memorywrangler

Ah, very interesting. That explains a lot. Thanks! It's a Finnex Stingray 2. The photo period is 10 hours a day, I believe. Would dropping it help? Alternately, I could try letting the Salvinia minima I have in there go wild and shade everything. Also, is the light requirement just a function of species or is it also question of balance with respect macro/micro nutrients?

My tank's been up for about 4 months and it's doing pretty well. Basic water parameters seem fine and plant growth has been pretty strong. Use Easy Green to keep nitrates above 10ppm. The weird thing is that my plants refuse to grow into the top 30% of the tank. This is true for Bacopa Carolinia on the left and center right, the java fern in the middle (it has numerous, small leaves. The single tall one came with the plant), and the Rotala on the right. They all see to grow about 2/3 of the way up and start leaning outward. Any idea why this might be happening?

There's been quite a bit of progress (and some set backs) in my twin moina cultures. Blooms and Flocs Both containers accumulate lots of bacterial flocs and very thick biofilms. I think these were trapping food particles so the moina couldn't get to them, leading to more spoilage. It also make it very hard to see into the culture. I also over-fed one culture, leading to an intense bacterial bloom (or maybe yeast -- I really want a microscope so I can tell the difference), which then led to a population crash. Send in The Snails The crash culture was having trouble recovering and the other had never really gotten off the ground, so I decide to shake this up by adding about 20 ramshorn snails to each culture (I got about 50 of them on ebay for $27). What a difference! In about a day, they converted all the bacterial flocks to snail poop, vastly improving visibility. With a couple days one culture was teaming with moina and the other started a slow and steady climb in population. Feeding the Snails I was actually a bit worried by house quickly the snails cleaned up the bacteria, but then I remembered a picture I saw on eBay of a bunch of ramshorn snails eating a piece of watermelon rind. We happened to having some for dinner, so I dropped a couple of pieces in. Since then I've been feeding them melon rinds of various kinds, and they seem to be doing great. I've noticed that if I feed the sweet parts (e.g., the red part of water melon), I get bacteria/yeast blooms, so I try to avoid that. The snails seem happy: The walls are covered with egg masses. I've also been feeding some of the pea protein/wheat flour/spirulina mixture, but I've stopped mixing it with water. I just add a teaspoon every few days and let it disperse. Seems to be working ok, and it's much easier. Harvesting and Water Changes My goal is sustainable harvest, and so far it's going ok. Here's the daily routine: Drain 1 quart (about 10%) of the water from each culture through a brine shrimp net and feed to my 10 gallon. Top up with declor water. Dump the strained water in a 5 gallon "swamp bucket" with an air stone, a grow light, and a bunch of java moss. Bonus Food Infusoria One interesting side effect is that my 10 gallon tank (where I feed the moina) now has a very healthy population is infusoria. At first I thought they were very fine air bubbles, but under magnification, they move on their own. I assume the moina culture is full of them too and that is mostly what the moina eat. I'm excited about this, since it means I have a ready source of micro food for fry. If I can get black worms to grow in there, I could condition the parents and feed the fry all from the same cultures!

Update: Yes, it was a dud. I took it out last week and it stank bad! cest le vie.

I'm trying to build the smallest overflow possible. I have a 5-gallon shrimp tank with some very tannic drift wood in it which water tea-colored in a week. I don't like the way it looks but: I don't want to tear it down to replace the wood Every time I do a big water change, some shrimp die. So I'm going to build the tiniest overflow possible and add a pint or two of fresh water every day. Since the tank is so small, it doesn't make much water to raise level 1/4 in or so, which should be enough to run the overflow. Hopefully, this will keep the shrimp happy and my water clear(er). Here was my first attempt built from rigid airline tubing: But it was too narrow -- the surface tension on the water was strong enough to hold back the flow. Here's the second try: it's made of 1/4 acrylic tubing with a small hole drilled at the top of the loop to break the siphon. The tube runs to 5-gal bucket under my desk. It's working fine, but it could be tidier.

I fished out the remains of the vegetables -- they had all been reduced to blobs of snot, but amazingly they didn't stink at all. I put a few drops of the water under my USB microscope. The pictures didn't come out, but there were tons of infusoria scooting around. Once the moina hatch, there will be a great feast.

Three updates: Bacteria blooming (and smelling), preparing food, and culture contaminants Bacteria Bloom After a few days, things got quite cloudy, which indicates a bacterial bloom, which is good news. Unfortunately, I discovered a problem: when I prepared the boiled veggies, I just grabbed whatever was in the fridge and going bad. In my case, this includes some brussel sprouts. So, no my office smells like mouldering cabbage... oops. Lesson learned, and I may have to start over. Contaminated Cultures I took a close look at my existing 1-quart moina cultures. Both are contaminated with cyclops, so I'll start my new cultures with eggs from Greenwater Farm (available on amazon) and try to up my bio-security game. Moina Food Prep On another front, I've been experimenting with what to feed them. I've been using the blend of spirulina powder with garbanzo, pea, and wheat flour suggested by Aquarimax Pets on YouTube. I've tried preparing it in three ways to feed my small, established moina cultures Sprinkling the powder on the surface (cause I'm lazy) Stirring it into water and adding it drop by drop (which is what Aquarimax suggests) Using an electric whisk to mix it really aggressively. With the first two I noticed lots of small-but-visible spirulina particles that sink quickly: However, with the whisk, the water just looks green and stays in suspension better:

I started setting up my pair of moina cultures today. My goal is to produce enough to feed my two small display tanks daily and to use them in place of BBS for the raising small numbers of fry. Hopefully, the built-in spigots will make harvesting super easy. I have a pair of 2.5Gal water dispensers and I've kicked things off with: Some gunk from an established aquarium's filter API quick start Boiled veggies and resulting water A handful of crushed coral A few snails An airline blowing coarse bubbles After the water get's a little funky, I'll add the moina from some small cultures I've been running. I have a variety of things in mind to try: Adding a small gravel filter co-culturing dero worms co-culturing black worms floating plants to keep nitrates down Adding emersed plants whose roots will soak up nitrates and provide more surface area (which is supposed to boost moina production) Anything else I should think about trying?

Does anyone know where I can get airline fittings (Tees, Y's, right angles, valves, etc) made out of PVC or acrylic? I'd like to be able to glue them reliably to acrylic/PVC and I'm not able to get any of my glues to stick reliably to the ones I've found online (E.g., https://www.amazon.com/BornFeel-Aquarium-Tubing-Connector-Adapter/dp/B07FKKH7XV/) -steve

How much should 1ml (1 pump) of Easy Green increase Nitrates in a 5 gallon aquarium? I've been trying to get my nitrates up to 50ppm (a la https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/nitrate). And I'm having trouble getting it that high, and I'm getting nervous about how much I'm fertilizing and how it might affect my shrimp. As a sanity check, I'd like to be able to estimate how much 1ml of easy green should boost my nitrate levels before I dose. So, how do I translate the "guaranteed analysis" information on the bottle in to change-in-ppm-per-ml-per-gallon? Or, equivalently, what's the nitrate ppm of Easy Green? -steve

Here's the details: 5.5 Gallon glass tank The tank has been up about 2 weeks. It's got a sponge filter that I brought over from an established tank. It's not cloudy from the powders. I added them last night and the tank was clear this morning. water Ammonia: 0 Nitrites: 0.5 Nitrates: 5 ph 6.6 chlorine 0 temp: 77 gh 16 kh 7 I did a 50% water change before I started the meds. Nitrites were at 1 or so and nitrates at 10 or 15, so it seems like the cycle was not fully established.

I started the AC Medication Trio treatment on a betta yesterday. At the time the water was crystal clear. There was some algae growth, but nothing else notable in the tank. This evening I have cloudy water, these little mushroom things on the glass, and an apparently still healthy fish. What's going on? Should I be worried? Is this normal? -steve I st

I've the article about quarantine: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/quarantine-tank And I'm curious about the reasoning behind some of the steps: Why does it suggest not following the package direction for the medication trio? Why not feed the fish for a week? four-six weeks is so long! What's the risk doing just a week or two? Thanks!

I set up a google form with water parameters and dedicated fields for fertilizers, etc. Then I book mark it in on my phone, and it makes data entry really easy. All the results end up in a google spreadsheet.

I have a 5 gallon mini tank that's been up with for couple weeks with custom all-in-one sump. No fish yet, but a bunch plants (that are growing very well) and some cherry shrimp and snails. AFter an initial ammonia spike, my nitrates and nitrates started rising, several water changes later they were stuck with nitrites@1pmm and nitrates@10ppm. The remained there for serveral days. Then, yesterday morning (< 24 hours after my last test), they were (and are) both zero. The only change I made was to re-direct the return on stream from the filter to make more of a riffle on the water in hopes of improving aeration. Is it possible that this fixed my cycle?

@SkaleyAquatics I would say it is firmish. The there's a squishy layer of fuzzy algae stuff on the outside and then it's firm under that. It smells...ok. Not terrible, but I definitely wouldn't eat it if it were a food. I turned it a few days ago.

How can I tell if my dwarf aquarium lily bulb is a dud? I’ve had it in my tank for 3 weeks and nothing has happened (except for fuzzy, black and white, algae-like stiff growing on it.)

I want an auto-feeder for live foods. For intsance, a pump that can periodically (and automatically) move daphnia from my culture into the my tank. It could also top up the culture with aquarium water.

What does "good for medium to low light" in plant descriptions actually mean? I have this light (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B093GZKYM9/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1) on a 5-gal cube and an 16-in finnex stingray 2 on a 10-gallon. I'm guessing this is "medium"? I also see sites say thing like "2W/gal" but is this LED watts or incandescent watts or some other notion of watt? -steve

🤦‍♂️ Thanks.

I've been using the Coop's Ammonia test strips and I've noticed that they get bluer (indicating more ammonia) after they've come out of the water and sat for 10-20 seconds. I'm wondering when I'm supposed to read them. Is it immediately after it comes out of the water, or should I wait?