Biotope Biologist

That is a ramshorn they come in all sorts of colors

Last I saw them was at aquarium zen. Cory gets them from time to time too I believe. Also if none of them have stock check pond stores like bridges they often carry bulk dojos for stocking ponds (which should be illegal but 🤷)

A pair of aquascape scissors will set you back about $20 I like having them for trimming all my plants around the house. It stimulates growth by cutting leaves and limbs that aren’t pulling their weight, but I would say I like the jungle look!

Interesting golden dojo and wild types are sold pretty commonly here in Seattle area. I do not know where you are located For awhile when I worked at chain petstore in college we got them stocked pretty regularly marketed as ‘cold water cleanup crew’

Could be a number of things but most likely all the answers are harmless detritivores. If you want a more precise answer I will need a photo

That is either a boesemani rainbow or herbertaxelrodi males get the blue orange contrast breeding but otherwise both male and female can look a little drab in non breeding colors See here: photo credit- Jean-Cristoff Avare

Seiryu stone don’t alter kh at all. AFAIK its igneous rock with quartz veins. But im not a geologist. Kh is a buffer to ph. It will absorb swings in ph. Gh is general hardness and is magnesium and calcium. Luckily you can disregard this measure as amazonian fish are well adapted to low-no gh. If you plan on having plants you will have co2 which will lower your ph. But co2 is a weak acid so it doesn’t affect it much. As plants both respire and photosynthesize. Also if you have decaying matter such as wood or leaves your pH will also lower quite a bit.

As a kid I kept batches of tadpoles in large tubs full of water. I would just pop a couple sponge filters in and bring them fresh spring water for water changes. You can find pretty much any of these larvae in vernal pools as well so they aren’t super fussy about water quality. But for whatever reason the tadpoles did not like tap water. Anyway it takes dragonfly nymphs, caddisfly larvae, and even megaloptera nymphs several hours on a rock or grass to pupate and have wings to fly on, so it’s pretty easy to catch them and throw them outside before they fly off!

Well genetics have got quite interesting and fish have quite a few pigments. I am sure somewhere down the line someone figured out that you can keep the albinism gene and artificially select for all pigments to be missing except melanin As is the case for these chocolate albinos. Something interesting of note I have seen in native rockfishes that could perhaps pertain to this yellow albino molly is that I have noticed very rarely rockfish will have random streaks of yellow even in rockfish species that do not appear to have any yellow. It appears to be some sort of gene defect in the red pigmentation that makes it highlighter yellow. I wish I could share pics of some specimens ive seen it is truly wild. It looks as if someone has been grabbing random rockfish out of the wild and splattering them with yellow fluorescent paint. I just want to make a note: I don’t know very much about genes and gene manipulation. I just see things in the wild and say “oh that’s pretty neat! The fish lab guys aren’t gonna believe this” and thats about the extent of it

Algae is kinda like a plant that you don’t plant. I have a stream style tank so my main ‘plant’ is algae. It took a while for mature mats to grow like 3-6 months. I didn’t touch the medium that was growing. I watched it go from green spots to brown to hair like to structured like it is now. My fish strike it and eat it which is a cool behavior I’ve never seen before. I couldn’t tell you what different algaes I have. One downside though is if you have some sunlight come in from a window the algae will have periods of high photo intensity where it’s green and beautiful and lush, and low phot intensity where it’s brown. Some people may not like that, but I suppose if your light is strong enough it may never do that Here are different photo intensities: low: Medium: high:

I’ve seen algae do this from time to time or as said before could be pollen, but it looks like the tank is normally sealed off with a lid so id say a type of brown algae most likely

Yup thats a caddisfly larvae. They are ubiquitous in NA and construct their cocoons out of different available materials using saliva and maybe even a spinerette style thing (think spiders)? They are harmless detritivores that start emerging this time of year as a larvae. Takes anywhere from a few months to a year to pupate and turn into a caddisfly.

It’s a nerite snail. There are quite a few variants available for sale now. This one is called a helmet nerite

Correct planaria have triangle shaped heads and rhabdocoela move much slower as well

Keep your eye out for ads of seafood markets or fish breeders selling stuff. Granted I live near Seattle so these are both extremely common place but that’s the best way to get display tanks or hundreds of breeders for cheap. There are online retailers who wholesale tanks but they aren’t cheap and they are usually looking to sell whole displays not individual breeders. I’ve seen a few Petsmarts/Petcos selling their old blue acrylics to replace them with more modern fish walls. So depending on where you live that could be an option. And yes Cory partners with local businesses and breeders to earn the title Co-operative. I was around when Cory first started it’s great to see how far the store has come but the success of the coop was a lot of work and some luck and Cory garnered alot of respect with his passion and kindness that was then rather rare in the aquarium hobby imho. I know nothing of business ventures though, im just a lowly marine biologist haha so anything past that I got nothing.

Looks like Astyanax paranae as Colu mentioned. This is a species that occupies rio de paraña which is east of where you were located It also looks like there are some 2 spot mixed in there? Im looking at fishbase to see if these species overlap in your region. It looks like bifasciatus overlaps

The problem with a comprehensive guide to identifying micro organisms in your tank is that this forum has members spanning the globe. As does the hobby. Not only that but even though many of our members are NA, fish plants and substrates come from all over. And if that wasn’t complicated enough there are hundreds of species of flying insects especially in the warm months that sneak into our homes climb into our tanks and lay eggs… When I or someone else identifies a microfauna we can only guess at the genus or even group of critters it might belong to. Blood worms for example refer to something like 100+ different species of midges! And even more midge larvae aren’t red 😬 Anyway I hope you enjoyed my TED talk and delightfully unhelpful answer haha

All tetra have adipose fins. It is a distinguishing feature used in the field for marine and freshwater fish alike. Although we still don’t know what it was used for, as it appears to be vestigial in most fish.

Really depends on your budget. Doing some cost analysis the fluval equipment listed prices out to $750 so your question now is, is a 88g tank and stand worth $1k to you? I would imagine fluval used low-iron glass and looking at prices online of other reputable high clarity glass manufacturers, fluval is being quite competitive here. Also it looks like it comes with a magnetic scrubby and some sample products. Fluval gets a bad rep for being overpriced with little to show for it. But one thing you know is that it is going to be quality. I do wish it came with maybe some glass lily pipes or some acrylic baffles to show its meant to be a high-end aquascape showcase but I can’t fault them on that too much. I like it!

Geos are pretty docile but once they get older and start nesting your aquarium will be subject to… their design choices. You can probably add a couple pairs of EBA without any hassle. I might add some more sight breaks and caves though. And be aware that geos are messy so filter maintenance regime will have to be more frequent.

Quit using it. As said above test your water parameters. It’s basically a buffer that adds iron, magnesium, and potassium back into the water. Many plant fertilizer and water buffers also accomplishes this so if you do have a low gh from the tap look at gh up or one of the several other water buffers not directly marketed to shrimp keepers. It will be cheaper in the long run. Not to say that this aqueon product is a gimmick but it is very niche. It is meant as a supplement on nano aquaria where dosing water buffers may be rather difficult to measure

I know some municipalities and wells have water thats non-potable, but using water bottles will become very expensive. Check if there is a local spring you may fill up at or worst comes to worst go to your LFS and ask to fill up 5 gallon water totes from their tap, they will usually be amenable. As someone who worked with farmers that had non-potable well water this seems to be the most cost efficient way of doing water changes. I was more than happy to give them tap water. Bottled water adds up quick even if you buy the big costco packs. Not to mention the plastic waste 😬

I have the rootball of the fern it did die back after the move. I assumed from shock but it could be the wort stage seeing as the roots are still very much alive and growing

You might be right it does look like that! I didn’t plant half the plants I have haha so it could really be anything. This duckweed spawned out of nowhere.

It’s been about a month so here is a review! The nyos Viper is a dream no more sitting there after a water change playing with the ball valve. It’s quiet and best part is the shrimp don’t like the frequency of this pump so they no longer hang out in the pump chamber. And the wiper function on the intake is actually useful it clears duckweed and dead leaves even while it’s on! I also found this clear eggcrate on amazon that locks into eachother and it is so much better then the netting from BRS and best part is this product is made with aquariums in mind so it fits snuggly 2x wide across my 50g breeder. The netting had no structure so it would get waterlogged and grow algae like crazy Its sunny this morning so I managed to capture the 6 new WCMM added to the school. We are now at 14 total and I am hoping this will lead to more fry in the spring. Don’t mind the debris in the water this was 10 minutes after a WC. Also have this wort type thing growing on the log as well as the moss really starting to stretch out