Torrey

@Zenzo I'm sorry to hear that. Glad you get to go to Hawai'i and see family. Enjoy your time there, I can't wait to see what fish you film while you are there!

I have a thread for you to read, that has made aquarium keeping so much more affordable and enjoyable!!!! There's a separate chapter on wood, on rocks, on filters, on aeration, and I was literally up all night trying to find articles and research to disprove "Dave" and I can't find any yet. Plus, he references Cory! Oops, this link is on ammonia/nitrite/nitrate. Scroll to the very bottom to locate the link for safe rocks and gravel. https://aquariumscience.org/index.php/5-ammonia-nitrite-nitrate-and-chlorine/

Neither did I until I had so many babies go belly up when I caught and bagged them! Now they are happily swimming around without a care in the world. Since they are ~half the size of regular zebra danios, I am using the babies who don't faint to breed, then crossing back in to ones who do faint to identify which ones are carriers, and slowly remove the carriers from my breeding stock. Fun times, lol

I need to come back tonight and enter updated information. We had a power failure over the weekend, all my tanks are okay and all livestock are fine. I had to go old school on documenting my testing though, lol. Have a great Tuesday, and thank you for following.

In nature, the pH changes drastically in many blackwater environs, according to season, temp, rainfall, tidal influence, and human interference. We typically only have the water parameters during comfortable tourist season, because the majority of people are not visiting during monsoon/leech breeding season

I wish I lived nearby, our LFS have not been able to get me any MTS and it's holding up the seasoning of my Walstad tank. 😅 However, they have had no problem getting in assassin snails, so I have a rather hungry clean up crew, lol

@Cory thank you for your clear delineation between experience and double blind, peer-reviewed research. It's a shame that so many people get militant/threatening over the difference, and make your life unnecessarily difficult.

Apparently, zebra danios are really close to humans in a lot of genetics? So close that they are used in research, including research on anxiety (freeze/faint, fight, flee etc) When I went to catch the fry in the net, 25% of one female's line fainted. If there was a local research team, I would ask if they wanted the line. It's a double recessive gene, like the nacre gene for color. It means two things: it showed up because I crossed grandsons back to the original female to double check any possible genetic problems (which showed up only in the fainting gene), and the offspring have a cellular memory of nets being traumatic from their grandmother being caught. Which is actually pretty cool, from a research perspective. Not so cool to take fish that go belly up when they get scared to the pet store though 😅 This is why responsible line breeding requires so many tanks to separate out fish, and so many tables / spreadsheets to keep all the breedings straight. It doesn't *have* to be done that way. It's much easier to identify potential problems if it is done that way.

@Odd Duck I got the amphipods out of my shrimp tank by temporarily rehousing the shrimp in a QT tank. Siphoned out **all** the water (and vacuumed the gravel), then transferred the water (and ~50 amphipoda) to the newly dedicated rearing tank. Refilled, and added assassin snail to finish off the rest. After 4-5 days, the assassin snail is ready to go back to its tank, and shrimp can be returned to their tank.

I just took ~ 10-15 fry to my lfs for more plants. I discovered one of my females carried the fainting gene, so her fry **did not** go to the LFS. Since I am working on a dwarf line, I kept the smallest fish to breed for my 6th generation. I need to bring in a fresh, longfin melanuestic (sp?) so I don't end up with an inbred line. Shockingly for an unplanned spawn, 90% of the fry made it. New lfs manager was thrilled with quality, size and coloring. Since I am going for a smaller version (my breeding adults are now 3/4 of the length of typical zebra danios, and the ones I kept are half that size) with flashier coloration, even my "not quite there yet" fish turned out pretty nicely. My trick to improve fry survival is catch wrigglers with a nasal syringe, or use a bit of airline tubing on an infant medicine syringe. Suck babies up, and place in the specimen holder with the nano foam filter in it. Use a Ziss air diffuser, and use a valve to control air flow. For the first two weeks, turn down the air flow when you feed. Turn it up sufficiently to create a mild flow, but not enough to throw the babies about. In quarantine last year, I made fry specific sponge filters with airline straight into a prefilter fine foam. Requires very little airflow to do the job for up to 10 fry, and if well seasoned first, provides enough bio film to feed the fry for almost 3 days. Use a medicine dropper to feed the fry, and only give one drop at a time. Anything not finished in 5 minutes, use a nasal syringe to remove. Discharge the nasal syringe into a betta cup, and check for fry before dumping😅

So, I needed a new 10 gallon for qt and since tanks were half off, I bought 2... wouldn't you? I have other Walstad inspired tanks, but have never been brave enough to go zero tech: no heater, no pumps, no air stone, and only using additional lighting for photographs. This tank is on a highboy dresser, with a mirror behind it, and plenty of light being reflected from my rack system. I started with the soil Dr Diana Walstad has recommended in her Walstad Treatise forum: Miracle Gro organic top soil. 1.5" closest to the front, 2" in the back, with a little gravel "river" between the two planted beds. There's a mixed gravel and sand "beach" at the front of the tank, and the soil is capped in black blasting sand. Black worms, and eventually Malaysian trumpet snails, will assist the plant roots in preventing toxic sulfur dioxide buildup in the soil layer. I should have taken more pictures at the beginning. I only filled it a couple of inches for the first 24 hours, to let the soil really absorb the water. After about a week's worth of growth in the plants. With zero water movement, I had the novel experience of watching the blackwater tannins settle in the lowest point of the tank, and slowly change the water color. I had never witnessed this before! Floating plants, like water lettuce, frogbit, duckweed and Mexican azolla, have rapidly removed ammonia from the water while multiplying to begin covering the top of the tank. Luckily, light reflecting off the mirror behind the tank gets to the stemmed plants underneath. It's been 3 weeks, and ammonia is down to 0.25 ppm. I think I missed nitrites, since I only test once a week with no livestock (except black worms, amphopods and snails). Nitrates were up to 40 ppm on Sunday, I will see if they start coming down this weekend. I am still poking the soil with a stick since the Malaysia trumpet snails have not come in yet. I have almost 3" of new growth, and for the first time ever I have red leafed plants with no melt happening! Will try to reliably post updates. Zero intentions of adding fish for at least 4 more weeks, depending on if I have eliminated the ammonia. I want 4 weeks of no ammonia and slowly lowering nitrates before I add any livestock. The Carolina Bacopa is the slowest growing plant in there, lol. It does have new growth, and the plants are bending toward the rack system. So this is what the tank looks like, tonight. The light is so I don't get massive reflections from the rack lights. Darkwater/blackwater is very reflective, and in the right light turns the aquarium into a mirror, lol. One last picture of the floating plants, and I will update over the weekend. Thank you for following this far!

Starting a new Walstad inspired scape tank:

@Kittkat1981 I have a blackwater tank, on purpose (technically, I have several, but only one is super dark). If you want to keep the pH up a little higher, it sounds like water changes will do the trick for you. It will require close monitoring of the pH in the tank for a while, until you get really good at 'reading' your plants and fish. Easiest tank for me to get really dark water, *and* great growth, and reasonable pH, is my Walstad inspired tank. It's only a 10 gallon, has 1.5" to 2" soil capped by 1" sand, with a small "beach" in the front. I already have 3" of new growth on everything except for the Carolina bacopa. Snails, blackworms and amphopods are thriving, I won't be adding fish or shrimp for at least 4 more weeks. I need to add some Malaysian trumpet snails, first, and I am waiting on my next shipment of plants. This tank has no heater, no airstone, and no filter beyond the plants. When I add fish, I will add an Aquarium Co-op sponge filter, just to add a little water movement. I'll try to create a post like @Streetwise explained, to document the tank, as well. Dirt, capped with sand, and "beach" up front. End of week 1 Amphopod, cleaning the glass. End of week 2, water is getting darker. Right now, at the end of week 3. Floating plants have eliminated the ammonia from the soil. The plants are almost growing out of the water and will need a trim soon. As you can see, water is continually getting darker. Close-up of the fast growing side. Carolina bacopa (8 small plants on the left side of the tank) each have 4 - 6 new leaves. The growth is actually picking up as the water gets darker. Plants have only been in ~ 3 weeks, and all but one of the stem plants already has healthy root growth. This is my fourth dark water / black water tank, and I have to say that I really love allowing my tanks to evolve and stabilize instead of trying to force them. Best of luck!

@Zenzo thank you so much for everything you are doing to both make membership services achieve/exceed Cory's goals, but also for lifting some of the weight off of Cory's shoulders. You knocked the first speaker experience out of the park! Gianne exceeded all expectations. I vaguely remember Cory saying something about why his preference was YouTube over Zoom. Wanted to let you know I attended a workshop today that was *conducted* on Zoom and live streamed on YouTube, so the replay will be available only for the paying members. Chat was turned off at various points, so as to not detract from the speaker, the cursor showed up clearly, and at the end there was a 45 minute Q&A where people could type their question or raise their hand to be called on. The host was able to select a large screen/screen share for everyone to see the slides, and was also able to "lock" the speaker or the host & the speaker above the screen share. I know you have probably already explored it, just wanted to share from the participants perspective in a side by side comparison to Saturday. Thank you!!!

@KentFishFanUK to add to @Odd Duck 's thorough testing, I can add it's not as much the size of the fish, as it is the size of the mouth. Regarding the pH issue with vinegar worms, if you do the clear wine bottle or clear beer bottle, with floss in the base of the neck and fresh water on top of the floss, and only collect from above the floss, there's no vinegar residue to rinse off *and* no pH changes. A lot of people discount detritus worms, because... well... detritus. However, if you intentionally feed them high quality foods (nutrient dense, like carrots, shelled peas, high quality flake foods, quality shrimp food) you can establish a healthy colony on minimal substrate, and all they need is a sponge filter, good food that gets replaced every 12 hours (so you don't foul the water), and top off with clean water. I feed with a piece of airline tubing attached to the end of an infant oral medicine syringe, so I can target where they go. Another overlooked food is amphopods (scuds, or seed shrimp in Australia). While they are not a great addition to any tank with shrimp, they are prolific breeders and their offspring are tiny, like bbs. They can easily be cultivated in growout tanks, and fry will eat them voraciously. If you use a glass bottom grow out tank, you can easily monitor the feeding habits of your fry, and determine when they are ready for larger supplement foods. Neither amphopods nor detritus worms should be a sole food. Really, fish and fish fry need a wide variety of food options to reduce potential nutritional deficiencies. I like the Co-Op fry food, Bug Bites flake foods (they crumble to a powder small enough for 5 day old dwarf zebra danio fry to eat), pulverized, freeze dried blood worms, bio film, and a variety of worms for the first 6 weeks of fry raising. Infusoria, green water, and daphnia definitely make the first few weeks easier, as long as the cultures perform 😅

@Streetwise I had to go look it up, as I had not heard of it. Looks fantastic! I left the PNW in 2009, I can't find any information on the race that far back, so maybe it wasn't happening yet? I haven't done much racing, despite my parents having a sailboat that was specifically designed for ocean racing🙄 They kept the boat at Kerr Lake on the VA/NC border, and we participated in more lake flotillas than races. My godfather took me on my first ocean race, from Oriental to Bermuda. I was 11 yo, and the biggest thing I remember is the waterspout😳 My favorite thing for sailing between Oriental and the Bahamas (when not racing) is swimming with the dolphins through the deadman's corridor. I think I need to send the link for R2AK to my dad. See if I can talk him into a longer voyage with his new boat, the Powder Puff Crewed

I finally resorted to running one tank specifically for getting wood ready for other tanks. So, it's pretty much a combination grow out (fish & plants) and sink tank🤣 Big pieces take forever. As you can see between the top pic and the bottom pic, it's not always even the biggest pieces. All of these went in the tank at the same time.... but it's the 1.5" diameter that hasn't quite made it to the bottom yet🙄 Looking forward to watching your progress, and you have nudged me into working up my bravery to document my tank builds.

@Mikeo I use a similar principle, but do the water changes manually. I just wasn't able to find a method that adequately protected the fry. I would love to see your pictures if you do it, and will follow your thread to see how it works. Since I am going to have to do water changes after feeding because I don't have room to set up an automatic system (and I am one of those people who has a love/hate relationship with canisters), my fry float in betta cups with sponges to facilitate excellent water exchange, in a 10 gallon. Once a day, I do a 50% water change on the 10 gallon, with water I get from the larger tank, and then I top off the big tank (our tap water fluctuates horribly). So far, I have a 95% success rate and fry survival rate. Sponge filter in the 10 gallon tank, and mini sponge filters in the betta cups. Betta cups primarily make it easier to count fry, and keep the fry from having to expend much energy looking for food the first 1 to 3 weeks.

Cut the top and bottom off a plastic drink bottle (Costco 16 oz water bottles work great) to the width + a little of the spillzone. Cut from the "top" down to the "bottom" so you now have a tube with a slit down one side. Use flat pliers to put in two creases, about 1/2" from the slit, as a "hook" to hang on the side of the tank, under the over spill. Should diffuse the flow, immediately. If it doesn't sufficiently diffuse for your fish, you can easily dry the plastic lip you just created and either silicone or glue coarse sponge filter to further slow down the water, with added benefit of more surface area for colonizing beneficial bacteria. Easiest method I found, and doesn't void the warranty.

@ChefConfit I concur with "running at you" being abnormal behavior. It is typically only seen in rabid animals, or in mother racoons with kits nearby. Both scenarios are a huge risk for the kids. Call your local wildlife extension of either the forestry department or animal control (every state handles it differently, I don't know protocol for NJ). Let them know what you are dealing with. Rabies typically interferes with swallowing, so if the raccoon is returning to the same place, night after night, and actually eating, I am more inclined to think female with kits. If she thinks one of the kits is at risk, she can do serious damage. If you notice any day time activity, assume rabies. I'm glad you have some livestock left, and I hope you are able to get some professionals out to help you tomorrow.

So you sail? I was almost born on a 22' Hurley, great English racing boat. Unfortunately, the only sailing I got to do in WA was on a concrete sailboat 😳 that was built for trans-oceanic sailing, not racing. 🙄 It was very well insulated, however! Definitely a preference for sailing between B'ham and Alaska.

Amphopods Easier to get a good shot in a brand new, clean tank😅

I skipped the typical ordering of cultures. Try buying the Bragg Organic Raw vinegar with the Mother. Follow the directions for culturing vinegar eels. Plan to take a while, the first culture of vinegar eels takes forever. However, they multiply exponentially, and once you have 2 to 3 cultures going, you will be set. We had to make an emergency move about 2 decades ago, and obviously that interrupted breeding😅 We were in temp housing for 6 months, before I could set up tanks again and start over. Luckily, vinegar eel colonies do not seem to crash! Everything went back into production by adding fresh slices of apple. If that's too much work, there's a company, Carolina [I can't remember the rest???] that my sister orders amphopods, vinegar eels, and walther worms for classroom exercises. They even sell bioluminescent plankton.

@Odd Duck if you don't want it reproducing I recommend dehydration first. Or just bake at a low temp, like making kale chips... minus the seasonings. Then it's safe to puree, and minimal nutrient loss. [Yes, absolutely intended as a compliment] To manually eliminate from a tank, turn off filtration and air stones. Slowly and carefully use a cup or a bottle to skim the surface of the entire tank. Carefully select the plants you actually want, wash them well and examine with a magnifying glass. Floaters will grow new roots, so dig out every green spot. Wash again under strong running water, collecting the water in a bucket so as to protect water ways. It's tedious work, so I recommend only salvaging the healthiest looking specimens. Pour the water from the bucket through a sieve with a paper towel (or industrial coffee filter) to collect any duckweed, micro Wolffia, and either put all the discarded plants in a gallon ziploc bag in the freezer, or spread on parchment on a cookie sheet and cook on lowest available temp in the oven. Make the snello, or sprinkle the cooled, cooked leaves in omnivorous or vegetarian tanks. My guppies will seriously chow down on the dehydrated Wolffia when I take the time to make it.😅

I have my fry growout tank beside the bed, so I can easily feed every 4 hours the first week. Since they have to go almost an 8 hour stretch during the day w/o food, I offset by feeding every 4 hours the rest of the time, and do 3 water changes a day for the first 3 - 4 weeks. I have my rack in my bedroom, also, and I can watch from the bed if I have a flare, or sit in a chair or on the stool to watch the parent danio stock, the ornate ornata, the guppies, betta, amphopods, snails, orchids blooming, and garden plants. I also propagate moss. On my dresser I have a new 10 gallon set up. It's essentially a Waldorf scape, the plants are thriving. Only a week old and new growth already! I'm waiting on a new timer, so I have not perfected the lighting yet, and haven't seen any pearling, but the growth has been a pleasant surprise and a testament to Cory's recommendation to "fertilize the heck out of it at start up". There are a handful of amphopods and snails keeping the melt cleaned up. It's really cool at night to see the tannins condensing and settling in the "valley" of the tank, looking like a reddish river winding between 2 large hills. Lots of photography here! In my spouse's room, we added an ottoman for storage and it doubles as bench seating. I can spend hours sitting on the ottoman watching the guppies and their babies. A fellow member shared some frogbit with me, and the frogbit, duckweed, and water lettuce provide plenty of hiding for fry while complementing the creek inspired hardscape. Slowly propagating more moss to enter the tank in next year's IAPLC. We have 3 pico tanks in the living room. One grows snails for the ornate ornata and for the assasin snail, one grows algae and is currently quarantining 2 nerites, and one grows sprouts and houses the assassin snail. Outdoor "pond" on our patio provides phytoremediation of used tank water and grows out plants. I love sitting on the porch in the evening/late at night when it's quiet, and enjoy the sound of the water fall feature in the pond. I keep a few guppies to eat any mosquito larva that survive the water feature. In the dining room, I am waiting for the rest of my plants to come in, so I can finish planting my 4' 'show tank'. I have been slowly acquiring the hardscape, and I am buying a few of the plants each month and putting in grow outs so they will be completely acclimated by the time I finish the build. Considering angels, haven't decided yet. Once that is complete, we will probably spend more time in the dining room than anywhere else in the apartment 🤣