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Well earlier this week I managed to get a new group of Samurai Gouramis from a store in Seattle! I'm very excited since they've been doing really well so far (eating Pellets!!) and it's a good mix of Adults and Juveniles. There's at least 1 Adult Male and 1 young female. The others are too young to tell but hopefully I get another female or 2. The male I had before has perked up a lot since adding the new 5. I would whole heartedly say these are fish that need to be in a group which is why if you're going to keep them, invest in a group instead of just 1 or 2. Some other news is that the last species that was supposed to arrive last week ended up getting velvet the day before they were going to ship so the store reached out and refunded. Though I'm first in line for when they're healthy again / the others make it out of QT which is awesome. Once those come in, I think this tank will be done in terms of stocking. There's still maybe a few plants I'd like to add that aren't from Asia (I saw a really nice African Lace at the store I wanted to get but held off) but then I think it's time to sit back and let nature do its thing. I'm also getting better at my Sundadanio photography 🙂

No photo edits needed for this big daddy

About 1/4 of them are still in the parent tank 🫣

Start with 5 and work your way towards that…😅 It’d be pretty cool if you could just point at a school of Sterbais doing the whale thing and say: “ I bred all those in my spare time” . 😂

He does, but you can’t message him directly. It’s sort of hit & miss really. That said, you’ve got a chance of you mention rare livebearers! 😂

Gimme dat pretzel!

I found a bonus red wiggler earth worm in my potting soil. I fed it to the GBR. I was not sure they would take it because it was a bit big. I thought for sure my boy would be the first to try. I didn’t have the camera but my girl snatched it from my fingers and ran all over the tank with it. By the time I grabbed my phone the boy had it. The hillstreams are getting bigger.

This tank has been sitting in my garage for about 2 years waiting for it's "spot" to be emptied out, floors cleaned, walls repainted, ect. Then supplies bought, and the back & side sprayed. Welp, the day has finally arrived and it's in its permanent home. The plans of now are either trying a true low maintenance Walsted tank (which one minute I'm seriously considering.... the next I'm vehemently against!!!!), or aqua soil capped with eco complete, which I prematurely bought the supplies for..... In the back of my mind I'll probably settle on a Walsted bowl (to come later) and go with the original plan of capped aqua soil. Anywho, the first pic: Special thanks go to @TheSwissAquarist who helped me track down something called an aquarium mat! (who knew there was even such a thing!) The product can be found here: https://www.saltwateraquarium.com/diy-self-leveling-rubber-aquarium-mat-36-x-24-innovative-marine/

Roughly 3 months ago I ordered 5 Laetacara curviceps however they sent me dorsigera. I found I adored them so I kept them. They are beautiful fish. They change color and patterns quickly and often as a way to communicate with one another. Very personable fish with the water puppy personality of rams. They recognize me and definitely know the difference between me and my husband who seldom enters the fish room. They come running when I walk up and hide when hubby walks up. I was just keeping them in my journal but now they are breeding so I want to keep a separate log so I can track timelines easier. They sent me only 1 female. So I kept them together until she chose a mate. Once she chose a mate I gave the other 3 to @Purple Guppy to add to her community tank where she has some of my GBR babies. These are fantastic community dwarf cichlids. One has grown so beautiful she intends to enter him next year in the Keystone Clash competition. The second batch of eggs they dug 5 holes about the tank in the sand before they hatched. They moved the new hatch fry immediately and then two or three times a day would cart the wigglers to a different hole. Unfortunately on the third morning dad was swimming along the front as I went to feed grindle worms. That’s what he usually does in the morning for food. When I put the grindle worms in you could almost see him choking and spitting fry Willy Nilly everywhere. So they mixed in with grindle worms and got eaten. I had no clue he was transporting new fry. 😢 Yesterday their third batch hatched and they are guarding them well again. Each taking turns. Hopefully I won’t startle them this time. Here are some photos and videos.

Anyone else catch it yesterday? I took a ton of notes and encourage everyone to go subscribe to catch the VOD. Soooo much useful info! Big thanks to Fish Master @Dean’s Fishroom for the tutorial and to @Cory @Zenzo for making it live to public. Definitely more benefits than being a Co Op Member than this but these live talks are pretty special when you want to digest as much knowledge about our hobby you can to not only benefit you, but the hobby we all love in general! Check it out!!!

i agree with the above. murky hazy look is normal for a day or two on a new setup, but the brownish tan color is most likely from the wood. be more concerned with getting the bacteria colony established. over time with water changes, you will get rid of the tea color from the wood.

I’m in, I’m not far from Daytona. Thanks for your kindness.

I did the usual weekly water change on my 72x30 bedroom aquarium (which used to be a 40B). It has been running for approx 6 weeks; though most of the fishes and plants are from the 40B. I've not hooked up co2 yet though it does have a pair of reactor; undecided if i should hook up co2 as the plants seem to be doing fine and co2 causes other issues. Here are a couple of pictures: The first picture shows a not commonly seen crypt cordata var siamensis; ive had it for a couple of years but in the 40B it was buried in part due to co2; it seems to be growing fine without co2 but i am keeping a close eye on it. Unfortunately the 'timid' keyhole saw me and came a dashing in hope for some cat-nips or similar treat. The reactor not yet hooked up to co2 but water flows through it. Below is a semi close up of one of the uninteresting crypts; kind of a shame i chose this one to photograph since all around it are pink jacboi; nuri rosen and a few others begging to be photographed; but beggers usually get passed over... You can see a bit of a pink jacobi to the right of it; just look at the pink/purple thing at the edge of the frame. The only crypt really hurting without co2 are the spiralis which are kind of pale - they had much better colour with co2. Also my little prince kleiner is starting to regrow (when i tore down the 40B a lot of the plants had suffered terribly from aenerobic bacteria destorying their roots). Anyway i think it'll take 6 months for the plants to fully adjust so maybe by Feb or March i'll make a decision on turning the knob on the co2 canister. As a bonus here are a couple of pictures from the blackwater aquarium which had the water change yesterday:

2 questions: Why are suction cups so terrible? and Why is silicone so terrible? (By “terrible” I mean “temporary”) 🫤 On more than one occasion the silicone has failed me on Geppetto’s PVC tunnel. It will be great for awhile, then one day the tube will just fall, leaving the suction cup behind on the glass. This most recent repair I skipped the silicone and tried 2 scuba tank o-rings. One is around the stem of the suction cup and takes up space between the stem and the hole in the pvc. The other is inside the pvc tube and hopefully provides a boundary and friction in case the tube should want to slip. Perhaps the higher temp in his tank will cause the orings to expand slightly and perform even better. I guess time will tell. If it doesn’t work I will get him a wall-mounted half coconut shell, because I am anti- zoomed floating log. I had one of those once and it smelled horribly like chemicals! I didn’t use it. It went right in the trash.

Absolutely stunning breeding pair. Congratulations on the fry. I hope you share lots of photos as the fry grow.

Oh lol I'm dumb. It is at the back of the tank but it kind of has to be there because of my plants. I moved it as far forward as I can. seems to have helped a bit. Thank you.

She holds!! I almost want to leave her up just to see how long it'll take algae to grow

Came home to 4 little glowlight wrigglers! No deaths as well! 🥳🥳🥳

A fish fair was today (that I attended, we have them every week, in two locations) and I bought stuff!! First off, the luminatus tank got some egeria. I threw away all the melting plants and bought egeria, not densa but najas. Here is to hoping the rabbits wont eat it. The South American tank got new sword plant, didnt find any good wood so that will have to wait. The Asian tank, I bought a cheapish air pump and an airstone and put it next to the filter. I also acclimated my last ever bought sewellia, because if they wont work, never ever getting them again. photobombed sewellia And the biggest purchase, three pearl gourami and ten pygmy corydoras. Currently spending time in my cube tank, corydoras permanently, gourami as a quarantine procedure From the pearl gouramies, I know one is a male, cause it has the longer pointed fin. After release they are all hanging out together, exporing their new temporary home, constantly touching. Very cute! I hope they wont hurt the pygmy corydoras in the two or so weeks they will spend here before they will be moved to my South American tank. I am not sure about their gills, if they are ok, I will keep an eye. I am not sure how they are supposed to look Aaaand the pygmy corydoras!! Awwwww. There was one that was like half a cm larger than the other ones in the sellers, most likely been there for a while, so I asked for it. Looks a bit worse for wear from the constant moves, but otherwise is ok. They are all so damn small....They are all over the tank, on the anubias, in the substrate, cute. I expect I will be squealing for a while Last but not least, I acquired an assasin snail. I didnt think I ever would, cause I dont really like the concept, but I got the one for my clown killifish tank, because thanks to the fry I am ovefeeding and it is causing a massive ramshorn bloom. I know one snail wont do much, but it also wont starve and wont breed. I picked an active one, was active in the bag too, once I acclimated it was active, feeling good about it What do you guys think, should I be worried about the gourami hurting the coryodras?

Now that they settled I’m loving the two tanks I just pulled the ugf out of and put in the jungle sand.

This is my 55 gallon Asian community tank. Currently stocked with Red ruby Barbs, a 3 spot gourami and some pictus catfish(not Asian obviously lol) that are being moved to a 40 breeder in a few months to make room for yo yo loaches. The plants are not Asian. At least not all. There is some hornwort, egeria densa, dwarf saggitaria , some kind of rotala (coin leaf I think?), Triple red ludwigia, water lettuce and a tiger lotus. The plan for this tank is to eventually make a tiny fish room off the side of my bedroom so I'll eventually move these fish back there as well as the fish in my 125 gallon to make room for some rainbow fish in this tank and maybe something bigger in the 125. Going to start a journal for that one too. Let me know what you guys think. All questions and suggestions are welcomed.

@Guppysnail The 2 tanks look lovely. Do you use Co2 in them?

As for above, the majic of television rules apply to YouTube times 1000. It's especially helpful to take any video seen there (or anywhere online) with a healthy dose of scepticism!!! As for lightning, im almost willing to bet a well lit room (either by sunlight or artificial) will be more than enough for low~medium low plants. How the plants leaves react to the light can be used to tell if its sufficient.

Move the lighting around a bit. Maybe don’t put it at the back of the tank, if it’s there?

@Supermassive I am not sure, it could be, I am by no means an expert. But my house has poor lighting so maybe that is a factor, lol.

@Tanked I’ve never kept MTS, so I didn’t feel comfortable commenting on them having never had first hand experience with them. Definitely another option, though!

Move it around how? Like don't have the paper right up against the tank? hmm maybe its just the lighting in my room. No its matte on both sides.

I have always used black poster board or card stock without reflection. Does the paper have a more matte side that you can switch too? I know mine comes with a gloss side and a matte side.

Instead of changing the lighting, try moving it around a bit to see if it gets better. Matt black spray paint also works.

have to say, these guys are definitely social, i rarely see them alone, usually in pairs:

I’m loving the hornwort forest at the back. One of the towns I visited recently, Arles (France) is twinned with your town. 😅

Get me some too while you’re at it. 😜

It's loaded with hornwort, and various other plants. I'm very confident in it. Honestly though, I'm probably going to just up the numbers of what I have now. The gouramis are so infatuated with each other that they don't seem to think the angle even exists. Everything here gets along "swimmingly" 😅 lol the gourami are going to be moved to another tank with more pearls eventually, after that, I might put in something different.

The worst thing ever if you haven’t got yourself a dedicated fishroom ⬆️!

Nice tank! I’m surprised that it’s working out between the gouramis and the angelfish, but they do seem to complement each other color wise. It’s getting a bit crowded in there, so I’d go for just 3 more blue emperors, unless you feel that your filtration is capable of taking some more. 😅

Thanks, so far, so good. All with the exception of I already got a scratch in it..... Tomorrow ill probably fill it to see if she holds (I probably should have done that outside 😬) and also try to get some of the oily film off it which I think was from manufacturing or sitting in the garage too long. As for aqua soil vs dirt. I listen to Bently I think heck no to dirt, aqua soil is the way to go! I just listened to the video you posted and I think, what's the worst that can happen! 😂 In the end ill probably go with the method which will teach me the most, and im sure you are aware of my affinity for pushing the eco system narrative sooooo I think you can guess what way im leaning......... (at least for tonight) 🤣🤣🤣

I know this is a little silly. But I came up with a simple solution to the annoying EF flashing. I pulled off the suction cups and turned the heater around! ha ha....I'm so high-tech!

I cut up a foam filter pad and use the pieces to plug the openings around cords, pipes, and tubes. It’s black so it doesn’t stand out and is easy to cut to to size. It’ll squeeze in and fill the gap nicely.

Flies and birds. Their all time fav 😝 No way a cat uses something specifically bought for them! Lie! 🤣

I did a major remake today of the south american tank. Given all of my wood is nature collected it rots quicker, releases a lot of debris and has been in the tank for nearly two years. I took all the would out of the tank, cleaned the substrate under it, cleaned some of the wood with a brush and a knife and returned some of it back to the tank. There is too little now, i have to find and add some more, but it is not as bad as expected. I also added another bunch of leaves. The hygrophilla does not look good. I will take it out and tomorrow at the fish fair buy an amazon sword to fill in the corner. I may have to move the lotus again, but after i add some other wood Not quality pics but for ideas. One of the wood pieces is still floating so it is wedged in there. The tank is funnily so empty now. I even added back one of the anubias I took out some time back and left it in the bottom area to break line of sight for the brams. Let me know what do you think

There’s a fly up there.

Looks like Christmas came early! My mom came down to visit the kids and brought the piece with her. Here it is: There were a few snags. Turns out I'm not great at measuring and it was a little to big to fit in. I had to cut a piece of the shorter side to get it to fit in. The other thing I forgot to consider is the silicone. So it wasn't sitting flush against the glass. I had to use a Dremel to cut the corners so that it fit better. Then there were some minor adjustments needed for the internal filter area. That's all blocked out and sends like it should work well. Hopefully tomorrow I can get that attached with silicone, carve out an overflow, and start arranging roots on the lids

Oh I definitely am...just with the bowing issues, think its time to review and reset into a very permanent and VERY STABLE set up. I also would like a quicker way to prepare water without having 6x 5 gal Home Depot buckets with air stones going inside constantly taking up my open floor space. Not sure if I will go with 20 longs but prob will as I have 4 already...just need 5 more for the initial rack I want to set up. Will give me three shelves holding three tanks each. Won't be quite as long as what MD/FSM are doing there but about 3/4 I would say.

Between you and the magazine people it's staying to sound like this skews more towards the hardcore side rather than a "loose biotope" like the title suggests. Luckily a lot of native plants are easily available. From pictures the river banks tend to be covered in anubias. I am going to give one locally native plant a try: Licorice Fern. It's an epiphytic fern that grows on trees, rotting logs, and wet soil. From the pictures there are a lot of ferns like that in Cameroon.

I will check amazon near me then. However from what I understand moina will only thrive in large containers. I did a cleanup in the asian tank while musing about it, tried adding airhose to my atman, will not be a possibility, because boy that noisy slurping sound is bad. I will buy another air pump and airhose, maybe an air curtain even to see. I dont think the asian tank can have anything else in it, so I will add airstone and try the sewellia again. I did cleanups on my luminatus tank and also lifted the heater that is lying on the substrate in the back against the anubias. Maybe this is the problem, in past I found one large snail stuck under it, now when lifting, I discovered 3 shells of the smallest of the snails (those are the most susceptible to meat overfeeding, which I do for the fry) and one of a 3,5 cm one, not sure if it is still the one of my older or one of my babies. Anyways I straightened the heater, added more oak leaves and prepared a repashy food for them for a boost. I also hatched bbs and fed my small tanks, the minnow fry, the luminatus, the indostomus and my clown killifish. And lo and behold, I finally saw and managed to sort of capture on the video my clown killifish baby! There seem to be only one, but you can see it only when squinting and looking at an upward angle with a weird head angle, so I almost get an eye ache from all the zooming in I am doing. So there maybe more, who knows. But yay! In my South American tank, b-rams are again breeding, have day 2 wigglers. All of my new plants that I put in last week ( limnophila aromatica) are doing ok, I have three sort of forest spots and the fish are loving it 🙂 Will try to get some pictures

Oh man, but it looks like the cycle crashed!

Welcome aboard! Feel free to share any photos, and if you have a YouTube channel, any videos. This Forum is a friendly place to share and grow in the hobby. There's beginners here, and people who have spent many decades working with aquatics. Sometimes we each will make posts sharing things we're doing . . . sometimes just asking the forum questions. Let us know what fish you like to keep, and what you're hoping to keep in your indoor pond!

Some are fertile, others are not. White eggs haven’t been fertilized. Tan / brown eggs are fertile and, if she lets them hatch and grow, will be Wigglers in less than a week. Here are two treads to check out on breeding Electric Blue Acaras. And here’s a journal thread that’s still active... Hope these help! They’re such wonder fish. Herexx as a couple photos of our Acaras we’ve raised, some with other fish. So worth it!!