SugarBassJoe

It seems to me that the pond snails populate faster than the trumpets in my tank. I always see baby snails from each, but more pond snail adults than trumpet snails. So I'm not sure if the trumpets are being out competed, that being said, there's a heathy population of both.

I've been using black chalkboard paper, had water get in-between it once when installing a new filter, but it dried out quickly and had no effect on the paper, tank looks great.

I have the same issues with coop strips vs api liquid tests, the strips seem to read normal, but the liquid tests are always off the charts, the only thing i could think of is contamination from the tap water i used to rinse the vials out, but there shouldn't be nitrates in it, high dose aren't good for people either. i hope some one has the answer for you, because i would really like to know too.

Hikari and omega one pellets are the mainstays, with either omega one frozen brine shrimp or San Francisco bay frozen bloodworms once a week. Occasionally ill give them live baby brine or mosquito larvae, but my female became rather picky after that, she'll eat the pellets and frozen food if she's hungry enough , but live food is the only thing she'll consistently eat now.

Well, its been a long and rough couple of weeks at work for me, finally have some time post another entry in this log/journal. Overall the guppy tank seems to be ok for now, but I'm seeing some concerning signs, that i will address later today. First off, because I'm been so busy with work ( a lot of overtime these past two weeks), I've fallen off my normal maintenance schedule (Tuesdays and Fridays are days i normally perform any and all necessary tank maintenance), so its been about two weeks since I've done anything other than checking my water parameters. yesterday i did my water tests and I'm still seeing a low PH on some of my tanks, (guppy tank sitting around 6.5, while one of my 5.5G's dropped close to 6.2) using aquarium co-op test strips, so i believe them to be accurate. I've added the whole 1LB of crushed coral to the guppy tank and a Wondershell to the 5.5, and will be doing a some what larger water change for both of them later today. I'm worried i might be seeing the first signs of old tank syndrome, if anyone can tell me if this is what it seems to be i would greatly appreciate any advice on the subject. Next I'm now seeing blooms of what I'm guessing is black beard algae, its grey/ dark grey hair algae looking that's only affecting some of my floating plants for now ( Anacharis primarily, though I'm starting to see it on a floating piece of java fern). I'm assuming its from a combination of overfeeding ( knowingly been overfeeding, to keep the guppies big an happy, which might not be the case anymore) to much light (currently running from 11:30AM-7:30PM, 8 hours but i know they do get some, but not a lot of ambient sunlight in the mornings, so I'm not sure if this a big factor or not) and I'm guessing a higher temperature (summer in San Diego, air temps are getting to around 90 where I'm at, tanks read close to 80 most of the time, been leaving the lids off to help with evaporative cooling). Lastly I'm now seeing a hydra bloom ( not an infestation yet, but more than id like to see) which i think the previous part factors into. Thankfully they are not in my DIY breeder box yet but are hanging off the sides, which is a little concerning, don't want them actually in there, though I've been reading they are not too detrimental to the ecosystem. The plan as of now is to get back to my regular water changes and decrease the amount of food going in. Any one reading, please all comments, advice, experience and info are welcomed. Thank you if you took the time to read all this, i realize it was a bit of a long update, looking forward to hear what y'all have to say!

So my suspicions were confirmed. A few days ago, right before bed i was watching what i thought was a shrimplet on the glass, turns out one of the females had dropped her fry (I was wondering if the seller housed the males and females separately, guess not). Unsure how many were in the original drop, I've found 9 so far, and they are now in a catch cup turned improvised refugium. feeding them easy fry food, twice a day (just got the auto feeder, going to set them up today) Looking forward to seeing these guys grow and developing their colors.

Quick update, guppies have been in there new tank little over a week now, and the goal is to keep them happy and healthy for now. I am working on a PH issue right now, it was reading low at around 6.5, which i find surprising since i have really hard water, the GH is off the chart, and my KH reads between 80-120, (going by API test strips for KH), so i can only guess its all the organic material in them ( all tanks have driftwood and are fairly heavily planted). I've added a bit of crushed coral in the HOB's and the PH is slowly creeping up, sitting around 6.8 now. If any one reading has experience with this, any advice would be appreciated. For now though life seems to be going on just fine for everyone, so ill keep a close eye on everything and hope I'm doing everything right. Posting a short video and a few highlighted pics if interested.

Great looking tank, very clean and natural looking, like you said, i know how difficult this style can be to work with. Very impressed with your healthy shrimp population, I'm still relatively new to inverts, and have yet reached that level. Question for you, your assassin snail seems to leave your shrimp alone, but do you know if they would take out trumpet snails? Id like to keep my pond snails in check, but keep my trumpet snail population healthy.

Hello to whoever might read this, hope you are doing well. First off, I've decided to start this journal to 1: track my progress in the venture, 2: open myself up to feedback, both positive and negative, and 3: hopefully meet some potential friends who share this hobby with me. A little back story on me, I've been keeping fish off and on since I was 8, typical start, betta fish in a bowl, goldfish in a 10G (before I knew any better) community's in larger tanks, all the way up to two large Oscars in a 125 and a most of everything in between. Around ten years ago I took a break for a myriad of reasons, but finally about a year ago I got back in. started back in slow with a 5.5G desktop with a betta and some shrimp and snails. As time went on, I was getting more ancy about expanding my hobby, which is hard to do, my current land lady does not like the fact I like to keep aquariums and is very limiting on what she'll allow me to keep, but i am allowed a few smaller tanks. About two months ago a former co-worker of mine gave me 10G halfmoon style tank his family didn't want anymore, which has been up and running since. i Couldn't really decide what to do with it, I thought I would do something new to me, like pea puffers, small killifish or even a small colony of shell dweller for example. After going back and forth for a while, I started watching some older co-op videos and came across Cory's presentation on guppies, after watching his in depth talk, I was sold on revisiting my once favorite fish, and I must say I'm really excited too (didn't think I would be since I have kept them more than any other fish), but I'm back at it again. I was originally going to go to my local big box chain store (unfortunately the LFS's are little far for me) and pick out a nice trio to start with but came across a beautiful strain of neon blues from an online retailer ( I do trust them, never had a bad experience with them so far). They came in a little while ago, and after a brief quarantine they are in the tank, and seem to be adjusting well. So to wrap things up, I'm hopeful they will do well, i would like to develop the strain further and breed them for my local water parameters, and eventually trade to a local shop, i have a few ideas for grow out setups for the fry (would really like to do it outdoors, my land lady wouldn't be as opposed to that, i do live in southern California). I'm grateful to be back in this hobby that i love and wish to further my knowledge, If you've taken the time to read this far i thank you, and please all advice, tips and feed back would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I do want to do the pea puffer tank, in fact that was my first idea, but I'm trying to avoid moving the shrimp, i put them in there to reduce the overflow in the other tanks, not sure the puffer wont massacre them

A buddy of mine gave me this 10 gallon halfmoon tank his family no longer wanted, its been running for about two months now, the plants are growing in and its quite thick with vegetation(will be thinning out the anacharis soon). currently I have a male betta, maybe two dozen cherry shrimp, 5 amanos, several Malaysian trumpet snails, and an uncountable number of pond snails. I'm rehousing the betta soon to a more appropriate tank ( this tank is to tall for him). I would like to add some new fish to it but hoping to try something new to me that would also cohabitate with the inverts. I've done some of the more standard fish (currently or in the past), guppies, neon's, chili rasbora's, cpds, Clown Killi's, etc. Hoping you guys have some stocking ideas for this setup, also I've never had a half cylinder style tank so if you have any tips for this style, would like to here them. thanks!