[Fish Stock at PetSmart/Petco]

I've purchased mystery snails, zebra danios, fancy goldfish, corys and black skirt tetras from my petco. They were all really healthy. I've also purchased neon tetras from Petco, and half of them died of presumably neon tetra disease. think it probably depends on the individual store/ fish. 

If I was tasked with this project I would probably get glowfish tetras. Tiger barbs sound like a good idea, but I've never kept them before. 

[Where did my Cory catfish go?]

I've had this happen a couple times. Once with my goldfish. I eventually found her underneath a piece of driftwood buried in the sand. I'm not sure if she got stuck digging for food or if she was hiding because she didn't feel good. When I lifted the wood, she was dazed and covered in sand, but recovered. 

The other time with a zebra danio. I eventually found that they jumped out of the  tank. 

My recommendation is to look under absolutely everything in the tank. 

[How to dampen air pump sound?]

I haven't tried this with the ACO air pump, but I have on all of the pumps I do use. I open them up and stuff them full of polyfil or polyester filter floss. 

[What's spiking my ammonia?]

Did you already check your tap water? Was there ever livestock or food in the tank? Could snails have hitchhiked on the plants that are in there?

[Suggestion - Newbie 20H Stocking Thoughts?]

On 3/28/2023 at 7:56 AM, g0nk said:

Also, any suggestions on online shops for live fish (Aqua huna I know of, any others?)

I've ordered from and had a good experience with Imperial Tropicals, Aquatic Arts and Aqua Imports.

On 3/28/2023 at 7:56 AM, g0nk said:

Here's what I am "thinking" of how I would like to stock the tank once ready:

Feature Fish: Either 2-3 Guppies, or a Betta. Not sure which.. Leaning towards Guppies though.

Cleanup Crew: Either 6 Panda or Pigmy Corydoras or 6 Kuhli Loaches, with a batch of about 10 cherry shrimp and some snails? (I really like rabbit snails)

Maybe a small school of about 10 neon tetras?

I think your list looks good! For determining numbers, https://aqadvisor.com/ is a pretty helpful calculator for getting a decent ballpark. The only suggestion I have is to maybe consider a slightly smaller schooling fish like green neon tetras, ember tetras or chili rasbora. If you use a smaller fish, you can keep a larger school and I think tiny fish look better in smaller tanks because they have more room to swim around relative to their size. There's nothing wrong with neon tetras though, if you prefer them.

 

[Help with Plant Identification]

I think it's Hygrophila pinnatifida. 

[Plant ID]

I think it's an Amazon sword or a rubin sword. 

[What did you get done today?]

Finished setting up the terrestrial part of my paludarium and got my geranium planted.

I also finished up the aquatic portion. All plants are in place and so are the guppies, nerite snails and amano shrimp. I'll be starting to the conversion to brackish water tomorrow. Wish me luck! 

[Hello from Tennessee - Seeking stocking advice for 29 gallon]

Some small colorful fish you could consider are guppies, platys, german blue rams, apisto borellii, pencilfish or long fin white cloud mountain minnows. 

[What did you get done today?]

I'm getting a bit custom with my fiddler crab paladarium. Going to use a modified turtle topper as the terrestrial area. 

[Best food other than flake]

I would give another vote to Xtreme nano pellets. Hikari micro pellets and Hikari micro wafers are good as well. However, I think you may have the same issue with these three foods as you had with flakes. 

You could also try using freeze dried brine shrimp or freeze dried tubifex worms and sticking the cubes to the side of the glass in the middle of your tank. 

[Sponge Filter questions]

On 3/23/2023 at 6:29 AM, Doberman Mom said:

(my biggest issue with the HOB is the water tinkle tinkle sound ..lol!)

This was one of my biggest annoyances when I first started using HOBs too. One way to get around this is to fill your tank all the way past the outlet of the HOB, so the water doesn't have to fall down the outlet into your tank, it just shoots across the surface of your water. 

[Favorite 3 fish foods]

1. Xtreme community crave (floats as large flakes, sinks in crushed bits, can feed all sizes of mouths, has some protein and some vegatables) 

2. Xtreme nano pellets (can feed all sizes of mouths, good for mid feeders and bottom feeders) 

3. Hikari/aco Freeze dried brine shrimp (a nice easy to store and easy to feed treat) 

4. xtreme nice 1.5mm semi floating (it's nice to have a larger food for goldfish and angelfish. I prefer foods that will eventually sink, so scavengers can clean up the leftovers) 

[What did you get done today?]

I made some solid progress on my fiddler crab paludarium. 

Also this is officially my party leaf. 

[Need Help Identifying a Tiny Spiral Snail - Anyone Seen These?]

Is it a Malaysian trumpet snail? Assassin snails have yellow and black stripes and the horn sticking out of the front of their shell. Trapdoor snails get much bigger.

[Rescaping Help.]

On 3/19/2023 at 4:58 PM, Theplatymaster said:

i have a bunch of Brazilian Pennywort i could use.

I was imagining something growing tall and draping over the top of the tank, I'm not sure if pennywort would work for that. Val is another plant that could do what I am imagining. 

[Rescaping Help.]

Maybe add something long and dangly in the corner like crypt spiralis, crypt helferi or crinum calamistratum?

[Does anyone have advice on setting up a brackish fiddler crab paludarium?]

Hey @Zenzo. I saw you had some experience with brackish tanks in a thread from last year. Did you ever find success with any plants other than java fern and mangroves? I currently plan to try anubias, crpyts and val, but it sounds like they may not work out so great.

[Does anyone have advice on setting up a brackish fiddler crab paludarium?]

Hey All,

I'm planning a brackish paludarium build featuring fiddler crabs. I've purchased a 16.9 gallon cube tank for the project. Does anyone have any experience with fiddler crabs, brackish tanks or paludariums and have advice they want to share?

Here is my current plan:
-Aim for a PH around 8 using aragonite sand as the substrate and seiryu stone for decorations.
-For fiddler crab tank mates: guppies, amano shrimp, nerite snails.
-For plants: anubias, java fern, crypts 

Some questions I have:
-I have large amount of caribsea super naturals sand on hand I would like to use if possible. Do you think I could get away with mixing aragonite sand with PH nuetral caribsea sand and still end up with a PH of around 8? For reference, my tap water has a PH around 6.5.
-It seems like most sources recommend a PH of 8-8.3 for fiddler crabs, but I have seen a few (https://aquariumbreeder.com/fiddler-crab-detailed-guide-care-diet-and-breeding/ & https://azgardens.com/product/mini-algae-eating-fiddler-crab/) suggest a larger range is acceptable. Does anyone know if fiddler crabs can thrive with a PH closer to 7.5?
-Does anyone have suggestions for tankmates for fiddler crabs? I feel like guppies are the most reasonable option for my tank size, but I'm not the biggest fan of guppies, so I am open to suggestions.
-Does anyone have suggestions for plants that can survive in brackish water with a specific gravity of 1.005? Cursory google searches suggest java fern, crypts and anubias are good options, or potentially many more plants (https://aquariumbreeder.com/brackish-water-plants/) but I also noticed this from ACO (https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/faqs/what-aquarium-plants-can-grow-in-brackish-water) saying java fern and mangrove trees are the only plants they have had success with.
-What plants do y'all recommend for the terrestrial part of the tank? I have a germanium I kinda want to throw in there. Would that be okay?

[How do you clean your new big tanks and rocks?]

I play it pretty fast and loose. 

For tanks I just use fritz glass cleaner and then scrub the walls with an algae scrubber and use my python water changer to rinse it off. Leftover water I mop up with towels. 

For rocks I just rinse them in the sink with hot water or let them soak in a bucket for a while if I'm not planning to add them right away. 

Wood I boil. 

[Gourami ID]

I feel like my honey gourami look more slender than these guys. These look more like the Dwarf gourami (Trichogaster lalius) I've seen at stores than honey gourami to me. 

[Scarlet Temple]

On 3/16/2023 at 6:59 PM, msherrill25 said:

If I try this plant, should I leave it in the basket with the rock wool then as the instructions call for on the planter description?

If you want to try the planter, yes that's what I would do. For your scenario I would bury the entire pot in the substrate and then put rocks on top of the substrate around the stems.

[Looking For Platy Color Ideas.]

I fell in love with the blue mountain calico platies at my LFS as soon as I saw them, so that's where my vote goes.

[Scarlet Temple]

I think stem plants like Scarlet temple are fine to put in easy planters. You can let them grow a nice tall stem out of the planter and when they get too tall you can trim them and replant the trimmings.

I want to say rhizome plants like anubias and javafern are probably the best plants to put into the planters though, because you generally want to attach them to a decoration rather than plant them anyways and putting them into a planter saves you the trouble.

[Good foreground plant / carpet?]

Crypt lucens might be a bit on the larger side for a foreground plant, but I think you could make it work depending on how tall your tank is. It grows very slow also. 

Here are some carpeting plants I've worked with that I would recommend:

Dwarf chain swords 

Japan

Dwarf sagarita (the grass on the right side) 

Monte carlo (looks good, can be kinda difficult to work with though) 

As for providing cover, I haven't done much breeding yet, so I'm not sure what works best for that.