Leaderboard

Dave! Well you know me and follow my pages. I strongly believe Otos are fine at 70 degrees and may even be fine at 68 on a regular basis. My tanks are in constant flux because I have no heaters. I keep my house generally at 72 but my Oto tank is in the warmest room in the house with some ambient heat from an antique gas stove. My tanks there flux from 70-78. I think this plays a big part on why my Otos breed. I personally think this is a trigger for them. Being as how most Otos are wild caught and where they come from is even colder I think they're fine in unheated tanks.

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)

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.

I've been breeding my panda cories for about 3 years now. I go in waves of not collecting eggs as much as other times. Panda cories don't lay as many eggs at once as other cory species but they also tend to be more fertile. About a week ago I blasted my old ecord of 83 and collect 124 eggs on one night. Almost all of those ended up fertile! I now have more fry in my shrimp tank than I've never had before. No joke, this sand was pristine 2 days ago. Babies are messy!!! I swear the videos don't do it justice how many fry I'm looking at right now!

I am setting up a tank that will be heated only by the ambient air of the house. We went through the recent cold snap and the tank temp went down to 70°. My question to you is, 'in your personal experience' what is the lowest temp that otocinclus will be healthy? I am not interested in video suggestions or internet wisdom. I would love to hear your real world experience on the topic.

Random thought. Since the judges were so, . . . judgy about the amount of fish in the tank last time. Maybe you could try startling them a bit so some are hiding for your next contest photo. That might get enough out of sight that they won’t mind. 😆

It would be interesting to see someone summer tub some and see what they do in there. I would never do it in my area it gets far too hot.

How often do those of us with a bit of experience in the hobby answer questions about pest snails? It's always the same: less food, bait/trap and remove, and ASSASSINS. For the doubters in the crowd, that don't appreciate how good assassins are at their job, see video below. A little about this setup: it's a 40 gallon breeder community, heavy on bottom feeders: large herds of kuhlis and salt and pepper cories, with a half dozen adolfoi. Also a breeding pair of bn plecos and a non-breeding pair of L397. Plus 5x dwarf neon rainbows and 12 rummies. Sand substrate, a variety of plants but not heavily planted. The tank is pretty much devoid of prey snails (in my home that includes ramshorns and pond snails, but this tank has never seen pond snails). But I do have a thriving daphnia colony that produces large numbers of baby ramshorns, which I collect and remove every now and then. Usually they go into this tank, as they did about 10 minutes before the video. It always amazes me how the area where the snails are dumped goes from no/few assassins to dozens in such a short time. They detect the new snails (by smell I assume), get on the go from wherever they are, gather en masse and gorge away. Outside of feeding time (assassin feeding time not regular feeding time), you might only see a few at a time, but in reality there are SO MANY. 😄 It's also worth noting that these assassins continue to thrive and breed on good qualify fish food, they don't only need snails as food. Their preferred egg laying substrate is my Hydro Pro sponge filter. Must have hundreds of eggs at any given time. I collect the assassins periodically and sell them to lfs, usually around 30 at a time. They're almost always in demand.

Yes I own a few different brands and the all work well. But the do seem to loose some power after a few months. I will still keep them all charged as backups for whenever I may loose power. I'm not sure maybe because they have built in batteries that they don't have the same size diaphragms as the the ones without and maybe that's weakening how strong the air supply is coming out. Just a thought lol

My first attempt at a Wabi Kusa. I used Christmas moss, some kind of Ludwigia, Brazilian Pennywort, some Monte Carlo, a bit of Pogstemun Octopus, and some other stuff. All trimmings from my tanks except the moss.

Hi all, I've had discus, african cichlids, and reef aquarium for a number of years. I got out of the hobby 10 years ago after my reef tank crashed due to power outage while we were away. I will be setting up a new fresh water aquarium with discus and school of smaller fish shortly, and this time I want to put plants in it to give it a more natural look. I've never had live fresh water plants before. I already have a few questions that I will be posting for guidance.

I just wanted to start a thread to see if others also have anything going on in their tanks that would not be "normal" but doesn't seem like its bad. The things that sparked my interest in this topic is that I have 1 Rummynose tetra that has lost the color in his nose. I have had my school of 9 Rummynose for about a year and half, maybe 2 years and when I got them they all had very red noses. About 6 months ago, one of them lost the color in its nose. A reverse Rudolph if you will. At first I tested the water but the quality was fine and the rest of the Rummynose all had bright red noses so I thought maybe this one was just weak and would die soon. Well its been 6 months and this guy is still going strong. He eats and swims and schools with the other Tetra without any issues, he just doesn't have a red nose. Have any of you had similar quirky things happen with your fish that usually indicate an issue but are seemingly a one off?

I'm sorry, that was confusing wasn't it? No, I'm looking for one each for 2 separate tanks. I just meant those are the only fish I'm looking for at the moment.

LMAO oops my bad. Let me hide in a corner 🙈 To be fair I was gonna ignore it but when I read the reviews it piqued my interest 🫢 They are a bit pricier. Even pricier than northfin or NLS and these two brands also provide quality ingredients to their fish food.

No more fish food for you Knee. You got like 10 new packs last week 🤪😝😄

Do the other rummynose let them play their rummynose games? Has he befriended a misfit neon tetra dentist?

My zebra ottos have been doing great in my unheated tank for a couple years now. I keep my house around 68F in the winter and 72F in the summer. Laser thermometer shows the water temp is 70F right now.

Hello shrimpies! Do froggys eat shrimp??

Aw, she was so cute with, well, whatever that hairstyle was. I’m not really sure what you’d call that but I’m sure it was all the rage in the 60’s. At least by the 70’s girls were only ironing their hair straight on the ironing board. I helped my older sisters do their hair but I was too much of a tomboy to care at that point, so I had fairly short hair through most of the 70’s. 😆

Thats a great share @nabokovfan87. I like to lay my strips on a paper towel, which I labeled with the tanks before I start dipping strips. I lay the strip above the tank label (ie: S for shrimp tank, Q1 for quarantine 1, Q2 for Quarantine 2, B for betta, and 29 for the community tank. i use the same procedure with vials, laying the vial holders on top of the labeled paper towel.

I spot treat with Seachem Excel. Any liquid Carbon will work. By spot treat, I mean that I take a child's medicine syringe (a pipet will work too) and I inject the Excel directly onto the BBA. I have to do this once every 6 months or so when the BBA starts to spread. The Excel kills it off but it eventually comes back. There is some underlying issue that is causing it in my (and your) tank but I can't figure it out. From what I have read it might be a Phosphorus deficiency? But I think its a light issue. I have my lights (Hygger lights) on for 6 hours every day and the BBA tends to only grow on plants and equipment near the top of the tank, close to the light. It starts slow but eventually it gets on everything so I just spot treat when I notice it and keep it in check.

I would seek @xXInkedPhoenixX advice as the only actual oto breeder I know.

This could also go sideways from the pea puffers side of things as well. Pea Puffers are nicknamed something like murder beans or something crazy like that because what they lack in size they make up for in gusto. I have never owned them so I can't speak from experience but everything written online says they should be a species only tank. ALTHOUGH, I have seen people on Youtube have pea puffers in somewhat of a community tank. Like all things in this hobby, it will depend on the fish, the setup, and the patience/experience of the fish keeper. If you do try this mix, be sure to report back on how it goes!

I'd be a bit worried about mixing a. agassizii with pea puffers. Even a solo male can be territorial and if the puffer spends a lot of time near the bottom (hunting snails); there can be some conflicts with the a. agassizii poking at it. This of course create stress between the fishes with can lead to bad health. There is a chance things will work out esp if you have the puffers in the tank first but i can't predict these things. Every fish is different. As for the puffer no clue - don't know diddly about them so don't know if they understand territories or how they would react.

If the gravel has been working for 13 years I would not suspect it as the source of the problem. I would look to other recent changes. if you just really want to change out the gravel to try a new substrate then go for that.

They definitely work well and sometimes to well. I have a 29 gal tank that had a horrible ramshorn infestation if you will. If course I would manually remove as many as possible on veggies. I was able to remove a good amount. But for every one that you see there are usually 20 more that you don't. So I added assassin's snails to help. Over 2 months time I added about 12-15 assassin's. And after about 6 months time they managed it very well. Now anytime I add veggies for my plecos I never see any ramshorns on the veggies. They have virtually eliminated them witch is awesome. Now in the other hand I have a 20 long as well that has ramshorns but not to the degree the previous tank did. Of course they did there job but once they took care of the rams they also took out my breeding group of wizard snails. Unfortunately I did not notice this until it was too late. I was doing a deep cleaning on this tank. And when I removed the hardscape to gravel vac I found all of the empty wizard snail shells So I think it can be a fue line especially if you have other snails in the tank that you do want to be there.

Assasins definitely work, they wiped out the mini ramshorn colony in my endler tub. I got me a group of 4 to try, and see how they breed there as my LFS requested me for babies. However, when pest snails were gone, they also killed mystery snails too I believe. I have not seen them on action, but I blame them. This is why I think they are cool yet limiting. They might choose easier and smaller targets, but sustaining a diet of them with pest snails is very hard if they breed like that you say. To constantly sell a group of 30, you basically replace a colony of more helpful pest snails with carnivore not very helpful but money making assasins. And I am not okay to replace my snail keeping in every tank by risking a predator around. I tried before due to many people sayjng they are safe for big snails nerites and shrimp, but don’t trust them at all anymore Also many people struggle to find new homes to their fish even for free. So this type of breeding might be a replacement for pest snails if one has no chance to keep selling/rehoming considering the breeding. Id rather have pest snails assisting me in the tank rather than a big colony of carnivore opportunistic predators in my tank who needs to be fed meaty foods if there is no prey around But they are very cool creatures and just like any other snail I love them. And I can confirm that as a person who has pest snails in majority of his tanks, overfeeding or having food options is the reason why their population rise. If you visit my fishroom you may not even notice a single pest snail in the tank meanwhile yhey have been living there for months. I have this problem only in two tanks where I overfeed and fish are not great at eating

I heard one for the first time last night. They were tiny when I got them definitely very young. I think I have 2 male and 2 female. Of the two suspected males 1 is about 50% bigger. They are kept in my 17 gallon fish bowl in the kitchen and last night I was sitting at the kitchen table and heard one for the first time. I know the sound from FootheFlowerhorn walstead tank videos. That video is largely what inspired me to get back into the hobby…

Thanks for the video ❤️

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.

LMAOOOOOOOOOO

Thank you soo much for your response @xXInkedPhoenixX. Your advice is definitely noteworthy.

Fahaka puffer and mbu puffer, and yes it is a big ol’ bushfish and there is indeed several military bases in my area

Ended up moving my Kribs to a 60gallon tank with a few other SA/CA cichlids. They are a lot more out and about now that they have others in there with them but I’m keeping an eye on things in case I start to get some spawning behavior from any of the fish! unrelated, got my first batch of guppy fry in my 20 gallon community tank! As far as I can tell, I’ve got 7 free swimmers but mama still looks large and in charge. This is my first time with any fry so learning as I go!

Sorry Ahaab just saw that you had posted this. Hopefully not too late of a response for you. The answer is Yes and no. The fish died but I feel that’s because I was too late to begin treatment. I strongly believe it was a bacterial infection and the eyes were a symptom. I determined this is what pop eye in a pea puffer looks like. See my above comment. Quoting here to ensure you’re notified

Etheostoma spectabile, Mr. and Mrs….

E.M erythromycin has the seem active ingredient as maracyn and general cure has the seem active ingredient as paracleanse praziquantel and metronidazole would order it just so you have some to have to hand

Are you going to cull your stocking for next years entry?

@GoofyGarra you can keep them in filtered, heated bucket with air until some time passes. That is what I do in situations like this. When I dosed No Planaria, I took all the trumpet snails out and made a tank with a tiny flower pot filter out of a specimen container. I put well seeded sand from the main tank in there so they could dig. Also you could reach out to friends and have them “babysit” your snails too. 🙂

No. You can use basically any coffee maker to get warm water, but it's almost NEVER boiling. With repashy you really do need some hot water. for reference:

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.

One wet cowboy:

The KH being blue might be a mixed test? (some of the other pads got into the KH are and mixed up the colors) Here's a video on a practice I've used to try to prevent this. If it means you have really high KH, that's good for the snails. I've just never seen that KH test color before.

This is a rough approximation of what I normally do for an overnight loaf.

Med trio is a preventive treatment as your cpd had a sunken belly and one of your new guppies was skinny I would treat them all for wasting disease with levamisole active ingredient in expel p once a week for 4 weeks @lmhicks101

I wouldn't treat with kanaplex unless you see an active infection they could have been under fed or become weak to due to stress what I would do first is feed them twice a day with a mixture of live or frozen and pellets for a week to see if they put on weight if your not seeing any weight gain or they lose more weight then I would treat with levamisole once a week for 4 weeks @lmhicks101

Yeah, they weren’t too happy not having a plant diagram 😆

Thank you @Pepere, I really appreciate it. I also read all the judges comments for each tank I enjoy in every category. It's valuable information for sure. Here's another cool thing to look through even if Dutch isn't your thing. It has some water parameters listed and such. NBAT

Congratulations! Here is a fun, related barb video.

Grindals versus killis. Who do you take to win?! They have been getting a rotation of grindals frozen daphinia and frozen brine. With kens grow meal mixed in. If I can't get a spawn off of that food rotation I don't think I ever will lol https://youtu.be/3yU1tZE1pYc?si=GWG-7Jj6RsFPIpXv