Search results

Depending on how much rotting fish food there is in the tank, it's not unheard of for the ammonia to stay constant if there is a continuous high supply of it. Are you sure your test kit is working? Have you tested tap water and bottled water for all parameters? I have heard anecdotal mentions...

ah! I didn't know you had a spare tank just waiting for 100+ gallons worth of fish inhabitants :D keep us posted on the progress, will be interesting to see what you decide to do with the scape!

with pH, how much it will change and how much you are able to adjust it depends on the hardness of your water. Very soft water is susceptible to pH swings, whereas hard water can be near impossible to change the pH of. In general, harder water tends to have a higher pH and softer water tends to...

wait, I just re-read your first post. you said your nitrite looks like 0.5 and then changes to 0? Does that happen within the 5min waiting period? that means that the nitrites in the tank are too high for your test to read. Do a 75% water change, test again, and then do another 75% water change...

don't go above 3ppm with ammonia, you will grow different bacteria than what you want. I think a cycle being stuck with not enough ammonia is a misnomer, I recently cycled the ammonia out of a tank on accident simply by using dechlorinator without knowing that my water had chloramine in it...

interesting! I think it's solid clay from here to bedrock lol.

This is from terrestrial growth light experience, but I wonder if less brightness with more time (and maybe adding some of the blue back) would change the leaf size? In my basement I have an indoor vegetable garden, and the plants that are directly under the light are shorter with redder...

hooolyyy cow. When I saw the title I was like "oh neat, he moved a couple plants around let's check this out". Did not expect to see empty tank with no water in it! That was one major overhaul! What did the fish think?

I love the lake that formed on your lawn, and I am impressed at how quickly it went away! We have a lake that forms in the back of our lawn every spring, and it takes about two months to go away.... darn midwest clay soil....

late to the party here, but this was such a tough crowd of tanks, so hard to choose between, and super congratulations to @Naterjm !!!! I am sure your son is super proud of himself as well :) Well done team!

Another thing I want to mention, as someone who is currently in the tail-end of a fish-in cycle as well, is using products like seachem prime and seachem stability or tetra safe start plus can really help alleviate some of the issues you run into with fish in cycling. seachem prime detoxifies...

I like how your hardscape is shaping up!!!

I know that cories don't generally do well with salt, but I am wondering, based on threads I've read on the "Excess mucous" topic, if doing a very dilute salt might help if you have the same issue with other fish moving forward. From what I understand, this type of sudden shedding of mucous is...

This is looking great! I love what you did with the marimo balls :D What is the wispy looking plant in the back to the left of the heater? I also like how you have extended the decorations outside of the tank, very cool idea!!

This sounds like a really exciting project! I would personally be a little bit leery about pumping water to/from the basement, I think I would instead consider a sump underneath the tank in the stand. I think if you line it with foam on the outside, it will cut down on vibrations, will will...

can't wait for the pictures, I hope you have a ton to post at this point!!!

In addition to the anubias and java fern mentioned above, easy plants to keep alive that your betta may like include amazon sword plants and water wisteria or water sprite (two different plants that look the same). Some plants that stay smaller include plants from the cryptocoryne family, and I...

@StevenF I always appreciate your in-depth explanations. Would dosing a lot of Prime have factored into why my pH has been creeping down? I somewhat not-thinkingly converted my planted cycle into a fish-in cycle and have been dosing prime accordingly, but I know that the bottle says that it...

I am not advising this, but I had a 55g on a metal stand on hardwood floors that rocked back and forth (enough to slosh) every time someone walked past the tank. The tank did not spring any obvious leaks during its ~5 year existence. I am not advising that you necessarily leave it the way it is...

"this hairgrass will make a wonderful addition to my shrimp tank" it said to itself as it bicycled home.

ahahah! yes, it'd be like dogfighting or cockfighting, but you can do it at the comfort of your table... oy!

aww, likewise! I also realized that I made the nitrites/nitrates typo on the first sentence of my post, ahhaha, what a fail! Yes, I made sure to include the TSS in my "planted/silent cycle" article since I know that you had mentioned it worked so well for you! I was bummed they didn't have any...

I agree with your points, but I also think that there is a bit more variability both within personalities and within the hobby / goals of people to suggest that fish-in should be the way to go. For example, for my 125 gallon, I absolutely plan to understock it because I know that with my...

I wanted to comment that I also have a heavily planted tank with light stock, and I'm experiencing my pH drifting DOWN instead of up. My tap water pH ranges between 8.5 and 9, and and my water is ~12dGH. I was suprised today when I tested my pH that I had to switch to the "regular" pH test...

but could people reliably be expected to know the difference between pub cycling and pub crawling? We might accidentally create a trend where people take their bettas to the pub with them, and that seems like it's about to get all kinds of bad... :D

These are great points! The only thing I would disagree with is the number of fish. Bacteria grow at an exponential instead of a linear rate, so going from the bioload / bacterial population to support 1 fish to 2 fish takes the longest, and going from 3 fish to 10 fish takes a logarithmically...

Thanks so much for your feedback guys! I made edits based on @Essjay's comments as well as things that I learned doing my own planted cycle (which admittedly was kind of a fail, but hey learning experience). Also, @ClownLurch - I added question 4 in the FAQ section just for you. I don't have...

I AM FINALLY SEEING NITRTATES!!! WOOHOO! so In the end, it was not as painful or pessimistic as I made it sound yesterday :) This tank was first set up on 12/7, with plants added on 12/9. No ammonia was added at any point. There is chloramine in our water supply, and I started running the...

I think @Wells or @Wills (hahah sorry guys your names are literally one letter apart!!) recently had issues with driftwood and ammonia, if I recall correctly...

that's wonderful that your cycle went so smoothly! I'm glad you had established media available to you, I'm sure that helped. Was it the aquaeon bio balls that you used? I was hemming and hawing over them at the store the other day, but went with seachem stability instead. I can't say I'm 100%...

same exact issue here!!! I just posted a long post in my 20gal journal about some weird parameter stuff going on in my tank (the more recent issues are my own doing, but the ammonia thing also stumped me, but I can at least share the experience!). What I think happened in my case was two...

So. I can't say I have exactly been making good fishkeeping decisions in the past week, which I'm not particularly proud of. I'm not sure if I mentioned it here or on another thread, but I started having issues with nitrites in the tank, without any inhabitants. I think, in retrospect, it is...

Regarding the grow light thing - I think what a lot of higher end fish lights have going for then is the programmability, this one is just on or off with a manual dimmer. Heat output is not much in my opinion, I'd say my tank LED warms up the hood of the 20g about proportionally compared to the...

Yup, just go for the 125, I'm telling ya! :D

Have you considered crypts? I have two crypts in the 20g and they seem to be doing nicely. The leaves are smaller than anubias and one of them has a nice reddish tint to it.

Woah that is a really nice scape! I am excited to see how this develops!!! That's so fun that your daughter is involved! My son also loves to be involved with the fishtank, but so far it amounts to him trying to drink out of the dirty water bucket and banging his hands against the glass of the...

Definitely not new wood, we will see how it goes haha