nabokovfan87

I will credit @Bev Cwith the idea. Get a pepper grinder too! It'll crush the pellets for you and hopefully work well for the situation.

Can you start a new one and feed frozen blood worms for a few days? Also! Welcome to the forums 🙂

totally did this today, they must've recently added the sponge I need, not sure if it's the porosity I need. They have corrugated foams available now. WOOT. These are actually integrated into the Aqueon HoB filters. Green = removes phosphates to help with Algae, they have one for ammonia, and one for general use (carbon). None of those would impact your cycle, and because it's sponge it would technically be beneficial.

Might be a brown trout, super hard to identify without seeing the fish itself up close.

That moss ball in the middle, is it attached? You might want to cut it up into little pieces (say 1/4" long) and then glue them to the branch along the length of it. Here's a cool video I found today featuring Amano doing this technique.

#10 was a big one. Everyone get your bingo cards out. #1: No issues #2: No issues, great point #3: Definitely an issue for me, more on this in #10 #4: I don't really have access to these #5: Me too, no issues here #6: Oh yes. definitely! #7: Thought it wasn't an issue, it was. #8: Not an issue, but will help! #9: Agreed #10: Best tip.... Ever. #11: I struggled with this as well #12: Made a mistake once, oops. #13: Made this mistake too, I don't use planted substrates though #14: I do this! Yay. (that's a good thing) #15: I make a point of doing this, but It's hot in summer #16: Good to know, I made this mistake #17: Definitely had this issue also, lost an entire tank because of it #18: Not an issue #19: Was an issue recently, but not normally. #20: Can't control it, but it's been an issue once or twice. My score: 11/20.

It feels like you snuck in and took a photo of my anubias tank. 😂 Good question. Before we get there can you run a test? 1. Take a sample of tap water, test everything you can. 2. Aerate that sample with an airstone for 24 hours and re-test. 3. Compare results from #2 after off-gassing to your tank in question. This is what we'd expect the PH/KH/GH to be after water changes. By chance, do you have a lot of shells or rocks with calcium stripes in the tank? Maybe unknowingly the substrate or hardscape is buffering the water? Do any of the stones on the substrate feel like plaster? It looks like you have both staghorn and black beard algae.

Agreed. ORD but 👍

I'm very sorry for your struggle, loss, and the difficulties you've experienced with the hobby. I hope you focus on the positive moments with Pinky and put the love and care you have for him at the forefront of your mind. I LOVE this photo of Luna. What a fun, active photo.

For health reasons.... LOL What was the winner's score last year?

Do you have wood in the tank or no? I had the tubs setup, they got caked with diatom and eventually once the mulm set in there was the hair variety and specifically the black beard all over the surfaces. Broad leaves and the wood (mopani specifically was in those tubs) lingered on the longest of anything else. EDIT: For clarity, by "lower flow" I mean high aeration, but simply lower flow than normal. Airstones vs. pumphead but not enough "flow" meaning movement specifically. I never had any issues with respiration, CO2/Oxygen exchange, plenty of surface tension, but it had some dead spots where mulm would settle or food would get stuck pretty often. I had the flow slightly low, the light slightly too high, but specifically on for slightly too long (11ish hours at 70% and probably should've been 7-8 hours at 40-50% given the setup) It took about 2-3 months for all heck to break loose and it's been about a year I've been trying to get rid of it. Some of the plants have recovered, most of the Anubias I've specifically tried to work on has recovered and the wood in tanks now has some pretty strong algae cultures. First picture is from the tub, second is from a tank that was not affected but the algae from those tubs was introduced. Everything was new except for anubias from that tub which has the algae. Very very hearty cultures and they won't be removed unless I specifically take a blade or something and scrape the bark off. The amanos won't touch it anymore because it's so stubborn to get off. As an example in this tank, the BBA has a very high flow environment with 2-4 sources of flow at any one time. I have an airstone, skimmer, and HoB right now on this tank and because of that the algae is pretty often found on everything and specifically thrives on the stone and the wood surfaces. This first picture is right by the output of the HoB filter and where the skimmer outputs as well. These were the tubs I had. Very cool. I do the same thing with my tank. After a few minutes things settle when I walk in. I was reading a study about sound and fish responses, pretty interesting stuff.

I would wait to change anything until nitrates are consistently lower week to week. If they are rising exponentially, more snails will just make it worse.

It might just be the food I got. Been a while since they've had the vibra bites. The one that bothered me most was the one that had half blue and half red shell and then the one that died recently with the red pinholes / blood spots I looked up every shrimp disease I could find. Nothing makes any sense. I need to check their nose for worms, but I really, really don't think any of them have any parasites. It's a different body shape. There is one internal parasite for shrimp, could be, but it wouldn't be free swimming like that. We'll see. I am eagerly impatient to drop these meds in when I can.

Cory actually has a video specifically on the fluval canisters. Buying / Selling by someone isn't the point. The method is why I bring up pondguru's stuff. Foams --> Fine filter --> Biological ---> Chemical. That's generally the setup for everything.

The spot with the wood / pot, you can direct her to the pot and then put the food in the corner. Then she'll know! Lol. just make sure you tell her it's your little secret and not to let the tetra bullies know.

See if you can direct her there and feed her. 🙂 Maybe she'll learn she's safe there!

Have you seen Dean's setup for his? Take a little baggy or something and crush up a good amount of food from those bigger pellets for a few days. Try to feed the tank normally with the smaller bits and see how they do. She's a really active ram, which is awesome. I had plants, but later on I ended up having an actual flower pot. The fish REALLY didn't understand it because it was closed on one side. Some of the fish kept trying to go through the little hole on the bottom. I've seen some people break pieces in half so they can make it look like debris on the bottom. I would use a flat sided pot and just bury it in the substrate so it looked like an archway. They tend to feel secure with a wall / something on their backside so they can't get confronted from behind and they protect the front. That's what Deans setup looks like too! Very cool. She'll color up. There's a lot of color on those fish.

She even had her fin up while she chewed. Too adorable. She enjoyed that!

Where does she usually hang out in the tank? Mine was usually left side hidden by some plants when it wasn't food time. Feed the tetras somewhere else, then I would go over to her area and target feed her. The tetras might eventually sniff out the food, but they shouldn't have to.... how'd you put it... "buy her time". Hopefully it's something like having a spot, a cover, a cave, a plant, anything that she likes to guard gives her a spot and then you can feed her and she will know it'll be there and she doesn't have to stress to try to feed with the other fish going bonkers around her.

The rams like to sift too, so smaller things like that you'll see a different bit of feeding behavior too. 😍 the other thought I had was to just presoak some and let it get softer for the fish to be able to chew.

I want to get some sort of sand in the new tank. Hard to decide which to go with (pool filter sand was the choice). I had carib sea before and loved it. It's a tank dedicated for corydoras. The glass sand might not be the best choice so I was just trying to thing in future about it. I honestly don't think a lot of hobbyists know about it or have used it before. It seems like a pretty unique, fitting aesthetic that would behave like a fine gravel without the risk of the paint or something coming off like the cheap stuff does on the big box store "sand" they sell. I might have to get a bag just to see what it's like, if I can find it locally. Edit: found this. Apparently it floats.

Can you crush them with your finger easily? Just take whats there and crush it with a glass or something and see how that goes. LOL, love it!

Updated photos for the sake of comparison. This is a few weeks of lighting the tank this way with the high ambient light. I did shift it slightly so that when the living room has the lamp on the tank is also on and set for active hours. (it's a floor lamp with two bulbs that is about 7' to the side of the tank. It lights up the tank pretty hard)

If you want to take a picture of it, by all means go for it. Here's how to setup the canister itself.

Is it play sand or what kind of sand is it? Is it specific aquarium grade sand? What I see in the photo is a bacterial bloom. New filters can trigger it, heavy cleaning, etc. If you clean the canister recently, that might be a cause or it might be a sign that you need to clean it / check on things. Something might be clogged and adding the sponge in the tank gave bacteria a place to land. If there was a recent ammonia spike, you'd see a bloom like this as well. It's nothing to be concerned with and can take up to 2 weeks to clear up in some cases. What I also see in the photo is that your HoB / Filter outflow is going across the tank, down the glass, and pushing an empty spot on the sand. This increases the particulate in the air and can cause damage to your equipment. I would try to make the output push water along the longest side of the tank if possible to reduce this affect. you can also have a pre-filter sponge and/or raise up the intake slightly to try and reduce it from taking in the substrate. Especially if it is a very lightweight, fine sand.