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it’s hard to photograph this tank

Here is my contribution. Not the most impressive.

@Streetwise has suggested themed daily photo threads so I thought I would start it off with the top-view of the 1930s Historically Accurate Planted Aquarium. It is nearly ready to roll. As you can tell it gets a lot of direct sunlight.

Cool theme. How often do we look at our tanks from the top down? Well, most of mine have a lot of surface agitation anyway, except for my betta tank.

One time I rinsed a few spare blackworms off my hands in my jar of marimo moss balls. after a while passed I noticed the the worms quite liked the moss, so I swapped one of them out for one of my Sparkling Gourami' moss balls. The fish loved it, and have begun to take interest in my... Marimo. I've begun tossing moss balls in my blackworm culture. I leave the Marimo in overnight and swap balls in my tanks daily. they pick them clean, it's great. I know it's not too far from placing filter sponge for the same purpose, but I think it's much more lively Have a great day all.

I have a few... 4 cats, 2 dogs, 2 horses, and 3 frogs plus the aquariums!

Thanks for getting this started @Daniel. Thanks everyone for embracing this theme. Cheers.

Put a couple of koi angels in quarantine tank late Saturday. Wasn't sure about the sex. Sunday they were still a bit shy as usual getting used to the new environment and being fed. The tank is in my office but I wasn't watching them while working yesterday, but after work my daughter informed me that they had deposited eggs on the PVC. I then observed what I assume was the male going over the eggs. It's funny because the place I got them had a breeding pair of white lace for sale, and I was kind of considering it, but they had to separate them due to the male being aggressive.

Top down on half of my 75 gallon blackwater tank.

@Garren B Looks happy, looks impressive to me.

Moved these guys to a 10 gallon to grow out. They were getting too messy in the fry tray. Next stop for them will be my 110 planted tank.

It's hard for me to get a full on top down shot on this tank

Wellllll, will it STAY plants and invertebrates though? I mean if I had 75 gallons just sitting there...and the shrimp were well established and the plants had filled in...That is a lot of unused volume. I think a lot of us would find a thing that would go in there. But maybe @AdamScott has much more self control than I do.

I didn't remove eggs fast enough... Leveled up to spawning winged creatures.

Haven't even moved in, already getting trolled.

One week ago, after over a year of waiting, I got the text from my LFS - the altums were landing at the airport that day. They'd told me a week ago they were ordered, so I already had my QT tank up and ready. It was the LFS' first time ordering Altums from Colombia, and he wasn't sure how they would come in. It would also be my first time seeing Altum angels in person. I'm no expert by any stretch. I enjoy my few tanks, and seem to do well with plants and discus. Most importantly, I really enjoy the hobby. The point is, this is just my journal about what I did, and is not meant to be a guide in any way. It was difficult for me to find any info on how to acclimate these delicate wild caught beauties. One site says keep them 78f to minimize bacterial infections, since bacteria multiply faster at higher temps. Another says 86f is best. Most just say only buy tank raised Altums, as wild caught are impossible for a non-professional. Some recommend a PH of 5.5 and half a dozen indian almond leaves. Others say a PH that low is dangerous, and 6.5-7 should be the goal. So, I'm gonna document here what I did, and what the results were- and continue to be. Here's what my altums look like today, a week after I got them: STATS- QT tank is a bare bottom 20 gal high, running between 80-81F with an inkbird temp controller, a pre-cycled ziss filter, & a UV sterilizer. PH is about 6.6, TDS is 30-40 (these are parameters from my tap, I have very soft water from a well), GH & KH are both 1ish. I decided not to try chasing any values and just acclimate them to my tap water, since it's already very soft. I do two daily water changes of 30%, and vac the bottom every day. My tap water has very little ph swing, so I don't age it. **I will be moving these fish to a 75 gal aquarium once they're done with QT, and have larger tanks available if needed down the road. I'm fully aware a 20 gal is not suitable long term for altums. But it is a good option for me for medicating and keeping water quality perfect over the next few months, and these fish are small right now.** I started with 7 wild caught Colombian Atabapo Altums, 6 small (quarter) size and one larger (3") size. Day 1- I asked the store owner to let me meet him as he arrived from the airport, and to not even open the bag of altums. I didn't want him to acclimate them to his water, then have me stress them again with another switch to my water. My LFS is also an importer, so these Altums came directly from an exporter in Colombia. When I got home I drip acclimated them. Before opening the bag, I made sure to have a few drops of prime ready detox the ammonia. For acclimation, I considered the "plop and drop" method that is has been recommended to me by discus sellers in the past, but decided to go with drip acclimating for 1 hour. Since I didn't know the chemistry of the water they were coming from, I didn't know how big of a shock a "plop and drop" would be. The downside to the drip acclimation is that the fish would be in the high ammonia shipping water for longer. I hoped the prime would detox the ammonia, so added that immediately after opening up the bag, and dripped acclimated them for an hour. I also had an airstone running in the bag during this time, with very low pressure. Would plop and drop have been better? Not sure. Meds- After drip acclimation, I did a 30 minute methylene blue dip in a separate container, both for it's benefits of helping with nitrite poisoning and to kill any external parasites & fungus, then added the fish to the tank. In the tank (20 gal) I had 2 large Indian Almond leaves, 4 tablespoons of API aquarium salt, Seachem Stressguard, and Seachem Sulfaplex. I chose sulfaplex because I've had success with it in discus, and I've read it's among the most gentle medications on fish. I do plan to de-worm, but I'll start that week 2. I didn't want to add too much stress with multiple medications, and my main concern in the first days are bacterial infections. Food- By 2pm on day 1 I had the altums acclimated and in the tank. Around 6pm that evening, I offered them a few live black worms from my own culture. Only 3 of the 7 ate a few blackworms. Condition- All had beat up fins and ammonia burns, but all were swimming well. They were terrified of their own shadow, and spent most of the first 24 hours hidden in the back of the tank. A few brave fish would dart out for a blackworm, then go back to hiding. I kept a towel over half the tank to keep it dark and help minimize stress. Altums on day 1: Day 2- I woke up to one altum oozing what looked like pus from it's gill plate, but otherwise swimming normally. I separated the sick fish into a specimen container and dosed the container with a few drops of methylene blue. Within 2 hours the fish was swimming erratically & headstanding. It passed a few hours later (RIP little altum), and I buried the little guy in my rose garden. Photo below is the sick altum. The white stuff seemed to ooze out, and squiggles of what looked like pus fell from the fish every few minutes. I suspect this was some kind of internal infection. Maybe I should have hit them with more antibiotics on day one? This fish died about 3 hours after the photo was taken. The other 6 altums were all doing okay. They still had fin damage, ammonia burns, and one fish (pictured below) had a red spot and issues with it's slime coat that were concerning to me. I continued my regimen of aquarium salt, sulfaplex and stressguard, redosing after every water change. I began feeding live baby brine shrimp on day 2, which they all devoured until their bellies bulged. I think the boost in nutrition was huge in healing up these little guys. Day 3-6 Feedings of live baby brine shrimp and live blackworms continued. They all became more active daily, and on day 3 removed the towel covering the tank. I did dip the fish with the red spot in a methylene blue bath for 30 minutes on day 3 and day 4, to help sterilize and clear up any infections in the wound. Day 7 All six altums are doing well. They've also started eating freeze dried Australian blackworms, which they are munching on in the video below. I can no long pick out which fish had the red spot – it has completed healed up. Their fins still look a little ragged, but are on the mend. If there's interest, I'll keep updating this over the coming weeks and months. Thanks for reading.

I know cost is relative, but an auto-water change system is not very expensive. If you have close access to water supply lines in the house, and the ever important way to get rid of water, then I think you should go down the rabbit hole and actually cost it out.

My first hatch! Reminds me of the platelets Caleb would get during chemo treatment, the nurses always said the more orange in color the better quality the platelets. I’m thinking the same goes with these eggs too! Look at that color!

I added this pair into my spawning tank tonight. Almost immediately upon finding each other they were displaying spawning behavior. With any luck I should have some eggs tomorrow or the next day.

Thanks for all the replies everyone, I've been learning a lot about all this stuff lately and this has been a big help.

she has been exploring and really utilizing all of the wood and plants which is fun to watch. i need to grab my macro lens and shoot some nat geo style hunting footage 😂

im mixing up my weekly repashy and i was curious if anyone adds anything extra to theirs? i tend to add some spirulina, garlic, and freeze-dried goodies. this week it was some bloodworms (a staple), gammarus, and plankton. i usually layer my repashy so the fish get a good mix and add the spirulina and garlic in between the layers.

As of late I love cryptocorynes but lately my favorite is Cryptocoryne Purpurea. It stays small (around 3-4"leave length max) and is green with dark veins or patterns on the tops of the leaves and the bottom of the leaves are a redish copper color and it makes it look so amazing!

This could be a time where a TDS meter could come in handy assuming the TDS of your tap water or whatever water you are using is fairly consistent. I have seen it take quite awhile to come down to my normal TDS. Let's say you add 100 "salts" if you do another 50% water change, you are down to 50 "salts" If you do another 50% water change you are down to 25 "salts" If you do a 3rd 50% water change you are down to 12.5 "salts" Obviously it's not exact and there are other factors, but to @fatblonde's point, it comes down to how much salt you used, certain amounts won't harm most plants.

The Boys, New season of Fargo is coming out, it's a great series if you haven't started that one. I'm just catching up with Better Call Saul.

Lovin all the different types of floaters and lillies

I'm enjoying my live-bearer growouts, finding new patterns all the time. I especially like seeing the endler/guppy hybrids: Lots of interesting platy colors in there too: I have another tank with pure endlers: I have about 30 of these in another tank ready to go to the fish store soon:

Hi all! Brand new here! I love Cory's informative videos on Youtube so I thought I would give the forum a try to connect with other hobbyists! I am starting my first shrimp tank and researching supplies! It will be a heavily planted 75g tank. I am deciding to go with the Fluval Plant 3.0 light so that takes care of lighting. But I am having trouble determining what is the best filter for me. I generally want to avoid a cannister filter if I can. I was thinking of trying one sponge filter on one side of the tank and a HOB on the other. Any other shrimp keepers recommend a brand of HOB filters that is best suited for shrimp? Don't want any babies getting sucked up but a sponge on the intake should take care of that 🙂

I just wanted to introduce myself. I’ve got a couple of tanks and more in the garage. I kept fish as a kid and even in college for a bit. Didn’t really know what I was doing. My LFS was the Walmart 30mins to a hour away. Life got going. Got married. Just dropped out of the hobby. About two years ago I kinda got depressed and was cruising YouTube and stumbled onto @Cory’s videos and got my passion for the hobby back and my depression lessened up. I now have two tanks in my bedroom (cause my wife is awesome) two in my daughters room and I can’t wait till my son is just a little older to have another tank in his room. (That poor betta) I’ve loved every minute of being in this community and I don’t think there is another like it.

I got some endlers this year put them in a tub outside and they seem to do pretty well. I’ve recently fell in love with CPDs just got my first group of 6. I’m hoping to get some more next month. Ive got a green dragon betta in a 5 gal on my night stand. one tank in daughters room in full of red tuxedo guppies. The other is a wild type axolotl.

@Aubrey Yes! That’s what I think it is.

I just leave all mine in there and feed super heavy with a variety of foods, like upto four times a day. this results in more water changes but its worth it to see all the fry. Also more cover means higher survival rate. cant have enough plants!

The java fern in my tanks grow plantlets on the end of the leaves. They have a full root system so they can be removed and replanted.

Probably 1 medium size one. Think about what the filter actually does. It moves water and is a home for bacteria. If I have large high input/output (dirty) fish, I might need to up the filtration some. But, if I have mostly plants and invertebrates, the bio-load on the tank will be fairly light. Why throw on filtration that isn't really serving a purpose?

Sounds like you have a pretty good plan to me. You'll probably find most recommend the Aquaclear HOB filters with an intake sponge. Thats what I would go with and just fill it with bio-media.

The angel fry definitely like them!

I totally hope to do the same thing! Good to know that pearl weed needs medium light. My favorite plant is currently the dwarf aquarium lily. I've had it for 1.5 months now and it's finally growing huge, bronze-colored leaves with wavy edges that really stand out against the rest of the surrounding green plants. Yesterday I saw the first lily pad making its way up towards the water surface. I'm growing it in low lighting, no CO2 and using Easy Green and Easy Root Tabs for fertilizers.

(Found on Reddit)

It got here a few minutes ago! I got a free sticker! It was very well packed most of the package was paper.

I wish there was an underwater remote controlled submarine 4k camera that would swim in my aquarium and stream the results back to my phone. I could watch fish breed and check on fry from anywhere. And if I were in a boring meeting, I could get out my phone and watch my fish instead.

Hi guys, I’ve read some blogs on website that my Java Fern is ready to propagate. But I don’t know when is the best time to separate the root from the leaf. Is it okay to cut the leaf and (glue) it to a rock or nearby wood so the newly plant grow? what is the best method to separate the new plant from the leaf? Any extra tips would be much appreciated!

Found Father Ted on Amazon the other day, that was a nice surprise.

Captain Henry Morgan ignoring the camera.

I once put Endler's in my big tank and they bred like guppies! I regretted it but there was no way to get them out again short of draining all 500 gallons. I got one of these minnow traps and within a few days I had captured the last female, which put an end to the endless Endler's population explosion.