nabokovfan87

Agreed. I can attest, given my current situation, sometimes meds just aren't going to "fix it" and sometimes it's a really weird issue. Hoping for the best results and some sort of relief to the fish issues for you (and the fish).

But the green one was right there!!!!!!! LOL I like it. Looks beautiful! Turtles are such a cool creature. I remember as a kid growing up and watching Steve Irwin laying on a beach on his belly crawling up waters alongside a mom laying her eggs. It's one of those "journeys" in nature that captivates myself and so many others. I am beyond curious what their favorite sharks were. 🤔 Very cool.... It reminds me so much of a whale shark in pattern. There's also a very feisty "fun shark" at the bottom there. It's something I don't think a lot of people get to experience until you're head in the water and with the sharks, understanding how different each animal can be and how social they can be with one another (and humans) in a variety of ways. The damage jaws did in imprinting this personality of mindless killers on so many people when it comes to sharks is such a misnomer. I can only imagine that you have hopes for another shark-ey dive in future somewhere. What an experience, and thank you so much for taking the time to share it with us. This is the best, I love this moment. "Almost got clocked by a hammerhead" 😂

It's been weeks and I just got coffee... How did you know. Of course we missed you! I've got three or four of the ziss ones, if you want them just shoot me a DM. 🙂 If you want to hear "thoughts" on them, I can also share those based on my use of them.

Wishing for the best and as much of a recovery as possible. I don't know what caused that, but if you were running a tidal filter I would go there first.... I feel so bad for the little one.

Congrats @JoeQ! 😂 Rather be lucky then good... I need to "get lucky" and have some fry soon. It's been so long.

All I can think of going through the updates on the fiddleheads is Cody and Dave snacking on some in the middle of nowhere (old show, dual survival)

I fed some repashy yesterday, I swear they are protesting me at this point. 😂 Congratulations on having your tank stocked!!! I am expecting a pink when we see the first baby oto, baby corydoras, etc. etc. LOL. I can't wait to see the journey over the many months (and years) and what you end up breeding, propagating, moving around, and fiddling with. My tank has been a rewarding puzzle, a headache, a serene oasis, and a headache on some days.... but I can't say enough how much I enjoyed every moment along the way... even moving 4-5 tanks in a day to make room to set it back up! Word on the street is that they eat limpet snails too (one of the very few). They definitely like some aufwuchs, little critters, and their bug larvae, krill, and many other things along with their veggies.

Some of them absolutely can, but there's hundreds of species in that family. The ones I have are only 3" big. SAE are so fun though! They have the mouth shape of some specialized cyprinid fish that are made for cleaning surfaces. Otocinclus, SAE, amano shrimp, are my trio for "cleaners" but honestly, I just enjoy the fish themselves! Female SAE can turn into what I would deem a lazy orca and they just lay around all day. They are somewhat nocturnal, so during the night they might be doing some work for you too!

If you're actively seeing parasites you'll want to do 4-6 treatments. I commonly see 3 recommended, I tend to do 4-5 myself based on a major issue I had and the severity of needing to be thorough.

I would think it's a scud. Depending what is actually going on, having both these things in a new tank is kind of a concern. Can you show us the tank setup itself, photos of the filtration, and discuss your maintenance routine? For Hydra, it can be ignored for some setups, but it can also be an issue given certain stocking. The thing you would use to eradicate it is a product called "no planaria".

Before After

When you say you dewormed them how many treatments are we talking? Often one dose of meds or two doses will not be enough.

😂 Clown pleco or panaque species are great and don't so nearly as much as the big ones. But anyways.... Back to topic! I think loaches might ignore some shrimp, and you might get one that is just going to go a bit nuts on the invertebrates. Their personalities can be frantic at best to the point where they hunt so ferociously that they often get themselves stuck in things. I would say try it with cull shrimp, but don't put anything in there with them that you will mind losing. If you have a loss, they will likely clean it up before you even notice. Determining if they will or won't would mean catching them in the act at that point. The tanks sound fun! Cool to hear about them 🙂

Change water bi-weekly. One pleco in a shrimp tank is perfectly fine. I keep clown pleco with mine.

I appreciate it. Honestly I'm just at a loss. I couldn't find the oto when I check tonight, found another corydoras with half a tail missing (fin rot) and moved it to the QT tank.

In the second video (side view) when he is swimming left to right you can see a little something. I am not sure what it is, but maybe you can see it better in person. @Chick-In-Of-TheSea Missed this bit, but yeah! You saw them too. They look very, very typical from what I see on the label for erythromycin use. I think beyond that, adding the botanicals in there as well would be the steps I would take.

I wanted to finalize a few thoughts, given recent changes, and explain a bit about my approach with shrimp foods at this point. When this thread was first started the idea was that if you fed a complete food you would be "fine" with regards to nutrient intake, minerals, vitamins, and other factors for your shrimp. We see it all the time on various shrimp food lines where there are multiple foods and it is something that I personally struggled with understanding what works best, why, and what is necessary. I understand there is a lot of misinformation and experiences given without proper context to the situation. As such, there is a lot of theory with regards to what is best for shrimp care as opposed to any sort of detailed scientific study. The information I am going to give is nothing more than my own personal technique and it is not a scientific fact of "you must do this" to succeed. This is simply my recommendation, based on my shrimp, in my water, in my tank, under my care regime. I have tested feeding daily, I have tested feeding 1-3x per week, and I have had issues with both circumstances. One thing that you will see online from Mark's shrimp tanks is a modification of approach with his care as well. He is running less substrate and relying on algae/biofilm a lot more regularly. I posted a study in my journal for the tank today regarding stomach content analysis of shrimp and the majority of their diet is based around biofilm and algae with other foods being eaten as something that is "caught along the way", but not necessarily a target outright. Shrimp themselves can be very symbiotic with what is known as meiofauna. Think other critters that feed off biofilm and algae in all of their forms. I am sure there are terms for different types, but that's just the catch-all term I have heard. With that caveat out of the way, here is my feeding regime as it stands: -"Complete" foods without fish oil or fish meal at least 1-3x per week -Antioxidant based foods 1x per week minimum (examples: Pure Nordic RAW Aminostix, leaves, botanicals, bee pollen) -Mineral based foods 1x per week minimum *Optionally, consider these same 3 foods in powder form when you have shrimplets en masse in the colony* Ultimately, I ran into issues when I was not feeding enough food per week given the amount of shrimp in the tank. Secondarily, when you overfeed you introduce a lot of those added organisms into the environment and give them a place to thrive. I had to dial things back once the worms and other critters got out of control and it's a long term issue that I will need to work to reduce. Per MST, if you don't keep this in check, you will more easily have diseases (bacterial or fungal) as well as things like planaria that can show up. In my tank right now I have at least 4-5 different types of Meiofauna. I needed to add in the calcium based foods just as a stability factor. With the antioxidant based food this is for long term health of the colony to ensure that those infections don't crop up.

What once was my most enjoyable tank has become a bit of a nuisance, unfortunately. The water has been extremely cloudy for near 2 months it seems like and not being able to have hands in the tank while doing maintenance has greatly limited my options when it comes to care. The last session cleaning the tank I was able to use my hands fully and I removed another big portion of the substrate out of the tank. I piled as much as I could into the front for the next time I do maintenance. I did about a 50% water change and everything is "back to normal". I am working on getting some ALUM so I can dip the rocks for a week as well as work towards moving the shrimp out of this tank. They will go into my 20Long once the meds are done and I can drain/clean that tank. The moss wall will need to be moved, dipped, but it fits, and then I will be able to care for 2 tanks a lot easier. This does limit my options as far as QT tank, but I have a 10G for that purpose. I assume the shrimp and white clouds will get along nicely and having minimal substrate will help with worms or other undesirable meiofauna in the colony. Further reading, for anyone interested: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0075951116300354 I'm unsure what to do with the setup, but it seems like hardscape will change at a minimum. Filtration is causing me issues, but I want to determine what will be an issue in the other setup with a "normal" air pump as oppose to the pond one I am currently using. I hope all your shrimp are doing wonderful and thriving for you. Despite everything, the shrimp are seemingly fine and doing well. A lot of new baby shrimp to start the warmer months.

Last dose of prazi done (2 total), 1 round of kanaplex done, finishing up round 1 of metroplex. I plan to stop meds at that point and monitor again, focus on a lot of water changes. I lost one oto yesterday sometime, woke up to it dead and very pale/white/unrecognizable. I found my last one in there at the bottom and I don't expect it to make it through the night. So far I've lost 3 otos (all of them), a few amanos, a ton of plants, 7-9 corydoras, and I expect one corydoras I have in QT to not recover at this point. It has no barbels and its swimming is labored from whatever is going on. I need to remove the salt that's been in the tank for an extended period of time at this point and that will help the fish to really start recovering. One question I did have about Kanaplex / Metroplex is regarding water changes. Hikari, API, and Fritz make it very clear on when water changes are allowed with treatment of meds, but Seachem is extremely poor about information on their labels. The dose on the metroplex vial says "1-2 scoops", but no indication of using one dose or the other. Only until emailing in and asking "what gives?" did they mention sensitive species. Each med often repeats how it is difficult to overdose the meds, adding to the confusion. Anyways, @Odd Duck and @Colu with regards to something like metroplex and kanaplex.... I take the mindset that the med needs to "build up" in the water over time. This is why it is multple doses in a short time period. With regards to this logic when are water changes acceptable, especially when you're talking weeks of treatment windows. Kanaplex, 3 doses is one treatment, so I do my water changes after 3 doses and give a break to the tank. Follow-up with a second course if need be. Metroplex, I do not know when is viable, but the label says treat for 2-3 weeks with 1-2 scoops. Everything is vague and I don't speak seachem science braille.

My apologies if this a double post, hit the slider I guess on the screen when scrolling. Aquarium soil has excess nutrients and needs to be charged. You change out the water and that removes the excess to a tolerable level and lets the substrate absorb ions from the water. That being said, eco complete is not soil, it's a type of lava rock and will have things like iron. This will be advantageous to BBA and can cause issues depending on your particular setup. I had that issue with seachem's clay based substrate (excess iron) and the substrate itself started growing BBA over time. I got it off the plants, off the decor, off the walls, and then it just said "alrighty then" and started carpeting the ground. Water changes are your friend. With BBA you will always need multiple treatments to overcome it.... One weakens it, then you follow up with 2-3 treatments to remove it. I would suggest trying two methods as a focus in addition to water changes. Keep in mind BBA spreads spores and the goal is to water change the spores out en pace with the BBA trying to fight back. Method 1: remove the plant, get a small art brush and a bottle of peroxide: Method 2: full tank dose

Wow! Enjoy that so much. Say hi to all the sharks for us.

Difficult to tell. Does it appear round or flat? Try to get some photos up close if you can.

Each line can be sensitive to different levels, yes. I use GH of 8-10 and KH is 4. I have bloody Mary shrimp. Blues tend to be more sensitive and reds tend to be more prolific. That being said, none of that has to do with KH. There are things that come into play apart from water parameters that result in stress, stress causes molts, molting issues in a variety of forms cause deaths. There is a ton of misinformation out there with shrimp and shrimp parameters. I understand the struggle. I've looked up water parameters from rivers in Taiwan and a lot of the experts out there would be a bit surprised by what they suggest and what actuality might be. I think the shrimp themselves will tell you a lot about what they like and don't like. Food is critical, what you're feeding and the rate of food, but everything with shrimp is about stability. Water in = water out. Once you run into KH > GH or other variables and you're using buffers, then things can be unstable. That leads to issues.

They have a "universal adapter" but you're likely in a situation where taking apart the shower might be the way to go. Is there a faucet attachment outside the front door or a window? Sometimes they hide them on the actual faucets very well, but basically that universal adapter is what you would use. It is not optimal and can slip or leak, but that's their answer to the issue.

Density isn't really the concern. Talk to the store and ask what works best for them. Might be one large bag, might be 2-3 small ones, might be a bucket. Shrimp need something to hang onto. Plant trimmings, moss, or a piece of mesh is the typical item that is used. The more you pack, the bigger that piece of thing needs to be. That's all.