nabokovfan87

There is skin blotchiness towards the rear fins right? I am trying to determine if it's just the translucency on the fin or a white discoloration. Aquahuna usually has them 🙂 I'm very sorry about your struggles. It isn't fair to the hobbyist or the fish for things to be sold and lead to these kinds of issues. I would highly recommend QT next time, especially for these guys so they can acclimate and you can keep a good eye on them for how they are doing.

@kahjtheundedicatedDo you recall which HoB it was?

The moss you added, it's got dirt and stuff on it or was it on a piece of wood or something previously? Very interesting stuff.

I will clean out the filter tomorrow. A few notes, this is a Thursday --> Sunday in terms of the timeline for when we saw bypass. This isn't acceptable and I'm still not happy with the current results in terms of where the longevity stands. I'll hit up the store tomorrow and see what options I can find to fix the filter. Part of the solution here is going to be sorting out the chute itself flooding. This could be as simple as when I reinstalled the cover, but considering it was on the video and photos prior to making any attempt to clean it.... I don't think that's the reason. Foam inside the chute as mentioned previously I think is "useful," but I don't think it's viable long term due to how difficult it would be to clean regularly. Especially if we're talking such sort terms for use. Part of the difficulty here is that I can only really do some non-destructive mods at this point without much time between cleanings and water changes. I am going to have to measure the space underneath the basket and potentially reshape it as an option moving forward. Something else ove been thinking about is sealing the edges or extending the height of the basket in some way. There are some options, but not many of them are as clean as I'd like. I apologize for the flicker on the video. It's an issue with the laser sensor on my phone interacting with the lens on the camera.

Definitely a lot of fun to have these! A big thank you to everyone who set this up, managed it, and participated.

WOOT WOOT! Congratulations @Mmiller2001

Nice! Congratulations @Minanora

Nice work @Atitagain!

Congrats to everyone who participated. Nice work @Hobbit!

A huge thank you to everyone who put this together. For next year's event, I would like to officially request that the "links thread" or some way to make it easy to find and participate is pinned in the top for a little bit so people can easily find it! Even adding a category for a week might be a good way to handle it 🙂

I really don't think the hillstream loaches will do well at this temp. This is just a note and something where I need to verify it. I have seen and kept them at 78 degrees, but they seem to do a lot better when it's a cooler tank in the 72-74 range with high oxygenation. The other fish all should be fine in that tank setup. https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/hillstream-loaches I think rams, emperor tetras, having 2-3 schools of tetras is a great way to setup this tank.

Just a note... One of the bigger issues with any of the ACs is that the adjustment on your flow isn't really any decent. For a 20L I would suggest the tidal 35. This filter does require a few tweaks to the setup, nothing too difficult. I would suggest checking here and performing the "phase 1" modification that I did. the nice thing about the tidal 35 is that you can finely adjust the flow. the issue with the tidal 35 is that you don't really have an intake tube. Second option would be something else that offers a good fine-tune adjustment. In terms of those filters the only one that comes to mind is the newer marinelands, this is the penguin pro series.

We need a few things answered before we dive into how to fix it! Please post a tank shot as well as a photo of any algae that you see (might be a few different colors) close up so that we can try to see what it is. What is your cleaning schedule and how do you clean it? What volume of water are you changing? Are you testing the tank at all? What is your dosing schedule, if any? What is your lighting schedule and light that you are using? What plants are in the tank, how long have they been in the tank? What is the substrate? Do you have root tabs in the tank as well? *exhale* I understand that's a lot of questions. The first step towards fixing the algae is to answer them, but also to understand why and what kind of things cause some types of algae so you know what to look for and how to adapt things when you do see some pop up. Here's a few articles to help offer some advice. https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/aquarium-algae https://www.aquariumcoop.com/pages/algae-identification-guide-1

@Cinnebuns Feels like you need to see this thread!

congrats everyone!

Welcome to the forum, it's awesome to have you here! I would suggest starting any fix by checking this article and video out: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/betta-fish-care-guide A few notes and some questions. Where is the tank, would something larger (10G or preferably a 20L) fit in that space? Are you testing the water in any way? Please watch this video for a good breakdown of why this matters so much. Lastly, what is your normal schedule for maintenance in general? Do you have the tools needed to clean the tank? Typically this is a bucket, siphon, and dechlorinator.

I would suggest CO2 off 2 hours before lights out. you're running a pretty short lighting window. Typical is ~8 hours or so I would believe. When you check the CO2 itself, verify it 20 minutes after power on. Then verify it again 2-3 hours after it's been on to verify it isn't dumping in CO2. If you see the fish doing the same behavior after lights off or during any of the time when the CO2 is on, you need to turn the CO2 off and add aeration.

That's awesome, completely unexpected! SHARKS WIN!!!!! Yes....... Thanks everyone, much appreciated it. Looking forward to the next one! Awesome work by all ideas presented, very cool stuff.

Yes, that means they are grazing a lot or could point to a parasite or some other issue. Try fasting for 1 day, then feeding, see what happens. I was just saying, whenever you add new shrimp to the colony, dump in some food so they can eat right away.

Water changes during cycling won't help or hurt anything. It's what you take along the way that will help or hurt. If you have a ball of bits on the bottom, you had some weird growth and you remove it, likely not an issue. If you decide to scrub every surface and clean out the media, that's what might hurt things. As long as you leave the filter alone, change water, absolutely WILL NOT harm the process of cycling anything. As mentioned above, dose your ammonia source, bacteria from the bottle, wait 24 hours before changing water and that should be sufficient to get those bacteria out of the water column. This might be on the bottles in some cases, but it's just a general rule when dosing anything. Awesome info, it's cool to see detail like this in answers that's "simple" but informative as heck and useful for researching what is technically going on.

Are you feeding something specifically made for shrimp? Even algae wafers or frozen worms or some other frozen food might be a good way to "add new shrimp" to your colony and make sure they enter in thriving.

no promises.

This has been a pretty constant thing for me with the ACO sponges. My guess, is that because the foam is coarse, it's a bit easier for bubbles to build up underneath the air inlet / cap and then they seep out at a specific rate. On every filter I've setup, I've had that happen. I have cut the air hose to it's minimum, adjusted it 5-10x and it's still just that same thing. At this point, I just live with it. That being said, here is the video where it was discussed as well as a few adjustments to tweak it so it happens less often or not at all. The tank I have setup now is as such there is no substrate. It's barebottom, the filters are setup per the video, I still have the big bubbles.

What is ammonia and nitrite? Tank moved. It's rotated so instead of only being able to see one side of the tank, I can see the entire front of the tank now. I realized walking around the tank I need to add some tint due to the fish being spooked. It's now an "under the stairs peninsula tank" for a week while we try to figure out is this works or doesn't. Main tank seems to be doing well. Testing was perfect in both tanks. I'll keep an eye on the fish because I had to drain it for the sake of moving the tank. Hopefully Grace the shark isn't too stressed, she didn't look happy with me this afternoon.

They definitely feet weird. Otos remind me of sharks, they are fun to hand catch.