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Odessa barbs! They are just as active as tigers, quite the frenzy at feeding time. I got some from Aqua Huna

Just a little update, it's been a while since I posted anything. I hope everyone is doing well. I decided to get the Fzone 15L canister filter because other than media everything is included. Holds a ton of whatever you want. 15L is just under 4 gallons. Both intake/outtake seals were leaking, and I know the outtake had a crushed seal, so I did replace it and the intake I also replaced the seal but still had leaking for some reason. I did contact Fzone and they wanted a video of the problem and I said crap, but I put everything back together today and for some reason no leaking, I was confused. Whatever the reason it was probably my fault. A couple of pics maybe. That green pan I actually an oil pan, put canister filter in just in case, I didn't want to clean up another mess. The canister filter I took off had four trays plus a pre filter but was just a pain to maintain. The Fzone canister is super easy to clean, should be able to go somewhere between 3 and 6 months before it needs cleaning, will find out. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all. Be safe.

I found these cool-looking rocks at my local wholesale fish store, and I got this idea I thought would be pretty neat. I would let the rocks accumulate green algae on top, and when cleaning, I would only scrub the sides of the rocks. That way it would look like the Tepui Mountains in South America with grass on top. What do you all think? Does it achieve the look? By the way, does anyone know what kind of rock this is? It kind of looks like petrified wood or sedimentary rock of some kind.

So I keep two outdoor gardens, I collect rare cactus(my friend is super into it and raises them, gives me deals on super cool rare ones), rare indoor potted plants along with hanging plants & my screened porch area. Here's some pics of some of my faves... White Fusion Plant aka Calathea White Fusion aka Calathea Lietzei Variegated Monstera Albo aka Monstera Borsigiana Albo Variegata In my garden last summer...those are all my tomatoes 🙂 Heirloom Carrots from my winter garden recently Pothos and Christmas Cactus Bridgesii x Pachanoi, Sharxx Blue x Roseii 1, Peru Blue 3 x Sharxx Blue, Weka, Churchill amongst others. Just some of the planted things I got going on around the property...what about y'all? 🙂

My good friend thought he wanted to get into the hobby again, but on the saltwater side. Bought 2x Waterbox AIO 15 Peninsulas, set them up...bought EVERYTHING needed and then realized how much work fish keeping is, how he needed to go buy RO water, prep water, clean, etc. Long story short he couldn't keep the parameters in check until it cycled, ended up killing the coral and fish. Pulled them, shut them off and just left the water and live rock in it nothing else. Well, now he wants them gone. So, asks me...you want em, for free? About 3 month old $200 each aquariums plus everything you need to set them up and take care of them(even though he didnt use any of it really lol). I have decided to bookcase them back to back on stands from Waterbox behind my desk in the fish room. Figured I would start a journal on it, I have had a previous salt reef tank almost 2 decades ago but family life and my kiddo took every minute of my time, so I sold it and my livestock inside. Guess with the time I have free, I will start to set these up. Will be a long haul, I plan to break them down, clean them fully then get new live rock as I am not sure how well the stuff in there is given he didn't really take great care of them. Once I get them running and set up, it will be a while before I get all the corals, anemones, fish, etc that I will put in there. I have an idea on the first tank. Will drop pics and names of what I plan to add. This is expensive to get into, but as I have an RO system and everything I need to take care of it, might as well give it a go.

No. I rinse after only to remove whatever gunk the peroxide bubbles up. You can just let it dry or if it’s not an excess amount you don’t even need to allow it to dry. It breaks down to water.

Off work for the week and saw that LFS#2 is now an RPP store, so I took a little trip down to check it out! Decent selection behind the counter. Pretty cool to see ACO products out in the wild. Also really nice to see that products are offered at the same price as online. I picked up a pack of 25’ airline tubing and a pack of algae scrubbers. Pretty neat that if I need some Easy Green I can just take a little drive instead of only being able to get it online.

As far as flow goes I noticed they did like hanging out on plants sometimes near the flow from an HOB filter. But I don’t think they like strong currents or anything of that nature. In their native habitat they seem to prefer small creeks or pools with heavy vegetation and overhanging plants. Mine almost exclusively hung out on plants or pieces of wood during the day. Then slept in the corners of the aquarium glass. They seem to like sleeping in shallow crevices where escape is possible. If that makes sense. I think as a camouflage species they feel safer being out in the open where they can mimic their surroundings.

Thanks 🤗 I'm considering to keep them as only fish in their tank, at least until they safely complete 1month. With one baby mystery snail (to clean up uneaten food, share similar diet, and free infusoria for them to snack on thanks to their poop?) and a few neocaridinas. Lots of leaf litter, sand bottom, planted with branches. Luckily my friend said this batch is eating spirulina tabs, hope they continue to do so at my place. I setup the tank today but added a very established filter. I also added shrimp powder for biofilm. One of the things that confuse me is the flow. I know they like high oxygen content, but do they like flow? I see conflicting info on this. Some say they like flow. Some say they like stagnant and calm water. Is branches/plants/leaf litter enough to have? They don't seem to use tubes or caves like plecos/red lizards, am I right? They even lay on the glass from what I've seen.

I'd let it go, and ideally let it grow out of the water. It's a flowering stem. It will sprout one or more flowers at each node, followed by leaves, and finally roots. At that point you can cut the stem on each side of the nodes and you have new plants. I've gotten as many as six from a single stem.

It has been a while since I have posted in the forum. I just wanted to share my latest adventure and get some advice on pea puffers. This is Puffy, the class pet for my elementary school (grade 2). She lives in a 3-gallon planted tank by herself (and shrimp). There's a small forest of susswassertang in one corner and a growing mesh of giant salvinia and water lettuce creeping up top. She also has a collection of lava rocks and a couple of old ceramic plant pots that "miraculously" change locations every 2 weeks to create new angles and passageways for her to explore. She also has some tankmates, 5 shrimp that I cannot identify. So, please feel free to try and ID these guys. They cost about 300 won (South Korean currency, roughly 23 cents in the US) per shrimp. This leads me to believe they're a local variety or somewhere very close by. The biggest measures about an inch from the tip of its rostrum ("nose") to the tip of its tail. I think they look pretty cool. But I really bought them to feed Puffy and clean up the extra food. Their names are Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Snack, and Midnight Snack. What I am Seeking Advice On It took some trying, but I was eventually able to feed Puffy some Vibra Bites. It took a while to figure it out. She only eats them when they are moving around the water column. Once they have landed, she loses all interest, and the shrimp have a field day. Once or twice a week, I feed her some baby snails from my bigger community tank at home. And, of the shrimp, she has eaten the smallest shrimp (Midnight Snack) so far. I am worried about the long-term nutritional content of Puffy. Is feeding Vibra Bites and some snails enough in terms of nutritional value?

If you know the scientific name then fishbase.org has some decent information about ecology and natural distribution. And sometimes can provide you with additional sources.

Mine were easy going. They didn’t take to algae wafers which I think is a similar experience amongst twig cat owners. But they were greedy frozen food eaters! If I remember correctly they even ate live blackworms, but they also ate fresh blanched veggies. They were shy at first but then after a few months started being a bit more active.

I really appreciate the help from you both; @Colu @nabokovfan87. Everything you said makes a lot of sense. I have the temp down to 73, now. The tank is a 20 gallon long. I put in two tbsp of kosher salt last night. So far, they are all still alive this morning, including the Cory swimming at the top. He's still going to the top but he has good energy and they are eating. Saying prayers for the little guy.

More photo THe fish utilize the space more now I guess and I almost cant tell the difference by looking at the tank

40 breeder sounds super fun. Lots of shells and sand and watch them rearrange it all and make it their own.

I found the perfect gift for your husband!

I watched Leave the World Behind on Netflix. It may not have changed my life, per se, but it scared the pee-doodle out of me. After the movie, I sat for an hour worrying if we'd even make it to the end of this year. I suggest something more cheerful to end 2023 with. God bless us all!

I’ve seen my fish flash when the water gets to hard. Usually if I’ve fed snails food with calcium. I also have horrible liquid rock water. Last time I used liquid to test my gh did the same. I had to assume it was a bad bottle or expired or something along that line. Whenever they flush my lines with a high chlorine treatment it raises the ph and my German blue rams set about flashing.

Honestly guys, is there something on my nose?

Hey everyone! So my plants over the last 2 weeks have just started to look a little crummy and I’m trying to figure out what’s going on. Low tech tank so no co2 injection. 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, nitrates are consistently around 25 ppm, Ph is always right around 7.6-7.8 and moderately hard. hygger 24/7 plant light that runs for 5 hours, then a 4 hour siesta, then back on for another 5 hours. I’ve been running the light at 75% intensity. Easy Green is used at the recommended dosage after each weekly water change of 25% and I have co op root tabs in the sand that I replenish every couple months. I also add wonder shells for my 2 mystery snails and ramshorns. Recently I’ve noticed a short green hair algae is appearing on a lot of the plants, my patch of Bacopa is looking less vibrant green and more of a yellowish pale color and the older leaves towards the bottom are getting algae all over the place. Anubias are getting dark unsightly looking algae on the leaves. The dwarf aquarium lily is doing extremely well but when I look closely I can see short green hair algae on those leaves as well. Everything just looks kind of crappy right now and I’m not sure if it’s a light problem or a nutrient deficiency (esspecially with the color change of the Bacopa to looking more pale) and the hair algae is starting to really get on my nerves so I’m looking for advice on how to move forward! Still new-ish to live plants so if I’m missing something obvious bear with me. Thanks everyone!!

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction! I totally forgot about "ghost shrimp" for some reason! After looking up "Asian glass shrimp," I think I can say that these are probably what they are. If you can't see the picture, they're mostly clear with tinges of dark colors (red, brown, black) on the edges of their body/tail segments. I will add some frozen baby brine shrimp to the mix for Puffy. I think the kids will like watching the feeding for that.

Sun managed to hit just the right way on my cube tank. The rasboras are so active but the pygmy corydoras less and less so. I wonder what I can change to help them feel more at home

@Mattlikesfish36 In my experience, you should always get the largest you can afford/have the space for. 99.9999% of the time you won’t regret going larger, but most regret going too small. I’ve kept shellies in a species only 75 gallon for quite a while and it works really well. However, recently I’ve moved a few things around and they’ve found themselves in a 40 breeder with some Staeck endless up top. This is by far my favorite set up for them. First then footprint of the tank is quite perfect having multiple territories. Secondly, keeping them with livebearers has felt like keeping a complete new species. They are always out of their shells, the babies rarely dart back into their shells, it feels like the busiest little village. I snapped this photo 30 seconds after lights came on, so the activity hasn’t yet begun, but within 5 mins, it is a very active tank. Edit: photo won’t post for some reason

I got an oddly-sized (for me) frag tank at a clearout sale a couple years ago, and it's ideal for shellies. It's 20" x 20" by maybe 14" tall. It's basically the same footprint as two 10 gallons side by side. For shellies I like it better than either a 15 gallon, or 20 gallon long or high. Right now I'm using it for a trio of gold ocellatus, but in the past it had an ocellatus pair and a juli transcriptus pair (both raising fry/juvies in the tank). But I'd put multis (or similis) in there in a heartbeat. One thing I would say is DO make sure you have your eventual tank selected and set up for viewing. Eg even if it's in a rack, make sure the long dimension is the viewable one. They're too much fun to watch to not be able to. And, if you have any hope of adding more species, you're going to want height. Or footprint space to create different habitats; eg the rock wall corner, the vals corner, the shells area, etc. Also, consider how you're going to collect fish from the tank for selling or whatever when you set it up. I don't know if this is true for similis, but with my multis once they reach a certain density (which is shockingly high) they do stop breeding. A couple months after that, all those small juvies are big juvies and young adults, and you have a big maintenance issue. The solution (obviously) is to remove a bunch. How easy or hard that is will depend on your setup. My shellie tank has all removable furnishings, so I can remove everything down to the shells and substrate. This includes rocks, sponge filter, and some larger anubias on wood. The anubias roots do always pull up some substrate and dislodge a few shells when removed, but they're shellies, so substrate being disturbed is the norm. All those juvies and subadults I talked about? They don't have their own shells, so when I remove all the plants wood and rocks they swim around to evade the net, as opposed to shell-diving. Netting them is just a matter of strategy and patience. Replace the furnishings when done, and 3 weeks later presto more babies. An advantage of this is your breeders remain relatively undisturbed (because they did dive into their shells), so most/all of what you remove are youngsters. I sell all the 80% grown and larger fish, and return all the smaller ones for more growing. I'll get 'em next time 🙂

Thanks Fish Folk, These are the only fully black rams with really nice bright blue streaks that I've seen in our state so I scooped them up quick 😁 I've bred blue rams before and still have the pair now who are about to lay another lot of eggs. Their temperament is so different compared to the midnight rams lol. They are more skittish where the midnights will actually come up and bite my fingers when I feed 😂 I have 2 neon tetra in the tank for dither fish. Should I change these for something else or would they be fine? I always use Prime when doing water changes and do 25% every 3 days atm until I build my auto water change system. Once I do that I will be using RO water for all of my tanks.

Good looking Rams! Have you bred and raised Rams before? The setup seems right. Sometimes a breeding bond can be reinforced with a few carefully selected dither fish. Nanostomus (e.g. coral red pencilfish) might work alright, but they can be hard to find. All of my males have been opportunistic spawners. They’ll spawn with any available female. Keep them separated awhile and let her heal and develop roe. Live foods - BBS, Daphnia, and black worms - will bring them into breeding readiness. If you don’t use RO water, you can buy clip-baskets online, and grow loads of aquaponic plants out the back side of the tank to zero out minerals and nitrate.

I had them in 360 liters, in the height of their breeding there were around 50 or so, then the male/female ratio shifted and I was down to 13. Fickle this bunch can be. They are however, super awesome 🙂

There was someone recently who had a male ram go between a few females. There was a bit more of a complexity to the setup, but I'll try to find the thread. As a sidenote, here is another thread / journal that may be of interest and able to help out with some of your questions:

For any active infection, you want to follow the directions on the box. I understand entirely the confusion and it seems to happen from time to time. Cory did make an updated video and clarified this point. As a sidenote / clarification, when you're treating for parasites you want to have multiple rounds of treatment. Meaning, 4-6 weeks is normal. This is because of the lifecycle of the parasite. You want to have your initial treatment kill the parasites that are beyond the egg stage, then as the eggs hatch your further treatments will kill those off, and finally you have one last treatment to make sure you really are clear of the parasites long term. Here is Cory's video on that topic, but there's other great resources on the forums when it comes towards disease treatment!

Well... let's put it this way. Is the goal to have a rack of tanks (20H or 20L) or is the goal to have maybe 2 tanks, but one of them be really awesome? I would lean towards either a 60b (4 foot long), 40b (3 foot long). or 30long (2 foot long) would be nice for a more visual centerpiece in the room because of the ability to have a really beautiful setup with plants, depth, hardscape, and SO approval (and interest). If you just want to give this particular fish more room then something like Irene's experiences with them would be a great resource. I'll grab the link and attach that video here. I do believe she had a 20L setup, but the video can confirm the details for us! Anything for me is much better than a 10G just because my own hands working in the tank, and needing to be able to get the siphon around things without clanking too much into the walls. 20L is a really nice size tank, 20H is as well. Any time you want to get something bigger than a 10, the real question is about the stand and the visual purpose for the tank.

4-8 is about the range of light I mess with in my tanks. Intensity and duration are the two variables I try to limit as much as I can because for whatever reason I have the luck of dealing with one of the most resilient strains of staghorn and BBA in my tanks for years now. I don't say that as a badge of honor thing, but just as a means of... I'm really frustrated by it! I do have an algae thread in my links in my signature that have thoughts along that journey on dealing with algae. Caveat aside, more than 8 hours and I really run into an issue. Ticking the light up slightly as well and it's like the tank goes a bit crazy on me really fast.... taking weeks to remove the algae I just introduced. By the initial title you posted I wanted to ask about the balance of the tank in terms of minerals. The rule of thumb is usually that you want GH to be higher than KH. Let's start there. What is your GH and what is your KH. Over time the plants pull from that GH/KH and you'll do your maintenance to replace it. If you don't then you have what is called old tank syndrome set in. Essentially, not enough of the things building up being removed and not enough of the things being used added back in. Although it might be frustrating at times, the fun thing is that there is always something to learn. Let's dive in and see what makes sense for further discovery. Yep... I have been there! I am dealing with this right now with my Staurogyne Repens and it's just been an issue for months where I have growth, but the plant isn't thriving much at all. Algae takes hold, especially bba, on dying parts of the plant. The plant then uses the resources from those areas and leaves to feed new growth and try to outlast the algae. Then the algae grows or triggers some spores and the cycle continues again. One of the best things to do is increase plant mass by propagating them out. Using root tabs may be literally all you have to do here to "perk up" the plants right now. Checking the above parameters as well as your maintenance schedule is also just a good place to start. Please feel free to ask the questions you might be without fear of sounding new to the hobby. We all want you to thrive and you might just get to see some of the awesome aquascapers we have here!

It may have not been anything to do with the meds, but just a factor of so much going on and one thing added to another. I haven't brought in corydoras in a while, but every single time I do I have a lot of losses. It's potentially the east --> west coast journey. I just am unsure why and I know that my own experience was limited at the times when I brought them in. I knew how to acclimate, I did all of the right things, but it wasn't something I've done a dozen or three dozen times. What I am much better at these days is just understanding the systematic approach of stress. Something as simple as temperature leads to stress, travel leads to stress, water parameters changing from the tank to a bag to a new tank add to stress, and any sort of stress can cause issues. Minimizing that stress or just giving them time to recover from it can be critical. A lot of shops and hobbyists might get a fish to their tank safely, but I am going to bet that it does happen where the first 48-72 hours is critical to success long term. Fingers crossed and knock on wood. Let's hope that we have an idea of what's going on and just monitor the situation moving forward.

I’m going to try this out, I’m so used to my old mbuna tanks without plants and being able to have the light on longer hours for viewing but looks like when it comes to planted tanks I just have to suck it up and wind down that viewing period! Would it hurt the plants too much if I knocked the light down considerably to maybe 6 hours total for a bit to really make some progress with the algae more quickly? Or just knock a couple hours off like you said and slowly try to win the algae battle? I could also knock the intensity down from 75% to 50% if that will still be enough

Thank you both!

10hrs is a good chunk of light. id probably knock an hour off both the morning, and night, and see how that goes for a while.

There is no ammonia according to my aquarium co-op test strip. I've been testing for ammonia/nitrites since the issue started. I've been doing it once in the morning and at night . The sticks come out the same color they went in. It is a new tank but the sponge filter came from a healthy, cycled tank. I try to keep two in each of my tanks for possible new tanks. I had recently been giving that food soak trio to my mollies and platies after I lost two mollies to Camella infections. But it certainly hasn't worked out for me with the C. Schultzei. Lesson learned the hard way, unfortunately. @nabokovfan87 @Colu

The fish seems less swollen today; I did not feed. And the fish is doing mating dance with the male.

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

@Mattlikesfish36 I personally would do the 40 breeder more space although the 20 long would work as well imo.

Successsssssssssssssss!

Do you have a water softener?

After the loss of the sewellia I decided to redo some of the asian tank. I took out many many many stones and vacuumed debris and placed the java fern in a bit different places. I had to do at least a 60% water change, so the tank is super cold and will take some time heating up in the room temperature (so I filled it in over the span of at least an hour) After filling it up it is at 17 degrees, so lets pretend we are having a cold season 🙂 There is a lot of floating debris in the water column as is to be expected I will make better pictures later on once it settles

The shrimp picture isn't loading for me. In the US, stores often sell clear little shrimp that they call "ghost shrimp" as feeder fish for about 25-50 cents. There are a few species that get lumped together under that name. Maybe that's what these are? It may be a good idea to mix it up a bit more. Maybe some frozen foods like blood worms or you could hatch out brine shrimp.

My indostomus tank, As you can see, less sunlight means worse salvinia. I chucked a good portion of it. On the other hand, good for the hygrophila. I removed some of the algae, did increase lot of muck, hopefully all will be ok. will check in the afternoon, I also put in 3 liters of water, evaporation there is fun. The only tank without a lid

I lost one sewellia, found it dead today. No idea why, I didnt use new food, didnt fertilize, didnt skip water change, didnt do anything yesterday and they were all fine 😞 So I guess there is that. It is either the female from June or the male/female from October. No clue but sad. Not ever getting another one, as even with feeding, with extra airstone,... still not happy. This means at some point, I guess next summer maybe, I will tear down the rocks in the middle, do a lesser pile, redo it and maybe find a different species. The least rasboras work, clown killifish are ok, indostomus are ok - I removed all adult shrimp away and feed less to prompt catching the cyclops in the tank. I also wonder why I do not see any new luminatus fry. I see them spawning, I added some surface plants. I feed a smidge less, cause the tank is a mess, but still.

I lost one rasbora (well I think just one, the tank is planted) but otherwise it is doing ok. Some of the least rasboras school together, some dont, some still swim with the pygmy corydoras Overall it works I hope 🙂 Rest of the tanks are good too, I bought 20 no color/ white/ mix shrimp to my Asian tank, to clean the moss

homemade things? I like homemade if it means it's cheap and comparably effective...... and I think the scooping out to rinse the gravel to clean it was likely why I hated the UGF so much. I was under the impression that you had to get all that icky stuff out of it/off of it. I think.... I know I would do it much differently now. and yes, I did like the air lift tubes and watching them bubble away LOL agreed! watching the youtube vids comparing sponge filters that are powered by the air pumps vs. HOB's I had almost decided to get rid of the HOB's all together. Then I saw the video about maximizing the HOB by replacing the cartridges by adding a rinseable sponge and some bio balls or coral or whatever you need to amend your water hardness and dissolved solids. I no longer use the cartridges, I use sponges, floss, various "bio ball" type media's in little mesh bags... I like that a lot better. Recently, I have also started adding house plants in them, though I'm not sure how much I like that, we shall see. I like sand though because I want to eventually get some loaches, species/type undetermined right now, but if you did the UGF with sand, maybe you could put a fine mesh screen on top to stop the sand getting into it? So for example, what about a layer of gravel, then the mesh/screen, then capped with sand... I am sure I am missing something that prohibit it being a reality but what does everyone think?

Lo-ACHOOOO!!! 🤧