Miranda Marie

I got into aquascaping videos on YouTube for about a year before getting my 20g. So I happily bought a full spectrum light, aquasoil, and fertilizer... Only to grow a massive hair algae farm because my nutrients and light were way too intense for my skill level and the height of the tank (in the light's case). Spent well over a year battling insane amounts of algae, even with tons of Amano shrimp and frequent water changes. Turns out less is more when starting out with plants LOL.

I personally think honey gouramis are absolutely adorable, but of the fish I own, the hillstream loaches have been dubbed "so cuwte!" by the hoards of toddlers in my life. (Nieces, nephews, and little cousins. XD) They're utterly fascinated by them, and the 2 year especially regularly announces how cute they are to anyone who will listen.

Just a little hillstream loach enjoying his favorite rock and log~

1. We had a single guppy when I was 5, which I killed by accident. We were going away for camp (my mom was the Craft Lady, so all us kids and her went together every year) and I convinced myself it would starve to death while we were gone. So I dumped the whole fish bottle of food in and when my dad came home, he found the poor thing dead. I was a very sad five year old LOL. 2. My 20g. I started it to combat seasonal depression 4 years ago, making an "underwater garden" because keeping a full spectrum light on a cycle can really help combat SAD and I really wanted a patch of growing green plants in my bedroom. I kept it plants only for a while, then graduated to shrimp, and finally fish. I've learned so much and the tank has changed so much over time, and that makes me pretty proud of how far it has come. 3. I stumbled around aquascaping YouTube for a while because I started out with a tank specifically meant to be a water garden. Then once I started actually researching fish to add, I came across an aquarium co-op video. The rest is history. I watched an insane number of their videos, heard about the forum on one of their livestreams, and popped on over to check it out. 4. Hmm... Probably the kasa wifi timer. Not super original of me, I know, but it helps so much to be able to program my lights to come on and shut off on their own. 5. Plants, always plants. Despite tons of research, having a great light and using Easy Green and Easy Root Tabs, I have always struggled to get plants to truly flourish. They mostly just survive, always with shedding leaves and signs of half a dozen nutrient deficiencies despite my best efforts. LOL. 4 years later and I still wish I could accomplish the lush growth I see from so many others... 6. Nothing yet. I'm still new enough to fish keeping that I've kept hardly anything and every new species I do get to keep is a joy. 7. Once a month, these days. I struggle to keep nitrates up enough for the plants even with infrequent water changes. 8. No idea. LOL. I have one 20g and one 6g and that's plenty for me currently. I can't even imagine having multiple 20g, let alone a huge tank. That seems very overwhelming LOL. 9. Yesterday. I did a big trim and removed an excessive amount of duckweed, plus did a water change. Then I just sat and watched the tank for quite a while. 10. Easy Fry And Small Fish Food. All my fish adore it, and it's so easy to feed!

I didn't see mine eat in quarantine for the first several days, and they are surprisingly sneaky about it, even now in the main tank! Unlike my other fish, they grab a couple bites and then zoom off again. They're rarely on the wafer for more than a minute at a time, but quick scootch back for nibbles when they think no one is watching. Because of this, it took me a while to actually see them eating. Now that they're more comfortable/less stressed, they spend longer on the wafer and are less sneaky about it, but it took a couple months for them to get to that point. So there's a real chance he is eating, but being quick and sneaky about it when you aren't watching. Do you have any hiding spots for him? Mine loved using the aquarium co-op heater as a "cave" while in quarantine and now each have a special hiding spot in the main tank where they tuck themselves. I think they feel safest when they have a "cave" to hide in.

Good question. My tank has lots of other species in it, and they rarely spend time at the top, and they spawn all the time. Only one fry has survived to be big enough for me to see, but they spawn and lay eggs every couple weeks from what I have noticed.

I got a group of 6 from AquaHuna last summer and I adore them. Contrary to everything I read/have heard, they do not stay at the top LOL. They swim all over, and one even picked under my log as his favorite hiding place and acts like its his Man Cave. I have had one surprise fry appear, but any others seem to have been eaten by the ember tetras and neon green rasboras in there before they got big enough for me to see. I will say they're way bolder if the tank has floating plants. I got tag along duckweed when I first set up the tank 4 years ago and whenever I let it go wild, they act much happier. The males do chase each other quite a bit, so the more plants the better. I got one unlucky little female in my group of 6, but she actually is the tank boss at this point. The males leave her alone unless there's spawning behavior, and if they don't, she puts them in their place. I love their behavior. They're very curious and friendly, but sassy with each other. They couldn't care less about the other tank mates. I feed them Easy Fry And Small Fish Food and the smallest version of the Xtreme pellets. But if you plan to only feed one, get the former. Some of the pellets of the Xtreme are still too big for them, even at the smallest size. So the rasboras usually eat the bigger pellets, and they grab the smaller ones they can fit in their mouths.

The long awaited trim has been completed, as well as adding in additional substrate because the original aquasoil had compacted down too far for the plants to stay rooted anymore LOL. Still deciding if I will cap with the white stones I had before or leave it red... I'm a bit worried the red fluorite will be a little too rough on the hillstream loaches long term (so far they seem unphased), and I can't decide if I like the red or if it feels like "too much" anyway. 😆 I'm leaning towards it feeling like too much right now but I'll sleep on it. Now to just wait for everything to grow back out of the "bald" phase. LOL. The tank always looks so empty after a big trim.

To be fair, not that many. 😆 Two prior to this one, and one was when I was a kid.

She's doing amazing! She's completely stopped glass surfing/chasing her reflection and is now very chill! She adores the bowl of crypts and spends a lot of time playing in them/exploring among them. 😆 She's by far my favorite Betta I've owned to date.

Hello all! Here's a quick photo of the tanks today. They're in sore need of a heavy trim/clean up, so I am hoping to get to that tomorrow.

My water also tests as liquid rock with the Aquarium Co-Op strips. I haven't tried finding out if the reading is accurate, though.

Thank you!! This is just what I was looking for. 🙂

Basically the title. I've had clown kilifish fry (which I didn't notice until he was at least a few weeks old LOL) but I am curious what their eggs look like. Google doesn't seem to have much in the way of pictures. Do they scatter them one at a time around the tank? Do they lay them in clusters? How big are they? If anyone knows, I'd love to know the answers for curiosity's sake. (I'm not attempting to breed them or anything, but the occasional survivor is fine too. I'm not looking to remove and raise eggs though.)

They're so cute!

Exactly. I know from experiencing that losing a random schooling fish is much less difficult than losing a fish with a personality, name, and bond. Which is why I tend to add special/centerpiece fish to my aquariums last, when I am sure perimeters have settled. Personally, I have found bettas harder to keep than most other fish. I only recently gave them another shot (in my Ikebana aquarium) after gaining a lot more experience. Mainly because while they're hard to kill, their fins are really prone to fin rot. The months of frustration of working to heal a damaged betta and failing turned me off them when I first started.

Have you ruled out the fish being sick in some way? A change in colors and behavior can also be a sign of illness so I'd rule that out first.

20g long (shorter height helps make water changes easy). I would personally go with a decent sized group of a single schooling fish species (after the tank has matured), a starting pack of neocardina shrimp, and maybe a school of bottom dwellers down the road. I say this because if there's mistakes and one or two of a large group of smaller fish or shrimp dies, it'll feel less devastating for a beginner than having the only fish/pair of fish they own die. I'd always rather start out with a group of hardy schooling fish than a single specimen that a beginner might grow attached to.

It's crazy how expensive things are getting. I'm just glad Aquarium Co-op's ferts aren't too bad money-wise. 😶 I have heard you can make your own root tabs for cheap but I have never done it myself. Might be worth looking into?

They sure do love root tabs! I put a ton in the bottom of the bowl when I started it, and it's probably getting around time to add more soon. So far, it's worked wonders! They're growing quite quickly for crypts.

Sure! The Ikebana aquarium is filling in amazingly. The crypts are looking magnificent. They hardly melted at all and now have a ton of new growth. I'm wanting to propagate some of them to move them to the twenty gallon because they're the prettiest plants I have ever managed to grow. Stem plants hate me LOL, even pearlweed barely grows for me. So this is a great surprise! Apparently rooted plants are where it's at for me. The twenty gallon is looking amazing too and the new little fry I found is growing rapidly! It's definitely a male, because the tail is turning bright red and blue! It's so cool to have a fry survive in a community tank somehow. The pair of adults was also seen spawning again today which is always fun to watch. The 20g does need a trim though. 😆

It took a while to find one! I decided it had to be dishwasher, oven, and freezer safe for me to be comfortable with it in the tank long-term. 😆 but I think it turned out well. Here's a recent photo! (Please ignore that it needs a top-up LOL.)

One of each variety of crypts they have in stock. 😄 My Ikebana scape's crypts are thriving more than any other plant I have ever attempted to keep. I didn't even know plants *could* look this good in my excessively hard water. So I'm hoping to add a bunch of crypts to the 20gallon at some point, but money right now is an object with a wedding I'm attending in April (and have to buy a plane ticket for). So for now, I will eye the ones I have in the 6g and see if I can maybe propagate a few to the 20g.

I don't have any experience with planaria but I do have a huge colony of dream blue neocardina shrimp in a tank with 8 neon green rasboras, 10 ember tetras, and 5 clown killifish and the colony continues to thrive, breed, and maintain a very large number. Unless you plan to breed the shrimp to sell, I can't imagine you'd see the population die off by adding a few fish or withholding food until the situation dies down. Shrimp breed like rabbits.

To get rid of reflection, wait until nighttime and turn off all lights other than the tank light. Then take a photo. That's always worked for me.