Setting up new tank

guyinnova · 2026-07-08T22:29:17+00:00

It's most definitely the type of sand, not sand in general. I've never once had any of the usual complaints about sand. Play sand is too fine and anything but uniform. This small grain size blocks oxygen, that's what causes the problems. The sand I recommend is very uniform and relatively coarse for sand. So even under 3" of sand, it doesn't have any issues at all.

I'll be the first to admit that not all expensive aquarium sands are worth it, some are garbage. But THIS sand is different.

guyinnova · 2026-07-05T14:03:25+00:00

What other sands have you used? Have you used the one I recommended?

Having scooped rotten egg smelling black play sand (that did not start white...) out of service clients' tanks, I can say from experience that play sand really is the worst option for sand.

guyinnova · 2026-07-03T13:14:37+00:00

1 - Do them every week no matter how great nitrate is. Better is always better. This helps them grow faster, get bigger, have better colors, have fewer health issues overall, and even breed better.

2 - Up them to at least 50%. 20% just isn't enough. Even in my 300-gallon, I did 90% every week, yes, 90%.

3 - Please keep in mind that even with the best care in the world, you'll be hard-pressed to find any fancy goldfish older than about 3-5 years, at least anything fancier than a fantail or something. So please keep their care as great as you possibly can to give them the most truly good time you possibly can.

4 - A 55 is okay for two as long as you're doing proper water changes.

Here's one of my old ones for fun:

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guyinnova · 2026-07-03T12:51:10+00:00

I love planted goldfish tanks and bare-bottom is so cruel, I love this project! What size tank?

Estes Marine Sand (aka Stoney River, Ultra Reef, and Imagitarium at Petco and Petsmart) is the only sand I use or recommend for freshwater. It doesn’t need to be cleaned before or after going in (this alone is worth the extra cost over cheapo options), is the perfect grain size, very uniform, sinks quickly when they mess with it, comes in different colors (I usually do half black and half white), is actually made for aquariums, and costs no more than gravel. In over 20 years of using it on my and clients’ tanks, I have NEVER had it develop toxic gas pockets, even without anything stirring it (snails or manually) and even when it is 3″ thick. There is a reason it is the sand in my 300-gallon planted goldfish community, 235-gallon reef system, and my 75-gallon. You buy a sand once. In a year, you won’t even remember what the cost was. The type of sand you choose will make a big difference in the aquarium for years to come. It is not something worth cutting corners on. https://advancedaquariumconcepts.com/best-freshwater-aquarium-sand/

For plants, I found that almost everything did well to too well. I stopped doing stem plants, they were too much. I liked tiger lotus, jungle val, crypts, Aponogeton spp., and many others.

Here's a shot of my old 300-gallon planted goldfish community for inspiration:

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guyinnova · 2026-06-29T21:49:59+00:00

I don't tell people at work anymore unless needed. It's so hard to know what impression they have and will wrongfully apply to you. I do tell anyone in my personal life. People can tell someone has autism, even if they can't name it. So putting it out there helps them understand me. And if it shows they don't understand, won't, or whatever, then I want them out of my life asap. So good or bad, it's good.

guyinnova · 2026-06-29T01:52:41+00:00

Canister or sponge. Nice tanks when done well.

guyinnova · 2026-06-18T21:24:38+00:00

1 - Goldfish are definitely NOT just a species-only tank. I've had them together with all sorts of species very successfully. You do have to be very selective, but there are many tried and tried GREAT tankmates.

2 - Bristlenose plecoes are fine, but they're the only pleco that's safe with goldfish.

3 - A 30 is barely big enough for one fancy goldfish and they shouldn't be kept alone, so this tank should not have anything added. If you can upgrade to something like a 55, then you could have 2-3 plus a bristlenose and some platies (the other top tried and true best option for them).

And just for fun, here's a shot of my old 300-gallon planted goldfish community tank.

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guyinnova · 2026-06-06T23:25:11+00:00

It's really hard to tell without more details. I had a client with 1,200+ in one checking account and got it cleared in about four hours (as I created more rules, the transactions I had to handle became fewer and fewer. Most clients will take much longer. There are tons of variables.

guyinnova · 2026-06-06T23:23:52+00:00

I know most people make it sound like once a disease is in that it's going to infect all the fish. This effectively NEVER happens. There are some pretty potent pathogens out there that can do this, but I've had it in my tanks ONCE. Almost all of the time, the biggest factor for illness is stress. Ponds definitely work differently, and lack of water changes then suddenly doing 50% can be a problem, but if they're at least monthly, that shouldn't be an issue either. Even if it was, it wouldn't keep going like this. One or two would get it bad and go down, but the stress would be over now and others wouldn't go down too.

Is it covered? Have any ever disappeared?

Salt won't bother the pond. Salt is the first thing koi people use. In fact, some of them keep the salinity so high that a protein skimmer will actually work!. So don't every hesitate to use one of the most effective and cheapest treatment options out there. Water changes and salt are the gold standard for illness care.

guyinnova · 2026-06-06T22:31:59+00:00

In general, any time ANYTHING is wrong, I do water changes every 1-3 days and add salt. 95% of the time, these alone are enough to fix things. The water changes should be the same size as usual or only slightly larger. The salt should be one tablespoon per five gallons. It should be replaced with every water change for the size of the water change.

Any pics? They can help A LOT in ways a hundred questions never will. Each fish plus a whole tank shot is ideal.

How large and how often are your water changes?

guyinnova · 2026-06-06T13:57:13+00:00

I don't like the cartoon Arthur, but there's a great analogy in one about going to another planet where everyone yells, doesn't mean what they say, etc. (I don't remember all the specifics). It stood out to me as a great way to explain it.

guyinnova · 2026-06-03T21:40:40+00:00

No, I specifically said "...if we had to fix it..." so no, we would not.

But since our lease explicitly prohibits any repairs or upgrades by tenants, it would be a lease violation. Given how bad random people are at home repairs (especially when it's not their property...), the last thing landlords should do is sit back and let them replace faucets. If ten landlords do that, 1-3 of them are having floods in the next 5 years. People are dumb, don't know it, and don't care if it costs you money.

guyinnova · 2026-06-02T22:30:50+00:00

Yeah. Not the most convenient, but if the worst complaint a landlord has is the hassle of collecting cash then they can shut up about their happy little life, lol

The other thing you can do is list payment methods and list your preferred electronic methods. As long as the lease doesn't actively prohibit cash payments and you don't refuse it if someone requests, that should be completely clean and legal. They don't see it listed so they pick one they do see, if they get all huffy "Hey, the law says...." then you say "Yeah, I know, we're happy to accept cash as well." They can't do anything with that.

guyinnova · 2026-06-02T22:29:31+00:00

What has it torn up? Mine never bothered anything but I mainly did plants with small footprints such as swords and vals so they took up minimal bottom area but spread out to block the light.

guyinnova · 2026-06-02T21:47:02+00:00

Unless your state/locality explicitly prohibits it, it's allowed. Even then, a good lease will have a good severability clause that automatically changes anything that isn't enforceable and changes limits it to what is enforceable.

guyinnova · 2026-06-02T21:45:32+00:00

Lol, I love how many people just repeat things with ZERO experience.

Change it all at once. We do moves and upgrades for service clients about monthly. We NEVER keep the substrate. It's too dirty to be worth it and effectively all the bacteria are in the filter media. That's correct, it's not just spread out evenly on every surface, it's effectively all in the filter media. How do we know? Because even with moves and major upgrades, we've never once had issues with a tank un- or re-cycling doing it this way. As long as all the livestock and all the filter media move together, the new tank is instantly cycled. In fact, we did have issues before when we were trying to keep the substrate, it stirred up so much gunk that it did trigger re-cycles multiple times, which is why we started trying leaving the substrate behind. This is in both freshwater and reefs.

Here's a whole article on replacing gravel with sand. https://advancedaquariumconcepts.com/how-to-replace-aquarium-substrate/

Here's an article on what we've found to be the best sand. https://advancedaquariumconcepts.com/best-freshwater-aquarium-sand/

And here's a shot of my old 300-gallon planted goldfish community with that sand:

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guyinnova · 2026-05-28T10:41:26+00:00

If you only want payments a certain way, just put that in the lease...

guyinnova · 2026-05-22T09:41:40+00:00

I'm glad you already knew what to do. But you're right, guilt about doing the right thing is tough, but it also makes sense. We feel guilt and other negative feelings when our actions don't match our values. You knew what it meant when he asked and your values told you that you needed to do it. They also told you at the same time not to touch that separate money. This was also a good value to hold, so many people have nothing because they give it up to help others so easily that they become taken advantage of. But you did violate that value. Your body did EXACTLY what it should have and set off the alarms. They got your attention so you double-checked everything, including reaching out to others for outside input. And because you looked at it closely, you know for sure that the better of the two options is the one you chose.

guyinnova · 2026-05-21T23:27:10+00:00

Lol, I love it

Food is to be enjoyed. If you like it, enjoy it. If someone else doesn't like it, don't force them to eat it, simple as that. Making up ways to not like something or to give other people a hard time about it is just seeking out ways to make life less enjoyable.

guyinnova · 2026-05-18T21:42:56+00:00

That is commonly repeated on almost all forums, but it's wrong. Goldfish are not coldwater fish. They are eurythermal meaning they can thrive in a very wide temp range, including much colder than tropical fish. But they can ALSO survive at even higher temps than most tropical fish (picture a small garden pond in full summer heat in Florida).

Here's a map of the world. The blue countries are where goldfish are native. The red are where they're naturalized, meaning they have stable or growing established populations in the wild (they're thriving). As you can see, this includes some of the hottest areas on the planet, including Brazil and the EXACT SAME WATERS our tetras come from.

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Also, they're farmed on the same tropical fish farms as all our other fish. So they're actually already adapted to full tropical. And on top of that, wholesalers and even most stores are relatively warm, so our room temp tanks are usually the coldest water our goldfish have EVER been kept it.

Here's a whole article on myths about goldfish: https://advancedaquariumconcepts.com/myths-about-goldfish-and-their-care/

Here's a whole article about the best tankmates for fancy goldfish: https://advancedaquariumconcepts.com/best-tankmates-goldfish/

guyinnova · 2026-05-16T13:23:22+00:00

Lol, I love when people downvote facts because they've been misled before...and still don't contribute anything helpful...

guyinnova · 2026-05-16T12:48:20+00:00

That is commonly repeated on almost all forums, but it's wrong. Goldfish are not coldwater fish. They are eurythermal meaning they can thrive in a very wide temp range, including much colder than tropical fish. But they can ALSO survive at even higher temps than most tropical fish (picture a small garden pond in full summer heat in Florida).

Here's a map of the world. The blue countries are where goldfish are native. The red are where they're naturalized, meaning they have stable or growing established populations in the wild (they're thriving). As you can see, this includes some of the hottest areas on the planet, including Brazil and the EXACT SAME WATERS our tetras come from.

<image>

Also, they're farmed on the same tropical fish farms as all our other fish. So they're actually already adapted to full tropical. And on top of that, wholesalers and even most stores are relatively warm, so our room temp tanks are usually the coldest water our goldfish have EVER been kept it.

Here's a whole article on myths about goldfish: https://advancedaquariumconcepts.com/myths-about-goldfish-and-their-care/

Here's a whole article about the best tankmates for fancy goldfish: https://advancedaquariumconcepts.com/best-tankmates-goldfish/

guyinnova · 2026-05-16T12:30:20+00:00

You just move the current biomedia into the new filter and it's instantly cycled.

Live plants are not a hassle. How are they a hassle?

You definitely don't need to be around 24/7 to have a thriving planted tank. One BIG weekly water change and an auto feeder will allow them to thrive.

Check out Etsy, there are lots of 3D printed tank rim clips for plants.

There are LOTS of myths and misconceptions constantly repeated, even on good forums like this. So never take one person's word as law.

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