After discovering my aquarium nitrate level was out of control-- I have gotten down to the 20's from at least 180. I have reduced the number of fish in my aquarium and cleaned the top of my substrate of plant debris as well as cleaning debris out of the canister filter. I am using a product that ...

I realized after I posted that supplier not breeder should have been used. Some of the fish the LFS receives are captive bred but some like cory's and pleco's are imported. I do keep oto's in the aquarium without a problem to the plants. Ancistrus is another type of pleco that may be readily ...

This is an update about my gold nugget pleco. The LFS has gotten identity from the breeder as L81 and it really does resemble the pic 's on this site. It does however love my swords and will not leave them alone. It has scraped off leaf material from every plant and showed no intention of stopping ...

Thanks Matts, I did the shape thing just to do whatever I could to help get this fish off the swords.... I don't know what my LFS fed the gold nugget's but there was driftwood in the tank. From the time this fish hit my tank he went right to the swords so he must have been hungry. Anyway we have ...

Ok, I won't give up yet and I just put in a piece of raw courgette sliced with plenty of skin and shaped like a sword leaf. I have no problem trying different vegetables but Mango??? This would be exciting for my wife who uses these often. How can mango be used ? are we talking about the skin ...

I have a young L18 or L85 gold nugget in my planted tank and the pleco has adjusted well and seems to be thriving. However his (or her) activity on the sword plants is leaving damage. While not really eating the entire leaf--- a thin layer of material is being taken off. There is driftwood in the ...

Ok Mats I checked the tap water and of course it measured 0 so I will have to reconsider just what the tap water filter is doing for me...Thanks for your insights By the way I have 1 sterbi left and he continues to hang on.... Fish load reduced....water changes... and started using a nitrate reducer ...

Thanks for your post Mats, my tap water filter provides zero nitrate water and the test I have goes up to 180. I may have come down a bit in nitrates from a couple water changes but what I am learning is that I have a very dirty tank in terms of plant waste plus I need to be way more consistant with ...

Here is the list of cory's tried in my tank:
Panda's
aneus
paleatus
trillineatus
sterbi
matae

Steve

Many many thanks to all who have provided thoughts and insights to my problem keeping corys alive in my aquarium. Bought some additional test equipment to recheck my water and got different results.... ph comes in at 6.6 Ammonia at 0 and here's a problem.... nitrates are over 100. Two partial water ...

Thanks for the replies thus far... the tank is 38 us gallons... the height measurment I used is off.... more like 21 -23 inches I quess. I do not use RO water but do use a tap water filtration system and add buffers back. I use fertalizers at half the strength recommended for a tank my size. But I ...

Please help... 40 gal planted aquarium ( 36 x 12 x 18 ) with florite substrate and one piece of very aged drift wood. 3 very small petrified wood rocks. Aquarium is low light meaning no co2 is used but ferts are used in small amounts. Mostly Seachem florish, trace, and potassium. Temp is 79 degrees ...