StephenP2003

Got a great deal on some ebay subwassertang and really filled out the tree. Gonna call this done and wait for more to grow so I can move some to other tanks. There's like $50 of subwassertang on this tree now. Plus the wood itself was another 50.

So water circulation is not required? What about changing the water? Just don't want the plants to rot.

My PH out of the tap is 8.0 but settles at 7.5-ish, a tad lower in tanks with wood. Also out of the tap my GH is zero and KH 7 degrees. I use additives to raise my GH to 6-ish. In my livebearer tanks, I use Aquavitro Mineralize and wonder shell to really raise the GH.

Doesn't matter the tank, or how it's attached. It dies and/or disappears. I thought a Christmas moss ball would be easy mode, but nope. Too much light? Not enough? Something is eating it?

I've reached a point in my planted tanks where a lot of my trimmings/runners need to be removed since I'm out of room. I'd like to be able to trade them in at my LFS once I've accumulated enough -- right now, mostly runners from vals and trimmed hygrophila, ludwigia, and bacopa. What's a cheap way to store them for -- say -- a month or two (and ideally let the stems sprout new roots)? A desk lamp over a bucket? Does the water need regular changes, circulation, heat?

I have seven. I don't know why I need to add more test tubes. I hardly ever test all tanks at once, and I normally just test nitrates.

I want to make a full tray that not only holds the test tubes but also the test solutions. I have one right now modified from a test tube holder I found on Amazon. I cut out the back half to accommodate the solution bottles. The tubes are color coded for each tank, as are my sample syringes. But I have more tanks, so need more room if I want to test them all at once.

Did a Bleach solution dip of my daughter's fake plants. Adjusting lighting settings to see how long it takes before they get brown again.

How does everyone store eggs? I've been keeping them in my fridge in a plastic container with a desiccant pack, but it's been about two months now. I ordered too much.

100% cured, krylon fusion is supposed to fuse with the plastic underneath it. I've only had it in a tank for 6 months, but so far no issues at all.

What do you folks who use the Ziss hatchery do with the unhatched eggs? I've been draining from the bottom through a sieve. Inevitably there's a sludge of eggs at the bottom that mixes in with the rest of the hatched brine shrimp. Are the encapsulated eggs even safe to feed, or do I need to be somehow more careful when straining?

Anxiety and depression here. I tend to immerse myself into hobbies for distraction, often at the expense of time with other human beings like my family. Aquariums is a hobby my wife participates in, though, which has really influenced my commitment to it. She got me into the hobby initially, and I of course took it overboard.

Yep. I decided to do it after I saw this Youtube video: https://youtu.be/ELtoOJKgfKM Like I said above, the result after one spray/load of sand was a nice cavernous effect, which might be great if you're keeping larger fish, but I didn't want to risk anything getting stuck and rotting behind there.

Do you do anything special to grow it? I don't use CO2, just doing easy green a couple times a week and running a Fluval 3.0. If you look at the above pic, notice that the new stuff is green whereas the older moss (only a week or two old) is a little closer to yellow. This is my first attempt with subwassertang, but I've had bad luck in the past with the traditional mosses.

I love everything about this. My wife loves angelfish too. I can see this in our dream house many years from now. Though I don't know if I can feasibly do auto water change around here. We have chloramine.

Awesome. I've been so tempted to do a star wars scape. I was thinking of a hoth themed aquarium. Super white sand and painted rocks, and the AT-ATs of course. The challenge might be keeping it all white, though.

FYI, I am able to share programming between my 36" and 48" versions. Perhaps there's something unique about the Nanos that don't translate to the standard length versions.

Can't wait to see the results. Solar is typically no-go where I live because my house is shrouded in trees, but maybe enough light to run something as low-power as those pumps. Also, the list price for that power bank is $39.99, but there is a $10 coupon at the moment.

Got more subwassertang in the mail to fill out the tree. It looks like a lot until you try to cover the tips of every branch. My wife says it needs even more... Urrghh

Spray foam, black aquarium sand (which is not really sand), and tan play sand, plus some dark brown and gray krylon fusion for some streaks of varying shades, topped with satin polyurethane to keep everything together. Then once it started growing algae of various types in the surface, it really started to look its best. Once cured, those paint products are inert. Or so I'm told by people smarter than me at chemistry. It hasn't caused any noticeable problems in the past 6 months. I don't know how larger fish would treat it in terms of destructive behavior. If you do the spray foam and sand once, the result is a very deep cavernous effect. Looks super cool, but since I was planning on keeping smaller fish, I was afraid something would get stuck and/or die in a hole one day and I'd never see it. So I did a second spray inside the caverns and loaded with sand again. If I could do it again, I would use foam that expands the least, and not use such a thick styrofoam board as the foundation. The background took up more tank real estate than it needed to.

This seems like an ideal place to log the changes in my tanks, and get opinions on issues I'm struggling with. You'll notice a trend in most of my aquariums -- collectoritis. I'm at the stage of fishkeeping right now where I can't fathom a species-only tank. My schooling fish are all in sufficient numbers, but I still love the variety. I think I have an even bigger problem with plants. Over the past year I've just been buying all the plants to find out which ones grow (it's a secret, no one knows). I'll post each tank in order of acquisition. 1. Living room display, 40 breeder, initially set up August 2019. Below is what the tank looked like back in October. Started it out as a super-artificial scape, and then I realized how much I liked live aquatic plants and began adding them in droves. After some experience with subsequent tanks, I went back to this one for an overhaul. This is what it looks like today (changing the substrate was a B-and-a-half): YouTube video on this tank: The tiny sword plant you see in the lower left corner of the first pic has grown into the giant sword plant in the second pic. The floating moss ball was a recent addition from the Co-op, and while it arrived in great condition, I am cursed when it comes to growing moss. I just can't figure it out. Stocking: Angels, rosy tetras, maccullochi rainbows, australian rainbows, otos, powder blue dwarf gourami, and emerald corydoras. Update 4/10/21: I've been messing around with backlighting on this tank. See video below. 2. Dining Room, 20 tall, initially set up September 2019 I wanted to breed bristlenose plecos. It didn't take long before I saw baby bristlenose all over the glass, at least 30 of them. Unfortunately, they dwindled one by one over a period of two weeks - no idea why. There was one survivor, which has grown 2+ inches. But since that initial spawn, I've only seen white eggs that the male pushes out of the cave. Any tips to get this back on track? In addition to the plecos, it's housing my wife's platys from her classroom tank (she's a teacher) which are breeding, as well as breeding endlers and cherry shrimp. Stocking: Male and female adult and one juvenile bristlenose pleco, platies, endlers, cherry shrimp. 3. Daughter's tank, 20 tall, set up October 2019 My daughter (8 years old) wanted a tank for her room. Trying to move her away from the artificial plants but she likes them too much. So I just have to keep doing bleach dips every month or so until I can get the lighting balanced (upgraded her light recently). The lighting upgrade seems to have negatively affected her live water sprite, though. Used to be lush and green and now seems to be falling apart. Stocking: Platies, platy fry, green fire tetra, sunset honey gourami, pygmy corys, and guppies from my wife's classroom tank 4. Son's tank, 20 tall, set up November 2019 My son (6 years old) loves dinosaurs, so we went with sort of a prehistoric jungle theme. Stocking: Zebra loaches, panda corys, cherry barbs, purple harlequin rasboras, and one platy (offspring from my daughter's tank) YouTube Video on my Kids' Tanks: 5. The livebearer tank, 40 breeder, set up in February 2020. In the dining room next to the pleco fail tank, I have guppies, platys, and cherry shrimp breeding up a storm. I started with just guppies in the 20 tall in October, trying to breed the fancy strains from my LFS. I could never keep a single one alive for more than a couple weeks. I had purchased some already-pregnant females, which gave birth and died. I raised the fry and let them breed as well, and it looked like I was getting some strong stock out of them, so I set up this 40 breeder to let the guppies do their thing. Simultaneously, my daughter's platy was having babies, which I also added to this tank. Because of how much feeding I was doing, I added panda corys and cherry shrimp to the mix. But then in March/April, there was an outbreak of some horrid bacterial disease. My corys were happy, my shrimp were breeding, and the platys were thriving. But for several weeks the guppies died one by one, then two by two, then five by five, etc. I probably lost 75% of my guppy stock. Maracyn didn't touch it, nor did . What ended up working was kanaplex, though it crashed the cycle. Should've quarantined... I didn't lose any corys or platys during all this drama, though. I decided not to buy anymore guppies and just let my surviving endlers and guppies breed. Things are doing better, so much so that I've been able to grow out enough stock to trade in at my LFS. Also trying to grow java moss glued to foam (removed from my bonsai tree because nothing was growing). Stocking: Guppies, endlers, endler/guppy hybrids, platys, panda corys, cherry shrimp, and amano shrimp Note: The background in the above tank, as well as the cave, were DIYs that were intended for tank number 6. However, I wasn't entirely satisfied with the result and found a better DIY method online. Still, didn't want the first background to go to waste. EDIT (April 30, 2021): The amazon sword has really taken over since that above pic. I finally finished my video on this tank: 6. The Bedroom Display, 90 gallon, set up February 2020 Sometime in December, I dove into a large DIY project. I had 1/2 inch glass cut to custom dimensions so it could fit in a particular space in my bedroom, and I siliconed it all myself. Tank dimensions are 55"L x 17"W x 24"H. I also built the cabinet/stand and created the foam rock background . The tree used to have the moss I mentioned above, but recently changed it out for subwassertang. I plan to buy more of it soon. Every plant in here is exploding. I've had trouble keeping cardinal tetras alive. Can't tell you how many I've purchased, but the 15 or so left in here are doing well now. I've lost far fewer rummynose. This tank is just so much fun to look at. The rainbows and corys are always spawning, the forktails play in the spraybar current, the rummynose stay together and swim back and forth, the amano shrimp are big enough to stay visible and crawl all over the rock wall, and the gourami patrols the tank like it's his job and eats from my hand. The cardinal tetra just sort of exist and look pretty. It's the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning. Stocking: Cardinal tetra, rummynose tetra, boesemani rainbows, forktail rainbows, pearl gourami, otos, julii corys, and amano shrimp. 7. Betta in the bedroom, 16G fluval spec, set up June 2020 My wife wanted a betta tank, so we got one, tank number 2 in the bedroom. She made all the aquascaping and stocking decisions. New tank so still sorting out the algae, fert/light balance. Another christmas moss floater, doing better in this tank for some odd reason, but still don't have high hopes. Stocking: pygmy corys, white cloud mountain minnows, and betta BONUS: Quarantine bin Learned my lesson with those guppies, so I'm quarantining now. I'm trying to add a few more cardinal tetra to my 90G. I've had great success with aqua huna fish, except for their cardinal tetras. This time around, I ordered 20 and put them in this 10G sterilite container. I lost 9 of them over 48 hours, but the remaining 11 have been alive for the past 6 days. Still don't look great, though.

Jojo and Coco -- the puppy is Jojo, just adopted at the end of May. According to the dog DNA test we did, she's part Amstaff, Great Pyrenees, and Boxer. We adopted Coco two years ago. She's half Amstaff, with some Australian cattle dog and Rhodesian ridgeback mixed in.

This is where the magic happens. Guppies, endlers, endler/guppy hybrids, platys, and cherry shrimp.

Hi Bill, For some reason I'm not seeing the photos. Am I the only one? Would love to see the setup.

It's hot. And humid. I was gung-ho about doing an outdoor pond in the beginning of COVID quarantine, but I'm glad I held off, because I remembered how much it sucks to go outside right now. Anyways, I'm Stephen (pronounced Steven, not Steffen). I'm 35 years old and work for a large tech firm (remotely). I have a wife, two kids, two dogs, two cats, and seven aquariums. Started this hobby super-casually when I was in my early 20s, took a long break, and dove back in hardcore last August. All the money I used to spend building/upgrading gaming PCs now goes to fish keeping -- it's a better addiction that my wife wholeheartedly supports and enables, and one which I've forced upon my kids (they love their respective aquariums, but they won't be watching a fishtube livestream anytime soon). Right now I'm at the stage of the hobby where I just want to have all the fishes, so I have settled on a bunch of community tanks and breeding livebearers and cherry shrimp (aka putting them in a tank and letting them reproduce in spite of me). I'll upload pics of my tanks soon I'm sure.