jwcarlson

Looks a lot like this stuff. I rolled it into a ball. Some sort of algae (marimo maybe?), I really like it though. It's got good structure and as you say, the shrimp do seem to love it.

They're still so small! I didn't have my phone with me last night or I would have taken a picture. They've got the semblance of little tails, which I've been able to see for awhile. They're certainly getting around better than they were. Mine never got up on the sides of their enclosure until just before free swimming. It's amazing to me how vulnerable they are and for how long.

I'll take a video and you can try counting them. 😄 I'm guessing around 20? Edit to add: so I think I harvested about 35 eggs, at some point I had about 25 fry after a few got fungus-y looking (and could have been infertile). There's been at least two that I lost since free swimming age, but they were never really free swimmers. I'm not sure how many to expect to lose, but that attrition seems... reasonable... I think? This second batch with tons of eggs is more perplexing. The only thing I can think of is that I "handled" them too much when I was separating them from the plants I had in the breeder box and might have been too rough on them at that time? Otherwise like I said before, it was a different male. The female is looking quite plump again as of this morning, so I might move to spawn them again here tonight or tomorrow. Seems like 36-48 hours in the breeder box does the trick. I think this time I'll do very limited plants and focus on trying not to handle the eggs at all.

Well then they're just live and not live bearers then, aren't they? 😄

I think too many people think live bearers are good beginner fish. They might be "easy" to keep, but they're not easy to manage... if that makes any sense.

I struggle when reading reports about anything with fish. When I first got my apistos I could have written a post that said I successfully spawned A. hongloi in a 55 gallon with three pairs in it. While true, it's not necessarily... honest. Not saying that the post you're referencing isn't honest. But perhaps it's a one off?

It's this... 100%. At least IMO.

I listened to The Fireman and I thought it was... OK. I wouldn't have liked to read it, I don't think. Joe Hill isn't quite as enjoyable of a writer as his father, in my opinion. But it's got that just good enough to not make me completely give up on it curse. I've listened to a few of his books. The only other one that stick in my mind was NOS4A2 which I had similar feelings about. I finished David Peace's Nineteen Seventy-Four last night and started Nicholas Eames' Kings of the Wyld. I'm not too far into it yet, but it's an interesting premise.

I couldn't guess as to why they're more expensive, honestly. Difficulty in breeding, perhaps? But that's just another way of saying they're rare. Your friend thought the apistos weren't colorful?! Is she still your friend? 😄 😄

That's a pretty good selection, IMO. I've never even seen a live apistogramma outside of my house (or a dead one, for that matter). The Borellii look pretty nice to me. Since I think that's the best fit for your tank, I think I'd go with those if they appeal well to you.

I did something totally wrong here, some of the eggs started to hatch but nothing is left in the breeder box. Like... not even debris from the eggs dead/missing hatched fish. It started almost immediately, but I figured it was just some one off situation. But as of yesterday there was nothing. Almost like they just disappeared. Really strange and I'm not sure what to make of it. Female is fattening right up so I'll be able to get plenty more eggs almost whenever I want at this point. Only difference between the too batches that comes to mind is a different male. So... that's a possibility I need to keep in mind. The existing batch of fry continues to grow and do well. I lost a couple early on after free swimming stage, they just never really left the bottom much, so assuming some sort of genetic type defects. I don't know that that type of thing is unexpected. It didn't' worry me. I don't have fresh pictures, but they're pretty obviously a bit bigger and they've got tiny tails. I tried vinegar eels again the other day and didn't notice anyone pursuing the eels right off... but that stuff is so tiny I'm not sure I'd be able to see much anyway. When I feed them I do see some of them grabbing slightly bigger pieces and kind of trying to bite them. So they might be getting close. Feeding three times per day during the week and on weekends I can do five times pretty easy. Nightly siphoning of the bottom, tonight I will transfer them to a new box and thoroughly clean the one they've been in. If I can do that safely, I might end up doing that every night as would probably be faster than the siphon. Plus I ALWAYS suck up at least one of the little things. They don't seem worried by the siphon at all, swimming right up to the business end.

I have a few tanks in which I am constantly struggling to keep nitrates in. I guess it's a decent problem to have. When I am "on top of it" I have dosed as often as daily. Checking nitrate levels every couple days. Some time ago someone relayed to me that one pump from the bottle is intended to raise nitrates by 3 ppm in 10 gallons of water. That has been pretty accurate based on my testing before and after dosing. So I operate under the assumption that it's close enough for what I'm doing. So if you're sitting at 10 in a 40 gallon I would test to confirm where it's at give it 12 pumps just before lights off and then check it first thing in the morning. 12 pumps should raise nitrates by about 10 ppm in a 40 gallon. Again, you're not making pills being pretty close is almost always more than good enough. If it looks like it has boosted up to about 20, then you can be pretty confident. If it's significantly different then start looking at your test method. Then it's a matter of figuring out how much nitrate is leaving the system on a given day. Some aquariums I have are very easy to kind of balance this in... others it seems like I get it for a few weeks and then it all goes to pot... I don't understand it, but to be honest, I haven't invested enough mentally to try figuring it out. It doesn't seem like it should be that complicated considering that it is not complicated in some tanks. In any event... you're not alone in your struggles! I tested all my aquariums a couple days ago and had only one of them above 10 ppm nitrates.

There was a post here not long ago lamenting the struggles that bettas can be. I had one die after a few months. Several others as well. I do not anticipate owning another one. Though my daughter wants one everytime we go to the LFS. Glad yours is alive! Hope she turns it around!

By dragon stone you mean mud with a little bit of rock. 😄 Rinse all you can, but you're going to bring mud over with it. It isn't the end of the world, get the loose stuff off and toss it in.

I would recommend not putting rummynose in a 14G cube (that's like a 15" cube, right?). I would look into something much smaller for a schooling fish. I don't have experience with most of the "nano" offerings, but because of that footprint I would really recommend not going with rummys. I had some in a 30" wide tank and they didn't get to school very well. They're best in a four foot tank (or more) IMO. And I would say no to a pleco, but you could house a juvy in there for awhile most likely. I have some kuhli loaches (though I think I'm going to give them back to the LFS so he can resell them), they mostly seem to just hide out together in a pile where you can't see them. So not sure if that sounds good to you or not. I see them, just not very often. I think some cherry shrimp would be great with your betta. Though it would likely be best to have them established first and then add the betta. He will absolutely eat some of them, but you'll probably have more shrimp then you can shake a stick at anyway. I really like cherry shrimp (in whatever color variety), they're one of the best things to watch in the tank. Other than my apistos, I don't think there's something I like watching better than them, honestly. Otherwise, welcome to the forum. I'm from the midwest as well! 🙂

Mine use the height when they're getting away from aggression. While it's not a warzone like some cichlids can get, they're definitely times when they're not wanting to be around each other. When they're getting ready to spawn they're hanging out near each other pretty consistently. When the female isn't ready (in nature) he kind of drives her away. When we constrict their movement with a tank, they can't do that. So she's got to go *somewhere* and up it is. When the female is with her spawn, she will chase the male away. Again, in nature... he has more/less unlimited space to escape her aggression. In a tank, they seem to go "up". The hongsloi I have seem to take a hint and kind of self space themselves when their partner isn't enthusiastic about their company. I wouldn't say that the top 1/3 of my tanks are well used, but I would say that it's used almost as a safety device. At some point there wouldn't be enough space for the aggressor to feel like they've successfully kept the fish away from the area. Now, you might find that it's not a big deal and it just kind of scales to what they're in. I have no experience. Mine are in a 29 and two pairs in a 55 (with divider, so about 24" wide, so a little smaller than a 29 in that regard). I'm thinking about changing these to 30 breeders or whatever the 30 gallon longs are called, specifically for more footprint. Which would (I think) limit the need for the extra height by nature of having additional lateral space. Again, to be clear, I have only kept hongsloi and only for a few months. Take my information with a grain of salt. Your tank's footprint is better than a 10 gallon, but I'm not convinced that footprint is necessarily the only part that matters. Mine will even eat from the surface and it's certainly not because they're starving, I feed them like kings/queens. 😄 You asked if they're active... I would say mine move a lot, but they're not like tetras zipping around endlessly. They seem curious and I would say that they move with purpose. The male will almost always present himself to the female if she is in his sight. But if she's hiding out or away from him. He'll prowl around the tank and check out stuff. Baby brine shrimp they haven't eaten yet, snails on the glass or wood... they'll even eat snail eggs. And they're constantly sifting sand. Not like a geophagias, but they move quite a bit of sand around. Forgot to add these... even if you're not getting either of these species, I think you cannot go wrong treating yourself to a viewing or ten of @Lowells Fish Lab's apistogramma breeding videos. Or, indeed... ANY of his videos. They're absolutely incredible and wildly informative!

I've only been keeping apistos for a matter of months, but would agree that the tank is a bit on the smaller side. I've seen a lot of suggestions on the internet for spawning a pair of apistos in a 10 gallon tank and having a few pairs now... I cannot wrap my head around that being possible. I suppose if you spawn them and then pull the male it might work. But in terms of long-term living, I cannot imagine a pair cohabitating in a 10 gallon without a bad ending. Even a 29 seems a bit small. Though all I have is Hongsloi, so unsure if that's because they're a bit bigger? But I also understand that they are a less aggressive variety than some others. That's about all I've got to offer. I have two man made caves for each pair. Male seems to only enter them during spawn or on other "random" infrequent occasions. The driftwood in all of my tanks also offer at least one and as many as 2 or 3 small caves. When you're picking it out from the store, keep an eye for that. I think I might move to at least one cut in half flower pot in each tank because the man made caves are very small. The male hongsloi really have to try hard to get in them which always makes me worry. They'll ram into small holes though... here's one of my pairs during a spawn (about 57 seconds in if this doesn't go right to it): More generally, they do tend to stay near the bottom, but I would say the utilize more of the water column than I would have thought. A pressured female will tend to hang out higher in the water during times when the male is quite pushy. One pair of mine, the female hangs out up top quite a bit, but it's getting better. I put one of those floating beta logs in and she hangs out in there when he gets too crazy. Typically, the Hongsloi have been pretty 'chill'.

I change 90% of water daily in my discus tank. I dump the Prime in then walk to the basement to switch valves and set up my pump. So I just pump the unconditioned water in and the Prime neutralizes everything (edit to add by "everything" I mean chlorine and chloramine) "instantly". I would not put the new water in and then add the conditioner. Put the conditioner in first, it will not hurt anything. I've had a situation where a heater died and I didn't have pre-heated water to refill the tank and the discus skated around on their sides for 45+ minutes in an inch or so of water + Prime. Then I added more Prime and pumped it full once I had the temp where I wanted it by hauling near boiling water down the steps a bunch. 😄 I also treat the whole volume of water when I change any appreciable amount of water more than a top off. Meaning yesterday when I changed about 60% of water in my 37 gallon community tank, I treat all 37 gallons not *just* the water I changed out.

I wouldn't tear out the roots, I don't think. I would trim closer to the base and let it send up new shoots from there. Could just do one and see what happens? Seems a waste to pull it all up and discard the roots? I usually do something like this because when I set up a new tank I put cuttings in from other thanks. Inevitably the new tank has a big algae growth period initially, so then I trim back those heavily covered parts and let it regrow. You've almost got the reverse situation there. But I don't see why you couldn't do the same thing. You could cut down low then cut off the algae'd portion and replant the cleaner tips and see if it sends up new shoots.

The hiding female from pair #1 has been out and about much more recently. I think she just had kind of had enough. She was out looking nice and bright this AM. I did cool water changes in the tanks last night. Most of them were looking nice this morning. 🙂 Female from pair #2, this is the pair that seems like they will mate soon/eventually. They're almost always near each other and never too much aggressive chasing. You can see her mouth damage (at least I hope that's what it is and that it's not a genetic thing). All three females seem to have some level of mouth damage (they had it when I received them). She "walked" him all over the tank while I was watching. She tilts up at a 45 degree angle and very slowly wagged her tail back and forth and lead him around. I've seen a bit of this before, but never for as long as she did it this morning. Another shot of them hanging out. Male from pair #1 Male from pair #2 - not completely colored up, he has a lot more red when he's really looking good. It's amazing how fast they can flush in and out of their coloring. You can kind of see his bottom scales blushing. I finally scraped the front glass yesterday... and you can see that I missed a spot near his tail. 😄 Nothing to report really, they were looking handsome this morning so I took some pictures.

I don't cut them either, it takes longer than it's worth, honestly. At least for me.

Just resealed a 29. I have never done one before. I didn't strip it all the way down, the silicon on the outside (overflow the the original seam) is still very pliable. So I stripped the inside, taped everything off, and sealed it up. I think it went pretty well. We'll see when I put water in it. 😄 Also water changes in discus tank (every day), CPD fry (every day), and two apistogramma tanks.

I don't disagree that fish can survive a lot of time in shipment, but would challenge that you shouldn't ship as quickly as you can if possible. While 2 or 3 days isn't a big deal, what if it's delayed a day? Or sits in a hot warehouse for a whole day? Or takes an extra day and ends up sitting over a weekend somewhere? Overnight shipping helps eliminate so many of those problems. I haven't shipped any fish, but I have shipped a number of queen honey bees. Transit time and conditions makes a huge difference for bees. Differences that cannot be seen with the naked eye. My assumption would be it is similar in fish, though perhaps not with as many reproductive ramifications as it has with honey bee queens as it can lead to sterility, decreased pheromone production, and ultimately death or rejection as a result. There are quite affordable overnight options, I had apistos overnighted for $35 a few months ago. Is it worth saving $20 to risk it? Nah. Usually the overnight services have more reliable delivery times/schedules as well.

Format: ammonia/nitrite/nitrate Just for the record, I recognize this for what it is. A drive for us to use more test strips. And I didn't even cut these in half. You're welcome, Cory. 🤣 75 gallon discus 0/0/0 pH 8.2 KH 15 GH 22 37 gallon community 0/0/10 pH 8.2 KH 15 GH 22 dosed EZ Green 46 gallon bowfront 0/0/5 pH 8.2 KH 15 GH 22 10 gallon QT current CPD fry/eggs in breeder boxes 0/0/0 pH 8.2 KH 15 GH 22 10 gallon CPDs 0/0/25 pH 8.2 KH 15 GH 22 29 gallon apisto pair 0/0/0 pH 7.2 KH 4 GH 3 55 gallon two apisto pairs, divided 0/0/5 pH 7.2 KH 4 GH 3 Apistos are getting water changes this afternoon and will dose a little EZ Green and root tabs at that point. Nitrates are a huge struggle for me to keep in my tanks. Not complaining, though.

I have bought a mix to populate my fish room. Things hard to get locally, I have shipped. My discus, my apistos, my CPDs... Locally, we have a pretty good store an hour away. I had bad luck initially with his fish, but once I went to plop and drop the only fish I have lost was one kerri tetra when I clipped the bag and it zipped the tear completely around the circumference and dropped down into the catch bucket. One got crushed. Can't really blame that on fish quality. Plus they are also an ACO partner store, which is really awesome. For one offs I hit the local store, but if I am buying something bigger or plants I order from the Co-Op online.