Schmorty

This is a good method, and I'll do the same thing as well depending on the situation. I used to hate doing this because it would throw off any mechanical timers, but now that's a moot point with a wifi timer on the lights. I don't always do this because I leave the lights on so I can see better when trimming plants and I leave the air pumps on to make cleaning the sponge filters easier. But, @lefty o has the simplest solution for preventing the mistake I made.

Well I done did goofed, forgetting to plug my canister filter back in after a water change, making it go anoxic for over a week. I thought I'd share my experience in case anyone else runs into the same or similar problem. I'll explain what happened, what I did to get out of it, and what I'd recommend for anyone with canister filters to do to prevent this. I'm not here to litigate whether or not canister filters are good or bad. This situation was 100% user error and can be easily avoided. Background: The aquarium in question is a 40 gallon breeder with a Fluval 206 canister filter with spray bar and intake sponge, as well as three sponge filters for additional flow and surface agitation. This is my fish-for-profit tank and is HEAVILY stocked with guppies and bristlenose plecos. I do water changes about once or twice a week and have a dense growth of hornwort and pothos to help me with water quality. It's a utilitarian tank, not a display tank, and I don't bat an eye when the water goes cloudy as long as the fish look healthy. The Event: I start my water change. As a pump withdraws water, I go underneath to unplug the canister filter, and I find that it's already unplugged. To make sure I'm not just having a forgetful episode, I feel the side of the canister filter to see if it's still warm; it's cold. I recall that the last water change I did was 8 days prior. Fortunately, I already know what that meant for the state of the canister filter. The Problem: Beneficial bacteria in your filters need oxygen from the water to process ammonia and nitrite. When you cut the flow of oxygenated water to them, they die after a few hours. Leaving your canister without water flow for a few hours won't kill your colony, but once you start looking at days without flow, there will be no oxygen left in the enclosed system. I knew that after 8 days, all beneficial bacteria in there would be dead. It'd be no use to plug this filter back in. I also knew that between all the fish waste trapped in the sponges in the canister, the now-dead snails that lived in the filter, and the dead beneficial bacteria and the anoxic conditions, it was highly likely I had a strong colony of anaerobic bacteria going in there, feasting on rotting organic material. I have a degree in civil engineering, and my senior design project was building a small scale anaerobic digester to process solid organic waste into useable methane. It was a fun but stinky project, and an experience that really helped me deal with this situation. I knew that the canister filter was now full of dissolved hydrogen sulfide gas (aka sewer gas) and other nasties. I definitely didn't want to plug the filter back in and have it dump that gas and decaying organic matter into my money-making aquarium. The Solution I Used: I disconnected the 206 from its hoses. It's really nice that Fluval's canister design makes this easy. Already I could smell the hydrogen sulfide gas from the filter. I then took a bucket, placed it underneath the detached hoses, and opened up the shutoff valve to back-siphon all the stagnant water out if the hoses. I did this until the water ran clear. This water also stunk of hydrogen sulfide. I started to attempt to clean the filter indoors....that was a very bad idea. That gas will stink up your home, make you want to puke, and it's very hard to dissipate. I've smelled open sewer manholes and wastewater treatment plants that were more pleasant. My advice is just take it outside asap. I'll post a follow up on how I cleaned up the filter and dissipated the gas from my home if people are interested. My Recommendations For Prevention: 1. Place your canister filter on a Kasa Wifi Timer. Schedule an "on" to recur every night at 1 am (or whatever works for you so it doesn't kick on while you're in the middle of working on the tank). That way, when you change water and turn it off, you can hit a button on your phone. If you forget to turn it back on, the Kasa will always kick it on at the time you set and you're not looking at days without power and flow. 2. If you're experiencing a prolonged power outage, take your canister filter media out and either place it in your tank or a bucket of water to keep it from experiencing anoxic conditions. 3. If you do notice your filter has been without power for a long while, don't immediately restart it. Assess the state of its contents (your nose will tell you if it's as bad as mine got). 4. Redundancy in your filter systems can save you headaches. My 300+guppies and 6 plecos appeared to have thrived despite the big canister filter being out of commission for 8 days. The sponge filters and plants in the tank kept it so I only had a small .25 ppm ammonia spike as opposed to something catastrophic. It also kept me from noticing that there even was a problem so there is that to consider.

What are some good ways to mitigate tail biting? What tips and tricks do you use to repair/heal a Bettas torn fins?

I'll also add that I just bought a school of Black Neons yesterday, and I'm very pleased with them. They do get kinda big though (for a tetra), some of mine are already bigger than 2 inches. I got them for a 75 with angelfish and platies.

Pearl danios were my first schooling fish, and they are drastically underrated. If your 40 gets any sunlight from a window, they will light up in the most gorgeous shades of opalescent green and purple. Photos just can't capture it between how fast they move and how the light has to catch them just right. I miss my 40 and that school. Even if your tank doesn't get sunlight, they're still gorgeous once you get them established. Edit: this photo captures their mature coloration well under normal aquarium lighting. It also captures how hard it is to focus on them with a camera. This is one ofy better ones, and I was focused on documenting algae not them, lol.

I'd love to do this when I get into a more permanent living situation, but at this point, this unfortunately isn't an option. Thank you for the suggestion, though. You've given me a lot to think about. Thanks!

Haha, I'm already running two 100 gallon Rubbermaids. However, in my climate I'll be lucky if I can overwinter white clouds, which is what I'm testing this year. I love the idea, but I need to be able to bring whatever I breed that can't overwinter back indoors in the autumn, and I'm faced with the same dilemma.

@ARMYVET I acknowledge it is risky and am aware of the genetics and reproductive modes of guppies. My thoughts on how to mitigate that risk are as follows: 1. Install the divider and move my existing strain to one side and observe for a few weeks to see if any make the crossing. 2. Utilize an albino strain of guppies where both the males and females look very distinct from my current strain to make picking out fish that manage to cross over easier. I know if an adult male gets over it's game over, but I can get a female out before she drops and I can pull fry before they reach maturity. 3. If I were to upgrade my tank to a 55 where I've got more length to divide the tank with, I had the idea to use two dividers to make a narrow central compartment as a sort of neutral zone. I'd then maybe put something like a Betta or a killifish in there to play guard dog. If they prove able to cross over with high frequency in my tests and/or I'm unable to upgrade to the three compartment 55, I'll just breed something else on the other side of the divide. Maybe I'll do swordtails or killies or something else.

Hey all, At this time I've hit my maximum on aquarium realestate. I can't find a new spot to put an aquarium without driving the people I live with mad. At the same time, I'm also enjoying the fruits of breeding fish for profit, and I'd like to continue expanding that side of my hobby. My fish for profit tank is a 40B with a fancy strain of dumbo guppies that have been very prolific as well as some bristlenose plecos I've been growing out for a year that are on the cusp of sexual maturity. I'd like to add another strain of guppies to my profiteering set up, but I don't have room for even an extra ten gallon. So, my thinking is to either put a divider in the 40B or upgrade that 40B to a 55 I have sitting in storage with one or two dividers in that one. I've been eyeing the dividers that Flip Aquatics sells, thick sponges designed to keep shrimp strains from cross breeding. I figure if they're good enough to keep baby shrimp from crossing over, it might be good enough to keep two strains of guppies from crossing in the same tank. So, my questions for the forum are: What are your experiences with Flip Aquatics' tank divider? Can they be installed on a drained but not dry tank? Would they work with undergravel filters? Would they be effective in keeping fry from crossing over? Any alternatives to this product that would have a similar effect? Pictures of your setups would also be great. Thanks!

@Shrimpgang I'm relatively new to multies as well, I got my first group about three months ago. In addition to @DSH OUTDOORS's description, another way to guess at the sex is to observe behavior. I found that the males will carve out territories with a definitive pecking order, and they'll spar with each other at the edges of their territories. The females will pick the male they like and hang out in his territory without getting harassed much. Eventually, the females will dig out pits with shells at the bottom where they'll lay eggs and rear their fry. Once that happens, they start harassing anyone that comes near. The attached photo is one of my females guarding her pit. The male she picked lives in the shell in the back left corner in that picture. The males do a little bit of rearranging, but only just enough for one or two shells for them to hide in.

@Georgiapeach88 You definitely don't have to use a 40 gallon breeder. In fact, I think my 40B is arguably too big for breeding guppies for profit. I'm definitely overproducing for what my local store can sell, at least now that we are in my area's slow season. Most people are able to make a guppy-producing tank out of 10s and 20s and can maintain a sustainable, sellable population. In theory, the bigger tank is more stable and easier, but in my experience, I've definitely crashed the pH, spiked nitrates, and swung who knows what other parameters in this 40 gallon when it gets full of hundreds of guppies, and I'm not exaggerating that number. If I could do it over, I'd do this in a smaller tank or put in a divider and do guppies on one side and some other fish on the other. If I was in your shoes, I'd keep your plans for that 36 as your community display tank. I'd start with a ten gallon with one strain of guppies and see how you do as a breeder. If you have success selling, then start to slowly expand and get more strains and more tanks. If you haven't already, check out Cory's fish-for-profit series on YouTube that I've linked in this post. They're long videos, but they're full of great information on how to find success. I've definitely deviated from them somewhat, but they're what's behind my success.

What I did is put the crushed coral in filter bags and tucked them in behind plants and decorations. The attached photo is a side view of my 40 Breeder that I breed for profit out of. I've found that the Aquarium Co-op small filter bag holds about 2/3s of a pound of crushed coral. The bags pictured I got from a LFS and I didn't measure how much went in

So I've only received shipped fish three times, and last week I had a shipment where it was multiple bags of different fish from the same facility. I faced the same conundrum of whether or not to mix them all in one container or not. I didn't have much time to think, because I had one individually bagged angel in the group whose bag leaked in transit and he had barely two teaspoons of water left. I went for it, and mixed them all together in a bucket and started a drip. In retrospect, the drip was too slow, because after an hour the pH was still too low compared to the water I was placing them in, and I definitely shocked them when I transferred them. If I were to do it again,.I'd do what you outlined by replacing the water in increments. The fish all made it through the shock, fortunately, and I didn't see any adverse effects of mixing multiple bags in one container for acclimation. I don't know if stress guard is necessary; I'd be careful not to overdose it, and maybe it'd be better put to use in the aquarium they end up in, and not the acclimation container. That shipment I had included orange laser corydoras, which I would consider more sensitive, and they made it with just a drip and a bit of shock from 7.2 to 8.0 pH. (The 7.2 is what I raised up to after an hour of dripping. I should have tested to compare BEFORE I started moving fish)

I figured I should post an update. I got the tubs going soon after this original post. 4 weeks after starting, green water finally started to develop and the temps started getting consistently above 55. Unfortunately, I was not able to source breeding age paleatus cories, and I think at this point, I wouldn't be able to get substantial fry development by the time I'd get a group through quarantine. So, for this season, I'm going to do golden white clouds and potentially something else. I'm keeping my eyes open for platinum rice fish. I'm actually really excited for all the marginal flowers I got for the tubs. Several variants of Canna lilies, a pickerel rush, some bluebells, and yellow iris. I've attached a few photos of what the tubs look like now.

Have you tried feeding Repashy gel food? I've found that my betta didn't go for it while corydoras go nuts loving it. You can make a big hunk for the cories to snack on for an hour or two, and then remove the excess since it's so stable in the water. Since it's a big hunk (like the size of a pink pearl eraser or a 6-sided die), it's not fed in a mode that Bettas like. They like little bite size bites.

Are you sure air is coming through the airline? I've never had an issue with the never clogs, though you may want to try loosening the screw in the stone to make sure it's not too tight. What can be likely is that you've got a leak in the system, be it a crack in the circuit or your other taps are open wide. The air is going to take the easiest route out of the system, and if the pressure of water is too much compared to other routes, it's not going to come out. If you take the airstone off, do you get bubbles out of the tubing? Does the airstone work when the tubing isn't looped through the Matter filter?

Alright, as promised, here's some photos of the setup. I forgot to add that my filtration consists of an old 206 canister filter that I had left over from my first tank with a spray bar and intake sponge, as well as a couple co-op sponge filters to add some extra surface agitation and gas exchange. In the front left corner is my solution to doing water changes without sucking up babies. It's a pump I got from PetSmart that is designed to dump out over the edge. I threw on a small intake sponge on it and it works surprisingly great.

Thank you. Yes it takes time and patience. I got the plecos in June 2020 as babies, and they're still not breeding age yet. And I shipped in the guppies in September 2020, lost the male in quarantine, and wasn't ready to start selling until March 2021. Best of luck with your projects! I hope they bring you even more success than the taste of success I've gotten. Also, I should note that I'm not a Minnesotan. I ordered my original pair of guppies from Twin Cities Guppies, which is based in Minnesota as the name implies. I'm a Coloradan.

Hi Cory! Sorry I didn't share any photos, I didn't think people would be that interested, and it's not exactly a pretty setup. So, it's a 40 Breeder with hornwort and water wysteria growing inside and pothos and lucky bamboo growing out the back. The fish inside are dumbo red mosaic guppies and a group of juvenile lemon blue-eye bristlenose plecos that I'm raising up to breed alongside them. I would have done super reds, but there's already a local breeder that my store works with, and I didn't want to compete with him. As far as hardscape, I wanted to play around with a tile bottom, using terracotta pots for the wysteria and lucky bamboo to root in. I thought it'd be easier to clean, and it was until I had a hundred guppy fry with no fear of the siphon. Combine that with the density of pots I put in, and now it's just mulm city. I also ran into issues of pH crashing, so I've got a couple filter bags of crushed coral sitting in the corners, and that's helped a bunch. Finally, there's some cholla wood and a hunk of driftwood for the plecos to rasp on and hide around, as well as a few Aquarium Co-op Pleco caves ready and waiting for when they start breeding. P.S. I'm realizing as I go through my camera roll, I don't have any good photos of the setup as a whole since it's grown in. Once I get home I'll snap a few photos and add to the thread.

My store does 1/2 sale price in store credit or 1/3 sale price in cash. In my smaller batches, I was selling them for $2.50 to $3.00 in store credit as they increased the price in response to demand. It turns out my worries of being unable to produce enough to meet demand were unfounded, because I went overzealous with the net this round and caught 90 fish for them this round, which was almost double what I had intended. Since I already had them bagged, I reduced the price to $1.80 since the store was willing to take so many right before the summer slow down.

The last time I purchased a betta, the best selection was from a big box store and it was really healthy. The way I think of it, there will always be bettas in big box stores, and not all locations of the big box stores are the same. Some of them are run by people who are amazing hobbyists and take good care of fish, and others are run to where the fish are neglected. I support the locations that take good or even just moderate care of the fish, letting my money speak in a way that encourages that good care. In the event of "Rescuing" a Betta from a big box location that is neglecting them, the store is not going to know that you're rescuing it from their neglect. All they'll know is that they got paid for a fish they kept poor care of. Obviously, the best option is to buy from an LFS, but I wouldn't rule out the big box stores either

Just wanted to share a success story. I brought in some fancy guppies from Twin Cities Guppies almost a year ago with the intent of doing fish for profit, inspired by Cory's series. My area had a dearth of quality guppies, seemingly because all the local breeders had moved on to other live-bearers and cichlids, so I decided to go for it in my 40 gallon. I've definitely diverged from Cory's advice by going specific strain as opposed to nice mutts, and I'm doing it in a much bigger tank than a 10 or 20, but apparently I've hit the market right. I've only been selling them to my store for the last three months, and just today they've called asking me for more, apparently demand is through the roof. The last time I delivered, I sold them 30 fish and they were sold out within a week. I'm actually running up to the point we're I don't know if I can keep up with the volume, which is an exciting problem to run into. I understand this might be a boom and bust scenario, and I'm okay with that; I'm very patient, and I've got some other breeding projects in the works to take its place. It's just really gratifying to have the fish store call you instead of the typical other way around, and I wanted to share that mark of success with you all. Thanks for all the support and tips! (The thumbnail is one of my juveniles)

The Co-op does sell it in a large-ish container

That's a good point. I was originally thinking of placing the tub in as much sun as possible, but further research and your comment makes me think shade might be better. I thought I typed it in the post, but it looks like it got lost when I was editing, but I live in the Denver area. The weather is a bit unpredictable and varied, so it is guaranteed that I'd have some really really hot days, but I'll also have to contend with potential surprise cold snaps in May and September. You know, what I'm starting to think is maybe I should get an additional tub. One for white clouds, and one to attempt cories with. That way in case the cories don't pan out, I'll still have the fun of the white clouds.

So, I've got a 100 gallon Rubbermaid tub, power for a heater, and a sponge filter ready to go for some summer tubbing this year. It's going to be my first true tubbing season, and I'm trying to figure out what to put in to breed and make more of. Now, I'm not opposed to the traditional options like white clouds and rice fish and the like...but I have a real passion for corydoras. I've got a 75 gallon display tank sitting empty, and I'd love to do a sizeable school of paleatus corydoras in there. So I came up with a crazy idea: what if I attempt breeding them in a pond over the summer and then bring them in in the autumn? I've bred paleatus before, and it takes a lot of time to get them from egg to juvenile, so I don't think I'll be getting many viable spawns. I'm also assuming I'll have to find some paleatus close to breeding age, which may be troublesome. I know Paleatus are colder tolerant, but not as resistant as a white cloud, so I'd throw in a heater set to 68 or so. And since I'm throwing a heater in, I think I can extend the season into May on the front end and into September or even October on the back end. Am I crazy for wanting to try this out? Or should I stick to the traditional fish for summer tubbing?