Biotope Biologist

Pencilfish depending on rarity of species go for around $6-25. I believe purple have always sat around the $12-15 mark. The dwarf neon rainbows sound pretty high. My understanding is they sell them at one of the chain petstores. So most people try to compete with that price. Which has always sat at around $5.99. But if they are locally bred they are going to be worth more, so perhaps that’s where the markup is coming from?

Lol I had to go and make sure I was thinking of the same person! It was quite a stretch but you have guppies and I thought “juice was worth the squeeze” was a peculiar phrase to use in conjunction with fish tanks. Thus I landed on ‘guppy juice’ I will go make coffee now, clearly spring brain fog is hitting hard this morning 😋 edit: The thread also auto grabbed the first pic posted for the thumbnail, which is my lovely pic so I am just going to confuse everyone looking at this thread now…….

Guppy juice?

Fish gills can actually change morphologically to the surrounding water in as little as 30-45 minutes. Euryhaline fish (brackish) do it nearly constantly. Drastic shifts though are not adaptable conditions. Thus why you see shock.

I’ve taken a lot of fish in over the years as deliveries for a petstore or just for myself. I’ve used a variety of methods and personally I drip acclimate my fish collection now. I don’t really think much of it beyond personal choice. I like doing it this way. Although I do have to say if ever I come across a fish with red gills breathing rapidly. I dump that water and toss the fish into the tank as soon as possible. Drip acclimation or other slower processes may not be fast enough for these fish and mortality is going to be high regardless so I’d rather them have clean oxygenated water moving through the gills. For this reason I may not have come across any issues with drip acclimation. 🤷‍♂️

I wanna say he said jurapari in one of his more recent walkthrough vids but I truly can’t recall. Maybe @Cory is lurking and could clue us in 😋

I like everyone’s suggestions with the totes and buckets but personally moving short distance I just go to the LFS and buy fish bags to transport fish and plants. They will be fine in their for hours. Then insulate in a foam box or something more environmentally friendly like an old freezer bag 😊. Since I did this very recently too, I also would say it’s far far easier to spend a couple days moving everything else first… then messing with the tank on a separate day.

Yup I have the etekcity one too but in a different brand. They tend to be most reliable and was recommended by my reptile vet. Just know it’s not going to be exact what with glass barrier insulation value but it’ll be pretty darn close. It’s also just been generally useful, just used it to recalibrate the temperature sensor on our home’s thermostat because it was off by a good 5 degrees.

@CT_ is right. Aqueon are constructed in a way where small machine defects appear with how consistent those bubbles are along the silicone seal I would be willing to bet thats where it came from and have been there since it was shipped.

Wondershell although not a miracle product will provide calcium that’ll dissolve into the water over time. I don’t believe there is an exact ratio. This will also raise your kh. Crushed coral is also useful for raising calcium levels.

I realize I am very bad about updating progress on the tank. The hair algae has grown out quite a bit. I removed a ton of it but the algae remaining is actually harboring a dense mat of christmas moss that has been really taking off lately. The hope is that it will outcompete the algae in the long run. But for now the rocks look like a jungle with cute goby faces popping out to see if I’m going to feed them. heres to hoping the water willow flowers late spring! I am lucky enough to enjoy about 12 hours of direct sunlight The sump plants have grown out quite a bit. Although the snails have made short work of the duckweed

I agree with @Pepere not sure what’s going on with the market right now but I’m not paying price as new with a $10 mark down for a 6 year old aquarium. Should be roughly a $1 per gallon unless it’s a specialty aquarium or acrylic. Also I have had people say that an aquarium leaks brought it home filled it up and it was completely fine. Just make sure to really check the silicone seals if that’s the case.

It’s the sub alpine creek biotope in my signature. Last couple pages it transformed from a 12g bookcase to a 50g frag tank also called ‘low boy.’ Mine draws inspiration from the Western Washington creeks and streams I grew up with. Went through a couple iterations before it landed here. I really like the dimensions for this tank I got the idea from someone who made a similar tank out of Suffolk. “Riverwood aquatics” on instagram. Although I cheaped out and bought an ACO prototype light instead of the Kessil Tuna Sun. One of these days! When I said you need significant height I thought you wanted to build a stream tank. One where the water uses gravity to make currents, eddies, and waterfalls. There are a couple of those styles floating around social media. With mine I just use a big aquarium pump attach to a fan loc-tite angled down at the surface. True stream style tank I referenced:

I have a stream setup. You need significant height gain to have gravity do the work. I would focus on just what type of stream setup you’re looking for. Mine has an island to break up fast flow areas with emergent plants. But you could set up the island to have the water pump through it and create an actual stream. Plants in the stream itself are limited. I just have a mini java fern attached to a log that grows my maidenhair fern. With some christmas moss slowly, verly slowly colonizing the rocks. Most streams setup just let algae grow into mature mats. Alot of the stiphodon gobies and hillstream loaches love to eat this stuff. These are very slow to mature tanks. Mine I anticipate will take about a year before everything is grown in and looking the way I like it. Here is mine for some ideas: 3 months growth. The snakegrass puts out new shoots once a month. Waterwillow from clemson in the foreground.

Wow triops is a trip down memory lane. Had that kit you get from walmart. Mine never lived longer than like 8 weeks. And my mom despised the “creepy water cockroaches” so that was just a one time experiment 😅

Looks like an amorphous blob to me 😋 It kinda looks like a rotifer but I’m not super well versed in limnology so I’m not entirely sure. Even if it is a rotifer there are something like 2000 species so that doesn’t narrow it down much.

I use that exact sand mixed with pool filter sand! Love the grain size reminds me of the ACO sand from back in the day. I bought 4 bags on sale was like $12. Not bad price.

Appears to be leeches. Note the suction cup foot. Could be juveniles or adults hard to tell. But they aren’t to much of a nuisance. Don’t usually last too long if you have fish. But unfortunately most of the treatments that kill leaches kill shrimp and snails. Physical removal may be your only option if you’re concerned.

Yup looks to be a glodanio (r) of the green/yellow variety. I would pass along that it needs friends. They don’t seem to care whether they have the glo protein or not to shoal together. 8-12 is a good number

Looks like you have rhabdocoela

It’s celebrating it’s 40th birthday this year! So exciting! Don’t worry unless the silicone is showing signs of fade you should still have plenty of life left in the tank 😊 or at least to hold you over until the new one arrives.

What type of rainbowfish? And those fish were fine with lower pH and are quite used to softer water in the wild. The phantom pleco might be the only one finicky with water parameters. I don’t think you need the crushed coral in the tank for the stock you have. You could but itd be a waste. Id go with blasting sand or pool filter sand. A 25 lb bag can be had at most hardware stores for around $7-10.

The plastic trim is likely brittle. I don’t think the glass bowing would cause a stress fracture like that. I think weight was put on top. Even as simple as a glass lid. After 20 years plastic is incredibly fragile. Good news is the center brace does little in reinforcing the glass walls of the tank. But regardless I like @Colu suggestion. Doesn’t hurt to be cautious. Also I don’t think brown plastic was used in the early oughts? It’s usually a signpost of a tank as new as the early 90’s. Could be wrong.

Eel grass in the PNW needs lots of CO2 and lots of minerals. It actually also requires sulfur in the soil to grow as well. Helped work on a masters thesis on eel grass in college. edit: There are a bunch of eel grass restoration projects in the works to massively sink carbon in the Salish Sea. This would result in better shell growth for oysters, crabs, snails, corals, etc. Possibly resulting in millions of dollars in revenue for the oyster and rock crab industry, not to mention providing shelter for juvenile salmon, anchovies, herring and other “food” species.

@Chick-In-Of-TheSea usually I’m skeptical of reddit ID’s as well but that does look like a juvenile JTS (japanese trapdoor snail). I suppose time will tell.