you're intake is on the far left all the way against the wall, just not quite optimal. That's all. The flow in the middle will also hit the front glass and then go along both sides. Better circulation and heat distribution and things of that nature. You can try to mount it on the side of the tank if you're having flow issues (too strong of a flow) or check into something to baffle the output.

Heal up! Definitely give the hand time to close up and clean it as need be. Wishing for a speedy recovery, hopefully not to deep of a cut. Good to hear about the filter cleaning and the easy flow. I'm running some dense foam on mine and it's quite different when I go to clean it. I'll have to keep an eye out for easy flow vs. air stone and see which one feels more "full". But yeah, running "a ton of air" is great when you see that result of really dirty sponges. 🙂

Rapid breathing and some freaked out fish for sure right now, but I think the difficult part is "done." I'll figure out the rest later, but right now I had to just let the filter run so I can visually count fish and shrimp. The plants are in a bucket. Wood is gently added to the tank. What a bit of a mess. I'll have to test parameters tonight as well. De-stressing now, but I was really concerned because as soon as I added the first bag the corydoras freaked and it was seemingly like the tank lost all oxygen. They were darting up to the surface for air and I was trying to gingerly move things around in the dark and kept accidentally grazing them (and Grace). Just want them to be ok and for things to be doing good.

I would try to place it so the intake is in the middle of the tank as opposed to one side.

@Kerri my apologies. Can you try to re-upload the photos? They aren't showing up for us. You can do that. Just make sure that the pieces all fit before you cut any sponge. You'd want it to snap together and doesn't fall apart when you lift it up or move it. You can also opt for more sponge and not having the uplift tube.

Depending on the scientific name you're working with would give you a better idea. The majority of corydoras are going to want to be with slightly cooler temps in the 72-74 range. There are some that can do 76 and be fine, some that can do ok with 78. There are people that keep them with discus, but I would really think that is stress and a reduced lifespan. Planet Catfish and other sources have information on habit. Seriously fish is another good one. There is corydoras world as well. The general guide is that fish that want cooler temps can want it because that water is highly oxygenated, but there are fish that generally hurt want (need I should say) cooler water. River species tend to be in that realm as well as a lot of cypranidae fish. So in this situation, I don't have a really good answer for what temp works well for the stocking. I would assume 76-78 is the range you'd want the tank in. You've got the added air in there as well. Prefilter helps with the issue of fish going where they shouldn't be. Essentially, the goal right now is to recover the fish that had the issue. Keep an eye out for infection, redness, torn fins, and not eating. Salt can be used for some things. Maracyn would also be used in some cases. Any sort of cotton like things would be fungal and you would use jungle fizz tabs or ich-x with salt. Hopefully that helps. Good circulation helps. If you want you can post a photo of the setup to give us a better idea of the concern. I would tend to make sure the output of the HoB is towards the middle of the tank and then the air stone somewhere on the right side.

If they are that big I would think they might not be neocaridina. Neo vs. amano at the same scale.

😂 It's so amazing when something as simple as a product update that makes life easier (and reducing cost for API) happens. Nice to see it.

Yeah, the temps are warmer which just means you'll need to make up for it with oxygenation. It's a slight thing, but as the temp goes up you lose a little bit of oxygenation. You have the air stone in there, so that's a good sign. Of note, just keep in mind this also increases the metabolism of the corydoras which also makes them have a reduced lifespan as well. It's not an exact science or anything, but there are some species of corydoras that so better warmer. Trilineatus or sterbai being two of them.

Yes and no. Seachem prime is the same way, safe up to a really high dose. That removes oxygen from the water when you dose it. So it's not about "x pumps per day" as you'd just be decreasing oxygen over and over. It's a very different impact if you're dosing once. 2x dose is normal for chloramines in the tap, while something like 5x dose would be for extremely toxic ammonia conditions. Based on everything I've read and been recommended, I would stick to one 50% water change per 24 hours. That one dose binds the ammonia for 24 hours minimum, so you're safe there too. After the WC, you'd add in your bacteria and give it 24 hours to do it's thing.

The rainbows are pretty calm from what I was told. A solo one should do fine, but I understand the concern! I didn't know that about mascara barbs. I have a RTBS and she's a softie. They tend to only go after fish that look like themselves for aggression, but it's always a risk with the one I have. Rainbows are supposed to be much more cooler temperament compared to the RTBS species. Grace, mine, she picked on 2 of the 5 SAEs I had. Once I had 3 in the tank and a hide for her, she did just fine with all of them in there.

That's really unfortunate, I'm sorry. Keep an eye on the little one and try to get a prefilter on the intake if you can. I've never seen one in an intake like that, but they do LOVE flow. For the sake of it, what is the stocking on the tank and what is the temp of the tank right now? They might be chasing flow / oxygenation if it's a bit hot. (which would just mean to try to add an airstone if you can at minimum)

Depending on the rack you might want to double check what that shelf is rated for. 150G is about 1800lbs filled with water, not counting anything else in the tank, on or around it. Given the opportunity there I would look into some cypranidae fish as well. SAEs or reticulated SAE would be great with the CPD and shrimp. Rainbow sharks too. There's a lot of larger fish in that family and just keep in mind what may or may not predate on the shrimp. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyprinidae Check out Mascara barbs. 🙂