Chris

Alrighty, just placed an order from Reef Cleaners for: Brown Button Polyps 25 Assorted Hermits 10 Dwarf Ceriths 5 Nerites 10 Zig Zag Periwinkles Pencil Cap Macro Caulerpa Mexicana Cactus Caulerpa Not all of this is going into this tank, but a few hermits, snails, button polyps, and the two Caulerpa species definitely will be.

So you're saying that (in humans) hormones affect the entire body - organs and all. But a defect that causes someone to appear smaller (despite having essential "the same" mass) doesn't cause the organs to stop growing?

I've heard that too - I guess it makes sense, seeing as how I've seen several stunted fish appear bloated/balloon-bellied. I've got nothing to back that up, though!

Doing water changes on all the tanks today because I got lazy yesterday. Ugh. Just noticed the 5.5 I set up gets some natural sunlight in the morning. This guy doesn't seem to mind.

Research has been done on this for commercial fish hatcheries - it's not the size of the container, but rather the quality of the water. Fish release hormones that temporarily stunt their peers, so that they can become the biggest fish out of a spawn. In small volumes of water, those hormones can build up and severely stunt fish in the tank. If you had those fish in a flow-through system with a large volume of water, it's likely they would have continued growing. Never tried it myself, but that's what the scientists say 🤷‍♂️ My least favorite myth is probably that plecos are algae eaters. It is true that some of them eat algae, but that's not even their primary diet sometimes. Then, you get these huge fish and people want them to survive off of nothing but a few diatoms in the tank 🙄

^ This! There is no one good resource for information in this hobby. There are so few facts in fishkeeping - if there's one way to do something, someone else has probably figured out 5 different ways to get that same result. You just need to figure out which way you like best. Gathering all the information you can from different places will get you the best chance of finding methods you like.

Thanks! Saltwater feeder fish are kinda hard to come by, IME. I don't know that there is a go-to SW feeder around here, other than ghost shrimp. You don't want to feed saltwater predators too much freshwater protein, because (supposedly) it's linked to fatty liver disease. I don't know how true that is, but it's far enough over my head that I try and stick to that advice.

Yep, spearers! I think Squilla mantises are the most common (large) spearers. I'd like to keep some at some point, but I'd want to have a breeding colony of saltwater mollies for feeders before I did. To my knowledge, they can be a little harder to keep fed (depending on the species), and some only want live fish. You certainly wouldn't be able to keep pet fish with it like you can some smashers!

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the little pig has eaten himself into a coma, lol! He's asleep underneath the sponge filter 🙄 The Killis are settling in well! Here's the male: And the female:

They're awesome animals! Just, as always, do the research. There's lots of specialized care that goes into it! Not difficult, by any means, it's just not a completely normal setup. Thank you! There's been tons of documentaries and studies done on them - very cool animals. I really am convinced that glass aquariums are just as safe with these guys as they are any other animal - IMO, you've probably got a higher chance of cracking the tank while hardscaping than you do just keeping these guys! Alrighty, so last night (after my last post) I realized that I had put the "special" piece of live rock in upside-down - oops! I flipped it over and re-arranged the scape just a tiny bit. Here's a FTS: If you didn't notice, the reason I chose that particular rock is the fact that there's three chonky aiptasia living on it, and some red slime, to boot. The girl in the store gave me the weirdest look when I asked for the rock and declined her offer to treat it with Aiptasia-X - pretty sure she thinks I'm crazy, now! For the uninitiated, Aiptasia are pest anemones that reproduce like crazy and sting corals and other anemones. They can be a nightmare to get rid of! Believe it or not, despite me owning several marine aquariums, I've never actually had these guys, and I've always been intrigued. I know that they're basically the devil, but that's kind of the point of this tank, right? Now, if I could only find someone who had Majanos (which are another pest anemone, but these are usually more colorful!)... The other piece of live rock (on the right) I chose because it's covered in these micro feather dusters. Not a pest by any means, and I love having them in my tanks. However, they do reproduce like crazy, and I figured they fit the theme fairly well. Plus, it's always fun to see where they pop up next! You can see some old, dead tubes on the piece of dry marco rock in the middle from it's last tank deployment. I'm hoping to find some Majanos, but haven't had luck so far. I think they're gorgeous, personally. I'm also thinking some Yellow Polyps, Brown Palys, Caulerpa Prolifera, Caulerpa Racemosa, and maybe some other fast-growing macros might find a good home here. I'm always open to suggestions, too!

I took a chance on adding a pleco to the tank today. I've had flowerhorns be fine with them, and had a couple try to kill them as soon as they hit the water. So far, Nanaue has been pretty relaxed with it, but we've had a couple nips and such: I set the tripod up and left the room for the video above. The first clip is their first meeting, and then the later squabble was about 30 minutes later. For whatever reason, Nanaue was very fascinated by the fork, and decided he'd steal a green bean, lol. I added some new Crypts, a piece of driftwood (for the pleco), and a small Jungle Val. I also switched out the Marineland fixture for a 30" Finnex Stingray. The difference is insane. I knew (IMO) Marineland products were mostly garbage, but wow - this light is junk. I'm embarrassed to have paid $20 for it. Jeez.

Just like a lot of other oddballs, mantis shrimp get a lot of very random misinformation thrown at them. The tank you see in the video above was glass, and so is this 5.5 gallon. I haven't been able to find a single documented occasion where a mantis broke a tank. There's a video of them breaking a small glass vial, but those are incredibly fragile. I wouldn't be constantly teasing it, trying to make it break the glass, but it was never really a concern for me. The peacock (the one I had) is generally the one most people consider more likely to break tanks, but again, it was never a problem. Mine rarely even used her clubs unless I fed her a live crab - whenever she got clams on the half shell, she just ate the meat off of it. No smashing. If you were super nervous about it, the smaller species (Wennerae and Oerstedii come to mind) have virtually no chance of breaking glass. You could even put down a piece of acrylic over the bottom glass, just in case it's digging and happens to hit the glass and try to break it (like it's a rock, like in nature). Again, I never thought it was in the realm of possibility, and I'm convinced it's another myth, but I get that peace of mind is everything!

Alrighty then - new additions! As well as cold-blooded murder. That's right, murder. Remember how the Figure 8 used to let ghost shrimp live in the tank? Not anymore! I put 6 in there to use as feeders for other tanks and only managed to get the tail end of this encounter: Looks like I don't have to feed the puffer for a few days. I also picked up a pair of Golden Wonder Killis. I didn't plan on it, but they were there, they were cheap, and I could see both males and females in the tank. I just have pics of them in the bag right now, but they look even better now that they've settled into the tank! Male: Female:

Hey guys! So, I recently had a disaster in my hobby. My apartment had to be treated for pests, and I was required to remove all of my tanks from the apartment during treatment. During this time, I ended up losing about half of my livestock - including my beloved Peacock Mantis Shrimp. I do really miss having a mantis shrimp - they such cool little creatures. Very interactive, inquisitive, and always getting into some sort of trouble in the tank. Reminds me of my puffers, in some ways! But I don't think I want another peacock right now - I want to try a different species. One I've had my eye on for quite a while. The Wennerae Mantis, Neogonodactylus wennerae! These guys max out at around 3", and are perfectly suited to small tanks. They're smashers (meaning they have modified claws to break open shellfish), just like my peacock was, but with much less power. These guys are able to hunt down crabs, shrimp, and snails, but are going to struggle to crack open anything with a thick shell. I went to my LFS today, and picked up a 5.5 gallon Seapora glass tank for $16.99. It's a nice tank for the price - Seapora makes nice stuff, IMO. I rinsed it out, just to get any dust out of it, and this was it. Next, I decided to paint the back black, since the tank wasn't going right up against a wall. I taped off the rim of the tank with duct tape, cause that's all I had lol. I just use some Krylon Black Acrylic paint and a roller for this. I prefer spray painting but I don't have an area to do that here, so rolling paint on is the best I can do. It looks fine from the front side of the tank, but usually looks kind of "meh" from the back. First coat: I did three coats total, which got me a decently opaque surface. This is what the tank looked like, pre-fill: I added some sand from the Peacock Mantis tank, which has long been dried, but not cleaned. I'm hoping all that dead gunk in the sand will help get us a strong cycle in this tank. Whenever I filled it the first time, I ended up getting milk, basically. Gotta love aragonite. I had just used plain freshwater to fill that time, though, so I drained the tank and added in the rock. I'm using a piece of marco dry rock that I had from a previous tank, a piece of well-seasoned rock that's got some life already on it (although, not much algae due to being in a bucket), and a piece of rock I got from the LFS. I got this particular rock for a reason - but that's gotta be a surprise. Whenever I refilled the tank (with saltwater this time) I was careful to do it slowly to minimize cloudiness. The powerhead I bought (Aquatop MCP-1) was way too strong for this tank, and was blowing water around. So, I pulled my Koralia Nano 240 out of my 10 gallon QT, and switched them around. Each tank is better off, I think. Then, I tossed in a preset heater and a thermometer, and we're off to the races! I'll update this post tomorrow, and tell the story of why I picked this rock, and what the extended plans are for this tank.

It's been an eventful day for my hobby. I had "the fish itch" today, so I went to a LFS and ended up spending wayyyyy more than I meant to. I got: A Seapora 5.5 Gallon Tank An Aquatop MaxFlow MCP-1 Powerhead A Perfecto Glass Lid for the 5.5 3 "assorted Crypts" (I'm thinking maybe Wendtii, Tropica, Spiralis, or Lucens? There's a couple different species) Jungle Val A pair of Golden Wonder Killies for my Brackish Tank 12 Ghost Shrimp (finally!) 2 lbs of live rock (for the 5.5) A mystery 4" pleco. Lady said it came in with a bag of tetras by accident, and that they didn't know what kind it was. I got it for $4.99. It doesn't look like a common, but I'm guessing it's one of the larger species. He went into my flowerhorn tank, unless Nanaue decides to be mean. I'll be posting all kinds of pics later! Painting the 5.5 and acclimating fish to brackish water, at the moment.

Ever since I started watching Co-Op videos (almost 6 years ago now! Sheesh, how time flies!) I started switching out power filters for air stones and HOBs on my freshwater tank. It just makes more sense in every way, for most tanks.

Tank looks great! Tons of activity. One of my favorites on here, for sure.

Has anyone else ever seen Pea Puffer poop like this? I've always seen it more of a reddish-brown - not a bright red or pink. Maybe it's from where I fed bloodworms a few days in a row? 🤔

Y'all... I think we're gonna need a bigger boat.

Water tests fine - I assume they're just beginning to molt! I know some inverts stress-molt after moving tanks, so I guess it'd make sense for shrimp to do the same sometimes.

Ah, that's awesome! I've spent a lot of time in Louisville for various events and school trips. I heard that there's going to be some aquarium conventions here next year that the Co-Op may attend - I'm pumped!

Everyone seems to be settling into my shrimp/snail tub okay. Did a water change today, and found these guys going out on an epic quest when I got home - giddy up, Turbo! Does anyone who knows more about shrimp than I do know what this little bit of white coloration is? It seems to come and go on shrimp all the time, especially after a tank move. I'm still obsessed with these snails. I mean, they're purple. Where else are you going to get that in the freshwater hobby, besides a couple shrimp variations and maybe Purple Harlequin Rasboras (and I'm sure some cichlids and a million other fish I can't think of): These tubs are like $7 a piece at Meijer. I'm a big fan - they don't provide great clarity, but are fish-safe and are sturdy enough.

Thought this was kind of cool - you can see my F8's snaggletooth in this pic!

Even salt-tolerant plants are only likely to handle 1.004 or so - much higher than that, and they'll likely start to rot. You'd have to rescue the plants out pretty quickly! Here's a good resource for some general brackish info - not updated, but still, a good read. https://thebrackishtank.tumblr.com/post/107155036207/planting-the-brackish-aquarium-theres-a-bit-of-a

Alrighty, so Nanaue's allowing plants into his kingdom, so I added a large Anubias from my mother's tank (I visited last weekend!), and have been pleased with how well the plants have done so far! Nanaue himself: The Crypt (it's growing!): I forgot about this Anubias in a zip-loc baggie for 3 weeks - I plopped it in here on Sunday, and I think I'm seeing some life come out of it: Here's the giant Anubias from my mom's tank: And Nanaue's chosen decor - java moss, in his pot: