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You will still want to use marine salt. Marine salt contains a mixture of trace elements along with salt and there really is no substitute. It depends on what level of brackish water you intend to go. Bumblebee gobies are low level brackish at a maximum of 1.005 I believe which is a threshold that allows a couple plants such as java moss, sedge, and mangrove. This salinity is the minimum I would keep them at. Mollies are a maybe. They are quite good dither fish for fin nipping fish but may have to be separated if the puffer is a menace. I intended to keep my figure 8 mid-brackish. About 1.008-1.015 as this is the salinity you tend to encounter in river deltas and opens you to more intertidal species. Some soft corals, anemones, gobies, damselfish, and crustacean enjoy this environment. No plants in this environment except the mangrove so your greenery would be solely macroalgae. For low-end brackish id setup the tank more like a freshwater tank just add marine salt and be aware most plants will melt in these conditions. For mid to high brackish setup is more akin to a saltwater tank. Diet is a mix of crustacean preferably in the shell and worms.

Care is pretty simple. Water temps mid to upper 70s. Not overly hard water (I keep mine about 9dGH because this is my tap water's hardness water). Ph mid-6's to mid 7's. 6.5 - 7.0 is the best Ph range, but it's ok to keep the Ph a tad higher if that's the water you have. My personal feeling is anything over 7.6 is pushing it, but honestly, they are probably fine up to 8ph, but I have no real experience with water that alkaline. Apistos like to hang out near the bottom of an aquarium. So, as long as you don't have other overly territorial fish at the bottom, you'll be fine. Keep some plants for shelter. Too many plants and you'll never see the fish, too few and it's stressful for the fish. I tend to keep my breeding pairs in 20g tanks with a piece of driftwood propped up so they can hang out underneath it, but still be seen by me, and one or two decently bushy java ferns. An 'apisto hut' isn't necessary for a single male, but they do like something to go under. As for food, mine never like flakes, and prefer small sinking pellets. Hikari vibra bites are my personal go-to food for apistos, but it's not all that I feed them. I typically use a mixture of vibra bites, Fluval bug bites, Xtreme nano pellets, small blackwork pellets, ground up freeze dried white works and tubifex worms (I use a spice mill to break these up into bite sized pieces). You don't need to go to such an extreme as to make a mixture, but that is the staple mix for the majority of the fish in my fish room as it's easy,. varied and quick to feed. The basic gist is small, slowly sinking pellet foods. An apisto's preference is to pick stuff from the bottom at their own leisure. They won't rush out for food like some other greedy eaters unless there is a ton of competition for food. If there is competition, they will come to the top to snag a morsel, but that's not their preferred way of eating. Hope this helps. Again, these fish are on the easy end of the care spectrum.

Hello everyone. I have been considering a brackish tank for a while. My friend wanted to gift me a figure 8 puffer. So I am planning to setup a tank But I need some help while setting up the ideal tank. First things first, I see online that for brackish tanks, we should use Marine salt/reef salt, but not standard aquarium salt due to extra minerals it has. I already use gh+ in my tanks and I have montmorillonite clay powder for gh and minerals. Can I just use regular aquarium salt I have and dose gh+ and/or montmorillonite clay for minerals instead of buying marine salt? I know you two have brackish tank experience so I would appreciate some help @Biotope Biologist @Ninjoma Secondly, I see lots of people keeping figure 8 puffer with bumblebee gobies successfully. Also I have seen a few mentioning mollies. Any care tips, diet and tankmate tips are welcomed if you’d like to share any. @mountaintoppufferkeeper @Beardedbillygoat1975 Also based on what I see, most people only keep one figure 8 puffer rather than mixing many, right? I have seen a couple people mentioning more of a group but majority was keeping only one Also is frozen food bought from market is safe to feed for parasite issues? Lastly Ive seen a few plants being used in brackish tanks. To my understanding figure 8 and bumblebee gobies are on the lower end of the brackish so shouldn’t be a huge problem but probably still undesired for many plants. What plants work in your experience? One more thing that confused me at lfs. Some seem to have darker bellies. Does that refer to anything? I have come across a few darker colored darker belly ones online too but normally the bellies are white. Like this: thanks everyone

I was trying to breed a female crowntail to a male long finned samurai betta I tried to condition them with high protein food slowly introducing them first in cups then in a tank with a divider letting them check each other out and get used to each other they seemed very interested in one another but after a good while of conditioning them I let the female into the tank after feeding them some bloodworms beforehand my female crowntail started to chase my male samurai I realize that it is normal for bettas to fuss at each other but once she calmed down my male samurai started to charge her and ram her he bit her tail and ripped out a piece it got to the point where she tried to jump out of the tank so I removed her for her safety I am new to this I haven't bred bettas for at least 10 years the last time I did it went very smoothly with no problems like this at all and that breeding pair was with a male crowntail and a solid red hmpk I'm not sure what to do any advice would be very appreciated

My tank, 150 tall, loves Anubius because...low light. I actually have 6 lights in/on the tank, but it is 3 feet tall. I was in the co-op last weekend, and I was asking Brandon about the easy planters and Anubius. Like, could Anubius be happy in the rockwool, in the easy planter (I have several). They suggested taking the rockwool out and having the Anubius tied to a course sponge in the easy planter. So, this weekend, I used "barbie bondage strap" (small zip tie) strapped to Anubius roots and course sponge, and pushed into easy planter. PERFECT!! I'm sure the plant will be so happy. Thank you so much Brandon. I am so happy we got to chat last weekend and appreciate all of your and Jaden's advice so much!! Michelle aka Mastifflvr28

That may be enough. In high fidelity work it is not uncommon to plug all of the devices in what is known as a "power conditioner". It's really just a big power strip with noise filters but the better ones have the same device that is in a Variac to boost the voltage as losses of a few volts are inevitable. Especially when many devices share the strip. Some designs won't work at all on a strip because they have power tolerances so tight, they cannot even suffer a few volts loss without problems. That chugging is a classic motor speed control problem as well. What you've just done may be enough but of course, it may not be but it's a good test, nonetheless. It also may be subject to the time of the day as peak usage sees house power down slightly. It's much worse in the Summer as you can imagine. I've seen huge home theater installations where the picture literally changed size when the AC kicked on! That is deregulation and is what is going on with the FX6. I use one large Variac for all six FX6's but for one or two, a Variac this size is plenty: LVYUAN Variable Transformer Variable Voltage Regulator, 0-130V Output, 110V-120V Input, (500VA): Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific

Get some "DrTim’s Aquatics Ammonium Chloride Solution" and put 10 drops or so into the 10 gallon tank (Yeah I know they destructions say 4 drops per gallon, but I believe that is way too much. I usually do 1 drop per gallon and have had better success with it.). After 30 mins or so measure the Ammonia. Wait 24 hours, measure the Ammonia and Nitrite. If both of these are NOT zero, you're not ready to add fish.

It looks really happy and seem to have a beautiful tank! Hope to see updates on how its doing!

About 6 weeks ago i picked up 6 of these (wc): This one i'm 90% sure is the female as she has less colouring. Unfortunately the male(s) pictures did not turn out well as they are blurry so I'll try again next week. They are not quite breeding age; unfortunately unlike the Keyhole these guys never sit still making picture taking more difficult. They are in the 180 (72x30x18) with the keyhole. That tank gotta be over populated with something like 15 cherry barb; 7 keyholes 6 l.a. and tons of pygmy, orange laser and cats - not to mention the 15 kubotai rasbora. Oh well - when the keyoles and these folks pair off i'll move some of the others downstairs (maybe). This is an interesting picture: What we see here is a carolina bacopa. Never been a fan of this plant but never quite willing to toss it. Anyway what we are seeing is the transition from a high-tech aquarium to a low tech aquarium. It has taken about 6 months but it is finally sprouting some healthy leaves (very bottom) as the old piece is slowly eaten. The key point is the amount of time the plant has taken to transition. Folks tend to forget that plants move faster than rocks but just barely. This is some rotala blood red purchased about 4 months ago; I suspect the seller grew it in a high-tech environment (co2 injection); and it is generally a plant that does much better with co2 but again we see after many months it is sending up new sprouts adjusted to the new enviornment. I suspect it would be more colourful if i floated it near the lights (and frequently i do) but i wanted to see how it did planted. Again this is after 4 months - it is growing and not melting but the speed is comparable to a fast stone walking home. [sorry for the lousy photo - phone just refused to focus on the forground plant] This tangle of mess is another pia; what we see is a huge mess of crowded crypts. I swore when i moved my crypts would stop being crowded and they would have lots of room - after all i was moving 50% of the plants from my 40B to a brand new 180 with 4x the space. Alas the more space i give them they more crowded they get. I really need some birth control for them. Oh well at least they are nice looking plants. My last pia for this week: What we see here and it is very very hard to see is a very badly behaving Krobia xinguensis. I've not had these before and i swear this set i purchased (5 fishes) are over weight - anyway i told them this was a holding tank and no hanky panky allowed but alas they just couldn't restrain themselves and a pair has bred and now have about 30 free swimming frys. Alas i'm not hatching bbs so unsure if they will get very far - i might toss in some gold pearl but usually it takes some live food.They are pretty decent parents but when i went behind the aquarium to get a good picture of the parents/fry the parents went crazy so i guess no decent picture of them - or the frys. This was taken from the front (it is a 120 so 4ft wide and 2 feet front to back). Hum. maybe i should hatch some bbs but not really setup for it right now. Anyway that aquarium has 6 pleco (1 l204; 2 l397; 3 snowballs) 5 krobia (the big male did not breed) and 14 angelfishes (it had a few cardinals but after the krobia ate 1/2 of them 2 hours after introduction i removed the others). They are like all mouth. The only other fish i have as bad as them are the l. thayeri - unlike the d and a these guys are again all mouth - just suck in anything that come near them - very much like the krobia.

Trying a new foreground layout to highlight this Eriocaulon malaytoor. It's a very pretty plant but with how delicate it is it's very easy to miss against other green plants.

@Lennie im curious on the brackialsh and goby SME answers. For the identification this publication lists more about gobies than I knew prior to finding it today. It does cover many brachygobius species taxonomy starting l at page 51 https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=A+revision+of+the+gobiid+fish+genus+Mugilogobius+(Teleostei%3A+Gobioidei)%2C+and+its+systematic+placement&btnG= This field study only found xanthomelas in pure freshwater (Easiest way to search nih study is save as pdf and find by scientific name) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9169113/ Salinity is a cool variable. Some studies note variances in salinity can change the digestive processes and functions in some species. That will be a fun project to hear about.

I have six, FX6’s that have never failed or leaked. They all however have this problem in the video. But this is not a mechanical problem. It’s an electronic problem. A power supply for a motor requires that it have a redundancy of voltage so enough is always available for peak demands or in lower voltage environments. The FX6’s voltage regulation was apparently designed for 240 volts so when this is translated for American power, it’s set for 120 volts. However, it's not uncommon to see house voltages vary from 120v down to 110v or even 105v. It is here where the FX6 has barely enough power to keep the motor regulated. Certain situations cause the filter to require more power; If the flow is restricted, if your house voltage is low, if the outlet is shared by many devices (dropping the effective house voltage), or if you use an extension cord or power strip (also dropping the effective house voltage), etc. If anything drops the house voltage enough, then this “chugging” can occur. It’s due to the motor pulling more current on the push cycles of its rotation and the voltage for that momentarily higher demand falls and isn’t available when the motor is at peak demands. It can also be caused by the filter being run for long periods on lower voltage outlets or if a filter has been dormant for a very long time. Long term operation at less than 120v can deform the capacitors and make them less efficient and cause this chugging. But that chugging will go away if you feed that FX6 with about 130vac vs 120vac normal house current. Often, you’ll find the outlet with a chugging filter will have a voltage drop and read perhaps 105-115v from the drop caused by other loads or that circuit in your house. However, a chugging filter can sometimes be “fixed” by operating it at a slightly higher voltage for 2-3 days. I’ve repaired two such chugging FX6 motors in this way. The capacitors in the motor’s power supply tend to assume an internal shape over time from either running at a lower than optimal voltage or if left dormant for months or years. When this happens, the capacitors become less efficient at higher voltages and the overall power to the motor suffers a voltage loss. This contributes to the low voltage chugging problem, but often the capacitors may be ‘revived’ by a technique called “forming”. A Variac is an autotransformer that can supply typically 130v up or to 150v and any value below this. By plugging the filter into a Variac and running it at 130v or as high as 140v, it “reforms” the capacitors in the motor’s power supply to perform at higher voltages making them perform more efficiently. Flow improves, noise drops, chugging stops and it uses significantly less house power. I would guess that the Fluval was designed in the 240vac configuration and was converted for American house currents (120V). That would suggest the voltage regulators powering the motor are designed for 240/120 and many American households have less than 120v available on the wall and so that can destabilize the voltage regulation. The room I have my system in has such a voltage drop. Only about 112v is available so I use a Variac to power my filters and the flow is strong, smooth, linear and consistent. VARIAC Since I have six FX6's, I use only one Variac for all 6 such that it made the addition of the Variac worthwhile. Otherwise, a $70 Variac per FX6 could make one think otherwise. Still, in hindsight, I wonder if a decent pond canister would have been better. They are less than half the price of an FX6 with potentially enormous GPH’s. The submersible pump makes me nervous, but you can’t beat the $/GPH. POND CANISTER

Thanks @Chick-In-Of-TheSea. @anya it depends on your preferences l and what is available. Sorry on the slight delay: I feed variety as much as possible to avoid nutritional deficencies and keep puffers enriched and willing to eat new foods and use varied feeding strategies. My personal experience is if my hairys are conditioned to a feeding schedule of easy meals they wont go out of their way to actively hunt mid and top water fish that are fast and aware....but they will set ambushes in prefered locations if the fish happens to swim into it its food. Some will bait their ambush with a piece of food to lure a fish in. Ive found they each have different food preferences by individual puffer . I do earthworms, frozen tilapia strips, livebearer culls, and the rest of my below list for hairys. I have never personally seen the issue with lockjaw from thiaminase rich food. I feed a variety of food to all my puffers including hairys and i use vitamen supplements (vita chem) so that might be helping prevent the vitamin deficency thiaminase is reported to cause. Frozen 50% of diet +/- Frozen strips of tilapia ( i freeze with 6 or so drops of vitachem and a drop of garlic guard per strip) Frozen krill ( i freeze with two squirts or so of vitachem and a few drops of garlic guard per flat ) Frozen raw crayfish ( i recieve frozen and repack with 6 or so drops of vitachem and a drop of garlic guard per crayfish) The tilapia has mostly replaced the krill due to easy of prep, easy of purchase, and a closer to nature food source for an ambush puffer. Live foods 40% of diet +/- Earthworms - cultured here on organic greens in a worm farm in the fishroom snails : cultured and fed with repashy gel foods, extreme fish food, and organic vegetables. Cull livebearers: from other tanks cultured and fed with repashy gel foods, extreme fish food, and organic vegetables or polycultured livebearers in their tanks why are feeding off of the cleanliness of puffers feeding Fresh (not alive) 10% of diet Dubia roaches, crickets, superworms, soldierfly larvae ( ecofresh currently)

Yeah. It should be great. That one betta was just a bit aggressive or curious. I put him into a tank full of platys, after a while he thought he was a platy. He’d never seen any other fish. 😀

@jo1414 I sell fire red males whenever I have more males than females. I'm in the process of trying to spawn more now. If you don't find one in the next few months, PM me and I'll send one your way.

How do they wink at their mates before spawning?

In this tank, I've been experimenting with lava rock aquascape, breeding guppys, and taking care of bumble bee gobys. This tank is also home to a small sparkling gourami I recently got. I'm planning on upgrading to a 5.5 gallon tank. This tank currently holds one very small bumble bee goby, one sparkling gourami, and a single feeder guppy (planning on trying to breed it soon).

So,my tank has no live plants but they are coming tomorrow from AC. At least the Java fern. The anubius nana is coming day after tomorrow and some easy green as well. Anyways I just tested ammonia and nitrite after dosing 2 ppm ammonia (40 drops of the dr Tim’s ammonia). This is theSECOND time dosing as btw on the final stages of the cycle with nitrates present btw. Ammonia is 1 ppm with nitrite like..3 or 4 ppm!!!😫I was wondering if possibly the ammonia dr Tim’s ammonia I am using I am overdosing even though..it says 4 drops per gallon I know but should I do 1 drop and see what happens??? I am doing 40 drops because it is a 10 gal…..PLEASE HELP..I WILL ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT ANYTHING!!!!😔

I have a 10 gallon and 5.5 gallon tank. The 10 gallon is home to a betta nerite snail, and the 5.5 gallon currently has nothing but a few plants. Both tanks have been set up for a minimum of 6 months, but the 10 gallon going since about a year. In the 5.5 gallon I have diatoms. Everywhere on everything, so thick sometimes I can't even see into the tank. I do water changes weekly, about probably 20%. The tank is cycled. It's been cycled for months. The parameters are normal, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and 0 nitrates. Everything I've read about diatoms is that they will go away after the tank is established. They will not go away. I added some phosguard and purigen to the bettaflo filter (I also have a small sponge filter going to help with water agitation since the filter flow on the bettaflo is very minimal), but it hasn't helped at all. I have a crested java fern and a couple rosette swords (the swords are not rooting for some reason, even though it's been a few months since they were added) planted in the tank, as well as frogbit, salvinia, and duckweed floating at the top. The plants don't see to be rooting, I use fluval stratum substrate, and I dose weekly with about a half pumps worth of easy green fertilizer. The frogbit's roots in this tank grow insanely fast. In about a week, some of the roots grow to a foot long, and do it again the next week after I've trimmed them very short. But all of the floaters look really healthy and grow very fast. They are on a light timer for about 6 hours a day, medium light. When I do water changes, I just use a small airline tube so I can directly suck out as much of the diatoms as I can, it takes like an hour. I have been refilling the tank with distilled water because I don't have an RO filter, and the tap water here is high in phosphate. In the 10 gallon my plants are struggling to grow and live and thrive. I've got several rosette swords, an amazon sword, a few small mystery plants, and an anubias. I've tried green cabomba and pogostemon stellatus in the tank, but they died within a month or two of being in the tank. I do about 10-20% water changes weekly-- I siphon out the old water into a bucket, take a sponge and wipe down algae from the sides of the tank, and then take a toothbrush to try and brush the algae off of the plant leaves because there is a green algae that is constantly coating all of the leaves in the tank, some worse than others (it was really bad on the cabomba and pogo). The plants are rooted nicely. However, the floaters in this tank are doing worse than the ones in my 5.5 gallon. The roots don't hardly grow at all, and they seem to brown and die really fast, as well as develop holes on the leaves. Both the tanks have lids, but as the 5.5 gallon isn't bothered by this I don't see why that would affect the ones in the 10 gallon, unless the condensation is different on the lid for that and drips more? I never notice a lot of condensation on the top of the lid. I dose about 1 pump one to two times a week of easy green. I also have a sponge filter with a compartment for phosguard and purigen. The light timer for this one is more advanced so I have it set up to mimic natural light, but it's also only on for about 6-7 hours a day, medium-high light. I'm very frustrated because I want to really make these tanks look nice, but I feel too defeated between the algae, diatoms, and dying plants, to bother with it and have on many occasions thought of selling both tanks, my fish, and all of my supplies and it's only the sunk cost fallacy that has stopped me, but I dread to think I could need to spend hundreds of dollars more attempting other ways to resolve these issues, only to have them fail as well. Any knowledge and advice would be appreciated, happy to answer any questions.

What size of tank do I need for two comet goldfish?

Hello, I have a highly planted community tank. It has been established for 9 months. Water parameters are stable at: Ph 7.6- 7.8 Ammonia 0 Nitrite 0 Nitrate 30-40 Hardness hard 300+ Buffer high Temp 75 degrees I change roughly 15 to 20% water every 2- 3 weeks or so, testing water with aquarium coop multi strips and Api master test kit (for comparisons) weekly. About two months ago, I noticed a fish flashing repeatedly a few times every hour, a few days later more fish started. After researching a bit, I figured it was flukes so I treated with paracleanse. The issue went away for a couple weeks, then slowly returned. I read I may have to treat 2- 3 rounds, so I treated a second round with paracleanse. Issue resolved for a week, then some flashing started again. I waited the two week period from the last dose and treated a third time with paracleanse. Today was day 5 of the treatment, and I just did the 15% water change. A few fish were already flashing, and some were flashing throughout this last treatment. Is this not flukes? What else could it be? If it is flukes, is there a stronger treatment? There are zero visual issues or signs of disease. I also have shrimp, snails, and scaleless fish, so it needs to be safe for all. Also, not sure if it matters but, after the 2nd round of paracleanse, my betta had a tear in his fin, so I treated with maracyn. Since I had just treated with paracleanse, I'm not sure it had an effect on the flashing since it came back anyway.

I tested my tap when I started the tank, as well as every few months. The tap water has not changed. They all used to be in ph 8.0- 8.2 with no issues, when I started the tank. I rescaped my tank with fluval stratum 4 months ago, which brought the ph down. The gh, kh and ph have stayed the same (noted above) since I rescaped. Before I rescaped, the only difference was the ph was higher, but they all did well. I have a betta, honey gourami, neon tetras, porkchop rasboras, a siamese algae eater, a hillstream loach, wood shrimp and snails. The loach is the one I see it doing the least.

I have over 600 images of Murphy spanning the last 3 or so years, if there is any interest in a compilation of the life of of this wonderful beast.

Murphy has gone to his Fathers in Clamhalla. He fought to the end. This is the last healthy image I have of him, mere minutes from the end:

The right side has either an anubius nano or an anubius barteri (they were the same size when i bought them so i dont know which is which) and a bucephalandra brownie.

This was from TC, and that entire bunch is only about half of what I had (after ~2 years). I'm selling the other half this week. Buce does so much better when it's planted in the substrate!

should be fine.

I would most definitely be interested any input is totally welcome

This is MY OPINION: In my opinion the instructions are too much. *I* Use the dosage 1 drop per gallon. I go to measure the amount of ammonia then I check 24 hours. I once tried 4 drops per gallon but I could not ever get a tank to cycle with that dosage. Think about it, Is your fish really going to mess the tank soooo much over night to equate to 4 drops per gallon? NOPE. More realistic is 1 drop per gallon. Unless you plan on WAY overstocking your tank, I believe the instructions are wrong. If you do manage to get the tank to cycle with 4 drops per gallon, and you stock your tank with fish that don't give out equiv of 4 drops of ammonia per gal, you will have a BB crash because they will not be getting enough food. When I do 1 drop per gallon and if I can dose that each day and 24 hours later, I get 0's on all tests except nitrate, I'm good to go. I then SLOWLY add fish to my tank. (As in, add 3-4 fish, let it sit for a week, then add 3-4 more, etc..) just to make sure bioload isn't exceeded. *** Thats my experience and opinion *** PS : I've fishless cycled a tank with plants in it, plants love the Ammonia & Nitrite. Plants are good to go.

Do you think the snails are getting enough food? If the tank is pretty clean they might just be hungry and looking for another place to chow down?

Yup, ammonia, ammonia, ammonia. Add some and test. Wait for things to get back to zero...

I attempted to breed a crowntail female with a samurai male it didn't work out I tried with a different pair this time an alien female with a samurai male I conditioned them I released the female he was dancing and casually chasing her a bit then all a sudden they stopped he made a huge bubble nest they're not mating they aren't fighting they're just chilling in the tank together swimming directly by each other with no issues I am very confused on what is going on help 😅

About 55 gallons. They get to be over a foot long.

Both of my bettas have been in 5 gallon tanks with a nerite snail and never have bothered or cared about the snail. 🙂 They ignore each other equally.

I vacuum it in the 5.5 gallon because the top layer of gravel is basically all diatoms, so I try to get the diatoms off. I used to vacuum the gravel in the 10 gallon, but apparently in a planted tank that's not necessary since it's supposed to act as fertilizer. For some reason I thought very few creatures had any interest in eating diatoms, but I'll get some more nerites and see if that helps at all. There's just so many diatoms I don't think even 20 nerites could eat it all before it grows back haha. Thanks

These are pretty bad shots, and as you can see, I don't really scape my breeding tanks. So, they aren't the most attractive setups. But these setups -- to me at least -- balance sparseness (to keep them clean and make them easy to service) and have enough structures to make the fish feel safe and secure. My display tank in my home office is much nicer, but I don't have any apistos in it.

I’d give it another shot of fish food and see if you get ammonia or nitrate in a day or two if not add the fish just keep a close eye on your levels after adding the fish

A bacteria starter and I sprinkled some fish food to break down for ammonia. It would take me some effort to get it bottled unfortunately since my closest pet stores are big box locations.

Glad you posted; i was pretty convenience it was mechanical and not an air leak but had no clue about the how the motor functioned - which is complicated by the logic to pump out air. I will note the problem started after i moved so your explanation makes a lot of sense - i also had other devices on these cheap ge protector fail (a heater and light) but at the time i did not think it was a direct problem with the protector since it was also a new house - i've been getting a little flicker on led bulbs and now i wonder if it is also a voltage issue. As for ac/heat - well it has geo thermal which reduces the current surge in that area. The electrician has to come out next week to finish up some odds and end and i've asked him to bring a volt meter with him so we can track some of this down - it is unclear to me if is the house wiring or just the surge protector. Also i don't consider a 5 minute test definitive so as I noted i'll post back in a few days if the problem comes back. To be honest if it is a problem with the fx6; i liked the idea of that pond filter. The pump in the tank is a bit of an issue unless i can think of a clever way to cover it so frys and stuff and can't get into it; but overall it is a much cleaner design. I've been using jeabo pumps with my sump and i wonder if i could rig something up - basically a canister filter is just a sump that is a sealed box - there is no reason the pump can't go inside an acryalic box that is sealed with bulkhead - the only part is how to make the lid water tight sealed when close. Hum - anyone have a 30 gallon square jar 😉

Yes he did build a bubble nest but it didn't seem to matter

Take me to your leader! 👽

Yes.🙂

Nice! Cool tank + your hairy puffer!

Did he build a bubblenest? I have been successful (finally) breeding Bettas, and am happy to share my setup if you’re interested.

Last night I put in 4 drops of ammonia and tested the tank. It read 0.25ppm Ammonia, 0.1ish Nitriate and 5ppm Nitrate (Then went to bed). Today I just checked the small tank, got 0ppm Ammonia, 0ppm Nitrite, and 5ppm of Nitrate. Looks like it took two weeks to cycle with a "seasoned" sponge filter from a well established tank. I'd say, never trust just a sponge filter to "instant" cycle a tank. This is the first time I tried to "Instant" cycle a tank with a sponge filter and it didn't quite work out to be instant for me. In the past, I had a 60 gallon tank crack, I replaced that tank with a 40 gallon breeder. I moved all my plants, put in NEW pool filter sand, and my season Fluval 306 filter. On that tank, it instant cycled with all my fish. (I had no choice on that one because the 60 cracked). I checked that tanks water religiously for a good 3 weeks. My theory is that the motorized canister filter just turned over the tank much more. The sponge filter just couldn't turn over the 5 gallon aquarium over fast enough. Who knows. I just knew I wasn't going to throw fish into the new tank with a seasoned sponge filter until the water conditions were correct. Everyone on the net has said that throwing in a sponge filter into a new tank instant cycles it. Thru my own personal experience, I would say this is not the case. You should check your water daily as it may or may not "instant" cycle your tank. My medium sized aquarium coop sponge filter that was in my seasoned tank for over a year, took two weeks to cycle my new 5.5 gallon aquarium. Just be careful guys 🙂

Cleaned up the glass on the spotted congo puffer adult colony 40 breeder ....then gave them a bit of a MTS and ramshorn meal Also cleaned off the front glass of the 270 pond for the hold back cross river and his large colony of cuban limia. Probugs ecofresh dubia roaches are a hit with this puffer. The superworm version and soldier fly version also are eaten.

That's incredibly nice. I have some flat slate pieces, but superglue and polyester sewing thread just didn't work. This spiderwood is just beautiful to me, but it floats forever 😵‍💫 Let me PM you and you can reply at your leisure. Thanks a million.

Sometimes whining does help, gets it out of your system. 😉 Cabin fever is definitely frustrating. My hubby gets it after about 20 minutes. 😆 I’m such a bookworm and homebody it would probably take me 20 days. 😆 🤣 I had the offending wood bits fully submerged under bricks for a few months at first, then once moved to the tank, fastened to rocks for about a year all together. Cut the zip ties (surely they’re water logged now?) and up they went. They are now fastened to slate. The next time I had wood that didn’t sink when I was ready for it to be sunk, I went straight to fastening it to slate. Plus I needed those pieces to stand upright to get the effect I wanted. I’m now a big fan of fastening to slate unless the wood sinks fast and I only want it to lay down. Otherwise slate, a concrete / masonry drill bit, a pilot hole, and stainless steel wood screws are my best friend. 😝 You’re in DFW, right? If you want, hubby and I can help you attach it to slate. I even have slate we can use.

I hatched the smaller Sam Francisco brine shrimp today. Babies have little orange BBS bellies 🥰