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JuffoWup posted:I just want to add to this with my own personal experience with the same "I've been doing internet research and want to do a planted tank" a few years ago. Don't listen to the internet about substrates. There are many crowing about how awesome ada aquasoil is. Or maybe talking of their sand capped potting soil setup. Don't do it. Just get normal gravel. Or as hinted if you plan to do cories, sand. Inert substrates will save you a lot of headaches. You can still just hit the roots of your plants with root tabs to be equally effective. But without worrying any spare nutrients encouraging single celled plants to take up residents for a bonanza party. Capped soil setups are neat and cheap and effective. But just stating out, there is a possibility of wanting to move plants around. Something you can't do with capped soils. And ada just pours out nutrients where if you don't have a lot of high growth plants (that'll need high lights and co2), algae or even cyanobacteria will take over. Very much this. Of course, like any complicated hobby, it depends. Some plants like Cryptocorynes or Amazon swords preferentially take in nutrition through their roots in the substrate, and in those cases aquasoils or potting soil covered up with a layer of sand a la the Walstad Method makes sense for lush growth (though like was said, going the capped soil route is best left for experienced aquascapers with a developed eye for setting things up right the first time, because once things are running you can't move any plants around without releasing a flood of nutrients into the water column and getting a shitload of algae). Other plants, like Java Ferns and certain stem plants like Elodea, take in most of their food from stuff dissolved in the water itself, and mostly just use their roots as anchors and secondary uptake, and those are perfectly fine with gravel and occasionally dosing the water with fertilizer. The approach you take depends on what you want to do with it.
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Dec 10, 2021 23:24
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Asterite34 posted:Very much this. Of course, like any complicated hobby, it depends. Some plants like Cryptocorynes or Amazon swords preferentially take in nutrition through their roots in the substrate, and in those cases aquasoils or potting soil covered up with a layer of sand a la the Walstad Method makes sense for lush growth (though like was said, going the capped soil route is best left for experienced aquascapers with a developed eye for setting things up right the first time, because once things are running you can't move any plants around without releasing a flood of nutrients into the water column and getting a shitload of algae). Other plants, like Java Ferns and certain stem plants like Elodea, take in most of their food from stuff dissolved in the water itself, and mostly just use their roots as anchors and secondary uptake, and those are perfectly fine with gravel and occasionally dosing the water with fertilizer. The approach you take depends on what you want to do with it. Again though, root tabs work just fine for crypts and swords. I've got both and they've been fine. Hell, one of my crypts is anchored to a piece of wood similar to what you'd do with ferns/anubias/moss.
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Dec 10, 2021 23:39
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Mikey Purp posted:Actually, after closer inspection, could this possibly be roots/the start of a new rhizome? Weirdly, there seem to be a lot of young leaves growing from the tips of the old leaves on this and the other java ferns in the tank. Is that a thing? Very confusing. Congrats, you're brand new plant parent to some clone Java ferns! I was blown away when mine started doing this a few months ago. Nature is neat!
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Dec 10, 2021 23:46
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Got home from babysitting the nephew this afternoon to find that my 2 oscars drat near killed each other. I've had the pair for 3 years now, and they have been totally chill until today. It's lucky that neither of them died, 14" fish can do a lot of damage to each other. Had to do some emergency tank shuffling, and for now one of them got removed from their 125g tank into a 55g. I'm probably going to have to end up rehoming one of them, just don't have the space for two permanent oscar tanks, no matter how cool those fish are. 
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Dec 11, 2021 00:54
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I return with more dumb questions. The corys don't exactly scramble to eat immediately but they are interested and the sinking pellets I've been feeding do all disappear after a little while. I'm not really sure to tell how much is enough and if they all actually got some, though? Also I had read somewhere they could be shy but they don't seem to give a single lonesome gently caress about chilling in the open.
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Dec 11, 2021 03:17
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I have six that I feed one pellet a day or about 4 or 5 algae crumbles a day (also have shrimps and snails that get leftovers). I skip feeding once a week as well. If you keep to a schedule they will figure it out as well, and you should see them flitting around within a half hour of food time looking for goodies.
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Dec 11, 2021 16:44
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Wallet posted:I return with more dumb questions. To me, corys are like bumbling roombas. They'll get there eventually. I think they're only shy when they aren't kept in numbers, or if the light is too bright or if there's something else around that puts them on edge (maybe a lack of tank mates at the top level might make them timid?). If they feel safe they snuffle all over the place without a care in the world. Or if you give them a cave to hide in they might all vanish into that cave for no reason, just because it's there, like they do in my striped raphael's tank. Mine make a beeline for shrimp pellets or the other stinky pellet that hikari makes for bottom dwellers.
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Dec 11, 2021 17:33
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Stoca Zola posted:To me, corys are like bumbling roombas. Today one of them discovered that if you swim into the bubbles from the airstone and you're a tiny fish they lift you to the surface and then spent multiple hours doing it over and over again.
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Dec 11, 2021 23:52
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Wow I can't believe how good the single nerite snail is. I usually leave the back wall of my tank alone, I don't scrub it or remove algae in any way. I saw this kinda thing on a youtube video at some point but basically it's nice to have an area where shrimp could theoretically graze if needed and it's out of the way. The nerite has essentially cleaned completely that entire back wall (it's a nano tank but still). I'll have to drop more algae wafers in for everyone from now on but it's worth it to have free easy clean glass.
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Dec 12, 2021 10:25
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I did a water change today and a bunch of baby shrimp appeared. I was reading up on breeding them and thought I had to wait a while and set perfect conditions and induce molting but lol nope.
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Dec 12, 2021 17:17
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Call Your Grandma posted:I did a water change today and a bunch of baby shrimp appeared. I was reading up on breeding them and thought I had to wait a while and set perfect conditions and induce molting but lol nope. 
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Dec 12, 2021 17:29
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Call Your Grandma posted:I did a water change today and a bunch of baby shrimp appeared. I was reading up on breeding them and thought I had to wait a while and set perfect conditions and induce molting but lol nope. What kind of shrimp? If it's neos, LOL at needing perfect conditions. Those fuckers breed like rabbits.
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Dec 12, 2021 21:54
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Wallet posted:Today one of them discovered that if you swim into the bubbles from the airstone and you're a tiny fish they lift you to the surface and then spent multiple hours doing it over and over again. There are some fish, and I have yet to figure out type/species/etc.? Some of them get suuuuuper into bubbles.
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Dec 12, 2021 22:22
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Mister Bates posted:I have not kept fish in a very long time (almost eighteen years), but I used to enjoy it very much and have been doing research in preparation for getting back into it. Thought I'd post in here for advice and suggestions before I actually start acquiring tanks and equipment and things. as an update to this: I tested the local tap water and it's extremely hard (180 gh/180 kh), with a ph of around 8 and very little nitrite/nitrate. I've settled on a 40g breeder instead of a 25 gallon, and also found a local fish store (the only local fish store, in fact, unless I want to go to a chain like Petco) who specializes in freshwater fish and plants and is willing to do custom orders.
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Dec 13, 2021 00:47
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Mister Bates posted:as an update to this: I tested the local tap water and it's extremely hard (180 gh/180 kh), with a ph of around 8 and very little nitrite/nitrate. I've settled on a 40g breeder instead of a 25 gallon, and also found a local fish store (the only local fish store, in fact, unless I want to go to a chain like Petco) who specializes in freshwater fish and plants and is willing to do custom orders.
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Dec 13, 2021 01:11
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Yeah, guppies and Endler's Livebearers love hard water, are fairly undemanding in terms of specialized care requirements, and get along well with cories, snails and adult shrimps (who also all generally do well in hard water). They might go after newborn shrimplets, but that's why they spawn a million of them at a time, just give them lots of nooks and crannys for at least some of them to hide. This is also good advice if you have a mixed-gender batch of livebearers, because they WILL breed and WILL try and eat their own young if they can catch them.
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Dec 13, 2021 02:49
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Local fish will have been kept and maybe even bred in local water so anything you can buy at the local shop should be fine I think. Neocaridina and amanos will do fine in water like that too. You won't have to worry about pH crashes with that much kH available. I wouldn't go with livebearers unless you did get the big tank and have some population control plan in mind, because happy guppies will expand their population to fill and overflow any available space.
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Dec 13, 2021 04:27
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What would you recommend for a population control plan if I did get livebearers?
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Dec 13, 2021 06:53
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Hi, it's the newbie with another "is this normal plant behavior?" question. My floating plants (salvinia natans) are turning brown, and the leaves look to be dying and sinking below the surface, but they are also putting out heathy-looking new shoots. Is this normal?
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Dec 14, 2021 03:43
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Mikey Purp posted:Hi, it's the newbie with another "is this normal plant behavior?" question. My floating plants (salvinia natans) are turning brown, and the leaves look to be dying and sinking below the surface, but they are also putting out heathy-looking new shoots. Is this normal? yes, especially if they were grown out of water it’s pretty common for new plants to shed their old leaves and grow new ones that are better suited to the conditions of your tank. it’s worth catching it early and grabbing the shed leaves as they turn to slime before they pollute the tank
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Dec 14, 2021 03:51
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I'm thinking maybe these are adjusting from being in sunlight to being indoors. A lot of these kind of infinitely growing plants need to have the old/dead/brown stuff removed and the green stuff kept just to keep the plant population under control. It's a fast growing plant so you'll get used to knowing how much you need to remove every time you do plant maintenance.
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Dec 14, 2021 06:42
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Mister Bates posted:What would you recommend for a population control plan if I did get livebearers? Get only males. I had a terrible time with overpopulation until I settled on a sausage party tank. The males are prettier and more active anyway.
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Dec 14, 2021 16:22
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Krispy Wafer posted:Get only males. Constant show off dancing. LOOK AT ME! I'M THE PRETTIEST BOY EVAR!
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Dec 14, 2021 17:59
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I got some Pseudomugil luminatus to hang out with the Corydoras. I knew they would be small but they're really small so hopefully they'll eat easily. Even harder to get a picture of that is something approximating in focus. The corydoras seem a lot more active since they went in there, for whatever reason, and it seems like they're maybe starting to recognize when it's feeding time cause they all come hang out in front.
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Dec 14, 2021 23:53
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So I am at the point where I am putting together equipment and thinking about how I want to actually scape this. I think I want to do vallisneria spiralis as my primary background plant. Before I can start putting anything together, though, I have to decide on a substrate. While I have kept fish before, it's been a very long time and it was always fish-only, I have no experience at all with planted tanks. With that in mind, I don't want to do a sand-capped soil setup, since I don't actually know what I'm doing yet; I'll just use root tabs. My main concerns are that I want something that plants will be able to grow in with adequate care and fertilizer, and which is soft enough that it will not injure bottom-dwelling fish. Would straight-up sand be my best option, or is there something else that might be better?
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Dec 15, 2021 23:30
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Mister Bates posted:So I am at the point where I am putting together equipment and thinking about how I want to actually scape this. I think I want to do vallisneria spiralis as my primary background plant. don't overthink it if you like the hobby enough then soon enough you'll have a second tank, and then maybe a third, and a fourth, and so on that's how it always goes, 10gal tanks are stupid cheap and there's always going to be an aesthetic direction/livestock you'll want to try out edit: gravel or sand will be fine. If you're keeping cats or anything with whiskers then maybe avoid substrates that will injure them but otherwise any normal substrate is probably fine with root tabs
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Dec 15, 2021 23:43
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Mister Bates posted:So I am at the point where I am putting together equipment and thinking about how I want to actually scape this. I think I want to do vallisneria spiralis as my primary background plant. Sand is good, with some caveats. Some people feel that the dense particles can hamper root growth of plants (though probably not a HUGE amount), and also any fish poop or miscellaneous mulm kinda just sits on the surface and looks a bit unsightly. It can make cleaning fairly easy if you can get the right amount of flow of your siphon vac that it'll suck the goo off the ground and NOT suck up the sand itself. A heavy, fairly smooth-grained sand is recommended. Some people swear by pool filter sand, for a slightly unorthodox option. Gravel, especially something rounded like pea gravel, is good for plants and suitably safe for fish but can trap fish waste in the grains, so you really gotta get in there with the gravel vac. In either case, botton-dwellers should be fine as long as it's cleaned somewhat regularly. Cories certainly seem to like snuffling around in sand in my experience.
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Dec 15, 2021 23:54
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Medium grit black diamond blasting powder from Tractor Supply is the gold standard for substrates as far as I'm concerned. Looks great, plants love it, and it's safe for cories or whatever else.
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Dec 16, 2021 00:01
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Enos Cabell posted:Medium grit black diamond blasting powder from Tractor Supply is the gold standard for substrates as far as I'm concerned. Looks great, plants love it, and it's safe for cories or whatever else. Seconding this. I recently switched from pool filter sand to medium grit blasting sand in my 125g and I love it. Big plus was that I found it waaaaay easier to rinse than pool filter sand.
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Dec 16, 2021 00:05
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Conversely, the black sand option here in Australia has been tainted with copper or some other unwanted metal and has a reputation for killing fish plants snails, pretty much everything. If you can get the good stuff, go for it because fish feel more secure and show more intense colouring over a dark substrate. Any evenly sized not too small substrate should be fine, to allow diffusion of water without packing down too tightly. Avoid carbonate sands (they'll affect water chemistry) and stick to silicate sand if you aren't sure.
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Dec 16, 2021 00:28
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I used the large red lava rocks from the home depot, inert and works well.
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Dec 16, 2021 04:40
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Leal posted:
Green Terrors as centerpiece fish an appropriately sized tank!  Looking forward to updates. Such an underrated fish.
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Dec 16, 2021 17:47
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Yesterday I checked my reef at feeding time and noticed something was off, I didn't see my cleaner shrimp. Sure enough, he was lying on his side dead behind the live rock. I know they don't like especially long and everything else looks fine so I'm operating under the assumption it was natural causes. I had him for 2 years and 6 months according to my records, a nice run for a cleaner shrimp I believe.
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Dec 16, 2021 17:57
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Had two florescent light hoods die at the same time, a 36" and 48". Changed the bulbs and starters, still dead. I had just been talking about how I wanted to replace them with LED fixtures. They know...
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Dec 16, 2021 18:36
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If you're looking for a good midrange LED I've been super happy with my Fluval Plant 3.0s Sorry about your cleaner shrimp Bulky, those little dudes are the best =(
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Dec 16, 2021 19:39
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Enos Cabell posted:If you're looking for a good midrange LED I've been super happy with my Fluval Plant 3.0s Thanks. Found a video of him/her cruising around on my hand. Before I moved it into the reef tank it was in my 75g FOWLR. In the morning, before the triggerfish was awake it would come over to the side of the tank I walked by and I swear it was asking for algae wafers. When I had time to get my arm wet, I would grab one, reach in and hand it straight to him/her. I wish I took the time to do it more often. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agJ6WhWKT_I&t=35s Bulky Bartokomous fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Dec 16, 2021 |
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Dec 16, 2021 20:27
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Blah, when my light came on this morning I could hear something scratching about in my tank. A quick look showed it was one of my Amazon puffers. He was thrashing around in the substrate for some reason. Super unusual behavior for him. Looking a little more closely and the other two were lethargic and sitting on the tank bottom. I gave them a few minutes to wake up, but their behavior remained the same. I measured all my water parameters and everything is totally normal. 0/0/20 with a 7.6pH. Nothing's changed in the tank, but I did reintroduce CO2 yesterday morning. It had been off for about a week because my supplier was out of 10 gallon tanks. I'm concerned that my regulator may have been leaning all night and the low dissolved oxygen in the water stressed them out. I'd also considered that 24 hours of CO2 might have acidified the water, but the pH was totally normal. I do run an air stone 24 hours a day and I'm hoping that made a difference. I did a 25% water change and gave them half an hour to perk up but saw no change. I ended up netting all three, which was a challenge, and moving them to a mostly empty 29 gallon. Once I popped them in there, they seemed to perk right up. Their color came back and they've been moving and exploring ever since. Only one of them seemed interested in food, but I've seen them snap at a few snails. I'll keep a close eye on them, but I hope I'm out of the woods here. Anyone have any thoughts on things I might be missing? They were lively and eating like pigs last night, and didn't have anything new or unusual. I definitely freaked out this morning when I saw them because they are hands down my favorite fish.
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Dec 16, 2021 21:54
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Schwack posted:Blah, when my light came on this morning I could hear something scratching about in my tank. A quick look showed it was one of my Amazon puffers. He was thrashing around in the substrate for some reason. Super unusual behavior for him. Looking a little more closely and the other two were lethargic and sitting on the tank bottom. Sounds like CO2 narcosis. How are you dosing it? I assume you have some indicator for CO2 level in the tank? What did it show?
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Dec 16, 2021 23:45
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It's dosed through a diffuser off a two stage regulator. Since it had been off for some time, I tried to start up slowly. Last night I had adjusted the needle valve to approximately one bubble a second. However, this morning it was flowing significantly faster. I'm guessing that the tank warmed up fully and pressure increased. My drop checker showed approximately 30 parts per million CO2, and no other fish seem to be impacted at all. All my CPD and pearl gourami were behaving normally and showed no signs of stress.
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Dec 17, 2021 00:18
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I'd like to add some corydoras cats to my 55g but I'm worried my festivum will try to eat them. Maybe I'll just get a single rafael cat and call it a day. Currently the tank has the festivum, 2 angels, and 3 black skirt tetras. I feel like I need to jazz it up (more black skirts) but also add something that help with food leftovers that make it to the bottom. As adorable as it is watching angels try awkwardly to eat off the bottom, they aren't great at it.
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Dec 17, 2021 14:11
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