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Made a quick little video of the HOB topper made from scratch. Hope you like it.

Well, I’ve settled on Congo Tetra, Praecox Rainbowfish, lemon Tetra, Albino Cory and a (newly purchased) Longfin Blue Eyed Lemon Bristlenose Pleco bred by @Guppysnail. I can hardly wait Yeah. I’ve gotten do much enjoyment out of my 29g over the past 2 years… but felt it was time to go bigger!

What's up fish geeks and aquarium peeps? I just joined the forums from Sacramento CA. I look forward to seeing what you all have going on and learning from the seasoned vets in the group. Currently I have three tanks. A 30, 20 and a 10 Gallon. This is my 30. I'm using Fluval Stratum substrate and dose Easy Green twice a week and makeshift CO2 from a Soda Stream. Home to Big Mama Molly. Several platy, a few tetras and three guppies. This is my 10 gallon. Started off as a quarantine tank and got out of control from there. Fluval Stratum under the gravel and dose Easy Green twice a week. Currently this tank is home to 7 baby platy that will be moved to the 20 gallon soon along with a few fish from the 30. Up top we have some Pathos, Philodendron and Calathea makoyana. I got tired of looking at my hang on back filter, so I built this little cabin out of craft wood to cover it. It easily slips off for maintenance. I even made a little boat. It's not in the first picture because the guy that rents out the cabin is out fishing. I even found these tiny Christmas lights at Rite Aid that worked out perfectly. Here is my 20. Just started a week ago, so no live stock yet. Except for a few snails I dropped in. Again with the Fluval Stratum. I also bought a new HOB for my 30 and put the old one on here to jump start the cycle. These plants all came out of the other tank and I just got a shipment from Buceplant today. Can't wait to see what you all are doing. See ya round!

Angry man knows I’m wanting to steal his eggs. Momma stole eggs Interestingly the first batch the girl ate on one of her turns to watch the eggs. This batch he chased her away since yesterday. She was allowed no turns egg sitting. I feel bad taking his eggs but I know she will eventually gobble the wigglers. He is very interesting to watch. He spends 2 hours after they are laid going back over making certain every egg is fertilized. Throughout his fanning he sweeps the eggs with his pelvic fins and rolls sideways to sweep the eggs with his pectorals.

Got the background painted on my 75g tank (took 5 coats) and rinsed 60lbs of aquarium sand. Fun times

Im so excited but sooo underestimated how much going bigger would cost… not just the tank and stand… but the bigger the tank, the bigger the Filter = $$$, bigger heater, air pump, lighting, more substrate , hardscape and Plants! I don’t know what I was thinking and hadn’t really thought about that part until AFTER the tank and stand were purchased 😂. Still… I’m just enjoying the process. After buying FISH, I’ll be broke, but I’ll enjoy the tank… cuz that’s all I’ll be able to afford to do! 😂😂😂 (just kidding. I saved up for this)

Probably not necessary but, If you want some piece of mind so you can sleep better, you could get a piece of plywood cut to the exact size or a bit larger. Then paint it black to match. I'm basing my opinion on the overhang built into the top of the stand, the size of the plastic tank rim vs the size of the actual glass. Looks ok to me. The glass is 100% supported from what I can see. If you end up with 75 gallons of water on the floor, please let us know! LOL!

Nice disclaimer 😂. I take full responsibility for my actions and decisions!

Yeah, if it’s only an eight inch on each ends, you should be more than good. Don’t think I’d worry about it. With the understanding I’ve been wrong before, but I think you’re okay

Baby Shrimpies everywhere! Gonna need some help counting them! Let's count the eyes and divide by two.....

These are pretty decent numbers for neocaradina, they will appreciate the amount of calcium in it. Higher kh would be better. But this works. Will work well for most of your fish as well. Be cautious about wild caught, soft water fish. Everything else should be good. The thing that most people forget, the guides you see for ph kh gh ranges are for wild caught animals. Most tank raised or farm raised animals are used to much harder water. Especially farm raised animals.

Final Betta splendens breeding project video. I’m giving these away to friends this week…

Hello, this is my journal to track all of my fish keeping adventures. I just started off, but hope to grow this year. I have a few goldfish: a ryukin, a ranchu, and about nine comets that were meant to be feeders for my turtle. I will likely have to sell the comets, as I don't have enough room for them since they are getting bigger. I also have four guppy fry, a minnow, and a turtle. My setups are a 75 gal for my fancies, a 55 gal with my turtle, comets, and minnow, and a ten gallon for the guppy fry. Pictures of my fish: I plan to become a breeder, primarily of goldfish.

So I purchased the tank and stand separately, but the tank it just a hair wider than the stand on both sides and need to know if this will be an issue? 75g Aqueon Tank and Topfin 55g/75g stand

I think it’ll be ok. I have a natural tendency to way overthink things. Besides, I rinsed 60lbs of sand and already put it in the tank. I am not taking all of that back out, LOL Sticker shock, for sure. But, I squirreled money away to do this and I kinda knew it was gonna be a big chunk. But… it’s gonna be so worth it when all is said and done.

@Whitecloud09 @JosiahBass No change in the red spot. I am seeing him drag his fin in that spot across the gravel a lot. His tail has gotten huge since he healed from fin rot the first time! Could that cause the red spot? Should I add aquarium salt as a precaution, or just continue to watch him? His water parameters are the same as above. Thanks again!

there is definately a shock when you see just how much substrate you end up wanting to look good, etc.

Just noticed you put you don't have a test I would get some 5-1 test strips and ammonia tests strips or the API test kit as @Whitecloud09

If you don’t have a testing kit, I suggest the API test kit, guppies can be kinda sensitive to certain water paremeters like bettas, or at least could you get a ammonia test kit @Guupy42?

Thanks @Guppysnail. And you're right, it is embarrassing, and I was frustrated and embarrassed. I did leave this hobby, twice. Thought about leaving several other times too. I so hope this tells the story of a newcomer stumbling along until, they finally "start" to get it right. Still have a long way to do. That was idea of this journal's title, I felt like every mistake someone could make while earnestly trying to do it the right way I've done.

lol! I’m gonna chance it. Hopefully all 75g will stay in the tank. 😂 if not… yall will never see me again.

Wow, this tank has changed a lot in a year. It’s now home to 8 exclamation point rasbora.

they will lay eggs regardless of amount of salt, the eggs being viable is a whole nother matter. i dont think just adding a little salt will work well.

It was helpful. Thanks!

@Tony s I understand that, I thought it made sense

Check out planet catfish they a lot of useful information on zebra plecos @Loc Tran

I’d say that from an online retailer I’d expect these kinds of loses. Locally I’d be shocked. In general the younger the shrimp the better they adapt. Sometimes they sell you old shrimp and they can’t cope with another set of parameters. Several months of seasoning the tank could mean 1-2months could be 4 months. I would say that 3 months is minimum to build up enough biofilms and algae’s. Food should be left less than 12 hours. Don’t let rotting food be the end of your colony. In general, underfed is better than over. Gel foods like Repashy work well. Do your know your tds, gH and kH? As you Move forward that could be helpful as you move through your shrimp keeping and try to refine things. I hope this time is the one for you. My own journey was after a long break from the hobby my wife purchased me a Fluval Flex 15 and I just couldn’t keep the cherry neos alive. Turned out I had babies in the filtration section but I did lose quite a few adults as the tank seasoned. At 6-12 months it finally became mature enough for a good colony of shrimp. Honestly my most successful setups have been more leave it and forget it setups - 20 g tub with moss, duckweed and guppy grass did better than my 20 g long that was “ideal.” Or the tank is so big it just can’t fail - my 60 g Orange Sakura tank is like that with 100s of neos. Good Luck and let us know how we can help.

So I haven't posted anything here in a while! The pygmys and embers are all doing well. Somewhere along the way, I lost one ember, and who knows how many pygmy's I have. At yesterday's water change I saw 9, but they have made a cave under a rock and I left it be. Crafty lil buggers. I was away 5 days a week for work for about 6 months. That meant the tanks were getting enough work to stay alive and not much more. And since this tank was stable compared to the 36 gallon parasitic auto-da-fé in my living room, it suffered a bit. Fishies are healthy and well, but the plants are suffering a bit, and the hair algae is getting annoying. Time for a good cleaning or three, some root tabs, and actually remembering to fertilize! I tested iron, and it was basically zero. Gonna see if the tabs and easy green give me enough before dosing iron.

Fun video of my GBR. They were born over a year ago and I only ever named them Boy and Girl. I was sitting in the floor watching the Limia nigrofasciata tank below theirs and they were both side by side staring down at me. His markings look like rectangle eyebrows she does not have those. I swear I saw this when I looked up. I desperately want to get a ceramic rubber ducky decor for their tank now 🤣 They now have been named Bert and Ernie ❤️

Everyone has them, I will make a journal too! I kept fish when I was little, but we ofcourse did it all wrong. Later when I decided to start doing fishkeeping, I did a lot of reading and research. Sometimes it feels like I like the planning and reading more than the actual keeping. My first was a tank my boss had at work in office, which was also completely wrong, but he allowed me to remake it and take care of it for few years and at the end, take it home. I also did the mistake of starting with my own 20 liter, which bought me nothing but grief but also a lot of experience and love for nano fish. In 2012 I purchased my largest tank and since then I slowly graduated to two larger and at this moment four smaller tanks, so I have six 🙂 South American tank, 120x50x60cm. My oldest physical tank, the setup is about 2 years old though I keep meddling in it. It houses top to bottom, 6 hatchet fish, 20 or so ember tetras, 20 rummynose tetras, 4 bolivian rams, 12 sterbai corydoras, 6 otocinclus, several amanos. I sometimes consider adding something, but do not know what Asian tank, running for a year, 110x40x45cm. I am quite satisfied with this, though it is basically only two species because the hillstreams do not work. I feel like it may need something, but not sure what and with all the cloud minnow fry, I am reaching capacity. 20 golden white cloud minnow, 12 normal white cloud minnow, 4 older fry and 9 still doing some growing in another tank. 7 panda garra, one remaining hillstream loach "Window" tank, 60x30x30 cm, it is the one I inherited from my boss free of charge 🙂 It houses my colony of rabbit snails, I only have 2 adults now, but 11 babies that were born in the past year. In August I bought a group of 10 pseudomugil luminatus, which have quickly become my most favorite fish. They also breed and I have several fry of various sizes. Am very curious about their future. I know the pH water params shouldnt work for this combo, but they do. Office tank - 56x25x36 cm, it is a very old tank someone gave me with various chips in the corners, so I live in constant adrenaline state of when it will leak. It houses my 6 clown killifish, I think I saw some fry but they have been in there only since beginning of August. I think later on, when I have some generations, I will consider scarlet badis/tiger badis or some other bottom dweller. Shrimp tank - 40x25x25cm, this is my smallest tank. Houses my red cherry shrimp colony and eight Indostomus Paradoxus, that I have had since this march. They are easy to please but they do not breed for me, not sure if it is the shrimp/snails or something else Cube - 40x40x40cm tank. My last and temporary tank. Or so I say. It is again very very old tank, so I live with constant thrill of waiting for it to leak. This means I am trying to not stock it, but it taunts me with how well the plants are doing with zero light, except its position near window. I set it up quickly in June for my paradise fish, to have it as a solitary. Since then I left my colony of sterbais for over a month in vain attempt to breed, successfully spawned my minnows and now I am playing around with the idea of breeding otocinclus from my south american tank, but I will have to catch them first and since I started considering it, I didnt see a single one. Otherwise I am tempted by the scarlet badis, maybe a betta, honey gourami, pygmy corydoras, so many fish!!! I am trying to stay strong though I will post here if I do something interesting.

Many sources state that Nerite snails breed in saltwater. If I were to add one tablespoon of Aquarium Salt to a 5 gallon aquarium, would the concentration be high enough for the snail to lay eggs if it were a female? I have guppies in my aquarium, and I often use salt to treat fish disease. I have never done it with a Nerite snail in presence, though. I don't want snail eggs all over the aquarium, so I want to make sure that the salt is safe for the snail and won't make it reproduce. Nerite snails only have a single gender, so they shouldn't be able to reproduce by themselves. This is just a theoretical question.

No, not the Discus. Look at the bottom. Beautiful Assassin Snail skewering an earthworm piece just added 🪱

I'm wondering if anyone else uses Easy Green fertilizer for plants other than aquarium plants. For instance, at Christmas I put a few drops in the the water of our live tree stand, and on Valentines day I put a drop in a vase with the roses I gave my wife. I also put a drop in my squirt bottle I use to mist my terrestrial plants and water my terrarium which is usually filled with recycled tank water. Don't know if it's actually doing anything, but I don't think it would hurt. Has anyone tried this or something similar? What are your long term results? If you haven't tried it, what are your thoughts?

Thanks @Colu. Yeah I have pretty hard city tap water and occasionally will do some monitoring in my tanks just to see how things change between water changes. Everything is pretty stable as kH is pretty high. PH starts close to 8 out of the tap but never will drop below 7.6. It usually hovers around 7.8 in all tanks with very little variation. As for gH and kH it is somewhat seasonal but will be 12-15 gH (higher in dry season) and around 7-8 for kH. The fish will look like this when they are in their less active periods (big guy towards the top). I'll see how things go for a bit after I finish treatment today. Thank you for your help! You are a great resource for this forum.

@Guupy42 no they can’t succeed in breeding in a tank with a little bit of salt, they are required to have brackish water tank to breed, that is why they are good snails if you do not want babies everywhere, hope this helps 🙂

@Whitecloud09What I meant was that each snail has a specific gender, and can't change throughout their lifetime. Thank you for the clarification of the fact that they can still lay eggs, I never knew that. The question is that if aquarium salt will be enough to make eggs hatch, if there are any present.

Uselly I just take the cartridge out and leave it out, and actually the water is not nasty, and I do medications and then pop a new one in and the tank for some reason is crystal clear @Colu, thanks will start this morning 🙂

My assasin snails completely took out my bladder snail colony over 6 months ago in my 29. They are still reproducing and thriving eating mostly white and grindle worms. Kudos to the ambition this guy has attacking such a large feast.

Maintenance day. I also decided to make a cube box into a breeding box for the clown killifish. I put an airstone, a java moss clump and just a male for now ,for two days lets say, and then I will add a female. And will see. will do some water changes I also tried to de-algae the clownkillifish/dario tank, checked for fry, none, fed cut frozen blooworms and live microworms. The darios look good, but I only see four. Three on the left side, surface, hornwort, botom. One for sure on the right side, male, above the sponge filter. Fifth is a random hidden, under filter or somewhere on the right side, they will sometimes chase each other with the other male. Overall the darios are cute, but slow, and so far not overly interresting. I believe it will come I keep seeing my kuhli loaches, three on the bottom, two on top in the leaves. they are not hidden, they are fun. I need more!!!

Your acclimation method seems right on to me. I had several die when I first added my cherry shrimp. I chalk it up to water parameters being different and stress. Still, enough did survive and took hold. Three and a half years later I have more than I know what do with and they’re the hardiest things in my tank. My advice, stay positive and keep up the good work. You got this. Sorry, some specifics. I mail ordered a dozen, I think I lost half. Mail ordered 10 more. Seemed like only 3 survived since I had a well planted tank already and I hardly ever saw them for the first couple months. But I now know they were there and multiplying fast.

I hope you understood what I was trying to say, cause that was completely word salad

You can get carbon sponges or pellets that you put in a media bag in your filter if it say it has active carbon remove and replace with a normal sponge pad

I'm not an expert on ghost shrimp but I have heard that the common name "ghost shrimp" actually refers to many species of grass shrimp and I don't think they particularly need it warm. Also I am now remembering that some of them can be quite aggressive and possibly predatory... IDK maybe they are eating the fish

This makes sense to some extent. It depends on what stage the plant is in at the moment. Aquarium plants are Usually grown with their roots submerged but their leaves out of the water (emersion grown). other plants are grown submerged completely in water. Emersion grown plants are air breathing still, and when submerged they must be converted to submerged leaves . Usually by dying back completely and growing new leaves. By putting the plastic over the tank they’re just converting the tank into a terrarium to conserve moisture. Giving the roots a bit of a chance to develop before attempting full submersion. It gives them a bit more energy to draw upon when converting. Less chance for plant failures. now if you already have fully submerged plants, this will work in reverse and cause the plant to try to re adapt to air growth. Draining energy from them twice, cause then you’re going to resubmerge them again. if you knew what stage they’re in, you could do the terrarium growth. But tissue cultures may already be converted. So that wouldn’t be helpful to you.

I would treat hole in head the first with metroplex ammonia harmful even at low levels if your seeing any ammonia I would do a water change and add a double dose of prime to help detoxify any ammonia till it constantly read zero with white stringy poop it's doesn't mean there's parasite it can be poop with no food in it just the mucus lining @Fishlover

Got some video of the boy trying to coax the girls into the spawn mop.

P.S. You know you live in New England when your 20 gallon tank needs 200 Watts of heaters to stay warm in the winter... Still cheaper than oil.

I've got 2 of those and have never seen it actually glow. That would be concerning to me. Do you have a thermometer to check the temp?

my heater glows red when it is on/heating. I would assume that's why its glowing red also to note I can't tell if it is the coils that are red or my other statement, I found this on Google too

You can treat any plant with reverse respiration and make them snail free.