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nothing but clouds yesterday, but i did see the one in 1977! back then we had a sheet of paper with a pencil hole to look through.

I witnessed totality in Cleveland OH. It is truly an incredible experience. The darkness and cold air of totality, the 360° sunset, amazing. The ring of fire during totality is incredible. I stared every second I could without glasses, over 4 minutes. I was able to get some pictures with a small Telescope and solar filter. If you're ever close to one it is absolutely worth the trip

Possibly melanotaenia herbertaxelrodi

2 weeks is a blink of an eye in the scope of things. It's also not a good idea to start a tank with only slow growing foreground plants. IMO foreground plants need a support system of other fast growing plants to thrive, they should be planted last after the tank is established. If it were me Id remove large pieces of dead organics by hand and lightly gravel vac the rest. Clean filters and add a good layer of pollyfill (filter floss) as a final stage if possible. This will polish your water & trap incredibly small particules. Dont forget to change this out often, pollyfill is cheap! Get some hornwort in your tank, don't forget to fertilize on a regular basis along with maybe a few fish with a small bio load. I like guppies who seem to pick on anything they see! Don't over feed, they will clean more if you keep them hungry! Adopt a regular maintenance schedule as well, water change, filter cleaning, trimming, ect. Successful planted tanks are grown, this take time, work and patience. They aren't a plug n play hobby like many videos on the youtubes lead you to believe. Also if you populate with guppies watch adding ANY females or you WILL get babies

Every network had a live NASA feed, so I watched on the television! It was just like watching a fireworks show on television! Down here in the corner of the state celestial events are usually blotted out by clouds so I did not plan ahead. Not to worry! Todays morning paper ran a whole section about the eclipse and where I could see it next Monday. It was fun watching the neighbor's security lights and automatic headlights on the cars come on.

Mine was in 1999. nearly every talk show and newspaper had instructions on how to make viewers from cereal boxes.

Yes, saw in it Muncie, indiana. Just about perfect. Little bit of high clouds. About 31/2 minutes of total without glasses. The geese went to sleep. You could still see fine, dark with purplish surroundings. Very cool. First one ever, in 57 years honestly have little words that can describe it. It kind of condenses the cosmos down into where it appears very small and connected. With the moon just hanging there like a purple ball. Understand how that could be addictive. Highly recommend it at least once

Not from experience, but I've learned that a ember tetras work well with bettas. Not sure of water parameters.

Live bearer fry are the King Kongs of the fry world. They come out eating like pigs and grow crazy fast. I’m glad your roommate talked you into being able to get an up close view of the process. WARNING… hand raising fry is so rewarding it’s highly addictive.

Low kh don’t necessarily mean unstable ph my kh is undetectable and it takes weeks before my ph drops so as long as you maintain the tank you’ll be fine your water is more on the soft side as for the stone I’ve never used it but if it’s not effecting your water by now it’s probably not going to

First question, sounds like Algae of some sort. Second question? Yeah thats the 65,000 question…. How to get rid of it…. The most reliable way to get rid of it is to take all of the water out of the tank…. but fish dont do well with that… Lots of ideas and advice all over the internet on controlling algae… The most effective advice I have found is that found on the 2 hr aquarist web site… https://www.2hraquarist.com/blogs/algae-control

I googled dangers and risks of sponge filters but im still confused by this i read on the aquarium coop site. For the circled in red in photo attached, what does it mean fine sponge filters if floating cause lack of oxygen and loss of life? Like the bubbles will stop? I got 2 5 inch width sponge filters for a 75 gal aquarium with one full grown comet goldfish but they sink fine after soaking in a 5 gal bucket. Its been only 8 hours of soaking but is there a risk they might float still?

Dragon fly larvae in the Tadpole tub!

GUYS. Excuse the crappy photos, but FISH BABY! I suspect it’s a pseudogastromyzon, not the gastromyzon, but still exciting!

I’m kind of leaning towards axelrodi because of the color, but the pics I’ve seen, the yellow goes more towards the head. I’m thinking it might be a mix between an axelrodi and a bosemani.

@FLFishChiki think they’re good choices hardy and beautiful. Although diamonds are better! Hahaha! I’m biased as I’ve got a big group and have bred them.

I’d favor Mel. Herbertaxlerodi

That is either a boesemani rainbow or herbertaxelrodi males get the blue orange contrast breeding but otherwise both male and female can look a little drab in non breeding colors See here: photo credit- Jean-Cristoff Avare

Picked some Congo Tetras a few months ago. They are my favorite fish now. Active, good looking, and even eat cichlid pellets that aren’t intended for them.

Pretty cool. Always loved swordtails. Hard to find healthy ones with long swords. Have always liked the original green ones. Have fun. I have a couple cichlid tanks and one guppy tank. Think I like the action and civility of the guppy tank.

if your seeing nitrite you more than likely have ammonia your pH should 7.5 for mollies your KH is to low what I would do is daily water changes and add a double dose of prime to help detoxify any ammonia and nitrite till your nitrite constantly stays at zero I would add crushed coral to your substrate or a media bag to raise your KH and pH you will need to add one pound of crushed coral per 10 gallons i would Also add a small amount of aquarium salt 1 table spoon for 5 gallons just remember to only put back in what you take out so if you do a 5 gallon water change put 1 table spoon of aquarium salt back in as salt only removed though water changes @Pleasetrythefish

Ok, done. Will keep you posted. Thanks a bunch everyone.

I do but I either sand the rough edges down or use aged wood from an older setup that has soften edges, the fish will rub against it chasing each other or lose scales trying to get to food under the edges.

@Whitecloud09 Ok sure, I'll go get something to test the ammonia. I am probably learning all this the hard way hahaha. I do have Nutrafin Plus and Nutrafin Cycle is this the same thing as the Seachem prime conditionner?

Possible mean, gas exchange occurs on the water surface. A large sponge filter floating will reduce the surface area thus reducing gas exchange. Gotta give them a D for that one, no explanation?

Thanks for your input... I have 1 Molly, 1 Mickey Mouse Platty and 3 Neon Tetras. I don't see any aggressivity between any fishes. The Molly is super duper friendly with the Mickey Mouse Platty. Always together. Should I use any medication? Or just water changes? It's a new world for me. Thanks for you help. Huummm I will see if I can get real plants instead but I don't have lots of substrate and don't plan do add more. Any plants in mind? I do have some API pH up, but I am so afraid to use that, any guidelines? And for the hardness, each time I do a water change, it goes down again. It seems impossible to reach a higher level... Or I just don't know how to do it properly?

If you ordered the filters from aquarium co-op this won't be an issue. If your sponge filters have a weighted base or they feel heavy in your hand this won't be an issue. One you have them at the bottom they will be fine.

It does look like a fungal infection. I would try 25% water changes weakly. That would lower your nitrites and help a little with the fungal infection. It might also be an injury, it looks like you have artificial plants in your tank. Those sometimes scratch my fish. Also, what fish do you have in the tank?

I don’t know, it may be your nitrites. Nitrites should be below 1ppm at all times or risk health issues.

I would say this is a case of poor genetics on top of old age. Alot of rainbows get humpback with age, but the crooked spine is genetics.

Hi @TwoFace99, That is correct, it is believed that there is always a "limiting factor" that limits the uptake of nutrients in a tank. Sometimes it is light. Sometimes it is available carbon molecules (that is why CO2 is added to tanks), sometimes it is one nutrient that limits the uptake of the other nutrients and limits the growth of plants. -Roy

Your ph will not fluctuate as long as you have a kh reading. Not sure if you have actual seiryu but most seiryu sold now are actually Ying Stones from China, a type of limestone that will increase both gh and kh (also raises the ph). Your ph is already at 7.5 so I'd say that's not the the acidic side. It will dissolve the limestone at a much slower rate, or not at all. That's probably why you don't see a change in the ph. Icelandic lava rock and yamaya stone are both inert and very similar to Seiryu if ever you're looking for replacements.

Seiryu stone don’t alter kh at all. AFAIK its igneous rock with quartz veins. But im not a geologist. Kh is a buffer to ph. It will absorb swings in ph. Gh is general hardness and is magnesium and calcium. Luckily you can disregard this measure as amazonian fish are well adapted to low-no gh. If you plan on having plants you will have co2 which will lower your ph. But co2 is a weak acid so it doesn’t affect it much. As plants both respire and photosynthesize. Also if you have decaying matter such as wood or leaves your pH will also lower quite a bit.

I remember before living in an apartment without AC in the living room and that's where I had my tank setup. Tank temp got to 85 which was not ideal for my planted tank and stocking. I froze water bottles to float on the tank and also got some mini fans with clips. I did have to top off a lot because I had the an blowing on the water surface tho but that's better than my fish suffering from the heat.

We had about 80-85% here depending on which news source you asked. My 7yo thought it was amazing. My 9yo thought it was super boring. I thought it was interesting, but no where near as cool as totality would be.

That was the google total responses after, we were good. No aches or pains or headaches. Even when you accidentally did look at the wrong time. It just gave you some red spots like normal. I find it funny that it was googles top search afterwards. Since the glasses were very cheap.

The private fish market in Europe is quite challenging, mainly because of shipping. If you can quarantee safe transportation, and have qood quality and/or good quantity, you may be able to sell to the larger fish distributors in your country or maybe even in central distributions in Germany. That said, I have multiple times considering setting up a European community for fishenthusiasts, because we do have very different requirements and products than the (mostly) American based communities

😂 never underestimate the ignorance others

The fry shouldn't be being eaten if they are in a net in the same tank. The only possibilities I see is that the shrimp are falling through the holes in the net.

You can absolutely do this with 4 aquariums. When I kept guppies I had one aquarium for the breeding adults, one for fry, one for juvenile females and one for juvenile males. Worked out great for me, this way I could select the next generation of breeders after seeing them color up and select for the looks I wanted.

Did a water change (from the opposite end of the tank) on these guys today. First day of full free swimming. It's a real treat watching them interact with their fry.

I got Pea Puffers!!!

As a kid I kept batches of tadpoles in large tubs full of water. I would just pop a couple sponge filters in and bring them fresh spring water for water changes. You can find pretty much any of these larvae in vernal pools as well so they aren’t super fussy about water quality. But for whatever reason the tadpoles did not like tap water. Anyway it takes dragonfly nymphs, caddisfly larvae, and even megaloptera nymphs several hours on a rock or grass to pupate and have wings to fly on, so it’s pretty easy to catch them and throw them outside before they fly off!

Ohhh that's cool.

Picture would help, but sounds like a variant of algae. Here are a couple pictures from my tanks the first one is a sword plant with some black beard algae (BBA) and some java fern that had recently been treated with reverse respiration. Basically submerging the plant in carbonated water, and leaving in the them in a dark room overnight. Look here for more information on how to do it: Or ask @Guppysnail she’s an expert.

Patience is the hardest part of keeping an aquarium. You have an immature eco system and will go through the proverbial awkward teenage years. It's also too early (IMO) for co2 unless you started with a good sized plant mass. If you do not have a large plant mass, that co2 is only going to grow lots of healthy algae. At this point of the game I'd get a good cleanup crew (otos and nerite snails) some easy fast growing plants to help improve water quality and give the tank time to build beneficial bacteria colonizes.

Started a bench for watching my tank

All the eggs that we pulled and put in the meth blue don’t look viable, they may not of been fertilized but we’ll try again. Took some photos of our shrimp this morning.

The angelfish spawned again and we pulled the eggs to see if we have better luck.