nabokovfan87

It's debatable, but yes. It's a type of sand that may or may not have a lot of algae potential because of the high silicates, which just means food for them. I was actually looking it up for the tank and found out that it's designed to be very sharp, tumbles inside of the pool filter itself and that is what cuts in the debris. I found stuff like this for comparison when we had the whole zeolite vs. pool filter sand thread: http://sandgrains.com/Sand-Grains-Gallery.html Play sand, I don't like. Pool sand, I think you can get away with it. Many people have used both and had no issues, but... that's just my view on it. My only advice for PFS would just be to literally tumble it if you can, especially dry. Something similar to lava rocks where they do that to break sharp, fine edges off. Especially when it's pebble size or smaller, that's just the norm. PFS is likely not tumbled as much as the "expensive" aquarium products. I have also seen some very small options for finer PFS, just make sure you get the largest size you can (typically #20) https://www.riverpoolsandspas.com/blog/pool-sand-filter-cost-maintenance-benefits

First, welcome to the forums! If you haven't, be sure to check this out: To answer the question, yes you can disrupt the biological filter when you are cleaning too much. Specifically it can happen based on how and what you're cleaning. Let's take a step back.... A. When you cleaned equipment, hang-on-back, sponges, etc. Did you take them off the tank and to the sink and set them anywhere that may have had some contamination? B. When you cleaned any media, did you use tank water for everything? (looks like above, you said yes, so that's awesome) C. When you had the items out of the tank, did ceramic media or any of the media have a chance to dry out, or did it stay wet? The mulm you mentioned when moving wood and stuff around in the tank, it's very normal to remove that. It's not the main source of bacteria in your tank. Especially if you have a pleco, you'd usually expect to see a lot of that type of floating debris in the tanks.

Right, the only different is that TeeJay has to remove the existing tank items to do it 😞 But yes, slowly adding it like that is 10000000% the way to go! Getting it as low as possible is the best way to limit "dust" and fines. I use my hands a lot to agitate the grains and to get all of those fines into the WC, dump them out. I've seen a lot of videos / youtubers that literally just dump the sand in a bucket, run a hose into it, and run water "until clear" which doesn't really work for how sand is composed. That's where I don't know how many people really use the agitation (i.e. rice) method to clean substrate. Couldn't even tell you where I learned it from, probably Cory, but that's what I've always been directed to do when cleaning anything like that. I'm so impatient and waiting for his tank to have some sand!!!!! 😂

I would dive through this.... this was very similar to what I went through. Algae, equipment issue, worms, etc. In the post below there is a link to the actual movement of the worm. I think you're best best is going to be to follow @Odd Duck's treatment regime in that thread and to dose in salt if possible (meaning, no concern for plants). I did get rid of them with meds / salt and a lot of effort. The main thing I will encourage you to do is to find out where they are coming from and to remove them constantly as a result. Either the substrate or in the equipment somewhere is usually where you see them. The other place they usually populate from is the glass itself. Of note, the first thing I did was I added an airstone back into the tank. Drop in oxygenation (removing extra filtration) was the cause of all of my progression of issues. Also, when you use Expel-P, be sure to turn off lights and black out the tank as much as possible for 24 hours.

I did not take the pump apart for cleaning this time, my hope is that the prefilter is doing its job and that the filter itself can work effectively as a result. That is literally the test right now is to determine viability long term. I went ahead and inspected everything and just for a sanity check verified that lid as a base feature works with the mods recommended in phase 1. It does. Next step was to clean everything, nothing too crazy except for the amount of fine gunk in the prefilter.... It was stuffed with detritus. Which is what the hope is. Next, I went ahead and inspected the filter chamber. I wanted to see if the prefilter media was clogging or if it was forcing things to not get stuck in the mechanical filtration. Yes, this stuff is a form of mechanical filtration right now, but it is not meant as such right now. If I modify what is being used I can control this. (more on this later) For now, I have removed these to go ahead and give the filter, media basket, a chance to clean out all of this debris. You can also see how much much is elsewhere in the filter housing when all of these areas should not be holding water or detritus. This is a sign of bypass and the water going up instead of down when it reaches the chute portion.

For generally any barb this is going to make them very, very active and likely cause some damage to themselves. Barbs like temps in the cooler range, 76 is probably the highest I'd take them on a constant temp basis. There's a ton of conflicting info given a brief good search. Their range starts at 68 degrees and I have definitely had them cooler. 68-82 is what's reported, I would start with a value in the middle of that range. For me, I try to keep mine in the 72-74 range and seasonally it'll be higher or lower. There is definitely people that keep them warmer, but this also increases their behaviors and can be a cause for what you're seeing from that fish. It's a sign of stress, potentially. Everything in that tank is going to be fine warmer. So I think your best bet is to re-home the barb elsewhere if you can. Yeah, the main thing is they like to swim around, through, and then for them to have places to rest as well. Especially if you have a school of semi-aggressive fish. You have Angels in there and they will definitely get territorial, so will the barbs.

Updates on mine, I'll have to toss in the thread, but.... Yeah! The worst part is just waiting for the silicone to dry.

Michael from Michael's Fish room just had his, same one, have some issues as well. I've never had issues with the e-seried and it's such a different design. I can't wait for a "better version" one day from someone, but for now.... That's honestly all I can recommend for a certain size tank.

Rice method:

Are you familiar with the rice method? Or.... I should ask, how do you mean you clean it in a bucket vs. another container? The sand he's getting is the one I just got, insanely nice stuff. Took me three rinses with the rice method and water was clear, then I always do one more for good measure. Looks awesome That video is awesome 🙂 I never had to do anything like that, I just use a 12-16oz cup that is small enough, or literally lift the bucket on the edge and scoop handfuls when I'm really impatient. Yeah, I get what you're saying about the bottle and not having dust in the WC.

I need a worm dish..... Lol. I cannot wait for you to have the sand and see what changes you notice!

In the first photo it kind of looks like fin damage, maybe got caught on something and that caused the discoloration? If it was fin rot, I'd expect to see more torn fins or to see it on more of the fin. I would just keep an eye on it right now. In the front view, the top left corner of the left fin and the bottom right of the right fin just looks like there's some sort of damage to the rays.

That is very awesome! I appreciate the cool story. Welcome to the forums 🙂

Ammonia (NH3) = N-H-H-H Ammonium (NH4+) = N-H-H-H-H pH is determined by how much free H+ (hydrogen ions) is in the water ("free" means it's not attached to anything else, it's just by itself). Lower pH means there's more free H+. When there's a lot of free H+ flying around, some of it attaches to NH3 which turns it into NH4+. That's why there's less NH3 at low pH. The extra H in ammonium gives it a positive charge (+) which makes it less toxic because that makes it more difficult to be absorbed into a fish's bloodstream. The lethal concentration (LC) of ammonia (NH3) is usually somewhere between 1 and 3 ppm over 2 or 3 days of exposure. The lowest fish LC I know of is for cardinal tetras which is between 0.3 and 0.4 ppm over 4 days of exposure. The LC of ammonium (NH4+) is usually around 40 to 50 ppm. I hope that all made sense. I totally enjoyed reading this and the explanation. Much appreciated. Things like this help us all to really understand what is going on in the tanks chemically or biologically with all these microscopic bits going on. I figured this was why.... my correlation being that the first part of cycling a tank is very easy to get going, but going from nitrite into nitrate takes a little bit of time. Thank you for the clarification!

Very likely is due to the Tiger. They don't really like flat body fish and they tend to view them as competition. I have heard it a few times before that gourami can have their antennae chewed off when stuff like this happens. It would be best to move that gourami to a different tank. Moving the gourami to the smaller tank isn't a good option because the tigerbarbs want space to swim and that is how they burn off steam. they will literally school for a majority of the day back and forth if they feel threatened or are trying to hide from a predator. Tiger barbs are a barb species, which generally means cooler temps. 70-74 range. This also means if they are warmer, that could be why you're seeing the stress from the barb, which is causing stress elsewhere. In terms of a minimum group size, the absolutely minimum would be 10. BUT, I would also recommend having another similar sized group of something else in the tank to distract them. This way, those two school around and try to protect from one another, typically this is just to keep them occupied in the open space in the tank. When the barbs are doing well, you'll see them even act like a betta fish and rest on plants under cover. They will rotate in and out of the swarm and then take turns pecking around for food. So... the other trigger is setup. Do you have plants to break up sight? Things for the fish to swim around and swim through? Do you have places for the fish to hide that need it away from the more active species (bushy plants, wood, cover, etc.)

what all is in the tank right now? How is the tank setup? What is the temp?

I'm working on this on my end.... Pumphead is usually a 12mm outlet. The fluval 407 spraybar kit is a 16mm kit and then all you need is an adapter and a piece of 12mm tubing. PVC elbow or they sell other stuff that will work on amazon. I am still piecing it together. Eheim also sells a "medium" spraybar kit designed for 12mm, but I do not have my hands on that one directly. Spraybar across the surface, made or purchased is going to be the best way to get surface movement. Flow is very different than surface movement and oxygenation. There are some species that need high oxygenation, river species specifically and cooler water species tend to gravitate to this region. In terms of movement / flow there are some fish that are designed for that type of a setup. I would think rainbowfish, danios, and barbs are an example of a fish body shape that likes to have movement. The way to get this to work is to ensure that you have a good amount of places with lower flow (typically under hardscape) where the fish can regain some strength and escape to if they need to. Hillstream or Borneo loaches are fish that love this type of a setup. Some like bamboo shrimp will find high flow spots in the tank and the use that to gather food. It's an awesome ecosystem when you find the right inhabitants for it. White clouds I have found also don't hate a good amount of flow. They fall into the group that likes cooler water and high oxygenation, but my WC would literally sit on the output of a 75G filter all day. When it comes to surface agitation and movement, you can have a lot of that from the spraybar, but underneath you can tweak things so you don't have intense flow. This would increase gas exchange and off gassing of things in the water. If you can get the spraybar to move the water across the top and bottom of the whole tank it's one of my favorite ways to setup a tank.

Never a bad time to do that. I got a "fancy copy" of the book. Trying to reread it again and then I'm due for a watch. The two towers is still one of my favorites in the film series. So glad those got made..... Such awesome content that changed movies in so many ways. What heater is it? Looks like the fluval one if I had to guess. They might be a defect or scratch from those metal clips on the surface. Can you get your nail in there in any way? Seems like a weird choice to have that design of a clip. It could be some weird residue or hard water thing. I still need to get me an ACO heater. Why on earth no one sells the Fluval E series E50 anywhere.... I don't have a clue.

They are all going to be designed this way. The pieces themselves are extremely similar and in terms of design, the goal is to use the most common ports. The base measurements are different according to the store page, so there is some variation in diameter in some capacity. The sponge differences is going to be the main difference in your variation between nano and large. The cap will come off, just rock it back and forth. There is a lip on the inside of the "top piece" that engages with the lower basket. It might just be a bit tricky to get it off at first for some part runs, but it should come off with enough jiggling. If you're having issues, try to record it and potentially email ACO support if you need to.

foam board + magnets? I am contemplating putting a cover on my metal stand. I found these.... They also have versions with hardware attachment. https://www.amazon.com/MIKEDE-Neodymium-Double-Sided-Refrigerator-Industrial/dp/B08K2VL3WJ/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=mikede+strong+neodymium+magnets&qid=1662269606&sprefix=miked%2Caps%2C369&sr=8-4

This is a huge tip for people who struggle to read test strips! Find out what the color shifts are and then focus on that mindset. I have always had trouble with some ranges, but trying to decipher the code using the above tip is one of the best mental methods to try to remove my own subjectivity and skewing colors. Eyes can play tricks on you, or at least I feel like mine are whenever I am testing things. Some strips have the same chart, but have different directions. When I was trying to help answer this question for someone here on the forums I looked up the other common ones and they had the FAQ post on their website, same scale, etc, and it all claimed to test for TA. The real question for me as someone trying not to screw up results, is why one test says dip for 10 seconds, another says 30, etc. I am not trying to think that one test is better than the other, but I have always had nitrite show up, and almost never had ammonia show up. could this just be due to time out of the water and the pad "puffing up" with some pads having a variation in how they do that? Meaning, the yellow outline is some aspect of the middle region of the pad that isn't colored? I would imagine the whole pad would change color and react, but that's moreso a question for your area of experience and expertise!

definitely won't be an issue. Even on fine sand, you won't have that issue. You can usually clean out fine particles suspended in the water with filter floss, but the corydoras won't cause issues with that. You'll also get most of it out when the sand compresses and the fine stuff finds it's way out via siphon. as a side note, that's basically "fine gravel" and the particle size is pretty big compared to what the very fine sand particle sizes can be. Nice stuff! I like the look 🙂

It's probably close enough, but how did you make it? Pour 1 gal, measure, then mark it accordingly? Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!!!! Engineering side of me was like... hm. those sides are angled. 🙂 Just dump a ton of dechlor in there and it should be fine. I almost always let stuff dry as my main method. I have buckets I rotate in and out of use that I run through when doing my cleaning. For what you are dealing with, I would almost pump it through everything if you really had to or let it sit outside for a few hours and lets the UV take it out. I really hope you don't ever have to deal with that again, it's one of the worst diseases I've seen on the forums, in the hobby. The little one is an amazing fish for making it through all of that. Reminds me of..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmj25u5mVvg

I will have to tag...... @Solstice_Lacerbbecause they have some awesome stuff and I wonder what is going on in the tanks! In mine it hasn't been too chaotic, but of course there's always some stuff going on. I literally didn't even feed the fish today! I had someone else do that, which is always fun. Repashy leftovers were in there and I spent some time watching the pandas chase around trying to figure out how to hide their eggs. The living room tank is actually nice. It looks good, it has sand, it is finally an anubias garden and I just need things to grow! 🙂 In the black corydoras tank it's been a minute since I have done an update. I did a test two weeks ago after removing a ton of algae and thanks to another user here experiencing the same thing I think that led to a pretty decent nitrite spike. That led to me doing a few water changes. I floated a water bottle to try to keep temps down, and I was able.to drop it by about 6-7 degrees. No spawn, but that's the norm for these ones. I have been working on fixing the CO2, PH stability and I have just been monitoring that day to day. The Seachem tidal filter stuff has me frustrated so I've literally just been letting it run and consider the options moving forward. I cleaned a dresser for the hopeful future home of moss tank if I can find one that fits. It's a solid wood dresser and I do need to verify everything, but hopefully it will be ok. Today, which usually means tonight, I'll move things in place and decide what will work. I cleaned out one of my fish bins and ended up clearing and entire bin of everything inside, found my spare pump, cleared a box of chemicals into their proper place, and I've been doing a lot of tidying up. The focus now for me is to watch the plants grow, the fish be happy, the algae go away, the filters actually work, and enjoy the tanks more than I have been. 🙂

Looks awesome and I love the upgrade! Be sure to add it to the filter mods thread please!