[Funeral Rituals]

Small fish get flushed and the big ones become tomatoes.  

[FishTube - Who Have You Been Watching]

Co Op, Primetime, KG, Bentley, Imperial, LRB, Dans, Fish Room Fever,among others.

[New Wood]

The amount of time you soak wood to keep it from floating depends on how dense the wood is so dense wood needs little or no time soaking to sink. Now if you’re talking tannins you soak and change the water until the wood stops coloring the water.

[Looking for scavenger fish recommendations for angelfish tank]

Smaller Botia/loaches or snails should do the job for you if you don’t want to do Cory’s.  

[What is your dream fish?]

When I had my first tank (20 gal) back in the late 60's I wanted Discus. I even kept a few with very limited success. I have a few tanks now with many different species of fish that I really like but Discus will always be THE FISH for me. Now they have a much bigger tank to swim in.

[On the 'No Water Change," Tank]

In my part of the world water out of the tap is soft and acidic. I don’t chase pH per se but I do add some crushed coral to my canisters/hobs just to add some minerals back in the water. Before I started this if a snail was added to any of my tanks you could actually watch it melt.

[Baby Brine Shrimp Only Diet?]

For smaller fish you might be able to get away with a BBS only/heavy diet but if you keep larger fish it won’t be enough. Some fish may not bother to eat them at all because they’re too small.

[Aquascape book at Aquarium Co-Op retail store.]

One of my other bad habits is gardening. Many of the principles of garden design can be applied to aquariums. So if a dedicated aquascaping book isn’t in your future look for a garden/landscape design principles book. 

[What did you get done today?]

Tested all the tanks (last water change was 10 days ago) they all came through with flying colors. Did some yard work and then grilled some Mexican style sausage, sautéed peppers and onions, rice,black beans and guacamole . 

[AP]

I’ve been using the Tetra air pumps (20 & 40) are they silent no, quiet yes. I’m using them on sponge & Ziss media filters.

[Hello from New Jersey!]

These have been in my library for a long time.

[Hello from New Jersey!]

Welcome Brian! From one Jersey guy to another...

[Hi from a 16 year old in North Carolina.]

Welcome Devin. I’m also in NC just outside of Wilmington. I got my first real aquarium when I was around 10 way back in the late 60’s. In this part of the state it’s slim pickin’s for tropical fish with one small LFS, and a couple of Petcos, and Pet Smarts. 

[Total Gallons/Average Gallons/# Of Tanks]

214/42.8/5 120, 40, 29, 20L, & 5 gallon 

[First Planted Tank]

56 minutes ago, jerseychef said:

So I recently decided to go down the road of attempting my first planted tank.  I ordered Anubias Nana, Water Sprite, and Amazon Sword from Co-OP that should be arriving Friday..  My goal for this tank is for it to be a guppy tank.  I have a small amount of guppy grass that I had floating in my grow out tank.  Apparently guppy grass is hard to come by in Florida.  What are some other good floating plants to add?  I should mention this will be a low tech tank.  

I am going to try reaching out at my local fish club to see if anyone has any floating plants available since my LFS does not.

Also what would be a good amount of guppies for a 20L? I picked up 6 females and 3 males today and they are in my makeshift quarantine tank.  

The water sprite can be floated or planted. You can also use dwarf Sagittarius in that tank. The # of Guppy’s sounds about right.

[First Spawn of apisto agassizii fire red]

Congratulations!

[Best Apistogramma]

1 hour ago, James Black said:

 

30 gallon aquarium with tank mates of angels, rams, female swordtail, tetras.

Temp 77-80

Ph 7-8

Only one apistogramma. And no breeding

You’ve gotten some good advice here. For the most part I agree with @Danieland @gcalberto . Apistos and Rams spend most of their time in the same part of the tank, the bottom. So since given the size of the tank and that you already have a pair of Rams in the tank if the Rams do spawn you more than likely will have some issues. Now I’ve kept cocatuodies and GBRs in the same tank without any issues but they were in a much larger tank. Finally I’ll give you one more Apisto to consider macmasteri. Good luck.

[Best Apistogramma]

55 minutes ago, James Black said:

I want apistogramma. But I want them to be friendly yet colorful.

My question is, what is the best apistogramma considering the above?

You need to supply just a little more info. Besides the tank size what temp do plan on keeping them at, how many do you plan on keeping, will there be other fish in the tank, do you plan on breeding? Once you can answer those questions it will be easier to point you to a particular Apisto species. 

[The new fish room and studio build thread.]

40 minutes ago, JimmyGimbal said:

I was at the new place to take a few shots of the progress. Got to fly the drone too! Very exciting stuff on the way. 🙂

Somebody took out their frustrations out on that poor chimney.

[Aquarium Co-op new Brine Shrimp Eggs!]

2 hours ago, yannachka said:

if i only have one tank that would really benefit from bbs, would you go through the hassle of hatching them? im limited in space and time so im trying to decide if it is worth it for one tank. 

I have 4 active and 1 quarantine tank. I hatch 1ltr/qt of BBS roughly 3x a week. I get 2 feedings from the resulting hatch.

[What is your favorite tank size]

I don’t really have a favorite size tank since the species I’m going to keep in it determines the tank I’m going to choose. My Discus tank is a 120 4x2x2 lots of room side to side, front to back, and top to bottom, The Apistograma nijsseni are in a 20 L there’s no wasted space, the tank is long enough to have three females (each with a cave) and two males along with sight line breaks and just tall enough for the Neons to act as dithers. The 40 breeder as many others have said gives you lots of options. I’ve got a colony of Kribs sharing the tank with Panda Corys, Brilliant Rasobora, and Von Rio Tetras. I think my least favorite tank at this point is the 29. My beef with it are the dementions being more than twice as tall as it is wide. It also may have something to do with the primary fish that are in it Nannacara anomola which basically use the bottom 6-8 inches of the tank for 90% of the time. Just my 2 cents.

[Ottos]

Otto’s are mixed bag for me. I think it has something to do with source of the fish. They either die shortly after I get them or they survive and graze to their hearts content.

[Aquarium Co-op new Brine Shrimp Eggs!]

All my fish from adult Discus to Pencilfish go nuts for bbs, it’s like they’ve never eaten before. I don’t know if it’s coincidence but some of my Discus started spawning right after I started feeding bbs.  

[Aquarium Co-op new Brine Shrimp Eggs!]

1 hour ago, Dean’s Fishroom said:

Hey Everyone, This may sound like a bit of a commercial, and it probably is. However, Aquarium Co-op now has their new Brine Shrimp Eggs in stock.  So over the years I've used tons of brine shrimp eggs going back over 50 years. I'm fairly picky about how I select the products that I use and I had warned Cory and Randy that it would take a really good brine shrimp egg to get me to use them. A disclosure, I did do some early testing of these eggs over a month of daily use before the Co-op team had even figured out how to get them packaged and in stock. 

So they are available on the Co-op site now : https://www.aquariumcoop.com/collections/breeding-supplies/products/aquarium-co-op-brine-shrimp-eggs

I just wanted to let everybody here some positives that I've found with these eggs.
They have a really really good hatch rate, right up with the best I've used in the past. 
They are packaged in a 3.5 oz/100 gram can and are quadruple sealed for maximum freshness.
This size package makes really good sense for the majority of hobbyist, not a tiny amount like the little .2 oz vial, and you don't have to purchase a large one pound can to get quality eggs. 
The separation once hatched is the best I've ever seen. This is for me probably the number one reason to use these eggs, it's a huge time saver and just makes everything with daily hatching of brine shrimp easier. 

So there you go, it's my commercial, but it is for a really good reason.....
Did I mention the new Aquarium Co-op Brine Shrimp Eggs have a really good hatch rate and the separation once hatched is the best I've ever seen?

Just in time I’m running out. 

[Uv sterilization]

10 minutes ago, Ben Ellison said:

Thank ya Ben ☺  I am a big fan of the med trio. I currently  have started doing as cory suggests and quarantine  all incoming  fish and giving  them the med trio as requirement  for entering  any other tank. I was just kinda wondering  if a uv sterilization could be the a worthwhile  addition  to my quarantine tank for extra treatment procedure. Kinda belt and suspenders hahaha

UV sterilization lights kills the free swimming stage of Ich, as well as algal and bacterial blooms.