Fish Folk

Ok. I had to read a bit on this one. I don’t keep Archers, but last summer I went to a small aquarium up in Scranton, PA where I saw some in a large paludarium… I am not certain the exact subspecies, but maybe you can determine… I had to search to find this tank mate species. These were Mono Angels, an Asian species… One key is that both are brackish species. I don’t typically lean into such sites, but this page seemed very generous with helpful information… https://fishtankadvisor.com/archerfish-care/ To your question, I am not sure exactly how to guess Archerfish would do in a long term fresh / non-brackish setup. But the Central & South American species you’ve named would not survive in a brackish tank. Hope this starts to provide you some answers. Sorry I don’t know more!

@Karen B. It is good to journal through valleys, not just when we’re up on mountain tops. There are many sort of coordinate planes we have to chart our way through in this hobby: (1) Nurture vs. Nature (2) More vs. Better (3) Perfection vs. Improvement. Many more can be listed and pondered. Thinking through your scenarios… you’re clearly trying to Nurture your fish well! This makes it very hard when you feel you might have done X or Y better. Success and failure alike become tethered to your care. But maybe, instead, you could adjust your thinking, and allow Nature more weight than Nurture for a change. I’ll never forget when @Irene interviewed a master breeder, he said “The fish do the work.” Obviously we can burn out trying to turn our hobby into a NICU ward. Maybe you can set your tank up to let Nature do more to preserve fish fry. More Java Moss, for example, to let the fish fry survive in tank than increasing your own work. With MTS (multiple tank syndrome) and gravel vacuuming, perhaps “Better” with what you’ve got can be your aim rather than “More.” I gave up most gravel vacuuming, and don’t often look back. As long as you’re changing water and have lots of plants, balance is achieved. I had to pump the brakes on new tanks, and decide what my limit was. I decided to enjoy what I’ve got, and try to do that better rather than add more. (My wife still thinks I’ve gone a little mad…) Raising kids has long ago forced me to embrace the axiom of “Improvement” and let go of my ideals of “Perfection.” The house is mostly broken. But here I am, at 2:13 am, holding my baby who refuses to sleep through the night. Far from perfect, but an improvement to share his care. Applied to my hobby, I enjoy each day looking at my tanks satisfied that I’ve made this or that small improvement rather than being upset every day that I’ve not achieved perfection. Anyway, thanks for sharing your honest reflections. Hope you’re encouraged as we talk this through.

Yeah.. Sharpies v. Coops… classic ID challenge.

Glad things seem good. My only caution would be what happens after lights out. If they are still foraging, a “sleeping” betta might seem like a midnight craving snack…

Whatcha raising? BNPs?

Does your hawk look like this? Or like this? Or even like this? All are photos of Cooper’s Hawk.

Dominant male Banded Darter (Etheostoma zonale) from my tank finally putting in vibrant spring color…

I’ve kept 6x Etheostoma zonale in this 20-gal for half a year or so. This one male has really colored up with spring bling… Here is a video of me NERMing out over him…

I’ve signed up for a JStor account and an InternetArchive account. Neither requires specific research credentials. Some quality information I have found there has been useful to my personal aquatics research. Speaking for all of us, thanks for the great work you all do with the CoOp Blog articles!

Is your tank cycled? How are your Ammonia / Nitrite / Nitrate?

Day off school / off work. Birding of course… Eastern Towhee: Fox Sparrow:

Here’s the floating DIY fry container where I pulled the Rainbow Shiner eggs to last evening. Airstone added… I even hit with methylene blue, though it quickly dispersed. I’m not holding my breath, but I’ll be thrilled even if _some_ fry hatch here.

Last night, I pulled a nice haul of Rainbow Shiner eggs. I’ll show how they’re being cared for in floating fry tray later today.

Actually, they’re very happy in low 70s. Just run some extra air for dissolved oxygen. They actually breed well if around 70-74°-F.

They got a serious thing goin’ on in here. Pretty sure they found the spot!

Shiners are spawning again today - 03-31-2022. They are letting lots of eggs fall around the tank, and Rainbow Darters are eagerly awaiting “caviar.” 😂 I found some eggs laid down in the molmy water under the stones. Here’s a talk-through… Here’s a photo of the “Java box” where I tossed the eggs+molm… I cleaned off the stones, and placed the refreshed glass tray into the tank. Shiners have been very happy over it… I am optimistic that I’ll get a nice haul of eggs within the next 48 hrs. Whether or not I can get them to hatch after my last two failed attempts… who knows. I think I’ll try using a DIY floating flow-through fry tray this time. I can place a plastic card piece over the top to lower lighting.

Getting prepped for a two week vacation coming up next month. 😫 Here is my plan for these Ram fry. Kind of a boring “procedural” video explanation, but I hope this will preserve them. I’ll be unable to depend on my helper / feeder to make BBS while we’re away.

Sorry to hear about your losses. That’s the hardest part of the hobby in my opinion. Money + Care + Time = Big Loss. My water measures very similarly. I sometimes add crushed coral in with substrate, or hide a bag away behind Hardscape. Some aquarists put in their filters too. This can help increase your KH. When first added, it tends to leave a cloudy mess for a day or so. The goal of raising KH is adding buffer for your water so that pH swings don’t happen so precipitously. If you’re adding CO2, I think that will increase your risk of pH dipping.

Yes! SAEs — love mine. Enjoying life at 83°-F with Discus. ”Hey Brandon, can you please put a hold on literally everything? It’s so amazing you guys are accepting holds on fish now” 😂 KIDDING YA NERMZ

I cannot answer with authoritative experience. I’ve tried Red Cherry, Blue Dream, Green, Yellow, and Black. In the end I was only long-term-successful with Reds. Here is a well-known Neocaridina chart:

It sort of looks like a juvy Congo Tetra, but it might be a long-finned version of something South American. Red eye Tetra? Head and tail light tetra?

Man… Ricardo Montalban… great actors are hard to find anymore. That he could play this role, Shakespeare, and Khan (Star Trek II)… one of my favs.

Since I don’t run CO2, I cannot say if it’s the composition of the rubber + diffuser output. But you could try pulling it out, and just rubbing it down by hand. Sometimes that works. If not, I sometimes use a piece of clear tubing down into a tank, with the black CoOp tubing run outside. I did this for a Betta / Killi jug shelf recently just because I felt like the clear airline was less unsightly in this one instance. However, I also just used up an entire 300-ft roll of CoOp tubing on other applications, and totally love it.

Hi @Bev C !! In both of my 55 gallon aquariums, I have more than one Bristlenose Pleco. I also have multiples in my 40-gallon, and in my 33-gallon long. As long as you’ve got loads of hiding places and foraging space for them, they’ll enjoy life. It is helpful to get a pair — male + female. Males can tend to be a bit territorial. But I’ve not personally seen them fight to the death. If you really love Corydoras, you might enjoy some of the medium-large species. They enjoy flow, and can be coaxed up through the water column if your conditions are just right. Emerald Corys can get 2-3x larger than Bronze Corys (Aeneus). They’re a funny fish to watch!

Honestly, if I were doing this, I'd plan to go about it all in two stages: (1) assisted / nurtured breeding with mops, hatching / grow-out tank, etc (2) once enough fry are old enough to add into a larger colony, I'd allow a massive colony to "do their thing" naturally in a larger tank, loaded with java moss on bottom, and floating plants on top. If you can manage to avoid duckweed, water lettuce or frog bit would be nice. But if you get into duckweed, it tends to take over. For a detailed look at how I bred and raised up a huge colony of African Fundulopanchax Scheeli (Emerald Killifish), you can go down a NERM-hole at this link. Here's a photo I took tonight of one of those fry from my colony... What I'd do now is float a DIY flow-through fry container with java moss and an air stone. I made a post on that recently here on the forum. I'd pull eggs off the mop, and drop in there until they hatch. That maintains the same water chemistry as the tank. I personally DO use a single neocaridina to care for fungus and infertile eggs. I call it my "nurse droid." The Killi eggs look like tiny little clear glass balls. LRB Aquatics has a fun video on how to make a spawning mop. You can watch it here. Let me know if I can encourage you in any way! I'd love to see you enjoy a tank full of Clown Kills. As for cleanliness . . . I'm a fan of algae for fry. But I understand that's not everyone's approach. Dean Tweeddale keeps a fanatically spotless fishroom, and really breeds a load of fish. I'm just more earthy . . .