Biotope Biologist

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.

Water will likely freeze at that temp meaning the water below will be insulated. It likely won’t actually drop below 56 degrees. As for fish that like those temps it’s your typical goldfish and certain species of bait fish like minnows and bass. It’s unfortunate to not be able to keep native fish. US and Canada are similar in that regard. Id argue sportsfish and carp have done more damage than good, but all we can do is abide by the rules and scream in our pillows at night.

My mushu was about that size when I bought him from Cory. Became full grown in about 5 months. I miss him. Hopefully still living his best life in a 250 gallon… I agree with others young male, very young judging by the platies in the background

That’s a bladder snail. I find all snails like to munch on some plants from time to time. Not really sure if any are technically “plant safe.” But they don’t usually do much damage unless you are extremely fond of duckweed I wouldn’t worry about it.

We don’t have liquid rock from the tap here but I believe if you have a water softener system you may have a bypass valve in the house? If so can you bypass and test the water.

We use TDS meters to test with conjunction to several other meters and tests for water quality. The TDS meter allows us to know what’s background and what’s accurate with our meters. I have always found it weird that they have become so prevalent in the hobby in recent years as it just confuses the heck out of most people who use them. TDS meters were never meant to be standalone testers!

I should also say that some people have had mild success keeping flashlight fish but there are a few caveats: -They are typically raised from babies -The sacs under their eyes either never develop bioluminescence or it fades within months. -Still significantly reduced lifespan. Actually scientists used to think these fish only lived 1-3 years. Same with lanternfish species. But there have been some otoliths that mark them at the 10 year mark. Deep sea ecology is still wildly new and we know very little about how this all works. Lanternfish are caught en masse on fishing vessels. But rarely studied.

The green stuff is eggs. And I have seen them turn opaque white just before a molt. They won’t molt until the shrimplets have hatched that might explain the creaminess of the white. They may also abandon the eggs for the molt.

I’m pretty sure you can recalibrate Hanna instruments to freshwater if you need to. I use Hanna testers. But maybe thats only for the really expensive lab equipment. 🤷‍♂️ They make little paramater checkers priced at about $60 usd. I too would stay away from amazon knockoffs they can be incredibly unreliable.

I have had several males in several community tanks. As stated numerously above it really depends on the fish. I had one male that got what I can only describe as anxiety with other fish constantly moving around him. He would hide all the time until he got his own tank. And then he was constantly exploring and checking on the snails that cohabited with him. He was just on snail time. Do watch for fin nipping with guppies. Guppies are the only fish that I’ve seen consistently struggle with male betta aggression as they can’t outswim them and their bright colors attract aggression from tank mates

They are saltwater fish that typically reside in the bathypelagic (deepwater) zones but will come to the coral reefs and surface to feed on various things. They do not typically do well in an aquarium and these will likely die. But I suppose they did their job on tik tok. A freshwater analogue might be the lampeye killifish. Although they do not bioluminesce they do have highly reflective blue eyes.

Yes a very complex topic indeed. Basically I think we have come to the conclusion that aquariums are too small scale to make use of the processes but here is a more lengthy talk about it:

I actually remember a couple of discussions with some government officials about it a few years ago on lake Washington. The discussion was along the lines of would they have naturally colonized these areas anyway as populations moved further north without human intervention. Albeit on a turtle timescale rather than a human timescale. Since red-eared sliders are a north america native it is feasible that they could have spread without the help of humans. Although I think another part of the discussion is that western pond turtles and other native turtles are far more sensitive to pollution and the sprawl of human populations. 🤷‍♂️