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I was playing around with a phone camera "microscope" and got some okay pics of a copepod.

My first true macro photo with a clip-on macro lens. Juvenile black Neon Tetra.

I got me a pretty spectacular piece of wood, think its spider wood? Though its a bit bigger in the aquarium than I thought it would be (it always looks smaller in the store). Either way I think it will look good. Now the eternal wait for it to sink 🙂

Hmmm. Just tell her she’s right. Your true hobby is having hobbies. This way, in theory, the hobby count never exceeds one.

My name is Eliot and Im from the Northwestern US. I only have one tank right now as my apartment complex only allows 10 gallons or less, but before I moved I was working on several breeding projects and building out my first fish room. Today I have a 7.1 gallon Aquatop cube tank which is home to a black samurai betta named Alex, and an Amano shrimp named Simon.

Frozen baby brine is a good option to help put weight and size on fast if you dont want to set up a baby brine shrimo hatchery of your own. Crush up the food you have currently into smaller pieces is the next easy fix. I use an electric coffee grinder (not the same one my husband uses for coffee!) To grind up aquarium related stuff. They're maybe 20 bucks at Walmart. Probably cheaper online. But a few seconds in that and your flakes or pellets will be a powder. Which will be much more bite size for the little cardinals. I've played this game before myself with cardinals. They do have tiny mouths.

My Fluval 3.0 came in and I'm overjoyed with how it looks. Long term I may try to lighten the water but for now I'm just letting the chemistry do its own thing when I can. Some of the frogbit roots are well past a foot long and they look awesome!

Well I did another layout on Wednesday, then I had to leave for work Thursday & Friday which gave me time to ponder, now I've done two more layouts this morning. This is the latest, and other than a few small things I am pretty happy. This is what I have going on as of now.

If I ever need a lawyer, I will ask @tolstoy21!

There is one other early result that I don't know what to make of it. There are a couple of stray seedlings and 1 stray bulb sprouting in the dirted tank. Here is the bulb. I am not sure what this is or where it came from. Here is one of the seedlings. If they are popping up out the soil, then they are likely terrestrial. Or they could have come in with aquatic plants. I haven't yet noticed anything similar in the Nermal tank or the EcoComplete tank.

It sounds like you most likely killed of your beneficial bacteria while treating the bacterial infection. Do a 75-90% water change and run charcoal for a while to remove any traces of medication then get a bottle of beneficial bacteria to help jumpstart a new cycle. You'll probably have to do large water changes and/or use ammonia controlling products until the tank is fully cycled again. Next time I'd remove the affected fish and treat in a quarantine tank to avoid crashing the tank.

Hi Everybody! My name is Lisa. I am from Summit County, CO which has mining, skiing and tons of snow. I started my aquarium 2 years ago because I was told, “No more house plants!” by my hubby. So, to expand my plant knowledge, I began studying aquascaping. Thanks to Aquarium Co-Op my underwater garden is thriving. I’m here to learn even more. I started with a 5 gallon and a year of dialing in my well water and tank I ended up dialing in a smoothly running established tank that ran for nine months with out changing. But then disaster struck, when, while getting new carpet, my bed frame fell, bouncing off of me and falling diagonally onto my tank. Long story short I now have upgraded happily to a 10 gal. I do also have a 3 gallon at work, that really only has Java fern overgrowth, drift wood and nerite snails for cleaning. Why only two aquarium? Well remember that sweet loving hubby of mine. We all make compromises, but with that being said I do have a passion for my main tank and am hoping to reestablish that ecosystem I had in this new tank. Current Plants: -Java fern, both windelov and traditional -Java moss, what can I say, it’s quickly becoming a girls best friend. -Anubias nana petite, yea it’s coming along...I think... -Hydrocotyle tripartita ‘Japan’-just got this sucker but it’s perfect! -Radican Marble Queen Sword, growing some new leaves after the stress of the move -Ruffle Sword also got a massive trim and coming back. -Red Dwarf Aquarium Lilly, my absolute favorite! and tons of Marimo moss spread out on my driftwood. I do have a few fish: -mustard gas betta- you saw it coming. His name is O.D.B. He was chosen and named by my man. -a golden mystery snail-the chef Raekwon -a clown pleco- inspect the deck -a nerite snail- method man I do plan on completing my Wutang tank here in the future with the extra room but am waiting for everything to get established before doing that. With all that being said, Thank you all for the knowledge. Now, for the learning cycle to continue.

2020 has afforded me a lot of free time... With Craigslist I have been able to score 4 tanks, 3 stocked and one that had just been torn down (10g, 20g, 29g and a 55g). I will say a lot of my decisions have been guided by hours of watching Aquarium Co-op's videos, so if anything this is a long "thank you" letter to Aquarium Co-op as well as others sharing their knowledge and experience. The 20g tank- had a decent sized black moor goldfish, two angel fish, one cory, a guppy, a stick catfish, a platy and a molly. It was a community tank of horrors (though everyone was alive and no fin nipping I could see). Scaped with dragon stone and two swords plants. When I picked it up the hob filter had been broken for a couple of days. I immediately re-homed the goldfish and the angel fish to my lfs. I put the guppy into a mutt guppy tank tank. I will probably re-home everyone but the stick catfish at some point. The good news was that I was able to get the parameters dialed in over a few weeks and had a tank open for quarantine. My wife had said we could get a Tetraodon schoutedeni at some point and I happened to find one from a reputable vendor. Then I started the first of two ramshorn snail colonies. I believe he's a male and yet to name him but has a great personality. My daughter loves watching him and feeding him. The 55g tank- so then I got thinking, "what's better than one puffer? More puffers." I found someone getting rid of a 55g that had recently tore it down and was willing to deliver. I have an industrial table that's rated to hold north of 1000lbs but I want to stay on the safe side so 55g was a big as I wanted to go. I had been running an extra sponge filter so that helped get cycled along with 6 glowlight tetras added after 4-5 weeks. Hard scape and plants from a lfs, plants from Aquabid and a number of plants from Aquarium Co-op. I went for ADA Amazonia soil with a partial sand cap. I have been watching a lot of aquascaping videos (one of my other hobbies is growing rare orchids from Central and South America). The ADA soil definitely turned my water yellow and plays with your ammonia tests with having ammonium. Aside from a trio of puffers I knew I wanted a cory community. Was able to find a group of 9 Corydoras eques and I am planning to bump to 12 or 15 depending on final stocking. They are awesome to watch. Still not sure what I am going to do for dither fish, likely rasboras or danios. Debating on getting a reticulated hillstream loach and/or a Siamese algae eater. I know I am going to be dropping the pH with RO water at some point for breeding so need all inhabitants to be happy with that. Not sure if I will put any cherry shrimp in it or not. Part of the idea is to breed puffers and Corydoras but limit the potential for eggs being eaten. I have a "time-out" tank ready for my male if I can get two females to complete my trio. In addition to the ramshorns I started a scud tank and will be working on black worms and starting an infusoria culture this winter. I upgraded my lighting today and that's the latest picture. I am planning to add more moss and possibly fill out the right side of the tank with something else, maybe anubias or a large species of fern. I may change the plants in the middle a little too before adding my puffer to his new home. Right now the 10g is being used for quarantine and I have ramshorns, pond snails, guppies and cherry shrimp in the 29g. Still a lot to do but enjoying the journey so far! Pics are my puffer, the 20g the day I got it home, and evolution of the 55g over the last month.

20 gallon long, Filtration sponge, & Penguin 175 Pro, Temperature 78-82F with Inkbird controller.

I set this up a couple weeks ago. At first it was cloudy as stained, I added more plants, water is crystal clear now, fish are healthy and happy. I’ll be moving the angels and gouramis to a 75 I have yet to set up. I’m seasoning a sponge filter in this 29. Do you all think I have too many plants? Is there such a thing as too many plants.

(I just noticed the emoticon in this scene.)

Welcome to the forum and back to the hobby!

It's all down to how much dissolves into the water. A lot of small pieces that make up a larger sized surface area will usually affect chemistry faster than one big piece with a medium sized surface. If I recall, Joey the King of DIY posted a video about foraging for hardscape on his channel and may have more information.

It wasn't planned! I'm just very attracted to double black angelfish and was lucky enough to find someone an hour away who was selling my boy. The female was an bought from my LFS as a companion to him and the juvenile zebra is a PetSmart rehab (it was covered in ich but is now healthy and eating like a pig!)

Fluval bug bites did the trick!

I like each new iteration better than the one before.

Hello everyone, I'm Amy and I live in the twin cities, Minnesota. So excited to be here and to be free from the aggressive social media groups! I'm new to the hobby but am absolutely loving it! I have two 5 gallon tanks, one for my betta (please forgive me for the SpongeBob decor, it's my 3 yr old's tank) and one for my pea puffer and a 29 gallon for my guppies. I'm so grateful to be here!

I’ve had great success with pandas. I don’t use RO or rain water or do cool water changes, my gravel substrate is on the larger size, I never see any spawning behavior, let alone eggs, but some how I need to take 5, 10, 15 down to the LFS every month or two. So, I’m guessing they are pretty easy to breed. all I do is 1) keep the water clean, 2) feed them lots of high quality food, and give them hiding places the larger fish can’t access easily. best of luck, and keep us posted.

Your cycle is staring over. Maracyn is an antibacterial. You nuked your tank. I wouldn't uproot your plants, just keep feeding them fertilizer and monitoring nitrates until your cycle gets re-established. If you have another tank to move fish to, do that, it will help reduce the fish load until you get the cycle back. The next time you treat with this med, move the sick fish to your quarantine tank to avoid this problem in your main tank. This IS recoverable, it's just gonna take some time and attention. Don't get discouraged! We're with you!

Not much has changed other than adding more fish. Here is the nermal tank: Here is the dirted tank: Here is the EcoComplete tank. The more interesting changes are what is happening in the water chemistry. It will take a while to condense all the testing in to a post. I will probably dump all the testing into a blog post, and then summarize it here.

I have the same issue. I also have a lot of snails. I am fairly convinced the snails eat the wood and cause a lot of it. I have found I just have to change the filter floss in my canister a LOT more often. I don't gravel vac, because nearly the entire substrate is covered in plants. I think it is an eyesore, but not a problem for the fish.

Hey folks, I'm David from Minnesota looking at all the newbies and wishing I had access to fish keeping forums when I started my first tank in the 70s. I had to check out books from the library. I made many, many mistakes along the way, but now consider myself to be an expert and proudly so. But even still, there is always, and I repeat, always more to know. I've gone from live bearers, to planted tanks, to salt water, to African cichlids, to South American cichlids, and currently running 12 tanks including 3 planted, one salt water, and both African (mainly frontosa and peacocks) & South American cichlids, mainly geophagus. I'm posting a picture of my front crew, they are Kitumbas. They stare a lot. 😃 Also posting one of my cichlid playgrounds. They fight a lot. 🙃

My "Chill" tank is an all male guppy tank full of color I can watch them all day!

My substrate is Aquavitro Aquasolum black humate in the 10 gallon. I really wanted to do something good for the plants and shrimp. It's a buffering substrate so it lowered my pH to 6.0 or possibly lower than that. I haven't looked for a lower pH test yet. The fish aren't acting funny so I'm not overly worried about it. My 20 gallon has eco complete substrate. I have heard good things but have no personal experience so I decided to try something inert instead. I really need to look into root tabs but since my substrate is so new I'm pretty sure I have some time before the nutrients are low/gone and I'll have to actually use them.

I will now that I'm learning that my tank can handle a bit more bio load that a gallon per inch. Especially since I'm running a H.O.B. and sponge filter in there and do my water changes regularly. I'm off work on Sunday and will get him a couple buddies. I obviously got the one without researching their social habits first. I won't be making that mistake again. I do give them algae wafers. Whenever one is gone I drop a new one in. I was thinking of getting sinking bottom feeder pellets too. Creme brulee doesn't seem to bother anyone. I even caught my shrimp grabbing his tail once. He did not appreciate it very much but didn't do anything about it and moved away.

I am ready to make my confession. When I came back to the hobby, I researched for months before jumping in with an organic soil tank. I was trying to integrate all of the information I was absorbing. I knew the 1.5" max soil recommendation from Diana Walstad. I was also reading about people turbocharging things with CO2, etc. I thought, why not turbocharge the soil and go for like 2.5-3.0", and then cap it even more? I had a roller coaster figuring things out, with plants that were all new to me. I got things somewhat okay, and then DW came to the forum I was on, and I got to ask her opinion of my tank photos. She was very polite, and explained why my plants were not doing as well as they could be. The next day, I took on the messy job of thinning out my substrate and cap to more reasonable depths. This is why I try to describe my tanks as organic soil tanks, because my mistakes are on me. However, every mistake I made has been invaluable.

Thanks! I'm very fond of that filament just for that reason. It's a "speciality" filament where the color is from approximately 5% of bronze metal powder mixed in. 😊

The fins on that beauty remind me of a Flame Scallop. Very cool.

AquaHuna and Aquabid are your best bet, though it's hard to find them for a reasonable price online. Have you tried finding a local hobbyist with some fry to give away?

Norman's Lampeye Killifish are kink of cool with their shiny blue eye! Unlike other annual killifish, Norman's are 'semi-annual' meaning they live 2-3 years. I'm going to try some of those in my 37g tank once it gets cycled. If you like the size and look of killifish, check out the Pseudomugil varieties of Australian rainbow fish. They are as colorful and live linger. Have fun in you QfF - Quest for Fish 🐠!

the goldfish fry are very clearly goldfish now and pretty big also have some surprise galaxy rasbora fry

Looking good! Welcome to the forum. I like how you have a plan, even having a time-out tank ready.

I have found this to be kind of uncanny except the answer I seek is usually in the podcast version I’m listening to as I fall asleep and the chances of me remembering it are roughly 50/50 😐

I couldn't help myself, I added a second angel to each tank.

If your fish store is any good they should take back the fish, it is very common and is usually part of why you buy from a LFS. Could you post a pic of your tank to see what your setup looks like to maybe get a better idea for what your stocking options are! Thank you!

When fish compatibility isn't working out, the responsible thing to do is bring them back or rehome them. It's very common with a lot of species. For example, in keeping discus, you generally start with more than what you intend to keep, and return the ones that are least harmonious with your group.

Hello everyone, I’m Steve and I’m from Boston, MA. I fell in love with the aquarium hobby when I was younger. My uncle used to have a 10 gallon freshwater tank and passed it on to me when he no longer wanted to keep it. I kept it for a while but I found that my fish kept dying so I kind of lost interest. I came across aquascaping online and it brought me back to the aquarium hobby. It’s been about two months since I started my 16 gallon tank so I’m fairly new to all this, especially a planted tank. I attached a picture of my tank. Thank you Cory for all the YouTube videos. Huge help! I look forward to participating in this online community!

Hi all, My name is Ruud and I am from Netherlands but living in Spain since a few years! I currently do not have any tanks, as the past years as an expat I have been moving around quite a bit and in my current apartment there is simply no real space for one (complicated story). BUT hopefully in the next few months we will move to a real house where I want to have a small fish room. Anyway, I found some photos from tanks and fish from around 10 years back when I was still in NL: Juwel 180 liter south american tank

Hello Nerms! I recently joined this forum and look forward to learning a lot. Here are some of my tanks...

Typically yes. My process is to make an STL file or get an STL file from thingiverse, run it through a program called slicr to get g-code, throw it on the printers SD card, check the print bed and hit go. When everything is as it should be the whole process takes 5min. Some of the more feature rich printers will have things like bed auto leveling so you never have to level the print bed and some have software that can make things a little easier. @jefferz & @akconklin I've had PLA in my aquariums for years and it does not degrade, it is technically bio-degradable but that is very misleading since that process will only take place in an industrial setting at like 140 degrees. I also tested it by burying some in a compose bin I have but 2 years later when we took out the compose it had not degraded at all. As for the toxic dye I doubt that is true either. PLA is generally considered food safe and additives are locked up in the PLA anyways, I have yet to notice any negative effects from adding PLA or ABS to my aquariums. I used to print with ABS but it is a pain in the butt sometimes for tending to warp larger parts, I almost exclusively use PLA and would recommend it for anyone who is starting out.