[Aquarium Memes]

[What did you get done today?]

1 month 26 days since last trim and water change

before

after

quality control

 

 

[Favorite background plants for low-tech tank]

A wall of vallisneria is a favorite background of mine. With high lights and ferts you will need to trim frequently and they will try to spread to the front too but its typically considered an easy plant to grow.

[Need advice about replacing HOB Cartridge!]

You can replace a HOB cartridge and still have bb since you will still have bb in the tank and substrate.

[Share your macro photos!]

Berried Cyclops

[Hi from Chicagoland!]

Welcome fellow Chicagolandian!

[Walstad help!! ( long post?)]

For me the giant duckweed variety is pretty manageable but I wouldn't want to deal with the smaller varieties.

[Walstad help!! ( long post?)]

9 minutes ago, Ben Ellison said:

I personally do not like duck weed it blocks to much light. I grow frogbit and I really like the long dangling roots and the interconnected portions.

Frogbit can cover the surface as well, both plants will only block as much light as you let them. I'm with you on the dangling roots, IMO they are nice looking and fish like the cover.

[Coreys Stuff - Question about product Corey mentioned in video]

IIRC he uses or used the Cobalt MJ1200 and spoke very highly of it but they appear to be discontinued and I haven't been able to find any. Co-op sells the aquatop power heads so that's probably a solid plan B option.

[Walstad help!! ( long post?)]

I agree with ChefConfit on the floating plants. Water hyacinth, duckweed, and fast growing plants will help keep your water parameters in check.

[Share your macro photos!]

I love the world of the small, it's such a complex and beautiful part of nature happening all around us that we usually never see. So share your macro shots!

Me feeding fry baby brine from a pipette.

[Interesting things found in your aquarium]

@Lynze I enjoyed their presence. They lasted for several months with a colony in the corner and smaller colonies on wood and anubias nana petite. I was having hair algae issues on a large piece of wood that became more maintenance than it was worth so I removed it and switched things around. Shortly after that I stopped seeing them around.

[Interesting things found in your aquarium]

I also had bryozoan for a while.

 

And I had waterlily aphids for a bit too.

 

[Am I overstocked?]

Fish behaving normally, healthy, getting along, water testing perfect. If those boxes are checked I don't see an issue.

[How weird is this?]

I had a ramshorn do this while I fed baby brine and it was scooping up eating a ton of the baby brine that were at the surface. Best meal that snail ever had.

[After the brine shrimp hatch]

I keep a spray bottle of distilled water for this purpose. Once the bbs are rinsed I flip over the sieve over a container and spray the underside of the sieve until all the bbs are out and the sieve is clean then I immediately feed it out. I have hard water and using distilled in my spray bottle has kept my sieve clean and buildup free.

[Fun for fish]

I'm the opposite, I have many tiny fish. I keep fast growing plants like Val and water hyacinth, the fast growth of the val leaves and the hyacinth roots keep their environment in a state of slow constant change inbetween trimmings. I do feed baby brine which IMO is great nutritionally but not "challenging" since they are easy to catch and stay free floating, but I try to give them a workout with dried foods. I put a small pile of food on a mat of duckweed and they have to poke and work at the duckweed to bring the food down, seems to liven things up a bit.

[Tank stand - think this’ll work?]

You have a near best case scenario, placing the tank against a load bearing wall with joists running perpendicular to the wall.

A 75g is a similar load to 3 people sitting close on a couch which we would never expect to cause structural problems normally. If your floor already feels spongy/bouncy and/or you are going to put other heavy loads against that wall there could be cause for concern. Otherwise you'll very likely be fine. 

The next step would be to measure the joists and beam ect and calculate the actual wood stresses.

[Tank stand - think this’ll work?]

@RovingGinger

Probably but a photo of the opposire wall may be helpful.

[Wood filler recommendations?]

That appears to be a difficult situation to try and make adhesives work, especially long term. IMO I think using a positive connection would be best, I would try to figure out a configuration for screws into the wood and buy some stainless steel fasteners from one of the big box hardware stores. Or try what MattyIce suggested.

[Are guppies rubbish after 5 months?]

Thank you for explaining, much appreciated.

[Are guppies rubbish after 5 months?]

From the Colors farm tour, I super hope Cory gets to go back there and get info on that algae centrifuge!

Here is the video https://youtu.be/mKclGdn3ijc?t=473

IIRC @Cory answered me on live stream that Ran didn't mean it that way. I have a hard time seeing through that on the video though, he really seemed to mean guppies drop greatly "quality" after 5 months. Am I missing something? I don't keep guppies so I don't have first hand experience on this to observe it for myself.

Thanks.

[The new fish room and studio build thread.]

Wow, grats on the new home. Looking forward to the coming months/years of new opportunities your new space brings.

[Snails turning white]

I live on a well with hard water and had this exact same issue and couldn't get it to stop no matter what foods I fed or what water additives I used, wonder shell didn't fix it for me either. What finally worked was when I tried switching over to aragonite substrate. The problem completely stopped after that.

[Freshwater fish that can do well in a 5 gallons.]

Heterandria Formosa... One of the worlds smallest fish, a US native, and a hardy productive live bearer. You can have so much fun with them in a small tank, I sure have.