nabokovfan87

@Missalice welcome! Biofilm is normal and you're likely experiencing some from the food itself. If you want to get rid of it completely, there are skimmers you can use. I would recommend using something that has a fine pad (much easier in my use) than the ones that have the sponge (eheim skim 350 is what I have now). Here's an example from a pecktec video. I can't speak to the quality of the product, but it gives you an idea of what you're looking for and how it functions. Did you rinse the sand before adding to the tank?

Phase 3: Modified intake (No skimmer, intake tube only) It's been a long time coming, but I finally put in the parts to run some tests with the modified intake. I will need to see how much this changes the flow in the tank and how much input pressure this puts on the intake itself. My hope is that there isn't any issues with the modifications with regards to the pump functioning, and this simply means what we have is an "improved" design. What I will say is that from my initial thoughts, the mods are extremely subtle and you won't really see them if you don't know what you're looking for. You won't see the blue dial in the water, you won't see plants and other things stuck on the mid-level and skimmer intake anymore. It should be a much more sleek installation all things considered. I briefly recorded a video, but this was after a water change and the tank was pretty full of bubbles. I wanted to show the filter working directly following it's first power on. Over the next few days I will keep an eye out for noise, and I will go ahead and see how things change with regards to the flow in the basket itself. I am currently running the old basket so I can modify the improved design by sealing those final slots. A final note on the modified basket run. there was a lot of bypass, again, due to the crushed coral. I did see a little bit more muck in the coarse pad and I was pretty surprised how much it had removed from the water in such little time. I didn't take any photos or record anything because it wasn't too spectacularly different than the expected results shown before. I saw a lot of muck in the slots, on the areas where there was bypass, and in the bottom section of the basket. I will seal up the basket tomorrow, then go ahead and let it cure and replace the original basket running now with the fully modified design. Edit: Here's some night shots, sound test, and views of the filter installed.

I have a caveat, but more on that later. This is my 75G tank. It is very very similar in setup to my 75G setup. This photo below is when it was "early on" and I was trying to figure out how to manage a planted tank. I can tell from the years of photos on my phone I don't have many saved. I may have purged them, but it was a situation where I personally wasn't proud of the tanks I had. This one had plants, it had failures all over it! But this was a tank I could sit in front of and be very happy with, visually. The tank itself was running a lot of equipment, you can see the CO2 on the left side there, the pleco on the right (see @Mark C.), and a bunch of random fish. This tank was literally setup for plants and to hold corydoras as the main fish. The tidal's skimmer grabbed the green tiger barbs while they slept and I'd wake up once a month to one of them passing. It was very discouraging, very heartbreaking, and ultimately I am now trying to resolve that situation (experiments section, seachem tidal fix). Now, for the caveat. You see how there is sand and there is an attempt at a cap on the mixed gravel? Well, this is AFTER the co2 crashed. After all of my plants died. After the moss on that center piece of wood melted to nothing. The anubias is doing fine, you can see one of them with two flowers on it. One on the right might have another. You can see some of the barbs left on the top right, but as I mentioned... this tank has "failure" written all over it. This is of course perspective and not a determination. I very much enjoyed the tank and it ran for ~1-2 years. They were a blur, and the fish in that tank were extremely happy. I did a trim at the wrong time and didn't realize that the plants were not receiving CO2 and each one slowly fell off one by one. It happens. And ever since this moment I have been trying to get back to a "planted tank" that feels like that first setup. Here is the one I usually share, before the substrate was moved out, before the plants crashed, and even before CO2. this was the first time I had planted a tank at all. This one is the 55G that I moved over to the 75G above. So... what does the "main tank" look like now. Is it fair If I give you another caveat? 😂 I have a 29G tank, much smaller, and the family fish are elsewhere. This is the tank that I had off to the side of the main one. It housed a breeding project that I have tried for 3+ years now to get these fish to spawn and at the least to give them a good home. I learned from the pandas that they wanted a lighter substrate to keep their bright white coloration. In my 29 I have black corys that I want to highlight their coloration, so they have a dark substrate. I have tried to have a nice aesthetic to the tank, but it isn't a situation where I am "happy" with the progress yet. Visually, I like the layout of the tank. The plants will get there. The fish are happy. That's the point right now. With the state of everything going on, this is the tank I look at and I'm just calm. When I'm stressed I work on it. When I am trying to breathe I stare at it. This is the same anubias as shown above. The other plants are new. Bottom left is some Staurogyne Repens I've been trying to get to take hold and the other plant is Dwarf Hairgrass to try to carpet the tank. The thing I like about this tank is that it speaks to so much work that no one will see. That anubias on the right, that one leaf, every new leaf was months of effort trying to get it to come back after being in a tub and decimated with black beard algae. Every time I'd try to add a plant it would melt, obviously I'm still working to get them to carpet, but it's not something I'm intimidated by the challenge at all. I know what I have to do, and now I just have to monitor it while it happens. There is new growth on every plant and that took months to get to this point. The advice I'd give someone new is to have more patience than I did. If you want to have a planted tank. Focus on the plants before adding fish. It makes it much easier to fix things when you're not worried about upsetting other parameters. The tank should be stable, reliable, and healthy. This comes in many ways as well. The push to have it "perfect" is only half or one quarter of the journey. The idea for me has been to enjoy the process, focus on the method of that process, and to find myself trying to make time for that process. It's taken me a long time to develop that mindset. This is my goal.... filled out. Substrate fixed. It'll get there. In time.

I have a rock. It's been in a box for "a while" and it still has moss on it, but I'm sure it's not able to grow. If I ever get it in the tank and growing, I'll try to remember to share pictures here. Definitely is likely just something that was stuck somewhere and it has good attachment to the hardscape. That's awesome though. It will look good now that it has some nutrients from the new water.

There is "some ammonia" in the water. Beyond that not much. The big thing with what you're doing is... 1. Add waste to encourage bacteria. 2. Add bacteria to handle the waste (or wait for it to grow) 3. Wait for both types to appear to handle both aspects of the nitrogen cycle. Something Cory mentioned in one of his videos was building up the bioload the tank can handle. Let's say you want a tank where you feed 3 cubes of frozen food per day. You'd run a week at 1. then one at 2, then one at 3 and slowly build up to that bacterial load that your tank is able to handle. You're essentially doing the same exercise here. Trying to get the "ammonia per day" for the tank to handle. Add the same amount, let the tank handle it. Others please chime in, this is just a "note" and not a statement on method. But I wanted to share that in the case it's relevant and explains what's going on.

Yeah, moss it looks like. I really would like to understand how this tank got setup here. I'm sure there's a story.... I wonder why there's a canister + UGF. So many questions.

Paracleanse is for a specific set of parasites, Expel-P is for a different set. Paracleanse: Commonly used to treat: Gill & Skin Flukes (Gyrodactylus) Swollen Abdomen Wasting Disease Hole in Head Internal Tapeworms Expel-P: Expel-P from Fritz Aquatics is used as a deworming medication and is intended to treat parasites such as Planaria, Nematodes (like Camallanus Red Worms), Roundworms, Nodular Worms and Hookworms. Symptoms in new and sick fish can include worms visibly protruding from the anus of the fish, wasting, abdominal bloating, disinterest in food, or rapid breathing or gasping. Expel-P does not treat Cestodes (tapeworms) or Trematodes (flukes). For these parasites, try Fritz ParaCleanse. Paracleanse

"Every year I fix the car, not fix anything" ^^ Sounds like the same analogy as well. Such a great movie. 😉 I think it took about a week, week and a half on the tank I just setup and it didn't have any fine pad or anything, just ACO Sponges. I use Seachem Clarity and it works "fine" but definitely recommend using it with a fine pad or something, even briefly. Looks like it's between .05 and .2 ppm

There's 2 scenarios described. Let me re-watch and try to break them down. Scenario 1: Not Changing Water -Topping off the tank only (PH slowly decreases over time) -Letting nitrates build up and stay high -Overfeeding in addition to the above Scenario 2: Not Enough Maintenance -Not changing enough water volume -Not changing water often enough -Not maintaining the system via gravel vac or via cleaning the filtration (build up of the off-colored M&Ms) -Overfeeding in addition to the above It depends on the system itself. You're feeding heavily, he might not be. You might have more fish in the tank. You might not have plants to take in nitrates. Your plants might not be taking in as much nutrients as his do. There's many variables here. I understand how it seems "fine" to follow something you saw in an online video, especially one from Cory. I would listen to what he says in the video. "We don't have a very good methods to measure what's going into the tank. We measure the results. As long as we do our WC we get into this lull. We change our oil every 3,000 miles but are shocked when our transmission breaks. We're doing our maintenance, but we're not really testing the overall system. Most people don't even have a hardness test kit. How do we fix OTS? The easiest way is to just up the water changes. If you're doing 10% every week, maybe it's better to do 30% every other week. I'm a big fan of automating your water changes. That's what I do. of I like to do 30-40% once a month. Kind of bigger water changes and I'll adjust as necessary. I might reduce the amount of fish I keep, I might change the quality of food (dry vs. frozen), or maybe increase to about 50% WC. I don't like doing more than that at any one time because you can run out of hot water and it's a more stable environment at 50% of less. Typically once a month I'm servicing the filter and maybe gravel vac as well."

So there's a definite technique for water changes with sand. I would argue if you're using buckets it's much easier because it's less work to keep it clean. The sand holds the mulm on it's surface and you can vac the surface (with a good siphon) without worrying about putting sand down the drain. If you're using a python, there is a pretty good chance some sand will end up in the drain. That's the only issue I foresee. I actually don't prefer or mind either one! I love the look of sand, I love the look of some gravel. I think the fish behave better with sand and it's easier on them (like running a bare tank in some way) for my corydoras. I will argue, if you buy cheaper sand, play sand, etc. There's going to be a lot of fines and you're going to likely have issues long term. Find good quality, consistent size sand.

Me too! I am trying to find photos but all my stuff is lost on old phones. Trying to dig through backups and files stored on random things.😩

Hey everyone, I think sometimes it's hard to remember and hard to realize exactly how far we've come in the hobby. I am sure many of us don't even know what the oldest photo we have really is. I am sure plenty of us will end up finding a great memory to explain or be able to see the journey you've taken as a hobbyist and feel a bit of pride. There is a saying, an old quote, "you can never step in the same river twice." For me personally this speaks to a lot of things in life. I look at each tank I've kept and every moment in the hobby as my attempt to start over and make it better. It might take me a year, five years, or ten years to finish the project, but I hope that with everyone sharing their journeys in this way, that we can find some inspiration for new hobbyists who happen to find their way here. If you can, take some time to find your oldest tank photo, let us know whatever you'd like to about it. Following that, please post your most recent tank photo and be sure to let us know whatever you'd like to say about it. Finally, I'll ask everyone who posts to try to give some sort of tip, advice, encouragement to a new hobbyist. Thanks!

I really love this look. Nice work.

Are they flashing at all? What do you mean by "acting weird"? Please show the scape in the tank so we can see what they may have hit if anything, or narrow that out as a factor. Do they go inside any decorations?

I can't speak to their temperament, but in terms of scape this is what I found.

One of Cory's fishroom blog videos he takes a spray bottle and shows you how to calculate out what you want based on spray size and to dilute the liquid the right way. (add X amount of water and then Y amount of safe per bottle) and then one spray is 5-10 gallons. I wish I could find it, but it's there! Somewhere. Absolutely possible and a great way to use the product.

I think it's good then. Bi-weekly changes. Aq Advisor might be a good place for "how much" to change per time. And then let's give the tank some time to see if KH and stuff holds steady or if it's going to drop off before you have to mess with the coral. The video I saw said the expected time is 3 months or so in a HoB and someone in this thread earlier (or another) gave the same report back as for use. Let's see what the tank does and give it a chance. Before any water change, test your KH and PH and let's keep track. So the "real PH" of your water is going to be whatever the PH is after 24 hours of aeration. After things off gas. My focus has been to ultimately try to stabilize PH by stabilizing my KH. Adding the buffer during WC adds the KH slowly over time and hopefully soon it's at a level where I can just maintain it and the crushed coral or buffer itself will do that for me. I'm not sure which. Preconditioning the water with the buffer is also another route. Essentially, if you have high PH water, no KH, you add that water to your tank. Because of the bioload it's going to drop the PH quickly if you don't have any buffering to hold some of that bioload (KH = your trashcan). So to answer the question, yes, adding the buffer helps. But you are adding the buffer. We just need to give it time and make sure it's increasing. If it's not, then we'd know that by tracking and be able to decide to add the buffer or add more crushed coral.

I think you're at the point where I just want to make sure you're ok with the tank, the tank is "stable" and over time KH will raise up. If you're seeing major issues still or changing water daily, or dosing prime daily, it's not a good situation to try to acclimate a fish. I updated the post above with results. I'm running crushed coral, and then during each WC I buffer the water with a dose of Alkalinity buffer (seachem). Thankfully it was on sale randomly so I was able to get some.

I was searching on google and found this clip that might be relevant. I'll end up re-watching but it's talking about the struggle you're going through. (should start at the right time, about 22 minutes in)

Let me run a test on mine for comparison. I have been trying another method to stabilize my KH as well. I did some research and I don't know how valid this is but BN can handle 2 dKH as a low up to harder water. RL pleco requires a bit higher KH. When I had mine I think it was about 100 ppm KH. I had issues with BN, but I did have one of my two that lived after acclimation without issue. The RL pleco, I had two, both acclimated fine, one died when I was having an equipment issue. Have you modified the basket in any way on the tidal? One issue is that the bypass might just be making the water not go through the bypass and not through the buffering media. Hopefully someone else with a different filter (I have the tidal as well) can report back maybe what to look for when the crushed coral is used up and needs to be replaced. Edit: Here's mine. I started at ~50 ppm and it drops off pretty quickly. PH starts at 6.8 and drops off pretty quickly over a week. WC help raise PH, but ultimately I would prefer to buffer KH slightly and have some stability. Even if it's just limiting from 6.8 down to 6.5 as the drop instead of 6.8 down to 6.2 normally.

Using the eyes, looks like 0.5-1.0 of sorts. Glad to see progress!

What is your care schedule? Dosing, WC, feeding, etc. OTS can come in a few ways, so it's important to understand why.

😩 I'm very sorry you're struggling and lost another fish. I reread the whole thread and I think for the time being it's best to just let's things settle and try to take a step back and figure out, double check, that everything is ok. The KH takes times to buffer, you've been doing a lot of water changes, and a lot of stuff is going on causing a lot of frustration (in both tanks). If you can, let us know what each tank looks like, what the filter is in each tank, and let's just determine what the KH and PH is in both tanks as well as what you're doing on a daily or weekly basis right now. The fish ultimately need stability, no matter what it is. So let's try to get that first before anything else. Whatever you decide to purchase needs to go through QT, which brings its own challenges as well. Do you feel like the tanks themselves are cycled, buffered KH, stable PH, and are doing ok? Did the RL have any ich spots?

Very sorry for your loss.