Leaderboard

I frequent this store at least once a week and I thought I’d share some pics of some of the stuff that caught my eye today (the fly river isn’t actual at my LFS but a reptile store that’s connected to it, which I also like to stop by in)

Slide them side to side a few times. They usually let go of the glass. Do not pull you can injure them. You can also place a yummy near him and wait until he goes to eat and lift him off the substrate.

It’s the lighting. Quality RGB lights are a must to have the colors really pop. Clear water helps too.

It's hard to know how much coffee would actually end up in the water, but caffeine and other compounds found in coffee beans can be nasty chemicals, especially to organisms with mucous membrane interfaces and exposed tissues like gills because the uptake into the body is much more rapid than it is in us mammals. Plus, fish and invertebrates are tiny, so it takes lower concentrations to affect them than it does for us. Bottom line: I wouldn't want to risk getting any caffeine or other coffee compounds in my aquarium. Go out and buy an electric kettle. The cheapest one you can find. They're usually in the realm of $10-15 USD. It'll be much better for mixing up repashy. Plus, you can use it for all sorts of other things. Aside from heating up water for tea and other drinks, I use mine to pre-boil water for pasta and such. It's a lot faster than the stove. If you don't want to buy an appliance (understandable), you'll probably just want to heat up water on the stove or in the microwave.

Not too much to report as of late. I’m pretty much just changing water and moving things around while propagating. GDA showed up again but I think it’s just going to be a short phase of it. Plants are looking decent and my water is crystal clear. I added a ton of 30ppi sponge and wonder if this is why.

Once again TeeJay has fallen behind on his updates. Only 2 weeks tho this time. Just been planning on how the new stand(s) are going to go and tank layouts and such. Sunday I went over to a fellow nerms house to see there fish room. Been wanting to get over there for awhile now. It was fun to feel out and see all the fish and how there setups are. I e been studying on air pumps for a few days. Right now I run backup battery power pumps on all my tanks. While I like having the piece of mind of backup power I have definitely noticed they do seem to lack on powered after they are a few months old. I pulled out a couple of tetra whispers I had laying around to just to a comparison on flow. As I hooked up the tetra to each of the tanks there flow increases easily 20 to 40 percent. Sometimes even more So while brainstorming a out the upcoming tank stands and tak upgrades my fish friend showed me a extra pond pump he has that he never used and showed me how he setup taps to his tanks. He said why don't you do the same to the tanks in your dinning room. Since all of my tanks except the 29 are located there. Now I know it's major overkill for the amount of tanks I have but he is giving me a great price on the pump and will help me setup the lines so this is the way I'm going to go. We are going to build in looping PVC pipe along the side of the two tank stands we are building to drop the taps from. The. It will have a bleedoff valves on each stand if I need to relive pressure from the pump. I don't think I will need to bleedoff much since I will be running at least 12lines. As well this way in the future if I ever add more ranks or need extra air for extra air stones I have the capability to do so. Hopefully I will get to start the stand builds in about 4 to 5 weeks. I'm adding a pic of the air pump and the stands we will be building. As well as a few random pics. As always keep it fishy my friends.

Nerite snail exploring her new (temporary) home:

Orange shrimp! Rare but im loving the ones i can find: Birds eye shot of the tank, because why not? Nerite Snail And His Goofiness, Garra Guy

I think it's worth treating. Fin rot can linger and you go from things improving to severe body rot pretty quickly. It's all related. The rest / recovery helping is a good sign though.

3 month updates seem to be my regular now! 😅 My pump is malfunctioning in that it now pumps extremely inconsistent amounts of water. So I decided to bite the bullet and buy a Nyos Viper 2.0 pump. It is supposedly the quietest sump pump on the market at this size. It has large rubber feet instead of suction cups and a dial that controls the rotation of the impeller rather than gating the intake. Supposedly this means a far more accurate and consistent GPH for my fish friends. This also meant I had to upgrade the hosing to 5/8” from 1/2” so I should be able to run the pump closer to its maximum at 520gph. As long as it doesn’t effect the whiteclouds swimming ability. They enjoy current surfing so it shouldn’t be an issue. But I do have babies in the display to worry about. With the 5/8” drain I needed a new gate valve so I went with a marine grade plastic one. Thats it! I set it up this morning before work so I will update in the coming days and write up a review of this pump. Fish are all still doing great and once I get back from FL I will be adding 10 white cloud, some fancier neocardinias and a small school of hillstream loaches

To the best of my knowledge it goes like this: -Marine salt is salt plus other trace elements -Aquarium salt is just salt by itself, no additional trace minerals -Aquarium Coop salt is branded as Brine Shrimp salt, but is essentially marine salt. Salt plus other trace elements

I would just use one of the other. You only really need to dose it during water changes. You may have scenarios where you want to dose Prime again if you have an ammonia spike but even then I would do that with a water change. Personally, I would save my money and get stuff like some catapa leaves and frozen food for your betta

You can also ask sellers on ebay if they will sell a single male. A lot depends on if they have extra females. online stores tend to be less flexible than individuals.

When you do transport the snails, do so in a cooler for temperature stability. Use the strips you have already and see if there is any reading. I would agree with @Guppysnail here. My snails burrowed for growth spurt, but at the water line snails are usually wanting air or relief from whatever else it may be. I hope we can figure out what it is. It’s frustrating not knowing the cause. Side note- Did you know that water temp affects snail shell development? Ie: fast growth vs slow growth, and thick shell vs thin shell, at certain temps.

These multi strips do not test for ammonia. Ammonia is a separate test. I would suggest getting the API liquid ammonia test. I did not have accurate readings with ammonia strips. I have tried several brands. Re: strips - Cory had made a video or livestream where he explains when having the ammonia test on a multi strip, it doesn’t work right, so it had to be its own product. Remind me what size the quarantine tank is and how many snails you have. When snails get to a certain size there will be ammonia no matter what you do, and they have to be adopted out. I had about 35-40 in a 10 gallon and when they were about chickpea size I had ammonia always. I water changed twice a day using Prime until the snails were adopted and I had no losses to parameter issues, as I was testing for ammonia every day since their birth. I remove uneaten commercial foods in an hour with turkey baster, with the exception of veggies or Repashy which can be left for 24 hr.

Pea puffers are schoaling species. I would highly encourage you to keep them as other schoaling/schooling species in a crowded group of at least 6(2m:4f) or more with the same gender ratio or more f with a good tank size. Having friends around with a balanced m:f ratio in a good tank size, lots of live food options, many decorations plants woods around is important here is them in nature: I have a group of 11 just completed the quarantine of a month and although they may look comfy doing their own thingy at a normal time they like to have each other around when their needs are met I believe. Just as an example, if there is a stress factor, like me doing a water change, they directly start to school tightly for some time until they feel comfortable again. When I introduced the the tank they were schooling quite tightly too for a couple days. I would highly recommend to read this guide below https://www.pufferfishenthusiastsworldwide.com/amp/c-travancoricus As a P.S: these guys are easy to find tank bred in comparisons to many other puffers. Highly recommend it as they are facing issues due to being collected in the wild and are under risk, and also tankbred fish can be easier to feed and a bit less likely to have parasites imo if fed sterile cultures.

Yep. Pretty silly! I guess they picked him for his chiseled jaw. 😝 I shouldn’t judge on looks but he gave the impression of maybe not being too smart. Maybe it was just his extra dorky “moves” flopping around those worn out, or maybe oil-less, forks.

In my 20gallon community tank i have a large hydra population that is growing quickly. While this is not a problem now, i want to take care of it before they reproduce to such amounts it is a problem, or to avoid spreading it to my shrimp tanks. My fish are not interested in eating the hydra so my best option is NoPlanaria which i have observed to kill hydra. However, in my tank i have a large mystery snail. My issue is moving the mystery snail to a new tank without hurting the snail. When he goes up the wall he is significantly attached, and i feel that if i tried to pull him off he would get hurt. Does anyone have any good methods for transporting mystery snails? I was thinking putting some food on a dish then moving that dish, but i'm open to ideas

magnetic glass cleaners work well. The sideways knocks them off. then just reach in and grab. He'll be fine. Need any more? I accidently had 1 clutch. I've already given 30 away, got 30 more in my angelfish tank. 😁

These plants grow exceptionally well in low pH as most plants available to us prefer low pH. The Salty Shrimp is fine but very expensive. Just know the Contra soil is going to pull out carbonates no matter which route you chose and constantly adding KH, having the substrate pull it out and adding back will create instability. Your best bet is to ignore pH and focus on GH. The best products for GH are CaSO4 and MgSO4 (Epsom's salt). They are both dirt cheap and give you complete control. For KH, if you go this route, K2SO4 (potassium carbonate) is dirt cheap also and can be dosed to precision. It's available on Amazon and will last you many years. Look for food grade or lab grade.

That is a very clever way to feed in a way that keeps the humidity up! I am interested in Microctenopoma ansorgii... Were they prone to jumping like wild bettas? I have an open top rimless aquarium... 😬

I’ve kept them between 74 and 78, depending on what other animals were in with them.

There is no need to raise Ph to cycle a tank unless you're using vinegar in your water changes. 6.7 is pretty normal.

Over the course of the last year I have killed every single plant I have ever ordered from Cory. I recently discovered Dwarf Sagittaria. It is actually growing like a weed and looks great.

My water tests look good so I’m going to wait on the water change. I thought about what you said about temps. My 20 gallon is just under 72, but my 10 gallon is at 70, which I understand is the lower edge of comfort for my snails. I put a heater in the 10. I set it at 74 degrees F. Is that what you guys use? 20 gallon: 10 gallon:

Lot of work - i was reading the frys need high humidity pocket above their tank to allow their organ to develop properly. It wasn't really about imbellis but rather con something or other - another wild betta like fish but i presume it is the same. Also they (older juvi and adults) love to jump so you need an air pocket with a lid. Hum.

Here is how I use the “pic line” to drain water from the baby betta tub… Here is how Daphnia are fed back through the port… And here is a closeup look at the babies. It’s a theory of mine that many bottom-budget box-store Bettas are the “outcasts” of breeding projects. Desired fish go to higher end buyers. However, due to mendellian genetics, fish tend to look like their grandparents. SO, breed a so-so pair from the bargain rack, and you might get some very pretty orchids. (Might…)

I would also keep them on opposite ends of the tank, with the stone near the bottom, to increase the current cycling around the tank.

Typically animals with genetic microphthalmia (smaller than normal eyes) will have a notably smaller socket and may have remnant, abnormal eye still present. Genetic anophthalmia (no eye at all) will sometimes have a slightly pinched look where the eye should have been. They won’t have any empty looking socket because socket development needs the globe of the eye being present and developing at the same time to cause the socket to form. If you’ve ever seen blind cave fish (Astyanax mexicanus - a species of fish that evolved in a cave system in Mexico and lost the need for eyes), they sometimes have a little dark area under the skin where their eye should have been - to me it looks like a touch of residual retina that never proceeded to develop correctly. They sometimes have that slightly pinched or just a “not smooth” look to the skin surface where the eye should have been. They never have a hollow socket that I’ve ever seen. The socket just doesn’t develop into a hollow if there’s no globe to fill it. There are other eyeless or blind cave fish but that’s the one I’m most familiar with. I don’t know enough about the others to say anything. Your cories are having eye issues, like popeye, or someone is taking their eyes. Popeye would be very hard to notice in a crowd of such tiny, sometimes secretive cories. There’s no way in the world I could identify each of my pygmy cories, let alone tell you if one had popeye and was hiding because of it. I can’t even count mine accurately. I have at least 8, could be twice that. Planted tank and fast little buggers that dodge in and out of the dense Anubias in their tank. The food tends to go right into the Anubias forest because it goes in at the back of the tank since it’s a cube with the near solid glass lid and the only gap is at the HOB overflow. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Could there be a genetic component that is causing them to have eye problems? Yes. But empty sockets means there’s some sort of issue or somebody’s being bad.

What parameters have you tested for, and what were they? What temperature is the tank?

You're taking a big risk running CO2 with no oxygen-- if CO2 gets too high it will harm or kill your livestock. Maybe you tune your CO2 down enough its not a problem. Maybe you don't. Maybe you tuned it just right for running during your day cycle, but then the solenoid gets stuck open, and the CO2 continues to run all night, and then the problems start. And for that risk, what's the reward? You could have just as easily run the CO2 a tad bit faster and had an air stone going at the same time. Is saving a few bucks on the CO2 worth it to you? That's the mindset I'd follow

I think it is good you care so much. Maybe you can find other local hobbiests to share your platies with? Theyre probably having as much trouble finding good fish as you are.

I feed them canned green beans and they climb on them and nibble. I also give them an algae wafer occasionally. Recently I made Snello with Repashy and ground calcium. I used a glass dish to hold it along with the Hikari Crab Cuisine. I wanted to know it was being eaten - not rotting. I saw the snails crawl in to eat, and I think I saw a variety over two days. It was when the food was gone that they started acting different. Maybe they are getting ready for a growth spurt. That would be awesome. My filter is a sponge one, but I added an air stone to the tank.

Bought a coop heater today from my LFS and will be using it for my 100% bypass cold water. Get an aquarium they said, it will be fun they said. 😂😂💰💰

I currently have a platy tank, 20g. with some amazon swords, dwarf sag, and floating hornwart. This is probably the most stable tank I have. I got the platys before i knew how to sex them. and they have been multiplying since then. They range from 2-year-old adults to 3-day old fry. The numbers are stable at around 30 for about 2 years now. Yes, they will eat fry up to a certain size. But that usually doesn't happen until the third generation comes along. The Hornwart helps tremendously for removing nitrates and when it gets to look too much like a jungle looking, just tear off bits and toss. Feeding time is interesting, it's like a platy ball or platy party all looking for food.

Agreed with this. I have c02 on 3 tanks, and all of them have oxygen. Before the easy flow kits it was a sponge filter with an air stone. Now they all have the easy flow kits, but still adding oxygen and additional flow. C02 comes on an hour before lights, and goes off an hour before the lights.

High levels of water agitation will cause CO2 to gas off quicker than if the water's surface is unbroken, but honestly in my experience I've run airstones in CO2 injected tanks and still gotten excellent plant growth and pearling. It also is quite unhealthy for a tank to have zero break in surface tension. Gas exchange is necessary. Some people recommend running an airstone and CO2 on inverted schedules in order to gas off CO2 at night when plants are respiring without performing photosynthesis. Basically plants produce excess CO2 at night and excess oxygen during the day. I have never seen any reason to do this. In a heathy tank with proper flow, I have never seen fish struggling to breathe at night when the CO2 is turned off. Macready is correct about the optimal timing for CO2 injection being 1 hour before lights on and shutting it down 1 hour before lights off. This ensures your water is properly saturated with gas before plants begin photosynthesizing and that levels are allowed to decrease before lights go off. This is not necessary, but a nice optimization. Long story short: Feel free to use an airstone on a CO2 injected tank. In my experience, the impact on CO2 levels is minimal and quite frequently overstated.

Howdy, welcome to the forum. I don't run CO2 personally but I can't imagine you wouldn't want some oxygen in there _somehow_ . I'll let others chime in on that who are more knowledgeable. I haven't read about turning off an airstone with regards to CO2, but I have heard about turning the CO2 on approximately 1 hour before your light comes on, and then turning it off approximately 1 hour before the light turns off. That way it gets utilized best by the plants better. Again, others more knowledgeable will chime in. Take their word over mine 🙂 Other folks will likely want to know some additional info: Size of tank, substrate, plant load, bio load, type of filtration for example, to help answer your Q.

I would assume it’s because they test everything extensively before sharing it with YouTube. They are always inundated with products to test to go to market that have potential to make money. ACO is a business. There is no profit to be made on RR. They would need to test hundreds of plants themselves as is their fashion. It’s why we trust ACO so much. With no money to be made and to little time to test the plethora of things they want to test it makes perfect sense this was never mentioned. Cory did however move it out of journals and into community resources and link the easier to read format website at the top of the original post to make it easily accessible to everyone.

What I have read that rainbow fish seem to be very susceptible to microbacterium causing high mortality levels in fish farms and aquariums I would just quarantine and monitor for a minimum of 4 weeks and only treat if you see any symptoms

No ammonia detected.

Flint is in full flare cleaning up Snail Cookie crumbs (kelp, BSFL, Etc) His bristles grew some; I can tell.

One interesting thing is that Cory/ACO don't seem to mention it in their YouTube videos. There seems to have been many opportunities, but I've never heard it mentioned. On a side note, I've used it and it worked for me... 🙂

I place the plants directly in the tank after the seltzer to suffice as the final stage “rinse” in aerated water. We are not YouTubers. We are hobbyists. Just as @dasaltemelosguysaid we only wanted to provide a chemical free, SAFE, method of treatment that was very easy to use for even a day 1 aquarist wanting to start with plants but avoid introducing snails, parasites or negative bacteria. We never intended to profit only help other aquarists. Reverse Respiration is so amazing and easy word of mouth alone served to spread the information. I have also done club presentations to help inform folks. We felt no need to advertise beyond making the information available. RR being free to all we felt no need to spend more money to advertise via YouTube. I am glad you found this so amazing.

Hi, Reverse Respiration took about 6 months to design. The ultimate approach was preceded by several other “non-chemical plant sterilization” techniques which included ultrasound and electrolysis. Carbonated water was originally added to both asphyxiate the pests and to equalize the internal pressures and protect the plant from our more caustic approaches like ultrasound. Ultimately, we found that carbonated water alone achieved our goals alone and we abandoned the other technologies. However, the experiment ended up costing thousands of dollars with months of breeding parasites, buying plants, chemicals, hardware and shipping as well as expensive machinery such as electrolysis, power supplies and ultrasonic cleaners. It was funded by 3rd parties and so the intellectual rights are privately owned although they are free to the general public for use. To that end, the patent filing was largely to secure the rights of ownership and proper accreditation rather than a marketing goal. Insofar as the final stage goes, I believe everyone just installs the plants after the final stage as it’s just water by then anyway. In fact, I think people place them directly in the tank from the seltzer which suffices as the "anaerobic kill-off" final stage. If I’m wrong about that, please someone correct me. RR is spreading greatly, and to date, the website has seen over 40,000 tests so far. I imagine private videos will be made over time. We’re hoping to see videos made, but hopefully done professionally.

He would have looked even less comfortable if he had accidently started the engine! It's hard to look cool sitting astride an overgrown moped.

There’s a guy that clearly isn’t fully comfortable on a motorcycle but is trying to make it look like he is. 😆 And those front shocks look absolutely floppy.

I just got back from a 10 day trip to Arizona with three of my granddaughters… I left green beans, a bottom wafer, and a chunk of Repashy in each tank. The 10 gallon is combination Mystery Snail nursery and quarantine. I stayed with one of my sons after coming in to MSP (Minneapolis/St. Paul) and the next morning went to a close by fish store. One hundred dollars later I head north toward home with five more Pygmy Corydoras and eight White Cloud Mountain Minnows. When I got home, I found everyone fine… and the water in my 20L was much clearer! I must be over feeding. Now the new fish are settling in.

We moved again in the fall just a little ways away from where we lived previously. Hopefully this will be the final move for these fishies. One goby was incredibly stubborn about leaving the caves I provided. It took tremendous arm strength to lift the cave system out of the water and hold it there until he finally plopped out and was fished out with a net. anyway still get plenty of light on the tank so I took a photo of the java fern. It seems to be the new hangout for the minnows

My concern is the trout mainly. But if the WCMM fry make it then there is a chance! Lots of rock rubble and algae mats to hide in for them! WCMM are quite interesting though mine when they are spawning get very aggressive even chasing the trout off. Then they go into the water willow area where only they can swim and I assume they’ve been laying eggs there. Although I haven’t made visual confirmation.