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I am the groundskeeper for my local school system. I make sure all of our school grounds are kept up, grass mowed, bushes trimmed, snow plowed. Most of the time is spent on athletic fields, four football fields, two soccer, baseball and softball diamonds. And I just found out today my football field that we have games on was voted best natural turf field in our conference for third straight year. This is a picture I took a couple weeks ago before one of our playoff games.

I'm a lab manager and research scientist at the University of Washington. We study the crosstalk between the innate and adaptive immune systems using cool tools like lasers, confocal microscopes, fluorescently tagged antibodies, and so on. But on a daily basis I am doing such a wide range of tasks ranging from IT, chemistry, biology, genetics, equipment repair, statistical analysis, regulatory paperwork and logistics all the way to a level of mentorship that can feel like providing therapy, that it feels like my title could maybe just be jill of all trades. An appallingly messy bench from a few years ago (not mine): A fluorescently stained section of tumor (mine!):

"Only ever hardshell tacos. Only ever softshell turtles." -Cory McElroy 2020

For the last 40 years I have been a National Certified Interpreter for the Deaf. Hence my logo means interpret in American Sign Language. I have kept aquariums most of my life. I did take a 19 year break. When my ex husband declared that the 6 foot tank was his! Ha! I made sure I had re homed most of my fishies before I drove off into the sunset..... Taking the Python with me! He didn’t know the difference between an air stone and a rock.... I wonder how long it took him to bail that tank. LOL Cory and Aquarium Co-Op have been such an inspiration to me. I love playing with my 3 tanks. Having a blast raising Corydoras and Mystery Snails. I love all of the Ziss breeding equipment.

I'm a foundryman specialising in the Investment Casting process, also known as the Lost Wax process. I supervise a team that can produce anything from industrial components by the thousand, a one off prototype from a plastic 3D print or a one off bronze sculpture from a handmade clay model. We can cast many metals and their alloys including irons, steels, stainless steels, aluminium alloys, brasses and bronzes. We also use the greensand method so there's not a lot we can't cast. In fact the company motto is 'You ask, we cast'. Check us out here, there's a little video too... https://www.castingshop.co.nz/ My tasks are many and varied but I mainly manage production, quality control and look after the metallurgical equipment to maintain it's accuracy.

I got back into the hobby this year. I was diagnosed, and successfully beat so far, breast cancer. A friend gifted me a 30g full setup. I have always loved fish, water, fishing, swimming, snorkeling, etc. I used to have a 55g cichlid tank, but that was over 15 years ago. This time I went for a more relaxing planted community setup. I am a nurse practitioner, so I have budgeted for plants, fish, supplies. A little at a time.

I roughed-in all of the wiring that next weekend, took a few weeks off, and this past weekend I got the drywall up! There will be 6 outlet boxes around the room, behind where the racks will go. Each box will have one 15A GFCI for heaters/power filters, and two switched GFCI-protected outlets for lighting. 3 of the 6 heater outlets share a 20A circuit each, so maxed out it can have 1800W/rack, 2400W/wall (3 racks), or 4800W/room. We removed a double-pole breaker for an old hot tub, so there was plenty of room in the panel for the new breakers. Here's a diagram of the old and new circuit: Old: New: The GFCI outlets for heaters/pumps have an audible alarm, so we'll know if they get tripped. I'm not sure yet if they're loud enough to hear throughout the house or how close you have to be. Our kitchen is right above the fish room, so hopefully we could at least hear it from there. I'll do some testing once they are wired up. This was my first time hanging drywall, but it went pretty well. I have a few things to adjust where I didn't account for the thickness of screws behind the drywall and it bulged a little, but other than that I'm pretty happy with it. I also removed the old room lights and added 2 new lights, one for over the sink, and a wall light for over a work surface. Both are wired to a motion sensor, so they'll turn on when someone is in the room and turn off after they leave. I still have some ceiling drywall to hang, and a LOT of drywall repairs after wiring, and then the next step is drywall taping. It's the part of this project that I'm the least excited for, so hopefully I can muster the willpower to get it done sooner rather than later. I can't wait to wire the outlets up and start on the drain/drip system. I've also been thinking about where I can fit racks to maximize space. Having so many doors in the room makes it difficult to use all of the floor space, but I still think I can get way more than I need in there. Here's what I came up with so far. The 20L along the back wall will be a fry system. I might try to fit some 5.5g above it or somewhere else.

Take time with your memes. It doesn't have to be complicated. It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be fun! (most of the time)

My bebe girl Rosée going crazy over some tuna 🥰

I think at this point I have more plants growing out of the top of the 1930s aquarium than I have growing underwater.🙂

She can definitely be impregnated by multiple males at the same time, like a cat or a dog--or even a human in the case of multiple births, though that is extremely rare due to both biological and societal reasons. Unlike mammals, she can store semen a long time--months--making this much more common with guppies. I have not heard of individual eggs accepting sperm from more than one male at a time, however--at least not commonly. In genetics, such things can occasionally happen, but it usually leads to nonviable offspring that are lost prior to birth or other genetic defects. Generally the viable offspring will each be 1/2 the mother and 1/2 ONE OF the fathers.

my 90g is a somewhat high tech set up with co2, lots of ferts and medium-high light. i have noticed over the past few months that the substrate i used (safe-t-sorb) is absorbing too much. it works similar to eco-complete in my experience but my ph/gh/kh is lowering, which is natural with co2 and this substrate, but i want to raise it. i decided to run a little experiment and, hopefully, not kill all of my plants. i picked up this bag of reef salt: it is high in calcium, magnesium, and other good minerals. i would just use crushed coral but i want to see if i can use salt in a planted aquarium to benefit my goldfish. one of my goldies ripped his tail on some driftwood (i did some rescaping and hopefully fixed the issue) and i want some salt in the water to help him a little. plus who doesn’t love running experiments. tank: 90g dosage: 30%, i decided to start off light and work my way up slowly. this bag treats 10g up to a salinity of 1.021 which is way way too high. i decided to dose it like regular aquarium salt with 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons. i dosed for 30 gallons to start off with. it has only been 2 days so too soon to tell but my plants didn’t keel over overnight lol. ill keep this dose for the next week and add another 3 tablespoons. ill just keep repeating this weekly till i start seeing some negative effects on plants. photos arthur with his ripped fin, some stress veins around the area of course but overall not looking too bad all my vals are looking healthy i was concerned about my emersed plants but the pothos is springing a new leaf today and the monstera is still fine. usually you see negative effects pretty quickly with houseplants and salt. new monstera leaf uncurling, on sunday it was still tightly wound so the salt hasn’t had any immediate negative effects. also as a small sidenote, the roots outgrew the diy pot so i just removed it. these are mostly peace lily roots with some pothos thrown in. they’re still holding on to a lot of eco-complete, i didnt bother removing the plants to rinse them. now i know this is a low dosage to start out with but i didn’t want to just bomb my tank from the start with how much work i put in. ill keep this thread updated as i raise the dosage and the effect it is having on the plants. anyone have any experience with marine/reef salt and plants they’d like to share?

My brand new mystery snail decided to go on a voyage of self-discovery today, I guess. He got out of the Marineland Portrait tank and onto the dresser, down the leg, or fell, or something, and was on the floor by the bed. We've put him back in and taped the back plastic lid securely in place. He is moving around, apparently unfazed. Me on the other hand??? I don't know if I'll recover!

Here is the above water portion of the aquarium I posted earlier today in Top-View Tuesday I should have an update on the lower part of the tank tomorrow or the next day.

I guess the eggs are attached by filaments to a plug. You can see the filament attached to the left side of this single egg.

I’m a forum manager for an online program for young writers. Basically I teach teenagers how to get along on the internet.

I'm an IT director at an Ivy League university. Been doing IT forever now. Feels like too long . . .

I am a Design and CAD Technician in the CEMS industry in my normal life.

First Lilly pad of the tank taken a Nov 1st. Now there are more than 5. Will need to take another pic next Tuesday.

Probably, but who really knows, growing bacteria is a black art. But, they gotta eat something. I used to be skeptical of adding beneficial bacteria to an aquarium because the beneficial bacteria are always there anyway whether we add them or not. I think @KBOzzie59 suggested they can even come in to a new aquarium on our hands. But, overtime I am slowly being convinced that these commercial products might not be complete snake oil. The bacteria that process nitrogen in our aquariums are thought to be Nitraspina, Nitrospinacacae, and Nitrospria. These little guys have a disadvantage because they are autotrophs and their only food source is nitrogen. The problem is that there are also lot of heterotrophic bacteria that consume a wide variety of complex organic substances. And, the heterotophs can double their populations every 4 hours, whereas our poor little autotrophic beneficial bacteria double their populations only every 24 to 30 hours. So to give the beneficial bacteria a leg up, we add them on day one and feed them some source of nitrogen (typically ammonia, which can come from uneaten food) and hope they get established before they can be out-competed by their less picky and faster multiplying cousins.

The plant in question looks like Corkscrew Val to me

I train horses, give lessons, and barn manager at a boarding facility in California. I've had a tank for 30 years but my 27 year old mean catfish died last spring. He wouldn't let me have any more, I gave up years ago. So during lockdown this summer and with the help of aquarium co op I learned a lot and set up 2 community planted tanks.

Oh, and I troll @Cory as often as I can. But that is more feel-good volunteer work.

@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.

@kammaroon That's normal looking to me. Sometimes when they lay more it looks like a big cluster of eggs. When they brush them off on something they will trail off like that on a string. Anyone know what that string is or what it's called?

I work in IT and have for the past ~25 years since leaving the army. Worked for almost 20 years at Microsoft in IT management and now am working a much more relaxing job as a helpdesk technician. Way more free time to spoil my fishy friends 🙂

We build the actual machines. CNC Routers, Plasma cutters, Laser cutters, water jet cutters, and knife cutters, Occasionally we run up against HAAS on a router deal but we do not make mills or lathes.

Top down on a shrimp swarm.

So as an update. I have had success feeding two different way. One is to feed the tetras on one side of my tank with slow sinking food and feed Ram on the other side of the tank with faster sinking food. The second method, which works the best, if to feed blood warms with a turkey Baster. That is the only food the ram really eats out of the water instead of off the ground. A little squeeze in front of him and he chows down!

I would just grow them out for the enjoyment of being part of that process. Experience itself has a lot of long-term value, even if you make $0 from it right now (or ever). After that, try to give them away as gifts to interested people you might know as a way to help them get into the hobby. I think there's a lot of value one can get out of transactions beyond making money. If your livelihood isn't dependent on selling these, just try to bank some good karma from rehoming them free of charge, and, in the meantime, enjoy the experience of raising them, if you have the space to do that. That being said, give them to the LFS free as a last resort. Not that I have anything against store owners, but the last resort for a free gift should be someone else turning a profit off it, unless doing this at your LFS will be seen as a longer term gesture of good will, and help create a relationship beneficial to anything else you plan in the hobby.

Water sprite has an angular stem, you can feel it if you roll it around between thumb and forefinger. I haven't had water wisteria for a long time, but my memory was the stem is not angular. Maybe someone with water wisteria can check this?

I think you have it right-side up. I'd let it keep growing and see what it looks like.

Thanks @Daniel @MickS77 , I thought so .... I do struggle however with the substrate to keep the plant attached whilst still seeing a bit of the white of the root. Even more with the Vallisneria. Must be because the substrate isn't that compact. Any trick to this? I never been really into plants, but with this tank they are really growing (hopefully pun) on me!

I work in a company that manufactures clothing for golabal companies. I am responsbile for marketing and customer relations.

after leaving school i did an apprenticeship in sheetmetal but hated being in a factory so as soon as i did my time i got out and have driven trucks ever since. currently driving a UD prime mover auto air con sound system the works nothing like when i started 20 years ago with unairconditioned road ranger international accos that cooked you on a 40c day.i do some fairly long hours but do very few weekends so it still leaves plenty of fish time if not much $$$

I am a high school History teacher of 22 years. I used to produce and direct the plays for the HS as well until my children were born - family first. It is here were I became an amateur carpenter as my wife likes to call me - I really enjoyed designing and building complex sets. Now I specialize in Holocaust studies and sociology - Justice and Society class. I spent some time doing union work serving the educator's were I worked. It was after leaving that "part time work" that I discovered the zen balance my life lacked - fish keeping. What a joy it has been. Thank the lord my wife has been supportive.

Lambchop rasbora

Balin explaining Large vs Medium Sponge Filters to Dwalin:

I remodel houses. I've been doing it for about 7 years at this point.

I make sure all those awesome Aquarium Co-Op orders ships out on-time and accurate! 😀

I do 3D Mechanical Drafting and Design for a power transmission company. Transmission as verb meaning we supply equipment for connecting industrial equipment together, turbines to generators, etc.

I occasionally do some work for the lab of Dr. David Tarpy at North Carolina State University (like gluing number tags to the thorax every bee in a colony so the honey bee's movements can be tracked individually). Above: Putting number tags on bees Above: Numbered bees He is one one the leading scientist studying what came to be called 'Colony Collapse Disorder'. He came to the conclusion there wasn't any one cause. Winter losses happen every year (it is the basis of my business). Our current winter losses of honey bee colonies are close to the historical average over the last century. The introduction of varroa mites in the 1990's has probably been the largest single factor in recent winter losses but they can be controlled with management practices. Just like one of the biggest threats to the well being of tropical fish are fishkeepers, one of the biggest threats to honey bees are beekeepers.🙂 Did you know that each winter over 2 million of the 2.5 million honey bee colonies in the US are loaded on to semi-trucks and moved to from places like Maine, and Florida (actually every state) to California to pollinate the almond crop? Each semi-load is worth about $90,000 in fees for the beekeeper and is a very important source of income. The loss of honey bees makes for a good story in the press, but honey bees themselves (which are non-native invasive insects from Eurasia) are doing just fine.

I sell honeybees to beekeepers. My busiest times are Winter and Spring because I have to get ready for the Spring rush when beekeepers restock from their winter loses. I don't sell honey, which is what people usually associate with beekeeping, but I do collect a little to give to the landowners where I have my principle outyards.

@ange I replaced my 15" laptop with a 13" model. The one downside was restickering + reduced sticker space, hahaha.

New decal Monday...jk, I wish it was every Monday!

Oh what modern times we live in. Back in my day a mated pair was a mated pair and that was it. These days there just seems to be declining moral standards amongst discus with a 'my way or the highway' approach that makes a pair bond disposable. Next thing you know discus will be no better than seahorses and their notable wicked ways.