The Amazing Aquarium Thread- Why is Fishy Sleeping Upside Down? - General

Blurry image incoming (starring red, my anger fish) but damn is it amazing what some more plants will do to an aquarium. It looks so much, fuller. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/134138/293cf3e6-2061-4122-93f4-bb4ec88b393b/20180531_173330.jpg

I like the Ambulia's (Or is it elodea?) the most in the background, they really look great. And that's a nice piece of driftwood! Do you have any plans on hiding your equipment behind the plants at the back?

I have the filter intake hidden on the left side, while I'd like to do something with the heater I feel like unless im going to be putting a lot more plants in I wouldn't bother, the issue being with more plants i'd need more nutrients for said plants which if I was going to go all out on, i'd do a proper planet tank from scratch with high quality substrate and Co2. With what I have though I don't need root tabs as the substrate in this tank is sand over a layer of plant mix, most of the plants are through the sand with roots down into the lower portion. Also the wood is fake just covered in -stuff- but it does look good, the catfish love it.

I had an outwardly healthy Angel just drop today. Why do I have such bad luck with my tropical tank? Aaaah

You do an autopsy on it? I'd be a bit paranoid about internal stuff if that happened to me

I don't have the tools to do a good autopsy sadly.

I impulse bought a betta for the 29 gallon. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/268065/ef84c537-2d3e-4da7-a130-edf6fa939c0f/20180604_202412.jpg I guess I'll see how he does. Petsmart had im for 7 bucks.

Seeing all your fishes is making me jealous, my tank is still cycling, still getting through nitrite spike stage, they all seem to be diminishing slowly and converting to nitrates. Just a couple more days hopefully !

Betta pics go! I finally got a decent shot of my grumpy boy (Someday I need to get an actual camera..), he always looks so unhappy because of how his mouth sits. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/134138/3c80fbc4-e9d7-42ea-837d-9ccc79afa34c/20180605_185910.jpg

Man the puffer tank grows algae like crazy, even with the back covered, using a hood rather than glass top, somehow the sunlight is still getting to it.

Wow my cycle has been quick. Dosed 2ppm ammonia each day, after 4 days the ammonia was getting consumed, and nitrite spiked, after another 5 days the nitrite is being consumed. All done, able to consume almost 2ppm ammonia in 24 hrs. I did use API quickstart small bottle to seed my bacteria though.

Got some Otos to deal withe some of the algae for the puffer tank. They are no sociable at all right now. Poor little guys.

Gave them six hours, they're already out. Cute fish.

Any recommendations on stock? Hoping my RCS population grows before they all get eaten. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/244344/5838eaad-07d8-489f-acee-c2b2c236c312/AquStockImage.png

Otos are social creatures so you might want to get some more.

Weird, my ammonia and nitrite keep sitting at 0.25ppm. Using api master kit. I dose 1ppm daily.

Did you mean to quote me?

For some goddamned reason my mobile keeps adding quoted replies to the last post.

https://i.imgur.com/HI1f1L4.jpg Meet my loach that got himself sucked into the filter intake a week ago. He was super beaten up for two days, escaped his quarantine, and is now swimming around just fine even though he's missing a fin and covered in what I guess is scar tissue.

A true warrior Also is there a limit to root tabs i can use at once? I kinda fucked up and want to move my swords to a better position in the background, then just push another root tab on their roots. I also dont want to add too many ferts to the water column

Well if the fertiliser has ammonia in it (all in one ferts I think usually do?) it might just be the tank is still in the process of getting the bacterial colonies fully established. If you suddenly have an increase in the amount of ammonia output it still takes time for them to adjust to the new volume coming in, thats why its a good idea to add fish slowly instead of dumping in like 10 at once.

Yeah, has ammonia nitrate. Maybe some leached out when I stirred around moving some plants and adding extra root tabs. Stupid mistake was putting the root tabs in before being happy with the position. At least they will wear off in a couple months and degrade.

I need to get the co2 refilled and at least top off the 29 gallon but i'm too lazy after this last week. EHHHH.

There are root tabs without ammonia, I had some at one point but don't recall the brand.

Oh my lord, one of the wood shrimps I got (I got three of them initially) still lives! I legit hadn't seen any shrimp for weeks, so I thought all three had died (one was confirmed dead, two just missing) but yesterday a friend spotted one of them just crawling around. I still think that the third one is dead, but it's nice to know that not all of them are.

Gah all of my stem plants got big spindly roots coming out of each node. Gotta wait 2 weeks for my aquascaping tools to come to propogate and cut without messing around with my fatass fingers. On a side note it took me a fucking hour to plant the chainswords in pool filter sand with just my fingers. Also all the ammonia and nitrite disappeared again. Will hopefully test again in 24h and it will stay gone.

I just use eyebrow scissors for my plants

Damn you must have a really hairy face

Nah, I don't do shit to my eyebrows. They're just cheap scissors that are small enough to trim plants with and you can buy the pretty much anywhere.

I want to build a reef tank that has a part that is a normal tank height off the ground but then half of it drops down to the ground so you can have like, a reef rock wall to have corals on and simulate larger reefs. If I ever get back into reef tanks, 100% sustainability will be the goal. Nothing from the ocean.