AnimalNerd98

To celebrate my entry into graduate school, my wife and I are planning on going up to Washington and making the pilgrimage trip to Aquarium Co-Op in late April for 4 days and 3 nights (not including driving days). Does anyone have any suggestions for other LFS, tourist spots, and restaurants in the area? We’ll be staying in Seattle. We’re also planning on going to the Pacific Bonsai Museum and Seattle Aquarium. All suggestions are welcome!

I have fed fruit flies to fish and baby tarantulas. There is a trick to it: 1) Hold the container and tap it against a flat surface while holding the lid. This will knock them all down from the lid and sides of the container. 2) If you don’t want to use up all the flies, immediately take off the lid and pour them into a separate container with a lid. If you just want to feed them all, skip this step. 3) Stick the container in the freezer for 5-10 minutes and this will make the fruit flies “go to sleep”. This won’t kill them, but makes them less mobile and easier to feed. Once they start warming up, they’ll start climbing all over the place again.

Yes! They look like springtails to me.

Looking good! I would also suggest using some other leaves in addition to the magnolia. While magnolia is aesthetically pleasing, I learned the hard way that it is very difficult for isopods to break them down. In other words, they end up being decorations but not really a source of food. Here’s an article talking about other kinds of leaves that isopods love to eat: https://www.smug-bug.com/post/the-importance-of-leaves-for-isopods For feeding, I give them fish flakes, carrots, zucchini, and leftover crested gecko food. I also leave pulverized egg shells in the corners for calcium.

Welcome to the forum and I’m glad you’ve joined the hobby! Could you post some photos and/or descriptions of the tanks that you have? We would all love to see what you’re keeping 😊

I agree, pea puffers can be quite voracious and don’t tolerate other tank mates well. Did you want to try your hand at breeding, get some oddballs, or setup a nice show tank? Here are my stocking ideas for an empty 20 gallon: 1) Platinum halfbeaks (I’m biased because I currently have these in my 20 gallon tank). They are livebearers but are semi aggressive. I found that the more you keep though, the less likely it is for one to be singled out. 2) There’s just something about neon tetras that I find irresistible. Put in some good plants like Vallisneria and maybe a school of sterbai corydoras at the bottom, you could watch it for hours everyday. 3) Setup a tank full of Neolamprologus multifasciatus (shelldwellers). They are very interesting to watch and are relatively easy to breed. 4) A river type setup with gold white cloud minnows, hillstream loaches, stiphodon gobies, and bamboo/vampire shrimp. Get some nice rock work, stick in a power head, and watch the fish dance in the current.

Looks like hair algae and the start of some other filamentous algae. https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/aquarium-algae Here’s the coop’s article on algae. it is very difficult to completely wipe out algae because it is opportunistic. You can do your best to manually remove it and then try some treatments, but if the new tank you’re moving them to doesn’t have the “perfect” parameters, they can just grow back. Hopefully the article and some other forum members can give you some more advice. Good luck!

That’s what I thought too! I saw some of the fry just chilling next to their parents. I guess it helps that they’re kept well fed. Here’s another theory I have: I think the increased flow may also have something to do with it. The adults tend to stay near the outflow of the pump because I usually feed them by letting a cube of blood worms disintegrate in front of the outflow. They probably wait near the high flow area in anticipation of food. The fry are then able to retreat into the refuge of the floating plants where the flow is slow. If there was only a sponge filter running, the parents might just go through all parts of the tank and spend more time hunting down the fry. Just my own theory, not sure if it’s valid

I keep A. gestroi, rubber duckies, P. laevis, and P. pruinosus. Whereabouts do you live? If you’re interested in any of the species I have, I can send you a starter colony (except the rubber duckies, they’re just getting started). I adopted Serpa Design’s method and keep one side more moist with sphagnum moss and the other side drier. You may consider letting the substrate and entire enclosure air out a bit before adding the springtails and isopods to get the mold more under control. I also recommend cork bark because it is less prone to rotting. If you ever make too many holes, you can just cover them with athletic tape. For my leaf litter, I’ve used cottonwood, maple, and linden leaves successfully. I usually harvest them right off the branch during the change of the seasons and when they’re all dried up. I’ve found that you get a lot less mold and fungus if you get them when they’re already dry and on the branch rather than bringing in moist leaves from the ground. Keep us updated on your progress!

I keep isopods, tarantulas, geckos, and frogs in addition to my fish tanks. I also like hiking, dabble in vegetable gardening, and watch anime. I’m not a big gamer, but I’ll play every new Pokémon game that comes out.

I am partial to ceramic bowl ponds, but I’ve also used plastic ones from Walmart without issue. I recently picked up this pot during my last trip to Las Vegas. It holds about 7 gallons and I got it for $70.

I’ve found that they’re similar to guppies, where they move all throughout different levels of the water. When I’ve kept them indoors and outdoors in bowl ponds, they tend to swim up near the top when it’s bright out but go lower when it starts getting dark. They will eat food off the bottom. I don’t keep them with shrimp normally, but I have kept their spawning brushes in with shrimp.

I’ve been MIA from the forum for a while, but just wanted to share some photos of some recent breeding success. I’ve had these platinum halfbeaks for over a year and even kept them outside for the summer without any fry. Last week, I noticed some blue green algae growing in the tank and I wanted to increase the circulation to see if it would help. I put in a little submersible pump and not a week later, I found 11 fry. The parents didn’t even seem interested in them, they just wanted to play in the new flow. Let me know if you have any questions about these cool fish. Here’s some background info: - There are approximately 9 adults in the 20 gallon. - it’s planted with Vallisneria, Salvinia minima, and Dwarf water lettuce - parents are fed about 1 cube of bloodworms/brine shrimp per day - I have the fry in a hanging breeder box and I’m feeding them Hikari first bites and baby brine shrimp 2-3 times a day

This popped up in my recommended feed on YouTube and I thought I would share it on the forum for fellow ricefish fanatics. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0PM8di_wyKg I loved the long-fin varieties that they highlighted in the video.

Based on your past favorites I would suggest: Soul Eater, Code Geass, Black Clover, Boku No Hero, Jujutsu Kaisen, Hunter x Hunter