for the time being, look at grandmaster's work, planting lots(3.40) Then need around 3 months (3.47) to have the next update...
I just came across this video regarding acclimation techniques and i feel i should post this here just to see what are the views about it. I usually acclimate my fish by floating the bag over the tank then adding tank water into it every 15 mins or so for about an hour or more. But the video below explains how drip acclimation or the usual acclimation technique may not be the right thing to do.
Well, i guess viewers do have to watch that video based on the context of how Msjinkzd receives her livestock... she is an importer and distributor, so the majority of the livestock she receives are in bulk quantities from overseas and the bags have been in transit for many days at a stretch, therefore toxic levels in those bulk bags would have already accumulated to high levels, hence the "plop and drop" method is better as she wants to immediately get the livestock out of the dirty water and into clean water, its almost like an emergency procedure with no time to waste to reduce losses. In such cases, the benefit of immediate action to get livestock out of toxic conditions outweighs the stress in the livestock.
Importers/distributors usually put the livestock into holding tanks with neutral parameters too, so its much easier for the livestock be "plopped" into the moderate controlled tank conditions with less issues (they are not being dropped into high-tech planted tanks with vastly different parameters and Co2 injection). If i was an importer and also processing livestock quantity in the hundreds and thousands every week, i would also be doing it the same way too.
Many aquarists in the states also order livestock online which are delivered by postal service, so this method is also applicable for them too.
On the other-hand, in our local context when buying livestock from LFS, they are typically bagged in "clean" LFS water (hopefully) with ample oxygen and we will usually bring home them home within an hour (at most just a few hours). The water conditions in the bag would not have deteriorated so badly as if they were stuck in there for days, so there is still opportunity to do slower less-stressful acclimation process on the livestock to further maximize their survival rates.
Personally, how i acclimate my livestock depends alot on the LFS tank conditions vs my home tank conditions, if the conditions are very similar and the livestock are the hardy type, i also just "plop and drop" the livestock without any acclimation at all and there is no problems. I usually do that with hardy fishes like guppies, rasboras, boraras and tetras when introducing them into my quarantine tanks or even low-tech planted holding tanks, since their water parameters are pretty much almost the same across the board anyways.
But if the 2 tank conditions are very different.... for example, when shifting from a well oxygenated bare-bottom tank with pH 7.6 to a high-tech planted tank using ADA Amazonia aquasoil with pH 6.4 (dropping down to pH 5.6 during Co2 injection), then i will take more care to do a drip acclimation procedure to ease the transition process for the livestock. I notice when i do this the livestock are alot less stressed and any potential issues are greatly reduced.
This is even more important for shrimps as they take a much longer time to acclimate, especially when being transferred between different tanks, even the slightest differences can cause issues. Previously when i started in the hobby and didn't acclimate shrimps i notice much lower survival rates (even after picking the healthiest ones at the LFS), shrimps exhibiting delayed stress effects and dying consecutively over the course of days and weeks... but when i started to drip acclimate them properly the survival rates increased significantly to the point where i could usually see almost 100% of the shrimps still alive and active over the following weeks and months.
At this level of extra care and attention (aka kiasu style), i guess we are not looking to just reduce death rate percentages like importers or LFS (they have to constantly factor in and reduce livestock losses as part of their business), but we as home aquarists want to maximize survival rates to 100% (or at least as close to it as possible) for our livestock, so the extra time and effort to acclimate our livestock can help.
Last edited by Urban Aquaria; 12th Apr 2016 at 15:37.
Good read, UA. Thank you. It is also very useful for me since I am going to introduce fishes to the tank soon.
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That's a good breakdown and explanation of the acclimation methods that we've been doing!Originally Posted by Urban Aquaria
I almost decided to plop and drop all my remaining fishes that I'm planning to add haha. I only realise the difference in water parameters after you've mentioned about the drastic change from the LFS tank to my high tech tank haha.
Hey can anyone help me identify the deficiency on my staurogyne? If I'm not wrong, it's potassium deficit right?
Hey guys!
Need some help here... I'm starting to get some serious green spot algae on my tank wall which my 2 Otos are trying really hard to clear, and there's been green hair algae growing on my MCs and my moss... Any idea how to get rid of these stuff?
Photo period: previously 9hrs a day, just adjusted it to 6hrs a day
Co2: approx. 2bps
Ferts: Previously 3ml Tropica Premium Fertiliser daily and 5ml seachem potassium. Just adjust to Tropica 1ml/day and seachem potassium 2ml/day
I know adding Yamato shrimps/red nose shrimps would clear the hair algae but I don't intend on having them as my live stocks..
Anyone knows the reason for green hair algae outbreak?
From my experience, too much iron will cause hair algae, insufficient phosphate will cause green spot algae. Try to maintain 2ppm of phosphate and reduce to 6hrs lighting period for the GSA. For hair algae, I believe it will disappear eventually after a couple of water change as you have already reduced the dosage of Tropica Premium, which contains iron and other micro-nutrients.
Ohhh I was dosing a bit of iron previously as well HAHA any how dose cuz I wanted my rotala rotundifolia to turn red... But I changed it all to Ludwigia super red and everything looks so much nicer now. Just waiting for the algae to go away and the Ludwigia to grow taller!
Unfortunately, otos are not able to eat the hard green spot algae (they can only graze on and clear soft green or brown algae).
For green spot algae, nerite snails can help clear them, preferably get horned nerite snails as they are also small enough to climb on plant leaves to help clean them too. The horned nerite snails are able to rasp on the younger green spot algae growth and clear it. It'll not be 100% clear rate though, they will miss some areas and some spots will still remain. For the older harder encrusted spots that are too tough for the nerite snails to remove, you'll just have to roll up your sleeves and use an algae scraper to manually scrub them away.
Increasing the amount of phosphates in the tank is known to inhibit and weaken the green spot algae too (which also makes it easier and quicker for the snail to clear), so you could try that. Though too much phosphates may also lead to nutrient imbalances and possibly encourage other types of algae growth, so you'll have to keep it under control.
As for hair algae, they thrive in the same conditions as your plants, once introduced into a tank, ample light and nutrients will help them establish and grow fast. You just have to manually remove as much as you can and control light/nutrient levels to slow down their growth. Dosing anti-algae treatments can also help (but do check to make sure your livestock are okay with those treatments).
The best livestock to manage and clear hair algae are still dwarf shrimps, they will work at eating the hair algae 24/7, even in-between plants and in hidden areas you can't see. You can utilize cherry shrimps or malayan shrimps as algae management crew too (not only yamato or red nose shrimps), the difference is just efficiency levels... if you use the smaller shrimps, just stock more of them to match the efficiency of larger shrimps (ie. instead of 10 yamato shrimp, use 50 cherry shrimps).
Most people only stock a few shrimps and expect them to be able to clear all the algae, when in fact they actually need to stock alot more to see the effect (in a 2ft planted tank, its not just 5-10 shrimps... more like 50-60 shrimps). Once your shrimp population's algae consumption rate exceed the algae growth rate, you will see the algae reduce until it becomes not noticeable anymore. Thereafter the shrimps will constantly help you keep those algae at bay.
Each algae eater specializes in consuming different algae, so stocking a mix of different algae eaters (like cherry shrimps, otos, horned nerite snails etc) will combine their abilities to control a range of different common algae.
... until you encounter blue green algae or black beard algae, then need more aggressive solutions.
Last edited by Urban Aquaria; 18th Apr 2016 at 22:43.
Wow that's some really helpful advice! I thought only Yamato and Red nose would be helpful! I've already stocked some fire red shrimps and I guess I'll be getting even more then!
So those darker spots of GSA have to be removed manually while my Otos will clear softer GSA and the green hair algae will be taken care of by the Fire Reds? That's a relief! Thought I'd have to black out my tank or something... I always scrub the tank walls when I'm doing my weekly water change too so manual removal isn't much of a trouble.. Just that the hair algae would float around when I try to pluck them out. Will that cause them to spread?
Well, otos still can't clear newly formed GSA, its still to tough for them (they only clean those really soft film-like algae and diatoms on tank glass and plant leaves).
So far, i only have experience with livestocks like nerite snails which can help clear the GSA... otherwise you'll just have to manually scrape the GSA away as it appears.
When you manually remove hair algae, try to net out as much as you can, so that it reduce the chances of them spreading around the tank and growing further.
Ohhh I see... So actually Otos aren't the best algae crew it seems..... I've never had much luck with Nerite snails... They seem to die within a few days after I add them... Any idea why?
And also just some photos to illustrate what I'm facing currently!
Well, otos do serve some purpose in algae management, but its only for the soft film-layer type algae, not all types.
Nowadays, i mainly utilize horned nerite snails for algae clearing duties on tank glass and plant leaves (all my tanks have a few of them), because they can eat both soft and hard algae, essentially doing the same job as otos too, plus more.
I still do keep otos though, but its mainly zebra otos because of their nice patterns. I treat them more as ornamental fishes rather than as algae crew.
As for how to keep nerite snail alive, i guess you just have to pick the active ones from LFS and acclimate them before introduction into your tank and then hope for the best. They are more sensitive to certain medications and chemicals, so have to watch for that. I find that they also tend to do much better in tanks without Co2 injection though, as the more acidic environment usually erodes their shells much faster over a period of time. In high tech tanks you'll just have to moderate the conditions and keep a closer eye on the snails condition.
I bought a few Nerite snails before but most of the time they will just "close" their shells after I put them into the tank and I'll never see them come out of their shells again then a few days later I just assume they're dead and throw them out. They have this piece of solid "door" like thing that covers them after they hide in their shell.Well, otos do serve some purpose in algae management, but its only for the soft film-layer type algae, not all types.
Nowadays, i mainly utilize horned nerite snails for algae clearing duties on tank glass and plant leaves (all my tanks have a few of them), because they can eat both soft and hard algae, essentially doing the same job as otos too, plus more.
I still do keep otos though, but its mainly zebra otos because of their nice patterns. I treat them more as ornamental fishes rather than as algae crew.
As for how to keep nerite snail alive, i guess you just have to pick the active ones from LFS and acclimate them before introduction into your tank and then hope for the best. They are more sensitive to certain medications and chemicals, so have to watch for that. I find that they also tend to do much better in tanks without Co2 injection though, as the more acidic environment usually erodes their shells much faster over a period of time. In high tech tanks you'll just have to moderate the conditions and keep a closer eye on the snails condition.
Hey guys is it possible that after lowering my ferts for a day, my plants would start showing deficiencies already..?
Most likely the nutrient levels in your tank might already be insufficient, so the plants are already starting to show deficiencies. The deficiencies just happen to show up more noticeably the day after you skipped dosing ferts.
Such reactions occur much faster in stem plants as they constantly up take nutrients to grow (stem plants have very little reserves, unlike rhizome plants), hence any shortage of ferts will show up very quickly.
This is just a sign to increase fert dosing. Trim off the melting stems/leaves and the plants will eventually grow new healthy ones. Its always better to keep nutrient levels above what the plants require, hence its quite normal to have to dose 2-3x (or even more) of the bottle fert recommended dosage as the plant density and their nutrient take up rates increase.
But I thought I was supposed to be lowering my ferts to reduce the algae growth
So what do I do now... Increase ferts or decrease?
Suffered plants leach main ' ferts' for algae
Take care your plants first, algae can be taken care in 2nd round, or it will be disappeared by itself when your plants are healthy and when the tank is returning back to balance
You need to have balance fertilizer, N,P, K and micro nutrient. You are having excess nutrient of some kind in the water column which results in Algae. Those excess nutrient cannot be fully utilize because you are lacking in some other type of nutrient..... You need test kit to find out what is lacking.
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