eatyourpeas

Fun! I just looked up Black Lizard Loaches and they look beautiful. Can’t wait to see more pictures. My WCMMs love aphids too! It is nice to know they’ll have plenty of food when I go away for a while. Thunder shook our house as well! 🤪

Congratulations, @billango! My Lampeyes fry (2 of them) live in the same tank as the parents, and I have fed them Hikari First Bites. There is also enough micro fauna in the tank, and heavy vegetation for some protection. The CPDs in that tank try to predate on them, for sure.

This took place over a few days, so no time lapse since I needed my device. 😁

You may want to check @OnlyGenusCaps journal entry for the Pseudo Saltwater Tank. He did a great job at making it look marine.

Congratulations!!! It is going to be fun having you as a neighbor. Please keep us posted, and looking forward to maybe seeing you at a GSAS meeting! 😃

Please always be my bad influence!!! 😂

Well, it has been a while. Life has sort of taken over, and am just resurfacing. Our youngest graduated and moved out this week, so we are officially empty nesters! A few things have happened, and this tank never ceases to amaze me. My thanks to all who are keeping up with it, since it is not a FW tank, but!, it is now officially a planted tank. Marine gone veggie! A few shots of the red macros: And another anemone split. It looks a lot like a gymnastics leg split, and hurts about the same to watch: Gobies doing goby things, boys hanging out, girls loading eggs: On the filtration side of things, all looks good. I did add a small internal skimmer to the V-Sump to help with the waste. Parameters continue to be stable.

A very good point made by @Seattle_Aquarist regarding O2, making sure an air stone is added to the tank during higher temps.

I would just warn about putting nocturnal fish in a pea puffer tank. They can be easily startled and cause them to either jump off or hurt themselves. I have not had success with Otos either, as my pea puffer attacked them and killed one.

They do. He is only 1.5" and will potentially grow to anywhere between 6" and 11" in size. I am planning on a larger tank for him, probably a 75 gallon, and this is the time where I get to plan for it so I can do it right. 🙂

I love my pea puffers, They each have their own tank, and share with Neocaridina, Amano, Nerite and snack snails. They have just discovered that shrimplets are food, so they hunt accordingly.

I really like my Pygmy corydoras, but I made the unfortunate mistake of housing them with a Kuhli loach, and he just bulldozes the poor Pygmies at night, injuring some to death. I just added a Chinese Algae Eater to that tank, and now they are out and about more, and swim with Elmer (CAE) and I have not lost another since. I call them the Biker Gang, as they come and swim to the front of the tank and do this little fin flutter, then they go into smaller groups and gossip for a while, then they get together again. Fun little fish!

Evaporative cooling can be quite effective. If you have a canister filter, placing it in a cooler with an ice pack helps a lot.

I will be curious as to your solution to keeping plants. I was only able to succeed with Marimo balls when I had the brackish tank, but now they can't be found. Mangroves?

Okay, this is not the plant in the tank because I can't get a good picture, and this bio ring is as loud as a marshmallow, but hopefully you get the idea... It is wedged in a little crevice-like space that exists in the wood. This allows the plant to send roots through the bottom and attached itself to the wood.

Yes. Thread the roots through the ring, then glue the ring to the wood.

This little pajama shrimp has the most amazing colors. She is a blue and red Rili, and the saddle against her colors looks fun.

I have been having good results with ceramic bio-rings as weights, as well as making planters out of stringing them. They age and become pretty invisible, plus more for BB to feed on. They can be easily removed if the plants decide to vacate. Please excuse the pea puffer photo bomber...

I agree. I wonder if it has anything to do with agricultural import regulations.

According to this article, they originate from India. I am not sure if the TC are grown there and then imported.

Just arrived! I went to the ADA store in San Francisco and fell in love with these plants, so I ordered some for this tank and the one where Elmer and the Biker Gang live. Can't wait to see how they do!

Always keeping everyone on their toes! I should have figured it out during the spawning, but my brain did not register it. 😆 Still love Ursula Flerken, no matter! So, @Patrick_G may find this information relevant to his puffer tank. What we experience with our planted aquariums, is that there is a way to export NO3 via plants, which consume it. In the SW tank, unless I keep up with macros, there is no such export. The critters eat macros quite voraciously, so replenishing them is essential to keep this balance. The few macros that are able to grow in the tank are the reds, which they do not seem to favor. The other interesting tidbit, is that anemones consume ammonia. So, the BB in the sump was being too efficient at consuming it and converting it to NO3, depriving the anemones from food, and generating a byproduct that had nowhere to go. The SW critters produce an incredible amount of waste, and the tank being temperate does not really accommodate a refugium like tropical SW tanks have. So, I eliminated all the sponges in the V-Sump, the only BB is what lives in the tank and whatever surfaces make up the interior of the sump. That seems to be enough to feed the amount of macros that live in the tank at a given point. More NO3 simply has nowhere to go. The only filtration is socks and some ceramic bio-rings. I just started using Purigen and it works quite well. I also went from 50 micron mesh to 200 micron felt. NO3 readings went from 200ppm to zero. NO2 from 10 to zero. Ammonia was always zero. With the anemones getting more food, they are simply getting huge and more colorful. Now, the bad side effect is it has me wondering how long before they outgrow this tank. Eeeek! A problem for another day... Now I can go away and only worry about changing the big sock and the Purigen when I get back. My daily cleaning has now been reduced to a once a week event. I like that! 🙂

On a filtration/parameter note on this tank, biological filtration is a no-no when there are not enough macros to consume the nitrates. This tank is now heavy on mechanical filtration, with some chemical filtration when I go away for two weeks or more. Parameters are spot on, critters are happy, LBF are starting to get loaded eggs again. I went to get some Ulva to add green to the tank. The water was quite cold and murky and a few krill hitchhiked on the Ulva. Also, Ursula Flerken is a boy anemone! Kindly pointed out to me by a biologist I met on the ferry ride home. The spawn was sperm, not eggs. 😵

Ahh, the signs of a good puffer! She is adorable, indeed. I think Globe suits her, of course, coming from the person who has a girl Corydoras named Archibald Spooner and a boy anemone named Ursula Flerken. 🐡

There was no mention of tank temperature, and that may be exacerbating inmune issues due to stress. Bettas like warm water, White Clouds prefer it on the cool side, for example. As others mentioned above, too much cleaning. Your BB needs a place to rest, and critters do not like their house messed up too often. The only reason for having floss in a canister filter is as a water polishing. You should be fine without it. I replaced the media in my canister filters with 20ppi and sponges and ceramic rings. They get cleaned once every 4 months or so. I do not think your tanks are overstocked, so small water changes should suffice, especially with the canister filter. I hope you can get the tank to a good point again.