Nyssa

Thank you, this is really hard but we're pulling through the best we can. The pump on the upper pond has been broken for a while, so the water hasn't been spilling into the little river and lower pond. I don't think he was well enough to feed them, and I would feed them whenever I was over, so I think the two ponds are their own little ecosystems now. The upper pond has some really big chunky koi, and all of their offspring would go into the spillover river and into the bottom pond. I need to take a better look at it when I'm over there tomorrow to check on my MIL, I'm not even sure how many there are right now. Last I remember there were maybe 10 or so really big ones, and several babies throughout the system. The river is pretty much dried up from what I can tell, but I'll get a better look. It was kind of the last thing on everyone's minds to be fair with the circumstances, but I can't help but worry about them 😞 I didn't know there were koi specific clubs, I'll have to do some digging I suppose.

Sorry if this belongs in the other section of the forum(feel free to move it if needed), but I'm not sure how to go about this. Here's a bit of background of the situation: So my husband and I are in a bit of a pickle. My FIL just passed away this past weekend, and we're worried about the koi fish in his multi-tiered pond. My MIL most likely is going to have to sell the house since she won't be able to stay there anymore on her own because she is disabled. My FIL was too sick to do maintenance on the pond the past year or so, and we will most likely need to rehome the fish. We're at a loss on how to even begin that process with everything else going on with funeral arrangements and well... grieving. But it is something that is on our minds for the near future while we start going through things in the house. There's also a 55 gallon aquarium inside the house with parrot cichlids, and I would imagine we could just bring those to our LFS, but the koi are a big question mark here. Does anyone here have any suggestions on what we could do or who we could call in this instance? We are in Ocean County in New Jersey. Thanks in advance.

My fish really seem to love the Xtreme Community Crave and the Krill Flakes, they go nuts over them 😊 sometimes I'll switch it up with some Fluval Bug Bite flakes as well so they have some variety.

I just placed an order this morning because my usb air pump decided to unalive itself, but when things aren't breaking I can see ordering every 6 months or so. In the beginning of my tanks I was ordering more frequently for plants and such, but now that everything's established and thriving it's more for maintenance items.

I do for specific fish, if they're unique and/or have their own quirky personality. The rest of them... not so much (oh the joys of being overrun by platy fry) My original parent platys: Daisy (female, orange mickey mouse), Kali (female, tuxedo), Jared (male, White Wagtail), Misty (female, blue mickey mouse, recently passed from dropsy...she was my favorite 😕) Some of their offspring are named too: Mini-Misty(looks just like her mom), Sierra(Misty but with black fins, female), Dakota (Misty but with a bright orange top fin, female), Naranga (deep orange female, no markings and really stunning), Amber (gold mickey mouse, female), Luna (white mickey mouse, my prized female) Sadly all of Kali's offspring kinda look the same so they're not named 😳 those strong tuxedo genes! In my community tank, I added an angelfish that I originally named Oreo (but has since morphed into Oiyo), and a neon blue dwarf gourami named Mordenkainen... Kai for short (MtG reference, my husband named him LOL) Also my betta is named Vazidas, Vazi for short (my husband named him too) Can you tell I get emotionally attached 🙃 I love my wet pets!

Honestly I just leave my zucchini in my tanks until it's all gone, up to two days. How many plecos are in the tanks? Maybe they need a little more time with them, or it's too much are the only things I can come up with. My bristlenose in my community tank usually hogs it and doesn't let anyone else near it, she takes her time 🙃

I think the angelfish is your best bet, they'll have fun hunting them so it's enrichment and food 😅 It's a big reason I put an angelfish in with my community tank with platys that I'm having trouble pulling all the females out of, the fry "suspiciously" go missing 🧐 free food!

I personally got my nerites from one of the big box stores, snails are pretty indestructible so I confidently get them from there.

I quickly learned the hard way with livebearers (as I'm sure many of us do), that you need to separate them out in a timely fashion, otherwise you'll be overrun. Luckily I was (sort of LOL) fast enough to stop the vicious cycle and ended up with a lot of interesting color combinations from my original 4 platys! My pride and joy of all the spawn is a perfectly white mickey mouse platy, her name is Luna 🌙 I don't think I have it in me to be a proper breeder, I get too emotionally invested! But that was a fun/hectic introduction to the hobby for sure 😅

Joining the chorus on the nerites! My betta likes to flare at the two that I have in my 5 gallon tank, and sometimes he'll get a bit huffy with them, but they're big enough that they're totally unfazed. They keep the tank spotless... until they lay eggs everywhere and add the spots back in. But they're really easy to remove so I think it's a fair trade off.

Plants for sure, I've been eyeing the Brazilian Pennywort for a while 👀 and I've always wanted to try some crypts, my parva died a slow and tragic death and I want to try a larger crypt.

I have a dark window film on my 55 long, it works wonderfully! I've found it helpful to have it be semi transparent when you look behind and into the tank to check on some of the fish. From the front it's close enough to the wall that you can't even tell it's window tint.

There's no way I could do that with my all girls platy tank, I moved them all from my original tank as they grew out when I was being overrun with fry. They like to school together, but there are just too many to count. If I had to guess probably 40-50 easily in my 55 long. Livebearers seem to make this notoriously difficult I'm noticing 😅 My original tank is turning into a community tank, I just added an angelfish and a dwarf gourami along with all of the male platys, so it'll be much easier to track that one!

Oh my god, that gave me a good hearty laugh 🤣

Yeah I generally don't vacuum around my pogo octopus, it doesn't seem to mind the extra gunk 😅