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Just in case anybody was worried about how “sharp” black Diamond blasting sand (BDBS) is or isn’t and how it could affect cories barbels I’ve got a couple pics for you. I see this question come up regularly and I don’t think it’s an issue at all. I had a couple cories be a little more cooperative after feeding the other day so I snapped a couple pics. These cories have been raised on BDBS since they hatched in this tank. My BEL boys have settled down a bit and the water is more clear than it’s been in a couple weeks so I got decent pics. These are just a couple of my bronze cories, Corydoras aeneus. They all have fabulous barbels and so do the trilineatus in the same tank. The tri’s are less bold than the bronzes, so no pics today. But I have cory zoomies and eggs again after the weather front that came through yesterday. I haven’t even done a water change. 😆 Enjoy the fabulous “mustaches” on these kids - probably both girls, BTW.

Calling all puffer owners in the form of crazy fish keepers, hobbyists and lunatics who love our animals!!! I want to create a space for us to post about our puffers and create a thread of ever eternal puffer knowledge. We’ve had the puffer signal go off a few times on the forum and I just think it would be good to have a thread to go with our signal! Here is Princess Peach the Congo Spotted Puffer. I’ve had her for about 2 weeks getting her from a fellow hobbyist and GSAS member. I’ve learned she likes flow but just enough. She will investigate all of her domain. She likes plants forming natural caves. She likes tank mates but perhaps less rambunctious ones. She likes blood worms, just enough vibrabites and snails but not too big ok? This weekend after noting her issues with the flow created by a powerhead and an Eheim 2217 I pulled both and switched out for an Oase Biomaster 250 running my corner mattenfilter through this. We also made more room for her to get her ample bosom around the decor. This is now the 3rd species I’ve kept of freshwater puffer and each experience has been rewarding, challenging and enriching. I think that’s really what many of us seek in our hobby.

Here are a few pics from my build. I've shared some of these in the past, but I don't think I shared pics of the exterior insulation.

I don't cycle planted tanks. I just make sure I see some growth in the floating plants, add livestock slowly and test the water regularly until the tank is fully stocked.

I like how his foot is speckled. When Gup first got the GBRs they were in a top tank. She was cleaning the bottom tank and then looked up and she said all the GBRs had their snoots pointed down looking at her. 😂

Little Ramshorn snails.

Here's a few pics of what I made from the pieces of ghost wood I received from Buce Plant a few weeks back. Took awhile doing it in my spare time... lots of super glue, sawdust and patience... but, I think it turned out pretty well. It measures approximately 36" long and 16" wide, and 18" tall at the highest platform. I even turned it upside down to make the underside look as nice as possible (see the pic), even though most of it won't show so much when the plants have grown out. There are 48 platforms in all which will be planted in weeping willow aquarium moss, and there will be some anubias petite, buce mini and dwarf java fern accents around the base, along some of the branches and in some of the boughs. It is installed in the aquarium (it has a slate base with rubber feet to cushion it against the bottom glass). The slate base will be covered up along with the bottom edge of the trunk when the substrate is added later. I am still waiting for some items to ship before I can fill it with water again, and start the cycling process.

I spent my entire fish keeping avoiding cichlids like the plague. I only ever heard fighting and killing one another and everything else. I found no interest in that. As it turns out I’m a dwarf cichlid girl through and through. 🤣 @dasaltemelosguy gifted me a group of GBR who bred and gave me beautiful babies. This made me brave enough to try Apisto caucatoides I was hooked. Then I fell in love with Laetacara both curviceps and dorsigera From there I I branched out to Borellii Opal from @TeeJayand trifasciata from @tolstoy21 Somewhere in this mix I fell for ADF My old favorites of course my pleco and CPD I’ve split 2 groups out to start breeding the CPD again

Here's a short clip of my sawbwa replendens getting in the mood after they got a new spawning mop (if this thing can be called a mop). I used to float java fern in their tank, and that works very well, but I can't really clean that after use to get rid of snail eggs (and there are a lot), and it's harder to see the eggs in. Here's hoping this giant pipe green pipe cleaner thing works out and does't become a floating breakfast buffet for the sawbwas!

Alright, I am calling it. @mynameisnobody shoot me your email in DM and I will send everything to you. Have fun and make sure to send me some pics of you with MD & FSM! 🙂

Mine in my 2 G and 3 G shrimp tanks are reproducing by the time they hit small pea sized - just over 1/4” or around 5 mm maybe. Because that’s the size they always seem to get to before I get them pulled. It’s hard to say how long it takes to get there since I can’t track them from hatching. They hatch too tiny and too many of them to track. I’d guess somewhere around 4-5 weeks from hatch to breeding size. Another couple months at least to what I USED to think of as “adult” size when their growth slows down quite a bit. They do keep slowly growing until they die and the biggest one I’ve grown so far was a smidge over 3/4” across. If you look close at the pic in my 3 G that I posted I now consider that size breeding age and I’m about a week past being in time to get the “big ones” out because I now have a ton of new babies scattered over the walls of that tank. Missed my timing again! 😆 🤷🏻‍♀️

I have a few cories that have had barbel issues but they were from infections not related to substrate. One of my oldest bronzes developed an infection in a bare bottom tank even when there were fry growing up in there that never had a problem at all. And a couple of my sterbais in my angel tank don’t have barbels from when they got an infection and they’re on “smooth” pool filter sand. They are long since over the infection but barbels didn’t grow back. I barely saved the fish! And no, the infections weren’t related. They occurred almost 2 years apart. I truly don’t think substrate has anything to do with cory barbels. In nature they skim over and hunt food over all different kinds of surfaces.

It’s not all that uncommon to see water like this especially if you are on well. 6.4 pH isnt anything id be concerned with and you can add carbonate salts to bring the kh up- it will likely raise your pH too as the carbonate will buffer the acidity in the water some.

For some perspective, here is the ACO light (on a 29 gallon): Here is the Fluval 3.0: They are both around the same wattage. The Fluval will leave some outer parts of the tank less lit than the center. Here's another perspective of the ACO light: Notice that the Fluval really compresses the LEDs towards the center: A "real" 30" version of the Fluval would be a killer. However, as it stands, it just doesn't quite do justice to 29 or 20 long aquariums.

They still do this. I set up a grow out under their tank Sunday. I had an audience the entire time. They are such interactive water puppies. 🥰

I wanted to mention alternatives to separating your pair. I did not separate mine because I fear her getting egg bound and I love watching their courting. I watch and when they spawn I use the swabs in a stick to remove eggs. I lift the cave out of the water and slide the swab under dads belly and under the eggs to loosen them from the cave. Then they usually pour out. My dad got used to this now I just pet his back and he either leaves the cave or scurries in and the eggs get shoved out.

Yes, covering a 29 gallon with the 24 - 30 inch light leaves a little to be desired. The Aquarium Co Op lights definitely win there by having "all" of the sizes, up to 48 inches.

Same! If I leave it be, it looks beautiful. If I try to do anything to it, it gets mad at me and pouts.

I live in Northern NY. I’ve read various opinions of the Ivory Billed. I hope it’s alive in some deep woods somewhere living a peaceful Undisturbed life! 😃

I use rocks and driftwood I find on the beach in both of my tanks. I give them a good scrub and a rinse with the hose, and then into the tank they go. I like the rocks with holes in them (made by burrowing piddock clams).

I managed to make a video of my pseudomugil luminatus fry. At around 0:14 you can see another fry moving in the background too, and there are the parents, not caring about the fry Exciting Also I made a gif of my whitecloud fry that is in my cube fry rearing tank now 🙂 they are starting to look like fish

Clown killifish tank maintenance today. The tank is so hard to keep up, full of debris on the sand, algae in the roots, mess in the roots and have to do quite often cleanups, because I overfeed. I know I overfeed because I first have to distract the parents and then squirt on the surface. Given I have a fry (but only one) there is some success to my madness, but there are also consequences. There is hair algae, there is debris in the roots of the frogbit, there is debris sitting on the sand. The tank has low flow, because that is how the clown killifish is supposed to like it. But this scares me, so I do water change every week, sometimes every five days. Today I took like six plants out to make space for more. I also spent a lot of time collecting hair algae and cleaned some of the debris on the substrate, though there are places I do not even see and the leaf litter is in the way. Any tips on how to reduce the mess? Should I put in malaysian trumpet snails ( this is basically the only tank that doesnt have them, which was sort of on purpose), should I remoe the hornwort or hygrophilla, remove some of the frogbit, or just leave as is and resign myself to hair algae and mess in the roots?

The ease of use with the Ziss makes it anything but overkill. For one 29 gallon tank use 1/2 teaspoon of eggs. If you only do partial harvests this can be fed for 2-3 days.

ive got a 20high, maybe 20platies and many many cories after a breeding project. I personally never hatch more then a teaspoon of BBS and even that is a bit overkill for my tank. I use easy BBS salt for 36hours at 80degress, so far that is the best hatch rate i have found for myself.

I found that you can take advantage of their love for dark caves to my advantage. Just start trying to net them (to make them run to cover), then cover the cave entrance with your hand and remove the cave. It’s not as efficient as @Guppysnail’s method, but you can catch adults. Of course you can also check you HOB filter. Filter babies are the best.

#1: yes, those are thick lipped gourami which is a different species from honey gourami. They get larger and have a bit more personality. They are my favorite gourami! Culprit 1 appears to either be a female or a young male who is not yet mature. It's hard to tell. Culprit 2 appears to be a developing male. It's not always easy to tell size from pics, but they don't appear to yet be full sized. Thick lipped do get slightly larger than honey. If the behavior you are describing is that one will chase the other, it will dart away and sometimes go back and forth, this is normal. Thick lipped gourami do this little chase game with each other. It's more typical for the male to chase the female but I have seen it go both ways. Edit to add: I just realized, did you say BOTH of them turned brown? Males will turn brown when they are wanting to spawn. It's their breeding colors. If they both did then it is possible they are both males but the one just isn't fully developed yet. That then males the embrace thing you saw confusing unless it was something else. #2 I'm sorry I'm having a hard time seeing it. Hopefully someone else can chime in here. #3: Female cories are rounded at the bottom and do not sit flat on the substrate. This is because of carrying eggs. The more eggs they are carrying, the larger and more round they get. She looks very plump with eggs. It's possible she's about to spawn or it's also possible there is something else going on. I'm not confident enough to pick which though. @Colu you might be of help here for both #2 and #3.

I have had gold foot gold shell but I couldn't find the pic I took. I wasn't able to make more than 1 tho. True ivory come from the ones in my comment with both blue and red foot. Mix blue and Red and pray to the gods and when you see one isolate it. If you see 2 or more put them together. Eventually they will produce a true ivory. You could try isolating the few blues you do get. I'm not 100% sure but those may be dwarf and won't get much bigger. They def look ivory and ivory tends to be dwarf. What color were the ones you initially added?

They would all be mutts. Punnet square doesn't apply here. You would end up with a variety but if you cull that and keep the ones similar to what you are going for, then over time it would create what you want. You may get one very close if not exactly what you want but that would not breed true for awhile. You can make it happen but it won't happen in the first batch you get. I did something similar to this for a couple of years before I had to give them up because of health problems. I really enjoyed it. I did it in a colony setup but you could line breed it if you want to have more control but that requires more tanks and work.

Agreed. I have used Colu’s treatment and it works. Sometimes it needs to be repeated if the illness is stubborn. Do not share nets, equipment, siphons between tanks or you could infect the other tanks. You can disinfect your equipment in a mild bleach/water solution in a bucket. Then rinse well with tap water. I also dip the stuff in dechlorinated water just in case some bleach (aka chlorine) didn’t rinse off.

I would say that is too much. There are much easier ways how to hatch brine shrimp for small amount, and that should work for you. What people do I guess is hatch a full blender, feed a little and freeze the rest to feed later on. The bbs looses nutritional value within 12 hours after hatching, and wont last that much in new water and neither in the hatching water, if it is too crowded and you turn off the aeration. I use this method and I start in the morning when my lights are on, like 10-12 am, and next day 8 am, I have 80% hatched. I just stir it couple times during the day, but that is all. I also do not use decapsulated, so it is a bit more work to pick out the hatched bbs from the eggs, but not too much. I do this every three days or so, no constant light, no aeration that drives me crazy at night, no spillage...

Squeeze the air out of it and let it get “gummy”. Then, firmly stick it to the glass low in the aquarium. I haven’t played with freeze dried cubes in a minute, but that’s what worked for me. I should really do that more often.

Got some vallisneria spiralis for the right side of the tank in order to fill up the remaining space. I think it all should look nice when it is all grown in. The hygro is growing really quickly and the amazon swords are throwing out all kinds of new leaves. I'm thinking I'll give everything a few more weeks to grow in before getting some fish in there. I stopped by a local store on Saturday and got a few ideas. I think I definitely want to get a pair of triple red Apisto Cacatuoides. I had a pair years ago and really enjoyed them. Even spawned them a few times. I saw some really good looking El Tigre endlers that I think could be fun as well.

@Guppysnail I, too, haven't really dabbled much into the cichlid world bar my angels, but when I did this last big tank and got the GBRs, I now know why folks love dwarf cichlids so much. They really are super friendly and come to the glass anytime I am near(awaiting food of course lol). Def have taken to "The Three Amigos" as I call them. One of the reasons I am redoing the fish room is so I can actually get into specialized tanks and breeding hopefully. 🙂

Thank you 🙂

Does look like columnaris it's a gram negative bacterial infections that spreads more quickly at temperatures over 75 and can kill in 24hr to 7 days depending on the stain the most effective treatment is a combination of kanaplex and jungal fungus clear fizz tabs containing nitrofurazone following this treatment plan sometimes it can take two full course of treatment back to back @Teacups

I moved this little lady to a QT tank setup this morning. She def has a white patch on her head. Tried to get some photos... did the best I could. You can see its more on one side of her head than the other. When I had her in the display thank with the other guppies, I dosed the med trio (purchased all the meds from Aq. Coop! Maracyn, Paracleanse, and Ich-X) for a 15 gallon tank, which is what caused that big bacteria bloom yesterday. This morning when I moved her to the separate tank, I added in another dose of Maracyn, but for the smaller 3-gallon tank size I have her in now. Appreciate you all so much for helping a newbie! I really want my fish to be ok. I'm very worried, so having you all here to help advise if such a help to me!

@Guppysnail this snail is pretty

Can you take a picture of the fish with suspected columnaris it will help with a diagnosis

Agreed. It can take a while as their eggs can hide and even when you thought you had them all, more hatch and you have new snails. They are not detrimental to your shrimp. If anything, I think they’re beneficial and I welcome them

I might order one of those droppers. I presently use the plastic medicine droppers for children. The price was right, but I have always wanted something a little more precise.

Taken "as is", using the ACO shot glass: My original ACO 250ml bottle and pump produced 5ml. in 9 pumps. After a hot water flush the same pump produced 5ml. in 9 pumps. a Full original ACO 250ml bottle and pump produced 5ml. in 8 pumps. A new 500ml. bottle and pump produce 5 ml. in 5 pumps. All pumps for fully primed with at least 5 ml. run through them before measuring.

How many mLs does the dropper have? I don't use more than 4 squirts (mLs) for any tank. I wouldn't mind buying the small one and just refilling it from the big one. That would still keep it "easy." 🙂 Yes please! 🙂

Yup. God I swallowed the biggest mouthful of mulm this way. Was like inhaling mud pudding! I've also started a siphon like this that had a small amount of water still in the hose, in a bend, near the end I was sucking on. Sucked that water straight into my lungs. Thought, 'great I'm going to be the idiot who drowns on dry land!'

Bladder snail friend MTS friend

Is it just me or do I see some side-eye action going on? Looks full of personality already!

Fresh hatched L519 plecos today! Eggs this morning, fry this evening. This one is a bold little thing!

I made a video of me feeding my indostomus live microworms, you can see how fast of hunters they are. There is also the glare and my shaking hands, but what can you do

Adding my experience to this, I just had mine get to the "starts working again if you hit it" phase after 4 months of use. Hanging on the rim of a 10 gallon, no check valve, and adjusting flow/pressure with a valve attached to a T, bleeding off excess to atmosphere. Upon disassembly, I also found some nylon shavings, and no indication of lubricant of any kind. But the off-center hole not yet significantly enlarged or disformed. I cleaned out the shavings and applied some teflon lubricant to the offset hole and shaft. It now starts up without percussive maintenance and is now working at a significantly higher rpm. I will now use it as a backup air source rather than primary, and periodically monitor it. If the wear continues and becomes progressively problematic, I may experiment with making a bushing for it. Also, has anyone opened up the new co-op air pump yet? Would like to know its construction and possible longevity issues or the possibility of maintenance and repair. I know the co-op is good about replacing faulty units, and disassembly voids any kind of warranty. But personally I would always rather repair a device than replace it.

It's been a while but I finally got around to trying these pumps again. I tried to save them with silicon grease, but.. After reflecting over the past few months, I find I still have a use for the Nano pumps. I love the new coop pumps and am using 3 of those for my primary tanks (and will convert the rest as the old tetra whisper pumps die off), but it's really hard to beat how dead silent these Nano pumps are. Even if I have to purchase a new Nano pump every 6 months it would be worth it for the tank sitting right next to me in my office. At this point I tore them apart more out of general academic inquiry than for anything else. Reminder, I am just a hobbyist and not a professional. These were disassembled with a Dremel and hammer in my garage, not meticulously in a lab setting. I can say both units showed similar amounts of wear, but I won't be drawing any conclusions from what I found. It would just be assumptions and I am as likely wrong to be wrong as I would to be right. Now onto the carnage. I didn't take a picture, but the plastic on the shaft is not glued on. If you are scavenging parts from a dead motor, it's easily removed with pliers. Here you can see the telltale signs from the magic blue smoke escaping. The shiny gouges are from dremeling off the retention points from the housing. Here you can see how the brushes contact to commutator. The commutator seemed really torn up and the housing was filthy. The dust looks like its a combination of the commutator, brushes, and the permanent magnet. Here you can see the collection of residue on the back plate. They way I had these mounted (hanging by the c clip) this would have been up, which makes me believe the uh "percussive maintenance" and disassembly knocked this crud everywhere. This picture really shows how chewed up the commutator was. (ignore damage to the shaft itself, that was from me. ) In this terrible picture of the housing you can see the stator magnets and there is some slight wear. Like I said, this was mostly to satisfy my curiosity than to pinpoint a cause. My takeaways from this thread are more about air pumps in general. Check your stones more often than you think you should. Don't ask too much from your air pumps. Move them as high up as you can to preserve longevity. Check your check valves (avoid them if you can) as they can clog up too. Beware of back pressure and pump strain. To the last point when I want to reduce flow rather than just restricting the line, I've taken to bleeding off some of the airflow. Not sure if this is causing other problems, but it seems to be less stressful on the pump (less noise and heat, but I don't have any hard numbers). I accomplished this with a splitter and a printed screw clamp, but you might be able to get finer control from something like Ziss Air Valve.