nabokovfan87

This. I have two tanks in the house. One will be under my care and one will less-so be under my care. They both have plants and stuff. The one under my care has stem plants and more difficult plants while the community tank has anubias on wood. The plan is to run carbon on the community tank just for the sake of giving the fish a more consistent environment and making it very easy for newer keepers to care for the animals. I have no issues running carbon in a planted tank when I am "dealing with an issue" and need to make sure the fish have a good environment. There is many ways to provide this and carbon is a tool in the fishkeeper's toolbox. Crushed coral I do have, have not had success with it easily due to the HoB I use.

@Isaiah Avilesany progress?

Can you describe the setup and what filters were used? Carbon alone should deal with it. If it's a nano tank I would look into the zero water or undersink filtration. I wouldn't want to be cooking or drinking water without having some ability to filter it and the in fridge filters would work, but won't be something where it works for the volume of water needed for day to day use. Second option is going to be the larger, garage style, whole home filters. Each filter is about 2-3 feet long and would work a lot better. Third option is to have a filter setup and running to condition water. A large container, 55G+ with lava rock on the base and a pump running with an airstone or two. Fill the container, change water after 3-5 days with that preconditioned water.

Not at all. There was a fish version of this med but it looks like the company is no longer around. It's on the list of things to do. I wish I knew what these things are so I knew which med works best. Giving the fish a break in-between treatments means that the worms take off while they recover.

This might be a few males and some of them are trying to become subdominant. If they are pale / washed out it can be normal, but you'd expect coloration on them in some fashion. I have had issues with fish being washed out previously and I know how troubling it can feel. It can also be that they have an increased slime coat and seem pale, but what you're seeing is that they might have a thicker slime coat for some reason. Can you let us know about your feeding, send us a photo of what the scape looks like? Do the fish have a place to go where they can feel safe away from the other males? Are the other water parameters testing fine?

Pretty awesome read https://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/features/the-legend-of-the-cory/

I found the one I was trying to think of! Melon barbs. The ones I saw I remember they had a purple hue to them. As long as temps make sense and all other research points the right direction, it's a really cool species/category of fish with a lot of unique patterns. A little bit bigger than something like a neon tetra.

That's definitely what I did with mine. Anubias nana is about the right size. I saw someone, they took a rock and did a ring of anubias around it to make a wall with the rock peeking out. Very cool idea and it looked pretty awesome. BUT NO! Don't h ide the rock! It's too unique. 😂 Mine do pop up plants, but honestly, if you have room and they have cover, they will do fine and won't tear up the tank at all. they tend to explore, and they tend to move around, but they do spend a lot of time resting, relaxing, hiding, and when they are active they are usually around the tank itself. Given there's guppies, I would think they tent to stick towards the bottom, making actual cover pretty important for them to have a place to hide out. Plants can definitely provide that as well, I usually use wood on top of rocks to give that to them. Maybe they aren't deep enough? Plant weights?

nicely done! Wordle guessed in 4/6! Can you do better? Try this wordle: https://mywordle.strivemath.com/?word=bweqph ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜ ⬜⬜🟨🟩🟩⬜ 🟨🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 #mywordle I had a word that popped into mind to post, but it's not allowed! (common plant) Having the theme is awesome. June 30th: 3 attempts July 1st: 5 attempts (so hard!) July 2nd: 6 attempts (funny that took me so many tried 😂) July 3rd: 3 attempts!

I had a red tailed black shard who was definitely the tank boss. I also had SAEs in there for algae and they all knew who was in charge. She was never aggressive, never harsh, but she didn't like them in her spots. The tigers basically avoided her when they could, but when they sleep they might drift off into her area and some did get pushed into the filter that way (resolved issue now for the most part, thanks seachem). I can't wait to have the tank back and have the herd back. Soon, hopefully. It's a very good point you make about the "boss fish" I forgot about that aspect.

Ok.... now you've done it! What a BEAUTIFUL ROCK. My goodness. I don't think I've ever seen a lava rock that had that much character and aesthetically was so nice. Wow. Question, have you ever kept any corydoras before? Considered adding any to this tank? I think there are some species of cory that would look amazing in there. Maybe habrosus or the black ones like what I have. Pandas of course, but I'd lean towards false julii over them. habrosus ^^

😂 Very true! I wish I could find some of their stuff with the dimples but they do have a lot of good stuff.

Yes, I have some red rock and I planned to get some black but the largest I could find was a "medium" size of 4-6 inches. Beautiful stuff. You're luck to have that around!

Very nice progress. Love those rocks! Where on earth did you find the big boulders like that?

The main reason for me is that cartridges don't "work" for the sake of a stable system in my experience. Marineland basically invented the method for a cartridge based filter and the reason theirs works is because the bio-wheel keeps the bacteria while the floss ends up in the trash. The logic nowadays is to use something that isn't disposable. For bacteria, I prefer to have stability. I prefer to have specific media for the sake of giving the bacteria a place to thrive that isn't plastic. Yes the sponge has a ton of surface area, but it also just works a lot better day-to-day to keep things clean, last a bit longer than a one time use product, and gives the tank stability. I agree with everything said, I just had to smile when I saw the "being into sponge" line. 😂 too funny. I basically use sponge as a mechanical filter only. I don't really care if I clean it with tap water, etc. I want it to remove the stuff from the water column and then get it back to clean when I do my maintenance. I tend to use multiple porosity of sponge and generally always end up cutting it myself for the sake of being able to do so. Aquaclear is the "easiest" stuff to get your hands on from the big box store. You were fine to replace it. I think I was just asking about how dirty it looked! I apologize for any confusion. Keep feeding in the stability slowly each day. After a week things should be resolved as long as you're not introducing ammonia unknowingly from another source. If you can, please add an airstone to the tank.

possible, but my tank is covered and in a room with the door often closed. When the window is open, bugs can get in. I am pretty sure mine is detritus worms at this point. I can't say if the stuff on the glass is worms or not. I'm letting it grow before scraping to figure out what exactly it does. It's very very small as mentioned by the OP. What kind of insect do you think it could be? same as that video in the other thread?

Agreed. The topfin lid did come with some of those but MAAAAAAN they are flimsy and cheap as heck.

I am trying to find the words to describe how mine behaved. Can you describe the scape you have for yours? I think there's a lot that comes down to line of sight issues, especially for the non-dominant males that are getting bullied. If you remove one that's a bully, another will take it's place. That is for sure. For reference, here is a photo of mine. Max size was high 20's. Once the PSO in the back right took off and some of the other plants filled the top of the water things were better. Having tall decor for them to swim around, swim through, even rest on is something that helped mine when they needed the break. I definitely would recommend having erythromycin on hand for the sake of a bad wound and needing bacterial meds in the water (or salt) for when they do have a bad fight. If there is a fish that's struggling, don't let the herd pick them off, try to move them to another tank and let them regain some strength, then added them back once you're sure they are healed up and/or can handle themselves. The other thing you should do is stagger feeding. Feed the main body, then find the few that don't get enough food and go ahead and target feed those while the herd eats.

This is what I would do for anyone with black sand specifically. Even on natural beaches, they have found metal which is a main reason for some of the Tahitian sand no longer being sold under the super naturals brand. If you want black substrate, I'd recommend the flourite black sand. It's not a sand, but it is something where you can feel "fine" about it and it performs somewhat between a gravel and a sand bottom. If you want sand, I'd recommend pool filter sand or super naturals.

I used 30-40G sterilite tubs for my fish. I moved a 75G into two tubs, and a 29G into one tub.

I need to know a few things. 1. What is your filtration, how is it setup? (I see the picture above, internal, etc) 2. Please perform these tests below. This is perfect and all you really need to sort out issues moving forward, apart from testing. How long was that cartridge in the filter? What color was it? I would think you can feed him if he will eat. Start slow. Once a day, etc. If parameters are stable you should be able to extend out water changes. If the QT tub is good for the fish right now, then you'd be able to keep them there for an extended period and then give them a sterile/stable environment while letting the tank itself sort out any issues. I would recommend filling the internal filter itself with sponge. There's a few of these that have caused the exact issues that you're going through and the majority of these issues are simply going to be due to the way cartridges work. You don't need them and ultimately, you're much better off filling the filter with foam. You can add a bag of ceramic media as well, if you wish (it would be on the top of the foam). Flow is from the bottom up so it's a pretty easy one to modify. You can buy bags of carbon designed for aquaclears that will fit into the top of the filter and that would be what you'd use in a situation like this where you're trying to remove something nasty. I would cut down on prime, especially if the tank is empty of fish. Check parameters to see if it's stable, rising, falling, etc. Along with the other tests this will give us an idea of what's going on.

Many thanks. Trying to figure out if it's even safe for my hands in the tank at this point. Next step for me after expel-p is the canine dewormer with fenbendazole

@dasaltemelosguyis what you're seeing anything similar to this?

Do you see them free floating or just on the glass? I have something similar on mine, unsure if it's worms of algae at this point. I tried to record a video, but I don't have a good camera to do so. I've got 3-4 videos of it, I'll review them and see if anything worth uploading. I am not a fan of worms right now.

I have not, there is a few videos on it that are pretty good on how to do so. Structurally, there are some tools available, but I can't speak to any of them and how reliable they might be.