Crabby

Thank you GuppySnail! I guess I may as well just give the breeding a shot then now, hey? That’s very relieving about the substrate, didn’t think it would be something so simple. I guess you can still have ‘newbie questions’ when you’ve been in the hobby a while. Anyways, cheers!

So you can definitely keep them with bristlenose cats. I’ve bred my BNs with the apistos in the tank, and the apistos with the BNs in the tank. No problems there. I think cories should be fine as well, but I haven’t tried it. I’d definitely give it a go if I had space. I think Fish Folk is probably right about the softness thing. I always attribute the spawning to my pH because it seems so extreme, but my water is super soft too. I wish I could say that apistos become sexually mature at X age, but I’m not quite sure I can. My oldest juvies are now a year and a half old, and I think there’s a chance they could breed if I moved them into a different tank, but I’m not sure. They’ve grown quite slowly due to the amount of fry they had to compete with, and they’re only just speeding up that process now that I’ve sold the rest. Whereas some people will grow out their fry in a crystal clean environment with baby brine 3 times a day, and they could be sexually mature by 9 months. I’d say a year on average would be about the age of maturity, though. Sorry if that isn’t very helpful.

I did a major clean and a 50% water change on my CPD tank yesterday, since I’m trying to fix up my nano tanks this week. I’m not sure what part of this process (which included splitting and replanting some portions of HC) caused my substrate to do this, but some of the balls on the top layer have gone a grey-white colour. What is this??? For reference, I am using Oliver Knott x Pisces ‘AquaEarth’. I’ve seen it do this once before after I moved the tank from my old house to this house, and I can’t remember how I got it to go away. I’d really like to make this go back to normal, so my tank can be beautiful again. Right now I don’t just have the substrate problem, but my tank is cloudy, and a bunch of detritus has settled on all my plants and rocks, which is infuriating! And I can’t do a water change to get rid of this because I just did a 50% one yesterday, and I hate messing with my water to this extent. Also, I think my CPDs are getting ready to breed (as I type this I’m seeing two fish dancing in circles around each other), so I want to make sure I don’t unsettle them by having the tank in such a state. Any advice on what is happening, why it’s happening, and how to fix it would be much appreciated! By me and my fish. Note: my phone has slightly over saturated the last picture. It makes the tank look kinda nice. I wish it looked like this, but just imagine that the water is a bit milky, the plants are covered in brown detritus, and the substrate on the right side looks positively grey.

Wow, super cool experiment! I didn’t realise tabs could make such a difference when using soil. I might have to use some with my DHG, it’s growing awfully slowly.

Wow, that’s super interesting. My first video I have of my fry, taken on what I assume was hatching day, shows fry with eyes. How old are your escapees now? Do they have eyes yet? Also WOW, 80-100? That’s awesome! I think I’ve got 30-50, not sure how I’d handle double of that. Congrats on the big spawn.

I reckon go for the 10 gallon, and get a group of 6-10. As long as you have some hiding spots for the shrimplets, clown killies won’t actively hunt shrimplets. A sponge filter should be fine, just get one of those little cheap adjuster nozzles so you can decrease flow if you need to. I can’t imagine them nipping guppy tails, but I think they’re just better appreciated in a small aquarium due to their diminutive body size.

Ooh there’s one with Daniel?! Awesome! I definitely need to go find that. I’m addicted to the Aquarist Podcast, it’s so good. @Randy, I swear, I could listen to you talking with Joe and Rosario all day. As amazing as all the other episodes are, the ones with Joe and Rosario are by far my favourite. Looking forward to the next episodes with them. Keep it up man, you’re doing an incredible job. And I can’t wait to hear about your trip on the podcast too!

Hmm I’m not sure if you could trust the angelfish. But the gourami would be fine. The parenting instincts in apistogrammas (as described by Irene’s experiences) are very strong, and for such a small fish, a female Apistogramma sure knows how to keep her babies safe. If the angelfish are fully grown I probably wouldn’t risk it, but if they’re still young then I think you could try. I’ve heard of people breeding some types of apistos in neutral water, even in stuff a bit over neutral, but that probably means you can’t do some of the less common or more exotic types. I think lower pH should be fine for the gourami. If it’s a slow transition, most fish handle it really well. In terms of size, I’m not sure what size they can breed at. I never measured mine, and they’ve grown a bit since they first spawned. @the other Irene has a younger pair I think, she would be able to give you a more accurate measurement.

Thanks for all the help and advice everyone! The stuff I’ve seen seems to be super common, so I’m not too worried about decreasing populations. I think a 2-4 week QT would be my preferred option of making sure they’re safe. That would mean I can also very slowly bring them up to temperature (moving them from outside to the garage to the laundry and then into a tank). If I have enough time this afternoon I’ll definitely go plant hunting! Definitely tempted to grab some of the beautiful red azolla we have, but I think it’s a cold water plant?

Thank you! I’ve been thinking about making a little video to document it all, since I got a load of video footage. I’m not sure what you mean by your first question, as they all seemed to have defined eyes upon hatching. If their eyes were somewhat visible while in their eggs, I don’t think I would have ever seen it, even if I was looking for them! Dad was just doing such a great job photobombing! 😂 I just checked the dates of my photos and it looks like the first one emerged a week after hatching. I had 3 more emerge yesterday (8 days), and I’ll probably have a few more today, although I might not be able to officially count anymore if they start emerging and hiding in the driftwood instead of sticking to the grass for me to ogle at! Wow, are those as many babies as I think? It looks like hundreds! Either that or you’re using a clay cave and my eyes are getting confused. Awesome perspective though!

There isn’t a limit. Eventually they will just detach, once they get to a certain size.

That’s a great tip Gator, thanks!

Uh yeah I could see if I can grab a photo tonight and have a go at getting an ID. I’m not sure how easy that will be, but it looks kind of similar to hydrocotyl ‘Japan’, or maybe a more sparse pearl weed.

So I’m rather curious - I live in Australia (Victoria), and I found a pretty cool looking plant in a little natural pond near my house. I’d love to try it in an aquascape, but I don’t know whether this is something people do? From what I can tell, it survives year-round, but I don’t think it usually gets up to temperatures like what I would keep it at in my aquarium (22-24° Celsius). Also, how would I attempt to disinfect a plant so I can ensure I don’t bring in any bad critters? Cheers!

I was wondering how to do this! Is it just as easy to do URLs in your signature on mobile? I haven’t tried yet.

Don’t judge, I take a lot of photos of my fish 😂

That flame angel looks superb! And oooooooh mandarin goby?! Saltwater is so enticing 😂

Wow, so young! Is that just bad parenting from the father? Here are some of mine, from eggs all the way to the first one to leave the cave. They looked pretty similar to your lemons at first!

Just from that snapshot of your tank, it looks like you’re doing everything perfectly. I never fed mine baby brine so I can’t advise if you need to do anything extra while doing that. Just make sure you’re feeding the adults a bunch of good foods as well, cuz it took a lot of energy for the female to produce all those eggs. Congrats! Enjoy the experience! I bred my apistos for the first time around the 6 month mark of me getting into the hobby, and it’s an awesome experience.

Very early escapees! I just got a spawn of calicos last week and they were at that stage probably 4-5 days ago? The first one left the cave last night. Your lemons are very cute!

Haha that’s like what my female does when she’s trying to show off for my male and he won’t pay attention. She flares and dances, and then if he isn’t looking after a while, she just goes up right in his face and waves her tail in front of his nose.

Do you reckon ornamental shrimp (like neocaridina or caridina dwarf shrimp) will eat much of the hair algae? 2 or 3 of my 5 gallons will eventually have either neos or caridina shrimp. We don’t have amanos in Australia so I’d have to work out a native species that gets large enough that my male betta will leave them alone. Also is there any risk for the plants in shortening the photoperiod? Or will it be the same kind of response either way to decreasing intensity or photoperiod?

What a cool idea! I would’ve been fooled at first glance, before having a good look and going ‘hey, what are those fish that look like Julies?’ The new light looks great, and I love how the rocks are turning out.

By ‘a little less light’ do you mean decreasing the hours you have your light on for? I also struggle with green hair algae in all of my 5 gallon tanks. I want to heavily plant them but the algae takes control so quickly that the plants don’t get a chance to take hold.

So cute! Congrats on the spawn, that’s so awesome.