Sarina

I moved to Texas kinda recently and I am constantly amazed by how beautiful it is. The sky was like this for about 5 minutes during the sunset, it almost didn't look real. I took this from my balcony. Earlier in the day, about 1/4 mile from my apartment. There's mystery fish in this stream, one of these days I'll figure out what they are. I bought a macro lens for my phone, I'm pretty impressed with the quality. Anyway, hope you enjoyed my photo dump lol

I think those people are just salty that aquasoil is so exorbitantly expensive when dirt is so cheap and it works so much better. One of the youtubers I watch actually did an experiment on it and found that dirt was the better choice, I have found the same thing to be true. The only real reason aquasoil is so popular is because it’s less messy and personally I think it’s kind of a racket. I won’t hate on people for using it, but I can’t bring myself to spend that much on substrate when there are better, cheaper options, ya know?

I have to tell you, I tried ADA aquasoil and I hated every second of it. It lasted barely 10 months before falling apart and it caused a lot of nutrient and algae issues. For such an expensive product, it sure isn’t very user friendly, nor is it very long lasting. Not sure if I got a bad batch or what, but I don’t think I’ll ever touch the stuff again.

The co-op test strips are very accurate, both for ammonia and the multi-test.

The purpose of the separation is to prevent mess, so no, you don't absolutely have to have it, but it does definitely help contain everything.

I don't think that's algae, I think that's roots. Java ferns reproduce by cloning, and the babies start like that, with roots under the leaves. Usually java ferns do this if they're distressed, so you may have a nutrient deficiency.

It looks amazing! I also recently scaped a pea puffer tank! You can read about it here if you’re curious 😊

Dirted tanks are plant crack, that’s definitely true, however I highly recommend doing 2 things: 1. Use organic worm castings instead of soil. It’s finer, has less raw organic matter, and has a higher iron content. Worm castings also have the benefit of being less “hot” (lower ammonia content) so you have less risk of ammonia spikes. It takes a bit longer to really make a difference in some plants, but the results are just as impressive as regular soil. 2. Use a barrier between the soil and your cap. plastic craft mesh works, but I actually recommend using egg crate to contain it. It’s cheap and you can cut it to size really easily with a pair or wire clippers. If you want a thicker soil layer, you can simply stack two layers and it’s still pretty cheap. You can see an example of my use of egg crate with nutrient-rich soil here on my blog. I used a special soil mixture with red clay, but I’m still experimenting with it, so I can’t recommend it until I know for sure that it works well. Pretty much everyone who has ever done a dirted tank has said that it does wonders for plants, but always complains about 2 things: ammonia spikes and the mess when the dirt gets disturbed. In my experience, the worm castings and barrier nearly eliminate those problems. I’ve had great success with it so far, and it should last about as long as an aquasoil would. You can always amend it with root tabs to extend the life of it, but if you use a coarser sand or gravel to cap it, detritus from fish waste will most likely make its way down there and act as fertilizer. If you’re nervous about it, you can always try it out in a small tank before you take it on to a larger scale, but I will tell you, after having a dirted pond and a few dirted tanks, I’ll never go back to anything else.

Y’all make me not feel so bad about my habit of filling my freezer with fish food instead of people food 😂

1. No, as you’ve probably already noticed in this hobby, most of us have MTS (Multiple Tank Syndrome) and it’s a chronic issue 😂 If anything, it will just inspire you to get more tanks. 2. Not dumb at all as long as you can reasonably care for said tanks. You’ve got a cycled tank already, so it wouldn’t take much to seed a new tank with some cycled media. 3. Aquariums are expensive, but they don’t have to be super expensive. There are tons of budget options, but I do encourage you to look at the 20 or 30 long tanks. You can use a budget light on a shorter tank and it doesn’t end up looking dim on the bottom and if you have plants they’ll do just fine. The light I linked to has good reviews and is programmable with a timer integrated into the light, so you get a lot for the money. For a filter, I highly recommend either a medium sponge filter and air pump (don’t forget an air stone, line, and check valve), or one of these bad boys and some coarse filter foam as media. If you want to get fancy, you can put a polishing pad in the outflow chamber to get your water ultra clear. For substrate there are tons of cheap options, but for cory cats and most bottom dwellers, pool filter sand is a great choice and it will still grow plants with the help of root tabs. As for test kits, the co-op test kit is very inexpensive and you can split one jar of strips easily into two portions and keep some in both places. Make sure you grab ammonia tests, too! As for a siphon/python, investing in one for at home and one at work is definitely going to save you a lot of time and money. This one is my favorite. As for parameters that need “day of” attention, I see that rarely once a tank is established, but it’s worth noting that emergencies can happen at any time and being prepared is always best. Thankfully, you can buy things like seachem safe, which is a powdered, concentrated version of their other dechlorinator, and mix your own with distilled water in an opaque container for cheap. Mix ratio is 1 gram per 250ml water, dosage is 1ml liquid mix for every 10 gallons. Most aquarium emergencies (like an ammonia spike) can be handled by a dose of safe and hold you over for 24 hours. 4. Longer, lower tanks are, in my humble opinion, the best kinds of tanks because you have lots of room for territory and line of sight breaks with decor and plants, it decreases the chance for aggression. Even if you wanted to add a showpiece fish later, they would most likely live more peacefully in a longer tank vs a taller, shorter one. I know this is a ton of information and if you have questions about anything feel free to ask, I’m well versed in finding inexpensive ways to make nice looking aquariums 😅 Another helpful hint: Lowes carries all sorts of hardscape rock for super cheap and you could make an awesome, inexpensive, amazing looking tank with just hardscape, sand, and no plants. I’m an enabler, what can I say? 😉

Before I moved and had to start over with the hobby, I was a bit of a food collector 😅 I had: Repashy - 4 types; bug bites; krill flakes; freeze dried mysis; frozen mysis; frozen black worms; frozen blood worms; brine shrimp; Hikari vibra bites; Hikari first bites; micro worms; vinegar eels; white worms; grindal worms; and Sera onip tabs. So... 18 types?

Yeah I second what @Yanni said, just leave it be.

@Bill j no problem 😊

Hornwort doesn’t grow roots, so it’s best kept floating or attached to a weight. You can stick the ends in a pot of rockwool, that works extremely well for keeping it contained.

Ask your local fish and wildlife department. They can point you in the right direction for obtaining permits and identifying native and non-native species.

If you have algae issues, then the snails are probably doing you some good. If you fix the imbalance that is causing the algae, then the snail population will remain under control. I personally don't believe that pulling out snails once a week is that big of a deal. If you prefer, you could always get some assassins snails and that will take care of them.

That’s AR “mini” which stays shorter and bushier. You literally pulled that photo from an etsy ad. Standard AR gets taller (up to 2ft in my previous experience), is leggier, and tends to have more green in lower light settings.

Snails are pretty much always beneficial. They eat dying and decaying plant matter, which allows your plants to focus on producing healthy leaves (snails don’t eat healthy plants, I don’t care what anyone else says) and best of all, they eat algae from the surface of healthy leaves so that your plants can properly absorb co2 from the water column. I have a large army of Ramshorn snails in my porch pond and it’s always sparkling clean and my plants grow very well. Pond snails are similar to ramshorns, though not nearly as pretty. If you get overpopulated, just pick them out by hand or set up a snail trap with a piece of steamed vegetable to entice them to come out. Usually you can keep the population under control by just not over feeding 😊

Cyano is the absolute worst and every time I get it I end up having to nuke the whole tank to get it to completely go away. Some people have had success with 5 day blackouts, some have had success with adding power heads/air stones to increase flow and oxygenation, some have had success with using products to try to kill it. My advice is to first try adding some air stones around the area where you’re getting cyano to increase the dissolved oxygen and the flow. Stagnant areas of built up nutrients usually cause cyano to thrive, so if you remove the stagnant areas, it shouldn’t have any good host spots. Remove as much as you can with a siphon and then make sure that spot doesn’t get stagnant again. Do small, frequent water changes to bring down the nutrient levels to almost nothing. If it has nothing to eat, it should die off. If you have plants, unfortunately this method will probably cause them to suffer a bit, but the cyano is probably outcompeting them anyway. The final thing you can do is a 5 day blackout. This part isn’t fun, but it’s another method of starving the cyano completely. If all of that doesn’t work, then yeah, time to nuke the tank and start over. Cyano isn’t necessarily harmful unless you have plants that it is stealing nutrients from, but it’s unsightly and has the potential to release toxic compounds into the water column, which is why it’s necessary to do small, frequent water changes while attempting to kill it. You might even consider adding some activated carbon to your filter to help suck up anything potentially harmful to your livestock. If you don’t have plants in your tank yet, I would encourage you to grab some pothos cuttings and stick them in your filter or clip them to the edge of your tank (I usually use aluminum floral wire) so the roots are in the water, sucking up the excess nutrients and preventing the cyano from returning. I hope this helps you out some, I wish you the best of luck.

Underwater shot of the “AR forest” in my pond. They’re a little leggy at the top, but that’s because the past week has been dark and stormy here in North Texas and they don’t have any sort of supplementary lighting. I should also note that there are two different sources in here: Tropica tissue culture and co-op potted stems. The potted stems have always been leggy, no matter how much light they’re getting. This is in my brand new 11.3g AIO (very tannic from driftwood at the moment) and these are cuttings that I planted a bit less than a week ago. As you can see, these plants aren’t necessarily “difficult” I prefer to think of them like badly behaved children that throw tantrums 😅 they whine and cry a lot about changes to their routine, but they’re very resilient and usually bounce back and end up happy in the end.

The top one appears to be a type of minnow, the bottom appears to be a goby fry of some sort? Difficult to tell when they’re that small. Honestly if you don’t have a collection permit and you don’t know what species you’re looking at, you really should not be taking native fish from their habitat. Collection of any kind without a permit usually illegal and you could unknowingly do harm to a threatened population.

@Mmiller2001 I’ve been growing AR in my porch pond without co2 and quite frankly without consistent temperatures, too. The pond is dirted and I use ferts, but other than that I do basically nothing with it and it grows quite well. I’ve also had successful propagations of it, it’s just a more dramatic plant than most. I don’t think I’d be so negative about AR when it’s such a popular plant in the hobby. It may be frustrating to be patient for two months while it gets established, but I wouldn’t say it’s a difficult plant or that it has to have co2 to grow well.

I feel like this halfway belongs in the memes thread 😂

@Tyler LaZerteyes they would! Plus otos are really cool little fish 😊

Yeah I would imagine they are! They're such great little cleaner snails. I have tons of them, they're in every setup I have because they keep everything nice and clean.