nabokovfan87

I would check your filtration and equipment. Temporarily add one airstone on either end of the tank until things stabilize. This will help with the fish stress and their gasping at the surface. Secondly, check temperature and your heater. Make sure it wasn't damaged and is functioning properly. I do apologize for the issues you're having. It happens, and it's never, ever going to be easy to deal with. Keep pushing, do what you can, and please feel free to ask any questions you need to.

I would need to see the actual rhizome. I don't know if it's attaches or just the roots are in the substrate? They Anubias is usually going to respond or adapt based on feeding behavior (bioload), lighting, and then dosing schedule. If you're having brown diatoms they can usually be removed with a toothbrush on the leaves and then you just clean the tank itself to get ahead of them. Cut back lighting, dosing a bit leaner, reduce overfeeding, might be all you need. If the leaves in question are on one end of the rhizome it's likely best to pull the most damaged ones off. at this point I don't think it's necessary.

Add the plants, give it a good amount of time, 2-6 weeks to let the plants take hold and grow roots. When you initially plant them, have root tabs around and then go ahead and just give them time to take hold. When I had the bigger tank setup, sand, etc. I never had issues with the corydoras and plants (probably critical on which plants). Now that I have the smaller tank and even with less corydoras they are bigger, the plants don't have good root structures (different substrate) and I spend a few minutes every day getting them back down. I am sure part of this is due to the filtration, not the fish. Have plants that you can glue on wood. Something like Hygrophilia Pinnatifida or Buce would be great for that in addition to moss, anubias, and the ferns. Now, I can't speak to kuhli loaches, but as I said I wouldn't worry about the corydoras specifically with plants. If you're fine with fixing plants every once in a while, then go ahead and add the fish in and just adjust accordingly. If you can give the plants time, that's a benefit though. Bigger shrimp, might be fine. Should be fine. Just have them somewhere else and slowly add in shrimp. If you have places for the shrimp to hide, they'll be fine.... even in some massive shrimp predator tank. Stick to a nano community then. Fish that stay under 6" mostly (just meaning if you want a few SAEs, cool), but try to keep everything under 2" and it'll be easier if you ever have issues. Have good size schools, an active tank, and just enjoy seeing the different species interact. Even if you decide on one big school of one species, you will see the social behavior and so many interesting things.

I definitely wouldn't try a group in a 20L 😂 I get the feeling the fish wizard can decide whatever they want will or won't work. I had 3-4 SAEs and a RTBS in my 75. They did fine. They figured it out. Just have a lot of caves.

Yes please. I hate the way the output is designed currently on these things to encourage fry to get pushed in the tank or to easily overflow. It's so weird to me.... Take hang on back box, make it clear, make it big enough. Doooooone.

I dig that setup with the hang-on breeder box and the nano pump. I seriously would love to see something like that made for the hobby. What an idea! (something to fit a nano sponge and hangs on the tank with a nano pump)

I've seen some of these types of things where you're given a budget and have to pick stuff in a graphic. Let's make one for a fish rack! You magically wake up and the fish wizard gives you a riddle to solve. The fish wizard explains that you can have and keep the shiny new rack of tanks, but you have to decide what you want right now! You are given a series of choices. The fish wizard explains, you cannot spend over 650 magic points because their powers are almost used up for the day. "Choose wisely," the fish wizard advises. You turn to the wall in your room and you see a shiny new rack for tanks sitting there. The options are endless, but you ponder what would make sense for you. The rack has two shelves awaiting your choices. Tank Sizes 6x 10G tanks per shelf - 50 MP 4x 20L tanks per shelf - 100 MP 1x 75G tank per shelf - 150 MP Lights (entire rack) Shop Lights - 10 MP Planted Lights - 100 MP Fancy Lights - 200 MP Filtration 4x Sponge Filters - 10 MP 4x Hang-on Back Filters - 40 MP 1x Canister Filter - 150 MP Hardscape (per tank): Mopani - 5 MP Manzanita - 10 MP Ghostwood - 10 MP Malaysian Driftwood - 5 MP Seiryu Stone - 20 MP Ohko Stone - 20 MP River Rock - 10 MP Mountain Stone - 15 MP Lava Rock - 10 MP Plants Moss - 1 MP Anubias - 1 MP Fancy Anubias - 20 MP Java Fern - 1 MP Bacopa Caroliniana - 3 MP S. Repens - 5 MP Dwarf Hairgrass - 5 MP Jungle Val - 3 MP Amazon Sword - 5 MP bucephalandra - 5 MP Fancy Buce - 20 MP Crypt Pink Flamingo - 10 MP Dwarf Lily - 1 MP Special Order Plant - 30 MP Inhabitants (per item): Bladder Snails - 0 MP Nerite Snails - 1 MP Ramshorn Snails - 2 MP Amano Shrimp - 3 MP Fancy Shrimp - 10 MP Corydoras - 3 MP Fancy Corydoras - 20 MP Pygmy Corydoras - 1 MP Shell Dwellers - 3 MP Betta - 1 MP Fancy Betta - 10 MP Fancy Goldfish - 5 MP Discus - 15 MP Angelfish - 5 MP Bolivian Ram - 5 MP Dark Night Ram - 10 MP Bristlenose Pleco - 5 MP Clown Pleco - 5 MP Fancy Pleco - 50 MP Tetra - 3 MP Rasbora - 3 MP Barb - 3 MP White Clouds - 3 MP Rainbowfish - 5 MP Oscar Fish - 5 MP Red-Tailed Black Shark - 5 MP Rainbow Shark - 5 MP True Saimese Algae Eater - 5 MP Special Order Fish - 30 MP

I used it on mine. Let me grab the thread for you. I have very, very similar questions. In other countries it was likely a lot more common and is a lot less common nowadays.

Yep! Some fish are literally just big monsters in the bathroom. Even the same size, I've seen trails that are 2-3x the body length of the fish. Especially livebearers or mid-water swimmers they just let it dangle. The not beneficial poop often looks waved or has a weird texture to it. It's usually white but can be red or other colors depending on what you're dealing with.

It's finally happening. ALRIGHT, let's dive into what we have going on. This would be the BASIC kit I recommend that just about everyone do to their tidals. It requires no permanent changes to the filter and you are simply improving the function and fit of the sponge itself. It's pretty simple and this applies to every HoB out there, so if you're intimidated at all by cutting foams, let's break it down into very simple steps. 1. Measure your container 2. Mark / cut your foam (rough cut) 3. Finishing features A lot of times you can "mess up" by cutting the foam too perfect and this just essentially means it's foam and foam isn't like wood or other materials. It's made to squish and it's flexible for the most part. It's designed in such a way to fill an area, but it's a solid. So cutting it can be wonky. In terms of engineering, you're cutting blanks, then using those blanks to cut out what you really are trying to obtain. This is similar to how you go and buy some plywood or some other cut of wood and then you finalize the shape. You can do everything with Scissors, but you can also opt to use one of these for the straight cuts. Do I wish I had one, YEP. I would also recommend using templates out of laminated paper, cardstock, or the file folders. That type of paper is a bit more robust and you will thank yourself if you do make those templates. It is a lot easier to trace and follow paper than it is to follow a curved, bumpy foam shape. For the tidal's specificially, here's my method. Your template is going to be the "inner lip" inside of the basket. Absolutely do not take the sponge in there and use that as a template. Maybe you're the lucky one and it all fits, but let's explain why in a moment here. Take your paper, your foam or whatever it is that you want to use to transfer the shape over and try to get that general rough shape of the inner lip of that basket. Once you're there you take that piece and cut out your "basic shape". Don't worry about bends or curves or anything like that. You will almost always mess it up if you get too detailed up front, especially with some complex shapes. We can see the bottom isn't straight, the top is all wonky because you have 3 cuts instead of one across (because of scissors). There is a "feature" cut out at the point I took this photo, but the goal at this point would be to just have a rectangle. Next up I am going to straighten out the edges, try to cut out the curve, and cut out the two corner radii you see on the top left / right of the shape. The radii on the left is a slight bit larger diameter than the one on the right, but you get the idea. At this point, you would go BACK to your basket and verify the shape. If we compare this to the original foam, you're looking for about 1/8" larger size overall, especially where the chute cutout is. As you move higher up in the basket, that dimension would increase with each layer. With the foam I have, by the time I get to the third layer it's about 1/4" offset on the perimeter from the original foam. As we saw in the OP as well, the variance on these foams is quite a lot so yours might have an even bigger offset. This is why we use the hard basket as the outline and not the foam. The "window cutout" cover is just using scrap pieces of foams and I cut off the bumps so it's 1/4" thick and fits nicely into that area when the media bag is installed against it (holding the foam cover in place). HOPEFULLY that little walkthrough helps someone one day, but it's very easy to do and extremely rewarding.

Talk about a DREAM setup. I really love those dimensions. What a fun set of tanks to keep. I would have Salvinia on the top. I would vote blackwater? Does that make sense for the species in question? I would try to find a good piece of "log" style wood like this one, potentially something that sticks up and out of the tank but not too massive. I think 33long is a "delicate" tank and having a simple scape, fine branches does really well. Manzanita basically. "Bottom up" scape, but moreso a scape where the branches give movement across the length of that tank.

Me too. I went in to help cook then it was over.

totally worked! 😍

weird 😞

I have seen it once before. I got a plant order in and there was a piece of it somewhere in something. I pulled it out because I had noticed it checking the plants for stuff, but thankfully it was just the one piece!

@modified lung I don't think your photos and stuff are attaching for the last two?

He's busy busy. I've never seen a betta make one of those. Haven't ever kept one... hm. I guess not. I have been around them, but never had my own. For some reason I thought they only did the nests after they see a female and use that as part of their mating behavior.

*runs to go turn down the heater on the cory tank* Very good point. What kind of notes do you keep when you spawn something? I wonder if @mountaintoppufferkeeper has journals and stuff too.

They always get so jumpy when I vacuum their room, 😂

Star tail tetra things.... what are they. uh........ Silvertip Tetra! Some of those might really get the pygmy corydoras schooling around. Centerpiece can be the apistogramma with a gave. Central stump style bit of wood so the tetras can swim in a circle around everything. If you're struggling with BBA (I am sorry, I am too) then I would stick with very, very, very low demand plants and basically let them do their thing. Start with anubias or java ferns. As long as the lights aren't beaming on high and you're not crazy dosing, it's generally stayed low for me. The green neons and others like them might get some schooling behavior too depending how many of each you get. A herd of otos too! They shoal and would really do well in that shape of a tank.

I vote shrimp! Amano shrimp should be "fine" but other bigger species compared to the ghost would be where I go to. Cherry shrimp, etc. Once you get enough in there (maybe start them elsewhere and introduce them in batches?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Miami Dolphins fan here and I just was very excited to see Detroit fight so hard this year! WOOT. For everyone cooking, thank you. It's always a lot of work and prep amongst everything. Be nice, help with dishes if you can so everyone can relax!!!!! 😂

I think it's one Dean put together. I recall him discussing it. It might be on one of the older dean's fishroom tours.

There are some types of algae you can basically only get rid of it with easy carbon (algecide) and for tanks that are covered with it, might be a good way to handle it. Among actually fixing issues with the tank it's a tool, like anything else. I have been keeping tanks for a while, over 5 years (probably longer), and I've only ever purchased 2-3 bottles. If you ever have stubborn algae, black beard or staghorn, it's something you can spot dose to fight off that stuff. Beyond that, everyone is right, not necessary at all, but it is helpful sometimes. The idea simply being, if you have algae fighting your plants, you can dose this stuff to fight off the algae (they then have access to more CO2).

What a crazy beautiful fish! Hoping for the best for you with the fry and the male. That's crazy low PH. really interesting stuff, as always. I haven't seen many Apisto's and every time I see you post one I'm always amazed. I think usually it's temperature, no?