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I use a bit of calcium product in my soft water RO tanks, but only to get the gH to a very low level, had a few problems with plants with almost no calcium available. I do cheat though and use raw calcium salts in a DIY mix. As Byron suggests with commercial products, kH is easier to work with...

They do indeed lose their stripes with stress, but also to denote submissiveness. I'm pretty sure that they rarely stay the same intensity for more than a few minutes at a time in the ones I've had.   Lights on also caused a fair bit of colour changing for mine, but I think that was more a...

Looks like a fairly classical box filter. Nothing really all that wrong with them as simple biological filters. Fairly rubbish mechanical filters though.   Personally, for fry tanks, I'd go with the simple sponge filters, particularly good if you're running an airpump that has multiple outlets...

Nice. Love these fish.

Ahhh, I had a catfish called lucky, survived as power failure in a tank in winter. It had ice on the surface when I came home.

Went to have a look at breaking down my quarantine tank this evening. It's due a fair bit of tidying up.   Spotted movement and lo and behold, a 1cm long corydoras. Has to be a sterbei given what's in the other tanks.   Given that the only thing that's moved from the display to that tank has...

OK, options. Angelfish are quite capable parents sometimes and can raise spawns. The farm bred ones tend to be less so, but it's always worth giving them a go in subdued conditions to see if they do a good job. Many of the farm bred ones seem to get peckish and eat the eggs but some do a good...

I can see the point of the airstone, they're used with some media to keep the media moving, K1 for example.   How wide is this sump? There appear to be a fair number of narrow chamber, which bothers me slightly as they'll be difficult to access for maintenance. It's also a powerful pump, so...

The quickest way is indeed a water change.   Alternatives include chemical systems, like the nitrazorb mentioned, although there are a few others.   The other options are nutrient export, done in the display in a planted tank and often done with macroalgae or algae scrubbers in marine systems or...

Agree with mama 100%. Nitrates are a relatively good way to tell that things are building up, but they're, mainly, not what you're getting rid of in a water change. Think of them as an indicator of rising levels of general waste (in a non planted tank) rather than specifically the thing to remove.

Depends on the fish, they will take smaller fish.

Which tank is it? There's a fair range of dimensions to the 35 litre ones, from cubes to rectangles, which limits lighting choices.

The simple answer is yes, it's too much light. As Lunar says, there's scope for going higher tech, but that's a hell of a lot of light for a 30 litre tank. Options would be to raise it higher, use a controller to dim it or to go back to a lower power light. Personally I think you'll struggle...

For reference, they're fascinating creatures, worth catching and raising if you get a chance, but not a good idea in a tank with fry.

I use simple calcium salts to get my gH right for the shrimp tanks, far happier with that than blocks that dissolve at random rates.

As you may have gathered from the responses above, salt isn't something that usually has a place in freshwater aquaria.   I can sympathise with the question, as I remember a time when some keepers swore by adding some salt to all of their tanks for almost all of their fish, but it's very old...

Sounds like an interesting evening. Thank the Lord for friends like Liam.

I had a juvenile paradise fish down for that one, but it isn't an ideal photo for ID'ing.   It would explain the behaviour as well, they're really designed to be kept on their own. Lovely fish and I remember keeping them in metal framed tanks on wrought iron stands full of plants and no heater...

I'd go for a two step approach, firstly lots of clean water, bigger changes than 30%, go for 70%+ if you can, and more regularly than you normally would. In my experience it's worth far more than most other things.   Secondly you need to do two things, which are to make sure you're entirely...

They are annoyingly cute at 2 inches. It may well be that the missing fish have been eaten, as they are quite predatory.   I'd go with ulceration from either a wound on some decor, a fight between them, or water quality issues (even temporary ones from things like leftover bits of food).

Indeed, I've bred fish over the years. The biggest issue is selling what you have, unless you have something rare (which is by definition expensive or difficult to breed) then you're going to struggle to sell it on. At best I've covered the costs of housing and feeding the results.   The way to...

In that case, not a clue, I use home made. I'd be forced to follow the instructions on the packet.

Looking nice. I'm loving the cabinet set up, really neat and practical, those APS 2000's are huge beasts and that thing makes them look tiny.

The simple answer is no. There are complex answers of course.   Shrimp need calcium for their carapaces, and they get that from the water, the ones we keep tend to like the water around the 150ppm mark on a TDS pen, but they're slightly picky about needing some gH so that their moults don't...

True that. I used to have a shoal of true Julii's many years ago. Never seen any being traded since and much prefer them the to the trilineatus (although to be fair I've not really looked all that hard), although they're both lovely fish.

He's wrong, you're right.

The standard questions apply. What exactly do you have in the tank, what dimensions is it (there are limited varieties of 3 footers out there, but some are considerably bigger (and conversely smaller) than others).   Also what water change regime have you been running and the usual question...

Plants do help with filtration, they take up ammonia and nitrate, amongst other things, that would otherwise end up in the nitrogen cycle.   Quantifying it is difficult however, and tanks that rely on plants for filtration generally rely on fast growing stem type plants, rather than the crown...

Best answers I can give you for increasing the agitation is to take off most of the spraybar, it seems counter-intuitive but you get more flow at one point at the surface which tends to create more overall movement at that level.   The only other suggestion I can give is to run an overflow type...

We have those in the UK, they're traded as All Pond Solutions filters, so you'll find comments and reviews of them on the forum if you have a search.   I have a 2000lph model, it's flow isn't at all amazing compared to other similar filters quoting lesser flow rates, but it is good value for...

I'd personally be looking at the vallis options for grass like plants, once it's settled it'll look after itself mostly and I've not found it suffering too badly in corners where the lack of flow can make the bushier plants algae up.   Some of the hygrophilas would also do well for bushy growth...

Sodium thiosulphate will remove the chlorine element of the chloramine, leaving ammonia that the filter can deal with in all but a very large water change, for smaller changes it's fine. It's also great for removing bleach residue after cleaning things or recharging purigen.

I use sodium thiosulphate. It doesn't have some of the additives that some of the commercial dechlorinators have, but boy is it cheap, particularly for the pond.   Not used tannic acid, would be slightly suspicious of it being non-slow release in the format you get from biological sources, but...

Kribensis would be one salt tolerant options.   There's a list here - http://brackishfaq.webspace.virginmedia.com/Projects/FAQ/3f.html

Ahhh now timings may be a fair amount of your trouble there. I run my lights for 6 hours a day, you have 13 there. Try cutting the timings back to 6 hours (ideally when you're in to see them, run them dark if you're out at work during the day).

Aye, if anything it's likely to be too bright if you're getting algae.   Or not enough fertilisers or CO2 or flow.   Options would be to reduce lighting duration or raise them slightly, or to go higher tech with fertilisers and CO2.

Picture might help. White stringy things are often breaking down leaves, but could be algae.

CO2 is generally a good idea, so long as it's stable, unstable additions are worse than nothing for causing algae problems.   Anubius does indeed tend to melt if it's in the substrate, new leaves are a good sign, and they often look quite small to start with.   High pH, hard water is often good...

Congos are good top halfers if you're not going biotope and want something with some size to it.   I'd also second the swordtails though, the wild colour type (often called the green swordtail) is beautiful.

I use standard daylight T5's in my fittings. Far cheaper than the aquarium alternatives.   How much light you should have depends on a whole lot of things, including the depth of your tank, but a couple of T5s is a lot of light and could well be pushing you down the high tech route. If you want...