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?

I have a 5 gallon tank for my opae ula shrimp but the light’s just died. Fortunately they don’t need much of anything but I would like a light to make sure enough algae grows for them to eat. There is a journal post for the tank if you want to see it. Any light recommendations for brackish? There is no plant life, other than the algae that just shows up, so I don’t know if a marine light would be useful. It’s been fine all this time on a regular LED light.

Gardenman - I tried a couple of times to get the rummies to breed but they didn’t seem to keen on it. Oh well. I’m thinking I’ll keep a corner of the tank rather jungle-y for any surprise babies and hope for the best. I’m used to live bearer babies - easy to spot and tell what they are. These egg layers are harder. I was shocked how much the babies are ‘clear’ for lack of a better word. Survival mechanism I guess, until they’re big enough to not get eaten. Still fun to find these little guys, though. I hold out hope for the rummies!

Hey all. No sense starting a new post on this since it'd be Eeeeeep! Baby Fish!2.0. Yeah, more baby fish that I totally wasn't trying for and I'm pretty sure they're dwarf neon rainbows. Again. My tank was seriously overgrown with valisneria. I pulled it all out, trimmed it down to between 12 and 18 inches and replanted about 1/3. The rest was in a very full 5-gallon bucket. For whatever reason I plopped about half into the hospital tank (unoccupied at the time) the rest went into the compost. Fast forward about a month and one of the platties has an odd spot on its head so I was going to put it in the hospital tank. The valisneria was rotting away so I just pulled it out and was getting ready to siphon up debris and do a water change before adding my platy. Well, just like last time there were these odd little bubbles at the top of the tank that weren't moving like bubbles should. Stared at them for a bit and yup - baby fish! They must have been eggs on the valisneria and they hatched in the hospital tank. Well, the babies were moved into the big tank in their Ziss breeder box and the questionable platy is in the hospital tank. I'm feeding the babies Hikari First Bites and they seem to be doing quite well. One is almost large enough to be in the big tank but I'll probably leave him in the playpen a bit longer. Now if I can just convince my *very* egg-heavy rummy nose girls to plop enough eggs for surprise babies ;)

My biggest surprise was how much I love my opae ula shrimp! They're small, red and fun to watch as they scurry about picking at everything for food. And the babies are so fascinating. Who knew that a tank that has no heater, no air pump, no filter, no plants could be the greatest thing ever! My biggest disappointment was how many fish I tend to loose in quarantine. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or if the fish would have died anyway because they weren't healthy. I mean, I'd rather I lost them in quarantine than the main tank, but it still hurts. Other than a few who were obviously not well - ich or came from the store already in a questionable state - it's a real bummer to check the quarantine tank and find dead fish.

I'm a rummy nose fan, myself. They can be a bit tricky in quarantine if they're wild-caught - parasites and all that. But once they're healthy and established they're pretty easy to care for.

I’m not sure what mean mugged is (I assume it’s the neon facing the camera head on), but you have lovely fish and greenery!

Just wanted to update this. I counted my little bobbers this morning and had at least 26! I saw one of my girls with eggs that looked like they might be hatching (never seen them hatch but hope to catch it) and another with eggs. I'm going to have soooo many babies! I fed the tank a tiny pinch of Repashy powder and boy did they go nuts for it once it started to sink. I just love these little guys!

The journey continues! I've been anxiously watching for the baby opae and finally saw them. Oh man are they tiny! I'd guess maaaaybe 1/2 centimeter. I can barely see them from a few feet away, just the vague impression of a tiny dot floating mid-tank. I think I counted 10. One of the girls still has her berries so I should have more babies soon! I just love watching these little guys! Enjoy

Wouldn’t it be cool if it was aliens? Tiny aliens in scuba suits pushing the baby fish into the water intake, like ‘beam them up, Scotty.’

Aloha all. I’ve got quite a doozy here - I have mystery babies in my Ziss breeder box! Backstory - In the quarantine tank I had a school of rummy nose tetras and a school of dwarf neon rainbows. Quarantine time is up, off they go into the main tank. While I’m siphoning up the quarantine tank to get it ready for the next round of fish I see something that looks like a tiny air bubble but doesn’t move like a bubble should. Eeep! Baby fish! I immediately did research on breeder boxes/specimen tanks and found the Ziss to be the safest bet as far as water quality for the little guys. The box comes in and after a bit of acclimating the babies go into the breeder box in the main tank. Time passes, they’re all getting bigger. They have long-ish bodies so I’m guessing they’re rummies not rainbows. Fine by me! Today I was taking a look and I saw my six babies, all looking good. But then there was something much smaller than these six. There are at least three that are half their size. I know I only put 7 in (seem to have lost one along the way). It’s not a case of late bloomers. So, my question is - have any of you had new baby fish get into a Ziss breeder box? I’m not encouraging the fish to breed but it’s been rather warm lately and I’ve had to top off the water, a gallon or two, each day. That may have triggered spawning, I don’t know. The breeder box is in a corner surrounded by long, thick valisneria so it would be a good place for a baby to hide. Perhaps the air stone sucked them in? If so - yay! If not - my babies are making babies 😕