Posts by Avery

Here is a good picture of the level of black beard algae I’m attacking. Ironically it's cleared up from a large portion of the tank (while also turning my plants pretty bare in terms of leaves and whatnot). Otherwise, dosing hydrogen peroxide seems to be attacking it head-on without any major issues that others have faced. I've moved the water outlet pipe (the dry dock is wet in the photos since I was testing where to move it towards for better water circulation), and have slightly shifted the dry rock back a little bit to anchor it down better as the turtle is digging randomly which has shifted it forward and made it wobbly.

I do have a few baby cichlids roaming the tank (which can be seen by other screenshots I took today), and the turtle is healthier than ever. Still has the odd spot on its shell that did appear as shell rot when I first picked it up, but at this point, I believe it's just the coloration since it hasn't gotten worse or better over the past 2 years.

I tend to just go with those that don’t have fillers for the first few ingredients - but I’ve given my fish mixed brands (and those free samples you get from some tank kits or randomly when you buy combo products).

I try to feed mostly Omega One, and Fluval. When nothing else is in stock I’ll buy Aqueon as a decent backup option.

Is anyone trying to grab some of the early Black Friday deals a bunch of retailers have or are you waiting for Petsmart/Petco to release their Black Friday ad to see if they will keep the tradition of their tanks and canister filters being marked down heavily?

When you purchased and installed your canister filter, did you use the included (if there was any included with the purchase) tubing for the canister filter, or did you buy a smaller/larger tubing size to accommodate your filter and tank setup better?

How would you describe how your fish tank water smells when you smell it from above?

I'd say it tends to smell like wet wood after it has rained, nothing chemical-like but more earthy-like.

We're starting to see errors being generated from Tapatalk (nothing critical, but it is created degraded with functionality so some features of Tapatalk may show as empty when searching). I've created a support ticket with Tapatalk for them to resolve this, and they noted that they are working on an updated version to fix this. Will keep you all posted as that is released and functionality is back to normal, thank you!

I personally prefer Eco-Complete as it tends to be a far more uniform size in comparison to Flourite, although both are basically the same thing just dosed in the bag with a different liquid to provide slightly different nutrients from the get-go.

The bigger question should be do you prefer the gravel like shape or would you go with their sand like versions, since that can limit you on color options if I recall correctly.

As with any chemical, the most efficient form tends to be the form that has the most surface volume exposed to the water. In this case, the answer would be the form where it's smashed the most down inside of a mesh-like bag that can hold it in place but allow for water to pass through it.

I normally tend to place carbon (when I use it), somewhere that can be serviced rather easily due to its small lifespan within the water - whether this is specifically placing it in a HOB filter, or when in a canister filter, in the top tray to make it easy for quick removal when the time comes.

When dealing with live rock, and sometimes corals from a source that isn't fully trusted, you can end up getting these (small at first) bristle worms that hide away between the rocks/substrate, but will end up eating your fish and can get extremely large. How have you ended ups removing them from the tank, and how big was it when you finally got it out completely?

Since everyone always remembers the first few fish they added to their tank, especially when it was their first saltwater tank, what was the first invertebrate you added to your tank, and what made you specifically pick that given species?

What is the ideal gallon ratio from the main display tank, to your sump tank size, that you like to keep? Is there any specific reason that you use this ratio (ex; to have enough buffer room water parameter-wise, in case of some evaporation, etc.)?

I think I've seen people recommend personally around a 25-50% ratio, so if your main tank is a 100-gallon setup, then you would want somewhere between a 20-gallon or 50-gallon sump.

I’ve pushed a few updates we had outstanding to the styles (both light and dark) since they appeared to have not taken the major update when we upgraded everything. This has now allowed for the new features to be fully shown and has updated a few locations of items (this time to be more convenient, like new buttons/filters).

Quote from Gilbert

I wish you the best of luck with Black Beard Algae, since it seems to be the worst algae to remove due to it being so persistent even when dosing with various chemicals.

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Sadly, I thought I had removed it all but it is back again. I think dosing daily with hydrogen peroxide and doing a few more deep cleans of this tank might help out - but what is really confusing me is that every time my cichlids have babies, I tend to get this algae back. Otherwise, I just have the common algae from sunlight hitting the tank for a few hours each day (but that is to be expected).

Quote from Gilbert

Is this still an issue? I haven’t seen any of these plants at any Petsmart at all even to this day, and curious if they just stopped carrying them due to the bad press.

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That is a good question, although the first outbreak that caused this has disappeared - there is still a notice to be aware of in your tank or others since these are tiny at first until they reach a big population. I don't recall if Petsmart or Petco sell these anymore since I haven't seen any in my local stores (but haven't visited the hub in my region yet to check) - but I will let you know once I visit if they have these, or they all got destroyed due to the bad press and actual issues caused to states by this.

As always, please let us know if you see anything that is off or missing pages. I've tried to make sure that this transition is painless by replicating as much the new style that we had with the previous but I may have missed a few things. Thank you!

I'm unsure on when the current event will end since it was scheduled to end on 10/31/22 but the sale is still being shown online for orders. They did, however, release another week-long sale period which will be 11/20-11/27 (which makes sense, for Black Friday reasons).

If you don't want to add any other fish to act as dither fish in a tank, I'd try to replicate the features that the given species has in the wild inside of the tank (a lot of time this just means more rocks/hiding spots, adding in spots that can be completely dark/covered if the fish want to hide in there to feel safe), while also making sure to keep lights not too bright dependent on if they are well adjusted to them or not (of course, if you have corals or a reef setup this might be different as you can have bright lights with rocks blocking light out in spots).

I've done this a few times, but I'd take a few personal steps in order to make sure that everything is cleaned out of it, such as;

1. Wash it with water and vinegar in order to get any dirt, debris, or other items out of the substrate.
2. Try to use some type of sifting method to remove things that may look like the substrate, but might be rocks, stale/old items, or metals/other things that could have come in if the tank was stored somewhere like a garage or outside for any period of time.

Please note, that some of these might have forums that are loaded with spam, however other documentation on the pages such as meeting times, dates, and locations are still frequently updated. Thus, we have kept them even though their online community presence might be poor/lacking.

Since I’ve to gone through a few different substrate brands and bags, and then seen others who mix various brands (which looks more natural) - do you tend to always just keep buying the same substrate brand and type to keep consistency, or do you mix them around to have a more natural/wild feel?