[How Far Is Your LFS?]

Big box/poor quality stores 5 mins away. Actually good fish store 2-2.5 hours depending on how fast I drive lol.

[Aquariums wanted]

I believe it can be possible to tell if glass is tempered by looking at it with polarized sunglasses. I've never tried this myself however.

You're from my neck of the woods. I was at Petco in Lewiston a couple of weeks ago and they had a lot of tanks in stock. Petco in Moscow usually has more 75g tanks than Lewiston. The sale is going on now too so might be worth a look.

It may be hard to find anywhere but Petco to find a decent quantity of tanks. Those tank sales they do have priced everyone out of the market it seems, and there aren't that many tanks for sale at a lot of fish stores I visit.

[Whats your favourite Dwarf Cichlid?]

Kribs. I bred some once and it was a really fun experience. I like Bolivians a lot too. 

[The Great Hairgrass Race]

Interesting! In one of my tanks with eco complete I have noticed that it is sort of really densely packed, and my dwarf sag has grown large root structures, but not sent out as many runners, like they have trouble getting through the eco. Hasn't happened in other tanks I've used it in though.

[Live blackworms]

12 minutes ago, David Ellsworth said:

LRB Aquatics has some information about blackworm culturing on youtube. He keeps them in a 10 gal aquarium and feeds them fish food and shrimp food iirc. I recently tried to source some live blackworms, but the main farm in California is having water supply issues and so all their worm production has halted. Sorry I wasn't more help.

Just checked it out! Thanks!

[Bought some fish online]

Cool fish! I've reeeeeally been wanting to get some halfbeaks.

[Why are UGFs not very popular?]

Well, I'm convinced. I need to try a ugf!

[An extra nice purchase from Aquarium Coop]

I love pogostemon because you buy some once and it grows so much you end up with a huge supply for all your tanks, friends tanks etc. 😄

[Live blackworms]

I'm trying a live blackworm culture for the first time using a 10 gallon tank with a sponge filter. No stores near me sell the worms so if I mess this up I have to drive 2.5 hours to get to a decent fish store that sells them, which is kinda nice because it's a good store, but I can't go up there all the time. I'm using methods I got from the internet (so they've just got to be true, right? 😄) but I'm wondering if any blackworm enthusiasts have any tips or anything they can share!

[The Great Hairgrass Race]

This is awesome. Thanks for posting!

[So done with Bolivian rams]

3 hours ago, Colu said:

It could be internal parasites if there not eating 

I agree. I would get these guys into quarantine and treat them with paracleanse.

[Stef's tanks journal]

1 hour ago, SWilson said:

Thank you for the suggestion @Mike_M! I’m not especially attached to tetras and I like this idea a lot! Seems like my tap water would be good for raising the rainbow fry too! 
i also thought about tiger barbs as a fish not likely to take any abuse from tank mates. But they might get a bit too big full grown for the tank. 

I've seen congo tetras recommended for puffer tanks. I've never kept them but they seem like they'd be fun to keep too.

[Stef's tanks journal]

Cardinal tetras can be pretty meek in my experience. Maybe a smallish group of praecox rainbows? They'll swim all over without a care in the world. I'm biased though, I love rainbows. 😎

I've been thinking of trying my own SAP tank, and in my research I have seen that they do glass surf a lot. I don't have much to add, but I'm following to see how it goes for you!

[Frustrated Fish Owner ready to give up]

My guess is that the fish you are getting are unhealthy when you get them and are dying from bacteria or parasites after a while. My advice would be to quarantine and medicate fish with maracyn and paracleanse when you get them. People focus on water parameters because they are testable, but diseases and parasites we can't test for kill a lot of fish too.

[Is a finnex 24/7 CRV high light on a 55?]

If I was in this situation I would leave the light alone and start doing 20% water changes instead of 50% to make sure I wasn't pulling all of the nutrients out of the water.

I have one of these on a 55 and it works ok for me. Definitely not what I would consider high light. This looks like nutrient deficiency to me, and maybe not an overly bright light imo.

[Two different fish?]

So, I did an experiment and tried to get some of my turquoise rainbows to breed, and they did! I noticed about a dozen fry swimming around, so I extracted the parents from the breeding tank, which I previously had been using for quarantine. Right away I noticed that one of the fry was quite a bit larger than the others. I thought that was strange but I figured maybe he hatched first, was a fast grower, or something like that. 

Now that my fry have grown bigger they just don't look like the fish that used to be larger than them. I'm thinking maybe the fish I had in quarantine, two adult giant danios, may have been spawning without me noticing?

These are the rainbow fry. Looking very rainbowish to me (forgive my bad pics):

And here's the weird guy:

Could these be the same kind of fish? 

[Community Tank Death Spiral]

I personally feel that 73 degrees is pretty cool for a lot of tropical fish. I have better fish health when I aim for the mid to high range of what is recommended for a species. 72 or 73 is usually the bottom.

[Favorite Type of Anubius]

Gold coin gets my vote. I only have anubias in my shrimp tank because I always wind up with too much algae on the leaves if I don't have shrimp right there.

[Transitioning a tank - tips?]

When I have done this sponge filters from established tanks and as much cycled media as I could transfer over always did the trick.

[Royal Farlowella eggs hatching]

Cool! I just got a couple of royal farlowellas the other day! Neat fish!

[Dwarf Sag. Melting back]

In my experience dwarf sag can melt pretty significantly. It takes quite a while for those roots to get going, but when they do it really takes off.

[What is your favorite plant?]

Gotta go with sagittaria. Dwarf, broadleaf and narrow leaf are all really nice looking to me.

[Shrimp and Snail Sunday - Show Off Your Invertebrates!]

Looks like more little shrimp on the way!

[Fish Breeding - February 2021]

3 hours ago, Fish Folk said:

I don’t know... I’d probably ask LRB Aquatics, or Bentley Pascoe. We learned it from Killifish breeders in MAKO. 

Ah gotcha. Well it's interesting! Cool fish room thanks for sharing!

[Aquarium kits vs piecemeal (for quarantine/growout)]

I always piece them together to spread out the expense. I just get something for it here and there so I don't feel like I'm dropping a ton of money at a time. Also that way I can get exactly what I want, as opposed to what the kit includes. For example I will always want very specific filters, and none of the ones I want are ever in a kit, etc.