StephenP2003

Yeah maybe I should experiment, but I'll need to account for the full box environment. Foam walls, paper filling, and a heat pack that's also relying on oxygen to stay activated. Then I need a way to monitor it, and I worry that opening the box to check on the fish might introduce a "fresh air" variable. Another thought. I do have an O2 test kit. Could do a before and after test, though I don't know if it would mean anything without fish using up the available oxygen.

Had that happen with one shipment I sent out last week, same issue with the split seam. I wish I could get definitive info on whether or not you can double bag them. I've read anecdotes online that people had no issues double-bagging, but nothing that says "I double bagged and the fish suffocated" obviously.

Every few days or so he graces me with his presence to eat algae on the wall. I have a long dim period programmed for the evening so I can watch the start of nocturnal activity as I'm settling in for bed, and I'm more likely to see him during that time.

Wow... is all I can say. So how many tanks does this require? 1 for mating, 1 for fry, 2 more for separating males and females, and a cull tank?

I have a couple tanks that do a great job making their own nitrates, so I have to dose something lower in nitrogen. I keep the nitrates orange, and that's the extent of my worrying over it.

I have 6 species of cory with multiple substrates, all gravel based, with no issues.

So, I tried this today. Doesn't create enough oxygen to fill a bag quickly enough. Probably better off using a DIY electrolysis setup. But I think I'll go with regular air for now. There are also the canned oxygen packs on Amazon, meant for athletes training at high altitude.

It's a deal breaker for me. And it's not just the forward-facing skimmer intake grate. There's another grate on the bottom of the motor housing that draws in water and debris, and shrimp and fry. I cleaned out my Tidal last night and discovered several small plecos (still alive) that must've been living in filter sludge for months. And lots of baby shrimp, and a few large dead cherry shrimp. Overly restrictive media housing with wide open intake holes is a bad combo for me.

I've been running a Tidal 75 for 5 months now. Here are the pros for me: It moves a lot of water. I have it in a 29-gallon pleco growout so that's a big plus. It has a very wide range of flow settings making it versatile for different tank sizes, livestock, and filter media. It self-primes Those are the three things it has going for it over the aquaclear. I have a lot of gripes about the tidal, but some of those gripes may be preferable to others: The skimmer seems to be the most effective part of the intake. You can't turn it completely off, and there's no out-of-the-box way of adding a prefilter to it. Because of the skimmer being so prominent, I do think it contributes a lot to the filter's lack of water-polishing ability. I, too, have more floaters in that tank (granted, it's a pleco growout so the feeding never stops) The media basket is really, really restrictive. You have to fill it loosely and lightly if you want to minimize bypass. And a large amount of bypass is basically inevitable at full flow. People have modded theirs by drilling extra holes in the media basket. Because of the bypass and restriction, you may have to deal with the nagging blue cylinder reminding you, the dumb fishkeeper, to clean the media even if you just cleaned it an hour ago. It's noisier than the aquaclear equivalent -- not the motor per se, but the water turbulence. Guess it has something to do with how the water exits. It's a functional filter. Maintenance is easy, it's reliable, and it's probably very popular for anyone who wants the specific features that are completely absent in the aquaclear.

Always work near an open flame, correct?

Right, but the question is how much water? 8 ounces, 4 ounces? I know it depends on the fish, so say if putting 1-2 guppies to a bag. Or 2" bristlenose plecos, which I am actually going to be shipping soon. Didn't even think about this. I have plenty of h2o2 and probably some taters around here. I might give it a shot tonight to see how much it takes to fill a bag.

Yep, and I also saw that Michael's Fish Room does that as well. Guess it just depends on the shipping speed, or the quality of the tank water to begin with. A mix of fresh and tank is probably a happy medium, or to do a 50% water change the night before shipping.

This for sure. I sweat pretty easily, and the LFS environment (humid, generally warm) plus a mask over my bearded face is a bad combo. My LFS also seemed to have a much better selection pre-covid, but things are getting a little better now.

I've watched quite a few videos on shipping fish, and the general consensus on packing is pretty clear: Insulated box (most people just use foam panels) Heat pack in winter (attached to the inside of the box and separated from the fish bags themselves) Filler of some sort to keep the fish bags in place (I've seen packing peanuts, blown insulation, and newspaper. Fast the fish for a couple days before shipping Double-bag Make sure there aren't corners for fish to get trapped in (double-bagging usually solves this) What doesn't seem clear, or where people differ: Water volume -- too much and the shipping charge skyrockets, too little and you risk polluting the water. So what's the optimal amount of water to get, say, a trio of guppies, safely through the mail in 2-3 days? How much more if you were shipping a chunker, like a 4-5" oscar or fancy goldfish? Air -- A lot of fish shippers seem to use straight O2, and others just regular air. The advantage of the O2 seems to be higher water:air ratio, but could be other circumstances that call for O2 over regular air. Then of course there's the breather bags, which seems to be the better solution except in certain cases (e.g. fish that can puncture the bag). Water Source -- Some people just use the tank water, others use fresh conditioned water, and some use half and half. Anyone with lots of experience shipping fish care to chime in? Always good to have a solid foundation of good practices for anyone starting a breed-for-profit setup!

I have some of those racing stripe kind, too. This one has a narrow one. I don't think it makes a big difference in looks.

True, but the chart seemed to show a logical progression in color intensity/coverage, and then the Rilli. I just found that... Rilli interesting.

Wait, is Rilli actually more desirable than Fire or Painted Fire? Based on the above pic, I definitely have a lot of Fire shrimp, and Rilli shrimp that I "culled" but putting in my betta tank. But my betta doesn't touch them.

Mixed bag. I was breeding the mostly black ones (called "Black Neon") for a while, but sort of boring. Then my wife brought home her orange mickey mouse platy, and I just started a mutt platy colony in the same tank as my mutt guppy/endler hybrid colony. I don't cull unless I see a serious issue, which is rare.

I just took some photos of a sample selection of my assorted platies. Getting ready to list some for sale.

Not often I see rarer fish in my LFS that are compatible with my communities. Paid $21 for this guy/gal - which is a lot compared to my usual MO of buying schools of $5 fish. The only higher priced fish in my house is the betta. Once I put it in my 90-gallon, it disappeared for a week, but has since become more comfortable so I could get a photo. Anyone else keep these? I haven't even kept the more common hillstream loaches before.

Aqueon tanks are mass produced, so imagine workers trying to silicone X number of tanks a day. They're more or less slapped together, but they seem to have a low enough leak/failure rate. Some of them just tend to have remnants of sloppier craftsmanship than others. Fill it with water and stick a background behind it, see if the flaws catch your eye too much. If they do, I'd return it and find the best looking replacement you can. Problem around here is there might be one 75-gallon at one Petco in the entire city.

It's not really an alternative; it serves a different purpose which is to keep algae at bay. But you don't need to inject CO2 (especially not just for the sake of moneywort). I'm just a tinkerer, and the CO2 is really serving as a substitute for patience.

Yes and yes 😁 I completely lost several stem plant bundles before figuring things out. Anubias, unless you get the dreaded rhizome rot, won't be a total loss if you don't have your nutrients/light dialed in yet. I had ruined a nanapetite to the point that all I had left of it was a quarter-inch piece of rhizome. I left it alone attached to a rock for about 6 months, and it developed several new leaves. Crypts like iron at the roots, but otherwise easy green is definitely fine for those plants. Maybe your water will like Moneywort better than mine, but I got tiny leaves and algae until I started using CO2. I might've bunched them too close together.

Thanks for sharing the lighting settings. That's your culprit. You are running a fluval 3.0 at full blast on these plants for over 14 hours a day. That's a lot, way too much even if you were going whole hog on CO2. I'm running a single fluval 3.0 on a 24-inch tall tank, with fairly heavy CO2 injection and E.I. daily fertilization, and my peak lighting period is less than half that. Adding CO2 into the mix, maintaining a medium level of fertilization, probably is making the algae worse. Algae is caused by an imbalance of nutrients, light, and CO2 -- sometimes it can be tough to identify the imbalance, but luckily in this case it's obvious the light is the problem. I do recommend taking a day for a hard restart, at least manual removal of as much algae as possible. Drastically reduce your lighting asap. Start with "Bentley's Day Sim" settings here: https://imgur.com/a/CTIjYYu Fertilize daily or as often as you can (not a full dose: the point is to spread out the dosing, giving the plants enough time to use the nutrients before the algae can take advantage). Do this for weeks/months, observing growth. This isn't going to fix everything, but it's going to put you on the right track. If you start seeing algae, you'll know something is out of balance, but at that point it probably won't be so far out of whack that the algae is uncontrollable.

I also have a co2 injected 40 breeder and a fluval 3.0. I use Bentley's day Sim, but I have modified it and extended the peak lighting period by 2 hours. I grow a mix of high, mid, and low light plants (crypts, dwarf sagg, rotala, ludwigia, montecarlo, etc) and fertilize 5 days a week. I use a modified E.I. daily dosing method mixing my own dry ferts, so that potassium and micros are dosed E.I., but only adds 1ppm nitrate and no phosphate. My fish load adds nitrate and my tap water has phosphate. Check your nitrate levels. Water sprite and co2 I imagine would really suck down the nitrates, and fast growing stems like ludwigia would hog a good bit of the fertilizer as well. I would say stick with the day Sim setting (especially if you aren't also blasting co2 to the 30ppm range) and dose your all in one fertilizer as often as possible, daily if you can (but a low amount, say a quarter to a half dose). Then test your water right before you do your usual water change. When I make light and fert changes, I will usually test for potassium, phosphate, and nitrate. A current pic of my tank... In the center there I'm still trying to get pogo helferi to grow from a tissue culture, and on the right I'm trying to convert s Repens to submersed. The red on the tree stump ornament is BBA that I killed last night. It grew as a result of over fertilization before I modified the day Sim settings to increase lighting period.