nabokovfan87

Two of my favorite things happened today. 1. I cleaned off the glass of the tank and it's in place, level, waiting. 2. It has the background applies and it's literally just waiting for water. wow! I really am looking forward to my "retirement tank" just being amazing discuss to look at. Insanely beautiful coloration right there. EEEEeeshhh... been a rough offseason for her. Hopefully she is going to "enjoy" Russel's first game back! I can't believe they let bobby go and were talking about others leaving too!

Mosses, anubias, java fern. Lotus and lilys, floating plants, etc. You can even just use a small terra cotta pot and add what you need without disrupting your existing scape too much!

Hopefully things work out! Sorry about the snail loss.

There's definitely some surface film. There is a product called clarity you can add, then just run filter floss for 2-5 days and it should clear up. Adding an airstone or surface skimmer is also another way to help. Ammonia would be the cause for bubbles, but given the slick of protein on the top of the water surface there was likely a chemical residue somewhere that is causing the added surface tension. You can drain the tank to about 10% full, using fresh water (a hose or something) and splash all the walls of the tank to try to get the residue off. Rinse everything and then just refill and hope it lessens using the filter floss over the next couple of days. Definitely need to replace the floss too. but beyond that it looks good.

I'm sure I'm not the only one.... IT'S RED! Anyways, I really dig the tank setup! The rocks and the plants mesh well and I really enjoy the open space with the moss balls. They do have "nano" moss balls. Keep an eye out!

I definitely would not for "sale tanks" in any store. That's sort of my own preference. the advantage being that you get to see the fish, they are easier to catch, and you can focus on filtration, certain types of plants as opposed to trying to make each plant look "good". It helps keep the tanks looking cleaner and it's much easier to show off the fish specifically. I also don't think you need any gravel stickers. I WOULD have a display tank for the store, as a talking point. I would suggest having a few around the store that show off hardscape, plants, and varieties of substrate. What if instead of substrate, every tank had a moss background? Or, black backgrounds, and then you can do every other tank or a few tanks with moss backgrounds to break up the sterile aesthetic of the setup. Rocks, Anubias, Java ferns, mosses, etc. That would be what I would go to. I think it definitely helps to have sections. A nanofish section, or sorting the tanks in question by temperature. "pick anything from this column and they should work well with one another". Something like cichlids and other "specialty fish" you can have information beside or around that area to explain how to setup a tank. This goes back to what was mentioned earlier, you have to have some display tanks to provide a talking point for what might come up on the day to day. As an engineer, we'd be working on a project and have drawers full of parts we could pull out for a meeting or on a moments notice. This is a great mindset to have when you're trying to show off your knowledge. Having something to talk towards diffuses confrontation and the customer has less of a chance of being confused about the proper care when it's right in front of them. One of the ones I have seen, each "bank" of tanks is 3-4 rows high, and each series of banks is exclusive to one another. On the floor, each bank (a grid of 3x4 or 4x3 tanks) had what basically was seamless sumps for each "system" and the all operated independently. The more breaks in the chain you have, the better off you are for minimizing contamination. Each bank of tanks will need it's own net, gravel vac, and specimen boxes. Having enough nets or having things go into sanitation containers every night is also a great method to have. If you focus on the process of how to keep the fish, then the you just need to understand what makes it easy or difficult to follow. What needs to be emphasized. The managers job at that point is to monitor the process and everything else simply falls in line.

if you change 20% of the water you still will have plenty of nitrites and such in there for the bacteria to do it's thing. If you have ammonia / nitrite, you generally do a water change if there is fish in there. Given the situation, something dead for 3-4 days, I would do a water change without hesitation. It gives you a chance to gravel vac and clean things slightly. It also gives you the chance to scrub things if algae took the opportunity to spike. Personally, I wouldn't "let it sit".

Definitely harmless. If you have more flow it should go away, but it's just part of a new tank. When my siblings had it on their tanks, I would just run my hand along the cables every time before I gravel vac. Once you have a good cycle in the tank it should be minimal or disappear.

Sweet! That's awesome. I am looking forward to seeing the tank you have for the little one.

I am definitely going to nudge you over to pondguru for that one! He's very good at breaking down setups for canister filters, any filtration really, and he has a lot of videos on what does what and why you'd want to use say.... A fine pad in place of sponge or just using multiple stacks of foam. There's one that I linked earlier, here's another 🙂 Feel free to ask anything you need to or if you still have questions regarding setup. The goal being mechanical (foams) then your fine pad, if you use one. Then you have your ceramic media (biological filtration). And then any chemical filtration (like carbon or phosphate pads). To clarify, sorry for the confusing answer, I think you need to get your filter in the right order and then determine what you want to run on the fine pad vs. the added layers of sponge. I have some filters where I only run coarse/medium pads and I've pretty much always gone back to adding a finer PPI sponge. The fine pad itself I will use when I feel like I really need to. For a canister filter, it makes a lot of sense (to me) to have it in there. If you're wanting additional mechanical filtration up front, I think adding more layers of sponge is perfectly fine as well as your intake sponge. You do have an intake sponge, but it looks like it doesn't completely cover the intake.

Not required, but it might make life easier if you have the media in bags. I don't know how easy it is to get the trays in and out of the canister and into a bucket of tank water. Entirely up to your preference! Very good to see this and hear the good progress!

Your water change % volume and your vacuum schedule seems perfectly fine. I wouldn't change that at all. The issue is tied to just the canister filter maintenance. In my situation, running a HoB filter, whenever I drain water from the tank, I clean the filter media and the sponges and see if I need to replace any fine pad. For a HoB, this is generally a weekly thing or bi-weekly. If you have a sponge filter it's about the same schedule and can be done as far apart as monthly. For both of these, there is going to need to be a "deep clean" monthly where you go and clean the pump, check things that need to be maintained to operate correctly like your airstone or impellers. A lot of people are going to have different methods for how long in between a "quick rinse off" and a "deep clean" for each type of filter method. For a canister filter it's a bit of a different beast. That just means it's much harder to have the "quick clean" mentality. At least once a month I personally would clean any media from gunk (sponges at least). The longest I would go without doing this is 90 days. Every 2-4 weeks I would check your fine pad until you have an idea of how often it needs to be changed. This is also an opportunity for you to see the state of the media/sponges and understand how often you need to clean things. With the load you have in the tank I imagine that it would not be monthly, but a bit longer between cleanings. Everything 3-6 months I would take the impeller out and clean that. I would run an intake sponge on your canister intake and every time you gravel vac, I would clean off that instake Sponge. For the case of making it "easy" this is what I would recommend: Week 1: 25% water change, test parameters Week 2: Gravel vac, clean intake sponge, check canister sponges, check fine pad, 25% water change. Week 3: 25% water change, test parameters Week 4: gravel vac, etc. (Likely need to change fine pad here) Week 5: 25% water change, test parameters, check canister filter sponges. Every 3 months: clean impeller, rinse ceramic media in canister, check seals and hoses, lubricate O rings on canister. The good thing is you're an active hobbyist. You're in tune with the fish and they are talking with you, letting you know what they need! It's good that you are keeping such a close eye and small changes will make things better for you and the fish. I know how you feel and all I can say is that it gets better and gets easier.

I would try to find a 20L for the Betta. It's a better environment for him and he might enjoy the tank. You can give him light flow and he won't have to hide in the log. I assume he spends a lot of time there? As.for stress and what you're talking about, I think you might have developed something called old tank syndrome. The mix of not cleaning the filtration as well as other stress factors may have let things build up and then over time it has an effect and you see losses. As for Otos and some nano fish, when you bring them into an existing tank there is always going to be some risk of loss. Otos especially. Losing 1 might be normal and might take up to a week for that to happen while.others purchased the same day will do fine. They are a great "beginner fish" but they also have specific needs and are usually highly.stressed out by the time they get to our tanks. Please check out the video above and let us know if that makes any sense for what's going on. As mentioned before, if you're adding new fish to an existing display tank it's recommended to have small tubs or something else to QT those fish. Irene (girltalksfish) has a lot of good videos on how to do this cheaply and with limited room.

Cleaning the filter isn't going to cause issues. The bacteria needs about 2-4 weeks. Anything after that should be cycled based on load. If you're adding load in that time, you can still clean the filter if you need to. Use tank water. That's s the only thing you need to do to keep the media cycled.

I'm not familiar, but going to pull up a sheet to try to understand the filter design. (note: it's a great filter for the tank you have, so that's awesome). You can absolutely get rid of the carbon and the ceramic media and replace it with sponge. I don't want to try to be overwhelming or make things seem difficult for you. The long and short of it is that you don't need carbon, it's helpful, but most people only run carbon to remove meds from the water. If you're dosing meds at all you absolutely MUST remove the carbon first. The ceramic media included in the filter is very poor quality and has extremely minimal surface area. I would recommend measuring your filter cavity so you have a general idea of what size sponge you need. The local shop should have some sponge you can purchase, the easiest thing is probably going to be something like the aquaclear 75 sponge and cutting it to shape. you can also add other ceramic media that is of better quality. It should have some visible holes on the surface, not just be a very hard/dense ring. Pondguru has some videos on good vs. bad media and uses a microscope to show off the differences. Hopefully this helps explain how the filter works and how to set it up. I think all of those deaths are temp related (see at the end of this post). PLEASE watch this to understand the impact of temp on the fish in this situation. I would recommend using a gravel vac only. By doing this much cleaning it's very easy for you to introduce something into the tank as a result. It could be soap or something else that finds it way onto something that gets added back into the tank itself. You never should have to remove plants, rocks, wood, gravel, etc. from the tank itself. You should be able to vacuum the substrate with a siphon and leave that as your only necessary maintenance besides cleaning the filters. The goal is to get your tank cycled, and you absolutely need to give the tank time to do so. Testing is going to be the method to understand when the tank is really cycled and when we can rule out the nitrite/ammonia spikes as an issue for fish deaths. I'd highly recommend making sure you're treating fish, especially the bettas with meds per the med trio from aquarium co-op. I'd recommend using Aq Advisor so you have a tool to check temperature ranges for the fish you're keeping! The WCMM are a cool water species and want to be in the 70-72 range, you have them almost 10 degrees too warm. The betta prefers warmer water. The Clown / Otos might also prefer cooler temps with higher oxygenation. If the Otos have severely red gills, you know they are stressed out. The reason more often than not is oxygenation and/or flow. They are a very small fish and can be delicate. Please don't feel defeated and understand this is unfortunately part of the process. You will have success as long as you never give up on the tank. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask us!

what is in the HoB filter? Seachem's FAQ on the website points to, be sure to only dose every 24-48 hours. the product will work for 24 hours. You don't want to dose it just to add some, but right now that's the "schedule" so to speak for how often to dose that. You can also add some carbon, but I'd like to understand how your filtration is setup. If you can, please post a photo of your scape in the tank so we have an idea of what hardscape you have in the tank that can support bacteria.

I really enjoyed seeing this, that's absolutely awesome! I think your tank right now is screaming to have some pygmy cories or something like false julii cories. They will both work with the temperature range you're at as well as the other fish you're looking into. The only concern, it's likely not going to happen, would be that when you have a tank with gouramis they can have some fish that chew on their little feelers. A small fish like a chili rasbora might be that perfect addition you're looking for. You do have a livebearer in the tank, so you're going to have some fry, just keep that in mind too. A bolivian ram might also be a perfect ad, given temp, and other fish you're looking at adding. GBR might work as well, but I don't know how well some corys do at 80-82 degree tanks. The ones mentioned *should* be fine, that's something to look into specifically. AQ advisor is a great resource. Keep in mind, if you do target 100% stocking, you might end up signing up for more WC thank you really want. Start slow and let the tank develop, you're doing awesome and I really don't want you to run into any road bumps. You mentioned plants.... I would look into mosses and even something like ledges you can add. it's a great way to add surface area to the tank itself, being that it's taller, and it might be an easy way for you to add plants to the wood, rock, pots, etc. Anubias nana petite might be a great one to add into the wood/branch section as well! One thing I will note, it's in front of a window.... You might want to add a solid background just to block out the light from outside and stop algae from stopping all the fun! and welcome to the forums!

It's definitely some kind of med. I wouldn't be concerned. I would run carbon for 1-2 weeks. I would do a water change as mentioned above.

That's terrible. When I had this happen, I took the tank I had and literally just replaced everything. I felt so defeated having to do that, but sometimes the snails are just that insane. I am glad it worked out for you. I am glad you're able to start changing the load on the tank and hopefully that makes things even easier for you. Is there any way to remove the males and females to different tanks or even have a divider so they don't breed? What kind of fish are you keeping?

Congrats on getting things in control. Awesome work for sure and it definitely is an amazing looking tank! I ran a tank with sand / the stratum and after a bit of flow from the HoB I ended up with sand mixed with black knobs all over it. Probably the corys having fun thinking it was some kind of sporting event! I don't think capping it would've done too much to stop the issues you were having. Some of those leech out a TON of nitrates/ammonia and the only way to resolve it is just high volume water changes and time. After a few weeks and the tank is "cycled" it should stop leeching as bad, but that's something where you wouldn't want plants and stuff in there. I know there's a lot of guides and videos on youtube of people starting up a tank right away and just doing 1 or 2 water changes. I usually do 4-5 based on testing results. Based on the photo, my apologies for the delay and just now seeing it, I would've used a scraper and scraped it out as best I could and then done a massive water change (75-90%). It's one of those things where you want to manually remove it as much as possible and then fight it with balancing the light and nutrients. Again, I don't think the substrate is the "root cause" of the issues, but it definitely didn't help the situation. It appears you have a lot more plant load this iteration, and the tank itself is absolutely awesome. I will be excited to see how you trim the plants and shape it once everything is grown in. You do have some stems, so if you do run into slow growth or lackluster growth, it might simply be a matter of boosting up your white LEDs and getting some PAR down deeper in the tank. I posted my settings for my 29G in the lighting section, but I think it's important to mention the plant load as you monitor the % you're operating at. I recently swapped out my 24" planted for a 36" planted (on a 29G) and it's really doing so much better despite the severe algae issues I was showing earlier. Sometimes we see the light and thing it's "enough" but there's a lot of refraction and loss as a result when you're going that deep in a tank. A lot of this is based on what kind of lights the plants want at the location they are at. Just a note. I'm not trying to say that your settings need adjusted or anything like that, but just something to be aware of as you monitor the algae. One of Bentley's other videos that's pretty useful is the one where he breaks down a few studies on light spectrums and what each one does for plants. I have used that (and so has he) to set the different ratios he recommends for certain types of tanks and plant growth. Some plants want a bit more blue, some need red, some might just want PAR. Based on those tweaks you can control a bit how the plants fill in the tank as well. I wanted to just pass on some advice Bentley gave me on his stream. I asked him what he keeps his nitrates at. He said on his plant for profit / heavy planted tanks he's usually 5-10 ppm. For his other tanks, community setups, he does have "some algae" and he is again, trying to target that 5 ppm range. There's a bit of fluctuation because of the fish load. I mention that because it's something I'm seeing promising results in my tank, dropping from the 30-40 range as my base down to 10 and I am FINALLY seeing the growth I expected to see. I'm working on repairing a bit of hardscape and plants in my QT tank and starting from a place of hair algae exactly like what you had going on. I'm definitely hoping I can manage half as well as you did with the adjustments I'm making. With time you'll be able to get that light on 100% load with the plants you have in the tank, it's going to be AWESOME! I'm glad you got it sorted and are finally happy with your results. It shows.

I had a bad snail infestation and then felt like I was going to lose hardscape as a result because I couldn't get them out. I did a bunch of research, considered the risk, and was going to dose it. Then I realized I can't because of the high risk to the amanos if I can't get it out. Interested to see how it goes for you, I wish you the best.

Sweet! Let us know your thoughts.

Mine did fantastic right up until I took the thread off the rhizome and glued it. It has a very small root structure and rhyzome. It's not very demanding at all but definitely has some issues for me. That's why I tend to ask about it. I've also heard it's not fully aquatic. So there's that. At the big box store they sell it under the name el nino fern.

Yep. One of my favorite plants. I always want to know how it's doing when I see it.

how has your experience been with this plant?