AllFishNoBrakes

I’ve definitely done it with baby Kribs. I used a piece of 3/8” tubing. Ensures the babies can easily be sucked up without damaging them, without removing too much water. I found it easiest to lure them out with some food, syphon them up, and then be prepared to put some water back in the main tank just like a normal water change.

@TheSwissAquarist Back home from work. The other botanicals I’ve played with thus far are: Jacaranda Pods, Coco Curls, Curve Pods, Pear Halve Pods, and Arti Pods. At least according to this box I have lolol

@TheSwissAquarist So far I’ve used Indian Almond Leaves, Lotus Pods, Twisty Pods, and then like 3 other pods I’d have to be at home to get the actual name of. They all do the same thing, just look a little different.

I run sponge filters (with air stones) in the tanks I inject c02. Has worked out fine for me! I should also add that I’m not going for max c02. Just an extra boost to make sure the plants don’t run out, and help outcompete algae.

Back on the maintenance grind. Here’s some pics from today: Amano shrimp full of eggs. If only I had a brackish set up and the patience to learn about larvae and how to grow them up. Maybe one day, but definitely not today. Water taken from the blackwater setup. Definitely has the tint I’m looking for. I know I’ve posted this tank a ton, but it has just been so fun. Makes me want to convert the 10 gallon in my bedroom. Maybe one day. Up close on some of the botanicals that aren’t IAL’s. It’s been fun trying new stuff and seeing what I like best! Still have a few different things in the box I haven’t even tried yet. A handful of Panda’s going to the LFS tomorrow. Maybe I’ll come home with something new to play with. We’ll see what tomorrow brings!

My Neo’s are doing just fine in my intentionally blackwater setup. However, my parameters haven’t changed since the addition of the botanicals as I already had soft, low pH, with little to no buffer water.

USB nano air pumps are by far the quietest I’ve used, but the longevity isn’t there. I’ve replaced sooooooo many of them I have a Tetra Whisper AP 150 that is nearly silent, but I had to put it on a folded up wash cloth to stop the rattle. I have 2 dual outlet ACO battery back ups on the way. Excited to check those out and see how they compare to the other pumps I’ve used, including the single outlet ACO. USB nano’s are basically silent, especially if you hang them. A folded up wash cloth/small towel can be a life saver for any other air pump. Where there’s a will there’s a way!

@Gamegurl It was fun for me until I was overloaded with Kribs and flooded the market. I had those guys forever until my LFS sold through them and I was finally able to move the rest. The Kribs are still haunting me to this day as even when I “got rid of everything” the pair left me one final spawn, in a cave so I couldn’t see it, and I still have 10 of them in my possession. I learned a lot from those Kribs

With my Kribs I tried both and both options worked equally as well. Doesn’t mean that will work with other species, or in your particular case, but either option worked in my experience. My Kribs bred like rabbits, to the point that I let a whole spawn grow up with the parents in the same tank to ward them off from breeding again. That worked, until it didn’t, and then mom and dad were fighting off an entire spawn of teenagers from the newest batch of the next generation. For me, it came down to “how much time do I want to spend catching fish out of this tank?” Catching fish is my least favorite part of the whole hobby, so my answer was “whatever is easiest and takes the least amount of time”. Watching the parenting behavior is also amazing, so I would personally hold onto that as long as they’re displaying it. Then obviously have an exit plan to move the fish on to new tanks when needed and new homes when they’re old enough (which it sounds like you already have). Just my $0.02 from my experience with Kribs.

Panda Angels spawned. Again. These will probably become a midnight snack for the Pleco’s. Not expecting any eggs still here when I get home from work tomorrow. Totally fine by me! I need to focus on moving the fish I already have. Speaking of, taking ~15 Panda’s to the LFS on Thursday. Gonna feel good to once again have my stock available to other hobbyists and continue to stack the credit. Still really diggin’ this blackwater tank. Can’t wait to get some fish in here! I’ve contemplated opening up some of my stock to the other LFS that I frequent often that typically has the fish I’m looking for. The problem is, when I’ve inquired about bringing them fish for store credit they’ve said, “Ya, for sure! Hit us up on Facebook or just bring them in”. I just simply can’t bring myself to use Facebook, and I also don’t want to spend the time to bag the fish and bring them in without negotiating prices and walking in blind on both sides. Decisions, decisions… Life is all about decisions. I’ve thought about bringing them a “sample”, to get the relationship going, but then I just have to circle back and do it all again the following week. Maybe that’s worth it, though… I guess it couldn’t hurt. Maybe I’ll hit them up again when I need some Hikari mini bloodworms and am forced to go into the shop. What would you do if you were in my shoes? Continue to work with the shop that’s pretty much guaranteed to take my stock whenever I have it at my convenience, and stack the credit and wait until they have what I’m looking for? Or do double the work and start to build a new relationship? I’m curious what you would do. Hope you’ve all had a great week!

This might be a controversial statement, but do you have a TDS meter? I know TDS isn’t an “accurate measurement” because it doesn’t explain what the TDS is comprised of, but it might be able to back up what you’re seeing. I know that my TDS out of the tap is 20-40, and my most “hard” tank comes in at about 80-100 TDS, and the ACO test strip also reads pretty soft. I might be crazy, but I feel like my test strip looks about like yours when it comes to GH. I could be wrong, but it definitely doesn’t look like the test strip @Ninjoma shared with off the chart readings. If I was a betting man, I would place my money on your water being on the softer side, and not the off the charts hard side.

Fritz Complete. Because it’s cheaper than Prime.

Definitely bladder snails. Nothing to fear in my opinion; I welcome them and can’t imagine running my tanks without snails. Agreed with the others that they will reproduce to the amount of food available. Lots of food = lots of snails. Again, nothing to fear in my opinion.

Found a couple nice Anubius today so I planted them up: 2 Nana and 1 Congenesis. One of the Nana tubes actually had 2 rhizomes so another Anubius is cool with me. The only thing this tank is missing is some fish!

Don’t overthink it. Bloodworms with snails when you can pull some should be just fine, at least in my experience with my 6.

Hey @GCH. Getting a male and female betta to cohabitate, especially in that small of a space will likely be a big challenge. I’ve only ever seen people have them together to breed them, and even then the female is removed once breeding has stopped. Best of luck to you!

@FLFishChik I’ve had my peas for about a year and a half now. I have 6 in a 29 gallon. Sounds like we do something similar as far as feeding. Mine get bloodworms and then live snails a couple times per week. Based on my personal experience, you’re probably a couple of months out until having the snail population you’ll want/need to feed snails 3 or 4 times per week. These little murder beans can eat a lot! Even if I feed bloodworms, and then drop in 10 snails in a jungle of PSO there’s 10 snail shells on the substrate before the next nights bloodworms. I would put the snails in different tanks and just feed them well and let them multiply. It’s gonna take some time, but when you have “too many” then pull some out with a little bit of tank water in a Tupperware and feed them out. When I do maintenance I’ll just take snails out of my tanks as they’re on the glass or whatever and then that’s my snails for the week. Definitely takes time to build those snail colonies to do that all the time though. I’ve found my Peas to be probably my favorite fish I’ve kept and they’ve been easy, for me at least. Holler if I can be of assistance!

@nabokovfan87 Appreciate the kind words!

What up Nerms? Been a rough couple of weeks over here in this neck of the woods. I found out my cat that I’ve had for 12 years and my whole adult life had 2 types of cancer. A couple of days after confirming and finding out, things took a turn for the worse and I had to make the incredibly difficult decision to put him down. Still doesn’t feel real, yet is incredibly tough daily at this point. I’m glad he didn’t suffer for long, but I miss my little buddy. Last week I skipped maintenance cuz honestly I just wasn’t feeling it. I needed a break and knew the tanks would be fine skipping a week. I tested water for the first time in a long time and sure enough the tanks were exactly where I expected them to be. Jumped back on the maintenance game today and water changed everything. Really need to trim out some PSO from a tank, but that can wait until next week. Gonna place an ACO order when the dual outlet air pump goes live. Gonna order 2 of those and make the final adjustments and organizational tasks that I started 4-6 weeks ago at this point. Need to pick up those pumps and a few foods and I’ll be set for a hot minute again. Blackwater tank still crushing it: Need to hit up the LFS with some of the Panda Angels I have ready to go so I can move the next batch over and free up a tank to finally quarantine some fish for this bad boy. Cheers, Nerms. Hope your last couple of weeks have been better than mine!

I’m gonna switch up the gears here. The iconic Blink-182 trio reunited at Coachella for the first time since 2014 on Friday night. My favorite band of all time, and here’s my favorite song(s) by them: I have tickets to see them on their North American tour this summer and I’m STOKED. Got seats on the floor, and simply can’t wait to see the trio back on the stage. Travis survived a plane crash, Mark beat cancer during a global pandemic, and Tom is back in the band after quitting twice. This band/show/tour/new album shouldn’t be happening, and I’m soaking it all in. Cheers to pop punk vibes from the late 90’s and early 00’s 🤘.

For years I meticulously tested every tank, every week, using the API Master test kit. For a super long time, my results were always the same, so these days I dip an ACO test strip every 6-8 weeks and confirm that everything is still the same. I made the decision early on to not alter my water and work with fish that do well in my water. I also made the decision early on to be as consistent as possible to give my fish a stable environment. Considering I try to do the same thing every single week my parameters have been stable for years and I test with strips every once in a while to confirm what I already know.

Me personally, I would rinse the rocks off as much as I could to get all the dirt and debris off. Then, I would spray hydrogen peroxide and let it sit for 10-15 minutes. Then, rinse it off again and you should be good.

Sorry if I wasn’t clear. No need for dechlorinator after hydrogen peroxide. If you bleach the rocks you would want to follow up with a couple soaks in heavy dechlorinated water.

Hydrogen peroxide or bleach (and then a bunch of dechlorinator after the bleach) are probably the safest methods. Hydrogen Peroxide is safe and I believe any residue just breaks down into water and oxygen. I’ve bleached some things in the past so I feel comfortable with that too. Some people will say to boil rocks, but other people have reported that boiling rocks has made them explode. Definitely don’t wanna play with that for me personally!

I personally think the Blue Tiger Orange Eyes are dooooope.