Daniel

For me it is usually related to live food cultures. My white worms are in a mini fridge in the garage and I always put off feeding them or making a new culture in a timely manner. I haven't killed them yet, but the cultures are sometime declining before I get my act together.

It’s funny you should mention Sergai Winogradsky. He was a hero of mine as I always admired his iconoclastic approach to science. Back in the early 2000’s I was interested in the oxidation of inorganic compounds by early forms of life. My son and I went down to a salt flat on the NC coast and collected mud from the anaerobic layer below the black needle rushes. We made a series of Winogradsky columns and were able to successfully culture Beggiatoa a genus of bacteria that can oxidize hydrogen sulfide H2S just like plants do with water H2O in photosynthesis but in this case it was chemo-synthesis. The cultured Beggiatoa from our Winogradsky columns oxidized hydrogen sulfide to elemental sulfur and the sulfur was stored intracellularly. It was unbelievable until you saw it for yourself in the microscope. Those are grains of pure elemental sulfur stored as a waste product inside the body of that Beggiatoa. The other cool part about this experiment was it was the perfect excuse to to buy a high-quality microscope with a camera port 🙂

I agree on the aesthetics, but lets say that they were hard to grow. Then they would sell for $3 a piece and be marketed as 'Freshwater Anemones'.

People were afraid of hydra long before the internet. But in my opinion they are harmless to your fish and even your fry. They can do some serious damage to daphnia, I would prefer not to have them in my daphnia tanks. I get them also in tanks that get a lot of baby brine shrimp. All the little hydras just turn orange after a big feast. Overall they are pretty cool.

And I am not so sure on the give it low light to make it reach for the light. It needs the light to make the resources to grow more roots and make more/longer leaves. Reminds me of this: Don't touch him! He wants to do it by himself! GETYARN.IO Young Frankenstein (1974) - Find video clips by quote. GetYarn.io now.

Jungle Val is Vallisneria americana and it is the big mamma jama. It grows around here and gets to be more than 6 feet long. It likes good root nutrients and lots of light. But once it gets going it’s not picky. And don’t listen to me I’ve had some for three weeks and it’s just sitting there doing nada, zip, nothing. I’m listening to @KBOzzie59 and I am just going to wait it out.

This isn't as strange as a fig growing in a pond, but it is strange enough. When I have gone to the North Carolina coast to collect pygmy sunfish in blackwater type swamps I often end up with Utricularia vulgaris, or bladderwort in my bucket. The waters are so nutrient poor that this plant presumably gains nitrogen by being carnivorous and eat will any little aquatic critter that wanders into one of its many traps.

Okay I just updated my answer to the What's your dream aquarium product that doesn’t exist? thread. I want @Bentley Pascoe to make us an augmented reality Hololens so we can walk around inside our aquariums and interact with our fish. Here Mrs. Angelfish, let me pick off some of those fungused eggs for you. Hey Mr. Tiger Barb! Stop right now and leave Mr. Betta alone or your are going to get a whoopin! Can we put this on the deliverables list for the next version of the Hololens? Glad to see you here @Bentley Pascoe!

Interesting philosophic question regarding staying true to 1930s methods. The easy part will be: A 1930s aquarium without specialty aquarium lighting No heater just a glass top A 1930s aquarium stand No filtration The medium hard part 1930s fish foods (thank goodness live foods were popular as I already do a lot of that) 1930s fish and plants as years of breeding have made the fish and plants more adapted to aquarium conditions The hard part How to un-know the aquarium keeping knowledge gained over the last 90 years And a hard question: Is it against the rules test water parameter using modern methods I can tell what temperature the water is to within about 5°F. If the water feels 'coolish', I know that it is in the lower 70s. If the water feels luke-warmish, I know that it is in the high 70s, if the water feels moderately warm I know that it's in the low to mid 80s, and if it begins to feel actually warm it's in the 90s. But I realized today when I was using a NIST traceable temperature sensor accurate to within 0.1°F to see if the tank had held its heat overnight that this might not have been exactly what they would've done in the 1930s. They had good thermometers back then of course so why I am concerned? I am concerned because I have to make a decision of what I want to learn. Am I going to dress in vintage clothing and while listening to AM radio and feeding my zebra danios daphnia? I am sure it would be a learning experience. But that is just it. I want to learn things I didn't know. Today (by using modern measuring equipment) I learned that the tank is not at its coolest temperature early in the morning. This was a naive assumption based my house being at its coolest temperature early in the morning, but my fish tank is at the nadir of coolness at about noon at 73.6°F. That make total sense once I think about this as the temperature is as much of a lagging indicator as consumer confidence is to the economy. My urge is to follow the rules on the easy parts and medium parts, but give myself a break on the hard parts and measure everything with all the equipment at my disposal and see just what I can learn from this experiment. Is that cheating?

As per @Bill Smith I have ordered some Caridina shrimp also.

Yesterday afternoon I added a glass cover as per page 22 of the 1936 edition of The Complete Aquarium Book. Also @Lynze and @Brandy in above posts. Did this help? Yes! Yesterday morning I recorded a temperature of 69.4°F with the tank uncovered the night before. After placing the glass cover on yesterday afternoon, this morning I recorded a temperature of 74.6°F This is much more the kind of temperature I had been hoping for as my choice of tropical fish at 75°F is a little bit better than at 69°F. I'm still waiting on the restoration to be complete on the actual 1930s aquarium but I will continue to test on this tank in the meantime. I have some Endler's guppies that might be arriving today and if they get here, I will go ahead and throw them in the tank also.

I tried paper first and I have found that I don't update as much as I should, but yet again it turns out that @Bill Smith was correct when suggested Trello. Trello, I use Trello on a daily basis because it is easy and it is available (meaning I am at my computer, and it is on my computer). The notebook is only 2 feet away, but the experiment has been run and the Trello is what is getting updated. The Aquarium Note product seems to be very popular, but it is Android and I am Apple so I never got to try it.

Yes, you called that one. I do leave it in the tank, and I was replacing pads when I hurt myself.

@Irene's answer is a much kinder, happier answer than my jaded answer. I'm going with what she said.

We are finishing up 'Time Team' a reality British Archeology show with zany characters that ran for 20 seasons. I can watch the discus while we watch TV, so sometime I miss important plot twists.

The glass is 1" thick so less powerful magnets just don't stick. You want it to stick hard but just be removable. I had less powerful magnets previously and the Magnavore 8 hits the sweet spot. The problem is once the magnets are within about a foot apart, if you hold them in right orientation they begin to move towards each other and once that movement starts you cannot stop it. And even worse, once they are stuck together, well, you saw what I had to go through.

I don’t quarantine my plants.

Had to look up what a Kdrama is. Just finished a lengthy series and was looking for something new, so I think I will check out 'Possessed'. Who knew I would find binge watching advice on this forum ☺️

Don't forget to vote in the poll at the top of page

My theory on 'Plop and Drop' with bag water is it saves the fish from being netted. Whatever nasties that are in the bag, those nasties are already in the fish, and though there might be a spot of ammonia in the bag water, that NH3 is diluted quite a bit by the tank water. And I am not talking about putting a quart of bag water in the tank, the amount is usually incidental.

@MickS77 I think polls like this will be fun. @DaveSamsell tried a few early on in the forum but there wasn't one that caught fire. This one has a chance. Can you add a 'Plop and Drop' option seeing how it is the run away favorite so far? I see 'Plop and Drop' as part of option 2, except I don't float to temperature. I never seen that temperature matters. Not saying it couldn't matter, just that I have not seen it.

Like @Mikeg and @Lynze I open the shipping box, lift the bag, slice the side of the bag with an Exacto knife. Water and fish plop and drop into their new tank. So basically no acclimation. I don't have a quarantine tank either because most fish go into a dedicated tank.

Whew! Profits are tough. Actually bringing in more than you spent while probably not charging for your labor is hard to do with tropical fish. That being said, I think I pulled that off once back in the 1980s when I bought Jack Wattley cobalt discus from Jack, bred them and sold baby discus for $5 a piece. I lived in married student housing, the water out of the tap was good quality, the utilities cost next to nothing, and I grew my own food for the fish, so expenses where low. The key to profits is keeping expenses low. Angelfish sell well if they are of desirable breeds, but I don't think I have ever broken even with angelfish. On a totally non-serious note: To make a $1000 breeding tropical fish - start with $2000 and quit when you are down to your last $1000 Should a massive fire hit your fishroom - there is always the insurance money Start a wildly popular YouTube channel and work 24/7, you might just break even Ask @Dean’s Fishroom - he seems to know how to actually turn a profit

Works great! (Answered from my phone)

The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964) Bessie: “Just look, just look at my rug.” Limpet: “I’ve got it stopped now Bessie” Bessie: “Henry Limpet, your floating yourself right out of this happy home with this crazy hobby of yours." Limpet: “Now Bessie I’m going to run down right to the pet store and I’m going to get a new regulator for the intake hose.”