Daniel

My biggest aquarium holds over 4000 lbs of water (with the tank and stuff it is probably close to 2 1/2 tons) and is sitting on 2 x 4's and plywood. Still going strong after 13 years.

I echo what @Ryan W is saying. Chris Lukhaup takes amazing photos on very old equipment but his secret is good lighting. Even an iPhone is capable of very good photos if the subject is properly lit.

And not just cherry shrimp, watch the planaria steal a chuck from a bee shrimp.

That Jungle Val of mine that wasn't going anywhere 2 weeks ago has begun to make a move. It is subtle though, just the tip of a new leaf beginning to poke its head out.

I used to breed bettas for show a while back, and the best advice I can give is keep trying, eventually you will succeed. Some males seem to be egg eaters while others are good dads. Another thing that can increase the chance of eggs being eaten is disturbance or anything that makes the male concerned in some way. From a survival point of view it is better to eat the eggs yourself and get the nutrition to breed again than lose the eggs to a predator. While it appears irrational to us, the male might perceive something in his environment as a threat. Keep trying, you will have baby bettas eventually!

Baby brine shrimp are hydras favorite food. You may not notice that you have a couple of hydra lurking until you start feeding baby brine shrimp. But as to hydra being introduced by Brine Shrimp Direct eggs, I am skeptical. I have used Brine Shrimp Direct eggs over the years and never noticed hydra in connection with that brand. I don't think freshwater hydra tolerate saltwater very well also.

Gosh, I think I might be blushing now. And to think that this used to be such a family friendly forum.

I have had a Daphnia outbreak in my scud aquarium and even my poor hydra are getting terrible 'tentacle tangle' syndrome due to these naughty Daphnia. What next Daphnia munching on my beloved planaria?

It is like watching a busy street in New York City.

Some are hobbyist and some are not. You can email and ask them if they bred the fish themselves. Price always comes down to what is it worth to you. Offer what you think you would like to pay (sometimes there is a reserve price) and see what happens. Buying fish at an auction can be its own thrill! Shipping can be costly, usually $15 - $50 dollars. Typically I spend as much on shipping as I do on the fish. I often chose the more expensive 1 day option, especially now because the Post Office has been slower recently.

Yes, they are. The hornwort and the anacharis I collected locally in the wild as they are North Carolina natives. The Jungle Val is also native and also grows locally but our generous host deserves some of my aquarium budget, so I bought the Jungle Val from him 🙂. All of these plants (and more) are mentioned in the 1936 The Complete Aquarium Book that I am using as my guide/rulebook for the tank.

When I want to buy fish from another hobbyist (i,e. a humane breeder), I usually go to AquaBid.

**Warming Graphic Aquarium Injury Photo** Update: My career as a hand model down the drain due to aquarium maintenance!

@Cyndi I believe is right to home in on nutrients. I have a tank that I setup directly in front of a South facing window (as a placeholder the for the 1930s Historically Accurate Planted Aquarium while I am waiting for the vintage tank to be repaired). It gets about 2 hours of direct sunlight each day. It has guppies, hornwort, anacharis, and some Jungle Vallisneria that I just got from the Co-Op. But it has never had any algae despite being directly in front of a South facing window and receiving direct sunlight. It get so much light that the plants pearl: I once intentionally put in a wad of green hair algae for the guppies to eat, but it died off before they were able to eat very much of it. So why no algae in a tank in direct sunlight? I believe the answer is low nutrients. As keeping with the 1930s protocol, the guppies are fed live daphnia and live mosquito larva. They eat what they need and excrete waste as ammonia into the tank. The hornwort and other plants quickly absorb that ammonia leaving little for the algae to use and get a foothold in the aquarium. So, if it were me, I would put the tank where it made me the happiest and control for excess nutrients in the tank. If I found I couldn't control the amount of nutrients in the tank, then next I would control the light.

I have done some calculations and if the earth is hit by a civilization ending solar flare, these 2 APC UPS's will run my fishroom until such time as civilization is rebuilt (as long as all that I am powering are USB Nano Pumps running airstones).

I smashed my thumb real good with Magnavore algae magnet.

Thanks, headed over the Coop to get some now.

I have kept discus with tetras over the years and I have never seen a discus catch a tetra. I have had tetras disappear but often later I found the crispy body outside the tank. Rummy noses are very unlikely to become discus food (but they are very good jumpers). Heiko Bleher analyzed the stomach contents of thousands of wild discus and maybe twice found fish in the stomach contents. Cardinals or Rummy noses are good choices to keep with discus.

I don't quarantine shrimp or snails. It occurred to me that some people wouldn't want a disease to pass from new shrimp or snails to their current invertebrate stock. But some people might quarantine shrimp or snails to protect fish from possible infection.

Thanks @Alexa, I will try that!

You can't get harder in a hardscape than bricks 🙂 I have had thoughts along similar lines. Like, what if everything in the aquarium (plants included) was collected by me from my yard, my county or my state. I think it would turn out better than some might think. I look forward to seeing what you are working on.

Does he seem bloated at all?

It is very sad, but when a fish will not eat there isn't very much you can do. Sounds like you have done all the right things.

Just to underscore how flexible the question, 'What can live with a breeding colony of guppies' is, I once had a breeding colony of Endlers in a large tank with a breeding colony of angelfish. And even with angels eating Endlers, the Endler population still got out of hand! The Endler population grew because the tank was both large and heavily planted. So I guess the lesson is, if the guppies have plenty of places to hide, you have a *wide range of choices for tank mates.

Water sprite, hornwort, duckweed, riccia, frogbit, and Azolla pretty much in that order have been my go to floating plants