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It shouldn't be safe for guppy fry, but otherwise I believe they would leave the adults alone. I would still lean towards short fin fast ones like pandas. That being said, even guppies themselves aren't fully safe for their fry. I used to keep panda guppies in a tank but they had an increase in their popualtion over time so I swapped their tank with my Apistogramma Erythruras, and I obviously forgot one fry there. They didn't touch him ever and he grew up there with them, still living there with the trio 😄 He even steals white worms from them

Mayaca Sellowiniana round 2, I think first time I failed because I did not know to look for a plants reaction to tell if it's getting an adequate amount of light. Bentleys DaySim was pushed to 40% before an appropriate responce was recieved.

Sand Hill cranes. Enjoy Nature Daily

Just leave them and without food they will be fine for a few hours.

Here the finished stand painted the shelf boards and then wrapped/stapled beneath plastic sheeting. Yeah yeah, wife bought the board trying to help. My 4 40s stands sits on solid actual plywood. Electrician wired in a clean circuit. Only thing left is dress up the wall.

2 degrees didnt do it, i would lean towards chlorine without any testing to prove things one way or the other. chlorine, or ammonia you will most likely notice their gills get extra red.

Yeah, apistos and neons should be fine together. Like Lennie said, neons are a common dither fish for apistos and many people keep them together. The one thing you'll want to look out for is aggression from the apisto pair when they spawn. The females can be incredibly protective of eggs and fry and will chase and nip other fish in the tank, including the male apisto. That's why it's recommended to have a separate tank to put the apistos in for spawning. It'll help if your tank is heavily planted and/or scaped in a way that breaks up lines of sight.

I had some koi angelfish and four neon tetras that the angelfish grew up with. Then I added 20 new neons the other day, and all the neons ended up as snacks. I want to switch my 55g planted tank to a nice colorful community tank and have gotten rid of my angels, but would like to keep my apistos but wanted to make sure I wouldn’t end having another masacre if I decided to add more neons and/ or guppies.

That and I wanted a bit larger grain size. @gjcarew look familiar? Talk about slow but it’s resurrecting.

Big change as of late. Substrate swap to BDBS. This was the easiest swap I’ve ever done and just kept everything running with the fish in. After the swap, I did around a 70 gallon water change. No problems until the next day, I lost the Bluetooth module on one light causing it not to function. Fixed it this morning and I’m hoping the plants get back to growing well next week. I’m also trying two vine type plants as a moss wall. I’m liking the H. Japan and tomorrow will pull the H. Sryphellum down and spread it as much as I can.

I'd leave it alone. Java ferns aren't necessarily dying completely when they produce new off-shoots.

I tried paper on the walls but my betta could still see it because the glare occurred on the inside. I relocated the tank and added more plants.

Cc @Chick-In-Of-TheSea @xXInkedPhoenixX The behavior you're seeing is very normal and actually can be healthy for the betta. It's a behavior where they exercise muscles that they need to for the sake of being healthy long term. The issue comes in when they don't stop flairing and they overexert themselves to the point of malnourishment. (This basically applies to male Bettas, but I would think that female Bettas can do it as well) A few common techniques would be to relocate the tank itself if there is a long term glare issue causing too much stress. You can also try something like a white or black vinyl film on the side of the tank to cover up some of those reflections and make it harder for the fish to see itself. Beyond that I think add in some more decor / hard scape to keep the fish interesting. Maybe a good rock or a piece of would could be helpful to give the fish more "things to do" and explore.

I bought a beautiful pair of apistogramma macmasteri today. They are super cute and I am really impressed by their social behavior. Whenever I approach the tank the male swims over to check me out. The female seems friendly as well, but the male chases her away. Anyway, these are my first apistogramma , and I was wondering if anyone has experience with feeding them. I read the co- op article on them and it mentioned bloodworms, black worms, daphnia, brine shrimp etc. Would these foods be ok in their dried or frozen forms? It also mentioned repashy. I have the community one. Is that a good one , or is there one that's better suited to them? Thanks for any help on this adventure!

If you have a cycled sponge filter you should not need to do a water change. I would also not feed them.

Same.

I see at least 2! 🙂 I recently got into keeping neocaridina shrimp as well and it's been an adjustment. I've just gone past the one year mark. There's a few things that I try to do in my own setups based on my own intuition and my own experiences keeping amano shrimp for a longer time. I cherish my shrimp. I adore them and I have definitely had my own struggles as well, especially when first getting started. @Shadow is undergoing similar experiences as I've been and it's great to have the plethora of shrimp keepers we have on the forums because there is such a range of care and such a difference in what we are seeing. Some lines like different water than others. Shrimp can be regional, certain colors can be more temperamental, but the bottom line is always going to be that base care and understanding exactly what works well. @Minanora has a journal for orange shrimp and I think it would be a great one for you to check out and enjoy. I believe that yellow and orange lines are extremely similar and it might give you an interesting perspective on strengthening a line over time to your care and your water/habitat. My best piece of advice I can give you is to understand the method of care and to focus on that method. Everything else is based on that one notion. I have read things saying that if you have a GH over 6 it's cruelty and that I needed to sell my animals and get rid of my tank. There's all kinds of mindsets out there and there is a ton of bizarre information that seems to get repeated often. My one source of video information has been youtube's infamous shrimp keeper.... Mark's Shrimp Tanks. I also love the content by Chris Lukhaup (aka shrimp king, yep... the guys who made that food), but he does not make content as often as others. My other source of information has been looking at research articles and studies about the shrimp in nature. Trying to understand their care and contrast that against what I know/experience with my amano shrimp. I know amano shrimp come from cooler rivers and that is the setup I tried to follow for my neocaridina shrimp. That was my start. There's always going to be someone saying that you must do things this way or you run into issues and there's going to be that extra effort as a beginner shrimper to try to find perfection. Alright.... so, the thing here to keep in mind is that mantra of "good food takes time" and that sometimes you have to just let the shrimp do their thing. You will likely lose some shrimp (sometimes a lot of shrimp) at first or in the first couple of months, but understanding what is really going on can be key... back to that care technique and how they function. The most common misconception with shrimp is about water changes, molting issues, and specifically with what you're seeing in the tank and what that means. When you first add shrimp to the tank they are adapting and acclimating to a very different environment. It might be an older shrimp that couldn't handle the stress and that caused a death (it's just that basic and simple) or it could be a shrimp that wasn't getting enough food before they were in your care. But, let's just try to keep things very, very simple and understand the rhythm of the shrimp. They need nutrients in order to molt properly, they expend that energy when they molt, and then they have to repeat that process. For female shrimp it's a bit more complicated because they have to handle molting as well as raising the shrimplets. They molt, need to get energy to recover from molting as well as store energy for their next hatching cycle, then they have to generate the eggs, deposit them on their swimmerets, and then carry those eggs to term over ~28 days. In that time it is the mother shrimp's nature to try to hold off as long as possible and prohibit the molting process. They will and can often exhaust themselves for the sake of raising those eggs to term. These are some of my oldest amanos and they go through that cycle of raising their zoes (amano babies). That sort of brownish color, almost mahogany at times is their shell getting thicket and thicker and harder and harder. The longer they wait to molt, means that it might get to a point of them not being able to escape their shell and they will die from that stress. So... if we expand back to that base theme of trying to understand the method of care, then we focus purely on giving the shrimp every advantage to be able to molt on rhythm and to be able to keep their energy levels consistent through those various stages. What this means is that as soon as there is any change at all, stress happens. Consistency being the key, but that is why you're not seeing those shrimp. They are acclimating to the new environment, trying to map out where things are and find food. They are trying to find their favorite spaces, hide from predators, find the flow spots they like, and several other things. They might molt right away or in the first week. That cycle starts and the key being to just make sure they are eating and make sure they have what they need. One of the best ways you can "check on them" is to use a feeding dish. This lets you see them every other day or every few days and it gives you the ability to see how they are handling that food. If there's a lot of food leftover, then you might be feeding too much, or you might have an issue where they can't break down the food too! I added 12-13 amano shrimp to my tank on wednesday and I've seen 2-3 in that entire time span. I was sitting there watching the tank for a few hours a day and trying hard to find them, I couldn't. I checked at night and I still couldn't see them. I think I did finally find them hiding behind the moss wall on the back of the tank cleaning behind it. As long as you are seeing them, just give them time. I wouldn't worry too much and I would just try to be patient and test water as you see fit. I'm willing to bet they love the wood surfaces too, not just the plants. Before feeding. A few minutes After:

We got my daughters a 20 gallon aquarium for Christmas (but let's face it, it's just as much for me and my husband as it is for them). I had fish when I was younger, but it's been a while and a lot has changed since then. After a lot of research, I think we are going to go with Corydoras, Danios, and a rainbow fish for the show piece (not all at once obviously). My questions are: Does it sound like a good combination of fish? Is this too many for a 20 gallon? Which ones are the hardiest (to get first)? Thank you so much and I am so glad I have found this site and community! I have been binge watching the YouTube videos!

I have been learning a ton through Aquarium Co-op videos. I have significantly upped my tank care for my 40 gallon all-in-one tank with neolamprolgus elongates (or brichardi, depending on the source). Some of the fairy cichlids are hiding, as are the synodontis pericola. Plants are doing better than ever and the fish have spawned (it has happened before but this is the largest one I have seen). I have been using the Aquarium Co-op baby flake food - I grab some with long tweezers and let it go near the fry. After more than a week, there are still a lot of babies, so they must be eating it! So I am grateful to Aquarium Co-op for the instruction and products and to you on this forum for being a community who understand the joy of aquarium keeping. Happy New Year!

@gabdewulf, interesting point about local fish stores - I guess we are together for the long haul!

The more freezing the weather gets, the higher chlorines will be dropped in the supply.

Before and after. I've been traveling a lot so haven't had time to trim. It's crazy how much happier the fish look when they have some room to swim. I'm also trying out Limnophila sp. Wavy and Hygrophila odora for the back left, since the Hygrophila difformis kept bolting to the surface and looking all messy.

I would think there was either some sort of contamination or dechlorination wasn't used. 😞 There was a youtube video that matches exactly what you experienced and the guy realized after he forgot dechlorinator. I can't find the video because of search algorithm recommendation issues, but yeah.... I would recommend using dechlorinator. My condolences.

i would think foods with krill in them might help with reds, but id not guarantee it.

I only float them long enough to get them up to temp and then net and drop them in. In the midst of all that I do open the bag and add dechlorinator to the bag to fight any ammonia that may have built up. I also don't even open the box to look at the fish until I'm read to add decholor to the bad ang float them to keep their stress levels low. Sometimes I add a little tank water sometimes i don't bother. It's been successful every time since I started doing it. Someone linked a Rachel O'leary video and I believe it was one of her videos that lead to me giving this a try, haven't looked back since.

She also heats the room. Bags also can be acclimated to temp that way. But... Severe issue and she had no choice to get the fish out of the bag asap. The changes happen when you open the bag or if there is a leak in the bag. During travel oxygen is used and co2 is released. When you open the bag, things change. https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/faqs/how-to-acclimate-new-aquarium-fish When the pH is low, ammonia turns into ammonium. When that pH immediately jumps up it's very toxic. That is exactly why people "plop and drop"..... after temp acclimating.

I get fish shipped from Aqua Huna that spend 48 hours in transit that the water tests at a bit under 1 ppm ammonia. I am not concerned about ammonia build up from the lfs to my house that an additional 15 minutes in the bag equalizing to tank water causes me any concern.

If ammonia is a concern you can put a drop of Prime into the bag water with a pipette. I think even a 15 minute float is better than none. I don’t think it’s necessary to introduce more stress (temp difference) to the fish if you don’t have to. The more stress, the more likelihood for disease. I’ve seen a video by Rachel O’Leary where she plop & dropped fish from a shipment because the shipment had been massively delayed. But that was a special situation. Some of the fish were fine. Many were not. But there was a lot of stress from shipping and other variables, not just temp changes. I agree with @Galabar.

1. You're not opening the bag and you're supposed to float the bags to match temp. 2. You're supposed to do so with the lights out. Above is a video and it goes into one method for acclimating fish. There's a lot of methods and advice out there and it changes based on circumstance. I'd be interested to know where the advice came from if you feel like sharing via DM or something. Interesting stuff.

Yes. Immune interact with one another using their feelers. They even interact with me through the glass using feelers. Mine eat from a coral feeder each getting in line to take their turn. I love them 🥰

I have a pair of peacock gudgeons right now and they mostly keep to themselves. Very colorful fish and they’re super fun to watch in a planted tank. They’re very photogenic too 😁

[Insert Rocky Theme] This is from earlier in the week. One very old female amano (left) and one very old male amano (right).

A note on mixing celestial pearl danios and bettas - This is a quote from the celestial pearl danio Aquarium Co-Op care guide: "Betta fish may or may not work because they tend to prefer warmer waters and can be hostile toward intruders. They may be able to go together if the temperature is kept at 77–78°C (25–26°C), the aquarium is large enough, and the betta isn’t too aggressive." Source: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/celestial-pearl-danio Anyways, I would not add them all at once. It is best to add small amounts of fish in intervals to allow the cycle to adjust for the higher bioload. I would do danios first, then corys, and betta last. I prefer to add bettas last since they can be territorial. They typically respond better to being added to a tank with existing fish than already establishing their territory and having new fish added.

I’d add the other fish and let them settle a few days to a week before adding the betta.

It should not. That being said I basically won't ever run a filter without some form of ceramic or rock media just for stability sake. Some sponge filters can just really struggle to hold a cycle more than others. Not all sponge (or pot scrubber) is created equal. ....the same applies to biomedia.

1 year 9 months (June 1, 2023) I missed posting on this forum the whole of 2023 but during this year, I moved the crypt tank from my fish room to my video editing room. I’m really liking how this tank is turning out. Low maintenance, easy to care for and quite pleasing to watch every night. There’s still some open space for planting and some areas where I’m waiting for the current crypts to grow in. Excuse me for being in the picture, I took this for a YouTube video thumbnail. I will try to upload more images this year and show you the progress of my long term tank.

Hi everyone! Just wanted to share some photos of the plants the retail store just received yesterday! As a plant lover, these are the plants that happen to catch my eye this week 😍💚 For pricing and availability, please email us at store@aquariumcoop.com or use the Contact Us page 😄 1. Pogo. Octopus emersed leaves and flowers 🌸 2. Moody Madagascar Lace Plant glamour shot 3. Pearl Weed…. Pearlin! 4. Red Flame Sword on fire! 🔥

There are temperature resistant strains of ich so I wouldn't put it too high. It's all about disruption of the life cycle. You can't touch the adult parasite "spots" with anything but you don't need to as they only live for a short while to release the next general into the water. You want to kill the free swimming stage. Raising the temperature merely speeds the lifecycle up. Temperature 77-80 for a week along with meds shouldn't be too stressful. If this does nothing I doubt it's ich When I say merely speeds the lifecycle up, that's what you want so it dies quicker. At temperature under 75 it can take a couple or more weeks, temperature above this and yiu should see improvement in a matter of days

I have kept and bred fish for 30 years and ich is not difficult to deal with. The parasite on the fish do not live a long life and are buried in the skin, salt, medication or temperature will have no effect. You only need to kill the free swimming larvae in the water and medication alone will do that. If medication alone doesn't then it probably isn't ich. It not just about stressing the fish directly (which doing all 3 will do) but also about the nitrogen cycle. Putting too many meds in the tank could well reduce your bacteria and it simply isn't needed.

I don't want to beat around the bush too much, but how long have the fish been in the tank and were any new fish recently added? The common (and I think correct) belief is that ich doesn't spontaneously show up. It needs to be introduced. Google tells me that 86 seems to be a common temperature for treatment. However, I'm not exactly sure where that number comes from... 🙂

Many sources recommend all three. Temperature is important for speeding up the ich lifecycle (only the free-floating ich is vulnerable to medication). It won't kill ich directly. Salt will both make it more difficult for ich to complete their lifecycle and help fish with osmoregulation while they are being stressed. On a side note, studies don't seem to show a salt intolerance with corydoras (although this is widely believed to be the case in the hobby): https://www.vin.com/apputil/content/defaultadv1.aspx?id=3981357&pid=11114

There's no need for all three of those under any circumstances as it will stress the fish and do more harm than good. Ich is easy enough to deal with, sometimes raising the temperature alone can get rid of it. You certainly shouldn't add salt with corydoyas

if you arent finding bodies either inside, or outside the tank (some shrimp like to escape), they have probably found hiding spots. upside down under leaves is always fun to find.

Brichardi are some of my favorite fish, elegance with a touch of violence. You’ll have colony going in no time. Great fish, I used to have colony of Daffodil’s from Germany. Beauty of a fish and great personality.

My new little experiment: Februrary 2022. Before I return to the original experiment to try to keep daphnia in a small-ish container (once the temps come up a bit because I don't use a heater). Floating plants. Some swear by no plants with their daphnia, some always use plants. I've personally used water wisteria as a floating plant in nearly every daphnia culture i've run. In my mind this only helps to stabilize the environment and even tho I love water wisteria for how fast it grows and sucks up nitrates it can't compare to the "true" floating plants. I played with frogbit a few months ago but it arrived in bad shape and proceeded to die off pretty quick...silly water plant that doesn't like to get wet lol. I'm now playing around with red root floaters and they've already grown rapidly and filled they entire container I put them in, in just a few weeks. If nothing else i've got a grow tank to keep my snails from destroying these before I float them in my main and grow-out/quarantine tanks.

Maintaining a live daphnia culture is quite a delicate balancing act. You have the same nitrogen cycle issues you have in an aquarium, with the added headache of a wildly reproducing critter (every 3-4 days they can spawn and those babies can then reproduce in 5-10 days) that you're always on the verge of either starving them or fouling the water. Green water is a good food source for daphnia but maintaining enough green water to feed the daphnia can be a challenge. Those of us who keep livebearers always have to monitor the population so we don't end up with too many fish in a tank, but our livebearers tend to only spawn every 28 days or so and then the babies need a few months before they're able to spawn. The daphnia life cycle is vastly quicker. Daphnia magna can lay over 100 eggs at a time. If you start out with one in a culture tank and they have 100 babies, you're suddenly at 101. In three days another 100 get added so you're up to 201. In three more days another hundred so you're up to 301. In another three days another hundred get added so you're up to 401. Then the first batch are now old enough to spawn and they each (all 100 of them) lay a hundred eggs. That's another 10,000. Yikes! And every three days they have another 10,000 and then the next one in line adds another 10,000. In a very short period of time there are more daphnia than people in the world and you're desperately trying to balance their food and the nitrogen cycle. They aren't the easiest critters to culture and it's no wonder cultures crash easily. Populations can explode rapidly overwhelming even the most efficient biofiltration and eating every scrap of food you can provide. They can be a very challenging food source to culture. They're great when they work and the culture doesn't crash, but the odds of the culture never crashing are very, very slim.

This is what I love about this forum! It's not just about immediate responses. People will go off and think about stuff. I did too! I found your original post quite thought provoking and I've learned a lot from the rabbit hole it took me down. Your post caused me to think about what might be out there on fairy shrimp culture already. There are a few articles on culturing them, but I think the one I liked best was this one on semi-automated culturing of fairy shrimp. I don't have the bandwidth for yet another project right now, but when I do I might give this technique a go. Sorry I can't post the full pdf here.

thanks great video. I've heard people mention the paprika and I'm too afriad to foil up my water or mess with what's working. But maybe i'll try in the future.

I have gotten daphnia starter cultures on a few occasions at local club meetings and auctions and have tried to raise them, but they have ultimately ended up crashing on me. I know of a guy some what local to me that I have heard raises daphnia outside in a Rubbermaid tub and it survives the winters here in northern Ohio. I had thought to get hold of him and pick his brain and maybe set up something like what he is using for myself outdoors, and see if I can keep that alive.

Nice post! Yes, we’ve tried both. I hatch I liter of baby brine daily. Every Daphnia culture we’ve tried has crashed. Just a month ago, they all crashed. I’m not sure... but wonder if maybe a large colony of Malaysian trumpet snails can decimate daphnia at night? But a professional breeder in our fish club swears by daphnia, and Greg Sage told us over dinner that he kept some rare strain from Russia alive on his back porch for years and years 😂