nabokovfan87

Just how I am, I'd do bigger than a 5 for shrimp. This is what I would do! It's something I'm working on. Mostly for moss and suss whenever I can actually find some. The goal being to have something with plants that do fine. Mosses, stems, epiphytes, etc.

Mine did it all the time. Especially during feeding or early in the morning. A lot of them are similar to geos in being able to pick food out of the sand /fine substrates. Learned something new yesterday. Some fish do this to chew! I forget which specific fish was mentioned, but they have a gill rake. They pass the food over it and use that to chew it down smaller and smaller.

Chai Tea time for sure....

🤣 I definitely don't cut mine. Too hard to read for me as is and I genuinely don't trust myself to keep them dry to use the ~400 tests if I sat there and cut all the strips. 😂

Woot woot!!! I still don't know how you have so much variation in your genepool, but it's fun to see the differences. You just need a lot of sorting bins. 😂

@Cinnebuns did you keep golds? I haven't had experience with them in particular. I believe it's 2-3 per male, but hopefully someone else can comment to clarify! related blog: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/top-5-gouramis https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/honey-gourami

upload it to youtube, then post the link here. You can post something as unlisted (non-public) without the link to view it. This allows us to see it here without it being on youtube and searchable and all that if that's what you need.

Amazon Sword would be my guess.

Reminds me of sharks mating..... I do believe tonic immobility with sharks plays a role on their side though. I didn't realize they were biting one another at first. 😞

can you measure the temp of the tank?

WOW...... Extremely nice work. I am doing something similar in my tank, hoping for half as decent results as you have achieved.

Pro (adv. of shipped fish): -better genetics (assumed, probably likely) -better quality (depends what is available locally) -less steps / stress on the fish -potentially better care -better options (selection) Cons (adv. of local fish): -cost (less shipping) -you get to see the fish -potentially in your water parameters -limited options based on shop size/specialty The biggest thing to keep in mind is that you generally don't get to choose how a fish is shipped. You do get to choose what is shipped.... You might trust yourself to get a fish home locally much better than you do the postal worker, but that's all relative. You might trust the local shop to pack things better than the box arriving on your doorstep. There is a lot of variability in either situation. Based on what's available to me, I order online now.

Part of what you're dealing with is normal behavior. Do you see any wounds or issues with the female platy? Essentially, 3 males and 1 female, you'd ultimately like to have 6+ females in that group. My suggestion would be to either keep just the males and rehome the female, or try to add more females to the group.

@Coryhhas to see this! Ballerina puffers. That's amazing. Nice work getting them healthy MTPK!

Yeah, I need a barb pond one day. Cory's was extremely nice at the old house. Really well built and looked great.

I think we both know the answer to this..... You could try repashy powder as well with the shrimp in lieu of (or giving off days) of the bacteria AE. Especially in a jar, perfect stuff.

Definitely would be a black rice fish tub! (Southern California, US) The biggest concern is dealing with the dust, bright sun, heat, cold, and then the crazy winds. 60-100MPH pretty often. (At least that's what it feels like some days.)

Those shrimp look like lions encircling their prey.... Just a little. 😂

It's a relief for sure. Glad I went with my gut and did the full WC yesterday. Been watching them eat. There's one in concerned about maybe two. Just hoping to see them get in on the food. (One is a male that's very timid and looks malnourished).

First molt (I've been able to see and photograph)! I think I've decided to have at minimum 2 feeding dishes. Based on first few uses. This looks like the one that molted. Very bright and glossy. Just saw this "cave" be used by the shrimp. They are definitely going inside and using it as a cover/hotel after molting. I can only imagine how useful this will be in the future! This one looks a bit hidden and shaded.

It's just before 1 AM here. Usually about now I am relaxed, ready for bed. Currently my hands are soaked and I've just been neck deep in 2-3 potential failures. Part of the goal here is that I am honest with this process. That I am clear about what is going on and that I am extremely open about the highs and lows of this project. This is on the Tidal 55, this filter has been up and running for the sake of longevity with minor issues and a few quirks to work out. We've had our SECOND major quirk. (cc: @TeeJay please be sure to keep this in mind for yours) Prior to moving the tank to it's current location a few weeks ago the plants were thriving. Moving equipment there is always a risk of plant damage, especially when you're talking about moving fry and a large amount of fish. My hope is that the plants themselves are healthy, but just have some damage. I was losing 30-50 leaves per day following the move. Not right away, but I was scraping a lot of leaves off the surface. This is a perk of the skimmer mod, they weren't in the filter! Ultimately, I moved the tank, moved the fish, the corydoras were going bonkers. This isn't out of the ordinary given GH/KH swings and large water changes. Breeding behavior. I thought I was going to have eggs any day and this went on for a week or two. Some plants didn't make it as a result. I expected some losses because the fish were bigger, tank is cramped, resulting in a few bashed leaves. No big deal, but 50 a day is a lot! I am still going to chalk this up to plant damage, a variety of things compounding resulting in plant damage. Right now, I can't assume anything else. I am keeping up on dosing, lighting is dialed in, other plants (not on the bottom) are doing well, and the CO2 is working as best I can get it. The location of the diffuser changed, which is also another big variable. Before: Today: I walk into the room tonight to do some other work. Previously in the day I was working on everything, topped up this tank in particular and it was something where I didn't see any issues. Filters need to be cleaned, I considered cleaning the prefilters, but opted to leave it for now. More work to be done elsewhere, basically. I see a big red flashing light. Temp is 77 deg on the heater and it's warning me. I unplug it immediately and check the temp of the tank. Feels very cold. 68 or so is what it feels like. I went ahead and took it out, cleaned it and tossed it back into the tank. Then I cleaned the spraybar, which had a little bit of algae in the holes. Flow was fine, but a little restricted. I then pulled out the prefilters and cleaned those. I wanted to make sure the pump was off/low enough to not suck in a fish due to the bottom of it being exposed. I stuck my hand around it and felt nothing, zero flow. I knew what this meant, time to unplug everything, pull the HOB to the sink and go check the pump. Probably a leaf in there or something and just needed cleaning. ......have I mentioned how frustrated I am with this black beard / staghorn algae. There was some leaves, but there was also a lot of gunk in there and pretty clear what it was. Almost looks like hair in the drain. This is food and algae and a variety of things. Why did this happen? Well, there's a few reasons but the big on is just the longevity of the mod itself. The pump housing has so many holes that one tiny pinhole can let this amount of gunk into the filter. It is very critical for anyone on any hob filter to pull the filter off the tank, take it to a sink and check everything. This is commonly termed as a deep clean. For canisters I recommend doing this every time you touch it. Check the pump, pull the impeller, make sure it's clean and everything works well. Lubricate anything you need to and proceed with your normal maintenance. The tidal has a quirk. The pump is mounted onto this slide. The slide itself is a wonderful, elegant, fantastic design, but it does result in a dead spot above the pump. This would normally be where the skimmer drains water into the pump. Considering filling up the area around the pump is something that seachem can do on a version of this filter designed for planted tanks. This would exactly reflect the way aqueon quietflows function. (water in, water out, one pipe through the pump) The central hole is where water goes up to the filter pads and the area surrounding it is where all of the gunk goes if there is access for that gunk to get there. It had access and the prefilter clogged up with gunk, resulting in the detritus finding the path of least resistance... these tiny holes. Because this silicone is a "moving part" when you check the pump itself, it's very common for the silicone to move a little bit. Sometimes it can be fixed with surface prep adjustments and that is likely something I need to do. This also happens with the overflow cutouts in the filter basket itself. This is not an unexpected thing, but it's a frustration because we are talking powder size particles in the tank. Noticing that the filter itself was lower flow at the output, checking the input itself and feeling no circulation, these are all the fine details that helped me to look and realize exactly how severe the issue was. 2 pumps in the tank circulating water and it felt like nothing was running at all. The heater had no circulation through the heater grate, resulting in the high temp spike indication. The heater I have is designed to flash red / shut off when flow is below a certain parameter. I can't recommend having a color display on the heater to easily, visually see what is going on. Filter is cleaned, it's running fine now. I will keep an eye on things and make sure the water is being heated. This is a cautionary tale for anyone using a HoB or canister in a planted tank. Check your pumps, at minimum once a month. If you are dealing with high algae, plant death, check it weekly.

I thought about burying a pretty tall rubbermaid trashcan yesterday. Should be deep enough for winter?

There's no reason to be afraid of changing water. Yes, you can do the water change even when a tank is new if you need to.

My 29G bows a ton. Most tanks bow. The ones with center braces would bow a bit less. In terms of how the glass tanks are designed, that deflection reduces the stress. .125" is normal. More than that is..... Terrifying. Be sure not to lean on the tank when full as hear you can if the bow is pretty severe and keep an eye on things like the top rim seal. A lot of the rims and braces will crack because they were leaned on when under load.

Kind of crazy and awesome how many of us are working on new tanks (or jars).