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On Wednesday (8/26) I was excited to find some cory eggs on the glass! I removed the eggs with a credit card VERY CAREFULLY (it was a pain haha) and placed them in a small Tupperware container with 3 drops of methylene blue to prevent fungus. I also placed an airstone, per the instructions I had found online. Happily, they hatched today! The fry are very, VERY small, as is expected. I can see their egg sacs too. I will start up a brine shrimp hatch tonight or tomorrow with hopes of keeping the little guys growing. Not sure where to have them grow out yet, as I have guppy fry big enough to eat them in one tank and the snail tank water parameters are a little off. Third tank is quarantining new corys (ironically, I got them the day before these ones bred.) For now they will stay in the egg hatching tupperware, but a breeding box in the main tank is also an option. With only 3 adult corys in the community tank, I'm surprised they bred. I got more corys so they can feel more comfortable in a school. If I am successful with the fry, the school will grow more! As of this morning, I saw about 5 fry, but I am optimistic more will hatch.

My bedroom/fish room/ hanging with friends room has been running out of space. A friend got me a free 150 gallon but it took up so much space something needed to be done. so I built a 6.5’ high bunk bed, started on it yesterday, finished it up today. Also got my new 150 on a stand and filled.

So I have a pair of Discus (Red Cover & a very Blue Cobalt) playing house on the filter intake in my 120 gallon display (Discus) tank. They’ve claimed that side of the tank as their own and are doing a very good job of keeping the rest of the inhabitants away. Unfortunately I don’t have an unoccupied tank to put them in right now. Keeping my fingers crossed they can do the good parent thing until I can free up a tank.

Tucker loves inspecting new things I am working on. Filling up the 90 gallon tank in the new studio for the first time

Update: So this is how the Tank is looking. Plants definitely grew. Oto fry getting big enough to where I can add some fish. I showed my wife the Guppies from Twin City Guppies and she fell in love with a few. So i guess I'm adding Guppies. Had to trim my Water Sprite. Its taking over the tank.

I have an extra controller so I tried this with a little 10w heater. Works really well. I don't heat that room in the winter so this was always going to be necessary. I'm still tinkering but this got me on the right track. Thanks.

Mutt guppies are great fun and produce good colorful fish that are heartier and live longer than line bred fish. They can produce very pretty and unexpected results which is how new lines are developed. I've had tanks that ran for years and I never had all the guppies end up plain brown. Just remove any offspring that have defects and occasionally add cool new male or female guppies you come across. Your friend is describing a very "shrimp only" issue that doesn't really apply to guppies. On the flip side of that, if you were line breeding and you were not diligently culling and maintaining your line, over time it would look less and less like the original line.

My friend just got into the aquarium hobby so I'm posting on here for her. She just got a new betta about a week ago. It's in a 3.5 gallon halfmoon tank with 1 kuhli loaches and a couple plants. Since she got her betta, it has been slowly going sideways whenever it's staying still. It swims fine and actively goes for food but as soon as it stops swimming, it slowly tips over and floats at the top. I think it's some sort of swim bladder issue but I'm not sure what the cause is. It was fine in the petco cup when she bought it. The tank should be cycled but just to keep water clean, she's been doing small 10% water changes everyday. She fasted the betta for 3 days and it sort of got better, more of a 45 degree than a full sideways, so she gave it one pellet and it went back to fully sideways. Other than the floating, the fish look healthy. Any help would be appreciated.

One of our fish we rarely see, Blue Seam Pleco. Don't make any sudden movements or he's outta here.

Made two, one for deep tanks and one for my low tanks. This thing is awesome and deserves a bump. So much easier to root tab it up!

Thanks Jayden, it's definitely at full strength. I'm struggling with some cloudiness, but it could just be the new tank stuff working out. I've had it running about 3 and a half weeks at this point.

I think Tazawa tanks explains it best. This is the video that inspired me to do it: Here's a picture of my own application:

I'm Ange and am just returning to the hobby. My first experience with fishkeeping was with my grandmother's pond where she kept common goldfish, but I didn't start keeping tanks on my own until I had to raise some tadpoles for a science class 😂 After that I fell in love. I haven't been able to keep fish for many years because I was constantly moving cities, but now that I'm settled down I have a 5.5G shrimp tank and I'm refurbishing a 50G hex that I hope to eventually keep angelfish and/or Bolivian rams in. My favorite fish are usually from South America and I get the most enjoyment from keeping angelfish, cory cats, oto cats, and rams.

Welcome to the forum, Ange! Your tank is beautiful! Can't wait to see how the big tank turns out!

Yeah, it's a tricky one, no doubt. A couple years ago I spent a lot of time looking for clear hinge material that I was sure would fit, and although they exist on Amazon, I've never been confident they'll grip the glass tightly enough. However, I have had decent luck with these clear acrylic hinges: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071DPMQXV I bonded them to glass with epoxy, and they hold reasonably well. Lately, making my own lids from polycarbonate sheets from Home Depot has been most effective: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Sunlite-24-in-x-48-in-x-5-16-in-Polycarbonate-Clear-Twinwall-Sheet-174040/305560353 That material is so lightweight that I can literally use clear packing tape as my hinge, and it holds well! Hope some of that helps!

I had a betta who had the same kind of problem a while back. He would swim in a straight line for food but flip onto side when still, he also ended up floating on top & struggling to get down in the water. I gave him a course of esha 2000 changed his food from hikari pellets to a less dense food (or presoak the pellet) with patience the problem resolved but it took around a month & was hard to see him struggle i hope your lillte guy gets better soon x

@Streetwise, I have some internal filters in my smaller aquariums. They do an 'okay' job for what they are. Actually, I like the fact that if they do leak, there's no place for the water to go, but back into the tank; so there's that. You can 'hot-rod' almost any filter out there, so there's that, too. I have noticed many different ones on the market today. Many look interesting, but hard to beat my Aquaclear's. it's good to try different products for various applications though.

Most fish larger than guppies will eat baby guppies so you have a lot of choices. My personal current new favorite is sparkling gouramis. They don't get very big, but they are constantly on the lookout for movement and food.

The products by Fritz are really good and their exterior aquarium glass & acrylic cleaner doesn't disappoint. The type and size of cleaning cloth, to my preference that I like to use, is eye glass cleaning microfiber cloth. I have a scratch-prone, acrylic aquarium and that size cloth and texture is very nice. These cloths clean all my tanks, both acrylic & glass easily and don't soak up or waste any extra product. These microfiber cloths are made by many manufactures, inexpensive and can be easily found online. They are reusable and washable, as well. I found them to be much superior to just an ordinary paper towel or a cotton rag.

I'd stick to nano fish like small rasborahs or tetras. Green or blue neons, chili or exclamation points... Maybe some otto cats for clean up. A lot of tank mates might eat shrimp, many more will eat the shrimplets.

Have you considered the USB pumps? The price of 6 would be way less than a linear piston pump. Their power consumption is nominal, the ones I like are 5 volt, 2 watts. They are dead quiet (linears are loud) and if the power goes out you can power them with battery backups or even your phone. All my old air pumps are in a box now and have been replaced with USBs. Linear piston pumps are more common for fish rooms that are running between 25 to 50+ air drops. It's hugely overkill for anyone with less than 2 dozen tanks.

I have a couple 55 hexagonal tanks and had one setup very close to what you're describing. I used large river rocks and wood to make the center island. I put the intake in the middle of the back painted section with the return facing forward on the left side of the back and a circulation pump facing backwards on the right. Kinda like a triangle, worked well and created a counter clockwise constant flow. Schooling fish worked great and they would all swim against the current and look like they were hovering. Or all turn slightly and the whole school would shift. I liked the look and it was an interesting tank to watch. Only thing I didn't care for was that it was kinda plain. Never found a center piece fish that liked the setup.

I have not been a fan of internal filters in the past, but have seen several Youtubers praising them and their use in bigger tanks. I usually use canister filters or bigger hang on back filters as my primary biological/ mechanical filtration with Co-op sponge filters as my secondary filtration (all on USB hubs with 48hr battery backup attached). In my 125, even with 2 sponges and a large power head, I kept getting build up in a dead spot in the corner so I decided to try the one Ben O'chart uses in his 150. It's a 3 stage filter, power head and aerator by eXpertmatic. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081YJMRM8/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_kE0sFbMNKSV89 I love this thing, it's a really good filter. Each compartment has a coarse sponge and a center chemical filtration section. It draws a lot more water through vs an air stone driven sponge, circulating way more water, and a ton of bubbles. Cost is 30 bucks, and for the money you can't beat it. I think the 2 USB pumps and 2 sponges cost more than the internal. I have since purchased 2 more and have plans for at least 1 more. So for bigger tanks, I'd say they make excellent secondary filtration (for all us redundancy nerds) and a great water polisher. I don't know that I would use them on my smaller tanks, but only because I don't have any issues with them I think it would help with. I could see using them as the primary filtration on smaller tanks instead of hang on back filters, might try it out if I get any new tanks set up.

This is really cool. I love White Clouds. I look forward to more updates.

I've spent some time in research, and there's not a lot of info out here! 1. The first thing I learned was the difference between schooling and shoaling. Shoaling is just fish hanging out together, but schooling is more about the fish moving in the same direction when their numbers are big enough. Not all shoalers are schoolers. Learned that from Rachel O'Leary. 2. Schooling behavior seems to come out when the numbers are big enough. 3. Water flow does not seem to be a big factor. So it looks like I will need to find fish that are known for their tight schooling. Rummy nose tetras are a good example, but this being a smaller tank, I'm tempted to consider ember tetras, as I've never kept them before.

Are you planning on breeding the shrimp? Is baby shrimp survival importamt?

Thanks for the answers, I just wanted to rule out Swim Bladder Disease (SBD) and Dropsy. SBD can be caused by consipation or infection, and it will affect their ability to swim properly. Dropsy is fluid build up in the body and typically fish that have it will experience pineconing (their scales will stick out from their body. It can be caused by organ failure from cancer, infection, or something else. Both can be treated with antibiotics, but it doesn't sound like he currently has these issues so you don't need to worry about these things. I agree with @BlackLabelCarling to fast him again and try Epsom salt baths. It will help with constipation and fluid build up. I hope it helps! Good luck!

Used the wrong sieve for rinsing baby brine shrimp most went down the drain 🤦🏼‍♂️

I picked up some pygmy cory’s at the LFS today and added them to the sewellia grow out tank. These little guys are awesome, hopefully ill have some fry to show off soon.

Setting up a 40 breeder

I added a doser to my 55 display. Pump 1 is Easy Green, pump 2 is Easy Iron and right now pump 3 is just water. It is a Jebao DP-4 and was easy to calibrate and program but not app based which is fine with me. Plus way cheaper than other systems. I use Voss glass water bottles for reservoirs.

It sounds like a swim bladder issue, possibly caused by dropsy, since it sounds food related. If I remember correctly, dropsy can cause the organs to be pushed aside, including the swim bladder, which can cause behavior like this. Often, even after healing, the swim bladder problem can be permanent, but it sounds like it might not be too late to have a positive impact in this case. I agree with Steph: you need a fibrous food to help get it moving through. If he won't eat peeled peas, I would use frozen brine shrimp or, even better, frozen spirulina brine shrimp. I would feed nothing but that, and sparingly; I would lay off the dry foods for a very long time. As for medication, this is more likely a bacterial concern than a parasite one, so my suggestion would be Maracyn. Good luck!

I agree it definitely sounds like a swim bladder issue. I don’t know how to treat it tho 😞 perhaps paracleanse/general cure? I’ve used peas in goldfish before and it worked great, not sure if a betta would go for it tho.

saw this funny on FB, fleshed it out a bit on Canva. 😉

Here's the best pic I could get of him where you can really see the blue in the dorsal fin: Definitely a male; I can see about four of the markers.

Yes, most definitely, but only small ones.