SWilson

I'm learning (well, re-learning) Cantonese! I was born in Hong Kong but lost it after moving away when I was young, and was a dumb kid wanting to assimilate to American culture so I refused to speak it with my mom. Such a shame. I'm taking lessons now, it's slow going but coming back. "Sik tang mm sik gong" is my main Cantonese phrase. lol So amazing to be a polyglot! Good on you!

Yes! Mine love snails or frozen anything (and especially bloodworms), but that's about it. I have occaisionally (and only very recently) seen them pecking at algae wafers I toss in there for the plecos, but I think it's only because they saw the endlers eating it lol

I did try trimming one of my amazon puffers. I used Tricaine, but I don't think I used enough. I was scared and I couldn't find very clear information about dosing. The directions that come with the bottle were for commercial use, and it was a bit difficult to try to convert the dosage down to a single fish in a tupperware container. Because the fish was not fully sedated, the trimming was very difficult too. Much harder to get the cuticle trimmers on the tiny tooth than I thought. In the end we were both traumatized. lol. I don't mean to worry you more, I think I got worried and trimmed when I didn't need to. That is the one time I've had to even try to trim though, now coming on a year with six amazon puffers. I have just left them alone and just increased the # of snails I'm breeding so I always have small ones, the lack of which was my problem before. I unfortunately mostly have ramshorns, which are the ones that the puffers easily snatch out of the shell. With bladder snails, I do see the puffers take the whole shell in their mouth. My puffers ignored clam on a half shell and freeze-dried krill. I did try the repashy on a rock (I use soilent green mixed with bottom scratcher) but because I keep a lot of endlers in the tank with the puffers, I suspect that the endlers ate it all. I haven't had a chance to re-try this again. I also feed my puffers with frozen food using tweezers, so I can confirm that each of them is eating. Their little bellies are helpful -- you can immediately see if they're getting food in or not. For what it's worth, when I bought them, the LFS guy said that there are many people who keep them who never have to trim their teeth, but you don't hear about that because they're not fishtubers. He could've just been saying that to get the sale, but they are a pretty reputable store that's beeen around a very long time. There are many things in fishkeeping lore that get said once or twice and then are just repeated over and over -- "you'll have to trim your puffer's teeth every six months" could be one of those things. Though it's not bad for anyone planning to keep them to prepare themselves for that. Good luck @Schwack with your puffers! We should keep in touch and compare notes!

Thank you!

Saw this very cool looking catfish at a pet store, would love to know the species if anyone can ID it (and I’m certain folks here can) it was black body with white spots, Pleco-shaped with whiskers

That is amazing!!

Disaster in the fish room! One of the HOB filters in my 55 gallon overflowed and dumped gallons of water floor, soaking the power outlet, tripping the breaker. All soaked into my concrete floors/floor boards. Giant mess all around. Oh and my indoor cat ran out at the same time. 😤r (he later returned home safely, but very wet from the rain) Sigh. Maybe this is just a rite of passage in the hobby, but not a great one. I'm a new homeowner and am really out of my depth in terms of what damage I've done to the outlet (not to mention water damage to the house itself) and what's safe to do. Against my better judgment but out of desperation, I plugged the power strip with most of the electrical components besides the problem filter back in after drying everything off with towels. But that kept tripping the breaker every few hours. I need to have some water flow and oxygenation going in the tank (it is pretty heavily stocked), so I plugged in just one hob filter (the one I'm calling the not evil one) into the wall outlet. It seems to be able to manage that without tripping the breaker. Because plugging in a higher load trips the breaker, I'm worried there's some water damage to the inside of the outlet. 😞 I think I know why the HOB filter overflowed, and believe I have a fix to that. They're called sponge filters 😂 Any advice on better practices re: the electrical would be greatly appreciated. This is really the first time I called the room where I've set up my tanks the "fish room" -- it was really supposed to be my office and served as that but the fish tanks have completely taken over...including my desk 😅 So now my home office is our dining table and my office is a fish room. 🙂 My partner can't say anything because they took over the garage for their future reptile related business. But an overflowing fish tank seems like the perfect way to inaugurate my fish room. I would have rather popped champagne but oh well. The night before the flood, I set up tank #6: another soil capped with substrate tank. Hopefully a future betta home (plakat female most likely, don't worry not putting flowy fins in with that hardscape) This is a g*d-awful tank photo, but I'm too excited to share it to go down and keep trying to photograph it. Just take my word, that it's very simple and lovely in person (at least I think so). I'll probably need to add more plants to battle the algae, and have plenty of val from other tanks I can add to the background. But I really hope the crypts take off and spread. Each of these plants have been just living in a bucket of water (with light, and a dose of easy green maybe once or twice when I remembered) for almost 2 months. Would love a future Co-op Club event (or a video) that is a tutorial by Jimmy on filming/photographing your tanks for amateurs. 😃

I’m not sure if this matches your aesthetic for the tank, but I’ve also seen and myself used terra cotta pots for your rooting plants. I dunno why but an underwater potted plant is really cute to me 🙂

Thanks for asking! They are doing well, at least as far as I can tell. They are still glass surfing, though I feel like it has gotten better with the addition of the endlers as dither fish. The puffers also can hunt for babies to entertain themselves in addition to glass surfing. I bought some window tinting vinyl recommended on another user's post, but haven't had a chance to apply it yet. I plan to put that on the back and sides, which hopefully will help. I have 1 or 2 that are getting long in the tooth, but they still appear to be eating well. I did try to trim teeth for the first time after I noticed one had really long teeth and a bloodworm or brine shimp would get stuck in their mouth, causing other fish to try to steal it during feeding. I used Tricaine instead of clove oil, but the instructions are kind of confusing about dosing. I was conservative and I don't think I used enough. The fish was not completely sedated and it was an traumatic experience for both of us (did not puff up though, thank goodness). I did take a video of the process, and I've been meaning to edit it down and share it in case it is at all useful (at least of an example what NOT to do 😬). Plus, it was much, much harder to get the cuticle clipper on the tooth than I expected. At least, I have not come across people having issue with that in my research. In the end, I thought I had managed to clip some but after releasing the fish back into the tank, my partner noted no difference at all in the length of the teeth. 😤 Seems to be doing okay though and getting enough food. Another trick I've been meaning to repeat is repashy on rocks. I did that once, and I think the puffers ate some but the endlers ate a lot of it.

score at my local book store! also wanted to give an update on my Walstad-inspired tank: AKA green hair algae city. Which I know I introduced from the rotala that I propagated from another tank. I started to pull out some but it was uprooting the rotala and pulling up soil so I just left it alone. BUT the scarlet temple never looked so good! Seriously some of these stalks came back from the dead. And my pink flamingo crypt is growing out pink leaves. 😍 This method is amazing, I am a convert. I recently added my betta Lo Ban in here, will add some pictures soon. His tail fin is looking better after the course of metronidazole. I haven’t been posting here as much as I would like. I had a long post written on my phone and accidentally deleted it which took the wind out of my sails for a while. I have big plans for the office-fish room — hopefully soon. Including 5 10 gallon tanks purchased at the sale previously known as the $1 per gallon sale. For now, I’ll just wrap up with this snail train:

You've clearly thought about this a lot! I did something far less ambitious recently, but that worked well for holding transporting two fish (a betta and a young bristlenose pleco) for about 4-5 days, including a10ish-hour drive. I'm just sharing this in case any of it is helpful, though I realize not directly translatable to what you've got to do. I found a roughly 7 quart tupperware (with a locking lid) at home depot that had tall sides. I've tried searching for the exact one online but haven't quite found it yet. I'll post it if I find it. I don't know how big your angelfish is, but I would say the container is at least 10 inches tall. It fit perfectly in the floor well of the passenger seat too. What about packing the fish and plants in the same containers, so the plants can oxygenate the water and consume nutrients? When I bought the fish that I transported, I didn't have access to my old aquariums for cycled filter media, so I bought prime and a bunch of plants at the same time and kept them (including the rockwool pots) in the container with the fish. I think your idea about floating the sponges in with them is a good idea to keep up your biological filtration. I think the fish will be okay to go longer without feeding (depends on the type and how many, and if they're juveniles ,of course). Like if you were going on vacation or if you were quarantining, you could not feed for at least 4 days (probably up to a week, though I have never made it that long without caving and feeding fish) and they might be ok. plus, if you're keeping them with the plants and using your own established tank water, there may be plenty of micororganisms in the containers for them to eat. How I did it for the drive was I bought an airstone and heater, and I bought a power inverter for my car. Now, the one I got was relatively cheap, I didn't really have time to research them, and the heater was I think a 75 or 100 watt heater (overkill for the container of course but I was planning to use it for a real tank when I got home). And this power inverter couldn't handle running the heater and the air pump at the same time. a nano heater might have worked. In my circumstances, I could more or less maintain the temperature at high 70s, so I just ran the air stone. I sat the container on a heavy blanket and wrapped the sides and top to insulate it. Of course, a powersource and heater for 4 separate containers is going to be difficult. So I like the idea of heatpacks, I think that would work. I don't know what your space situation was like. But something I just learned that betta breeders do to heat multiple small tanks is to place them inside a larger container that is partially filled with water that is heated and voila, multiple heated tanks. Uh oh supplies - I found having airline tube made it easier to do water changes while I was on the road - scooping works just fine of course but with the airline tube, could put the container next to the sink and let it drain while I multitasked. That or a turkey baster would help you be able to spot clean any waste. Good luck to you!

The spirulina brine shrimp would be fine to feed curly. I've never given Kanaplax before but since it's given with food might be a good idea to mix with the brine shrimp. I agree with the above advice about salt and antibiotic. You can use both (if you're able to use salt, not sure if you have snails or if you added live plants). I'm no expert since my betta got much worse than that and he's still healing. 😕 But, you'll want to make sure the water is warm enough - around 80 degrees or at least 78. Here are some additional things you can try: - adding tannins to the water with indian almond leaf. - Maracyn 1 and 2 - frequent water changes to keep the water quality up (then again, as is typicaly I've also heard been told not to do as many water changes if not necessary for water quality because of stress, there seem to be many more people in the frequent water changes camp though) - the one antibiotic that seems to have finally worked for my fish is metronidazole. Good luck! We are rooting for Curly!

So I clearly haven't had enough coffee yet today because for a half a second I was like, "oh my god your pea puffer ate your roommates? how terrible!" 😂

This thread makes me feel much better and further confirms I've found my people. So far, I have paid nearly $200 for a green phantom pleco at my LFS. On the way out I contemplated naming him "Pleasedontdie." He hasn't, as far as I know (I can count with my fingers the number of times I've seen him hah). All together for my 6 Amazon puffers, not including tax and shipping, I spent somewhere between $150-180. It's best not to really know. 😅 Luckily, my partner can't say anything to me because they're into panther chameleons, which are like $300-500 a pop and super finicky/don't want anything to do with humans. And fancy bearded dragon morphs. 🙂

Nanaue is so beautiful!