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I mean....c'mon with all their cute bellies. (Otos in background too, lots and lots)

Been busy, then briefly out of country as well. Don't tell my fish friends I tried authentic fish & chips for the first time and I really enjoyed it (I don't typically eat fish, don't really like it). Fish tanks did ok with only one feeding in 9 days from a relative stopping by. Sadly I lost 4 White Guppies in the Medieval tank and not even sure why (never found any bodies/evidence either)- everything is good in there and the shrimp seem to be doing very well (I've counted at least 20 from orginal 5). Since I've been home I lost another one to a tank jump so down to only 3 White Guppies. Anyway, as I said otherwise everyone else well. In the Accidental Tank since Serket was gone and I was down to 2 lone Endlers (and the Hillstreams that hide) I got 8 mixed male Endlers from a local fish keeper/breeder. So that tank has been much more lively with 10 active inhabitants. No pics of them right now since it was kind of a last minute addition prior to my leaving. They all did well though when I was gone. My centerpiece fish, Invictus (the rescue Betta), Punk and Industry all doing very well. I think Punk was a bit mad at me for the absence. He turned his fins on me: I will leave you with Industry in the Angry Man tank, she's starting to hold her own with Punk or they're just getting along a bit better- though he still chases her off it seems she has a bit more bravery. She isn't so quick to swim away from my presence or finger to the glass either as she has been doing. She even posed for this picture. I think she's getting lessons in spunk from Punk....

First snow! 🎿 ⛷️

Since my 10 gallon garage tank exploded with offspring, the better half agreed to purchase another tank to house the ever expanding population of the Endlers. Did some searching and found this 25 or 29 gallon tank on the Marketplace. She agreed to have it reside on her dresser so I needed to make sure it was of a good size but not overpowering for the amazing strength of Ikea furniture. Since I have been collecting funds from the population explosion of cherry shrimp from the 20 gallon, this gave me the opportunity to do a shopping spree at the Co-op. I purchased a light, air pump, sponge and accessories, heater and substrate. I spent so much I was able to get a free frozen food item! Yay!? I did do an order for plants from the Co-op as well along with some Easy Green a couple weeks later. Prior to that, purchased some plants from a local shop close by. Here is what I have so far: Cryptocoryne Tropica 1 Cryptocoryne Lutea 1 Cryptocoryne Lucens 3 Cryptocoryne Wendtii Red 1 Water Sprite 1 Java Fern 2 Anubias Nana "petite" 2 Pogostemon Stellatus Octopus 1 Vallisneria 2 Micro sword 2 Rotala species 2 dwarf water lettuce and I don't know what it is 1 Also went with 3 bags of Activ-Flora planted aquarium substrate available at Aquarium CO-OP in store. Wish it was for delivery, but I would expect exorbitant delivery charges for it! Here is the progression from start to now in pictures: This is right after planting And this is a week later.... Two weeks after planting... three weeks after planting... 1 month after planting... I'll try and keep this one going.

This is so important. My hubby is the same way. I wish everyone had someone in their life like that. The world would be a happier place 🤗

@Guppysnail I have a really good relationship with the Lowe’s closet to me. The Pro desk manager is interested in my projects and really helpful. I’ll probably end up there afterwork today, and lay it out on the floor in the store today with his help. Don’t get me wrong I’m intimidated also, but watched videos and a super supportive wife, she makes me feel like I can do anything.

The Aponogeton never lets me forget it made a flower🤣

Festivums are generally very peaceful cichlids, seem content as solos, and are much more top water to mid water. Striking angled black stripe and some varieties come in soft or deeper colors. Not crazy bright colors, but not only the “normal” white. They only get to about 4”-6” usually (some say males get to 8” but I’ve never seen one even close to that big). They are peaceful enough to keep with much smaller fish since they also have a fairly small mouth. One would be a very striking centerpiece fish in a 46 G. I have a pair and the larger female bullies the smaller male even though he was rehomed for bullying the previous owners angels. He bullies no one nowand she only bullies him, although she has become the tank boss over the extremely wimpy 9” and 10” Jack Dempsey pair. She doesn’t bully them at all, she just doesn’t give ground if they try to push her away. They’re both visible in this picture - him on the left, her on the right above the silver dollars. Ignore the BBA on the lucky bamboo, I do. 😝 I should get an SAE for this tank. 😂

Essentially, you'll see it more with smaller tanks, but what you're seeing is a type of mineral build-up. If you don't remove enough water, then when you top off the tank and do your water changes you're slowly adding minerals over time. Let's say you do minimal water changes, 10-15% once a month or something. As the water evaporates, then you'll have the TDS (things in the water) increase. To counter this you would top off with RO or distilled water. Imagine that the TDS increasing is only your KH. Those minerals build up over time, raises the PH, and that's what you're seeing. Let's start there and see if that fits the situation though. What is your maintenance like on the small tank? How does the tank parameters compare to the tap water parameters.

Scooped out as much duckweed as I could. That took forever! Squeezed the fine sponge filter and did a quick water change. Added a Wonder Shell to help with the shrimps shells. One of the Endlers went missing overnight. Presume he died and the shrimp did what shrimp do.

As of 2016, they ended their orca breeding program, and the orcas they have are the last generation that will be in their park (according to their website). On average a orca lives about 41 years at SeaWorld. None of the whales are forced to perform. If they want to, they get rewarded. If they don’t want to, the show is changed to more of an educational talk while the orcas just swim around and do what they want. Also the trainers no longer enter the water with the orcas. SeaWorld is teaching guests about general environmental care, to recycle and pick up trash (even if it’s not their own trash) to help keep it out of waterways. As well as educating the public about marine life.

Mine bred in my display tank without me doing anything. If I were to take a guess, I think large water changes triggered them. I remember thinking this at the time, that after I did a big WC, over the course of the next few days I'd seem them laying eggs all over my anubias. I didn't intentionally breed them, but I am currently breeding Sterbai, and water changes seems to trigger those. A good diet also helps.

Sea World. We visited 3 attractions today. My mom surprised me with an 18 month pass, so we don’t have to cram all of the things into one day 🙂

That looks like staghorn algae or similar. The algae I know of as toxic is blue green slime algae- Cyanobacteria. That smells to high heaven and is unmistakable. You are safe.

I think with me it's a fear of failure, OCD kind of thing! I love being precise, I love knowing the numbers. If the old sayings go 'measure twice, cut once' or 'an ounce of prevention'.. I take them to the extremes, I measure 15 times to the 1/16th of an Inch and coat it with a lb of prevention before I even make the cut...... It's exhausting at times 😮‍💨

So the GBR babies started hopping last night. I fed them a touch of sera micron for the few that were ready. This morning I fed again a bit more and everyone ate. So second feeding I fed Kens golden pearls 5-50 micron. They really went crazy for it. Very successful hatch. Lots of strong looking fry this time. I think last time I did not feed soon enough. I noticed even the ones not swimming are actively scooting and pecking at what’s in the floor. While uploading that video two of my boys were playing peekaboo. These two do this all the time. It’s so cute.

@TheSwissAquarist, you would think that and yes the glass is rather clean, however, due to the high volume of bottom feeders (Otos, 1x Pleco, 1x Mystery Snail and 7 Julli Cory) this is the dirtiest tank I have- wiith food debris and wood debris all over the gravel and landing on the plants. This is temporary however, once the 200 gallon tank is set up they will all live there.

Nice tank! You’re probably one of the Co-Ops best customers 😂. I also had an Endler explosion once upon a time…but my tank was filthy!

My cat is a goober and will chop on ANY plant and throw up 3 seconds later. Hosta, spider plant, you name it. Best way I have found to combat it, cat grass. When she has something that she is allowed to eat, she ignores it, and everything else...

It usually melts after a week - but we’ve got another inch or so due for Saturday. The glacier I occasionally ski on nearby got a much-needed foot and a half last night. Three days of snow must suck. No free RO water!

Oh man that's a flashback! I remember going out on the woods after a summer rain to catch these!

Oh man, I had a similar issue once, right before bedtime. I had a clear tote with Christmas decorations in it. I dumped that onto the floor and rinsed the tote really well, then that became my new aquarium until I got to the store the next day. I also found the stand had swelled and that was why the tank leaked. So, new stand was necessary too. Fortunately that was an easy Amazon order of the Aqueon forge stand, which accommodates 2 tanks (😉) - just thinking about fish room versatililty here.. 🙂 I am annoyed by fiberboard stands. I think they are a bad idea because they don’t hold up over time to water. Approved! 💛

Thanks. So far so good with the new setup. Looking at the tank I think it is in need of another mystery snail. Not sure if gold or chestnut. 😄

Weeell…this might be my most embarrassing move yet. I went to check the filter and media and realized I never took off the plastic bags from any of the media. So, I imagine a lot of my issues could be simply from that alone. I’m going to try the blackout method this week. 🫠 🤯

Where did you get the bleeder and valve? Can you please message me if posting a link would violate forum rules?

Cats almost never eat enough to get significantly ill. They don’t taste good but they can cause mild GI upset and potentially oral irritation from the oxalates. I’ve never once had to treat a cat for eating pothos in almost 30 years. I’ve even had to treat a couple cats for eating chocolate which is very rare. None for the “potential kidney issues” you’ll read about from eating pothos. My cats mess with them sometimes, they’ve tasted them, but they don’t eat them. I’ll never say there’s never been a cat treated for ingesting pothos, somebody’s always going to break the rules. 😆 Because, well, . . . cats. But I’ve never seen anything other than 1-2 vomits and done. We get the phone calls, but most owners don’t elect to bring them in because the symptoms don’t last.

Finally got around to finishing this. Was trying to keep it simple and cheap but I couldn’t help but trying to make it look a little nicer than planned. Now I just need to figure out what’s going to go into this tank.

I will post my journey of my setting up my air pump set up. I got the air pump from aquarium co-op. I ordered the bleeder and control valve. I’ll be getting the pipe from Lowe’s. Here is the start of my journey

Hello, I am going into the third week of cycling my planted tank, but I have noticed some murky-looking substance at the top of my water level. I haven’t messed with the tank, outside of adding liquid fertilizer (Easy Green) a couple of times a week. Is this a sign I’m over-fertilizing my plants or something else? Also, would anyone be kind enough to tell me the state of my plants. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

I'm not getting my hopes, the hongsloi have been do this for months without spawning again.

I am starting a heavily planted 40 gallon. Most of the fish I am wanting, I haven't kept before. So here is the list. 8 blue emporer tetras 4 congo tetras 9 cardinal tetras 6 kuhli loaches 6 panda corries 5 odessa barbs 10 amano shrimp Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

The biggest problem I face is, when you start with a small group and things go wrong, then it does not end up good. I got me 5 rosy barbs (2m:3f) from my lfs (as they were the last ones). They were the worst batch of fish I have ever owned. They gave me 3 surprise fry but still I only have one fish left. It sucks right now because it acts erratic. Swims extremely fast everywhere and randomly try to bite other fish. They were extremely peaceful as a group and Im lost what should I do. I dont wanna increase their school size. Same with cories. I started with 5 sterbais ( again, all left was 5 and they didnt come back over a year). I ended up having 1m:4f from those juveniles. I had great breeding action and stuff. But now I lost that single male and I have all 4 ladies. They are still pretty okay as 4 ladies but I lost the opportunity of breeding my fish. There is a difference between wanting to do it, or being able to do it. I was complaining about them breeding nonstop, but I feel sad right now that they can't. So my recommendation also would be keeping a big school one of fish. Old age and diseases happen. Whether due to a sad accident or course of nature, you gradually lose fish. You start with a school and at some point the numbers decrease. It happens. That's why, besides making them feel safer in big numbers and observing a better behavior of them, big schools help to delay to get to the point of where I did with rosy barbs.

Was finally thinking about adding the COOP regulator and cO2 to my planted aquarium. I’m a complete noob to c02 as far as that goes tho. It’s a 220 gallon 8’ ft tank. What do I need to consider as far as diffuser placement to maximize effectiveness🤷🏼‍♂️🤷🏼‍♂️🤷🏼‍♂️🙏 Or I suppose I could run it through my sump for better circulation 🤔🤔🤔 I’ve only seen videos that show the small in tank diffuser, which I can’t imagine working as intended in my size tank OR an in-line diffuser for a canister, but I’m not really looking to add a canister to my sump lol I have two return pumps in my last return chamber in the sump and they push up to two return loc lines (one on each end of the tank) They are both at water level right now to help break the surface tension and so there wouldn’t be a potential humongous water back siphon into the sump. So not sure how to make this work lol. Thanks for any tips🙏🙏🙏

Glad everything worked for you, what a day...!

Sounds great, but the only thing that could happen is large Congo tetras picking on small Amanos.

Yep. Been there, done that! 😆

Had to look up what a “chi” tank was. That just looks like a really bad design, especially that lid. ”Hey, folks, let’s make a cheap, acrylic lid, then put a pump, filter, and light in the middle of it and we’ll hide all that stuff inside a weird black box!” “It will look like the box is floating, really!” 😆 I suppose it is a very minimalistic, clean, Feng Shui look, but bound to fail sooner rather than later. I don’t even have to touch it to know it’s too cheap and gimmicky to last. It definitely does not look easy to maintain like their ad said.

My peas have never even considered eating anything dry. They wouldn’t even eat wingless fruit flies. I can barely get them to eat anything frozen. They may be spoiled but they only eat live foods. A steady diet of only frozen bloodworms is not sustainable health wise for them. They need more variety. I’ve started cultures of no less than 10 different types of live foods to be able to raise pea puffer fry and satisfy them through all life stages. They don’t need 10 different live foods, but you’ll need to find at least 3-4 different foods they will eat if you want them to stay healthy.

Came here to say all these things and everyone beat me to it. Your tank / filter will cycle to your bioload. If the bacteria was only in substrate and on hardscape then bare bottom tanks with no hardscape are in deep trouble. But they aren’t actually if they have a good level of biofiltration. I have 3 bare bottom, no hardscape, 5 gallon guppy tanks that are loaded with guppies. Well, 2 are loaded, one isn’t quite yet. I moved at least 25-30 out of one today (because let’s face it, I’m playing with fire at this point, they are only 5G) and it was not quite half the total population. I really need to take some to my LFS! But I have medium ACO sponges in them because they were intended as “dirty” snail, scud, blackworm tanks for pea puffers. Then they got some mosquito larvae, so I popped a male guppy in each. Then other guppy tanks got crowded so more guppies went in, and now I need to thin the herd. Or is it horde? My point is, that the tank population grew gradually, so food gradually increased, and beneficial bacteria population grew along with the guppy population. You had so much overfiltration that your bacteria weren’t stimulated enough to grow a decent population in your giant filter.

I favor white clouds. They are very, um, durable.

I haven't been to the forum in a while. I love it, it's been very helpful. So, these are not complaints, I'm just curious. 1-is there a link somewhere on the coop website to the forum? I had a really hard time finding the blog. I had to leave the coop page and google it instead. I'm slow, the link was probably right in front of me. 😉 2- I see shipping to a PO box is no longer allowed? I live at the end of a mile long driveway that no one can find. I really loved the PO box delivery (we don't have a mailbox) I understand though if it is no longer possible. Thats it, WB

Thank you. I thought perhaps that might be it. I've put a few signs up on our driveway so ups should have an easier time now. It's an adventure for them. The driveway is like a riverbed and there are 3 cattle guards to cross, deer, elk etc. Re: Forum link. I figured it was my old eyes that were the problem, however that screen shot comes up for me for about half a second, not long enough to click the forum link. It goes right to another screen, but now I see the link at the bottom of that page. I'm just slow, lol. I just ordered another usb pump, some brine shrimp, a plant and valves. We'll see how they navigate my crazy driveway. Thanks again, Wendy

Decided to paint some cories! I’ll want to fill a whole page with these, but I have a few lineage 9s so far! From top to bottom, the species are C. arcuatus, C. julii, as well as C. panda and C. duplicareus, asked for by @Beardedbillygoat1975 and @nabokovfan87, thanks for the ideas!

You’ll want to run a reactor on a tank that size.

Well.. I made a cookie graveyard

Just finished this next one, I’m starting to really love this medium.The species is Brochis Splendens. Also, if any of you have any recommendations for me to paint, I’ll definitely consider them!

I've built Greg Sage's grate design specifically to breed his Barbs and I tend to use it as a rough guideline for anything else I build. It works very well, especially for Odessas that are masters to getting underneath the grate. I take his advice to really pack up all the edges with strips of Scotch Bright pads as a way to really secure things. However, I really like @rgb_aquarium's use of the matten filter to corral the fry into a smaller area of the tank. I'm guessing this will also make water changes much easier without fear of sucking up fry. Might have to try that myself.