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I’ve been using this black bio sponge media for the inside of my aquarium as filtering media, but the outtake sponge was suddenly missing, I didn’t know what to do so I thought of the best thing I took out some of my black sponge, small piece, poker hole and put it on my outtake. Looks like a charm1

A quick update on this. I went with the alternative Co-Op website recommendation of trimming it, and planting it as a 'bunch'. Added an airstone to the tank, and....poof! THRIVING

So that was easier than anticipated. I don’t know if these are gastromyzon or pseudogastromyzon, and I discovered them because I disturbed them while vacuuming the gravel! I had not even entertained the possibility that there could be fry yet. Hopefully I didn’t suck up any. It seems more likely they are pseudogastromyzon, since there are more records of those breeding in captivity, but I can’t find pics online of either at this stage so who knows? They’re about 4mm, and hanging out under the sponge covering the filter intake, so very high flow area. Food and waste also collect there. That end of the tank is also likely a little warmer, as the larger filter generates some heat. Room temp is around 70F, tank is probably a degree or two warmer due to the filter - did I mention I wasn’t watching this all that closely yet? I only have dipstick readings, I just did a water change, and I was trying to get the pH and mineral content in general up, since that seems to be key to keeping these guys happy. Per my dipsticks, pH 6.8 - 7, GH 25, KH 40, TA 40 - but again, those are all lower than intended and lower than I had been keeping the tank / the quarantine tank they were in before generally. Based on what I sucked out of the gravel and the presence of detritus worms, I was overfeeding, plus *so many bladder snails* all pooping, so that was messing things up. The adults getting mostly spirulina flakes, and frozen daphnia a couple times a week. Algae is just starting to take off in the tank, no idea on species - some mossy stuff, some hairy stuff. Tank was infused with whatever random infusoria I’ve been culturing from a local pond, the microscope I ordered from Amazon sucked and is being returned, so again I am clueless, but I can see cyclops and there were scuds in the culture jar. I didn’t introduce any visible scuds and haven’t seen any, but microscopic fry are a possibility. There are an abundance of bladder snails, breeding as they do, so plenty of newly hatched snails to munch on if they’re into that. I also have ghost shrimp in the tank, one of which was pregnant with eggs developing nicely, but then no fry. They could have failed to hatch, but they also could have been eaten by the loach fry - I think probably not, they’d be too big, but it’s possible. So. Yeah. I fail as a scientific observer, because what the heck, fish, you’re supposed to be hard to breed and it’s been less than a month! But, fish babies.

I couldn't help but think "Super Secret Spy Decoder Ring and Xray Laser Glasses".

Hmmm. Not sure. I honestly don't put a lot of thought into it. My well water runs at a Gh of 9 and a Kh of 0. I will typically cut this with some RO water, but I've never measured how much. Maybe I do a 50-75% WC with straight RO to drop the Gh. But I've never proven to myself that this is even necessary. I do separate the males and females a week and fatten them up, before adding them to the breeding tank. I'll leave them in the breeding tank maybe 3 -4 days and then pull them.

Anytime I have had a wonky swimming fish it was all downhill. Thankfully this is a mild case. I am thinking about releasing him back to the community. His buddy keeps swimming up to him in the breeder box and they see each other. Jailbird seems glad to see his buddy and becomes more active. I ended up with these 2 when I bought washed out looking fish from a new shipment at LFS. I had requested pristella tetras but when color developed I was surprised! LFS said they must have jumped in the pristella tank from the next tank over. Anyway, I didn’t worry too much about school size since they school right along with the pristellas. I don’t know if being in the breeder box is better or worse for him.

One of the emerald eye rasboras I got from Aquahuna was also missing a gill plate. I thought that fish would eventually die, especially after I had an outbreak in the tank I keep it in. It's been two months and the fish is fine, very active and has grown a little bit. I just made sure I kept the water super clean as a precaution.

LOL, well, if these fry survive, there will be available velociraptor slugs in a few months.

I've used cheap fishing bobbers to float mops before. Oh!! Interesting! I have have several furcata hatch for me in my shrimp tank before but I have been struggling to get my luminatus eggs to hatch maybe this is why. I did raise 1 to adulthood but I haven't gotten any others to even hatch.

After some more digging online, it is almost certainly pseudogastromyzon, of which I have two species, 3 of one and 1 of another. The group of three were acquired because I thought they were a gastromyzon species, and the singular one because he(?) didn’t look like any fish I’d seen before and was all kinds of distressed in the store. I’m pretty sure the solo fish is pseudogastromyzon changtingensis, while the others look vaguely like several species and exactly like none. I think they look kind of like the offspring of a Jurassic Park style velociraptor and a slug, and have been referring to them as such, but this is not a formal designation. The fry look most like the changtingensis, but - there’s one of those? And they’re not livebearers, so couldn’t have come to me already pregnant. Which leave hybridization or parthenogenesis. Or them being the other species, of course. We’ll see. I have half of the pseudogastromyzon moved into a different tank because they were bullying the gastromyzon, and those are what I really intended to breed. Half because the little bleeps are impossible to catch. The possible parents - one of which is hanging out near the fry, and I’m not sure if I’m seeing parenting or attempted cannibalism. There are only a few fry. This is Sesame (like Sesame Street, because one of these things is not like the other ones): And these are some of the unnamed ‘triplets’, aka the velociraptor slugs, who I can’t tell apart most of the time:

I found a baby a week ago, separated him. Haven't seen anymore babies since

Yeah lol honestly that’s what I’m resorting to. The heater and aging plan sounds like a good idea. Maybe not super convenient, but defo the simplest.

Mine turns brown before it drops needles, so if you keep cutting off and discarding the parts with brown needles there shouldn't be an issue.

If that is possible, a little natural sunlight might be all you need. Be careful what you wish for, you might get it. Depending on the time of year, my planted 29 gets a few minutes to about an hour of direct sun in one corner. That is the corner where I can grow the bright light green algae. That is also the corner where my Vallisneria will migrate to no matter where I plant it. I have enough spot algae or BBA in various tanks to share.

I have fry. I kept collecting eggs they would hatch and just fail to thrive. My friend suggested moving the eggs to hatch at 80 degrees. Worked like a charm 🥰

@Chick-In-Of-TheSea if it is swim bladder I would continue doing what you are doing. Maybe the reason it's getting caught in the net is an injury that caused the issue. If that's the case only time will help. Not sure if you ever saw my thread about Verti, my Black Neon that was swimming vertically. He did have an injury and I did medicate and then use salt. After treatment all I did was make him comfortable guessing he'd be that way forever but miraculously he got better over time and released back to the herd! Black Neon Swimming Vertically? What I've done so far.... I would hand catch your fish, no nets. That's what I do with most of my sick fish now.

As part of my new 3D printing hobby I have decided to design and print a bottom to my DIY box (yogurt tub?) filter. This is intended to allow for a more even flow through the media then just putting the pipe into the filter and then dumping media around it. The printed green piece is out of PLA. It has plastic canvas #7 cut into a donut shaped silhouette on top of it to hold the biological media up. There is a single stainless steel screw to connect the bottom piece to a 3/4” pvc pipe. Then I have used both lava rock or ceramic as the biological filter media with filter floss on top. An airline with an air stone goes into the bottom of the pipe to draw water through the filter media and then up the pipe. I know this isn’t too new or interesting, but just sharing what I designed and made to get any feedback on PLA in an aquarium or other ideas on 3D printing projects for aquarium.

Kanaplex predominantly treats gram negative and some gram positive bacteria

The second picture is a saltwater tank btw.

Agreed @Chick-In-Of-TheSea just went 6 pages through you journal! What an aquatic adventure?! Thanks for enjoyable read!

I want to add a disclaimer -- doing stuff to grow algae won't necessarily mean you get the type of algae you want. You could get nice looking dust or hair algae on the wood, but it could just as easy go with ugly diatoms, green water, black beard algae (you might like this), and it will probably cover the glass before it gets to the hardscape.

Orry to hear about your girl. they're tough little fish and you don't see usually problems from them. but when you do, it's usually very rapid

sounds like she snagged it then. if it begins to looked ragged on the end. I would probably hit the whole tank with maracyn 2 or kanaplex.

Honestly if this is what he is after he might want to add a small tankless water heater near the bypass as a separate line smaller units aren't that much money and really reasonably easy to install with PEX lines

Your siphon tube. And prevention by means of liquid fertilizer. It will shed like an old Christmas tree if it runs out of nitrate. I keep it in fry tanks because it survives fairly well for me, gives great cover, etc. But I have to fertilize just to keep it alive because I change so much water there's never really any appreciable nitrate level.

Ok, thanks. Nitrate - 11 Nitrite - 0 ph - 7.5 kh - 80 gh - 180 I was thinking of getting some amano shrimp and a few more ghost shrimp. I just haven’t have time to clean my tank.

the bypass valve will be on the softeners head, so it will bypass everything. as for the hot water, you would have to run out all the water from the water heater, that would be nuts, but the rest of your pipes just run it for a minute or two.

I turned on the tank light late last night after it had been dark for a long time and the plant was absolutely covered in snails. I knew I had a bunch of ramshorns but the amount that were out at night was staggering.....

@Schuyler my full disclaimer is that I keep my puffers as colonys and my opinions are based of my experiences with them all. Others might have had redeyes that were not social. I personally kept 2 males and 3 females in a well planted 40 breeder here without issue. puffers are very much individual personalities and do have group dynamics when kept as a group. Consistent feeding and cover are helpful here to increase my odds of success with colonys here. All puffer species here are social and much more interactive in a group but one caution is that a puffer group could become a solo puffer without much notice; I always have a plan B option if i need to move or seperate individuals.....which has not been needed in red tailed redeye (C.irrubesco) or pea puffers (C. Travancoricus), pao species (P.baileyi, P.palustris, P.turgidus, P.cochinchinesis, or africa puffers( T. Schoutedeni, T. miurus)... to this point. I wouldnt say rhis is possible with every individual puffer of every puffer species but I have had success with them all givien enough space, territory, cover, and food. To reduce the risk of territorial aggression, I probably wouldnt personally try 5 redeyes in less and a 40 breeder footprint up here. I was considering 4 redeyes in a 20 long I expect that is also possible to keep successfully This was the group in there 40B: 2 females and 1 male feeding on whiteworms Males and on of the females Females I did trade my redeye colony to a likeminded keeper for "future considerations" last year. They have stayed together at that fishroom and had no aggression issues so far. They are a pretty cool species

Thats the one reason I do not care for hornwort, the plant dropping needles leaves a huge mess that must be removed manually.

Also the equilibrium is to add calcium and magnesium because I'm am trying for lower maintenance (like a water change every 2 weeks.

Thx for support i have ordered the thrive and have done a water test and everything is in order except im reading 5ppm nitrates but my plants are still dying?? so ill take a picture and check for the next week because they should still be eating some of that. that was the smaller one.. but i already ordered the thrive cause it contains non glut based carbon and has more of the micro nutrients!! ill try easy green soon tho (soon as in like a year)

Mollies have that longer, slender body like that. Mollies FTW

Just catching up.. wow! There is quite a bit I missed! First, sorry about Industry. Glad to see Punk is hanging in there though, and Invictus looks awesome! The tank move.. I can’t imagine. I tried to transport African cichlids in a 5g bucket with airstone from PA to FL. I lost some. To tell you the truth, they were fighting because they were in too small of a space. Then again, could have been sloshing or stress too. Not sure. I did see the fighting though; nothing I could do to stop in while on the journey. It was stressful. The medieval tank looks great, and I know your mom will enjoy it! And the shrimp you were so doubtful about.. you mentioned there are hundreds now? That’s awesome! Looking forward to following along on the large tank adventure. I love the stand.

It treats bacterial fungal and some parasitc infection this is more like a shotgun approach it is more powerful medication if your unsure what your fish is suffering from I have only used it once to treat a bacterial infections with secondary fungal it did work i wouldn't use it to treat a parasitc infection I would only use it treat bacterial infections or fungal you can get same effect by using ick X active ingredient malachite green and kanaplex or maracyn2 which is my preferred choice I only used it as a friend had some to hand i had run out of kanaplex using medication with multiple active ingredient can be very stressful on your fish I think there better treatment options available that just my opinion take it with a pinch of salt @nabokovfan87

Very exciting and beautiful fish. Can we get a whole tank shot of your 10 g breeding setup?

@Colua and @Odd Duck I wanted to ask for the sake of all of us understanding, can we briefly discuss the merits and risks of a product like seachem polyguard? It is affordable, seems to do a key job, and seems to do it well from what I can tell. Can you speak to us as far as the nitrofur..... Bacterial medication and what it is good for? In terms of things I am trying to have on hand at all times.... I think this needs to be on my list, but I want to hear some more experienced and knowledgeable thoughts! Thank you.

My only comments are: @Mmiller2001 Has a gorgeous, award winning, planted tank. Take their advice when it comes to maximizing plant growth. The only thing I can really add is that if you’re in it for the long haul with CO2 consider upgrading to a 5lb tank. I too started with the citric acid/baking soda canisters. They’re fun and it’s a good way to test the waters, but over time I was spending more on citric acid than tank swaps and eventually phased out the canisters. Just my $0.02.

Surprisingly, it’s not comparable at all, up to 98 % coverage you have to use glasses. You really can’t look at it at all. Then all of a sudden, you can. Lasts about 3-4 minutes and just th peek of sunshine and you really can’t again. Just a tiny amount and it’s done, back to glasses. It’s completely surreal. Amazing how much energy comes from just a speck of the sun. of coarse I cheat. For me totality was on a 2 hour drive to almost the center. But ugh, getting back home. I think that it’s a must do, at least once. The next one is 20 years from now in north and South Dakota. In the US anyway And the number one thing Googled after. Why do my eyes hurt

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

Same, @jwcarlson, same.

Algae is just another way of planting your aquarium. And, frankly, it is the one that I'm most successful at growing.

I have never had great experience planting Brazilian Pennywort, it seems to do much better floating for me.

Hi @Arnam Anan, Thank you for the additional information. Is the pH of 6.4 the tap water or your tank water or out of the tap? If tap water is still that reading after allowing it to de-gas for 24 hours? I very much discourage the use of crushed coral (calcium carbonate) in increase pH since it is impossible to control the dissolve rate it adds a substantial amount of calcium to the water as it dissolves Not only does it increase the pH to levels that can effect nutrient uptake but it can impact the calcium:magnesium (Ca:Mg) ratio. Using sodium bicarbonate (aka baking soda not baking power) allows much easier control of the pH and does not effect the dGH or Ca:Mg ratio. NYC gets water from two different watersheds, and a multitude of different reservoirs, aqueducts, and pipelines. It is very like that depending upon the source being utilized the water analysis may vary frequently. Here is the most recent NYC water quality report, the water analysis is about 2/3 the way down the .pdf. -Roy

Hi @TwoFace99, If it were me I would do the two (2) 50% water changes over the next few days, that should get you down to close to whatever dGH you have coming out of the tap and hopefully lower you pH as well. Then I would dose sufficient Equilibrium to increase the dGH by increase the dGH by 3.0 dGH to start. How much to dose? 1.5 teaspoons of Equilibrium per 10 gallons will increase the dGH by approximately 3.0 degrees (3.0 dGH) and increase the available calcium by about 16 ppm and available magnesium by about 4.8 ppm. Hope this helps! -Roy

You are absolutely correct @Pepere. I wrile against those that recommend adding crushed coral to a tank or filter. The quantity and rate that dissolves is typically an unknown and it's use results in easily overdosing calcium; making very difficult to bring a tank into balance. In addition it increases the pH resulting in the breaking of chelate bonds in most iron fertilizers causing iron deficiency issues. I personally use calcium salts and magnesium salts to increase the dGH and levels of those nutrients in my tanks.....much cheaper than Equilibrium when you have many and/or large tanks. -Roy

I changed up my mop. My friend tried making a “skirt” to make his fluffier. His luminatus went crazy being able to get deep in the mop. I tried several things but this one is a winner. They are in and out all the time and I’m getting tons of eggs. blue is pool noodle.

A 55 and a 75 look basically the same to the untrained eye, a 75 is just deeper. Better to get the spouse mad once instead of twice

Hi All, First of all the species of aquatic plants we use in our aquariums come from all corners of the world and therefore all water conditions; acid pH, alkaline pH, soft, moderate, and hard water so there is really no 'perfect' water parameter. Secondly if maintaining healthy fish in my tanks is the primary goal hen the water conditions they require is the water parameters I attempt to achieve. That said over the years I have strived to choose plants that will flourish in the water parameters of the fish I keep. However, if I were to optimize the water conditions that are 'best' for fish and plants I would try to achieve the following: pH = 6.8 dKH = 2 dKH - 5 dKH (35.8 ppm - 89.5 ppm) dGH = 4 dGH - 7 dGH (71.6 ppm - 125.3 ppm) Since dGH is primarily comprised of calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg) and that is what dGH tests kit measure it is important to have sufficient of both nutrients for healthy plant growth. I target a 3:1 - 4:1 ratio of Ca:Mg for my tanks typically 20 ppm - 30 ppm of calcium and 5 ppm - 10 ppm of magnesium. As for iron first of all I use the type of iron that is appropriate for the pH of my tank, currently I do a DIY blend of EDTA, DTPA, and ferrous gluconate. Keep in mind that most plants can grow well, even flourish, outside of the water parameters that are 'ideal'. The keys I have found over the years is adequate amounts of light, macro nutrients, secondary nutrients, micro nutrients, and a substrate grain size that isn't too large for roots to grip or that compacts and inhibits root growth. Hope this helps! -Roy