maspohno

Hey guys, just got home from and looked into my leopard guppy tank. The tank itself has been running for about a year now, but the inhabitants are about 4 days into it. I noticed one of my females has this mass near the anal fin. Any ideas? FYI: I'm running 1tsp marine salt per 10 gallons in the tank. Thank you!

Whether it be a new tank, old tank, small tank, big tank...I can't seem to stop staring and looking and lose track of time! I've had little slices of nature in my care for almost 6 years now and it still amazes me that we can keep them in our homes. Anybody else have the feeling?

@Whitecloud09 Moss balls are great, and have such a high surface area for beneficial bacteria to grow. I definitely would recommend. And for micro swords, I've tried them, but the growth is very slow and they melt back hard. I did have luck having them spread runners out though so it is possible to use it as coverage. But just be prepared to be be patient! The look of the plant is great!

Hey Stan! I would definitely add plants as soon as you can! I found that adding plants on day 1 helps cycle much faster and gives me the peace of mind when adding a light bio-load in the beginning. The key is to add a light bio load (snails, small fish, etc). Reason being is that the added bacteria to the tank need ammonia to feed on during the cycling process. Adding a small bioload will allow for the bottled bacteria to feed on ammonia from the waste produced by the snails and fish. Keep in mind to keep the feeding very light (once a day small amount) if you do go this route. Plants will have SOME beneficial bacteria on the surface of the leaves which will help jump start the current cycle you're in. Overall, just make sure to keep an eye are on your ammonia levels as well as nitrites during the process if you choose to add fish (toxic in high amounts). Good luck!

@Whitecloud09 I tend to stick to the easy side of aquarium keeping. I've given dwarf hairgrass a try multiple times in the last 5 years, and all with no luck in terms of what I wanted. If you wanted a more covered lush look, and plan on not running CO2 + high light, I would personally stay away from hairgrass as they would be very held back from thriving. In my low tech - low-medium light tanks, I ALWAYS had great success with dwarf sag. Just put in root tabs at initial planting and continue monthly, and the dwarf sag spread like wild fire. You can alter the way these plants grow with how much light you give them; higher light would increase the growth slightly while keeping the dwarf sag low to the substrate (1-2 inches), while lower light settings will have the plant grow taller (3-4 inches) and spread a little slower. Whichever way you decide to grow it, dwarf sag would definitely be a great plant to look into and add to the tank!

@Whitecloud09 From your pictures, I would cut halfway down the stem and plant on the other side. Depending on how clean the cut will be, you might have floating leaves which you can just net out. You can either use your fingers or a pair of scissors for a cleaner cut. Overall its a pretty simple process, but the reward is amazing. I'm currently growing out some pearlweed myself. I started off with 1 stem from my old tank, and I'm sitting at about 10? Ultimately I want the pearlweed to take over that tank, but it'll take time. Just be patient and everything will work out well! This trimming concept can also be applied to any other stem plants (guppy grass, pogo, ludwigia, etc.) ! Hope this helps!

Everything looks great! Rather than buying more pearl weed, just trim what you already have and plant it where you want! You'll have double in no time.

@Cory Ahhh okay thank you for confirming! I've spent a good amount of today reading up on aquarium salt treatment. Hopefully my val and dwarf sag will be okay. When I get home I plan to dose 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons and observe for a week.

After one night, the number of spots stayed the same and did not spread to any other fish or anywhere else on her body. @Colu @Whitecloud09 She's been pretty active at feeding time (this morning and last night) and does not show any sign of struggle (breathing and swimming normally) @Cory I'm picking up some API Aquarium Salt today to help boost the slime coat and provide some additional minerals to the water column for these guys. I remember in your recent live stream you mentioning the ratio for adding salt, but can't seem to remember if it was 1 table spoon per 10 gallons or 1 tea spoon per 10 gallons. If anyone can confirm that would be awesome!

Hey everyone! I secured myself some picta guppies and planned to start a journal on them tomorrow. I came home tonight and as i fed them I white dots on one of my females. I took the best picture I could and attached it here. Any help/advice/confirmation would be appreciated! I've already set the heater to 80 for the time being. Thank you!

Hey! welcome! The plants you chose both benefit from liquid fertilizer AND root tabs! Don't forget about them! At the start, I too thought that Easy Green might be the only thing I need. After putting in root tabs about once a month, I started to notice the growth in all my plants that were planted in gravel explode. Literally. Dwarf sag covered the entire front of my tank and my Amazon Sword was growing a new leaf every week! All I can say is, look into it, give it a try! Very beneficial to the tank, especially if not much mulm/nutrients have been built up in the gravel yet.

The empire gudgeon fish looks like it can handle a wide range of temperatures, it might depend on the other inhabitants you plan to keep along with it.

Hey everyone! I'll be bringing in my 5.5 gallon setup to work tomorrow and just wanted to see if any other nerms have done it! I've purchased some micro swords and a crypt at the LFS yesterday and I'm going to plant it up tonight. I'll be running a Finnex 16in on it, aquarium co-op sponge filter, and using Flourite Black Sand Substrate. If any of you have tips drop them here! Thank you in advance!

I see! Your tank looks great, thanks for the help! I'll be looking into the finnex and save myself some money. Do you just have CPD's in there? looks like a perfect shrimp breeding ground.

They look like Planaria! If you take a closer look at the head of the worm, if its pointed like an arrow, then it probably is. From what I know, Planaria attack smaller critters like shrimp and snails, I haven't read up on anything regarding turtles.