nabokovfan87

It's a bit of a story, but needless to say I don't really have a good answer. I don't think anyone really does. You can try dog dewormers like panacur-c and there are videos and directions on that use on YouTube and elsewhere. I opted for something a bit easier, a pretty strong salt dose. I tried to essentially run it as a brackish tank for a little while and hope that it would fend off the worst of the worms. I also followed that with rounds of expel-p and paracleanse. Overall it wasn't anything that got rid of them for good. Small worms like those are a type of roundworm that fall under the blanket term of detritus worms. Without a microscope and a really good database of some hundreds of species, it's really difficult to ID the particular one that you're dealing with. My best advice is to make sure you keep the filter clean, keep an eye on high flow spots for the worms populating, and be sure to clean the substrate with a good siphon when you need to. Manual removal, basically, be it by yourself or by fish is really one of the only ways to keep them under control if you don't have a fish that predates on them. In my case, I don't. Don't feed heavy, don't let the substrate have a lot of rotten food, and keep the filtration clean. That's about the best way I have to manage them. I don't have them nearly in high of a number as I once did, but I do see them at night swimming in the water column still or on the glass. I believe I have two different types at this point. One is very small and thin in the water column (detritus worm) and the other is a little shorter but bigger, prefers the glass (rhabdocoela). I basically never really see them sticking up out of the substrate at all.

You can flip the plastic or slide it to one side and it'll still work. I've got scraps of "rear trim" too that are put in place when need be. Trust me, we've all been there. Parameters will be fine as the tidal has good biological, but it's just a weird issue of trying to get "enough" circulation and get the flow in all the right spots. 4 foot tanks make it a little tough. It's just the way equipment, lids, etc. Are all designed.

Sounds good. The sooner you get fish and substrate moved, then you can just run this tank bare bottom and keep it going while you try to see where the water settles out at. In the meantime, try to track down a piece of mopani or something that you like for the future shrimp to graze on and work on the background (vinyl film works great!) Let me know if you need anything or have any further questions.

The stem in the back is shooting off aerial roots. Usually is a sign of trying to propagate out. This could be due to reaching the light or just a sign of lack of nutrients in the water column. For the other plant, I'm not sure what's really going on. When you do root tabs you generally don't want to put the root tab right under the plant, but near it to encourage the roots to reach outward and allow the plant to anchor itself. Aside from that, you can "mix in" some of the waste and such from the top section of the gravel to push it lower down and that might feed the plant better. All I can think is that it isn't roots (but algae or worms) or that it's something where the plant is really struggling to get nutrients. The leaves, especially those two on the right, are severely covered in algae as well. Try to spot treat them by dropping the water level and brushing them with hydrogen peroxide or using a toothbrush and supporting the leaf, brush off the algae that you can. It may be a light issue, it might be a nutrient issue, but the plants are showing signs of struggling. (I noticed one thing, I'll attach it at the end) What is your GH and KH?

It's definitely not a big deal. I added a suspension kit to my light and it's helped me a lot with getting full coverage on the tank. Essentially, the light raised up is at a "better angle" than it would be normally. Some people with deep tanks will end up using one light to push the back of the tank and a second light to cover the front of the tank. I think lifting it helps a bit so you can turn the one light up, push more PAR, but then you just have shallower angles (better refraction) so the light can actually penetrate deeper into the tank. Hopefully that makes sense.

That makes sense too. I had a very slow growing time.... again, the settings weren't dialed in... but I did see much better/faster growth once I was able to extend lighting times and figure out a bit better on how to combat the BBA in my tank. Adding CO2, fixing the circulation flow of the tank as well all helped.

I can only imagine how those patterns would compliment one another. Nice setup for some interesting fry!

@Potaqua pretty much some species of corydoras just need the right setup in the tank. Things like having certain plants for them to lay on or certain surfaces can be all it takes. With those ones in particular I think a bit of moss and just let them do their thing is 90% of the battle. As @Guppysnail mentioned food helps. Things like aqueon nutrinsect or krill based foods would be good sources of protein for them as well as live foods. Repashy also have foods that they love and would be very helpful to condition them for spawning. Conditioning, meaning you would feed them a bit heavier for a week or two and then have the hopes of that triggering them to spawn.

The normal size and the fine is pretty good. The fine is what I have in mine and it seems like "extra fine" to the eye. I would recommend sticking to that size or larger. I edited / added a bit of detail to the last post at the end there. My apologies! I tried to answer this and how I would proceed forward to "get ready" for shrimp. Part of that is allowing the fish to get used to lower KH as well as bringing in the shrimp at the right KH. KH aside though.... Your issue might be the GH in the end. 12-14 is about the max I would recommend for neocaridina. Amanos can go higher. Neos I prefer to recommend a range of ~8-9.

With that GH/KH I would tend to stick towards just the amano shrimp. They can handle pretty hard water and the PH is the only real concern there. You could look into some of the warmer water shrimp, saluwesi, but they are a lot higher sensitivity than something like neocaridina. Before you add any shrimp, for the sake of their pattern and color development I would add a black background. I run white/bright sand on my tank, but having the black background has been proven to allow them to color up well. The dark substrate + dark background is best, but I think (and have done so) that the background itself is enough. If you can use RO to cut the hardness of the water, maybe that's an option to get you down towards the neocaridina range. Especially on a smaller tank like this, you can have the water on hand for the changes. Great point. Using an active substrate might be a good option to drop the KH for you. It also gives you the option for some pretty good plant choices that like to feed from the roots. All that being said, if you're topping off with tap with that GH/KH it will get to a point where it's an issue for you over time. My shrimp are on both, it's not really an issue either way. As long as the water is where it needs to be, shrimp can be pretty forgiving with the substrate. They just may or may not need a feeding dish (usually recommended) depending on how chunky the size is. Hmm, good question. Step 1 for me would be to test the GH/KH of the tap water and see how far off that is from the tank with the coral into it (which you've done). Next would be to get the fish to some sort of a temporary setup (QT bin) so that you can pull the substrate and all that stuff easily. If you need to do a few water changes, if you go for an active substrate, then you'd want to see where things balance out at. From that you can see a KH of 6 vs. a KH of 11, so I would expect the PH to drop well into the neocaridina ranges and safe for amanos. You can try an off-gas test as well. (take your tap water, aerate it for 24 hours and then test it for KH/GH/PH and see what things settle out as. This is what your tank should be with an inert substrate, no coral or soil) In my case, I have generally low PH, KH low, GH is slightly higher. With the contrasoil (UNS active substrate) that stuff does exactly what it says it would do and it has balanced out right below 7 PH and everything is back to what my tap water is. KH or GH might be slightly lower, but that's very minor. The longer the substrate is in the tank, the less likely it is to drop the buffering parameters. If you're starting at a very high GH/KH, then I would expect it to drop, but I cannot say how much and for how long. I can only really say that it would be "less of an impact" longer term than something that starts with lower parameters. Essentially, with water changes you'll be adding so much in that you'll fill up the CEC on the substrate quicker and things would eventually go back to towards that mid-high 7's range.

It looks a bit flatworm-ey to me. Hard to say. A video would help. Here is one of mine for comparison sake. I ended up finding them here in the outflow of the filter en masse.

Most anubias can be pretty forgiving in terms of melting back. A mother pot vs. some other size pot just usually refers to the size of the plant. For a betta, I think you'd be fine with basically anything that says "anubias" on the label regardless of size of the initial plant. You can even use suction cups and some thread/fishing line to tie the plants up high for the betta to rest on. 🙂 The main thing is to just check the rhizome when you first get them for signs of decay and see what you can see.

I've got nothing. I don't know if that is algae or something else.

The acrylic in that stand seems to be non-structural. It isn't something more than a cover and so it's really tough to judge what I'm seeing. Essentially, can you share the model number or take some photos internally of the stand to show the structure a bit better?

Those shrimp on the moss look so cool. Really loving that tank shot.

oh... horn sharks. Those are cool little dudes. 😂Love this. My gut tells me they fit into your pocket or make a pocket. One of those two. The name reminds me of a cookie-cutter shark. *I totally cheated and looked it up, they have pockets!* That's an awesome little surprise from your mom. Really cool that you could just take your time and enjoy it as opposed to rush. Such a cool view. One of the most crazy looking sets of teeth out there in the shark world, but they just don't have the mindset to be that aggressive. Given all the work we put into our own tanks, it makes your really sit and appreciate all the detail in those massive aquariums.

Not really sure, honestly. I've had plants melt like that and I've never really been able to recover them. For the sake of it, can you check KH and GH? The only other thing that stood out was the drop checker color. Looks like it might be leaning slightly yellow, indicating slightly too much CO2. In a plants only tank, I don't really know if that's an issue at all.

I would love to live in this place... wow. I would also have a bit of a struggle breathing, waking up and having the mountains take my breath away every time. Needless to say, we appreciate your photos!

Some plants need iron. It's just sort of their nature. I don't mean to say this as to explain something you're not aware, but I just wanted to say it as an offhand comment of something where there are certain plants that benefit from added iron. Adding iron is a pretty low risk thing to do and worst case is you're adding something that might just be a bit of a waste in the end. In very extreme cases you would see something like BBA go a bit nuts on you. They do sell iron test kits, so maybe that is a route to go as well. The chart I have indicates low iron as the leaves being not as green as they should be and the veins in of the leaf standing out. It also has this same description for 4-5 other deficiencies and so I am right there with you when I say that it isn't an exact science, without testing or the education to spot it on plants. It's hard to know for certain. Compared to my own tank and my own S.Repens efforts what I see on your photos is that there is a lot of big leaves. Maybe these were from when the plant was doing really well. I think yours is growing 2-3x larger in diameter than mine. That alone tells me you're doing something right to get them to flourish to that point. I do see some yellowing and some leaves with the veins being a bit more visual than others. That being said, I would expect root tabs and normal fertilization to handle the vast majority of what you're seeing. I would add iron for a month or two and see if you notice an improvement. One bottle would last you a long time and you can use it as you see fit. I've had bottles for years unopened and sitting and I am just now getting back to having plants that need them. If I can help with photos of my setup or plants, then I will try to gather than information for you. I don't do anything special, but I do have different substrate. Sounds good. Give the S.Rep a good chance as it's an awesome plant and will do well eventually! Here's an old photo of my corydoras and you can see the S.Rep carpeting and being a bit nuts. This tank would be pretty similar to your own in terms of substrate and it took me a long time to dial in the light and get the algae to back off a bit. That being said... S.Rep was a trooper for me and one of the only plants to really survive. I moved the tank and all of these stems lost about 50-75% of their leaves because of swings in KH/GH. It happens. But it can be a very rewarding plant if you give it the chance!

Essentially, you'll see it more with smaller tanks, but what you're seeing is a type of mineral build-up. If you don't remove enough water, then when you top off the tank and do your water changes you're slowly adding minerals over time. Let's say you do minimal water changes, 10-15% once a month or something. As the water evaporates, then you'll have the TDS (things in the water) increase. To counter this you would top off with RO or distilled water. Imagine that the TDS increasing is only your KH. Those minerals build up over time, raises the PH, and that's what you're seeing. Let's start there and see if that fits the situation though. What is your maintenance like on the small tank? How does the tank parameters compare to the tap water parameters.

It's basically an indication of OTS setting in. The water you have is seemingly just fine with corydoras. KH can be slightly higher to give you long term stability. As you mentioned, there was some extenuating circumstances with the meds, but the goal here is to get your tap water to match your tank and get that KH up. daily 50% water changes (if possible) will do just fine to slowly raise up the KH over a week. I know it seems stressful, but please add an airstone if you can. Sometimes the oxygenation isn't quite where you want it to be and it's a pretty solid safety net. You have the sponge in there with an air drop, so that's something, but having the ability to add an airstone will give them more oxygenation throughout any treatments and acclimation process. Corydoras tend to really like flow. They can handle a lot of flow, but I do understand what you're saying about an already stressed fish getting tossed around. An additional airstone will be very mild and will help to increase oxygenation I think we all have had mail issues and shipping in fish is definitely stressful. I am sorry this happened. Let's get things where they need to be, get the water quality (KH) where it needs to be, and clean filtration. Once we have things better off, maybe you will see the fish perk up and start to improve.

You definitely want to utilize the sump and have in-line or have a reactor for the CO2 in place. Hit up @Mmiller2001 journal to check out his setup. Apart from the view of the plants there is a lot of details and insight about running CO2 in there as well.

It's due to the type of iron in the fertilizer and the PH of the tank. That's basically what that chart explains. A lot of times they use a mix of different types of iron sources to prevent issues. Just be aware of the PH of your tank and which one works best for that PH. You can get algae from too much light as well as not enough. I believe what Roy was mentioning was just the need to trim the stems to allow the light to reach the plants at the substrate. It's a very common issue with S.Repens of the light struggling to reach the surface of the substrate, especially in tall tanks.

This setup sounds just like: Per the IKEA website it's clearly not rated or designed to be an aquarium stand. That being said the Alex drawers and so on all are "rated for" about 50 lbs or so.

There's a guy on YouTube that does basically exactly this. The channel is called Coldwater aquatics!