nabokovfan87

That's beautiful. Perfect coloration. Nice setup, they are doing so well!!!

This is his way of basically saying he's having internal issues. Hm. I would fast for ~3 days. Then try to feed. If he eats well on that day, then that's a great sign. You'd normally do this for meds anyways to prevent internal impaction and give the fish time to relieve the stress from swim bladder or excess fluid issues. The symptom is that he is having trouble staying upright. So that's why he's laying down a lot. It's very likely a swim bladder thing or bloating that's causing discomfort and balance issues and the excess fluid needs to be relieved. The best way to take pressure off is to make sure stress isn't too much. Have clean water, good oxygenation, and then use something that can keep the fish towards the surface of the tank. The fish has less pressure internally on himself the closer to the surface he is. This also helps him to not exhaust himself if he is having any issues swimming to the surface. Lastly. Avoid protein right now with that Betta. You'd want something with some ruffage like brine shrimp or spirulina/omnivore foods to help with passing anything internally out of his system.

I just use two big towels. Sometimes 3. Worst case with some decent box tape. Could he be hiding from the flow or trying to get warm? The mouth discoloration, as long as it's not fuzzy you'd want to treat with salt (again, optional, but helps) level 2 and bacteria meds for open wounds.

For really bad spots that are difficult to submerge, take the vinegar and soak a paper towel and let it sit on that spot for a bit. That should let you clean off the rim and stuff too.

I haven't tried any of the cichlid foods, but totally makes sense for him. I don't have much available near me. I'll have to see what's there next time we go to the store. Are the pellet sizes smaller than the Xtreme ones? Off topic. But watching it now. Have you seen or heard of "13 Lives"? It's directed by Ron Howard. Stars Strider from LOTR and Colin Farrell. Pretty amazing stuff. I've never known cave rescue divers is a thing but that absolutely makes sense. (Amazon prime movie)

I bet he is a fan of vibra bites.

I use the "rice method" and it generally works well. add your desired amount to a bucket or container and then run cold water over it. Agitate that with your hand, then you would go ahead drain off as much water as you can. For higher quality sand this might take 3-4 "rinses" and for the cheap stuff / play stand you might be there a little while. With sand it's mildly important to agitate it and get those fine particles that aren't desired (and end up in pumps and equipment) into the water column and to dump those out. It's basically analogous to how sushi chefs prepare rice.

Algae definitely has a smell to it. Vegetal type of thing. Here's where we need to start. PLEASE watch that video and let us know how things are looking. Following the testing, this is how I would solve the issues with the tank. ---->As long as there isn't any fish in the tank, or expected to be, you're fine to do the following: A. Take the wood and rocks out of the tank, keep them wet, but take them to a sink or somewhere to rinse them off completely. Remove any algae with a toothbrush or similar soft bristle brush. B. With those items removed, gravel vac the heck out of the gravel, look for dead fish and verify that there isn't a trapped loach rotting somewhere. C. Drain out as much water as possible, and then fill the tank with clean, fresh water. Add the rocks and wood back in. D. MAKE SURE you have at least an air stone running in the tank at all time. You need the water to move around and to have surface movement to help with success here. E. If possible, you'd want to go ahead and test daily for ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, KH, PH. Do this for a few days and see how things change over time. If they remain constant or if you see Ammonia turning into nitrite and then nitrates, that's a good thing. F. Verify everything, lighting timer, water conditioner, etc. Make sure you're doing all the basics right and then you give the tank time. G. When you're comfortable, when it makes sense to do so (the tank is processing ammonia), then you're fine to add the fish back in. This could be as little as 1-2 days. The sooner the better in the case that they are in a very small amount of water right now. Now, let's discuss what's going on here and then talk about what could be normal and when to be concerned. Cloudiness points towards ammonia and bacterial activity in the water. This will clear up on it's own and is very normal. If you want it to clear up sooner, then you'd just do this with daily 50% water changes. The smell could be normal or could be a sign of a dead fish. Check for fish, if not, it's likely very normal. Loaches and other things can get wedged and stuck into some pretty tight places and be very difficult to find. It also could be the smell from the food, high nitrates, and other reasons. If this smell is new and you're not a fan, run some carbon in your filtration where the chemical filtration media would go. This also could just mean it's time to clean your filter. Question, I see you're running CO2 on a pretty bare tank with low demand plants. Can you elaborate on your setup for the CO2 and what kind it is?

On my 29G I run 2 large ones. I mean, it's a sponge filter and you're going to see it. If you're fine with that then I would just use the biggest one you feel like using. In general with most/any "long" tanks, having one on each side does really help out with flow and circulation. It's honestly a preference and I would base that choice upon what you want out of the tank. If you want to have good flow, run 2. If you want to try to hide it, run 1. The only concern between a 20L and 29G is the vertical height, so you can check the dimensions on the store for comparison. Depending on the scape as well, making them easy to clean is the other consideration.

Just now seeing this. I guess it's been a heck of a month. Looks good. I can't wait for the day when Aqeon or someone decides that lids can be made to go the other way and "side mount" hang on backs perform a lot better for the tank. You've got that Tidal hot-roded for sure! Why do I get the feeling amano shrimp would use it like a little resort just for themselves. LOL

It was posted here:

Found it, posted. Join the fun! 🙂

Alright... I need to take some photos. Who has some cool stuff to show off! Here is the one I used and then just take a screenshot of it. https://www.befunky.com/ Here is my algae branch. Looks so much nicer with the watercolor / oil paint filters!

Oh I just used random free things. Trying to find a link now to share of the one I had found.

Here's a fun thread to check out 🙂

Agreed. I think it's so hard to find some of those unique size tanks. 12" tall, and at various lengths. I'd love to randomly find a 30 long or 60L in my local big box store but you're often stuck with 2-3 tank sizes.

I forget what the channel is, but often I find myself watching this one guy on youtube who can literally make the most amazing filters that look great out of tupperware, a box of straws, and whatever is laying around. It's amazing to see what you CAN DO when you have the willpower. Obligatory wink / nod to how some companies refuse to update designs after 30-50 years.

@StiggyAzalea Once you hit 50 posts the buy / sell section opens up on the forums. I think there was someone who did manage to breed some pretty awesome rainbows on here. Best of luck in your search!

awesome progress. Keep at it!

Once things start falling apart, I replace it. If sponge gets all cut up and falling in half it leads to bypass and that's not the goal when using the sponge as mechanical filtration. If you're purely using it for biological, it's not going to matter much.

You can take the outtake tube and wrap it with a piece of course foam to diffuse the output. If you do this, you'd likely want an airstone to ensure there's enough agitation.

The directions for paracleanse are what you'd follow. It would just be after the siphon and WC following 24 hours of expel-P

Test Results for the week: Temp: 72.1 Phosphates: .25-.50 PH: 6.8-7.0 GH: 100-150 (dropped again) KH: 60 Ammonia: 0 Nitrites: 0 Nitrates: 20 The above are PRIOR TO any maintenance this week and about 3 hours after CO2 had turned off for the night. Hey everyone..... It's been an emotionally exhausting week with this tank. I've watched it slowly deteriorate over time and that is causing me some concern. I had an equipment issue, noise, that I had to fix and I was up at 6 AM picking moss and algae out because I couldn't get any real sleep with the added noise from the tank. There's a few contributing factors here which we will dive into. I wanted to try to take some "beautiful algae" shots, but every time I look at this tank now all I see is my own plants dying. Especially after pulling out some of the plants with massive algae infestations this morning, I am ultimately feeling like pulling literally everything and just chopping the wood out and calling it a day. I'm that frustrated.... Here's the damage. This algae is doubling every week at this point. Pulling some, doubles again, etc. I try to pull / siphon because I have heard that with this stuff if you don't do so and you let it float, then it spreads much faster. I've also been on the search for some better tweezers to try to remove this stuff from all these surfaces. Noisemaker #1: My first attempt to rescue the bacopa that is literally a small pile of leaves at this point... It's a noise box and there's not any way around it. Noisemaker #2: The seachem Tidal was sucking in air similar to what @TeeJay had reported with his after mods. I isolated this to the intake tube itself and will post those details in the experiments threads. I did manage to duplicate the issue, which is the good thing. I'll check the pump here shortly to see what is going on with the impeller. It is definitely holding a massive air pocket somewhere and when the pump is powered off it chugs and gulps very loudly. This is why I couldn't sleep, laying there worried it was an issue with fish, it wasn't.... Here are the close-ups of the algae. If you stand back it looks great! Up close, it's a nightmare and a half and hasn't changed much in a very long time. I did lose about half my anubias this past month that was in this tank as well as the bacopa. Currently I am about to lose the last stem of the hygrophilia pinnatifida. This is the moss that is right under the light. I am so tempted to chop this entire chunk of wood off. It's a nightmare. It also should be the easiest to treat directly with H202. This is where the mass of the algae starts and the tidal pushes it all over the tank. Also, you can see the red all over the tidal plastic. That's the same stuff. It's also very long, grown in, has taken hold, and is a nightmare on all of the equipment. I'm very concerned about adding a heater and the same stuff happens. I have heard you can boil the tank. I'm considering it. Honestly. As a result of all of this I am initiating the following changes: 1. Lights are cut by half (55% down to 30%) 2. I will not be dosing 3x a week anymore and will strickly dose 1x a week for the time being. I am absolutely feeding the algae by dosing so much per week. 3. I am going to try to spot treat with H202 and then I will be dosing in liquid carbon once I can order some. Phosphate pads did not fix anything. I don't know if I can dose Excel because of the shrimp and reported issues killing shrimp. I have dosed Easy Carbon, so hopefully that does something. Barring that it would be a dose of H202 I believe that is possible as well. I need to look into research for this, absolutely. IN GOOD NEWS. I received the new fish for the tank in order to help out trying to eat some of this algae. I have seen them pecking at it. Feeding a bit more has definitely contributed to the nitrates, but.... The fish are absolutely beautiful and I am loving having them in the tank. Edit/Update: It looks like the pump was clogged beyond all heck. The mods to the tidal seem to have made it work "well" and the floating algae and stuff was all over the pump. It looked a bit like someone dipped it in potting soil. Kind of crazy. I trimmed plants for ~70+ minutes and tried to remove as much of it from the S. Repens as possible. We will see how the plants respond. It looks night and day better but I do know that it's not perfect. I know there is more there and it's just difficult to see and get to. I found a giant patch of the algae on the backside of the soraybar going absolutely bananas. No idea how or why it got there. That was extremely surprising. I did also see two of the corydoras doing the T pose, which is always a great sign and hopefully having a slightly cleaner tank helps then feel comfortable to breed. I'm extremely confident that fry have a ton of hiding spots and that they can absolutely thrive in the S. Repens bushes. Time for some rest, hopefully.

There's a schedule that I have to give huge props to @Odd Duck every time we use it! Essentially, you're treating with two meds, several times a week for 2-3 weeks. I'll grab the text and post it here for you. I know levamisole is listed, that is Expel-P Prazi is listed, referring to prazipro (hikari) which is similar to Paracleanse You would treat the fish for a minimum of 2 weeks, 3 is recommended. I will link a video from Cory with details on why and his method. The key points here is that when you use Expel-P you need to turn off lights, black out the tank for 24 hours. At that point, you'd siphon to remove any parasites (try to siphon well!) and then go ahead and dose in the second med and wait the remainder of the week. I believe the box states 5 days, then WC. If you have any questions please feel free to ask and talk through it, but this is what I used and the fish were ok with it. I was treating for internal parasites with breaks for ~2 months and this schedule is what I did for the second month for 3-4 weeks.

Yeah, I definitely would be using Expel-P. What do you think, is this likely physical damage or a deformity or is this from specifically internal issues? @Colu