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Just as an FYI, when substrate is disturbed the bacteria in the substrate will be impacted to some degree. But depending on how it's moved to a new tank, there may still be some residing in it. Some people might think that moving substrate is a great opportunity to wash it up nicely, but that...

Keep in mind that not all of the beneficial bacteria live in the filter media. That is a major contributor, but the beneficial bacteria also live in the substrate and on the various objects in the tank. So if you only moved the filter over, you only transferred a portion of the overall bacteria...

With near max bio-load, trying to get a sense of water parameter change over the course of a week. Following largish water change: PH = 6.6 Ammonia = NA (didn't test) Nitrites = 0.0 Nitrates = 7.0

When fish stay near the top of the water, it sometimes because they are having trouble breathing. Oxygen/CO2 exchange takes place on the surface of the water. One quick way to get more oxygen into the water for them is to create more surface disturbance, agitating the surface water more. If...

German Blue Rams are getting very comfortable in the tank, and establishing territory. Can't get over how much more colorful they get as they begin to settle in. This guy was even trying to attack my cell phone through the glass as I snapped pictures of him. I've never seen a fish do that before.

Sorry, didn't mean to distract from OP's thread, but I will have to try that. Thanks!

Yea, I would think there would be some dependence on the particular situation as well. I know with my water, a large water change alters the PH significantly. It can easily go from 7.5 to 6.0 in a single large water change due our water being so soft.

So sorry for your loss. It's been mentioned but snail populations will generally stay in synch with food supply. So it would be good to restrict food provided to smaller bits & floating flakes that never get a chance to hit the bottom of the tank. With a couple of young children, regulating...

Love the Clown Loaches. Though those particular guys look like they need a bigger tank, I've heard they can also fetch a decent price on the market, as they do take a very long time to grow larger. I know some folks simply trade in their fish when they reach a size they can no longer sustain, in...

With fish in the tank I would do several smaller water changes as opposed to one big one. When mine was recently cycling I did 20% water changes twice per day for a couple of days. I had 0.8 nitrites, and the over a couple of days reduced that down to under 0.3 which is generally considered the...

So far so, good. No fish lost so far. I can sure tell though that the Panda Corys are extremely social. They stick together a lot of the time, and really seem to like the piece of wood I have laying on the bottom right of the tank under the power head. I have heard they prefer larger groups...

Tanks! ;)

No water changes for more than a week (9 days I think?) and tank seems pretty stable. Nitrates are up a couple of points, and PH is slightly higher. PH = 7.2 Ammonia = 0.0 Nitrites = 0.0 Nitrates = 10 Will do a water change tomorrow. Added a few Rummy Nose Tetras.

Thanks essjay. The tank does have a rather larger dual filtering system, with two sets of large sponge filters, both currently containing Fluval Biomax packs. So it could be that the fish just aren't generating that much ammonia, and it's been that way most of the cycle so far. I had one point a...

I've mentioned the relationship before in passing I think, but you may be think of @essjay . He goes more in-depth and has a lot more knowledge on the subject.

I'm in the 6th week of cycling a new 32g tank (with fish & bio-enhancers), and I think I'm near the end of the cycling process. As expected, it's been a bit of a bump ride with a lot of water changes in the 4th-5th week to keep PH near 7.0, and drive down nitrites when they got a bit too high...

When I brought mine home they were pretty pale. After getting used to the tank they began to get a bit of color, but they really started coloring up more when I began to feed them protein. Just fed them some blood worms and their colors really popped. Here's the dominant male. The other one...

Thanks! Yea I love how interesting they are as well. So when I first researched rams I found people claiming that the one sure way to tell the male from the female was the solid black side patch on the side. They said males have a side patch that is solid black with no blue scales showing over...

Here's a picture of my tank, a Fluval Mega Flex (32g). Currently all plastic/silk plants but I plan to slowly replace them with live plants and the gravel substrate with a proper growing substrate in areas where I'm planting. More specifically I plan to fill in the back side of the tank by...

That's good to know, but I'm learning that their color changes are extremely complex and given to change in very specific situations. So are you saying they can (or will?) have a pink belly even if they are in a tank with a male but not paired with the male? Or are you just saying that if a male...

I'm new to German Blue Rams myself, and what I've learned is that there will be endless changes in color. They get more color when comfortable, less when stressed. They coloring changes can be extreme and only take a second or two in some cases. When I feed my rams, their colors change before my...

Two days later; no water change in between. Slight color changes on tests; possible slight bump in ammonia & nitrites that's barely noticeable, due to adding 5 fish last week. PH = 7.0 Ammonia = 0.0 (yellowish-green, possibly a bit darker than last test two days ago) Nitrites = 0.0 (still...

Yea, it can be pretty complicated. Most of us are in the same boat, still learning even after years of experience. Part of that is because you tend not to cycle tanks much unless you have many of them. The fact is, a tank like yours without fish or any other source of ammonia will not be cycled...

For practical purposes ('where do we go from here?') I think it would be important to focus on getting your tank cycled by introducing some ammonia as suggested by others, and plan your eventual fish load based on the water conditions you are able to maintain.

I think technically, the determining point is the highest point of the hose on the tank side, with more gravity impacted water volume in the side of hose that's travelling to the sink. Water can even lift straight up to a point on the tank side, well above the tank, as long as gravity is forcing...

A day later, with no water change in between... PH = 7.0 Ammonia = 0.0 (yellowish-green, possibly a bit lighter than yesterday) Nitrites = 0.0 (absolutely clear) Nitrates = 5 Could be my tank is completing it's cycling.

You'd want to be sure your tank can handle the bio-load of a pleco. They create a lot of waste.

What I find kind of intriguing about ammonia test kits is that they are based on different methods. For instance, mine Fluval kit uses a modified Indophenol method. Given the time, I'd like to explore these methods in more depth to try to understand some of the issues involved and why certain...

One of the reasons I really like the thermometer gun is that it lets you read the temps at different parts of your tank easily. I think people tend to think that water is is pretty temp consistent in a contained body of water, but it has thermal zones and thermal dynamics just like air. The...

I've read of some people using instant read thermometers normally used for cooking. Seemed to be a pretty good solution.

I'm having the opposite issue. Females all over the place and can't find a male... because the females are the nicer shrimp I tend to think the LFS ends up with mostly females. Part of me wonders if it isn't that the local breeder wants to limit the # of breeding pairs they supply. I'm holding...