Torrey

Last week we received a notice that our housing program needed a full inspection that included access to all windows, closets, and edge of carpets, as well as electrical outlets😲 Sadly, the pandemic had meant the apartment complex had not kept up on all the maintenance to maintain housing certifications, so everyone on the housing program needs to have a full inspection (and everything be repaired/brought up to standard) before the program will renew leases. Not a big deal, except I've been waiting on a new shelving unit before moving/rearranging my bedroom/fish room. The notice said they would be in the apartment the next day.😅 So.... I am still putting things back together after pulling shelves away from the wall (which meant draining tanks first, which meant playing musical tanks, which meant...) I have two tanks redone: my bedside fry grow out tank (no plans for dedicated breeding this spring) and my spouse's T4' tank. No picture's of the spouse's tank yet.... here's how I did my bedside tank! Last year, it was bare bottom with moss balls and then hornwort was added.... and duckweed, and a floating island of bacopa and finally a floating tube of plants (mosses, etc). Once I learned I didn't have a regular request for my longfin zebra danios any longer, I decided I really didn't want the stress of a bare bottom tank. So.... I drained, cleared everything away from the window and the electrical outlets for the inspection, and the fish spent the night in a bucket with their sponge filters. Once the inspection for water damage (the irony, right???), electrical shorts, mold, bugs, functional windows and closet doors, fans, and smoke/fire/CO2/radon alarms was complete, I put in a UGF and covered with leftover gravel I had on hand along with some crushed lava rock. Then I cut egg crate light diffuser to fit the top, covered an [established] internal HOB type filter with a sock to protect the motor, planted the tank with milfoil, hornwort, frogbit, bacopa carolinia, and put the plastic aquarium gems around the old fry sponge filter. Collected the endler & blue guppy fry from various buckets and put them in a mesh breeder box suspended from bamboo skewers at the top of the tank. Trimmed the egg crate to accommodate the breeder box, the airlines, the pothos, and the internal filter. Attached submersible LED lights to accommodate all of the above. Bright white lights went under the eggcrate. Put cling wrap/saran wrap over the two ends, and wrapped the cling wrap over the edges to create a splash/drip seal and reduce water evaporation. Placed the color changing LED submersible strip on top of the egg crate to cover some dark spots in the aquarium (not my favorite LED light, but it was a gift). Used zip ties to attach lights under the crate/on top of the crate, and plugged into timers. Tested water before each time to feed (skipped feeding for one day) and an hour after I fed LIGHTLY (next 72 hours), and now, 4 days later, I am not getting any ammonia or nitrite readings an hour after I feed so I think we are in the clear. did 4 water changes since Friday, last one was Sunday night. ammonia and nitrites never got over 0.25 due to close observation/testing and light feeding. I did use Prime every day, Thurs - Sunday, and FritzZyme in the filter 2 hours after each water change. By Sunday evening, fish were back to normal activity levels and the danio are spawning. Endler males thing the roe is delicious. I discovered my assassin snail had babies that I was unaware of, only 2 survived but I now know why I kept getting a protein film: 3 assassins eat a lot of snails!!! oh, and the shrimp are doing fabulously in the SFS tank! Finally, the assassin snail baby tried to imitate the ramshorns, and wanted to learn how to surf. At first, I thought the assassin was so starved it was hunting ineffectively because they normally hide during the day. After watching it for 3 hours, I am 99.9% confident that this is *play* Hope everyone has a great week, I have a lot of work left to do, lol!

So much this! I have bred fish I didn't personally have much interest in, because my LFS needed a reliable supplier of a quality fish. I also bred Rottweilers for years, because I love the breed, and I *LOVE* the German standard (I also appreciate the German Breed books that require dogs get a vet clearance every year and if a genetic defect shows up the entire line is genetic tested and even carriers are removed from breeding (I can't get behind the mass euthanasia they promote. I'm a spay/neuter solution person). I practice the same considerations for breeding fish as I did for breeding Rotts: What is the standard? Does it include a health parameter? If 10 fish are perfect to the standard, but aren't healthy, and 4 are almost perfect but have offspring that are nearly indestructible, I am working with the 4 and moving the 10 to a showtank where they can't sustain offspring but they can look pretty all day long. I don't think there's any fish I have looked at and just disliked. I won't support unethical and unsustainable practices if I am aware of what is happening. Many of the genetically modified via selective breeding (goldfish, koi, bettas) are centuries old. I have mad respect for anyone's ability to have the patience required to dedicate generations of their family to selectively breeding a species of fish that up until very recently were quite hardy as well. So, while some fish aren't as interesting to me as others (I have typically maintained the longest interest based on how challenging breeding was/maintaining water parameters because I liked a challenge), I have reached that stage in my hobby where I want to be able to spend more time watching and less time proving I can do something... So even the species that used to bore me, now bring me joy.

Yes, the Nerm term is Patient Spouse™️ and we have a responsibility to take great care of them, as they appear to be an endangered species 😅 Seriously, your tank looks great!

Crinum calamistratum or Aponogeton longiplumulosis maybe?

Perfectly safe, and humidity speeds curing. I glue and put straight in the aquarium, and not even shrimp are bothered. Most likely the slightest temp increase ==> decreased oxygen saturation ==> increased stress ==> initial deaths in "lower school position" fish (lower social hierarchy generally correlates with increased stress/less resilience) ==> added minor spikes in ammonia ==> more deaths Without information like [average] water parameters before the lid, and testing after first death and after water changes, hard to be more specific. Most likely scenario is low oxygen plus stress. A plausible scenario is a contaminant on the lid. Not likely, but still plausible.

A lot of people don't recognize the sound. I've lost 2 pond pumps because something clogged and I slept through it. (Not excusing what happened, and not invalidating your response or frustration) I have a very hard time going on vacation during breeding times, of course I also struggled to leave my kids with babysitters for more than 2 hours. Generally hired teens to work as au pairs, so I had an extra set of hands and brought the sitter & the kids with me, lol.😅 I'm sorry your boss didn't respect boundaries around vacation, and you came home to sad tanks. I have joked that we parents need an extra week off, so we can clean/repair/fix and then recuperate from our vacation time.🤔 I'm sure your tanks will be ship-shape soon, and everything will get back on track. I really am sorry about your losses, vacations are supposed to relieve, not increase, stress.

iPhone emojis don't play well with android

I hear your frustration and anger. I second Guppysnail, that donating to the college is beneficial. The other option is H2O2, it does kill them. My tank I used for the Scapes from Scraps? Several years ago, it had a planaria infestation. I was where you are now. Luckily, because it was so small, I could remove the fish, drained it, put plants in a 50/50 mix of H2O2 overnight (killed half my plants, and killed all the planaria), and ran the filter on the tank after filling the tank with straight H2O2. It's a gorgeous tank now, and shrimp are thriving... and it ran empty for 2 years because I was so mad about the planaria. So I understand if you are just done, and need to walk away.

@Seattle_Aquarist you just explained my mistake. I need to find calcium sulfate for my snails. My nerites (both 11+ years old now) started showing pitting in the last month... as I got my TDS reduced to eliminate cyanobacteria. BGA is gone, but snails are looking a little rough. Plants show Mg & iron deficiencies (you already explained the iron issue, and new growth is looking much better)

You may be able to wild collect cholla. It grows in T'kemlups territory, and I believe in other Canadian high desert regions. Be sure to only collect dried/dead cholla skeletons, and give them another month in the sun before you soak them.

Once I stopped keeping/breeding discus, angels and bettas, I started having heater failures (most were over 3 years old) and I discovered that the endlers and guppies breed just fine in 50° F water. I am getting the Co-op heater for the dining room tank, but my other tanks (including the turtle) are off of heaters now. If my outdoor tubs don't need heaters, I figure I can save money for more plants😁

Y'all on iPhones?

Fertile caviar is a high protein food that will trigger spawning in your BNP

Last night really was a secret stream, no text alerts went out. Cory was playing and having fun, and I was having a cranial flatulence day. I should have tagged more people when I saw the notice here, I apologize. I disenroll and re-enroll whenever I notice that I missed a text alert. I was thrilled to read you Friday night!!!! I hope vacay went well, and the best solution for jet lag is set the alarm 15 minutes before sunrise and go outside to welcome the sun for 2 or 3 days. One of my partners is military, we did a lot of TDY travel when we could afford it. I got in the habit of drinking coffee due to so many time changes one year 😬 Only place it didn't work was Alaska.😅

I discovered that dropping those "odd smelling" plants in a 50/50 solution of H2O2 will kill the BGA... and hair algae, too! Let soak for an hour and if you gently rub the leaves between your fingers they will look beautiful in your tank. Red plants can only handle a 30 minute dip, and may need a repeat application. Tissue culture plants and extremely sensitive plants, limit to 15 minutes. It's how I got rid of the cyanobacteria in my T4' tank (Patient Spouse's™️ tank)... cleaning, pruning, and patience

Did you find any pictures? DM me if you want more info, and I hope it was a fun experience and not massive frustration. (For me, challenging is fun... on days I have spoons. Not so much on low spoon days)

Yes, the entire animal kingdom has representatives from the LGBTQ community, it just doesn't get talked about in high school biology classes. Check out Isabella Rossellini's videos on animal sex (versus reproduction). Just finish your coffee first, or you'll spew on your phone. They are hysterical.

"Rushes are round, sedges have edges" The leaves look more flat, not round.

This was actually the determining factor for me getting shoplights to grow plants, originally. When cost was factored in, it became a no-brainer for me now that I am living on disability. Don't get me wrong, I love my Fluval on my 10 gallon. *and* To improve growth / reduce dead spots, I am adding the submersible lights I used on my Scapes from Scraps tank now that I have seen it doesn't produce algae faster than my snails & shrimp can eat it.

That was awesome!!!! Thank you for doing these each day, they have been a mental health gift.🌿💜🌿 Wordle guessed in 3/6! Can you do better? Try this wordle: https://mywordle.strivemath.com/?word=aqclawa ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩⬜🟨 🟨⬜🟨🟨🟨⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 #mywordle

I have never had dead snail smell, except when I didn't notice a snail in my plant bucket after a massive trim and had a flare due to overdoing it. So now I keep water in the plant trim bucket until I have a chance to inspect everything and either feed my assassins the culls, or return the color morphs to their respective tanks.

The leaves looked to fleshy for najas? I'm looking for another resource, because I know there are way more species up there, both invasive and indigenous. PS @Baphijmm next time you make it up to Albuquerque, do you want to grab coffee at Little Bear? Talk fish and solar arrays😁

I have used both with my bettas. They like having the leaf litter, and the tea needs to get pretty strong to reach therapeutic levels. Research, to make decision making easier: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308344669_The_Effects_of_Terminalia_catappa_L_Leaves_Extract_on_the_Water_Quality_Properties_Survival_and_Blood_Profile_of_Ornamental_fish_Betta_sp_Cultured

The cactus emoji on my phone looks a lot like a coral on several social media sites.

I don't think there's a way to do it that would stay in alignment with the values of the forum.... Maybe a "What's the craziest thing you have heard about aquarium keeping?" would work?