laritheloud

Please share your fish trap secret! Did you cut up the bottle? My thicklip is thicc and needs a bigger hole than the top of a bottle, I think.

Update: I now have big plans to move my darling to the 55 gallon and get her a boyfriend and some lady friends. Her name is Lady Marmalade and now I'm dreaming up equally ridiculous names for the potential harem. Lord Orange? Lord Vermillion? Sister Pumpkin? Madame Maple? Miss Amber? Missus Marigold? The possibilities are endless! 😆

Getting to know all of my little water pets and their unique personalities. Even my schooling fish have personalities; I didn't think I'd ever really figure out how to 'tell them apart,' but to my surprise, I can quite easily tell most of my tetras apart, especially the original 6 we purchased vs. the 5 that grew up from hatched eggs in our tank. I just love to watch them interact with each other and with me. And, of course, it's so fun to feed them! Also, when a tank reaches maturity, the algae mostly works itself out, you got the nutrients and feeding dialed in, and everything just... *works.* And lives. And thrives. It's so rewarding to know you can create an entire tiny ecosystem in a glass box.

Agree, the nets from Aquarium Co-Op are really nice... I am just incredibly bad at catching fish! Slippery little cuties! But I'm still seeing chasing this morning and she's pretty relentless. Line of sight breaks don't do very much when she's busy following him *everywhere*! I'll move her as soon as I feel comfortable with the state of the 55 gallon.

I will absolutely attempt, but I think you sorely underestimate how terrible I am at attempting to trap fish in a net 😆 I'm not dead-set on breeding but would love to see if he CAN get along with the two females in the tank. I'm just glad there are options and I can find a peaceful solution. I won't be moving anyone yet, though, because the first fish into my 55 is a school of pseudomugil signifers and they're getting some antibiotic feed right now. I want to make sure they're looking great before I move my gouramis. For now, I'll monitor. Worst case is if the chasing intensifies, I'll temporarily move the male to the hospital tank while the rainbows settle and recover.

So I have a female thicklip gourami that is basically the love of my life at the moment. She was purchased by accident with two female honey gouramis, and I was told it was a male honey... just kidding, she's definitely a female sunset thicklip goourami. She gets along extremely peacefully with the two female honeys I purchased with her (they touch feelers gently and rest together in the same bunch of plants at night), but I noticed that she's started to chase my honey gourami male around my heavily planted 29 gallon tank. There's line-of-sight breaks along the sides and a bunch of floating plants, thinking about trying to move the hornwort to free-floating in the middle and see what that does. Other than that, should I seriously consider moving either the thicklip or the male honey to my 55 gallon tank? I don't see any real bumping, but I'm concerned about the stress on my male. He was pretty intense the first month or so he was in the tank with her (he tended to be the one chasing all the ladies around the tank while he settled), and then one day it's like she realized she's a bigger fish and decided she wasn't going to put up with him anymore. I think he's been in the tank since late June, and this has been a relatively recent development (past few weeks). Edit: I'm also so, so bad at catching fish out of that tank, so I'd like 'moving' to be the last resort.

I've just been feeding tiny tiny pinches at a time and making sure they eat all of it up before adding a little bit more. I've got 10 of them in the tank, and it looks like all are feeding, one is skinnier (but still eating) and I'm keeping a close eye on her. Thanks!

Ramshorns! I love them, tbh.

Hi @Colu, I noticed the start of what I believe to be a bacterial infection in a couple of my rainbowfish (pseudomugil signifer, symptoms are the white lip without cottony fuzz and a bit of dull-colored mucus production on the flanks). They're the first fish in my 55 gallon so I'm treating them directly in there. I have begun to feed them kanaplex-medicated feed, since they're all still active and voracious. How often do you recommend feeding? I fed them twice today in very small amounts, and I'm hoping to get enough into them to help clear up the infection. Planning on a 10 day course.

For what it's worth, I treated a diamond tetra months ago for mouth rot/fungus with maracyn and ich x. It has mostly healed but has always had a little bit of a whitish 'callous,' I suppose, where it once was. He eats fine, behaves fine, never acts sick, it never gets worse. I'm almost certain it's scar tissue. @Lama if a second round of meds doesn't affect the appearance, and if all the fish are acting and feeding fine, I'd probably just observe and make sure it's not getting worse. If they were affected by a mouth fungus it might look a little 'off' for a long time even after the infection is gone. I actually have rainbowfish right now that I'm attempting to decide whether or not I should try a treatment; it's really common in rainbowfish, I've noticed, to have a bit of that white patch to the lip. I'm seeing no fuzz and no one is acting sick, so right now, I'm just observing. Good luck!

we have alkaline water out of the tap so I'm not too worried about it. They are so cool! The entire family gets a kick out of them!

https://streamable.com/o10se4 I just got RABBIT SNAILS and they are amazing! My diatoms are going nuts, though, so they have plenty to chow on. Can't wait til the gross-looking early stage of of a new tank gets over with.

It looks a bit like poo, but also, bladder snails have this 'membrane' that's a part of their body that wraps around the side of the shell. I only really see them in bigger bladder snails. This picture kinda shows it if you look at the membrane wrapping up the side of the mantle:

I have so many different 'off-kilter' hobbies that I have a hard time talking about them in any great detail to... anyone outside the hobby sphere. I write play-by-text roleplay -- but I call it a collaborative writing group and/or reference my D&D campaign offhandedly. I'm deeply into aquatic gardening and building beautiful fish tanks for my pet fish and invertebrates, but I just say I keep a couple of fish tanks. Makeup and beauty are probably my most mainstream interests. 😅 There are actually a lot of hobbies that people on the outside won't ever really 'get' if they're not interested. So just share what makes you comfortable, and there's no need to go into detail if they don't want to talk about it with you.

Will do. I do ensure he gets fed with Repashy or invert pellets daily and he chows them fully down. The guy has an appetite for sure.

Moral of the story: Keep only one, like I do. 😅 He's super cool, but I have seen him slurp small bladder snails out of their shells and gobble them down. My blue dream shrimps are fine, though, and breeding prolifically! EDIT TO ADD: I actually bought mine at my local fish store, so I assume they were legal.

Welcome, and I'm really sorry you lost your corydoras. A few things that can help us help you are your full water parameters (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate levels, temperature of the water, pH, water hardness, whatever you can measure), and how much salt you added to the tank. I've used low levels of salt with cories without issue, but I'm not sure how they would handle higher levels.

No shame. I've been spending a pretty penny on all the plants I've collected for my tanks. We don't judge what we spend on fish, plants, and tanks in this hobby.

Dang, that's insane. It has to be because there's so many hungry babies. Never had this issue with my adult.

I keep mine in a tank with plants. If they munch on plants, it's not fast enough to make a noticeable difference. I also ensure he gets his own food daily.

I am completely not an expert at this, but my 100% anecdotal experience is that my diamond tetras (which come from softer water) breed prolifically in 10 dgH 10 dkH 8.0 ph water. If you want a higher yield than accidental occasional fry (we doubled our school over the course of 6 months accidentally), I'd follow @Fish Folk's advice and make a tannin soup.

Same deal here. They're just sitting in my 29 gallon, not growing, not dying. I wanted them to make a grass wall in the back and WELL.......... nothing. I keep adding root tabs and hoping something happens.

@Marc my guess is that eco-complete raises kH because some of the rocks dissolve slowly into the water column at lower pHs just like crushed coral. That would, in turn, raise pH. I don't think either of us noticed too much of a change in pH because we already have alkaline water at baseline. Folks with water on the squarely neutral/acidic side are more likely to see a bigger change at first.

It's a bladder snail!

Is it possibly viral lymphocystis? It looks like a growth, tumor, or cyst of some sort. What do you think, @Colu?