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The only way to be good at what I do, is to keep a level head, and stay calm in the chaos, when modding a stream the size of Cory's, Lots of practice, I've been modding several years now, complete focus, and patience, lots of patience. I appreciate your recognition, and kindness to notice.

Hi from Michigan. I came to fish keeping recently via an unusual route. We've had hermit crabs for several years thanks to a few trips to the beach shops...well when one of ours started ailing, I did a deep dive and decided they needed more stuff, which required a trip to the pet store. The kids then begged for a fish and 5 gallon tanks were on sale. So I purchased one. Luckily that tank had a crank had a crack, so I returned it for a 10 gallon...I also returned the plastic plants for real plants. I had never heard of planted tanks before a few months ago. So currently we have a very handsome Betta, a few Nirete snails and lots of plants....we also have 3 Danios, which I bought as tank mates only yesterday, but quickly switched them to a shrimp tank I have in the planning stages because they seemed to be stressing out Betta. I'm in a tight spot here in my area...I feel like our LFS doesn't always have the best looking livestock but the PetSmart doesn't have the best info...hence the suggestion of the danios....when my brain wouldn't remember what nano fish would work .( I really want Amano Shrimp but can't find them in town.) Anyway, glad to be here.

the sun hits my tank for about an hour every morning when the sun rises and it’s my favorite time to watch the fish. they seem to glow in the sunlight. my snakeskin gourami pair was looking extra good this morning snacking on krill flakes. my goldfish look good too share your natural sunlit tanks, i think fish look best in sunlight.

I'm hoping my 2 living cherry shrimp make a new generation of superior skrimps. Also my single ghost shrimp is still kicking. He lives with panda corys, otos and a kuhli loach so they leave him alone. He did literally try to grab a wafer and drag it to the back of the tank to the hornwort to presumably hide and eat it. He made it halfway down the tank before the kuhli took the wafer from him

This is in the spirit of our hobby. How do we do better? For example, has anyone found a reuse of the plant bags from the Co-Op? I tested running water thru them, and they don't even expand with max flow from a sink faucet. Can we use them for bio-filter media, or are there any other uses? Maybe they have some sump usage? I have used stacked plastic planters as Duckweed scoopers. What else can we do?

Did some work over the weekend on this tank. Added lots of mini leaf buce, and removed some of the java fern to let more of the driftwood show. I can't wait for the buce to settle in and put on some new growth. Hopefully this is the last re-scape on this tank for a few years.

@Mitch Norton and @Irene Thank you for input. I am leaning towards Molly fry as well. Just blows my mind that they can reproduce up to over 6 months without a male fish in the tank. As @Cory says "Nature Will Find a Way"

What tank to prioritize is fairly subjective. Thats really up to you. I second sleepy's post. Oxygen will pass through the water surface just fine, and if those plants are real, they will provide plenty. The real worry is temp change, then lack of filtration. The more established the biome, the longer it can go without filtration. I've personally gone 2 days without power without ill effects to a tank. And yep, it was nerve wracking.

I've used coarse sponges with everything from teeny-tiny honey gourami fry to platy fry to cherry shrimp babies, and I don't recall having any problems because the flow was so gentle. That being said, I didn't have the air cranked up to a really high flow rate, so maybe that helped. 1-day-old honey gourami fry with sponge filter in background:

He is approximately 2 and 3/4 inches. He enjoys algae waffers, bloodworms, and baby brine.

I have one. It is very very shy. Light have to be out for you to ever see him. I currently keep him with tiger barbs.

I learned from James Findley of The Green Machine (now defunct) to use black corrugated plastic. Cut into strips it can be used like a retaining wall to hold up substrate from sliding down. His old videos are all very inspiring to watch and learn from.

i love these guys, i was really into breeding them a year ago and am now just diving back into it. i kept them with shrimp and they bred just fine with them, now they have their own little tank.

@Mitch Norton Yup, I used this freshwater potassium kit and measured how much the potassium increased after adding x number of pumps. https://www.fishtanksdirect.com/salifert-freshwater-potassium-test-kit.aspx And yes, I technically tested it directly in my aquarium and not from straight tap water since I was mostly interested in practical data for my own tanks. 🙂 The data is very approximate, but it works well for my needs (for example, how many pumps I need to add if my potassium has dropped to 5 ppm).

Which is better? A lot of it depends on what type of fishkeeper you are. Are you a hands on fishkeeper who water changes twice or once a week, and will service your sponge filter then? Then a fine sponge may be for you. Are you a fishkeeper who does water changes weekly or less, and services the filter once a month? Then a coarse sponge may be for you. Are you using the sponge filter mechanically to clear your water while counting on something else to do the bulk of your biological? Then a fine sponge may be for you. Are you using a different mechanical filter and want the sponge to be the core of your biological. Then a coarse sponge may be for you. The housing of the Co Op coarse sponge is superior than anything else I have seen on the market, so that is a huge plus. TLDR: For most people, a coarse sponge like the Co Op works out better for them because of how they manage their tanks. A fine sponge requires significant more labor and there are a number of better options out there for mechanical filtration. Happy fishkeeping! And I hope this helps.

A Wincy burrito.

I glued Java moss to my plant pots and created hiding places for my RCS. Once they grew out they look amazing. *edited to include pic

She brings order from chaos. Ultimate hostess, and most efficient bouncer. Thank you Candi!

Good advice for sure!!! 🙂

Fully agree with what Bill said. If your plants have plenty of nitrate but are lacking in another nutrient (or CO2), they won't consume as much nitrate because they can't use it. @Danielposted this awesome diagram of a leaky barrel that shows how plant growth (and nutrient consumption) is limited by the scarcest element. In this example, the plant growth is limited by nitrogen since it's the lowest plank of wood in the barrel. However, in my aquarium, I was lacking in potassium so my nitrate kept rising because the plants couldn't use it. Once I increased my potassium, the plants started consuming nitrate again. Hope that helps!

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.

🙋‍♂️ Hello from Edmond Oklahoma. Like a lot of people, it seems, I am getting back in aquariums and fish keeping. I started a long time ago in the old metal frame tank days("frameless" tanks were too new and fancy for us poor students) when I was in college and dropped out of the hobby in the 90's when two teenagers and a heavy work load took precedence. My main interests are bass fishing and boating and Sooner football and Thunder basketball...and now this. This past January, I inherited my daughter's 60 gallon tanks and whole 9 yards when she got too much going on. I decided to retire in March when the pandemic struck. The aquarium has been a good source of activity ever since. While quarantined, I cycled the tank and kept it cycled with Dr. Tims, with Amazon being my main source of supplies. Along the way I acquired some Vallisneria and some snails to help with the new tank Diatom bloom. Still no fish until late August when, after watching every fish profile on You Tube, I decided on starting a N. Brichardi colony. I ordered 8 juvies from a LFS in Norman and all but one or maybe two are doing great. I have also started a Winlove Java Fern that I got from the Co Op here and have another order of Java Fern and other stuff on it's way now. I look forward to getting to know everyone, I have many questions that I am anxious to post..................So YEAH. 😃

For catfish in particular, I prefer planetcatfish.com. It has a lot more species and detailed descriptions than seriously fish. Also, o forgot to mention, but I also feed my l333s axolotl pellets. They work great, because they sink extremely fast and are made for more carnivore animals, unlike pleco wafers

They are actually omnivores, and from what I have read and watched, my understanding is that they do well with a varied diet. Seriously Fish Keeping is the place I tend to go first for learning about a new fish. Here is a link to their article on it: https://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/hypancistrus-sp-l333/ There are also a number of great videos on youtube that can be referenced. I hope this helps! And good luck with your new fish.

Love it! Every time I talk to my parents, "We never did water changes, we just put the fish in the box and let them swim!"

THE CENTRAL "NERMOUS" SYSTEM__________________

I am not sure about the rate of flow, I'm sure that since it will clog up faster that it would slow down some.

There are pros and cons for both. I like the fine pore ones because they get more of the fine particles in the water out, but they can be really hard to get clean. where the large pore ones that the Co-op sells are extremely easy to clean. The fine ones sometime can be hard to get to stay down, especially when new, you have to squeeze air out of them. I use both, and I prefer the larger pore filters, because they are a lot easier to clean, a couple squeezes under the faucet (before anybody says you can't do that, I have well water, no chlorine), where a fine one, I will squeeze and squeeze them out and will still get a cloud of dirty water when putting back in the tank. If I have a tank that has a lot of fine floating particles, I will either throw in a sponge filter with fine pores or use a hang on back with a fine poly pad in it, which is also available from the co-op.

From what I understand even if they dont pair they will mate. So they might not really like each other.

Wow a solution to having the best of both worlds. Planted bare bottom tank! I ordered 5. Can’t wait for them to arrive. I will post a pic as soon as I can.

One of my favorite metrics is the population of bladder snails. If bladder snail numbers are increasing, there is more waste or decomposition happening.

Week 3. The Dark Tank Have you ever set up a tank, sat back and watch it settle in and mature only to enjoy that tank enough to not even bother putting fish into it? This is that tank and, after months of establishing, it may finally get some permanent inhabitants. Thanks to those who check out this journal and commented on the tanks so far. I wanted to share this week a tank that has quietly become my favorite to watch develop, but also sat empty due to me not being able to settle on inhabitants. I don't know about everyone, but what I typically do is I see a fish, decide I want that fish and, if unaware of the fishes needs, do some research to whether or not that fish is something I can likely keep alive and thriving and then to create the environment for that success. For this tank though, it was a bit in reverse. I had a space to fit a 20 gallon long, not far off the ground underneath two 10 gallons below a window. The afternoon light would come almost straight down into it on a sunny day and I thought it would be the perfect spot to do a sort of "blackwater" sticks and leaf litter setup. The tannin stained look I had seen pictures of across the internet really inspired me to do something similar but I hadn't really set aside a tank to try it, until now. As I mentioned last week I have a thing for making my tanks feel natural and, lets be honest, it can be much less work to maintain a more 'natural' look than the finely tuned scapes. As you can see by the ciderblocks and hightech cord, airline and light arrangement, I'm all about throw together style so I grabbed what was laying around and went for it. The aquarium came off of craigslist with a small gravel and white sand substrate that I thought would fit in perfect with the setup and being a tank I wasnt going to try and grow alot of plants from the substrate I would just keep as it was and not try to fill more in or mix and match. I started with a large branch like piece of wood I had collected to dominate one third of the tank, tossed in a few other random sticks and twigs--some of which were already waterlogged and some took some times to sink, some still partially floating--and scattered alder cones and dried leaves around with some floating water sprite and dwarf water lettus...lectus...water lettuce. I had to look up how to spell lettuce. Anyway, I dropped in a few cuttings of bacopa to see what they did and some small portions of java moss and a tiny bit of java fern windelov before adding an amazon sword that had pretty much died off in another tank to try and resurrect by throwing it in a pot. There is another plant which I think is an anacharis of some type that started as a small piece from one of the outdoor totes and has since really taken off. I did toss in a small heater and a sponge filter and found a clip on desk light with a soft yellow bulb to have on a few hours in the evening. And thats it. And there it sits. I inevitable ended up with some snails due to moving the plants into it and have a young betta in there at the moment to cruise around and heal up a nipped fin but the tank is otherwise empty. I know, technically, its not a true "blackwater" setup, the ph is still around neutral, but I am loving the look. This is what I wanted. The amount of time I sit and peer into this virtually empty tank you would think I had some reclusive oddity in there I was constantly searching out to observe. But its just an empty tank with some dead tree parts and decaying leaf litter. And it is an interesting realization that the hobby can flow both ways in creating these mini ecosystems. Sometimes you want a fish and cater the setting for it, another time you want to create the setting and the fish can be part of it later. Both I think can be equally satisfying and rewarding. It just so happens that at the end of the week I may be traveling to a location with a variety of local fish stores and have been considering the possibility of stocking the Dark Tank. One of the delays in decided on a fish to occupy the tank was coming up with a candidate that would fit in with the look and be unique. The betta will most likely be housed somewhere else. In the future this setup would be something I would love to do licorice gouramis in, but I'm not sure if now is the time. We'll see, maybe the tank remains as is for the time until something really strikes me, who knows? One of my favorite things about this forum is how much collective fish knowledge and experience is here. Feel free to shout out your favorite "blackwater" species for me to consider or I'd like to see your own "dark tank" setups. Thanks for looking!

The plan was to put em in a tank, but when it came time i couldn't do it, just wanted to keep the pond. The guy coming out of the water is a pickerel rush I believe, planted in a fabric pot sitting on a milk crate...gonna repot it, try and bounce it back. Got a bush of water sprite again planted in a 1 gallon fabric pot with about 3 inches of aquarium gravel, cool thing about fabric pots, you can fold them down to whatever depth you want them. Also have some anubius that wasn't doing to well in a tank but in the pond it started to boom. And water hyissinth

I finally moved the outdoor tubs into the basement. They are just filled with substrate, snails, rocks, and water right now. I had some spare Fluval Plant Nano lights to use on them, and a few MF10s until I get more Co-Op sponge filters this week, although I may run both. The bucket is full of maple leaf litter from the tubs, with a bunch of snails. It was too cold and tedious to try to get the snails off the leaves to put them back in the tank, so we'll see what happens with that bucket.

She's making more shrimp for me.

I love all your animals! Your pigs are adorable 🥰 I had chickens too, until fairly recently.. this is Pecker, Johnson & Bluebell.

Went to my LFS and picked up two Flagfish to eat the algae in my 20 gal. Used the store credit I racked up in selling them my platies. The flagfish are so much fun to watch. They need more love in the hobby. I could see doing a full tank of them at some point. Also got my Co-Op order with several new items. I tried the Xtreme Krill Flake after hearing all the positive reviews and sure enough, my fish love it. Even my normally reclusive white clouds in my summer tub went nuts for it. Extra thanks to the Co-Op for including a Murphy pin in my order! Finally, I also got my shipping supplies from Our Fish Collective. Thanks to @Guppy Guru for the package! Looking forward to sending my first shipment of fish.

I get this question a lot too. To raise the KH (assuming your water source is insufficient to increase it with water changes) you need to add natural buffers such as crushed coral, Aragonite sand, dolomite or soda ash. I always suggest either crushed coral or Aragonite sand in addition to the substrate or instead of it all together (depending on how much you are trying to raise it).