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What up fellas.. hope everyone is well. Just a quick update. Added more plants. Still have a few crypts wendti and a couple of scarlet temples to add but their still in QT. Add some red to all that green. I put a few otos in their to get control of the algae. And because I noticed one gained weight. So I wanted to make sure she wasn't around the Serpae tetras when she laid the eggs. Like2 weeks go by and I thought I had a bunch of worms on my glass. Took a closer look. And its oto fry. Counted like 23 so far. Temps at 76 , PH is 7.4 , nitrates at 3ppm ,nitrites are at .5 ppm. Doing water changes 3 to 4 times a day ,about 15% percent each time . To keep the nitrates and nitrites low. Scary to do water changes with the fry in there. Gotta watch that I don't suck any up. But so far , its been ok. Still waiting on my background.

I like the idea of an aquarium journal here on the forum. We have four aquariums currently. Jenn's 40 Gallon (36x12) tank started up earlier this year Penn Plax under gravel filter run with a Tetra Whisper 60 air pump Hygger submersible heater (300w) Hygger full spectrum LED programmable light. Gravel substrate Hardscape includes 4 small pieces of spider wood and some dragon stone Plants 1 bunch Crypt Wendtii 1 Amazon Sword 1 bunch Pogostemon Stellatus "Octopus" A couple varieties of anubias (nana and nangi I think) 1 Christmas Moss Bridge 1 Dwarf lily bulb Livestock (specific epithets change, so sorry if I've got any of these wrong) 12 Black Neon Tetra - Hyphessobrycon herbertaxelrodi (7 females and 4 males?) 12 Panda Corys - Corydoras panda (Some boys and girls? Maybe?) 1 Bristlenose catfish - Ancistrus sp. `RIO UCAYALI` (We think female, but may be juvenile male. There are some bristles along the upper lip, but they're getting longer) "Waldo" 2 goldeneye cichlid -Nannacara anomala (1 male and 1 female) "Bob and Margaret" Adrian's 10 Gallon Standard 10 gallon, started up years ago as a community tank and then transitioned to a betta only tank. Now housing a small community again. Aqueon HOB filter Tetra submersible 50w heater Original Fluorescent hood light Gravel substrate Hardscape includes various small pieces of driftwood and the cutest little castle tower picked out by a 5 year old Adrian years ago. Plants 1 Pogostemon Stellatus "Octopus" A couple crypts (not certain what kind anymore) Livestock 1 betta - Betta splendens (male) "Lotus" 5 cardinal tetras - Paracheirodon axelrodi (sex undetermined) 2 baby bristlenose catfish - Longfin Green Dragon Ancistrus sp. (too young to sex - they are itty bitty) "Vortex and Nebula" Adrian's 29 Gallon (30 x 12) Started up on July 24, 2020 Penn Plax under gravel filter run with a Tetra Whisper air pump Hygger submersible heater Aqueon LED hood (light to be improved soon!) Gravel substrate (black) Hardscape includes 1 seiryu stone, 1 very large piece of driftwood and one piece of spiderwood Plants 2 bunches Amazon chain sword 1 bunch Crypt lutea 1 Pogostemon Stellatus "Octopus" Livestock We kickstarted his tank with some bacteria from his 10 gallon and some Frytzyme 7. 10 Black Neon Tetras - Hyphessobrycon herbertaxelrodi (looks like mix of males and females) 2 Sunset Honey Gouramis - Trichogaster chuna (females) "Solar and Star This tank is destined to be his Bristlenose breeding tank. Vortex and Nebula have several months of growing to do in the interim. Jenn's Betta Tank This tank is currently a 2.5 gallon kit tank that we bought when we purchased Rowan the betta. It's a bit of a long story. I have a 5 gallon Marineland kit sitting next to my chair. We'll get this up and running this weekend. Thank you to Aquarium Co-op for the instructions on how to pimp improve the kit filter. Hardscape includes one castle Gravel substrate Tetra submersible 50w heater More pictures coming soon. My husband is dragging me off to the hardware store to pick out a new mailbox. Fun times!

For fun, I doodle a lot. I’d like to try my hand at more fish. Post a clear, high-quality photo of your fish and I’ll give it my best shot. i might end up using the artwork in something crafty to sell, so please be ok with that. You’re more than free to use the doodles for whatever personal use you might want. Also a doodler? Feel free to hop on the doodley band wagon.

Can the roots be gently rinsed in a clean basin of water to see if any fry are tagging along, etc?

Recently I’ve been trying to grow Daphnia outside in a 5 gallon bucket with little success. I put in a starter culture of Daphnia I retrieved from my ditch but our weather here has been in the mid-90s for the last two weeks and it fried all the Daphnia. I set up a second bucket to grow mosquito larva in, but no mosquitoes ever came and laid eggs. So I was 0 for 2. Or so I thought. Last weekend I was weeding the garden and throwing the weeds into our wheelbarrow, (which I was too lazy to empty). It rained repeatedly during the course of the week, and when I went out this afternoon you could smell the fetid wheelbarrow from 20 feet away. On closer inspection however, it had 50+ mosquito larva egg rafts floating amongst the rotting plants. At 100 larva per raft that is something on the order of 50,000 5000 mosquito larva! I fished the egg rafts out with a tablespoon and put them a bowl for transport to a grow-out container. I went back to my original 5 gallon bucket with no mosquito larva in it and it had turned pea soup green over the course of the week. So now I’ve got Daphnia inside in a 10 gallon aquarium happily munching on green water. And I’ve got 50,000 5000 potential mosquito larva in the fish room also. It’s times like this I need to stop and realize that I have a spouse who tolerates worms in the refrigerator and 50,000 mosquito larva in the fish room. I need to do something nice for her today.

You got it! I usually putter around in a Cessna 172 skyhawk. Although sometimes I also take a piper Seminole out.

I have a 500 gallon cistern with roof rain water collection, water comes out at about 65 in the summer 55 in the winter. i use a pump and garden hose to get that to a 55 gallon drum in my fish room: in the drum i have a 600 gph pump connected to PVC that comes up to a ball valve, it then splits, one side goes out to a barb connected to soft 1/2 inch python tubing the other to a ball valve directed back into the barrel. at the other end of the tubing i have this, for filling the tanks. I have the second ball valve above for relieving pressure on the pump when I want to restrict flow using the ball valve on the filling wand. I just fill the drum before i go to bed and the next day it is up to room temp, 74 and good to use. If you are thinking of doing something with trash cans, maybe this Aquarium Co-Op video will give you some ideas at around the 5 min mark:

For the biggest tank, well water goes through the RO system then out into the white tank. Back when I was trying to breed Heckel discus I would used 18 M phosphoric acid to maintain a stable 4.5 pH. Thats what that blackbox in the upper right is for. Early on I did temperature mixing also, but not anymore. Now the water is heated inline. In the current setup above, the big black Grundfos in the lower left moves room temperature RO water on to the big tank through pipes embedded the concrete slab foundation. Over in the living room the water emerges from slab and then up through the inside the stand for the big tank. It is then piped through hidden emitters through a hole in the bottom of the tank. At that point it becomes aged water in the big tank, and I use a Python to distribute it to my others tanks. I change 50 to 100s gallon of water a day by using a Python with the big tank as the source because it is so high up off of the ground. Everything else is downhill from there. I added those on off valves to my Python setup and couldn't live with out them now. Also critical is Amazon Alex. 'Alexa, set a timer for 5 minutes!' I know about how long it takes to fill each tank, so with Alexa's help, I have never had a flood due to forgetfulness. Big cistern in the fishroom is the way to go. I think the most important part about water change water is that it be aged.

In my experience dirt tanks work if you have the patience of Job. Her methods have has evolved a bit since the late 1990s when I last talked to her. Back then she told me the story of one of her earliest dirt tanks and how it went pea soup green for months and then cleared. From what I gather there are methods to combat this now. I had a very similar experience with the multi-month opaque green water problem when I first setup my big tank. The big tank was non-Walstad, but the substrate was way over-fertilized. It cleared in about 10 weeks and has been clear for the last 13 years. The main reason I toughed it out and just waited for the big tank to clear was her story of her experience. I knew it would eventually. Everything I do is wrong, so take this with a huge grain of salt, but here is my current experience with an ersatz Walstad tank. And I say ersatz because I don't think she or anyone else would do it this way, but it does involve dirt. I dug up a patch of my driveway that had some nice aquatic plants in it a couple of weeks ago and put it in an overly lit 29 tank. Here is what it looked liked then: Here is what it looks like now: The Eleoacharis is growing great! But so is the hair algae. And the pair of Apistogramma nijsseni I have in there love threading their way through the grass forest. Looks terrible right? But wait, we aren't at the end of the story yet. I wish I had the 3rd picture of what it will look like in 2 months. It will look pretty good again. And with the soil in there, it will look good forever. Green water and hair algae populations explode and eventually crash, permanently. Also with a dirt tank when you disturb the soil it clouds up for a day and then goes back to being clear, so that's not really a problem. But you can get a similar result with less of wild ride with a substrate like Eco-Complete. I don't really think either one is superior. Personally, if I can put something from my yard in my aquarium, I go for it. That alone makes it fun. It also helps that it saves a trip to Petco and saves money too.

I thought this might be a fun side topic for us to share. This is a sunset from Shelburne Bay, Vermont.

We spent the day on a local lake about 40 minutes north of us. Lots of lily pads, bull frogs, dragon flies and jumpy large mouth bass.

I asked if I could do anything nice today, and she said "don't talk to me for a bit, I want to take a nap". That's what she is doing now.

I tend to keep my tanks well stocked. I have one that approaches 40ppm a week depending on what I feed. I pretty much never have less than 10ppm in any given tank, except my betta tank, so I don't dose nitrogen. I add potassium, iron, and trace minerals. I add easy green to my betta tank. I've never had a tank go higher than 50 so I don't know how it would affect the fish, but the fish seem to act the same at 50ppm vs 20ppm vs 5ppm.

Looking across Yang Cheng Lake at Suzhou Sunrise, looking the opposite way out at Kunshan Sunrise, Cadillac mountain in Maine Sunset, TreeHouse brewing Mass. Sunset, outside of Bruges Sunset Munich Sunset, close to Wolfratshausen Germany

Sunset over west coast of Florida, from a slightly higher perspective.

I run a cheap pond pump in a bucket that sits under the faucet in my bathtub. I attach a 3/4 in. pvc hose to it, adjust the temp where I want it, let the bucket fill up, add water conditioner to the tank, then let it rip. I get the perfect temp every time. I made a tank filler head that hangs on the side of my tank with PVC pipe and a cheap 3/4 backflow valve from a hot tub supply store. Once it is close to done filling, I turn off the water and let the pump empty out the bucket, then I roll up the hose, put it in the bucket and put the whole thing away. I can do a whole water change on my 80 gallon in about 20-25 minutes, depending on how much I fiddle fart around with things. One of my 75 gallons is due for a water change tomorrow. If anyone is interested, I will snag some video. 🙂 I think the whole thing cost me maybe $50.00-ish?

I have a spare 50 litre (13 US gallon) tank set up and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for a good breeding project I could try, beginner to intermediate experience. Not necessarily looking to breed for profit just want to gain some experiences first. Thanks in advance.

As a mirror to the Walstad thread here is a thread about sharing your experience with PPS-Pro, linked below. PPS-Pro Personally I already had the fertilizer salts when I learned about this method but you can also perform something similar by dilluting Easy Green down to a daily dose. This method has worked great for me keeping my plants healthy and growing. Most of the salts I was able to get bulk off of ebay and for micros I use GLA's micromix.

Been letting my brine shrimp grow out some in this tank and they make some cool art in the biofilm.

I can share what I do with duckweed and shrimp fry: Shake, shake, shake, then put them in a clear bucket or tank to check for fry and snails.

Peotone IL - Just now

Moving plants I try to hand wipe them depending on the type. Run your hands from “the water line” where it was down to the tip a few times to get things loose. Do this above water obviously. To avoid detritus you could do over a bucket of pond water. I do this with a combo of rough swishing in the water. Good luck. Maybe you should sell em. Although it could be more hassle then it’s worth.

Sunset, Washington Park, Anacortes WA Sunset, Rosario Head, Deception Pass State Park WA

Changed the current soon to be gone rack and other equipment over to the central air system, a large part of the electrical work done today and will get it finished tomorrow morning.

Wyze smart plugs do that. They're at Home Depot. Just use your phone to turn it off, Click Timer, pick 5 minutes, feed and walk away

Or in addition to the timer, maybe also an auto - feeder? 🤔

For rapid water cooling, there is also something like this: It might be an idea worth investigating.

I love the sterbai corydora sticker but I'd love to see other corydoras species as well. But, that's probably asking for too much. I suspect there will be an Oscar, just because they are the iconic 'water puppy'. I'm also betting on a German Blue Ram because these guys are beautiful and who doesn't want that sort of pretty in sticker format? I guess dwarf cichlids in general need more love, so perhaps an apisto like a. Agasizzi or a. Cacatuoides? A harlequin rasbora. If we've got an iconic tetra, we should have another iconic schooler and this is sure one of em. A barb! We can't have a tetra without a barb. That's picking one school over the other. So.... tiger barb? They're a classic, well known barb. Kuhli loach? Who doesn't love these crazy little wiggle worms. Should probably give the African cichlids some more individual love, as its not fair to lump all the fish from this continent together. The great rift lake cichlids are all very distinct between lakes. So, a peacock from Malawi, perhaps a pundamilia nyererei for Victoria and ... gosh it's hard to choose one from Tanganyika. The fairy cichlid is sure pretty but then tropheus are also super popular in the hobby. So are frontosas. And Julie are really distinct cichlids with their torpedo bodies too... ah, its hard to take a guess there. There's gotta be a koi or a goldfish (or both? Both is good) eventually. Pond keepers are a part of the hobby too, so these fish should certainly be included.

TRE, Would love to see a Tiger Nerite Snail sticker.

I'm absolutely loving this as a science nerd. Biologist and Chemist. I feel like we're going naked without all of our new contraptions..... like skinny dipping for aquarium hobbyists. Oh how riskay! It will also be very interesting to see what plant life you choose. Balancing plant and fish needs shouldn't be too difficult but I imagine species selection of plants would have been rather limited to the Americas, Europe and common specimens from other regions. This should be a blog from start to finish! Video or written form but would be awesome to see and look over.

If it was me, I would just do more frequent, lower volume water changes. Water may dilute enough, temperature wise, to have no effects on the fish. Some experimentation may be necessary, though. Some folks have auto-water changers installed, larger containers or "constant drip' style changers employed. Just some thoughts.... 😀

Sunrise over Dodge City, KS

So I always wanted guppies as a kid and never got them. Now as an adult, I sort of felt silly for getting them, but I grabbed a few petsmart guppies a month or so ago on an impulse just for fun. It feels really good to realize 10 year old me was absolutely right. They are amazing. For such a small underrated fish, they have big personalities, they are hardy, pretty, they make more of themselves effortlessly, and they are their own clean up crew. What I seriously underestimated was how true that last thing was. I have a planted tank with snails and red cherry shrimp and it is mostly clean of algae. I have a tank with Pseudomugil and snails and it was being consumed by algae. I added a few shrimp and they didn't really dent it. But then I realized the guppy tank is spotless. I moved one juvenile and 2 adult females in there this morning. I should have taken a before and after picture. It is UNREAL. They have ripped out all the trailing brown threads that were infesting the dwarf hair grass I was trying to get established, cleaned every leaf, and all the moss. All that is left is some green on a sandy bit, and healthy plants. I can't believe it. When people go looking for "cleaner" fish, someone should point them at female guppies.

While researching The 1930s Historically Accurate Aquarium I ran across this, the lead Editorial from the October 1935 'The Aquarium' Exhibition standards for the leading species of exotic aquarium fishes are now receiving the attention of committees representing the Eastern societies. It is to be hoped that this will both make judging easier and be more satisfactory to the competitors. Your editor, although a member of the committee, is not young enough to foster any hope that any system will give satisfaction to all concerned. To bring such a dream to pass, we would have to go back and change human nature, so there would be no bad losers. On the whole, exotic fishes do not lend themselves to specified fancy varieties are fixed breeds of species as do goldfish or cats or dogs. For that reason standard-fixing for most of the variable species does not need to be elaborate. There is one fish, however, with the most sporty natural variation in color and fin formation. Many of its most interesting peculiarities can be fixed into definite strains by persistent selective breeding. I refer to our dear old friend, the incomparable Guppy. It is already been fairly well fixed in a number of patterns, and it would seem to be a feasible thing to hold shows for Guppies only, making awards for definitively fixed breeds, as is done with the Goldfish. The fish is more widely owned than any other species, and such a show might well be a matter of general interest, attracting exhibitors who would not feel qualified to enter any other level of fish competition. Many owners of Guppies consider that they possess wonderful strains. An exhibition of this sort would make actual comparison possible. As fairly well-established varieties we already have the Peacock or Lacetail, the Birds Eye (with a large black dot in the dorsal), the Chain, the Lyretail, the Swordtail and the Giant. Practically all of these strains can be repeated in the new Golden Guppies, thus doubling the number of classes. In addition, awards could be made for the most interesting novelties, which would give everybody a chance. The classes could be recognized as they become sufficiently fixed. For instance, a black Guppy is said to be in the offing. I’ve recently seen the strain in which two thirds of the body is black. To me the Guppy seems to offer unique possibilities, purely as a fancier’s fish. If anyone organizes a Guppy exhibition on an elaborate scale and along the lines suggested, this magazine would be very pleased to offer a suitable prize to be given at the first show

In my experience I have found the PPS-Pro method to work well and the site to have very valuable information. I've spoken with Edward and he has been a great help. PPS-Pro Site The closest I get to dirted is to let some mulm build up in the substrate before adding plants.

From what I understand at lower temps than ideal (below 65) it is more a hibernation than a die off. It might delay cycling due to the bacteria having to return to its active state, couldn't say how long of a delay, could be a few hours, could be a couple days. Depending on how soon you want to put fish in and how many fish, it might be worth it to get the water to 65 degrees before adding the sponge filter.

I doubt it. It might be a brief shock the bacteria's metabolism, but fatal? I doubt it. But for the sake of argument, let us say 90% of the beneficial bacteria did die. The remaining 10% through exponential growth would quickly bounce back to the earlier level if there were adequate nutrients. And it is only 50°F for the (relatively) short amount of time it takes for the temperature to move back up to 77°, right? That doesn't seem like enough time to do permanent damage.

That sounds like the setup I have although mine is filled with RODI water. I have a 100 gallon Norwesco tank from a local dealer. I made a manifold for the drain, one valve so I can fill buckets and another goes to a pump. Its a Liberty Pumps 1/2hp water transfer pump. From the pump I used 1/2in Sharkbite connections and 1/2in Pex tubing to run a line up to the first floor. The Pex connects to a garden hose bib I installed under my kitchen sink. I attach an RV potable water hose to a make water changes. I also have shark bite check valve to prevent back siphoning. I control the on/off of the pump using a remote outlet switch. It's been a reliable setup and pump for a few years now. I don't have a better picture of everything right now.

She wrote a comprehensive book on the science of our hobby which I have found to be invaluable. All of my planted tanks and tubs are run with organic soil from a local composter. There are many methods to running an aquarium, and your goals may not be the same as the next aquarist, but her methods and science are sound. Cheers, Jason

I think a lot of people use the Python water change system that hooks up to a sink (inside, so they can choose a temp, generally). They put any treatment into the tank beforehand (chloramine removal, etc). I just ordered one because I keep spilling buckets, so no direct experience. I have your same question re: is anyone using a pump or a power head to move water especially IN to the aquarium. I’m hoping the python solves the problem though.

Correct. If I'm recalling my livestreams correctly, I believe Cory has stated that it can develop a little bit of a harmless water mold over time if exposed to light and/or air. I'm not worried about the clear bottles, I will go through it fast enough for this not to be an issue. That said, my sump is kept in the dark 99% of the time. I only turn on the light to work in there or snap pictures.

We need more videos of Murphy! It's been a while! We want to see him and know how he is doing.

Pennsylvania Grand Canyon, Leonard Harrison State Park

Ever thought about a moss wall? I haven't done it with subwasserstang but it worked nicely with phoenix moss or stringy moss so perhaps it could also work with this. Basic idea is take one of those 'plastic mesh canvas sheets' and lay out the moss on the sheet. Doesn't need to be thick, leave some space for it to grow and fill in. Then take a second sheet of the plastic mesh canvas sheet and lay it on top of the other, like you're basically making a plastic sheet and subwassarstang sandwich. Then take some fishing line and stitch the two sheets together with the moss in the middle. You don't have to go through every square. I just usually go around the perimeter every third or fourth square. And a couple squares in the middle of the sheets to keep the moss from all sliding to the bottom. Secure this to this inside of a tank with suction cups and give it a couple months. It tends to fill in to a beautiful solid wall of moss, which is lovely to watch sway in the flow and fry also tend to love hiding in it.

I have been thinking about what are the limits (for example, my home is heated and cooled, is this historically accurate) and I have found a line I am not willing to cross. You can still buy this at Eric Bodrock's AllOddballAquatics website.

It looks like an Amber snail from the photos. Would explain why it's creeping around your pond. They look a lot like pond and bladder snails, but the eye stalks give them away.

I am no snail expert, but I think that one is aquatic. It kinda looks like a bladder snail.

This is Valcour, an ex-stray who chose me when I let him in my window. He is named after an island on Lake Champlain, with a nod to Falcor from The Neverending Story. He likes drinking water from my utility tanks.

I want a cory clone/app thing so when I have dumb question I can ask. Even if it just gives me a good source to go look up and do research. I have a lot of dumb questions, being a very literal person does not help my case. 😂

I think you're on the right track. I usually add some food every couples days for the beneficial bacteria to breakdown. Just test your water and don't rush adding too many fish 👍