nabokovfan87

Glad everything worked for you, what a day...!

The barbs will prefer temps a bit cooler than the tetras. The corydoras will as well, but I understand there are plenty that have been kept in a variety of conditions as they are a hobby bred line at this point. I would recommend something like trilineatus or sterbai over panda is all. The amano shrimp won't like it too hot, so depending what you're running things at just keep in mind good oxygenation for them. The difference for barbs vs. Tetra is basically 72-74 degrees compared to ~78 degrees.

The substrate releases a bit of grime and I'm going to guess that is what you're seeing. Just take a paper towel or a fish only sponge and clean off all of the glass. Then, just do a big water change to remove the surface gunk. At first you'll likely need to do a big water change (75-90% basically) and then you should see that stuff disappear. When I first setup my tank it was sort of sticky almost and that was the type of gunk and grime I felt. The other thing of note is that you have the tidal, and you have it pushed all the way to the left. You'll want to push it towards the middle of the tank if you can to improve the overall circulation and movement across the length of the tank. I have a thread in my signature about modding the title and some things I've tried to fix on mine. For long tanks though I've always ended up running two. I don't think you're over fertilizing or anything.

Here's a pretty cool breakdown of how they function, grow, move, etc. https://www.engineering.iastate.edu/~jea/w3-articles/nitrifier-physiology/nitrifier-behavior.html Edit: Here's one study on different media surfaces and how well they handle strong bacteria growth. https://scialert.net/fulltext/?doi=jas.2010.1146.1150 Similar study with a control, bioballs, and borings https://www.google.com/url?q=https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/441/1/012121/pdf&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwih8JHj8KaCAxW_NkQIHZqVAXQ4ChAWegQIBRAC&usg=AOvVaw3vNVX76SbLuUj6CWyEef-s There is another with sponge testing compared to others, not easy to find. I'll keep looking.

I would argue that the tank has a few types of bacteria, not just one. We know of the big two that are involved in the nitrogen cycle. . Basically, in my view the key is that the strongest bacteria will be where you have certain conditions, namely oxygenation and circulation. I've had similar things happen and it all has to do with a few factors for me. 1. What surface is the bacteria on. 2. How strong is it (how quickly can it grow) 3. Did anything happen to cause it to die off. Did the bacteria lose its food source?

It's tough to say. It might be 40 KH, might be 50. GH 30-60 looks very similar to me as well. PH looks like 7.2-7.5. Nitrite and nitrate are really low. So that's good. May just indicate needing to add fees for the plants. (Might just be fert day) Can you run another test on your tap water?

Very beautiful, well done @Zeaqua.

Have you seen Cory's vid on catching fish using your hand?

GH and KH seem fine. PH is a little high, but that may not be relevant. It indicates low dissolved CO2 (meaning good oxygenation). What kind of shrimp? Amanos yes. Neocaridina or caridina should be more sensitive, but should be ok. Just keep oxygenation high. You can add another air stone. One thing to keep in mind isn't necessary X number of stones, but just the volume of air you're pushing. You can have one or two stones pushing a ton of air, but you can also have 3-4 stones pushing very little air. Good surface agitation is the key. As long as you have the water moving well, good circulation, and good surface movement then that's what they would do best with. As far as QT goes. If you do have a QT tank ready to go I think that is best for them. It will remove the substrate as a variable and let you focus on monitoring them. Bare bottom can be an issue for barbels, but generally speaking, I think it's a better choice in this situation. They like cover or shade, so having a dim tank with something for them to hide under also helps them to relax a bit. That's usually why you see them hang out under sponge filters because of the flow and cover. Maybe you can find a small terra Cotta dish or something that works. I've seen people use small side plates as well. Part of it is food inaccessible for them, but the other part of it is getting scratched on what can be extremely sharp substrate (lava rock, basically).

I've got one doing something similar and if it's the ziss one I end up taking it apart to clean it once or twice a week. They also come with replacement felt bits if you really are struggling to sort it out. The only other thing I can think is a chunk in the stem or something (the part where the airline goes into the airstone.

Very good point! add a chimney cover to it. 🙂 They have these ones I've seen from seachem that are pretty cool. If that's a concern.

The other one, I think it's from the same batch, also looks a little worse for wear. What is your GH/KH/PH in the tank. First thing I noticed in the tank was the substrate. It could just be a lot of small cuts that is causing them a lot of discomfort. My first suggestion based on that would be to use maracyn (erythromycin) and to be able to use a feeding dish for them. a small plate works well, something flat and smooth that you can toss food on. This is essentially what they are struggling with trying to get food. It looks like what we would typically see as excess slime coat being secreted. The main thing there is trying to understand what is causing that. As mentioned above, I would start there. Secondly, just for the sake of giving them the absolutely best chance of recover, add an airstone for them in addition to that feeding dish. Have you seen them all eating, have they all been eating well or struggling a little bit?

Moss wall is in and done. That tank looks so empty without the big ol tuft of moss in the middle, but it will be worth it if/when those plants decided to pop out of the mesh. I have enough to cover the back wall as well, so we'll see what happens and how things go. I really hate that I lost a good 90% of my moss for this project due to the summer heat, but it's winter-ey now.... so grow little moss buddies! I do think it would be cool to have some moss ledges and that might be in the works one of these days. I am thinking Pointed Spear moss among some others, but not quite sure.

Welcome to the forums! I did notice your temperature seems a bit high. If you do have a heater in the tank, be sure to lower it to the 76-78 degree range (basically that green band on the thermometer). It will have add oxygenation to the water and help with those fish in particular as they like that temperature range.

Very happy to help. 🙂 KH for me at minimum is 60 ppm for things to stay stable. I try to get it closer to 70-80, but as long as it's upwards of 60, things seem ok and PH stays where it needs to. When it comes to the adjustment, adding the CC is a good choice and I would literally just monitor the KH after a week, adjust accordingly. If KH is too high, just change water. If KH is too low, add a little more. The easiest way to give you some stability might be to just get some lava rocks. You can basically run the tank off sponge filters and the rocks will act as your biological media. You could then remove the pot scrubbers if you wanted to. They do sell the lava rocks pretty cheap at a few places, but there is a little bit of work you might need help with before you add them to the tank. Basically, they are very sharp, so rubbing them on the ground (or rock against another rock) will break those sharp edges. It's not mandatory, but it is helpful for things where you have your hands near and fish will be around it. You can also do the same thing with pumice and I wouldn't think it would float. Probably grow some algae, but same concept. The reason I mention it, I do believe the lack of robust biological media could be giving you the fits with water parameters (nitrite spikes).

@tetra please help us out with these.

Still adjusting, but it's in. cc @AllFishNoBrakes In the kit we have what amounts to a few things going on here. For the sake of ease of clarity I'll use basic terms and poke fun at myself for the ability to overdescribe things in a box. 1. 3x big tube 2. 1x small tube (adjustable) 3. 1x bent tube (direction matters) 4. 1x Air collar/diffuser/Jetlifter 5. 1x small coupling with airline tubing holder hook 6. 1x large coupling with airline tubing holder hook 7. 1x small coupling without airline tubing holder hook 8. 1x large coupling without airline tubing holder hook I tried to guesstimate what I would need to get the tube to the height of the tank, broke down everything on my sponge filter and then tried to plug it into place. Tubing falls off because it's just hard/dried on the end. Grabbed the scissors and cut that off, applied the tubing to the air diffuser and then tried to plug things in. It's a small note, but what a joy to not have to go "ah crap" and realize you didn't route the tubing through the tube to get to the thing to diffuse the air. It's nice to just have the diffuser outside of the tube. This is the first time I've ever seen an air collar and it was pretty interesting to see where the air comes out of. It wasn't what I'd expected and it's definitely a unique thing. Interesting little bit of engineering. I got all of that into place and then tried to decide exactly how to point things. I don't really know what is "optimal" apart from making the water move around. It's a whole new world! I pointed it towards the front middle of the tank, there is a heater near the flow as well as a future moss wall about to be on that right side. It's nice to have the surface movement from the filter. I do run two on this tank, so I have one on an air stone and one off the new jetlifter piece. Noise on the air collar is perfectly acceptable and it works. You can use 1, 2, or 3 tubes and you can even end up with the adjustment piece all the way inside of the big tube if you have a really long, but shallow tank. It'll be interesting to see how the bacteria and algae acts towards the new setup. As far as flow goes (intake) I do have a pretty unique situation where the baby shrimp will go en masse to whichever one is pulling more air. I have found myself having to balance the flow if I wake up one day and notice that all the shrimp are on one side of the tank. It'll be intriguing and fun to wake up during the week and see how the shrimp are behaving. As far as construction, I do recommend that you take all the bits apart for cleaning. There might be some plastic burrs on the end to remove, but it's not any sort of a major issue. Plastic rubs and burrs happen, it's just the material doing what it does. (literally just had it hit me) I wonder if there was ever a "steampunk" type of filter that uses some 304 stainless steel for the tubing? I imagine that a "pecktec" edition of a sponge filter like that might be pretty cool and unique looking. Top heavy, needs a special base, but cool. Anyways, the tubes are lengthened and we'll see what we see! Thank you again to Cory, Zenzo, Randy, Candi, and the rest of the co-op team for doing this and sending these out. Much appreciated.

Ammonia that high is definitely a concern. Let's take a good look at filtration and adjust accordingly before moving fish into that. The parameters will cause stress and stress can cause diseases to pop up. Having a wide net helps to catch fish, but I understand the concern there. Before you add fish, let's make sure the setup is ok. When you do add fish the goal is to have things be stable. If you have to start treating for diseases and stuff, that diff hamper that stability and cause further issues. So to your question, if you see issues, my focus would be water changes. You can do daily water changes to counter a lot of issues if you really need to. Hm. It was discussed recently that buffers used might not be permanent. Compounding your issue of trying to get the KH/PH where you want it might just be that the baking soda wears off and then you end up with the PH really crashing as the KH disappears. I use seachem alkalinity buffer and I have used crushed coral as well. If crushed coral is an option for you, then it should give you good stability long term. What is your KH? Maybe it's worth it to get a liquid GH/KH kit?

Cc @Chick-In-Of-TheSea has a lot of experience with a similar issue. I would suggest ordering in some kanaplex to have on hand in case you need to try that medication. It focuses on gram negative bacterial diseases which fin rot can fall into that category. Salt dose: 1 TBSP per 2G Ich-X dose: follow directions on the bottle. Bacterial med dose (kanaplex or maracyn): Follow the directions on the package for 1 week treatment. In terms of timeline, you will do those things over one week. When the maracyn/kanaplex directions specify to do a water change would be when you do that water change and dose in ich-X again. I've always followed the directions on the box. I'll double check the statements in the video to try to get a better understanding as to why it says to ignore the directions on the package and better address your concerns. I have treated fin rot and I've always followed the package. Edit: Alright, so these are basically preventative treatment directions. This is the type of thing where you would dose in meds and let them "soak" for a week in that medication. Sometimes people do this type of treatment during their initial quarantine process. The dosages mentioned are per the directions, but the only caveat there is that you aren't specifically adding in more of the bacterial medications daily. The ich-X dose is the standard ich-X dose and it would be done one dose per week (per the directions) because you aren't able to change water when using marcyn. So..... because you're actively treating something, I would advise you to follow the directions on the package. If you're unsure what you're treating for, the approach above is useful as it is a lower overall stress on the fish. However, most bacterial medications need to build up to a certain dose over time (like penicillin) and that's why your have a repeated dose over several days or weeks.

Totally a kelp forest right there.... stem jungle scape? Just looks good. 🙂

Unfortunately, a very unreliable source. There are some studies out there, but methodology is a key issue with a lot of filtration (biological) data.

I have a video from a breeder that uses an "all in one" setup for breeding his barbs. Pretty ingenious little setup and it works well.

All of the fish in the tank should be happy to have a little bit more flow than the lowest setting. Just a note. One thing we often miss with heaters is that they need flow to dissipate heat and function properly. More circulation means that you have better performance and higher efficiency. Some heaters have a "low flow" warning and it's really useful for me to know when I have to clean out the heater guard or check on something. I would turn up the flow on the air pump to medium range at least and see if you notice any issues with the fish/shrimp and if the noise goes away. Keep us posted.

The stuff on the substrate is cyanobacteria. As for plants, you definitely can adjust some things to be able to help the ecosystem out and "reset the balance" so to speak. When it comes to algae, water changes are your friend. 1. What are your water parameters in the tank compared to the actual tap where you get your water change water from? 2. Manually removing everything can be really difficult. Start with a blackout (details below) and consider dipping the plants during that time as well. 3. Up your water changes from once a month to bi-weekly or weekly. See if that helps. 4. Let's review light settings, filtration setup, and make sure that is cleaned out. Check the pump and make sure it's working properly as well. Blackout+deep clean method: This is courtesy of Bentley Pascoe and a question he had taken on one of his live streams. Most times you hear blackout and people will simply cover the tank in towels or blankets while turning off the light for X amount of time. A. Clean out the filtration, check everything, verify the pumps work well. B. Deep clean the substrate and make sure you don't need to repeat this process. If you do, just fill the tank up again like you normally would and repeat the deep siphon after 24 hours. C. After you have things clean, then you would black out the tank normally as mentioned above. Normally for 7 days. D. Every day, do a 30-50% water change and continue the process. This should get things back to normal... That being said, you can also do a treatment on the plants. This is a 3-4 day process, but I've done it over weeks and it works fine. A. Setup a bucket with an airstone and move the plants to that bucket. Cover it with a lid or heavy towel and keep it in a dark place. B. Follow this video for the 3-day treatment to remove algae or follow the video by mark's shrimp tanks for treatment with hydrogen peroxide. Gluteraldehyde treatment: Hydrogen Peroxide treatment: For the hydrogen peroxide treatment, I'd run anywhere from 2-3 treatment in the bucket. For the gluteraldehyde, it's a 3 day (2 dose) treatment. That would get your plants back on track and you just give them fresh water and keep them in the bucket for anywhere from 7-14 days. You can also try dosing the tank itself with the hydrogen peroxide to try to kill off the cyano, but I am not sure if that will be effective.