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So funny that he’s showing off and trying to be all enticing and sexy and she just wants a snack. 😆 This guy. Every time I see him. And this guy.

Sometimes I’m so awe struck it takes my breath away. Share your breathtaking fish moments please.

“…I can bring you in cold.” My hot-water Tropicals tonight: My cold-water Temperates tonight:

The Blue Dragons are doing really, really well, and I think I’ve seen some guppy fry, in amongst the platy fry. Speaking of Marigold, she is doing fantastic. I gave up four of her lil babies to a club auction, and boy did I have some seriously mixed feelings about it. They’re platies, sure, but they’re Xiph. Milleri, and I just have trouble reconciling the idea of tossing them in with a group of mixed platies. But isn’t that what we want for them? For them to be so common that they are unremarkable? We’re not there yet, though. A dilemma. Booker is doing well, but I’m afraid he’s lonely, and I keep looking and looking at those “Dark Storm” rams, some kind of hybrid I think, between the black rams and blue ones. Booker is a hybrid too though, he’s electric and German blue. So maybe his lil lady friend could be, too. Might go back and look at them again today, and think on it. 5 out of 6 pagoda snails died, and oh my god, the stench was tremendous. Oh my god. That is wretched. I can’t even. ONE pagoda snail is a lil trooper though, and she has her own lil home. Not sure I’ll be getting her (him? No clue) any friends though. Assassin snails have joined the menagerie, and are mysterious beauties, being kept separate. Very separate. Boy are they pretty, though. Yellow shrimp!!! There are suddenly tons of them in with the Blue Leopards, which is awesome. Most of them are probably from DG in the neighborhood, I’m glad they feel safe enough to be visible. CALCIUM CHIPS. Some of the rams horns are looking teeeeerrrrribblle. So everybody is on a calcium regimen now, helped along by a big package of snail calcium and snail food from GuppySnail. The blue ramshorn snails were DOA. A new batch might arrive in the next week. Instead of having brown bodies with blue shells, they seem to have blue/black bodies with clear shells. Kind of like the pink/red ones. Hardy as these things are, how on earth did they perish in shipping? Then again, I didn’t pay for the upgraded box, so they were mailed without packing material, so maybe that’s how. The 2nd time around, the seller recommended the box and warming packet, so I’m guessing they’ll do better. But I did gather up some of my own blues and put them together, too. No more mail order fish after these snails, the time for shipping is over. Too. Darn. Cold. Besides, I have plenty to keep me busy… and I’ve yet to come home from an auction without anything to add to the menagerie. Checking into BAP for the ACLC! I’m not sure how it works yet. The CCY one is only for cichlids, so I doubt I’ll be doing any BAP there. The MD club BAP hasn’t begun yet. TBC

This morning little lady had a pile of sand outside of her cave. She's been eating well and seems to be plumping up. Last night it seemed like she came over and flared at the glass when I fed her as well. I've been down there quite a bit, but working on everything else as it's just her in there I've not been paying a ton of attention to her other than her fins seem all healed up and she's eating. I'll have to pay a little more attention to see if she's "nesting". But I think the sand is a good sign.

I always liked this picture of my daughter's betta.

Maybe he wants to be the "snack"? 😏 😝🤣

Grace the shark being her feisty self. She's got some scuffs in this photo around her eye and by her dorsal, but it's normal. She's fine! She gets those abrasions from rubbing into things and has a lot more room these days. 🙂 But, Love the photo because she's so hard to get a good sharp focus on! Most of the time this is what you get. She is definitely reminiscent of her name and such a graceful moving fish... every morning I just sit and watch her do her thing. She is a bit magical. Fist survivor.... Second survivor (almost to the day, year later. My pandas, Mom and her kid First time I raised the fry by myself... 3 generations. The middle or right one is the first survivor above. Loving the moss and it was nearly looking perfect for me! I really just enjoy watching the shrimp do their thing in a wall or carpet of moss. It's one of the most calming and relaxing moments for me. Finally getting one of my favorite plants to grow after months of trying.

Expiration dates are not at all controlled by any U.S governing body. But they are required on just about every product. Which leads to things like fish food which is shelf stable having expirey dates. As long as it is still sealed it will last a long time. We even have expiration labels on pickles an item famously shelf stable for decades. I always offer the “smell test” humans are actually quite remarkable at detecting when food has gone bad or stale.

Before anything else, I just want to be clear that I'm absolutely no sort of fish breeding authority. In fact, I'm the polar opposite if you go looking through my other threads. And I have no intention on breeding a zillion fish. But this seemed like a fun use for a tank that I otherwise would let sit empty or give away. With that out of the way, I've had this 37 gallon aquarium that I bought about two years ago and to be honest, I hated everything about it. It's been sitting empty for most of the last year. I hate the footprint (mainly the height). This is probably the peak of this tank's appearance. I struggled to keep plants going, probably in part due to the height. It's since been relocated to a 40B. It's been ugly and hanging out in my daughter room. As part of a larger basement project (adding two bedrooms to the basement which previously was entirely unfinished), I've been making some improvements to my "fish room" as well. Eventually I think all of my aquariums will end up down there. And maybe eventually it will be in good enough shape to post a picture of what I've got going overall. 😄 So I got it cleaned up and relocated this weekend. I had "duty" at work and it was almost non-stop most of Thanksgiving break (four days), so I didn't get as much done as I wanted to. I watched Dean's fry system talk live in October and I thought it looked interesting. And I'd seen it before in his fish room videos as well. It dawned on me in the middle of his talk that I didn't have to make an excuse to go buy a 20L because I had this 37 which is basically the same footprint AND it doesn't need a lid! Unfortunately all the dimensions and construction are JUST far enough off that you can't use standard lids and whatnot. But I think it's close enough for this. The bowls down below are my two oldest kids "Walstad bowls" that they set up a couple of days ago. They had their own "eco systems" (as they called them) set up in old ice cream buckets and all I could imagine was them picking them up by the handle and having them blow out all over. Still a possibility here, but more permanent this way. Dean's fry system is WAY overkill for what I've got going on, but I'm an engineer and a tinkerer and winter is here with 3-4" of snow Saturday and into Sunday and it's dipping down into single digits already. So time for some (more) indoor projects. I took no pictures of the actual build of the air/water delivery system for some reason. Probably because I was watching Dean's video (or at least parts of it) a zillion times trying to figure out exactly what I wanted to do. Not too difficult to do if you're relatively handy. I'd suggest clear PVC cement so you can't see how messy you are. This is actually the cleanest PVC gluing job I have every done. I barely got any on my hands! I forgot vinyl tube at Home Depot the other day, so pressure check had to wait until I picked up tube tonight after work. Worked well, no leaks even dead headed with all valves closed. Air also tested and worked well. Finished filling it up and let it all rip. Squeezed some sponges in and will get some cycling going. I still need to put the trays together as I bought ones that are the large and medium instead of the smalls and mediums. They fit, but the biggest one is quite large. Some smaller ones should be here sometime this week. It looks like my reflection is snorkeling! 😄 Thanks for looking. That's all for now. I didn't seal the void around the screw/PVC interfaces yet, but I did seal the threads and holes. I wanted to make sure I didn't need to disassemble before I put a bunch of silicone in there. Parts list: GE Silicone 1 (now called GE all purpose silicone make sure it says 100% silicone) GE Silicone 100% Red Tube - I did not use this. Aluminum Flat Bar 1"x48" 7/32" drill bit 3/16" drill bit 10-32 tap PVC: 5' 1/2" PVC 2x 1/2" Slip/Slip Elbow 2x 1/2" Slip/Thread Elbow 2x 1/2" Caps 2x 1/2" Slip Coupling 1x 1/2" Threaded Plug 1x 5/8"x1/2" Nylon Hose Barb PVC Cement Zip Ties - regular Zip Ties w/ screw/mounting hole Plumbing Joint Compound (I did not use this, teflon tape worked fine on my water valves.) PlastiDip White Spray Coating 1-1/2" 8x32 stainless machine screws 1/2" 10x32 stainless machine screws 8x32 Nyloc Nuts Heat Shrink Tubing

I dont know how well it comes out on camera but i find the purple sheen on the top half of this platy pretty impressive. Definitely a trait to try and breed out. My most breathtaking fish is this female platy though (first picture is with flash, second picture is without)

One of my honey gourami had the exact same thing. This is what I did for about 2 weeks. He cleared right up and over a year later is still doing wonderfully. As always @Colu has wonderful advice 🤗

Melini corydora. Bandit or false bandit. Once they are a year old they are insanely prolific. They spawn in a big pile of moss and do not eat eggs. I started with 10-13 I can’t quite remember. I pulled roughly 100 out to sell. The rest I can’t catch. They are amazingly fast but not fearful of me. Always in the way when I siphon. Very adorable and swim midwater quite often. It’s funny I’m not a longfin fan at all mom n dad are the only exception

Appears to be a blood worm. Which is a generic name for midge fly larvae.

Little Riddick and her buddy.

@Odd Duck and @Colu might help better, but I would also consider antibiotics other than metronidazole I guess. No levamisole and prazi worked for my red lizard's skinny issue. In fact it was not even growing even when I got them all in the same size. I think feeding the tank with sera baktotabs worked for me. It is an antibiotic food (nifurpirinol). Now she is a healthy adult. But yours is not accepting food well. So I'm not sure what would be an appropriate way of trying antibiotics, if you should, and which one would be appropriate. This was what mine looked like. Very skinny: While others looked like: Size and weight comparison even when I got them all exactly at same size as juveniles:

Just adding a few pics of some of the stuff I described above... This is my vac device... Here's the mods to the hang on box... And here's how much i feed the fry in the box (say 10-20 or less)...

Status: EI low light/weekly dosing Nitrate (Kno3) as see fit, 0.93g max Phosphate (Kh2po4) 0.08g Potassium (K2so4) 1.27g Micros: 0.09g (0.1ppm FE) 0.12g (0.14ppm FE) 0.18g (0.21ppm FE) 0.28g (0.32ppm FE)

I just want to add my 2 cents of Nerd. PH is not an indicator of water hardness or softness. I would ask the supplier for their GH and KH and compare it to your own. If it’s wildly different, a slower acclimation would be ideal. But I just plop in these days with tank bred fish.

So busy. Many things have happened, some are good, some not so much. I’m working on my first little ‘fish rack’ which will have 8 of the 5 gallons on it, Which is a good start for them, and a great consolidation, since they were covering pretty much every surface. What’s on there so far: Koi guppies, Yellow metal mosaic (more on these later), Panda guppies, Redtail splitfins, and the guppy Mosh Pit. What still needs to go on it: The Gambusia holbrooki, and… 2 others that I haven’t decided, but since the top shelf is almost as tall as I am, those last 2 may be a moot point, unsure. PIANO SNAIL BABIES! There are so many! And they are so adorable. And yet SOMEHOW a bladder snail got in there, and I’m taking a few out every night. Grrr. Oh, and the tank has hydra. Probably all the snail tanks do, except the Spixi snails, of course. I wonder if just ONE Spixi snail would eat the hydra, and not the rest of the available food…. Hah. Nevermind. The White Wizard snails have their on tank, and so do the Tiger Tower snails. Lovely creatures. They each got a few guppies too, naturally, one of them got a mix of green/purple Moscows, the other a few of the Green Dragon juvies. A trio of purple Moscows, two pairs of green Moscows, and a blue-green Moscow are all in a tank together. Nobody else will want the hybrids, but I do, and if any are that pretty blue-green, the lady at Go-Fish would, I’m sure. I should check in with her and see how her panda babies are doing. The Platinum Dumbo Redtails had fry! Lots of fry!!! Yaaaaaaay. Darling never had any, and so Dansfish sent me a new pair. Jonny and Dan are really, really great. The Green Dragons… have no fry. NONE. What… on earth. If I’ve lost that line, despite having over a dozen lovely little ladies in that tank, I’ll be devastated. I can’t even find any more to bolster the genetics. But the Violet Mosaics have LOTS of fry! And lots of juveniles. They’re looking wonderful, EXCEPT for the larger female that died of a prolapse yesterday, despite me removing her to a hospital tank with epsom salt as soon as I spotted her. Poor lil thing. Lee and Kaywinnet are still in their tank, and are growing too, like teeny, lovely little blue-eyed dandelions. Their 40 gallon is coming, probably in December. I thought, mistakenly, that the White Clouds would be fast enough to keep up with, or avoid, the Ameca Splendens. Nope. The Butterfly split fits beat the heck out of them and left them in tatters. They’re in a hospital tank now. Ngl, those Butterflies are SAVAGE. And have NO fry… but if they go after everything in the tank that way, no wonder!!! Going to have to change that tank up some, the cover obviously isn’t enough. There are some mystery limia fry that need to be separated out, until I can figure out which they are. Last week I removed a male panda guppy from the Yellow Mosaic tank. Cheese. And. Crackers. The reason they have all that lovely blue is that they were crossed with Panda guppies. So I don’t have Yellow Metal Mosaics, at all, anymore, that line died out completely. On the other hand, the guppies that resulted are beyond gorgeous, and I’m in love with them. How many ways can one person mess up a dozen lines of guppies, let me count the ways. There are so many. But lessons are being learned, I just wish I wasn’t learning them by screwing so many things up. The Tiger Teddies are gone, all of them, fry too. Whole tank crashed, everything died. Mistakes were made, tears were shed. Next time I’ll do better. The Least Killis are in with the Spixi snails now, except for a couple that I dropped into the Piano snail tank to see if they would eat the hydra. They’re looking great! Not tons of fry, but the colony is growing, and there are all sizes, so I think they’re doing ok. So teeny. To be continued

In my experience they aren't predatory but like most fish wouldn't turn down a protein snack if they can fit it in their mouth.

I just use my iPhone 11 pro. I try to limit reflections / room lighting. When you touch the screen, it automatically will refocus. I take 12-20 photos to get 1x decent one. I select ones where target fish are in focus. I try to crop out hardware, bring fish closer, use basic composition principles (rule of thirds, dark / balance). I adjust most all indoor photos: shadows (-20); contrast (+20); blackpoint (+20); and vignette (+30-50) That makes the fish in photos as close to how I see them. The only challenge is that the iridescence on some colorful species seems exaggerated.

I don't think you should be worried, acclimate the way that makes you most comfortable.

Probably asking if it is wild caught. I'm not necessarily suggesting this. But I have gone to get them to temperature and then plop and drop and I don't think I have had any issues since. Going up in pH is typically easier on fish (from what I understand). My pH is 8.3 or so, so things are almost certainly going up in pH when I get fish. So take that for what it's worth.

@Surreal got the second batch going.

This cat really is a catfish! She loves the water ¿

That's one of my favorite "novelty" country songs, along with this one:

Two of my previous Bettas.

My first guess is that you are the recipient of the last bags from an older production run. Unfortunately the label is probably legitimate. A quick search seems to indicate that Northfin is not consistent in their labeling practices. On dry products, I personally don't follow expiration dates to closely. The food doesn't know what the date is. I would put the bags in the freezer until you are ready to use them. If the product looks and smells like the product you are using now, than you are probably ok. Assuming that they are still the parent company, you could try writing to the manufacturer directly with your concerns. You might get a better response. Canadian Aquatic Feed Inc. 17 Canso Road Unit #16 Toronto, Ontario M9W 4M1 Canada

This is a taller 29, it would be right up your alley. 😄 For this particular purpose, the fry will be perfect eye level for me.

This is awesome. Far beyond my non existent diy handywoman skills though. I totally relate to not liking a tank footprint. My 29 has gone through about 10 variations in the past 2 years. Hated all of them. I’m short so it is my nemesis.

How do you take your pics? My camera only tends to focus on my background and completely zaps past my fish.

The scape reminds me a bit of those Acropora or Fire Corals you see in documentaries.

That’s why I love the stairs ones I posted. The outlets are far enough apart to accommodate large square plugs. Outlets on the sides pout the big chuncky boxes in directions out of each others way.

Welcome! This is a pretty good place!

Welcome there a tun of good info here

But aint a weapon material. 2 out of 5. 😝🤣

I like these. More compact. Their plug is flat. They have 4 usb spots and you can get 8 or 12 outlet. They hang on the wall easily with double sided tape.

I would follow shrimp acclimation methods if it's a concern. 1. Open the bag and add 1-2 drops of dechlorinator 2. Get that water dumped into a container with the fish, specimen container works well, and add an air stone. 3. Drip in water and remove any debris from the bag. Then inspect the fish. 4. Fill the container, then remove as much water as possible, drip it until it's full one more time. 5. use a net, move them to the tank.

Definitely would drip acclimate. Is it WC.

soak the tube in really hot water for a minute or so, then you should be able to slide it on and clamp it. It looks like it'll fit alright.

I went to war with my wiring, with a new weapon: However I lost, and both of these are being returned. These are hard to plug into and remove plugs from. I can’t seeing myself giving a fierce tug with my hand behind a floor tank. It just seems like it could be a disaster. I made a big mess of the wiring in the process of trying this out and reverting back. I resorted to 2 smaller power strips and some garden ties to kind of tidy things. (Still have the cyber power with outlets pretty full plus a power strip plugged into that, plus all the wall outlets used up.. The process was pretty annoying; one has to be a contortionist to be crawling around and reaching behind tanks to do the things. But anyway.. looks pretty decent now. A bit satisfying. The last thing is to put some kind of sound absorbing stuff under the air pumps. I wonder if a piece of yoga mat would work.

I don't think you'll have a problem with pygmy cories breeding around any of those micro rasboras, but if you want info from someone that has them, I can provide some experience. I have a 55 gallon with 48 boraras brigittae (aka chili rasboras), 40+ celestial pearl danio, 40+ emerald dwarf rasboras, a threadfin rainbow pair, way too many ramshorn snails, & a colony of neocaridina shrimp. The 12 pygmy cories I put in there last January (with 8 more in March, to spread the bloodlines) are now a school of easily over 60. I've had schools of brigittae for almost 10 years & they're my favorite of the nano fish. They school VERY well, while the other nano fish do their own thing. They'll regularly swim up to me, while I'm cleaning the tank, to see what I'm doing. As the CPD & emerald dwarf rasboras die off from old age, I'll just get more brigittae.

It looks like some type of live bearing trap door snail.

Here’s what you see with extra zoom:

Pygmy Cory juvies: Zebra Danio juvies: (Sorry about pic quality, but my camera will only focus on the background!) Bnp fry which are from a gold x normal batch: Bird fry:

I've been keeping L397s for about three years now and last year, when they finally came of breeding age, they spawned over a 100 fry. Unfortunately, I really don't have much new advice that can't already be found on the www, but I can provide you with a general idea of my setup. I keep their water very clean. The Ph is about 6.4 - 6.6, but my hardness and TDS are quite high -- 9dGh, TDS around 330. I have the tank on auto water change, so there is a good deal of clean water going into their system on a regular basis. If I had one suggestion it would be this-- if you have more than a couple fish, go bare bottom and keep minimal decorations in the aquarium. I have wood and caves and nothing else. I have about a dozen adults in my colony and they can make quite a mess of their tank (they are real poop factories). My aquarium is 60 breeder with and Aquaclear 110 running full blast. A lot of the fish waste winds up in one corner of the tank as a result of the flow and I siphon it out every morning (this takes maybe a minute). I also keep a number of L183s with them. So I probably have about 20 fish total in that 60g, so like I said, it gets messy quick. I originally had these fish on a sand substrate, but cleaning that was a real pain.

I don't know if this one of 3 is a ricefish or pygmy cory fry. Both types, plus 1 female platy, were in the quarantine tank. I discovered the babies after moving all the adults out.

My baby longfin bristlenose will be picked up for me in South FL this weekend. I just learned this today! 😅 Guess I need another QT tank! I don’t want to reset the timer on the QT I have in progress. I finally got some photos of an adult and a baby from the tank. Adult: Baby: If anyone has care tips, let me know! I’ve got some mopani wood, zucchini, green beans, squash, algae wafers, Soilent Green Repashy, and Community Plus Repashy. Other sinking food is cichlid pellets and various snail foods. I figure the Repashy and the boiled veggies to start. Oh I guess I need to pick up a pleco cave too! I think one of the 2 LFS may have one. Although I heard a pvc with the cap on the end works in the interim. I could get more than one pleco but I worry about their bioload..?