drewzero1

I got a tank from a friend last spring, and none of the fish were species I had any interest in keeping. I rehomed the ones I couldn't take care of and kept the ones I could, and they all kind of grew on me a little. Your tank looks very nice! Love the plants. 5 gallons is on the small side, but none of those fish are tank busters (like the common pleco I re-homed). I'd probably consider upgrading to a 10 or 20 gallon at some point to give more swimming space. For a while I was using a 5 gallon for my white cloud minnow juveniles, and while it worked for them, it was hard to keep the parameters stable.

👍 👍 They certainly fit the bill, but 40 gallons is as big as I can go in this house. (Plus the 20 long on the side, and the mini pond in the backyard...) Someday when we move I would love a 75 or even a 150, would really love to keep Geophagus and/or Jack Dempseys as well as maybe clown loaches and some larger catfish. It's a distant dream and I'm pretty content with my 40 right now. 👍

I'll be returning it to the library soon, and Winnefox has a couple of copies available if you want to check it out. 😊

My 2yo kid desperately wants clownfish, though he's never seen that film. Last week we went to an aquarium and while the other kids shouted "Nemo!" he shouted "Town-fish! A mommy-knee!" (I'm so proud.) Unfortunately, I don't think it's likely that anything marine is in our near future.

I finally started reading grown-up books again (it's been a lot of Green Eggs and Ham the last few years) and just finished Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis. I loved the time travel and the medieval element, but the epidemic and plague hit a little too close to home (despite having been released 30 years ago). Stocking to the future-medieval scifi theme, I've just started A Canticle for Liebowitz. It's much more fun so far, inasmuch as post apocalyptic monastic life could be considered fun.

The first picture (are those rainbows?) reminds me of the photos in aquarium books I used to lust over in the 90s. The subdued lighting, established plants, and highlight on the fish really do it for me. I always wanted a tank like that... but I usually ended up with painted gravel and fake plants anyway. I'm sure we'd love to see your saltwater stuff too, if you feel like showing it off!

Oh weddings... so glad I'm never doing that again. Ours was a very DIY affair, since we were paying for it, and the decorations ended up being fairly labor-intensive. We had it in autumn and many relatives worked in education so there was understanding all around that a fair few wouldn't be able to go. There was close timing with another relative's wedding and some guests had to choose one or the other. Again, no hard feelings, and we're still close with all of them. My parents were in the long tail of their divorce and were actively suing each other that week. What a blast, but we did it our way, we put on a good party, and we could finally get on with our lives together. I've wrestled with nonconfrontational tendencies myself, having learned a lot of unhealthy ways to deal with conflict throughout my parents' decline. I've had to relearn how to get it out there, all of it (without saying anything unnecessary or hurtful that we're both going to regret), and then listen and resolve. Still working on it after a decade in a healthy relationship.

Gorgeous snail! The pitting seems to be common in nerites. It won't heal in the middle but it also doesn't seem to bother them too much.

I'll say it's wonderful! I've had mystery hitchhikers before, but never knew what they were or what to do with them, and they usually failed. Armed with knowledge I can give them a fighting chance. I appreciate the info on hornwort from the first page. Good to know it likes calcium in the water, as I've got mollies that like that too.

Awesome, that is great news either way! I've never seen any of those plants available locally and picked these up on my way home from vacation in a neighboring state. Should I try to plant or anchor the crypt|val to the substrate, or will it be okay floating for a bit?

Here's a two-fer: some freebie hitchhikers that came with a bundle of salvinia I picked up today. I'd imagine it's probably too soon to tell on the grassy one with the roots, but wonder if anybody knows about the feathery stem plant, and would love any tips on planting to help them thrive/survive.

Looking at the GBAS site, it looks like their next event is a picnic July 10th at the Vilas zoo in Madison. I didn't know they did events down there too!

Not sure what the scene is like in Madison as I don't get down that way much any more, but a great local resource up here in the Fox Valley area is the Green Bay Aquarium Society: https://ww.gbasonline.org They do periodic meetings, swaps, and expos at a bowling alley in Menasha, definitely worth checking out but come early as I've found a lot of vendors sell out quickly. I spent some time visiting the UW Madison campus some years ago, and was fairly impressed by the Center for Limnology right on the lake. It looks like they're doing an open house next week which might be an opportunity to meet people who are interested in aquatics: https://limnology.wisc.edu/news-events/open-house/

I was trying to get the sparkling gourami in focus but ended up accidentally getting the rasbora instead. Here's the gourami! Levitating among the office supplies

I have attempted to anchor guppy grass, but the stems are so fragile that it always seems to break off and float away. (Might depend on your stocking; my mollies really like to tug at plants to snack on algae.) I've noticed that my guppy grass tends to wrap around the stems of the water lilies in my tank. If you have something to wrap it around, it might loosely stay put.

What a beautiful tank... makes me want to get my white cloud tank back in order. I've been debating about trying some cherry shrimp with them and I think this just about clinches it for me. I gave up trying to photograph mine (camera won't focus, even on manual) so now I just take a video and grab the best frame. They sit still just long enough to compose a photo, but when you go to hit the button, they dart in a random direction! Zoom!

I haven't had a 100% shutdown burnout like some have, but I've definitely experienced seasons of extremely low enthusiasm. I've adopted a strategy of restraint when I'm 'high on fish' so I can keep up when I'm low. When I learn about a new fish or idea that I want to try out I've been adding it to a list for the future (when I'm ready) instead of starting another tank, and when I do add another tank I have an exit strategy planned out. Last summer I was starting to have trouble keeping up again so I went down from three tanks at home to two, and gave away some fish that I realized I couldn't care for properly. This spring I've added a patio pond (which will fold into an existing tank in the winter) and a tank on my desk at work (whose inhabitants would go into my 40B if I decided that tank was too much). I guess my best advice would be to cut back tanks if you have multiple that you're taking care of. Fewer, larger, understocked tanks have been good for me (and my fish) because of the stability of more water.

I don't have much experience observing fish outside of my home state, but it does make sense to me that they might act slightly differently depending on what's in the water where they are. Where I live we have limestone bedrock which puts a lot of calcium in the water, among other things; some fish really love that, others would rather not have so much. (Side note: sometimes I forget that there are so many other substances in water, way beyond what our test kits even look for, and they can vary by region or locality. Water is never 'just' water!)

I should add that if I found some local n-class endlers again I would jump at the chance to give them another try. They were probably the most interesting to watch, behavior-wise. There's something special about watching a bunch of livebearers wiggling around and curiously picking at things around the tank. My white clouds bred in my 10 gallon last summer with very little intervention. Some fry have survived, but they haven't grown like I'd hoped. I'm hoping they do it again this summer so I can pay more attention to them and help them thrive.

I can relate with the rasboras... I recently switched to espeis in my office tank and while I love the pop of color I've noticed their agitation whenever someone stands too close to my desk. Previously I had endlers in that space and they were great, but I never got them to breed. (I figure I either got bad stock, or I was doing something food/water-wise that they didn't like.) Before that I had white cloud minnows, which were my personal favorite but people couldn't see them. Next time I'll probably try either longfin or gold white clouds, they've been my least-maintenance fish and great bang for the buck. I think I've read that they're safe with neocaridina, but I haven't tried yet. (And I'll be the first to admit they don't hold a candle to the beauty of Fish Folk's suggestions!)

I've crunched the numbers, and at a penny a day it would take a bit over 10,000 years to save up enough. (Give or take.) Love the idea but the rockwork seems more suited to a public aquarium than a living space. I would anticipate a low spousal approval factor on this one, ymmv. I have to say though, I'm a huge fan of tanks that pop out into a space rather than trying to be flat against a wall. If I ever live in a house that would accommodate it I'd love to have a built-in 75 as a peninsula or between rooms.

Share pictures maybe? Cory photos are always welcome here 😂 especially less common species. I've kept honey, pearl, and sparkling gourami. The pearl was my favorite and while by far the largest she seemed to leave smaller fish (adult endlers) alone. She did chase my molly around pretty often though. My only current gourami is a sparkling gourami (probably Trichopsis pumilus) in a 10g with some Espei rasboras. It gets along with them well and even swims along with their school occasionally. I'd worry about never seeing them in a 50g as they stay quite small. Trichopsis vittata gets a bit larger but (my research suggests) tends to be a more aggressive species of sparkling/croaking gourami, and they're often sold as the same thing. I'd personally go with honey if you can find a healthy one. The ones I've had seem a bit fragile but they're not very common around here.

After debating for a while whether I wanted to risk my two-year-old white cloud minnow group on my first attempt at a patio pond, today I decided to get some gold white clouds instead. They look great from above, especially their red fins; hopefully their bright colors don't make them an easy target for neighborhood critters. I spent the evening in the backyard grilling and chilling and watching the fish dart around. Not a bad end to the day!

It's become an almost daily ritual in our house over the last year for my 2YO kid to ask to go feed the fish in my basement office. He asks for the food, picks one algae wafer out of the jar, and drops it into the tank. I could not be more proud 😊 Usually he doesn't care to stick around and watch them eat, but I really enjoy when he sees them mob the wafer and says "num num num." It's a lot of fun keeping a family fish tank! My local plant collection plans fell through so I stopped at a garden center to find some emergent plants: spiral rush and purple waffle. I'm going to need to adjust them up a bit (especially with the rain) but as long as they survive they should provide some cover against sun and surface critters. I've wanted outdoor fish since keeping them in rain barrels as a kid. I'm excited to try this, but also nervous because I care a lot more about my fish now!

I wish I was persuasive enough to turn a 5 gallon into a 10 gallon. The glass is usually stronger than I am. 😁 The second half of my rasbora school were finally ready at the LFS this week, I bet they're glad I can stop calling to see if they came in yet. The sparkling gourami was intrigued by the newcomers. (As was I; I had no idea they could get so pale! After a few days they're nearly as orange as the others.) Yesterday I drilled a small hole in a storm window frame on the back porch to feed an air line through to the little patio pond. Now it's got a sponge filter running and just needs some plants to provide cover. I'm behind schedule but the weather just went from 40s to 80s and took me by surprise!