nabokovfan87

No worries at all, absolutely no rush!

If I could, everything on a 3' or longer tank would be side mounted. Below that. Anything that is a."long" would also be.

Keep in mind some barbs like a big yard to run around in. Sort of like trying to keep a great Dane in a NY studio appt.

I totally needed coffee before trying to process what I was looking at. 😂 I think there's a few things going on and it's likely a good idea to really take a step back and think about what you want the tank to be. A. If you just want the fish to be happy, you can use sand and leave it at that. Root tabs can be used, for some of the plants you have, but it's going to (potentially) limit some options for you. B. If you want something like dark substrate, there is a lot of products out there that are made for planted tanks and do have normal, fine, extra fine particle sizes. this would help with fish like corydoras and work well long term in a planted tank. I would suggest controsoil fine with a layer on top of "extra fine". This gives you the ability to do a carpeting plant pretty easy if you wish to. If you don't then A or C might be better for you and using something inert. C. You can use anything you really want to use, visually, and just remove a section to have a sand area for feeding the fish in question. This is pretty typical and it's entirely up to what you want to do. If you had sand, what color sand would you want? If you had one color substrate, what color(s) would it be?

This one?

Posting this mostly for posterity more than anything. It's been slightly cold this week. Temps for the tank are well within range. I have also had a metric TON of baby shrimp. I lost 1 female shrimp yesterday (overnight) as well as one last night. The one from this morning was something where she did appear to have the white ring, but I also saw baby shrimp that were just hatched. I really tend to lean towards food, lack of, or general issues with stress from releasing shrimp as being the main concern. There's going to be more cover, but right now, maybe there isn't quite enough. I'll test GH and KH for the sake of clarity. This also could be due to just having Riddick in the tank and that causing some stress. It's tough to really say for certain the root cause here. I am not overly concerned, but I did want to record that for future notes. The water change today was fine, one stubborn baby shrimp, but the only real thing of note was that the water change water was slightly colder than I would like. I will use water from the sink where I can control the temp in future. Mentally drained, no sleep, and no coffee, so let's just reset and move on! 🙂 Sidenote: New filters are slightly easy to clean and work immensely well for a shrimp tank. They hold the gunk in well and I can just siphon the sand as need be. The baby shrimp I can just dip the sponge and they generally try to get away from the sponge. It feels hefty and very heavy, which is just the sign for me that it is doing a good job of the mechanical filtration.

Yeah, I believe they are slightly more common than a lot of barbs, even Odessa barbs.

It's a good choice, the only issue is usually whatever lid you're using that limits this option. Side mount HoB works well though.

I'm sorry about that @Mahi27 If you want, post pictures about how they were packaged and maybe we can advise? As far as shipment, the main thing is to follow the guidelines and then to ship them from the facility itself that is the main hub for the area. For USPS this is often just the actual post office, for UPS it's going to be the sorting facility (whatever the term is these days).

It feels like it's been forever. 😞 I really do appreciate the guided tour so to speak and seeing it all. Everyone keeps their tanks so differently and it's helpful/refreshing for me to take a step back and just see the space again. Definitely drinking coffee near midnight, so I think this qualifies. LOL BARBS. I think this layout is my favorite. I like the long branch of wood across the span of the tank. It reminds me a bit of the jungle book for some reason and I'm waiting to see a bagheera to pop out of the back of the tank and watch baloo and mowgli below being goofy together.

I would check out a youtube content creator called George Farmer, Filipe Oliveira, and a major channel called Green Aqua. Lizzie also has some very nice setups on the Aquarium co-op channel. There's a ton of great content out there. For reference, here's just one of the many available. I really enjoy the green aqua master series as well. The main thing is to just have fun with it and to enjoy the process. Shrimp are generally pretty forgiving and just want to have a good setup.

What is your KH right now? You could also try adding Seiryu stone.

The big items for me would be.... Feeding dish / Petri dish Pinsettes or aquascaping tweezers Bucket, small siphon, towel Piece of wood (for shrimp) Anubias works really well with the stone you've mentioned GH+KH liquid test kit (needed for shrimp) Shrimp net (not necessary, but helpful) Cull tank or tub (if you're trying to breed strong coloration) If you want to go the moss route (mentioned above) I would also suggest some moss thread to tie the moss to the wood or even moss ledges to tie the moss to.

PH can cause a similar type of reaction as well as just anything externally. Interesting. What would be the usual suspect, gram negative or gram positive or both?

Hey hey everyone, I wanted to post a "Thanksgiving special" of sorts here in a few days. I'll grab the details and the link when I can, but....! It might not be one that everyone has access to, but it was uniquely special for me to enjoy when I saw it. Please feel free to post up your thoughts on the last selection. Really an enjoyable and interesting one. @PineSong you're on deck for December! 😁

@Guppysnail can we move this to the disease section and help get eyes on it in case anything comes up! Many thanks.

@Vicki thank you for the kind words. I appreciate it. One day at a time, you'll get through!

Alright. I think I understand. I just asked because looking at the growth it seemed pretty evident one of them had nutrients charged up and others might not have.

I'm assuming the "main tank eco complete" vs. non-main tank eco complete just means it's cycled and has been charged up in the tank?

I couldn't help it. I heard pecktec's voice saying "megaaaaaaa flex" trying to read the headline for the thread. 😂

Unfortunately, it's normal for this to happen. I take mine to the UPS shipment warehouse because the local UPS store claims they "don't ship" them. Despite that they do. It's not worth the argument and I would recommend getting on the phone and speaking to the person at the sorting facility/shipment warehouse for UPS or the postmaster for USPS and verify that they will ship the package. Take the name down of said person for the sake of any issues. FedEx won't ship live animals anymore from my research.

From Mark's Shrimp Tanks: https://aquariumshrimpkeeping.com/copper-and-shrimp/

From the website: Guaranteed Analysis: — Water Soluble Nitrogen (N) 2.66% — Available Phosphate (P2O5) 0.46% — Soluble Potash (K2O) 9.21% — Water Soluble Magnesium (Mg) 0.7% — Boron (B) 0.015% — Water Soluble Iron (Fe) 0.13% — Water Soluble Manganese (Mn) 0.036% — Molybdenum (Mo) 0.00098% — Water Soluble Zinc (Zn) 0.0072% NPK 2.66 - 0.46 - 9.21 The label does say exactly what you've specified, but it's not listed under the analysis. Either way, I've been using it for years at this point with two species of shrimp without fail or issue.

You might try gently raising the temp to 78 in addition to other things mentioned above. I had my ram freeze on me and I just overly am concerned with that now. Mine was at 73-74 and I didn't realize until way after what I did wrong. Temperature being slightly off leads to stress, leads to issues like diseases and parasites showing up, so it's just something I want to mention. It's a bit interesting that the PH is this high. It makes me wonder about aeration, but that aside I don't think anything is of concern here. I would keep an eye on PH and make sure it doesn't go any higher. If possible, verify KH via a liquid test kit.

Can you give us all the water parameters including temp?