[glass cleaning]

I just stand away from my tanks and spray glass cleaner into a rag, then wipe the outside of the tanks down. 

[Tank mates for shrimp]

I agree with @jwcarlson that if you're interested in still keeping cory catfish, definitely get your little guy some friends; at least two more but a little school of 6 would be great. Same with the barbs. But if you're looking to phase them out for new fish that's fine.

The betta may hunt the baby shrimp, and the cory most likely will. The best way to give the shrimp the best odd for reproducing and growing in number is to give them a rock pile to hide in. Something like small lava rocks in a few piles around the tank. It gives the shrimp small crevices to hide in where the fish can't get them. 

[Moss ball spreading]

I unrolled a marimo and put it on the bottom of my betta tank hoping it would spread! I don't think it ever has though, lol. 

I've never heard of anything that eats cladophorm algae. Maybe goldfish if anything; they like to tear marimos apart. But nothing like how an algae eater would eat algae. 

[The Livings, Learnings, and all around Shenanigans of Swampy's Fishkeeping.]

I really love how aponogeton leaves look. I bought a bulb from Petco once, but it never sprouted. I should try again.

[Help identifiy a critter in my tank's substrate and wood.]

They look like some kind of ostracod, or seed shrimp. Totally harmless and make good fish snacks. 

[Art and Oddballs]

Time flies! I was just looking through my photos, and I noticed February marks the 1 yr anniversary of getting both Dinky and Igor! 

Dinky baby pic:

 

Dinky now. It's so weird his tail ended up being bent.

 

 

Igor baby pics (including riding home inside the Aquarium Co-Op insulation bag):

 

 

She's gone from being a timid little thing to a giant, jerky butthead. But I love her to pieces. Weird she still hasn't lost all of her baby spots.

 

 

 

[Share your macro photos!]

[What is your favorite standard aquarium size/dimensions?]

I really like the size of my 75, but I've never had anything bigger: my armpit gets wet as it is, I can't imagine working on anything deeper!

[Pea Puffers vs Cherry Shrimp]

I agree with @Levi_Aquatics. Also, give the shrimp a pile of rocks to colonize - lots of tiny spaces to hide and breed in so the puffer can't get at them. It will give the shrimplets better odds of survival.

[The Livings, Learnings, and all around Shenanigans of Swampy's Fishkeeping.]

The white stuff is biofilm; it likes to show up on things when first added to the tank, especially wood and plant bulbs. It will eventually go away, but if you have snails, they love to eat it. 

[New to larger fish stocking?]

On 2/1/2022 at 12:49 PM, Nermer_pepper said:

What sort of sand would you suggest for them and plants? also do you have any tank mate suggestions? after more googling I believe I will skip the festivums and get a trio of Red Head Tapajos but I still want 1 or 2 more fish for the tank. 

Mine are on a mix of Black Diamond Blasting Sand and some sort of black sand from a chain pet store. I can take a current pic of their tank for you, but the plants are a big amazon sword, red tiger lotus, jungle val, cryptocoryne wendtii, bolbitis heudelotii, java fern windelov, and floating hornwort (and lots of duckweed). 

The glare is terrible this time of day, my apologies! The big ditch in the sand is from the blood parrot.



Current tank mates are a ctenopoma and a blood parrot cichlid; the blood parrot is the only one who can be disruptive to the plants. She's also very aggressive, and I've had to remove an electric blue acara because of her. I've been thinking on adding a schooling fish of some sort (maybe congo tetras or a small group of synodontis multipuncatis hybrids), but I'm always slow to make any changes to this tank until I've REALLY thought about what I want to do.

This is a good basic list for tank mates to start with. Basically anything that's too large to be a snack, but not too aggressive; senegal bichirs are just goofy, derpy guys who mostly want to be left alone. 

Albert's Synodontis -Synodontis alberti
Angelicus -Synodontis angelicus
Big-Eyed Synodontis- Synodontis pleurops
Brichard's Synodontis- Synodontis brichardi
Cuckoo Synodontis -Synodontis multipunctatus
Decorated Synodontis- Synodontis decorus
Featherfin Synodontis- Synodontis eupterus
Moustache Synodontis- Synodontis membranaceus
One-Spot Synodontis- Synodontis notatus
Payne's Synodontis- Mochokiella paynei
Striped Synodontis- Synodontis flavitaeniatus
Upside-Down Catfish -Synodontis nigriventris
Lace Catfish- Synodontis nigrita
Liver Catfish-Heteropneustes fossilis
Black Lancer-Bagrichthys hypselopterus

PLECOS
Bristlenose-Ancistrus dolichopterus

CHARACINS
Silver dollar-Metynnis argenteus
Distichodus notospilus-Distichodus notospilus
Congo tetra-Phenacogrammus interruptus
Black-Barred Myleus-Myleus schomburgki
Filament tetra-Bryconaethiop microstoma

LABYRINTH FISHES
Ctenopoma .acutirostre-Ctenopoma .acutirostre
Ctenopoma oxyrhynchus-Ctenopoma oxyrhynchus
Ctenopoma kingsleyae-Ctenopoma kingsleyae

CYPRINIDS
Bala Shark-Balantiocheilos melanopterus
Red-Finned Cigar Shark-Leptobarbus hoevenii
Tinfoil Barb-Barbodes schwanefeldii
Chinese Algae Eater-Gyrinocheilus aymonieri
Clown Loach-Botia macracantha

MISC.
African mudfish-Phractolaemus ansorgei
Black Ghost Knifefish -Apteronotus albifrons
Elephantnose-Gnathonemus petersii
African butterfly-Pantondon bucholzi
African Knifefish-Xenomystus nigri

[New to larger fish stocking?]

On 2/1/2022 at 11:28 AM, Gannon said:

Are they at all destructive to the substrate bed or plants or anything. One of the other things preventing me from getting one is worry about uprooting plants and shoveling sand into my canister filter input which doesnt go any higher and is a bit close to the sand bed. 

I've kept 4 senegals so far, and none of them have been destructive. I had one female who loved to dig up root tabs and eat them, but she wouldn't do any damage to the plants. As for disrupting the sand, my big guy likes to do this when he's excited/happy:

 

It does make an eventual divot in the sand, since he likes to do it in the same spot. 

[New to larger fish stocking?]

On 2/1/2022 at 11:11 AM, Gannon said:

Do they max out at that size or does growth just slow down? I've thought about getting one of these for my 125. 

From everything I've read, they slow down considerably at 8-9 inches. The males seem to max out at about there, and the females can get about 10 inches (both of the two females I had seemed stunted though). There's some outliers that have reached a foot in length.  My big one grew very fast until he hit 8 inches within the first year. He's now about 4 yrs old and has BARELY gotten any bigger. I doubt my little albino guy will get much bigger than where he's at, I've had him for a year.

[Possible Mystery Illness in Betta]

On 2/1/2022 at 10:10 AM, paarkrosis said:

No, I have an aquaclear so it has the sponge & matrix. I’m pretty sure the medication ( antibiotics ) caused it to crash and I wasn’t doing big enough water changes and/or not frequent enough. 

Ah ok. Yeah I lost my cycle once when using Furan 2 I think. I hope your betta buddy feels better soon!

[Possible Mystery Illness in Betta]

On 12/30/2021 at 11:59 PM, paarkrosis said:

So, Rascal is still with us and seems okay, but still kind of lounging at the top. It seems I’m an idiot and was absolutely convinced my aquaclear filter never came with activated carbon, so I never checked. Guess who figured out it does when I was switching filters on Rascal’s tank and likely wasted a weeks worth of maracyn 2 treatment? 

Are you using filter cartridges? When you clean the filter, are you discarding them? 

[New to larger fish stocking?]

Senegals are a perfect size for a 75 in my opinion. My biggest is about 8.5 inches last I measured and very thick; he's a typical wild type and grew very fast. My albino is TINY comparatively, maybe 5.5 inches. If you did albinos you definitely could do more than one, probably a trio.  

[Ugly tanks that rock]

On 1/31/2022 at 12:38 AM, anewbie said:

Well I do have problems with my plants out growing the tanks but i don't have shrimp so take that into account:

These are gorgeous! Overgrown jungles are my favorite!

[Water change philosophy]

I have enough plants in my tanks that I typically don't ever NEED to water change. I mostly only do it if I feel like vacuuming up mulm. Fussing with them is therapeutic for me. 🙂 

[What projects are you working on?]

Casually breeding my blue platies and humpback limia as usual.
I recently moved some plant trimmings around, filling in space in my 40 and 75.
And I've planted some new stuff in my 29, trying to get some more plant variety other than vallisneria. 

Edit: Forgot to mention I'm waiting to see if my bloody mary neocaradina momma dropped her babies!

I'm considering adding some kind of schooling fish to my 75 but it's a big decision on what; they have to be big enough to not be food, but peaceful enough to not bother the other fish. I'd really like a little group of these Synodontis multipunctatis catfish hybrids I've seen for sale online, but I worry about them being a good fit; even though everything says they would be. I've been trying decide this for like 6 months, lol.

[The Livings, Learnings, and all around Shenanigans of Swampy's Fishkeeping.]

Not 100% sure on the first one, but the second plant is most likely Hydrocotyle tripartita. Nice buys!

[Alternative Reasons for Flashing?]

I definitely feel that flashing is just a natural behavior and not a definite cause for worry. My catfish will often rub her face on the sand to clean her whiskers, and now and then I see various fish flicking their fins and then bouncing off a surface just to scratch themselves; when you don't have hands, you have to use the environment to relieve an itch/clean yourself. I have seen my limia do some interesting movements at each other, so it wouldn't surprise me that flashing could be a social thing sometimes.

The only time I would expect it to be a symptom of anything is if I saw them constantly doing it, and showing other symptoms of discomfort. 

[What music are you listening to these days?]

I mostly listen to 70s, 80s and 90s music. Big fan of Classic Rock and 80's alternative (though I like 80's pop too). I was raised on The Beatles, as my dad is a huge fan. I'll also listen to Broadway plays, disco, metal and other stuff like Irish fiddle music. I've got a pretty wide variety of things I like. 

One of my fav songs is "On the Turning Away" by Pink Floyd.
 

 

[Does anyone ship floating plants in winter?]

Etsy and Ebay are also places to look. 

[What did you get done today?]

On 1/29/2022 at 2:37 PM, Streetwise said:

@anewbie, I am over jungle val. I feel like it tries to out-compete my other plants.

I have the opposite problem! I've been trying to get jungle val to take off in my 75 for years, but my sword and tiger lotus both seem to gobble up all the root tabs. X3

[Planted Oscar Tank?]

I've never kept an oscar, but their tendency to rearrange their tank is legendary. I agree your best bet would be the Easy Planters, or rhizome plants like anubias glued to rocks if you're going to attempt live plants. But once the fish is large enough, the decor is going to to be wherever the oscar decides they should be.