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.....now a work in progress. Intrepid Partner has ordered the tank from Custom Tanks...196 gallons here we come....

That’s excellent that you have the microscope with both video and picture! You can make the slides now that will be dried and stained. Once dried, they are stable is stored carefully away from moisture. Just save them and do the staining later. One of the reason’s for the Gram’s stain is because it stains differently for different cell wall structure. That different cell wall structure is the first clue we use to pick an antibiotic treatment since different antibiotics work differently. Many antibiotics work against the bacteria’s cell wall so that first clue on the structure of that cell wall is how we decide which antibiotic to use. So, catch the fish, collect the samples, you can lay the swabs down on something sterilized for safekeeping, then transfer the fish to quarantine. Once the fish is safely transferred, then you have time to make the slides. Make your slides to be dried and stained first since the sample will tend to cling to the swabs. After that, make the wet mount slides since it can “wash” more of the sample off into the water droplet on the slide. Take the video and pictures of the wet mount slides first since they have to stay wet. Start the salt treatment with the fish now in quarantine. We may be able to suggest something to get started based on the wet mount images. If the wet mount doesn’t give us answers, then once the new stains arrive, we can take a look at those stained slides. If you can make enough stained slides we can try each of the different stains and see how they look different under the microscope, starting with the stains you already have on hand. Phenol Red is actually fairly good for fungal hyphae, so that would be good to try. Bromothymol Blue might be interesting to add to another wet mount to see if it would help us see otherwise clear organisms better. Use just a tiny droplet of the Blue added to the water under a coverslip after rolling the swab in the water. You might want to have a couple of swabs ready and very quickly roll one right after the other over the larger spot so you can make multiple slides once the swabs are collected. Each swab should be able to make several slides, then at least 1 or 2 wet mounts, too. Save the first slides rolled out dry for the Gram’s Stain and the Giemsa Stain. Then do a couple more for dry staining with your Phenol Red and Bromothymol Blue. Do one wet mount to look for motile organisms with no stain. Then try a wet mount with a tiny bit of the Bromothymol Blue. I don’t know if any motile organisms will stay motile with the stain present but it is worth trying even if they don’t stay motile. If they do stay motile, it will be interesting to watch blue stained organisms swimming around! Bit rambling here, it’s very late and I can’t sleep because I’ve had a cold. Making a plan is probably a really good idea so everything is organized and ready to start. The fish catching, swabbing, and transferring to quarantine is the most important part that takes the highest priority. After all, we’re doing this to help the fish, not accidentally hurt her. The quarantine tank should be set up, ready to go at the right temperature, ideally as close as possible to the same pH, and with nice clean, dechlorinated water. I typically don’t add the salt until the fish is in the quarantine tank. I measure my salt dose carefully for the amount of water in the tank, mix the salt into a cup of tank water, then gradually pour it into the tank so as it mixes in, the fish can adjust more gradually than if the salt is already in the tank. After your fish is all taken care of, then the slides can be made. Make your list of how many slides you want to do. Mark each slide on which slide will get which stain. Make your wet mount slides with and without stain. Leave the dry stained slides to dry completely before staining while you get the videos and pictures of the wet mount slides. Stain the dry slides with each of the stains you have on hand and get your pictures. Hold the unstained slides until the new stains arrive. My schedule is a little different than most because I work in an animal emergency hospital and work very long shifts on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. I’ll be off and on the forum over the next couple days this week. My schedule means I won’t be on the forum much at all on my work days and might not get on the forum at all on those days. But I’ll be back on Wednesday to see your progress after the new stains arrive. If you tag me by typing the @ sign, then my screen name, then clicking on my name on the list that pops up, it will create this tag - @Odd Duck and I will get notified about your posts the quickest possible and respond as quickly as I can. Others on the forum are also very knowledgeable about fish care and treating illnesses in fish, so they will be able to help, too.

Hi and hello everyone, I have been an aquarium hobbyist since I was a child (fish only, freshwater) and later started my first saltwater aquarium back in 2004 while in high school. I've been reefing ever since and have been working for a popular aquarium manufacturer for a few years. Living in a saltwater hotspot like Orlando makes things easy, but I find myself growing a little tired of reefing, I've decided its time to return to my roots of freshwater. 🙂 I currently have an empty Waterbox Aquariums AIO 50.3 sitting in my living room and am working out some plans for setting it up. My longtime hobby mom from work highly recommended this forum to me, so I'm really excited to say hello and get to learning everything that I need to in order to set up my first freshwater planted aquarium. Thank you in advance for all of your wisdom; I'm really looking forward to learning more!

This is one of my new tanks (550 - as mentioned above 4 feet front to back and 10 feet long; (the angel you see is from the 120 pictured in my earlier post this thread). And these are two pictures from the 4 feet wide 4 feet long aquarium: Taking decent pictures of larger aquarium is definitely more challenging. I think there are a few major factors to consider - glass or not (i'm a glass person) but there are disadvantages esp if the aquarium is much longer than 10 feet; sump or not (I'm mixing on custom aquarium sump solution and would probably re-think things if i were to do it over); height of the stand (esp if you have a sump); do you want to climb a ladder to feed your fishes; height of tank; if planted do you want to go scuba diving to plant the plants; ...

This is by no means as sophisticated as what you're proposing but I think it holds some relevance to your project. It was really just a simple, new build because everyone grew so large, I was faced with rehoming or expanding, and the latter won the day because I didn't want to part with any of these guys. The larger of these tanks is the same size as what you're getting, I believe. When I was shopping around for a larger build than my 125, the 240's were too deep for my reach so a 200 gave me just enough depth that I could reach the back...barely. As you'll see, we had an unexpected adventure when the floor started to sag! But with some car jacks...and Advil, it all worked out:

thanks for the heads up @nabokovfan87 @Vanessa K congratulations on the spotted congo puffer colony. I can only speak to my personal experience and process. For my puffer acclimation I generally do temperature acclimation by floating puffers in their bags for 30-45 minutes with the lights off, especially when they travel for a while I dose the tsnk with water conditioner then just cut the bags open and release them, water and all, after the temperature acclimation.I leave the lights off the first couple of hours after release. My preference is to have a bunch of snails in the tanks so they can start eating at their own pace once settled. I do offer food after the lights are turned back on as well; generally puffers are quick to adjust and be ready for food in my tanks. I do not worry about parameter acclimation personally and am more concerned about the ammonia spike risk in the bag water once I expose it to air. I defer to those that use it for their processes for specifics on how to do that method. In the distant past I have rarely cut open the bag at the top and add the tank water to the bags a cup at a time every 5 minutes for about 15 or 20 minutes before release into the tank. But I have found that unncessary for my new arrivals. I do treat the tank with a water conditioner when they arrive with Fritz A.C.C.R and use live plants. I worry less about any ammonia spike issues in my situation due the dillution of the bag water into the main tank volume of water, the live plants, and the conditioner that neutralizes any ammonia which is present. A single 1/8th inch (3.18 mm) long mekong puffer fry once inflated in a net and get air stuck. That batch had 1 of 300 to do that.... rare but possible. That puffer was a around this size (an earlier batch). It was my one experience of a puffer fry inflating with air and it being an issue. This is a Pao palustris mekong river puffer F1 fry. The light smudges are baby brine shrimp I believe, based of my own learning experiences, that older puffers have less trouble expelling air than younger fry. for my comfort I avoid the risk personally and accept the risk of adding a small amount of bag water to the tank. I keep them all under water when they arrive its a personal preference Spotted congos displaying Spotted congo fry growth up here Congrats on the new puffers I look forward to any forum updates of their progress.

Hey all, first time forum user, long time coop buyer!! I'm Paul from thornton colorado. Currently running a planted 40 breeder with some Cory's, red serpae tetras, Scissortail rasboras, a pair of blue flame dwarf gouramis and a raphael cat(for now). There's also a 55gal brackish tank that's housing Cheeto, cheeto is a beautiful ceylon puffer I adopted from the father in law(who has all sorts of cool tanks and fish). Cheeto decided to go on a killing rampage of the very large monos he was in a tank with one day so I brought him in to give brackish a try. Looking to setup an awkward 55gal tall tank I just acquired, not sure what my plans are for that yet, and there's also a 125gal that will more than likely be a grow out tank of sorts once we move! Oh and there is a 3.5 gal on the kitchen counter with a very long fin betta that is the laziest fish I've ever seen! He was in my 10gal med tank for awhile and just didn't do great, moved him into the 3.5 and he started living his best betta life.

Acquired this radiused front corner 55tall from a guy for changing a tire on his trailer. I cannot find anything similar online. It measures out to 55gal, 3/8" all glass. It's in great shape, few light scratches and trim missing on the bottom but even the silicone looks great. Not sure what I'm planning for it yet (already ordered a bunch of stuff from the coop last night for it!)

Yay! Coffee with @TeeJay is back! @Chick-In-Of-TheSea @nabokovfan87

I know it's been quite a long time since I have posted to any of my journals. I have been so wrapped up in fishy type stuff and things with the kiddos that I just got bogged down with life. As well as trying to keep up with so many journals was becoming a bit daunting. So I had my partner in crime @Guppysnail combined them all for me into one handy dandy journal. You can still see all of my adventures through the links in my signature and so on. There have been quite a few changes with tanks and fish. A little to much to get all in one post right now. So tune in tomorrow morning for the all new coffee with TeeJay. As always keep it fishy my friends and nerms.

@dasaltemelosguy, thanks I'll definitely look at your journal. I still plan on only doing nano fish in this tank nothing bigger than say a long finned-pleco, roseline shark or silver tip tetra. Everyone of course will have to get along and like similar parameters so that will be an ongoing thing. This I think will be an interesting build. Being a custom tank it will be a room divider, Intrepid Partner decided the dimensions and did all the talking with Custom Tanks (low iron glass, and I think he got black silicone). I don't have the current measurements however last we spoke it will be at least 9ft long and will be a bit more narrow than a typical large tank due to the divider title- it will be tall but neither of us are concerned about that. He is going to build the cabinet himself (he works metal for a living building custom cars and used to work in a lumber mill) we've been under the house to look at reinforcement recently and to our delight there is a cement wall all along where the tank will go (as it used to be the wall to the garage but the house was remodeled)- so stability shouldn't be an issue at all. This is how it will look in a floor plan the blue is the tank of course: I'm actually more nervous about scaping a tank that you can see on 3 sides with 2 of those sides being 9 ft long. Oi. @lefty o it really is going to be cool I'm excited! @anewbie and I can totally see why it's hard to take a decent picture of a large tank. With a tank that is a divider like it will be I doubt any pictures that aren't taken up close are going to be good. Scaping and fishkeeping will be my responsibility. Intrepid Partner, this is his favorite part- geeking out on building and tech. He is very supportive of my hobby and is looking forward to just kicking back and watching it. I'm very lucky.

Another plant, another topic, same tank. I have this crypt ( Cryptocoryne aponogetifolia) in my tank for 12 years I would say. During my shelldwellers day it was the only plant in the tank, two years ago, when I remade it to amazonia, I left one or two plants, not more. Two years later and I would say there are eight, ten? who knows The problem is, their leaves are all over the surface and the fish dont swim inbetween them, the hatchetfish dont like them either I suppose. Also the sponge is almost impossible to get out now and the flow is very much affected by the plants. The plus side is, the bamboo shrimp like to sit there. Today I trimmed few leaves, I cant do too much at once, the stems will melt. I dont think I could uproot them at this point, not without taking most of the wood out of the tank, their root systems are too big and I dont exactly reach in the middle of the tank 🙂 How much can I get rid of? From past experience ,cutting the leaves in half results in melt, so that is not the way. Whole leaf or nothing. PS - yes, I am doing a water change

Well. That didn’t take long. No sooner disposed of fuzzy eggs and BAM… more eggs appear 😂. Her goes attempt No. 2 (I’ll be moving this to. Journal)

ok, so the pair of platies i setup last night (Balrog and Stunner) are doing well. They are hanging out together, with Balrog (male) following Stunner (female) around, so in the next few days breeding should ensue, at that point ill move Balrog out. I have only 4males in my tank right now (plus at least twice as many females, but more like 3times as many females) so the heirarchy between them is delicate. Im hoping that moving Balrog out for a week wont disrupt the balance too much, he was one of the 2 tank bosses (the other is Nazgul, the two fight all the time. When i say tank boss i mean for the platies, he fights the other males, and shepards the females around the tank away from other males...). I also got some good pictures of Balrog's color that im calling "super red" Balrog and Stunner: Balrog's super red: some albino cory fry (the new surprise one are getting along fine with the genetically unfortunate one despite the fact he is 5times their size). Rohan (no fry yet): and cories eating breakfast:

I seem to finally have another pair out of my angel tank. The darker gold koi was a fairly new addition and she(?) is pairing up with one I’ve had for months. Breeding tubes are starting to partially drop but only out a little then quickly back in so far. They are picking and cleaning some new sword leaves I just added and bossing around the whole tank today. I have the pair hanging around the middle and towards the right end. Everyone else is hanging around crowded into the left 1/3 of the tank. 😆 I’ll be moving the pair tomorrow to my 29 G after I do a big water change on it (which was planned for tomorrow anyway). Tomorrow is 75, 29, and 20 high WC day.

Hi everyone, I'm new here from the north east of England. Been listening to the Aquarium Coop podcast and videos for a while and decided it was time to join. I keep Platies, Reticulated Hillstreams, White Clouds, Cherry shrimp and have just started with Panda Garra which seem really interesting. Nick

Upgraded

I thought waiting for fish to be delivered to me from you was nerve wracking. But that hails in comparison to actually shipping myself. But with all the materials you sent me and walked me thru it every step of the way made a huge difference. Having that bucket of fresh water heated up and matching good to there tank water made all the difference. I enjoyed them but as I watched them I knew they needed to be in a bigger setup than a 10 gallon. I'm sure it can be done by just straight breeders. But that's not me. I'm the oh hey look I got fry kinda "breeder" it's really amazing in just a couple of short weeks how they have done. I am so very happy they are with you. Maybe one day I'll setup a 20 long for some of there babies.

Yes I had to keep at least one of there first batch of babies. She is growing very well. I hope to be able to keep her for a decent amount of time in the 20 long. Her name is moonbeam. I felt the name was fitting.

Wow! What amazing tanks! I would have to echo @Shadow about the pvc but knowing you from here I HIGHLY doubt you didn't engineer it out prior to this even being set up. I admire your skill my friend. They are absolutely stunning. That along with trying to make sure everyone is as optimal as they can be is definitely science and magic all at once.

i had a family member come over who has a fish tank. When they saw my corydoras they commented that "i could use a catfish to deal with my algae", i instead offered them a starter culture of snails, they accepted. I made a breather bag with an anubias, some algae, and a few mini ramshorn and bladder snails that should keep the snails alive a few days until they can get into the person's tank. Sigh... I hate bags with short necks, tying necks is nearly impossible.

Looking forward to seeing this behemoth. @anewbie that is an excellent size, great job

The shrimp are here! looks like 1 dead and 1... not blue? I would love an explanation if someone knows what is up with the odd one... My plan is to just put that one in my other, community, tank so it can't breed. As a shrimp novice, how do these look? Ended up with 9, healthy looking, blue ones.

196 gallons will be cool as cool can be!!

F. scheeli… N. rachovii…

Those weren’t juvie White Clouds, they were juvie Rainbow Shiners, oops! Well, they’re all in the 20 now.

Heterandria Formosa livebearing Least killifish. They are adorable and have the sweet personalities of guppies. I put 2 leftover babies in a 5 gallon. They thrived and created their own colony.

I've kept them and never had any try to jump. In fact, my endlers live bearers jumped way more than my clown killis LOL. One endler was constantly leaping into the hang on back filter and I had to rescue him almost daily for a while.

Thanks, I didn’t buy them with the intention of breeding but would be happy if they do. Totally agree, I like their no nonsense approach to things This is my setup, not the prettiest and always a work in progress but I enjoy it. Just added the Sicce Shark Pro 500 to replace the filter that came with the tank. Very impressed with it so far. I had modified the old filter with sponges and ceramics instead of the cartridges and I just moved it all over to the Sicce’s central compartment.

Thanks Schuyler, I think you have a point and I probably should just leave it as is. I am not exactly a newbie but still struggle to understand doing the right things (except for waiting to put fish) with new setup tanks, and have a history of issues with brown algae i am trying to avoid. For sure the substrate drilled down the PH as it hovers around 6ish. Ruud is my first name and is a typical Dutch name (I am Dutch but living in Spain) , so I am guessing a Dutch dude called Ruud Wildekamp first encountered and described the specie. I had to look it up, looks to be some sort of Killifish, really pretty!

🎉🎊 @TeeJay’s Apisto borelli he gifted me one girl Crystal has eggs in her cave. I can’t get the camera angle to show them but they are there.

Aquarium Co Op produces good content, that's what drew me here as well. I like how they are dedicated to the blog. Some of the written material out there is just plain wrong, and it feels good having some source you can trust.

I would leave things alone as much as possible while it gets established. The biofilm on the wood will eventually reach an equilibrium and fix itself. The plant substrate is probably driving the pH down but that should level out eventually. It's also leeching ammonia probably which will be helpful in getting the bacteria established. Leaving it alone should keep get the cycle established. Unrelated note, your name reminds me of a species of killifish: Nothobranchius Ruudwildkampi is a really cool looking fish

Do not worry, I am waiting the hatchetfish out :)) I also consider removing the ember tetras, but am arguing about it with my boyfriend, who keeps saying " you got them, you wanted them, take care of them". But that was two years ago and I since discovered so many more interesting fish! the rummynose couldnt care less about he crypts. I did consider getting some honey gouramis ( to replace the embers), but am not sure if they wouldnt mind the restricted access to the surface. Luckily these two years the crypt didnt have a meltdown, I used to have that yearly in summer when I lived in another flat. Too warm water meets too cold water. These girls do not mind

Glorious Crypt! I’d personally move out the fish that hate the plants, and load up on ones that love them.

Well I trimmed it all out 🙂 Will do another post about my crypt, need advice there Look at my anubias, it could be easily split into 6 plants

Here fishy fishy fishy A local hobbyist is moving and I took him up on his offer to obtain some cool species We have very soft water in the NW and my kH hovers around 1-2 typically while gH is in the 4-8 range. Using RODI water and gH/kH + keeps us right in the pocket. I was surprised that he’d been keeping a group of Caridina at these parameters and having very slow but successful breeding of his colony of Crystals. My wife is now obsessed with putting in more red into the tank thanks to these as well as some Chili rasboras. Gorgeous. 7 in a 60 g is not a lot. She wants me to get a dozen or more. She’s loved these since we bought some for a friend’s birthday tank that I redesigned. I’ll have to honor her request to keep the Fish Wife happy. I’ve been intrigued by this fish in the last 6+ months as some club members and then a speaker at GSAS had mentioned them Panda 🐼 loaches. They are loving the 2 powerheads and the seclusion that the tank provides. His most prominent schooling fish in the tank were these Emerald eye rasboras. I’m going to try again for a shot - doesn’t at all capture the eyes 👀. Might take some video. So the epilogue to this is he mentioned that another tank he was taking down he was considering taking all the inhabitants vs rehoming them and I said let me know as most of the fish in that tank are ones I have or could rehome easily. Well I got the call and am very excited for a date in a couple week to go over and grab these fish. My wife has been reorganizing and changing up the living room and the eventual plans are going to lead to a new location for our 45 g tank. I’m planning to take advantage of this and do a new scape, substrate system and potentially the filtration. Might hook my canister filter to an undergravel filter. Not sure. Exciting to plan. I saw this George Farmer video from awhile back where he scapes a taller tank and thought this could be doable. Hope all are well and hope you all stay healthy as we head into viral season. Have fun!

Hey... if I can do it, you can master it. 🙂 You got this. Corydoras are fun and it's just about the long term. Thankfully they will spawn again. Just a matter of time.

Magic for me:

Hi, I've finally (we're talking at least a year) managed to get my hands on the Schoutedeni, 4 actually, and I've prepared for them, seasoned tank, good filtration etc, and I'm waiting for them to arrive. My question is, they're from a good retailer, captive bred, but they're being transported for well over 24 hours - the retailer's in Germany and I'm in Sweden. What should I do when they arrive? To keep them under water I know but do I open the bag as soon as possible or let it float for temperature acclimating? Put them in a container in the water they came with? - and gradually fill water from the tank? I'm a little anxious using the water they came in, don't wanna risk creating an ammonia pike since they've traveled for a while. And finally - when do I try to get them to eat? I suppose they haven't eaten for a while, not to foul the water etc. Should I let them be, to let them get used to their surrounding or what?

My 100 G nanofish tank has been an absolute hot mess for a while. I got lazy and let BBA overrun the tank due to other things happening in my life besides fish. I’ve been working much harder at getting caught up on things by doing larger and more frequent water changes along with keeping up better with plant maintenance, removing spent and dying leaves, etc. The BBA status is improving and the BELBN plecos are going wild. The cories have been breeding like mad. It’s a hot bed of fishy frenzy right now. The big boys have been sparring and have the substrate (sand over a thin clay bottom) all stirred up and the water is very cloudy but parameters are great. The long fin females have been very interested and hanging around the caves, clearly ready to spawn. The boys are all over the place. Last night I got off at a decent hour for a change, the lights were off, and I decided to check on the plecos. There was definitely a female in the cave with a male! Today when the lights came on, all of them were either in the favorite cave or around it. I didn’t move fast enough to get the pic of one big boy in front of the cave with the 2 females on the wood over the cave and the second big boy in the cave. I can’t see if there are eggs in the cave but there were some eggs kicked out of the cave. The eggs are now in a breeder net that’s directly in front of a good HOB current. There are chunks of IAL and a mulberry leaf in the breeder net and a few very small, immature neo shrimp for “baby sitters” in with the eggs that were loose. There is a female in the cave again as I’m typing and the boy is in backwards, presumably fertilizing more eggs. Next pic is loose eggs that were collected and are now in the breeder box, one boy in and one boy out of the cave, and the entire group hanging about the cave with only the tail visible for the male in the cave. Even the youngsters from the last clutch are hanging around the area but I couldn’t get a decent pic of that. The precious clutch are doing well in their new digs (only a few were left in the cave in this tank for daddy to tend) but I’m not sure yet if they are going to be long finned. I thought one of the long finned females was the momma, but I don’t see much length on their fins yet. Now I only have long finned females in this tank so I should get only long finned babies. I’ll be watching like a hawk over the next 5-7 days to see when the first fry is visible (assuming everything goes well). The fry will get pulled as soon as they’re close to coming out of the cave since I have fish in this tank that might eat fry, so they’ll get pulled in about 10-12 days from today.

So some of my S. repens has some holes and yellowing on the leaves but all the new growth looks very good. Its only been in the tank about a month. I don't know if its just adjusting to the new water parameters or if there's a nutrient deficiency. It kind of seems like a nutrient deficiency but all the new growth looks good so I'm not sure. If you have a nutrient deficiency will the new growth still look healthy? I should have mentioned this. I dose easy green at least once a week and my nitrates are currently around 30ppm. I also put 3 root tabs just under the S. repens less than a month ago.

Stronger light will tend to keep swords shorter. Under lower light conditions they will “reach” for more light and grow taller. More light isn’t always going to be your friend for the Anubias and Java fern I can see, so increase light with great discretion. Maybe floaters over the lower light plants so they don’t end up with algae. Other than that, you may need to different tank for that sword if it doesn’t fit the look you want. What’s the species or variety name?

I've only been keeping Cherry shrimp for about six months now. I have to say they are the coolest little critters! They never disappoint! So many odd colors show up! For the most part, I still mainly have reds and oranges. I put three blues in with some oranges to see what will happen, still waiting to see what these little guys look like when they grow up.

Howdy. Another week, another couple of changes! The Fluval 107 continues to crush on the 29 blackwater, and continues to force me to learn. Yesterday, my girlfriend told me, “ya, and I don’t even mind the sound that filter makes!” The problem with that, is the filter shouldn’t make a sound, lol. I really think the intake sponge was clogged, but I took it one step further and just squeezed and sprayed out all the media. Saved me a step today, and as soon as I had it primed and plugged back in the bad boy was rocking and the flow was back. Can’t say I’m surprised with the amount of detritus that was in that tank, but man is that thing clear at this point. I’m not smart enough to take picture before I shut down the filter to feed; maybe I’ll be smart enough and will update. The tank is CLEAR, and the tannins are starting to set in. I’m really enjoying it. The water alarm showed up, and I tossed that in the big Tupperware that the 107 sits in. Plugging in the batteries, the alarm went off and that thing is LOUD! The listing said it was 100 decibels, but you never really know. After the test, I definitely believe it. Let’s hope I never hear that alarm again, but it’s nice to know it’s there if it’s ever needed. Also added the new internal filter to the 29 Pea Puffer tank today! Did a gravel vac for the first time in I don’t even know how long, and the filter has already done a nice job picking up the particles. The spray bar attachment is pretty cool, too, and I threw a drop checker in the tank to ensure the c02 that’s now in suspension longer isn’t pushing it too far. It’s only like 1 bubble per second, but I’d rather have a visual cue just to be on the safe side. The spray bar is brand new to me, so I’d rather be safe than sorry. I also took the media out of the internal HOB from the Pea Puffer tank and put it in the second internal HOB with some Poly Fil and added that to the 20 long blackwater tank. I’m prepared to have to change that Poly Fil every day, or maybe every other day, over the coming weeks to really clear that tank up. Overall, I’m hype on these new filters and I can’t wait to see how the tanks clean up. The last couple years I’ve proven that you don’t need anything fancy or lots of flow to have very successful tanks, but I’m excited to see what these tanks turn out like and it feels good to be hype on it again. For a while I was just going through the motions, and it feels awesome to be excited again. Now, I just need to find the new fish I want and it’s really game on! Enjoy the pics, and I’ll do my best to take some updated shots as these tanks get cleaned up and onto their next iteration. Pics really don’t do it justice. I’ll try to take a picture before cutting off the filter and feeding tomorrow when it’s at peak clarity. I’ve been amazed at how the water has cleared up, yet retains the tannins. Excited to see this tank clear up, but with even darker tannins than the tank above. Right before the lights went off the Poly Fil was already pretty gunked up and the water was already looking better. New internal filter in place with the spray bar, drop checker installed in the top left, a fat gravel vac, still a million snail shells on the substrate, and removal of the brown Java Fern leaves. Excited to see how this tank shakes out!

I entertained our freinds kids, (and their parents), ..with my wine barrel ponds full of guppies!! So awesome to see others getting as much fun out of this as I do! They were all very interested in the aquariums. But the ponds were a hit! The hands on (and in) was what everyone loved! Sooo much fun!!

Honestly I wouldn’t use any abrasive not specified for use on acrylic. Plastic is soft and micro abrasions can leave that unwanted “cut” look you see sometimes on cars in the sun. An e-cloth or something of similar quality microfiber will be fine. Also it is 8 million times better on glass than windex or other glass cleaners. I despise the residue they leave behind. if it still doesnt come out id go to tap plastics or amazon and order acrylic polish and buff. I like this stuff:

Bar keepers friend, powder form will do the trick.

Decoder follows - brace yourself because it’s long. I figure if you don’t know @Guppysnail, then many others won’t either. I’m going to go back to the basics of genetics. Hetero means “different” or “other”, homo means “same”. So Heterozygous means the individual carries 2 different genes (usually one dominant and one recessive) vs 2 versions of the same gene (both dominant or both recessive). So your lovely angel-winged, extra frilly BELBN (blue-eyed lemon bristlenose = BELBN) likely have 2 versions of the long fin gene meaning they are Homozygous for long fin. I suspect this means they express long fin even more exuberantly than “standard” long fin. The short fins are Homozygous - they have the same gene on each chromosome pair for the short fin gene. When you mix and match an individual that is heterozygous they have the potential to contribute one of each type of gene to their offspring. So one baby may get the short fin gene and one baby may get the long fin gene. Sex cells - whether sperm or egg - have only half the normal number of chromosomes so only one version of each chromosome makes it to each baby from each parent and the baby then has normal chromosome pairs. When each parent can contribute one trait (this is very oversimplified since we’re only talking about a single, specific trait here), then we get fairly strict rules on what the babies can show or express from their genes. if we were to cross a short fin male with a pure long fin female, we would get all long fin offspring since long fin is dominant. Mom gives only long fin genes, Dad gives only short fin genes. These babies would all be heterozygous for long fin (and short fin). Crossing these babies will give you a mix like your kids show. I’m going to draw a Punnit Square for example and link the pic. The top example is an extra frilly long fin Mom (I’m making the assumption she is homozygous for long fin = LL). It is standard to use the capital letter for the dominant gene and the small letter for the recessive gene. Dad is short fin and since we know this is recessive, we know he is homozygous for the short fin gene = ll (hard to tell with this font but that’s 2 small “L’s”). You can see that each individual can contribute only one characteristic. You get one type of offspring on the first mix - all “regular” long fins because they are heterozygous = Ll. They have one gene for each characteristic. When you cross the offspring from that mix, bottom example, you get all mixed but in fairly set proportions. Typical would be 25% = LL that will eventually end up frilly, 50% “standard” long fin = Ll, and 25% short fin = ll. Variations from that in any particular clutch may be somewhat random or there could be a health issue linked with the homozygous gene. Now the COLOR on bristlenose plecos is a COMPLETELY different scenario and I don’t think anybody has them completely figured out because each color seems to have a different location for the gene and they may have incomplete dominance or expression in how the different genes interact to show the color of the fish. I don’t know if this helps or is too complicated. It’s a . . . . . not excessively busy day in the ER (don’t want to jinx it!). I may or may not be available to answer questions later tonight but will be available off and on for the rest of the week.

For many, it’s easy. I can’t grow Java ferns either.