nabokovfan87

Yeah. I am thinking back to high school or college when we were using prisms and mirrors at different distances to measure wavelength. That's the image in my mind trying to puzzle it out. 🙂

Maybe upgrade the 10G to a 20L and put the endlers and white clouds together?

I'll have to make a video for you to show you the same tank with two lights. Interesting how crazy different my two tanks look and the only real difference is LED part numbers (and dirty glass and cloudy water, but besides that.... LOL Very very interesting! I equate it towards the "true color" type of monitors or displays used for editing video and photos compared to the normal ones. Sometimes accuracy is just slightly more expensive and sometimes that trade is worth it or not. Maybe the diving thing has to do with density of the water (pressure or something) and the wavelength of the light in question traveling through that water? Well I'm on a bender now reading about lighting articles and science stuff. 😂 https://hubblesite.org/contents/articles/spectroscopy-reading-the-rainbow

Whatever you're adding, just check things like KH and PH daily and if you see a big shift do your water changes accordingly. Visually youll get the look you want and then you'll be able to adjust and learn how quickly parameters change for the items your using. Wood, I just ignore as a factor for shifting PH. It's a visual tool for me more than anything. Sorry I was trying to elaborate and you beat me to it! I don't think it is as fast as you think. Prep some botanicals and slowly add them to acclimate the shrimp to the changes. After a week or a few weeks you'll have the items in the tank and they have the nice grazing surfaces. Eventually you'll find the balance you're looking for. That might be a big bag of botanicals or just a small few.

Yes , but I just meant that I really love that tank and the items he used. Tons of pods and cones. Use a lot and then just modify the color / PH with water changes. @CJs Aquatics You'd want to always sterilize and boil wood. For most things that have some heft to them (pods and cones) it's best to boil those as well. Bark probably fits that category as well. Whenever I buy wood I tend to sterilize it and then soak it until I'm ready to use it. If I don't plan on using it right away, I bag it. Botanicals though, I would tend to just take the effort every time and boil what you need to. Just be aware to have a "fish only" stock pot as you need to. The pot might get some residue that probably isn't good for cooking.

I wonder why the big difference? What light is on that tank? Any way to turn down the blue and turn up red/green? Why do I feel like calibrating monitors and TVs now. 😂

Shimming just the corner could make the stress worse and increase the strain on whatever is causing the deflection. If the surface of the wood isn't flat or has some imperfections, king of DIY has a video showing his tank exploding because of a small pebble on the corner. If the tank itself has shifted from "true" then your best bet is to try to naturally release stress from the tank. 1. Verify flat on the actual surface of the stand. Remove the tank, use a level and check everything front to back and left to right. Shim the feet of the stand only as you need to. Not the tank. 2. Place a rubber mat (yoga mat is what I use, tool shelf liner may also work if not too thick) on the top of the stand and then place the tank in position on the stand. Again, check everything and this will give you an indication if it's the stand or the tank. 3. Fill the tank half or 3/4 of the way with water to preload the glass with stress. This with settle things and let you check the level of the tank with some of the normal deflection but not all stresses. At this point is when you decide if the deflection is acceptable. Twisting isn't good for tanks. So if the tank is leaning left to right or if the tank is leaning front to back, that's "ok" usually. The issue is when you have both causing stress in both directions. If it is a very very very slight amount of the level showing it's leaning, I usually move on and just keep an eye on it. If you see it where it's about 1/16 of an inch or more out of level then you go ahead and lift the side of the level to get a visual understanding of what's going wonky. You'll see just how much it's off dimensionally and why long dimensions that are unlevel can be out by a large margin (more stress) by the end of that long dimension. Meaning, the bubble on the level might show slightly off, but by visually seeing the level itself as true and comparing that to the rim of the tank, you might see as much as a 3/4" gap on some situations because of how long the tank is. Secondly, the actual tank might be fine. You might just have a rim on the top of the tank that is slightly off on one side or the other. It happens. You can place the level on the bottom rim as well along the glass and check it there. I often only check the top rim because the bottom one might have little globs of silicone sticking out. Hopefully this helps. Please feel free to add photos so we can get an idea of what you're seeing.

For me: False Julii Corydoras: Generally treated as a "community fish" and they would get food during the morning. Tank was right next to the kitchen window and they had a pretty bare tank. Breeding was moreso related to how cold the temp was (often cold in that house, especially next to the window) moreso than anything else. I don't want anyone to take my experience with these guys as detailed because I really didn't understand much when I set this tank up. It had some plants, some plastic decor and stuff, but it wasn't set up for breeding, just for fish to be fish and give the family something to enjoy during meals. Panda Corydoras: Generally they will "always eat" but they do enjoy eating before the lights go on and after the lights are off. Breeding is almost always in the afternoon, despite anything else, and they just sort of do their thing more often than other corydoras when the tank conditions benefit their behavior. They like to play in flow, they enjoy bubbles and airstones, that gets them doing up downs and can sometimes encourage breeding too. Repashy after dark (as mentioned below) and the afternoon hours when the room gets cooler, that is typically when I see them go after it. Black "Schultzei" Corydoras: They generally will just sit there when the lights are on. This might be similar behavior to what others mention where your second generation of fry will do a lot better in your parameters compared to the original fish. Conditioning, that sort of thing. They did, often refuse to eat and especially the biggest of the group (ironically) she wouldn't want to be seen and often try to camoflauge. I did treat for parasites and behavior is a lot better now. They will all usually come out to eat once I drop in food. It's a refreshing change from the original few years of having them and trying to understand their behaviors. It was a very similar experience to this article: https://www.tfhmagazine.com/articles/freshwater/success-with-a-holy-grail-corydoras-weitzmani As for my own experience for when they spawn I do have a few videos and stuff. Generally, especially for the larger female she will try to do things when it's very quiet. Early morning, especially late night is when she goes to do up downs. Having eggs or not, that's typically when I see her most active. 😂 I totally have fish that do this and then the opposite of that is the ones like pandas that will just straight up line up on the glass and look at you like, "please sir, can I have another?" I tend to always have a chair or stool around the tank. Try sitting for 10+ minutes and sit so your shoulders are 3 feet back or so. Once you do this a lot more, they should start to at least feel comfortable around you. My black corydoras took a very long time to trust me and move around. Having new fry and new members, more in the crowd is also the second way that they tend to perk up and act a bit more crazy for the camera. This always seems to be a favorite of mine too. When I was really pushing feeding to trigger spawns I would wait about 30-60 minutes after lights out and sneak in and toss in food. Usually repashy and that's one of my favorite ways to feed it out. Just like you said, it's always gone. They went NUTS the first time I fed bottom scratcher. Just wanted to share the "tip" above, especially if you have repashy around. 🙂

It looks like more of a bacteria film. Usually protein is more oily / rainbow colored. So it could be added bacteria bloom of sorts from the new vegetation. Try to make sure it stays "broken". Add filter floss of fine pad to the HoB (window cutout, if you don't have that sealed on this tank) and then just try to siphon any food that gets into the gravel really deep. See if that clears things up and keeps it away after a week. You might also see it form on cords and airlines. Plastics in the tank.

From the older post linked above: I think it's clear at this point how much I detest this algae. I don't think BBA can be discussed apart from staghorn and vice versa. They are both red algae and behave similarly and are just at difficult to get rid of. Common reasons I have seen BBA / Staghorn do well in my tank, and all of these I can specifically point back to testing or experience trying to tweak knobs over months of effort. Equipment Failure or Circulation Issues: Excess Nitrates in the water (over 10 ppm, especially over 30) Excess Phosphate, iron, magnesium, etc. Excess light intensity Excess light duration Excess of Fertilizer dosing Substrate type Wood CO2 issues Lack of algae eaters Lack of plant mass Spores in the water before it gets to your tank Introduced via plants Water changes not often enough I am sure there is more, but I would approach that list as a "reasons why" checklist. Some of them might make sense for your situation and some might not. I list the oddball ones, I list the uncommon reasons, because I have seen this stuff go from little black diatoms into long-haired monsters, and I have seen it slowly die off over months and months. I have had this stuff go from the long-haired monster down to nothing and remain "low level" for almost a year. I guarantee you if I swap the light out or change something, it will explode on me. Part of this is because of the filtration type, but I also think that specific triggers cause it to thrive. I can't tell you how to get rid of it. Because I haven't yet. But, I absolutely can tell you what not to do and hopefully that helps! Methods to get rid of this stuff that I am seriously considering: A. Trash and replace everything except the fish B. Remove everything, dip the plants in RR, bleach the tank. C. Remove everything, dip the plants in RR, turn it into salty salty salty salty salty water for a while. D. Add a million plants and just keep grinding. Lighting for me is 4 hours a day. I am considering NOT dosing anything and only using root tabs for a while. Along with Easy carbon (spot dosing seems to be the only way, but more on this to come once I start dosing it again)

It literally could vary from print to print. 3d printing can be a fickle thing. I assume the material or baffle isn't causing an issue, but having the baffle on the tank would reduce surface movement depending on what the design is like (with the spraybar style output or not). It really is a situational thing and that film doesn't concern me... I would literally just run fine pad for a week and never see it again. If you do see it constantly.... looking at you tidal 35 tank... then it's more of a concern and speaks to a gas exchange issue. It's about trying to find what is causing it, but at some point if you see it show up you can just focus on filtering it out too. DEFINITELY interesting. I am curious to see what is the cause.

I had mine spawn. I took a massive amount of photos to try to help with the thread. I had 2-3 females going at it for about 1.5 days laying eggs. I'll dig them out and try to list some notes. I wanted to check in though and ask about any news on this? @KentFishFanUK

Random thought, but I just wanted to take a poll of sorts. When do your Corydoras eat? Secondly, when are they most active in terms of breeding? A. Morning, after lights on they eat, usually always active. B. Generally difficult to tell, not very active. C. They eat whenever, breed at night. D. They eat usually after lights get dim, activity as well after late meals. E. Difficult to answer, almost always eat and always active. I would also ask to please state what corydoras you keep or have experience with for the above question. My hope is that details like this can help someone to target feed, breed more successfully, and maybe we can distinguish some patterns. I currently have two types of corydoras, experience with a few, but some do act very differently. (More details on this when I can find the article to link below) https://www.tfhmagazine.com/articles/freshwater/success-with-a-holy-grail-corydoras-weitzmani Thank you!

Is there anything in the tank apart from the plants and algae? I'll grab a few threads and posts. Try to dig for the details. I assume that some of this information has changed, and I have new stuff floating around in my mind because of the recent, more intense efforts to rid the tank of this stuff.

If you had to guess... how many do you have right now?

Looks awesome! I would suggest adding a piece of wood for the shrimp.

I would double check the box. They might be hiding! Best of luck.

@AquaJay96 It looks like all of those are stem plants, which means you can very likely pick just about any substrate and it'll work for these plants. I can't speak to which light will work for this tank, but you will want some sort of light meant for a planted tank. It might be a great thing to wait for the Aquarium co-op light due out in the middle of December. It is pretty easy to use and there will be a lot of people here able to give you advice on settings too! Needs: -Planting Tweezers (recommended) -Easy Green -Root tabs -Planted Tank Light -Multi-Test strips Setup Suggestions: -You can use something like amazonia or other planted tank substrates and then cap it with sand. This will be great for the plants and corydoras you wish to keep! -You can use JUST the planted tank substrate, but the food can fall in the cracks making it difficult for the corydoras. Not a major issue, but might just be something to keep an eye on and make sure they feed properly. -You can use Sand as a substrate. This is perfectly fine for stem plants and they should generally be ok if you go with a larger particle size sand. Something like carib sea crystal river. -Gravel also works, pick whatever color you want, natural or anything else, they all should work perfectly fine. The first thing that would help is testing your water so we know if you need anything like crushed coral or other items you might need. What we would need to know is... 1. Test the water out of your faucet for everything you can. Specifically we need KH, PH, GH 2. Take that same sample of water and aerate it with an airstone for 24 hours. Then re-test. Those two results will help us figure out if you need anything special.

Checked on them this afternoon and I just had to pause for a second. I really enjoy these fish. I don't know what it is, but I really enjoy seeing corydoras do their thing. Such interesting little creatures. I think my other "dream fish" to breed is otos. Not a fish, but amano shrimp are one as well. I'll try to get some top down photos tomorrow. Maybe count them, but I doubt I'll be able to get an accurate one!

I can't really tell for sure, on the second photo is the abdomen opened up? Was there a sore/abscess and now it's an open wound? If that is the case I would lean towards euthanizing the fish. At that point you'd want to also look into cleaning / sanitizing the tank and equipment and starting over with a new cycle. There is a few ways to do that, the easiest being just adding a ton of salt and letting it run. Hopefully we can get a little bit more clarity on what's going on and offer some advice. Best of luck, I'm sorry for your struggles and what your fish is going through.

Can you clarify what you're measuring with the level? If you put the level on the tank itself what do you see? What about the top surface of the stand? A video showing the gap on the corner might be helpful, photos as well. Generally speaking on any aquarium, one of the corners lifted up isn't a good thing long term. Adding a rubber mat underneath might be what you need and then you're good to go, but I would hold of on any advice until we can see what's going on fully.

Looks great, really awesome setup! I'm jealous of all those tanks for so many shrimp and corydoras!!! 😂

Hello @AquaJay96 and welcome to the forum. My stepsiblings are both autistic and both kept aquariums in their room for a little while. Eventually I tried to teach them proper care (they both had bettas with bloat) and about the nitrogen cycle and all of the fun things about the hobby. I can confirm that having a planted tank is an amazing, wonderful thing. I genuinely hope that you have an awesome tank in the future that you can find some serenity and peace when viewing it, working on it, and caring for all of the things inside. Because of my hopes of finding them some enjoyment with the hobby, that's ultimately why I got back into it. I think the best thing you could do is just get some anubias. Any and all varieties will generally do well for you. You don't need a fancy light, you don't even need a light in some cases if the tank is in a bright room. It's a plant species where you can get a lot of variety. Even yesterday, being a fan of that plant, I discovered there's two new ones I had no idea about! One of the awesome things you can do with anubias as well, it does not need special substrate, doesn't need anything in particular except for a healthy tank. It might be a great place to start! https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/how-to-plant-anubias-or-java-fern-on-rocks This video is a really great guide for how-to planted tank. Obviously there is a ton of videos, some by Aquarium Co-Op and there are blog articles and other resources as well. I don't know if you're best learning visually or prefer text so I'll try to find a few for you to check out. The first part of this video goes through all kinds of substrate and you can see the different types. https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/beginner-planted-aquarium Aqua soil is a type of substrate. There is a few "types" of substrates: Sand/Gravel, Soil, or "other". People have made tanks out of potting soil, black diamond blasting sand, patio rocks, and all other varieties of things in between. The main thing I would always advise is to look into what the fish or plants need and then decide what makes sense. Visually, sand might be the "look" you're wanting, or gravel, and all of that is perfectly fine! You can choose plants that do well in sand (stem plants, rhizome plants, floating plants, etc.). You can also care for other plants if you do have a bit more nutrient rich substrate (aqua soils, which is little balls of dirt, essentially). Anything you "need" for a normal aquarium is all you really need for a planted tank. You would also want to add on other items based on the plants you want to keep. For example, if you want to keep anubias, you would need plant glue and easy green. Having any sort of a light would also help, but it's not a necessity if cost is an issue. Depending if it's easier for you to use your fingers or something like pinsettes (fancy planting tongs) or other aquascaping tools might make it fun for you when working on the plants. I think the best thing to do in terms of help, is literally to just write out whatever you want to ask. Someone will be here to help and that's the awesome thing about these forums. If you want to talk about ideas for a tank, awesome, but you can also just look at the plants on the store page and let us know which you like, your favorite colors, etc and we can go from there to help suggest things that would work or what you would need to accomplish that goal.

Sorry I got distracted. Pups attacked me and then I realized I forgot to feed the fry. Alright.... So it's not the filter per say. It just means that the HoB output should break all of that up and push it into the water so it can get filtered out. If this is the one with the baffle, maybe that's a chemical you're seeing from that plastic. I would clean the pump and foams just to make sure it's all good, run some floss or fine pad for a week and see if it goes away. The other way to handle it is to just add an air stone where you're seeing the most of it and give the glass, rim, and lid a good rinse on next maintenance day.

Pretty much the one thing to avoid is anything that specifically looks like the body shape of the RTBS. Especially things in the same family can lead to issues if space is tight. In my RTBS care, I don't know if the one I have is just extremely peaceful (she isn't, but can be) or if it's just the norm given her care. Every morning she pops out, says hey, goes back into her hole. She legit knows voices and who is out there, she comes out when certain people interact with her. RTBS want a long tank and a tank where they can swim laps or circles and sort of prowl a path. Mine is always swimming the same locations in the same way and wants to sit in the same spot in the same position during off hours (daytime). I have kept in the tank without much fuss: -White clouds| -Borneo Loaches -YoYo Loaches -Tiger barbs -Rasboras -Glofish style tetras (rescues) -Panda Corydoras -Black Corydoras -Clown pleco -Rubberlip Pleco -Bristlenose Pleco -Odessa Barb -Swordtails (orange with black swords) -More swordtails (black with green speckles) -Amano Shrimp -Nerites The only thing she wasn't happy around, but eventually was fine with was Siamese Algae Eaters. They stayed out, she stayed hidden, but she was definitely not ok with them being around her. In order to ease aggression I took the 4 SAEs that I had and removed them to other tanks. Eventually she was ok with less of them and the SAEs would always hang out together and school together. They (SAEs) got big and chunky and were just like little whales wanting to lay on everything they could to rest in the flow. My RTBS is a lot "more active" in the sense that she coasts around, checks on things, grazes, but she doesn't really just lay there. She will swim in place, but she's not actually not swimming. Hopefully we can hear from some more RTBS keepers, Rainbow Shark keepers, or the all elusive BTBS keepers. I would love to learn more about them. The prime time aquatics vid, theirs was MASSIVELY BIG and apparently wasn't good with a lot of fish. I have asked them on stream and stuff about theirs. Mine is a solid 5.5-6" and theirs was similar size, but in video just looks giant. This is the behavior, comfort, and personality similar to mine. they like to have a hide, cave, or cover to get away from. At night they are much more active. this might help too