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So I’m sharing a few photos. My unbelievably electric blue Ram… A nice Teal-Diamond Discus… A Betta I’m waiting to breed come warmer weather… Rainbow Shiners, getting fat in cool water over winter… Fireyblack Shiner with Greenhead Shiners… Ok. Back to work now … 🤪

I can only imagine.... the wonderful things you made with that. Man I am hungry for some italian food all of a sudden. 😂 I read the thread and had to giggle a little, my mom's side of the family, they are the Baker's. (Literally) It's one of those things where I absolutely have the skill, but not the patience to bake. If I needed to knock out a pie or desert or whatever it was, totally can, but I much prefer the free form style of just cooking some good food. Nothing beats homemade pie, chocolate chip cookies, and some of the winter holiday foods. I am going to have to make some gingerbread soon after seeing @Chick-In-Of-TheSea cookies. Kind of looking forward to it!

I have a metaframe tank and hood. I haven't found a metaframe stand, and I wanted something to compliment the style. I found a really beautiful little dresser on offer up that's solid wood that I believe is from the 1940's. I got it for $60. Plenty of drawer space for fish food and supplies.

Hydrophilus triangularis (giant diving beetle)most likely. There are quite a few species in the US, but triangularis is ubiquitous and the most commonly seen. Do be careful, they bite, and they bite rather hard. Their larvae are what are commonly referred to as water tigers and can make fun pets.

Neat pattern on the wild female. Kinda marbled or something.

They're all free swimming. I can see their bellies a bit better from above against the white.

This fellow has been busy!

I ended up buying a 9W GKM, impressed with the packaging quality, seems like I could have driven a car over the box and it would have been fine. I don't know that I've ever seen a plastic bubble pack that was so thick. I wish I could see the light somehow so that I "knew" it was working. 😄

Lets hear it for Senior Citizen Children at Heart! A Mammoth Christmas. Prancer: "My family raised me to be kind to strangers, and there is nobody stranger than you guys!" Sid is so ugly he's cute, but the cameo appearances by Scrat make it for me.

Just an update…. i did the peroxide route. I saved 25% of my bio media to save the grief of going through a cycle. I left the tank with no inhabitants…easy as the all died, for a week. I have added some calico pattys (8) and they are doing fine. unfortunately I lost all my plants from the salt blast that I did. thanks for the help fish people. I never would have tried the peroxide. side note as I think this is more relevant then ever in Canada due to our lack of access to fish meds….10 gallon quarantine tank is up and running. lol.

Im glad to hear. I have no idea if garlic is actually snail safe. Because, if I am not mistaken, some people use it to kill slugs/snails in their gardens or so. I also saw something similar mentioned in Kats aquatics page. So I found this: https://www.katsaquaticsshop.com/post/garlicandsnails It basically says allicin in raw garlic is harmful but heating garlic destroys allicin so it becomes safe? When I check garlic guard info online, I came accross this: "Garlic Guard is an appetite/flavor enhancer for freshwater and saltwater fish. GarlicGuard will help renew the interest of poor or finicky eaters. GarlicGuard contains the naturally derived, active ingredient found in garlic, allicin, which has been demonstrated to possess health promoting benefits. Allicin possesses strong anti-oxidant properties (similar to Vitamin C) which promote enhanced health through elimination of dangerous free radicals. For enhanced health benefits, GarlicGuard also contains Vitamin C. Freshwater and Marine. Reef safe." So is it not snail-safe? I'm confused. Do you have any idea Duck? @Odd Duck

After 2 days all seems good. Rummy's are still a little timid and swim along the back of the tank but not being harassed by the zebras any longer.

Happy to report all our snail friends are doing well. @Lennie Today they are helping clean up some fish food flakes. Spike’s tank is down to .25 ammonia. Another 50% water change with Prime. He ate some worms and has Repashy if he wants it. Snoopy is flashing today but has no other symptoms. I wonder what that’s all about. Snoopy goes through periods of flashing and then it just goes away. Like one day she will flash and then 2 weeks will go by where she doesn’t (?) I haven’t taken action because it is so intermittent and her behavior is the same. Peppy, curious, feisty.

Id just like to update this a bit. I did some more research and saw that Hydra are sensitive to salt and low salt concentrations be used to kill them. I tried 1g:5liters of aquarium salt in the tank (in total around 3 grams) and so far it appears to be working. The hydra have been dying off while the shrimp are perfectly fine.

Welcome to the forum! UGFs (under gravel filters) seem to have made way for the easier to maintain sponge filters in the past years. Definitely do as @JE47 says and keep a diurnal rhythm. Good luck!

Awww! Suprise baby fish are the best! Congratulations!

🤞 For sure hoping! I am anxiously awaiting to add to the herd. It'll be a new one for me to see how they do with the shrimp. There is a ton of little critters in there and I sat there one night and watched them crawl all over the wood, purely ignored by the shrimp. Always so interesting this tank seems to be. Pretty sure one of my female amanos spent all day checking every sword lead for eggy snacks. 😂

Just learned that they do seasonally climb out of water and can fly. WHAT IN THE WORLD. Says typically in spring but when WA only has two seasons they have to make do. It’s over an inch long. 👀

I'm currently going through the process of setting up a 180 gallon aquarium with the end goal of a planted community tank with a school of Discus, Cardinal Tetras, Rummynose Tetras, Sterbai Corys, and a pleco or two. The project is no light undertaking, so I thought this would be a great place to document the process. Not only do I want to be able to look back years down the road, I hope I can educate and entertain others along the way. I know me, and know I am going to ramble here, but that's what a journal is for, right? For starters, this is all new to me. I've only been keeping fish for a little overr a year. I wanted to keep fish for well over a decade now, but I never got around it. Finally, my father-in-law got my daughter a Betta for her 1st birthday last year, and that kicked off my obsession. That quickly upgraded to a planted 36 gallon community tank and a 6 gallon cube for the Betta. Now, I finally got my wife on board with, or at least not objecting to, setting up a large aquarium in the basement. Bonus points because my now 2-year-old daughter loves the hobby too. Loves feeding the fish and always asks to go to the fishy store. Once that green light was given by my wife, I started browsing Facebook Marketplace for the aquarium. The goal was something between 125-180. After a while, 2 180s popped up at the same time. One was older with wood trim and wasn't drilled. The other (the one I got) had black plastic trim and was predrilled with what I guess is called reef-ready. The seller never had it set up and I think he ended up with it after buying a storage locker at auction. It seemed to be in okay shape from my limited knowledge and was $400 so I rolled with it. I also knew I wanted to run it with a sump, so I set out to find a 75 gallon aquarium for that purpose. Interestingly, I found one right away and after talking to the owner about it, I had his 180 gallon. He let it go after moving and seemed to have gotten out of the hobby. He sold me the 75 gallon for $50. After getting both home and in my garage, I started watching videos on cleaning used aquariums and that sent me down a rabbit hole of resealing them. I decided I was going to tackle that project. The seams looked to be in great shape. No bubbles in the structural part of the silicone whatsoever, but the silicone I would be replacing had seen better days. While it was still pliable, the edges were beginning to dry rot, and peel back. It did hold water though. I filled it, added citric acid to scrub the salt off, and it stayed full for a few hours with no issues. after cleaning it, I quickly drained it though because my garage was not completely level and I didn't want any added stress to one seam over another. I ordered Momentive RTV103 Silicone after reading several reef forums. I also picked up several kinds of razors from Lowes and got down to business. Thanks to my dad, brother-in-law, and best friend, we were able to move it down to my basement so I could work on it in a heated space. Plus that's where it will eventually be set up. Currently, I have both overflow boxes removed, and silicone cleaned out of 2 of the 8 seams. It'll be a long process, but I enjoy these DIY projects. Tonight, I did find a pretty decent chip in one of the side panels below the silicone seal. That has me pretty nervous, but If it was there prior and I make sure its completely covered, I should be okay. At least I hope I'm okay because a new 180 gallon aquarium isn't in the budget currently. For the sump, I plan to only have 3 chambers. The first chamber will house a series of mechanical filtration most likely with sponges and filter floss. This area will be about 6 inches wide. From there I plan to have the water flow up through an 8 inch wide chamber full of bio media. The baffle here will be about 14 inches tall so from my math, could hold about 8 gallons of bio media. After that, the water will fall into a large return chamber (34x18). If I have the water filled up to 14 inches in the sump, the return chamber should have about 37 gallons of water in it. I'll house the heaters, and a few sponge filters here to help with aeration and to have seeded sponges if I need a quarantine tank set up fast. My goal is to run an auto water change system out of the return chamber. I should be able to drain about 20 gallons of water out of that chamber and still allow my return pump to run. In theory, I think as long as the pump speed doesn't vary, changing water from the return chamber should just lower and raise the water level in the return, meanwhile, nothing changes or is noticeable in the display tank. All of that happens with the return pump staying on. I could be totally wrong on this but I couldn't find anyone running a setup like this. Maybe there is a reason for that, but it sounds like a fun idea to me so we'll see! I have about 80% of the materials purchased to finish the build. I went with a Sicce SDC 6.0 pump and Sicce Scuba Contactless heaters. I'm going to build the stand out of 2x4s and 2x6s. I will eventually wrap the stand in a nice plywood and stain it, but I want to get the tank resealed, set up, and running before I worry about the aesthetics. I also find water chemistry super fascinating. I will start out by saying, I don't think you should chase parameters. It's probably best in most situations to let acclimate your fish to your water. With that said, my tap water would supply an amazing African cichlid tank, but isn't ideal for the fish I want to keep. To remedy this, I purchased 4x 30 gallon food-grade drums so I can mix my very hard and alkaline tap water with RO water. This is another element of the DIY process I really like. I'm still working on the logistics of it, but ideally, I can set up the tanks to automatically fill and mix the right amount to get softer water around a PH of 6.8 or so. I manually do this in my Betta's tank now, but with the drums and float valves, I think I can automate the process and consistently have a stable source of water without chasing parameters with additives. More updates to come! Heres the tank how I got it. Taking the old black paint off the back All Cleaned Up! The joints seem to be in great shape 75 Gallon running citric acid through it In the basement, Overflows off, and starting to remove the silicone Defect in glass Box of goodies! 30 Gallon Drums!

What would you plant, what would its placement be and what should be attached to the wood? I'm thinking corys neon tetras and a Betta. I want it to be heavily planted but don't know how to attack this.

As we have entered the month of December and all the Holiday classics play on the TV I was wondering what is everyone's favorite Christmas movie and why? For me it is the Polar Express as long as I can remember my family has always gotten our tree the weekend right after thanksgiving. Once we decorated the tree at night we would light it up have hot chocolate and watch this movie. It will forever remind me of my family and is a tradition I would hope to carry on with my family. I do enjoy Home Alone though for the comedic side and because I love the music!

Thanks @Lennie. I don't know. My intention was not to feed this to the snails, but to the fish. The snails helped themselves. Anyway, I'd imagine if it was killing everyone's snails there would be a widespread outrage about it on the internet? I did find some snello recipes that contain garlic guard though, when I was searching. Maybe the amount of allicin in Garlic Guard is not high, or maybe it was heated to a certain point to make the Garlic Guard, which rendered it safe and that is why everyone is ok. It is very vague and hard to find info on it though, as far as how it relates to our invert friends. I don't intend to feed it in this tank any more until we can find more data.

From AQUAHOLICS AQUARIUM And from Aquarium Science So doing the math: You need 1 gallon of K1 media for a 100 gallon tank and the size of your fluidized bed filter should be .221 cubic feet. So to be safe, lets just add a factor of 2 ie: 1 gallon of K1 media for a 50 gallon tank. So using a 20/29 gallon tank for a sump, water level ~1 foot high, your fluidized bed compartment should be 12" x 12" x 2.6". That seem very small compared to the systems you see on youtube. Any comments, I hope I got my math correct.

Dude, nice! That Crypt, holy smokes!

Floating hornwort or guppy grass fills in fast. It provides cover for fish and makes them feel safe. My Cories all like to rest on anubias leaves Your betta probably will as well. I would glue some moss on the wood to deter algae growing on it. Unless you like the algae look (I do).

Taken from Aquariumbreeder: I put it in last night so its a bit early for any updates, but once i have them i will let you know.

There is a guy on ebay that sells acrylic prefab sump stuff that I bought mine from for a 20H. Great stuff! Very responsive too Anyway for a fluidized bed my understanding is it can be any size as long as it’s properly moving. Preferably water flow would be circular. They design fluidized media in a way too that you can have it as dense or as loose as you desire without it losing rotation. Most fluidized beds I have seen are cylindrical to allow for curved edges for the water and media to have the most efficient rotation. I think too you want a very good polishing screen prior to the bed, and debris can really gunk up and reduce efficiency of the media. Thats all I got, never built one only worked with them professionally. Good luck!

There is no magic number. Bio load matters more than tank size. A one-hundred-gallon tank with a single neon tetra in it that only gets fed the bare minimum every other day and has a single floating plant probably doesn't need any extra biofiltration. A one-hundred-gallon tank overstocked with ten full-grown Oscars that get fed multiple times a day might need a hundred-gallon sump filled with K1 and barely be able to keep up. An old, established K1 filter will handle a larger bio load than a newly set up K1 filter. A heavily planted tank that's been established for years can use a much smaller K1 bio-filter as there are massive bacteria colonies all through the tank. And K1 filters are moving bed filters. In order to move, the K1 media need space. If you cram a gallon of K1 media into a space just large enough to hold it, but with no room for it to move, it won't be as effective as it would in a larger space. Too large a space and the K1 may not move as energetically and clean itself. When in doubt about how much bio-filtration to use, I always err on the side of more. I've got three small sponge filters running on my heavily planted ten-gallon tank that has seven CPDs in it. It's ridiculously overkill, but more bio-filtration is better than not enough. And when I set up a new tank, I can just move an established filter to that new tank to help seed it. A lot of people want to make fishkeeping into a science with an exact formula to follow. There are just way too many variables for that to ever be possible. Everyone's water is different. Every tank's bio load is different. Every tank's colony of bacteria is different. Every tank is unique. You need more focus on general guidelines than precision when it comes to fishkeeping. Build as big a K1 partition as you can and hope for the best. It's hard to have too much biofiltration, so err on the side of more is better. If you only have a little space, try it and see what happens. Maybe you'll get lucky, and it'll be enough space. What works for you though may fail miserably for someone else doing exactly the same thing due to differences in their water, bio load, and bacterial colonies. Fishkeeping is a hobby where there are very few exact answers to any question. What works for one person may fail miserably for someone else.

did some maintainance today, got my main tank and the family shrimp tank looking good:

Yes I will.I was going to write a journal for my T-34 Sump but after I built it, I came up with a better way to make it. I am trying to design my sump filter which does not require a fully equipt shop ie compound miter and table saws, routers, etc....

Sounds interesting. I hope you journal your build.

This is an awesome project. I’m looking forward to following along.

I added some ammania pedicellata to the right side. We will have to see how it does without aquasoil. I know in general it's a finicky one. I think I'm going to get rid of the limnophila aromatica next. It just isn't distinctive enough. Maybe I'll replace it with something like anubias barteri, I need something with broad leaves and dark green color there I think. Or I could go full on fruit stand and try alternanthera reinickii or something.

There's a few main ways to do this. I cannot speak to vacuuming with the loaches, but with the shrimp I am one of the few I think that thoroughly cleans the sand in my tank. We do have a tripod so I can try to record it for the journal one day. Basically: Option A. Use a net or a pain strainer to strain shrimp that might be siphoned up. Option B. Just ignore the shrimp and go ahead and siphon like its any other tank. Try not to send them for a ride, of course, but also be sure to check the buckets and any filtration (sponges) before you turn the water to brown gunk. Option C. Try to clear a section of the tank as best you can and go very intently, but slowly through a section. Be on alert and be able to pinch the siphon hose for the sake of needing to let a baby shrimp or shrimp swim back into the tank from the siphon tube. Option D. Use a tea strainer+food container (idea from marks shrimp tanks) or pantyhose or something on the end of the siphon to keep shrimp out and proceed as normal. Some tips and tricks.... Move hard scape and feeding dishes before you start the siphon, feed the tank on one side and come back in 10-15 minutes. That should move the shrimp to one side of the tank and let you clean the other half. Next week, you have one side that should be fairly clean and you just clean the other half. It is almost critical to keep the shrimp feeding area clean. The reason for this is because all that detritus, waste, and food ends up in one concentrated section. Not cleaning that up regularly is one of the easiest ways people get hydra, planaria, or detritus worms en masse in their colonies. Mentioned above, but practice and be able to siphon by "pumping" which is to say the technique Cory shows in his video where you pause the flow and the debris goes into the siphon tube. Because of that, then you can inspect for shrimp each time you turn on the pump/flow. What this does is allows you to seriously slow down the rate of water you remove as well. This means lower volume and stress on the shrimp to top off the tank after maintenance as well. Which gives you the flexibility to use as much or as little water as you want. For those that drip water back in, very effective methodology! Shrimp will "learn" to avoid the siphon. They learn the routine and they learn that it's not their friend. At first shrimp will go towards flow and it's pretty common for them to follow that path. Over time they will basically stop that behavior due to understanding what it's for. It's just something I've noticed with both types of shrimp I keep. Flip aquatics talks about this and their method is to keep a very small layer of substrate to help with letting the air remove the debris. I've never had the strongest of air pumps be as effective as a siphon, even on a bare bottom tank. That being said, potentially that helps.

@Retired Geezer yes under gravel filters still exist and there are definitely people on the forum who still use them. By the way welcome to the forum light should not be on 24/7 start with about eight hours.

i just crush up whatever normal food i use for the parents.

i agree, glue a couple chunks of anubias on it, and stand it up like an arch. over time, itll become a green arch.

Nice betta tank, i wonder what substrates do u use?

@JoeQ I personally would just smash a pellet until it looked like powder. Never used live Daphnia or Bloodworm Powder. What type of food do you feed the adult Guppy?

Looks like a species of diving beetle I don't no Which one

Well, Snoopy loves garlic Repashy and the snails are practically fighting over it. Even the nerites are there! .5 ammonia today still in Spike’s tank. Another 50% water change with Prime and added some seeded floss from another tank. Put that near the air in 2 sections of tank. Everyone in the tank enjoyed grindal worms today. Spike popped his dorsal fin up and went into hunting mode, swimming toward the prey in quick spurts.

Retired Geezer here. My neighbor brought over a 2.5 gal tank with one sad guppy for me to watch while he is on vacation. My wife and I have had tanks before and this triggered happy memories. Well you can guess what happened, we're off to look for a 20-29 gallon tank for ourselves. It's been 40 years since we had fish and I remember the filter was called an 'under gravel filter'. Do they even have these anymore? Second question. Should lights be on 24/7 or should I turn them off during dark hours to help the fish maintain diurnal rhythm.

A whole tank view will be helpful. First, you can cut the damaged leaves off. They are done. Are you using an all in one fertilizer, or root tabs? I would suggest adding root tabs if you aren't currently using them. Cutting the damaged leaves will cause the plant to put its efforts into new growth.

Last week my order of the sponge filter upgrade kit arrived. All I have to say is it has made a world of difference. I also added the 5 salt and pepper Cory’s I picked up a couple months ago which has helped as well. Before installing the upgrade, I did a water change, filter squeeze and removed whatever Mulm I could get to. After installation Today, I did another water change and filter squeeze. The amount of gunk that came out of the sponge was insane! The gunk was even starting to buildup in the center of the sponge With the Cory’s kicking up debris and the flow pushing stuff back towards the filter, this is the cleanest it’s been since it was first set up. I do want to see if I can increase the flow a bit more though. Probably has to do with the air pump at that point. Seeing what @Cory has coming out of his setup probably has to do with the linear air pump rather than the single outlet ACO air pump. I have to say, this is great for tanks larger than 20 gallons. Adding flow which reduces dead zones and helps carry debris towards the filter, it’s a steal at $4.99. Dropped in a couple squares of Repashy Community before I took this shot. and an appearance of an elder cherry shrimp chowing down Curious how much gunk will be in the filter next week? Plan on doing another small water change just so I can see.

I think with a careful selection of plants this would be possible. My friend uses small submersible light on deeper tanks and hides them to get light to the bottom of stem plants. It works well for her. It also gives her tank a unique look that adds an extra 3d look to her tank.

Hand feeding party! Always makes my day. Even Garra Guy got in on it, he's usually too shy: Also took a good picture of Garra Guy before feeding:

Black phantoms all fired up and ready to go. I’m wondering if there’s something about the peat that’s bringing my hatch rates down. The more peat I add, the less I get, but if I add practically none then entire spawns fungus. Has anyone got any ideas on how to stop eggs fungusing?