nabokovfan87

Just goes to show how persistent nature can be to keep the population going! Too funny.

It took me a second to find one. But I use an 80+ mm glass petri dish. They sell them on Amazon and come on all sorts of sizes and packs. Depending on the size of the tank, split the food to multiple dishes. WEAVERBIRD 80mm Aquarium Shrimp Feeder Dish Glass Fish Tank Feeding Bowls Round Clear Dishes Tray https://a.co/d/iaxwflt As a sidenote, if you have any general questions about shrimp care please feel free to hit up my journal and ask me all the things! Happy to help. 🙂

My GH is from the tap just around 110 or so, I keep the tanks slightly higher. I'll re-run a test and edit this post with updated values for clarity. (It's 7-9 degrees normally) and then my KH is right about where you're at. I would start by tabbing a little bit and then just add in that minimal amount of something like seachem equilibrium. In my case, I think at most I add 1/3 of a dose once a month to go up one degree. Extremely minimal, but it's helped me to make sure, when need be, that the plants aren't just overtaking the GH into the ground. I've had a lot of stagnant moments with the SRep, but when things are dialed in and growing, the bright green is the key. As long as that bottom section showing imbalance doesn't climb up the stem.... all healthy. I imagine it's more directly right under the light in terms of placement? I tend to run what I call a "nitrate test". That same deficiency you're seeing, the edge of the leaf deteriorating could be nitrates too. It's a mess isn't it!? What I do is I will test nitrate for 1-2 weeks. Let's say I'm doing water changes weekly.... Day 1. Test nitrates just to have an idea. Day 2. Test again, see if there's any changes. Day 7. Before and after water change, test again. Then dose ferts. Day 8. Morning, everything should be mixed, test again. This is actually the key data point here. Let that "cook" for a week. Before your next water change you have a few sets of data to track what the tank and your ferts are doing. And the really critical question for me is how much of the nitrate in the tank is from the fertilizer, how much is from the actual bioload in the tank. As an example, day 0 for me nitrate might be 5-10. I add in my ferts and then nitrate is 20-30 ppm. I give it a week and nitrate is down to around 5 again. The key is that the tank is producing waste from feeding and all that, but the actual nitrate I read in the tank is being used and it's from the ferts. You could even view this as the plants being able to handle a second dose midweek as long as algae doesn't take off too. If you're seeing a high nitrate from bioload, add in the ferts and then you see 2-3x the nitrate value after a week, then you know most of your nitrate is from the waste and not the fertilizer. That's when you'll see things like pinholes and the brown/yellow tips. In that case, slightly more water volume changed out, but keep everything the same. Then keep tracking. You'd want to see the nitrates gently climb (or drop) but not spike up in a crazy amount. That has been my experience at least. Some plants need "clean water" and it comes in many forms from filtration and circulation to nitrate levels.

I keep trying to grow the non-aquatic version of bolbitus fern because it's "supposed to work". It's just sort of there. It's basically defeated me when it comes to all ferns. 😞 S. Repens can be so finicky!!! I've had mine doing well, stop growing for months because I had to move the tank 4 feet to the left. Nothing changed, no modification of settings, just stopped on me. What I found out was that my GH:KH ratio went upside down and the nutrients were a bit wonky. Overall, the plant looks good, but there's just a bad leaf here and there. What your want to keep an eye on is if that progresses.... The leaves look pretty good size, especially compared to mine! So you're doing something right. As long as CO2 is there and the plant is getting enough light it should grow for you. Because of the way SRep grows, it's a bit funky in terms of the bottom leaves getting choked out. They either have algae, or they end up dying off. The same thing happens with hair grass, monte carlo, and other carpets if the dense substrate level layers of the plant just get too stagnant and have too much detritus in the area. Your stuff all looks good from what I can see. So, with all those caveats aside, I would check into your GH levels and KH just to sanity check it. I dose in iron in my tank. For some plants it's very helpful and the pale yellow can be a sign of low levels of iron if the veins stay a dark green color. Pale leaves is a sign of a few things, so it's hard pinpoint the issue sometimes. The other very common ones are magnesium or potassium. I mention that as something to check into visually given all the charts around. If you continue to see issues, maybe just try a different type of root tabs. You mentioned 3 of them. I would think 6-8 probably does the job a bit better. The ones I have say every ~3-4 inches. Per this one, potentially low phosphate. https://www.aquariumcoop.com/pages/plant-nutrition

There should be a normal and a compact version. For plant details there's a website called flowgrow that has a plant database, very valuable resource for me. There's a language flag on the top left I believe so you can read all the details in English. The hygro corymbosa Should be pretty easy, plug and play, grow well enough.

Because you're talking puffers, maybe @mountaintoppufferkeeper , @Preston John , or @brandonnaturally can chime in with their technique as well. Some people will say "plop and drop" and other would slow acclimate with something like an airstone in a container with drops of prime. It's tough because of the issue of them puffing up and that causing damage. I don't think it happens often, but it's something where maybe there is a good way to handle puffer acclimation? Help us out please!

I was actually thinking about this in the morning and you had the words for it. It's difficult for a lot of hobbyists to put words together delicately and to explain just why certain recommendations are made. That being said, it's also pretty impressive how something as trivial or subtle as an algae scape, new pump, or a change in foam can make the hobby more enjoyable for you. Maybe every fishkeeper out there is a bit of a visual person and that's why? Maybe there's just satisfaction to something working out the way you wanted it to, envisioned it to, as opposed to trying something new and feeling like it's not a complete solution. I wont lie, saw the drop checker and it was sky blue. Mine tends to be dark blue or barely an essence of green. I'll be so excited when that is fixed (if/when). On this tank in particular, any ideas for plant placement in the background? Any ideas mulling around yet?

That's tragic to hear. I will have to send a DM or something to pass some details for an option, but hopefully it's not a "hobby breaking" thing for you. I know how enjoyable a planted tank can be and especially with your setup it's about having that environment for the plants. Do you have shrimp in the tank at all or is that something you'd be interested in? Because of the green water and algae showing up, I would think drop the light by a small % to compensate for the plant load dropping or is the correct thing to do in the situation to just ride it out and do water changes, both?

I'm was going to get some bacteria just for giggles, busy day with other things. I'll get some tomorrow. For now, filter stuff is all over the tank. (I dunked it for a good 15 minutes trying to get fry off, so there's def. bacteria in the new filters). I had this stuff grow on the dark / back side of the HoB. It loves to defy logic. BUT YES. awesome tip. 🙂 Well said. I like using the big nets, I need to get another one. It's like using the bag, but just a little easier having a rigid rectangle and getting it against the sides/glass. My usual method in the big tank is to scoop the foams out quickly, no debris on prefilters. With the actual sponge filters themselves, it's just "be quick" and try to get it into the bucket without much mess or hassle. We'll have to see how methods change with the new filters.

Hey... if I can do it, you can master it. 🙂 You got this. Corydoras are fun and it's just about the long term. Thankfully they will spawn again. Just a matter of time.

For clarity / full disclosure if it helps anyone at the co-op side of things (cc @Randy or @Zenzo ). My apologies, I am not sure which is the appropriate person. This is what I would deem the "classic sponge filter upgrade kit" if you have a customer who simply wants to swap out some parts and go ahead and be able to use the ziss air stone. The kit would include 4-5 pieces. 1. Uplift tube 2. Air diffuser piece 3. First segment of the internal "cage" 4. (optional) a small section of co-op airline hose 5. (optional) a ziss adjustable air stone There is now the newer jetlifter upgrade kit. I just wanted to mention it as an option for consideration. Maybe it helps someone out there who dealt with a similar issue.

The older they get the more I am able to see that color develop. I wish I had a proper camera and something to help zoom in a little. Cleaning the glass and being able to take clear photos was such a mood booster for me! 🙂 Gather around everyone.... It's time to have an honest conversation about shrimp filters. ( 😂 A slightly goofy bon appetit youtube challenge reference there. I was trying to remember where I had heard that phrase from!) About a week ago I was doing the big clean and I had noticed this shrimp was deep in the sponge filter. MUCH deeper than I feel comfortable to see a shrimp of near adult size. I was seriously concerned it would get stuck. The photo below is outside of the tank, after I did all the work today. There was another one that got it's shell stuck on the sponge and unfortunately the shrimp did pass. I was able to pull out the tail and it was about 1/4" in size I believe. The one that triggered my alarm was about double this size, a large female, and I was so concerned. Well, because of that I knew I needed to just do what I've been putting off and change things around with finer sponge material. How fine, not really sure. Going based on my own experience with airline foams, I think the one we have is ~10-15 ppi and the one I have now is probably 90-200 ppi. The marineland prefilter sponge or seachem tidal sponge is probably about 30-40 ppi range. It's all a bit of a wash. The main thing here is that in the big tank where I have the culls and in the colony itself I now have removed this very course sponge for the sake of not having shrimp get stuck like this. Especially on a hob / high flow scenario I cannot stress this enough. It's critical. The shrimp love the highly flowing water and tend to congregate there in search of food that is breaking down and easy for them to grab. My amanos do the exact same thing as the neos in this regard. Fluval sells some very fine sponge prefilters for nano sized hobs that is designed for their spec tanks. Today was the big day when the box arrived and a few things went right. It arrived first thing in the morning and it arrived on shrimp tank cleaning day. I rinsed off all the parts on the new filter just to be a bit thorough and then went ahead to remove the course sponge. I hope this makes it a bit clear for everyone why the shrimp were going deep into the sponge. This also means that potentially using this foam in this scenario is perfectly fine as long as it's not extremely thick (these are large size filters). I also noticed the BBA on the top there starting to take hold. I have always struggled to really clean out these sponges just because of that we have issues like worms in the tank going a bit nuts on me as well as the algae. My hope is that any and all improvements will go ahead and allow me to clean the tank the way I want to as well as keep things visually a little more mechanically filtered. As soon as I touched the sponges, as expected, a lot of the debris let loose and right into the tank. I ended up spending a good 2 hours dunking sponge in a bucket, removing any shrimp that were left. I found 2 as well as the one that was stuck. One of them was a big berried female and the other was just a little juvenile shrimp having some fun. I got the new filters setup and I used all the original parts at first. Worked fine! I could easily modify the filter to accept an air stone, but I think it's just a bit better if I was able to use the Co-Op materials and the fine sponge. Fingers crossed it's a good fit and all the parts work..... success! I actually tried the green co-op air piece on the "other guys" plastics and it worked great. The piece snapped into place on the base and worked well. Maybe there's room for the co-op to sell just the top piece of the sponge filters for a small cost and that allows anyone with the older style sponges to "upgrade" their filters. I can imagine it's a bit of a marketing kerfuffle, but this is essentially just a retrofit job and you remove old piece, replace it with new piece. Done. These are the kits they send techs out with on any sort of recall in your home appliances. It's a fun part of the engineering side of things I really miss and enjoyed working on. Anyways, here's the newer sponge from the "classic" sponge filter that is now installed and is plug and play into the co-op sponge filter parts. When I say "it works" I mean, I would guess the holes are the same size and I can take the parts off the classic style sponge filter and use them on the co-op filter. I bet the base and all the other stuff works too. I do like the design choices and changes that Cory made on his filters, so let's go with the green! It's a little harder to focus, but I don't think any shrimp are getting stuck anymore. 🙂

Should be sufficient yes. Having the airstone as a secondary source is usually personal preference.

Looks female to me. It's either a "high end" sakura or a "low end" painted fire red cherry shrimp. This is one of my favorite sources for shrimp information because the person behind the website uses research paper, checks the information. (That being said, the bit at the end about bloody mary vs. cherry shrimp and rostrum size has been proven to be a bit of a tall tale and we don't know the source/origin of the bloody mary shrimp like we do the others) https://aquariumbreeder.com/red-cherry-shrimp-grading-with-pictures/ In terms of grading, they've replaced the B, A, S, SSS grade with more traditional (and clear) names that you can see in the breakdown in the article. How much red coverage is their.... alright, that's called this.... and then in terms of high vs. low grade it usually comes down to how red are the arms and legs on the shrimp and the highest grade terminology only being used for ones with completely colored body plates and legs.

They look like they are! It's definitely a skill and it's so tough. I was elated when I got mine to spawn, then I tried to move the eggs to the tumbler and I was in sheer panic and frustration. I feel for you and the experience you had, needless to say.

On thing to note here is that the strainer basket on eheim canisters is a "one size fits all" approach. there is an internal diameter for the smaller sizes and it's actually designed for the larger sizes. I believe this prefilter comes in two sizes.... That may be a big advantage here for someone who has shrimp or other small fish, an eheim canister (like the old classic series) as well as something that just needs a certain style of prefilter. It's a hard connection, press fit, so it's a bit less likely to get knocked off (or leave an open intake) in some situations. I have an old eheim I am working on repairing, then I will be trying it out in something like a planted tank / shrimp tank. 🙂 Unfortunately that is a bit of a ways off for me.

Another example from the day of neo shrimp having large water changes without issues. It's a bit interesting why some are so sensitive to WCs and others are just fine being treated like a typical fish only WC. Anecdotally, this is a one off, large water change and it is also something where we see the moment of the change with the shrimp behavior unchanged and unstressed, but we don't have the one month or two month progress checks. I'll keep an eye out on the videos for this larger female shrimp. As always, interesting questions.

I would take a look at the specific UV you have and verify installation procedure, per the warranty use requirements. Once you have that set in place, if need be, check with NilocG for some technical support on where to best install the CO2 diffuser.

One step at a time! You may just fix one plant a week, one plant a day, or do small changes and eventually get it to a point where you're happy with it. Maybe the first thing is to de-pot that red lotus (?) plant on the right? Push all the ferns to the outside edges of the tank and that'll let light through for the other plants and moss. Sounds like a fun project, just enjoy it. No pressure. The shrimp will do their shrimpy things and watch the process. If you want to swap substrate or something I can give you some tips on handling the shrimp and emptying it without losing anything.

you can use basically anything that will hold water plus an airstone. Single bubble air diffusion and it'll give just enough flow. I think I've seen so many methods to try out with eggs, specifically corydoras eggs, I've realized how much I just don't know. As far as the squishy ones, floating ones, can you take photos? If they squish, they might have just been eggs (unfertilized).

It's a super minor thing, but slightly fun and exciting. A. New suction cups. B. New design (better flow?) And I can now just swap diffusers when need be back and forth to keep them clean. I really like the "low profile" of the new one and that it doesn't hold a bunch of air. It was nice when it worked as a sort of bubble counter, but this one was the 2-3 I purchased and it doesn't really do that as well on this newer order of the old one.

It speaks to why so many people have their own experiences that shape what they prefer. It goes all the way down the line to something as simple as a new hobbyist with a single fish in the take and they ask, "what should I do?" and they are left with 50 different setups and 20 different filters to go look at. Ironically I had the same type of experience this week with a sponge filter and a pretty big shrimp that decided it wanted to live deep inside the foam and scare the daylight out of me. As always, keep the eye on the tank and randomly you'll see something that you'd never expected, sometimes good, sometimes bad.

Looks like pogostemon stellatus, depending how it grows and colors I think it might be dassen version.

Yeah, definitely has that texture! I've got two, one is a bit chunkier line pattern (Luigi) and the other is my "fancy one" the brown is more black, but the line pattern looks similar. That's the one that I thought was a flash we were looking at a bit ago. I'm 99.9% sure both are females though. It's tough when they are sold as just generic fish at the big box store and maybe the name is right.