gardenman

Yeah, the 75 gallon tanks are pretty much the minimum way to go for a small school of discus. If you just have a bonded pair, a 40 breeder, or even a twenty high, can be adequate, but with more than a bonded pair, you need more space. Lots more space. He was looking at $439 for the 51 gallon tank, so when you can get a decent tank, stand, cover and light for $499 at full price and $299-$349 fairly often on sale, the 75 just makes more sense. Assuming he had room for the 75.

Male plecos will demonstrate their egg fanning technique to try and impress the girl plecos. Your fanning pleco is almost certainly a male because of that behavior. If a girl pleco is suitably impressed by a male's egg fanning technique, she'll consent to lay her eggs for the male to fan them. Then she'll wander off to go shop, grab a bite of food, maybe take in a movie or something, while the male is trapped in the cave for days/weeks/months looking after the eggs and fry.

A 30" wide tank doesn't really give them a lot of room to get away from one another. I'd be more inclined to go with a conventional 75 gallon tank (48" long.) Petsmart routinely has the full Marineland 75 gallon setup (tank stand, cover, light) on sale for $299-$350. (It's at full price of $499 as I type this, but it's often on sale.) A 48" long tank can use more vision blockers here and there to give fish a place to get away from a more dominant fish. I'd be pretty comfortable with a few discus in a 75.

I saw a YouTube video quite a while ago where a guy made a hillstream loach tank in a 40 breeder by siliconing in a piece of glass a few inches up from the bottom of the tank, creating a false bottom that was open on either end. He then used one of the gyre pumps at one end under the false bottom to create a circular flow in the tank. The water would come into the bottom section at the left, get shoved across under the false bottom to the far right where it would then emerge and flow back towards the left. He used sponges, eggcrate, and netting to prevent the loaches from getting pulled under the false bottom. He added caves with openings parallel to and perpendicular to the current flow for the loaches to hide out and also used some large rocks in places to lessen the flow in those areas. It was a pretty impressive setup. He even had some plants in the tank, but they were mostly growing horizontally due to the current flow. His substrate was mostly river rock and broad flat stones. It was a very neat looking setup. The sponges were his filter. It was essentially a mountain stream in an aquarium. To give you some idea of flow, the small gyre pumps typically pump around 2,000 gallons per hour. The bigger ones can do up to 6,000 GPH. There was a lot of flow in a 40 breeder. The loaches seemed very happy though.

A lot of the endangered species aren't really all that endangered these days. There is no shortage of Asian Arowanas. They're captively bred in absurdly high numbers. It's still illegal to own one in the States though as they're "endangered." There are probably more living Asian Arowanas today than at any time in the history of the species. It's likely their total numbers are many times that of what they've ever been in the wild. There are farms raising tens of thousands of them each year. And there are lots of Asian Arowana farms. There is no need for anyone to catch one in the wild as there is a virtually endless supply of captive bred ones. Every US hobbyist who wanted an Asian Arowana could get one and the impact on the number in the wild would be zero. Heck, every hobbyist could get ten and it would have no impact on the number of wild arowanas. But they're still banned. Why? More for appearance than anything. In the real world, the ban has no impact. As to invasive species, most people worry about the alpha predators like the snakehead, arapaima, etc. The claim is often that they'll kill everything and eat it. The thing is, they live with lots of other life in their native habitat. They don't kill and eat everything. If they did, they'd end up starving. The predator/prey ratio has to be right or the predators starve. Nature finds a balance. If you have one zebra and a hundred lions, you won't have a hundred lions for long. If you have a hundred zebra and one lion, you'll lose an occasional zebra here or there, but they'll also be giving birth to new ones and things stay in balance. The whole "If those snakeheads breed and have large spawns they'll kill and eat everything!" folks forget that once they've killed and eaten everything, they'll die. They will quite literally starve themselves out of existence. Nature finds a balance. And the native predators will eat the snakehead fry and young fish also, so the "invaders" can actually help feed the native fish. There are a lot of people, bureaucrats, politicians, who think they have way more control over things than they do. At the very least they want more control. In the real world, nature finds a way to keep things under control. If the predator/prey ratio gets out of whack, the predators starve. Problem solved! Wading birds will pick up fish eggs from someplace with fewer predators and deposit them in the now predator free area and they'll thrive there until a new predator comes along. Nature finds a way.

I laughed when I saw that they specifically included Blue Whales as an animal you couldn't keep. Ah, dang!

If you read the regulations you'll find that you're not allowed to keep a blue whale in NJ. Pity! It would be quite the centerpiece in a big enough tank. I raised cockatiels, lovebirds, parakeets, and green singing finches back in the eighties when this law first took effect. It pretty much crippled my sales. To sell the birds to a pet shop I'd have to get a special license and also a license for each of the birds (other than the parakeets and cockatiels that were exempt). To sell them to individuals privately would require me to be responsible to fill out the permit applications and forward them to the state. It was just a mess. I moved on to other endeavors.

The challenge with the "short-body" trend is that we're likely to see the same issues we see in exotic goldfish with swim bladder/digestive issues as the fish mature. A very significant percentage of exotic goldfish (the original short-bodied fish) develop swim bladder issues and other issues due to body compression. I'm not sure we've learned the lesson that distorting fish beyond certain parameters is unwise. Asian breeders (and others) are now creating short-body versions of many tropical fish and my gut says it's a bad idea. Instead of learning from the generations of deformed goldfish, we're repeating the same mistakes only now with tropical fish. At this point the shorter the body, the higher the price, and the more desirable the fish is to those looking for short-body fish. I just don't think the short-body trend is wise for the fish or aquarist. Goldfish were hardy, largely indestructible fish in their original form. Fancy goldfish with their compressed bodies are anything but hardy and indestructible these days. They've been selectively bred to fit a certain profile rather than to be hardy and healthy. Is there a market for short-body fish? Absolutely! Is it good for the fish? Not likely. Fish that a few years ago would have been culled are now being selectively bred to pass on their deformity. And the greater the deformity the more valued the fish are. It's just a trend that strikes me as a bad idea. There is a market for them though. I just don't think it's the right direction for the hobby. I'd rather see fish being bred to be hardier, healthier, and longer lived. I don't think selectively breeding for the short-body trait gives you any of those three things. It certainly hasn't in fancy goldfish. That's my two cents on the whole short-body issue. I cringe when I see the balloon mollies. Some of them can barely swim. It's not a trend that I think is wise. But there is a market for the short-bodied fish.

Yeah, it's the API ones I'm using. So far, so good. They're a whole lot cheaper than the aquarium ones and seem to be working well for me. They recommend using them by the volume of soil you're fertilizing, so that's what I did. In my thirty high the substrate should hold three of them, but I just do one at a time every two weeks and it's working for me. I put one in my left front corner. Then in two weeks one goes into the back right corner. Two weeks later one goes in the middle, then in two more weeks I'm back to the left front. This is an old established tank that's been set up forever (twenty plus years?) so if there is an ammonia spike (and I haven't detected one) the bacteria might just be gulping it down before it registers. The only drawback is those tabs have more phosphorous than aquarium tabs as they're made for flowering plants (water lilies and lotus) and flowering plants want more phosphorous. Higher levels of phosphorous can lead to increased algae, but I haven't seen that being an issue as of yet.

There are a couple of easy options. One is to keep using the existing light but to add a diffuser/shade cloth to it. You can block out much of the light in that manner. Something simple like a strip or two of electrical tape on the clear plastic covering the lights can dramatically reduce the light reaching the tank. Another option is to simply let the duckweed cover the tank and absorb the light. It can be very effective in blocking light from getting deeper into the tank. Just some t-shirt material placed over the clear plastic can diffuse the light and dim it down significantly. Greenhouse growers use shade cloth to diffuse light and it's very effective. It's pretty easy to modify your existing light to put out less light. You can play around with various options on the clear plastic covering the LEDs to find the best option for you.

Yeah, if you go to their exempt animal list, any animal of any type that isn't specifically exempted requires the permit. (Or could require the permit depending on how much they want to harass you.) One of the beautiful things about living in NJ is you never have to ask "Is there a law about (insert name of anything here)?" There is. Everything is regulated. In my township you can only put your trash out after 6 PM the night before trash day and before 6AM the day of trash pickup. Forget to put it out the night before and it's after 6 AM on trash day? Too bad! You can't legally put your trash out even if the trashmen haven't shown up yet. (To be fair, the police don't even attempt to enforce the law, but it's there if they chose to.) Where you put your trash can is also heavily regulated. (Not that anyone follows the rules.) NJ has so many rules/regulations/laws that you can't go a full day without breaking a handful (or several handfuls) of them without even trying. The vast majority of the rules/laws/regulations get ignored, but they're there and can be used to harass you if the authorities decide to make an example of you. We're not one of the freest states you'll ever find yourself in.

Getting a cory to eat will be the least of your problems. They won't let themselves starve to death. They'll eat. Now if you're trying to transition a large predatory fish off of live food, it can be more challenging.

Water Lily fertilizer tablets are pretty cheap and usable in aquariums. I'm doing it in my thirty high with no trouble. I bury one deep near my root feeders every couple of weeks and so far, so good. I decided how many to use by the volume of substrate I have. My tank should handle three of them, but I just use one every two weeks (or so) and the plants are doing fine, no ammonia spikes, no algae blooms, no real problems at all that I can see. You can get 25 in a pack for about $7. They're bigger, solid, and fish safe since people use them in their water gardens. They don't float or cause me any trouble. (At least not yet.) I was nervous trying them, but they seem to be working very well.

The NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife have two lists on their site (both PDFs). One has a list of animals requiring a permit for possession, and one has a list of what animals are exempt. You might as well just look at the list of exempt animals though as everything else (according to their site) requires a permit. If you think of breeding anything that requires a permit and selling them to pet shops, you need a special permit that costs $100. If you Google "NJ Exotic and nongame wildlife permit" you can find all kinds of stuff.

That should be fine. Baby plecos tend to be pretty docile little critters.

Angelfish are effective baby predators, but when they get bigger, they may decide to nibble on the occasional adult endler and ignore the fry. Angelfish can get quite large especially with unlimited live food to nibble on. As to swordtails, they tend to breed so much that their offspring become a bigger problem than the guppy/endler fry. I've got well over a hundred swordtails now after starting out with eleven three years ago and there are swordtail fry in my tanks all the time.

I don't have any koi currently as my 300 gallon pond is a bit small for them. When I've had koi in the past they've gotten to 18"+ in about a year. Once they reach that size they tend to slow down in growth, but they never really stop growing. The biggest koi I ever saw was about four feet long and weighed 90+ pounds. That's a big, big fish. Most don't get that big, but 24"-36" isn't uncommon. Filtration for fish the size of a small dog is kind of important. Serious koi keepers tend to go with rotary drum filters that remove solids from the water and then bakki showers or moving bed filters of some sort for biofiltration. Back to the original question, what's the minimum koi pond size? I'd say 1,000-1,500 gallons would be a good minimum. You might want to look at some of the Intex (or similar brands) of steel framed swimming pools. They're pretty cost effective ways to hold a lot of water at a low cost. They can also be taken down to be moved should the need arise. If you live someplace where winters get very cold you can even move one inside to a garage or basement for the winter. (Humidity will be an issue though.) The good news is you wouldn't have to heat it since koi can tolerate very cool temps.

Val typically sends out runners pretty quickly. This one did nothing for months, now it's taking off vertically, but doing nothing horizontally. Sometimes the first sign of new growth is a runner. This one's behaving a bit different than normal.

Yeah, you almost can. It's pretty neat. This is a tall tank. A thirty high so it's about 24" deep. there's about 22 inches of water and in about three weeks a leaf will go from nothing to the top. It's an impressive plant. I've never had one with leaves as wide as this one. Most of the jungle val I've grown in the past have had narrower leaves. This one's becoming a monster. I'm using the pond tabs as root fertilizer in this tank and I suspect that's playing a role in it's growth. The lack of runners is a bit confusing. It seems to be putting all of its energy into growing and none into spreading. That could be because the root tab was placed very near it so it doesn't have to look around for fertilizer. I don't know. It's interesting though. The pond tabs aren't causing me any trouble and the plants are doing well.

I'm just getting back into roses now. My whole backyard was ringed with hybrid tea roses about forty years ago. Then my old neighbor got married and his wife was convinced the rose spray I used was going to kill her. I finally got tired of her acting like I was trying to murder her and moved on to a perennial border and gave up on the roses. She moved out to her daughter's house last year so I bought a Mr. Lincoln this year (my favorite red rose) and I'll work a few more roses back into the yard. I won't have as many as before, but a few here and there will be nice.

I've trimmed jungle val in the past with no trouble. I haven't trimmed the one I have now, but I'll be doing so in the not too distant future with it growing as fast as it's growing. Oddly enough it hasn't produced even a single runner though. Hmm...why? I don't know. But it's growing very well. It's growing an inch a day right now in a thirty high. One leaf has grown to about 34 inches in length and that leaf and the new ones are all about a half inch wide (or wider.)

I find that plants grow where they want to grow and don't grow where they don't want to grow. Why? God only knows. I just let those that want to grow in one tank grow there. Those that don't want to grow there I'll move somewhere else and they might grow there. Floaters are quirky. Dwarf water lettuce thrives in one of my tanks. Frogbit thrives in another. Duckweed does well in three of the four tanks, but not so good in the fourth but the frogbit thrives there.

For a while in NJ you had to have a permit to keep the dwarf African frogs. I think they rescinded that though as you see them in pet stores again. The law in NJ is purposely written vaguely. "Exotic species and nongame species requiring a permit for possession include but are not limited to the following:". They then give a very limited list of exempted species and after that say: "A permit shall be required for any other exotic mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians or nongame species not specifically exempted by N.J.A.C. 7:25-4.4." African dwarf frogs aren't on either list, so you're at some risk if you try to keep them. You're pretty much at the mercy of wildlife officials if you try to keep something that's not specifically excluded from the permits.

I'd leave it be. Jungle Val can take a while to get established. I have one that largely sat there doing nothing for six months. Now it's got half inch wide leaves and they grow an inch a day. Plants store food in the form of carbohydrates in leaves and stems, even seemingly dead leaves/stems. Truly dead leaves tend to fall off on their own and can then be removed. As long as your leaves stay attached, I'd just leave them be.

There are breeders who are very protective of their strains and will only sell males to prevent anyone else breeding them.