Lennie

surface scum/biofilm usually ends up like tiny bubbles on the surface if pushed around. Usually male bettas make a nest at one spot. Or better to say, I have never seen any of my 5 male bettas making bubblenests spread around just like in the picture. One of them might be a nest but not all of them, IMO. Here are examples of bubblenests from two different pairs I had. And yes, they can build crazy nests! My dragon male, with nests at two different times: My koi male mating, catching eggs and showing the nest he built!

Mystery snails, naturally, go to the water level and above from time to time. They do this in every tank of mine, so I don't think it is the oxygenation issue. Sometimes to take a gulp of air, sometimes to snack on duckween/frogbit, sometimes to lay eggs, or maybe even to prove their parasnailing skills! Fish would react worse to oxygen problems than a mystery snail with an ability breathe from air does. Water parameter issues can be a thing. Always a good idea to check at least ammonia and strip tests to(or liquid test kits ofcourse) to see what's going on. Especially after having a dead one in small tank size, ammonia levels may go up fast enough and create a toxic environment. 10g cannot sustain a lot of nerites as they heavily rely on feeding on natural algae/biofilm growth in the tank, and they can clean it all pretty quickly, so may end up starving. I think one is good enough in a 10g. I wouldn't add a second personally. Old age is also a factor but two dying in a row should be a very bad coincidence for them to die due to old age. My vote goes for potential starvation or water parameter issue maybe.

Very cool. I love it

I would say Hobs are way better in general. You can easily utilise the space the way you want. The circulation is much much better. I find mechanical filteration and circulation of sponge filters very bad personally. The main reason why I have many sponge filters around in the fishroom is, because it is cheaper to buy and run on one big air pump. I would go for a sponge filter if you really need a very gentle flow(like if you have a long fin dumbo ear male betta for example), or trying to lower your expense(which replacing a HOB isn't it in this case). Oh and ofcourse I love keeping some extra sponge filters around for instant cycling new tanks or carrying it to a quarantine tank or a tank that has cycle issues after using medicine. Another advantage is you can use sponge filters during power outs. But otherwise, HOB wins every other aspect IMO.

@dasaltemelosguy may help with dojo loaches

When I got them as juveniles: Male: Females: If any pairs up, DEFINITELY seperate any others from the tank. After keeping 1m:2f juveniles, they grew up and paired, killed the other female in a 100x40x40 tank.

Hello there. I can show you my pair to give an opinion. Tho as juveniles it was pretty hard to sex. Normal rams are easier to sex because you can see the pink belly on females and there can be other potential signs too but they are not guaranteed, like the sheen on the black dot on the body, top fins, pelvic fin. The differences I see between my m and f are: male pelvic fins go longer, first top fins are long, and in size it is bigger, although blacks seem to grow a bit late. Female; shorter pelvic fins, short top fins, smaller in size, the glasses are covered by algae (which I think it makes the pair feel comfier, so I leave it be) in the picture, I just screenshotted these from the video I sent to @Guppysnail male on left, female on right: male again:

First makes sure it is ich, not epistylis. Treatment of ich with salt requires lots of salt actually. The usual treatment range is at least 2-3ppt, but I have read there have been cases the ich still remained alive 5ppt or so. I would not use salt as a treatment method for cories/plecos myself but just a lil bit of salt can still be a support. I would just add a lil bit of salt to support the treatment procedure but treat with Ich-X(or basically anything with malachite green-formaldehyde, we don’t have Ich-x here but I easily found a local brand with the same ingredients) I have a very experienced friend in the hobby says Seachem cupramine also works great for ich, and he has never heard of a case it failed to this day, but I have never tried it myself. I am hesitant to try copper based medicines due to keeping shrimp/snails, worrying about them potentislly remaining jn the tank, and their effectiveness is related to alkalinity(if I am not mistaken)

Just beautiful

That website is a gem. It is just usually hard to find it when it comes to seeing it between all those popular fish care pages. I found it by a chance I hope it helps

Hey, again. You may find the following links helpful. Their f8 and general puffer guides were very helpful to me. Colomesus asellus care guide: https://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/library/puffers-in-focus/sap/ Also to understand puffers in general: https://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/library/puffer-care/inside-the-mind-of-a-puffer/ About your ghostshrimp question: https://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/library/feeding/ghostshrimp/ About feeding puffers: https://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/library/feeding/feeding-your-puffers/ https://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/library/feeding/problems-feeding-your-puffer/ I fed mine a piece of raw prawn today and It loved it. I mainly got it to cycle my new reef tank project you know about, but got 3 extras to try for the puffer. Maybe you can try it? Im not sure if the shrimp outer shell is tough enough to help with the teeth tho as a replacement for snail or anything with a tougher shell to control teeth growth

Hello @Isaac M! thanks for the response. That is a very cute tank and an adorable clownfish. Today I talked to an importer and breeder guy that has a marine only store. For my tank size, he recommended clownfish, cardinals, wrasse(a lit bit googling says too active for my tank tho), pipefish and gobies. He also recommended starfish, sea urchin and snails. For the corals, he also suggested soft corals. These recommendations were based on the updated new stock list today, so there were no firefish or maybe some other suitable critters like shrimp to recommend. I really like star polyps and zoas so far. I am also interested in anemones, especially if I will get a clownfish. But I saw that they can move themselves and even may hurt other corals if it touches. Is it risky to have an anemones in my 50x40x25cm tank? Also I see that there are soo many different color variations of clowns. Are keeping the color variations is as easy as keeping the normal ones, or are they known to be more aggressive and/or sensitive I wonder. Like black german blue rams are more aggressive than other color variations, and usually fish that are bred for colors may be more sensitive overall. Orange is my fav fish color anyway, so I will probably just go basic but I am just curious I love the idea of starfish. I saw they need target feeding but I can provide that. Also I surely want the fire shrimp you have! Absolutely great looking creature

Black ones look very cute too. My lfs has them as well. But, I panted the background black. I was between blue and black, but after checking many pictures and reading about it, blue seemed like a better choice for bigger tanks, especially if you can work around creating shadow and sense of depth, like this tank So black fish on black background does not go well together. How do I know? I have one black angelfish, Wednesday, in my 160 liter tank with a black background. Not a good choice, at all. But I love her 😄

I have pea ouffers and figure8. Pea puffers I got were tankbred and does not show any parasitic symptoms. my figure 8 might have parasites tho he does not look so but you never know. I took the risk and chose not to deworm but if he seemed to have any visible symptoms I would. His poop is great (what am I saying…), and his belly looks totally fine. mine was glass surfing like crazy att the store and it was the only one doing it out of the group of 16. I got this one and he kept the same behavior for a while but after a couple days he quit almost totally. Now he knows me, comes to glass ask for food. An actual water puppy Coverin sides did not work for me to stop his glass surfing. Two things worked: adding lots of branches, a cave, plants. And instead of target feeding directly, making him search and find food and be excited about it. He swims around check the gaps and corners try to find the white worms around leaf litter look below the branches try his own ways to find and eat it. Glass surfing seems to be more of a boredom thing. Decorate a lot, spread feeding to at least twice a day and turn it into an entertainment for it Oh, and %100 check thepufferforum. It is a gem. Full of people with puffer experiences. I found so many good guides about my puffers and peoples own experiences

To be fair, I thought the same. But actually, it is not very different if you make the calculations in total from what I understand. For freshwater, ideally, you get stuff like med trio, aquarium test kits, plants, airstone, airpump, light, aquasoil or any other substrate, roottabs, filter, wood and rocks, and many more. In terms of fish, even if you buy a pair of apistos, let’s say it goes up to 100bucks or maybe even more. Add a group of tetras, corydoras, a couple otos, one bristlenose… all these equipments, fish and plants and the tank already cost actually A Lot if you think about it. Even setting up a random MD Fish Tank aquascape tank would cost a lot all alone with that tank soil wood rocks and many plants. You can technically go for a high tech setup to make any tank even more costy! Freshwater is not cheap at all. But has two advantage. If you like breeding, you can sustain your hobby by having some income. Secondly, you can collect some rocks, wood, leaf litter and use dirt to make dirted tank, can buy extremely cheap fish if you have no intention to keep rarer species or try different fish that falls into more experience category. I believe it works the same for sw. If you want expensive corals, lights, nutrition needs, fish etc. then it must be very costy. Otherwise, there are many videos that teach you how to set up a budget friendly tank. And people try to enrich their tank and add equipments if they like gradually in a 6 month period or even longer. You dont exactly need to have everything at the start other than the must requirements The info above is great. I will also dm you the topic I created on reef2reef couple months ago, I think it may help to understand a few concepts.

These are what my LFS has. I took a pic of some fish there to check them and their needs online when Im home. Are clowns small enough? There were also other butterflies and tangs but they are too big for me anyway

Mixed opinions usually mean trying it is basically a high risk and you def should have a second plan if it doesn’t work and don’t exactly rely on it working solely based on the idea of success. Like if you wanna try, and see that it fails, what will you do? If you have an answer to how to deal with such situation, then you can give it a shot. If not, then I wouldn’t try. Also if you ask me, I dont think it is all about seeing each other when it comes to fish’s senses. Sight is one element but not the only one. I even witnessed many times, when my fish get into breeding mood, even shrimp in the same tank get frisky and very active, the way males swimming around crazily searching for a female to breed. I think there is a risk of them to feel each other even if they dont see each other. Some breeders keep bettas in different containers for a week or so, not even in the same tank, but just letting them see each other before getting them ready for spawning and being familiar with each other. I think it is very unlikely for bettas not to sense each other behind dividers sharing the same tank, but I never tried

Ah I see! Then I will calculate the amount of salt I use in grams and water in liters, and find my own ratio. I will use live sand(claims to be live sand, not directly from a tank but storebought, so I believe it’s clean) but not live rock. If you cant source live rock well, it may come up with nasties from what I understand. I have no issues waiting for cycling and stuff, but I don’t want to risk having unwanted pests and stuff introduced, especially considering I dont know how to deal with them right now. I know no hobbiyst that keeps live rocks and I am not willing to buy from stores in where I live. So I got dry rocks instead. Maybe these would be my own live rocks if I happen to upgrade the tank size 🙂 who knows! Thanks again That’s relieving to hear. Your fish and corals look lovely. I checked many setups and yes, filter or skimmer does not seem to be necessary. I will install a small HOB as I have on hand, but I have seen many people utilizing live rocks and sand to keep the tank cycle just with wakemaker like you even in much much bigger tanks. But may require a bit more knowledge I guess I also consider clownfish, as they are probably the easiest to find captive bred and I usually see them in nano setups. But also I see that fully grown adult one needs 20g or so… I will check for more experience based comments. This site mentions as 10g or above too. https://www.ocellarisclownfish.com/ocellaris-clownfish-care/ but the pic above, is that an ocellaris or percula?

My pc is dead so I didnt want to say a few words and send it in the morning when I saw your text. Thank you veery much for your time and helping. You explained everything in detail and even more than I could ask for. I appreciate the fact that you voice your concern about wild caught fish and corals collected from the nature. This might be the first topic I have ever checked when I started considering a reef tank. The thing lately motivated me to do it again is I ended up having extra equipments on hand that I dont use. I bought a 1000l/h small wave maker for another shallow tank but I didnt like it much there. I started a brackish tank for my f8 puffer and bumblebee gobies, but the difference between the 10kg and 20kg reef salt was so tiny that it would be very silly to go for 10kg or less so suddenly I ended up having lots of reef salt on hand. I had a small hob I got that is 250liter/h, I had a tank ofcourse, a heater and a hydrometer. So It turned into a utilize these stuff into a dream reef tank project instead. That’s why, today I considered if I will be utilising the stuff on hand if I go for the large tank, and the honest answer is no. Instead it will be majorly a new investing project, and I would rather spare money for light corals, fish and critters instead of buying a new filter, bigger wavemaker, a sutiable lid, anso on. So I decided to go with the 50x40x25 tank. Painted the backgroun black, bcoz I made lots of reading and checked pictures, and to be fair even tho I dont like blue on freshwater, I like it on reef tanks. Blue and black seem to have unique ways to compliment corals and fish. However, blue seems to work great for larger tanks where you can add the feeling of depth. So I painted black instead I also ordered the RODI system ( We have RO system at home but I always wanted something specific for the fishroom so I ordered mine for the use, this was a plan for ages). I am also never into deep sands in any of my tanks, even tho I never tried reef/saltwater before. So I got me only 2kgs of live sand just to cover the floor. If I happen to get fish and snails that like to burrow, I may add more but for now I dont wanna cut from swimming space. Not my type. btw, you said u prepare your own salt water mix. The reef salt I bought says approximately use 390gr for every 10 liter for 1.035. The most common choice I have seen so far is 1.025. Is there a way to calculate these to know how much to add to approximately reach 1.025? Or until I figure it out, I add salt wait to dissolve and check with hydrometer over and over again until I find my own ratio? I will check the websites and all the beginner friendly recommendations above. If I be successful and enjoy the reef hobby, I may consider starting the bigger tank in the future too. Many thanks again ——————————- We dont have so many saltwater specific bottled bacteria here. I used stability many times in the back for freshwater successfully. So It says for both fw and marine, I ordered a 50 ml tiny bottle. I also have live sand. Let’s see how the cycling will go We dont have something like Dr Tim’s ammonia in where I live, so I gotta introduce either fish food or something else to go bad and release ammonia like shrimp. Do you directly add ammonia or what’s your way? Normally I cycle my filters in a tub with fish food and before moving them to new tanks I squeeze clean them so no bad food particles and stuff go into the tank. However, I need to cycle in the tank now and I wanna do it clean, fishless, but without uneaten particles floating around and going bad. Any ideas? Also people seem to keep nitrates almost to none after the cycling is done. What’s your way of doing it? Tons of water changes? ————————————————— Exactly as you mentioned, just like in fw, people seem to have their own styles and finding success. I wonder, what’s your time of adding corals to the tank? And when do you start lighting the tank for the first time? From what I read, people can go from introducing not super sensitive corals pretty fast within a couple weeks and some waiting up to 6 months or so. I am patient but not patient enough to wait 6 months not gonna lie —————————— Yes! I will work around finding a good flow. Because from what I remember the videos I watched, way too much flow might also damage especially soft corals? Come join me and let’s set up a tank together! 🙂 If youd like to share your experience whenever you have time please see the questions above thank you, Lennie

If you want something quiet and aesthetic that support aeration, less splashes, quiet; you can check Neo air diffusers. Some negatives from my experience: less surface agitation but much much finer bubbles so Idk how is oxygenation in comparison is to normal airstone, clogging issue-it is white and green spot algae loved it in my case. I did not like clogging/algae cleaning part myself so I am not using it

Hello there. I have some questions on my mind that would be helpful to hear from experiences. First thing is tank size. I LOVE shallow tanks. Majority of my tanks in the fishroom are shallow tanks. But, I cant be sure what tank size should I use for this tank. I have 50x40x25h cm, 110x40x25cm and 50x50x50cm cube I can use. I normally love cubes but when I checked many cube reef tanks, not a fan. So I wanna decide between the two shallow tanks. I wonder if 110x40x25 would let me try many more fish, critters and corals that would make up for spending more money of a bigger light, more rocks and substrate, more salt, and so on. Or am I just good to go with 50x40x25h. Obviously longer tank would let me keep more fish as it would provide bigger swimming space and let fish have their territories if needed. What do you think? So far I love firefish goby. I want a tank and stock build around this fish. Do you have any stocking suggestions for easy corals ( I especially love soft corals) and fish? —————————— The next question is light. I found this light, it is a local brand, and I wonder if it would be good enough to grow corals that are not super needy 445nm Royal Blue 460nm Blue 20.000K cool White 430nm Violet Pink Length: 31.6cm Width: 11.6cm Height: 1.8cm 20Watt 69 LEDs ————————— I bought Tropical’s Reef Base salt. The preparation on its back is based on higher salinity than 1.025 which seems to be the common point of many corals and fish from what I see. Do you prepare your water at home or buy it? If you prepare it, whats your method of doing it? I thought about keeping a big container with a lid ready at 1.025 to be used during water changed and I can top up with RODI whenever needed —————————— lastly whats your way of having a lid? Mesh lids look nice but we dont have them jn my country. I may need to DIY

Since you mentioned it is your first time using a forum; Please do visit simplydiscus forum and create a topic there too. That one is a discus dedicated forum and you may find people with so many years of discus keeping that might help you. This forum is a great friendly freshwater heavy community but as a person with 15year+ experience with 24tanks myself who tried keeping discus in the last 8-9months, I can tell discus are not a regular freshwater fish that our hobby based experience is to be enough overall. So far, probably FishFolk is the only one I have seen having a success at keeping them in a planted community tank without any issues just like any other fish and I would consider as an exception. Like a really rare one. So I would say join simplydiscus forum and learn from people with so much experience and years of discus keeping

@beastie has panda garras but what I remember, she told me they dont really make any difference when it comes to algae eating in general. No clue about specific bba situation she may help further

Hey Guys, Hope you are all doing well. I know we are mainly freshwater hobbyists here, myself included. I have been searching a lot about reef tanks for the last 3 months, but have always been reading about them in our local forum since I was a kid. People in the reef2reef forum helped me a lot, and the popular guides as well. Meanwhile, I wonder if there is anyone among us that has a reef/saltwater tank? Would love to talk about the new setup I am planning to have and learn from personal experiences if there is anyone who keeps a reef tank Cheers, Lennie

To be fair, they always are feisty. It is not really an aggression but more like an interaction IMO. The more space swimming area lots of decorations and group members they have, the better they can satisfy their natural behavior. I think we can think them like more boisterous barbs maybe? Fast, active, likes a group but they can be boisterous and chasy between each other in a group. I have to disagree keeping them alone part. Also I heard about them being aggressive towards other fish if kept alone. That being said, I barely take SAE experiences into consideration, because so many species are sold under the wrong label of SAE like CAE, Flying fox, False sae, etc. so the comments based on wrong species are all over the place