Luciferkrist

Finally started cycling my future betta tanks. Going to wait for my java fernlets to grow up a bit before adding any though. Ignore the floating hornwort... it broke free of it's weights!

Right now, FINDING it has ben the hard part. 2 weeks of looking. Even the beaches that I can access are regularly 'cleaned' by the parks commission, so nothing large or unique is ever left. It has been exceedingly frustrating.

Okay, I have officially began building my aqueon 210 and need/want some larger driftwood decoration to cover my overflows - but am really not looking to spend 100+ bucks on each one - and I really want the grey/silver look of natural driftwood for my plannedl theme, not the typically more brown or spiderwood-like stuff I find at my LFS. Has anybody had any luck with 1st - Using aged driftwood in a tank without anything horrific happening. 2nd - had ANY luck actually finding any? Back when I was younger, driftwood was heavily used in landscaping and yard decorations, but it appears to be well out of fashion. I've tried several landscaping supply places and outdoor decoration businesses with no luck. I super do not want to have to go hunting along the beaches, as Michigan DNR is pretty touchy about collecting it on public lands, and anything out in nature could potentially house some less desirable hitchhikers!

Honestly, make a dedicated place for your tanks... and you'll eventually run out of room or money. Keeping an eye on your bank accounts will cure a large part of it, or at least have you start DIYing or upcycling.

Because of these showing up and some blooms of detritus worms, I have not been actively feeding my Chili rasbora/shrimp tank for about a month, and they could not be brighter red if I dyed them! Pretty sure they hitched in from a plant I put in, but my little tank residents LOVE them.

Honestly... you're probably going to have to drain almost all of your water, especially if your have lots of decorations and plants. When I had to tear down my 75 a few months ago, I had a BUNCH of small fast fish - not near your number, but have you ever tried catching 1 zebra danio or a juvenile hillstream loach? What I ended up doing was draining about 75% of my water and started moving decorations and hardscape to block off progressively smaller sections of the remaining water, then kept pulling out more and more water. I ended up having to get the last 5 or so gallons to catch the bloody hillstream! You can also get something to make or buy a tank divider and slowly move it to corral your fish if your tank is minimally decorated, or just use some food to lure them into your net. Fish may be crafty, but they aren't very smart. Take it as an opportunity to re-scape your tank or change some things that just didn't feel right too!

Honestly, it could be any, all, or none of your reasons. The little buggers are drama queens - half your batch will be looking like that and the next morning all you can find are empty exoskeletons. Some because they molted, some because they died and were 'recycled' by their tank mates. Most of mine stopped being deathly white when I started reducing my lighting to control some algae, but they will some times still turn white. Some of my now 4th or 5th generation ones have even started getting brown and green speckles before they turn white, and then they molt NORMALLY. Test your waters, especially hardnesses, and you might need to add some calcium like I did once they started breeding.

I have this little 10gal platy tank, and I cannot get rid of the tannins in the water! The picture is after 4 weeks! adn looks even darker off camera. I soaked the wood for over a week, and boiled each for the better part of an entire day before starting the tank, and am now having issues with plant growth/death, but all of my water parameters are well within safe levels, and I am doing weekly 40-50% water changes. Substrate is a mix of fluval stratum and black diamond sand, and I am running just a sponge filter, as I am hoping to get some fry to eventually feed/fill my bigger tanks down the road, and I don't have the room to add a HOB - the racks they are on are too tight. The fish seem to be fine and active, and I don't want to have to break it ALL down. I just want to have some clear water and add some more plants back in for the to hide in! How do I get rid of the water staining, without either harming the fish or breaking it down?

Thank you everyone for your input! It definitely made me help my decision. After my trip today I decided, after discussing my stocking options, with an FX6 - for now. Yes, only 1, but I can always grab another one once I get through the establishing of the cycles and scapings. The crew at my LFS showed me their 400g Saltwater with only 1 FX6, and how they only run 6 canisters for ALL of their display tanks in the store - and I think we all know how overstocked those usually are! But a couple of them warned me about keeping an eye on overall water flow in the tank more than just what is going through the can. That being said, they showed me all I would need to 'upgrade' to a sump system if it becomes necessary. Basically, if I keep my stocking on the lower side with larger fish I may not need it and it is only a days work to add a sump.

Breeding will always be the most exciting part of this hobby to me. I always see it as a way to know that your fish really call your tanks 'home'.

I've enjoyed and had very few issues with my red-blue Columbian tetras other then wanting more! Scissortal rasboras look amazing in large groups too! You can also look into some of the larger danios like giants, mustache, blues, or leopards.

Lol! I am honestly thinking about adding some terrestrial plants off the rear once it gets cycled and stocked. But I have cats, so no pathos, but I have been eyeing aluminum plants, since my fish room as already silver/grey.

Tank photos are a pain, the only way I can get decent-ish ones are to completely blackout the room and only have the tank lights on. Even then, my smaller tabks get internal reflections at most angles.

The tank is going to be a 'reef ready' from Aqueon, so it has the corner overflows and a good chunk of the plumbing. I am going to be stopping by my LFS this weekend to price things out. Thanks for the replies so far, I am getting a bit more confident in what I am going to need.

Geez, those rainbow shiners are looking like glofish! Seems like a pretty cool project/experiment.

I tried some 'budget' lights from AQQA(I think?), and was not impressed, but none of my plants died, withered, or melted back - they just didn't GROW very well. I replaced them with some somehow even cheaper NICREW branded ones off Amazon and I cannot believe how much they have helped my plants look more healthy. You can get a full 48inch one for only like 60 bucks, and it even has a built-in timer! They also have a few different models that are similarly priced. I gotta give credit to Chris from Fish For Thought on youtube for clueing me into this brand. https://www.amazon.com/NICREW-Freshwater-Aquarium-Light-Spectrum/dp/B08SBTTBWX/ref=sr_1_9?gclid=Cj0KCQjwxb2XBhDBARIsAOjDZ3548ynJAkZOcrMSit48iO3Rf4C78Bs5h0Z56UxmvJM2amglZsSf5v8aAuVoEALw_wcB&hvadid=598922335613&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9052226&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=2759604795783155415&hvtargid=kwd-643555729613&hydadcr=16199_13559659&keywords=nicrew%2Blights&qid=1659876302&sr=8-9&th=1

If I decide to do the large native, I REALLY want a bowfin as the centerpiece, with some smaller sunfish varieties, shads, shiners or darters for dithers and to fill out the space, and maybe the smaller catfish/bullheads species for the bottom levels. My biggest problem is finding plants that they won't all destroy or, if I stick completely native, won't die every year. I was debating on going to try to catch a small gar, but the species we have are not exactly easy to keep, as the longnose gets HUGE and the spotted ones mostly eat inverts and may be hard to keep fed. Huh... I just noticed that all the fish I have some odd fondness for are airbreathers - Bichirs, Bowfins, Gar, and Bettas....

Been looking around the internet lately and I am getting all sorts of conflicting and subjective information about filtration. I will be receiving a 210G some time this month and am still not quite sure what I will ultimately do with it stocking wise, but I wanted to get the less glamorous parts before it arrives. I am not certain if setting up a sump, canister, couple of massive HOBs, or a small army of sponges will be the best route. My previous experience with tanks has only been with HOBs and sponge filters, but I wanted to be able to place my cabinet flush to the wall, so I don't think I can make HOBs work, I worry about flow rates if I try to do sponge filters, I have no experience on how sumps ever work for freshwater, and I hear nothing but horror stories about canister cleaning and price. I am even thinking about trying to make a DIY filter system using a submersible water pump and few feet of PVC with eggcrate meshes to hold in media... So, I put it out to my fellow fishheads - What does your experience tell you for similar tanks? Which options are the most adaptable, or should I look into some combination of them. I know I will probably end up with at least a (relatively) small sponge filter for nothing else than to aerate the tank. Right now I am leaning into a canister; Fluval FX6 or 2 of their smaller ones like 407s, but my lack of experience is making me unsure if either would be appropriate, so any advice or expertise is appreciated! Thanks!

I recently got some that looked a LOT like that! It wasn't permanent sadly, as after they calmed down after the trip from the LFS, and a few water changes they went back to mostly orange with black speckled tails. Your fish isn't looking stressed, so hopefully they stay that unique pattern.

After more than 20 years out of the hobby, I finally have enough time, space... and still not enough money, but enough to get some good stuff! I am running a 75gal community with a few giant danios, some red-blue tetras, a pair of Guntea loaches, 3(for now) dalmation mollys, 1 hillsteam loach, 2 random comet goldies I got to start cycling (and are now almost 6 inches, so they will have to go pretty soon!), African banded barbs, and is serving as a grow-out for my baby Senegal bichir and ropefish. 4 10gals 1) With Green Neon tetras and ghost shrimp. 2) With Chili Rasboras, 20+ neocaridina shrimps, and apparently all of the snails! Somehow I only ended up with 2 male shrimp, so the whole tank is about to make my life hell. 3) With 6 Platys, blue gem and sunburst - mostly there to make 'treat' feeders for my bigger carnivores in the future. 4) With 2 Steel blue guppy trios, because I like metallic-blue fish... Have my 210g on order, that I will either be making a native biotope tank, a polypterus and arowana tank, a massive school of tetras, rainbows and other cyprinidae, or finally get into saltwater! It is going to take a month or two to get everything together, so I am still deciding. All of these pics are a few weeks old, so the growth on the plants is pretty insane - they were all taken BEFORE doing my maintenance and change as I needed to, literally, test the waters before I stocked them, so there are some missing fish! I am still debating on removing the tannins in the platy tank or swapping my tetras and platys tanks.