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Getting into my 40 breeder with the hinged glass lid is a bother, move the front light, open the lid and either flop it all the way open and hope it doesn't hurt the lights by resting on them or hold it open by hand and feed or whatever one handed. So I made this prop. I just eyeballed the angle of the cut and the overall length to get it to hold open and hold onto the glass. I had to widen the cutout more than the thickness of the lid to get everything to work and the length needed a little fine tuning to not flop back closed or miss the back of the lid. It's held together with superglue gel 'cause it was handy.

Hey Everyone I thought I'd show you all my tanks after a month. I've had a lot of changes, lots of growth and runners..and a LOT of baby snails 😃 At the moment I'm treating all three tanks for cyanobacteria.. it seems to be going well. My water parameters are nice and consistant and I'm thinking about getting some shrimp in there soon to help clean up a bit. One of my Amazon swords has a runner with three little plants, so far. My java fern has babies on the leaves.. the Val is sending off runnering in all directions in all the tanks... My grass is growing.. I love the Bacopa Caroliniana! The shape it grows, the long dangly roots and the way it pops out of the surface..its just lovely. I might have lost most of my floating plants.. they got all clogged with the cyanobacteria.. but hopefully some make it.. it grows like crazy. Oh And my water wisteria is growing out the top like a tree!☺️ The water is always this pale tea colour, I'm quite a fan!😄

Or you have to find clever ways of disguising your grow out tub from your landlord.

Younger aquarist think once you have money, and drivers license and you don't have to share a room with your brother all your problems are solved. They are not. They just get more complicated. I kept telling myself dollar a gallon...who cares...I need to take care of the tanks I have, not buy more. I kept telling myself, the spouse is calm about my ever metastasizing hobby, just be cool, be patient, and definitely no more aquariums. Hat tip to @MickS77 for the meme What if the dollar a gallon sale never ever happens again? Maybe, just maybe I could confuse her by being honest! She didn't approve, but she didn't say no. So I got two 75 gallons (not one like I mentioned and maybe not 1/3 of normal price). Now I felt embarrassed so I stashed them in the woodworking shop. Problem is these days she is out in the shop all the time working on beehives. So... Problem solved, right? Now I just I have to figure out how to tell her....

In a 75 gallon I had 2 jack dempseys, a dominant electric blue and a normal jack, both female. I got the blue with bad popeye that I couldn’t completely cure so it really only has the one eye, which typically allows everything else an easy escape. I guess it got a little too aggressive towards the other jack and The other jack tried to escape into a very tight overflow. I did not notice it for about 24 hours due to heavy plants, the fish was weak with half the tail fin gone and a large gash on its side. Moved her to a 40 breeder grow out tank with about 15 juvi jacks. For the first 5 days Daily I’d do a 50% water change around 8 am and dose myracyn and salt to bring tds to 300 from a stable water source at 125. In the evening I’d do a 35% water change with just adding salt to bring tds back to 300. All water changes were done with water at the same temp as the tank. these are the first photos I took, Cloudy fuzz initially formed on the wounds, it had just started to clear off: here is from the next day the fuzz is a little more clear in this picture: And 2 days after that, 6 days after the initial injury, most of the fuzz is gone, and the tail fin isn’t as ragged, can almost see new fin growing: over the next few days the tail fin is showing some good growth, and the top of the wound on the side is starting to heal. Here are some close ups from last Thursday: and here are some closeups I took yesterday: At this point I’ve stopped dosing the marycyn. Every other day I do a 35% water change, and I keep the tds around 250 using salt.

I like grasses and runner plants. The runner distance seems very consistent at about 3.75 inches or 95 mm. The Betta is doing well. She seems to have the colors of the individual LEDs from my Nano, plus green. The sponge filter is building a bubble nest for her. When I top-off water, I pour it over the terrestrial moss.

Having kept a single pea puffer in a 5 before I must warn you... They are attention hounds and will be at the glass distracting you constantly and making it hard to get any work done. So brace yourself for the cuteness!

Inkbird heater controller are about $35 and represent a fairly inexpensive insurance policy. On the Dirted tank project all the heaters are controlled with a Neptune Apex. And as @Ken Dyer recommends, all my heaters are under-sized.

Hey everyone! So happy I heard about this forum! Being in a small town like Laramie it’s hard to find other people in the hobby. This is going to be a great outlet further my knowledge and nerm out! Here are some of my fish and shrimp!

Maybe, fingers crossed. These two had been just dating, but as of last week I think they got married. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby discus in the big aquariage.

One of the cool thing about plants is they have this alternation of generations where one generation has 2 sets of chromosomes (diploid) that gives rise to next generation which only has one set of chromosomes (haploid - side note, did you know all male honey bees are haploid as they arise from unfertilized eggs?). In regular (vascular) plants the dominant/visible generation is the diploid generation with flowers and such. But in algae the dominant/visible form is the gametophyte phase. I see the gametophytes of Christmas ferns back in my woods in moist areas and these Christmas fern gametophytes look like a piece of spinach that might be caught between your teeth. These gametophytes produce sperm and eggs and ultimately give rise to the sporophyte Christmas ferns, which produce spores, which give rise to more gametophytes, etc. and hence the cycle of life. Umm, I thinking at this point a picture might help. What's cool about süßwassertang is that instead of looking like a fleck sized piece of spinach like most gametophytes, it gets huge! That is really cool and different.

This photo is from a couple of minutes ago. Sometimes I do a simultaneous duplicate test as a quality control check. While looking it at I noticed how different the colors appeared in the 2 sets of test tubes. But comparing them in real life I can tell us each set was exactly the same color. I think that is why putting them against a background of known color (the results card) is so helpful in getting consistent numbers.

Turns out my 4 mollies are not males after all. I knew my two black mollies were male due to their pointed gonopodia's. My two Dalmation mollies don't have pointed gonopodia's but appear to have more rounded anal fins. One is definitely bigger and rounder, so I had suspected she was a she, but has been in the tank for almost 4 months and no babies. I just noticed babies in the tank a tonight. They are very cute. I changed two things recently. First was giving my fish (4 mollies and 20 neon tetras) live baby brine shrimp once or twice a week. The second was putting some floating plants in the tank. The babies are hiding in the floating plants. I have not gotten a count yet, but there are more than seven. I crushed some flake food and they ate it, so that's good. I fired up the BBS maker so I can feed them tomorrow night. Since I had no plans to have babies, I will just let nature take it's course. If they make it and grow up, I will have to find homes for the little ones. Any advice would be appreciated. What an amazing day.

Hello from Southern Maryland. My name is Jesse I recently decided to get back into the hobby when a friend of mine was offloading his 55 gallon aquarium. So I setup that aquarium in my basement with the fish he had, since then I have made a new home for a pleco that was outgrowing a 20 gallon tank from someone I know. The pleco can be seen in the 55 gal aquarium in his jacuzzi. Now i have taken control over 2 other aquariums a 5 gal that my wife had, which houses a platinum beta. A 20 gallon aquarium that I have started that is a planted tank (I have a plant in the front of that tank that was a bulb that i cannot identify. Hopefully someone can identify for me.) The 20 gal has a few fish in it mainly a powder blue dwarf gourami. Looking forward to learning and sharing with everyone here. I have included a few tank pictures.

Nice to be a part of this community!

Greetings! I've been watching Cory's youtube videos for over a year now and running my 5 gallon for almost as long. Two weeks ago was the 1-Year mark for this five gallon. Looking back through some pictures it feels like I've been through a lot since then - mostly plants... The creatures have thankfully stayed the same - or have grown at least! We've got: - 7 white clouds - a mix of the bog-standard variety and a couple gold-ish ones - including one that is offspring of the original six - 1 sort of helpful amano shrimp named Tony-Tina (pre-schooler naming committee FTW!) - 1 very helpful nerite snail named Beatrice My main concern is plants! I've got through a fair number of diebacks - some with known causes - over enthusiastic pruning of taiwan moss; others remain a mystery - like the anubias I had that basically melted and died right away. A recent addition of some luwigia repens seemed to mark the start of a big die off of plants in the tank. The two images are about a month apart, with the sparser one from today. There had been lots of great java fern growth over time - hoping to get some of that back. I've got some plants on their way from Aquarium Coop as I type, as well as some root tabs. Hope some more consistent feeding will help in making a happier environment for the plants. Everyone else seems to be doing just fine. If you're really eagle-eyed, you can see all the denizens of the tank in the "cleaner" pic. Looking forward to being part of the community.

@Penny You're a natural artist! What kind of tanks are those? They look stunning. Thanks for sharing!

The differences in the nicrew lights are the types of leds in the light and the available sizes. The Nicrew classic only has white and blue leds and for your tank youd get the 18-24in The Nicrew classic plus has white blue red and green leds and comes in an 18-24in model The nicrew skyled has white and RGB ( red blue and green from a single emitter) leds and also comes in 18-24in The nicrew skyled plus has white blue and red leds but comes in a 24-30in model Personally I would go with the skyled plus if it was my tank and I was only looking at Nicrew because its the only one that comes in the larger size. with any of the other lights your tank is the largest it will fit which means the leds wont start untill about 4in from the edges of the tank vs about 1in with the skyled. Beamswork and hygger lights are also worth a look when shopping for budget lights. I inherited a nicrew classic with my 29 hex and switched it out for a hygger that came in a better size and get much better growth.

I work as a conservation biologist, This Fall my team has planted over 1000 trees and restored quite a lot of area around degraded riparian areas 🙂 Satisfying work, and then I spend that money on my own little ecosystems at home hehehe *binges ohko stones and bucephalandra* 👉👈

New sticker Tuesday.

The first light I bought for our 40 breeder was a Finnex Stingray 2. It's a decent light, but I would expect more for the money. After that, I started buying Hygger Lights and I love them. They are bright, they work great with my Leviton Timers and are very sturdy. I've had them slide off of the tanks a couple of times when I open or close the lid (my fault, not a fault of the lights) and they still continue to work. I can't justify spending money on the Fluval lights, so these are my go to lights now.

I have a fender steel string, its really old (its my Dads guitar that he played when he was growing up. But it still looks brand new). And then a Electric Guitar (squite strat). I play for my fish, they are my audience.

Thanks for the help guys been doing aquariums on and off for 7 years now depending on where i live and how often I'm not traveling for work. and I'm starting to realize I'm at the know enough to be dangerous stage not the know enough to keep things smooth stage. I did know to hold them to the test card and use bright light. I just seem to keep getting a .25 pp ammonia reading in my tank but my ammonia alert has no reaction but I've read the alert reads free ammonia and the test kit reads total. Is it normal to have a small reading of ammonia. tank seems to be cycled as no increase of ammonia or nitrite and is producing nitrate . doesn't seem to be overstocked did a 50% water change and my nitrates where only at 20 ppm a week later. I have also learned i need a spread sheet as memory not good enough for when things in tank start to go wrong. and i like you build there Dave, I'm going to have to build myself one. is there anything you would change?

@Karen B. One of my aquariums has a set of Nicrew water submersible rated lighting fixtures. They grow low to medium light plants well for me. I personally like them. The price point is reasonable & the suction cups never came off the glass, which is amazing in itself.

And in my case it directly led to a 55 gallon in the living room full of plants and pea puffers. Those little buggers are cure I tell ya! 😉

I completed my very first project running my own python program. My 4yr old son and I sometimes like to play Mario 64 together which uses this power meter for Mario. Power Meter Inspired by this I made a 'behavior' power meter for home use similar to how some schools use different visible signs to mark daily behavior. We'll see if it's effective, either way it was a good exercise for me lol. Ugly... but functioning, better ways to code it, probably but it was cheap using the Pi zero.

I agree, I stick sponge filters in all my tanks I like the bubbles, I like the sound so why not have that extra bit of filtration... I guess a lot of people just don’t like the look of one in their display tanks but like bubbles. Also I’m sure a bit of creativity could turn an bubbling tank ornament into some sort of sponge filter 😜

When I put the new heater in my fish became less shy and they are eating more food. So I definitely think it was the heater and thermometer screwing me up

That is nightmare inducing! Just one more reason to heat the room and never trust an aquarium heater. Where I do have to run them I always run under-sized and multiples just assuming one or more is going to fail on me. Multiple for when no longer produces heat, under sized so if it "sticks on" it can't cook my fish (have had both of these failure modes over the years).

As per @Coronal Mass Ejection Carl's suggestion the dissolved oxygen sensor is placed in a heavily stocked 10 gallon aquarium: 20 zebra danios 4 adult swordtails 8 pygmy sunfish 1 pair Apistogramma nijsenni some unknown number of endlers As per @James Croney a Ziss airstone on USB nano pump with airstone is currently placed at bottom of the aquarium. If there are any other suggestions, tell me now before I start taking data.

@James Croney I will set it up with a USB nano pump and a Ziss never clog airstone and test both bottom and 1 inch from top and let you know what kind of numbers I get.

I think Bolivians are highly under rated. They are more hardy than GBRs and while they don't have as much surface area covered in color they are very colorful. Plus they have all the fun Cichlid behavior with few of the down sides.

They love infusoria (rotifers, paramecium and such). This is from a batch of baby sparkling gouramis from about 6 weeks ago. And I think this one was many days old by the time it got this big. At first they are microscopic slivers.

I have been lied to by thermometers too many times. They are on my 'trust but verify' list now.

So true! Without her patiently let me be me, but also simultaneously keeping me from going overboard...I shudder to think how it all might have worked out. Sometimes I feel like the luckiest person in the world.

The saving grace for me was before we married the wife and I sat down and discussed "play money" and bills. The rules for us are if you buy it with your play money then no harm no foul. The rules for fish tanks quickly became no more than 3 in the living room (though I had a 5 gallon flex in there for a year or two with a pea puffer at her request). I can run what I want downstairs as long as it stays in the fishroom, or I tear down/clean out the brine shrimp hatchery and python from the downstairs guest bath when we have guests staying with us. Finding the right partner who allows our craziness is key, but I also think one who puts up some guard rails and keeps us from going overboard is probably a good thing too 😉

Ask your LFS what they want the most that is within your breeding knowledge and capability. When I lived in the PNW I made my first $100 in two months from platies in a single 29 gallon. Now I live in the southwest and I'm lucky if I can get a few bucks credit for platies that looke even better than the ones I used to breed in Oregon. The market varies from state to state.... like a lot.

Mini-rainbow on my floor. Brought in by the changing path of the sun and the small aquarium near the window.

I do YouTube and freelance photography/video production work, mostly in the summer when I am out of school. I also had an Etsy shop for a while, making keychains and wooden peg dolls. It did quite well for a summer, actually, but once school started I just no longer had the time...honestly it was more of hobby, but the money I did make went to my fish tanks, so I guess it counts 😂

I removed a bunch of excess cap sand and gravel, about two gallons worth, from my oldest tank, which has changed with my learning level. Pardon the reflections from other tanks.

The updated and now planted 40B. Plants have a ton of growing in to do and may add some dwarf sag up front.

A case of the Mondays?

Seems my webcam is worse, I am absolutely terrible at taking pics. It's something that infuriates me actually The 20g inhabitants are in the 29g until the new 55g is ready. The Dwarf Mexican Crayfish has not been happy with having to share her giant tank, she's been chasing animals quadtriple her size away from her caves (Yes, she claimed all 5 of them). The swordtails often stick their heads in there only to be chased away by an angry, tiny ball of fiery rage. I've swapped places for the 20g long and one of my 10 gallons. The 20g long now has black sand in it which has to be the most gorgeous substrate I've ever seen. You'll probably note I have way too much gravel in the new 55g and trust me, I agree. I'm removing about half of it. I always overestimate how much I need, it's a curse. Last night, I moved my 2 adult platys and their 13 juveniles up to the 55g on the right. The fish in the 55g have been used to me feeding them newly born platy fry every few months and immediately assumed these smaller platys were small enough to eat. About 60 seconds later, all of them realized they are too large and stopped chasing them around. HOWEVER, the Red Tail Shark continued harassing them, specifically the orange-red colored ones. I eventually had to take him out and he's in the 10g on the right for now (3 inch juvenile, he's fine), I'm not quite sure how I'm going to go forward with him but I'll figure something out. Now that my smaller tanks are finally clear of inhabitants that I didn't plan on putting in there (Exception of the red tail shark), I can actually start filling my fish room with FISH. Every tank is incredibly understocked, at least by my own standards.

It wouldn’t be a big issue but it will give less space for roots. I personally like to use mesh bags of crushed or small lava rock. Gives more space for beneficial bacteria, roots can penetrate, and gives cheap height. You can get it very cheaply at landscaping or home improvement stores in the garden section.

I love them long fin cherry barbs, I had got some last year from a local breeder at a convention, and had wanted to put them outside this past summer. I set the tub up, and put them outside, not sure what happened, but all I had left when I cleaned tub out for winter was one female. I hopefully can get some more one day and I'll try breeding them in my basement fish room

I run tanks totally differently, but I have dealt with hair algae. I get it from excess nutrients, light, and flow, with an emphasis on the flow. When I was running an Eheim canister with a spraybar, I grew luscious manes of hair algae.

The other night when I was boiling cholla wood my husband said, “Your hobbies are so gross. But I love you anyway.” That is true love! I just keep reminding him that at least it’s not shoes or celebrity gossip. There are much worse alternatives than listening to me talking about fish all day.

Hrm.... I mean with the dollar a gallon sale going it can't hurt to mock something up right?