Eddie Dingle

I wish they lived longer, I've thought about setting up a dedicated mystery snail tank and just breed a single variety myself to always have on hand. I haven't done it yet because I'm worried that I'd become overrun with them, anyone here have experience doing something like this?

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Yes, I keep it plugged in, it probably turns on every 15 minutes or so and heats for about 3 minutes before it shuts off. I keep my house around 74 to 75 degrees. It does a good job of holding the temp at 78 degrees.

I think yellow betta imbellis are already perfect, mix in some chili rabora and you have an incredible looking aquarium.

Hello everyone, a few weeks ago my 10 gallon sparkling gourami species only tank developed a big ole crack in it. I did an emergency rescue mission and netted out my 6 gourami and moved them to a patio pond as a temporary home. I'm going to set up a 20 gallon tank tomorrow, I'm going to heavily plant it with crypts and anubias. The filtration will be a baffled aquaclear 30. Now to my question, would I be able to have a healthy aquarium with 6 sparkling gourami, 8 exclamation point rasbora and 3 to 4 borneo sucker loaches? I assume that's the upper limit of livestock but I would greatly appreciate your opinions and input. I'd slowly add the livestock, I don't plan on adding everything at the same time.

I use a preset 20 watt heater in my ziss brine shrimp hatchery and get a decent hatch after about 24 hours but if I wait it out to 36 to 48 hours I get a really good hatch. I add roughly 2.5 tablespoons of aquarium salt and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda to bump up the ph. I have very hard tap water but the ph is only around 6.6 to 6.8 hence the use of baking soda. I've come to the conclusion that I'd need to run 2 shrimp hatcheries if I want baby brine everyday. Another easy to keep live food is microworms. You could easily rotate those two foods and provide your fish with a healthy variety of live foods. Cory has a video on keeping microworm, it's super easy. I hope that helps. Another thought before I hit submit, a lot of those low watt heaters are very unreliable. Once you get up to around 20 to 25 watts they start to improve in reliability.

I've had good experience with the breeders I've purchased from on aquabid. If they have a good user rating I'm not at all worried about buying from a seller on aquabid.

Update: I had to use my pond as a temporary home for my sparkling gourami after the aquarium they were in had a crack appear in the front panel. They seem to be doing well and I threw in 3 male endlers as well. The plants seem to love the real sunlight and have grown like crazy.

Looks awesome!

Thanks, I mounted a small water pump to the side of the planter about 2 inches above the waterline, I cut about 8 inches of tube and attached it to the pump and then enveloped the tube with a generous portion of sponge to create a makeshift biological filter, it's bubbling just at the surface to create some air exchange, hopefully it works as well as an airstone. 🙂 I'll post pictures of the pump setup in the morning. Maybe an additional airstone in the winter will help avoid ice and would be economical compared to using more wattage from a heater. Thank you for the suggestion.

I'll keep you updated. I live in Central Ohio, during the winter it can range from 50f to -15f. We get some crazy swings I'm temperature here, but I'm confident I can keep this above ground pond from freezing solid with a 150 watt heater. I might have to occasionally bust up some surface ice, but I don't think it'll get cold enough for a long enough period to freeze solid.

It's only a few days old, I'm trying my best to be patient before I add any livestock. I like to use cycled filter material to start new tanks, then just add a touch of pure ammonia to get a bearing on how quickly it gets knocked down to zero parts per million. I'm not quite there yet.

Nice, I hope my little tank fills in super lush. I was thinking of stocking this tank with some explanation point rasbora and wild neocaridina, maybe a nerite snail as well. I want my friends to walk over to the counter for a cup of coffee and then be like "what's this thing, oh look there are tiny little fish and shrimp in this house plant!"

Thanks @Guppysnail, I will look into hornwort. I had the same idea as you about sucking up nutrients, I bought some water sprite from my local fish store and floated that to fill in the upper 3rd of the tank.

I plan on heating the pond. The pond is roughly 30 inches deep and 45ish gallons.

I read @Taco Playz thread about overwintering fish in outdoor ponds a couple nights ago. I had enough fish and garden stuff laying around to do a budget patio style pond in my backyard. Since it is late in the year I just threw some amazon frog bit and salvinia in from one of my aquariums, I'll worry about making it beautiful next spring with some flowering plants. Now to my question, is there a difference in hardiness between regular white cloud minnows and gold white cloud minnows? I would like to stock my pond with gold white clouds, but if they are less hardy than the regular variety I'll pass on them. I appreciate any advice or opinions.

I noticed I had some unused countertop space so of course I had to put an aquarium there. My goal is for it to completely fill in with plants so at first glance it looks like a house plant to unassuming guests. I'm not sure what to stock the aquarium with but luckily I have you all to help me decide.

I occasionally feed my fish baby brine shrimp and microworms. Both are easy to keep so those are my go to live foods.

Looks like a rabbit snail to me.

I'm glad I saw this topic, I've been wondering about over wintering fish as well. My local fish store has some beautiful long finned white clouds and I have a couple 20 gallon rubber planters that aren't being used for anything. I think I have a fun little project for tomorrow 😁

That looks awesome, thanks for the advice on lighting, a single point light isn't something I had considered.

The osprey nest that I spotted is on a random telephone pole near a shallow part of the Scioto River, there are also lots of business parks in that area and that means lots of man made ponds, if I'm early to a pick up for my job sometimes I get to watch them dive bomb for panfish and smallmouth bass.

I also see a Bald Eagle nest everyday at work, but unfortunately I see it from my work truck while I'm driving so I can't take pictures while I'm driving down the highway, but I do wonder how many people also notice the nest. Bald Eagles aren't super rare in this area, but they aren't common enough that people wouldn't be excited to know that there are a nesting pair so close to Columbus. I've also spotted an osprey nest in Columbus and another pair of ospreys but I have no clue where their nest is.

@Kirsten

Male and female Goldfinch dining on some shelled sunflower seed.