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The two clubs I belong to Cichlid Club of York and Aquarium Club of Lancaster County host the Keystone Clash so that makes it all the more fun. If you got to attend share your fun please! I went with @Elodie Rose 🤗 @tolstoy21 brought me a stunning trio of Apistogramma Trifasciata. Amazingly healthy and well conditioned. Packed expertly in the box! Thank you 🙏 Some great folks were there. I started bagging everything right after my shower at 4AM 😲 Long day. BE KIND It was a hectic morning and I did not realize I never even brushed my hair after my shower 🤣 Father fish was there. Super nice guy! He bought some of my grindal worms off Jen at Smallworld Aquatics who I wholesale all my critters to. Jason from Prime Time Aquatics was there. One of the nicest people I ever met. Very down to earth. Dan from Dans fish was there. We talked about pricing and shipping some of my critters wholesale to him. @Elodie Rose got to chat with him about some fish she had previously purchased from him. Outstanding guy. Really lives up to his reputation of promoting small hobbyists. Got to say hi to @Bentley Pascoe Super nice as always So many great YouTube folks and awesome vendors! @Odd Duck I thought of you the entire time I shopped Jens massive selection of stunning moss. Picked up a few plants from Silvermoon Aquatics Some interesting wood from Jesse at Just One More Fish m. A few other plants from some vendors I did not know I took a bunch of photos of the aquascaping competition. Very interesting ideas. There was also I stand with fantastic terrarium stuff with water falls. For some reason I can’t upload those photos. I’ll work on it.

I might as well redo my entire fish room as try to count these! I’ll be back next year, going to be busy for a while! 🤪

Hey everyone! The hate for the ziss brine shrimp hatchery stand is pretty universal, so I decided to design this 3d printable stand that I designed. Makes it way easier to turn the nozzle, it lifts the hatchery itself up a bit more, and it has a drip tray that you can print so you don't get your table dirty. If you're interested in printing this yourself, here's the link to the files.

I’d say it depends on the LFS. The LFS that takes basically everything I breed most definitely QT’s their fish. I know because they’ve allowed me back there a couple of times to take a look. Even though they do their own quarantine, I still do mine on top of it. My other LFS, I have no clue. Their stock is healthy and they have other fun things the first mentioned LFS doesn’t, but I’ve never seen their QT space. It’s entirely possible they have it and I’ve just never seen it. My best advice is to build relationships with your LFS and ask questions. I went to LFS #2 this past week to walk the floor and pick up a filter, and as soon as I came in the manager asked me, “where’s the boss today?” Normally my girlfriend is with me, but this time she wasn’t, and this let me know that not only do they recognize me, but they recognize my significant other as well. Get to know them, let them know you, and it typically works better for everyone.

I have a huge closet off my dining room-it’s mostly full of aquarium stuff…..I don’t know where I would put it otherwise🙄

Hi! Summer is coming to a close, so I am back! things get insanely busy here in the summer, between animals, kids, and vacations. All of my tanks are doing wonderfully! I have hundreds of shrimp! I have just been doing general maintenance, except, I have fallen in love with a surprise fish I got. Somehow a Gardneri Killi Fish in one of my tanks! It just showed up one day, so an egg must've been a hitch hiker? I love him. He's gorgeous. That's my aquaponics tank, which I have up and running, but have not planted yet! My Otos and Pandas are still my favorite babies. I have them all and they are all doing so well! I have not had any deaths all summer! I did remove most of the endlers from my tanks. They were not sparking joy, so I am thinking about what I want and if I want to expand to more than 3 tanks. I think it's important to be intentional and ethical with my fish instead of expanding too rapidly, and causing more death and suffering to fish than necessary. I am not interested in becoming over extended. I also am more and more interested in vegetation. I took a Sub Aquatic Vegetation Course this summer! And I want to try and incorporate as much native vegetation as possible. I have been talking to a local who got me back into thinking about my tanks, which makes me happy. They are my winter time blues hobby, turns out. I've been so busy investing my time into Native Plant rewilding and gardening, which just makes me so happy. I'm hoping to learn how to turn most of my tanks into aquaponic tanks so I can work on generating seedlings to add to my gardens! I am the official librarian of a chapter of Wild Ones in my area, and I am an active member of the Natural History Society (Lepidoptera and Herpetology Club member!) I've also spent the summer doing some really strong growth, personally. Therapy, personal development retreats, and trauma informed therapy. My therapist is wonderful, and has been helping move away from negative patterns (and people) in my life, and setting healthy boundaries. It's been transformative. My family is stronger and healthier than it has ever been, and I have been living that sober life. I'm also working on being open about my eating disorder, and am working with a nutritionist. I've dropped forty pounds, and I am dealing with my chronic pain in a more manageable way! Healing the land and myself. I'm hoping to get get to my local fish store this week to get Otos and Pandas for my 10 gallon, and to add to my Panda colony for genetic diversity. We did have some egg laying but they got eaten before I could get to them. I've got to work on vegetation. My Java moss and guppy grass seem to be doing well, and my pearlweed is *finally* growing strong. But I want my tanks to be packed with good strong vegetation that thrives. I hope to hear from everyone! I absolutely missed everyone, and am looking forward to the fall-winter rhythm as it comes.

1 point for each aquarium you currently have running. 4 1/2 point for each aquarium that you have empty "just in case". 2 1 point for every 40 gallons of water currently in your tanks. 4 1 point for each variety of prepared food you regularly feed. 1 2 points for each variety of frozen food your regularly feed. 1 3 points for each variety of live food you regularly feed. 2 points for each variety of water you regularly use in your aquariums/fish room that require some kind of preparation other than dechlorination (e.g., RODI, brackish, salt, hard water for African cichlids) 2 (assuming we count nutrient combos specific to one tank.) 1 point for each tank with CO2 1 additional point for each tank where CO2 is regulated (i.e., not yeast-based or chemical generator) 1 point for each species of fish you have raised to maturity. purchase to maturity, or birth to maturity? 1 point for each "grow out tank" you keep 1 point for each species-only tank you keep. 3 1 point for each 100 comments posted on this Aquarium Coop Forum. 16.3 as of this posting 1 point for each cycled filter you have on hand, just in case. 1 point for each aquarium you have built yourself. 1 point for each aquarium stand you have built. 1 5 points if you have a multi-tank auto-water change system. 5 points if you have a air supply "loop" for many tanks. 10 points if you have structurally modified your home to accommodate your fish tanks. 10 points if you been collecting in the wild. 1 point for each city you've been to and visited the LFS as a tourist activity. 1 point for each $100 you've sold of fish in the last year. 2 points if you regularly attend a fish club auction. Award yourself one point for taking this quiz. 1 35.3 Sugest: 1 point for each complete piece of backup equipment you have on hand, ie: spare filter,air pump,heater etc. If I had some place to put the aquarium junk, the dining room table and chairs would be gone.

You have 27 tanks?! Gives me something to shoot for 🙂. Since my hubby passed a few years ago, I rarely use the living room for anything other than my aquarium and some plants. Might be time to get rid of that couch and make some room-I have lots of ideas!!!

I’m a regular at my fish store. I got to know the clerks. Fish stores place orders every week. They try to guess at what will sell best. Most small fish shops I have dealt with all you need to do is ask. They will order anything you want that is available for them to order. It’s a guaranteed sale for them. My shop has tanks in back they hold all ordered in fish until the day that week the customer can pick them up. Some stores have a minimum number of each type they must order. So you may get a “yes but we need to order 6 and we are not certain we can sell them. So if you order you must take 6” some shops ask for prepayment. Often just because they order it from what’s available on the weekly order sheet it may not always come in if the wholesaler sold out to a larger store first. (the wholesale list they order from changes weekly) Ive gotten to know my fish store manager well. He emails the wholesale list to several Good customers. It’s a good faith gesture and agreed in advance we will pay his standard retail mark up and not expect to pay his wholesale price. Most shops will not allow you to see their order list but will look if your request is on the sheet. They usually get the list a day or so before their day to place their order. Ask them what day they order and what day they usually get their order sheet. This allows you to call that day with your special order and see if it’s available. The asking for special orders is a win win. They are getting a guaranteed sale and building a loyal customer base and you get the opportunity to access a greater variety of fish. They also take the hit if there are any doa instead of you.

Congrats! _wait_ When you feed, feed tiny amounts multiple times a day. Imagine how small their stomachs are. You do _NOT_ want to overfeed.

I worked at a local fish store and our salt water orders came in on Fridays, freshwater on Tuesdays, give or take a day depending on how the airport processed the live animal shipments that week, and how large the order was. Most of the good (when I say "good," just assume I mean healthy, large, colorful) salt water stock was gone by the end of the weekend, save for a few high-dollar fish and corals. Clowns were thoroughly picked over after just 2 days in the tanks. Freshwater was hit-or-miss depending on what was currently in fashion. For some reason popularity for freshwater stock was extremely variable and sometimes we totally missed the mark on our orders. If you get lucky, a high quality specimen that you really want will stick around for a whole week, but we usually tried to avoid keeping fish for longer than a week unless it was a staple we ordered super regularly, like neons. If you're regularly coming in on Sundays, you are probably not getting the best options. If Sundays are your only available day to shop for fish, you may want to switch to ordering certain specific species online. Staples like otocinclus, neons, barbs, most small schooling fish that get ordered in bulk aren't fish that we pick through individually, so those will be a mixed bag on any day. I actually disagree with @HelplessNewbie on fish lasting longer in the store being healthier. Often times these fish are more exposed to disease, and fish stores aren't exactly low-stress environments. There's nets being dipped in their tanks almost daily, sometimes they aren't fed appropriately (depending on the store), and the only store I have ever been in that properly quarantines/medicates has been Aquarium Co-Op. Quarantining fish is an extreme rarity, most stores can't afford to. Because of the amount of stress that fish are usually under in most fish stores, it's not great for their immune system and they are just as likely, if not more likely to get sick, as fish purchased the day they came in. I would recommend chatting with your store staff and finding out exactly what days they get orders, to see if you can plan around those days. Most store staff will be happy to tell you, a lot will put new order arrivals on social media. It's kind of fun to have a nice big variety to choose from, anyway.

Tank progression photos... ~June 17, 2023: ~June 20, 2023: June 27, 2023: Week 4:Sep 23, 2023: Oct 6, 2023: cycle crash Nov 14, 2023: still recovering from cycle crash and loss of plants Nov 26, 2023 Mar 3, 2024: red tiger lotus is new, and some plants moved around or out; lots of hornwort floated and light intensity reduced to lessen black brush and thread algae growth May 2, 2024 June 24, 2024 Aug 5, 2024

@nabokovfan87 Thank you for the thoughts and the sentiment. @Fish Folk does have some very nice Elassoma and I am happy to see another have excellent success with them. Fortunately, in a few weeks I will have another opportunity to return to my collecting point for my E. gilberti and maybe find the E. okefenokee that have eluded me. I will certainly post about this next collecting adventure when it happens!

Thank you! We went through some hard things, lost my dog, she was 14. Lost a friend or two who aren't on this journey with us. But overall, it has been one of the best summers of my life. We had some great growth!

Sounds like you've had a WONDERFUL transformative summer all around! Fantastic! Very inspirational!

I know I'm not going to win, only 76 for me and I didn't look at my post numbers

Enjoying my fishroom so much more, or should I say appreciate. (both 😃) Having time to stare at my tanks is so relaxing. Water changes and reg maintenance has become enjoyable again. Been working on organizing and was able to get some cabinet doors that were free due to a change of mind by the customer. Still need to paint them but that’s for another day. cab on right is storage for buckets, filter equipment, heaters, air supplies, meds, and more then on left is more storage, tools, food, and at bottom is my water changing set up. I have a small pump that gets water from my siphon bucket to another bucket in the cabinet. Then a large pump takes it through the wall to my sump pump in next room. Always evolving, such a wonderful aspect of this hobby. And always Atitagain

wow that’s beautiful!

53.5 for me without the post count. Funny to think would’ve been well over 100 a year ago. Fun quiz! im definitely a nerm and proud of it 😎

If you feed until fish are no longer interested in eating they are getting more than they need. Fish will pretty much always overeat if given the chance. Cut back by at least 25% or more. In the mean time, you can spot treat with hydrogen peroxide, 3%. Use no more than 3 mls per gallon absolute max and I use less than that, usually. DON’T GUESS, you MUST measure since this can kill your shrimp, fish, snails, and your biomedia! Turn off any pumps or filters until the water is still. Trickle the peroxide over the highest areas of algae you want to treat. It will flow down over lower areas. Try not to flow it over any livestock. Wait about 10 minutes, then restart filters / pumps. You can treat daily if you want (I usually do weekly when having difficult spots), re-treating the worst areas if you don’t see the algae turning grey, white, or pink. Hair algae isn’t usually very tough to treat, but it’s persistent in the water and will restart if you don’t control the overfeeding. More plants can also help outcompete the algae. The wood can be treated as many times as you need to until it clears. If you can remove plants or hardscape, you can soak them in seltzer water in the dark for 12 hours and kill nearly any algae. Follow this link to some very thorough information on how to do this and information on plants that may be more sensitive to treatment. More sensitive plants can still be treated but might need multiple, shorter treatments. The pinnatifida has been a bit sensitive for me (several red plants appear to be more sensitive in general).

🥳 Just bagged all the frogs for the Clash. Grand total of 28 frogs 🥰

Yep, just like the 1/2 or 10 mm sockets that always get lost. 😝

Thank you all for the great ideas! I choose Haverhill Aquarium Society soon to be HAS. I’ll let the kids come up with the funky nicknames for our group. Thank you all again! Tedrock

Hello . After reducing my bio load by 7 fish in my ten G , and pulling out some plants leaving very few . And 50% water change every 7 days . My nitrates are reading near 0 . I am pleased as with testing I have extended my water changes to about every 10 days . Could have kept going but decided to do a 50 anyway . I got a cat. and it took up all spare pet money , now I can move ahead with my whole tank redo .

Just thought I’d share how I've been raising my Zebra danio and whitecloud mix of fry, so I quarantined my 10 danio and 10 whiteclouds when i brought them home from the store for multiple weeks treating with my own version of the med trio available in the UK. About 3 days after i removed them from quarantine and into my display tank the quarantine tank was bursting with tiiiny fry stuck all around the tank glass now this tank is in my bedroom and i dont really fancy having an infusoria culture on the go due the smells that come along with it. So i used about 1 gallon of the “pea soup” green water from my outside whiskey barrel pond and just water changed it in every other day, i did this for about 2 weeks and the fry are doing amazing and are now onto first bites and brine shrimp. just thought i would share this as I haven't seen many people talking about this suuper easy way of raising up those fry who are too small to feed. let me know what you guys think as I’ve only done this once so im not sure how repeatable it is but it seems almost too easy compared to culturing all sorts of different live foods.

@Guppysnail is the worm queen😝🤪. You can check her journal and see how worms work for her. Healthy fish with lots of breeding action. I also love vinegar eels. Super easy to culture. Just harvesting takes long but you dont have to do anything really. It is just them swimming up to freshwater part takes around 8 hours or so. But basically you dont need to do anything other than setting them up for harvesting which takes like 10 seconds to do so. Not sure if your fish would show interest towards them tho as they are tiny. I love live bbs too. Easy to culture again and fish go crazy None of these actually require work to do and will barely take a couple minutes to do in my experience.

First, congratulations on the new family member! It's a tragic story and very unfortunate about your losses that you encountered, especially with your NANFs. @Fish Folk just brought in some Elassoma from the outdoor tub and we've been admiring them. Perhaps that's a future resource for you to recover some of those when you are ready for them. I think there's probably a ton of us here so interested and enjoying discovering a lot of these Elassoma and other beautiful native fish! The project seems exciting, hoping for the best for you in the journey to recover everything back to prime condition.

Woaaaa. That thing is pretty cool.

Looks like a caddis fly larva. I think there’s a couple species that have terrestrial larvae, but most have aquatic larvae. And they collect the sticks or whatever debris is handy to where they live and stick them to a sort of cocoon they build around themselves.

L Good to hear he's made a full recovery

Grindle worms all day long. Little moist potting soil. Microwave fry dog kibble then soak in water toss a collecting plate on top and that’s it. Totally room temp and appropriate size for Elassoma. These are my cultures. A detail instruction took place that’s why I’m linking it for you.

You will love the tubing-it’s so much better than the others I tried in the past. It stays soft and pliable-some of the other black tubing I have gets stiff and brittle.

i dont think it matters. if its approved for medical use, its pretty safe.

1 point for each aquarium you currently have running. 15 1/2 point for each aquarium that you have empty "just in case". 3 1 point for every 40 gallons of water currently in your tanks. 6 1 point for each variety of prepared food you regularly feed. 14 2 points for each variety of frozen food your regularly feed. 8 3 points for each variety of live food you regularly feed. 18 2 points for each variety of water you regularly use in your aquariums/fish room that require some kind of preparation other than dechlorination (e.g., RODI, brackish, salt, hard water for African cichlids) 4 1 point for each tank with CO2 0 1 additional point for each tank where CO2 is regulated (i.e., not yeast-based or chemical generator) 0 1 point for each species of fish you have raised to maturity. I’m only going to count the last 5 years that I intentionally been breeding. I’ve had to many unintentionally and those were without my help or even paying attention so should not count. 18 1 point for each "grow out tank" you keep 7 1 point for each species-only tank you keep. 7 1 point for each 100 comments posted on this Aquarium Coop Forum. 😲 105 1 point for each cycled filter you have on hand, just in case. I’m guessing this mean how many filter I could and often do move about without disruption of the main filter in each tank. 33 1 point for each aquarium you have built yourself. 0 1 point for each aquarium stand you have built. 0 5 points if you have a multi-tank auto-water change system. 0 unless my pump system counts 🤣 5 points if you have a air supply "loop" for many tanks. O 10 points if you have structurally modified your home to accommodate your fish tanks. 0 10 points if you been collecting in the wild. 10 1 point for each city you've been to and visited the LFS as a tourist activity. I’m going to count only the ones I’ve been to more than once and can remember. 26 I traveled for a living and visited in each city. I doubt I even remember them all. 1 point for each $100 you've sold of fish in the last year. Little personal as I sell a good bit. But I talk enough to make up for the points not shown here 🤣 2 points if you regularly attend a fish club auction. 2. I go to 2 a month 🤣 Award yourself one point for taking this quiz.1 277 I talk way to much 🤣

Sorry to hear about your husband. My condolences. Glad you’ve found a hobby to keep you busy. Most of my tanks are small - I have 10 x 10 G, 4 x 5 G, 2 x 20 G, (1 high, 1 long), 2 x 6 G, 1 x 2 G, 1 x 3 G, 1 x 29 G, 1 x 14 G, 1 x 75 G, 2 x 100 G, and 1 outdoor tub that’s around 50-ish G (round and tapered sides, hard to calculate exactly), plus 2 jugs that total about 3 G. Dang, I just recounted and it’s 28. 😆 🤦🏻‍♀️ 🤷🏻‍♀️ I often forget to count the outside tub. I don’t have fish in every tank (some are live food culture only), no fish in outside tub this year (it gets too hot). Some shift between growouts, quarantine, might be species only one month, then mixed next month. The 10’s shift the most.

1 point for each aquarium you currently have running. 28 1/2 point for each aquarium that you have empty "just in case". About to get 11 this Saturday, but one is a plan for the future, some replacements for aging tanks with a few to be held for “just in case”. 5.5 1 point for every 40 gallons of water currently in your tanks. 13 1 point for each variety of prepared food you regularly feed. 24 (I know, excessive, some are getting dropped once the current pack is gone but I got some freebies at Aquashella.) 2 points for each variety of frozen food your regularly feed. 10 (mostly because I freeze my Repashy.) 3 points for each variety of live food you regularly feed. 27 2 points for each variety of water you regularly use in your aquariums/fish room that require some kind of preparation other than dechlorination (e.g., RODI, brackish, salt, hard water for African cichlids) 6 1 point for each tank with CO2. Zero 1 additional point for each tank where CO2 is regulated (i.e., not yeast-based or chemical generator) zero 1 point for each species of fish you have raised to maturity. (By this you mean bred and raised to maturity, or just bred and sold fry, or got when young and raised to adults?). Successfully bred - I can’t even remember all of them over the years but I’ve bred more species deliberately more recently than in the past. Around 15-ish, most recently, only a few others in the past. 1 point for each "grow out tank" you keep 12 1 point for each species-only tank you keep. 11 1 point for each 100 comments posted on this Aquarium Coop Forum. 48 1 point for each cycled filter you have on hand, just in case. Does it count that I have mature sponge filters as “back up” in nearly every single tank? Only a couple tanks have primary sponges as sole filters, most have HOB’S double standard size for the tanks, some have matten substrate over UGF’s plus a backup ACO sponge. Plus I have a tank that has matten, an HOB plus 2 sponges running. 🤷🏻‍♀️ So I guess that makes it about 19 extra sponges ready to transfer at any moment. 1 point for each aquarium you have built yourself. Zero 1 point for each aquarium stand you have built. 3 5 points if you have a multi-tank auto-water change system. Not yet, but soon, so zero. 5 points if you have a air supply "loop" for many tanks. Not yet, but soon, so zero. 10 points if you have structurally modified your home to accommodate your fish tanks. 10 10 points if you been collecting in the wild. 10 if you count plants. 1 point for each city you've been to and visited the LFS as a tourist activity. 12 Award yourself one point for taking this quiz. 1 Grand total of 254.5 I think I have a problem.

If you have an appreciation for the aquarium hobby and keep an aquatic critter …you are a nerm. I think this is more about how insanely over the top are we 🤣

Go for emerse. Or fast growing, relatively tough, might last a while. The swords on the left side got fairly recently mowed down. The potted sword on the right side that’s not the one in the corner got fairly recently pulled up. It was well rooted for a bit over a year. The lucky bamboo would likely do fine, even against tinfoil barbs and full grown silver dollars. I’ve got them planted in a pot with large pebbles securing the bases and sink caddies securing the tops. But any other plants will likely end up goners. I’ll probably have to give up the swords in this tank at some point. I’ve already given up on the Crinums doing well. I just need to pull them (it) out. The Vallisneria didn’t even survive the Jack Dempseys to make it long enough to test against the silver dollars. The first pic was early this week. Second pic a couple weeks after switching to planted from plastic.

I would only use a 5 gallon tank as a shrimp or snail tank 10 gallons is the minimum i would do if you want to add fish

Black Diamond Blasting Sand (BDBS). You can get a big bag for cheap. Rinse it well. I think there are 2 sizes, medium and fine. I've had it in my tank for over a year. Plants are growing fine and I have snails that bury in it but I can't speak for the fish you mentioned. It is a substrate to do research on as many people have used it for years in multiple tanks with a variety of fish and have had no issues. But others have had problems.

You are probably inhibiting that eco system from growing too by gravel vacuuming. A planted tank needs that mulm in the substrate, deep vacuuming helps to create the sterile environment of a basic 'fish tank' where the aim is to stop growth of plant matter (algae)

The photo helps alot. I think you need lots more plants. Maybe fill in the back panel with swords and val or dwarf sag. Try to get it to where you can't see the wall through your tank. Of course it takes time to grow the plants, so in the meantime you need to do more water changes.

My wife has a chile rasbora tank that she loves but it's a 10. I would think they could do a 5. She always goes for contrast in tanks so she could go with a shrimp color that contrasts with the fish, so chile rasboras are red so she would do blue, yellow, or green shrimp. I don't know if this helps but it is a pretty cool fish

Pool filter sand $20 for a 50lb bag

Yeah, I tossed them in the tank and they ignored them. They were only interested if I crushed the first. I understand your concern about a puffer overeating and causing itself issues, but there really isn’t a guarantee either way. You could do as I did and keep the puffer in a separate tank and just “farm” the snails as needed.

That's actually not a huge difference, they will be fine. Shrimp are more sensitive to poor water quality than they are a change in pH of 0.4. Plop and drop, they will probably molt and hide for a few days, but they will be okay. Neocaridina are pretty hardy.

Wondershell only adds GH. Crushed coral increases pH and KH. Crushed coral only adds a little bit calcium I think. It mainly replenishes the buffer system in the water to prevent pH crashes. I’d say if you want calcium wondershell is a better choice. If you haven’t been experiencing any pH stability issues your KH should be fine. Mine hovers around 5-6 and I don’t have any issues. If it’s below 3 you may want to add coral as well