nabokovfan87

Talks about aquariums as a nice gift for someone, reminds me of that AWESOME video cory made where he gave his niece a tank! One of those vids I love to watch because it so happy inducing!

Thank you so much!

no worries, it happens. Hopefully one of the admin sees it! The tank aesthetically looks awesome. It has everything they need for the most part! I think aeration is fine, but another airstone wouldn't hurt at all. Not required, but it wouldn't hurt. I tent to run heavy with those in general, so this might just be my preference! The only real issue I see is that corys might have some trouble eating. It's difficult to be sure, but something to keep an eye on is going to be how deep the food falls in those rocks and how much they struggle to get that food that does fall. Corydoras use their nose and burrow to dig for food, that's their natural way of trying to find things. The gravel has decent size gaps and food might easily fall down away from their reach. If they are eating and things are going great, no worries at all. Testing, everything seems ok apart from PH. We see it's low on the scale, but not really sure how low that really is. PH listed on planet catfish is ~7 but gives a range of 6.5-7.5. It also mentions that these ones might prefer water at the 70-74 range in general. I am not saying this is what happened, or that this fixes the issue, but let's just hypothesize about the issue you're having. A. Some of them were just in general stressed before they got to you B. Some of them were in your care and fine for a little bit C. They may/may not have had issues with the substrate and had wounds, which caused stress D. They may or may not have had issues eating, in both tanks E. Temp, PH, KH crashes (leading to PH swings) could emphasize the stress and cause more stress to the fish. Essentially, we don't want to chase parameters or try to force anything, but let's try to narrow some of these things from being a cause for concern. Starting with food, do you recall any specific issues with how they were interacting with the substrate? Is it possible to drop nitrates down to 10 or below?

I would think they are ok, especially if you give the ram a cave or some sort of cover to feel protected. Someone else would have to verify, I haven't had a gourami in a long long time.

She's a night owl. The corys were going bananas and then she wanted to play or make sure they were ok. One of those two. 😂

I think shrimp and otos handle the leaves well enough, not perfectly. I think snails and plecos do really well on the glass and other hard flat surfaces. Depending what you have in the tank is going to sort of determine which ones you end up with as well as tank size. To your question.... I'd lean towards both if that works for you.

If we can, let's move this to disease. Maybe one of the admins can help us out! @411fishkeeping Can you please post all parameters including temp that you can test as well as a tank shot, filtration, air stones, etc. so we can get a good idea of the setup. I absolutely love corys and I'm sorry you're having such difficulty with them right now. We'll figure it out!

well now I'm annoyed I have ZERO candy right now.

It'll be very interesting one day when you get a bolivian ram! That's my betta type single tank fish of choice right now. I really need to find a green and black or all black betta from a decent source. I have been tempted a few times, but just always worry about filtration and so many other variables. One day 🙂 . My "betta" right now is Grace the shark. She gets her own tank for her and it's made and setup JUST for her 🙂 . She gets to hang out with 30 of her panda bros, but that's entirely her choice. She is a Red-Tailed Black Shark and just the most unique personality, exactly like a betta or ram. So fun when you do get a chance to connect with a fish one on one so often.

The part that always concerns me is the color of the gill plate / gills. I read up and this is normal, but always looks odd to me that it's black vs. red. It was fin rot that progressed to body rot. Just a note. Sounds good. You can float it in the main chamber as well, it won't harm the fish at all.

I ran it through the colorblind tool just to try get it clear on what the real value would be for the two tests Hit the reset button.... Essentially get some isopropyl alcohol and soak the vials and clean everything. Let it air dry or rinse in known good water and then let it dry out. Then try to test and make sure you don't have any issues. The alcohol should evaporate out and this might remove any contaminants you're experiencing. ACO has the glass measure. I highly recommend having those around for this use! As for the pump, take a glass of hot / warm water and then melt the crystalized liquid. This will clear it out and you can use a push pin or paperclip to remove any stubborn chunks. Run water through the pumphead and you'll be good to go. Then you can use it like normal or measure as you see fit.

One day I will get a betta. Honestly, I'm so worried because I've seen so many issues trying to keep them! I am so relieved to see you and the little one relaxing and recovering. Happy days.

Yeah, there's been a lot of people that went to triple crown that got it as well. I wish for a safe recovery for you! Enjoy the chill time and catch up on the Co-Op vlogs!

I used one on android, also available elsewhere.... There is a version 2 now. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dyhwang.aquanote&hl=en_US&gl=US

I just scraped the glass so I can get better photos. I'll be interested to see what everyone things. I also, finally got sand for the tank, so that's a huge plus.

I finally got a bag of this stuff, link in OP. I was pretty surprised when I realized it's marketed as "coal slag" and not specifically "blasting sand". Black Diamond is the brand and not necessarily the type or color. I assume one might have more "junk" in it compared to others. the same way we have pool filter vs. play sand. I think this may explain a lot of issues some people have been reporting. I opened this bag up and I see a TON of metals in this one. Here is a PDF of what they offer, some coal, some copper. If someone has some experience with these products, in this industry and can explain a bit about "blasting sand" vs other abrasives it would really help us all out. https://www.blackdiamondabrasives.com/media/1389/us-minerals-black-diamond-abrasives-product-comparison-guide.pdf The above vs. the below specifically. Orange = fine, black = medium grit. EDIT: OK so I just spent about 20-30 minutes rinsing this stuff. Based on my asthma, the study about dust issues, I wore a mask. Based on a video by an aquarist and how dirty this stuff can be I wore gloves. I would recommend both! I had some molten metal stuff come up to the surface along with fine grit (light brown, tan, beige colored) as well as a ton of silt that sticks around for a pretty long time and is difficult to separate out. Anyone who has cleaned play sand, this is very similar to that fine of a texture. I do think this stuff will work, but I would highly encourage a few things to make it easier. This is typically what I do for sand in general. A. Split it into two batches or two buckets if possible. Don't fill the bucket too full, it just makes it take longer. B. When you do get it filled with water and you're ready to remove the silt, just use the hose and let all the waste and oils run off while the sand fills with air and compresses. C. When you get to the point where it's compressed, use a power nossle or something like that, I just used my finger, and pressure spray the sand so that you can get some of the fine silt into the water column. This is the longest part of cleaning it and the longer and the better you do this step, the better off your filtration will thank you later. D. Tilt the bucket to the side to let the stuff in the water column get removed, rinse / repeat for a long time. Steps C and D are typical for all sand for me. I know black sand looks cool, but I really wish I had gone the pool filter route or just gotten caribsea. Edit 2: I got everything moved into the tank. So nice to have a substrate of sorts again. I used the python hook and turn the water on, even on the lowest setting it went everywhere. It's extremely light substrate and I really don't know how well it's going to compact over time. We'll see. It's not too difficult to gravel vac or anything, but you're likely going to take up some silt. I would opt for normal sand next time..... Hard to describe it, but I really hope the corydoras and everyone is ok after getting literally blasted with this stuff. Poor fish.

I moved the seiryu stone, mopani+Anubias today. Once lights come on I'll grab some photos for everyone to see. I am curious for something like seiryu if it can negate the effects or if I just messed up somehow. I do see some white ends on the algae, but it doesn't look like it did enough. 12 hours might not be enough for how infested some of these things are in my tank. I'll keep an eye out for more seltzer at the store, potentially get some more. I did find out, while it started fully submerged, it will lose some volume so you do want to have some headspace for the liquid to drop level a little bit. Hopefully we can see this as well in the photos tonight.

agreed. I would specifically ask them how old the tank is. I would also recommend moving the tank to inspect the silicone and the seams. I use my finger to check if it's lifting in any spots. On the stand, and the reason to move the tank, is to check if the wood has been soaked and if you need to do any work on the top section of the stand. For that price. I wouldn't hesitate much.

As mentioned above, the ziss doesn't really hold a lot of muck compared to other filters. You can run a HoB or something, I would run 2-3 ziss at minimum but that's hard to do in that size of a tank. Something like the 407 might be a good fit, but I don't really know a better way to handle it. I have used the ziss a lot, I use them as an add-on for the specific purpose of hosting bacteria and not for mechanical filtration. It does trap some, but it's not really suited for that purpose in my user experience.

I feel bad for the tetras now. LOL. I vote you update / change the name of the thread so they don't feel bad we keep reviving it! 😂

This is a certain type of dream, but also can be categorized under a specific instance. Think of the matrix, also. There is a movie called waking life, might be worth checking out. It's about the topic of exploring dreams and lucid dreaming as a conversation philosophically. Dreams as reality and dreams as being able to be controlled. Yes, she did. We tried to help, there was some slight improvement, but pretty bad internal damage to the fish 😞

Yep! This is typical for most fish. They try to match the surroundings. This is why some people prefer a light (blue) vs. a black background and light vs. dark substrate. I had my pandas in some dark substrate and they were near bronze/black/grey the majority of the time. They've lightened up quite a bit. Not my photos, but to give you an idea of the shift. Foods also change this too! Dark: Light: Note: These are also younger....

Yes. These worms really made me unable to sleep for a little bit. LOL. When the tank has issues, or when I know things need work it's hard for me to sleep. Not that I'm "worrying" but I've always had the mindset of get up, get it done, get the fish happy. When that isn't possible and you're forced to wait and resolve the issues.... that's when you have worm dreams.

I use this method. Given that you have fin rot issues, I wouldn't sell anything for 1-2 months. You need to QT them, run meds, verify everything is ok and not spreading.

Based on Temperatures: Cooler Tank: Amano Harlequin Rasbora Warmer Tank: Bristlenose Bamboo Rummynose Cherry Shrimp Betta Other: Vampire Shrimp** ** = I don't know where this one fits best, I would this it would fit best in it's own space, preferably a 20L or so.