SugarBassJoe

My water sprite had taken off while I away on vacation, its pretty much taken the upper third of the tank (10G halfmoon style tank), while I'm loving the extra cover for the fry and shrimplets, it almost completely blocks the light to the bottom of the tank, hard to tell in the picture but the bottom look likes it getting most of its light just from the ambient light in the room, and I think my tiger lotus is suffering for it. My question is should I go ahead and thin out the water sprite, or is there another way to get more light to the bottom of the tank? Its also an aesthetic thing for me I would like to brighten the bottom up to see everything better.

Hydra is the only thing I know of that will shrink away upon contact, I get outbreaks periodically when I'm feeding powder food for new fry. Is it a small stringy/branchy looking thing with tentacles at the end?

could be a pond snail, pretty sure there's a difference between pond and bladder snails, but don't quote me on that, I don't know for sure. it doesn't look like a Malaysian trumpet snail or rabbit snail to me in that particular pic.

I know they make dollies for muck buckets, that might be a good place to start.

They where white mollies, I think the LFS had them listed as ghost mollies, don't think they were albinos either, I remember them having dark pupils.

Found my first 10G by a dumpster in the school parking lot behind my parents house when I was 7. My dad was reluctant to the idea at first but eventually he help me set it up in the enclosed patio in the back. I already had a betta in a 1G pitcher and in he went, needless to say he was happy. A few weeks went by and my dad came home with a bag of 4 or 5 "Ghost Mollies", and told me keep an eye on them. Not long after that, little white specks started swimming around. I was super excited to see this happen and was hooked since. There was periods of time where I wasn't active in the hobby, on and off again through middle school and high school, then a ten year long period when I started working and didn't seem to have time. Its been almost a year back in, and I cant see my self ever leaving again, not any time soon at least. Though my time hasn't been straight, collectively I would say anywhere from 5-7 years with aquariums. Livebearers would be my top pick, though it would be difficult to pick one, I would say sailfin mollies, sword tails and guppies would be top three.

Thank you, ill get a better look at him when I get home, hoping the angle of the pic just really defined his scales

looking at this picture closely now, looks like his scales are starting to pinecone too, am I seeing things?

A little while ago, I had to deworm my betta. Treatment was successful, but I couldn't leave him in the bigger tank with my guppies, his fins were getting torn up, and he generally didn't seem happy in there. He's been staying in my hospital tank for a month now, he's gained weight and his fins seem to be completely regenerated. my question though, while his fins have come back the regenerated portions are with out color, just wondering if the color will come back? Doesn't matter if they do or don't, just curious.

Back from vacation, two weeks away and aside from overgrown water sprite and duckweed, no issues with any of the tanks. Another generation has arrived in the blue tank, and the oldest fry are more or less adult fish now, its obvious whos male and whos female now ( pretty confident with sexing the younger fry now). I'm seeing the population balancing itself out now, when I started with two pairs the population increased dramatically, but I'm seeing less and less newborn's each month now, which I'm ok with for now (would love to move the fry and grow them out in separate tanks to share them with others, but my current living situation makes that difficult). The cherry shrimp and MTS population also exploded while I was away, seems the ecosystem does better when I'm not around. lastly I did decide to add some more variation to the population with a new strain, a pair of midnight galaxy's I believe they were called. Either way the male galaxy is loving it, always showing off his colors and "dancing" for the females. I did notice the the neon males (which I'm calling silver backs, you'll understand if/when you see them) seem to be twice the size of the galaxy, I'm no expert but I believe them to be roughly the same age, but I don't know for sure, any experience/knowledge with differences between strains would be appreciated. the galaxy seems to be fully colored, while mine just started to really show their colors, and I do believe they still got a little ways to go. So far so good with this tank, I know I'm still rusty with fishkeeping, but I cant help but feel some pride with my tanks, if anyone cares to see, got a raw video of the blue tank from when I got back.

When I had my colony going I started with 2 males and 4 females in a 5G, they are so small though you could probably start with more, but if your planning on breeding I would start with less, 2-3 females per male would be an ideal ratio. I used spawning mops for them. NO SNAILS. After a while I decided to use some anacharis from another tank in there, didn't even think about the pond snails I brought in with it, after that no more fry until the ALL the snails were gone, basically had to start over after that.

Clown Killifish, fairly easy to colony breed in a 5G

Three generations in, the oldest being about two months. I've been watching the developmental trends of this particular strain and now after seeing the older males develop their gonopodiums, I can confidently infer the sex of the younger fry (I seem to be producing way more females than males, but maybe that's normal). The 10G is getting close to the tipping point, hopefully in another month ill be able to bring some to a not so local fish store. Not expecting to get any thing for them, which is fine, hopefully others will get to enjoy them. Who knows though, maybe over time I can build a good relation with this LFS and maybe get some food or other supplies in the future, that would be awesome. Its felt like a crash course these past few months, mistakes were made, I should really be adding those moments to this log, not just the good. If any ones reading, feel free to ask me if you want, the bad is part of the experience for me, or just enjoy these pics I took (don't know why, but I really enjoy photographing these guys, just wish I could take better pics).

Not really a center piece fish, but I personally like the look of bigger schools of smaller fish in an aquarium, so maybe adding some more neon's for a center piece school? ( if that's even a thing) idk, that's just my idea.

My hasbrosus corydoras do this on top of an anubias, each on their own leaf, my best guess is that they're resting. They do it periodically and are active the rest of the time, seems normal behavior to me.

Unfortunately this is the best I can do at the moment, a quick video I took to try and catch screen shots off ( find it easier than to wait for a perfect shot and try and catch that), so the video isn't the best, ill try again later when I get home.

Thanks, this does help, at least with the male/female identifications, as that is what I'm seeing on them. Gravid spots and big bellies on the girls and full tail colors on the boys, at least that's what i think I'm seeing. Appreciate the input.

Hello, had a few questions that I've been wanting input on. Been so long since I've been in the guppy game i cant recall on any my past experiences. 1st question, how long until you can start telling males and females apart? I know it hasn't been too long since the first generation got here but they're a little over an inch now and they appear to be all female. 2nd question, is there an average male to female ratio? I would of thought it would be 50/50, but in my second generation it seems the vast majority are female as well, there only 2 or 3 i suspect to be male. 3rd, are there any environmental factors you've seen that can affect this?

I have tanks with black backgrounds, and some with no background at all, just the white wall behind them. The non background tanks are definitely brighter, and ill use plants and hardscape to try and hide the equipment, my only thought with the lighter background would be it could wash out the blues of the discus, blend in with it i mean. couldn't know for sure without seeing them, but i vote for a darker color.

I only have one tank with stone in it (use mostly wood myself). No matter how much i envision the scape in my head, when i start laying every thing out in the tank, i always end up moving things around, adding/removing pieces or completely scrapping my original idea and winging it, somehow it never looks complete or right until it does (if that makes sense). I guess my 2 cents would be you'll know it when you see it. I wouldn't rule out the wood all together, but its completely up to you and more importantly how the scape looks to you, I'm sure its going to look great no matter what.

Final iteration of the 10G, got my dwarf sag. and got lucky (in my opinion) and found java fern mats for sale, picked up 2 of those. They sat in the tank for bit as is before i made the time to put it all together, finally picked up some dragon stone for more hard scape ( was goin to use more driftwood, but felt it needed something else). Either way the tank came out great in my opinion, so just wanted to share the progression of this tank.

Awesome, thanks for the insight. I'll do my best to save the bulb. As for the dwarf sag. I'm hoping to get a low grass carpet effect out of the them. Fortunately/unfortunately I have duck weed in the tank (tried to keep it out, but that was next to impossible) it hasn't really taken hold yet but I know it will, so I know that's really going to block some light out like it does in my guppy tank.

Finally decided to pull the trigger and upgrade my 5.5G to a 10G. Waited this long because that 5.5G had been pretty well established for a little over a year, and i was having trouble bringing myself to tear it down and start over, would have like to have kept it but my current living situation wont allow me to have to many tanks. Every thing in the photos was transferred over from the 5.5G to the 10G, including that big amazon Sword which was the big centerpiece plant in the smaller tank. Unfortunately, while i was moving the dwarf lily, the plant had separated from he bulb, its been about a week and i haven't replanted it yet so i can keep an eye on it, and really haven't decided where to put it yet, stems and roots look fine, but i have no idea if i will survive, if any one reads this and has experience with this, any tips would be appreciated. Also decided to make the front half a sandy bottom, always like the way it looked but had trouble maintaining it in the past, been doing some research and going to give it another try, i know the shrimp and corys appreciate this, Mugger (my male betta) seems to be liking the extra space too . Finally I'm goin to be filling in the empty spaces with more Java Fern, and Dwarf Sagittaria to hope fully fill in the bottom a bit more and help with water quality, also going to be upgrading the light from the Finnex clip on to a Finnex stingray 20" to hopefully get the Dwarf Sagittaria really going. Not sure if I'm going to add more fish to the new tank in the future (probably excess guppies from my other tank) for now I'm just going to enjoy as is. (Tanks are little bit unclean in photos, was working on them at the time they were taken) 10G

First spawn has been out of the box and been swimming freely in the main tank for about two weeks now. Starting to color up and I'm definitely seeing more females than males in this group. A new spawn has arrived and I've deiced to go the more natural route and raise them in the main tank and not in a breeder box. I've let the Anacharis grow thicker for this reason. It seems this new group is growing at a noticeably faster rate, i assume from more access to the micro fauna in the tank as a food source, they also seem to be coloring up much faster as well. The Anacharis is doing its job as I'm seeing more fry survive this time around (though it could likely be due to a bigger drop in fry), so far this approach is proving to be more successful than separating fry from adults. Haven't had much time to go through photos to post, took a quick one the other day just to have something to look at, also while playing around with a editing program i came across this filter that i might have made into a canvas print, if anyone is reading this i hope you like it to.