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Hi @Fish finatic45, I have several 'favorites' that seem to do well in all of my tanks. In no particular order: Pogostemon erectus Nymphoides hydrophyllum Java Ferns ('Trident' & 'Windelov') Limnophila 'Wavy' Barclaya longifolia Nymphaea micrantha Ludwigia repens x arcuata -Roy

Hi all! In June, I started a planted tank with my 10-year old. I had several tanks in high school and kept a small community tank in college (miss that one it was a retro chrome-rimmed tank I found at yard sale). More recently I kept a planted tank over a decade ago with my now 16-year old. We were perhaps a bit ambitious with that build (high-tech planted, wierd nano tank with restricted access, high-grade crystal reds and zebra otos). Eventually burned out fighting algae...and then pee wee soccer, little league and eventually 2 other kiddos happened. Roll forward to today. My youngest is 10 and I'm getting back into fishkeeping with her help (or as she'd say, I'm helping her). Aquarium is a 14 gallon all-in-one peninsula design. Planted low-tech. We did a dry start and flooded the tank in mid-July. Starting to stock the tank and today it holds a mystery snail, japanese trapdoor, 2 nerites, 2 amanos and a bluegrass guppy (his love interest unfortunately jumped to her death). Plants are monte carlo, anubias pinto, ludwigia and some floaters to keep nutrients in check while the tank matures. Have learned alot from amazing sites like this one and look forward to being part of the community. FTS about a week ago: My kids' old school journal (cool stickers courtesy of the Co-op): (for those following along, Almond the snail was fine but Taylor the guppy was not 😞)

Hey all. I just got back home from dinner and sat and watched my new sparkling gouramis for a bit and almost immediately I saw an embrace and the mail caught the egg and ran off with it. I’m surprised to see it because a few were sick when I got them two weeks ago but meds must have taken care of it quick. Since they’re new and this is a surprise I’m not very knowledgeable about breeding them. I’ve seen mixed reports on whether the fry can be left with the adults or not. Any insight there? They’ll probably stay for now anyway because I’ve just yesterday’s started getting a fry system together but it’ll be another week or two before I have a place to put them. I’ve just started an infusoria culture that hopefully will be ready once they need to eat. We’ll see how it all goes

https://youtu.be/vzuSI_thAC8?feature=shared

No fertilizers. Lights come on at 6 AM -8 AM, then 4PM - 9PM. My Nitrite, Nitrate, and Ammonia have all historically been very low. I will retest and reply. The tank has been running for 1.5 years at this point, the pleco went missing a few months back. Algae types are brown (panes, some plants), Black spot (anubias leaves), and I think conferva (java fern). I will take a new water test now.

@Woowala check this out, streamside…

Get cpds if you want a fish that hides anytime anyone in the office thinks about maybe walking near the tank. Get some blue eyes if you'd like to actually enjoy the tank.

I haven't had much experience with white clouds, but her spine kind of bends with the tummy which makes me think she may be bloated or have a disease. I will tag @Whitecloud09 since they have a lot of experience with these fish.

Should be fine. Pretty sure easy green has iron in it so buying iron fert would be redundant. If it’s invertebrate safe then it’s likely reptile safe. Amphibians would be a different story

looks like a she. clamped can be genetic, but it also can be bacterial. fish usually clamp when they get bactrial problems. when I get new fish or have a fish with any type of external problem I do a 3 step treatment. use 4 containers with about 2 L in each. 1st container 30gr salt/L, 2nd container, 4mg potassium permanganate (PP) / L; 3rd container 0.5ml hydrogen peroxide /L; 4th container use as a rest tank between baths. Into the 1st container salt for about 3~5 mins depending on how the fish acts. this is a very heavy dose and will screw with their buoyancy, so watch them for over stress. they will float at the top but usually will dip around. it need to be strong to kill any fungus, parasites. the salt will shrivel the pathogens on the fish. then into the rest container for 10 mins or until fish is looking ok Into the 2nd container PP for 5 mins. water should be purple color. again watch for stress but this dose should be fine. PP is an oxidant so be careful, it will lower the oxygen level and can kill. if the fish start to thrash at the surface, move it to the rest container. wait until recovered. into the 3rd container with peroxide. this is also an oxidant and will remove any necrotic tissue from the PP and clean wounds from the flukes. let the fish sit for 5~10 mins then back to rest tank. after the treatment use a mixture of acriflavinium chloride as a mild antiseptic/disinfectant in the rest tank for 24 hours see if that clears up the gills and the fins problems actually, paradise fish if healthy usually have spread fins. sometimes the genetics are clamped, but not usually. this fish is not in good health. fins are tatter and worn. maybe age or maybe fighting a long time ailment.

Technically, a self priming pump is one that can pump air out of its own housing well enough to draw a suction of sufficient head for normal operation. Plenty of pump designs are self priming, basic plastic impellers in a fish tank filter are not one.

Today is a year for the pair of pipefish. Got them on this day last year.

I haven’t made aquarium planted pots before. I’m very interested in how everyone goes about it. For a bare bottom tank.

I will do one as soon as possible, but that would have to be Saturday. Very busy. I am a student that works on campus and doesn't return home until late. But I will try for Saturday or Friday night. As for the test results, everything came up as the minimum, 0ppm on Nitrate, trite, and ammo. My test kit may be expired. The aquarium smells like your typical aquarium smell. Slightly earthy/planty with a hint of...fish.

How does the water in the aquarium smell? If there are any dead fish carcasses the water will smell foul. I suggest doing a water change asap. I suggest not feeding the fish for a day or two.

What are your full parameters? Ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate would be good, gh and kh too if you can test for that with what you have. Also how long ago did the pleco go missing and how long has this tank been running? Im far from an expert, but my initial thought on the algae issue is that algae eaters are a bandaid at this point and you likely have a nutrient issue or other imbalance that’s the root cause that really needs addressed. Could you share your light schedule and let us know if you’re dosing any fertilizers or anything? What’s your water change schedule and how much water are you changing?

It’s fairly densely planted but it did have some meds in it recently that probably threw the microfauna off some. Based on a quick google search I’ve got about 3 days until they hatch so hopefully that’s enough time to get the culture started. If not I do have a container one with a green water problem and powdered fry food if all else fails. Hopefully between all that I’ll get them going

That culture of infusoria definitely should help. If you have plants that will help provide food as well.

Thanks! I’m excited about it. I do know the males will take care of them for a while but I guess what I’m really asking is if once they’re free swimming and the male calls it quits they’d be safe. My gut tells me no, but I’ve seen multiple people say they haven’t seen much different in survival rate with the parents or without. If the fry hatch out and I can get them to the point of free swimming I’ll definitely report back if anything is learned.

Congrats that's awesome. Most species of gourami the male normally looks after the nest and fry.

I use risers in a few tanks. It basically gives the light a larger range of coverage at the cost of some intensity.

Thanks. Its been super fun and we've both learned a ton (particularly about patience). Appreciate it. We did a 6-week dry start, misting daily with something called Wabi-Kusa spray. Fertilizes while keeping mold away (and smells great to boot). The monte carlo we planted spread out nicely but the dwarf hair grass didn't (and still isn't doing much).

Another great room temperature/cooler water fish is the variegated platy (Xiphophorus variegatus). They’re closely related to spotted platies and swordtails, but naturally come from higher elevations in Mexico, and are comfortable with temperatures in the 60s. They’re actually established as a non-native fish in the creeks and canals of Gainesville, Florida, where they thrive, even though winters get relatively chilly there (compared to sub-tropical South Florida). And of course, you could go with North American native fishes, like small sunfishes (Enneacanthus spp.), or pygmy sunfishes (Elassoma spp.). They’re gorgeous! 😁

All were returned to same area where caught, within minutes.

Yeah if it's easier to do that, I don't see the downside.

I have a fluidized/moving bed sump filter so I am a bit biased here as the ziss bubble filter is a fluidized/moving bed filter. The advantage with this method, if the meds kill off the bacteria, just replace the K1 media with seasoned media. You could put the ziss filter in a 5 gallon bucket with a small air pump and dose the water with ammonia once in awhile or just dump some food into the bucket. This way you will always have a filter ready with some spare K1 media floating in the bucket.

They're gorgeous

Probably need it nice and cold with tons of oxygen. Too bad, they're really cool.

The first are seed shrimp most likely. The second moves like copepods. neither is harmful to your shrimp. I just put Sawbwa resplendens in a tank to scatter eggs that the walls are white with those and if I vacuum I get so many seed shrimp it’s crazy. needless to say I netted at least a hundred shrimp out and left easily 50 behind before I put the shrimp in. Things that slow my breeding are not enough air / water flow. Over time with no new genetics added breeding slows a bit. Try adding an extra airstone..yes you probably have the same air and flow as you did when the shrimp were thriving but as the tank grows more micro life it needs more air. As plants grow in and consume oxygen at night you also need more air.

I love those sculpins. Ever tried keeping them in a tank?

What are parameters? And also he might be bloated. I would hold on feeding for at least 1-2 days. Very bulging belly there.

gertrudae or luminatus imo cyanodorsalis maybe if the pH is above 7

Thanks. Maybe @WhitecloudDynasty also has some insight?

Exactly this. Depending on the plants you have you might still need the Easy Iron or some Easy Potassium. If you have plants in soil in the terrarium, you can use the Easy Root Tabs and your herp would have even lower risk of exposure to fertilizer depending on the species and the individual. With a rhino rat snake being so arboreal, the risk would be extremely minimal for that species no matter which fertilizer you pick as long as you aren’t spraying it on the leaves.

What a lovely tank!!! Welcome back to the hobby! And tell your kiddo she is very lucky! Back when I was 10 my tanks were overstocked artificial messes! Super great to see young folk creating beauties like that.

I love the carpeting that you achieved in the tank! Looks cool! Welcome back to the hobby! Glad to have you here.

I have them in all my tanks with fry unfortunately... doesn't seem to bother them at all... I usually like additional diversity in my tanks but they keep growing on my darn plants.... 1 day every other week I don't feed my tanks. The next day I noticed all the hydra were way stubbier and thicker and weren't moving much. Then my fish started eating them. I was like!! Wow that was super easy. They immediately came back the second I started feeding again. Chemicals aren't an option for me because I don't want to take the chance my fry will get harmed. From what I read it's like getting lanced with the super thin appendage. Short term, I haven't seen any issues except choking my plants and eating leftover BBS.not sure as to any longterm effects. (Like stress related) I also did the scraping/siphoning combo and while it definitely reduced the hydra on my glass over the next few days they just came back at about the same density as before

So my literal favorite fish died (I even made sure to never mention he was my favorite). I think it was a PH swing. The female survived and I was super bummed... not only because I would have to purchase another pair which are expensive.. but he really was a supermodel. He looked better than the male In the picture I attached. Yesterday morning I came home from work to find her herding about 30 fry! He shall live on!!!

IMO, learn to grow simple but healthy plants (this mainly requires knowledge in plant nutrition) before adding co2. Just adding injected Co2 is not the miracle grow solution it is made out to be and often complicates things. concentrate on planted tank fundamentals first. Add co2 when your plants are already thriving and you want to grow more difficult plants.

I think it comes down to use case. And personal preference/priorities obviously. I've used the tidal 35 and 55, but not the 75 or 110. I think the tidal's achilles heel is the many-routes-with-little-control (or ineffective control) on the intake side. There's no way to prevent water coming in the slots at the water line (the skimmer aspect), AND there's a lot of water that enters the pump housing right in that area (ie not from the skimmer and not from the down-tube). With so many points of entry for the water, that can't be shut off and are difficult to (cleanly and in a nice-looking way) screen or cover, they are murder on small babies, if you have them in the tank and they swim anywhere near. That being said, I run a tidal 35 on a 20 long with multifasciatus, and it's a good fit. No shrimps to chew up, and babies stay at the bottom of the tank, as least until they're big enough to join the fray in the upper 2/3 at feeding time. One thing I've always liked about the tidals, right from the start, is the way the water exits the filter horizontally, ie across the surface, if the waterline is at or near the bottom of the spillway. This creates really good gas exchange at the surface. Oh and they're super quiet. And the plastic they use for the build is really nice (as in strong, doesn't break, looks nice). On the aquaclear side (I also run a few of them), I agree with what was said above about how easy it is to customize or tailor the media you're using, due to the more "standard-shaped" media basket. And I do think the overall design does a better job of taking whatever water is coming in (from only 1 place, ie the down-tube), and pushing all of that water down to the bottom of the basket housing, then up through the media. Since all the water comes in that 1 tube, it's a better match for a prefilter too. It's kind of old-school, but I also like how you know your media is blocked/clogged when the whole basket starts lifting out of the housing.

I only have sponge filters, and moss and subwassertang impede flow and trap a lot of stuff. I'd probably use soil or aquasoil, but probably no reason to use both. I use soil cuz it's cheap and they're fish tanks, not plant tanks. I usually let them sit in some water for a week before adding to the tank in case it causes an ammonia spike, but if it's not much soil I usually don't bother. I've never had a pot fall over, but I have small fish. If that's a problem I'd go with a heavier pot, like terra cotta. Or a layer of gravel at the bottom for weight/stability, capped with soil and then sand or fine gravel. Or just gravel capped with aquasoil if you go that route.

Actually, i have that now with the bare bottom. Using an aquaclear filter, everythind settles into the middle of the far side. The pots are only half the battle though, I have only used gravel so far. Gravel would work with lots of root tabs. But for a better pot what about soil, sand, aquasoil. and how do you keep the pots upright? and what happens when the pot goes over?

Definitely would recommend the use of white clouds as a primary schooling fish. They are great looking, super hardy fish and cheap. Rainbow shiners can be hard to find, expensive, and only color up part of the time. a hillstream loach would probably crawl out of that tank. I keep Flagfish, a paradise fish, and white clouds in my unheated tank. I also have Pygmy cories though I can’t say how well they take the lower temps. Mine is in right at 70F.

White cloud mountain minnows. and zebra danios. Panda corys are fun

I have bought Panda Corys and Neocaradinia shrimp from Swimming Creatures on Amazon and was very very happy with both purchases. Fish arrived in excellent shape, were good quality and packed perfectly. I will absolutely buy from them again. And I was very skeptical !

I've gotten back to school and working on the School tank in the past few days. It was pretty bad. While the pothos growing from the top and submerged Java moss were thriving, all the guppy grass was dead and there were several dead fish, no shrimp, and mulm everywhere. Upon checking the autofeeder I discovered it had died at some point (kinda my fault, assuming it would just work straight for 3 months was a mistake on my part), which most likely contributed to the loss of the fish, shrimp and plants. My best theory is the fish got hungry and hunted down the shrimp, and the Pothos blatantly out competed the guppy grass. As such there is some news now regarding this tank. The school tank is coming down. The biggest reason is that last year i was in the lab 4/7 days every week and this year I have no reason to ever be in the room, moving the tank is just not a feasible option. Because of this I'm not seeing the tank and I no longer believe I can properly take care of the fish, I talked to the Bio teacher and she agrees that if the fish cannot get proper care we do not need to have a tank setup. So I did a water change at lunch today and removed all the livestock, a few endlers'(mostly female) and a nerite snail. They have come home with me where i can take care of them better. The endlers' are very washed out so I am putting them in the 5 gallon for quarantine, i'm hoping that as long as i feed them well they should not hurt my shrimp colony. The nerite snail will be put in the big tank to be a friend for my mystery snail. Also to me personally $5 for a snail seems absurd, I've had fun experiences, but at the end of the day paying $5 for a snail just seems fundamentally wrong in my mind. To make it worse now somebody that I know (teacher at the school who has some tanks of his own) had mystery snails breeding and now he has babies he wants to get rid of. If only I had waited a few weeks 😫, but I still might take him up on his offer because mystery snails are fun. Tank lights just turned off so I don't have any pictures but i will gave an Endler update in the morning with some pictures.

Went on a trip to the National Aquarium today, I took a bunch of pictures.

Anubias sending up a new flower

I successfully bred some a few years back. Only had maybe half a dozen survivors at the end of it all, but I'm sure that's due to the gallon-ish jar size I was using. It's something I've thought of doing again, as a passion project. The biggest deterrent for me would be the amount of time required to get the shrimps to sellable size, combined with the fairly high numbers/volume you'd need to do to make it economically viable (and the fact that large numbers = large tank space). But I think you could get a few dozen from a 5 or 10 gallon, or a few hundred from a 20L or 40b. Yes they do need salt water for the babies ("zoes") to survive. Adult female amanos will shed/hatch their eggs in fresh water when they're fully developed (under a bit of magnification, you'll be able to see the dark eyes of the zoes while still attached to the mum's swimerettes, which is the sign she's ready). If you have adult female amanos, and they produce eggs, this stage is already happening in your tanks, but the zoes are dying or being eaten. So the best way to do this is to remove a late stage pregnant female to a dedicated tank, like a 2.5 gal with a bunch of moss. The zoes need to be collected and placed in salt water within 1-2 days. Or remove the mum and make the tank saltwater. No transition or acclimation required, as long as temps aren't drastically different. Raising the zoes is a challenge. Folks have done so under a range of salinities, from brackish to full marine. There's some thought that different species of amano, or amanos from different parts of their range, have different salinity requirements. Can't comment. I did full marine (30-35 ppt I think). You'll need a refractometer. The zoes are pelagic phytoplanktivores, ie their natural food is algae and diatoms suspended in the water column. Far as I can tell, they don't do well eating algae that is growing on a surface, or as a green plant. Diatoms are thought by many sources to be key. I got some bits of saltwater hair algae from my LFSs live rock tank, and added that to my zoe jar, and also fed tiny amounts of powdered spirulina. I know they didn't eat the hair algae, but I suspect it contained a starter of the good stuff. On a few successive attempts without seeding material I was not successful. I think a small piece of live rock from LFS (or maybe even just a bit of the tank water) would seed the zoe tank successfully. Go with a ton of bright light, to promote that algae/diatom growth. You don't need filtration per se, just an airstone. Changing water without sucking up/disturbing the zoes is another challenge. Can't recall how much I changed or how often. The zoes tend to be drawn to bright light, so turn off the air, place a bright light at one end, and siphon water from the other end. Saltwater needs to be mixed at least a few hours in advance of the actual water change, just something to be aware of. When the zoe stage nears completion, they metamorphose into shirmplets. They're still pretty tiny at this stage (maybe 1/4 - 3/8 inch?). Hopefully all your zoes will be at the same stage, bc at this point you need to start dropping the salinity and basically acclimate them to a fresh water environment over a few days. If you have to net out the faster growers over and over, and actually acclimate them, it'll be a pain. Far easier to do it to the whole tank over a few days, through water changes. Salt is REALLY persistent, and it takes a LOT of water changes to get it near zero. And then you have tiny baby amano shrimps, ready for a freshwater aquarium. I have dreams of a 40b just crawling with hundreds of amanos. 🙂

We are back on the Sunday schedule! Got my WCs done this morning and fed out some BBS to all the fish. I underestimated how much BBS I would need for the big tank, so I supplemented by feeding with Grindal Worms, the fish were sooo disappointed. Also a little shrimp project update, I have now started spotting some Berried Shrimp in the 5 gallon! In a few weeks I should start getting some shrimplets and then the hard work in the shrimp project begins, culling out all the non-red shrimp, I have a feeling there will be a lot of them in the beginning.