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Hello All! I am setting up my first community tank, and just looking for somewhere to keep my progress. I have kept a few Bettas in 5 gallon cycled tanks, the last of which I had for 4 years. For plants I had moss balls and java fern. After a 3 year hiatus, a few moves and some general life getting in the way, I started to concider getting another fish. As I started looking at a new setup since I had gotten rid of my old one I started to be very interested in a larger tank, and have spent that past few months deciding. I picked up a 20g long, glass lid, nicrew 24/7 light, sponge filter, and a tetra ex30. I packed the filter with sponge, floss and some purigen (to remove tannins I don't care for the black water look). Here is my hardscape, I am just waiting on plants. It is a dirted tank, capped with hth pool filter sand. Manopi wood, river rock, terracotta pot, and a random driftwood stick that I think I might remove if I can find another way to hide the heater tl/dr: first community tank 20g long. Have experience with Bettas and cycling a tank. Here is my hardscape.

I have a long 20 gallon tank with 3 dwarf frogs; will the USB Nano Air Pump be able to sufficiently filter it on its own? I purchased the pump originally for my 10 gal with the nano sponge, but due to many factors, did not use it for that tank. If it is able to filter the tank sufficiently, should I get a different sized sponge than the nano? If so, what sizes of sponge is the nano compatible with?

I took down a 29 gallon tall tank I had setup. The substrate was gravel and sand on the bottom with a few plants. They never grew well, possibly due to the tanks height and weak lighting. The nitrates had risen to around 80ppm even with regular water changes, but it doesn't help that our tap water has 40-50ppm already. The fish were not doing as well as they should be and one tiny cory had died. Above are the test strips for both anoxic tanks, the top is the 20L the bottom is the 5.5 gallon. I moved 4 mystery snails and 6 neon tetras to the 20 gallon long where they joined our 5 black neons, 7 Julii corys, a betta, and 2 snails. The 20L was my first anoxic test and is running at under 20ppm nitrates, zero nitrites and ammonia, very hard, low KH, around 6.8pH, around 340ppm on the TDS meter. It has a slow plenum under gravel filter, an intank filter, and an airstone. It has some basil growing in the top as an experiment. I clear the center duckweed every other day, I just slide the foam dividers together and scoop it out. The top is a foam box with a reflective fabric made for hydroponics boxes this helps get the light onto the tank. The cutouts are terrible, I should have made them before I assembled it, but they work. I can tilt them to open them up and let it breathe. Now onto the nano tank with essentially zero nitrates. It's a 5.5 gallon with 6 green corys, 2 female guppies, and a mystery snail which all came from the 29 gallon. It uses a slow moving plenum, an intank filter, and an air stone. Its currently around 350ppm on the TDS meter. I filled it 75% with the old tank water the rest fresh, along with the plants, a big rock and a tiny section of the old tank's filter sponge. The next day I drained 25% and used water from the 20L anoxic tank and added the small pot which has a few scoops of the 20L substrate. The nitrites and nitrates registered for the first 3 days and have been clear for 3 days now. It has a deep bed of Safe T Sorb over an under gravel filter made from plastic fabric that has 7 holes per inch. I pushed the UG plate to the back so I can see inside a little. This picture isn't to scale, but the substrate is about 3 inches on average. The plenum is 7 squares tall (about 1 inch/25mm) with a 3/8" ID vinyl uplift tube (in the picture above it goes from over the 75mm down to under the 25 mm) it then goes to the surface, to monitor the flow. The plenum has some support plates holding it up but is otherwise open. It also has a small cheap intank filter. I blocked most of the lower inlets and cut a weir into the side. There is also a surface divider around the filter and the plenum uplift tube, it has some foam blocks to keep it floating. It's kind of ugly but it keeps the duckweed out of the filter and makes a nice clean surface. it seems a bit overstocked but so far they are all doing very well. I plan to add a male guppy and possibly a new betta.

$15. Mostly because I like the idea of a fish tank that, in accordance with natural law, allows me to shout "WOODCHUCK!" and bruise someone's shoulder. Seriously though, it's in pretty good shape. The glass was pretty stained, but I got that sorted out no problem, good enough for me anyway. Not sure if it's been resealed, but it held water overnight. I'm still gonna reseal it anyway, just in case though. There are two reasons I'm even bothering to post it though. The first is that it's signed, and I'm curious who Pat. B. is. Tried to google it and didn't turn up anything at all so I don't think it's some old company or anything like that, but I could be wrong. I'm assuming it's someone who decided to make a fish tank at some point and put their name on it. Figured I'd see if any of you NERMs had any idea. The other thing is the vinyl 'wood' paneling here is cracked, and other than super gluing it into place I don't really know what to do about that. What would be my best option?

How much should I use to keep my ph stable after using RO ? I ordered a Pound from Aquarium Co Op want to use it in my filter or is it better under the sand in the substrate