Recent content by FishyD

By luck I placed my largest tank in a good spot. My RO is turtle slow, but I can put a small hole in the floor under my sink and gravity feed RO to trash cans in my basement. The tank is on the ,main floor six feet from the basement door. A pump like Magnum uses and this could be easy. But...

I should have mentioned that possibility, but I knew Magnum lives in the upper Midwest. I am generalizing again, and his water may not have the minerals mine does, but there is a fair chance it contains a lot of what plants need. My well is a stable 8.4 so I use a high concentration of RO for...

Well water is the obvious solution to get it closer. I mix dry ferts and dose the liquid. (It works awesome and I am cheap). Anything is possible, but there is no way I could keep my water perfect without a lot of effort, and lab expense using pure RO. Seems unnecessary for most anyway...

It would be the largest thing I ever saw a mollie eat by a margin. I think you will be just fine.

Not sure I have seen it but it does sound more manageable. I bought a lot of floating plants at a swap a few weeks ago. Decided to soak them in a tub QT for a week or two since my tank was newish and going well. And the baby ducks are here now. :)

Most cryptos are a very good suggestion. My Amazon swords have to be fed or they are too ugly to be worth planting. One thing you will learn is your water composition can matter for a lot of plants. Fairly short list of plants that are extremely EZ for everyone, and those have mostly been...

You have to follow directions of course. I daily dose my tank with liquid ferts I mixed from dry to last 6 weeks and still struggle to keep nitrates high enough for the plants. Typically I am dosing something similar to what is in Aquarium COOP Easy Green. You could dose 25% the suggested...

This gets better when your tank has a little more age to it. If you don't want to bother with lighting or feeding them at all, stick to your plan and only get simple plants. I would start with a floater and see how that goes. If that doesn't thrive it mostly gets harder when you put plants in...

And I just learned that rooibos is actually tea. :D

Any idea if it was a white or a red oak species that worked for you? They are cheap and easy most places. I have only tried white oak so far.

I haven't tried stained water in a tank larger than a 20G. I used some driftwood, leaves on the floor, and also expandable peat pots I could stuff in HOB filter. It worked out OK enough. In my limited experience there are a lot of challenges. Your wood will run out of gas and not put out...

Very nice. I hope to have an Apisto tank no later than fall. Feel free to share more pics if you like.

I think he said his tap is zero nitrates?

If your testing supplies are fresh and you are sure you are following directions carefully, I would have the water tested somewhere else, like a friend or a fish shop. Not hard to jar up a bottle of your tank water you just tested yourself. On a side note I do find it challenging to read the...

Your guppy male to female ration isn't terrible, so maybe they will cool it some in a few days. I have been lucky and my male guppies were mostly just annoying. I've had large females that were meaner than normal IMO.