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Hi everyone! I recently discovered that my tap water has too little kh to support a stable nitrogen cycle, so I have started adding baking soda to my water change water. According to the rotala butterfly calculator, the amount I am adding (1/4 tsp per 4 gallons water) adds just under 2.5 degrees...

Municipal.

Thank you. My tap varies considerably over the course of the year...I have measured TDS from 250 down to 90 after dechlorination. As such, I cannot rely on it for soft water fish. It's very annoying...

I do 40% weekly water changes. The last water change was just six days ago. My tap water is probably quite soft right now and doing more water changes with equally soft water without adding baking soda won't solve my problem.

You are on the right track, my friend :) I'm of the opinion a 5 gallon is the minimum for adult fish and your tank is a good deal larger than that. If you decide to get any additional fish I would recommend setting up and cycling a quarantine tank first and keeping the new fish in it for at...

Hi everyone! I was testing a bunch of my tanks earlier this morning and discovered that my new tanks had not cycled completely..."not a big deal", I thought. However, then I tested a couple of my more established tanks and found high ammonia and/or nitrite (I ran out of ammonia test solution...

Hi everyone! I am still exploring potential live food options for my fish (and blowing up this subforum in the process!). I was researching scuds on Youtube and someone mentioned keeping them with Daphnia. Anyone have experience with such a setup? And could Moina be substituted for the Daphnia...

Hi everyone! First some back story...I just tried to culture Dero Worms. It didn't go well...they refused to take the fish food I offered them and starved to death within a few days of arrival :( It's quite frustrating, but I still want a larger live food to feed to my fish ("larger" being...

Scuds...I have some in some of my tanks. Harmless in most fish tanks but may compete with shrimp for resources. Be careful with the crab by the way...not only will it prey on the scuds if it can catch them (I'll be honest, I'm not sure how good they are at hunting scuds) but it may also attempt...

That's all I needed to know. Thanks!

Yep, it's me with another "will X substance work as bio media" thread :D I understand that normal aquarium filter floss does not work great as biological media because it clogs quickly; however, 100% polyester poly-fil is noticeably more coarse in texture and I was wondering whether it might...

I'm not saying ceramic is physically incapable of supporting bacterial growth; nor am I fanatically promoting using carbon instead (at this point I don't think I will use activated carbon as biological media). I am just saying I believe there are better tools for the job. K type media -...

I don't think they literally meant "no water changes" - weekly water changes are still a good idea, just don't go crazy. As someone who has numerous tanks, burnout is very definitely a possibility in this hobby. Glad to see we are able to help thus far :)

I'd keep your current media (at least for now) and add more another filter or filters with the aforementioned media. Just vacuum part of the substrate occasionally regardless of whether or not you have an under gravel filter.

I tried posting a link to an experiment someone did, but the forum did not let me. This fellow - I don't agree with everything he says, but his results here are interesting - tested a variety of filter types in 40 gallon tanks for three months, including a tank with only an air stone and an inch...

Unfortunately both ceramic and lava rock are useless as filter media...very low USEABLE surface area, less than common aquarium gravel. Not sure why that is for the lava rock, but for ceramic (and seachem matrix for that matter) most of the pores are too small for the beneficial microbes to use...

Add more media with a lot of surface area. 30 PPI sponge filters are the easiest way to do it, but if you are a little more DIY oriented fluidized bed media (K1, K2, K3, K+, etc) is cheaper and can outperform 30 ppi foam if fluidized (it floats, so using it in a filter that isn't a fluidized bed...

Here's another tip, my friend...increase your biological filtration. Filters do not just house the nitrifying microbes; they also house a variety of other microbes that perform a variety of other useful functions, some of which eat free floating algae. Add more surface area to your filtration...

How well does activated carbon work as a biological filter media? I've been reading that it has an enormous surface area, but I'm not sure how much of that is useful to the beneficial "bacteria" since many of the pores are quite small. Thanks :)

I am currently culturing walter worms as a larval fish feed. The walter worms are smaller than microworms and are not noticed by most of my adult fish...if I recall correctly microworms aren't noticed by a lot of adult fish either. Are there any nematodes available anywhere that are (A) larger...