Scrum Fish

Oh, for sure, it could be a risk. However, he knows to be very careful around it and his room is just for sleeping and reading/watching movies. All the rambunctious stuff goes on elsewhere in the house or in the yard.

I had recently added some mineral stones to add some calcium for the benefit of the snails and shrimps. Seems to be helping the hornwort a bit! It isn’t looking as sickly as it was and I can see some new growth. Fingers crossed! Good news is that it is growing so fast in the 29 gallon that I’ll have an endless supply! The living room tank is hornwort heaven.

I do have a request for advice about something, as well. One of the plants I have in that tank is hornwort. I put in clippings from the hornwort in my living room tank, which has been growing like, well, a weed for a decently long time. The first few sprigs I put in ended up shedding all their needles and I pulled them out and disposed of them. This was during cycling, and I chalked it up to just the general water conditions and the fact that it was pretty hot in there for the bacteria's benefit. After the cycle was done I added more clippings, which are faring better than their predecessors but have lately just not been looking as lush and green as the plant I cut them from. The java ferns, water sprites, tripartita, lotuses, amazon sword, and anubias have all been growing or at least just maintaining as healthy looking plants. Any ideas what commonly makes hornwort unhappy?

My 29 gallon tank has been rockin' along just fine for a while now and is about as fully stocked as it can get. I've posted about it in another thread, but it was my re-introduction to fishkeeping. I did everything wrong up front, didn't know enough about cycling, how to set up effective filters, the benefits of live plants, etc. Just dumb. I got better due in large part to the Aquarium Coop Youtube channel. So, cut to my son's fifth birthday. We took him on a little mini-vacation and at one point were talking about rearranging his bedroom. One of the things we discussed was donating a lot of the toys he no longer plays with. He reacted so favorably to that idea that I was impressed. He had talked about wanting a tank in his room before, so my wife and I made a deal with him that once his room was rearranged we'd reward his generosity and get a tank for his room. He'd get to pick out the fish (with my veto power, haha) and I'd get it set up and do the maintenance at first. He always helps with tank maintenance, but over time I'll be handing this one over to him fully as he gets older. Actually did things correctly and did a fishless cycle. Got some plants from a local store and from Aquarium Coop. Introduced a few snails, then finally, when it was time, started stocking fish. We introduced them in stages, starting with some emerald corys. Next up was a gang of kuhli loaches (my son's favorite fish). A school of Endlers and Tiger Endlers followed that. Next up were a few mystery snails and some amano shrimps. Lastly were his centerpiece fish: a powder blue dwarf gourami he named Gimli (after the flame dwarf in the living room tank), two female dwarfs named Glenda and Olivia, and an apistogramma agassizii who is named (and this, here, is why you let a five year old name things) Max "Bad Boy" Tiger Death.

The flame gourami I have in my living room tank will do this! He'll follow my face or my son's face if he notices us near the glass and swim back and forth putting on a show. I'm sure he has learned to associate us with feeding haha I have just recently begun stocking a tank in my son's room and the centerpiece fish will be a betta. I am really looking forward to this sort of interaction and personality!

Luke next to my fat sausage thumb. He was excited.

Ok, definitely ponds in my case. Bladders do have adorable faces, with those little eyes! I'm keeping an eye on their numbers, but they're not hurting anything and are being diligent little workers, so they're welcome.

Here he is with his clean shell

Next time he's on the front glass I'll get a thumb pic to show him in all his golden glory! We've got a handful of little hitchikers that presumably rode plants into the tank, but they've been putting in work and aren't hurting anything, so I don't see them as pests. My 5 year old loves them, too, so they stay. A few are ramshorns and a few appear to be pond snails. I assumed bladder snails at first but their shells lean to the right, which would make them ponds, wouldn't it? This is all still new to me.

Love seeing all the mystery snails! I have one named Luke who has a bit of an interesting story. My 29 gallon tank was originally a bullfrog habitat (RIP Felix Jim, you were a good dude). Luke lived in the water portion of the tank and helped keep algae down. The bullfrog habitat wasn't heated and during the winter Luke shut himself up behind his trap door and went into hibernation. A film of black algae grew on his shell and he stayed immobile for quite some time. After FJ passed, I was cleaning everything out to turn the tank back into an aquarium. I picked up Luke's shell and wondered if he was even still alive. Stuck him in a small container of warmer water with an algae wafer and got back to work. Much to my surprise he popped out and started eating! He has really come into his own in the new environment and has grown rapidly! He started making new shell growth in his original gold color and so for a while was a two-tone snail, haha. As you'll see in the second video, he had some help getting the rest of it off and is now fully returned to his original bright color. One of my friends wondered if Luke has stories for the other snails and fish. "You kids have no idea what I've seen. When I was young the water was low and sometimes cold and the world was ruled by a giant green monster who could tread land and water!" Luke doing his best Tony Hawk: Getting a shell cleaning from a little comrade:

That was a great read and your setup is beautiful! Sorry to read about the bad frozen good incident. Is that common? I’m new to the hobby and have bought frozen food once so far.

Thanks for the kind words! My Amano shrimps love that moss ball. They have taken over that castle. It’s hollow inside, so they’ll use the doorway and traipse in and out and then hop onto that moss ball or roam around cleaning plants.

First aquarium since one I had about 20 years ago as a teenager. First one with live plants. 29 gallons, maybe starting to get the hang of it. Fed them some love baby brine shrimp for the first time and it seemed like a hit. Maybe put too much in, but I can adjust that next time and it looked cool at least, haha

Hey, everybody! Greetings from Alabama! New fishkeeper here, for the second time. I had an aquarium as a teenager and have just started another in my mid-thirties. From what I remember of the old tank my brother and I had some kind of gouramis, a cichlid of some sort, corys, hatchetfish, some kind of loach I believe, and who knows what else. We didn't have any real plants and got all of our fish from Wal-Mart back then. It actually lasted a pretty good while until the heater in it went berserk and cooked everything while we were away on vacation. Still not sure exactly how that happened, but it was the end of my fishkeeping for a long time. Fast forward to being a middle aged dad. My mom gets my young son a tadpole. We raised him into a frog and he lived in a 29 gallon aquarium that I made into a frog habitat for what turned out to be a bullfrog. He was thriving, mowing down crickets, generally being a pretty chill dude until he died rather suddenly. I am pretty sure that he ate one of the mystery snails that were cleaning the water portion of his tank and wasn't able to digest it properly. Rest easy, bro. So, no more keeping frogs in the house. Going to dig a little pond in the backyard and let the frogs that already live in my area hang out there. What to do with the aquarium, then? I start using it for its intended purpose, but do everything wrong which results in several tetras and guppies dying. I do more research, find resources like Aquarium Coop, and now have a pretty decent thing going (I hope). Found a good dedicated fish store only about 45 minutes away and have a planted tank with some corys, kuhli loaches, rasboras, tiger endlers, dannios, a gang of amano shrimp, the mystery snail that the frog did not eat (and a few little hitchhiker snails), and a dwarf flame gourami (Gimli Gloin, as he's a dwarf) who struts around like he owns the place. I am amazed at a lot of the pictures and videos people are posting in here of their beautiful aquascapes! I really look forward to talking with and learning from y'all! I'll get a more comprehensive view of my humble little world up later, but for now here's the Amano crew enjoying their newest toy: