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nabokovfan87

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Everything posted by nabokovfan87

  1. nabokovfan87
    I veeeeeery much want to give so many plants a try. That one is on the list, recently learned it's a bulb. Red tiger lotus is another one. (Or something like mosaic plant) Well, that was mostly just planting. Great for a photo, but long term I had a lot to learn! All that red went away. I've tried that same plant 10x or something silly and it's never done well for me. The front one is Bacopa, awesome plant, but you can see the stalks all dead and I had no idea what topping was.
  2. nabokovfan87
    It's time to get to work on fixing some stuff in the side tank, the 29G spare tank to the right of this one. It's got the adult corydoras in there and I think it's time for them to go back to their buddies and check out the new plants. I have to seriously figure out why the tank looks so messy (gunky, dirty, filthy) and what is going on with the filtration that is causing issues. In essence that tank is meant to be for plants and for Riddick to have a good life in. It's her tank. It just looks a mess and I actually don't enjoy being around it. In other, more uplifting news.... Because of the new plants (Thank you again AFNB!), Grace has been out and about and swimming around and through them. she was actually "cleaning off" one of the sword leaves on the left there and that's when I sat up and starter to try to get a photo of her doing her thing. This is the best we got, but I am sure she'll be out and about more often. As far as inspiration for my tanks, it's pretty clear what I wish things looked like for me. It's meant to be a lot of stems, a lot of height, and a lot of places for the fish to swim around and swim through. All of my barbs, my cypranidae fish all seem to love that aspect. They would do races or something and just go darting around and have fun with the layout. I miss that. I saw hints of that with Grace today and that was wonderful. The old setup, attempt 1 for me for a planted tank. This is the goal.
  3. nabokovfan87
    The first thing that jumped out to me in the scape is how one small change would dramatically shift the look for you (for the better) and then you can see what you have with everything else. I want to share something with you, specifically for the conversation as well as the style of the tank in question. It's a plant that was blended with the ferns and the color dynamics are really interesting. Something like moss has such a unique look, but I think the ONE THING I would love to do first on your tank is take all of that moss, tie it to some quilting mesh, and attach that to the back wall. Here is a video by George. It's just one of those things, grab some tea and hear the story and his thoughts. It's a cool moment and not something many hobbyists tend to share. Congratulations for posting the thread. I have one tank in my own as well I just am not satisfied with right now.
  4. nabokovfan87
    If you need anything with regards to the filter please feel free to ask. There is a lot of threads on here with filter mods of various things. The goal there being to get some sponge and ceramics in there. You can take the old cartridge and literally just leave it in the tank against the back glass near where you have the intake tube on the filter. That will keep the bacteria going in a high flow situation and also be able to let the new media cycle in. I would secondly add a small air pump and an airstone just to help out. It's a small thing, but having a 10G HoB on a 10G tank can be a bit light in terms of aeration. With ammonia and with nitrite in the water, even long term, adding that aeration will help out.
  5. nabokovfan87
    coconut husks are used. I've also seen mango leaves used. Not sure about the other two. Tannin aquatics has a blog and it's very likely one of the best sources of information for botanicals. I would use that and search "leaf litter" and I am certain you'll have a lot of information to take in there. Ultimately, there is a lot of "we don't know until we try it" science with botanicals. In nature anything and everything that can fall will end up into the water. I've seen people walk buy and dump half a dinner plant in the tank just to "try it" and see what happens. I don't necessarily do that with food, but you'd be surprised what some people do. If you had a tub, qt tank, or something then perhaps you can try some of them out. Let the water get some tannins and then try a fish or shrimp. If you notice any stress, then you can go ahead and move them out of that situation.
  6. nabokovfan87
    I started with that in my 29 and then my 75G I ended up moving away from it. The flourite is fine as a cap and works just well with corydoras. I use the normal black one. That being said, for plants it's just soft gravel and it's not really something with a high CEC. It might have minerals for the plants in there, but it's not easy for them to access it from what I have experienced. In the end I used aqua soil as a base, contrasoil specifically, but used the fluorite black as just a cap. Cost aside, my preference would be medium size contrasoil as the base, fine size as the top and using that as the substrate. I would be interested if it was heavy enough for the corydoras (which it should be, but is why I have the cap right now).
  7. nabokovfan87
    If they are in a typical community setting they will tend to go for easy foods. Especially feeding multiple times a day. Feeding less or holding food for a few days and then you should see it. I was feeling the neos yesterday, dropped in food and they were eating fine. Even the 2 amano I have in the tank we're good. After a little bit the amano, Gojira, realizes she can move the food and picks up the big ol stick of food intended for 20 shrimp and she's pushing neos off so she can go eat in piece. Was too funny to watch, but yeah..... They tend to run off with a meal to try to eat in peace. That's been what I see normally.
  8. nabokovfan87
    Whether you want it in the front or the back of the aquarium, take the hygro you have and trim off 1/2 the length and replant those for more density. Adding something in the front / rear is achievable. Even something like a pearlweed or microsword can be done without CO2. pennywort, Hydrocotyle tripartita, or other hydrocotyle plants as well might be some options. I would think, but I am not sure, as these grow in the sword would be blocking them out more and more. 😞 You have the rocks there, So something like buce, anubias would do really well right there and work well underneath that sword (or near it). As long as they fit with your water, anubias nangi, anubias nana petite, various buce plants, would be awesome.
  9. nabokovfan87
    I have a section of my journal I can link where I showed my setup and method. (you're 99% of the way there though) For feeding I used repashy powdered foods that I had on hand. Take whatever the big corydoras like to eat, use a mortar and pestle and grind it as fine as you can and just give a small amount several times a day. You can use something like a fine brush and just tap the end in the powder, that's plenty of food. Every few days be sure to clean the container with something like an airline hose as the siphon or a turkey baster.
  10. nabokovfan87
    It looks like black beard algae is taking hold. There's a few reasons for it and the most common reason for ferns is too much light and not having the nutrients dialed in. BBA (from what I have experienced) really loved to take hold on a dying leaf, then choke the plant out by killing old growth and moving to the more healthier sections as the plant dies. You will want to have some sort of KH in there for certain nutrients, but the main thing here is going to be what is your GH in the tank? If your GH is 0, KH is 0, the plants don't have much to utilize. Do you have the ability to adjust the light intensity or lift the light up higher. A secondary option would be to move the plant in it's location away from the direct, intense light.
  11. nabokovfan87
    From what I can see, it works well! This is my favorite setup.
  12. nabokovfan87
    Personally, I would replace it. I can give you some recommendations, you can also just cap it with sand too. There are a plethora of options. I would recommend a feeding dish / plate if you don't have a fine substrate for feeding. It helps them to be able to eat the food in question and access it. I have heard many say they don't have issues, but I have also seen a lot with damage on the corydoras from eco complete. Pretty much whatever you'd like. White clouds would be nice. CPDs, rasbora, small barbs. (they tend to like the same water parameters and temp as the corydoras)
  13. nabokovfan87
    I was able to get a response from Aqueon via their support email regarding how they source the ingredients for the food. The krill oil is from wild harvested krill. It also contains shrimp meal which may be from aquacultured shrimp or wild caught shrimp. I have no information on the diets of the shrimp used to make the shrimp meal. There are no fish origin ingredients including shark.
  14. nabokovfan87
    There's a few different colors yes. I believe there is the normal Kerri tetra which can have some purple. A blue morph and a purple morph.
  15. nabokovfan87
    That's a relief to hear in some sense. I think that absolutely helped with the overall stability. It's a very tragic, very tough situation. Again, I am sorry for the struggle and the confusion through all of this. I think a lot of us can relate and empathize. I'm right there with you, it's a confusing situation because it seemingly worked just fine previously in other tanks. There's a video on Jimmy's channel that talks about something similar that Cory went through with his puffer. Sometimes there are things completely out of our control no matter the best of intensions.
  16. nabokovfan87
    for sure. I had to go through with a fine tooth comb. No snails yet. 🤞 Oh... I have it. @Shadow helped me remember one. These guys would go very nicely with the orange (in addition to the aforementioned cardinals, glowlight tetras. complimentary colors for the orange would be anything that is blue, blue tetra (it's a thing) as well as the blue version of the emperor tetra. I would also think the purple, standard ones look nicely with them.
  17. nabokovfan87
    hm.... they definitely looked like snail eggs. One of them might've been a fishy egg. Angels with pretty much everything mentioned will be fine. Angels like it warmer while there are most corydoras that don't like to get too hot. The trilineatus, julii, and sterbai would be the ones that do pretty good warm. Add in a pleco (in lieu of hillstream) and some otos and it should be good. Hillstreams, otos, they do like a lot of oxygenation from my experience. I had borneo loaches, they didn't like to get hot, but maybe hillstreams do. I know there are plenty that keep them in normal angel temps, but my personal choice would be to keep the hillstream at least (and some cory species) off that list of options for the angel tank. Hm... what would I keep with angels. Tetras, but which ones.
  18. nabokovfan87
    Awesome work on the recovery for Buddy. 🙂
  19. nabokovfan87
    I'm considering setting these ones up as starters for that second colony. I'm not sure what they are. They might be rili? I noticed it today. It's just a "white belly" which might just be poor genetics? What do you think everyone? @tolstoy21 have you seen anything like this before? Unofficially this is cull #2 (for record keeping future me to worry about)
  20. nabokovfan87
    Nope! Just the kids in the big tank right now. Parents are in the 29G off to the side right now.
  21. nabokovfan87
    I really like this design. Nice find. It might have one pretty major design flaw. I don't see a way to route cables through the mesh on the back panel for plugs and airlines.
  22. nabokovfan87
    I am very sorry for your loss. It's a tragedy and hopefully we can narrow down what is going on. I see that you're running dual sponge filters. I have tanks myself that use this method as well and I have have success with them as well as failures. What was the hardscape like in the tank? Is it possible to use something like a lava rock as a decor item? Something like adding a bag of ceramic media to the top of the sponge filter (just sitting on top in a mesh bag) may be a great way to add stability to the system. Long term, stability, regardless of meds is the key and seeing the water change color, I think aeration has to be at play here. For whatever reason the bacteria fell off and the fish were stressed as a result of this. I have used the combo of ich-X, salt, and maracyn many times as well as simply ich-X and salt and not had any sort of negative issues. Whenever you add meds, add air, just as a general rule it's a good idea to increase aeration and circulation. Beyond that, I think we just have to assume there was limited bacteria in there and they might not have been a very strong bacterial colony, which meant when you suffered losses, it was catastrophic.
  23. nabokovfan87
    Awesome. That helps. I can make sure it's through to the soil layer as well and get all those nutrients. Next time I'm in the tank I'll be sure to check on all of them. She it literally a giant kid sometimes. Such a goof.
  24. nabokovfan87
    Here's a video to give you an idea of what to look for. The one thing you want to do is to visually check and make sure the filter is working. With the aquaclears there is a few key things to check for and I'll try to describe it as best as I can. NOTE: you need to add water to the reservoir to ensure the aquaclear is "primed" and able to pump water. If it is not primed, there is not enough water in the container and the pump will not work as a result. 1. Is the pump working, and is the impeller clean? Is the shaft damaged? (see video below) 2. Is the impeller cover in place properly or is it slightly crooked? 3. Is the lift tube in the track over the impeller opening? 4. Is the the water moving as it should or is air simply stopping it from flowing? note: you can adjust the filter from low to high and then back and forth to clear air out of the lift tube. 5. Is anything else causing restriction, like a prefilter or a snail in the tubing? This is what that piece visually looks like.
  25. nabokovfan87
    100% If you have to make major jumps, then you simply need to take time to get the tank where it needs to be. It might take weeks, adding a little bit once a week and letting the fish adapt over time if you're doing some seriously big changes. At that point, using a buffered substrate is very likely a better option. I have my tap at 3 KH, I bump it up to ~4-6 just to make sure it doesn't crash on me. I try to keep it over 60 ppm and closer to 80 ppm as much as possible.
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