KentFishFanUK

Awesome pictures and write up! Can't wait to see all the other nano fish go in. I've always thought if I ever do a larger tank I will still stock it with nano fish, think that will look amazing. Following the topic, keep us updated!

No worries, yeah you are probably right they are probably just too small for adults. Will have to look into white worms and black worms etc! I think I read somewhere that you have to he careful the black worms don't establish themselves and infest your substrate too much, have you had any issues at all? My Endlers and Neon Tetras seem to be just fine eating off the bottom alongside my cories so probably won't matter where in the tank their food goes! And yes I've noticed your writing is fantastic, if you do some journalling especially with pictures as well I will definitely be reading! Thanks for your replies.

Thank you @Odd Duck!! Really appreciate you taking the time. Interesting that they appear to prefer the fine flake food, I assumed any live food (providing they take it at all) they would get more excited over than dry food. I eagerly await attempt number 2 of the experiment! I was hoping that small fish would enjoy them as a treat, along with the showing the natural behaviours of going after live food. I want to find a live food that will survive in the tank until eaten and was easy to culture and harvest so vinegar eels sounded perfect, but no good if my fish aren't interested! Might have to go back to my original plan of daphnia but they don't seem quite as simple to do as vinegar eels. At the moment I try and vary their diet with flake food, micro pellets, sinking wafers and repashy however the first three basically have the same ingredients just in different forms and only the repashy offers something different. So far their favourite seems to be flake food so my next plan when I run out of the dry foods is to order a variety of flakes - krill flakes and artemia flakes and a couple others so at least there is some variety there not just fish meal as the main ingredient. By the sounds of it you must have quite the fish room going (I follow you on here as you always seem to be free with your helpful advice 😁) have you ever filmed a fish room tour?

Great thanks! If nothing else, let me know how your experience goes and if your adult fish go for them 😀

Sorry to hijack the topic but this got me googling vinegar eels. I'm planning on feeding some live food to my fish and the vinegar eels look so easy to culture and feed etc but does anyone have experience of adult fish eating them? Or are they only good for fry? My fish are all small, neon tetras and panda cories etc, wondering if vinegar eels are still be too small for the adults to eat.

Has anyone tried wabi kusa balls in their planted tanks? Read about them today and my mind has been going wild at the possibilities ever since. Looks like most people use them for emersed growth in small vases etc but they can be used completely submerged too apparently. Aside from the obvious artistic application it just seems like a practical way of including plants in otherwise non planted tank, just plop it in wherever you fancy get the benefits of plants but still be able to quickly move it whenever you need to clean the tank or rearrange it etc. Like using a natural looking plant pot. Anyone tried them out? Got any pointers of how to DIY them? For anyone still reading, also got a couple random algae questions, my tank has quite a lot of algae at the moment, mostly because I was avoiding cleaning it as was waiting for a hillstream loach which I wanted lots of food for. I'm also not too fussed with the look, it almost looks nice I enjoy the natural touch of it. Anyway question is about a couple types of algae, I noticed today small patches of red algae that looked almost shiny, like small puddles of melted red wax - could anyone tell me what it is or if I should be concerned or anything? Secondly I have a patch of algae that I assumed was black beard algae, only there's this strange effect that when I look at it on one side of the glass it looks black but when I look from the other side of the glass it looks red - is that always the case for BBA or is it something else? Thanks in advance!

Not so long ago I spoke with a guy in Austria who is breeding and selling different strains of rice fish, he said they can overwinter outside and will tolerate a thin ice cap (though obviously not freezing all the way through). Not first hand experience but still, I'm in the UK and Austria has a similar climate to here. I keep a couple goldfish in a small outdoor pond and they do just fine all winter in the UK, the usual advice us that as long as the pond is 24" deep then they will do fine. My pond is only 18" deep and they have been fine anyway but it's an in the ground pond not tub which will insulate it somewhat. Unless your part of the world has very extreme winters you'd probably be just fine with either of those all winter. You could always get one of those floating pond heaters/place the pond somewhere sheltered like near the house/maybe wrap the pond in some sort of insulation or even dig it partially in the ground to be sure. Goldfish can basically hibernate near the bottom of the pond when it's very very cold, their metabolism slows down and they don't eat or move much and you aren't supposed to put food in. Maybe rice fish do something similar? I assume koi do the same but not sure about other fish.

Thanks! I found the first page you mentioned and the page on seriously fish website and an old article from Amazonas but the details disagreed, didn't think of chasing down content contributers! Might have to shoot them an email and see if they mind sharing their experience. Probably better than just taking the plunge and ordering a couple and seeing how they do haha

Has anyone heard of/have experience with Biotoecus Opercularis? I found it whilst browsing randomly on a wholesalers website, never heard of it before but looks awesome and suitable for small tanks apparently, don't know why I've never heard it mentioned/suggested before! The wholesaler gave it's common name as fairy cichlid but when I Google fairy cichlid it comes up as something completely different so no idea what it's common name is otherwise. Maybe dwarf fairy cichlid?

Not just state, in the UK here and I'm crying out for an Aquarium Co-op franchise across the pond! And a career change haha. In all seriousness though a franchise like aquarium co-op would be a breath of fresh air, the LFSs here are usually either run and staffed by people who don't know or care much about anything other than selling stuff (or well meaning but inexperienced school kids), or run by passionate knowledgeable people who don't know how to run a business and barely scrape by. The exception I've found so far is a guy who runs his breeding and store operation out of his garage in his spare time and also has a well paying day job. The chain pet stores are actually pretty good in terms of stock and (overpriced) dry goods etc but the staff mostly don't know much (though in my experience they will be the first to admit it and just Google stuff for you if you ask them a question). Large garden centres often have a decent enough fish section and seem to employ more experienced/knowledgeable staff but they normally are really small and a bit of an afterthought from the rest of the store and again are a bit overpriced. Having a brand like aquarium co-op that takes all the good things of each option into one, with their own well designed products or at least third party products that they actually test and recommend would just be amazing. Anyway sorry about the essay, I just really want an Aquarium Co-op here!

Hi hope this is the right place for this, as I'm hopeful it's not disease related! But is fish health related if not disease. I have just added 8 neon tetras to my tank almost a week ago, so far they all seem to be doing alright. They aren't shy, swimming about, great colour on them etc. One thing I notice about them though is that all of them have bulging bellies to one extent or another after feeding them, is this a bad sign? Illness? Feeding too much? I'm pretty sure it subsides over time as I never notice it unless I just fed them (though keep forgetting to have a closer look before I feed). If it's the most obvious issue, that I'm feeding too much, how do I feed them less when it's a community tank? My Endlers don't seem as voracious and my corydoras just graze all day so I want to make sure everyone eats as much as they need. It's still all eaten pretty quickly (except maybe the cories sinking pellets which take a little while to soften and then get eaten, or when I feed repashy all the inhabitants finish it off over a longer period). I won't answer all the usual water parameter stuff as don't think it's relevant in this case but I can test the water tomorrow and post it all if anyone thinks it is!

Nana petite is what I have in my community tank and it's doing better than anything else I have! Hoping for my next tanks that the nana and barteri versions are just as hardy and nice looking, don't really know the differences between them other than I assume they are bigger

I just about beat you to it, I googled one of the plants suggested above and found that exact page, I never knew what epiphytic meant until now! But yeah that's exactly what I needed to know, thanks!

@FlyingFishKeeper @Phantom240 Thanks to both of you! Any particular favourites? I've heard about Bucephalandra but didn't realise I could treat it the same way but no idea what it looks like so I'll look it up! Bolbitis I've never even heard of haha. Thanks again

Hope it's not frowned on to keep asking questions here this is like my fifth or sixth topic this week! Anyway so my question is, Java Ferns and Anubias can be glued to rocks - are there any other plants I can do that with? In my 20 gallon community I have aqua soil and all sorts of plants etc but when I set up my fish room I want to keep the tanks real simple and I like the idea of just using plants attached to rocks so I can easily move them to gravel vac underneath or rearrange the tank. It doesn't matter if they are slow growing etc as I won't need them for filtration, will use a pothos for that (plus sponge or canister filters). It's just for enrichment for the fishes and hiding spots etc. Want to avoid floating plants this time but the pothos resting on top of the lid will provide shade and cover.

Very cool one day I'll try a walstad myself. I'll be reading through your journals!

Looks like quite a deep substrate too? Are you going for the whole denitrifying bacteria thing? Or just for the benefit of the plants?

@Streetwise love it! I love heavily planted tanks. I will likely go for sponge filters too. Interestingly mine are different dimensions, yours looks like a cube? Mine is longer than it is deep or high.

I have to admit danios have never wowed me so haven't considered them much. Saw an albino(?) version at the LFS yesterday and they looked real nice. And this is all good info! Will try and remember it if I ever keep some danios. Need to start a notebook with all this useful information people post! You don't hear about stuff like the effect of that medication on generic care sheets you see online. I hope you do your huge group in a 50 one day!

I'm pretty sure I can keep parameters good and stable, can get whatever filtration set up I need plus planning on plants and pothos plus I've signed up to some company that sells RO water (mostly for people going like cleaning etc for a living but they talk about aquarists on their website too) I was mostly worried about them having enough swimming space. I would guess that GBRs don't need any more than Bolivians though right? So if yours are happy maybe they are back in the maybe pile haha. Bolivians too for that matter. Thanks!

@Tom H I got really confused for a minute, I was thinking "wait it's never shown my real name before only the username, that's weird I wonder if it's a bug" then I read the comment again "wait I didn't write that" then it dawned on me we just have the same name lol

I have no idea what most of those are so I'll be copying and pasting into Google later haha. My 'fish guy' has both scarlet, red tiger and blue badis and he recommended the red tigers though he claims he gets male and female of any of them. I like them all! The red tigers are slightly bigger and deeper colours and apparently less shy too so they might be a good alternative to Scarlets.

Good idea, I'm not a fan of regular gouramis but I like sparkling gouramis.

Oh wow I love those, is a 7.5 gallon ok or do they need loads of room or a big group?

Thanks, where do I find one?