Hi!

Some of you may have realised that I posted in another sub-forum not too long ago. I thought that since the enquiries that I've posted are irrelevant to each other, I should split them up into two posts. Sorry if this caused any inconveniences, or is unacceptable.

A few months back, I fishless-cycled my tank with ammonium bicarbonate. Though not the best choice for an ammonia source (I couldn't find bottled ammonia in Singapore and a piece of market shrimp rotting away in the fish tank produced a stench which my family members couldn't stand ), it did finish the cycle. I then changed the water to bring nitrates level down and stocked the tank with red cherry shrimp and Otocinclus. I'm quite happy with the results -- I ended up with 7 females and 1 juvenile male for the shrimps, and quite a few of the females were berried but dropped the eggs due to the lack of experience; all the Otocinclus could have survived had I not skipped feeding them cucumber slices for two days , meaning to say the Otocinclus I had obtained were healthy enough and could have lasted way longer.

This entire process of cycling and initial stocking with algae eaters took about 2months to complete. Throughout the entire time, I had not stirred the substrate, which is fine sand, at all. Now, it has become quite compact and when disturbed, gas bubbles, that I know are especially harmful to Corydoras, escape.

To prevent the substrate from compacting, I would like to get some MTS to help out the situation. I tend to forget to stir the substrate during weekly maintenance, and do not want this to cause the demise of my future Corydoras tank inhabitants. I do know how prolific MTS is and how quickly it can overtake a tank. However, I believe that MTS will be a great benefit to me as long as I keep feedings to a minimum, hence keeping their population relatively small.

Having said so much, I would like to know where can I purchase MTS? I know that there may be forum-mates that are willing to part with their MTS, but recent checks in the Market section were not fruitful at all. I am also unable to start a new thread in said section due to the low post count.

I would really like to get my hands on MTS due to the benefits they bring. I doubt that a huge population of it would deter me from getting it; the pond snails are already having a field day in my tank, especially when there's about 6 that is of good size, and I remain unaffected by the sight of snails climbing the tank walls.

Thanks for reading this long post!

-faithful