Emika_B

For a while I was using a tall jar I got at Target, probably for pasta, attached to a coral growing platform. My tank has an egg crate cover so I just snipped out enough for the jar to be above the tank. The jar had a lid so I cut a hole large enough for the power cord and left the cover on. If you don’t have an air stone nearby though, you probably could go without the lid. It actually worked quite well but I couldn’t use the night vision function of my Wyze cam, something about the glass interfering, so I just left it on the full color setting. I finally ended up taking it out because I wanted to try a different filter and I was running out of corner real estate. The tank now looks very different and I’m thinking I’ll try it again; it was pretty cool to watch my fish from inside the tank.

I’m sorry for your loss, Scaperoot. I’m sure he lived a full, happy life with you.

I saw that, too, and thought it was lovely. It’s even and has nice texture. And it’s a plant, so that’s a good thing. I say leave it.

I have several large chunks of mopani but I’ve never had black beard algae. Hair algae, yes, but that was probably a lighting issue and it’s never come back. Tank is medium flow I’d say, usually in the low to mid 80s depending on the day’s heat. Don’t know if it’d make a difference but I do run a UV in the tank for about an hour a day. Hope you get your bba taken care of!

My tank is usually in the 80s because of where I live. I’ve had great success with Aquarium CoOp’s crypt wendtii green and red, java fern and Anubias. I think I got my valisneria through them as well and it’s doing great. I have Wendelov java fern and it’s okay, but it could also be the snails and platties going to town on it.

Mahalo nui loa for the info! I’m thinking a few large pots of boiling water and let them sit for a while, then dry out in the sun for a few days. The reverse respiration sounds interesting and doable, might have to give that a try.

Hi all, A friend of mine is giving me his fish (guppies) and the hardscape from his tank. The fish will go into quarantine with level 1 or 2 salt treatment for a while before they get added to my tank. Do I need to do something for the wood, rocks and plants that will come with them? I was thinking that if they fit in 5 gallon buckets I’d just do the med trio on the hardscape and plants as if they were fish. However, is that even needed? Will a good dose of boiling water do the trick? Salt water soak? Sit in the sun for a few days and let it all dry out? The last options aren’t for plants, obviously. Any thoughts? I did a search in the forum but I may have asked the question poorly and couldn’t find any results. Mahalo!

@Bev C - I really like working with the egg crate light diffuser (not sure why it's called that). It's easy to snip with wire cutters or even a really heavy duty pair of scissors. The edges are rather sharp, so you'll need to be careful and either sand down or snip down the edges where you cut. Otherwise, it's great stuff! Inexpensive, easy to find and easy to work with. I suppose if you had really small jumping fish it might be a problem but I've yet to have anyone leap to their death through the grate. It does allow for quite a bit of evaporation but where I live evaporation is better than trapping heat in the tank.

Sorry to bump but I finally got around to taking pictures of my fish kebabs. I use Repashy Community Plus (1 Tbsp Repashy to 2 Tbsp boiling water) and Hikari tubifex worm cubes. I got the mold on Amazon. It’s small but just right for my fish. My tank lid is egg crate light diffuser, so I just suspend it from there with a clothespin.

It's been a while but when I did a Walstad-style tank I used LED floods and it worked fine.

Jwcarlson - I’m down to 4 rummies, what I believe to be 2 girls and 2 boys. One of the ones I believe is a girl is very, very round. Think about to give birth guppy round. The other one I believe is a girl isn’t as round but definitely not as sleek as the two I believe are boys. I tried putting the very round one and one of the sleek ones in a breeder box in the hopes of getting eggs, but it wasn’t in the cards. I may try again but use the hospital tank, with catapa leaves for tannins and add some distilled water to simulate rainwater. And feed lots of protein, like brine shrimp. I’ve got some egg crate panel that I used to make the big tank’s lid; hopefully that’ll be enough of a deterrent to hide the eggs.

Nicohorse318 - They turned out to be dwarf neon rainbows. Funny thing - it’s happened twice with the dwarf neon rainbows! The second time I had done a rescape of the tank so tossed a mess of valisneria into the hospital tank while I worked. I ended up leaving quite a bit in there. Eventually it started to die off since it wasn’t planted. What do I find but baby fish! The eggs must have been on the plants and hatched out. I put them in the baby apartment in the big tank to let them grow out. I’m thinking of doing another rescape soon and wonder how many more dwarf neon rainbows I’ll end up with :)

Nicohorse318 - no, unfortunately I was not successful. I may give it another go at some point, though. I just love those little guys!

I watched most of the stream (there's just something so soothing about Cory's voice that I kept falling asleep). Living in Hawaii, I'm used to heavy restrictions on what can be brought in. Pretty much if you don't see it in a fish store you have to have it imported, which means it has to be on the 'okay to be brought in' list put out by the department of agriculture. We have so many endangered/protected species here, it makes sense to protect our environment. I'd like to have a tarantula, boa, ferret or oddball fish but not at the expense of the local environment. Should this be handled at the federal level? Maybe yes, maybe no. Yes - if everyone's following the same rules there's less confusion. No - an escaped (or worse, released) critter might not be able to survive/reproduce in different areas so setting a blanket rule might be overkill. What would be better than any kind of legislation? Education and impressing responsibility on creature keepers. Of course, that means that people have to take responsibility for themselves and we know how how well that works.

Bettta999 - I was looking at that. Do you have any experience with it? Anything I should know about?