Dawn T

I have the 5g Marineland Portrait tank ("Betta" tank in my signature, though it's now an Ember tetra tank). I bought one for my writing desk after seeing a review by Cory. I modified the filtration it came with (hate cartridges!), basically hotrodded it 😁, and recently put in a different pump (snails LOVE the pump it came with, so it clogged constantly). It's my first rimless tank, and I'm very happy with it.

I have the same question as AndreaW above. If the KH of your water source is better, a good water change will bring it back up. I haven't found crushed coral to be much help when KH has crashed that badly in the past. It helps keep it stable once it's back up where it belongs, but not with bringing it up where it needs to be when it dropped that low once. My water is around 7.4 pH, and harder more alkaline water doesn't dissolve things like crushed coral at as high a rate as soft, acidic water.

All the photos you posted look like neocaridinas to me (i.e. different colors of cherry shrimp). Amanos can't successfully breed in freshwater tanks. The eggs need to hatch in brackish water for the offspring to develop. Neocaridinas, of course, can reproduce like rabbits in freshwater. Pretty much can't stop them. LOL And the colors will cross readily. The brown one is closest to the color found in nature. The others are color variations that have been specially bred for. BTW, here's a couple of shots of my Amanos. They all look the same in coloring.

I've definitely left plants in pots without any issues. In fact, I have 2 right now that have been in their pots since I got them a couple of months or more ago. Some go right into place. Others stay in pots until they transition. Just depends, but I've never had any issues with plants left in pots.

I do a month. If any of them get sick with ANYTHING, I add a month to that. Basically, when I deal with an illness, I reset the clock until I go a full month without any signs of illness. I've learned through harsh experience that even fish from trusted sources can get sick when they're stressed due to shipping or travel.

Got photos this evening before the lights went off but after I closed curtains. Hubby had already opened everything up when I got up this morning. I'm still filling in the Bacopa as I take cuttings and put them in. Have a couple of small pieces floating in the tank to grow roots. Accidentally broke those off when I did the cuttings this last time. Oops! Also, have a couple of sprigs of pearl weed floating around. I pulled those out of the QT I lost yesterday. (Shoved plants from that into every other tank I have!) They won't stay long-term most likely. If I decide to leave them, next time I do plant trimming and such on this tank, I'll get those tucked into the substrate. Pearl weed stays small and grows slowly for me, so no worries about it taking over. Anyway, here's today's photos. I apologize ahead of time - for some reason, the site is automatically rotating most of the images to lay on their sides. I've tried everything I know and can't fix that. I don't know why it does that sometimes. One of my cherries in the tank. This girl has been in there almost since I set up the tank. She likes to photobomb. LOL One of the gold honey gouramis. They've added a lot of life and interest to the tank. The embers definitely don't hide as much since I introduced the gouramis. If you look at what should be the actual top of that photo (to the right), you can see the peace lily that grows out of the back of the tank. It's in the filter compartment. I also have some wandering jew back there, coming out of the left side of the filter. I suspect those, as much as the submerged plants, are what helps keep this tank as 0 nitrates, nitrites, and ammonia. This tank hasn't needed a water change in MONTHS. I'm about ready to do a 20-25% one anyway, because I don't like the tannins from the almond leaves. I like the leaves for the shrimp, but I REALLY don't like water that looks dirty. This tank definitely has that going on. Ick. Ember tetras. Overall shot. Didn't quite get the left side of the tank into the shot, but that was due to how I angled the camera to get rid of reflections from outside the tank. The Crypt tropica, and the same shrimp I noted above. I couldn't find her cohorts or the Amanos, but I just saw them an hour ago. Amazing how well they can hide in only a 5g tank! Anubias nana petite. This started out with 2 TINY leaves. I wasn't even sure such a small piece/plant would even take, but look at it now! Last but not least, the Buce. It's the one almost center of frame but a little low with the bladder snail on the leaf. It's definitely been a lot slower than anything else in recovering. This tank gets weekly parameter checks, top-offs as needed (every week or two), and plants trimmed as needed. Needless to say, nothing really to trim except for the java moss (which grows s-l-o-w-l-y in this tank) and the Bacopa that I only recently added. Well, that's the latest.

I'll try to get a photo tomorrow after the lights come on and before I open curtains so I can post an updated image. 🙂

Were your Endler females as aggressive as I noted above? My girls are brutes! I've thought about getting some guppy girls and just let them hybridize with my Endler boys, but these Endler girls are so rough on each other and the males, I hate to think how they'd be with guppy girls.

That's about my worst nightmare - that a HUGE tank would spring a leak or, worse, RUPTURE. I'm definitely glad it was my 10g QT and not one of my 29g tanks, and I shudder to think if it was an even larger one. The 2 29g are my largest tanks right now, but I've had 55g and 125g in the past. If that big one had done this, I would've panicked for sure!

Gorgeous! I LOVE the riparian look. I want to do more of that sort of thing myself. I've done it to some degree in part of my tanks, but nothing to this extent. LOVE IT!

Just went to check email and found one with the subject line "Tanks not necessary". It was mixed in with notifications for this forum, and I was shocked and like, "What? What do you mean tanks aren't necessary?" Then I realized who it was from and they were talking about the situation in Ukraine. Wrong kind of "tanks". Amazing the assumptions the brain leaps to when we see certain words.

The timing was DEFINITELY ideal! If I had fully started my day and left the room, I'm not sure I would've noticed it until at least a couple of hours later.

Crypts have recovered from January's (quite literal) meltdown. I've since added some Bacopa Carolina cuttings, which are doing great in there. The Buce is still recovering, but the Anubias petite is doing great. I finally got some root tabs last month to put in the foreground for the Crypt parva and dwarf Sag. They seem to be holding their own. Also, this tank contains 14 ember tetras and a small group of Amano shrimp and a cherry shrimp. I added 2 more cherries this morning (after my QT popped a seal). Also, I added 2 gold honey gouramis about a week ago. This tank maintains at 0 nitrates, 0 nitrites, and 0 ammonia, so I decided those 2 little guys won't push the parameters too much. LOL Also, their presence has given the embers more courage, so they're out a LOT more than they were before. Interestingly, my school of embers, not surprisingly, display a range of red coloration. But one has NO coloring at all on her body, and almost none on her fins. In fact, she's totally translucent. Definitely easy to spot in that herd. 😁

I added a school of lemon tetras and 2 gold honey gouramis to this tank today, along with 3 more cherry shrimp. They've been in quarantine about the last month, so they were ready to come out. My QT popped a seal this morning, so I had no choice but to go ahead and move them. Good thing they were ready!

I saw the same thing when I had swordtails with black on them, especially the ones who were predominantly or wholly black. I remembered reading an article way back then about tumors being a known result of the melanin-heavy genetics. I haven't had them since then.

I've had my current crew for almost a year. I occasionally see a baby, but I've yet to see a single one reach beyond tiny babyhood, even in their heavily planted 29 g tank. I keep seeing comments in videos and articles about how small Endler's are. My boys definitely are small, but my girls are HUGE. In fact, they're bigger than my platy girls of the past. They're also aggressive - with each other, with my males, and with babies (they eat them!). They leave the cories, plecos, and shrimp alone entirely. They're only rough on the boys and each other, as well as eating babies. I keep seeing folks mention how easy they are to breed and how docile/non-aggressive they are. Mine definitely don't fit that picture. Two of them are heavily pregnant again. I don't heat the tank, so it stays right around 74 degrees F, so I don't think any aggression is due to the temperature being too high (I know that can cause issues in some species). Up until today, they've had only a school of pygmy cories, 2 female bushynose plecos, some amano shrimp, and multiple generations of cherry shrimp as tankmates. So nothing predatory. I feed this tank once a day, except 2 or 3 times a week when I also drop in sinking foods for the bottom feeders. My Endler boys came from Aqua Huna. My girls from another reputable online source (not a hobbyist or anything like that). That said, is it possible my girls are NOT Endler's? If they're not, how could they possibly still be producing babies after almost a year when the only males they're in with are Endler's? I've seen some guppy girls over the years who were good size, but these are definitely bigger than those. About 2" in length. Other than the possibility they're a different species altogether, I can't imagine what other reason there could be for the aggression (these girls have killed some boys outright - I've seen them do it - the remaining boys are fast enough to evade them to hide in the plants). Any ideas? Right now, I'm missing my platies and swordtails. LOL

Never thought I'd say that, but... this morning, right after I woke up, I was sitting on the edge of the bedding trying to get motivated to actually get up and start my day. I heard an odd, faint pop coming from my aquarium corner. No lights flickered. No pumps quit. Nothing odd that was obvious, so I thought maybe I imagined it. Then I heard drip, drip, drip at an increasing rate. Ugh. Turns out, a bottom seal on my 10g quarantine tank gave way. Thankfully: (1) the fish in there were ready to come out of quarantine, I just hadn't taken the time to move them yet; (2) the drip wasn't rapid, so I had time to get fish and shrimp out there without having to crisis-rush; (3) they had places to go! Needless to say, I had a bit of a mess on my hands, but I was able to keep most of it contained with industrious use of LOTS of towels. Got the fish and shrimp out, the tank drained most of the way, plants removed (it's also my nursery tank), tank out the back door onto the porch, and the fish and shrimp relocated to their permanent tanks, as well as plants tucked into various places at least temporarily. As I was checking the tank after I got it fully emptied and the substrate moved to my gravel bucket, it occurred to me to be SO grateful that I have multiple tanks - all with compatible community fish! - so there was no panic over what to do with the occupants. Granted, it was my quarantine tank, so I already knew who belonged where, but how many folks have only ONE tank? I can't even imagine the panic that would set in when something like this happens. Really glad it was my quarantine tank that gave out, too. BTW, this is a OLD tank. I've been using it for at least 10 years, and I got it USED for who knows how long, so I'm not too surprised it gave out. I know how to reseal it, at least.

My plecos leave my Anubias (nana AND petite) alone, except for the blooms, which are apparently a delicacy to them. LOL They don't mess with my Crypts, Bacopa, or Hygrophila either. Java Ferns are left alone, too. Something is snacking on the leaves of my Pogostemon, but I think that's bladder snails rather than plecos. At least, that's what the damage looks like. I have both common and bushynose plecos in various tanks, in case species matters.

The only filterless "tank" I've done to date is my 1.5g jarrarium, but I've been reading more and watching videos on doing it with aquariums. I totally LOVE the concept, and my jarrarium is the least maintenance item in my home. I'd love to do that on a larger scale with a few fish, instead of just shrimp and snails. Anyway, here's one of the videos I ran across recently that I found to be fabulous. It's almost 40 minutes long but Alex does great explanations on things. https://youtu.be/woaStNw0Efs

Definitely not something I'd invest that much money in, unless I was planning to breed them for sale. On a personal note, I LOVE swordtails, but I do NOT like red-eyed ones. That said, even if those had black eyes AND the males CAN breed, I still wouldn't pay that much for them. (I made the lyretail swordtails mistake many years ago - didn't realize the males couldn't breed.) Gorgeous body color, though.

I got one of the USB nano pumps from AC put onto the jarrarium. Works like a charm with the gang valve to bleed off the excess air. @CalmedByFish, that suggest worked a charm! The valve allows me to control the air flow so perfectly! So, thanks for the input, everyone!

The single surviving shrimp of the original trio is STILL in the jar and doing well. Active. Doing her thing. Plants are growing well, but I need to get an updated photo to share. Lights off for the night, so that'll have to wait. This morning, as I pulled Embers out of quarantine to move in the 5g tank, one of the cherry shrimp I've had in the 10g quarantine tank with the Embers decided to climb into my net. Since it was a male, and he's been doing great in the 10g, I decided to put him into this jar with the lone female. See how he does. I still have an airstone in there. Was going to remove it, but the jar doesn't have a tight cover, so I needed to discourage mosquitoes. Any tanks that don't have fish in them, or at least don't ALL of the time (like my QT), have airstones to keep water agitation going for that reason. Mosquitoes were bad this past summer, and we've finally gotten rid of the last of them in the house (my fault - turned out NOT to be fish tanks but a set of HOUSEPLANTS!). Anyway, I didn't want the tanks to become a source of mosquitoes. Airstones worked perfectly, including in my little jar.

UPDATE - The Crypts are re-growing for sure. And I noticed on Christmas Day that the Buce had teeny tiny new leaves emerging. Merry Christmas to me! LOL I've added dwarf sag (a new-to-me plant that seems to be doing well) and a large java fern (which I've never had much luck with, so we'll see). Also, a week ago, I added 6 more Ember tetras to the existing school of 4. I monitored water parameters to make sure there were no nasty spikes with doubling the number of fish. Not a budge. Ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate all remained at zero, even on days I fed twice instead of once. Today, I added the final 4 Embers from my quarantine tank. So there are now 14 Embers in this tank, along with the shrimp. Here's a bit of weirdness I didn't expect. The original 4 were very outgoing and rarely in hiding; didn't matter whether the plants were thick or melted back. I added in the next 6, and everybody disappeared! Including the original 4! For the past week, nothing! It's pretty amazing when you have a 5g tank with minimal planting (until the plants fully recover) and you can look and not see ONE of 10 fish in it. LOL Today, after I added the final 4, they've ALL been out and active ever since. Totally bizarre. Apparently, 4 are brave, 10 are cowards, and at 14, they get brave again. LOL Of course, with this latest additions, I'll watch the water parameters for a few days to make sure things remain stable. Oh, and that new water pump I put in is working great. No issues at all with it so far. It doesn't clog like the original one did.

Yesterday, I removed the large spider plant visible in the left side of the images above. It grew BIG with wide leaves, but the leaves didn't grow in very dense, and they remained very anemic looking - pale green from tip to base. In nosing around online, I found out they only develop the deep green when planted in soil. So I pulled that one and replaced it with a baby parlor palm (Neanthe bella palm). This morning, I removed the smaller spider plant. It was hidden in amongst all the devil's ivy and arrowhead vine, so I didn't replace it in the setup. I've given that arrowhead vine a trim, but as you can see, it's still VERY happy.

Nitrates remain low to zero in this little tank, BUT the increase in light intensity triggered development of some algae (and the duckweed went NUTS). This morning, I adjusted the timer on the lights to decrease light duration by an hour. Will adjust further if it proves necessary. Also, removed most of the duckweed. Fish and shrimp are still happy, so I just need to rebalance the lighting to prevent further algae explosion. Oh, and the Crypt 'tropica' have new leaves. They didn't end up losing ALL of their leaves, just most. Coming back in now though. The Crypt parva didn't melt as much as the 'tropica', but no new growth on those yet. The Buce, no change. Still watching to see if it grows back in.