Dwayne Brown

I used to change the water every week then I got lazy and haven't changed it in 6 months... All my parameters are good I just add water to counterbalance the evaporation. I think that I'm mostly able to maintain this because of a lightly under-stocked tank, sponge filter, and lots of stem and floating plants. From some research I did it seems that the plants and sponge filter are somewhat critical in insuring the water levels stay stable and safe.

Get a 5 gallon setup up and running, I'm planning on stocking it with neocaradina and dwarf anchor cats. I think I might start a journal once I have everything in order.

Second day... This is a pretty fun game.

Tried for my first time today after learning about it on this thread.

I would have a Queen Arabesque Pleco, I just find them so beautifully colored. And they only get 3 inches which is always a plus.

@Randall from Texas Maybe It could be a rio grande and red texas hybrid? It shares the same basic coloration and shape of both species Red texas chiclid. Rio Grande

I'm all geared up and getting ready to hit the Puget sound piers for squid. It's a little late in the season but it took me forever to find squid jigs. I'm using the beau mac jigs along with a slip bobber ultralight poll and rod with 5 lbs test line. I usually rig the setup so the jigs are spaced about 12 inches from each other. For anyone interested the Washington department of fish and wildlife had an excellent article about catching them. WDFW squid fishing basics Heres another article by a blogger that's pretty informative Ultimate puget sound squid guide

@Randall from Texas Thanks. Any Idea what the bottom fish from OP is? I have absolutely no idea, although I'm pretty sure they are separate species and not a male female pair.

This song came out when I was a kid and I still listen to it over and over again.

Rio Grande cichlid Note the similar spotted pattern but lack of bars. Another rio grande cichlid Notice the strong barring however not as defined as yours. The description of a rio grande cichlid is “general coloration includes 6-8 bars that can be faint or dark; body color varies greatly in intensity sometimes with bright red on the chin, throat, and breast;” Whereas the mayan cichlid has “five to seven distinct vertical bars and a prominent dark ocellus ringed by blue at the base of the caudal fin.” So it seems the only way to know for sure is to see if your cichlid has an ocellus (which I will label on the fish below). If it does not then it's probably a Rio Grande. If it does it's probably a Mayan. Mayan Cichlid Hope this helps.

I will second this from what friends of mine have told me. Apparently the big box stores would either use pool crystals, bucket of dechlorinator, or sometimes a company made dechlorination solution. From what I have been told for the most part all tanks and systems are connected and a central pump with a filter (or not) just cycles water throughout all the tanks. Maybe you could look into a way to pump ro filtered water into a refurbished hot water tank(s) for storage? That way you could rig up a way to connect them and use a hose line to fill up tanks. Other then this less than ideal solution I can't think of anything that would cost less than 7k.

Wow this thread is so cool, I've only ever heard of the marbled bettas but never seen one. Thanks so much for sharing.

In my opinion the sponge is going to be the quietest just because of how easy it is to hide the noise. I built a "noise box" for the motor and I can't hear it at all. Let me know if you want more info on it.

You could contact the store and find out what their parameters are. If all that checks out it could be that the fish you purchased were potentially diseases. Did they show any symptoms of illness?

Maybe you could try "sewing" them together with fishing string and a needle?

Welcome to the forum! I'm across the water from you in Northgate. Nice to see another washingtonian.

@Robert Any pricing info on the Dwarf anchor cats?

I can provide input on black phantom tetras and green raspboras. The black phantom tetras are very beautiful fish and surprisingly easy to keep. So long as you get a good stock they are about as hardy as well bred neons or pristella's. The green rasboras can be pretty cool although they appear kind of dull against green plants, like the above fish green rasboras are relatively hardy.

They can and probably will produce fry that will grow to be the color morph of one parent or maybe something completely new. I have been breeding endlers and the only colors I had was white/orange, and green/black/orange/yellow colored ones. However for some weird reason 1 scarlet chilli like morph showed up and subsequently produced even more scarlet chilli like endlers. Eventually I was able to separate some of the best ones and breed them in a 5 gallon. So in short all of this is caused by the genetic makeup of each fish. Each fish is different and when two breed and if they produce the right genetic combination will then produce a certain color morph of offspring. Sometimes people attempt to try and predict all of this using a punnet square but it usually requires data on all offspring from two specific fish...

I usually rinse it in tap water thoroughly (though this will probably kill all beneficial bacteria). find a rare sunny day and air dry it or most times I use a hair drier that I bought specifically for this and dry it by hand. Then toss it in a bucket and your good.

I spray paint mine, its pretty easy to do just make sure you do it outside and cover all areas that you don't want to get black on them.

First off I love the java loach I have 3 and they are absolutely wonderful. Do you have gravel or sand? if you have sand you could try making a sift. I made one from a few layers of 1/4 inch metal wire mesh, overlaying the layers so the holes were about 1/8th inch wide. I then removed all plants and animals and sifted almost all the snails up. After doing that I removed snails from plants and decor, then I switched up my feeding schedule. I feed my fish larger meals every other day instead of medium sized ones 2 times a day. My fish look healthy, happy, and energetic while the snail population has plummeted.

Western Washington state.

I began buying from them around 4 years ago. Then I got hooked on the youtube channel which deepened my interest in the hobby. For me the youtube channel and blog have been 2 of my go to sources for info on aquarium keeping. I personally love how on them you get to earn about fish you probably would have looked over otherwise.

I'm not sure of your sister has sand or gravel for a substrate, but sand is really helpful in dealing with them. I was able to make a sift using 1/4 inch wire mesh which I layered to make around 1/8th inch holes. After stapling this to a wood frame and removing all plants and fish from my tank. I was able to sift the sand and remove almost all of the ramshorns. Now there were certainly a few left and unfortunately the population started to rebound so I switched my feeding schedule up. I now feed my fish larger portions of food once every other day. This insures that almost no food is left untouched (depleting the snails food source) while also insuring the fish have enough food.