nabokovfan87

https://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/cetopsis-coecutiens/

I would definitely add one, maybe even two airstones. They are a river species and love river-type of water. Usually this is slightly cooler (76 or below, preferably 72-74) and they like highly oxygenated water. As temp rises, you'd want to add even more oxygenation. I understand there is the internal filter and agitation, but if you're losing them, the first thing I would ever suggest is to add air and check temp. Depending on where they are in the tank can be an indication of what they are telling you. This is based on the "be the fish" mindset from Eric Bodrock and it's things I've seen from my own hillstream loaches. Hanging out on the back glass - This could be due to camouflage, light, or circulation. They tend to want good circulation but it doesn't have to be a river torrent or anything. During the day they will typically hide on the back glass and it's because it's away from the light. That was my experience. I also had some that would hang out underneath shady spots in the hardscape and even use pleco caves as their little territory (hard flat rocks also works). This is just things I've noticed in mine when I had them. Sitting near flow or near air stone - This is common in a lot of species, but it does happen sometimes as a sign that fish might just want more oxygen or circulation in the water. Sharks will do this as a form of recovery so they can gain their energy back. Foods - Repashy is often a favorite as well as algae wafers. Some brands they don't like some they do. I fed repashy soilent green which is the one specifically mentioning aufwuchs for the marketing. Frozen brine and flake foods they also did well with. Maybe you can provide a little open space on the right side of the tank? Especially by moving (or removing) some of the smaller ones up front.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no and it can change by the season. Farms, wells near farms, tend to have issues when chemicals are sprayed and that can run into mystery issues. I just mention it as a word of caution not necessarily as a "this will/won't work". Welcome to the forums, welcome to the hobby, and hopefully we all can get you on the right track. There's a lot of great advice here and we're all happy to help.

There's a local shop by me that makes them for people, at least they did. You might be able to find something similar in a LFS that produces their own wood stands. That being said, you're best bet is likely to find one for a tank of similar size, but not necessarily a marineland one. For instance, maybe a 40B, 55G or 75G stand would work. You could have the column on one side and then a 20L or something next to it. I'll send you some links if I find anything.

Is that tank row on the top bowing towards where the two tanks meet or is this like a fun camera trick? You got this, no big deal at all. 🙂 It'll be interesting to see how the tanks are with other floaters and if you notice any changes.

Did you see the post from @AllFishNoBrakesabove?

Run a test where it is crushed into bits and see if it sinks. If that works, then you can use a pepper mill to feed it out. They have floating and semi-floating versions, probably just need to get the other one. I think it's in the bottom left of the bag.

For the hatchets, maybe using a feeding ring and a floating food makes it easy for them. For the ram and the corydoras they have feeding tubes that you can use as well as a feeding dish if you want. That makes it very easy to spot feed them. I use a piece of vinyl tube and use that to spot feed my shrimp and it works just fine. I've also seen people use spare cuts of PVC for the same purpose. I have a similar issue with my swordtails in the big 75G tank. Let's say I feed a repashy or I feed out some wafers, the corydoras take a little time to get food. The otos act similarly and I rarely see them eating with the mass of other fish. Simply put, I will take a wafer and break it to pieces or use multiple pieces of repashy. I spread them out so the swords can find some food and then I'll go ahead and feed the corydoras and other fish their portion. Everyone has their zones and for something like my swords and some of your fish.... They don't have a boundary and it's just something to work around and resolve. It's tricky, but there is a way. There are some tips and tricks. That's unfortunate. 😞 They don't know their own limits. Hm. Maybe there is a way to control the size of the food and they get a lot of bites in but not necessarily a ton of volume. .... Back when I had the barbs it was a similar issue to what you're experiencing. A very high energy fish and some that were much lower energy. Ultimately it does make it difficult if the feeding response of one fish is harming another. Maybe the ram in particular can be fed with a feeding tube in a corner of the tank somewhere, but let's dive into some tricks. Among the barbs themselves some of the "runts" or fish lower on the totem pole had issues getting food. I would try to find those fish before feeding much of anything just to have an idea of where to drop food. Start by sprinkling a very small amount to get the groups attention and then sprinkle food directly to those fish. Yes the group would go and get a bit of that food, but they couldn't get everything. Having a floating food can be slightly difficult to find. I've had so many foods that say floating, but don't. I have had one food that said semi-floating and it wouldn't fully sink for days (some would, most wouldn't). I have had food labelled as semi-floating that sinks right away. It's a bit of a mess and there's not much to clarify it until you try to feed that food. One other trick is to make a mix. Have some flake (floating food) as well as something like small pellets (or granules) for the bottom feeders. This is similar to a set of foods that Sera makes where they add a bunch of things in a treat mix. What will happen when you feed is that some drops and some doesn't and the dispersal gives time for all levels of the tank to feed at once and hopefully have a better time trying to get food. Powdered foods are great for semi-floating and floating foods. Rams love to take their time eating. Wherever your ram likes to hang out, hopefully there is a bit of an area where you can spot feed and give it a chance to get food easily. Corydoras will handle what sinks at the bottom and they should be able to handle the rummynose doing there thing. If you don't have success with it, then you can feed the corydoras after lights out and that should give them a slight advantage to get some food in. If nothing works, then maybe it's best to remove the off-energy fish feeders and try to have a less stressful setup when it comes to managing that food response. Very interesting. Maybe their energy level helps or they have a lower fat % food. Even something like omnivore vs. Protein based foods could be the culprit. Hopefully there's some improvement soon for you with regards to the over eating/bloat.

Having the heater like that can cause it to explode. Please verify that the minimum water level is acceptable for the heater product you have. If it doesn't fit vertically you can orient it at a slight angle like this in most cases. Just verify in the directions.

Seeeeend it. 😂

Can you share your water testing results including temp? A photo of the setup does help as well to see what's going on a bit more in detail. It could be something where it's a water quality issue, oxygenation issue, or something else. Acclimation does take time and hopefully the fish are ok.

I don't have one unfortunately. 😞 😞 😞

Yeah I would assume so. I think it was the MST article that mentioned if there's too much in the substrate then you're going to have critters, especially in a shrimp tank. Heavy siphons and hopefully that helps to clean things up.

@Cinnebuns Do you have a floating or hang on breeder box you can move them to and finish treatment in that tank?

Yeah. So far the culls/amanos in there are just straight up ignoring it. I'm hoping I wake up tomorrow and there's a lot of progress. There's otos in there as well. The new layout and everything probably has everyone trying to get used to everything. I was cleaning the HoB and let all the junk run in the tank from the bottom as it was running. I went ahead and netted all of that out afterwards. It may or may not be the worms going nuts again on me. I can't tell, but that's what it looks like. So did it that way because they might as well be fish food if that's what it is. I'm really hoping the hygro starts growing again with the diffuser and lighting adjustments. It was doing so well. I think I was at 3 stems and now I have 6-7.

I found this one.... I was watching the talk by Eric Bodrock. This was a Flip video when they were at his fishroom. You can hear Cory recording in the background.

A type of roundworm. I think size rules is out as a detritus worm. @Guppysnail @modified lung any ideas?

You're gonna have to use the goliad farms method and sort them and pick them out that way. Too many! 😂

I'll see if I got one.

You trim is a very small amount using the crop tool. For whatever reason it's a bit of bug on the forums they are still working to sort out. Welcome to the forums. The tank looks wonderful. So many different plants! There's a tool where you can just double click, and then resize them that way if you want. They are good though! No worries. 🙂

@Nacskinsany luck yet? I can see what I have and try to get some stuff your way. I might have a double or two or just have one you like. Who else has some stickers and doesn't mind swapping?

It's been a whirlwind of 24 hours or so for this tank. I was watching the fish, feeding things, and just checking on everything when I noticed some algae issues on the Hygrophila Pinnatifida. I tossed that in a container to go ahead and run an RR treatment on that plant. I also found two stems of staurogyne repens to treat as well. I was a day late doing the water changes, but ensuing storm kind of dictated that. I started draining the tank and that led to seeing a ton of BBA on the filter box. I grabbed the hydrogen peroxide and treated that using a new method I found from kaveman aquatics where you literally brush it on. I'll keep an eye on the area and see how it works out. If it's a good technique, that's very useful. There is also a small amount on the smaller piece of wood and so I pulled that to see what I could do. I ended up rescaping the tank a little bit and then continued to work on the water changes and cleaning out the sponges. One small flood later due to being too focused on a leaf I needed to get out, I cleaned that up and tried to fix the CO2 system a little bit. I moved the diffuser so that there is some relief on the BBA that is growing on the spraybar. I've been trying to clean that as well, but it hasn't been going well. The exact location where the CO2 hits the suction cups seems to be where the BBA is taking hold. In the end, I know I need to get better plant growth and it's something where I wish I could just toss in $150-$200 worth of plants. I may need to go back to the old method of spraybar where I have it pointed directly at the diffuser itself, but that has its own issues. As always there are things to consider and try to resolve. I need to keep in mind, push myself a bit, to stay ahead and focused on removing algae. It's very easy to feel frustrated by this and to let it just runamuck. I dropped the light a little closer to the tank and then proceeded to cut the power of the light by ~15%. Previously, which has caused the algae to start up again, I had increased it by 10%. Simply put, the light is a little closer, cut by 5% and we'll see how the plants grow. I replanted, propagated out the hygro this morning and things look better. I have it spread throughout the scale and that should look pretty spectacular if and when it does end up growing fully for me. I really adore that plant and I'm looking forward to seeing it thrive and overtake everything. Shoot. I think I cleaned the prefilters only and still need to go clean the HoB media. Time to get that done! Edit: I took some photos of the different algae methods mentioned above. I also have new growth on the pennywort. It's slow growing, but it's getting there. Thanks again @mountaintoppufferkeeper! And last but not least, I'm going to have to recommend that brush technique. This is the first time I've ever seen peroxide do anything for me. Update #2: I went ahead and tried to mess with the CO2 diffuser. I am just not happy with it. I may need to swap it out. Essentially, spraybar is pushed so far off the glass due to how the suction cups work and that results in the CO2 getting behind it instead of being pushed all around the aquarium. It was currently mounted as a small L shape with the pump off to the side and the bar the length of the sidewall. I added a small extension, pushed the filter to stick to the back wall and then modified to be a "corner install" where the bar is pointing directly towards the diffuser from the back of the tank and then all the way across the surface of the tank with the sidewall piece. I have a canister I need to mess with that will eventually take its place (and then in-line CO2), but for right now I am hoping this is enough to push back the BBA and get things back to being balanced.

I know right! Fun to see. And their RTBS was so small!!!

Hey everyone. YouTube seems to have made a feature update. Which just means I literally have to know what I want to see like a magic genie now. 😂 I stumbled on an older style video I've never seen. Please feel free to share some videos from fishkeepers that you enjoy to help me out. I'm sure there is some gems I have yet to enjoy out there and we were talking recently about how difficult it can be to find / enjoy content on YouTube that isn't the most recent video releases. Let's have some fun with it!

link? For me. One of mine was the black corydoras or some other "rare" corydoras that is seemingly difficult to breed. I have had no luck or success using spawning mops, even with my pandas and so trying to learn how to handle these fish was a trial. I didn't know if they liked to be hot or cold, I didn't know the flow, and ultimately information on habitat is far from available for them. It's really an issue because some can't even agree on origin. After a lot of time, effort, research, and many things I decided to get some and then I decided to seriously try to breed them. I spawned them successfully, but I am still.... years later.... trying to understand the method and the technique behind it. "be the fish" is never more true and so complex. 🙂 In a dream world. I want a reef with a shark. No regard for what size they need, double it if I can, and then just have everything setup for that one fish.