Do you eat fish?
Do you eat fish near your aquariums?

>>4930079
Of course.

>>4930079
Yes and yes within about 8 feet

>>4930079
Yes i eat sushi in front of them to show them who is boss in case they decide to act up.

DO YOU LIKE FISH STICKS?

File: tumblr_64f5464388d6a89d68(...).gif (999 KB, 540x304)

999 KB GIF

>>4930394

>want to stock tank with floaters
>frogbit and salvinia are illegal in my state
What's the next best

>>4930583
what state do you live in? florida?
just cross the border line and grab some, ez pz

>>4930583
you've got duckweed and red root floaters. Red roots block more light but they look nicer. If you don't care about blocked light, do red roots. If you do red roots, place your culture in a feeder ring in one corner of your tank as far away from any surface agitation made by your filtration. They're not as delicate once they get started but you definitely need to baby this plant until it starts to propagate. Once it does it will copy paste itself almost as fast as duckweed.

>>4930583
Red root floaters are way better anyway. Frogbit is straight up tank cancer.

File: IMG_2257.jpg (327 KB, 828x657)

327 KB JPG

I had no idea what plants I wanted for my tank so I let someone get me a random assortment.
2 of them are asian marshweed and they grow like crazy. One already breached the surface and I don't even have any pets in there yet besides the invader snails.
I fear those things are gonna get out of control.

But at least they look cool when they sleep. They close their leafs and reopen them when it's day.

>>4930610
NSW Australia, we're very careful here
>>4930623
>>4930630
Red rooter it is

>>4931061
ew, australia. too woke for my taste. i just remembered now when they had that tennis tournament and all the australians started to cope, seethe and lube up because djokovic wasn't vaccinated for coronavirus.
lol. lmao, even.
why don't you move to a better country? i've got plenty of frogbit, nobody's got butthurt over it.

File: 1573179566671.gif (1.83 MB, 288x377)

1.83 MB GIF

i ordered 2 red and 2 gold honey gouramis, and it seems they gave me their oldest reds and youngest golds. by young i mean they dont even have their colours yet, unlike the much larger reds.
would putting them in the 40g together be as bad of an idea as it feels?

File: 1715917995167685.gif (27 KB, 370x300)

27 KB GIF

Anons, google isn't helpful..
What happens if I take one of my bladder snails out of the watter? Say I grab her by the shell and just lift her out for a minute. Does that harm her?
Also.. the chlorine levels are brutally high still and I the water fixing thingy I use doesn't help. Does that mean it's chloramine and needs a different fixing chemical?
.. oh and, there is like spiky black stuff growing on one of my plants. I tore the leafs out that had that and threw em away but another leaf now has it.. just.. spiky, deep black, can't rub it off.

Man i should've listen to what people said about pea puffers, how they look and thrive best in a huge tank on a 6 minimum shoal
Like i'm having this one guy on a 10g right now because they do look really cute and i like the prospect of hand feeding but it's just they're WAY tinier than i thought, the tank feels empty most of the time and you can't really have mates with him

>>4931617
YMMV but I've had pea puffers in communities. Even with shrimp. I have never found them to be especially aggressive towards other fish.

>>4931606
1. snails will be fine out of water for a few minutes.
2. you shouldn't be getting chlorine readings even if you have chloramine, a dechlorinator will still neutralize the chlorine but the danger is it doesn't remove the ammonia. The ammonia can be dealt with via low pH which will ionize it into harmless ammonium. Another solution is to change into a plant growout tank which will suck up the ammonia then change water from that tank into the aquarium. Or just get an RO system.
also some kinds of metal can give false readings on standard chlorine tests, particularly anything galvanized. but that's also not good.
3. that's black beard algae. you have some kind of nutrient/light imbalance. Shrimp will pick at but few fish will eat it. of the stuff you're likely to find in stores, american flagfish and siamese algae eaters. BBA is not something you will win a battle with via manual removal so just know it will probably take a few months of tweaking parameters and adding things that eat it for it to completely vanish.

>>4930023
Can I grow edible shrimp, crabs etc in am aquarium?

>>4931892
most aquarium pets are edible. you could make some tiny guppy fillets if you are that mentally unwell

>>4931897
I was just wondering if anyone here ever did something similar. Like farming crawfish.

>>4931690
The dechlorinator I use doesn't help sadly. The water never had chloramine.. but after a week it appeared. Apparently was in the tap water and is now releasing. I'll get myself some better stuff.. and I rly need to get an ammonia test.
If shrimp eat that stuff, it's perfect. I only wanted to get shrimp. I have 6 bladder snails right now, maybe they eat that too.

File: 1730575636734177.jpg (646 KB, 4032x3024)

646 KB JPG

This stupid test is giving me a headache..
First CL levels were perfect.. after a week the strip started getting darker and darker.
I used more anti chlorine stuff, the yellow has gotten a little lighter but never went bright again.
Then I heard some anons talk about that agents saying they remove chlorine, don't also remove chloramine so I went and got the ammonia test cause.. maybe.. it's chloramine. Also a new agent that specifically states it annihilates chlorine, chloramine and ammonia.
..
well, the ammonia is nowhere to be found so it can't be chloramine, shit's piss yellow but the stupid strip is still muddy yellow, indicating there is chlorine left.
I wanna pull my hair out.

Do I just ignore the worthless strip and go buy my shrimp? The tank has been running for 3 weeks.. the snails are happy and growing like crazy. The plants.. besides one.. are growing like crazy. Everything seems to be alright.

>>4932366
thank you for making me check my rural well water privilege

>>4932391
I'm confused..
What ya mean? I know it's some joke but I don't get it

>>4931906
are you saying you read clean then you got a chlorine reading without doing a change? chlorine does not spontaneously appear in an aquarium like nitrogenous wastes will and most chlorine tests will also pick up chloramine. Could be a false positive. especially if you have snails in there and they're not all dying, one of the main sources of false chlorine positives is metals related and would be extremely toxic to snails though. like they'd all be dead by now for sure if it was that.
if it's just a change in the tapwater you're talking about some utilities will switch between chlorine and chloramine seasonally or will pulse excessive chlorine periodically to nuke anything in the system which can also cause an ammonia spike.

The way to be free of worrying about municipal water quality is a RO/DI system which is not that expensive.

Shrimp pick at BBA but they don't do enough damage to actually win that fight without nutrient adjustment and some manual removal. liquid carbons like seachem excel or coop easy carbon will damage it on a surface application (drain the water and hit the leaves, or use a pipette to spot apply if possible). Hydrogen peroxide will also help deal with it but needs to be used sparingly. Just don't get discouraged, filamentous algae is one of the most annoying/cancerous things to deal with in freshwater but it's not actually dangerous to your fish, just ugly. It may take months to dial things in well enough to defeat it.

>>4931900
if marmorkrebs aren't banned in your state yeah. they're not super commonly farmed for human consumption but are easily farmed, edible and don't taste any worse than any other crawdad. I know people who have farmed them as feeders for bigger fish just because they self clone and eat basically anything.

Ah! I posted with an abortion of an amazon link that when for miles. Sorry.
>>4932366
Try a different brand of test. This one looks very easy to misread given your color range for 0 to positive for CL2 is a gradient of yellow. Something like that can be dependent on your light source when you're making the eyeball comparison. If you go amazon and search aquarium test strips you will get several results with generic 7 in 1 or 9 in 1 strips. Those all work fine. Try to pick one that turns from white to pink for the chlorine square. Those are easiest for me to read.

>>4932514
Wow, that's one hell of a link.

>>4932441
>are you saying you read clean then you got a chlorine reading without doing a change?
Yes, and it has been getting worse.
I never changed water, never did anything major..
>chlorine does not spontaneously appear
Google told me that when chloramine is used in tap water, it can appear later in tests as it like.. releases.. I'm ESL.. as it falls apart I guess and oxidizes.
>especially if you have snails in there
I have gotten 5 bladder snails via plants who carried them and they are THRIVING.. one of them is absolutely enormous.. the others who were just tiny specs before are getting big too. They are doing amazingly well.
>pick at BBA but they don't do enough damage to actually win
What's most important.. is it actually harmful to my tank or plants?
>>4932515
Yeah, I'm horribly struggling with really reading that yellow that's why I decided to just post in here and get opinions. I don't really trust that test anymore..
I'll look into other tests. Thanks

>>4932520
Chloramine should show up as chlorine in a test though, you can get tests that are specific to one or the other but most strips and drop tests will detect both as chlorine, at least the ones I've had in the US. Which they should because both are equally dangerous, the more important distinction is ionized ammonia vs total ammonia where ionization makes ammonia non-hazardous. Do you have access to your water provider's data? In the US this is something most water systems are required to make public information, usually on a webpage or they'll mail you data once a year or so.
Chloramine is not super common in Europe, I am not sure how much it's used in the third world though. Generally speaking it is used in areas with harder water, and where water has to travel farther from its source or where a water system has a larger service area.

Bladder snails are super hardy and will endure a lot of things, but chlorine/chloramine at levels high enough to register as unsafe on a test is not one of those things, over the course of weeks. It will also nuke your plants and algae, chlorine at high levels kills literally everything in freshwater and does it more quickly than any almost any other contaminant. I suspect there is something up with your tests.

>is BBA harmful
To plants yes, to animals no. It can be harmful to the overall health of your system if it kills a bunch of plants though.

File: guh.gif (2.14 MB, 498x498)

2.14 MB GIF

>did a water change roughly a week ago last Monday
>all of the shrimp (3 adult RCS + month-old juveniles and newly-borne shrimplets) are fine as usual
>feed them two pellets of Hikari Crab Cuisine feed yesterday after letting them get adjusted to the new water parameters for a couple of days
>they go bonkers for it as they usually do
>noticed my adult female blue cherry shrimp hasn't shown up
>still can't find her after searching again today
>searched every nook/cranny/rock/plant and no signs of her or a dead shrimp body
Huh? Is she dead?

>>4932823
if you have snails she could be obliterated already
they work crazy fast on shrimps

>>4932824
It's just RCS of varying ages and size and a small salamander that just looks at them weird and never does anything

>>4932833
Could be hiding, or the salamander may have seen one love suddenly and decided to taste. Salamander will eventually start eating them, guaranteed, but if you have enough when he starts, and some good hiding spots he can't get to, they'll out produce the predation

File: White-Cloud-Mountain-Minnow.jpg (56 KB, 500x375)

56 KB JPG

thoughts on white cloud minnows?
thinking about keeping 10 gold ones in my new 20 gallon

>>4932857
they are pretty nice, top top dwellers, nice colors, not aggressors, get well with the tetras, the shrimps and the snail

I have a uaru problem. Almost a month ago my lfs guy gave me a deal I couldn't say no to on a healthy beautiful uaru he wanted to get rid of. Over our time together I have grown attatched, but the fish, as warned, is starting to chew up some of my java ferns. Nothing is supposed to eat java ferns! Are there any plants that are proven to be noxious tasting that he will be discouraged to eat? I'm not willing to give up all my plants, and not willing to give him up either. I'll have to make an effort to stuff him with peas more frequently. What do?

>>4932857
They a'ight, if you've got a 20 long zebra danios are more active and otherwise essentially the same.

They're great for container ponds.

>>4932880
Can you introduce something that'll outgrow his predation? Hornwort, anacharis, duckweed, water lettuce, etc?

>>4932880
I went through this with some blood parrots years back
Anubias on wood and rocks, and crypts if you find areas of the tank they don't want to dig in
even then it's only a chance of working

>>4932857
Good npc fish. Nice colors. Only thing special about them is you need to be a little more careful about your room temperature in summer. If you're getting sustained temps above 80 for weeks at a time, that's pushing it a bit with these guys.

>>4932890
Those don't grow well for me for some reason

Would a single Pea puffer work in a 3 gallon?

>>4933421
Frogbit? Salvinia minima? Azolla? Myrio? Cabomba? Fuckin' Jungle Val? I don't think even big ass cichlids can out murder Jungle Val, unless they straight up dig up the roots.

what exactly does dH refer to on aqadvisor? is that GH? KH? some kind of secret third thing calculated with those two?

>>4933501
dH is just another term for GH. You used to see it, or "dGH" more. Maybe it's still more common in Europe or from some German thing like KH being carbonate hardness.

>>4933485
Yes. It's about the bare minimum size I'd do though. Once you add decor, substrate, filtration, etc that 3 gallons is a lot less swimming space.

>>4933501
It's drops Hardness, which refers to gH. One "drop" is a bit below 18 ppm hardness.

File: 20241114_204126.webm (1.52 MB, 1920x1080)

1.52 MB WEBM

Why are CPD so sensitive? Of the 16 I had i have 8 left. 30gallon tank, theres a school of 12 harlequin rasboras and a blue gourami. The CPDs get a sunken in stomach and die off. The other rasboras have done very well.

File: 1727664370444741.jpg (12 KB, 236x261)

12 KB JPG

Just called my local shop to ask for prices and what neos they have..
So I'd have to pay 10.99CHF for 1 shrimbu.
What do you guys pay for your shrimps and where?

>>4933701
>almost twelve fucking dollars for a fucking neo
lmao nigga not even rabbi corey mcelroyberg is THAT talmudic. aquarium co-op, which is an expensive store full of beginner community fish, sold them at $7-8 per last time I was there. There's a cheaper store in Mill Creek where they're $4-5. Other LFS are usually $4-6ish.

File: 1710672525887838.jpg (80 KB, 1280x720)

80 KB JPG

>>4933717
Switzerland is kinda expensive, man...

>>4933622
Sounds like they may not be eating? They're pretty shy, particularly compared to the harlequins who might be too boisterous.

Also could be a pathogen or parasite, particularly if you got them all from the same location they might have just been sick.

>>4933622
idk about the danios, but how are you keeping those swords so big and green, son? mine is big, but nowhere near as filled out.

>>4933737
There are mesh bags of aquasoil and root tabs capped with sand all along the back of my tank

>>4933622
I agree with >>4933725. In my experience, CPDs are very shy, passive fish. I only had success with them with a dedicated neo shrimp + CPD tank.

>>4933701
>Local shop
9.99$ per Neo no matter the color. 6 of them cost about 65$
>Aquahuna
2.50-4.00$ per shrimp depending on color plus shipping. Having 8 of them shipped to you costs about 43$

I like to support local shops n all but that is an extra 20$ plus travel time.

>Set up my tank 3 years ago
>Nerite Snail was the first thing I put in to start the cycle
>For the last month it has spent most of it's time at the very top of the tank not moving. Rarely moving.
>Look up the life expectancy 1-2 years
Well shit. The little fucker has done an amazing job helping keep my tank clean. I'll miss the little nigga. Are the horned ones just as good at cleaning up shit or should I just go back to Petsmart and pick up another racer?

>>4933778
Fair enough
I wont bother getting more then, might just bolster my harlequin school

Consider Black Neon Tetras.

>>4933810
I have eight of them. They're fine. Brainless with no personality as is the neon tradition but they do look nice. The tank is a 20g with 8 black neons, 6 corys, 6 cherry barbs. The corys and barbs provide the personality.

>taking over father's fish tanks after he died
>in one of the tanks a fish is dying, barely moving in a back corner near the filter
>it's buddy also looks in rough shape
>catfish keeps randomly freaking out and zooming around the tank

God fucking dammit, it's been one fucking week. I know I've been feeding them correctly, the temp is fine, the filters and pumps are working, I haven't done anything to stress them (other than maybe police and morticians in the room a week ago).

The plan was for to run the tank till the fish slowly die off (they're all fairly old) but man, a week is fucking shit. Anything I do now to troubleshoot will likely just stress them out further. Think I'll wake up to a dead tank.

At least the other tank is fine, but then that one consists of a huge fish that outgrew the rest and ate 90% of the tank and its mate.

my tank is leaking

>>4933861
On closer inspection, it seems it's the Catfish dying and writhing around freaking out the other fish, they're more scared than sick I think. Hopefully it doesn't stress them to death.

>>4933861
Have you done any water changes? Did you dechlorinate the water? Lots of boomer tanks run on frequent large water changes

>>4933880
All the water in it at the moment is dechlorinated and it's got filtering that should be overkill for the tank. had a large change about 2 weeks ago, I should really do a change today but not going to when all the fish are like this.

It's now on its back on the gravel gasping, think it'll be dead within the hour. I think ultimately the tank isn't suitable for catfish, my dad really liked them but always seems they'd get to around the 18-24month mark seeming perfectly healthy then suddenly die. Think they inevitably go too far sifting the gravel and end up chewing up on some bacteria filled gunk.

>>4933889
What was your dad's water change scheduled?
What kind of catfish is it?
How big is the tank?
Have you tried taking the catfish out and looking to is if it has something stuck in its throat?

>>4933896
He never changed it as much as I thought he should, tending to do a big change once a month, sooner if the water had any visible signs of being unclean. Catfish issues aside, it seems to have been a healthy aquarium with most deaths being from obvious causes or for very old fish.

It's a Pictus catfish, no way I catch it and get something from it's throat without just making it die a painful terrifying death instead.

is fishlore.com giving anyone else a 403 permission denied error? i've tried using a vpn, different browsers, etc

>>4933779
Sure but.. it's -7°C outside at night so all the sites refuse to deliver as long as it's so cold. Obviously don't wanna have the neos freeze to death in the truck.

>>4933802
I've had my nerites for 4 years, still going strong. Don't give up hope on your critters, freshwater inverts tend to live way longer than what websites claim.
Saltwater inverts... Not so much.

>>4933802
1-2 years is low end. Healthy nerites can live basically forever, just like as amano shrimp. Every one won't make it to a decade, but more than you'd expect will.

>>4933889
Good news, It not only survived the night, it's swimming around normally, will probably go into daytime hiding mode soon. Not sure what happened to it.

Other fish that looked rough is also still alive, it looks in rough shape from the way it's resting but it's breathing and this fish occasionally sleeps in really odd positions that make me think it's dead (currently facing upwards between the filter and heater).

File: 1727948413428457.jpg (32 KB, 716x717)

32 KB JPG

My micranthemum tweediei has set roots into the moss ball.. I can't get her out anymore.
And she's the only asshole who refuses to grow. I've got
Anubias barteri
Cryptocoryne parva
Hygrophila corymbosa
Limnophila sessiliflora 2x
and Pogostemon stellatus
All doing great.. but this little bitch of a plant refuses to do shit besides eat my cute moss ball.

Anyone know how to shrimp proof a normal pump filter ?
>>4933864
Know your pain, my shrimps have to live in a bucket for now

Will shrimp reproduce in a 3 gallon? I have some amano shrimp in a 3 gallon planted tank for several months and have had no action yet.

>>4934242
Amano won't reproduce in freshwater.

>>4934242
>Will shrimp reproduce in a 3 gallon?
neocaridina will
>amano
No. To breed amano shrimp you have to put together a two stage system with a brackish water grow out tank for the larva. This species is not the kind you can just dump a group in to a freshwater container and expect results.

>>4934191
That cute moss ball will eventually become a giant ugly piece of shit that looks nothing like a ball, so I wouldn't sweat it and let the micranthemum take over.

>>4934607
Oh really? What happens to the moss balls. Do they just turn brown ans nasty?

>>4934609
One side will turn brown as it has very little light, but that is the least of the issues. It just grows not in a ball shape. Not in any kind of shape. It is very difficult to get them to grow in perfect spheres. I can't find pics of my old ones, but I had them for years and they just eventually grew into lumpy, completely non-uniform mats. It didn't even look good as a pseudo carpet. My biggest one was about a square foot (not foot cubed, because again it doesn't grow in a ball).

>>4934611
Hm.. well that's somewhat sad. I love those little things. It's just really hard keeping em clean.. their bright green gets covered by snail shit quickly so I have to pick em out and wash em.

File: Screenshot 2025-01-16 023637.jpg (45 KB, 753x453)

45 KB JPG

>>4934611
>>4934613
I found a video with one of them. In this angle it actually looks pretty funny, like a demonic green dog. But this was one of the small balls. I did not try to pull it apart or reshape it in any way. This is just how it grew (it is in a breeder box, I believe at the time I was in my amano breeding stage and I was in the process of collecting eggs/fry to put into a saltwater tank, coincidentally to some of the posts above).

>>4934616
Is that the legendary 9 tailed dog?
Looks kinda dope tho. I'd try placing my dragon stone on it and see if it grows around the stone.

That reminds me I need to do a haircut on my java moss. It took root on the good log and has since expanded at a rapid rate. I'm procrastinating this as java moss does not float so it's hard to prune it in a way that doesn't fill the tank with moss bits that will clog up my filter impeller.

Say, In terms of actual equipment what's the difference between salt and freshwater? I'd like to try to build my own saltwater aquarium and need to know if you could use any pumps and whatnot. I'm concerned since saltwater is much more corrosive than normal water.

>>4934678
Depends what you want to do in saltwater. If we're keeping things minimalistic, the only difference is you need marine salt and a refractometer. If you want corals, you will probably be getting different and more expensive lights. Refugiums are much more popular in saltwater. Protein skimmers as well for a similar reason, it's generally about removing DOCs.

Most pumps and powerheads you'd use in freshwater will also work in saltwater. Most of the parts in these smaller pieces are plastic and something else will break before they rust out. Most of your kit will carry over

File: 1000018842.jpg (110 KB, 595x922)

110 KB JPG

>>4934616
>he bought moss tied to a ball of coco/clay, not a marimo moss ball
Skill issue.

>>4934619
>It took root on the good log
Blessed post

>>4934689
>removing DOCs
What are DOCs, precious?

>>4934692
>assumptions
It was not. These "balls" were years old. How old are yours?
>inb4 inflated number lmao

>>4934728
>>4934692
I should add I know for a fact those balls aren't very old because that is not how marimo balls grow. You don't even have to google it to realize this. They are slowly rotated in the wild and in aquaculture farms constantly and consistently (i.e. you can't just flip them over every once in a while). It's similar to creating spheres of chaeto in refugiums.

File: 1000018845.jpg (369 KB, 1080x851)

369 KB JPG

>>4934728
A marimo would take decades to get a fraction of that size, anon. It's a very slow growing algae.

Whatever you have, it's not marimo.

>>4934759
>A marimo would take decades to get a fraction of that size, anon
Lmao google AI answer. Typical NPCs on forums everywhere copy pasting that answer to infinity. If they could only grow that slow, it would be financially infeasible to sell. The cost of maintaining that amount of space to grow that many balls or harvesting from that much land would exceed profit. That growth rate is slower than acropora coral, which means aquacultured marimo would cost even more than the cheapest acropora. There would be zero chance that
You guys really need to use some critical thinking instead of just googling and regurtigating. Feel free to revisit this post in a year and we can see how those balls are doing (if they survive: most don't because again, the conditions to grow the balls aren't what most people do; they're just hardy enough to die slowly).

>>4934759
Not that anon but I have marimo too, I've had it for 6 years, and it absolutely does split and spread out like that. How do you think it's meant to grow and multiply? The perfectly round ones are fake. If you want it round you have to manually roll it in your hands to keep it that way.

>>4934727
dissolved organic compounds. which would mostly be proteins, hence why it's called a protein skimmer.

File: 1710665823721352.jpg (764 KB, 1344x1500)

764 KB JPG

>>4934840
wait, you roll the things? How often do I have to do that if I want mine to stay balls? Like once a week?

>>4934994
Anon it's probably easier to just get some round stones and tie a bunch of moss to those with fishing line. It will eventually root itself on the rocks and cover them. There you go round moss forever (with occasionally trimming).

>>4934996
But I already have 3 moss balls and I don't wanna throw em away

>>4934997
separate in to pieces tie to stones or other hardscape. Or you can manually try to roll them on occasion I suppose. You have fun either way.

>>4934876
oh, you mean poop? people in the saltwater hobby don't have stuff like macroalgae to obliterate any possible poop?

>>4935095
plants/algae do not eat proteins. The heterotrophic bacteria and microfauna in your filter and tank are generally what will break DOCs down further into elements that plants can actually use, this is part of how a refugium helps with DOC reduction. DOCs can be a problem in freshwater as well but are very overlooked in the hobby because you can't effectively measure them. They are less of a problem in freshwater though because natural freshwater in general is dirtier/has more variable parameters than salt. Freshwater fish are generally much more tolerant of low quality water because of this.

We have to keep in mind that there is no such thing as a 'complete' ecosystem tank and that is doubly true for saltwater, everything is missing a slice and we compensate for that slice with manual maintenance or equipment.

>>4935102
>there is no such thing as a 'complete' ecosystem tank and that is doubly true for saltwater
Either skill issue, or this guy is LARPing. Look up Sanjay from Reef Builders, he posts there pretty often and he has a tank with a refugium where he hasn't done water changes in over a decade.

File: file.png (44 KB, 351x319)

44 KB PNG

I'm reading this book on the history of aquarium and some of the early attempts on making them work are pretty hilarious in hindsight

>>4935134
it's still not a complete ecosystem because you're adding food and removing plant/algal biomass. Water changes are not the only form of maintenance. I have similar tanks that have run for years and years with no water change but doing that still requires other forms of intervention.

You can actually get pretty close to no intervention in freshwater but you need to understock to the degree that it just isn't fun imo. I had one 10 gallon that was a self sustaining scarlet badis with shrimp and snails to eat that ran for like 3.5 years before i think it died of old age. the only maintenance i did on it was one topoff every 3 months.

I am starting to get black algae on my subsrate and sword plants. Whats the best remedy for this?

>>4935195
>adding food
>removing plant/algal biomass
>still not a complete ecosystem
Lol at the concept. Lmao, even, at the mental gymnastics.
I'm pretty sure Sanjay does feed his fish and his corals.

>>4935278
NTA but good reading comp, ESL-kun.

File: genius.png (25 KB, 512x512)

25 KB PNG

>>4935292
>doesn't know what "ecosystem" means
>calls me ESL

File: Rainman-Retard.gif (998 KB, 500x267)

998 KB GIF

>>4935305
If you have to add food or remove plants and algae, it's not a complete ecosystem, retard.

>>4935278
of course he feeds his fish and corals because there is no way to culture enough microfauna within a saltwater system for a complete food chain.
i don't really know why you're sperging out about my comment which was more or less peripheral to my main discussion of DOCs, and which is true.

i went and looked at his tanks and yes, he does it without a skimmer, which is fine. he has a refugium which will deal with DOCs and uses a bunch of pulsing xenia and gsp which will suck up nitrates. And I guarantee you he removes significant amounts of it on a semi-regular basis for nutrient export.
not using a skimmer is kind of the same vein as not using a filter in freshwater, it is certainly possible but the skimmer makes your job easier and reduces the margin of error and generally makes your tank better.

>>4935332
>some bug gets a heart attack and falls in the lake
>a fish eats it
ERMAGERD, MUH WHOLE LAKE IS NOT AN ECOSYSTEM ANYMORE REEEEEEEEEEE
>>4935334
>a bunch of pulsing xenia and gsp
the most based corals of all time
>he removes significant amounts of it
so? it doesn't matter if you're removing soft coral/macroalgae/duckweed/hornwort/whatever in saltwater or freshwater, it's the same concept
>not using a skimmer is kind of the same vein as not using a filter in freshwater
this is wrong. a skimmer actually removes the shit (i'm sorry, the PROTEIN), while the filter is there to provide surface area for bacteria, it doesn't actually lower your nitrates.

>>4935373
If the lake CAN survive without outside inputs, it's a complete ecosystem. If a fish tank - or lake, or abyssal zone, or anywhere else - needs regular (even on a long time horizon) inputs from elsewhere to stabilize, it's not a complete ecosystem.

You can be pedantic and say only the entire earth is a complete ecosystem - or even the solar system because of lunar and solar impacts - and anything less does need outside influence, but it's as definsible to say a fish tank that needs direct nutrient input and export is a complete ecosystem as to say a potted plant is.

Seriously, you're saying 0=1. It's AN ecosystem, but it's not complete, because without direct maintenance, at least occasionally, it will quickly die.

>>4935373
You are either autistic, ESL, retarded, or all three.

>>4935425
sorry, meant >>4935425 to reply to >>4935399

>>4935399
>definsible
Maaaaaaam why are you CONTRADICTING? Why are you CONTRACTING???? Are you mad??? Are you a pruhstitute? Why are you contradicting my ecosystem, mother toad?

>>4935438
Fuck off, jeet. Or post your tank.

File: lovecraft on indians.png (687 KB, 1060x1110)

687 KB PNG

>>4935441
Saar

File: internetbeforepoors.jpg (42 KB, 450x416)

42 KB JPG

>>4935442
>>4935438

>>4935442
>>4935444
Stage 1: denial
Stage 2: anger
Stage 3: bargaining
Stage 4: depression
Stage 5: NOT AN ECOSYSTEM

File: salamander.jpg (1.21 MB, 1530x1477)

1.21 MB JPG

>>4932841
>almost a week since I noticed my adult female blue cherry was gone
>flip over every rock and check under all of the plants
>zero signs of her or her remains
>while searching, noticed something pink in one of the corners behind the heater
>it's probably a small leaf from one of my alternanthera reineckii pla-
>the pink leaf thing buries into the sand the moment I try reaching for it
>it's the fucking earthworm I tried feeding my salamander before I did my last water change
Starting to think my salamander really may have eaten her.
Do RCS eat their fellow dead shrimp? It's not a big deal losing one shrimp (especially since she gave birth to like 30 something shrimplets), but I'm a little concerned about potentially leaving a shrimp carcass to rot in the tank.

File: D30D14F4-7C34-42E9-8A8E-5(...).jpg (1.68 MB, 4032x3024)

1.68 MB JPG

>10 Gal tank
>1 Betta
>7 Ember Tetras
>4 kuhli loach
>1 amano shrimp
>various small snails, there can't be too many left because I added an assassin snail.
My question for all you fish people is, could I get away with taking out my filter? Say, if I added a bunch more plants? Or is the bioload just too high to even try?
I think the surface agitation from the filter is killing my red root floaters, I've tried to grow them now like 3 or 4 times with no luck. I feel like I have the ph and temperature dialed in.

>>4935496
There are underwater salamanders? Whaaa

>>4935533
>I think the surface agitation from the filter is killing my red root floaters
It can be done with moderate flow from a hob filter or agitation from a sponge filter. The trick is to take a floating feeder ring, secure it in whatever area of the surface gets the least agitation from your filter, add whatever floater you have inside the ring. Tie a suction cup to the ring and stick the cup to one of the side walls so it stays put. Also, and this may sound counter-intuitive, duck weed can actually help you encourage growth of the more delicate floating plant species. The way this works is duckweed will surround your other floating plants in such a way that it shields them from surface agitation. You do need an excess of duckweed for this to trick work though. And you have to routinely remove some of the duckweed so it doesn't just outcompete everything and take over (which it will).