OceanTruth

1. Medaka 2. Apistogramma Borellii 3. Killifish Next week the list might differ slightly though. 😁

I really like the look of all your setups! Great work on squaring everything away. It looks Dean level organized now. 😎

I agree planting new plants and placing root tabs can be a test of patience at times. I’ve heard people poke little holes in those root tabs that comes in capsules so they sink immediately. It looks like you did a great job though! Usually the first time I plant up a new tank it looks terrible until I get some new growth. Lots of ugly phases for my tanks. I wish I had a cool tip for the separating background. Hopefully the plants start covering up the back so you don’t even notice or you find a way to get it squared away.

Welcome to the forum! By any chance, was your fish room featured in a LRB aquatics video? It looks so familiar. I still remember how beautiful and well organized your fish room is.

That would be AMAZING! I’m still in the learning phase and I’m hoping I have a strong stomach for some of the squirmy foods if I go down that route. 😂😂 I will definitely research them. Thanks for the tip!

That’s a beautiful looking tank!

I’ve only started thinking about shelf life again, because I recently received a bottle of expired food off of Amazon. The only reason I don’t feed frozen food that often is because my only local store is Petco and they don’t stock their frozen foods that well. I’m searching for online sellers currently. It will cost more, but I’d rather pay more for foods I can actually safely go through rather than throwing food in the garbage. I’m also learning about live food cultures. I’m hoping frozen plus live equals happy and healthy fish. I definitely don’t doubt what Cory was saying. I was just hoping there were other things I could easily test for that would make a difference. I’m always observing my tanks, so hopefully that’s enough for now.

I actually don’t think there is a wrong choice here. Both tanks have good dimensions and they can do a lot with either tank. Personally, if there is no specific need for a taller tank I would go with the 33 Long. Longer tanks just look bigger in my opinion. I have no doubt they’ll be happy with either tank though.

I saw the new educational video from Aquarium Co-Op and it raised a couple of questions for me. Recently, I’ve actually been thinking about fish food storage and how long it will stay good for. In the video, Cory says ideally you should run through a package of food in a month. I don’t have enough tanks or fish to use any small package of food that quickly. I usually portion what I can use for a few weeks and store the rest in the freezer. However, I recently read somewhere that freezing flakes (they didn’t mention pellets) greatly reduces it’s nutritional value. I haven’t noticed any problems freezing food, but is there a better solution? Should I just throw out the remaining food every couple of months? Frozen foods last a long while in freezer. Should I switch to an all frozen food diet? Cory also mentions that test strips don’t test for all parameters, so even if you’re testing every week there could still be problems. I haven’t thought about that before, but again, what’s the solution? Are there other tests I should be running?

I’m not knowledgeable enough to venture a guess, but I like the pics. Apistogramma are so good looking in general. Good luck with the breeding if that’s the end goal!

Good luck keeping this colony going! Love the specks of blue on them. Do they hide out most of the time or do you see them quite often?

That’s quite the baby factory you’ve got going on! Very cool. Good luck with the raising and rehoming/selling! That is a BEAUTIFUL looking fish!

Congratulations on the surprise fry! What a nice little gift. They must be happy if they’re breeding I always think. 👍

The Banded Sunfish is a lot prettier than I thought in my head! Very cool that you keep a number of native fish!

Very cool! I had no idea the Honey Gourami was so personable.

The only burrowing snail I have kept are Malaysian Trumpet snails. I love those little guys. I’m sure you’ve heard they (any of the “pest” snails) pretty much populate the tank to the amount you overfeed your fish. When I feed lightly it gets hard to spot them. When I feed heavy they’re all over the place. I’m pro snail so I’ve never thought of them as pests or invasive. The only snails I avoid are Nerites since I don’t like the look of the eggs they deposit. Assassin snails aren’t really cleaners but they do burrow in the substrate to ambush other snails.

I definitely need to follow this advice more. Whenever I get too excited and plant right away I do get melting like in the pics from the original post.

Wow that’s an incredible change! Beautiful fish!

Gorgeous looking fish! Good luck with breeding them. Killifish look amazing in general. I hope to keep some in the future.

Love those logos! You’ve got talent!

Dang, I must have mine in suboptimal conditions. I’ve had a Monstera plant for a couple of months now and besides a little bit of root growth it hasn’t done much of anything else.

Good luck with the reset! Sucks to hear about the rams. Never kept them before, but they’re absolutely beautiful.

Dang that looks amazing! I can’t seem to get a portion of pothos going in my tank, so I’m envious.

I know you said you used chemicals, but was one of them Seachem Excel or some other kind of “CO2 liquid booster.” I had a BBA outbreak one time and I dosed the recommended amount for the tank directly on the BBA using a syringe or pipette. After about a week of doing that daily it started turning pale and died off. It never returned as well, luckily.

That is one crazy looking snail! Awesome hitchhiker.