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I spent the whole day taking one lousy picture: And for those who want a closer look:

Stocking stuffers (and I'm truly thinking of things that will fit in a stocking and not take up the whole thing): Coop fish stickers Sera Micron Root tabs Apisto cave Small pleco cave from Pleco Ceramics (love pleco ceramics!) Ziss never clog air stones Fluval Bug bites Ziss Premium air valves Water test strips TDS pen If want to spend a tad more, a Ph pen from Milwaukee Instruments Guess that's about all I can think of that I would be elated to find in my stocking!

I wish I had some super reds ready for you! I’ll have more of the L519’s (pigmented, and honeycomb pattern, don’t look naked 😝) ready fairly soon. They need to grow up a smidgen more. They also stay smaller overall by quite a bit compared to other bristlenoses. They max out at 3.5-4” vs the 6-7” of an adult male BEL, or super red bristlenose. @nabokovfan87 Remind me what size tank you want them for and what type fish to go with? Pic of a couple from the first clutch of L519’s.

Indostomus picture dump. They are almost impossible to properly focus on. Plants are in the way too 🙂 Next time, bare tank

It’s been pointed out to me that I’ve never introduced myself. I go by Odd Duck on many forums so chances are if you’ve seen that name around, it could be me. I’m an “old lady” now and have been keeping fish (not continuously) since 1975. I’ve had fresh tanks for most of that time. We had a fish only salt tank for a few weeks then switched it to a reef tank almost immediately. That was back in 1983. I kept one or more reef tanks going until about 2003-ish. I can’t remember exactly when we sold the last one. Still had a couple fresh tanks for another year or so before selling those, too. I’ve had all kinds and sizes of set ups and bred a variety of fish, some purposeful, most more accidental “back in the day”. I rescued a pair of Jack Dempsey cichlids in April of 2020 to help get my dear friend out of a difficult situation (not her fish, but ended up her responsibility to find them a home). They were fascinating and gorgeous and made a ridiculous number of babies for me within 5 weeks after I got them. This rekindled my love of fish and fish keeping and away we went (dragging my poor hubby along for the ride). I now have far too many tanks and have been planning to do a fishroom and making glacially slow progress in that direction over the last year or so. The goal is getting all, or at least most, of my smaller tanks into one room with automatic overflows so I can just go around the room with my refill hose and do water changes. Much less time and labor involved, far happier fish. Potentially, eventually go full auto on water changes in the fish room at least. I have a pair of 100 G tanks on either side of my TV that I watch far more than the TV. I now have the Jacks in a planted, 75 G with a pair of festivums, a group of tiger silver dollars, and a reverse trio of bristlenose plecos. All of whom intermittently do their part to destroy the aquatic plants but they can’t access the emerse plants, so there fishies! I now have 23 fish tanks plus a 10 G and 3 jars for live food culture. Plus a 180 G waiting to be set up after the fishroom happens - it will go where the current rack now stands. I have had decent success breeding plecos and cories, ridiculous success breeding the Jack Dempseys, and some random success with a few other species. Links in my signature to lots of stuff, far from all my tanks. I’m one of those people that knows a lot about some things, a little about a lot of things, but I’ll tell you straight up if I know nothing about other things. I’m not afraid to admit if I’m wrong about something and I’ll be the first to apologize if I’ve told you something wrong or said something stupid. I am a bit prone to being brusk or brutally honest because I’m very thick skinned myself. I try hard to rein in the bruskness and brutal honesty into a more gentle honesty, especially online because it’s so easy to come across hard and harsh without expression or tone being available. If I feel I can help, I will. I mostly avoid the “Disease” section if possible because I see far too much animal pain and suffering at work, but if you need me, tag me. I’ll help where I can. I work very long hours, but short weeks in a veterinary ER, so I’m not online every day and can’t always answer back quick depending on where I’m at in my work “week”. Far too much for most people to read through. If you’ve made it this far there’s a decent chance you may already know most of this about me already. For those who didn’t, Howdy, from Texas. Sharon Pic of the troublemaker tank from about 3 weeks ago. I put an SAE in there today to see if it can better control the BBA.

I thought I would share a few minutes of the morning routine that the fish and I share together. Basically my contribution is putting the coffee pot on, bringing up the fishcam and plowing through messages. When the first rays of the sun hit, the fish will move to the camera side of the tank; too close for the camera to focus. Eventually they move to whatever part of the tank is brighter. In an earlier setup, this process was reversed at night. The lights would shutdown moving sequentially across the tank, with the fish following the light The pictures are a sampling of what the camera sees first thing in the morning. This tank gets a little bit of direct morning sun, and the fish and some of the plants react accordingly. The fish that are awake migrate to the sunny side of the tank. The Bloodfins seem to be the early risers, and the SAEs tend to sleep in. When the tank turns bright chaos resumes. My LFS says the plant on the right is a Cardinal Plant. Hopefully one of you can confirm this. I saw the purple leaves and had to have it. In a different tank it was a Temple Plant. My LFS is 98% aquarium/terrarium, but sometimes their plant IDs are a bit off.

or ACO multi strips! I gave these to a friend last year who never used strips! She had always used liquid tests for everything. Also ACO little towel is a good gift

I find these "shrimp nets" to never be of great quality. I get a bunch so I always have a backup. They only last so long. I like the ones that are stiff, since the better ones can hold a box shape while in the water. Great for catching shrimp! Also very useful for catching fish out of a catch cup and putting them in bags. But for netting fish out of a tank -- TERRIBLE!

😂 I don't know why the lemons / albino types of fish freak me out a bit. Maybe I was scarred from the white bat in ace ventura as a kid? No idea. I seriously appreciate it though. I was trying to get some of OD's Red BNP or just find some local. I do plan to get barbs from Dan's fish and might be able to get one from them as well.

If shipping wasn't a million dollars I would send you one or some from my next batch.

Todays been an eventful day. Starting off with cutting my finger on some skis and having to get a jab because they were all rusty making me miss double French 🫠. I’m not all too sad about missing out on the wonders of Renaissance littérature. After getting home from school 🏫, I found about 50 Cory eggs stuck to the side of their breeding tote! I’m thinking that a combo of a faulty air pump and 20 Celsius temps are the trick. Basically imitating natural rain. Final bit of good news, my glowlight fry have finally started to take off! One-handed Sera micron is on the agenda tomorrow morning! Stay fishy friends!

It sure does!! The air collar replaces an air stone.

I’m so tickled at how well he is doing. He is a handsome man. You are a terrific fish dad. Every fin is perfect. That is excellent care. Lemoney sure is a handsome man.

Got up this morning. Made a nice cup of mud and got the girls off to skool. They both got out the door very good with no issues. Thank the Lord for small favors. Swung by the 29 gallon and lemony has not moved from his position at the front of his cave. So I'm now thinking we are a little farther along in the process than I thought. I'm pretty sure he already has eggs in there and he is on watch taking care of them. It's hard for me to see into the cave with the way I angled the opening this last time I did water change. Error on my part ooof. I didn't catch any of the process the first time around so I'm still learning all the behaviors of what happens. But that is not his usual behavior so I'm pretty sure the eggs are in the hole 🤗 So I'm thinking it's been about 2 days a long. This weekend I'll throw in a couple of catappa leaves with plant waits to get nice and soft for the new coming ground force of plecos.

He’s growing up so fast 🥲

My best growing pothos get sunlight. It takes me about 30-45 minutes about every 3 months to hack back this jungle. The vines do exactly what I wanted them to do and more. The goal was for them to hang over the back of the tank to shade it to prevent overheating the tank and reduce algae along with pulling nitrates out of the water. They do all that plus climb the window, climb the wall, crawl across the floor, etc, etc. I worry they might start asking for Seymour, soon.

Hey hey Everyone! I am one of those people that attempts to plan ahead and it's that shopping season time of year for the holidays. I wanted to put together a brief list of my own ideas and ask the hivemind for some of your ideas! What would you like to see in your fishy stocking or gift to fishy friends? Here's mine, I was thinking about things might not be relatively fish specific, but always seem so useful! Fish shipping bags or heat packs Nature themed Art Command Brand Hooks, specifically these ones work well for me) A good pair of pinsettes or aquascaping tools of any kind Seachem Nets (I just really love these ones) moss thread bottle of plant fertilizers of some kind Aqueon Nutrinsect food! (specifically this one because of the whole shark conservation ties) Stainless Steel Tumbler / Cup for tool storage A "Tool" drying mat / Silicone Drying Mat (Oxo has great ones) Coral Feeder or Turkey Baster pipe cleaners, Impeller brushes, or tube cleaning brushes Hand towels or as Mark's Shrimp Tanks would call them.... Floor Towels A nice rug to sit on (Definitely wont fit in a stocking) Gift cards for a fish purchase (Looking at you Aquahuna and Dan's Fish!) A "coupon" for a future visit to the LFS that can be redeemed through the year (your friend gets to go with you sort of thing, useful if that person really doesn't want to go too often or enjoy the hobby) Lots of Coffee to sip while waking up to the fish.

I have been attempting to raise brine shrimp as food for my fish. Based on recommendations from a previous post, I purchased the following hatchery. Brine Shrimp Hatchery Dish (Eggs Sold Separately.) https://a.co/d/emGBOzA I bought eggs directly from Awuarium Co-Op, as well as salt. I use the little scoop from inside the package of eggs as the measurement of eggs that I wish to hatch. I follow the directions exactly for how much salt per liter of water. Temperature is 70-72 degrees (room temperature). I use an led light to attract the brine shrimp to the middle. I don’t know if the eggs are hatching correctly or that most of the eggs are not hatching. I am providing a picture of what the water looks like after 48 hours. It looks like there is red dust across the top of the water. I don’t know if those are still present after an egg hatches??? Am I doing something incorrectly? Any insight into having the most eggs hatch in this particular hatchery?

Was in big box today to buy a small piece of mopani to get some extra tannins going on Geppetto’s tank vs doing the rooibos tea every water change. I looked up at a tank (I rarely look at tanks in big box store) and I stopped dead in my tracks. I saw like 5 Snoopys in a tank. Now mind you, I haven’t seen Bolivian rams in about a year, not even at Aquashella. They were labeled as Ruby Clown Cichlids. Hence they were priced at $7.99 instead of $14.99…. Just as a reminder, when I bought Snoopy she was labeled as a “red ram”, whatever that is. So my friend who always swoons over Snoopy has been wanting one very much, so I did get one for her, and I spent, no lie, like 45 minutes in the store trying to decide what to do for myself and trying to sex the fish. Because I want Snoopy to stop glass surfing. I hate when fish do that, and I believe it’s out of boredom (although some of it is to get my attention too). The truth is, she’s been doing this a long time, and I always feel like she deserves better, socially. I believe, (and I explained to the associate what I was looking for, and she helped look for those features) that I got a male. We made sure NO breeding tube, the bump on head, looked at pointy fins. This could be an epic failure but because I have seen one success story by @xXInkedPhoenixX who definitely has a male and a female, I would like to try this out, under careful observation. I am taking everyone’s experiences very seriously, however. If things go south, I have an extra tank as well as hobbyist friends who live closeby and could potentially adopt. Now this is a terrible pic because the fish is confused/just was transported. Also I had to take it with the light out to ease stress of reflections. Maybe I can get better pic later. (A little sunken belly, no?) Anyway, this fish is in with the new ember tetra which were recently started on preventative paracleanse. Also there are live brine shrimps hatched out and are ready for the morning feeding tomorrow for all the tanks. The paracleanse is a 7 day soak (ACO instructions) and then water change with 2 week rest, then we repeat 7 day soak. Again, this could crash and burn.. or it couldn’t. For now 1 month (minimum) quarantine . Oh also, friend’s ram has separate setup in a bucket and will be picked up in the next day or so.

Ok I have been here a while. But, I just remembered I never actually said 'hello'!! So hello everyone from the state of mind known as New Jersey!

@anewbie, I have soooo many bad pics for every half decent pic I’ve taken. I really need to go through my phone and remove a few hundred bad fish pics. 😝

Same here. I have seachem, api drops and Hanna digital. Since I verified the coop test strips against those three quite a few time and found them reliable… the rest now just collect dust.

I grow out the top pothos, spider plants, and lucky bamboo and I float Pearl Weed. I swear by floating Pearl Weed, I rarely get algae in aquariums I float Pearl Weed (unless it’s a new setup)!

Pics from around the house of fish in the tanks...well and a cherry shrimp lol

Well, let me take care of that for you. Hi everyone, have you met Odd Duck? If not, please give her a big welcome!

Yes sorry the egg shells will float, everything looks normal

I really like Aquarium Co Op’s test strips. Since I started using around 2 years ago I have not used anything else. In my opinion if you keep them dry they are super reliable.

I want to find small, cheap, but fine mesh fish nets. Cheap enough I don’t care about bending the handle but the mesh needs to be finer than average so plecos and cories (and duckweed) are less likely to stick. Not brine shrimp fine, but finer than most nets. I’ve got 2, a very small one that fits easily into specimen containers and the next size up that’s about 5.5” x 4”. Both are older than most of the aquarists on here (probably from the 80’s). The bigger one is just about perfect for nearly everything I’m trying to catch from my smaller tanks but the corners are getting frayed (one corner is really bad now) so fish can squirt out even after I have them trapped against the glass. I have had no issues finding better quality, more durable handles but everything is coarser mesh or MUCH finer mesh that’s so fine it makes the net notably slower to swish through the water. Sometimes you need a faster swish than that even when you mostly use your hand to coax fish into a still net. I also want to have enough nets I can soak them between uses. Plus keep at least 1 per level on each rack. With my profession, I’m a bit more paranoid than average about disease transmission between tanks.

Yeah. They are glass cleaning machines once the lights go out. Fun to watch and always named "bubba." I really do love most / all plecos and not picky at all. I would love to breed flash plecos one day in the shrimp tank, but it's not something that would happen soon. One day I'm sure you'll have one for me, no worries at all! 🙂 I was so indecisive in my pleco purchasing when I first had the 55/75G setup I had 5 species in the tank and enjoyed all of them. They all behaved uniquely and just had their own behaviors. At that point I didn't even know what L numbers were or "fancy" plecos. Discovering places like planet catfish and other cool resources, learning about more species, it's really inspiring and makes you want to have a rack and a fish shop. It's the catfish bug in me, I like plecos and corydoras a whole lot.

Being in the Father Fish age bracket is not great physically but I get to be cranky 🤣

Super reds are “hot” right now, but so are honeycomb pattern plecos. L519’s are one of the smaller species with that pattern but there’s at least 3-4 others that I can think of right off. I’ve also got Rio Paraguay’s that I’ve been waiting patiently on them to breed (also a honeycomb pattern but get almost a inch longer than the L519’s) but I need to get some young BEL’s out of their tank. Then there’s Wabenmusters that get to about 5” that have a slightly more open honeycomb pattern. Plus L037’s (Hyposomus faveolus), “Honeycomb” plecos that seem to trend a bit more yellowish in their spots and get to nearly 10” long. There’s at least one other I can’t remember right now. But nothing stands out or is quite so distinctive like a super red. But rubber lips are supposed to be about the best for eating algae and cleaning glass.

Just what I was thinking! I was most definitely well past “kid” when that came out. I was graduating vet school that year and I took 7 years off between high school and college, and college for me was 7 years. 😆 It sneaks up on ya!

Your a young whipper snapper 🤣🤗 First I’m seeing these. I love them 😍

I taught Teejay how to ship correctly and safely 😉

Yup! And clogs. And you drop it in the tank. Or in the bucket when I’m cleaning the felt pads. And you lose the plastic disk, etc. etc. I’m honestly most excited for the air collar and not having to mess with air stones. The additional flow is the added bonus for me.

Since today was maintenance day for me, some more pictures. First off, the gouramis and the hatchefish (for now they work awesome, no issues, no fear) Now the pygmy corydoras tank. I removed the endler, cause the pygmies do not seem to be shy at al, they are all over, burrowing, swimming, hunting microworms. Please ignore the killed plant, I left it outside too long and it froze... And lastly the clown killifish tank. I think it is too dense. Can a tank be too densely planted? I mean the fish seem ok. But how would I know they are not...

I feel like Swamp Thing when I come out

Lol, nah. I already have my too many tanks, I don’t need to be doing maintenance on any restaurant tanks, too lol. Ya, I’m hoping the wild caught black neons will appreciate the blackwater tank. I’m excited to get them in there, but they’re gonna go through a long QT

Ha! Yeah, some dive sites I've been to look like that. But the water is crystal clear underneath. But the duckweed sticks to our gear when we exit. 😛

Oh sidenote, I am being given a bnp; Idk what color or anything yet, or even when - LOL! - just, my friend's friend bred them and has too many etc and so, one will travel with her from South FL to me and will come help eat my driftwood and stuff. Technically I could get as many as I want at no cost. I've not researched about bioload yet, so I just said one for now.

Check this out @TeeJay. I saw this booth at Aquashella https://plecoceramics.com/collections/ceramics

Its Sponge Filter Nermy!! Ha Ha Awesome!!

Thank you... Going to try and get some new larger caves ordered this pay. I know they are right at the edge of being to small....I don't wanna see another pleco in a apistos cave incident like before 😆

Yes, that was the question. Thank you.

Use this. It is a flocculent. It gathers up all the fine particles in the tank and drops them to the floor. It’s better if you run a hob with floss for a day rather than it all drop to your substrate to get tossed back up. Or vacuum really well. Very hard to do with shrimp. Easier to run the hob with a fine prefilter. It will clog your sponge filter with all that snow. It never hurt my shrimp or snails. My corydora get fiesta especially when numbers are to high. Debris constantly in the water column. I use this, cloudy for 20 minutes then crystal clear. box instructions do not say but somewhere on their webpage it does… dissolve in a cup of tank water BEFORE putting in tank.

I just got my hands on some parrots feather which I hear is rather invasive! Wondering if it'll put a duckweed level dent in nitrates!!!

Neighbors backyard pond..... Anyone need some duckweed? Ha Ha

Stopped by the local university's little aquarium displays. Check out these two characters! Who's watching who???

There's something on my nose again!!