nabokovfan87

😂 Yeah I really should've been more gentle but shrimp are stubborn and don't move sometimes. I checked today and didn't see any of them crushed or anything that I could tell. The lotus pod thing has such a funky texture. Hard to explain, but it feels like a crunchy sponge. Air keeps coming out of it. I can only imagine it being a wonderful hide for a dozen baby pleco or otos.

Botanicals round 2 added to the tank. I'll have to keep an eye on things to make sure that I don't crash the tank. I can't get the lotus pod to sink, but it's pretty cool. It's just floating around like some cloud in the tank waiting to crash somewhere. When I dumped in all the cones and stuff I definitely was not gentle. I laid them up in the front of the tank with the ohko wall behind it. All of the baby shrimp can graze there and all of the female shrimp can use it as a source of food away from the stress of the dishes. I do need to get Riddick out of there. It's just not a massive tank where she has a lot of room. I don't think she'll eat any of the baby corydoras, but that's the other thought. Lastly, I kind of need to figure out why I am seeing some shrimp with backbone patterns on them. I can't tell if it's just molt patterns or if it's a trait from something that shouldn't be in there. I will need to do another cull just to make sure that I don't have issues moving forward, it's a process. Hopefully having the botanicals in there makes it easier to see certain things.... Similar to having a white net as the background.

Have you tried the spray bar kit?

OK. Yeah, that makes sense then. it is carbon infused foam (at least one layer). The only thing that sucks is you're also losing a huge source of your biological filter.

you can keep that running. all you have to worry about removing is the carbon. There's no carbon there from what I could tell. PH looks good. I don't think that's causing any annoyance for them. If you keep see them flashing, it would be ich-x + salt time. (external protozoan parasites)

Give me your one song you would like to hear during the holidays. I'll likely end up making a Spotify playlist or something if we get enough for everyone. Here's mine:

what is filtration? all I can think to do is to do a good size WC and to add air / carbon. for the sake of any help, my water is: 71-72 degrees 3-4 KH 7-25+ GH (they've been in both) Nitrates under 20 Filtration = two hob's in a 75, or a very strong hob in a 29, or a fluval 407. Check your PH/KH. let us know.

I call it the cat pond. Looks awesome! Nice work.

If you want to, take a video of them. I'd love to see how they are behaving to compare to mine!

You'll love it. Just keep an eye out for low flow sensors.

Maybe the snails are eating the dying leaves. Looks a bit better though!

Fingers crossed. Hopefully it does heal up!

Permanently, you'd want to add extra oxygenation. It would mean a reduced lifespan because the increase in temperature boosts their metabolism. I wouldn't keep them over 76 if I didn't have to. What is the temperature of the room in winter?

Barbs + Hill stream do well together. Barbs fight with themselves, not necessarily with other fish. If you have 2-3 schools in there they will just school to keep their group safe from the others. In mine, I had Tigers and Odessa. And the world's most intense and static single white cloud. They never bothered that little fish despite there being just one and it was basically snack size. No chiller required. During the summer I just pull heaters out. In winter, the heaters are set lower.

Poor guy.... 😢 I think based on what I can see in the photo, that's more of a physical damage to the eye and permanent. Has it cleared up at all with anything you've used? It looks like physical damage to the covering of the eye itself. The cornea. When I scratched mine I had taken a chunk out and had to use drops to soothe it while it regrew, but this looks like the cornea itself was crushed and is now opaque?

https://aquariumshrimpkeeping.com/how-to-get-rid-of-planaria-and-hydra-with-no-planaria/ If you have to redose then yes, I would. I apologize. I had meant to say multiple days, but my brain corrected that to multiple doses.

I won't ruin the surprise.... This is amazing. I would definitely be excited if my sponge came pre seeded like that! 😂

It takes multiple days for no planaria to work. cc @Chick-In-Of-TheSea used it and got rid of some hydra as well.

This was the biggest issue I've had with this type of fish. They tended to really just pig out and whether it was my food habit with feeding them "enough" or just the food I was using, it was tough to really get them healthy and happy. I had them for a long time, but I just always had 1 or 2 that always seemed crazy bloated. When they would get that way they would get a lot less active and lay around a lot more on plants and hardscape. Fast forward a few years, those might've just been females. I can't guarantee it because of never breeding them out,, but yeah.... that was a learning experience for me and that jump from beginner to trying to know what on earth to look for when reviewing the fish in the tank. That being said, I will toss in all torpedo shaped barbs, rasbora, or danio into the mix. Odessa barbs are really awesome and fun. Pair that with a rummynose rasbora and maybe a few more species fit that bill. I don't think I'll ever get sick of keeping barbs.

In general terms the way you set up any filter is going to be: Mechanical --> Biological --> Chemical filtration Mechanical filter is your prefilter and sponge Biological is your biorings Chemical would be optional and would be things like seachem purigen, carbon pads, phosphate pads, or granulated carbon. The next step is to figure out flow. this determines *where* you place the media. Meaning, the flow is through the outside of the trays first (white foam only) from bottom to the top. Then it goes from top to bottom through the center portion. Essentially, by default everything looks good with the exception of the middle section of the bottom tray.

Basically this sort of a recommendation would be for whenever the current stocking is elsewhere, rehomed, or you're just at a point where the species in the tank make sense for the care parameters of the new fish. I would highly recommend a bunch of schools of cypranidae species. Odessa barbs, tiger barbs, rasboras, danios, white clouds, etc. These fish like a cooler tank (72-74) and would do well with things like a lot of your loaches, corydoras, etc. This also expands things where you might have a centerpiece fish like a rainbow shark or something you enjoy. I would swap out the pandas, but I do love them, for something you find interesting just to try out a new corydoras species. From there, it's up to what you want to do. The reason being, is that interacting with the tank is so enjoyable with how feisty and aggressive they are at times. Very active when they want to be, and it's just an enjoyable type of fish that really works well in a 75G setup. I would not like to misinform, but I currently do have shrimp in both red lizard and twig catfish tanks. I'm pretty new to twigs and if I am not mistaken farlowellas are more about algae grazing and snacking on algae tabs and sometimes veggies offered. My red lizards don't really eat shrimp I think, I keep them together with shrimp for a quite long time by now. They are more like cories I suppose. If the baby shrimp end up in their mouth, they may eat it buy they wouldn't go hunt any specifically. With only a few days of experience with twigs, the addition of shrimp to their tank made them feel comfier. Shrimp sometimes mistake them as branches going on top of them lol What I have been finding, even with my swordtails in the shrimp.... I tried the younger swordtails in the tank and they went a bit nuts going after baby shrimp. When I had the shrimp and swords in the 75G, the shrimp hid, were able to hide, and took about 2-3 months to acclimate to being around those fish. After that, the shrimp were safe and the swords didn't really bug them. It's very likely that a lot of fish predate on baby shrimp, especially under a few weeks old, but it's a situation where setup can be key. A lot of fish aren't designed for going after shrimp, so if they go after shrimp and they get one, they can choke on it. Just be careful with it and the recommendation is always to go with shrimp first, let them establish a base, then add in your fish after that. Expect some losses, but individual fish behavior varies. The shrimp will adapt to what you add to the tank.

I've been watching the "newbie reefer" series on youtube. There's also the obligatory (salt or freshwater hobbyist I'm talking to you) viewing of chasing coral as an inspiration for the enjoyment of all things nature in our care.... This was one that they had, I really thought was easy and they did awesome with it. It's a white hammer coral I believe. May also have been a white bubble coral.

Let me grab the directions to double check what is being done.... Alright so. Expel-p = levamisole is a one day treatment (24 hours) Then you move to paracleanse, which is your 2 doses over 5 days as directed on the box. For paracleanse: Day One - add meds Day three - add meds Day five - water change.

Interesting. I'm guessing the UV/Heat played a role too. Cool to see, thanks for sharing.

This is something I noticed as well and had to tuck in the back of my mind when looking at the tanks. @AllFishNoBrakes had just done the exercise of balancing a few sponges on his air system and that led to my own self-examination of my own tanks. I ended up pulling off one of the felt discs on the sponge that didn't have the air collar to loosen up the back pressure on my air pump and then the air collar is generally unrestricted. I run an air pump designed for a 150G "deep water applications". So let's ball all that up and explain what's really going on here.... 1. Any air pump has to overcome the depth of the tank. 2. Any air pump has to overcome the back pressure from the restriction of the actual air diffuser device. 3. There is a balance of the system where you either need to add more pressure (stronger pump) or adjust the actual diffuser itself to allow the air to flow easier. #1 + #2 leads to #3. In the latest video series with aquapros Cory was noting how well the water shoots out when the tank is drained slightly, and I do see that sometimes with the pump I'm running, but ultimately it's when I realized... "Oh yeah, he's got the linear air piston and that makes a big difference." In all, the air collar has very low, basically zero, restriction on flow or back pressure from the pump. It's also not adjustable in the sense of bubble size of something like the ziss air stones are. That means there might be a minimum pressure needed depending on the depth of the tank and installation setup you have going on. As mentioned above, I would be very curious to see your setup via video and the type of flow you're seeing. Everyone's setup is unique and it's helpful with questions like this to try to determine what's going on if we can see movement and circulation. This is my setup as well.