MrGibson

Appreciate the link. I’ll give it a watch when I get the chance 🙂Been a while since I’ve seen a pecktec video. He’s actually local to me. I met him once or twice back in 2015 or 2016 when I was working and one of the LFSs here in town.

Hey y’all! I just won a pair of Betta albimarginata on aquabid and I’m curious to hear what experiences everyone has had with them. I’ve seen some pretty heavily varied information on water parameters with some recommendations of oh as low as 4, with others saying they’ll breed at 7.4 etc. I do hope to breed them and do my small part in increasing this endangered species’ numbers in captivity, but it’s not something I plan to do day 1. All in all just curious what people’s experiences have been with them and if there are any stumbling points to particularly watch out for. I’m very excited about these fish! Thanks y’all!

Glad to hear that. I literally just won a pair on aquabid. They’re eating prepared foods right now but it’s helpful to know how you got them back on in case mine come off of it after breeding. Appreciate it!

Did you ever get them to take prepared foods again and if so how? I’m hoping to get a pair or two of these fairly soon and I’ve read in a number of places that it’s very difficult to get them to take prepared foods at all.

That’s absurd! I’ve never seen neos anywhere near that big. It’d be interesting to try and pair them up with other colors and see if you get any big shrimp in colors other than yellow. I’m rather curious what the genetics of these are. Hopefully someone is able to breed a ton of them at some point. Also your mish mash blue tank is super interesting. I may end up following suit on something like that and seeing what happens. I’ll report back if I ever get around to it!

That’s the conclusion I came to as well. The rule against importing class c species dashed my last hope lol I’ll definitely check out ETAA! They seem like my kind of people

Wow cool fish is right. I’m so jealous of your rainbow shiners! They’re basically at the top of my list for North American natives that I want to keep but they’re found in Tennessee waters. I swear the second I move out of Tennessee I’m setting up a tank for them. I definitely want to get some of the gulf coast pygmy sunfish too. Those males look wild and the fisherman in me likes that they’re sunfish. I used to live in Florida and over the past week it’s crossed my mind to drive down there to visit some friends and see if I can collect a few of those on the way back up from the Tampa area. That or try to find someone who’s got some healthy ones to sell. Either way I need to do some more research first.

I’m pretty sure I have an account from years ago on the nanfa forums. I recall being excited about the biodiversity of East Tennessee and wanting to keep some of the beautiful native fish, and then being very disappointed when I learned our wildlife agency has disallowed that. I’ll check out the Facebook groups and see what it holds. Appreciate it! 😁

Wow that’s a crazy looking fish. It looks like I missed the application window by a week for the upcoming volunteer season but I’ll try to catch the summer season for sure. Seems like exactly the kind of place I want to be involved with.

Really appreciate the insight! I’m thinking a pretty tank with breeding as a bonus may be the angle I’d take. Not looking to start a full blown business here. If I can pay for my fish food and some new plants every once in a while I’d be happy. Definitely need to put more thought into it though and I’ll need to talk with the local LFSs to see if they’d be interested in EBAs going forward and at what size they’d want them. I’m considering trying out some apistos or something instead of EBAs as well. What the LFSs are wanting to take may inform that. Thanks again!

After taking a quick peek I think I’m going to be submitting a volunteer application soon. Super rad we have a place like that here.

Woah I had no idea! That’s so cool! I wonder if they’re the ones helping repopulate lake sturgeon around here. Definitely need to look into it! Thanks for the welcome!

Rad I’ll report back if I get around to messing with this! I’ve not printed with ASA yet but I’ve had some printed PETG parts in my nano reef for nearly 4 years now with zero problems.

This is very cool! Do you have any stl/3mf or cad files you’d be willing to share so I could play around with this? No worries if not

Hey y’all! I think I’m in the right forum here as I’m trying to work out some new ideas but if this should be posted elsewhere let me know! As I re-enter the freshwater hobby I’m finding myself wanting to keep walstad tanks due to the low maintenance and that being beneficial for some of the disability related issues I have, but I’m also finding myself wanting to keep and breed digging cichlids like EBAs in a nice looking tank. Now I see issues arising with EBAs in a dirted tank, but I have a few ideas regarding keeping the soil in place even if they dig in the cap. Initially I was thinking that some egg crate diffuser on top of the soil before it’s capped might do. I’m also thinking some of the plastic needlepoint grid from a craft store in a large ish size may do the trick. The third idea I have is having the soil in mesh bags with the cap on top of that. Another issue I’m potentially seeing is removing dry from a heavily planted tank when the time comes. I know Diana Walstad and others have used potted plants for this purpose as they can be moved, but as I’m limited on space for tanks I’d like to have this 30 pull double duty(have a 40 breeder on standby as well if I decide I want the extra volume here. Given the final size of EBAs that may be a good move) as a display as well as a breeding tank. I was considering trying to trap the fry with a smaller version of the bottle traps I used to use for minnows as a kid. I don’t see any major reason this wouldn’t work unless I wanted another small schooling fish like danios or something that would also get caught. As of now I’m not sure if I’d want anything other than the acaras. We’re into have another tank mate I’d like it to be something else I could breed. Probably an egg scattering fish like zebra danios or something along those lines. I’m certainly open to other suggestions here as well regarding methods of capturing fry and other potential tank mates. Any thoughts on that or any questions I can answer? Any reality check’s regarding things I’m not considering? Thanks y’all! 🙂

Hey y’all! Gabe here in Knoxville Tennessee. We’re currently on what should be our last day of sub freezing temperatures that resulted from the polar vortex. Nothing compared to when I lived in the great white north but by far the most snow I’ve seen in Tennessee. Friday was the first day I was able to get the Subaru down our driveway for a short supply run and then we were stuck In again for the weekend. Should get to the mid 40s tomorrow so that’s a relief. Anyway onto the aquarium nerd stuff. Since the week before snow in I’ve been flirting with a re-entry into more serious fish keeping and the freshwater hobby after maybe 6 years away from it. My partner has been setting up a tank for her work and was asking me for input on things. In sharing what I know and researching what I didn’t I remembered how important this all was to me years ago. I’ve had a saltwater nano for the past few years but I’m starting freshwater again with some experimenting with the Walstad method (I’ve been reading and annotating last year’s edition of her book over the last week) and also my first real foray into fish breeding. I tried Betta splendens years ago but I was a dumb 20 year old and didn’t get very far. I’ve currently got a 10 gallon in the works for some white clouds(or maybe medaka if I can find some interesting ones) and neocaridina shrimp, and before long I’ll be setting up a 2.5ish gallon jar and a 30 breeder. Not sure what’s going in the 30 but I’m brainstorming ideas on how to get a walstad to work with electric blue acaras. I put in my first order with aquarium coop this past Tuesday thinking they’d ship this coming week so I’d be good on weather, but they surpassed expectations and shipped that evening. After a few anxious days waiting in the snow for plants and one failed delivery due to the weather they showed up perfectly healthy. That experience is largely why I’m hopping on this forum as opposed to some others. This place seems more friendly too 🙂 Anyway the plants got here Friday and luckily I’d made my one brave trip of the week to tractor supply for some BDBS so I was ready to go. Plants are looking good so far and we’re pearling like mad yesterday. I’ll wrap up here before I go on too long and attach a picture of the current tank as it is. The actual light for this setup is held up at the post office due to weather so I’ll get that tomorrow and see how it all looks. Looking forward to being a part of the conversations here. Remember to keep your hands wet! 😁