ChefConfit

So I did call animal control to let them know about it. With the layout of my deck and where both the racoon and I were positioned it's definitely possible it thought it was cornered and didn't have another way of escape. But with my 2 kids and all the other kids in the neighborhood I'm not taking chances.

It was a racoon!!! So I got home from work late tonight and when I went out on the deck to feed the fish/cover the pond there was a rather large racoon in the pond. I started yelling to scare it off and it ran at me. I kicked it since I had no other way to defend myself at the moment (I hope I didn't actually injure it) and it his in my daughter's play house next to the pond. I grabbed the garden hose and chased it out of my yard with the water. I thew the cover on the pond and I'll check the damage in the morning.

I've gone out to check on my pond 2 nights in a row now to find the USB air pump not running. Unplugging it and plugging it back in gets it working again so idk what's going on, but I'm gonna add a back up to my next order.

As others have said it's the gelatin that the outside of the tab is made of. The way they are made there's always a little air trapped inside and when used with lighter weight substrate I think that's the cause of this. Some people with this problem have reported success with poking holes in the ends up the tab with a push pin to allow the air to escape.

It should be fine. In my experience crinum take a few weeks to settle in before they start to get noticeable growth. I've moved mine 4 or 5 times now and every time it loses a few leaves and takes a few weeks to settle in. I also find they do much better in high flow so mine is usually right by the filter outlet.

Yes and no. You might have a higher total per transaction(which may or may not translate to higher profit per transaction), but if you're only catering to people doing high end aquascapes you're limiting yourself to a very small subset of hobbyists as potential customers. Also if the area lacks a high quality basic fish store then it's unlikely that the local market would be able to support a niche one. If I were to ever open a store the goal would to grow the hobby locally and not go bankrupt. I figure fish stores are like restaurants. If start out in it for the money you've already lost.

I wish I had better LFSs in my area. I know of 2 within an hour of my house that are actually fish stores. One is a newly opened freshwater branch of a saltwater store that's been around as long as I can remember the other is half fresh half salt. The one that's half and half is small dark and dirty but the fish all look amazing and I would gladly buy there. The new one is big open bright and clean but everything is absurdly expensive and the manager is an a**hole. The only purchases I've made there are things I can't find anywhere else and tissue cultures(they sell tissue cultures at a fair price but nothing else). I also have one pet store that is maybe 1/3 fish, 1/3 other small pets and 1/3 dog and cat supplies(they don't have any cats or dogs in the store). This store is owned buy a guy I'd guess is in his mid to late 30s and who bought it from the original owners maybe 10 years ago. This is the store I went to when I was a kid and the current owner was a teenager working there. This is the store that got my into planted tanks and where I sell any fish I breed. It's a small dark store that isn't horribly dirty but it's not sparkly clean either. It's not an amazing store and there's lots of areas it could improve in the fish section, but the owner cares and is trying to improve so I'd rather spend my money there than the amazing store that's over priced and the owners an a** Other than that I have 3 petcos (2 are really nice one is horrible) 3 petsmarts (once again 2 are great and one is horrible) and a pet supplies plus (which is pretty nice). If I every hit the lotto I think I'd open a small shop that specializes in nano/community fish and plants but not really high end aquascaping.

My deck pond is/was a mix of soil crushed coral and safetsorb capped with more safetsorb. Up until this week when I started having problems with an animal getting into it I was getting pretty amazing growth out of all my plants. It had a mix of crypts, stems and floaters that came from my indoor tanks in addition to a miniature pond lily and sweet flag. I liked the soil mixture so much I used it in my new display tank as well. My previous tanks were soil capped with sand.

After 3 75% water changes the water was clear enough to get a full assessment of the damage. I was wrong about the last of my original females being gone. Of my original 8 females there are 3 left and of my 4 males there are 3. Currently the plan is to replant the pond with trimmings from my other tank in a few weeks when they need a trim again. That is assuming I've dealt with the culprit by then.

Yea we thought about setting up a camera to see what we are dealing with but didn't have anything that will work. I wasn't able to get to Lowes today to buy the polycarbonate but I did get the pond cleaned up and found something to use as a lid that's way to heavy for any of the suspected animals to move. I also borrowed a trap from my dad and set it up next to the pond.

@Streetwise I've got an empty 20g in the basement so all fish are getting moved in the morning. I'll set the pond back up once I have a permanent solution to keeping animals out. It looks like they got the last 3 of my original females today.

Just checked the pond when I got home from work and it happened again. The container of fish food I accidentally left outside this morning was also chewed through. I'm breaking down the deck pond tomorrow

I'm in New Jersey. My first thought was my neighbors cat but I've never seen it on my deck where the pond is and I doubt it would go for the plants on the bottom of the pond. Now I'm thinking racoon.

So a few nights ago something got into my pond it tore up my sweet flag and my lily pads and some floaters but didn't seem to get any fish. I cleaned up and decided I should make a cover my next day off. The next morning the same thing happened so I improvised a cover for until Friday when I can make a better one. Last night I forgot to put it back on after I fed the fish and this morning I awoke to absolute destruction. My sweet flag was torn out of the pot again. My lily was chewed up all the way to the bulb. Most of my floaters are gone and so are all my stems and crypts. I found 2 crypt undulata red and one stem of rotala. I probably had at least a dozen undulata and one flamingo. Several dozen stems of rotala, half a dozen alternanthera rosanervig and a ton of Christmas moss. 5 of my original females are gone as well as my dumbo mosaic male. Luckily I've got at least a dozen young adults left that I think are just reaching breeding age and a few dozen juveniles and fry so while the fish losses are upsetting my colony should be fine. The plant losses are even more upsetting though. The rosanervig I only had in the pond because I started with one stem and was using the pond to propagate it. I don't even understand what animal would go after plants at the bottom of over a foot and a half of green water. Tomorrow's my day off so I'm gonna pick up some twinwall polycarbonate and I guess shop for some plants.

Today I was researching otos diets so I could buy the right repashy for them. I'm hoping it will help with getting them to spawn. While looking them up I learned a few things. 1 they are capable of breathing air which is pretty awesome. 2 some species of otos not only school with corys for protection but have evolved to mimic their coloration and patterns. One example is Otocinclus Flexilis which mimics Corydoras Paleatus. I looked up pictures and it's pretty awsome! I thought others might think so as well. I keep C. Paleatus and have had them spawn a few times but now I really want O. Flexilis to go in the tank with them. I've never seen them available in the hobby though. Has anyone seen them for sale?

Congrats! All of them are awesome contributors!

In that case... I am in it to win it!

One question. Is the trophy aquarium safe?

@Phantom240 It's pretty toxic stuff, but easy carbon is only 1.5% glutaraldehyde. It's more that it provides so little usable carbon to the plants that the dose to see growth rate increases from the carbon is insanely high. Here's a toxicity study for it. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/go/tox025&ved=2ahUKEwiTwsn77r_xAhUxU98KHVM_BGYQFjACegQIChAC&usg=AOvVaw0H15xd0XIHWN9z2oe8f-S6

I had a dwarf Lilly that broke off the bulb this past fall. I planted the roots and it thrived until this past weekend when I broke the tank down. I replanted it in my shrimp tank because I got a tiger lotus for my new tank.

Yes it's just an algae inhibitor. Some tests have shown that MAYBE some of the carbon products like it provide is usable by plants but in order for it to have a noticeable impact on growth the amount you'd have to dose would be lethal to any fish or inverts in the tank.

Don't cut off leaves they won't grow back. Divide the rhizome as others have said and make multiple plants then you can move what doesn't fit to other tanks or give them away or sell them.

@Colu they've been together since the angel was quarter sized and he's never shown interest in the neons, but I've got multiple spare tanks if there ever is an issue

Next I think I'll add some Christmas moss, and I need to make 1/2 risers for the right legs because my floor is not level in this spot.

So on setup day I started breaking down my 29hex which this tank was replacing around noon and finished setup around 1:30am(there was a 3 or 4 hour break for dinner and a trip to the fair. I won my 3 year old a stuffed unicorn!) The hardest part of breaking down the old tank was catching out the fish. All you fish store employees that do it all day are very much appreciated. We got the old tank out and put the new stand and tank in. Then we moved it to the other side of the room because my wife thought it was overpowering the room. Next I rinsed some safetsorb and mixed it with dirt taken from the old hex about 1:1 for my base layer of substrate which is sloped from about 2in deep in the back left corner to 1/2in in the front right. Then I capped it with more safetsorb about 1in thick. Next I added my hardscape. The white birch branches I collected from a fallen tree in a local park and soaked in a tote then peeled off as much bark as I could. They were placed with one end under the largest Seiryu stone to keep them down. At that point it was around 5:30 and I had to pick my oldest up from my parents then come home for dinner and then took the family to the fair. When we got home around 830 I filled the tank about half way with water because I find it easier to plant in water rather than dry. I planted the Crinum and Sword first because they should be the 2 most dominant plants once everything grows in. Then I worked back to front. First I did my background plants, then midground, them foreground and finally epiphite plants. After I finished planting I drained water until the tank was about 1/4 full then fixed it again to about 3/4 full. After that I dechlorinated and then installed all the equipment and made sure everything worked. Next I added the fish along with the water from the old tank they were in then topped the tank off with more water. The next morning I did a 25% water change and took pictures.