nabokovfan87

That's awesome, congratulations!

Could be a sign of something like ammonia burn as well. Fish flash for a few reasons, but it's a good catch! I would proceed with treatment. Follow the directions on the Maracyn and every time you do a WC per those directions go ahead and dose/re-dose ich-X. The directions on Ich-X say to change a certain volume of water before adding more meds, that's all you have to keep in mind. I would add aeration and salt as well. Cory's video on dosing the 800G with ich-X is a great guide to follow as well. Once you're through the treatment of Maracyn, give the fish a week or two as a break and then treat with the Paracleanse / Expel-P.

@Any Huitwelcome to the forum! I use clarity initially when setting up the tank and something like the substrate had fine particles in the water column. For any other reason I do not recommend using clarity. If it's a bacterial bloom or meds or anything of the sort in the water all you need to do is to add fine filter floss to the HoB itself. If you're running sponge filters, you can have a cheap HoB (like an aqueon quietflow) just to polish the water or marineland sells specifically designed polishing filters that you can try to use. That being said, with what you're describing, I don't think you need to use clarity in this situation. I will try to find the answer for you based on seachem's FAQ section. I am not seeing anything specific to medications, so I would lean towards a hard no to avoiding any negative interaction. Especially considering the drop in oxygenation from the meds as well as clarity. You only need to use prime, not both. Stressguard would be for when you see something like an ammonia spike or are transporting fish, slimecoat issues, etc. I wouldn't suggest using it after every water change, only when moving the fish or when you see signs of stress on the fish.

@Odd Duck I think I messed up trying to tag you earlier and it might not have sent the notification. Please let me know whenever you get a second. I'm assuming it was "repeat steps 1-3 each week", but just trying to clarify how many doses. I would think 3-4 total as opposed to 8? I'm sorry, it's my dyslexia and just getting confused 😞

Same method for both meds.

At about 30 seconds in you can even see one of the smaller fish struggling in the flow. If you can, try to diffuse the output a bit better so it's pointed towards the surface of the water and causes more movement across the water surface. I would highly suggest adding 1-2 airstones right away to help boost oxygenation. The issues might not even be related to the meds, but just exhaustion and the fish getting worn out. Are the gills very red? The pump on the FX6 might just be too strong (925 GPH - a 90 or 125G aquarium is where I'd use it). Maybe some foam on the output might be all you need to diffuse it enough and let the fish swim a bit easier. Wide bodied fish like that are especially susceptible to flow issues because they can easily get pushed around. I would have an airstone on either side of the tank, spraybar pushing water out / across the top of the water (not into the bottom of the tank. https://fluvalaquatics.com/us/product/spray-bar-kit-for-fx4-fx6-filters/ I am guessing this is your current setup: You'd want the flow to be like this:

Do you have any epsom salt on hand? @Bev C 100%. I really wish I had a better idea of how to help. This is a difficult one. If you can, please try to video him tomorrow the sores or whatever it is on his mouth. It might explain the lack of wanting to eat. Maybe he has something in his mouth causing issues? Maybe it's painful for him to eat until this stuff heals? It sounds like he might've gotten scared or thrashed into something. Are you treating at all for bacterial with Maracyn or Kanaplex?

I've heard anubias likes some salt. Java fern as well. If you can, try to find some mangrove plants.

Anything over a 29G, 30" long, I kind of would try to support it somewhere in the middle as well. The point is though, you support the outside of a rimmed tank, the entire base of a rimless tank. As an example, this is for rimmed aquariums. These are both for a 75G aquarium. Here's a good example of what you're looking for.

Can you share some photos?

My biggest concern would be that AC filter and it stopping if the power trips. I would suggest at minimum you have an airstone in every tank just for the sake of it in addition to everything else. Clean the filters and gravel vac and all that the day before all the stuff goes down and just so that for however long it's going to be, the fish can have as clean of water as possible. I would be concerned about noise as well as just the general shadows and activity scaring the fish. Construction gets loud, vibrates pretty loud through the floor, and there's always crap in the air. A towel over the tank wouldn't be a bad idea either. Awesome suggestion. Set it to feed every 3 days or so, that way if there is some issue and the filtration stops, you're not having a fouled tank. Also.... welcome to the forum! Depending on access to the tank, I'd suggest repashy over those blocks. You might be able to get in once every day or once every other day just to check on the tank and feed. Depends on the complex itself.

Rimless aquariums = The stand should support the entire base of the tank Rimmed aquariums = The stand should support the outside corners of the tank and not put any pressure on the bottom glass. I believe on this one he shows off the tour of the tank stands themselves.

Not sure, but from what you're describing it's intaking air somehow I would imagine. Could just be a hairline crack in the seal on the casing or something else. You can take a multimeter and check the water to see if it's leaking current or anything as well if you have one. Could be a pinhole, something very very small. Even just because it was in the sun for an extended period, some sort of an o-ring or seal dried out and now it has a small enough gap to allow air to flow in.

It would help you to monitor issues if you removed the old / dead leaves. Essentially the plant is wasting energy trying to hold onto those leaves instead of all of it's energy into new ones. 1. Make sure it's not too close to the light 2. Make sure the rhizome isn't fully covered which would result in the anubias rot mentioned above. 3. Remove the algae covered leaves or remove the dead ones and try to pull off the algae. Focus your attention on the new growth and those leaves and keep an eye out for more or if the plant is stagnant and rotting away. Red = leaves I would consider removing, blue = leaves I think are healthy. When the part of the rhizome that is "dead" and doesn't have any leaves anymore has served it's use the plant will likely focus it's energy on growing new sections of the rhizome and letting the old rhizome appear rotten. 4 pumps, 2 on Sundays and 2 on Wednesdays I think you're overdosing if the only plants are anubias. Anubias responds very well to lean dosing. It doesn't require much light and it grows at it's own pace. For an anubias only tank, depending how much is there, I would suggest only having the light at ~40-60% power and dosing 1/2 dose once a week. If you see new growth, steady growth, you're doing well and can try to increase things or adjust things as you see deficiencies. What you're seeing right now is the algae and potential rhizome issues causing damage to the plant.

Salt helps the fish with ammonia and nitrite burn. It helps them to take a bit less damage when that happens and have a slightly easier time trying to recover from it. Adds some minerals for them, helps to encourage the slime coat, helps with oxygenation interaction on the gills, and then because the fish is stressed, it helps them to not have to spend as much energy trying to regulate their salt internally (osmosis).

The Aqueon Quietflow is literally the same exact thing but the pump is on the opposite side! Marineland Penguin filters are also the same exact way and you can mod them the exact same method. Tetra HoBs as well flow in this pattern and have this same general setup. Hopefully if anyone is trying to figure out how to mod one of those, they can easily do it now with confidence!

I have both so it's all good either way. The weirdest thing for me is how different flow can be even with the same stone. Being able to adjust the pump, to adjust the flow is something I'll always try to have for situations like what you're going through. Let me get that for you, I'll try record both and show you the adjustment stuff. 🙂 Youtube is still processing, but here's the links. Normal airstone: 29G Tank - 40G rated airpump, I can run 2x airstones/filters very easily, not quite 3. Ziss Airstone: 29G Tank - 150G rated "deep" air pump (tetra AP150). I can run 3-4 items on one pump pretty easily. Keep in mind on the ziss you can still controll pressure / bubble size by using the felt discs. The normal airstones will eventually need to be replaced, but the ziss ones or other plastic ones shouldn't. (ziss = plastic with felt disks)

Could it have been dropped and the casing or something isn't sealed 100% anymore? Was it left in the sun at all?

In future, just for the sake of clarity. IF you had fish in the tank.... I would: (with fish) Add some salt, yes... even with plants. (with fish) Add some bacteria if I had any on hand. 50% water change daily until it was under .5 ppm ammonia (unless you're specifically trying to cycle it by adding ammonia manually, then I would keep it at 2 ppm). If you have ammonia in the tap, try to find a way to condition the water or add excess filtration / aeration / dechlorinator to handle it during the water change. Something as simple as having an extra sponge on either side of the tank might be perfect for this situation given the tap conditions.

If you don't already, yes! It is a really simple way to have a back-up in case of an equipment issue, but it's also just so useful in a variety of ways. If I may ask, what pump do you have, please refresh me on tank size, and are you using a metal gang valve or anything? If you have spare cycled media, even a bag of it that you can take some from. I just set it on top of the sponge filter.

on all your grates and what not, use a toothbrush! It works wonders. Even if you take ever piece apart, it's an awesome tool to use when cleaning.

Awesomesauce. Nice work! PLEASE BE SURE to go ahead and post details in the filter mods thread 🙂

DEFINITELY helps. 😂 I don't have issues holding the 5G bucket, it's more annoying that anything. I am going to try the giant strainer next time. In terms of design, it's awesome and works really well. The issue is just the mechanics of using it. If I still feel like an idiot trying to get it to work well for me, I'll just dremel out the specimen container and see how that goes for me. The smaller bucket would be 8-10 trips for me trying to do a WC instead of 2-3, that's all. Some buckets have the actual spout on them. FFT uses an actual gooseneck gardening watering thing (sorry, not enough coffee and all I can think of is the word "pitcher" but I know it has an actual name). They have them with a spout as well as a rain style spout on the end and both would work really well.

I completely agree. If I may ask, are you an artist professionally or just for fun? I feel like fish dragon tattoos, T-Shirts, Designs, all of the stuff we've seen so far.... stickers, it's AWESOME stuff. I can only imagine where your imagination and skill can take you, I mean it.... I wish you the best of luck with the future projects you have planned for yourself.

That is really awesome to hear the progress. Definitely weird that the cartridge was doing that in some capacity. On your airstone is it one of the adjustable ones? I was reading something about fish and how noise can stress them. Maybe that is what Moby was reacting to? I saw it once in the ACO videos, the ziss airstone, you add on an extra felt piece and then you can adjust it to be pretty calm / silent as a result. I can take a video of mine if you want to see it. The water "moves", but I would think it's pretty gentle flow and noise.