Leaderboard

I found some newly hatched corydoras in my tank.

Blue bolt on bolbitis (say that five times fast!)

I have always wondered what Spixey snails ate besides hydra and at least one of the answers is...duckweed Plus I love all the little stuff you can see in the water also. Apparently that goes down the Spixey snail gullet too.

I think it would be fun to start 3 similar aquariums at the same time, but try 3 different strategies for the substrate and fertilizer. First a Walstad type dirted substrate - in this case dirt from my yard Second, CaribSea's Eco-Complete And third, a 'normal' tank with CaribSea's Peace Rive substrate supplemented with Aquarium Co-Op's Easy Root Tabs and Easy Green liquid fertilizer. For this experiment (okay, this is definitely not an experiment as I do not have a hypothesis, any controls, or replicants) I will use three 40 gallon breeder aquariums that will likely have sponge filters, heaters, and Finnex lights. It should take me about a week or two to gather all the resources for this experiment (again, definitely not an experiment as my N on each tank will be 1, but my fun quotient ought to be greater than 1 because this will also be an attempt to setup 3 aquariums that are some more than green water fry tanks or mulm factories).

Red Rili on the mattenfilter of my guppy tank

I have baby Panda Corydoras!!! I was hoping they’d spawn and I did everything I read here... good food, cool water changes, and here they are!!! I’m SOOO excited!!! I never saw eggs, just a super cute surprise! ❤️

Got snake room, to many to post but this guy is one of my favorites Also have a turtle room, and shes the show stopper in there.

I already posted with my snails but I finally got a good picture of our Bamboo Shrimp.

I'm following this one for sure. @Streetwise should be at the top of that list though 😁

The heater works for you not the other way around.

Co2 is essential for plant growth. However, injecting additional co2 in a tank is not necessary. Co2, nutrients and light are the three metrics we can balance in a planted tank. It's necessary, but in a tank that isn't injecting co2, we're relying on the background levels present in the water. All tanks have some co2, just like the water has some oxygen saturation. If you have lots of fish (like 100 guppies in a 50 gal), you'll get s slightly high co2 level from the guppies breathing, and the amount of co2 they put off might be equal to low level injecting. So if your question is do I need to add additional co2 in the form of pressurized or passive co2, the answer is no. Planted tanks can be successful without. You just need to balance your lights and ferts to match your co2 levels. The pelleted aquasoils (aqueon plant substrate, fluval stratum, tropica aquasoil, ada amazonia, the list goes on) will almost always lower your ph and buffer the water to soften it over time. They're all a little different in nutrient levels and ingredients, but generally all a good choice for plants. Neos can do well on it provided your water has some GH and KH. Sand can be difficult to grow plants in. You'll want to add root tabs regularly. It's been my personal experience that plants develop better root systems in a pelleted aquasoil compared to sand. Eco complete is also an okay choice. It's just little pieces of lava rock, totally inert. It'd be good to know the parameters of your tap water. If it already has GH/KH, then no need to buff it further. Test your tap water, or bring it to you LFS and ask them to test GH and KH and well as nitrates. nitrites and ammonia.

I just pour from my collection jar. After rinsing, I'll eyeball enough water in the jar to pour out to the tanks. I use a pipette to feed my fry trays.

The panda Corydoras in my wife’s betta keep multiplying. Never see the spawning. Never see any eggs. Just poof. Babies all over the place. The LFS knows me as the panda guy cause about once a month I need sell off 10 or 15.

We all love nature here enough to bring it into our homes. What other non- fishy pets do we all have? I have a cat,3 turtles, 7 salamanders, 3 rats, approximately 100 land snails,15 snakes right now but I breed them so at my high point in the year I will I have over 100 snakes, And a dog

Anyone here into planted terrariums?

So I did this today. Lucked out and I was not crushed by the tank and the tank stayed in one piece.

Here is Part 2 of my latest 60 gallon project. For anyone who is interested take a look at Part 1 for everything before this. Part 1 So I really wanted to do a 3D background, but there were several things that I was just not going to be able to overcome without spending a bunch of money. So I decided to paint the back of the tank a gloss black. One thing I learned is that I should have followed the directions and waited 24 hours between coats, otherwise the paint does orange peel. Oh well, I'll be able to hide those problem areas. Next was the hardscape. I am going with a river/steam theme. Finding the rocks I wanted was difficult despite searching several different "free" places, so I had to go to the local landscape supply and select some river rock. I picked out a few hundred pounds, but in the end only used about 1/4 of that. I knew that would be the case but I wanted a variety to work with once I got home and could see it with the lighting. Then today I went to find some driftwood. I ended up finding some really great pieces, but there was no way to fit it all into the tank. Again, I like having more than I need so I can play around to find the right piece. After I got everything in its place with the help of a good friend (it took several hours of moving, debating, arguing, and moving again), I had to soak the driftwood. So I took a ton of pictures, pulled the wood out and have it soaking. So now I am at a work stoppage until the wood soaks long enough not to float, plus we have this new storm coming into the Gulf, and currently my house is in its crosshairs, plus my job keeps me busy during these storms. On a side note, I have a bunch of left over stones and driftwood if anyone is nearby and interested in buying/trading any.

It must be Cory breeding time, I just found 4 baby Cories during a water change today. I pulled the ones I found, no idea what type they are though. I have Brochis, paleatus, trilineatus, and lucomelas in there. Fry of any kind don't usually make it in this tank, so I was surprised to see them.

No, I rinse out the hatchery. Any left over BBS which is usually about 1/2 of what I hatched goes back in the hatchery with the air running for a 2nd feeding later that day. Never mix eggs with hatched BBS.

Yay babies Corydoras! I just waiting for @Tonik to find out she has more than one in her tank. 😁

Get your tacos supplies ready. I have 5 of those and although i don't expect them to multiply it would be pretty cool. My tank has a lot of places for babies to hide. Pandas are the cutest ones imo. This happened to me a long time ago with zebra danios. I just looked in the tank one day and say a bunch of babies

I'd love to get Cory's to breed. I want to get some lasers and try 🤔

This is a form of old school 'pipetting by mouth' but I have piece of flexible tubing attached to a piece rigid tubing. I suck up a bevy of baby brine from the ripest looking cone and I either give a tank the whole shebang, or dribble it as needed as I go from tank to tank.

If you have the Ziss BBS hatchery it comes with a pipette. It works great. I run the hatched BBS trough a sieve pour them into a cup and feed the tanks using the pipette. Left over BBS go back in the now clean hatchery for a second feeding.

While it is needed, you don't have to inject it. There are a few different ways you can get it. 1. In dirted tanks, you will get it via gas release through decomposition in the soil. 2. You will get some through respiration of your aquatic animals. 3. You will get a fair amount through the gas exchange that occurs at the surface. 4. You can introduce it passive diffusion via something like a CO2 bell. 5. You can introduce it via injection. I personally do like passive CO2 in my own setups. Here are two great videos:

We burn Anthracite coal, here in NEPA. Had temps in the upper 20's this morning. Might even get some snow this Friday. ⛄

Adult Malawa getting her stripes and sparkles

UPDATE: I got my test kit on Tuesday and did the KH and GH tests. KH was 3 drops/0-50 ppm. GH was 8 drops/140-200 ppm. wednesday: added large Wondershell. Sunday retested: KH-4 drops/50-100 ppm GH-8 drops/140-200 ppm A slight increase in KH and no change in GH. But, on Friday I found a tiny panda Cory hiding out in the java moss. That means the fish are reproducing which is a good sign of a healthy tank! (Which is what you guys already said! 😊

My wife and had always bought a goldfish or two for the my son and other kids she babysat, and again when our niece and nephew were smaller and around a lot. Eventually the fun would wear off and my wife would get tired of the hassle. i wasn't interested much at the time because I traveled often. Last September it all changed when we let the 3 yr old granddaughter pick a couple of fish out at our local Meijer store. Next thing I know - I find out they are tropical and need a heater and filter. One year later I've gone from that little 1/4 gallon cube to my recent upgrade - a 60 gallon setup.. 😀 And now, Pappy and granddaughter are hooked- Big Time...

Hello all, I've ways been fascinated by green walls and drip walls. I figured plants would do well in these kinds of environments, given how they are mostly emergent types. This particular tank has been going for about 3 months. My plan is to add some leaf litter and floating plants to the water area. Maybe get some clown killies....

I was born into the hobby. My mother was a Betta and Cichlid breeder, so MTS was normal in my house. She had tanks all over, dedicated live culture shelves, grow out tanks. They were mostly confined to a "fish room" but there was spillover. There's always spillover. I remember moving across country, my parents had to rent an extra moving truck full of tanks, stands, buckets and bags of fish. I've had at least 1 tank in my room that I was entirely responsible for taking care of since I was 7 years old. Out of 4 kids, I was the only one that had any interest in my mom's aquatic obsessions. I was always drawn to feeder guppies as a kid. I loved their patterns, they were cheap (I liked to pay for things on my own) happy, and in a way I felt like I was rescuing them. I got a pair of Jewel cichlids when I was 10 and absolutely fell in love. They were grumpy, stubborn, ornery little explosions of glittery color that ate earthworms from my hand. My childhood experiences with fish still carried over into adult years. Sweet little prolific Livebearers and grumpy Cichlids are what fill my fishroom today.

I don't remember what caused me to first get into the hobby. It was the late 60s. I think it was the only pet my parents would let me get and I loved anything to do with "nature" but I wasn't allowed to go camping or fishing or hiking... or well pretty much anything. When I finally broke free from that life, I dove into all those things I wasn't allowed to do. I went camping as often as I could and I lived for a good hike. I fell in love with kayaking, birdwatching, etc. I was always out in nature in some way. Get me away from people and civilization and that's when I felt most alive. Then a few years ago I got hit with an incurable auto-immune disease. My body was/is eating itself. Suddenly doing all those things that made up a huge part of who I was, just weren't possible any more. I retired from work and pretty much from life too. I'm lucky in that I have an amazing wife and three adult children who have all been incredibly supportive, but I still felt lost. I no longer had a purpose and I couldn't really do a lot of the stuff that made me happy. Then I saw a twitter post from a comic book writer I follow who's name is Greg Pak. He had recently got back into fish keeping too and was posting about his fish tanks. I remembered all the joy I got out of keeping fish when I was a kid and I knew we had a 10 gallon tank in the basement, so I had one of the kids bring it up for me and I set it up in my office. Suddenly I had something I could focus on and even on those days when I couldn't get out of bed, I could still read about the hobby and discover different ways of doing things. That was 4 months ago. I got my first guppies about a month after setting up the first little tank, and now I have a 55 gallon, two 45 tall tanks, and two 20 gallon tanks. I have guppies and shrimp in two of the tanks and some CPDs in the little 10 gallon, which is now my QT tank. I have some mystery snails coming this Friday and some Boesemani Rainbows are ordered too, but they haven't shipped yet. Now I can have that little piece of nature right by me. Even when I can't walk, I can still experience it and my quality of life has gone way up in the past four months. My wife has said she sees a big improvement in my outlook and I just don't feel as resigned to my fate as much any more.

this is my rescue jumping spider, kevin. she (we thought it was a he until we saw eggs one day 😨) she lives in a terrarium with live plants (i can't help myself lol) here is a fly she had for lunch one day

I was thinking the puffers would eat the guppy fry... they didn’t! Now I have them everywhere! 😵 The puffers now only come out when I feed them. Ughhhh. Anyone want to catch some guppies?

Some women have children. I have discus. 😉 Though I'd start a journal for my planted discus tank. It's been running a few years now, and these fish are my babies. The tank sits next to my desk, and I work full time from home. We all spend a lot of time together. Photo from Spring 2020 (and the best photo I've gotten of this tank!) Here's the tank in Dec 2019, a few weeks after planting The layout for the tank was inspired by an ADA tank I saw in a youtube video, this tank: (this photo is a screenshot from a youtube video of the ADA gallery in Japan. It is not my tank) Stocking in the tank is currently 10 discus, 5 Sterbai Cories, 4 oto cats, 10 Amano Shrimp, and some random guppies who snuck in on a net as fry and grew up in the tank. I had 12 discus, but decided to re-home two who were pairing off and picking fights a few months ago. I hear some people say discus are skittish. That is not my experience. They are nosy, always up in my business when I'm trying to do maintenance. I end up pushing them away so I can see what I'm doing.. lol! Thanks for reading! I'll keep updating as the tank evolves.

I agree...I do quite like the app, but I just prefer the formatting of the mobile platform more. Fun little tip, if you use Google Chrome as your web browser, you can actually make an icon on your home screen that will bring you to the forum website - sort of like having it as an app and you don't have to type the site into the address bar. I'm not sure if Apple's Safari or other mobile web browser have an equivalent feature, but it's worth a look if you'd like to have the forum accessible from your home screen as a sort of "app", but prefer the mobile version.

CO2 isn't needed at all, the main impact it has is how quickly nutrients are consumed by the plants. I've kept shrimp with and without CO2 and it only really affected the plants since I was only using low amounts (max 2 bps). Even carpet plants will grow out without injections but it takes significantly longer. Another thing that few people mention is that while plants grow faster with CO2, they also die faster and require more maintenance. If you're new to planted tanks, I'd recommend investing money into fertilizers/water chemistry and a light like a Stingray or a 3.0 before getting into CO2.

Welcome

I finally got some installation done! This pic shows the two check valves which feed the gang valve. Both valves are from the Coop, but they are clearly different. @Cory must have needed to change suppliers some time this past year. The first one came in a plastic bag. The second one came in their new green brand packaging. The elbows are from a different manufacturer. They are not strictly needed, but I thought it made for a cleaner installation. This pic shows the intake and outlet of the Fluval 204 filter. You can see the three air lines in the corner along with an electrical cable. I don't have the inlet strainer installed as the fit between the Coop sponge pre-filter and the inlet strainer is loose and I need to come up with an adaptor. I'm hoping it's as simple as a short length of PVC tubing. This is a close up of the setup. I have two air stones tee'd to one line and another pair tee'd to a second line. The plan is to use the flow generated by the bubbles to remove a dead space behind some hardscape I'll be installing. I'm using a valve per pair to ensure good control of the flow. The third air line and electric cable are used to drive an air stone and LED light. This will be used to also keep flow under a decoration I'm planning on installing. I think the light will add a cool dramatic effect. The décor may seem a bit corny, but to each their own right?! I wanted to fill it with water tonight to confirm everything was working and get the air stone flow where I want it, but I don't have the right adapter to fit the bathroom sink. One more trip to Amazon! By the way, all of this was installed as neatly as I could and will all be covered by 3 inches of substrate and the hardscape.

Plants are like crack to me. I can't impulse buy a fish because I want to make sure I have a good setup prepared for it + a backup plan. I can impulse buy a plant almost any day and I can yeet it into a tank. In other news, I've narrowed down possible livestock to 1 of my Amanos from another tank, pygmy corydoras, and assorted Neocaridinas.

Plants have been added and bacteria are blooming! I'm not using a corral for the floaters at the moment. My rigid hornwort (previously planted) was uprooted and is floating with the duckweed, perhaps in the future I can use it to make an organic corral? Sußwassertang is wedged between the ohko stones and I've also placed a portion in my CRS tank. I'm AMAZED by the texture here. This is my first time having the plant and I already want to grow a wall of it on craft mesh. The soft hornwort is growing where the rigid hornwort once was. I like that it's a much fluffier texture and I hope the future betta enjoys laying on it.

I think it's wonderful that you went the extra mile to give the little guy the best chance. I have a soft spot for snails, they were the very first aquatic creature I ever kept. At nine years old I had a Ramshorn snail in an old glass coffee jar next to the bed, looking back yes it was maybe cruel but I didn't know any better at that age. Fast-forward to today and I have a little snail breeding program as well as my fish and aquatic plants. I like to keep pure lines of true blue, pearl pink, gold, red and two years ago we made our own purple ramshorns. You probably know this already but if not here is a little bit of advice, If you find that your snails have weak shells you can supplement them with calcium. There are a number of ways to do this, you can add a cuttlefish bone to the tank, calcium carbonate tablets from the health store and a couple of others. The way I do it is to mix a paste of spirulina and plaster of paris and put them into small ice cube trays or roll into a ball. Forgive me if you know this already. I wish your snails the best of health. Best wishes, Scott

- feed less if possible - install honey or sparkling gourami - can nuke with some types of dewormer - have never tried. For me they seem most unavoidable in single-occupant tanks where no one eats them. Only guppy fry? Hydra. Guppy fry and parents? No hydra. Betta tank? Hydra. Community tanks? No hydra. I have not yet seen them to be more than vaguely annoying and kind of interesting.

I moved some sponge filters around. The small size is shorter and wider than the nano.

Unlike Seachem does with Prime, Fritz tells us what's in ACCR: sodium hydroxymethanesulfonate; i.e., exactly the same thing as Cloram-X or Amquel. And as varianidguy pointed out, the dosage of ACCR/Cloram-X/Amquel is MUCH higher than with Seachem Safe, but the pricing doesn't reflect that. Safe is likely to be the better value in dollars spent per amount of water treated. Another product that is just as concentrated as Safe and often a bit less expensive is Continuum Aquatics Fraction D, which is available on Amazon.

It’s update time! Did some water changes today and I redid the root tab in the Crinum per @Randyadvice and the CoOp video (thanks 😁). I added my betta floating log to Drogo’s 5 gallon, and moved the avocado to the 10 gallon for now. The biggest project from today is definitely pertaining to my 20 long. I put the mat under it to make sure it’s as level as possible, added half a bag of crushed coral I have lying around, and the eco complete I had in the 10 gallon a while back. It’s filled and running on one aqueon HOB with a carbon cartridge. I did not dechlorinate because I’m not cycling yet. Right now I’m running it like this in order to pull anything I can out from the substrate and the tank. Upon filling, the surface of the water was covered in gunk. I’m definitely going to be doing several water changes and cleaning before I add anything. I’ll also be hopefully be getting some new livestock tomorrow so stay tuned. I’m planning on getting some blue dreams and some Amanos to put in the betta tank, and I’ll be getting something I’ve had my eye on a long time for long term the 20 long, but for now will be in the 10 gallon quarantine tank. I’ve decided that as far as long term stocking, I will most likely be planting the 10 gallon for some pea puffers, but I won’t until after I bring everyone up and quarantine. Oh, and I also setup the light and timer on the 20

Came today was so excited this isn’t permanent tank gonna try it in my cichlid tank or/Oscar tank otherwise it’s going in my 46gal community with others hole point of plant planter was for cichlids though @Cory however I know this plant would root fine in my community my question for you sir is can you put banana plants in these or will it not work well?