Koi

You pretty much hit it on the money as far how to balance the lighting. You would be surprised how little light some plants need I'm using kind of a custom LED for my tank also and that plants seem to be doing ok. I bought these 3500k industrial/commercial leds that look like its for some kind of shelving unit and wired two together. The only thing I hate is that is has a orangish hue but for 20 bucks per luminaire I can't complain. I just wanted to throw this question out there because it seems like you know a lot about LEDS. If possible I wanted to see if you had any recommendations for led strips or know a decent place online I could look around. I've been looking for either decent 5050 or 5750 strips. I've had my eye on the Phillips smart strips and Ive tried to see if Cree made any but I wanted to see if there were any other good brands with an economical price.

So Its really hard to see because overall your hyacinth looks really healthy. The burning tips is usually a sign of lack of nitrogen but looking how green your new leafs are it is probably isn't that. But seeing how dark some of the older leaves and what look like holes that are forming on the bottom bulbs connective to the leaves. It looks to me phosphate. Since you mentioned you do smaller daily doses, it sounds like it falls in line with phosphorous because usually most people try to limit their phosphates. At least thats my train of thought as to what could be happening. When I kept hyacinth in my pond It constantly stuffed itself out with a boom and bust cycle. One of the only plants I've ever kept that still kept propagating even with massive deficiencies. Just because of the cell structure of the plant(or how thick the plant is I'm not sure how to word that) and how quickly it grows it will literally strip your water of everything. It's kinda crazy how this plant will just make babies in attempt to survive even when it's yellowing and dying.

Yes, I haven't had a Madagascar lace in a while but when I did I did I kept it at 80 degrees.

What kind of livebearers are you keeping? If it’s just guppies I would say generally they don’t eat plants if anything they are picking off the stuff growing on the plants. For instance, when ever I treat some bba with hydrogen peroxide I never get to see it turn red, usually my guppies will clean it all off. Ive been the same way with repashy, I like the utility of it but knowing myself I won’t use it as much just cause of the extra steps. Even if it’s only like 2 steps haha. I don’t mind having big mommas in fact I love pulling giant females out of my pond at the end of summer. I only have a problem is my males come out looking pregnant haha

Hi @Kirsten, as far as a definitive way to ensure your guppies won't eat their fry, I don't really have a solution as I am struggling with that myself. But I can offer some methods that I employ to try to curb that and I'll share share issues that I'm running into. Hopefully there is something in here that at least will spark an idea for you. As far as your concern for using higher protein based dry foods, I wouldn't worry about that too much but definitely keep an eye on the overall body conformation of your fish. In general the amount of grains used to bind the fish foods should be sufficient enough as roughage for your fish. Now I do mix a higher veggie based food at least one of my feedings during the day but it isn't something that I really fixate on. I think maybe something of concern for high protein would be only feeding something like blood worms but even then I'm not sure how crucial it is but then again I have never tried strictly only feeding bloodworms. Other live/frozen foods like adult/baby brine shrimp or daphnia are some of my favorites as it is good protein and the calcium from their shells serve as a form of fiber for the fish. I'll preface that currently at the moment I have no more space to hold anymore guppies and I'm mostly just getting them through the season till I can put them back outside. This first one isn't so much as a suggestion but a failure on my part which is decreasing the temperature. Currently my tank stays around 68-70 degrees and my thought process behind this was to slow down their metabolism so that they aren't as hungry. Being that my tank is pretty overstocked I think I've created a feast or famine situation just cause of the sheer numbers I have in a relatively small space. I'll also mention I have noticed that although I haven't seen a change in my fish appetite. they definitely aren't growing as quickly as some of the same fish I keep at 80 degrees. Wether which one is healthier overall for the fish, I don't really know. Depending on how much time in the day you are allowed to see your fish I think spreading out the meals does help. On my busy days I will feed 3 times a day. But for weekends I will even spread the feedings to 6+ times a day or try feeding every 2 hours. Note that I am suggesting increasing the number of feedings not increasing the amount of food. Instead of bigger meals, I'll just try to have the fish "snack" ensuring that most of my guppies at least get a bite or two. Another option I like is having a slow release type food. As @KaitieG mentioned repashy is a nice option especially if you can't be at home all day, you can put down a block and have your fish graze on it throughout the day. I like using green beans as well, but it seems like only my biggest females will tend to pick on it and most times it may end up as snail food. Since you said you already having a climbing population of snails this may not be feasible for you, but you could always use the green beans to gather all the snails to one side and you can remove them as such. As far as probably the best option I agree with @Kat_Rigel that separating would ensure the highest amount of fish and you could maximize growth.I'll share an idea i consider somewhat of a "wives tale" that bigger fish produce produce a hormone that prevent other fish from growing within a tank, do what you will with that information haha I figured it was at least something worth sharing. If you aren't looking to have more tanks and if you can stand having floating plants. Having dense cover at the top will allow fry to hide within the roots and they can pick off the microorganisms growing on it as well. I feel like there was something else I did, but I'm drawing a blank. If I can remember it, I will add on to it here if you are interested. If there is anything that you've tried please share I'm always looking for different ideas/methods to try!

Limnophila aromatica and bacopa caroliniana but I think you can really only smell them when you break/cut the stems. Maybe they do smell good without even doing that and I have a poor sense of smell haha

Do concrete tubs count? haha

Was there a specific shape besides a circle that you wanted? You can use T airline connecters or elbows to make a square haha. I usually use spare air control valves to connect my airline tubing. Check valves have more air inside them if you have extras, that might help you with buoyancy. But these options might not look that pretty haha

Sure @Maggie! The pictures and videos are not the greatest since they are from my phone. If I can stop spending money on fish, maybe I could try to at least get a decent camera and work on editing some of my videos haha. So my pond is still a work in progress at the moment. My dad and I built this pond over 15 years ago?? (my god I never realized how long its been) But we never got to finishing it and I decided to try to get it back up and running last year. I'm hoping this summer I can make some some more fixes, for example the waterfall flow isn't where I like it yet. Because or pure surface area, I lose a lot of water to evaporation and I think there is a leak somewhere. Heres a better look at it. You'll see that I pulled the hosing out of the plumbing of the waterfall just so I can still have water movement. Ignore all the seems and foam, when this is up and running the white water and algae will hide most of it. This is kind of how the waterfall works. but when I run it into the plumbing like it supposed to, water wraps around from both the left and the right and converges back to the middle. I never really uploaded videos so I'm still learning how to put out better quality videos

Did we just coin the phrase “guppy party”? This needs to be a thing haha @DSH OUTDOORS so my 45 degree pond is like a sauna for you huh? I will say try to manage the the population unless you have the space to house guppies for a long winter(sounds like yours is much longer than mine) I started with 10 in my 10gallon that reached almost 100 which eventually made it out to the pond. At the end of summer could literally fill my 5 gallon bucket with guppies without the water... I ended up giving away hundreds if not over a thousand @OceanTruth I thought it was widely regarded that guppies were literally bullet proof. It all started for me when I put some of my guppies out in the pond at 50 degrees and they all made it. Now I probably won’t go that low anymore but my guppies can live in super wide ranges. My pond is like 8.2-8.4 ph summer highs around 90 degrees I’ve seen 95 this last summer. My holding tank is unheated around 70 degrees which stays around 6.4-6.6 ph during the day and 7.6 at night. I’m probably gonna get a lot of hate from people for sharing that but I figure it would be worthwhile for you to know. I think lot of it has to do with them living in my water for so long and my pond not having nitrates ever

@OceanTruth can you believe they were only 3 inches like 8 months ago? They are all past 12-13 inches right now. I’ve been waiting all winter to pack on the food I wanna see if I can double their size. What I’m really waiting for is it to get warmer to throw my guppies out. Im tryna have a guppy party

@Fish Folk Rainbow shiners can't handle those temps? I would have thought they'd be fine in that water. I caught what I think are gold shiners as bait fish but ended up not using them so I took them home. the lowest my pond get was probably 45 degrees and they look good. But I know the shiner/minnow name is thrown around a lot for multiple species of fish so maybe thats at play. @MTAquatics I remembered you asking about floating plants for your pond and if you were considering doing lilies, I figured I shared this with you. Honestly you could just throw the bulb in water without a pot and it will grow, I just like dumping nutrients on plants.

@Will Billy the pvc is really clever i need to do something like that so I can get my mini bar clamp back haha. In case you didn't know, cause I can't see how long of a cutting of a cutting you use, those little nodal bumps are where the roots come out of.

As I was cleaning out my pound I noticed my lilies were no longer dormant, so I decided it was a good time to fix the positioning of my plants. I noticed last summer some of the leaves coming out were all ripped up so it must of had some issues with the rocks I used for the cap and growing towards the rim of the pot didn't help either. The rocks I used were chipped off bigger rocks that I shaped for my water fall feature and I didn't really like the look of it. Since I went this far I figured I might as well add some new soil and show some people how I use flower pots for lilies. You can even use fish bowls too haha but I'm gonna replace it with another pot. So I try to use the pots that have a hole in the middle instead of the corner of the pot since its easier to cover a flat surface. The way I cover it is pretty easy and hasn't leached soil into pond. I used the bottom of a milk jug and use the weight of the dirt to push it against the flower pot. In hind sight I should have probably put less dirt so that the cap would be under the rim of the pot because when I checked this morning my koi kicked up all the sand. Surprisingly I guess the roots did good enough of a job capping the soil cause I tested the water and there is no ammonia. My question to you guys is when do you consider the start of pond season? Generally my cue to start putting fish outside is when morning temp starts to reach around 70, curious to see when other people start.

It's been a very lone time since I've kept cichlids but oscars are one of the fish that has left a huge impression on me. Mine would always follow me wherever I go in the room and not like in the way fish come to the top of the tank for food. My oscar would actually stay on certain sides of tanks depending where I am in the room. I like flower horns too but for the most part it seems more like aggression rather than excitement if you put your hand near the tank. At least from my experience oscars tend to swim/dance across the top of the tank when my hand is close and a flower-horn mores o just charges straight forward in a tank

I can't say if it's safe or not but Ive been doing it for some time now. All of my vegetables and fruits get most of their watering from my pond and fish tank water. I even bury my dead fish in the soil as fertilizer. If you are really concerned just flush your plants with clean water for a few weeks before consuming.

I think its a type of ludwigia I don't know which though

I bought all my koi roughly around 3 inches last spring or so This them near the end of summer. This video isn't the greatest but it captures their colors really well. right now, all of them are within the 12-15 inch range. I actually have a little tub I bought to hold my koi too haha. I've just been waiting for it to get warmer so that the water doesn't numb my legs when I jump in to catch these guys.

I can never get a good picture of my koi!

You can run the usb nano on 2 sponges, you just need a valve on both tubes to balance the pressure. As far as polishing the water, I think a hob is a better suited option(definitely not necessary). You can run both sponge and hob and have your sponge as a bio filter and hob for mechanical. I run filter floss on my hob and replace it every 2 weeks or until it starts affecting the flow on my filter.

Its a flower, whatever you're doing keep it up, you're making your plants happy

I have pothos and a Japanese peace lily sitting on top of my tank. The only real problem I have is I haven't found a permanent spot to hang the pothos so I do take off a few leaves here and there during maintenance.

The plant on the bottom right looks like staurogyne repens but I'm not sure

As long as the airlines are held above the height of the tank it won’t siphon if your power cuts off.

You could try but I don't think you'll see a difference. If you have some sort of filtration, the water should be moving throughout the tank mixing everything.