Dan_C

I have a 65g. Great tank. My only criticism of the tank is because of the height and the center brace catching fish out can be more challenging than a 40br. Other than that love the tank. Allows for good plant growth and still have some open space on top.

I have kept a few Amazon Puffers and currently have one in a community tank. Amazon puffers are one of my favorite fish of all time. I will try to answer your questions to the best of my ability/experience. Amazon Puffers are true freshwater, mine is at roughly 6.8-7.0 pH and around 200 tds I always kept mine in a community tanks with a variety of fish. My current Amazon puffer is in a 75 with Neons, Angels, Plecos, Cory’s, guppies, and Nannacara Anomala(peaceful dwarf cichlid. I never observed my Amazons bothering any other fish. For feeding all my Amazons had different personalities. Vibra bites were the staple for mine. I also had them bite into algae wafers and a variety of different pellets. I believe that keeping them with other fish helps with them taking prepared foods, monkey see, monkey do. I had one in the past that was tong trained with freeze dried krill. I also tong trained that one with meal worms. I learned the hard way with the meal worms. Meal worms bite. That particular puffer got bit in the chin by a meal worm and passed from an infection. Cut the heads off the meal worms before feeding. 6 in a 125 should be fine. I had a group of 5 in a 65g with no issues. For snails a 10g tank or even a 5g bucket with a sponge filter and heavy feeding will produce plenty of snails. Most “pest snail” explosions are from over feeding. When feeding snails to puffers don’t add too may, I think they kill snails for fun and that could add bio load to the tank. A scud culture is worthwhile with Amazons especially young ones. As far as water changes go that will depend on the rest of your stocking and filtration. Every tank processes nitrates a little differently. I probably do 50% per month on my 75g. I don’t think stocking order will matter all that much. Although all my Amazons I had in the past were added to established tanks but new fish were added after the puffers. Definitely QT the puffers. They always come in rough. Look for fish that have “full” bellies. Get them eating good before hitting them with meds. 2 weeks may be OK in an established tank with plants. The puffers should be fine with snails, the other fish depending on what you choose maybe not. I frequently travel for work and my fish are fine. I feed them a little heavy 1-2 days before I leave and again when I get back. I am only gone Mon-Fri. I hope this helps.

It’s always sad when you see another LFS closing. You being in Rochester I am guessing you are talking about RBA. I liked that store too. I live in the Utica area, but I work in Buffalo a lot. I would suggest The Fish Place in N. Tonawanda. There’s a store by the Buffalo Airport called Blue Lagoon. I have not been to it yet myself but on my list to stop next time I am out that way. They are listed on the COOP site as an affiliate. Buffalo also has a good aquarium club Called the Tropical Fish Club of Erie County worth checking out.

I’m not local and only been to Seattle once. The one thing I remember most was The Dork Burger at Lunchbox Laboratory.

I am hoping others respond to this thread. I am also trying to breed these fish. I have had my pair for about a year now and no breeding activity yet. I would also like to know what others are keeping their Ivanacara with as far as tank mates/dithers. Mine are alone at the moment not sure if lack of dithers has anything to do with breeding activity. I have also read that for eggs to be viable pH needs to be below 6. I am going to be moving mine soon to a more black water setup I hope this works.

I have breed Sturisoma Panamense. Breeding was easy once the male and female was mature they breed in my community tank once a month usually around/near a full moon. Tank parameters were around pH=7.2 Temp: 78 deg.F, TDS=180.I do not know KH or GH It was a 65G planted community with a lot of manzanita. They laid eggs on the glass(usually) just like Farlowella that I also breed in the same tank. They laid around 15-20 eggs in a clutch. The male guards the eggs. Raising the Sturisoma and Farlowella fry was difficult and I still haven’t done that with great success. Although not very successful I still learned a lot from failed clutches. The fry don’t move much to search for food it is best to keep them in a confined space to concentrate the food. A “Dean’s Fishroom” style fry setup would probably be ideal to concentrate the fish and the food. I have a box of parts but have yet to build my setup. Being in a community tank I pulled the eggs into a Ziss egg tumbler most of the time(the Sturisoma would always lose some to fungus I never had a fungus issue with Farlowella) then put the fry in a Ziss Breeder box then I would slowly lose the fry. I think feeding is my issue raising the fry. Most successful reports I have read with Sturisoma and Farlowella they were feeding 3 times a day with a 50 % water change after each feeding. I started getting better results when I put seasoned twigs if driftwood and leaves in the breeder box. I also add cherry shrimp and a snail or two to help with the excess food. I have been feeding the fry what I feed the adults, variety of foods but mostly Omega One Kelp wafers. I am now believing the fry may need a little more protein and want to experiment with live baby brine and micro worms. These should stay alive longer in the breeder box and possibly move to the fish. I did leave a clutch in the main tank once and I did have one fry live to adult with no intervention. I do think its possible to colony breed in a Species tank. I am experimenting with this now with Farlowella. I hope that gets you started and I hope others chime in so I can learn more too.

Any one have experience with S. American/Amazon Leaf fish, I would like to hear your success and failures. I have kept this fish in the past and know how difficult they can be getting off live. The vendor that sold them to me claimed they were already on frozen bloodworms, that’s what made me impulse buy them this time around as I always loved these fish. I have not been able to get them on frozen blood worms. I have seen videos of them on frozen mysis that I also tried with no luck. I am squirting the frozen worms across the tank with a pipette to try to trigger a response. Maybe I am not making them “fast” enough? I also tried crickets, live white worms, live red wiggler worms, peanut beetle larvae/adults. I currently cannot produce enough live bearer fry or cherry shrimp to sustain them and that’s not the route I want to rely on. Frozen would be ideal, I may just have to increase the flow to try to get a more natural movement out of the frozen foods. Currently have them in a setup with just a COOP sponge filer, May change it over to a Matten filter for a more circular flow. I did get one to grab a meal worm beetle but it eventually spit it out. I think it was just a little too big. I need to refresh my meal worm culture to get smaller beetles.

I have done this for some Giant Otos and Farlowella. I put Repashy on tongue depressors and clipped them to a “Veggie Clip”. I can make up a batch of Repashy depressors and keep them in the fridge. The tongue depressors are pretty smooth and the Repashy doesn’t stick that well. Just rough them up with a little sandpaper first.

This was my concern with the inkbird. That’s why I was asking around for something more “industrial” than the Inkbird. Just as you I was under the impression that the 1500 watt rating on the heater was for the highest setting. If I can get away with a lower setting I should be OK. Thank you all for your replies.

I really like this idea. I haven’t thought of that. In my searches the inkbird seems to be the best option. It may be worth a try. If the inkbird doesn’t work this idea could probably be incorporated using an Apex. I do have one from my last reef tank sitting in a box. I didn’t plan on using it in the fishroom but could expand it with an extra energy bar. Not sure what kind of wattage an apex can handle, will have to look into that.

I am looking for ideas to heat my Fishroom. My quarantine tank in the basement snowballed into a rack and YadaYadaYada, 14 tanks later I think its time to heat the room instead of the individual tanks. My Fishroom can get to low 60’s F in winter here in upstate NY. I was thinking of using an electric oil filled radiator, which I already have, but would like a thermostat or controller to plug it into. I would like to hear what other people use to heat their fish rooms and what they use for temperature control.