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nabokovfan87

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Everything posted by nabokovfan87

  1. nabokovfan87
    A quick update for the day.... I siphoned the tank and it was a pigsty. Luigi has been going a bit nuts on the wood and she left a big pile of mulm for me. It has to have been a while before I had siphoned. I did ~50% of the tank and got a lot of it. I cleaned both filters and got the BBA off the intake tubes. It's been a bit of work, but I'm thankful it's done. I really don't like seeing the tank in that state and it's on me to push myself to get it done even when I really don't feel like doing the siphon on the sand. It's challenging, but necessary. I am trying to be a bit more lax on the water changes (volume and pace), but I know a siphon is something I just need to manage better. Sidenote and a bit of encouraging news for anyone following along. This is why I think once your colony gets to ~100 or so or more it's probably best to have multiple feeding dishes and divide the food. Of course as soon as I dropped it Gojira took off with the food and I had to add more, but what you'll see is both dishes being used and more shrimp getting access to that food. There is still some of the females that just can't be bothered and they like to graze. This is why some powdered days matter. It's the only way to really ensure every shrimp gets those nutrients.
  2. nabokovfan87
    @Guppysnail well it's been a fun one! 😂 You said you wanted to know what it was like to have a RTBS, here we go. I went to bed last night, nothing crazy and it wasn't ridiculously late. It was quiet, I get the puppers in bed and she lays down. I move things around and take off the glasses. Laying there I hear what sounds like a blue whale splashing at the surface of the tank. It was so clear that I thought I left the lid open. No. I turn the dim light on for the blue so I can see what is going on and grab my glasses. Another big splash. She is cruising around, nothing too crazy. I try to count all the fish, everyone is there. I turn off the lights and try again. SPLASH! Alright lady. What on earth is going on. I turn on the pink/red light so I see her tail glow. I watch her and she is sitting against the glass literally tumbling and doing circles. I don't know how to describe it. She will normally grazy, very nocturnal, but she was on the front glass and was doing 4-6" wide circles. Just spinning like a kid playing on a grassy hill. Such a goofball. I watch things for a bit, try to see what is going on and she's just cruising around playing and having fun. I think one of the corydoras may have been doing up downs with her and she was trying to keep up. 🙂 I turn the lights off and go back to sleep. BIG SPLASH. 😂 .... I woke up, checked everything out and just watched her this morning. It was like a little standoff and quite hillarious. The corydoras were on the right side of the log, she was in her usual hide on the left. They would send one in to try to get away from the light and then she would swim out trying to brush them back and out of her area. This went on for an hour or so. They started bugging around for food and so I went ahead and gave them some brine shrimp today. I checked the pump, it had just seemed a little slow to me. I wanted to make sure everything was ok. There was a LOT of plant debris on the outside of the pump. I cleaned all that off, got things back together and then messed around with the big weird rock. IF I had a bunch of soil, the plan would be to stack rocks on top of it to make it look like a boulder. For now, I moved a small rock to help Grace have move cover, she's covered on 3 sides now from me as well as the big plant in there. I cleaned the prefilter and stuff, trying to just give the HoB a chance to clear up the water a bit. I don't know why, but the tank just looks filthy to me. I didn't do a deep siphon and seeing the swords and their big chunky waste is always so weird. Why do they poop so much! Lol. I just worked a bit on the tank. Tried to improve things. I had to plant one of the swords a little deeper. She moved it. I am not sure how deep I can plant those ones, but I believe I cannot plunge them too deep. The crown on the plant has to be at the surface level? So.... that was one of many fun little weird things that sharkminnows do.
  3. nabokovfan87
    Yep..... And it's not great to have that. My advice (I use this stuff) is to keep it simple. I use the alkalinity buffer in case my KH drops. The amount I add is very minimal, if I even use it. I don't do a ratio and I run small scale tests to gauge how much I need to use with my tap water in a bucket outside of the tank. You shouldn't be buffering the tank to get it where you want, but you're buffering the water for water changes!!! If you're trying to play with the tank chemistry itself, it's likely it will swing too much and cause stress. Doing it to the water change water (smaller volume and you can measure it clearly) will give you better results. Step 1 is to measure your tap and compare that to your tank. (Please feel free to share these results) The next step is to run a sample test using tap water in a bucket, monitor the changes over 3-5 days. Once you have that result, you can scale up. I use 2-3 scoops per bucket. I count the buckets per water change, add that in. Don't mess with the buffers without a quality liquid KH test kit. You'd want to be able to verify anything you're using is working properly over time. I had my KH climb on me too high because I wasn't monitoring. Same thing with GH. It's just good practice to go slow, always test. And always verify. One a month, once a week. Just make sure you check and keep a log.
  4. nabokovfan87
    Look up a YouTube channel (there's a few)... Biotopia George farmer Rescaped They all have a very similar style and it's generally more towards a natural, biotope aquascape. The main method of achieving this is to use natural materials, wood being the biggest one apart from the live plants. Find a piece of hard scape that you enjoy and just do a bunch of research. Find some inspiration for style and see how it speaks to you. But yes, you can absolutely change the tank around. I move things around to siphon and get detritus out.
  5. nabokovfan87
    There was a talk from a fish vet on the co-op members only side and she had explained where ammonia comes from in the tank. Needless to say it isn't just from food. The stat was something along the lines of 70% is from fish respiration. I don't have access to it, but I highly recommend viewing that if you do have access or get a month for free as a gift. It's a great hour or two and will help with your care of the fish in future. https://www.fdacs.gov/Consumer-Resources/Recreation-and-Leisure/Aquarium-Fish/Aquarium-Water-Quality-Nitrogen-Cycle The majority of ammonia from fish is excreted through the gills, with relatively little being lost through urine and feces. Ammonia is also formed as uneaten feed or other organic matter in an aquarium decomposes. https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/FA031 In fish, the majority of ammonia is eliminated from the body primarily by diffusion through the fish’s gills into the water. Smaller amounts are excreted in the urine or across other tissues. Fertilizers and the decay of uneaten feed and organic matter contribute to ammonia, but in most aquaculture or hobbyist systems, the digestion of the feed eaten by the fish is the primary source of the compound. The more feed a fish is fed, the more ammonia the fish will produce. However, even a starved fish will produce some ammonia.
  6. nabokovfan87
    @beastie Well if they work you're gonna have to send me some white clouds! I won't mind at all I promise. 😂
  7. nabokovfan87
    Oh.... yes. 75G is fun. Alright, let's dive in! I will have to send you a DM. I know a few really knowledgeable keepers of discus that might be able to guide and ease the stress of keeping them. I don't know if a 75G is being enough for them would be the only concern. I think it was Dean and Cory that mentioned about how discus tend to be in very active waters. Angels I think like it just a bit calmer by comparison. I don't think it's the type of thing where you need "low flow" but just set the tank up like normal and not a river torrent, then they will be perfectly fine. I don't know if loaches will bug the angels, but large flat bodied fish might be something to keep in mind. Corydoras will do fine (sterbai, false Julii, Julii, etc.) In terms of filtration, run 2 HoBs or run a canister with a spraybar just to make sure you have the coverage (it's hard to get a single HoB to fully churn the water in a 4 foot long tank. Airstones can also be advantageous for larger fish for this setup as well. Don't have an angel tank, so here's a discus one. 🙂
  8. nabokovfan87
    I've had mine in pretty much every tank and zero fish bother them apart from something like loaches. 20G, you can easily have 10-15 if you really wanted. More reasonable stocking is potentially 8 or so if the plants get pretty dense. Things like otos work well as well as plecos in addition to amanos. They all prefer and clean different surfaces. There are two versions and they can be "mixed up" on the retail side. One is the Japanese shrimp, the other is the Australian version. One can be a bit more feisty than the other. The ones that have dots, pale white/clear shell should be the correct ones. Mine don't have an aggressive bone in their body at all.
  9. nabokovfan87
    Very beautiful tank setup. Well done! Welcome to the fun. 🙂
  10. nabokovfan87
    Looks great. The color on the legs is a wonderful sign.
  11. nabokovfan87
    Seems very likely this was a cause here. Thankfully water changes and carbon will help!
  12. nabokovfan87
    Thank goodness it's not legit. My poor Anubias buddies!
  13. nabokovfan87
    @MrHarrysthe only "off" thing on that list is Rasbora with respect to temps. It should be ok with all the other fish though. Chili Rasbora I believe can go a bit warmer, CPDs was the only real concern there. 76 you're probably ok.
  14. nabokovfan87
    She's a grazer. I think I have a video but she's got the same mouth as something like a panda garra. She will swoop around like a jet and then helicopter hover around trying to gnaw on the glass or rocks or plants. It's hard to know who is tossing the plants up when you have a sharkminnow in there and the corydoras going to town! Here's a very funny adorable video of a young one. 🙂 For the sake of cuteness overload.... I was doing some reading on that yesterday and the whole use of something like rooibos tea. It was definitely earthy.
  15. nabokovfan87
    Previously I mentioned a bit of a re-do on the tank. I am still figuring a bit of the locations of things out, but for now this is where it stands. The "rock tower" is very out of place. I might have an idea on fixing that, but I really don't know. The shape and structure of that piece will seemingly always make it feel out of place. Superglue and moss have been removed as completely as I can. there's a bit left on the wood. I am happy to report it's not difficult to remove, no serious damage that won't repair over time, and it's very easily removed from rocks. This is the newer layout on the wood and it serves a few purposes. The wood and plants are getting their BBA on and it's become a bit of an issue again. I've spent time cleaning the glass, removing chunks of it from random bits of gravel and scrubbing the harder surfaces. I also have that brush technique for the plastics in the background. Needless to say, between peroxide and RR, it seems to always be a mandatory step to have more than one treatment for the BBA. Often it returns as quickly as it changed colors. A week later we have a lot of leaves floating and you can see the BBA is just "back to normal" in some aspect. It's very difficult to feel good about this battle when we know what should be working, isn't. Alright, so onto good things! The final treat from @AllFishNoBrakes was specifically for little Ms. Grace. She originates (in spirit at least) from a fast flowing kelp forest with some lofi and little friends to keep her entertained. She has her cove and her plants and she just generally likes to guard them. Sometimes she will peek out.... But most of the time (when I'm the one behind the camera and not further back) she tends to just nudge her community friends away and tell them to go take the food ball out of her lawn. As you can see, she will often dart back away as quickly as she lunges out to "do a lap" and set her territory. She does have multiple areas to occupy, but the goal now is that the wood is pressed up against the back glass and she has rock on one side. She isn't as disturbed from the doorway, less chance of injury, and ultimately the whole game here is to get the plants to GROW for once and then she will have a ton of cover. After a while of de-snailing, RR, and a bit of trying to figure out how many plants we have in hand, I went ahead and added in some new additions for the little one. Of note, you'll also see the modified spraybar setup on the right. I no longer have a suction cup holding up the prefilter and pump, but it is properly attached to the wall now. The rear bar is pointed downward to churn the CO2 while the sidebar is still mounted towards the length of the tank to churn the water. I can slot in a stronger pump (or canister) and things will improve nicely on this setup. And of course... they wanted to be in the way because they think it means food, lol. The tank does have a bit of blackwater broth added for the time being. It won't be long term, but it was just a nice way to utilize that and provide a bit of contrast and benefits to the water for the fish in here. We can call it another test for the corydoras, but I don't think anyone remaining in this tank is mature enough for breeding yet. That's the look and feel though. I hope the potential is there and seeing it in person, it's purely potential in some respect. One step forward, 3 steps back, 2 steps forward again. We'll get there.
  16. nabokovfan87
    Yep they definitely do. Wood isn't the type of thing where they "chew on it" until it's gone. They might graze on it one day, then the next day they are on the moss or glass or rocks, then back to the wood later in the week. My amanos are just about 24/7 on wood in the big tank, but they can. Be all over the place sometimes.
  17. nabokovfan87
    They are definitely on the list as well. I'm also planning on getting one of these guys too. 🙂
  18. nabokovfan87
    I use the tetra AP150 airpump. You could likely add anywhere from 3-6 air stones if you want. Adding at least 2 would be very helpful for oxygenation and for circulation. I did notice the surface movement as well as the stream of bubbles coming up from near one of the decor items. This is from aqadvisor, generally seems ok, but adding oxygenation is always good if you're concerned.
  19. nabokovfan87
    Once you have the plants in the tank my advice would be to get the shrimp in there prior to adding fish. I would suggest starting with a minimum of 10, but just make sure you are past the initial setup stages on the tank. (I can explain this a bit more in detail if you'd like, happy to help) The goal in my perspective would be to let the plants take hold, let the shrimp colony take hold, and then add in the fish so that the colony can handle a bit of losses from the fish eating the shrimp. If you're less concerned with having neocaridina shrimp and just want shrimp in general, amano shrimp are a great substitute and can be used in lieu of the neos here without concern of the fish bothering them.
  20. nabokovfan87
    I'm very sorry for your struggles. I hope that this is something that can be resolved and that last EBA starts to pull through. One thing I did notice when looking at the video again is just the very erratic nature of the fish. It's really, really stands out to me as a stressed fish. Why it is stressed, I am really not sure. ( @Odd Duck and @Colu any ideas here on this situation? ) I think a great place to start is aquarium salt and something like Ich-X or paracleanse. There is some darker discoloration on the outside of the fish and maybe it's a sign of an external irritant. For the salt dose, if you don't have any plants in the tank I would start at 1 tbsp per 2 gallons. You can increase this up to 1 tbsp per gallon over time as you see the fish doing well with that first salt dose. Follow the directions on the box for ich-X or paracleanse. If you have any questions please feel free to ask. Something like Catappa leaves (indian almond leaves), alder cones, or other botanicals may help here as well. One final thing to note is that if you're using salt it's generally a good idea to add more aeration if possible. Just something to keep in mind that would not hurt the situation here.
  21. nabokovfan87
    Oh there's more to come! The lights weren't on yet. 🙂 She's been a bit happy with her new setup. I am definitely not adverse to feeding worms, I just wish they would eat them! I fed all the bloodworms I have (they are omega one, which is a bit big even with 4 corydoras and I do have mysis and brine shrimp I am using with them now in addition to my other standard rotation of foods. I was feeding frozen in the morning, repashy at night, krill flake mid-day trying to condition them. I am going to get something like freeze dried copepods and mix that into some repashy. My plan is to also try the spawn and grow variety. I will be trying some higher meat based protein foods as well. They've been "conditioned" with the repashy I have (bottom scratcher, community blend, and soilent green) and some pretty heavy krill based feedings. Ultimately there was some up-downs, but not really that trigger that indicated to them it was time to lay. We'll see how it goes.
  22. nabokovfan87
    One of my main projects is always to be able to figure out the best care for my black corydoras and to trigger them to spawn on a somewhat straightforward way. We got the supermoon, we have the water change, we have the GH/KH drop, and we have the storm that came through. Put that into a random grab bag of which one will work to trigger a spawn...... nada. Just nothing. One of my other thoughts after seeing them spawn previously was using some old airline as a spawning mop. Well, I finally made one and it's comical, but if it works, it works. I have never had success with spawning mops. My old mops are in the 75G as a means to give some floating plant cover for the swords. I will have ~2 of these airline tube mops with the adults for now and we'll see if/what they use. I also added a pile of IAL/Catappa leaves to try to see if these ones just prefer the hide of blackwater as well as the hidden surface of leaf litter. There are a lot of corydoras that do use this, but we will see! They have been hiding underneath the susswassertang. This tank doesn't have as much cover as the normal 75G does, but... they have a bit more cover now. I also have some leaf/seaweed holders which I will stick to the glass and give them a bit of a vertical surface of tubing/leaves! Thanks again to @AllFishNoBrakes for the supplies for this one. It is very much appreciated!!!
  23. nabokovfan87
    A huge, massive thank you to @AllFishNoBrakes for hooking up the shrimp buddies with some very sweet botanicals. I made some blackwater extract out of that and added it to the 75G. In the side tank with the adult corydoras, I have some experiments going on which will be in that thread, but for the shrimp we have some wonderful new things to enjoy! Keen followers here will also notice I have gone ahead and moved the second feeding dish into the tank. The colony is large enough where it is a helpful tool at this point. Last time I fed I was able to just split the food, make sure more shrimp had a bit easier time than this..... Here's what we have today: Of note, we have one regulation size alder cone now! The "shrimp churros" are probably going to be my favorite new thing. Very fun, very dense, and they look pretty awesome. The larger canteloupe looking things are "twisty pods" which looks to be a piece of bark that was twisted. If it is dropped into the tank without prep it will stay twisted and looks awesome, but upon prepping it with the heat it does turn into a cantaloupe peel. 😂 There is one other piece, but the name escapes me. It's a type of piece of a husk/shell off of something and it's really cool. I will have to have a proper, intense blackwater tank one day. I already have the fish in mind and would love to have that going any moment, but alas we keep that on the "one day" list. Upon adding the botanicals, the shrimp went absolutely feverish and were immediately swarming the new surfaces and textures. I think I will hold back food and let the shrimp do their thing. I am just going to monitor the water changes, ensure there's no issue with the colony due to adding in the tannin water in the tanks that now have those botanicals in them. I do have more mini size alder cones which are in my QT setup and will eventually be added to the shrimp tank when the time comes. Tomorrow is siphon day, then we will see exactly how dark and tinted we can get this tank!
  24. nabokovfan87
    Looks better than mine, but that stuff in the sand loves to hide! I usually don't know how bad it is until I am removing it. Nooooooooooooooooo! What a hassle. Hopefully it's not too difficult to deal with. How easy or difficult is it to remove the algae? Very cool. 🙂
  25. nabokovfan87
    If we could only get the anubias to grow! 😂 I've got some stuff in a bucket for them and I'll probably toss it in there before bed. More details tomorrow once I can check them out in the light of day.
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