Leaderboard

are you supposed to do that? never knew until now lol. I have learned my lesson about being careless with heaters though. once I took a fully heated plugged in heater out of the water and only noticed when it started smoking. so in a panic I unplugged it and put it outside. in the morning i came back and the plastic was a bit melted. (I still use it now, I guess thats something I shouldent do haha.)

I clean the outside of my tank with Windex, have never washed out the gravel syphon, I boil rocks, and am still waiting for a first person account of making one explode! I don't turn off pumps or heaters when doing water changes. I only feed once a day, don't quarantine, or have a pharmacy on standby. In the past, I have kept a common pleco and 3 Red Tailed Tinfoil Barbs in the same 29 gallon tank. They lived long healthy lives and new fish did not grow as large when placed in the 75. I'm a terrible person.

I had a reject tank in college full of all sorts of compatibility issues, but never had a single issue. Most were adoptees from work. Tank mates: 8” goldfish, 5 gold gourami, 6” gold chinese algae eater, 2 bluespot sunfish, a full grown male convict cichlid, and finally a full grown golden bristlenose pleco. All shared a 55 long. Oh and for a time a male bullfrog tadpole! I think another thing im not supposed to do but do anyway is feed my fish insects that make their way in my house. They love bottle flies. Just no bugs I know to be toxic or not pleasant to eat. I get a lot of shield bugs and june bugs. I must have very old pine trees around me.

Both of my 5.5 gallon tanks, and the four tubs outside, have a good amount of live plants, but no mechanical filtration or water movement. When I add rocks or wood to my tanks, that I've collected, I rinse it and put it straight into the tank. No boiling, no Clorox, no nothing. I usually pick up leaves and drop them straight into the tanks without rinsing. I can't remember the last time I vacuumed the substrate in any of my tanks.

"Shouldn't do" is probably going to be debatable on some of these... but I'll play. Here's a few... I allow a massive colony of Malaysian Trumpet snails to infest my Discus Tank. I just allow Duckweed to grow everywhere. If it gets too thick, I net it off with an aquascaping skimmer net. I occasionally feed my fish small earthworms from under outside rocks and wood.

Stuffed as full as we can get on live bbs. Yet we still feel the need to eat a grindle worm as big as we are 🤪

My big bristlenose boys have evidently been scuffling quite a bit the last few days. They stirred up some silt by digging down to the deep clay layer and are now repeatedly stirring it up so my 100 G nanofish tank is a complete mess. I’ve got floss added to the filters but it’s going to take a while and I may need to do the floss denser. 🤦🏻‍♀️ But I think I know why they’re scuffling. Both of my beautiful long fine blue-eyed lemon females (thank you @Guppysnail) are hanging out around one boy - see the one in the back on top of the cave?. I don’t blame the other boy for being jealous! I’m not sure why the middle cave is suddenly the hot prospect for a new home. It was previously the left end cave that was the “IN” house. There are 4 caves scattered across the entire 5’ of tank. Why they’ve all decided on this one I don’t know. There must be something about how the water current hits the opening of the cave or something. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I’ll fiddle with and tilt the others a little differently later this week and see what happens. The big boys have gotten the whole tank stirred up, plus the cories have been breeding like mad - at least the bronzes. I haven’t seen the trilineatus breeding but they are far more subtle about it just shimmying along the plant leaves vs. massive zoomies all over the tank like the show off bronzes. 😆 The tank is so stirred up the clown pleco came out! I haven’t seen his tummy since he was released into this tank out of quarantine almost 2.5 years ago! Look at this big fat belly!!! Considering I NEVER see him eat, only occasionally see him latched onto wood in one of his hideaways, this belly is quite impressive. Must be kind of like a panda eating only bamboo or other herbivores that need that big belly to ferment their cellulose diet. I was so shocked it took me a minute to realize who it was. I actually thought for a second, looking from across the room, “That can’t be an oto that big, can it?” Then, “That’s not a cory hanging out like that, is it?” “Wait, that’s my clown pleco!” Grabbed my phone and got the pic. 😆 It was so confusing to my poor old brain! 😆 😂 🤣 He’s really not much bigger than my biggest female bronze cory and they’ve been zipping around and acting up so much in the last 2-3 days that I actually thought it was a cory for a few seconds!

LOL, dying to know how you know they are not pleasant to eat. 🙂

I like this list. Just goes to show there are many ways to do things. There's no right or wrong.

Cleaning new tanks or reused tanks with Dawn dishsoap. I've not had an issue, just make sure it's really well rinsed Boiling rocks. If gradually heated and gradually cooled, it shouldn't be an issue. I've never had one. Rinsing intake sponges in tap water. I probably do loads of other things I'm not "supposed" to do, but can't think of them off the top of my head at the moment.

you forgot the 3rd option. Hatching the eggs and snacking on babies afterwards... yes,,, I'm looking at you german blue rams...

Suck to start the siphon! Not cleaning siphons! (Water is just going out, not in, so… idc) Also water changes used to be weekly, but now I just read the water tests weekly and change it if a parameter is not in range. Overfeed. 🥲 Who else is guilty of this? Fess up! 😭💔 Keeping shrimp in tap water (But like, LFS said they were tap water raised, so it’s fine I guess. The shrimps seem happy; have built up a nice colony) Not clean the filter mechanisms. Unless it sounds funny. Siphon into the sand. Some say don’t disturb it because of the anerobic bacteria. But things looks better overall when I siphon it. I don’t completely clean things I take out of a tank. Quick rinse in tap water. That’s it. (Unless it’s coming from a quarantine tank, then full disinfect) Use garlic and higher temp to cure ich.

I never turn off my heater when putting my hands in any of my tanks, neither when I take the water out and the heater is not submerged fully.

"Not have snails" is pretty much the big one for me and it's very debatable, but I think a lot of other people would point to issues I run into (BBA) and just say "add snails". One of the previously big ones was have a RTBS in a smaller tank for an extended period as well as using a 10G to hold fish while I didn't have any other choice. All fixed now, but it is absolutely something that weighed very heavily on me. Running a heavily modded filter, based on another filter design. It "works", and it's temporary, but it's also something I really shouldn't be doing. Run a light that's 6" too long for a tank just because I need it to have more power. There's always a risk of hitting it when I walk in/out of the room. I have since fixed it, but this was running for a few weeks and it'll be up/running again, eventually. Running way, way too much air then necessary. At some points it can seem like a jacuzzi, but I have had a lot of issues getting pumps to be "the right size" for my needs. Not dripping water in for shrimp. Some do, some don't. If you can, drip.

I thought it would be interesting to start a topic of things that you are "not supposed" to do, but that you've been doing for years and have never had an issue with it. I'll start. I've been cleaning my aquarium top with dual action clorox wipes for years to scrub off all of the aglee, scale, and other nasties on both sides of the glass. I just make sure it's good and dry before I put it back on. When I'm cleaning the top, I'm also doing a water change, so declorinator goes in, I've never measured any chlorine afterwards, and my fish have always done just fine. 2nd one, large rocks or ceramic decorations or anything that is too big to clean well by boiling before using.... clorox anywhere spray.. which is now a home made version since you can't find it pre-made anymore. For my Texas Holey Stone, and some other large decorations, I've prepped them for use in the aquarium by scrubbing them with a brush and the garden hose, then letting them dry before I sprayed them down with clorox anywhere spray, let it sit a while to kill anything off it could. Then hosed it down again with the garden hose to rinse off the left over spray. Put it in the aquarium, used declorinator the same way I do for water changes, and have never had any measurable chlorine and all of the fish have been fine.

Not too sure on the top fish, but the second photo is a ripsaw catfish also known as a Niger cat, and the last appears to be a six banded distichodus. Beautiful fish, be very careful when having your hand/arm near the ripsaw. Their sides will slice you open and they get laaaaarge, approx 36”-39”.

Loot haul from Crayfish Empire. They always throw in some freebies (in addition to the free samples I request). Love this small business. 🥰 I figured I would place an order for some shrimp and snail foods since I’m almost out of Repashy. Going to try out their shrimp stick, and my shrimps really love these calcium chips. They also sent a sample of Snello pellets - I didn’t know that was a thing. I’m sure the snails will enjoy those. ❤️ 🐌 🦐 Crayfish Empire’s mission is to prevent calcium deficiency in invertebrates.

Every plant no matter what plant pests 3 hours algae 9.

Well if it fails or the water level goes lower or anything happens it will electrocute you. So it would be safer if unplugged 🙂 i just never do as it is too hard and i always have wet hands. Also i plug stuff in with wet hands :)) i Wish to be electrocuted i think :))

It depends on how low the water level will be, and how the heater is positioned in the tank.

I've washed my large one exactly once. The discharge hose was full of mildew, but after I used it to drain a tank that I'd set outside, filled 3/4 of the way with water, and then added bleach to kill the algae there was no more mildew.

pillow stuffing. I got a huge bag at a craft store for pretty cheap, and i use it for filtration, algae cleaning, and keeping plants moist when im working on a project and need to take a break. It clogs fast in filters so i dont use it in HOBs anymore, just box filters, but its cheap and versatile. Towels: (always have a towel) For cleaning up spills Disposable Plastic Table Cloth: I usually have one of these in front of my tank when im doing tank work as it keeps water from getting onto the floor and causing damage.

Thank you. The frustration with this tank is growing exponentially. The angels occupy the planted and partitioned 1/3rd of the 65 gallon tank, and liked their space well enought to breed again.. The two Silver Dollars occupy the rest. No partition = no plants. The water change level has varied widely, but this the first fish to have gotten sick while I have started recording test results in '21. I realize that test strip results are subjective. The real frustration is that If someone were to ask, I would say that my Nitrate levels average 39.7ppm. This includes the only upward spikes recorded. Girl talks fish, says 20-50ppm. is ok. I have been adding 3-5 pumps of EG weekly to try to get the PSO to grow. The Pothos is the only reasonably happy plant in this aquarium. The nitrates still read 50ppm or less sorry for the rant.😵 Anything that will stay behind the fish fence is possible. Pothos is there now, The PSO is trying to hold on, and I am thinking about reintroducing Hornwort. The SDs patrol the border to see if they can snag something.

This may be overkill but I've used this under my 120 for years. Gladiator 4 ft. Adjustable Height Birch Top Workbench GAWB04HWEG - The Home Depot The height adjustments are rated for 3000lbs, so no worries about shearing as @Biotope Biologist rightly pointed out. The "Gladiators" and "Huskey's" are so well built, you probably can go with a much smaller one than I used.

Housing neocaridinia’s with wakin goldfish, some in the 7”-8” range. It shouldn’t work but it definitely does for whatever reason.

Yes that is a possibility. Today there are a few infertile ones but they are peppered through what appears to be fertile. So dad at least got better at fertilizing this time. Last time there were whole patches not fertilized. He is guarding them well.

Danios day 2 of life… Caught my tetras flaring this morning, but the baby danios are occupying the breeding tank…so i can’t really complain. P.S. They’re impossible to catch!

Aw look at this handsome guy. Wait. What? OMG I THOUGHT THIS SHRIMP WAS KILLED! I have not seen it for 1-2 months?!?! I even took its friend out because I thought the friend was the lone wolf. I watched and there was a definite flare, then a Zooooooooom!! all the way across the tank by the shrimp. Geppetto did not even try to chase it. Well, at least I can add some hides for the shrimp again. Added back cholla and shrimp cave. There is already a mini lotus pod in the tank. Maybe I will add more shrimps later since this is ok w/ Geppetto.

Went to Portland this weekend to attend the neighboring club, GPAS's annual Fishtoberfest. It wasn't as big as some of the Aquashella and stuff like that but it was decent size. I met Dean and actually gave him some killifish eggs that I brought for another member who ended up not being able to come. He said he would pass then along. The Amazonas Magazine guy was there and I managed to get three copies for free. I also picked up some Anubias, a club T-shirt (and one for my son), a white worm starter culture, and a another pair of Japan blue gold guppies (not pictured). We also went to the zoo where there were some familiar plants in the salamander tank: And there was an interesting diagram of their intense filtration system for the penguins:

scarlet badis ...interesting. I'm not a professional or anything but this is how i would approach this. Set large goal to hit yearly or very few years and set mini goals to hit very few months. • yearly/multi years goals.. what i would work on is strengthening what the fish already have. If the fish is red make your family more red..bring the max out of your fish. I would raise the highest number of fish you can so you can select future breeder from. • mini goals ... what I would work on everyday/weekly/monthly? I would keep the feeding/maintenance the same in every aquarium. Every set of fry will be kept separate with their birthdate so every fry gets judged the same. For example, it's not fair to cull a younger fish at 4 months vs. a more mature fish at 7 months. make sure you can house all the growing fry and the all the breeder and future breeders. As for scarlet badis I'm not 100% how well they can handle inbreeding. For example Xiphophorus can handle inbreeding for multiple generation without and issue. White cloud can handle inbreeding for 4-5 generation before they need to be crossed out, and 8-10 generation on linebreeding if you know how to do it. Inbreeding isn't the same as linebreeding, inbreeding could be siblings or another random relative fish without reason. Linebreeding is very controlled. You'll have to name breeders and keep record. Linebreeding is where you hug one side of the family either sire or dam. if you have plenty of space I would recommend starting 2 family at the same time, itll give you something to cross to. Chances are you wouldn't want to cross you family back into a normal badis. I recommend you cull hard and always keep the most healthy fish over the most colorful fish, itll be worth it in the long run. Making your family of fish more colorful is easy, making your family of fish healthier is way harder. Consistency in size, healthy, color, and temperament is what I look for. last and not least enjoying the results, i love going back to old photos and seeing my family changes over time.

I agree with @Galabar that it would help if you clarify what you mean by "changing the filter sponges". If you are changing them every month PLUS doing a complete water change, this could very well be the issue. How long has the tank been set up? 1) Filter sponges are housing a lot of your beneficial bacteria and in changing them so often, your basically throwing them out. 2) in a 5 gallon tank (of which I have several), I find I need a weekly water change of 25% - 30%. And you shouldn't need to remove your Betta to do this. Example - I change 25% of my Bettas tank water every week just using a small cup and a pitcher. Then replace it with fresh dechlorinated water. I vacuum the substrate every other week. At no time do I ever need to remove him while this is done. I am hoping that you don't mean that you are also rinsing the substrate. If so, then you are basically crashing your cycle and restarting every month. If you take away a large population of beneficial bacteria, then change 90%-100% of your water at the same time, your basically crashing, if not near crashing your cycle causing a bacterial bloom in the tank much like we experience when first cycling a tank. You shouldn't be changing your sponges out every month. Instead, rinsing them in a some dirty tank water when you've done a small water change should be enough to clear the sponge of debris, but keep your beneficial bacteria intact. Also, think about doing smaller water changes more often. Your parameters will remain more stable that way vs. letting waste and detritus build up in the tank causing ammonia and nitrite spikes from decaying plant debris, fish waste and fish food over a month, then doing a large water change.

All that dorsigera flirting. Let’s see if they hatch these or eat them on day three again.

I wish the best of luck to any person wanting to decode fish dreams….😂 Would probably be quite interesting tho.

Put this together today, I'm very happy with it

Zebra danios have hatched! And the Palaeatus Cory fry have been moved into a shrimp tank to grow out. All this fish breeding is making me feel pretty elated - I’m tempted to give my tetras another shot.

I had other plans for today which may not all get done since the lights came on to this. The tank is a hot mess of black beard algae right now (slowly getting under control) but not normally a big cloudy mess. I could see it was already clearing but I couldn’t figure out why it was cloudy until I saw a poof of red clay down low. Apparently the cories have inspired my big boy blue eyed lemons to do some sparring and the center back of the substrate is all wallowed out all the way down to the thin clay layer in the bottom. Today, I regret my choice of substrate layers. 😆 😂 🤣 I was already planning a big water change in this tank today. Let’s see if I can inspire the trilineatus cories since I’m pretty sure this was all, or at least mostly bronzes. My very chunky bronze girls are almost all looking tired and much slimmer. There’s nowhere near enough eggs to account for all the breeding that went on (from the looks of the deflated girls) so I suspect there has been a big protein boost for the bristlenoses making them all aggro. Maybe even the gold nugget. He likes cory eggs, too. Shenanigans have happened.

Hello all, I have been having tanks off and on over the past years, been a while without them when I moved to Spain but started again about 3 years ago. This tank I started a while back, then broke it down as the brown algae and lack of plant growth drew me nuts... its a recurring theme in my tanks - bb algae - so happy to hear any guidance on doing things better this time. Not sure what I am doing wrong as I have strong filtration and little nitrate. Perhaps I need to do a better job of cleaning bottom etc, not sure Any way, the tank is a 100 Liter tank, 80cm wide . Its got around 20 liters of "Ocean Free Aqua gro plants & shrimp soil" in it and I just put in some pieces of finger wood (still need to submerge) and an Anubia I picked up last week. Not sure if it will stay as I am lacking a planting plan still. Filtration is run through a 207 Fluval external cannister filter and its been cycling for a few days now with a bit of Seachem stability. Lighting is done by Nicrew G2 classic led with 1910lm turned down to its maximum to get started (I think I have powered it on too much in the past) Happy to hear peoples thoughts on EASY and LOW TECH plants that I can't kill. Would love a bit of carpeting on the soil. Defo will put in some moss balls when I can find them. What else?? Love to hear people's thoughts to set this up in a good way. Fish? I am thinking Apisto Borelli's or supered agasizi's, some shrimps perhaps (never had them) and a group of tbc Cory's (I have Sterbai's in my cube tank) . Maybe move the lemon tetra's from my cube to this one, not sure Love to hear people's thoughts and inputs! Besides this tank I also have a 70L Cube tank that is stocked and a 35L currently empty

If you don't meticulously cull the neocaridina shrimp, you will get a bunch of colors, especially with the blues and black colored ones. I have had tanks of them that I didn't cull for six or so months and I pull out all kind of colors. I also have a tank that I would throw culls into, and now there are some really nice ones of all colors, reds, blue, black, yellow, they just keep reproducing in there and making more.

I have a tank full of wilds now, and I don’t think any of them are the same

We lost our betta DJ Turbo a month ago, terribly sad. My deepest sympathies. Enjoyed catching up on all the great and beautiful animals, tanks and plants you’re keeping. Well done and hopefully all the wonder elsewhere can distract you somewhat.

Sorry I didn’t respond earlier, haven’t checked the forum because nothing new happening with my feesh but yay, my male spooky always chases my female puff, recently he has become more chill with her, it’s fine, just make sure they have a place to get refuge

Infections from spine jabs, but otherwise the poison is to prevent predators from eating them. Same defenses with fish that I have worked with professionally. I wear gloves but it doesn’t always help. The jabs of venomous fish do sometimes feel like a hot nail, which fades into a numb/itchy burn. But noone I have worked with has ever been hospitalized from the venom. Losing finger digits to nasty infections, yes. But that was improper wound care. For tetrodotoxin ingestion of the animal is required for the poisoning. Tetrodotoxin is heat stable meaning cooking does not destroy it. Poisonings have occurred from kids pestering certain newt species touching their skin which they can exude the toxin from and eating something else. Without washing their hands. From what I have read most of these interactions did not prove fatal or result in permanent brain damage, some have died. good read here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK507714/

What I would do is quarantine and treat with kanaplex and aquarium salt 1 table spoon for 3 gallons just in case there's a bacterial component I agree that doesn't look like columnaris@Elyse

Hampshire didn’t like the taste of Prime during the water change, so down he goes. Button’s turn on the green bean.

Most typically when we see this discoloration in either the front or rear of the body it's due to nerve damage. Unfortunately, there's usually means that the rainbow isn't too long for this world, but that is not always the case. I would start with a light dose of salt, especially if you have a reef salt for the extra mineral content. Then you can do a very light medicinal treatment such as the med trio just in case it happens to be something else.

Today I made a mess... I removed the Amazon sword that had been struggling and traded it along with some crypt runners. Then I pulled one of the large crypts from the front and put it in the back corner. I figure there is a good chance it melts but maybe, hopefully, it comes back again. Then I did some major trimming on all the plants and pulled stumps that had lots of cut branches. Then I did a 50% water change to clean up the water. I suspect it's going to look a bit wonky for a little while but hopefully this opens things up a little and it looks better in the long run. Bonus: the corys came out and schooled to confirm that they were in fact still alive: Some of them have an orange sheen when viewed from above. I'm not sure what that means. It doesn't look like a sickness thing. Maybe just they're swim bladder?

The school koi pond: Does your school have one @GoofyGarra?

Managed to get decent photos of 2 of the 4 cross river puffers. They are a pretty cool interactive species. This has been the hardest project so far but they are beginning to find their calm with eachother. Lots of plants, lots of food, lots of space, and even more plants and coop planters Less decent of the other 2

Ok got some plants, off course not what I was looking for but here's the score: - Moss balls - Amazon sword - Java fern and a few others I forgot the name and forgot to take a pic of what it is . Most of these will go in this tank, if I have overflow there is still lots of room in the 10G and the Cube (which I need to re-do too - pull out the fine sand and put real substrate in it) Btw in the end I went to 2 different shops ... both didn't have any easy carpet plants except for Monte Carlo but haven't had the best of luck with that. Both also told me they can't get any quality Vallisneria (a plant I wanted) which seems odd to me.