KaitieG

I'm not a fertilizer pro, but for Val and Crypts (I think I see those in your pictures along with different stem plants) I like to use root tabs, since they tend to be root feeders. Algae can be tough to balance. I don't think you'll necessarily see a big spike in algae growth with fertilizer because it can actually help the plants to out-compete the algae. But you could also have a lighting issue or any number of other factors playing to the algae. Doesn't look too bad to me overall. I love Coop Root Tabs. I personally almost never use Easy Green because my tap water already has nitrates, and despite lots of plants, I never have nitrates drop to a level where I'd need to supplement them. Finding a balanced non-nitrate fertilizer or figuring out a good system myself is on my list of things to figure out at some point. I know many people have success with Easy Green, though, and it tends to be, well, easy!

I posted these on my computer, not on my phone, and they came through right-side-up when I emailed them to myself. Then I downloaded and dragged them into the post and they flipped upside down. Not sure what happened, but thanks 🙂

I have a couple angelfish that have paired up and have laid a couple batches of eggs. I just have NO IDEA which is the male and which is the female (or are they both female and I have unfertilized eggs?) Here's what I know: 1. They are both very similarly sized 2. The Phillipine Blue is the one who guards the eggs 3. I've never actually seen one LAYING the eggs. Here are a couple pics--they just spawned today. I've heard people (who must be more observant than me!) can tell a difference with body shape and breeding tubes. They look pretty much the same to me though--so, expert opinions? Just curious! Also, first time I've had this issue, but I have NO CLUE why these are upside down and can't seem to fix them.

It's usually pretty easy to do guppy fry. I've just kept them together with the parents and plant cover, and I feed mostly crushed Krill flakes. I personally haven't had parents who are much interested in eating many of their fry when they can eat fish food a couple times a day instead. To put it this way, I started with 5 guppies a few years ago, and I'm sure those 5 have produced at least 700+ over the last couple years. Right now I have around 200, but I've also sold and given a bunch away and cycled through a couple generations. The population had no problem increasing until I added angelfish to the largest community tank (which was purposeful!). They are super fun to raise, and it's fun to watch them develop their colors!

I did keep panda and habrosus corys with kuhlis, and they all did fine together, but I fed Repashy at night before bed. That's when the Kuhlis seemed to like to come out most. That said, when I see the Kuhlis eating, they're almost always digging around in the substrate finding leftover krill flakes. Go figure.

I think cherry barbs are a great idea and very pretty. I think 8-12 would be a totally reasonable number for a 20H. Kuhlis have an extremely low bioload. I'd maybe even consider something like the barbs AND a small group (4-6 ish) of a small corydora species because they are just SO MUCH fun to watch, whereas the kuhlis hide most of the time. Super fun and interesting to watch when they come out, but they just don't come out much. Pygmies, pandas, hastatus, and habrosus (my favorites) corys all have quite small bioloads with more interactive personalities. I had gold white clouds as my first fish, and they were pretty awesome and looked nice in my 20H. Very attractive little guys. They do prefer cooler water, but they are also pretty adaptable and very hardy. The LFS I bought mine from kept everything at 80, but they do usually live longer at lower temperatures. I kept mine around 76 (still "too high" but they were with tropical fish) and they lived about 3 years. So, did the temperature shorten their lifespans? Maybe, but they all started to die over the course of a couple weeks (except one who went on and lived an additional lonely year), and I THINK now that they had parasites as one appeared sort of wasted and then they started to drop quickly. If I had been more prepared with meds, I think they would have likely recovered, but they were my first fish to get sick, and I wasn't as quick to act on it as I should have been. Overall, what I've heard from a lot of people is that they're pretty hardy and active cold or warm, but they live longer cold because their metabolism is slower. You would have to decide if that's okay with you or not.

THAT is an idea that might actually work! Good thinking!

I've thought about having her ship a fish, which seems possibly do-able. The problems would be 1. We'd still have 2 weeks of vacation to go 2. It would need a place to live for 2 weeks while we're still on vacation--that means having a cycled tank setup at her house assumably and then leaving that whole setup there for her to deal with. 3. I'd also need a tank setup and running here--so we're talking 2 complete fish setups--one that would only run for 2 weeks and then be unwanted/wasted. Am I missing a great alternative to where it could live until it gets shipped?

My family is planning a month-long vacation in a converted bus (skoolie) this summer, and we plan to make it out to WA from WI (my aunt and uncle are on Bainbridge Island and have invited us to stay). Since Bainbridge is in the Seattle area and so is the Co-op, I've been scheming a little about the possibility of bringing along a cycled 5 gallon tank to bring home a betta from the co-op. Here are my (people-centered) whys: Co-op has a great selection of bettas I don't have an LFS I think it would be super cool and fun to own a co-op fish...I mean talk about a fun trip souveneer! A month without fish tanks...gasp.😉 Here are my concerns (note...this list is longer. Probably a point to consider): The bus is bumpy. Like it's an old school bus bumpy. I think we could find a way to stabilize the tank so it didn't fall off anything or break (not that my husband's super keen on this, but he could do it), but would it stress out the fish to be jostling around? How much is that mitigated for the fish being underwater? FWIW the 5 gallon I have for this potential venture (Christmas gift) is the Marineland Portrait. It's tall and narrow. Nice thick glass. But it'd be bumpy! The bus may or may not have air conditioning/heat (it could get quite warm during the day and quite cold at night) We have a limited battery bank. If we can run a generator, it's no problem running a filter and heater, but if we're in a no-generator place, we have to conserve power from the battery bank, and I'm concerned especially about the heater draw. It'll be summer, so not sure about temps but they could swing. I'm worried both about too hot and too cold. We won't be in the bus ALL DAY every day. We may stay with friends where I could bring the tank into the house for part of it, but we may also be at national parks and out hiking during the day living out of the bus. Temp control is a big concern that I'm not sure how to solve. Now that there's that nifty new battery air-pump, I figure I'd have the filter covered! We'd have about 2 weeks of travel left after WA. Logistically how much of a pain would this be overall? So, things I haven't thought of? Solutions? Opinions? Not sure if this is the greatest idea ever or just plain selfish and dumb.

I had my betta (crowntail) in a 20H for over a year. He was totally happy in there. He had to move to a 5 (also seems happy in there) recently to make room for another setup in the 20, but I don't think a 20H is too big by any means. You can always try out some corys or shrimp or something too if you want--mine did well with both of those as tankmates, but I know every betta is different.

I can't find it either--been searching for a while. ETA: Finally found it just in time to hear the sign off. Had to go to the "become a member" link (even though I already am), which let me see my "membership perks" and the stream was going there. Didn't come up in notifications on youtube or email, and didn't show when I searched for it. I got the notice of when it was scheduled and was looking forward to listening--saw the holiday one for everyone, but this one was REALLY hidden.😕

I have angels with my guppies and other community fish, and I love them BUT 1. You will never have a population issue with guppies again. That could be good or bad. ZERO of my fry survive. 2. If you have hard water (thinking guppies), see if you can find someone who breeds angels locally IN hard water. I found someone through a fish club. Breeds in 350+GH water similar to mine and they've done great. The one I got from the LFS didn't. 3. I planned to get one. Then the breeder I bought from said, nah, take some more. He only charged $5/fish for adults, and they were sooo pretty. So I took 3 (95 gallon tank). Two paired off. They totally harrassed the third and kept him down in a corner of the tank where he looked stressed. Now the pair is in the 95 and doing great, and the single bullied fish is in my 20 tall. I know that's borderline for a single angel, but he seems much happier there. I think you could probably add 1 angel to that 40 breeder, but with the other stocking and size I'd stick with one. If you want to do another setup for angels, I would do a larger tank with several (6+) fish if it were me. Or a mid-size (but tall) tank with a pair.

Love your pond! Mbuna are on my list to try sometime...if I ever find a spot for another big tank. I'm a teacher too--HS Social Studies. So thankful for great Special Education teachers!

I really like my water lettuce but my success varies by tank. Note: I have killed a lot of other floating plants too, even with filter baffles and feeding rings. With that much surface agitation, I think water lettuce is your best bet for a floating plant, but I also think you'll probaby need a way to make a "quiet" area for it to establish. My best success with mine is in my 95 gallon tank, where it spreads like crazy (but easy to remove). It's all on the half of the tank away from the HOB though. I have a very low-flow HOB setup in a 20 and it has hung on in there but hasn't spread or thrived. Didn't really like my 5 gallon with a nano sponge either. Give it a try and see if it works for you!

Mine love the Xtreme Krill Flakes and Spirulina Flakes. I tend to alternate feeding those two foods as my staples, and everyone is happy with it from angelfish to corys to my betta to the embers. Even the shrimp will grab flakes and carry them off.

It never crossed my mind either until I saw a video by Prime Time Aquatics where they mentioned doing it--I think it was "How to Instant Cycle a Tank" or something similar. I sqeezed out one of the sponges and then left it sit next to the sponge filter for a day or so. I've only done it once but it worked really well that one time.

Sounds like a pretty good plan to me! Pretty soon your stocking will probably be 6 glo tetras, 6 corys, and 2754 guppies 😉

I had something similar happen recently with a new tank. Struggled with Nitirite for a few days and then I squeezed a dirty filter sponge from an established tank into the new tank near the new sponge filter. It was kinda gross not gonna lie, but the debris settled fast, and by the next morning I had no more nitrites, and haven't had any issues since.

I'd also probably just keep the HOB and stick a pre-filter on it if you don't have one already. I have shrimp doing great in a tank running a HOB with prefilter sponge.

I'd agree with others--it looks like 7.2-7.4 to me. That seems like a close enough to neutral range to make most fish pretty happy.

So, I obviously didn't research fish coloration before I posted originally...I figured "Pink eyes=albino". Turns out after doing some searching and reading, these fish are amelanistic. Albinos would have the pink eyes and white bodies. Amelanistic fish generally have the pink eyes but can have non-melanin based colorations, so no black, but orange is apparently produced from some other pigment (chromatophore). At least I think that's what I understand from reading. I'm a little confused still because one paper said that an animal can be both amelanistic and albino, but that's not always the case. If anyone knows lots more and wants to explain it, I'm interested!

It doesn't have black eyes--hard to see in the picture but they are white with pink centers. I actually don't usually like koi colored fish, but I love the koi swordtails (especially as fry--all the colors on the tiny little bodies are so cool) Yes, I think you're right that that's what they'd be called, but at least half the time or so they are referred to as "albino kohaku" so I'm thinking that MIGHT be the name for the albino varient, especially with the red eyes vs. black like the others have?

I am growing out my first successfuly-saved-from-the-angelfish batch of koi swordtail fry (plus a few random guppies) and my 7 year old son noticed that we have two that appear to be albinos. I got this picture of one next to a normal colored sibling--they have no black, only orange and white, and their eyes are different. In thousands of guppy fry I've never had them throw an albino, so this caught me by surprise!

I think @JettsPapa makes a good point, but my experience has been more varied. I had them not take off at all in one new tank (a 5 gallon), but I had good luck transferring them into an established 10. I recently set up a new, sterile 10 with new substrate and new water (cycled filter and media from an established tank--not sterile) and loads of plants as a fry grow-out. I threw some extra shrimp in there since the colony in my 20 was getting pretty big, and I expected that they wouldn't do very well with it being a new tank. They have taken off! It's by far my most active colony. They're always out and about, probably because the only fish in there are small cories and fry the size of a grain of rice. I was just commenting yesterday that I can't believe they're doing so well in an unestablished tank. Can you spot 8 in this picture (there are about 50 blue velvets in the tank, but that's how many were visible IRL) And more soon!

I have PH 8.2 and 300-350GH and have also struggled with Java Fern. It's totally died in 3 of my tanks and hangs on but has brown spots in my 95 gallon. What has done well: Val (not sure what type...I tried 2 different ones that looked similar. One died out and the other went nuts), crypts, Amazon Swords, Anubias, Hygrophila Angustifolia, Pogostemmon Stelatus Octopus, Dwarf Sag, Dwarf Water Lettuce.