nabokovfan87

We had one in a 38G bowfront. It was about 24" tall. After three months the guy was chasing everything in the tank around. You never know the personality and they have some pretty specific needs. I would highly recommend starting with a 20H. If you have JUST one angel in the tank (maybe some corydoras or something on the bottom) then you can use a 10G. If it is one that happens to be tall it's going to have very little room and you're going to have an issue with flow depending on your filtration you're using.

Dean is a breeder. So he has fish in various stages of their life in a variety of tanks. Full grown, adult angels in a long term tank.... Let me pull up and see what Dean is using specifically. That's very different than I think a tank that is used for display and not breeding. Dean also has very limited space and a TON of tanks. First thing dean says "this is a 29G tank, probably overloaded". (13 fish in one tank) and he clarifies that's JUST a holding tank while he is setting things up for pairing. Dean says 29G tank. no more than 4 adults. "if you overcrowd, make sure you do keep up with waterchanges" He says he's kept them in a 10G tank before. I don't think he recommends that in any way. I think as mentioned above 29G is the bare minimum because you want a tank with some vertical space. If you're keeping 1. a 20H does this as well.

They are cichlids and need some room. 29G is mentioned because it's a tall tank. Minimum for me is going to be a 55G or a 40B. Preferably, honestly, 75.

That makes perfect sense! So yes, do everything as I mentioned, but you'll have to remove the old substrate, then move the old tank, and then put the new one in place. I don't know why the manufacturer of the substrate is giving you cause for concern with particles. I've added new substrate to tanks with fish in them, let alone it being corydoras. As long as the substrate is rinsed, you can add it to the new tank and add fish without waiting. You run the filter for a few hours with floss before adding fish if you are at all concerned. The only reason I can sense any concern would be that the manufacturer wants to give the tank time to sit and cycle, to remove any particles or oils that might be on the substrate. Thoroughly rinsing takes care of the second part and the first part is solved because you're specifically trying to preserve the cycle.

I third carbon. Fine filter pad might help too, but carbon and (mostly) water dilution is going to do all the work for you. Carbon will remove the stuff you don't see, changing water will get it back to normal color.

What is your filtration? Please feel free to add any photos and show off the awesome work. Welcome! I will share this, the parameters mentioned seem to be right on with your water in terms of hardness and PH and it might be a good resource for you regarding their care. There is also a lot of other content creators that have written guides which can be found in the co-op blog if you prefer the written variety. https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/betta-fish-care-guide

Hey hey, I am actually in the process of doing this literal thing in my own home. I have to take the fish out of their temporary 10G and move then to either a 20L or 29G. I've also done this in the past with 10-->20L and with a 55G-->75G. I will try to break down my method while commenting on your own notes. I apologize if I miss something, or if something isn't clear. There is definitely a lot of details to talk trough 🙂 The first question I have is simply when you say 30 do you mean 30G or 29G aquarium? Are you moving from a 20H to a 30G? What is the footprint difference? I assume you have the correct amount of hardscape, rocks, and substrate for the new aquarium. That's the only reason why I ask. And of course, once the fish and plants and whatever else are moved, you're always able to add more of whatever need be. Totally understood so let's make this easy on you! I would encourage you to rinse the substrate thoroughly. You definitely don't need to wait 48 hours before adding fish. The better you rinse it, the better the filter has a chance of clearing any small particles. You can also add fine pad or filter floss to your HoB for the first 24-48 hours and this will dramatically help to remove those fine particles. I would setup the new tank in its position before you touch the old tank in any way. This means, take the time up front to clean it, rinse, sanitize, anything you feel you need to do BEFORE you move anything or touch anything in your currently running tank. Personally I would not use hand sanitizer on the tank itself. You are better off using a bleach dilution and then dechlorinator. The sanitizer is going to be a mix of alcohol and aloe vera, but there may be some scented something that is in the formula that leaves a residue that may cause an issue. Chlorine bleach or salt is going to be the typical method for sanitizing of the aquarium or equipment I would not rely on anything from the substrate to be your new beneficial bacteria starter. If there is bacteria in there it will help, but your main source is going to be any filtration you're running. That's the priority to keep the cycle as best you can. This just means, keep your media and sponge wet with tank water and aeration at all time in this process. (easiest way to do this is to toss that in with your plants after you clean them off). First things first is to move the fish somewhere. Be it, a tub or bucket with a sponge filter, airstone, whatever it is so that you can just work on removing the substrate and draining the old aquarium. I also would suggest you don't feed the fish for 3-4 days before moving them to the new aquarium if they are going to sit into buckets for an extended period of time. 1. setup two buckets and drain CLEAN tank water (try not to siphon the ground or stir anything up, just drain off water into the buckets). ---->Bucket one, plants, rocks, and your cleaned filter media/sponge (may need 1 for hardscape, one for plants) ---->Bucket two, fish with aeration of some sort. (If you have feisty fish, you would setup multiple buckets for fish. You can add dechlorinator here and some of the other products they have to absorb ammonia over time while the fish are in buckets/tubs. There is a product call poly filter that is used when shipping fish that you can use as well. (Poly Filter Aquarium Filter - Poly-Bio-Marine Inc) You'll want to make sure you have a lid on the bucket as well as keeping it dark and in a place where it won't get bumped or near loud noises as best you can. 2. Get a small plastic container (12-16oz cup of some sort is what I usually use) to scoop the substrate into a bucket. This goes directly into the new aquarium that is setup and ready to go. If you wish to rinse the old substrate at this point, this is when you would do it. After any rinsing, go to the new aquarium and add a few inches of water (new water from the faucet, with dechlorinator). The goal is to keep the old substrate wet. Use the cup to slowly scoop it into the new tank. This will help prevent cracking the glass with the very heavy, wet substrate. At this point you have the new tank with your old substrate and a few inches of water. Get your newly emptied bucket, rinse off your new substrate and add that to the new aquarium. You would either layer or mix the substrate in whatever way you wish at this point. Finally, fill the new tank at this point and let everything sit until day 2 if you need to. You'll want to at least have an airstone moving the water in the tank. You can at this point move onto step 2B or simply drain / rinse out the old aquarium. 2B. If you still have energy to do so, you can move any rocks or wood into the new aquarium as well as start the filter up. This is sort of where you're "stuck" at an impasse of whether you prefer to preserve the cycle or have the filter with the fish in their holding container. Whatever you have in buckets should have some some sort of aeration. (fish, plants, rocks, etc.) Wood is a bit difficult because it usually doesn't fit into the bucket, I'd recommend adding that to the new tank with the filter running as soon as you can. Day 2, check on the fish and look for signs of stress As mentioned above for day 1. Don't use "old water" because you're using that water in the buckets and anything left in the aquarium is going to end up being completely filled with much from stirring up the substrate. In the new tank, just use new water, it's much easier and will give the fish better parameters in terms of ammonia and nitrite/nitrate. The other parameters of your water should be identical, leaving only temperature as the main concern for any acclimation. Add anything that isn't your fish back into the tank and let the tank run for 1-2 hours at that point. This clears up anything you need to for the fish in terms of the substrate cloudiness. You can run the tank at this point at any length of time until parameters are satisfactory for you. Add your fish and monitor their behavior. There are things you can do to help. Those being, running carbon for 1-2 weeks in your filter and adding beneficial bacteria from a bottle for 7 days (fritzzyme 7). You shouldn't have to do anything, and as you mentioned, the key is going to be monitoring parameters the following 1-2 weeks.

I finally found the video.

Very cool! Mine is "fully grown" and I could only imagine how fun it would be to have multiple. The white tips remind me of the big open ocean white tips that seemingly have a very similar personality. Corys are always fun for me. I always enjoy their variety and how they seem unique from other fish. Thanks for sharing! Very very very likely. I just imagined the amano looking down at all the other shrimp and making gigantic walking sounds when she moved around and all over the tank. 😂

I found this photo when trying to find a top down view. Just makes me wish I had a pond or something. Very cool that you have that view outside every day. Very reminiscent of sterogyne repens

Makes total sense. Unfortunately there is a lot of $$$ that people want to use to protect the politics and even where there are laws they are ignored. I absolutely agree through, there is a very easy "feel good" way to make change and it's going to take some effort. Sharkwater does do lobbying and does have some weight in that avenue. They have some groups that are associated and listed on their website for the cause as well as news updates for major corporations who have reviewed or changed their products as a result of the new information brought to light. Please be sure to pass on the recommendation to any friends would be in the field to check out the movie!! Absolutely agreed and that's also very important for hobbyist to do whatever they can. Learning about project piaba was really cool for me because I know that just by buying from a specific seller I can help with those changes.

Took me a second for my eyes to adjust. Reminds me of the ocean aquarium tour with all the big moss walls. 😂 That pleco being upside down made me look twice. Nice!

A simple request. For anyone who feels like it would be fun and interesting, please reply below with a photo of your tank from an angle you don't usually view it, share it, or see it. I was taking photos for a buddy this morning who may or may not get a tank and they had asked what species I had in mine. this led me to the following view and the thought of this post. I will retake it after I am done with the water change today, but I'd really enjoy seeing everyone's tanks in a new perspective.

One of these days when you're doing a water change and the filter happens to be off. I highly recommend viewing the tank from the top like a pond and looking at the bocopa. One of the reasons why I purchased it for my tanks originally was for just that one view. Amazing tank. Nice work. Nice recovery from the algae.

This amano is officially named king kong now. Pictures of the green corys and the sharks!?!?!?!? How do you feel about your RT-Sharks? Mine is in the journal, but she's been having some "fun" behaviors the last 2 nights since I rescaped the tank. Agreed. I like to design things and for me it's a very creative outlet. Especially being able to just get in and mess wish scapes all the time or placement of things. It's a very aesthetic thing for me and something that keeps me busy on something positive instead of negative. I also, since being back in the hobby, really appreciate the aural aspect of the aquarium and having the flowing water around me. For my chores today: I got the new tank stand in, will likely assemble it around midnight or so with the pups. I had to clean the front yard again a bit so I can use the newly cleaned area for my water changes. I fed the fish, turned off the flow to the pumps and got distracted again.... Hate that. Why can't HoBs just have a feed button..... so. early WC but that's perfectly fine. The tidal's tell me I need to clean them every 5 seconds because of the constant bypass anyways.

That makes total sense. If you have any further questions please feel free to ask. Another thing I've seen people use for sterilization is salt and/or sunlight. It all is depending on how much time you may have to do so. I think you're doing everything right. The big question is just concentrations of bleach and how much rinsing/dechlor might be required.

Something like this might be of a good help for you. I think rinsing a bunch, dechlorination chemicals, and air dry is about what will work best for your situation. There's a lot of videos around that go through different bins for nets (co-op has a few but it's hard to search/find them) and it's been a topic on live streams and other podcasts and stuff. This is also a good time to mention purigen and videos on how to "recharge" it might be a good place to look as well for any advice for you. Here is another.

One of the techniques to check out is when Cory feeds the 800 gallon. He would drop some flake or something for the tigerbarbs, then he would drop in something sinking for the other fish that needed it at the bottom. He also has mentioned just having "enough" food in there when feeding so that some drops down below. In my experience, something like the hikari vibra bites, you have a portion that will float, some will slowly sink, some will sink quickly. this happens with the xtreme krill flakes and xtreme spirulina flake food as well. Either one of those are my go to food day to day. When I feed frozen brine or worms you have the choice of swirling it around in the tank to melt some for the bottom feeders, or you can just let it float and some will fall naturally as it's eaten. It's a 29G tank, so just be careful not to over feed (tall tank, basically), and it's something where over time you'll get a better idea of what works and doesn't for your community of fish.

The second one, we have one of those in the garage. It's really not as sturdy as I thought it would be. This one is the other one we have and it's much, much, much stronger in terms of the construction. They sell big and short versions so you don't have to have one too tall. As far as what would work, that's all I have experience with of assembling the lowe's link you posted and this one below. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-4-Tier-Heavy-Duty-Industrial-Welded-Steel-Garage-Storage-Shelving-Unit-in-Red-77-in-W-x-78-in-H-x-24-in-D-HBR782478W4R/310651472

Oh I very much value this question! I have two 29G stands, would love to eventually have a rack of them.

I think the last line of the blog post is pretty critical to keep in mind when reading the rest of the information. A lot of new hobbyists might want to see 0-0-0 on their testing to "think" that their water has nothing but H2O in it's chemistry. Step 1 is to understand the nitrogen cycle and why that matters. Step 2 is to understand planted tanks and how that nitrogen can be used. The comment I made earlier about "where it comes from is pretty relevant" as well. I think a lot of people want to deep dive into organic chemistry, and that's perfectly fine. It matters for the health of the animal what the quality of the water is. I specifically care if the nitrate is there because I'm not changing water enough, over feeding, or if it's because I'm adding it manually via dosing. I use that as a metric because I need to know if the amount of water is being changed, how the plants are doing, how is their intake of the nitrogen day to day? There's a lot of perspectives on this blog and on the organic chemistry side of things. I won't say any of it isn't valuable, but that's how I view this when reading the blog and my own day to day issues with nitrates.

Unfortunately this is a larger scale issue than I think most people realize. The people farming the sharks then, generally speaking, eat them culturally now. Furthering the use for the meat and more byproducts from oils, skin (i.e. sandpaper), food products for humans and pets. I highly encourage everyone to go ahead and watch the film and decide for themselves. I really, really don't want to "spoil" the story line and the impact it may or may not have on the viewer. All I can say is that it's very well made and highly recommended. There is a lot of things being sold as something else, now actually containing the mercury as a result.

I think your main contaminant is going to be dust. I would cover the aquarium with a towel, potentially a tarp or something that will allow air to flow out but not necessarily setting internally through the towel. https://archive.epa.gov/epa/saferchoice/potential-chemical-exposures-spray-polyurethane-foam.html#routes I would run lots and lots and lots and lots of carbon during the time they are doing anything in the house, immediate water change after, and the following 2 weeks I would run more carbon. I really hope things turn out OK.

Literally couldn't tell you how many times I've started WC at 1 AM. I know I'm not the only one.

One of these days I will have a rimless tank. I love what you're doing, nice work!