Chris

We checked all of our moss balls too - picked and pulled them apart. I never found any mussels, but I don't know their lifecycle. I'd assume that they may have something akin to a larval cycle (a lot of other shellfish do), so maybe the moss balls aren't carrying full-grown ones, but larval?

Hey guys, I know saltwater isn't really the focus of this forum, but I was hoping someone might have some knowledge to offer. I have a 5" Volitan Lionfish that I've had for around 6 months, and he's always been a voracious eater. He's taken anything from live feeder fish/ghost shrimp to freeze dried river shrimp (in extremely conservative amounts), and has always been a chonker. The last week or so, he hasn't been eating. I'm fairly certain he's got lockjaw, and while I found a ton of forum posts online, a lot of them ended up being fairly useless due to the lack of what causes the lockjaw. It's thought that excess krill may cause it, but it seems that's been debunked, or at least isn't the preferred theory. I offered him a small ghost shrimp today, and he stalked it for around 30 minutes. He'd strike, but was unable to open his mouth wide enough to get the shrimp. So, I removed the shrimp from the tank, killed it (a necessity in this case, unfortunately), and cut it into three small pieces. The two tail pieces were ignored, but he took the head from a pair of tweezers, and managed to swallow it - with a lot of difficulty. I'm not sure it's helpful, but here are my water parameters: Ammonia: 0 Nitrite: 0 Nitrate: 30 PH: 8.2 Temp: 80 SG: 1.020 Anyone have any thoughts on how to continue on with this? I may pick up some Selcon and soak his food in that, and I don't mind going the extra mile to feed him, I just hope it gets better. It seems some people say it comes and goes with little to no explanation. I just hope I can save my buddy!

You totally should! Puffers are easily my favorite fish. This particular species gives you the chance to try out a brackish tank, if you've never done so. I'm picking up some Bumblebee gobies tomorrow - a species that I've always wanted, but never kept due to their brackish requirements. Supposedly there's a freshwater species, but I haven't been able to track it down.

Thank you! Jimmy's instagram is what got me to pull the trigger on the camera, lol. I'm always in awe of his content. Figure 8's stay relatively small! Around 3" to 3 1/2". This guy is maybe 2 1/2", so he's about maxed. He gets a clam on the half-shell 2-3 times a week, frozen gulf shrimp 1-2 times a week, ramshorn/pond/trumpet snails whenever I decide to throw a few in there, and he'll get some sort of assorted frozen food and Repashy daily. He's the only puffer I've ever had to eat a prepared food - he still won't take pellets, but seeing him take chunks out of Repashy is pretty cool! As far as clean up, I just change out about 50% of the water weekly. Nitrates stay between 20-40, which I find to be comfortable for a planted community tank. The livebearers (a trio of platies, a trio of guppies, a trio of balloon mollies, and a trio of Limia Nigrofasciata) take care of scraps, like you see in the video. There's also some ghost shrimp and nerite snails that the puffer doesn't bother, and I'm sure they help out too. He's the most docile puffer I've ever had. You can see one of the mollies push him out of the way in the video, and all he does is give it a look and go back to eating. Most of the puffers I've owned would have gotten their murder on!

I was playing around with the video portion of the camera, and decided to post this little feeding video. In the high light version, I didn't notice how blown out everything was until late in the video, and then I turned the exposure down too dark, IMO. But, it was my first go! Here's the same shot (sorta) with nothing but the Finnex Stingray lighting the tank.

I got a call from Kentucky Fish and Wildlife at work today (I'm a manager at Petsmart). Nationwide, all stores are instructed to pull all marimo products off the shelf. All major retailers are getting the same instructions.

Thanks! Of course, spending money isn't what anyone wants to hear, but at least I know there's something else to expand on later down the line, right? Plus, even with the kit lens, it's light years ahead of my phone's camera on a good day, so I'm still perfectly pleased with what I have! I'll have to do some research, anyway, as I'm not particularly sure which macro I'd need. I know my camera uses an RF mount, and that I'm best to stick with Canon lenses, but other than that, all the terminology is still over my head at this point. I honestly think that's gonna be the biggest upgrade. My pea puffer is really where I've seen the biggest difference - I've NEVER been able to get good pics of him on my phone. He's just too tiny. Thanks! Great pics! Any tips for shooting on a bowfront? I love all the little things you'll find in your tank! They're so interesting. Great shots! I'll have to look into those fixed aperture lenses as well, since I'm certainly beginning to see why they'd be so useful in this particular niche.

Thank you! I've wanted to invest in a DSLR for a long time, but have never really had the chance. Phone pictures always come out kind of "meh" for me, and a big part of the hobby (for me, anyway) is sharing my tanks. It's nice to have the ability to do that, now! I do have a question about this lens. I assume it's supposed to be an all-rounder, since it's the one that came with the camera. At 105 mm, the aperture narrows to around 7, and at 25 mm, the aperture widens to 4. Is that a relatively common spec? I know there are "fast" lenses that are designed for action shots, so maybe that should be a future investment. Not that this isn't satisfying for now, but just curious!

Thanks! Here's some I got over the last hour or two. https://imgur.com/gallery/qKZ0ylP

So I've gotten tired of trying to get good pictures with my cell phone, and I needed a new hobby.. So I bought a DSLR and picked it up a Best Buy on my lunch break yesterday. I got the Canon EOS RP Mirrorless with the 24-105mm lens bundled together. I know relatively little about photography, so I was wondering if I could get some basic tips on getting good pictures of my fish. Here's a few from me playing around with it last night: https://imgur.com/a/J4CBRK2#jxhDCOS Some of these turned out okay, but they're obviously not as good as they could be. I'm finding that the auto mode on this camera prevents me from getting too many unrecognizable photos, but rarely produces anything of decent quality. So, I turned off some of the auto settings and used manual ISO, manual focus, and manual shutter speed. Then I shut off all the other lights in the room, and focused on one tank at a time. Here's what I came up with. https://imgur.com/a/NXpsAsW#O68hfqt I tried some tips I got on another forum, and added a bright (150W LED) floodlight to the top of the tank to serve as a flash of sorts. I ended up getting tons of Limia Nigrofasciata glam shots, as they're my newest addition - how do you think I could improve on these? The glass could obviously use some deeper cleaning, and this particular tank is a bowfront with limited viewing angles, which makes it hard to photograph. https://imgur.com/a/oqP9ru3#rBUTCzh Thanks for any tips!

Hello! I'm a long-time Co-Op fan, and was super excited when I got the notification on YouTube about this forum. I've always loved forums and sharing my tank, but tend to get tired of the (sometimes) less-than-friendly environment, even when it's entirely well-intentioned. I know that the Co-Op will make this a pleasant place to be, and I can't wait! I'm from Central Kentucky, and actually work at a Petsmart. I spend my days selling fish, reptiles, amphibians, small mammals, and birds - I enjoy all of it, but the highlight is definitely fish. I'd like to eventually move to a local store, but it's slim pickings around here. I may eventually try to open my own store, but I'm just starting out, so we'll see where I end up. I keep mostly saltwater fish, with a few freshwater tanks sprinkled in (mainly for the plants, lol). I used to have a total of 11 tanks, but I moved and did myself a favor and broke everything down to 5 - 2 freshwater and 3 marine - for my own sanity, as retail is absolutely insane right now. I don't feel that all of my tanks are in a sharable state at the moment, as some are just substrate with some media in them, but here are the three I feel are in good shape today: Here's my largest tank, my 55 gallon FOWLR (fish-only with live rock) tank. It's home to a pair of Clarkii Clownfish, a juvenile Yellow Tang, a young Yellowtail Damsel, and a half-grown Green-Spotted Puffer. This is my more aggressive tank - everything in here has the potential to be pretty nasty, but also, pretty beautiful. The puffer is the star of the show, of course, but the clownfish offer a lot of personality as well. The tang is visible from across the room, even as a juvenile. The damsel is just fun to watch dart through the rocks. I will be adding more to this tank, but I haven't decided exactly what to add - as is, I think it's a fun tank! FTS: Clarkii Clownfish: Extremely upset Green-Spotted Puffer (he doesn't like the camera!): He's giving me the look 🙄 Here's my second largest (and my newest) tank, my 40 breeder FOWLR tank. It's got a pair of Wyoming White Ocellaris Clownfish, a Dalmation Molly, and a pair of Blue-Striped Pipefish. This is most definitely the peaceful community tank, and I hope for a lot of variety in here. The two clowns in here are awesome - they're the only designer clowns I've ever had - so I consider them to be my favorites in here. The molly is one of the fry I bred in saltwater myself. I used to have a saltwater planted tank with a bunch of mollies and guppies, and I kept a few fry of each as they bred. This is the only guy I have left though - he's getting old! The pipefish are new to me. The store owner says he thinks that they're captive-bred, and they seem to be well-adapted to aquarium life, especially when compared to other seahorses and pipefish I've kept. They're cool, but kinda hard to find - more of a unique oddball and conversation starter, but awesome, nonetheless. FTS: Wyoming White Ocellaris Clownfish: Blue-Striped Pipefish: Here's the third tank I'll share - my 5.5 gallon betta tank. I've had this halfmoon female for about a year and a half. I had her in a 37 gallon community tank with some long-finned serpae tetras, some platies, some otos, and a few cories. Everyone got along - until I had a tank bust. I had to move my school of 15 giant danios into the tank for a few days, and they ended up picking on this betta quite a bit. She got pop-eye - I treated her with some erythromycin, and she's done fine, but she lost the eye. So, I keep her in this tank by herself, and kinda just let nature do it's thing. It's filtered and heated, but there's enough plant mass in here that I doubt I'd have issues with ammonia. There's some Pogostemons Stellatus Octopus, a Sword, some Japonica Plant, and several different Anubias and ferns, all from the Co-Op. There's also a small colony of cherry shrimp in here that seem to escape the betta. A simple tank, for sure, but one that I enjoy. FTS: Betta: Cherry Shrimp: Thanks for reading!