Maggie

I've had yellow shrimp and currently have blue dreams. Most of these are still not full grown yet.

Looks like the lovebirds are getting along pretty nicely! 💘

The little boy was going nuts today. Tried to chase the baby and got very frustrated, swimming along the back bottom. I hope it's because he was lonely because I went back to Petco and got this pretty lady. Edit: after half hour of F being in the tank, M has perked right up. Amazing.

That looks very well organized! My supplies are in total disarray and I really need to get them straightened out, and I have an empty 10 gallon (Cosmo's old tank 💔) that I want to get started on because it depresses me to no end sitting there empty for the past 10 weeks.

Hi @PineSong, not planning to breed them but they probably have something else in mind! 💝💝 If I end up with too many I'll probably donate them to the Boston A.S. as shipping fish is not something I've ever done or want to do. @Chris, I know, I still think guppies are the most adorable little wiggle-butts. I didn't read up a lot on platys, but since buying them it sounds like they're going to work out pretty nicely.

Well, silly silly me. What I thought at first were guppies are actually young platys. Oh well, I guess it's a platy tank for now tho I may get some female guppies to liven it up a little, and hope I can find a dwarf gourami (powder blue would be nice to offset the yellow and black), as I've been wanting one for a long time now. The female platy is teeny and the male is only about 1". I also got two plain (olive?) nerite snails for this tank, both of whom have disappeared for now. Time to go read up on platy care. They're pretty nervous right now so I didn't get very good pics.

My new 20 long is finally ready for fish. Yesterday while at petco for ember tetras for my shrimp tank, I saw the most adorable black and yellow guppies, and haven't been able to get them off my mind since. I had been planning on making the 3-hour round trip to the last of the three LFS in the Boston area, but there's no guarantee they'd have guppies or any community fish that I'd want, as they deal a lot with cichlids and "rare/unusual" fish. The first two LFS were very disappointing to say the least! So, I might just do the 5 minute drive to petco. The aquatics staff in this particular store (and actually in every petco I've been to) seem knowledgeable and caring. I guess I was spoiled rotten by House of Tropicals and a thriving LFC when I lived in Maryland. I haven't been to any Boston club meetings yet, but their online forum is completely lacking in who's selling fish and plants. Anyway...here is the aquarium ready to go. Lots and lots of biofilm on the wood, zero ammonia and nitrite, <5 nitrate.

This was great! I love how he did lobster physical therapy to heal his damaged claws.

Oh, I do not envy you at all. I recently moved (only about 450 miles) and ended up rehoming 2 tanks (45 and 20L) - all but my betta, who passed away 3 weeks after the move. I'd suggest you do a cost/time analysis before deciding whether or not to bring them with you. There are a few fishtube vids that might help in the planning stage - what to remember to do, what extra supplies you need, etc. Then decide if you love your fish enough to go through that process. Moving companies will pack and move your aquariums (how much they charge, I do not know), but you'd have to figure out a plan for your fish, plants, substrate, etc. during that time, and a plan for transporting them or having a friend hold them and ship to you. Furniture movers can take weeks to get your furniture to you. I used uhaul "u-boxes" (where you pack, they haul), and it took them 2 weeks to get here! I couldn't afford a third u-box, and had to give up a lot of my possessions. I fussed and fretted for weeks - wrote down all the possible scenarios, before deciding to give up my fish and tanks, and it was even worse when I got here and Cos died and I had no fish! But the logistics just didn't work out and I had no fish friends on either end of the move to help me. Best of luck whatever you decide to do!

Meet the new copepod destruction squad. They're a little skittish now but seem to be doing fine. My local big box store doesn't have a large selection of fish, but I found one that's been on my list - ember tetras - my first tetra! They had yellow and black guppies (fry, juvies, and adults) that were so adorable I can't stand it. I might go back for a trio of those.

@Torrey @Beardedbillygoat1975 I have so many, even my nerite snail, who I've named Charlie, has his own travelling cleanup crew.

This must be the only place where you can seamlessly go from discussing subdominant- and dominant-male gourami behavior and coloration, to "how to calm a frightened stray chicken by holding her upside down" and nobody blinks twice. 🙂 By the way, "gourami" was once an easy Jeopardy answer (easy for every single fishkeeper in the world), and nobody got it right! (Something along the lines of "which of these is a fish").

Seen on Twitter

I fed Hikari micropellets until he reached adulthood and then switched to their betta pellets as the main food. He also got frozen bloodhound or frozen brine shrimp, regular flake, spirulina flake, and bug bites pellets. Alot of bettas enjoy live baby brine shrimp but mine never went after them. He loved live adult brine shrimp as a very special treat that I'd get from my LFS.

Here's the longer video

@eatyourpeas it was just my Galaxy phone and not even the best Galaxy phone! I'd siphoned up the leftovers from their food dish into a plastic cup and filmed for about a minute, and created gifs from that. I was amazed when it focused on them so well.

There are no fish in my 5 gallon shrimp tank and it looks like copepods are living it up in there. I think I might add a few small rasboras or tetras to this tank.

I'm so sorry to hear about Hugo, James! You've tried so hard to give him a good life, and I hope he recovers.

On a whim I bought a package of cheap lily bulbs (several possibilities were listed on the package) at a big box store for my new 20L, which is sooooo close to being ready for fish. Only two out of five bulbs made it. Since lilies grow so fast I wondered what one hour of growth would look like.

I've heard many times that neocaridina shrimp can go down to pretty low temps...maybe something to consider in addition to all the fish suggestions!

That's funny, I read the same "mid water feeder" thing about dwarf emerald danios which are cousins to CPDs, and mine hung out and fed almost exclusively on the bottom. The free-swimming fry stayed closer to the top and then hung out farther and farther down until they were old enough to stay with the adults. But this misconception comes in handy when you rent an apartment with the only pets allowed being dogs and cats but whose lease includes a clause about mold control ("check behind aquariums"...) 😁

Today my blue dream shrimp order came - I ordered 10 and got 13! While acclimating them I figured they were extra hungry since they spent an extra day in shipping, so I gave them a shrimp lollie and they went nuts! Now in the tank with the surviving 4 out of 6 I got at the LFS, they're not mobbing the lollie so much. I also got some mineral junkie bites that my yellow shrimp always loved. Gotta have a lot of shrimp to see them in action because a lot hide at any given time. Also, this week I finally started setting up my 20L aquarium. I have an extra airstone in there just to help the cycle more, but still have to attach the A. gold coin (floating) to the top of the wood and make a decision on fish. I also have an extra sponge filter in the shrimp tank and will add that when fish come. I want guppies but am worried about too many fry, and also maybe a female powder blue gourami, and shrimp, and...

I have a 5 gallon imagitarium tank for my shrimp and plant tank. It's okay - inexpensive, comes with a light in the lid and a HOB which I don't use as I'm using a sponge filter. I also have an Aqueon 5 gallon minibow which is the quarantine tank. The light stopped working on that within days, and the filter didn't last long either. They're okay. Aqueon also makes a 5 gallon glass tank which is what I'd get if I could find one in stock!

When I had guppies and shrimp I crushed the flake into a fine powder or used spirulina powder. The powder also feeds small fry which are inevitable in a guppy tank. If you have floating plants it helps trap some powder where the shrimp can get it, plus it gets into nooks and crannies where fish can't reach. Guppies have endless appetites, don't they?! I also used mineral junkie bites specifically made for shrimp and snails, and have never seen any fish eat those though they do inspect them upon first encounter. The mineral bites are almost all calcium and I'm not sure if something is added but the shrimp gravitate toward them. Good luck!

New nerite snail - I've never seen one with its body extended out like this. There's a big white spot on the shell that I'll keep an eye on.