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Beardedbillygoat1975

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Everything posted by Beardedbillygoat1975

  1. I think you have some great options. agree with panda corys, they will often colony breed, are easy tankmates and have instant color and movement impact. Less than 10 more than 5 would work. palleatus corys, sometimes called the salt and pepper they can hand a wide range of parameters and come in short and longfin. Group of 5-7. Bronze corys Coryadoras aeneus, or their albino brethren, great hardy full bodied Cory once again easy to colony spawn. I think a group of 5-7 could work in a 20. Any of the Pygmy corys will work- Pygmy, hastatus and habrosus- remember that they often will swim mid water as well as school with other species which is a lovely trait. I don’t know where the mixed reviews are coming for these are exceptional fishes. So much in a small package. 10-15, 20 depending on the stocking already in there. Venezuleanus, gold/green/orange lazer these are all thought to be related species to Bronze corys or just in the same group or lineage if you look at the Cory charts and I have not found them to be difficult to keep than bronze corys just note the price difference although gold laser pricing has seemed to come down recently. Same stocking applies to Bronze. Best of luck on your Cory journey. Happy to answer your questions here or in the Panda Cory page we keep!
  2. Oh my goodness @Cinnebunsthey're gorgeous!!! I bought some habrosus today and I’ll post videos tonight!!
  3. Generosity- it’s an attribute I’ve always admired and tried to emulate. As an aquarist I’ve seen a lot of generosity from my fellow fish keepers and I’ve tried to put that back out into the universe. I put out on the GSAS email that I was starting to plan an Axolotl tank for my youngest son and did anyone have a chiller I could buy as a new one was financially daunting. I got a quick reply from a member and made arrangements to take a trip out to Bainbridge Island where they lived. For our family this involves a little bit - those who have children under 10 know what a roadtrip entails and in our case it was a ferry ride and then a drive. Exciting for sure but for the boys being in a car for about 2+ hours would be a challenge. We made sure they were fed and watered and pottied and off we went. We arrived and I suddenly fell into an easy banter with this person and she revealed that it was @eatyourpeaswhom I’d known on this forum since its inception. How cool?! 😎 She was as kind and generous in person as she’s always been on the forum. We saw her tanks, Ursula Ferkin and all her clones, her Pea Puffer, her home and her grounds which are beautiful. Her generosity extended beyond this to the chiller - she was giving it to the boys and I. Amazing!! Generous beyond my expectations. She indicated that she’s slowly getting out of the hobby and as her animals pass and tanks change she’s shutting them down slowly and even offered me a tank - my wife prevented that from occurring! Anyway I’m so so grateful. I didn’t take pictures as she’s a private person but I just so appreciate her both for the years I’ve known her here and for what she did for my boys and I. I am doing some work around my tanks today and will try to take pics and videos later to post but I just had to share this beautiful moment for which I’m grateful. Have fun everyone!
  4. Did some feeding tonight- one of the advantages of having 2 boys under 9 are the leftover veggies that the shrimps and plecos get. Tonight it was cucumber and the plecos had a ball. My pride and joy is this female longfin standard L144 ancistrus - gorgeous! Elvira is her name! Nextdoor is my 20 high with Santa guppies, 6 L519 juvies, and shrimp - Malawa, Aura blues and Bloody Mary’s. Guppies are such opportunistic creatures as suddenly a treat for the plecos and shrimp becomes there’s! The 20 long up above has my cherry shrimp and they’re coming along nicely as well. I hope everyone is well and having fun. I have some ponds that I’m getting back into shape and a new fish coming tomorrow so exciting times in the BBG fish house! Updates to come and hopefully sooner than later!
  5. I’ve got a 150 g Rubbermaid tub stocked with a single Shubunkin Goldfish the kids all Sbow White. She’s a survivor we had a freeze of over 7 days and she came out growing an inch. I’m going to remove some leaf litter and prep the plants in there this weekend but I’m wondering about stocking. I have some Variatus Platys and I’ve thought about some White Clouds. I could put 1-2 other Shubunkins but I need something to eat the mosquito larvae and well goldfish are too lazy for that.
  6. Awww @CinnebunsI am proud. Armored catfish are a real passion for me. Presently I have 3 types - Venezuelans, Pygmy’s (albino and regular) and Gold Lasers. I’ve been on the verge of getting pandas again recently but I’m trying to make sure I don’t over extend myself. As my journal and posts indicates over and over I have a collectoritis problem and well I don’t know what’s good for me. Anyways yes I love when people post here. It really warms my heart. ❤️ and ☮️ to all my fellow Cory keepers!
  7. Nothing better than new baby panda corys. I may just have to start back up again!
  8. I’d say that from an online retailer I’d expect these kinds of loses. Locally I’d be shocked. In general the younger the shrimp the better they adapt. Sometimes they sell you old shrimp and they can’t cope with another set of parameters. Several months of seasoning the tank could mean 1-2months could be 4 months. I would say that 3 months is minimum to build up enough biofilms and algae’s. Food should be left less than 12 hours. Don’t let rotting food be the end of your colony. In general, underfed is better than over. Gel foods like Repashy work well. Do your know your tds, gH and kH? As you Move forward that could be helpful as you move through your shrimp keeping and try to refine things. I hope this time is the one for you. My own journey was after a long break from the hobby my wife purchased me a Fluval Flex 15 and I just couldn’t keep the cherry neos alive. Turned out I had babies in the filtration section but I did lose quite a few adults as the tank seasoned. At 6-12 months it finally became mature enough for a good colony of shrimp. Honestly my most successful setups have been more leave it and forget it setups - 20 g tub with moss, duckweed and guppy grass did better than my 20 g long that was “ideal.” Or the tank is so big it just can’t fail - my 60 g Orange Sakura tank is like that with 100s of neos. Good Luck and let us know how we can help.
  9. Shrimp and Fluval Flex’s are interesting- always found the shrimplets in the filtration chamber. I think it could work. Keep a test kit or strips handy and watch your parameters after the fish are added.
  10. I make batches of it in squares and I also feed it in the powder form. Then there’s small particles all over for them to eat.
  11. Lots of options. Sponge filter would work. A hang on back with a prefilter sponge on the intake could work - Aquaclear makes a nice one, I have this one on some 10 g cube tanks and they work well with easy flow for the fish you’re talking about An undergravel filter would work well. If you’re just going to use low level stocking you could heavily plant it and go no filter or Walstad. I think the questions more about how you want to run and maintain the tank. How quickly do you want to set it up and have it running? The beauty of being an aquarist is that you can take multiple approaches and get different but equally interesting results.
  12. Yep and @Patrick_G has supplied us both with fish!! He almost got me to take some of his Nothos!
  13. I agree with @Tony sthat when their water or tankmates are not to their liking they’ll stop breeding. In general, they like harder water. Ideally pH is greater than 7. Many times initially the pH will be up at setup and then as time goes on and the tank matures the pH and hardness sometimes can fall. So checking your parameters is a good place to start. I love crushed coral. Next I’d look at the dwarf frogs - African Dwarf Frogs are carnivores. They are super derpy but are ambush predators. Platy fry often hug the substrate after birth and will be a little lethargic initially. They are an easy target for the frogs. I’d bet that your Platys are having fry but you’re not seeing them.
  14. The Bronze Cory or Coryadoras aeneus like their water a bit cooler low 70s. In general, Cory’s like water on the softer side but these fish have been in the aquarium trade for so long like can accept a wide range of parameters. Feeding should consist of mostly meaty foods - worms, insect based foods with black soldier larvae and brine shrimp or other small crustaceans like daphnia, cyclops. I often will take the freeze dried tubifex and bury it in the sand for them to find. It’s a hoot to watch them! Breeding - Optimally you have a 2:1 ratio of males to females. Age wise probably 9-12 months old. Then when you’ve got some females who are looking rather broad through the girdle I feed them heavy on blood worms, tubifex and brine shrimp for 3 days. If I can time it I’ll do this when I know a weather front is coming. Then I’ll do a large volume water change with cooler water 5-10 degrees usually and within hours to days I’ll see eggs on the glass, moss and plants. They can be colony bred but if you want a higher yield pull the eggs and watch @Dean’s Fishroomvideos on raising Cory fry!
  15. Make sure to get a mat or some styrofoam to protect the desk. Best of luck with this project!
  16. I’ve thought many times when the big box sale happens about this cube tank and now I’ll think doubly hard! It’s a beauty of a tank. Well done! If you give white clouds some bushy plants like Pogo Octopus or floaters or moss they’ll community breed. They tend not to hunt their young.
  17. I have 25 or so Pygmy corys in my 60 g and it’s almost like they aren’t there. Only at feeding time do I see big groups. I keep telling my wife I need to add another 10-15!
  18. Fun to catch-up on your journal and always nice to see a fellow GSAS member! Have fun!
  19. Just a little update on my puffer keeping. I unfortunately lost my trio of Pea Puffers. I never effectively got them dewormed and decided to pull them out of their 11 g bowl for a 15 g QT hospital tank but they quickly died one daily for 3 days. It was a bummer. On the positive side of things my Tetraodon schoutedeni - Congo Spotted Puffer aka Princess Peach is thriving. She has carved out her territory and is very happy. Especially after a water change and a good bloodworm/Vibra bite feed. Hope all the puffer keepers are well. Have fun!
  20. I feed Repashy in powder form for my Pygmy group. Works great and they’re community breeding which is lots of fun.
  21. Wow, 2 months since I’ve been here posting. Life the universe and everything so on to my tanks. The Bowl - well the pea puffers never thrived in the bowl. I had trouble getting them healthy from the start. I tried the triple QT regimen, Colu’s recommendation for deworming and did it 3 x and got skinny puffers and so I pulled them to a qt tank and in the process lost the trio. It was sad but it felt like no matter what I did it was going to go this way. RIP to the trio. I have decided that although an 11 g bowl is a good size I was not going to do fish again. I still have an otocinclus in there and there he will stay. I felt like this was an opportunity to do a Caridina setup. I love mischlings - Caridina with lots of diverse genetics that throw crazy color combos. I’m lucky that locally we have some great Caridina breeders. Our local shop (not the coop) has them for under $10 a piece and a local breeder I know gave me a group of 12 for $5 a piece. So I’ve got some crystals, Tai bees, blue bolts, orange eye tigers, shadow pandas, and some orange neos from my 60 g I put in to make sure it was habitable before putting $100 worth of Caridina in. It’s become a really fun tank again. There’s a Where’s Waldo effect to the tank looking for the different shrimp types. Just did water changes on my 45 and 60g tanks. They’ve been enjoyable. I’ve not gotten the plants where I want them in the 45 g but in the 60 the plants look stellar. The most recent additions are in the 60 - a group of 6 Threadfin rainbows - Iriatherina werneri🌈. https://youtube.com/shorts/-SQ2Gq-AAfs?si=WAY2DcQI2w5JCkhF Also in the 60 g although sightings are rarer are my L397 Tiger plecos, gorgeous fish. You’ll notice this very brown mulm and this is from the group of 6s love of wood 🪵. Lordy I tolerate it because the shrimp love it but every month I get in there and vacuum it out and it’s back within days it seems like. https://youtube.com/shorts/-JL8XIrlr2s?si=fXUvLV2AOybrdNU0 I still love the 45 despite my problems with the plants. With the high protein foods the puffer (Princess Peach 🍑 our Congo spotted puffer) I’m just not able to fertilize the plants the way I’d like. Many of the plants look great but eventually I’ll graduate this group to a 60 g or bigger and I’ll plant to run a bigger canister on it along with an undergravel filter. https://youtube.com/shorts/x-Jtbr4kKGk?si=Ui0m54SovstMqKSj I hope you all are having fun and enjoying the hobby.
  22. @bnaturallydo you ever get Axelrodia riesei? Looks like a fun small and red tetra. Thanks for all you do for us locals!
  23. @LionheartsGhostI am so sorry. I had a horrible event last winter with a stray wild bunny and a power strip. Lost my breeding group of irrubesco and essentially my whole fish room. My sympathies! In these carefully curated environments that we sink so much love and attention on for something without and outside our control like a weather event to take out fish it’s just so difficult. I’ve been through it many times over the years but doesn’t make it any less frustrating.
  24. @Fish Folkwith your sons tank all that algae and overgrowth he may have a better survival rate! looking forward to more livebearers content!
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