Steph’s Fish and Plants

Congrats Irene!! Been watching the channel since it was Gamers Wife. Futures looking real bright for you 🙂

The bloating is a little concerning, it could be a sign of internal disease or overeating, I think it’s unlikely that it’s eggs? Not impossible, but IMO not likely. I’d keep a close eye on all the fish in that tank and maybe fast a bit in case it’s just over eating. That for sure is a paradise fish aka paradise gourami, not a Pearl. I’d think as long as they’re getting along well and there’s no aggression issues you can leave them.

That’s my new plan. Is there a way to buy pre sealed plywood? This muscle rack was my first time in a hardware store since I was a kid 😅 and I’ve never bought lumber before

I don’t think anyone’s mentioned this, but purple harlequin rasboras. They’re great especially for those “nano” tanks. Throw a group of 6 in there, they’re not necessarily neon purple like a Glo fish but they are a nice deep purple.

Reef to reef is definitely the most active forum I’ve come across, snd the format makes it super easy to find in depth information on various topics. That’s where I did a lot of my research for my first reef tank. it’s important to decide now whether you want it to be a Fish Only With Live Rock or FOWLR tank, or if you want live corals as well. A FOWLR tank is essentially just like a freshwater tank but you have to mix saltwater before water changes. However, a Reef tank is more hands on physically, financially, and knowledge wise. Corals and amazing animals that can add a lot to your tank, but they’re the most sensitive animals you’ll ever keep, and the equipment required can be quite more involved. If you want a reef tank with corals, I’d suggest watching Bulk Reef Supply’s 5 minute guide series on YouTube, and also watching at least parts of the 52 weeks of reefing series. I’d also recommend watching Saltwateraquariumdotcom on YouTube as well, he has some great beginner guides that go in depth on reef and FOWLR tanks for the beginner.

So I ended up going with a Muscle Rack andddd went right through the wooden shelf during building. Ugh. Gonna try and return it or something to Home Depot and go with a husky rack with sealed 1/2” hardwood plywood instead. The muscle rack claims it can support 800lbs per shelf, but there’s no center brace, and just me leaning on it a bit had it bowing significantly, and then more pressure completely cracked it. Here’s a picture of the box and of the wood after I broke through it. Glad I tested it with my body before putting glass boxes full of water on there.

I’ve offishially started my foray into fishroom racks! Picked up a rack from Home Depot today in prep for my move, will be assembling it tomorrow.

I’ve never heard of them causing any issues to fish health, just feeding algae. Adding more plants will definitely help, and testing the phosphates will give you an idea if that’s even an issue.

Well guys, it’s been a year now since I moved into my current apartment, and it’s time to move again! Sorta. I need to condense my fishroom into my bedroom so my new roommate can move in, which means everything has to move. Not very far, but it’s gonna be tedious. I Also want to put up a rack system to move everything into instead of tying up my desk and dresser space. Right now, my two main challenges are figuring out what order to move things, and figuring out what to do about the rack system. My 20 long is standalone but I want to combine it with my 10 gallon freshwater, which currently shares some electrical with my saltwater, which shares a reservoir with my bioactive enclosure. However, I work a ton this week and want to only move a tank at a time, and it has to be done by this weekend. Wish me luck Nerms, and any advice would be greatly appreciated. At least the majority of my cresties will be easy 😅

Females can be absolute terrors, especially if they’re breeding. I pretty much never recommend keeping convicts, and never plan on keeping them myself. one of my friends had a pair in a tank with a flowerhorn and some jewels and he had to get rid of them because they were beating the crud out of the flowerhorn and had shredded all its fins. The flowerhorn for reference was about 5x the size of the convicts.

I work at my local fish store, and the only time we test for phosphate is when people are having algae issues. Phosphate can be indicative of over feeding or over fertilization. If you’re not having any algae issues, then I wouldn’t worry about it, phosphate should be 0 as long as you aren’t way over feeding or over fertilizing.

In my 3 years in the hobby thus far, I’ve always just used the furniture in my dorm or apartment for my tanks, but I’m about to move my stuff (from one room to another) and this will be the first time I’m full time living in the same room (my gf is moving out and I have someone else moving in so I can have a separate room for my fish) and I want to get a rack instead. im looking at the Husky and the Gladiator racks, but I have a few questions. first being, what type of plywood should I get to put on top of the mesh? I’ve never bought plywood before. second, which rack is easier to disassemble in people’s experience? I’ll have to move it to a nearby state this time next year. Third, what can I get to put under it to catch debris or anything? im planning on getting the smallest rack as I have a 10, and 20 long, and a 13 gallon fluval tank to put on it, along with an 18x18x24” vivarium

Here’s my 2 cents on the flex line. Disclaimer, I have not owned one personally. However, the store I work at has 6 of the 9 gallons and one of the 32 gallons setup as sale tanks to display them. my chief complaints: - small fish easily get through the overflow holes in the back and end up in the back chambers - catching fish out with the curved front glass is a PAIN. Might not be as much of a worry for a home display but if you change out fish often it would be. - remote can be finicky sometimes with age - I wish that you could program a built in timer - the lid and light makes it hard to do maintenance and still be able to see - inability to adjust flow when running it stock what I Do like - the black honeycomb to hide the waterline - the ability to customize the chambers in the back and hide the heater - the feeding hole (assuming you don’t have jumpers, Altho we’ve kept threadfins, pseudomugils, and killifish in the tanks no problem) - aesthetically is cool looking, great way to have something unique for a desk or kitchen counter type tank. - stock lighting is bright enough for a lot of low and medium light plants - customization ability with the lighting remote. All in all it is a nice tank and it makes for a great kit tank for people who only want one tank or a few. I personally would probably not own one bc I’m not a big fan of the curved glass tanks (bowfronts and flexes) but for people who do like that this is a great option. Also, as far as the pump goes, you could always purchase a different pump that Is controllable.

I believe I have french, no salt, precut green beans. Do I have to prepare them at all or do I just open the can and throw some in?

Definitely am checking that article out thank you!

Ooh that’s a good tip! I’ll throw some cat appa leaves in. I also wanna get some zucchini for the tank soon, and I need to get around to feeding the green beans I got

I’m starting to fall for halfbeaks, and the only ones we can get in at my LFS are the Celebes halfbeaks, but my manager says they’re brackish so we have to order them and have the person getting them pick them up the same day. However, everything I’ve seen online I’ve seen them being kept in freshwater. So, are the Celebes halfbeaks brackish? Fresh? Furthermore, my current biggest tank is a 20 long, would the Celebes be too big for this tank? Or would a small group work? Assuming my tank is a good fit and I can acclimate them over to fresh and they do come brackish, I do have a Hanna salinity checker so I would extremely slowly acclimate them to freshwater (advice on this would be great too)

After acquiring the almost adult pair back in I think March/April, I finally have super red babies! I believe this is the first batch and there were roughly 20-30 in the cave. I put one in a breeder box to save and let everyone else loose. Lots of algae built up in the tank to feed all the babies. I believe they’ve been out of the cave for ~4 days now, I think they’re almost at the 2 week old mark. Photos are from the first few days I found them.

I had no idea I was that early onto the forum. Hard to believe that was already almost a year ago 🤯

My apisto is a male hongsloi. I was gonna try and get a female but today I’m likely gonna grab a pair of viejita and swap em out essentially once the pair is through my QT. yes the coop food is a fine powder as well, I like it better than first bites bc first bites are a pain to feed, and the fry food comes in a squeeze bottle so it’s super easy. I am gonna feed first bites as well tho.

Nice work! I hopefully am following in your footsteps, found fry today for the first time since my first spawn in December (I think my apisto has been eating em). Are you just feeding hikari first bites? Or are you feeding something else as well? I fed vinegar eels and coop fry food today, will have live baby brine Monday morning for em.

I’m pretty sure that fan is bigger than my room in my apartment 😂 circling back to the tape, I like the green way mire than the brown, but I agree with making the youtube portion white like the aquarium coop logo. I think having the red is too distracting and would be annoying for those who already are nerms YouTube members or subscribers. I do see what you’re going for tho and either way I’d prefer it to the brown now (which I still love)

Alrighty it has been way too long since I updated this thread. Unfortunately, I lost my entire first spawn because I had to go out of town for three weeks within less than a week after they’d hatched. I tried a couple times since separating them into a breeder box with no luck, until now. today, I found my first free swimming fry in an external breeder box. To spawn them this time around, I put my female and the nicest male that already seemed to be courting her into a HOB breeder box with a thick covering of subwassertang for several days. I pulled them back out ~ 6 days ago, and today I noticed fry. I am actually on the second to last day of general cure and prazi pro (water change and carbon is tomorrow) so I’m really surprised. Luckily I’m not planning on going anywhere for at least 3 more weeks so i might be able to pull it off this time. So far I’ve fed the CoOp fry food twice and vinegar eels twice. I threw some brine eggs in the hatchery and started harvesting more vinegar eels, 🤞🏻This time goes better. now, about the question about feeding when they’re free swimming. I have yet to actually see the eggs, but I’d assume that they’d have some sort of small yolk sac immediately after hatching. I know that the first day after hatching they hang out on the walls of the aquarium, and then become free swimming, and in this stage I did not notice them eating, they stay sort of suctioned to one spot and don’t move.

Following along for sure, what a dream space to work with! I rarely see anything of that size in a private home to turn into a fishroom. Please include as much of the “mundane “ stuff as possible so I know what I need to do when I buy my first house and start building my fishroom. I have the air system worked out but plumb I my, electric, water etc is all so over my head 😅 those indoor totes are calling my name now haha, might have to include some of those in my build now…

Tested the tank just now, waiting for the results. I am expecting a slight increase in pH and alk because I run crushed coral in my filter (might need to swap for new soon tho) Ok so here it is. After following the instructions to the Tee, I see no change in my parameters except maybe lower nitrate (makes sense, I have live plants). Today is day 2 of general cure and Prazi being in the water, so I think if either of those meds are gonna change chemistry it would be extremely slowly over time, and you’d probably have finished treating and pulled the meds out long before they had any effect.