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So this was a yesterday thing. I moved the 29 onto the stone i posted above; i moved the 120 to where the 29 was in the room and we installed the 2nd stone (approx 135 inches long and 20 inches wide - just wide enough for a 40B 😉 So this is what we now have (you can see the 29 at the very end on the stand: The 2nd stone is very different from the first but sadly the picture came out badly so i'll take another and edit this post next time i go down-stairs 😉 It takes a lot of pails to move a 120 - 2 for fishes; 4 for substrate and 1 for plants - and this time around i only have plants on the sides (mostly vals); last time i moved the 120 it was packed with plants and needed 3 pails just for plants. I put one lone angel-fish in the back 240 you see on the right side to get some biological activity in there - going to put wc discus and rams in there sooner or later so it has ro water but the angle didn't seem to mind he was just happy to get fed. I'll have to start testing the water for ammonia in a day or so - pretty large aquarium for a single fish and i'll add a pair of live sponge filters in an hour or so. Maybe. naw not maybe that is a must do. Hum. My arms hurt. -- Picture of the stone - it looks a little nicer in person as there are blue spotches and the camera increases the contrast too much; the name of the stone is volga blue if you want to look it up - unlike the other stone this one is pretty consistent across samples (the titanium one slab can be radically different from another - some are darker some have more gold specs; red veins and white quartz - some are kind of grey - really is grey veins in black but sometime those vein dominate so each slab is totally different; stones are wonderful - everyone should visit a slab store once a week to see the wonders of nature - ignore the man-made stuff in the back corner. Some of the marbles are also pretty wicked but don't use marble where there will be lots of water drops you will regret it ...). Hum. Guess the light angle was wrong to show off the blue - i have this other stone for a desk that is called jadore - it is a wicked green and like titanium every slab is different - some are rich deep green others are more translucent green with red veins. You never know what nature will provide.

The first sterbai fry has hatched. And more coming. Looks to be about 30 coming along. You'll have to trust that the one in the corner has a tail,though you can kind of see it.

I am going to tackle this from a biologist’s perspective and also clarify that we don’t actually know why fish jump. In the field at around dawn you can see fish jumping everywhere. In the ocean, streams, estuaries it doesn’t matter. People say they might be escaping predators, responding to stress, or catching bugs out of the air. But I don’t think this explains the behavior and here is why. I have seen full grown sturgeon breach. I have seen sharks like dogfish and salmon sharks breach. Even bottom dwelling fish like halibut. Then when I first had my tank open air no net, I lost shiners, minnow, and even a goby to these nighttime/early morning affairs. I have accidentally startled the trout into jumping, they are skittish. But the gobies and minnow didn’t make sense. Until I saw late at night my gobies playing near the surface of the water and breaching. It is something I can only attribute to play or comfort or a “jump for joy” if you will. It is not something I don’t think is actively being researched. But for now I will not keep open air tanks anymore without some sort of protection. As for the netting the fish are allowed to jump in the open sections of the tank the net is to keep them from breaching close to the edge of the tank where it might be fatal.

And so it begins again. They are turning over a new leaf! (I see the shrimps; they are turning.. hehe 🙄) I give them the soggy, ready to fall apart leaves from Geppetto’s tank and they love them. Geppetto’s tank is hotter by about 7 degrees, and leaves tend to break down quicker there. Another blue jelly type shrimp (on bottom left edge) with that black inkspot pattern. See the green carapace? Signature for a blue jelly. (I think. I don’t really research too much into the genetics. I just allow stuff to happen and make sure everyone is healthy). I heard someone (Secret History, perhaps?) say in a video, wild types have the most potential.

@Fish Folk @Colu @quikv6 You saved my Acara!!! Fish Folk thank you so much for sending the 'bat signal' (I still quote that when I tell people this story)😁 Colu I followed your consolidated protocol, and then changed to Flubendazole per Quikv6 recs as soon as it arrived. In less than a week my EBA, whom I've since named Gandhi for the prolonged starvation, ate his first pellet, 2 weeks later he finally pooped, and this evening he is eating Hungrily! I actually had to cut him off this evening while feeding frozen carnivore diet/beef heart because I was worried he was going to hurt himself eating so much. I'm so thankful to you all. I didn't think I could become so attached to a little fish, but there is something about the EBAs. He's a charming little creature 🥰 WIth Much Gratitude -- Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Here's mine and the *new* way that I'm feeding them tubifex. For some reason my sinking pebble method has started failing and the worms slip off very early instead of holding on and mostly staying where the fish can get them. I had a worm cone that doesn't work at all (in my opinion), so I cut the end off and hot glued a 1/2" stainless washer inside the bottom of the cone, it fits two good sized tubifex cubes pretty well. It seems to be working really well and almost no wasted worms. Also, some pictures of my breeding group for reference. I've had these about two years.

Wandered over to the fishroom and the leaf skeleton has already been revealed.

Was sitting watching shrimps yesterday with the magnifying glass. They were picking apart a soggy catappa leaf. Satisfying to see the shrimp empty a cell of the leaf, allowing light to shine through, and moving onto the next. The leaf skeleton should be ready for me later today. I have at least 2 lovely red shrimp: a warm chestnut color. They were swimming about. The key to getting shrimps to swim more is time between feedings and floating plants. Feed shrimps if they are swimming/active but if they are just sitting or walking, they are not that hungry. I woke up this morning to the tickle of whiskers on my cheek, little puffs of air and sniff sniff noises on my eyebrow, a long warm purr and a massage (kneading). Very pleasant way to wake up, despite the 5am hour. My view was something like this.

I have a second hand (used) canister filter. I was wondering what a good way to clean it would be? I don't really want to remove its hoses. The system is 6 years old. Could I just run it with water and 30% hydrogen peroxide for 24 hours to kill whatever bacteria, fungus, and gunk? Or would that harm the hose and media? The canister is dry but the hose is still damp inside with algae from being drained a month ago. (My spouse surprised me with a tank and stand with stuff from a lovely person who seemed to really take care of her stuff! Yay!)

Yes. My plan was to go larger lol. It all started with "I need a new stand." Then, like a magpie, I was distracted by the pretty rimless tanks. My current tank is doing pretty well. I've been struggling with algae and could not get the fun driftwood to sink at all. Just adjusted the light settings today. Another piece of wood came home....it floats too. I found that out after gluing the anubias to it. Ooops. Took a trip to the fish store after work before they get crazy busy this weekend. I must have talked with one of the employees about filtration and tank ideas for 30 mins. Ended up buying a Sicce Whale 120. I can hide it in the stand and the only equipment in the tank will be a heater. I'll start a new journal for this tank to track it. Speaking of tanks....it just shipped. (Excited dance)

If you do have all females I would try and source a male that will help to prevent your females becoming egg bound in the future

@Lennie Don't mean to revive an old thread like this, but have you come to any more conclusions when it comes to these guys? I just picked up a few from my LFS and love them as well, want to make sure I give them the best care I can!

I did some research sexing them is straight forward the males have odontodes on the head and pectoral fins possible all females looking at the pictures that could just be the quality of the picture that would make it more likely to be egg bound Epsom salt will help with that as your using a quarantine tank you could just leave it in a low dose of Epsom salt for 5 days 1 table spoon for 5 gallons what I would do is have extra sponge filter running in your main tanks so you can have seeded sponge filters to hand to add to your quarantine tanks when ever your adding fish @Shadow

Thank you so much @Guppysnail and @AllFishNoBrakes! We tried doing some water changes to bring down the ammonia levels and the brine shrimp managed to survive the weekend! They are starting to actually get a little bit larger in size compared to when they first hatched, so this has been exciting for the students. We have continued to feed a little bit of yeast each day and that seems to be going okay so far. If we can keep them alive till winter break, any suggestions for how to manage two weeks where no one will be in the classroom to change the water? Would it be helpful to use the Fritz TurboStart on the last day we are at school, do a good water change, and hope for the best? I have appreciated the tips so much! This is the farthest we've gotten in our brine shrimp hatching adventure so far!

Front loading removes the every other day dosing. It's one dose of Macros and done. Just dose Micros, and you can choose how often you dose. This is the true problem. We are dicussing as I type this about getting a 40 gallon....again. Truth lol, she hates it, but loves the end result so she does it. At the end of the day, it's a piece of art that all our house guests are mesmerized by. It's a conversational piece for sure.

Mostly too many dosing diffrences to remember, at the time I started EI I had 2 tanks. My classic EI dosing schedule looked like this. Monday, Wednesday and Friday dose Macros. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday dose Micros. Sunday, water change 50% plus it is recommended to add a gh booster if you do not know your calcium/magnesium ratio. Easy enough... My big tank got 7 squirts per day, small one 2 squirts per day. Fast foward and it was too much for my small tank. I needed to skip wed/thursday for the small tank only...... This led to me missing days, miscounting squirts and all around utter chaos to the point of me saying 🤬 it!!! My big tank is my baby, nothing interferes with my baby! No one puts baby in the corner!!! 🤣

I am thinking about getting shrimp… this is good information.

I would assume wound if it were me. That seems to be where mine like to "peck" at each other when they're doing their thing.

They are pretty tolerant of water parameters. The sensitivity I have seen comes from stress from other fish and not being able to hide. I am sure you are aware that it takes a bit of training to get them weened off live foods or frozen live foods. We kept ours in a species only tank with snails and otocinclus.

Engineers always have an equation for something haha, but again this equation doesn’t exactly show what happens in the real world. It predicts roughly based on a stagnant pool of water with variables that do not change drastically. But surface agitation, plant cover, shade, and turnover rate all play a role in evaporative loss. I think even tds and tss play a small role too. Again I agree that technically a major increase in SA should theoretically lead to an increase in evaporative loss. But those are not observed in the real world.

Mine do pretty well in 7.3 pH and pretty hard water.

My most recent batch have slowly learned to eat Repashy Super Green and Bug Bites Algae Crisps. I have to crumble the crisps up a bit so they can compete with the amano shrimp. I've tried zucchini with limited success. I do think the key with prepared foods is to have another species in the tank to teach them what to eat. I also kept pygmy cories with a prior batch of otos and they also palled around with the little guys. A lot of the smaller corys and otos practice mimetic schooling with like patterned fish. (Like Hastatus with Serapinnus Kriegi, Aphyocharax Naterreri, and Hyphesobrycon Elachys). Barring a similar school of friends, the other thing you can try is preparing your foods in a way that the otos recognize as a normal food source. What I mean by that is that otos hang out on rocks in the current or just off the current. They'll suck up aufwuchs from there as they go, grazing on whatever is in the general area where they're at. They only really get brave and explore the rest of the tank on their own after lights out. If you've got a blue light setting on your tank, you may notice that they only really stick to the glass where you can see them if the blue light is on but the room light is off. An oto isn't really going to check the bottom of the tank for pellets, crisps or gels unless it's either dark, or their school buddies are looking for food there. So you might want to try feeding just before it gets dark in your tank. On one or two of Cory's livestreams he had a throw away line about painting his rocks with Repashy for his otos. I've actually tried this, and it may be the most aggressive I've ever seen my otos eat. Green stuff stuck to a rock seems to bring out the little sharks in my otos. Once they got that the gel was food, I noticed them more interested in competing with the other fish when I dropped cubes of Repashy into the tank. I've not tried a side by side comparison between Super Green or Soilent Green yet. I have noticed that the Algae Crisps must taste enough like the Repashy that they're also on the menu, though. They definitely know what to do with these now. They'll also go for fish flake after awhile, but the high protein can make them bloated. My current batch of Otos palls around with some Pitbull Plecos/Otos and a few habrosus corys. As long as these fish are eating, the otos will at least check out the edges of the feeding zone. They've learned that whatever these fish are gobbling up is probably worth snacking on.

I started my six Otocinclus in a quarantine tank with lots of algae. (Got them in early August) They made me rather nervous with how quickly the cleaned it up. I treated them with the med trio - I think they had worms before because their appetite settled down after the medications. I haven’t lost any and their favorite food is Xtreme Bottom Wafers. It’s bed time now.

@Galabar is correct that Reverse Respiration will kill the algae but it will not remove it. I find for inanimate object straight hydrogen peroxide from the grocery works better at disintegrating the algae and making it easier to remove. It’s much harsher than RR but for inanimate objects peroxide is much faster.

If I may suggest, if you can manually remove* as much hair algae as possible, enough to clear a planting area in the substrate and enough to allow sufficient light to come through to the stems, don't wait to plant those stems. I've planted lightly and I've planted heavily, and the more total plant biomass you've got, especially fast growing plants like stems (generalizing here), the less likely you'll have the algae come back. *I found twirling with a toothbrush like spaghetti works pretty well.

Its a 50g lowboy or frag tank. They are rather hard to come by nowadays but they used to be popular turtle and frag grow out tanks. Dimensions are 48x 26 x 11 I think. And I take most pictures when there is direct sunlight on the tank it cuts the glare, I appreciate the compliments! The bottom pic I was trying to take a pic of the goby in the root tangle, but as soon as I got my phone out he dipped. They only let me take pictures if food is involved 😅

I personally really enjoy the flattened look. I think the biggest thing you should consider is whether you want emergent plants. They will add dimension to the space. Sedge species are readily available in the spring in most pond sections and bog ferns are the first that come to mind. There are also a few anubias that actually prefer to grow emersed, including the ever popular anubias nana. I think con would be that you are greatly limited in plant selection. Anything that grows tall will look squished so your plant selection submerged needs to be smaller plants or slow growers like microswords and mosses and such. Another con is that fish get really comfortable in these enclosures with emergent plants. They feel safe and happy which means that even fish not considered jumpers will breach. Either use clear mesh netting over the water or allow for about 3-6” of space between the water level and the top of the tank. You can get clear mesh at BRS. Anyway this is my 50g sub-alpine creek biotope:

Results announced this morning. I took second place. I dedicated this tank to @gjcarewfor his endless support and assistance. The Second Hand of Carew

@Biotope Biologist, I was just reading in another thread where you mention that, “… fish get really comfortable in these enclosures (shallow) with emergent plants. They feel safe and happy which means that even fish not considered jumpers will breach.” I was wondering, if they’re happy, why do they do that? Are they playing? How do you tell if it’s happy jumping and not from something they don’t like in the tank? I really like your shallow tank! 😃 I notice that the netting is only a few inches around the edges. Do the fish usually only want to jump in those areas? Anyone else have fish jumping experiences we beginners can learn from? On a side note, would the small cichlids like Dorsigera and the Bolivian Rams do well in a longer but shallower tank? I really like those emergent plants! (no fish yet, still learning 🤪)

Thank you so much. So the above chart was for my older tank I no longer have, just FYI. To answer your question, I trust the dosing math which is then controlled through water changes should anything slide out of range. I use RO/DI water so I can start from zero on all parameters. I front load all my macro nutrients (N,P,K) and then dose Micro's (trace elements) throughout the week. Front loading means all of my macro's are refreshed and reset water change day. I have 2 Brute grey trash cans (NSF safe) I fill with the RO water. The advantage here is I know the exact amount of water. I fill them to the brim and then remove 1 gallon of water. 1 Brute is 44 gallons and the other is 32 gallons. So I know I have exactly 43 gallons and 31 gallons of water. There is/ are online nutrient calculators that will allow me to select a specific ppm for each nutrient. Ca, Mg (GH) and then (N,P,K). Basically, I'm dosing the storage water just like anyone would dose their fish tank. No mater how much water I change, the incoming water matches the outgoing water. This is how I maintain near perfect water stability. As for KH, I had been dosing none but have recently started to dose a small amount (.7KH). Reason being when I ripped this tank up, something happened and my pH was nearing 4.6. Needless to say, my fish definitely did not enjoy 4.6. I prefer to not dose any KH as it's just easier to work the tank in this manner, but until this strange occurrence ends, I will continue to dose KH. I use to believe my tanks were 0dKH, but recently @Galabareducated me and water by nature has a very small amount of KH via the whole science stuff that goes on. It's a very small amount so near 0. As for micro's, this can be a bit more challenging. I do use a "professional" mix I receive from Joey Harvey (BurrAqua). Unfortunately, there is no good micro mix available at a lower cost and his micro's are the most cost effective and balanced correctly. I target a weekly total of .45ppm Fe as proxy. I dose 3 times a week, the first being immediately after my water change so I can get Fe off the floor. I then dose the following 2 a few days apart. So basically each dose is .45/3. Each dose is .15 Fe as proxy. As of today, I'm seeing a micro toxicity in 1 plant so I'm going to reduce micros. This week will just be 2 doses for a total of .3 Fe as proxy. Hopefully the plant will respond well and the others will remain happy. As for test kits, I really just don't test any more. If you do 50 or more % water changes, I just see a reason to test. If something weird starts showing, I just use my TDS meter to make sure everything (nutrient wise) is in line with what's expected. If I dosed correctly and didn't forget to add something, my water always shows about 170 to 190 TDS. If I see lower, I forget to add something, if higher then something died and I need to find it or possible I overdosed a nutrient. Kits I have on hand are GH/KH and Nitrate.

@Sherry there is a YouTuber called Mark’s Shrimp Tanks. Very good info there!

If the rhizome is melting, that's anubias rot. If the newer end of the rhizome isn't involved, you can try sharply cutting that off along with its leaves and floating it until it develops roots (or if it's big enough, gluing or tying it onto whatever you eventually want it to attach to). Then get rid of the part of the plant that rotted. Anubias in the wild grow partly emersed not completely submerged (someone correct me if that's wrong - every picture of them in nature I have been able to find online shows them on banks of streams or partly sticking out of a marsh or something), so we're asking them to live in conditions they're not really designed for. Good luck, they're lovely plants -

Thank you. First placed definitely deserved it. It was well executed. https://showcase.aquatic-gardeners.org/2023/show692.html

Do you currently have any tanks? If you do, are they planted? If so, what plants are the most successful for you? I'd suggest doing more of those. I wouldn't want to add up all the plants I've tried and how much money I have spent, but I find plants fairly sensitive to water parameters and I don't know that we talk enough about that, honestly. I *assumed* that water is water as far as plants go, but I no longer believe that to be the case. Now I have a handful of plants that do pretty well in my setups and just let them infest any tank that I want them in.

I have been known to leave the room, wait a bit, then crawl back into the room (with room lights out, of course) below the level of the bottom of the tank. Then have phone camera ready and slowly lift it up to where the fish can be seen and click away until I have a half decent pic. I often forget to delete the bad pics so it’s no wonder I have so many bad fish pics on my phone! Plus sometimes I keep bad pics of specific events like seeing a male pleco on eggs so I have the date for laying and can predict the best date reasonably well for pulling babies. Then I forget to delete those bad pics. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Fieryblack Shiner… my NANF favorite…

For the moment This is as close to funny as I can come. I briefly took up sky diving. Eventually I got my friend 'BOB' to try. Bob is afraid of heights. At my drop zone, Student jumps start a 3000' with a static line and a one-way radio so the instructors can guide you. All you have to do is step out of the airplane. After training, Bob successfully made his first jump, and I almost lost a large bet. After landing, with the adrenaline still roaring through him Bob came over and told us all about his first jump. "You should have heard me, all the way down I was yelling Hu-dey!, Hu-dey!" (Bob is a Cincinnati Bengals fan, and that is the preferred chant.) When we started laughing, he wanted to know what was so funny. We explained that even from 3000' up, as soon he stepped out of the airplane we could hear every word he said. 'Hu-dey' wasn't one of them.

Either my male is confused or a bit slow but he scares me. His idea of dirty dancing for the girls is rolling on his side contorting his body. The same way they would if he was actually fertilizing eggs. But he does it in the center of the tank 🤪 Every time I see it I think he is dying. Then I see both girls looking on and rubbing on him. Tammy apparently had no fry. Yesterday she dropped her war paint and today her and Crystal both have on their sexy man catching dress. So I was vacuuming the tank today when George decided to put on a show. They have no fear of me it the siphon. I have to stop suction and nudge them out if my way. Today I stopped siphoning to try to video his Fish Dirty Dancing. By the time I dried my hands he stopped. With as violently as he shakes I half wonder if he isn’t fertilizing the water column and that’s why I keep getting infertile eggs?? So this is them not doing what I’m trying to video 🤣🤣🤣

Consider getting a nano gravel vac. Mine is from walmart and the tubing is about the size of airline tubing. It slows things down, a lot. But I use that on the nano tanks under 5 gallons. In your case something like the aqueon Mini should be fine. Though, I can still take 75% out of my 10 gallon in just a few minutes with that. Every tank I have has a turkey baster for spot cleaning. Snails are messy but it is easy to spot, lol. Shallow tanks look nice, imo and that 60s is a particularly nice one. I have my eye on the UNS 5N. I really wish the 5S was 7 inches tall rather than 4.72.

I'm a more tanks are better kind of person, lol (to a point). As for space, I understand that. Our flat in Spain is around 900 sqft and that doesn't leave much room for play. Bookshelf, desk and TV stand tanks is about it. Good thing I like nano tanks. Have fun whatever you decide but I like having somewhere to move inhabitants and or plants if need be. I wouldn't go back to a one tank setup, at least two.

Been struggling with some cloudy water which resulted in a big water change and more mechanical filtration, amongst other things. Today the tank looks “pretty ok”. Not perfect but not terrible either. The last fellow looks like a blue jelly.

The lady has new eggs; each time she gets more creative where she puts them:

Hm I took some other pictures of my tanks, and just now, just from the picture, I notice female killifish has a gold eye and the male has a blue eye?! I have been watching them for months and never caught this? Weird fry on top, female on bottom, growing nicely, they now hang with the group more often aaand my photobombing garras

Repashy frenzy

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.

I think your more than likely dealing with a parasitic infections it can take a minimum of 4 course of levamisole 4 1 week apart you have only done 2 course and it can take a minimum of 3 course of prazipro 2 weeks Apart with the 2 course of prazipro and 1 course of paracleanse and Tetra lifeguard I think it's less likely to be tape worms flat worms flukes what I would do is 3 more full course of levamisole one week apart and add some aquarium salt 1 table spoon for 2 gallons that will aid Gill function and add essential electrolytes or you can do this treatment protocol that very effective to cover all bases