tolstoy21

Superblue Kerri Tetras?

We get them in NJ from time to time. I’d say not every year, but close to, someone spots one at a feeder within the state. We just had a Kirtland’s Warbler in Cape May. One of those ‘one day wonders’. Was verified by more than a few birding heavy hitters in the state. Didn’t have in me to make the drive down there to chase it. But you know, if it was in Cape May, it must have recently flown over you @Fish Folk!

These are your 'yardbirds'? Man I'm jealous. I think your unidentified bird is a yellow-rumped warbler. Not sure where you're located, but in New Jersey, that's one of the few warblers to hang around in the winter. Also, kind of looks like one to me.

Ok, so I took a quick video while I was just down tidying things up . . . . Man this apisto LOVES this skull. While I'm watching it, I keep singing (in my head) . . . 'The worms go in, the worms go out. The worms play pinochle in your snout'.

This is super accurate and reasonably priced, but it's not an in-tank thermometer -- https://www.thermoworks.com/ir-pocket-20/ It's what I use. I use Thermoworks Thermapens for food, and they are hands down, the fastest most accurate out there, but they are on the expensive end of things.

Both actually. I probably do the least amount of JS, as I only use this for my own personal stuff. I'm not really much of a front-end developer and I'd consider myself still a JS/Vue noob. But for work, I do a little bit of many things. I do a lot of back-end infrastructure/cloud automation which includes a fair bit of Python.

@nabokovfan87 Hmmmm . . . . . I'm going to take this in a slightly different direction. Rather than post a video of an aquarium (sorry folks), I figured I'd take some time and document for everyone what I perceive life to be like in my fishroom. And to be honest, while I do very much enjoy breeding fish, I kind of enjoy more the challenge of creating and managing a meaningful side-hustle. To that end I am going to list where my mind goes when someone mentions my little basement fishroom, what images flash through my mind, and what kinds of things I spend the most of my time doing when I log off from my day-job and carve out some quality time to spend with the fish. If I'm going to be honest, when I saw this challenge , this is where my mind went! This won't be a traditional 'fishroom' post, but I hope it gives some insight into what attempting to 'breed for (small) profit' is really like from my experience over the past few years. And to me, these are the interesting things. Believe it or not! 1. Cutting foam and making boxes (shipping in general) 2. Finishing the build of the room itself That wall is where most of my free time went this week. But soon, oh soon, it shall be covered in 20 gallon highs! (Ok maybe that will happen by spring at best). 3. Writing code to manage taking in orders from various marketplaces (and to deal with other mundane, time-consuming tasks) This is probably the most interesting aspect of this all to me (aside from the fish). When I first started this journey, I found dealing with multiple marketplaces (ebay, getgills, aquabid, etc), transcribing their output into shipping tools, creating invoices, checking the weather etc . . . all of that was sucking the soul out of me and taking waaaaay too much time and was to error-prone. If I had my own online storefront, this would all be much easier, but then I would have to deal with the whole SEO aspect of things (search engine optimization, aka marketing). For now I find it easier to just use the most popular platforms already out there and that already have audiences and consumer traffic. But this introduces the challenge of wrangling all the information that comes in from those disparate sources. Some of these platforms offer nice API integration, but others just send you email. None of them integrate with each other nicely. So what is one to do? Automate it all with code! To be honest this is probably what I look forward to finding time to do the most. 5. Customer Service A decent chunk of my time daily is spent communicating with customers. And to be honest, I enjoy doing this too. The volume of communication (so far at least) isn't overwhelming, and I find answering people's questions to be satisfying. I'm in technology by trade so most of my life is spent in front of a screen and most of my social interactions happen online. So this just kinds of expands on that and bridges it into 'talking fish' with total strangers who only know me as my goofy logo! 5. Trying not to lose my shirt! (Aka balancing income and expenses) 6. And Finally, Fish (Jeesh! Took long enough) Oh almost forgot to tag someone . . . . . . tag @Fish Folk you are it!

Are you sure the betta didn't nibble at them to death? I've never been able to keep shrimp with a betta without it at least attempting to take some bites out of the shrimp.

It will be safe for all fish that I am aware of as long as you get the correct levels corresponding to what each species likes. You probably just want to focus on having a medium degree of hardness for the species you listed. Will it make the water better for shrimp? Well, both shrimp and snails need some hardness in the water to grow shells and properly molt so I will definitely help if you have very soft water. I wouldn't overthink this all, as that can be frustrating if you are somewhat new to this stuff. Just dose the water until you reach what your test kit tells you is slightly moderate hardness.

In my experience, most sword plants grow far too large for a 20 long. But a Rosette Sword (Echinodorus Parviflorus) would be perfect, as they stay compact and under 6 inches. Corys would be fine with apistos. (Not my hand below! Nor my plant!)

What kind of shrimp did you purchase? How long were they in your aquarium before they died? Using that salt should work I would think. Did they recommend a Gh level that your should aim for and does the label on the jar give you instructions on how to achieve that?

They will be fine in gravel. I keep plenty in tanks with no substrate at all, and have kept them on gravel and sand as well. I have not noticed any difference with the fish in regards to substrate at all. Peace River is one of the gravels I have kept them on. I really like Peace River! Did the apistos like it? They didn't tell me. But they did spawn. What they would appreciate is a cave! The Coop apisto cave works very well, as do smaller pleco caves.

I have never bred Chili Rasboras, but I do keep them cause they are awesome fish! and because I use them as dither fish in some tanks I keep very acidic for certain Apistogramma species. I have the Ph in those tanks down around 4.6 and the Chilis do fine. Do they breed in there? Maybe? However, if they do, their fry are sure to get eaten. Either way, I do about a 25% water change (with RO water) every week or two and they do well thus far without issue. I don't know if this is the correct Ph range for breeding them, but I can attest to the fact that they are Ok at very low Ph ranges in water with little to no mineral hardness. My tanks are blackwater, caused by the addition of peat (I keep Fluval peat pellets in a box filter) and oak leaves and bog wood. That, plus using straight RO water keeps things very low. I'm not sure I could drop the Ph further if I wanted to. I'm also not sure one needs to worry about the Ph crashing in blackwater setups, as it's already intentionally crashed. I stress 'not sure' here, but trust me, if I could get the Ph to run a little bit lower, I would! Anyway, long story short, this species can tolerate a very low Ph, so I wouldn't worry too much about that as you consider breeding them.

@AllFishNoBrakes The good thing about a ball valve is that you can regulate the amount of flow.

This is the cement I use. It's not toxic. Just let it cure (it cures very, very fast) and then maybe run water through the pipe just to clear out any crud or residue. I also use the 2-part PVC cement at times. That's not toxic either. I don't believe any of the available PVC cements (also know as welding solvent) are toxic as they are meant for potable water.

Ok, cause I'm me and can obsess over an idea --- I drew up this crude picture. I might actually make one of these myself! Super simple, three pieces. The hook (after you bend some pipe), the check valve cemented to the base of the hook, then the hose barb cemented to the check valve. Here is a link to an Aquarium Coop video in which Dean shows how to heat and bend PVC on a stove. This is part of a DIY indoor pond build.

@Gannon Good idea. You can also put a PVC check valve at the base of the hook to prevent back flow. This way it works without having to switch it off or on. https://www.homedepot.com/p/ProLine-Series-3-4-in-Solvent-x-Solvent-PVC-Check-Valve-101-604HC/100127314

Can't answer about maple leaves (I use Oak), but here is a list of plants known to be toxic to fish . . . (spoiler alert, maple not on it). https://www.gardengatemagazine.com/articles/flowers-plants/plant-guide/poisonous_plants/

Yeah working with PVC is super simple. You just need a simple cutter -- https://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-1-1-4-in-Ratcheting-PVC-Cutter-16PL0101-1/304217581 Some PVC cement -- https://www.homedepot.com/p/OATEY-8-oz-Regular-Clear-PVC-Cement-310133/100345577 You don't need the purple primer + cement kit, as this won't be under a highly pressurized situation. Just use a simple one-step PVC cement. Wander the PVC aisle of your local hardware store and look at the fittings and elbows, etc, to see what works, as well as a hose barb to attach your vinyl tubing. Maybe use a stainless steel hose clamp so the vinyl tube doesn't pop off the hose barb - https://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-1-2-1-1-4-in-Stainless-Steel-Hose-Clamp-6712595/202309385 If you have a heat gun, you can also make a J-hook out of a length of PVC, but you'll need to fill it with sand or something so it keeps its form while you bend it.

I've had all kinds of tanks on and off as a kid, and kept all kinds of things -- goldfish, snapping turtles, skinks, iguanas, salamanders. I wasn't into 'fish' exactly, but just enjoyed caring for things I could keep in a tank. Turtles and salamanders were wild caught by yours truly. I kept those most of my childhood. My dad and grandfather owned a bait shop I helped out in, so technically, I took care of an old bathtub-pond filled with a jillion killifish (all doomed for the angler's hook!). I also helped my dad catch killies in the brackish marshes near our house. This was back in the 70s and 80s. I had an aquarium briefly in the 90s that my mom took over and had for a bunch of years. I also had a few pythons during that time. Had a betta or two or three in the span between then and now. I didn't get back into the fish-keeping hobby more seriously until maybe 9 years ago when I became a parent. I meant to get my kid into it, but seems it turned out to be my 'thing'. Maybe that was my intention all along?

Caridina. Crystal Reds to be exact. These were my first foray into shrimp some years back (4? 5?). The only other shrimp I have are Orange Rilis. I have to say I am more partial to caridina shrimp. I don't think I'll keep any more neocaridina. But I have had my eye on a bunch or other caridina species-- shadow pandas, extreme blue bolts, galaxies, etc. But I have had yet to have the time or tank space for any.

@nabokovfan87 Once the fishroom is complete, I'll def share more pictures, and perhaps upload a video and link it here. I've had this colony of shrimp going for maybe 4 or 5 years now. They've been one of my favorite tanks. I'm seriously considering getting a 50 lowboy for them. I just started selectively breeding SSS grade shrimp from this colony. I don't have a ton of those yet, and it will be a while before they breed more true. But if I have time later, I'll upload a few pics of those.

I'm just going to use a very large sponge filter so I can take it out and wring it out in a bucket. That is what I used to do, but I liked the idea of a matten filter because it provided a lot of space for grazing, etc.