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I keep my tanks stable by focusing on consistency rather than chasing numbers. I feed basically the same every day, all my lights are on timers, and I do the same water changes weekly. Consistency is key, for me.

I was a chef for almost 20 years, a pastry chef for nearly a decade and artisan bread baker for almost 5 years. I assume those are boules you were rolling @jwcarlson? Some of my work...

Hi all - just doing a feel-good post that today I tested my water after two and half weeks of dealing with ammonia levels and they are finally at 0ppm!! Shout out to everyone including Paul at the Aquarium co-op for all your advice on how to get my sweet betta, Augustine's tank back to where it should be. Now for an ultimate newbie question. Now that I've got her water parameters in the right direction, what's the best way to keep them that way? I've seen a variety of different "This is how you do it" kinds of advice in researching it online. But curious what you all think. Thank you!

Ok rather than pollute the today thread with more pictures of my water changes i decided to make a thread to talk about my various aquariums. I currently have the follow aquariums: 10ftx4ftx23 (approx 550 gallons) (for loaches, festum and angels) 8ftx4ftx23 (approx 450 gallons) (for geo) 4ftx4ftx16 (approx 160 gallon) for (a. pucallpaensis b. cupido and c. hastatus) (oddly this tank has no schoolers) 4ftx30inchx16 (approx 120 gallon) for a. Bitaeniata n. morthenthale and some hatchet fishes. 72x30x16 (approx 180) bed room (for keyholes !!!) 72x24x24 (wild discus and blue rams) 4ftx2ftx2ft (whatever happens to land in there) 29 gallon 1 (pangio myersi !!!) 29 gallon 2 (c. equeus) 40B guppies !!!! 10 gallon (a. pucallpaensis and shrimp) --- Today we will post a couple of pictures from my bed room aquarium; why because today is sunday and i did a water change on it: But before we get started this is my favorite aquarium: It has everything - and probably too much hornworth; i did throw away about 70% of it yesterday but alas it still has too much... how hum i guess next week i'll reduce it a bit more. The plant on the right to the left of the golden anubia is an interesting plant i picked up in may called a red lip crypt pontederiifolia; it is less green than your typical pontederifolia and with strong light and a touch of co2 is quite purple - but this aquarium has neither super strong light nor co2 and it still grows fine just a touch more green. I think after 7 months we can say it is safely settled in and growing. -- Now for the 72x30 - we start with some very very naughty fish that could use a good spanking 'cept i dont' care too much: What happened is moved some dwarf sag that had sent runners the wrong way and left some exposed roots. Guess who loves to eat plant roots.... and and he didn't eat just one he ate all of the 'xposed ones and then dug up some more! Now on to some more interesting pictures: This is a pink nurri rosen (I think); it is like your typical nurri rosen but more pink and no it doesn't require any co2: This is a very large pink jacobii - i swear it is a wenditti that someone painted pink; it also doesn't require co2 and my red lizards love to hide under it (I have 4) they also show you just how colourful this plant is and that it isn't an optical illusion . This is your more typical nurii rosen - really a nice plant without all that ugly pink in the pink nurii and jacobi - a welcome constrast - don't you disagree ? This is an expensive plant i really abused when it is was in the 40B; luckily it is growing just fine in the new aquarium now that i got rid of that pesty co2 that was killing everything. It is called crypt cordata var siamensis; probably should have gotten 2 of them but they were a bit expensive and i didn't know if they would grow in my aquarium. Hopefully this one will send out a runner or something - it has put out 2 new leaves in the past 8 weeks (i'm talking about the plant that is green with white lines in the middle). Last boring picture; this is my e. kleiner prinz plant. You can compare it to this picture and see it has sent out new leaves; they were a tad greener than they should be so i relocated it directly under the light. I know with co2 and strong light it will turn a brilliant wine colour but we shall see what it does without co2. (older picture below from what you are doing thread; the one above has 2 new leaves and they are a little taller)

A couple sourdough loaves this morning. Overnight ferment. Normal loaf with bread flour 50/50 whole wheat/bread flour Anyone else bake?

Hey fellow nerms. I just got a trio of these guys today. Looking for any tips on them from anyone that has kept them before. Mainly about breeding and temps. Any info is greatly appreciated

I know we all take 27 horrible pictures for each one that might be somewhat usable. Let's see them. scleromystax barbatus

This would be a fantastic photo if I was trying to get the ramshorn. Unfortunately, I was trying to get the guppies. And here we have a beautiful photo of my heater. 🤦‍♀️

It probably won't hurt. Regarding your pH, I would ditch all the pH additives and maybe get some crushed coral. Also, 75% water change sounds good, but only if you test your tap water as it's possible the tap water is causing the problem. And continue to not feed for a few days at least.

Great questions. You'll get a number of opinions online. Here on the CARE Forum, I hope you'd get _reasons_ for opinions. Let me share my views, and give you reasons. (1) It is doable if: [a] you are a reasonably good aquarist -- keep the aquarium healthy and in balance, do not overfeed, water change regularly, etc. [b] you add even more plants. And then add more. And then just a few more 🪴🌱🌿 [c] add an additional filter -- HOB is fine. I love AquaClear filters. They are adjustable. But a second small sponge filter would also be fine instead. (2) I rarely use 10-gallon aquariums anymore. a 20-gallon long is a much more satisfying aquarium space. If you're able to afford that, it would make for better digs. Cherry Barbs are lively. A 10 gal. tank would be a bit smaller than optimal. If you want to stick with the 10-gal size, you might consider White Cloud Mountain Minnows as an alternative option, since they probably could manage a bit better in smaller space...

Does it count if the fish I was actually attempting to photo left the frame before I hit the button leaving only his unsuspecting buddy in the background?

Like this? 😂 🤣

Here’s an unintentional plug for the coop but I bought 1 portion of anubias nanji maybe 5+ years ago. It slowly has taken over my 40 gallon and has grown maybe 2 feet worth of rhizome. Over the years I’ve had to prune many leaves and lately it’s progressed. Between the pothos and anubias I can’t quite find the sweet spot for fertilizer. Here soon I’m doing a tear down of the tank and removing the anubias was the first step. I cleaned up the roots and cut off all the gravel. Next I portioned it off a bit and put it in 2, 20 longs. As you can see it doesn’t fit. I live in Eatonville wa and will need to find it all a new home. What a crazy removal.

This type of post is negative and unproductive. Please refrain in the future.

There’s plenty of punctuation, just not many capital letters to mark the beginning of sentences and it wasn’t really hard for me to read. It still conveys lots of important and accurate information. Does your post do that? I back what @Colu posted 100%.

Definitely don’t use the Melafix. I consider it contraindicated for labyrinth species like bettas. Honestly, it isn’t really anything I would ever use for any fish. The Maracyn should be fine. Just watch close at the fin margins, especially where they scoop in more towards the body. They should start to regrow in just a few days if it’s working. I think the gill margin issue is secondary to whatever has affected him. I’m concerned he may be self-mutilating, then might be getting infection of the fins and in general if his immune system isn’t up to par from the stress. I think the heavier the fins, the more likely we see self-mutilation where they nip their own fins. The weight causes some downward curvature of their lower spines and I suspect it might cause some pins and needles sensation that triggers them toward the fin nipping. They are more likely to nip tails but they will nip anal fins, too. Replace only the salt for replacement water when doing water changes and be aware that any antibiotic can hammer your biofiltration. I’d recommend you don’t scrub the wood again unless it’s getting excessive biofilm on it as that biofilm has some of your beneficial bacteria that you need right now. You might even consider getting some bottled bacteria like FritzZyme 7 to booster your biofiltration while under, and especially after, treatment with antibiotics.

my opinion, that tear just looks like some of the smear out. if its not actually torn into the corner seam itself, i would not mess with it. especially since new silicone does not like to adhere to old dry silicone.

Standoff is a good way to describe the boy curviceps. The girl is friendly to me. The other girl was super friendly and decided a German Blue Ram was her mate. Spawned then tried to bully the ram into fertilizing. This was a temporary holding tank for both. After he left she became huge with eggs. I put her in with a male dorsigera for fear of her getting egg bound and I was male heavy. (Intent to destroy eggs never produce hybrids) No deal. She beat the tar out of him and he was larger. I threw her in with the group of them and the entire group hid in the corner. The curviceps pair I have now are separated because he beat her up even though they were spawning regular. All in all personality wise I prefer the dorsigera. Friendly vs cranky and moody. I don’t ever see the playfulness from the curviceps either. Mine are the more blue but to me look nothing like the dorsigera and prettier than others I’ve seen. Pretty does not mean interesting to me. Dorsigera are farm raised curviceps tank raised.

I use a fluval inline uvc clarifier with my fluval 307 canister filter on my goldfish tank works well it has I timer so you can set it come on for 4-6-8-12 or 24hr I would leave it running for 24hr a day UV sterilisers work by breaking DNA chains of virus and bacteria to stop them multiplying it also fits smaller fluval canister filter 106 107 206 207

At it again. He dug the hole on the left. Now it’s her turn. When they dig the holes they show off a deeper blue/turquoise color. He had it while digging his hole and she was the lighter sky blue he was in the video. You see him accept her hole towards the end. You can see his deeper colors filing in as he is now helping her perfect the hole.

I have used these 9 watt ones in the past for similar hard water Petri dish issues. I like them. They just suction cup in wherever you want them and plug and play. Easy, affordable works well.

Thanks, @AllFishNoBrakes! I'll make sure to be consistent from now on.

My newest fish - picked up about 10 days ago:

I have thought so many of these were dead only to have them go zipping off when I poof on them with a pipette. How can they be this small...

It’s fine to do.

Right, this is why I’m not feeding the worms every day. Also trying to let the worm population grow. Spike may have a hard time when he goes in the main tank if he only wants worms because there’s 18 tetras in there. We have to get this sorted out before he moves. For now, I’m just glad he’s accepting some kind of food.

I have enjoyed cory fry so far. Limited fry powder use is probably the main factor there.

Newer set of sterbai. Still a few in eggs.

Sterbai cory fry have made the move to the fry system. Another set of sterbai eggs I thought were a loss have hatched about double digits of fry. So we'll see how that goes. I suppose I can get a try set up for them as well. CPD trio have been in a hang on egg laying setup since yesterday evening. I have like 10 CPDs and only 2 are female........

They have moved the fry twice this morning. The fry are moving about the hole on their own.

As the title says, Is it doable? I already keep my goldfish tank around 21-22C. The ideal range for the rainbow shark I see is 20-26C. My goldfish tank is planted with some floating plants, elodea, and some other tough background stem plants. It is 180 liters (~48g). I have two goldfish there and they are not bad swimmers. So I dont think they would be outcompeted by any means for food and such. So do you think its doable to add a rainbow shark to their tank? Are rainbow shark aggressive towards fish that dont have the “shark look” too? Thanks in advance

pythons come with a shutoff valve right near the suction end. if yours dont have one, have no fear, you can buy the parts.

Friend is experienced with worm cultures: larger worms. Right now she has another culture going for the axolotl. They are just a bit smaller than earthworms; I forget what they are called. Axolotl has been eating those and guppy fry. Occasionally the meat Repashy. I ate a banana on the drive to her house and told her to throw out the peel but she cut it into bits and gave it to those worms.

I've been using two of these for the last two years and they have been great. I have been thinking about setting up some sort of semi-auto system myself, but I have some additional utilities that you don't have so not sure the thoughts bouncing around in my head are applicable for your situation. Plus I don't have a rack, but I would like to semi-automate just a couple of tanks, basically. Thought about making some PVC overflows (I think King of DIY has a video of how to make one) and setting the height of the overflow to XX% of what I want for the water change. Basically putting a valve on the outflow, turning that on and being able to walk away, then just come back and top everything off that drained. That's what I do with my discus tank, it has a dedicated siphon line that runs through the way and down into the basement sink with a splitter valve that allows me to drain from one line and then flip two valves and fill from the same line. It's worked well and makes things quite easy for me. It takes about 15 minutes to pump 70 gallons of water about 15 feet up from my basement to my discus tank. To get an idea of flow rates. It moves a lot of water. The second one I use in the basement to refill tanks from my aging barrels and it's *a lot* of flow when pumping just a few feet of head.

If someone offered me a choice of steak or spam I’m headed for the steak. I tried garlic a few years back in repashy. None of my fish would eat it after the first bite or two.

The second I open the drawer and light hits the container mine retract into substrate. Same goes for other cultures in the stackable drawers with vibration as I work my way up the drawers the top cultures I rarely see worm above surface other than on lids and sides I worried at first about never seeing them on bread. I opened a drawer in the dark very gently popped the lid and hit it with a flashlight. The worms were congregated around the bread. As soon as the flashlight show they evacuated below the surface. Im glad all the worms are doing well for you both.

The worm colonies are doing well. This weekend I will upgrade the container for the grindal worms. Friend asked why it seems like she never sees the white worms on the bread. I have no idea, but regardless the white worms are doing well and are nice and active. @Guppysnail? Friend was very excited today when she found a clutch in her grindal worm culture. She sent a pic:

I spiked the Repashy with garlic guard today and it doesn’t seem like anybody wanted it! I left it in there and will check on it later. Spike ate worms directly from the tongs! I really wish Spike would start eating some more commercial foods. I think he did take a bite of the Repashy though right as I was leaving. The Repashy was right next to where he ate the worms.

I got on the website on both desktop and phone now and tried, it was flashing as well. Both using chrome browsers. I logged out of both and then reset password and it works like it should now, able to see order history.

This is correct. Sponges are filter feeders that will remove particles from the water

@Razan Unfortunately, with that size of tank, no fish is really going to be able to live long-term. If at all possible, I think I'd suggest that you see if you can re-home that fish because goldfish get BIG. If you can manage that and you've been bitten by the fish bug, then I would do some research... save some money... and hunt for deals on a larger aquarium. Most every fish should have at least 5 gallons. There are some shrimp and plenty of snails that can live down in smaller containers, though. And they can be every bit as interesting to keep as fish! If you stick with fish keeping for any length of time you'll come to understand that basically every fish thinks it is hungry all the time. 🙂 One of the more difficult tasks for some people in the hobby is to not always give into that urge to feed them! I'd really really cut back feeding now knowing the size of your tank while you look for another home for it (or another tank). Sadly, it's not a suitable home for your fish and will inevitably end poorly.

If you have the funds I would definitely get a bigger tank depending on the type of goldfish 55 gallon as a minimum 75 gallons would be better long term goldfish produce a lot of waste the bigger tank the better I wouldn't feed that food it's aimed at tropical fish I would feed hikari saki gold pellets that's what I feed my comet goldfish I would feed frozen brine shrimp or bloodworms twice a week what type of filter are you using do you have test kit or strips to test your water parameters ammonia nitrite nitrate pH KH GH

Longer maintenance session today, but it was well worth it. Ripped out every last air stone and replaced them with air collars/easy flow kits! I’m so SO STOKED to not have to mess with air stones on a weekly basis moving forward! Couple of things I wasn’t anticipating and had to work through/will continue to work through. -Had to adjust the 4 way metal gang valve just a bit to have all 4 kits flowing the way I wanted them to. I don’t know why I wasn’t expecting to do this. Looking back I definitely should’ve been, lol. -My (4) 10 gallon tanks on the bottom rack are powered by a dual outlet (non-ACO) air pump. Each outlet is then T’d for a total of 4 drops. The left outlet on each T was having some trouble. Great air flow just a couple inches up in the tank, and then basically nothing where the sponge filter was sitting. For now, I turned some plant baskets upside down and put the sponge filter on top. It’ll work, for now. I want to maybe throw an adjustable valve on the right side of the T, and see if I can bring that side down to push just a little bit more on the left side of the T. We’ll see. I also bagged up a TON of Java Moss, ~20 PSO stems, and 23 baby Amazon Swords straight off the vine to take to the LFS tomorrow along with 15 Panda Angels. I’m curious to see what they’ll give me for all the plants. I even offered to portion them all out and was told not to worry about it. Definitely saved me some work today. Boiled up some tannins, saved up the blackwater tea, and dropped all those botanicals in the blackwater tanks. Was like a 7 hour session today, but I’m feeling good about where everything is at! Definitely time well spent Black Neons should be in either tonight or tomorrow, and the LFS is gonna hold them for a while which is much appreciated. Definitely going to QT them when I get them as well, but I’m thankful they’re cool enough with me to hold onto them for a bit. Took photos of some of the easy flow kits. 55 Angel tank. 29 Blackwater tank. 29 Pea Puffer tank

how's the new pleco going? Im loving my new bristlenose. How big is yours? the picture makes it look pretty big.

Actually there is not much moss in that tank it's mostly guppy grass and hornwort. If it does not look like a jungle then your not doing it right 😆