jwcarlson

Nice book, @xXInkedPhoenixX! I finished this book last night. Pretty textbook-like, but it was interesting.

They're my favorite movies ever... I have watched them SO many times. I prefer the movies vs. the book. I appreciate what the books have done for fantasy and all that. But to be honest, they're a bit much. So many song breaks... 😄 I know that might not be a popular opinion, but I think if you don't like the movies you're going to have a hard time with the books.

Bernard Cornwell wrote The Saxon Series, it was made into a series by Netflix called The Last Kingdom. They're both good. I will say that the books get a bit repetitive, but they're good. Perhaps my favorite non-fiction book that I've ever read is Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. I don't think it's particularly complex, but is a really good look at... well... "us".

What do you like?

I'd REALLY suggest that you try a different air line before you start gluing stuff. I've never had a single airline come loose when it was just sitting there pumping. Some will come off when disturbed, but it's always the more rigid stuff. ACO air line and similar high flex tubing, I've never had any issues with it.

They don't need much for light. Room light is probably fine. I put my tank light on little 3D printed stilts which gave it plenty of light.

It's fine, I'm guessing it's just a separate color variant that was selected for at some point. Even if pothos was deathly toxic to fish, it is not even in the top 1000 fish killers in the aquarium hobby.

I've never had issues with my fish with pothos in the tanks... discus, bristlenose, tetras, corys, bettas... probably others I am forgetting.

Please let me know how you like it. I read it just about bang on 20 years ago. I've always wondered how it aged. I read the first two of the series, but did not read past that.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab - I have owned this book for years and never picked it up. I thought it was very good, pretty unique. I've barely read for the last few months... moving and whatnot really screws that up.

I have used "big box" hoses for aquarium stuff and never had an issue. The water is in contact with the hose for such a brief period of time I find it hard to believe it could cause an issue. That said, a "safe" one probably really doesn't cost that much more.

Did you rinse it well before you used it? Do you have a link to what you bought? I believe there's some sands are Home Depot (and I assume Lowes) that are made for paver base which is not standard sand. Big box gravel/pebbles need to be rinsed A TON and mixed aggressively. Just running water through it isn't enough because a bunch of stuff is stuck/hardened on the sides of the rock. If that ends up in a tank it will settle overtime and would absolutely become kind of hard. I've never had an issue with the big box stuff as long as I'm buying actual rocks. And as long as I rinse it until I've got raw/bleeding knuckles from hand stirring the rocks.

4" of sand is A LOT. Especially if you want to keep the sand from building up *stuff*.

Six years is a pretty long run, it's possible she's old and some organs are failing and so she's swelling up a bit. Seems like you've tried a ton on her and at some point it's probably worse to keep bombarding her. Do you have a picture of the prolapse? The fact she is eating is good, but I think I'd fast her for a bit.

Hey hey, we don't talk bad about @Lowells Fish Lab around here. 🤣😆

I've only worried about them when I had fry. I've seen them wrangle small fry and in massive densities, believe it has been detrimental to corydora fry when there's enough to be dense on the bottom of a barebottom tank. Basically, the fish quit moving about on the bottom. When moved to a hydra free tank they immediately started behaving normally. My assumption is they were being stung by the hydra.

I'm not kidding when I tell you that every single time I have ever netted fish, I've wanted to quit the hobby. I gave up and anytime I needed to catch a fish I would drain the tank down low and give them less places to out maneuver me.

"Guys, guess what, I just bought a heater."

I never kept bolivian rams, but gold rams make great discus tankmates. Discus and rams at 82 works swimmingly. Bolivians, I thought, liked significantly cooler water. Most fish can take a really wide range, but they'll suffer much shorter lives and possibly other issues.

It won't be much for looking at, but you can put the thick foam insulation (big pink or blue sheets depending on if it's Lowes or HD). And basically... make a shell around your tank. In my head if you leave a lot of air space around what you're insulating with as high of humidity as you're going to have, you will have condensation and water droplets all over everything. So that's another consideration. I'd find a way to keep them indoors, personally. Not to be lost in all of this, but if you have 3 kW of heat running for 12 hours per day that's 36 kWh per day at New Jersey average of >17 cents per kWh is around $6 per day in electric. That's also 25 amps if they're all on at the same time. I'm out of fish keeping now, but I ended up splitting my fish room onto a few circuits because between the fish, a couple of snakes, and a couple of deep freezers... there was a lot of current draw at times. You don't want that kicking out a circuit breaker at midnight and turning your fish into ice cubes. And that's not considering the cost. My electric was close to $400/month when averaged through the year.

Initially, a bunch of swordtails, and they were out and about quite a bit with them. But I still just didn't like them. When in the next tank, a mix of tetras, some corys, a couple plecos... but it was much more densely planted. I just didn't hit it off with them, I guess. They're pretty neat fish.

The only time I have ever been disappointed with an InkBird product is when it has had WiFi (it was a BBQ thermometer). Otherwise, they have been fantastic. I probably own close to 20 of their heat controllers. They're great. Regarding what size heaters and what kind of heaters to use. With a heat controller, I buy whatever random alphabet soup heater is least expensive on Amazon. They have lasted longer than Eheim heaters and are smaller footprint. That said, the wattage isn't always accurate (for example a 300W and 500W heater are probably the same heater and they're actually around 250W). But the heater is built better than others (IMO). It also matters what fish you're going to keep. If you're keeping discus or rams... you're going to have to keep that thing HOT, so you want the wattage to do it. And you're highly unlikely to overheat the tank considering you have a quality heat controller, as long as you keep the probe in the water. Fair warning: the InkBird suction cups kind of stink. Consider an alternative means of securing the probe. I have had good luck with the suction cups putting them on my bare bottom tanks (on the bottom).

I had "six" kuhli loaches for awhile. I did not really enjoy them much, so I rehomed them all. Or... I thought I did, apparently I'd had 7. There was one loose one that I missed. It went into the new tank I'd set up and I didn't see it again for over 1.5 years. I assumed it was dead, but after netting out all of the fish, he showed up when I was netting out all of the shrimp to give away. Thankfully the guy taking the shrimp also took the kuhli loach.

Was catching them out particularly problematic? I've lost a rummynose that died from being stressed from it being difficult to catch. Would be hard to believe that all of them died from that, though.

Sorry to hear about your fish. 😞 Curious as to why you would drip acclimate at all given that the fish are moving within your "system". Are there any wild differences in parameters? Going from tank to tank in my own water I've always just netted and dumped unless there's big temperature difference, I'll put them in a container and then dump a couple of cups from the new tank to bring temp up a bit before putting them in.