nabokovfan87

Absolutely awesome. It made my day to see this. Thank you for sharing!

So Ghost shrimp are feeder shrimp for fish that require shrimp in their diet. It's raised and sold as a food product, essentially. Kids often see them as their first shrimp and they generally live weeks, not years. While they do feed on shrimp stuff, they generally don't eat algae as much as other shrimp. They can be pretty delicate, similar to the way otocinclus are considered a "delicate" fish with their care. Amano shrimp get a lot larger in comparison, live longer, ~5+ years I believe. They will eat algae, generally all kinds, given that they aren't being fed foods daily. Amano shrimp are generally used for algae control. They also do not populate a tank because they require brackish water and special care to breed out. Neocaridina / Caridina shrimp are the "fancy shrimp" and have very specific care requirements. Amano shrimp are a species of Caridina shrimp (Caridina multidentata) and we do have a few varieties of "amano shrimp" with some from australia now making their way into shops unknowingly. Betweeen the Neo / Caridina species one of them prefers one set of water parameters while the other prefers the opposite water parameters (hard vs. soft water). Generally you'd decide on which to keep based on your own water parameters. Generally they aren't used for algae control, they do jump in population in a tank because they can breed in freshwater.

Yeah. looks like it. 😞 coloration is weird, but shape is right. @Chick-In-Of-TheSea

The youtube channel the dave has some very cool macro videos of a ton of different species. His video on amano shrimp is really awesome and might be useful for you if you haven't seen it 🙂.

Depending on what the temp is in the tank now, there is no way to treat ich without raising temps to a certain level. You have to use temp to fight it. It has to be at a certain stage for it to kill the disease. The meds won't work unless it progresses.

Do you have a tumbler? Would you recommend anything for algae / fungus? Methylene blue or Ich-X even?

Add an airstone and check temp They do this when the oxygen is low, water is too hot, or when they are specifically not happy with the water in some way. It's a major stress sign. With a tank with a lid you'll find them in the output of the hang on back sitting in the waterflow. If they are trying to get out of the tank, test everything, add air, check temp, etc. Let me know / tag me and I can help sort out whatever you've got going on causing stress 🙂 For clarity, new shrimp just do this as part of exploration. Shrimp also get spooked, especially at night) when they are showing mating behavior and can get tossed out of the tank. This is the main reason you want a lid. As mentioned above, it's based on how long the shrimp have been there too as a part of the meaning behind this. If it's been a short period, I would still verify everything and try to find a lid. After they've settled, maybe you can remove it. I've had a few get out, usually you find them on the tank or alive but clearly not in the place they are supposed to be! I always check behind the tank on maintenance. The worst / most impressive journey I have seen a shrimp take was middle of winter, it went from my room, out the door, down the hallway, across the living room, and into the kitchen before it passed. Poor little shrimp. Impressive, but it was like it heard noise and was like "heeeeeelp dude".

I did the usual maintenance for the week. I tested nitrates last night (basically just before the lights go on for the next day) and yet again they were zero. I dosed the tank prior to doing maint. today, which leads to a few issues I need to address. I am still working on verifying CO2 function with the help via DMs. I am slowing down food simply because I am having so many severe issues. I want the shrimp to keep working on the algae. They are. I literally watched them today in the shade under the light scraping the algae off the wood. They don't enjoy the light and that's where the algae is at. I might need to dose ferts 3x a week as opposed to currently where I am doing it Monday and Thursday. Monday is the usual start dose, then based on testing, thursday I need more. I can't say for certain, but being low / zero on sunday isn't great for the plants and is likely causing undue stress on them. I took a bunch of moss off the wood that was long, cut it up into pieces, and glued that to the main rock again to propogate more of it out. I do this to remove the algae and end up with about 3/4 of it that easily comes off and is fine to use. I don't think it's growing that fast, but I sure did have a lot to attach, especially when you're cutting things down to size for attachment (1/4" segments). I'll restest everything late tomorrow so that the buffers and everything have time to do their work. I'll edit this post and record those here. I also found another potential issue, pretty frustrating one. Black substrate, black algae.... and now I am seeing growth on said substrate. This could be from the scrape and I'm not too concerned. I did a pretty big vac and a big water change to remove the junk from the water column. Hopefully this helps. This is my only method to reliably lower phosphates in any effective way right now. Part of what you're seeing here is the hairgrass with all the algae on it. The other parts is the substrate with the algae on it. Definitely not an exciting development. A lot of this type of stuff, is why I am excited to have the spraybar and looking forward to improved circulation to alleviate that as a cause for the algae. Edit: So.... plants have been moved. Meaning, the little scraps that are barely holding on and don't have good roots are floating in a hang-on breeder box for the time being. Bacopa and some of the hygro. Because of this, the fact that I glued the lid and what not means I can't toss this in the back rim and make it easy on myself..... SO..... essentially no lid for right now. I do have the glass there to shield the light. I flipped the pump / spraybar as to force the output of the spraybar over the diffuser better. The end of the spraybar is towards the front of the tank, pump to the rear, and I now have the little suction cups to hold it in place. I moved the diffuser from the back to the front, so that the light can go from the back right now to the front left..... well.... if the lid could sit flat. Yep, it's a mess. As usual. I hope tanks go on sale soon because I'd love to not use this hang on box for too long. My hope is that the ferts in the water and the movement is enough to keep them happy with the ambient light and keep the algae at bay enough to let them recover. Pretty sure all the plants will be there eventually if things keep up and the black corys are getting a reset with no plants and whatever else need be. No test results this week because I literally have too many changes right now. I can test and omit the PH, I'm fine with that, but right now the neck needs a break and my headache needs to calm down. Hope all is well, it's a quiet day, but just sore and frustrated with this tank right now. 😞

I would recommend getting amano shrimp in future when possible, not the ghost shrimp. They will work on algae and will behave pretty similar but get sightly bigger. They will help with the tank as opposed to just end up as food. 😞 Locally for me, ghost shrimp are typically on sale, if they are in stock. Amano's are anywhere from $3-5 per shrimp. It's worth the price because the life expectancy is vastly different. I know it's a steep price, but I promise it's worth it. There is totally a scavenger hunt thread for the forum 🙂

I keep pulling off the dead leaves. It's got a lot of the original plant that is just hosting the algae. Hopefully that leads to better growth and less algae on that growth. The spraybar is from fluval so no drilling or anything by me. I trimmed it to length, that was it! Super easy.

Not sure this fits. What Colu mentioned might be on target. Fish are stressed, tired, low oxygen (comparatively) and then you add a powerhead. They rush to the surface to get air, sometimes, and because it's a tall tank it can be stressful on an already stressed corydoras. They smack the lid, causing internal damage. It happens. Happening to every fish isn't likely but if you're keeping the waterline near top of the rim, I can see it happening. Then.... fish are trying to hold on and keep going and you add a powerhead. Stressed fish, under more stress because of the added flow it needs to swim against. The photo you showed had a cory with it's tail almost 30-50% completely gone. That fish had some pretty severe issues to be in that shape, whatever the cause of it. I can't speak to what the others looked like, but whatever is the cause of all these issues there's a few things I would highly recommend doing right now. 1. Add an airstone if you can. 2. Add a feeding dish for corydoras with this gravel 3. If you can, if you don't have a risk of killing plants, probably add some aquarium salt. 4. Treat with general antibiotics like Colu mentioned. 5. Treat for fungal with Ich-X and follow the directions on the bacteria medications. If it says to change water on the third day, you'd change the required volume and re-dose with Ich-X as well as the bacterial meds. Because you're having such severe issues, I would highly recommend having a QT tank setup and use it on any new fish you purchase.

There is a lot of stuff on etsy you can find, maybe there is something for your tank that would baffle the output of the filter. Depending what it is, might reduce that issue. @Chick-In-Of-TheSea is awesome with all the etsy stuff and @Goldie Blue has gone through pretty similar issues with their betta and flow.

Is it easy to siphon out? A few things that would help: A. Background on the tank to reduce light from the window. B. Temperature (it's next to a computer output, might get pretty hot on that side) C. Cleaning more often than you feel like you need to right now to allow the filter to remove as much as possible. Higher flow on the filter would also help to remove it and then the cleaning 2x a week would remove it from the water. This is literally just cleaning the filter, not about water changes.

What is in the tanks? What is the target temp for the tanks? Are they bigger tanks? Especially in winter, if you're using heaters, the important aspect to keep in mind is flow to push that heat around the tank and prevent cold spots or very hot spots near the heater.

Might be a difference in flow, causing stress.

Flow is very different than oxygenation. This is why I am specifically asking about an airstone / surface agitation. The powerhead that is lower likely has a very direct output and very likely is what caused the redness. If we don't have a guess as to the other cause, I'm willing to bet that is a contributing factor to that damage internally / belly redness.

Huge step. Nice work! If you can, for posterity. What are your nitrates at right now?

So frustrating. I deal with this when cooking and someone stares at a powered device while something is heating up water or on along with the kitchen. Hopefully not too much of a headache and I wish you speed with the job of fixing it all!

I don't have any test results as it's not maintenance day right now (tomorrow 🙂 ). I wanted to post a few updates here from the morning and where I'm at with a few things. I did modify the position of the light to reduce the direct light on the diffuser. It's a pretty big diffuser ~2" diameter (seachem, pollen style) and it is just this bright white shine that loves to grow the diatoms. Considering I already have the BBA/Staghorn issue, any little way to stop some of this stuff, all good. This won't hurt the plants and won't do much in terms of modifying anything. It makes life a bit more annoying because I have to move the light when I want to feed or open the lid. The light already moves anyways because the lid isn't made correctly.... so there's that. I cleaned the diffuser, fixed up the plants slightly from whatever the filter kicked up that isn't rooted. Happens daily. Of note.... I am no longer running a pump when the CO2 is on. This pump now has a spraybar and will be on constantly to push flow across the length of the tank itself. I have two pumps I can use. I will likely try both. I am currently using the smaller of the two with about 1/2 the gph rating. I am seeing the algae do what it normally does, which isn't surprising. Annoying, but not surprising. I am going to do a few things. I am going to try to drop phosphates more and I am going to likely add in some more stems and floating plants. I need to get a ring for the floaters, I need to get them here, and then I need to figure out what stems and find something with the best chance to survive. I will likely also be getting more hygro because I do love the plant and the way it is shaped. I want to take one of the pieces of hardscape and as @Beardedbillygoat1975 mentioned and put it all over the hardscape similar to the anubias. This is literally just something where I have gone through ~8 tubes of super glue and plants are constantly coming detached. I will also likely toss some in the base with some plant weights and try to get the stems to grow out that way as well. I had 2 pieces of anubias nana petite that I had to split into ~6-8 very, very small rhizomes. The BBA/Staghorn ultimately killed the old rhizome and all of these pieces are the new growth. This is all dramage from the tubs, see the op, but this is all normal and expected. I have been trying to give all these plants a place to grow and they have, but just not well, nothing is doing "well". I am working with someone via DMs to try to ensure CO2 is doing well now that I have the spraybar and I am running PH tests to confirm that. I am not hopeful and positive about anything in this tank except for clearly stating is has some issues. If I step back or don't have glasses on it looks fine. If I step closer, it's a mess and not anything that looks easy. Consistency, upkeep, water changes, and all of these things I am trying very hard to keep a highly regimented schedule. I have adjusted everything I wanted to and right now it's all about upkeep and monitoring. Testing. Cleaning the diffuser with bleach again Spraybar flow / install moved to the left side of the tank, Diffuser is on the back right corner. Squint really hard and it's awesome! You can see that my plants right now are basically only S. Repens and Taiwan Moss. I do have one little tiny piece of Susswassertang in the front / center and it's glues to the wood. I would like that one little duder to grow and fill the entirety of the tank!!!!!!!!!! Hopefully. We'll see. The bacopa is all but dead. The Hygro is holding steady. It's on the flow opposite the diffuser, so getting that flow handled and circulating is the biggest key here to get both the S. Repens and the Hygro to do well right now.

They will have the easiest time eating the flake and the worms. I'd recommend utilizing a feeding dish with the substrate you have. This can be a ceramic pot dish or glass dish you might happen to have available. The red belly is very concerning and points towards internal damage to the corydoras in some method. This could be from trying to dig in the hard / heavy gravel as well as other methods they are interacting with the hardscape. As mentioned above, flow + Tank height does play a role and they could smash into the glass lids at times if the water is very high. This would be damage on their nose, not necessarily on their belly. Their bellies usually show damage from the substrate / laying on the substrate that is sharp. This also could be internal damage and you're seeing the blood or swelling as a result. Temps? Airstones? What are we looking at here?

Does either tank have an airstone? I am going to guess here, either what @Colu was hinting at is likely or something like the combination of that, temp, and oxygenation. Taller tanks can be a bit difficult for some corys because of the flow / movement. It's "better" because taller tanks give them a bit cooler water at the substrate. However, if the tank temp itself is just too high it might stress them out. This is where you would see rapid breathing, and you'd want to have extra oxygenation. As the water gets warmer it holds less oxygen (slightly).

Looks really, really strong blue light. which is good and bad. It's a full spectrum light, it would work, but I can't say it'll be "perfect". For comparison, here is the spectrum chart for a 6500K light rated for aquatic plants: The blue is about the same, red is lower (this is not an issue, this is "fine" for both). The area below 0.5 on the lefthand scale of the chart is what I'm looking at. Optimally, I believe you'd want that area to be as filled across the spectrum. You would then tweak the different color channels higher / lower to do what you need. So in my case, I crank blue WAY down to try to help fight some of that strong blue light. This also might be a better place to look for what I'm trying to get at. https://www.2hraquarist.com/blogs/light-3pillars/6500k-is-best https://www.2hraquarist.com/blogs/light-3pillars/light-wavelength-indepth

Currently: Staurogyne Repens. Previously: Hygrophylia Pinnatifida

Are the tanks going to be near one another? I would recommend a pretty specific setup, with a metal gang valve so you can use one pump to power multiple items in the tanks. The metal ones work a lot better in my experience than the other plastic ones. Of note, the 40G tanks are generally "deep" compared to something like a 10G tank and I have found that you do need a pretty good pump to work long term without issues. In my experience, I'm running 3-5 items on a pond style "deep water" pump rated for 150 gallons. I specify this because it's 1 pump, with good pressure, for X amount of items. This isn't necessarily what your setup would be, but after years of trying pumps and having issues, this is what I've ended up on. Once we have an idea of the room setup, then we can dive a bit deeper into the details 🙂 . Welcome to the forum!

Finally found the thread! I finished setting everything up, I'll get a parts list here shortly. I would totally hope this exists as a kit one day for the ACO Power head (CC @Zenzo ) Parts List: -Pump head (12mm output) -Vinyl Tubing (~12mm ID, 16mm OD) -Vinyl Tubing (~16mm ID, Fluval 407 spraybar kit) -Spraybar Pipe (Fluval 407 spraybar kit) -Spraybar endcap (Fluval 407 spraybar kit) -Pre-Filter Sponge (nano size, cut to reduce height of sponge) -Zip Ties (Black, Nylon) EDIT: I will have to mess with the positioning of this. Right now it's above the diffuser so that flow pushes the CO2 across the tank. The other option is to put it across the tank and then use the spraybar flow to push it down the glass.