Corbidorbidoodle

Got a couple Bolivian Rams about a week ago. Just noticed this guy is sitting on the ground. Is that okay? He was kinda puffing out his gills too. He seems fine now, cuz I scared him with my phone... Water tests fine. 76 deg 0 chlorine 6.8 ph 60 kh 300 GH 0 nitrite 20 nitrate

Hey, y'all. I have an empty 40gal breeder that I'm thinking of setting up for German Blue Rams. I'd like to have live plants, nicely scaped, maybe another kind of fish swimming around in there. And I'm not 100% sure I need them to breed, but that would be pretty neat. But, basically, I wanna have a display tank with the possibility of breeding. Plants? I've heard that I might need plants that specifically will like the higher 85 deg temp. Any suggestions there? Hardscape? Caves, right? Can I make those out of rocks and wood, or do they need to be, like, a coconut shell? And these guys need, like, a terracotta pot for eggs, right? Or is any flat rock kinda thing okay? Tank mates? Can you suggest cleanup crew and maybe something fun dither fish that'll live with them well? I have a basic understanding of their needs from the googles, but there're so many of you here I figure you'll have some good suggestions. And probably plenty of you have set up the exact same thing. Thanks!

Yeah, okay. That makes sense. I'll leave the silicone where it is. But I'll attach some pics, since it was requested, and for future readers.

You know on cheap tanks, how the silicone at the seams is smushed out on the glass, like, 3/4 of an inch... Can I just cut that with a razor blade and peel it off or remove it? Is it typically structurally important or anything? I know there are probably some brand specific guidelines or something, but I mean just in general. And I promise I won't hold any of you responsible.

Oh, right. I remember hearing that. I'm a lousy nature photographer. I do mostly studio table-top work and a little bit of editorial. I was messing around a little this morning and even just getting these guys in focus is challenging. I'm going to bring my higher res camera from work and try that one. I'll be able to shoot wider, so I can get the fish and eek out a little more DOF, so maybe I'll even get a whole fish in focus from head to tail. Then I can just crop it. So you used to specifically shoot fish for a living? Or nature? Or just photography in general?

Oh, glare isn't a problem. I've had to shoot through windows or with windows in the background lots of times. The trick is just getting the lights at the right angle to the reflection. I'll probably just set the strobes right on the lid (polycarbonate)

Oh, I'm not terribly precious about carpeting. I'm just always on the lookout for something interesting. I've got gobs of rotundifolia, so I'll try anything easy with different shaped leaves.

I've cut the light back to 10hrs with a siesta and it's working really well. Pretty much no new algae growing now and the cleanup crew has pretty much eliminated everything. I'm actually a little worried about keeping the cleaners fed. I've heard ottos don't take to wafers easily. But there are worse problems to have.

Thanks, guys. I picked up the Cardinalis at a Petsmart or something on a whim. I really like how it's growing. Now that I know what it is I looked it up and seems it can carpet which is cool. That hydrophylla has really cool, giant but delicate leaves. The images on line make it look like it'll be really cool once it fills in. I got that one on CL from a guy just liquidating all his plants and fish to put his tanks in storage.

Hey, y'all. Is it okay to photograph your fish with flash/strobes? Is it gonna freak 'em out? I've been a professional photographer for about 20 years, but I've only been back in the fish keeping hobby for about 5 months. Cell phone pics of the pets don't turn out optimally for me, so I'm gonna start shooting fer realz. Can I light my tank with strobes? I've got everything from "on camera" speedlights to sun killers (powerful studio strobes). Can I blast these at the fish while I'm shooting? Think it's okay to use the big'uns? Just a few shots or a few hundred?

Hey, all. I have a couple plants that I got in trade. Could you please tell me what they are? Sorry about the rotation on the first image. But I'm wondering what the big leafed plant is. And the little, round leafed plant in the second picture.

I'm still a novice... But I only see that one Octopus plant in there and the rest are pretty slow growing. I'd try adding a couple fast growing stem plants to see if they suck up some extra algae food. I like Watersprite, cuz you don't have to plant it, so if it fixes your problem you can just take it out. I like growing Water Wisteria, it grows fast, and I've got it planted in the substrate.

My go to is to make a trap out of a vitamin bottle and a sandwich baggie. The vitamin bottles work well cuz they're usually very dark, like a hiding place. Then I cut a small corner off a baggie and push that part a couple inches in to the bottle. Then rubber band the rest of the baggie around the outside. So it's like a little lobster trap. Kinda. You'll catch lots of fish, so it helps to put it somewhere the fish you're looking to catch likes to go. Put a little food in there. It'll probably take a few tries but it's worked for me. Unless it's a placo. Then I just use a piece of zucchini with a net under it.

I know this is barely about fish, but I'm having a little trouble with a somewhat complicated schedule for my Feit outlets timing my lights, and I can't find a forum anywhere for that. Granted, my interwebs skills are very poor. Are any of you using those Feit Electric programmable outlets? Where are you going for troubleshooting?

Can you guys tell me what kind of plant this is? And how to plant it? I bought it in the stem plant section, but I feel like I'm seeing it growing on rhizomes in some videos that I watch.

Oh, right. Of course. I'll test the water and post the results.

Yeah, I'm hoping the SAEs (Siamese Algae Eaters) will take care of that for me. Luckily, all the decorations are nice and clean. The algae is mostly just growing on the leaves of the plants that had stalled.

I was way over lighting and under fertilizing. I was at 12hrs of Stingray 2 sitting right on top of the tank with basically zero additional water column ferts. I'm going 10 hours now and easy green twice a week. My plants had stopped growing and were getting covered in algea. But now they're growing great and there's no algae on the new leaves. Plus, the new leaves are, like, three times the size of the old ones.

I was mostly worried about starving the display fish.

Thanks for the tips. I already cut the light by abou 8 percent and Increased ferts. I should have mentioned Ive got a few ottos, a few amanos, and a few little SAEs as well. Ive seen the pearls nip at the algea a little, but the claners are on that stuff all day. Ive heard the internet talk about reducing food to make the cleanup crew more hungry. Oh, and I've been spot treating the algea with H2O2 and CO2 booster, so alot of it is bright red now.

I'm working on some various hair/string/BBA algea in a 55 with mostly cardinals, rummy nose, and pearls. Made some other changes to slow the algea. But trying to get the fish to pick at it a bit. How much should I reduce feeding? Like, just once a day? Every other day? Don't feed till it's gone?

I've got these three guppies with bright orange tiger stripes on their tales. But one of them has been loosing the orange. Two of them are newer by several months, but I honestly don't know which ones. The pic isn't great, but you can kinda see. They're pretty much behaving normally, I think. The tank is newish, but cycled and the water tests fine.

Currently lighting all my tanks for 12 hrs/day. Getting a little algae, so gonna cut back a little. I'm thinking of going from 6-9am and 1-8 pm. That's when I'd be able to enjoy the tanks the most. But I want to to have the lights on consistently on the weekends. Is that okay? So a siesta during the week and constant light on the weekends? But I'll take all the advice I can get from you guys. Seems the internet is all over the place on the subject. Scientific or anecdotal is fine. And my main goal is to enjoy the tanks. I like the plants, but I don't want to be a slave to them. They're here for me, I'm not here for them. See what I mean.

I've got this 55 gal long, medium light, pretty heavily planted and stocked. It looks perfect from the front, but from the side it's just a little bit tinted green. Like, not "green water" green. It's not cloudy or anything. The first pic is from the end of the tank shooting longways. I think it may be correlated to fertilizer? Maybe? I feel like it got a little greenish when I started using Easy Green again. It's only been about a week, and the plants are loving it. (you can see the post-dosing growth especially on the plants in the back of the second image) I don't even necessarily dislike the tint. But I'm trying to understand the hobby more and I'm wondering what the green tint is telling me about what's going on in the water. There's a bunch of wood in there. I've seen plenty of brown tinting from wood. Is green tinting wood a thing?

So I've tweaked this 5 gal betta tank a little, and it seems to be pretty balanced now. All the other plants in there (val, sprite, bacopa, java moss) are doing quite well, and are mostly algea free. But this guy isn't bouncing back like the others. Do you think it's too far gone? Should I cut off some leaves? Maybe trim it way back down? Or do I just need to pull it out and toss it? My experience is usually that a plant will get new, nice growth and then the lower leaves just kinda go away. But there doesn't seem to be new growth on this one.