Recent content by gilltyascharged

Ugh...I remember when I had bladder snails in several of my tanks (5 gal, 6.6 gal, and 28 gal). In the 5 gal, it was bad enough that I had to run the tank with bleach to kill them all. The 28 gal had a young peacock cichlid who did a fine job at managing the population (so well that there are no...

While the OB hasn't been on Tetra flakes as a staple for quite a while, I can try switching him back to that to see how it goes. I would be interested to see his coloration with 2 weeks on the flakes now (fully grown) versus two weeks as a juvenile. After that I can snap a pic, switch him back...

That's my predominant issue right now—after being advised that my water is likely too hard and alkaline for most species by itself, I'm going to try mixing it with other (haven't decided if I'm going for distilled or RO) water to reach the desired pH, GH, and KH. However, it's starting to become...

Sorry, not yet :/ You'll have to tell me how it goes!

Here's the best I got for before and after pics. Note: while the latter is an older, more mature fish, the coloring albeit stayed the same (exception being the egg spots on the anal fin, which was so faint in the beginning that I was genuinely curious if this was a female).

Don't tell my cichlid, but your angel deserved to win 🤫

Interesting! I feed those to my red-eyes, but while it showed some improvement in the peacock's coloration, it was the Omega One that really did it. I will agree though—all my fish seem to enjoy it

I've been using Omega One cichlid pellets for my peacock, and I definitely noticed a difference in the first few days. While I can't say it does too much for his blue (he's an OB), his orange look amazing. I'd have to agree with the above responses—lighting and substrate have been the best...

Thank you for letting me know! Water hardness is actually the thing I've been testing for lately—good to know that most liquid tests don't.

After running back and forth to get my water tested at the LFS, I figured it would probably be more economic (and easier overall) to just buy my own test kits. However, I'm not entirely sure on whether I should invest in liquid or strip test kits. So TFF, I got to ask: which one do you prefer...

That sounds about right—the calcium build-up is 100% a thing, so I can check that off the list. I am curious though...above, @gwand mentioned that they use spring water. I know there's a difference between spring, RO, and distilled water (can't remember specifics at the moment), but would they...

I agree with you on that—I definitely didn't drip acclimate, and I more than need to do that next time. While I thought I did it over a long enough time (30 minutes), that is absolutely miniscule compared to the 2+ hours you're suggesting. It took me by surprise that they all passed three days...

Just curious—out of experience, are there any good alternatives to re-mineralize water for shrimp without the commercial liquids? I've seen the bottles of "shrimp essential minerals," but was curious if it was actually needed or simply a cheap way to make money off people's ignorance (for...