CJs Aquatics

I’m interested in the results of this post, I’ve never heard of egg bound mystery snails but I suppose it could be a thing

@Colu

This article may help: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/planted-aquarium-substrate personally have had decent success with many of the ones listed however recently I’ve used a layered deep substrate of clay, capped with laterite, capped with dirt, capped with black sand and been pretty impressed with the results, some algae issues but most were due to my inexperience at the time of doing them and were rectified easily and in future tanks just by being more present, I hope this helps

Copy that I’ll make different adjustments then originally planned thanks again

Thank you @Cory, I’ve never chased parameters I just recently thought perhaps I should take a closer look as I have suspicions things were shifting a bit and causing various things to be negatively effected. I feel a bit better now actually I appreciate you, I’ll just do more maintenance and that should help with stability.

not the best picture but to go along with it the coop test strips

My tap water being tested currently using an api test kit reads high ph of like 8.4+ if I did it correctly and I tested GH/KH at 6 drops GH, 4 drops KH… I have been keeping fish long enough to know a little about these numbers but honestly water chemistry is still a bit of a foreign language to me, I’m trying to dial things in specifically. What would you do with these numbers to make your water optimal for a majority of things?

they are awesome! Mine are food crazy. They have great eyesight so as soon as I come into the room they are swimming erratically to the front of the glass hoping I feed them some shrimp. Very inquisitive as far as what’s going on in there tank, they like to investigate. There color appears to morph when I do water changes or when the lights turn on. They love there clay pot caves I got them. I will say I started with 3, and only have 2 left and I’m convinced they would not allow the 3rd one to live a happy life in that tank, I tried everything. Even though they came together he was never accepted, and did not make it out of quarantine essentially, but the 2 I have left get along great. Huge shout out to @mountaintoppufferkeeper he’s been somewhat of a mentor/ hero to me, he was the one who originally steered me in there direction and provided a wealth of knowledge and experience to aid in it going successfully. I would ask him any specific questions you may have about the species as he will for sure know. I will say they turned out to be a favorite in my fishroom, I can’t wait to get a few more…great medium sized puffer option with a lot of personality

This depends very highly on a number of factors. I believe mostly it would depend on the starting size of the puffer. Fahakas get really really big but it does take a while to achieve that truly massive size in most cases. It would depend on what size you started with as to how long it would be able to stay in 75. There are many puffer species you could also look into that can live in a 75, solo or colony setting that are really cool as well. Adequate filtration as well as layout of the tank plays a huge part in how long it would be able to remain there, however with all this said it’s still hard to quantify without knowing some of the above factors. I currently keep dragons, peas, and Mekong’s. The Mekong’s are amazing, as are the dragons. As far as tank mates there is mixed info on that. If you look online most puffer species will say they can not be kept with anything however I find that not to be entirely true. They are a lot like dogs in regard to personality. Where some dogs like other dogs and some dogs really don’t. I’ve had success keeping them in colony settings (just their species) the ones I’ve kept at least, however I’ve heard people keep certain ones with different types of fish such as rainbows and variatus platies, it really just depends on what type as well as it’s specific personality.

this is probably a preference thing because eighter way will work. You could remove the old, and if you went that route I would suggest just a little at a time rather then all at once. Or you could cap it with sand if you don’t want to take it all out and don’t mind the look…

Omg, those are spectacular

Wow! Thank you so much @Fish Folk I’m super excited to get into some of these, haven’t started killifish yet but I’m super interested in them as well, I truly appreciate it

Can anyone recommend any interesting literature on freshwater fish species or plants, ecology of freshwater systems/ biotopes, breeding, scholarly or scientific journals etc. any awesome material pertaining the hobby?

Thanks again @Colu I’m gonna take a breather and access every possibility tomorrow I took off work to do it

Throughout the past few weeks I have seen a number of different diseases creep up. I’ll preface by saying like all fishkeepers I’ve encountered things in the past but for some reason as of lately things have been out of control. It seems like everytime I treat something something else is popping up. I’ll give a few examples: I had a pufferfish randomly develop what I believe to be a bad cloudy eye of some sort. It’s getting better finally probably 2 weeks into it but from there I noticed the other fish in the tank seemed to have anchor worms and possible epistylis. Ive never dealt with those but am clearing things up I think everyone will get a clean bill of health soon. Years ago I lost mutt guppies one by one in my large mutt tank without much warning. Looking back I think it was columnaris. That took a long time but the tank has been stable now for quite a while, I felt it was finally ok. Then randomly lost 2 plecos. These fish came from the same place, no warning, came with a 3rd, and had all been in the tank for probably a year. The 3rd is living her best life. When I lost them it was just went from fine to dead. Woke up today and seen what I believe to be ich on a platy. Never dealt with most of this. Some of the livestock have changed, foods have changed, but all of the parameters have remained the same in most of my tanks. I guess I should mention it is various tanks being effected, completely seperate from one another. It appears to be one thing after another. It’s getting very expensive and slightly disheartening as I’ve kept fish without issues for many years now then all of a sudden it seems like everything starts to have something going on. I’m sorry this is a long post, however I need some advice on getting a bit of a handle on things. The only thing I can think of is things were present already and are for some reason exhibiting in different tanks now. Perhaps some traveled via nets and I should quarantine nets in bleach or something? I really don’t know what route to take, I have meds on hand, but the fact that multiple tanks are being effected with various things is worrisome so I thought I would ask the experts. Everything is clearing up when I finish treating but then it’s like something else shows up that I’ve never dealt with. Any helpful advice is welcome it’s odd to me as I’ve kept fish for so long with minimal issue that now all of a sudden every issue there is has shown up…

Interested as well… love to learn new things and I keep hillstream loaches so it would be great to hear about from someone knowledgeable

I’ve used hydroton (I think that’s the name of it before) many many times successfully. It’s the medium they use in hydroponic set ups. It’s an inert clay ball. Natural looking as well. The trouble is it naturally floats unless boiled, then it sinks . I’ve personally never ran into an issue with it and it’s cost effective as well, perhaps this is worth looking into…

He was amazing, the whole experience was cool

@nabokovfan87 Eric Bodrock was the speaker today he did a phenomenal presentation I’m excited to officially belong to a club

What’s up everybody, so today was quite eventful. Long long story short the universe guided me in the direction of a new LFS which also led me to the local club here. Today was my first meeting. Called a friend of mine to come from out of town he drove 2 hrs to attended my very first event with me. Got lost trying to find it and showed up late. Imagine my surprise upon entering when I saw they had an amazing guest speaker who I’ve been watching for a long time on YouTube, who I got the opportunity to talk to later on in the day, as well as an auction and a raffle. First meeting, First auction of any kind ever, an amazing local fish store, an incredible one of a kind presentation, some merch, some new fish, some of which being from the speaker who acquired the bloodline from one of my other favorite YouTubers, perhaps a friend who is starting to share the passion for the hobby as well, just an amazing day I had to share…sometimes getting lost is the only way to find your way I guess, excited and rejuvenated….

I have my thoughts but for now… following 🙃

Do these count? 3 “mop bucket ponds” I have set up under a 40 breeder stand…

Tried it years ago when I was much less experienced than I am now and I’m afraid it didn’t take. I would love to know where you ordered it from so I can try it out as well it’s hard to source where I’m located…as far as your question, I’ve heard it’s no different then other anubias as in don’t bury the rhizome and make sure the roots and water column are well fed with nutrients. Lighting wise I think it’s low to medium, however unless it’s being cooked with light I tend to air on the higher side of medium when I can. If I manage to procure it I’m going to try after research potting it in a layered nutrient rich substrate planted as described above and see if it takes…perhaps someone on the forum with tangible experience will be able to chime in and see if this is the right direction to take. Beautiful plant, hope this helps

Thanks @nabokovfan87 I’ll update if I ever get them to breed

@nabokovfan87 hopefully I can fatten them up and get them to breed, and at least now I’ll be able to correctly identify them, thank you, I gotta look and see if they are all like that or not now or if they are multiple hillstream species, they hide so much, super cool though