Sprucegruve

I got three really nice Peruvian apple snails,almost stole them for $12

But someone jumped in and raised me to $24

It's not too bad i got a good system worked out now ever since I switched my small tanks to sponge filters instead of HOB.

Having so many 10,15 and. 20 gallon tanks I can do 8-10 tanks 50% waterchange in about an hour using my food grade rubber hose from the tap.

Water change about 5 days a week,rest two

But I still want to drill all my tanks it would save a lot of time and effort

Or at least the tanks over 50 gallons

Sturdy build, looks great

Do your normal water changes,try to avoid sucking up as many as possible,they can get out of the way pretty quick.

Siphon your water into a white 5gallon pail,let your water settle find the shrimp,net them back into the tank and dump the water.

I wish man,but until I get some tanks drilled 29 is about my limit of tanks I can maintain a week while keeping my job lol

Thanks again for bringing me the last order I really appreciate it

Sorry for the delay,I have been busy with work and that Canadian aquatics order.

Nice setup

Are you adding fertilizers or c02?Also what kind of lights do you have?

People could give you better plant suggestions if they knew these^.

Looking on my iPad at work(literally nothing to do for 30mins,I even swept the whole shop)

Your plants look healthy

What do you mean by they are not "thriving"

Do you mean they are not spereading quickly?or do you mean they are slowly dieing?

Usually if you want fast growth you need to get complicated and add co2 and fertilizers and high lighting.

But you can have slow healthy growth without high light and c02

If your talking canister filters, I like large ehiem and large Rena canisters(the square filters hold the most media too)

Way easier to maintain than a fx5

But if your talking hang on back,I find aquaclear is the most reliable long lasting.

I'm from spruce

Nice to meet you

It's kinda hard,with a fully stocked tank.

I always have a empty qt tank I can put a fish in so it can heal all alone.

All I can suggest is no copper or salt.

Large 50% or more water changes daily

And I guess you could keep the tank lights off for the next couple days,I find it calms sick/stressed fish.

Not to mention plecos are nocturnal and like the dark

Edit-I'm no expert on the subject

Bt look up some photos of plecos with ammonia burn,this might be a candidate

Otherwise it would have to be fungal/bacterial

Make sure what ever chemical your using doesn't have copper of any sort in it.

Copper hurts scaleless fish like plecos/catfish, even can kill shrimp and snails

I'd say the best route,would be do large water changes daily until it clears up.

C02 is not necessary.plants will grow without it.

Just not as fast

But you will need a balanced fertilizer schedule to prevent algae.

I suggest dry fertilizers,you can get them at a garden centre or a hydroponic store.

Any light bulb will work.

Just pay attention to the kalvin rateing.

5500k-6500k will work well for plants, and if you want to mix in a 10000k bulb it won't hurt either.

Dry start is not necessary,but it does have a couple advantages.

This seems like a decent tank for plants,you can get some taller plants because the tank is 29inches tall.

And your not limited by an extremely narrow tank either,you could put a coupe nice bulkier centre piece plants in there too

Yes what are the dimensions of this tank?It might be a little small for Africans.

But it could be a nice planted tank

If you wanted to do a cheep fix,buy a can of rockguard and do a thin layer all around the top.

No water would get in over time

Just as easy to keep,but I still went through the trouble of putting some additives under the substrate

You should have let me know about the Ghost shrimp, I could have tried to pick you up a bunch from my wholesaler, usually lots of berried ones. Good luck with them all.

Ron

Thanks for the offer but it's more fun starting with 2males and 3 females lol

Still haven't gotten any pictures of the pumpkin shrimp I got,but I'll get some photos today

Edit-The chocolate shrimp would look darker on black substrate.

But I find light substrate easiest to pull out dull shrimp to keep up quality

Here is a photo of the pumpkins acclamating when I got them

I'll get one of them in their tank when I'm home

New chocolate shrimp,I Have never owned these yet but I really like the color

Got some new blood to add to my yellow shrimp

Old shrimp

New shrimp

Still haven't gotten any pictures of the pumpkin shrimp I got,but I'll get some photos today or tomorrow.

These arnt from Ron's order but I got some ghost shrimp I want to breed

Just curious,I think it would look really good continued through.

Unless you wanted to find a nice piece of marble or fake marble like tile.

Can't really tell from the photo,but it looks like 1ftX3ft or 1X4 of counter space right?

Most contractors would throw out a piece that size unless they were using it for a backsplash,so you might find something nice for pretty cheep.

Your doing awesome sofar.

Nice work.Looks really good.

Are you doing the same to the section of bare plywood in the left side of the photo?

Or do you have another plan for that?

I'm in spruce grove and most of our waste goes to Edmonton to be recycled.

I throw aquarium sand in my green bin all the time,just don't go over the 80 pound limit,they get angry if it happens all the time lol

Leave your lights off for 4-6days,do 30-50% water change daily.

During this time don't dose any fertilizers,only dose excel or metricide14 at a double dose daily.

Your problem should be gone quickly,then you can get your fertilizers in check and start doing ei and hope it doesn't happen again.

Also another route not many people think about instead of r/o is a steam distillation unit.That's what I'm looking into,less maintance and upkeep for pretty much the same results.

With no live plants and no fertilizing you will most likely always have this problem,you either need to downgrade your lights,or only have them on when your home.

Go to Home Depot and get some straight razors,or a scrubby brush,and clean the algae off the glass and some of the rocks if possible,then do a good sized water change.

Algae thrives when there is an abundance of one nutrient in your aquarium,or if there is a lack of many.(nitrogen from fish poop,phosphorus from fish food)

Here is a easy read to get you started on the subject

http://www.yamatogreen.com/phosphorus.htm

Fairdeal in Calgary,very knowledgable friendly guy with great stock

He has a section in the buy/sell forum on here

Try boiling the water before mixing in the salt,maybe that would allow it to desolve completely.

Or the sidewalk salt idea works too