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Steph’s Fish and Plants

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Everything posted by Steph’s Fish and Plants

  1. Steph’s Fish and Plants
    Repashy is on my list of foods to add to the Arsenal and learn how to do. I’m curious, could you theoretically use silicone ice trays as molds? I like the idea of having cactus or pumpkin shaped repashy, I feel like it would be a fun way to add various holiday or seasonal fun to the fishroom.
  2. Steph’s Fish and Plants
    Interested to see on if anyone finds anything. In addition to freshwater tanks I’ve been hankering to do a saltwater mantis shrimp setup, and they’ve been known to go after and break heaters, so I’d like something like that as well.
  3. Steph’s Fish and Plants
    Nice that’s awesome! The fish gods were in your favor today. I’m intrigued to see how things go with the goodeids. Trout goodieds from Greg Sage are on my list of fishroom species, hope your goodieds are doing well. Excited for more updates 🙂
  4. Steph’s Fish and Plants
    Wow I’m so pumped to watch this develop! My goal is to breed a bunch of “fancy” plecos in my basement someday. Zebras and leopard frogs are at the top of my list, along with blue phantoms
  5. Steph’s Fish and Plants
    Got a Lot done today. Did some reorganization amd cleanup around the fishroom, took care of some gecko chores, and then started tackling my biggest project: the 20 long. I started by scooping all the old substrate into a trash bag. It’s old fluval stratum and a mix of random Petco gravels. I want to switch the tank over to Eco complete, and some of the botanicals and dead snails that were mixed in had fungused so I figured best thing was to throw it out rather than clean it just to put it away somewhere. I also played around with my air system since I’ve been getting next to no flow in the 5.5 sponge filter. Turns out, the green nipple portion in the CoOp sponge filter had clogged with algae, after I cleaned that out it ran fine. Of course it took me 45 minutes to try that, and that was after I swapped out to new airline tubing, threw on a second air pump, replaced the discs in my never clog air stone, and had started to give up. So Always Check the plastic portion! Anyways, while I was finagling with the air system, I also filled the 20 so I could scrub it with some dish soap. Once that was done and I gave it a good scrub, I drained the tank again. I tried to spot gravel vac some fine dust left behind by the stratum and forgot to make sure the end of my siphon was still in the bucket... so now 4 soaked towels later I’ve got a fan blowing on my carpet. Hopefully the ppl below me didn’t get any water... all in all, very productive albeit messy day.
  6. Steph’s Fish and Plants
    @MACi feel ya haha 😂 I normally have the opposite problem. This is the first I’ve had tanks and not known what fish. In the past I’ve speed setup tanks so quick 😅 I think having to consider my fish back home is whats making it so tough for me this time around.
  7. Steph’s Fish and Plants
    Update time! I FINALLY got the 20 long out of storage and into the apartment. The substrate is quite a mess and I think I’m just gonna throw it out. It’s a mixture of random types of inert gravel and fluval stratum. While in storage since March it seems some sort of mold or fungus or something has made its way in, and I’d really rather not deal with it since I’m gonna swap it out with eco complete anyhow. I also did a water change on the 10 gallon, and the 5.5 betta tank is doing well. I have a coop order coming soon, gonna try out the easy planter, as well as got myself a Crinum calamistratum and some stickers. Gotta get the fridge out of storage and into the fishroom too. Still a lot of work to go but it’s coming together. Still playing around with stocking ideas. I may keep the peas in the 10 again after everyone’s done in QT. Need to make that call soon tho. If you have any ideas for stocking see my previous post and feel free to weigh in 🙂 also, random note I’ve had pea puffers for a year today 😁 and this African fern is doing great
  8. Steph’s Fish and Plants
    Wow that looks amazing 😍
  9. Steph’s Fish and Plants
    Ok, so I think I’ve used this in the past but I’m not sure, my friend randomly gave me a giant thing of tetra water conditioner. However, I really don’t know from personal experience. I looked at their website and it claims to remove phosphates and nitrates, which plants need, so I’d recommend dosing once and testing nitrates daily for a week and see if their usage differs from how your tank has processed nitrates in the past. I’m not aware of a phosphate test. What ferts are you dosing, and what/how many plants?
  10. Steph’s Fish and Plants
    I’m dosing a mild amount of equilibrium and easy green in a 5.5 and haven’t seemed to have any issues, I’m not an expert tho. Is there a way to test for potassium? Could high potassium cause issues?
  11. Steph’s Fish and Plants
    I’ve kept Amano with cherries before and has no issues. Just make sure everyone’s getting food 🙂
  12. Steph’s Fish and Plants
    Peas could help, the issue is that bettas are more carnivorous so idk if he’d eat it or it would be good for him. I know they work well in goldfish but goldfish eat anything... at least that’s something I’ve heard before. My gf offered her betta a pea when he was struggling and it didn’t help, I don’t think he ate it. I’ve heard good things about daphnia helping tho, so I’d agree with Cory and go that route, it’s the least invasive and probably also most enjoyable for the fish
  13. Steph’s Fish and Plants
    My dream system in action. Can’t wait for that YT video, thanks for letting us follow along in your fishroom build, I’m definitely taking as many notes as I can for when I build my own in a few years
  14. Steph’s Fish and Plants
    I live in an apartment and could not for the life of me figure out a way to get my python to screw on normally, couldn’t find any sort of piece to unscrew on my faucet or anything, so in the spirit of not having to pay for a Brocken faucet, I got a piece of black python tubing cut for me at my LFS and use that to attach it to the sink. It’s effective, but definitely something you need to be careful with, I can’t close the python valve for more than a few seconds without the sink end popping off from the pressure. Other than that tho I have no complaints. Use with caution.
  15. Steph’s Fish and Plants
    @Danielmy anxiety would never have been able to handle that. How long was the tank in that condition and running?
  16. Steph’s Fish and Plants
    I haven’t tried culturing live so I can’t touch on that, but my favorite prepared food brands are the fluval bug bites, hikari wafers and vibra bites, and I’m playing around with Xtreme foods. Have only tried the nano pellets so far so I need to try the krill flake too.
  17. Steph’s Fish and Plants
    From what I’ve seen online and stuff, your safest bet is to try to separate the females as young as possible to try and get them before they’ve... done the deed. If you know for a fact that they’ve had babies before or are pregnant, and you absolutely don’t want mixing of sperm, you’ll need to separate for probably several months and have them be by themselves. I’d go until probably 2 months of no babies if I really wanted to be 100% sure that they were out of sperm, but I don’t think I’d be that worried about it. I’d probably wait until after one, maybe two rounds of babies so they’re not actively pregnant and then add the male.
  18. Steph’s Fish and Plants
    I agree with Ken, I’d likely do 2 sponge filters on opposite sides of the tank. As far as chemical filtration, sponge filters as they come don’t have any carbon, but unless you’re trying to pull out something like tannins or medications, imo you probably don’t need the carbon. Most of the time carbon is just an added expense and companies use it to get you to buy more cartridges so they make more money. I think there’s a few videos on the coop YouTube about carbon in aquariums, I think a livestream, it’s been a minute.
  19. Steph’s Fish and Plants
    I personally like rams horns because I have puffers and they’re a great food source, but to each their own. They can come as hitchhikers on plants or decor that’s from another tank, if you swap equipment in tanks etc. they will get to a fairly decent size, but they do a great job of keeping algae at bay and consuming uneaten food. They can also be a good indicator of how much calcium is in your water, if their shells start looking pitted or damaged, that’s a good sign your tank is low on calcium.
  20. Steph’s Fish and Plants
    @TheDukeAnumber1that is a very good point. We already have a decent electric bill, do you have a cheaper route in mind that could work? Or is electric really my only option?
  21. Steph’s Fish and Plants
    Congrats @Lizzie Blockthats awesome! I actually just was given an old issue from last year after my first shift my my LFS, it was highlighting George farmer. I’m definitely giving your highlight a read as soon as I post this. Wicked cool!
  22. Steph’s Fish and Plants
    The Murphy hoodie would be like the ultimate Care package gift... 😉
  23. Steph’s Fish and Plants
    This is a very tempting idea since I’m going out of town on Sunday for the day... but I’d definitely get in trouble. I’ve done something vaguely like this whenever I move tho. Last year I moved around my college campus roughly 5 times, and back in March I moved across the country back home, roughly a 20ish hour drive non stop. I used a USB air pump run to a sponge filter that had been in that tank, along with pleco caves, plants, and all the sponge media from the HOBS and the other sponge filters to keep my bacterial colony alive since I didn’t have a tank setup where I was headed (it was a rushed decision to move home). Filled a 5 gallon bucket roughly halfway, drilled a hole through the top with airline tubing, and made it with 2 plecos, a betta, and 4/6 of the rummy nose tetras. 2 didn’t make it but I’ve had so so experience with that species in the past on shorter moves so I took it as a success. Oh and I had 3 pea puffers in a bag in a small critter keeper bc the bag was a little leaky. Every gas stop I would open the lid to check and make sure the airline was still connected, which I highly recommend for long drives bc at one point it had become disconnected and I was able to reconnect it.
  24. Steph’s Fish and Plants
    Bit of an update, Drogo is settling in well. I unintentionally put pond snails in the 10 gallon QT by moving a heater, and I forgot to plug in Drogo’s new heater when I figured out the old one I put in wasnt working. Can verify the old one is for sure broken because it was plugged in sitting dry on my desk for a week 🤦🏼‍♀️ I seemed to have hit a sort of mental block in the hobby. Here I have an empty, cycled 10 gallon tank, so much possibility, and I can’t decide on anything to get. Some advice here would be great. I have to get my 20long out of storage and start overhauling that, and I need to get a stronger air pump. But my main issue is stocking. There’s so many things I wanna do, but I have to consider the fish I have at home that will be coming back in a few months. I have 2 bristlenose plecos, 3 pea puffers, and some rummy nose tetras. I’d like to use the 10 gallon as a quarantine tank for the first month those fish are here, but until then I’d like to use it to quarantine new additions that’ll be in the 20 with those other fish from home. I’ve entertained the idea of 3 more pea puffers, or some celestial pearl danios. But with the pea puffers it’ll be a wild card, I’m not sure what to do. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
  25. Steph’s Fish and Plants
    My girlfriend would never let me do this 😂😂😂 but I will dream
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