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Decided to do this again. Breeding Betta splendens successfully is on my bucket list. Went to the “box store” and bought a cheap pair. Female has very long fins!

I got WHEELS baby! 🎉 If anyone runs across the thread the person announced these for sale at target let me know please. I need to thank them and can’t find the thread. I NEEDED these more than I ever knew. My fish room is actually 2 rooms I have to go between

Part of the original group, the Bloodfin in the first two pictures is 4 years old and still quite active. When this fish and the SAEs were smaller, they would play tag with each other; taking turns chasing and waiting to be chased. The remote controlled camera will see its own reflection if I show the whole tank, so the Crypts in the foreground are actually in the middle third of the tank. Remember that I said that my LFSs plant IDs are a bit off sometimes. In the far back is the youngest Anubia Nana Petite🤣. Fun Fact: What looks like the plastic plant pot under the Anubia is actually the plant's root structure. The parent plant is lost in the Crypts on the right. It lives, but does not grow It remains about the size of a quarter. In front of the Anubia is Dwarf Hair Grass on the left, and a barely visible Tiger Lotus on the right. This is my first attempt with the Hair Grass. Planting it in gravel might have been a mistake. The right side foreground is Crypt Bunch😶 and Crypt Wentii on the left. The Cardinal plant (thank you @Guppysnail) on the right foreground is where Italian Vallisneria used to be. The Vallisneria visible on the bottom edge of the picture, has once again migrated to the front corner of the tank where it gets that extra few minutes of direct morning sun. There are four runners there, but they aren't worth seeing. Somewhere off camera there is a Pothos and some Hornwort floating around. The substrate is standard aquarium river gravel with the tiny grit removed.

Ah wonderful, I do hope you picked right! Even if you end up with 2 girls maybe it will still be a serendipitous set up (as 2 males would probably be jerks to each other, however you never know). I think when they are small it's near impossible to tell- which is why I put out the call to my local area when looking for Punk's girl. I had to be 100% sure I was getting a girl. And I still think fins is no way to tell if a Bolivian is male or female- it's definitely the organs hands down. So I'm crossing fingers for you!!! Yes, Bolivians are oblivious (ha) to BBS (I only feed frozen and they get ignored which is why the day those go in the Bolvians get the bloodworms (and inevitably their tankmates get some too). Mine also like flake food. Vibra bites I feed but the tetras/rasboras don't seem to touch them and I'm not sure the Bolivians are "in love" with them but someone eats them eventually (probably the snails). Industry is good about picking food that has fallen on the plant leaves too as she actually seems to like occupying middle in the 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.

Thought I would add a couple photos of the 6 gallon cube I have had going for a couple years. There’s a lone guppy, 3 Pygmy cories and a whole lotta shrimp and ramshorn snails. Did a top off of the water and cut the Anubias barteri in half. It was growing out of the water. Put the cut half in one of the garage tanks to keep growing. Pulled some tufts of black beard algae from some leaves. Scooped out a whole bunch of duckweed and moved most of the water lettuce to a couple of the garage tanks as well. This stuff grows like crazy in here. Will probably split the rhizomes on a couple of the other Anubias in here. They are growing really well

My otos started with Hikari Algae wafers and I raised fry by crushing said wafers so it's still one of my favorite staple foods to feed them. I have also found my Otos and other bottom feeders in that tank (Julii Cory, Albino Pleco, Mystery Snail) actually go NUTS for Super Green Repashy. I do feed Soilent but alternate it. I also often mix in Community Plus since the addition of other fish besides the Otos (I didn't feed community plus before when it was just the Oto tank). They also really like Xtreme Bottom Wafers. I've tried veggies too but they just don't seem to go nutty for them. Cucumber was the closest I got and only had luck with ENGLISH style cucumbers. I just don't bother anymore to be honest since everyone eats what I've mentioned above.

Only things like severums silver dollars and such. Some others may nibble but it is not harmful. Even chewed off I’ve not noticed it harming my plants. I don’t keep root chewing fish but I routinely cut massive amounts of roots out of tanks so fish still have elbow room. Here is an article my friend did on the safety of roots in tanks dispelling the myths. Here is another article the same friend did in emergents to help with nitrate reduction

The new ram is doing well and has spent the morning sand sifting and exploring. The community was overjoyed at the live bbs, but I forgot one important detail: Bolivian rams are completely oblivious to bbs! They just stare at you like, ok so... are we getting food or what? Meanwhile there is a massive fish frenzy going on above them. 🤣New rams (mine in qt tank and friend's in the heated/filtered bucket) did not understand vibra bites or Repashy community plus either. To be fair, the community plus matches the sand. I mixed up some Soilent Green and will try that later since it will stand out. I want to fill out their bellies; looks like fasting or wasting disease. Fortunately the Paracleanse is already in the water for the ember tetras' treatment, and that is the correct remedy for wasting disease. And I had run out of frozen food earlier in the week. Will have to go get some on the way home. The new ram is being ultra cute. Doing the start/stop swimming. Curious: dorsal fin up. Content with observation: dorsal fin down. Swim backwards by closing the tail up. Etc 😍 The quarantine kids hate white light so pictures will be a challenge.

Thanks for the thoughts. I'm getting back into aquarium fishkeeping after forty years. I've been working for with a 45,000 outdoor pond with native smaller fish and inverts. I've recently started to work with smaller unheated tanks in my greenhouse--various rice fish, paradise fish, heterandria and goldfish. The tubs drop to at least 40°F. Now it's back indoors for me. I love the emergent plant idea. Do any kind of fish chew off the roots? Steve H

Welcome. I have similar water and nitrate issues. I mix with distilled and actually pick up my RO unit Tuesday. When tap is as hard as ours I can go 50% RO and my tap is still hard enough high kh enough and high ph enough to keep any fish including African cichlids. When I need much softer water I can get away with 1 cup tap per gallon of distilled and still have 7.4-7.6 ph with solid hardness and kh. I combat nitrates using A LOT of emergent plants.

That’s great! Hit me up if you ever need any help on triggers & stuff. 😄

For Otos, I pretty much start / stop my efforts with repashy. Soilent green is the one I prefer to feed them and you can also try bottom scratcher. I have seen them eat it, but most otos can be extremely nocturnal. They will hide up on the glass where they feel safe all day, then you catch them shoaling at night or at dusk/dawn as the light changes stages. They have gone for things like the hikari wafers for me, but my otos tend to really, really stick to just eating algae and going off surfaces in the hardscape/glass. cc @xXInkedPhoenixX may be able to point you to photos of their homegrown Otos eating prepared foods or other foods as well!

I got a couple okayish photos and some video of Blueberry the red cheek crayfish today. They have gotten a lot bigger and their color has matured quite a bit since August. Before After Bonus. Signifier blueeye photos

Has anyone tested the aquarium coop air pump with the battery backup with one of those usb solar panel on Amazon? In theory, the backup battery can last you through the night and resume charging in the morning?

Looks like something parasitic internal. Has she had white stringy poop? These situations are always sad. In an ideal world, quarantine tank with meds. Be advised . . . the results are not guaranteed, especially if a fish is too far gone before meds even begin. You do want to consider the possibility that there is a health issue in the aquarium itself.

You can use paracleanse with aquarium salt the salt will add essential electrolytes and aid Gill function and add an extra air stone during treatment just leave the salt in two weeks

What I would do is treat with paracleanse do three full course of treatment two weeks apart so treat on week 1 week 3 week 5 I would treat all the fish in the main tank as well

I feed newly hatched bristlenose a selection of tropical algae wafers smaller size sak algae based pellets EBo spirulina paste and EBo youngster grow paste some cucumber blanched spinach and lettuce have plenty of wood with biofilm and I feed frozen brine shrimp daphnia blood worms I raise mine with the adults and remove them when they get a size were I re-home them

Ok. So, I am doing things right then. These pics look like what mine looks like after 3 days.

I have just reread the thread just in case I missed anything only other thing I could suggest is treating with prazipro once a week for 3 or you can treat with paracleanse every 2 weeks for 3 full course of treatment to rule out Gill flukes and add back in a small amount of aquarium salt 1 table spoon for 5 gallons @tetra

Hey this is just something I came across the other day at a little local pet store. Never heard of it before. So of course I had to get it. Has anyone ever tried this filter material before?

What I would do is course of maracyn2 just in case there's a bacterial component or you can quarantine and treat with aquarium salt 1 table spoon for 2 gallons @ShineOn75

Cadet is curling up around the Kat’s Aquatics new food. He really likes it, apparently. This is the 3-in-1 and I’m trying to see which one they like. He ate all the red ones first. New little blue guy from Aquashella joins in and goes for a green one. Juniper shows up next I think I like this food! It’s not all dusty, and the fish didn’t figure out how to steal it.

Didn’t even know N class was a thing! Seems super interesting. I’ve been considering setting up a Xingu biotope for these guys. Of course, they’re way too expensive, but maybe eventually! I actually wonder, if fed well enough would an Oscar leave neons alone? As for the knife fish, I’ve never heard of them, but they seem very unique! If you ever get the right setup for them, they seem like a cool fish to try out.

Ah, gotcha! Will do. I meant to ask: do I do the rounds of ParaCleanse treatment back to back? So if day 5 is 25% WC then the following day, I begin the second course? Thanks!

I have two Fluval U series internal filters and pretty happy with them. Very quiet and have a pretty good flow. Internal filters dirty up rather quickly and you will have to perform maintenance every other water change. I like the fact that the Fluval U series can detach from the suction cups mount rather than having to detach the suction cups from the glass when you want to take it out for maintenance.

@Coluw a good test I saw mentioned on Reddit. Can you remove all media and sponge and then see if the flow improves back to normal? If you already did this my apologies. I see a lot of issues reported with having to redo pipework due to air leaks, heater causing damage and permanent failures, etc.

Nope! We as humans eat X meals a day, and we tend to put that mindset onto what our fish or pet needs are. In the wild it's a very different situation and some animals will constantly graze, some will gorge on meals if they are available, and some will constantly/aggressively feed. Neocaridina shrimp, for instance, have been studied and found to be able to starve for 14 days without any long term impact. I tend to feed mine every other day, some people feed daily, and some breeders can feed as much as 4x a day to really grow the shrimp quickly. Fish can handle less meals than we think and it is actually a big avenue for research when it comes to things like aquaculture and optimal growth. I believe that otos fall into the category of constantly grazing and being more of the gatherer type of eater. I think repashy 2-3x a week is an excellent diet for them and they may not even eat it during all of those feedings. You can also try small meals once a day or even feed it as a powder food and let it land on the surfaces that the otos naturally graze on. It won't cloud the water or ruin water quality of it is a repashy food. I have heard stories and seem the home batches fog a tank though.

I wonder if the pumpkins on my porch are healthy for the squirrels eating them. And why the damn raccoons skip by the healthy and accessable pumpkins and go for the trash bins that they can’t get in to?

I did add a couple drops of Ich-X. The bottle did say it contained Methylane blue. Might be a weaker amount in that than just straight meth blue

My light is Coop's brand - 4500 lumens. So it's a real good light. Do you think start at 75 or 100%

He’s perked up! I’m on Day III of the ParaCleanse treatment. It’s 2 doses followed by a 25% WC on Day IV. I’m going to leave him in the QT tank for now so I can keep an eye on him and then treat the main tank before putting him back. I’m giving him high quality food like Repashy.

Livefoods all the way.

I did my best to provide some staple of food in the beginning, had a quarantine full of diatom algae and when I feel like they were not eating enough, I put out my oak leaves that I had submerged in a closed jar filled with water for few weeks. The leaves have the super slime on them that the otos will munch on. Otherwise yeah, repashy, even sprinkled I guess, lots of driftwood, broad plants ( mine sleep in anubias, they use the leaves as a hotel, everyone on a different floor). After some time they are stable enough and eat whatever. If they ae hungry I see them going in for pellets that I put in for other fish, so will ocassionally dump some algae/spirulina stuff in at night, some vegetables, blanched leaves like mangold work too, green beans. But unlike usual advice, you have to leave that vegetable in the tank for 48 hours. They dont pay attention to it when it is still hard. I do not know what my otos eat, but my glass is spotless, they hang out around driftwood and munch on that, there are leaves all over the tank and I thought I lost some of them but the other time I saw 7, and I was under the impression I only had 4. Alas, I no longer would buy them or recommend them to anyone. The quarantine/feeding/acclimation losses are still 60% even if you try your best and 90% if you dont.

Especially this week, I wonder what could've been.... (Also rewatched Cyrano, which didn't help much) Have you ever heard of a guy named Mike McDaniel? He is the newer HC for the Miami Dolphins. I'll toss a video here below, but one of his main things he always talks to the team is that "Adversity is Opportunity." He has a wonderful story to tell. I admire his ability to push himself through difficult moments, share those stories, and the ability to support those around him. It's a nice little chat and you get to learn just a little bit about him. 🙂 That being said, I would simply say that I have been in your shoes and have absolutely felt like I could do it. I even went down the road of getting "fancy" CO2 and having a higher technology setup. I'll show you two photos that were taken moments or shortly after planting the tank. Ultimately, there's always a story and always something more to learn.... THAT'S AWESOME because it keeps you so engaged with the hobby. In the first tank, it was setup for success... I thought, but I just was trying a bunch of plants I ended up struggling with. The moss in the middle did ok, everything green did alright, but everything red melted back in days. It still is a failure I am trying to overcome and I absolutely do want to grow some red plants. Soon! This is one of my more recent setups (end of 2021) and this tank was setup with the best of intentions. I got a better substrate, I had the wood, I had things all setup and scaped for the sake of the plants. I had the tank setup and running and all I needed to do was to let the plants grow and take hold. One plant, one tank, very simple.... I tried 5 or so times with this exact same tank, rebuying plants over and over and I never got this plant to grow one time. This was the final straw for me and it was one of the biggest steps forward with me trying to learn how to grow plants a bit better. This is a plant I have grown in my other tank, but for whatever reason I could not get it to grow at all in the new location. You definitely learn from your mistakes, but you can also learn from so many places you never thought. One thing I try to keep in mind personally is the thought of, "you don't get to choose where you learn from." Something knowledge will just drop and hit you. Sometimes you will find awe and inspiration from a place you never thought possible. Sometimes it really hurts to go through some life lessons. From Coach Mike, one thing I have learned is to keep the big picture in play, and to aim big, but to do things in small manageable chunks. Focus on every single little detail until you have all of those right, then take the next step forward and start on all of those details again. If we look at "I want to grow plants" or "I want to have a nice planted tank" as the goal: 1. Print a photo of an amazing tank that you absolutely love and would cherish if it was in your possession (and skill level) 2. Take that photo and hang it on the wall near your tank 3. Work towards that. This might mean, learn to grow one plant. Learn how to plant correctly. Learn how to setup the substrate. It might mean 100 different things before you get to something as seemingly normal as checking your water parameters. Then you might focus on getting things perfect for that plant. You might absolutely LOVE the journey and getting into those details, or it might just seem like an insurmountable task. It's all about how you look at it and how you decide to view your own capability. I don't know much, but I do know that you CAN grow plants. You can succeed if you want to. Good food takes time. Fingers crossed for you. Best of luck. Please be sure to let us know if you ever need some help and there's some very helpful (and encouraging) people here for you!

That comment generated the funniest mental image in my head 🤣

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 wonder if squirrels could saddle and ride chihuahuas like furry little jockeys.

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.

The wild types do have a certain beauty to them.😅

Mine is certainly either the L260, which I can't justify as most of my tanks have quite gentle flow, or all manner of rams, due to my needing space. I love Bolivian rams. I love GBRs. I love GBR morphs. I love SA cichlids. I don't have the space (mentally or physically) for that many fish. Luckily we have angels at work that I can enjoy so I'm not entirely losing out on SA cichlid appreciation.

The cap of the superglue is my friend. I use it to press the plant into place on whatever object and oddly enough, it hasn’t gotten glued to the plant or the object, nor the plant glued to it yet (knocking on wood). I’m using the Loctite brand but I don’t know if that matters other than the top of the cap is smooth, and the glue tip is very small giving me better control of the amount of glue and placement of the glue. The cap hasn’t glued itself onto the bottle, yet, either, and I’ve gone through at least 10 bottles so far over the last 3 years. 🤷🏻‍♀️

First section set up...got pump from AOC, the awesome piston powered one, today. Have all the airline, sponge filters, PVC pipe, etc to build the air system this weekend. Got my first fancy tank for the room put together, Waterbox Eden 40. It seems a really well built cabinet and the tank is super fancy. Will be getting another Oase Biomaster, as I really prefer them to Fluval after having both. It will be the future home of Black Philip my rescue angel fish from the big living room tank that survived the bullying of the Philippine Blues. Will scape and set that tank up this weekend I hope before beginning work on the air system. Once all that is going, I can work on scaping specific tanks for breeding and keeping others prepared for clean bottom or quarantine tanks. Here are a couple snapshots!

Ha! Me too! I wind up with more plants attached to my hand than in the tank! I have recently gotten into the practice of drilling holes in my driftwood and stuffing the plant's roots or rhizome into that. I just make sure the hole is large enough to not suffocate the rhizome but snug enough to hold the plant in place. This works very well for java fern.

It will help take out ammonia, nitrite, nitrate. So sure. I would let the tank start cycle a bit before putting it. I find cycling with plants from the start slows down the cycle. I put plants in once my nitrate starts increasing.

The gang is almost all together at feeding time. Gave them a mix of frozen blood worms and daphnia