Biotope Biologist

You can use silicone to put stuff together but I prefer superglue. For attaching mosses to rocks and wood. I am afraid the chemicals in superglue will kill them. Although I think I’m being paranoid rather than anything based in reality. So I use moss string for aquascapers. It’s green so it blends in and after about 2 months it breaks down and I can pull it out then. Great stuff I love. I made the island in my tank out of expanding foam black and local river rock. It held up super well until my gobies started to decide that they want to make their own tunnels… I use silicone for bonding things to glass mostly and sealing surfaces to hold humidity.

Interestingly the way people think of goldfish temperatures is wrong. It does not cause ammonia spikes. Warmer waters increases the metabolism of goldfish. Which I have had goldfish in both colder water and tropical waters… they are constantly eating regardless. So the increased rate of digestion may cause ammonia spikes if the aquarium is not properly cycled, but increasing from a lot of waste to a bit more than a lot of waste is not a huge increase in my eyes.

100% silicone. You can get the professional series or aquarium series. IMO they don’t provide quantifiable enough results to warrant the extra cost. Serpa designs makes all his own tanks and I am pretty sure I’ve only ever seen him use GE or similar. I really like using the black silicone now because it looks cleaner. Do not use silicone for window seals. Idk who would want a leaky window but that silicone/latex compound breaks down very quickly when exposed to water. I made that mistake once… once.

I believe the centipede knife is in this complex and stays smaller. They don’t eat fish they mostly use their electromagnetic pulses to find worms and bugs amongst the leaf litter. I believe centipedes are communal though they need a group of 4+. Just know they are all wild caught, expensive, and rather delicate about their water quality. I managed to have one but it was put in with Australian rainbows at the LFS and I believe those bullies combined with ich led to it’s demise a couple months later. Only came out at night and got used to tong feedings after about a week.

Eastern narrow-mouthed toad Gastrophryne carolinensis not a true toad found from Maryland south to Florida and West to Texas

Yeah I would just buy a simple home RODI unit. You can add minerals back in if you want pretty easily.

I’m not certain the issue is that the paints are toxic. Acrylic paint is used on aquarium decor. It’s just that aquatic snails need to be constantly hydrated and leaving them out of the tank even on a wet paper towel while the paint cures will be an issue. People paint land snails and turtle shells.

I had the opaline counterparts, gold gouramis in college. Granted the tank was eclectic reject bin from my work. But they were quite content just chasing eachother around. I had 1 male 4 female. They lived with a goldfish, sunfish,BN pleco, chinese algae eater and a male convict cichlid. But yeah they were constantly making bubble nests in the corners and doing that beautiful gourami mating dance. No babies ever came of it though.

Well this is a rather rare specimen! Very cute! Unfortunately all I can find for proper rearing protocol is aquaculture so take that with a grain of salt but here are some articles: https://www.academia.edu/34873008/Advances_in_the_culture_of_the_Mexican_bullseye_puffer_fish_Sphoeroides_annulatus_Jenyns_1842_ As for the tolerance of freshwater for euryhaline species, science is still kind of *shrugs* not 100% confident in how to properly rear them in captivity. I’d say providing this puffer with some salt with the intention to go full marine in adulthood would be suitable. Or low end marine high end brackish: 1.024. Knowing that unlike saltwater puffers you can kinda neglect the salt ratio in the tank. Euryhaline fish posses remarkable gill structures that allow them to adapt very quickly (~30 minutes) to changing salinity measures. How and when: gradually increase the salinity or when it needs a new bigger tank adjust the salinity there and have it cycled and ready to go. Use marine bacteria starts to get the cycle going. Saltwater is a bit slower paced than freshwater so be patient. Doesn’t really seem to matter at what age they incrementally go up. So do it in your own time What cannot be neglected is water quality and since these are a large puffer they will likely be dining on clam, crabs, octopus. Id leave crab and clam bits in the shell. With help from one good thwack from a shell hammer to allow the puffer to grind its teeth and also give it very much needed enrichment. As babies they are okay on brine shrimp and other smaller crustacea. Frozen foods will likely be your best bet. Vacuum up any bits left over afterwards. Enrichment is the key to a happy puffer. As you may be well aware. Give it attention, toys, and things to do or they will throw temper tantrums. I think that’s all I got good luck!

Gouramis make bubble nests. That appears to be a bubble nest. Doesn’t necessarily mean they are breeding, sometimes they will just do it.

Check the vent! It’s pretty much the only way to know Protruding vent= female regular vent= male Id say from your pic you have a female

Plecos in general are a giant headache of a taxonomy especially for hobbyists. You can’t even trust the L number system because it gets changed so much. And well the most extensive research is of course in Spanish and Portuguese so you either learn the language or hope google translate decides to work that day! But I digress, you have quite the cute pleco and it appears to be living its best life!

Mosquito larvae is a favored snack of many fish. They kinda just eat whatever. So if in time your mosquito larvae grow big enough to eat I say leave them in there. Besides only adult female mosquitoes drink blood, many mosquitos are very important pollinators species. Good for the garden.

Definitely mosquito larvae. Free food is always loved! You can see the excitement in the Betta’s eyes!

That is in fact a ‘rubber-lip pleco’ although kind of like hillstream loaches we use that as an umbrella term to describe the genus Chaetostoma. I think there are something like 20 species of Chaetostoma currently in the hobby. I believe yours to be Chaetostoma milesi which do have variations in patterning between juvenile and adulthood. To make matters more confusing of course.

I… impulse bought them. It was around halloween two years ago and they are powder orange. They lived in a jar, outgrew that, got them a 10 gallon terrarium, now the population is burgeoning. I am thinking of starting to sell cultures locally for $5 for 12 or something. Their antics are adorable. I think they have some cow spot gene in them because I get some piebald ones orange/white. This next terrarium is their forever home. The waterfall will have lots of emergent plants and aquatic insects to take care of the water feature. So cycling won’t be an issue. I also have slugs, earthworms, lots and lots of springtails, mites. It’s all just a large ecosystem. I think that is the best way to set up a high bioload terrarium. I’ve seen people grow some very exotic orchids without fuss in these style tanks. Not to detract from vampire crabs. My LFS has the ’mango’ variety and I’m obsessed.

Good luck! I might get vampire crabs for my isopod’s new terrarium. So I’m right there with you on excitement for them! I know very little. Eatyourpeas has a journal on them id definitely check that out. I didn’t @ her because I think life is busy right now for all of us. My plan was just to setup a large waterfall and have a pool at the bottom for them. Cover it in duckweed and frogbit so the isos don’t drown but the crabs have a dark place to hide. I believe they are quite timid. Biggest thing is humidity. If I can maintain 70% or more and I just have a dinky halogen light for heat. But it still gets the current terrarium to 78-81 which I think is ideal for most of our arthropod friends.

Goldfish are remarkably adaptable creatures. They can live in wildly different temperature ranges and wildly different water parameters. You can move them to the well water with little fuss. With that much of a difference I think id drip acclimate over about 45 minutes. They should be ready to go after that. Fish gills will adjust to a changing environment rather rapidly.

It’s how I do all of my tanks now as well. I had no idea it had a name until people started talking about it marine side. Which is interesting to me because if I recall in college I wanted seahorses (very briefly) and the owner of the LFS said that the best way to keep seahorses is by allowing the tank to have a thriving population of inverts for the seahorses to hunt. Otherwise you are feeding them 15x a day like a baby. Seahorses lack stomachs so they are constantly hunting amidst the seaweed and reef. Who has time for that? Although granted Ecology didn’t have a name until the 1970’s. So the ecology of an aquarium not having a name makes sense. We are a forgotten lot 🥺

I have no idea what to call this aesthetic but it brings me great joy. Post-industrial revitalization? 😋

Airline clamps can be purchased at most automotive stores. They look like so: As @Fish Folk mentioned it’s not really necessary. A simple barbed hose fitting is designed for this purpose

How old is your tank? Fresh aquascapes really suffer from nutrient imbalances more than others. It can sometimes take a few months UV sterilizers despite their claims only really effect free floating algae and bacteria but do little to tackle the source of the problem. Therefore I can’t recommend them as a permanent solution to your bacterial blooms. Whatever the case, fish food does make great compost starter. I just don’t think it’s quite accurate to pin it to the specific fish foods. Your problem is best solved with time and patience. Most aquascapes you see on the internet are temporary displays or ones that have been maintained for years. They never show you the griddy annoying and tedious im between. btw that is a beautiful scape! If that is your first time you are a natural

The orange fin hill trout mostly act like juvenile trout in the wild. They like to strike the surface. I’ve seen them nab a few spiders and flies off the surface. So them eating fry isnt a huge issue. Same with the shiners. They are actually incredibly timid. I think if you want a mix of WCMM that itd be good. I’ve seen others even do medaka ricefish. Although they prefer calmer waters ive seen a few creek setups with them as the display

Beautiful tank! I have mine in with gobies and orange fin hill trout. The orange fin hill trout are closely related to danios and are very rambunctious. But the WCMM don’t mind. You could also do rainbow shiners. Quite a beautiful fish that likes high flow. Need a tight fitting lid though they like to jump at night. orange fin hill trout for reference

For a clean up crew I would stick to marine inverts. You may have to do a bit of research but many of them are adapted to shorelife where they can do well in brackish water. Nerites are good too and there are some small hermit crabs that are okay at 1.008+ Plants mangroves and some plants do okay. Your best bet is emergent plants. As eel grass is borderline impossible to grow in aquaria. Macroalgaes there are a handful out there that are found in tidepools and along the shore that do well. Chaeto is the most popular. Schooling fish I already mentioned in the other post. Not really a ton else. Archerfish, scat, mollies are about the only ones that school. Freshwater damsels will do well in a 90 if you get 2-3 the aggression will stay amongst eachother. They have huge territories for such a small fish. So best to understock them. I have also read certain species of Tilapia can stay quite small 5-8” and can be kept brackish. I’ve only ever seen the monsters in the wild in brackish pools, but I suppose they are a possibility.