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When refilling the tank, after removing the 25% PWC, I add the dechlor dose to the tank first and then refill the tank using my Python. I think that adding the dechlor dose to the bucket would be best but if you don't do that, then dose the tank first so the chlorine/chloramine would be...

I think it will kill your plant if it's too much. Many tap waters have very low levels of chlorine/chloramine and even those levels are bad for some plants while others can handle the levels from tap water.

I'm not sure what you mean by a "full tank clean" but DO NOT over clean you tank. This could kill off a large portion of your good nitrifying bacteria and cause your tank to have to go through the nitrogen cycle all over again. As far as your substrate, use a siphon gravel vacuum to suck up...

I always called them racing stripes. Never heard them called "go faster stripes" but then I haven't fooled with "race" cars in a while either. I did a Google on "go faster stripes" and found wikipedia's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go-faster_stripes explanation which points towards a British...

You are in the middle of the nitrogen cycle. Do a series of four 25% PWC's (partial water changes), one PWC every two hours, to get the nitrites down below 0.5ppm. Fish acclimate to bad water as it gets bad so they have to be slowly acclimated back to good water. Add 1/10 teaspoon of salt...

According to this study, http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1861987, yes they need light to provide the proper stimulation needed to stimulate good eating and muscular growth. When the tanks are dark, the fish tend to be more lethargic so they eat less and move around less. Give them...

What are your test results, stocking and PWC schedule? Are you keeping your gravel well vacuumed and filter media maintained? If you leave excess detritus in the gravel, it will break down into eventual nitrates. If you put off filter maintenance where you have excess detritus building up in...

Why is it called a "go faster" stripe? Do you have a website that talks about this? I haven't seen this term before.

I add the proper dose of dechlor to the tank prior to refilling the tank. I mostly use cold water but add a little hot water to where the water coming out the python feels the same temperature as the water coming ouf of the filter outflow. Most people can tell by touch when the waters from both...

Does it look like this? http://www.plantgeek.net/articles/shrimp/red_cherry2.jpg

Betta's are carnivores. They will go after the little snacks that you've added for her... well she considers them snacks that you added. The apple snails should learn to pull in their antennae when the betta comes stalking but the baby shrimp and snails are fair game for her. Are you feeding...

Cherry shrimp? Where is the stripe? Back, side, bottom? Could it be food in the digestive tract?

I might become a Python distributor. I see $75.00 in sales in this thread so far. You guys/gals have got to get one. No more buckets, messes or spills... unless you get lazy and start watching TV while your Python is refilling the tank and you let it overflow. LOL...

I think the overall amount of light and time of light would affect algae growth but I've never heard that breaking it up would do it. Besides, if it's going to stress out your fish and cause them health problems, there are better ways to deal with algae. A simple way would be to add some...

I think you should try to mimic natural light cycles like I explained. If the room is very dark during the day, I guess you could change their "natural light cycle" so that the tank is lit at hours other than normal daylight hours but I would still stick to some kind of regular schedule and if...

Why do you have such an unusual lighting schedule? That could certainly be a part of the problem. With my lighting, on all of my tanks, I try to mimic the natural lighting schedule of the sun/moon. Around 7am each morning, I turn on a room light to give the fish a chance to get adjusted to...

I think you are making things difficult with your fishless cycling by not following the basic instructions. When you added plants, it changes everything. I'm not sure how big your plants are, how fast they are growing, etc., but they certainly would be consuming some (if not all) of the...

Rena Filstar xP3 or xP4 for the larger tank. I've had my xP3 and an xP1 for 3 years and they are work horses and easy to maintain. My blog has a "Filter Profile" on my xP1 that shows the entire breakdown and cleaning of them.

Correct. While it may be OK to keep some zeolite around in the event of an emergency, it's not needed in a properly "cycled" tank. And although it can be recharged with salt water solution, it can only be recharged so many times before it has to be replace. Further, I've seen too many people...

Get a Python for siphoning and refilling a tank. It's the best $25.00 I ever spent. But if you do want to use your canister filter to refill, you could try putting a T-valve into the intake line with an extra piece of hose coming off the T that you could put in the bucket. Then get your...

I just play the Alec Baldwin voicemail recording to my goldfish when they get out of line or fight over food too much! They snap right in line when they hear him calling them little pigs. LOL http://wwww.tmz.com/2007/04/19/alec-baldwi...ge-to-daughter/ (actual recording)...

It's good that you are replacing 30% of your water (PWC) weekly but are you vacuuming your gravel really good with each PWC? Are you doing filter maintenance by cleaning the heavy detritus off of your filter media on a regular basis? (I do mine weekly or at least every two weeks). If you are...

I set up a 10G tank just for my cherry shrimp, as they would quickly be consumed in either of my other tanks. They are very active and all over the tank all of the time. I think an invert tank or maybe an invert tank with a small school of small non-predatory tropicals would be the way to go.

fishmad_f, It's not hard to find the information. It just takes a little Google search and refining the search to find the info. A GREAT place to find really good information on most fish and critters is http://fish.mongabay.com and put in the name in the search box and you will usually find...

Were they gas or battery hand warmers? I live down in New Orleans burbs so I don't have to fool with hand warmers too often but I'm curious... However, I did go 15 days with no power and 5 weeks with no useable water following Hurricane Katrina. Me and all of my fish in three tanks made it...

What is the water temperature high and low temps of the pond each day? Check this around 12-1pm and 3-4pm for high end temperature and midnight and 4-5am for low end temperature. Your pond isn't really deep enough to benefit from geothermal effects on the water temp although it will help it a...

Actually... I just set my mind to it again and found the study. It was actually published in August 2006, not September as I previously mentioned. http://apt.allenpress.com/aptonline/?reque...26&issue=03 http://apt.allenpress.com/aptonline/?reque...3&page=0392

I didn't take offense or consider it ridicule. I just wanted a source. I try to always have reliable sources for anything I tell someone when it comes to their fish or in this case, shrimp. I still haven't found the actual study that resulted in the change but I trust Practical Fishkeeping...

http://fish.mongabay.com/species/Trichogas...ichopterus.html You may be having territorial issues due to limited space in your tank. I'm not sure how big any of your fish are but your gouramis can grow to 6" each and are not suitable for long term in a 10G tank. Are you sure you have two...

According to who? Every reputable shrimp site I referenced still call them C. japonica. But I did point out they could change. I've seen it happen so many times... especially with catfish/pleco's. Cite a source please so I can update my favorites folder. Actually, while typing this, I did a...

Applesnail.net is a huge resource all about them, including care sheets, feeding information, etc., but in answer to your questions.. Depending on genetics, diet and living space, they can grow to the size of a baseball. They probably can start breeding when about 1" in diameter, assuming you...

Tokis, In my first reply, I figured the pond to be up to around 800G. How did you come up with 180G? I guess it really depends on whether the sides are vertical or tapered but I'd be curious as to how you came up with your figure. I used the LxWxH divided by 231 = Gallons... so 78"x78"x30"...

I've heard of people using much less than 5W per gallon but I'm not sure if that would compete with a 65F ambient room temp where you are trying to keep the tank 15F higher. Here is a snip from TheKrib's website about heater requirements... which basically says you would need the 5W per gallon...

That's normal for them to do that. There's nothing wrong that you need to fix. Mine would sometimes close up and float around for a day or two and I've read posts from other people that said they will do it up to two weeks... or maybe it just seemed that way. Maybe they were coming out at...

Look at that link in my last post and give us more information. It would make it much easier to help. Comets are not as prone to swimbladder issues as fancy goldfish so without knowing the other things going on in your tank, it's difficult to assess things. What size tank? Water parameters...

http://www.petshrimp.com/shrimpspecies.html shows many of the shrimp species commonly used in aquaria. Caridina Japonica is ONLY the Amano Shrimp. Many of the others are from the same Caridina family or Neocaridina family but they are not Caridina Japonica. Of course, scientific names are...

That's correct. Plants and algae (single celled plants) need three things to thrive. Light, CO2 and nutrients. Nitrates is just one of the potential nutrients. If one had nitrates and little light or CO2, plants and algae would have a very hard time growing. Most people light thier tanks...

You mention floating vertically... but also on its side. Is it floating horizontally on its side or vertically? If vertically, is it nose up or nose down? In either case, this is usually indicative of swim bladder issues that can be caused by several things... from bacterial problems to...

They are both from the Caridina species, Amano - Caradina japonica, Black Midget - Caridina serratirostris, so I guess there is a chance but I would suspect yours is simply an Amano shrimp since they are so much more common. How long is your shrimp now? Amano's grow to 1.5"+ depending on...

We had this discussion either here or in another forum recently. The concursus was to put a large leafed silk plant under the waterfall outflow to slow down the water movement... or get a smaller filter to have slower water movement in general. The large leafed silk plant would be cheaper and...