Andy's Fish Den

I would and have kept several angels in a 40 breeder many times. The hard part will be managing aggression if you have a pair, the pair will harass the others and drive them away, often hiding in the corners of the tank. Now, if you want a pair in the tank, I would either buy a verified pair, or get a group and raise them until you have two pair off and remove the others. When I raised angelfish years ago, I kept my pairs in 20 gallon tall tanks, so a pair in a 40 will be plenty big, especially if you are scaping it.

I have been keeping shrimp, both neocaridina and caridina for quite a few years now, and all of my neo shrimp tanks have fish in them as well, mainly different strains of endlers or guppies, so the tank gets food put in it pretty much every day. For the most part, the shrimp just eat the leftover foods that the fish don't get, and maybe once a week I will throw in few algae wafers or sticks when I am feeding my plecos. My caridina tanks do not have fish in them, so I do throw a little bit of food in their tanks a couple of times a week. Now, I do also keep some sort of leaf botanicals, either Indian almond or oak leaves in the tank and the shrimp graze on them. It's cool how they will munch ot down to just the thick veins of the leaves.

I don't really sanitize my qt tank after using, I figure that if I had a fish that was sick with something and I treat it and it is well enough to put into a display tank with other fish, then whatever disease is gone from the tank. Play, the next fish that goes in there will be getting treated anyways if I notice any disease.

Plants that I have kept in discus tanks that have done good: sword plants, anubias, java Fern, jungle val, some crypts (wendtii bronze and green, balansae, spiralis). I have not tried any stem plants in the warmer water, so can't help with those.

I have tanks of both crystal red and crystal black, and I am using Fluval stratum in both. I use RO/DI water remineralize to a TDS of 150 using salty shrimp GH+ and they are reproducing at a good rate. I only do a water change once a month and when I top off the tank from evaporation use RO/DI water.

Awesome to see this, I'm going to have to download and listen on my way to town today for doctors appointment.

The several LFS I have visited in the last six months, have had them ranging from $7-10 each. I'm good friends with the guy who owns one of the stores and he told me that they usually get shipped pretty small and don't do good with shipping, there are usually several DOA in the bag and then loses some during quarantine. As for shrimp prices, I have seen cherry shrimp for anything from $2-8 each in an LFS. At my clubs monthly auctions they usually go for around a buck a shrimp.

You can put them in right away. I do stuff like that all the time, especially when I get a new fish or two, come home, fill one of the empty tanks I have sitting around to use for QT and I always have extra sponge filter in tanks for occasions like this, so I throw one of them in, put the fish in and they'll be fine. As long as the bio load in that tank is not way too much it will be fine. As others have said, test the water and make sure ammonia or nitrites aren't building up and you are good.

@Rube_Goldfishbe sure to check out wherever you find out about the auction you plan to attend what payment methods they will accept. Most clubs anymore will accept credit or debit cards but there may be the odd one out there that doesn't. A lot of groups have gotten to where you have to register and run a tab, so make sure you get there with plenty of time to register, check out the stuff that will be up for auction, and maybe even grab yourself a drink and snack to enjoy while bidding. I make sure to always take a pen or something to write with so that I can write down item numbers as I'm looking over the stuff beforehand. I will set myself a limit overall what I will spend for the day and then for each item I want to bid on. A lot of times, if there are multiple bags of the same species or variety, if you wait for the first couple to sell, they will go higher, then you can get the others for a little less. Also, after the first couple of hours, a lot of times, people will start leaving and items will go for a little less money, I be sure to always plan to be at the auctions all day, I don't set a time that I have to leave at. This wy, I can stay until the end and scoop up some deals at the end.

The biggest thing is to make sure that you're scanning the entire audience, and don't be afraid to ask people that are standing behind you or behind poles etc to move so you can see them easier if they want to bid or are bidding. Then, after that is trying to remember what dollar amount you are on, I did it this past weekend where I forgot what amount I was at after a small bidding war and then it stopped, I had a memory lapse of what amount it was to as I was trying to get more bids. Go for it at one of your meetings. I've been doing it at the monthly meetings for the past couple of years, and I have a blast, plus I get to see all the bags up close and can decide if I want to bid as well. My club is going to hopefully having our first auction that will be open to the public and other clubs this spring, and I will be auctioneering there as well, so I will have to see how that is, I've been to bigger auctions, but not done anything other than run bags to the high bidder.

I would just take the plants and whatever wood and rock you have in the tank to a bucket, tub or whatever you have to hold them. Remove any filtration that would be exposed to air when you drain down the tank, and put in a bucket keeping it wet. Drain down as much water as you can, if you have a spare bucket or two, you could save some of it to add back in when done, but there will be some that gets thrown out, but it will just be like doing a water change., Scoop out the colored gravel that you don't want, add in the new gravel, rescape the tank however you would like it, fill the tank back up with whatever old water you have and top off with new, get the filtration back up and running, and let it run for a few days to a week and add in shrimp or fish.

@Fish Folkit is the same way with my local club for the most part, as for what sells and what doesn't. Myself, along with another member are usually the auctioneers for our monthly meetings, and I will start the bidding for at least $5 for each item, so that members will feel like it was worthwhile to take the time to bag things up. African cichlids in general are hard to get anyone to bid on, as there are only a couple of people that come regularly keep much, if any. We had a guy last fall that brought several various Malawi peacocks and haps, and they didn't sell well in the auction at all, I think maybe $5 per item. He got upset with us afterwards, and we just had to tell him that there is only a couple of people that keep those fish in the club and only one of them was there that day. If someone show up with a large SA/CA cichlid, or something else large, it's almost guaranteed that it will only go for a few bucks or the person will take it home. Lake Tanganyika cichlids are starting to grow with some people in the club. About a year ago, I took a bag of multi shellies with shells to a meeting for BAP, only got like $10 for the bag, but the other day, a bag of fry sold for somewhere around $35. And, there were several bags of of Tanganyika fish as well that sold for decent prices. Guppies will usually sell for decent price, as long as there is more than just a pair or trio in the bag, people like when there's a bunch of fry as well. But, people are shy about any of the wild type live bearers like goodeids, we had several this month, and no one wanted to buy any. I ended up buying a bag with about 20 Ameca splendens to add to my colony for $5. Plants will sell good, I sold a bag of subbwasertang (sp?) for in the $20 range Sunday .and there were several anubias plants that went for good prices as well.

Quite possibly. Someone usually will give a buck to feed it to some goldfish or something. Or maybe they take it home and feed it to their chickens as well

I have not had anything not sell in one of my local clubs auction. We have had people bring in bags of duckweed and can always get someone to give at least a buck for it.

To help answer your questions: 1. I have not bought any botanicals off Amazon, but have from many other places. Just do some research, look for what you want and best prices. I've bought botanicals off eBay sellers, Esty, and several websites. 2. I feed all kinds of food to all my fish, I would not worry about just because it says discus, I get all sorts of foods that I win in raffles at local fish club meetings, mix it all together and that's what I feed. What you do have to watch for, is if you have fish that are mainly herbivorous not giving them too much protein, and vice versa with fish that are carnivores getting plant based food. But, if you have community omnivorous fish, don't be afraid to try a variety. 3. I have had good luck ordering some driftwood from Etsy, most of the time it is WYSIWYG. As for rock and stone, check out a local landscaping supply yard. I have one near me that sells all kids of rock by the pound, I got a couple five gallon buckets full of river pebbles and rock for just over $10.

My local fish clubs first meeting of the year is tomorrow, I have to go down to the fish room later today and do the same thing, getting ready. I am not sure what I will be taking yet, if anything. I have some fey growing out to take for BAP but I may hold off another month on one or two species to let them grow a little more. It is always nice to come out with enough to pay for the gas going, although my meeting is only about half hour away, and dinner on the way home, and maybe even pick up another fish or two for the fish room.

Generally speaking, it is easy to tell male and female cacatuoides are easy to tell apart, the male will have brightly colored fins, and females don't and are yellow in color. If you go to a good LFS, they should be able to pick out a pair for you. Since the one you have is a female you should be ok with it not bothering the new pair, but it never hurts to be ready to separate fish if any bullying would start up.

I have not heard of it happening in cichlids, but it does happen in swordtails i was told at one time. Could it have been what is often known as a sneaker male? It is well known in some species such as apistogrammas that a sub dominant male will not develop the male coloration so that the dominant male doesn't want to kill him all the time. If you take the dominant male out of the tank, the sub dominant one will then move up and become the new dominant male. This is why sometimes it is so difficult to accurately sex out apistos if you have several in a tank. When I kept occelatus years ago, if you introduce a group of say 6 fish, you will have one dominant male, and he will spawn with a harem of females, and if there are any other males, he will harass them to their death if the tank is small, if it's large enough, the sub dominant male will most likely hide in the corner by himself, or maybe if they tank is large enough, he may have one or two females that the dominant male is not spawning with.

Add Malaysian trumpet snails to the list!

I have well water, but thankfully mine is pretty good. I do have a little bit of iron, if you don't clean the bathtub often enough you will see a orange tint to it. the pH comes out between 7-8 depending upon the time of the year, and how much rain we have had, TDS is usually around 300-350, both KH and GH are right around 10-15, so I do get the mineral deposits left on the glass as water evaporates, but that is easily taken off with a razor blade. I would get as someone else mentioned either the API freshwater master test kit, or the co-op test strips so that you can test your water. There is a company called sj wave that makes test strips that test something like 16 different things in your water, you can find them on Amazon, they test everything like iron, lead, copper, We sue these at work since we have a well there as well, with our own mini treatment plant. https://www.amazon.com/Drinking-Aquarium-Sensitivity-Hardness-Chlorine/dp/B07WNJJVKN/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?crid=1GA9R3Y79YBVY&keywords=sj+wave+16-in-1+water+test+kit&qid=1673003971&sprefix=sj+wave+%2Caps%2C118&sr=8-2-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUFVVENYUURPSVMxTUsmZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTA1NDk3MjgzTjBLSk9HRVpLMUNYJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTA2NTMwMDEzUE5DUlJLM0E1RDZKJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

A lot of aquascapers use pea gravel or crushed lava rock, often in mesh bags or even pantyhose, to create hills or higher area in tanks before putting aquasoil or sand on top. It eliminates having to use so much of the more expensive substrate.

I personally wouldn't worry too much about it. I would do as @Odd Ducksuggested with either seltzer or peroxide and let sit for a day or two, fill the tank up, and use a gravel siphon to really clean the eco complete well.

I would like to go on one of the trips like Cory and dean have been on to Peru.

I thought of the same thing when I saw about that tank breaking. I thought to myself, too bad they didn't have the flex seal tape!

I have some black calvus, Julidochromis transcriptus "Gombi" and Cyprochromis leptosoma "blue flash' that are going in. I also have some Neolamprologus caudopunctatus that I might put in after I spawn them in my fish room so I can get the BAP points in my local club.