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mine isn't super old but it's been up for 4 months. Still figuring things out.

These three I setup around October - December 2022: 75g 29g 40g

Just setting up my 75g tank. Got the equipment in, the sand and hardscape. Just waiting on plants to arrive and my light (which got lost in transit and had to reorder.. fun stuff). But, here it is so far

Finally added some actual fish. I have 12 rasboras in there now.

Thank you, truly thank you. I had not yet cried for them. I wanted to but couldn't. Your beautiful words gave me peace.

Amazing video of a native frog on Vancouver Island. I have seen the out of water migration of these frogs as they come out on the road, frogs everywhere, just heartbreaking that many get squished by vehicles.

Yes it is, Pearl weed is hiding back there too

Yes, yellow means no ammonia, u should be fine, I would not stress it but if u want clarification u can get the API master test kit if u want.

I believe that yellow (original color) means no ammonia:

Welcome to the group. Thank you for your openness 😀 If you are planning on stocking the thirty gallon with ten pygmies and the gourami you will not be overstocked in fact you could probably have another kind of fish if you wanted. Something small and peaceful though pygmies don't prefer large tank mates. There is a site called aqadvisor that you can use to give you an idea of whether you tank is overstocked. To answer you question on the honey gourami I have never kept them but have consistently heard that they are quite peaceful so they should be fine. Sorry this is such a long response hopefully answered some of your questions. I can't wait to see you around the forum and pictures of your tank.

@cmo1922 Believe it or not my caridina shrimp are pretty hardy in a wide range of water params (I've had them in tanks with a 9dGH and 300+ TDS). Likewise, I've had my neocaridina in my caridina tanks. The common factor for all these tanks is the Ph, which sits around 6.4 out of my tap, and also when I make RO and use a buffering substrate. My neocaridina are rock solid in that environment. The only problem with the above is that my CRS never ever breed in my tap water, even though that are as content as can be living in it. In general, all shrimp (caridina and neos) need a dGH between 6 - 9. That's another commonality amongst the types. Of course, my shrimp have been in my water params for many many generations, so it's highly probable they have grown very tolerant of it over time. More unsolicited shrimpy pics! (I know, I've posted these to the forum before. I need to take more/newer pics!)

Nope. I've been keeping a line of crystal reds for a bunch of years now and have spawned literally thousands of them. I feed them the following -- Canned green beans (their main food) Stuff my plecos don't finish (zucchini, sweet potato, cucumber, etc) Left over spirulina flake (food my fish don't like) Decomposing oak leaves from some of my blackwater tanks (I get these from my yard during autumn raking) Dirty plants from other tanks covered in algae and gunk (best cleaning service there is) BacterAE (the only commercial food I use because I wanted a powdered food) All of this is to say that you don't really need to go out of your way with special foods or supplements if you don't want to. There is nothing wrong with commercial products, but a lot of vegetables contain enough calcium to keep your shrimp healthy if you don't want to pay for that. Link to list of veggies high in calcium Shrimp are scavengers and opportunists are heart. They would eat pizza crust if I dropped it in the tank (not recommended!) Unsolicited picture of one of my little garbage eaters below. 🙂

To celebrate my entry into graduate school, my wife and I are planning on going up to Washington and making the pilgrimage trip to Aquarium Co-Op in late April for 4 days and 3 nights (not including driving days). Does anyone have any suggestions for other LFS, tourist spots, and restaurants in the area? We’ll be staying in Seattle. We’re also planning on going to the Pacific Bonsai Museum and Seattle Aquarium. All suggestions are welcome!

Quick update: good news is no further losses after the first 48 hrs that i can see, and I see them swimming and eating the biofilm on the plants/tank. Next time I may try a slower drip. thx everyone for the input!

I am by no means an expert. I have added cherry shrimp 3 times and had die off the first 2 times. The third time I did the drip overnight and have no die off. That is what worked for me.

Crush the Krill flake and any other flake you have, baby brine shrimp (live and frozen, I hatch my own, freeze the vast majority, feed whatever is left live, and then use the frozen through the following week until I need to hatch more), and nano pellets are all you need. I feed that mix to all of my tanks, and even my Angelfish munch down on the nano pellets and crushed flake. Repashy should end up like jello like @lefty o said. Pretty sure you use boiling water. I have a jar of Repashy somewhere, but only ever made it like twice, and I’m pretty sure you use boiling water to activate it, just like jello

This is my 3.5 gallon beta tank This is the only tank that looks decent right now. My others are being redone or cycling

for a 30g, no. If anything, that's way understocked. But it's also a good place to start. In a 30g Id start with the gourami. and i think I'd give him maybe 2 more gourami friends. they like to be a bit social. and then wait a couple of weeks to add your pygmies. that way you don't overload your cycle. Id absolutely play with aqadvisor.com for now or just be looking a honey gourami tank mates on google. or pygmy tank mates for that matter. you have a ton of time. and sometimes waiting and planning and anticipating is the most fun of all.

Nice to meet you! I also suffer from anxiety a-lot! Especially after having children and fish keeping has been a major help for that! This forum has been so helpful and great and it’s nice to chat with people who like the same things you do! I posted the first time in awhile today and was met with helpful and kind responses so this is a great and safe place!

@ktk4beees I hope you’re feeling better physically. Cool thing about this scenario is that we have another day to figure it out. Keeps it interesting. Also I don’t think it’s fair to you to negotiate your pain for water changes. Take care of yourself and definitely don’t be so hard on yourself. Somehow, metaphorically I think your fish understand and love you.

150 gallon

Welcome to the forum! I also suffer from social anxiety, but more in public than in the keyboard (the internet has brought out my anonymous social butterfly). As for stocking, as @JE47 has mentioned, aqadvisor is a great resource. I use it often.

Ok a couple of pictures: The phone is compensating for the extreme darkness but it makes the image a bit grainy. Yep there is a window behind this aquarium. The 2nd picture shows you how dark it really is as the lights from above try to make it to the bottom but seems to fail. There are quite a few fishes in here if you can find them 😉

Ok……..it is not great sadly but…. There is not really anything to it but there. Pls ignore the fake ones as they are gap filers because I am waiting on new plants from AC.

I have a crippling amount of that, except, apparently not by keyboard. It mostly seems like a very safe space here. so, feel free to speak up and ask questions. Most people are friendly and helpful here. and people that are rude generally will get an earful by members. and welcome!

My newest setup looks like a black box. I suppose i could post a picture and i think i will in about an hour. Would be nice to see if the fishes in it are doing well but kind of hard to see in a black box.... Guess i added one too many leaf.

NO! Your response is great and very very helpful! I will check it out! Thank you so so soso much !!! ^__^

As wonderful a time of year that it is @Guppysnail it's un-nerving to shorten their lifespan... something so unusual should definitely have a detour!

ill double down, i use water softened water in my tanks, and i add salt to the tanks on top of that. never had an issue with my amanos doing this, nor my fish, nor my plants. pretty much every animal on the face of the earth needs some salt in its diet. co-op Cory uses tons of crushed coral, anybody want to guess how much salt is in coral? i dont know the answer, but its more than what a water softener is putting in your water. if you cant taste the salt in your tap water (you should not be able to, if you can, something is wrong with your softener) its not enough to bother anything.

@Whitecloud09 @JosiahBass Thank you so much! Medication has been dispensed. When can I hope to see an improvement? How will I know if I need to adjust anything? He still has some discoloration on the end of his fin. Will the tip of his fin rot off before I see any improvement? I caught it a lot sooner this time (he came with it when I got him before, and I didn’t know what I was looking at right away.) So I’m not sure what to look for from here…it was severe enough last time that any improvement was very very obvious. He's still active, eating, and behaving normally. Thanks again!

EDIT: Although this recipe works ok, I have tested some more, and found out that Agar works best when boiled. Also I suggest using more of it than noted here. A moth ago, I told you guys that I had tried making my own fish food. I have now been using it since, and I feel that it is safe to share with you. I Although it may be daunting, making your own fish food is not that complicated. Making your own fish food, allows you to use fresh human grade materials and fine tune the ingredients to suite your fish. It is also quite affordable! I did some research and got a lot of qualified help to get this recipe for fish food right, but you can change it, depending on your needs and what is available to you. I would not skip the spirulina and kelp though, because this wraps up many of the important nutrients that any fish needs Ingredients 150gr mixed shellfish or shrimp 100gr cod fish 150gr peas 1 garlic clove ½ squash ½ carrot 1 teaspoon Kelp 1 teaspoon Spirulina 1½ teaspoon Agar (ideally more) How to do it Chop the carrot and squash into rough pieces and boil for 5 minutes. You don’t want to boil them but just make them tender. Add the peas and boil a few minutes more. I mostly did this because they were frozen and I wanted them to thaw. If you have a powerful blender, you may not even need this step, as your fish can eat the ingredients raw. I just needed them to soften for my smoothie blender to cope. Add the vegetable, fish (in chunks) and shrimp into the blender. Add 1½ dl of water, as well as the Kelp and Spirulina powder. Blend until you have a lean mix. You may need to add more water if it won’t blend properly. I used some of the water that I boiled the vegetable in. Pour the mix into a pot and heat it up, without boiling. You don’t want to cook the mix, but simply dissolve the Agar powder into it. I used 1½ teaspoons this time, but I will use 2 or 2½ next time, to get a more firm result. Stir for 3-4 minutes and let it cool for 10 minutes (this may vary if you use more Agar, so keep an eye on it). Before it settles, pour into zip lock bags. Make a rolling movement, to get rid of all the air in the bag, before closing it. You can decide the thickness of the final plates, but don’t make them too thick, because they will be harder to break into chunks once frozen. Let the bags cool, until he mixture settles and solidifies into a gel type of texture. Put the bags in the freezer and place them flat until they freeze. When you want to feed your fish, simply break off a chunk, let it thaw and let the fish take bites off it. I used to break it up into smaller pieces, but this resulted in even more loose food floating in the tank. My fish will easily bite chunks off it, and I believe that most fish will be able to do so too. My fish will spend hours cleaning up after feeding time, but will be ready for more food by the end of the day. I feed twice a day, some times changing it up with sinking pellets, or frozen artemia (brine shrimp) or blood worms. Here is a video of my fish enjoying their breakfast this morning

This is so interesting as I’m dealing with almost exactly the same thing…killing my aminos and other shrimp all the time. We’ve discussed this on a different thread (also in this website). I’m trying out the bypass softener idea now and no salt. I’ve talked to a guy that owns a lot of aquariums and 100’s of shrimp and he said that the shrimp don’t tolerate salt. 🤷🏽 he recommended RO water but other people on here have claimed their success with Well water. I’m going to try it and see if my one shrimp lives and if yes I’ll slowly add more again.

Got my very first Pleco today! Longfin Blue Eye Lemon Bristlenose! So tiny and so cute. He’ll eventually move to the new 75g, but he’s gonna live in the 29g Community tank until he grows up!

Grabbed this action shot of the larger cross river going for his frozen raw crayfish.

Totally agree with above. Shrimp are literal garbage disposals and will eat anything and everything. You don't need specific foods to keep them alive. I feed mine fish food and discarded veggie scraps I have 100s. What you do need is to hit the general range of gH kH and pH for the species you are keeping. For neocardina they like harder more alkaline water (that is what I keep because that is what my water is, I don't fight my parameters). If you keep crystals like Tolstoy21 you will want softer water with lower kH and gH and typically more acidic pH. I don't have that water so I don't keep those guys. 😉 If you keep neocardina and your water lacks gH and kH, it may mean you need to add a buffer like seachem alkalinity and gH booster like seachem equilibrium if you want control. Or crushed coral if you want to go cheap as that will help with both gH and kH. I realized from your post you don't mention shrimp species so that is important to know to help you!

Quit using it. As said above test your water parameters. It’s basically a buffer that adds iron, magnesium, and potassium back into the water. Many plant fertilizer and water buffers also accomplishes this so if you do have a low gh from the tap look at gh up or one of the several other water buffers not directly marketed to shrimp keepers. It will be cheaper in the long run. Not to say that this aqueon product is a gimmick but it is very niche. It is meant as a supplement on nano aquaria where dosing water buffers may be rather difficult to measure

Maker Pipe is great for making conduit structures. I'm planning to build a garden trellis with it this season, and upgrade my aquarium stand when I'm able to build my wife the terrarium she has been wanting. https://makerpipe.com/ My shop lights hang on a PVC stand I made a painted black. Not the prettiest, but works! EDIT: Picture of PVC stand

This was a few months ago. To my current plant vomit scape I’m trying to fix 😆

First off, thanks for the compliments! It's my first try, but I am quite happy with the result myself too! In regards to Cod Vs Salmon, I cant tell you for sure. I had a very interesting discussion about this on a different forum, with a user who was really well educated about the nutritional needs of fish. I got banned from there though, it so I can't even thank the person or ask for more details! My guess would be that salmon maybe is very fatty compared to cod, so you get more protein per fat with cod. But I can't say with certainty that his is the case. For sure! If you can control it? You don't really want them cooked as such. I just had to soften them up because of my weak blender. I only have a smoothie blender and not a proper food blender. If your mixer can manage raw veggies, I don't think you'd even need to treat them. At least for goldfish, they will eat it raw and I am sure that smaller fish would too, if it was mixed well enough.

Noise was also a factor for us in our 3 bedroom tanks. In my son's bedroom, we use a nano water pump (Sicce Syncra Nano, very quiet) with an ACO sponge filter, as well as an air pump driven ACO sponge filter. The air pump itself is entombed in a glass vase/jar and sound is cut down by a lot (no buzzing or ticking noise). I posted about them somewhere. Let me know if you want me to link to it, and I will get to it later.

No problem, thanks, I'll look into them!

Do you have any fast growing plants to shade your anubias and consume excess nutrients? Having a tank with numerous plants (fast growers & slow growers) is much easier to be successful with than a tank with just slow growers; which IMO needs a higher level of knowledge to be successful with.

Have you measured phosphate levels in your tank water and source water?

For neocaridina. Gh 7-9. Kh 3-4. Ph neutral to 7.5 tds 200-250. Which can be done with a 50/50 mixture of tap and RO. Without spending $ on a supplement constantly.

I’m asking if she’s pregnant. Lol

Sorry to hear she not doing well If she not eating keep dosing the tank if she not eating and becoming weak it's difficult one you could add some garlic guard to her food to help stimulate her appetite other than that it's a case of wait and see at this point hope she turns a corner

🤨Umm........ Just keep using filter floss. The "planet" will be ok.

Not experienced with those species but proper foods and water changes to remove growth inhibiting hormones, Nitrate for cichlid fry growth. @Mattyd123

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?

Oh, I also want to add something else. Don't listen to those bot articles that tell you to isolate or move her when she's about to have fry. That causes far more issues than it saves. Do this instead: - Provide hiding places, especially near the top. If you don't have any floating plants you can buy fake floating plants or use a floating spawning mop. - Turn the lights down when she starts going into labor. This will lower her stress. - Try to avoid watching her. She needs to feel that she and her babies are safe. A large predator watching her won't help her feel safe. - If needed, remove any male or other fish that is harassing her a lot. Some amount of bugging her is fine but if it goes on too long it will stress her too much. - Provide places for the fry to hide. This can be all over the tank and can come in many forms like decor and plants, either live or fake. The main idea is to reduce her stress as much as possible with as little intervention from us as possible. It's a natural process that doesn't need much messing around except for how the tank is set up. If a female guppy gets too stressed while giving birth she can abort them and reabsorb them or hold them in even until she dies.