nabokovfan87

Looks generally healthy to me. Some minor yellowing. Probably a good idea to track down some iron or something.

"Safe for Invertebrates such as shrimp."

Literally about to dose my tank with iron now. I'll check the bottle and see what it says with regards to invertebrates and snails. They have issues specifically with heavy metals I believe, the biggest one being copper. Keep in mind a lot of aquarium stuff is steel (stainless) and there's a lot of other metals common in there. Animals do need some metals in their diets and that's where a lot of things like iron coming from protein helps them out. Awesome question and I am intrigued as well. Definitely makes you think. (I've never been afraid to dose the flourish stuff with my shrimp, only copper. I'm fairly certain my nerited had iron in their lives but that was so long ago it's difficult to remember perfectly)

That's the worst. I used one of the blue kitchen sponges from time to time when need be and desperate. 😞 Often ended up just pulling the plant off whatever it was glued to and getting frustrated trying to figure out how to get the black algae off. Another indicator here, just for anyone following along, then leaves are curling a bit. Looking forward to seeing what the diagnosis is.

Waiting to hear what Seattle_Aquarist says, but I think the green diatoms are hiding what's really going on. Plant is covered in algae, so it's struggling, meaning that it's removing that part of the plant and pulling energy from that leaf or section. If it's the whole plant it's usually a version of: -might be burnt by the light -might not have enough light (because algae) -might not have enough nutrients (because algae) Anubias is a pretty straightforward one and tells you when it's unhappy. Pulling the plant and using a toothbrush or coffee brush might be enough to get that stuff off the leaves and get it back to going strong. (Edit: Sorry I was trying to mention, anubias can be pretty straightforward and recently I had changed out that light on my tank. They had been slowly declining and I had one leaf that turned to basically nothing. It's been in that tank for months and months, but just recently that's the first time I saw it absorb a leaf and make a change structurally. I checked the rhizome and it looked ok. Hopefully it's an indication that the right change was made. The leaf I pulled was basically completely dead and had half of it's structure left. Before that change and before modifying the light it was struggling and yellowing similar to what you're experiencing. It was being ran as a very, very, very low light and non dosing tank for a while, so understandable) Otos or Panda Garra might eat that algae up for you too. I would opt for a BNP or RLP because that plant has the big leaves. I'm guessing this tank already has a BNP?

Totally slipped my mind. Very good point.

That's awesome, very cool. Tolstoy has a lot of apistos if you ever need anything 🙂

Berried? If that's the same one she likes that spot. 🙂 I see swimerette things happening, might be the plant in the background and that's your male, very hard to tell but ghostly cool photo. 🙂 On the right, I see some green eggs?

Crazy hard slams right? I can't imagine that is safe or something that results in a good environment for the fish. So frustrating.

I am guessing that something isn't working right. In my situation I am running +15-20 degrees over ambient and one 300W heater on a 75G is sufficient. It does run all day, but it is sufficient to keep the tank warm. (2x200W doesn't struggle as much) In your case you have the wattage to pull that off. You have lids. You have circulation. Something is causing a dramatic drop in temp or the heaters just aren't working. I would run a bucket test and verify each one is working properly. Likely, you have a calibration issue or the heater itself is on, but dead.

Stay safe! Make sure the lids and stuff are set, do a water change now, before anything hits. I would just make sure any power banks are charged, nano pumps are ready. Battery powered pumps available. When we lose power I immediately go to the tanks and plug in the airstones, then I go ahead and take any ceramic media and put that in the bottom of the tank. I then have time to go ahead and clean any hang on back filters and do anything like that while the power is out. Keeping the tank covered (remove hang on back, cover hole with towel) would keep in the heat a lot better as well. Big box stores have the "store brand" of the 2xD-Cell battery pumps if you need something and don't have anything on hand. If you're expecting to have power issues for a few days or a week, I'd order some pumps from ACO if you don't have any other options. If you need to I would try to find 20,000+ mAH battery pumps from the local store and have those on hand. In my testing they lasted about 4 days with the nano pumps. I would imagine with the new ACO air pump on stamina mode you can get some pretty similar results.

Try turning off the filter for 20 minutes, then feed in some frozen food. You should see the fish go in search of some that sinks to the bottom and would be an indication that the animal is doing perfectly fine and has a healthy appetite. That's usually how i feed my frozen stuff. In general, with the loaches like that, you can try sticking tabs to the glass too if that's where they hang out. You should be able to also do that with some frozen foods or repashy and get it to leave enough residue for the loach to feed on. I tend to observer them and usually just see them grazing. Feel free to take a video, I'd love to see your loach do it's thing! I miss mine, haven't had one in years. 😞

Walked into petsmart this week. Kid you not. 50 bettas, each cup had a spotlight 2-3 inches from the top of the cup. I could only imagine.... Facing the display is about ~30 bettas, to the right is 15-20 plants and or / small betta cups. to the left is about 20-30 globettas. Not my picture, but gives you an idea.

If you can, record a video of the behavior. It might be something where adjusting the water level or hardscape helps diffuse it better. Often when water level is low, it's very direct and harsh. Aquaclear's do have adjustment, but it's not very fine. The adjustment is on the intake tube. Second to that I would recommend using a baffle from etsy. What filter model are you running? AC20 would work for anything 20G or lower without having "too much" flow. Even for a betta it would be sufficient. An AC30-50 would be what I use on a 20G and it wouldn't be "too much" flow, generally speaking. For some fish it might be, like a betta.

That is amazing. Nice work!

I'm seeing the second test a lot more clearly, definitely 300+ ppm. Here is the first one ran through a colorblind filter just to try to shift things and make it easier to read. Here's the second. 🙂

What is the size of the tank and what wattage (model number if you wish to share) are the heaters you're running? My 75G I was running 2x 300W heaters to keep temps up. (also worked with 1x 200W, 1x 300W) My 29G I am currently running 1x 200W heaters (two tanks, both with the same heater). Second thing is to make sure you have a good lid on the tank, it really helps. I run the Fluval E-Series heaters and basically won't run anything else. I have an ACO heater for QT tank / smaller tanks.

Well now we just need to see some 🙂 I vote shark.

Probably detritus worms. Depending what's in the tank they would eat it. Just a sign of making sure you siphon well.

Here's the vid.

That looks so similar to the one I am trying to find. It was about that size, and it had this really, really tiny dragon on it. It was all white, just a doorway with a few pieces of "wall" texture. We had this little fish that would go in and it would just have that as it's cave. That interaction left an imprint on me and the little fish would always come out to see me. That's what I remember.

Your water is crazy! 😂 Meaning, it's very different than mine because you actually have KH in it. I would call this a "null test" and re-run it. Let me grab a video and break down why. What I notice is how wet the pads look. this slightly changes what you're looking at. When I do my readings, If I don't see a "soaked" pad then I usually end up realizing I waited too long, 5+ minutes instead of 1, and that can make it hard to read some results. If you can, retest, then send us a new photo? But generally, the scale goes from blue to purple. so the more purple / light purple, you have harder water. 300+ ppm. I should have some photos of my test, but it's usually the same thing. However..... There can be some confusion between 300+ ppm in a result and something that is actually reporting 100-200 ppm and is dried out a little bit. Pretty much all of California is going to be 300+ ppm GH and that's normal. Some fish / shrimp don't like it, but generally it's ok. You can use something like a total zero filter or RO filters to go ahead and reduce that if you need to.

There is a category on the main page for video / photo / journals. Just make a thread there and then go ahead and add that link to your signature (on a computer, under your profile).

Likely they are detritus worms. Please attach photos if you can. Are you seeing them on the glass or on the substrate?