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After keeping red lizard whiptails, I started to like whiptails even more. I find their look and character very interesting. So I want to try new species from the whiptails. Watched care and breeding guides. Also talked to a friend who keeps and bred them. I would like to learn more. My friend bred them in tap water and said hers aren't picky when it comes to food and water parameters, even for breeding. I wonder what's everyones experience is like Please share any experience and any tips you have🤗 P.S: I remember you mentioning your farlowellas back in the days so wanted to tag you! @Biotope Biologist

I was gonna say.... I seem to recall a lot of silverware missing when you pop the seltzer bottles! I forget who it was, but someone was RRing so much at one point that the drawer was empty (or nearly).

Okay, here it is. I decided to gift myself some nice looking light holders instead of having the lights splayed inconveniently across my tanks. The holders are mounted on the side rims of the tanks. I carefully measure the width of the tank rims and the lengths of each light. I order the holders...they are attractive and well made. At NO time does it dawn on me that the glass covers over each tank fit flush to the sides. And this is even after LIFTING the glass covers so I can measure! So do I get the idiot award for the year?

In the past, I've seen a problem with old API GH tests. They simply won't turn color. I ordered a new kit at that point and it worked fine. How old is your kit?

I get this or something similar occasionally on newer tanks. Not sure what it is I always guessed it’s just bacterial colonies establishing but it never hurt anything. As the tank settles in it stops. I just wipe it off each week until it stops.

Hello everyone, My name is Bill and I have a fish tank problem... Wait wrong place. Or is it? Hummm... I got in to the hobby when my Ex GF got a tank from a big box store and of course she was mislead about what she needed to do. Things went bad one-day and I got a call that all the fish were dieing. I ran to the store and got meds after begging them to unlock the doors when I arrived. Unfortunately it was too late and they didn't make it. I then when down a rabbit hole trying to figure out what happened. Thanks when I found Aquascaping. I was inspired from tanks from Aquapros and many others. I wanted to make my own. I then acquiring a lot of education from Cory and the group of YouTube creators related to the channel. I have went off the deep end 😂. Admitted to myself I'm a water snob lol I now do RODI water as my tap is less than desirable and once you learn to much you don't want to drink that anyway 😆 I'm up to 3 tanks. 2 are scapes and trying my best to fight the urge to fill my house with fish tanks lol. In it for a few years now. Far from a pro and learning everyday. I love to learn. I have been searching for like minded people to continue education and not be in fear to ask a question because of the "jerks" found in many places. Most of my plants are from ACO. My dogs name is Charlie and pea puffers are my favorite fish 😊

That was me. @Chick-In-Of-TheSea was convinced my hubby had to eat only finger food 🤣

I lay forks spoons and knives on mine in a cross cross pattern 🤣 Silly but it works great.

So.... I would absolutely not dose 3 meds via food right away. I would do one of them, but not three at once. It's likely causing some stress or discomfort and that's throwing some things off. You're using erithromycin in addition to another bacterial med (maracyn 2) in addition to the parasite medication. I wouldn't double stack the bacterial meds like that, potentially that's the cause. My steps moving forward right now would be to test ammonia, nitrite, nitrate daily and to do a water change. Rule #1 right now is to reduce stress. Because you're talking about a shrimp tank the bioload being pretty minimal and then you added a good amount of fish. Most of your ammonia in the tank will start as fish respiration. So let's test that and keep an eye out. If there is any, add in some aquarium salt and that should be done to help heal or prevent ammonia burns. Shrimp and the corydoras will like it cooler. I try to keep mine 72-74 range. Cooler temps means more oxygen in the water and that helps them to breathe a little easier. Adding the air is a great move, so well done there. If those are the only things in the tank let's drop the temp 1-2 degrees each day until we're in the better range for them. Yep... Makes sense. Sitting at the surface too is likely water or oxygen related. The video reminds me of a female looking for a place to lay eggs. Being in a new tank can trigger that too. Let's make sure they're ok, go from there.

We'll have to imagine how pretty their babies would be though, I think. 🤭

You could add a small amount of aquarium salt 1 table spoon for 10 gallons that will aid Gill function and add essential electrolytes at that level it won't harm your plants as a bit of supportive care it will also help with osmoregulation

Confirmed that both abacaxis were males. Whatever occured, both ended up injured. The bigger one died several days later. This one has been coloring up, his wound healing. The hongsloi pair continue their shenanigansm. They are at least getting along. I popped in their first daphnia, she hunted it, mouthed it, and gave up. It was sitting on her head, but I didn't get a picture. It's the bigger blurry spot to then left of the suction cup. The male doesn't seem to care that it's there. My seed shrimp colony has lots in it, so I seeded their tank with probably a hundred or so of those. Now for the garbage bag of oak leaves.

Looking better today. These sure are pretty fish.

Not a lot to Go on it's possible they had a reaction to the medication I wouldn't recommend using multiple medication in food at the same if your going to use antibiotic treatment such as maracyn or maracyn2 I would dose maracyn and then follow up with maracyn2 in week if your doing a preventive treatment using these three medication together can put stress on the organ's and be very stressful on fish if he's hanging at the surface but your not seeing rapid breathing it could have the start of parasitic infection such as Gill flukes am not convinced there's a parasitic infection going on @nabokovfan87keeps these so maybe it's something they have come across this behaviour I haven't kept Cory's in a long time

Starting to acclimate the ember tetras to a tank light. It makes them look very nice. I gave them a plant as well.

Really enjoyed “Big George Foreman” and highly recommend it. It’s funny and has a great message for everyone and it will inspire people like it did for me.

Today we're making bread, again   pretty good aeration (that's after 2 hours during the 2nd proving after knockback)

Now in the danios and pygmy Cory tank I added the anubias coffefolia and a small bunch of the crypt parva in the center of the tank. I have never really planted in sand before so I'm curious to see if it makes much of a difference. In the new killi tank I added another anubias in the center of the tank. Not that you can see it and I putt the spawning mop in the back right corner. Again something I have never used before but curious to see if it makes a difference in getting eggs to survive.

Afternoon fellow nerms. Been a busy week for TeeJay. But I finally had time to get the new plants from the Christmas party into there tanks and out of the bucket of water. First off I added the anubias barteri into the front left corner of the shrimp sanctuary. And planted the majority of the crypt parva, a new plant for me in the front center of the tank. We shall see how they do. Next in the 20 gallon long I planted the big pot of crypt wenditti in the front left of the slate cave. Hope it does well in here. I still need to get pics of the rest. But here is a start. As always keep it fishy my friends.

Is this an opening for us all to tell the dumbest aquatic mistake we ever made? BTW, there are no "idiots", only students.😆

Snoopy is ALWAYS being cute 🥰

Well the problem is completely gone and the top is a mirror once again; i guess the solution was a little motion on the surface; of course it cost $65 for those power heads; i'll probably leave two running for a while - well one more week then remove them all. I should add one of those thing (what do you call them) that makes current near the bottom for my L206; they love current (I have 4 to 6 of them in the aquarium). They seem to get along much better with loaches than the bn and i don't really understand the dynamics - maybe they are a little larger or a little darker 😉 Or maybe the loaches are plotting against them only time will tell. Anyway this is my final post to this thread since the problem has been resolved; for a small tank a small power head would have resolved it - just noting in case 2 centuries from now someone stumble upon the same issue.

Well, it could mean you have extremely hard water…. Or it could mean the test chemical is defective. I have seachem equilibrium on hand so If I had thise results I would get some distilled water and test it with the api test kit, and then I would add a measured amount of equilibrium to give me an expected hardness and then use the api test kit to verify. ie distilled should change on the first drop. 15 ml of Equilibrium should raise 20 gallons of water 2.8 degrees of hardness. 1.5 ml would raise 2 gallons 2.8 degrees. 1.5 ml would raise 1 gallon 5.6 degrees. 1.5 ml would raise a quart 22.4 degrees… maybe 1.5 milligrams in a quart of distilled left to fully dissolve and do a 50 % dilution . Ie 1 cup of mixed with 1 cup distilled and mix and take 5 mls of that to do an api drop test to verify test drops are good… so, I am assuming this is your tap water.. do you have known hard water? Li e deposits on plumbing fixtures? Soap doesnt suds up and hard to rinse off? Shower head needs frequent servicing to clean out to get a decent shower?

This time of year many city's treatment facilities treat the water and flush the system. My water's pH is usually 7-7.2 and currently its running at 7.6-7.8. Definitely could be that, make sure to test for ammonia as well from your tap water. I have seen several stories and a YT video about cities flushing the system releasing ammonia temporarily into the water. Crazy to think, but it happened.

So I did a thing. I have created a Walstad shrimp jar. I followed her instructions here. I tried to find as many of the plants she used as I could, but I could not find the exact ones. I used Rosette sword, bacopa, and dwarf hairgrass. I added a piece of driftwood that has been in the fish tank a few months. It will provide biofilm and bacteria. I was going to add a piece of cholla wood, but there really wasn’t room once I added the hairgrass. The plants are more important. Since I changed my mind on the jar, my light would not fit on the lip. I improvised a solution. Hopefully the Iron Sheik does not mind too much. 😉 Next I am going to plug the light into a Christmas light timer. I have not added any critters yet, but the water I used is water from the shrimp tank. I had some extra hairgrass that I added to the shrimp tank and to Geppetto’s (betta) tank. My neighbor has some bladder snails. Perhaps I will add one or two to this jar. I also hope to add floating plants.

I bought a ugf pennplax filter plate for a 15 gallon tank. I used 1 of the plates. i tried different plastic round container lids to find one about the right size of the flat round bottom of my sphere to use as a template. I laid it on top of a corner of the ugf and used a bandsaw to cut it out. This is the remainder. Yes there are two flat spots in the back corner and yes the plates are open around the cut out, but I doubt it interferes…

I thought some people might like to see how I retrofitted some Easy Flow kits to my UGF plates. The first step was going to the hardware store to find some fittings that might work. These 3/4 threaded adapter will fit just fine once the threads are filed down.. The air riser tube from the UGF is a loose fir. A little polyurethane sealant will take care of that one… The fittings are 69 cents each. with the fitting secured in the vice 5 or so minutes quickly files down the threads. rest fitting shows how much to trim down. snug but not overly tight fit. I used the vice to press fit the collar onto the adapter. It can come off by hand and the collar shows no sign of deformation. I cut off bit of the solvent fit edge as well. About 1/2 an inch of gluing surface. I cut two 1 1/2 inch section of air riser tube and deburred. You can see it will never work as friction fit. I applied a little 3M 4200 polyurethane sealant witha q tip and then fitted the air riser tubes and cleaned up squeeze out. I will let these sit overnight before fitting them in my tank tomorrow and fitting the easy flow kit on them. At most I may have spent a half hour on this.. the photos and typing of this post probably took longer.

😂 But right now I have some half dead and totally dead ZZ plants! (That's on my plant table thinkamajig)

Ha. It is a descendant of the 3 bladder snails I was given. I placed them into the jar, and then for awhile I had like 50 bladder snails of various sizes.

The competition is tough, but you are a contender. The devil is in the details, and you missed a big one; who hasn't?

Well my Elodia is planted in maybe an inch of sand with no root tabs and I pull gobs of it out every week… Based on my experience I would not be suspecting the substrate is the limiting factor yours is experiencing… I built up the terrace on this tank as it was originally on top of a stand next to my recliner and it allowed me to look up the slope at it… but now it is on lower level of a 2 tier stand.

Something about this snail has my brain convinced it's not a bladder snail, but I honestly couldn't tell you what, specifically. It just looks 'wrong' to me. I don't suppose it matters a whole lot though.

You didn’t go to the hospital right away?! Grandma didn’t know your arm was broken?! 😂 There’s this thing called “protective gear”… My husband, a gamer, broke his arm and had to learn to control the mouse with his other hand (and not get his guy killed.) Hey @TheSwissAquarist, how’s the shrimp jar doing?

@nabokovfan87 this is the one “tank” that requires the least effort! I don’t do anything for weeks at a time. You see how it keeps making flowers, etc. The initial setup is what makes it thrive: Try it!

Anything that deteriorates uses the oxygen. I believe that may foul the situation over time. Interesting. I appreciate that, meaning I feel the gravity of that statement. It's one of those things where I really do see that neocarodina shrimp seriously can be difficult and it's a pretty fine line at times between success and struggling with a minor shift. Related.... And I flash back to a discussion I had where I was told by another hobbyist that I cannot care for my own shrimp because I recommended avoiding a small setup (under 15G) for a colony. It was a tough day and the comments stuck with me for far longer than they should've. Since then, I've seen a 75G shrimp tank with 1000+ shrimp. Hundreds. It was hard to put the activity of that colony into words and I can only now fully appreciate the effort it takes for that group of shrimp to thrive long term. Interesting. Yeah, plants are a huge learning curve and have been. The focus for me the past 2 years or so. Maybe the surface plants cut all gas exchange and blocked out the lights as well. Tough to say. I do get what you mean though about the height difference and issues that may cause as well. Sometimes it's a puzzle! It's been fun to follow along and to see a successful journey with it. I genuinely don't think I could pull it off, but one day, maybe...

I was trying to take a photo of the plants and afterward I looked at it and saw that Snoopy was being cute for the camera.

The worst part of having pets of any kind is having to experience the end of their life. It never truly becomes “easy” to help them along into the next life, but over time you come to realize you are doing them a final act of kindness. I myself had to euthanize a fish the other day, and even after having done the same thing many times before, it still sucks. In my opinion, all of us as caretakers of other creatures need to overcome our own discomfort in order to do the right thing for our pets in the end when their quality of life has degraded beyond acceptability. Take comfort in knowing that if your fish could talk, they would likely say thank you for not allowing them to suffer needlessly.

Yep. Quite smelly. All parameters are stable. I wonder if this was a resource issue with the hitchhiker bladder snails I had. Have since removed majority of the bladder snails. Hopefully won’t be an ongoing issue.

KH is 120. Typo. Temp is 76 That’s a good point. The tetras were a bit nippy until my tank grew in a bit. Seemed to have calmed down now.

There is some kind of suspended algae in the Walstad jar that I’ve been pretending not to notice. As well as some of the plants having crispy or slimy leaves. Finally I have a day off so let’s take care of it. So that’s what we got goin on. Despite this, lots of flower buds. I mean like, every single day. I tried to turkey baster the stuff out but it wouldn’t work. So I swirled a toothbrush around. I see it is a type of hair algae. It was easy to remove. Given I haven’t had bladder snails since my uprooting/soil disrupt mistake, I did a 100% water change to get some of the mulm out (plant melty stuff). I always use tank water as the replacement water (Walstad does too). After water change and plant trim: Much better. Then I noticed that I have limpets in there. Cool! Still got a bit of an ecosystem going. Three are pictured here on the wall. Maintenance time: 10 min. As you can see, roots are growing at midlevel as well as at the bottom of the plants, below the substrate. A bit unruly in there but the vines and flowers that emerged are nice to enjoy. I am still running a hint of air in there to prevent surface film. The ACO nano pump works well for that.

My apistos just killed about four big spixi snails on me. It's been fine with just the female apisto, but I added a male and he darn near wiped them all out. There's four I rescued today, hopefully they survive. Not sure they'll have antennae. I could see danios and big tetras doing the same.

Nerites and usually rabbit snails are wild caught, as nerites are hard to breed as they require brackish conditions and rabbit snails don't breed prolifically, just one baby once a month if you are lucky to have a female that breeds. They grow slow and take considerably long time to reach maturity too, and their lifespan isn't so long. Rabbit snails need a bit warm water. What's your temp is like considering u r keeping danios? When I got my first batch of rabbit snails, I lost all 4. I think shipment during winter time did no good for them even tho there was a heat pack added. I would personally never order rabbit snails if the weather is not warm enough. They refused eating any food or veggie I tried. They were even scared of the bubble sounds sponge filter makes. A possible issue that comes to my mind is, your fish might be nippy to the antennas. Rabbits are even more scared than mysteries are if they are bothered. Being scared and not opening up mightve lead them to starve to die. Also they are bad at finding food and they are not like mysteries. I personally target feed mine. Also rabbits are not ideal tankmates for mysteries for three main reasons. Mystery snail males may bother rabbits by trying to mate with them, may result in injuries and bothersome for both sides. Secondly, rabbit snails like their tank a bit warm, warmer than the mystery snails ideally want. Third, mystery snails are pretty fast at moving, finding food and eating. They can easily outcompete rabbits if they are kept together. The time difference of eating snellos between rabbit snail tank and mystery snail tank is huge in my experience. As nerites are wildcaught, it is not easy to know about their age once collected. So old age is always a potential factor. I would also consider the chances of starving here if the tank does not offer enough algae and biofilm to graze on since you mentioned there are also many more nerites grazing around. Sometimes people add too many in a level a tank can't support their diet enough, or a tank that is not mature enough. Just thinking,, why is kh 0?

Very good hatch rate again on this batch of CPDs. Got SF strain eggs to hatch as well (TONS of air, thanks, @Guppysnail). Some of the CPDs at least ate pieces of them that they bit off.

@Schuyler, I am thinking of a planted tank with 4 to 6 angelfish, bunch of different colored platys, 12 corydoras (not sure which species - Juli, Panda?). At other times, I think of a mbuna tank with floating plants to take up nitrates. I am having fun imagining different types of tanks. However, I have always loved angelfish (their shape, how they move) and have not had them for a long time so .... ?

I’ve seen videos of fish huddling because they were cold. The heater wasn’t putting off much heat and they were all huddled around it.

Can a sponge filter also stand up to bleach? That might be another thing to try...

@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.

For the sponge filter, I wouldn't throw it away. You can simply dry it out, or use the "Reverse Respiration" technique to kill the algae.

We have some wilds in the jar now. They are going all crazy so I am turning the light off for a little bit. I wonder if they are trying to find food. Not sure if I should add anything. I moved a little moss from the tank and I placed a small piece of catappa leaf. And @TOtrees here you go

Share how you think it went wrong. The wood is the chunk that I had previously stuffed with moss and put in Geppetto’s tank. The LFS sells these little chunks for like $2.50. This is how the jar looks next day. Everything has settled and the parameters match the tank, except temp which is 73. Nitrates are present, reading at a 20. Expected since I used tank water. I guess I will need to drip acc the shrimps I move due to temp diff? How long til I can move shrimp over? It’s my understanding these are instant setups.