Jimmy

LFS had great looking mutt guppy tanks to look through. I brought home 3 females with nice red tails who appear to be from the same stock. Also grabbed one lucky male too keep them company. He’s nothing high end just good health initially. I’ve had the fish in my care for 2 days. Water is moderately hard, 0 ammonia and nitrite. Temp 74~. All four guppy’s look kinda washed out but in great health otherwise. Eat like voracious pigs. I haven’t brought home fish in awhile so I’m a little jumpy. Should I be concerned? Do some guppies take a length of time to color back up? Pardon my ignorance, I don’t typically keep guppies! This is a particularly bad photo they are squirmy buggers.

It’s not cramped at all, just no room for any more tanks. It’s a nice laboratory

I saw some daisy blue rice fish leftover in a local LFS. They didn’t look that great but I’m interested in seeing some good stock or developed adults

I couldn’t get mine to lay flat so duckweed and other floaters inevitably made it under. I’ve only kept floaters in one tank but eventually fished it all out due to being tired of getting my arm covered anytime I had to do maintenance on the aquarium

So close grabbed some guppy female and a single male. Got 11 white clouds(1 extra jumped in bag) and 6 goldens. It appears I landed a good mix of males and females. Goldens in there own tank, and split the normal stock into 2 10s neither of these fish will be my focus but I’m waiting a bit on the psuedomugils, tetras and corys. I intend on breeding what I got today. Both are kinda just put in water plug and play breeders

I will run substrate in my Cory tanks but probably won’t run a whole lot of substrate otherwise. There’s so many approaches.

Thanks as always. I will make sure to check for that. Nothing feels moist and seems within range. I still might return my dehumidifier and upgrade. 75+ degrees and 50-55 percent on humidity isn’t the most comfortable. going to LFS to “look” today

Started a new job so fish room progress slowed down. Honestly I spent quite a bit to get this room out so I’m not taking any stocking too seriously initially. I was able to get my inkbird controller and finally kick the heat on. Lows have got down to the 50s and the room holds a comfortable 75-76 and the heater doesn’t seem to need to kick on much. Interested in what stability I will have this winter. With a room temp of 76 the tank temperatures seem to so far be stable. Bottom rack is 71.5+, 73~ for the middle rack and 74 for top. I may raise the room temp again. Humidity seems to hold at 50-55 and I’m not certain if that’s due to the room or the ambient temp/humidity outside. I anticipate it dropping naturally with the colder weather that will be coming soon. I’m also uncertain if 55~ is concerning? I’m willing to monitor it day to day. Also worth mentioning that I have access to the insulation above the ceiling that I can monitor but I doubt any buildup will happen at this threshold. I’m no expert. still have cord management to do please skip past that!

Funny we always want what we don’t have. Fortunately soft water fish can be kept in water with more mineral content and higher PH generally but not the other way around. My ph and hardness went up a little over 12 hours but not enough. I’m going to monitor it. Fun experiment if anything

I believe it’s the same mix as GH booster. I only used it a few times but I didn’t enjoy how it initially clouded the water

That’s a pretty good solution

Is that essentially all you do to your soft water? I had an idea of just throwing a media bag in a few tanks and monitoring the values

I got that mineral deficient PNW water a lot of you guys hear about. If I wanted to do livebearers I know I will need to alter it slightly. I have a bag of GH booster and even a full bag of aragonite sand. I contemplated filling up media bags with aragonite sand for the aquariums I wanted to run with guppies. Would it be likely I need any additional supplementation? I suppose a TDS meter would be helpful to indicate a little more on how much solids I have. Any feedback is appreciated, what would you nerms do?

I’ve been gifted many decorations over the years I’m pretty good at accepting them now lol. I will let the littles enjoy them for a bit

Woke up early today and got to some tinkering. I grabbed some pothos clippings from the house and got to work. Unfortunately I won’t be able to have pothos on my bottom racks due to my toddlers but I will slowly start drilling holes for my starts. Here’s some of my progress You may see a hideous decoration. It was a gift from some time ago from someone who wasn’t a fish keeper. I of course graciously accepted and just sat on them. I threw two in this morning for giggles and secondly as simple as it may be I’m sure the kids will have a trip seeing the mushrooms and jelly fish lol. Not likely to become a permanent fixture.

This is great information, thank you!

UPDATE So a few things to catch you guys on. Can’t say it’s interesting or exciting lol. The shop lights I ended up are showing to be quite useful. The hanging hardware is pretty weak so once you pop it in it’s best to leave it alone or the little bracket gets week. They also link together which is fantastic but unfortunately the link cords are only 20 inches long. So effectively if you want to link a light to the rack below, it won’t reach. After wiring the room I had confidence that allowed me to splice the extra link cords and extend. Got to start filling up for the leak test in all the aquariums. This was an exciting step, my work is starting to come to fruition. I don’t have to explain this to my fellow nerms! No picture but I ran all the air lines. 27 taps on the linear piston air pump from the coop isn’t enough ports. I have the remaining 8 valves partially open, if not it’s an insane amount of air for the aquariums. The bubbles were nearly displacing enough water to push the lids up! I don’t mind the light hissing for the time being but I will likely need to cut in the blow off like we talked about recently. I have 1 inch pipe so if anyone has part suggestions that would be great. Cut a hole for the exhaust vent and duct. Pretty self explanatory. Drilled a hole with a bit to start then followed my traced line with a jigsaw. Struggled getting this duct around the exhaust and the outside vent. I think the style of duct I got was tough to work with. I stapled zip ties to the wall and run it under both sides to make sure it sat securely. I imagine I will have to go back and adjust. I always used spray foam around the vent hole to make sure the exhaust feeds directly outside. The execution on this wasn’t perfect but it’s good enough for the time being. Fastened a board from one rack to the other for my brine ship hatchery. It’s in the most convenient spot I can think of. The hatchery sits well on it and I can comfortably place another one. Here’s the fastener I used for one side.

Patrick I’m sorry I didn’t see this post. I currently have 4 sponges tucked in my overgrown 40b. I don’t plan on stocking as quickly as I built therefore I’m not in a hurry. Secondly the room has been holding a steady 68~ But I’m waiting for a controller for the heater. I stupidly didn’t notice it was a on/off switch only unit. I plan on grabbing a medium sponge from one of the 20s and hooking it up to air in my 40b. I may pop open my canister and seeding a few tanks prior to stocking if I’m expecting by pouring some of the mulm out. My 40b is housing angels and albino bristlenose that I might initially play around with. I should have eggs any day, I will probably cut out of the sword leaf that they decide to lay on. Once those 4-5 sponges go into the room I will move the next group in.

I was worried about to light of a substrate. Maybe cutting it is a good idea

Fantastic lol

Different grain size? I will have to go stop by a spa place

Anything in pool filter sand to cause ammonia?

Pool filter sand looks really nice I will have to admit

Appreciate the feedback, I guess I’m more interested in pre bagged sand for the hobby, significantly less rinsing lol