Rube_Goldfish

@Denise T, welcome to the forum! I don't have anything more to add than what's been said already, and it seems you've got a good plan and setup going forward too, but I just wanted to say that your tank looks great!

I'm claustrophobic just thinking about that! My old house had a crawl space with an average of about four feet of clearance and I hated even going down into there. Can't put a price tag on peace of mind, though! Can't wait to see this thing filled!

That's interesting, because my otos are the opposite: when the lights are on I only ever see them tucked into some wood or rockwork, or in a bunch of leaves, but when the lights are dimmed is when I see them hanging on the glass.

I'm trying, with mixed results, to hide the heaters with plants and hardscape, which is something is probably want to do whether they had LED displays or not. Though that does make it hard to read them, as you, @Cheryl P. point out. It would be nice if the next generation had an on/off toggle for the display, but that might be a cost-prohibitive sort of feature.

I think this video by @Lowells Fish Lab is a very clear, knowledgeable presentation: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hJitmMCiHdE&pp=ygUcTG93ZWxsJ3MgZmlzaCBsYWIgcGFyYW1lY2l1bQ%3D%3D

I think the closest thing I can think of in terms of a named style would just be a paludarium, but in your case you specifically want the plants to hang down. Edit: Nope, I just learned a new (to me) word: riparium, and I think it's what you're looking for.

I meant that I thought that Aquarium Co-op did not ship to India, and @Zenzo confirmed that I was right. I wish I was not right, though, since it means you won't have an easy way of getting any Aquarium Co-op products, which is a shame. Thanks for the quick response, though, Zenzo!

@Zenzo I am assuming that @Krish is just out of luck here. Am I right? (Krish, I hope I'm wrong!)

Uh, are you suggesting somebody having eaten a small pizza box?

The first line on Mrs. Goldfish's fishkeeping resume, if such a thing existed, would be "eliminated duckweed in two tanks", both of which had and still have other floating plants. She got a pair of oversized plastic tweezers from the dollar store and just spent time pulling out any duckweed she found. It took a while, but eventually she got it all, and we've been duckweed-free for about a year now.

I had two male and one female A. cacatuoides in a moderately planted 55 gallon community tank. One of the males was a sneaker female at the LFS, I think; I thought I was getting a 1M:2F trio. The female and the more dominant male were really harassing and beating up the other male, who we ended up rescuing out to an empty 10 gallon. If we hadn't, I'm sure they would have killed him, even if just from the stress of the harassment. With more males and more females? It might work, but you should have a Plan B, just in case, especially when/if they start spawning. @anewbie Any thoughts here? I don't know A. trifasciata at all.

Well, how was your hatch with the glass thermometer?! And I got into hatching live brine shrimp when I had some unexpected spawning, but it's so easy and it's fun to watch the fish really engaged with their food that I feed it out to all my fish (my biggest is an adult male Apistogramma cacatuoides, but still), so hopefully yours liked the fun treat, too.

Sorry to revive such an old thread, but I'm planning a shrimp-and-chili tank and was doing research (that is, browsing the ACO Forum) when I came across this comment about cleaning sponge filters. I've only had Amano shrimp, so this has never been a concern for me, but I am planning to run an ACO coarse sponge filter. So how do you clean it if it's full of tiny, hidden shrimplets? The only thing I can think of is to siphon out some water into a white bucket, then gently shake/swish the sponge in that bucket. Is there some trick I'm not thinking of?

If you have local fishkeeping friends (and I know that not everyone is so lucky), you could each get different varieties and split them up, and maybe do a group order to save on shipping.

Ah, I hadn't thought of that! I just use the old school glass thermometer that came with the Ziss, so it didn't cross my mind that you might be using something different. Yeah, I didn't think the salt type or concentration was the problem, and your temperature set-up with a heater is better than my 'well I guess they'll just hatch faster in the summer' approach (I should just stick a heater in there already), so I didn't think that was the issue, either, but your case was a weird one, so I was trying to eliminate potential explanations. Hopefully removing that digital thermometer ends up solving the issue for you! What's your plan for growing them out? And just out of curiosity, what fish are you growing them out for?

See, that's why I'm always torn between "I think I might something useful" and "but I don't have any firsthand experience with it". Thanks for the correction! Ooh, a mouth broader could be cool!

Or maybe a new color! Or maybe Caridina, if the parameters are right and you want a new challenge.

That looks like a great start, and I bet your betta, name or not, loves all the swimming space!

Are Neocaridina shrimp a "flight risk" for crawling out? They'd probably make fun inhabitants.

The hardscape looks great, and I can't wait to see it planted. Plus this journal's title is inspired wordplay!

I can second the Apistogramma cacatuoides, unless you want parental behavior from both parents. My two apisto moms are attentive momma bears; with the two dads, they've mostly not been a threat to the fry but also don't help at all. I have no first hand experience breeding any of the following, but I think both Bolivian rams and German blue rams provide parental care. Bristlenose pleco males guard fry, as do some (all?) gourami species.

"Aquarium salt" means straight sodium chloride with no additives, right? So that shouldn't be an issue. (I use kosher salt, because it's affordable and I keep some in the kitchen anyway. I mention it because ionized table salt isn't a good choice.) My water starts off clear with the brown cysts bouncing around in the water, circulated by the bubbler. After 24-36 hours, depending on temperature*, the water becomes a sort of opaque brown/orange because of all the freshly hatched brine shrimp. When you say "milky", do you mean the water loses clarity and becomes opaque, or do you mean it literally becomes white or whiter? If they are dead and/or unhatched at 24 hours, check at 18 hours, just to see. The only other thing I can think of is that my first hatch was bad, with a disappointingly low live hatch rate, so I went back to the YouTube tutorials I'd watched.** I decided that my air pump was pushing too much air through the airstone*** and put an air valve on the line and turned down the airflow from 'rolling boil' to 'gentle simmer', and my hatch rate became much improved. I assume the eggs or shrimp were getting battered around too much before and dying, but I guess I don't know for sure. Anyway, if your airflow is too high, maybe you can turn that down? * I don't use a heater. I start off with 85°F water then just rely on the ambient temperature. ** I can put some links if you want, but it sounds like you've already done that homework. *** Technically not an airstone but a plastic Ziss air diffuser, but who's counting?

I'm gathering supplies: I have basically everything I need, I think. There's most of an ACO small sponge filter in there; the sponge itself is seeding in my 55 gallon tank, but it'll be used on my 10 gallon fry grow-out tank. That tank currently has an Oase HOB rated for up to 20 gallons, so that'll get put on this 20 long. One thing I have been looking for but not finding is "aquatic compost". MD Fish Tanks has been using it a lot as part of his "substrate system" in conjunction with gravel, sand, and root tabs, so I thought I'd go that route, too. He says you can find it at any pond supply shop, but I've been asking around and mostly getting blank looks and shrugs. Maybe it's a British English term? If I can't find it, I'll just root tab the stuffing out gravel and sand and wait for mulm to build up. I can be patient and I'm not planning on any difficult plants anyway. Then I'll have to cut another polycarbonate sheeting lid. Oh, and I'll need the hardcape, too. I guess I don't have almost everything I need after all.

That looks great, even at this early stage. I'm looking forward to more updates!

Okay, I'll try to fit it into the schedule! My LFS had some representation there last year, but I found out about it too late to attend. That should be enough time to arrange babysitting...