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nabokovfan87

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Everything posted by nabokovfan87

  1. nabokovfan87
    Generally speaking, the water from a softener isn't optimal. The better way to do it would be to have a tap that goes out before your softener. (Normally that would be connected to the RODI unit) Essentially, if there's a ton of salt in the water, you might kill the plants or have a lot of issues with certain fish species. As I'm sure a lot of people use softeners, it's important to also just be aware of what kind it is. Sometimes you have resin beads similar to purigen, other times the system runs using very different means to soften the water. Whenever it's cleaned out to remove the minerals or recharge the resin, that another point of "something could go wrong". I would try to to get Access from the actual tap. Maybe a hose connection in the front yard or something and re-run water tests. Then compare that to what you're looking for with the aquarium. Ultimately, if you're satisfied with RODI and it's working, that might be the best setup for you with a planted tank. If you test you're tap and you're looking at a ton of GH and KH then that could lead to it's own challenges. You can dilute that down with RO water as well, which reduces the need for buffers.
  2. nabokovfan87
    I've used a few other ones, I pretty much stick to the flourish tabs for my use. They have "more stuff" in them compared to others that might just be NPK tabs. I generally have an easier time using them compared to the capsule style ones.
  3. nabokovfan87
    It might just be a matter or using a different brand.
  4. nabokovfan87
    Those swords are just massive... Very thankful to hear the medical stuff went well. Send all the well wishes to her for us!
  5. nabokovfan87
    Well... One step in the process to potentially being able to have a proper planted tank again. I got this for my birthday and I am just hoping that I picked out things that will do well for me. Also, I seriously hope I like the pinsettes and I can use them well. Buce will go in the shrimp tank, but the rest is for Grace's little Garden.
  6. nabokovfan87
    Ah. That might explain the leeching then. Maybe too many or they weren't deep enough? If you continue to see ammonia or nitrite, I would look at filtration. I love the simplicity and beautiful aesthetic. Very nice job on the tank.
  7. nabokovfan87
    😞 Give me like a good 3 hours! Sometimes it just always looks a bit messy and it's tough, I totally get where you're coming from. I was so fed-up with the tank this month just because of how dirty the sand was getting on me. I think we even have the same type of sand?
  8. nabokovfan87
    If you're trying to have shrimp.... I know it goes against a ton of conventional wisdom.... I would avoid snails with shrimp. It's so much easier to handle one "type" of invert per tank. If you have nerites, that's one thing, but I would recommend just having a pleco or two with shrimp and let them do their thing. If you want/have them in a community tank that's all gravy too. To your question, if you want to try to get more variation and just let the shrimp do their own thing, then I wouldn't be worried at all about adding the red to the blue colony. You could end up with something cool, like a blue shadowed red rili shrimp or something. That being said, if your blue colony is meant for breeding and sale, then I definitely would not mix it. I would add culls with the red guy and let them do their thing.
  9. nabokovfan87
    My favorite thing about sand is literally being a goofy kid whenever I do water changes and playing with it like I'm at the beach. For me it's my highly underrated, trivial, little bit of fun.
  10. nabokovfan87
    do you have just normal Maracyn / Erythromycin? (The reason I ask or bring it up...) Kanaplex / maracyn2 = gram negative maracyn = gram positive
  11. nabokovfan87
    I'm sure someone on the forums could make an "old nano" compatible version using a printer. Honestly, if you really wanted the nano to "fit" there's probably a way. If I can patch together a decent Tidal I'm sure some sandpaper or glue and it would work out eventually.
  12. nabokovfan87
    At the end / top of the stack.
  13. nabokovfan87
    Yeah.... there's definitely a way to reduce cost / parts on the kit. Less waste. For those who simply need one thing. Maybe they will sell each piece or certain pieces individually in future for replacements.
  14. nabokovfan87
    It's always something! Nice work.
  15. nabokovfan87
    Very sorry about nibbles.
  16. nabokovfan87
    For those who may not have seen it.... Get your clickers ready. https://www.aquariumcoop.com/collections/filtration/products/easy-flow-sponge-filter-upgrade-kit For those running the nano filters, I am not sure what the discrepancy is, but just a heads up regarding fitment compatibility.
  17. nabokovfan87
    I have the same issue / reasoning for my tank and I use Seachem Alkalinity buffer products.
  18. nabokovfan87
    This is pennywort and I have been watching it grow in the tank for a little bit now. I had ~3 little stubby stems, but I ended with one small piece that remained and has turned into this! 😁 I wanted to ask what the growth type means as far as light energy levels. The plant is growing compact, so I assume it can handle a bit less light. I don't plan to change it out, but just wanted to understand better what I'm looking at.
  19. nabokovfan87
    Grace being beautiful this morning.
  20. nabokovfan87
  21. nabokovfan87
    8 hours is about the usual start spot. Depending on the light in question, based on tank size and all that, I would start at 30-40% and then keep an eye on everything. Run it for 2-3 weeks and then adjust accordingly.
  22. nabokovfan87
    Awesome to hear. For context here.... aqueon will simply tell you that they have a warranty and explain was is and isn't covered. It's a new tank, if there's any question, ever, return it.
  23. nabokovfan87
    Height looks good to me. It depends on what the focus is for you. If you want to emphasize the "overhang" as opposed to the bank itself, raise it up 15-25% more.
  24. nabokovfan87
    Work for the tank done for the week. I did another deep clean on the tank due to the detritus, worms, and botanicals being a bit messy. They were "at that point" where they are turning to powder. This photo is from the day prior, and it was just some motivation to remove as much junk in the sand as possible. There's also the typical other worms I've been dealing with forever in my tanks that are much smaller, free swimming little buggers. I will need to add some white clouds or something to the tank eventually, given that I can't add swordtails to this one. It doesn't appear I'll have fry and I just need something I can keep in there long term and enjoy. I treated the mopani for BBA using the brush / peroxide technique, removed the shells of the leaves so that I could scrape the wall, cleaned the glass extremely thoroughly, tried to re-attach some of the anubias to the holes in the stones, culled out ~2 of the off-gene shrimp from the colony, and I went ahead and attached more moss to the side of the tank using the seaweed clips. I was at the big box store looking for a 20L tank, apparently they don't sell those now, and I found 2 potentially interesting things there. They had one piece of mopani that was a good 14" long or so, very narrow, but it was a nice flat long piece. It would've been wonderful to add to the tall tank here and to see how it looked. I may end up going back for it, but I was quickly distracted by the bag of stone at the store. One of their bags of dragonstone was cut up and cracked, while the other was large size pieces and looked really good! IDK, I just walked away a big frustrated and unsure of what to do. I would rather go spend that $$$ on plants, buce, moss, and try to get more things on the side of the tank as opposed to just adding a chunk of hardscape. It's the feeling that if I want to make the tank properly nice I would need to swap it out for a different tank entirely (that they didn't have) and I would need to go ahead and actually scape it. The plan for now is to keep an eye on nitrates (per @Chick-In-Of-TheSea's advice) due to losing 2 shrimp in the past 2 weeks. So far they seem to be in the 10-20ppm range, but I will re-test here tonight. If I keep experiencing issues, I may have to find a way to actually drip water back in, but it's not those sorts of deaths I am seeing. Behavior looks fine, color is amazing, shell health probably could be better and I am working on adjusting up my feeding right now. I want to get to a point of daily feeding and I think the colony size is such that it demands that right now. Pictures incoming, when I can get them.
  25. nabokovfan87
    I'm going to guess it's a "coin" type given the leaf shape. The common one is Anubias Barteri Round/coin.
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