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I am very grateful for all our wonderful forum members. So many of you have become friends of mine outside of the forum. I hope this holiday season brings you all peace and relaxation with loved ones. Stay safe and take a few extra minutes to remember all the good things life brings to you.

BUON NATALE! FELIZ NATAL! FELIZ NAVIDAD! FROHE WEIHNACHTEN! GOD JUL! JOYEAU NOEL! MERIKURISUMASU! VESELE VANOCE! And for anyone I missed, MERRY CHRISTMAS

Merry Christmas people

Merry Christmas and Happy holidays everyone. I hope for a wonderful, peaceful day for yourself and everyone around you.

Happy holidays everyone from my family to yours!

Merry Christmas to my forum family. ❤️

It's no secret that Murphy's best days are behind him. Cataracts, what looks like cancerous tumors on his chin, a general sluggishness, all point to a decline in our beloved puffer. All the same, he is the puffer kaiju that I have hitched my star to, and while I lament his decline in his elder years, I celebrate this magnificent cronchbeast for all he is and has done. Merry Christmas, Murphy! When it is at last your time, I know the Gates of Clamhalla will be open to you, and among your fathers you will not be diminished. I imagine that is Murphy's soundtrack:

Just got a couple cool shots of males flaring at each other…

Geeze these things grow so freaking slow! Still feeding powder to the older set. CPDs are a royal pain to feed. I think I need to mount a light over the trays so that the BBS swim up and try to get to the light. Once they hit the bottom they are snail food. Coincidently, the bladder snails are bright orange once they get some BBS in them. The fry are really hard to count, but I don't think I've lost any appreciable amount at this point. Laid 12/2: Laid 12/13:

So after taking those pics @Guppysnail noticed something. And I kind of noticed it but was having a hard time believing it. But before I shipped the apistos trio off to guppy they obviously had there first spawn that I was unaware of. And we have a sole survivor. I believe it's a female. Because the first thing she said to me was when did you get more apistos lol. So I fished it out and moved it over to the 5 gallon tank until I can find a forever home for it. I tell you what I have some pretty good ",luck" with not trying to breeding lol.

Merry Christmas fellow nerms!. Not much news to report today. So here is a small photo dump of my wet friends on this Christmas day.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all!

REMEMBER! This one, short and sweet creeps into my consciousness all year long perhaps because a White Christmas is becoming a rarity around here! 🎄MERRY CHRISTMAS🎄

DECEMBER 2023 Greenhead Shiner, quasi-colored up. Never any breeding yet though. E-blue comin’ atcha! Diamond blue Discus among the MTS… Ready to make some babies! Fireyblack male / female pair. ”Big Blue” our oldest, largest Discus. Would fill a large salad plate. A colorful cull! If you want him, he’s yours. You just need to pay for shipping. Pseudomugil (luminatus?) males striking a pose.

My friend said they are tankbred. They look plumb and nice. He said you dont even need to deworm but I still might just in case

Yep. Mine does this regularly. Clean the impeller/impeller chamber really good and it will almost always start up again.

Having become very fascinated these last several years with native north American fish (NANF), I am on a mission to select a most beautiful + most effective three-species tank arrangement that can, theoretically work for breeding, aesthetics, etc. One species that I have not studied much is the Crescent Shiner (Luxilus cerasinus). In breeding colors, it is a stunner. Look at these photos and videos... Man, just when you think you've seen it all . . . these fish are fantastic looking. Unfortunately, there are relatively few examples of them in home aquaria. I hope to learn why that is. Their native range appears to be like this on the map:

Hi everyone! Happy holidays! Here are some photos of the plants at the retail store that are looking particularly great right now. For pricing and availability, please email us at store@aquariumcoop.com or use the Contact Us page 😄

I have 3 honey gourami in my 20 gallon tank. There is also a small school of albino cories, 4 kuhli loaches, 1 male guppy and snails. I male keeps making bubble nests and chasing the other male to a corner where he hides. The female doesn't seem interested, and his nests don't stand too much of a chance with the other tankmates. I recently moved my blue dream shrimp from their 10 gallon to a 20 long with strawberry rasboras. The 10 gallon is still running with a sponge filter. I did a water change yesterday and plan to do another to get the sand cleaner today. I was wondering if I move my bubble nester to that tank and let him set up a real good bubble nest, would my female be more likely to spawn with him? I was thinking I could add Mil (my female) once he has set up his nest, them remove her once they spawn so the babies could be raised in the 10 gallon. Has anyone spawned honey gourami? I watched Irene from aquarium co-op do a video on breeding honey gourami and it looks like an interesting project. I'd love to hear success stories and advice from folks who have tried this! Thank you! Picture of my little man and his current nest. 💕

(1) Before leaving home, feed live foods heavily. Lots of Daphnia, Baby Brine Shrimp, whatever you have on hand. (2) Adjust conditions to promote spawning behavior: especially for NANF, leave certain tank lights on (i.e. turn _off_ the timer), add a stone tray for riverine egg scatterers, open a vent to a basement fishroom to allow temperatures from central air to lift from mid 60s past the golden threshold of 70-F... (3) After everything has settled down, kids are tucked in bed . . . post a thread about how neat it will be when you return home in a few days to find your fish have been spawning while you were away at your in-laws 😎

You don’t even begin to know slow yet 🤣. These are so slow its Maddening

Seems to have come through.

I was wondering if he just cleans it like any other sponge filter?

Right? I saw this video also and was like wow, where can I get that. I almost want to take a sponge off an old sponge filter and attach some moss and try to create this.

Thank you! Makes sense! I'll try that. Thank you! I'll do that!

Yup. I heard more stories like that so I separated the males and females and have a small tank for breeding purposes with two unbred females in there. Since I learned they can store milt, they will forever stay in that tank. I just brought one of my two males over to visit for a day and we’ll see how that goes. He definitely was doing his little courting dance so I’m hopeful we’ll have fry in mid January or so. Once I can identify male fry, they will get moved to the male tank. Hopefully that way I can keep the numbers down while still having a little fun experimenting with line breeding.

Okay I'll get a sponge filter and put some media from the tank in. Thanks for all the info. I'll let you know how things go. Merry Christmas/Happy holidays.

The 125 I resealed a few days ago got its first 3" of water yesterday. Here's what I am up to this morning (we did Christmas yesterday). Sigh.

A tidal 35. I cleaned it last week. I'll pull it apart today and see what's going on.

@AllFishNoBrakes has it correct. Mystery snails can retain Soren up to I believe 10 months. They can also lay smaller infertile clutches. With the size of those I would say they are fertile. Remove them and submerge in water a few hours. The embryo will drown. Just placing them in the trash bin they can hatch.

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year! Went through my phone, and selected fish photos taken from each month of 2023. Lots of species. Lots of memories… JANUARY 2023 Some German Blue Rams we raised (Mikrogeophagus ramirezi). I sold out this line, and miss them. It is hard to find good Rams at local LFS where we live. Buying from reputable breeders is a must. Breeding our own is always do rewarding. I have tried multiple times to sell all of my Fundulopanchax scheeli, but fry keep appearing, and the process goes ever on and on. Mature males are stunningly colorful. Tried working awhile with several pairs of these beautiful Blue Gularis Killifish (Fundulopanchax sjostedti Loè) but the efforts fizzled out. Never got any viable eggs. These wild-caught (F0) Mountain Redbelly Dace (Chrosomus oreas) have yielded over a thousand fry. My lirtle 2-yr old solved the critical breeding trigger by flipping the light timer switch off so they went for 72-hrs with constant light. Turns out that’s what they need! We sold off excess Discus, making our Fish Club auctions very exciting. I kept this small “Blue Man Crew.” (n.b. two in this photo are females).

That looks like epistylis to me that feeds off of gram negative bacteria on the slime coat of your fish and spreads more quickly at higher temperatures most effective treatments are broad antibiotic such as maracyn2 or kanaplex and malachite green which is the active ingredient in the medication your using so I would keep treating with malachite green and dose the tank with kanaplex

I'm cycling a 40 breeder, and I think I'd like to run this as a hot community tank designed around German blue rams. I've only ever had Bolivian rams. I need advice! Basics of the setup: Everett city water (soft), 40b, co-op light, sponge filter, 2x aqua clear 50 HOBs side by side. Will run 2x co-op 100w heaters. Activ flora black sand. Currently growing some dwarf chain sword, val, bacopa, a tiger lotus. I usually run crushed coral in a HOB because our water is so soft, but I could easily reduce/remove it. I'll set up a couple of terracotta forts for the rams in opposite corners. I'd like to do 2 pair of rams, plus a community. I'm thinking in addition to the rams: 1) Either corys or kuhli loaches 2) Cherry shrimp. Yes, yes, they will get munched on 3) a small school- maybe tetras? 4) A surface dwelling centerpiece like a beta or a gourami 5) Snails? This tank gets a lot of natural light, so anything that helps to manage algae and will look amazing in natural light is a bonus. It's also right next to my desk, so outgoing fish are better than shy guys. Anywho... These are the broad strokes I'm envisioning. How would you set up & stock a 40b for rams?

My understanding is that like a lot of other aquatic animals, mystery snails can harvest sperm and have several fertile clutches without a male present. If you don’t want to hatch the clutches, simply remove and dispose of them.

I think they need a mate, your tank is looking good! 🙂 Hope your back gets better.

I'm sorry @sairving maybe try cleaning the pump and impeller. which model was it?

Those are Mystery Snail egg clutches!

Mr. is guarding eggs very well. Probably a slow hatch, temps are a bit low. I will look for free-swimming fry by Wednesday evening.

I would add grindal worms and snails. I don’t know the nutritional value. I’ve always heard they are like sausage casings and nutritional value depends on what you feed them. Like gut loading insects to feed reptiles. Tubifex eats detritus bloodworms eat sewage and garbage white worms nutritional yeast yogurt and bread and grindle dog/cat kibble.

I’m a bad Pea Puffer owner in that mine get frozen bloodworms, ramshorn snails, and bladder snails. I don’t do the most, but I’ve had them for years and they look awesome. I’d say go for it if you want them! If you already have other worm cultures you have more options than I do, and mine have done great for me for about 2 years.

Praziquantel treats different types of parasite such as tape worms flukes and flat worms levamisole treat nematode worms nodular worms roundworms and hook worms I would recommend using both praziquantel and levamisole on puffer what you could do is use levamisole and monitor hopefully you wouldn't have any issues I would make sure you have your own healthy cultures of live food that will make it less likely to give you issues with parasite in the future

I use a large net -- ca. 6" x 8 " -- and use the technique described above to move the fish into the net. Don't worry if you get other fish caught in the net. Once you have your Flying Fox, you can immediately remove and other fish by hand back to the aquarium.

I heard a good tip about catching fish from my LFS. Use a net and chase the fish around with your hand. Have the fish scared of your hand not the net. That way you can chase the fish into the net. I tried it with my Cory’s, it still took forever because of the plants and hard scape, but it definitely helped.

I dont have a flying fox, But I have 3 SAEs. I do hear some similar stuff for SAEs too but as they are commonly sold under wrong names, maybe that is where those comments come from. My SAEs love to chase! But only each other. They eat and graze around, and suddenly one decides to chase another. Then, they stop and this chasing behavior switch to other two. They are like kids playing tag. I would never keep two in a tank as it may end up turning into a constant chase between the same fish. I think they need distraction with a minimum of three. Just thinking, maybe your fish acts like that bcoz of lacking a friend around to potentially waste its energy and natural behavior, so it gets maybe aggressive/territorial due to this issue? Again, just thinking and not basing this on any fact as I dont have silver fox but SAE. Maybe adding friends with similar size might help if your tank can support it?

IME I haven't seen predation on any of my corydoras eggs from neocaridina, they do clean the eggs and eat infertile/fungus eggs. They haven't touched my smallest cory eggs either (hastatus, habrosus). This has confirmed what I've read from some corydoras breeders who keep shrimp with their corydoras. But you never know, in the immortal words of Jeff Goldblum I have seen amanos eat corydoras eggs though. Though big suckers actually follow my spawning pygmy corydoras species and consume their eggs right after they're laid.

Loaded with eggs again 😆

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.