Saltinthedesert

Had them for 6-12 months. Tank is heavily planted and super stable. Temp is 78° - 80°. pH is around 7.2 (my tap water in Woodinville comes out around 7.8, which I offset with RO from my LFS.) GH is 7-8, KH is 3-4. Using an Fx4 canister filter. Moderate water flow with the heads high in the water column. there are 7 caves total. 5 pictured below.

Would love any input on breeding L333s that anyone here has. I have a group of 5 in my 75 with lots of caves and haven’t seen any breeding evidence. I’m contemplating isolating them but wanted input on anyone’s experience in general first. Thanks!

What’s unique about the nets?

I’ve used auto feeders (I have the Eheim now) a few times but none of the ones I have tried are good for small tanks, they seem to dispense quite a bit of food. I have a 10 gallon tank with a dozen CPDs and Neocaridinas so it doesn’t need much if I leave town for a week. Any recommendations on auto feeder’s that will release small amounts of food?

My flag Acaras have bred for the second time. Last time we tried to move the fry into a breeder box but they were far too small and slipped through the cracks into open water and we’re all picked off. This time I quickly move them to a quarantine/nursery tank and things are going much better. Does anyone here have experience breeding these fish? Anything I should pay attention to one week after hatching?

So update, heater has been unplugged the last week. 😬

@Colu thanks

This showed up yesterday morning. He lives in a fluval 10 gallon, one small wood piece and a few shrimp as well as one bristlenose pleco. No sharp edges that I can figure out. Treated with kanaplex yesterday fearing that it was an infection but I’m not seeing any fuzz or fluffy stuff on the cut. Any ideas how this happened?

Kanaplex is helping!

I saw something dashing around the tank and fired up the microscope. Not sure what it is.

I have three wild caught king tiger pleco’s that had a rough start/introduction to the tank, all three are covered in white spots that showed up overnight. It didn’t progress from a few white spots like it normally does so I’m not sure what I’m facing. Ich X is not working, I’ve been following Cory’s normal routine of water changing 20-30% every day and then redosing 5 ml per 10 gall. I did one dose of the med trio this last Monday as well. They are all “swimming in place” pretty constantly which I assume is also a reflection of their discomfort. do I need to increase the dosage on the Ich X? temp- 82° gH - 7 kh - 4 ph - 7.2

Can someone give me specifics on how to safely introduce/quarantine wild caught plecos to a community tank? I understand having them solo in a Quarantine tank for a month. Then I read mixed things about salt baths and plecos, some say it’s great, others say avoid salt and plecos at all costs. Then med trio dosing once a week for 3 weeks? Again, not troubleshooting anything specific, just trying to be sure they are in a clean bill of health before they go into community. Thanks.

Thanks everyone for the thoughtful replies. Here is a pic from the 20 long in question. A bit murky because anytime you touch the Fluval stratum is kicks up all that “water dust”.

Getting a new 20g tank tomorrow. Dropped a brand new sponge filter in my well established and cycled 75g this evening. 1. How long does the sponge filter need to be running on the air pump in my old tank before it’s going to be useful when I transfer it to “cycle” my new tank for me? I’ll be filling half of the 20 with water (I know this doesn’t hold much good bacteria) from my 75 and moving a few plants over too. 2. Does a separate sponge from my old canister filter that’s been sitting on the bottom of my 75 (not attached to air) also have good bacteria in it? It’s been in for weeks.

Update: added floating plants. added mystery snail. added small amano. added wall of rotala in the back for shrimp cover. added pleco dome. we’ll see how this goes.

@NanoNanoreally appreciate your response here. A few comments: 1. not new to aquariums but new to betta’s. No rough edges I can discern on my mini-tree stump so hopefully that works but the sword idea makes sense so I might add that once things settle. We’ve been trying to simplify our aquarium life so I’ve gone from many tanks to 3, with one being my daughters betta tank. It has bio media in the foams vacant spaces. 2. I’ve done nerites before, and as such can tell you exactly which dremel tip is the best for removing eggs. 😎 I know the identification of males is the small hood on the left antennae but I have yet to spot one in the LFS. 3. I can grab floating plants from other tanks, so I’ll do that today. thanks so much!

A few small plants. Java and some Anubias. One small piece of real wood. tried adding a neo cull and he’s surviving though the betta has been interested for sure.

Trying to keep bioload low because of the tank size but wondering what would be considered betta safe that actually eats algae. Not looking to avoid water changes, just keep things clean.

@Fish Folkgot it thanks

One of my neons that appears preggo is at the surface this morning. Breathing quickly, “resting” on some vegetation. Is this normal? All other fish including neons look healthy.

@CharlieTuna thanks, that’s helpful.

Love my Fluval 3.0 plant lights I have on my 29g and 75g. I want one for my 10g but the 32W version I have on my 29g is too long. Anyone know if the Nano covers a whole standard 10g tank?

@Griznatchthis is gonna shock you, but not growing sod. 😎 @MACcan’t imagine how that would happen. So bizarre. @Tanked thanks. Got the microscope thinking it would be fun teaching the kids some science. Turns out Dad uses it to look at aquarium stuff. 😬

Found this guy this morning in my Endler tank. Small looking worm, with some hairs on its body. Yellowish green in color. Any ideas what it is where this came from? Tank has rotala indica, 30 endler babies, and one BN pleco. Included a few pics under the microscope.

Would love to see any pics of your setup if you modified the intake piece of an FX4 canister filter to keep fry, shrimp, and bad thoughts out of your filter. Found a few videos of folks wrapping the entire outside of the intake with a media bag and zip-tying it down, but I’ll likely be looking for another more ‘elegant’ solution. Maybe. Thanks!