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My Tanganyikan community is finally complete! I have had this 40-breeder tank setup for about a year now in several hardscape layouts. Stocking is as follows: Leleupi (1) Brichardi (1) Julidochromis marlieri (1) Gold Compreciceps (1) neolamprologus Buescheri (1) Tropheus Moori (2) (phoenix and kaiser orange) Synondontus catfish I have stuck to feeding spirulina flake and sera granugreen as to not get the tropheus sick. All fish seem to be thriving on this diet. Alot of these Tang cichlids are classified as "carnivores" but they all are small enough that they graze on aufwuchs and algae in the wild. I am sure moving to a more veggie-based diet cant be too harmful in the long run. I do plan to make my own "shrimp mix" which many seasoned tropheus breeders say is a great food. While many are quick to say this tank is "overstocked", it is simply the only way to avoid excess aggression. There is the occasional chasing but nothing out of the ordinary. While we cannot go by everything we see or read on the internet, I have seen that Prime Time Aquatics has kept many more Tang cichlids in a 33-gallon long with great success. The biggest takeaway is adequate rockwork. a majority of these fish are rock dwellers and I find that lava rock is the most cost-effective means of providing that for them. It is very light and cheap. I do wish I could have sourced black lava rock so that it would look more like a biotope but it is hard to find and quite expensive. The only mistake I made when setting up this tank was buying a tretocephalus about 6 months ago. It is a nasty fish and doesn't mix well with other tangs in a confined space. Thankfully a friend in the hobby was able to rehome him. I replaced the tret with two young tropheus and they are thriving amount the rock work. Fell free to ask any questions about keeping Tanganyikans!

I’m setting up an ADA 45P. I nerded out and spent too much money for a ten gallon tank:) It will be a low tech (no Co2) set up for now. I have a Twin Star light. I bought some Elephant Skin Stone and have been playing with hardscape ideas. I’m trying to create a pocket in the back corner(s) for aquasoil and stem plants. The foreground will be sand and a bit of gravel that matches the stone. Which is your favorite? I’ve played with other layouts, these are my best so far. *the grey stones would be another direction entirely. I’d want more stones to make a walled area for planting, but love that triangular one (had to buy it). Inhabitants will likely be Pygmy Corys, Endlers, and shrimp. I’m thinking some easy red plants for the stems, and Anubias in the cracks. Crypts likely as well in the gaps and just in front of the rocks.

I am on a budget and only had 40lbs of med-small stone to work with. What do you think of the skeleton of the hardscape? Keep in mind that I have not added the wood, plants, or sand yet. But I am definitely stoked about the little arch LOL For Wood: I will add wood so that it looks like a root system is draped down the side of the rock into the substrate For Plants: I will be adding moss to the cracks in the stone, Anubis to the areas with gaps, some carpeting plants to the base of the stone and under the archway, some mid ground plants on the side glass panel, and some tall background plants to the background. For Substrate: I will fit in the rest of the bio-stratum, then blend in some sand toward the center (Filipe Olivera style). I will then have the darker seiryu stone spikes (seen in the picture) sticking out of the sand. I will then repeat on the other corner, but a smaller feature. 🙂 I was also able to add two caves that connect under the rock (the 2 big gaps seen in the stone): Any other suggestions?

I have a pile of seiryu stone I've had for years from the Co-op. I got it way back when they were selling boxes of the stuff online and it was one of my first purchases of hardscape materials. I know I don't nearly have enough, but this video alone has given me a bit of inspiration to try new things. I wanted to share, because, seeing this method and this person, Filipe Oliveira doing his thing. It's something where I will not attempt to put words, but just share and hope you enjoy it and find the time to do so. It's well worth the time and I don't think you'll look at seiryu stone the same way...

My 2 questions are: 1) If the PH is raised by Seiryu Stone, will aqua soil and plants be enough to lower the PH without dosing? 2) What is the difference between the Blue seiryu stone and black mountain seiryu stone? You would think it would be the color but all pictures that I have seen of the two look identical (could just be cameras, lighting, etc.). If anyone has either of these and could share what they look like in the water, I would be grateful. 🙂

Hey all! I wanted to document my adventure, or I should say our adventure. My spouse and I are curating our very first fish tank for either of us. Getting to the actual planting took months! I'll be adding to this as it grows, and be sure that I'll be asking for help! We both have backgrounds in research, so research we did. First was to catch the sale at Petco for a nice tank and a few other supplies. Then we had to get a stand. I initially thought I was quite the genius and was going to use heavy-duty, 1000 lb. certified wall stud brackets to hold a vinyl wrapped board. I was WRONG. One needs 2 studs for these, and the wall for the tank only had 1. So instead, we purchased a 400 lb. per-shelf certified shelving unit and bracketed THAT to the wall. With paint and some vinyl marble over the wood shelf for water-proofing, I like how pretty it is. Hardscape was next on the list; we went to a local river with some cardboard cut to the size of the bottom and height of our tank. It was an adventure, and we ran into some very confused ducks who appeared to assume we were there to feed them. After some appropriate cleaning and testing for calcium, we had some fun actually laying out our hardscape. Working with heavy rocks inside a glass aquarium was TERRIFYING but well worth it. I even added some curtains to hide the "behind the scenes" supplies and electrics. Of course, I had to play with some macro then... FINALLY, I felt confident enough to purchase plants! I really appreciated the help from @lefty o, @FishyThoughts, @Andy's Fish Den, @Daniel, @Fonske, and others. We really appreciate the direction. We waited for our order to get in (lightning fast by the way) and were ecstatic to spend the evening planting away. I can't wait to see what this grows into! After we're comfortable with the plants growing and the water specs seem right, we'll be getting some guppies to hang out with us. Since we spend most of our lives in this office, we're excited to add life to the space.

This is Gandr, a male bronze turmeric crayfish. Currently, he is coming close to 5” in length, excluding his antennae. Some of you may be familiar with him, as some of his rather interesting behavior would cause me constant worry. But, I’ve come to the conclusion after having him since this January, that it’s all just a part of who he is, his big personality. He enjoys thrashing around on his side for no apparent reason, staring at walls while swaying, throwing leaves over his molts and watching them for hours at a time, running backwards with my thermometer, looking at plants, trying to work over my siphon, tapping the front of his enclosure furiously when he wants attention, and getting what I call ‘glass pets’. He is terrified of carrots and will only eat foods prepared with bottled water; he dislikes food prepared with dechlorinated tap water. He arrived to me pretty traumatized from shipping. I kept him in a filtered and heated quarantine bin with gravel and leaf litter as a temporary setup. It wasn’t meant to last as long as it did, but he was extremely traumatized for almost a month, and I later had a lot of complications relating to my health conditions occur. His behavior of constant swaying, thrashing sideways as if he were molting, and refusing to eat for very long periods of time resulted in me trying to seek help from many people experienced in crayfish, as well as who I had gotten him from. The conclusion was that he must have some extremely rare or undocumented disease, and it was speculated that he would die very early. However, I’m doubtful that is the case. Together, we worked on confidence building and limiting his stress, and socializing him to things he’d see on a pretty regular basis. Socializing him has been a work in progress, but it’s definitely been helping. He understands that one finger means that food is being prepared for him, tapping lightly four times means I’m going to add food, a thumbs up means that I am finished with what I am doing in his setup (I particularly use this for when I am done closing the lid he previously had or when I’d have to adjust something), and that the orange bucket means I am going to do a water change (I’ve helped to encourage him to go under a particular leaf just before I water change, because he used to freeze in terror and panic anytime I would try, though now he likes to be out and mess with my siphon). He also understands that when I wave to him, it’s a common interaction and not to be interpreted as a threat. I would slowly implement waving over time to help him understand that hands aren’t always scary. He likes to sway his claw at me when I wave, and I’m not sure why, but I find it adorable because it looks like he’s waving back. He then will usually come up to the front, and I will pet the glass with my finger. He often stretches himself on the glass while I do this and moves his antennas up and down and wiggles them. To help his confidence, anytime he was scared of me in the beginning, I would act scared and back up. This would encourage him to step forward and snap out of his fright; it also seemingly helped him get the idea that his territory was his own, that any deemed threats would rather flee than bother him. After a lot of daily practice, he started eating regularly, being active and even social. He even will be in the front of his enclosure to interact with me every morning when I wake up, before he goes to sleep. Sometimes we will sleep at the same time, and he will sleep in the corner by me. So far, he is a little scared about any ceramic dish ware and forks (he doesn’t mind spoons though), but we’ll eventually work on this more. The only thing I have never made progress on his very intense fear of carrots, and I decided to not continue trying because carrots aren’t a necessity to him, and he would never see them any other time. He has always been extremely afraid of carrots since the beginning. Because I will eventually have to move to a new location, I didn’t want to get him a very large aquarium yet (I would love to make a large 75-90+ gallon aquarium into a paludarium for him in the future). I got the idea one night to break down and cut away various cardboard boxes and construct a setup for him, along with using a large but shallow food grade bin for the water portion. I was doubtful this would actually work, but I was curious that if I then applied foam, sealed it with silicone, layered more silicone and then substrate, if it would work well and repel water. Somehow, this actually worked after testing multiple times throughout the process. I started out by washing and cutting down an old yoga mat to size. I used a pen with easily removable ink to draw around parts of the bin that stick out into the inside of the bin. I then trimmed along the lines of where I marked with the pen. The yoga mat was spray painted black, and I originally tried a setup that I disliked and then deconstructed, so you’ll later see green patches because of spots that were removed. Why a yoga mat, you ask. Gandr has difficulty walking on slippery surfaces, and enjoys to dig. Any spots he digs away won’t be slippery. Next I built the area the bin would sit in out of cardboard and duck tape. I used an old light to figure out the size of box I would need to make around it. I left portions of the top open to assure the light would cool down enough, and so I could get to it easily if there were any issues. It can slide out easily though the sides as well. This wasn’t the full setup, as I later connected the bottom, and tweaked the top and some of the sides. After that, I began cutting away leftover foam boxes and worked on building up the portion of land he would later have, along with starting to spray foam the background. I added rocks throughout doing this, but changed some of the rocks, which you’ll see in later photos.

Hi, so I've gotten some advice from a couple of forum members on adding hardscape and plants to my aquarium. First, I have a 10 gallon planted (only Java Ferns) aquarium with three Dwarf Endlers, been running and established for about 6 months. I currently only have the Java Ferns, an Aquarium Co-Op sponge filter and a sizeable artificial rock cave in the tank along with the fish of course. (and the gravel substrate, tank heater and thermometer) My concern is that if I add say another bit of decor or two will they bring disease or in any way contaminate the aquarium? If I add any decor I will clean it thoroughly with a white vinegar solution and let it completely dry before I add it to the tank. Any advice or guidance is very much appreciated, thanks in advance! 🙂

So I was recently going through the Home Depot website and decided to try searching "seiryu stone", I came up with these results: Home Depot seems to be selling the bulk amounts of stones that Lowes was, although from what I can tell some of them are a bit more expensive. I've also noticed them selling other hardscape such as ohko/dragon stone as well as others. If you search "lifegard" on the Home Depot website you get a bunch of options in terms of hardscape for pretty good prices. Hope this helps!

Has anyone ever harvested wood from the wild for their aquariums? I found a fantastic piece that I plan on going back for later once I have my saw with me. I’m not 100% sure how I’m going to prep this monstrosity. I know I’m going to take it to a car wash and pressure wash it, then it’s probably going to sit in a 55 gallon trashcan full of salt water with the lid attached for two months so that it stays underwater. After that, I will pressure wash it and soak it in freshwater water. The first picture is the entire root mass, but the second picture is closer to how I plan on trimming it. The third picture is a second tree that I plan on going back for later tonight. Does this sound reasonable, or does anyone else have recommendations?

I need to attach 2 pieces of wood. Tried superglue but it didn't work, Is epoxy glue safe? Thanks

My family is really into legos and there was a discussion on if having a lego centerpiece decoration would harm the fish in our aquarium. Does anyone know? We generally keep cherry shrimp, guppies, and otocinclus. Thanks in advance! Charles

What type of wood is best for a Dicus tank. I currently have spider wood in my smaller tank. I am building a larger tank and need more wood. Would like to pick the type of wood best for Dicus fish. Also, can I go to a landscaping company and get slate rocks for decoration or do I have to buy "aquarium" ones?

I live in the North West and have access to a bunch of stuff I can collect but I can't get good information on how to make it safe. Alder cones, when do you collect them and how to treat. Oak leaves, do you gather in the fall when brown or collect green and let dry out? Manzanita branches, can you gather green or must it be dead? Do you need to peal the bark. Rocks, do you boil them?

I was watching a twitch stream of a fish tank (because of course I was), and I saw this log in their tank. It appears to be a live (or at least not ceramic or resin) log, and the fish seem to be nibbling on it. Does anyone have any idea what it is?

Can I just concrete to make XL fish caves? I have two big boy leaf fish that love to hang out in slate "boxes" I'm pretty sure they are 8" X8"X10". I'm planning on moving them in about 6 months to a 150 and would like a more natural looking Cave area for them and even multistory to move them off the ground some. Does anyone else have Leaf fish decoration ideas? The Bala shark in the second picture is why we are moving to a 150gl I was that newbie who went to pet smart years ago and said cute little fish and bought three. One didn't make it a week the other two well you know the story lol

I got some nice, weathered, larger river rocks for my 55 gallon hardscape (35 pounds of rock). I'm seeing mixed results in a search online on whether I should pad the rocks in the aquarium with egg crate or something else before placing on the bottom and adding the substrate. What do you do for your aquariums? Is there a recommended way of doing this? I find it interesting because I don't think folks with SW aquariums pad their live rocks, so I'm not sure if there's a standard.

So i have a little issue. I hope you guys can help! I am relativly new to aquascaping and learned a lot along the way. This is my ADA 60p aquarium. I tried to make a little cave for my panda corry's. I placed between the rock Anubias Pinto and Bucephalandra's. But the rock is not realy stable but my panda's like to hide in it and it takes away the view of the nice plants... I cant seem to find a good spot for it and i think my panda's would like to keep the cave. Should i keep it like this or do you guys have other idea's?

Hey guys, I would like to try to start a spider wood aqua scape. Do I need to soak or boil this type of wood like others??

I’m wondering if it’s possible to attach my driftwood to the inside of the tank. I want it to hang down like a branch. Would super glue work?

I went to my local Lowe’s but I have no idea if they paint or glaze these terracotta pots. Planning to use soil in them btw.

I've just collected a bunch of river rocks in assorted sizes shapes and colours, from a local stream. Do I need to boil these before they go in the tank, or will rinsing them in tank water be enough?

Hi all! Have a question. Was out at the beach (salt water) and found this AMAZING piece of driftwood. I’m a freshest tank gal, but was hoping I could use this piece sometime. Can I soak it? Months? What are your thoughts!

What is the fuzzy white stuff on my mopani wood? Any fish that will eat that or any solution to help with that (I wanted to get corydoras for fun but maybe they can help with that)? Is it bad for my tank? It's a 10-gallon with a betta fish and 6 ember tetras. A tiny bit of floating pearl weed (planning to get lots of frog bit soon). My betta has been making bubble nests for a few days in a row now, and he looks lively and happy, just as the tetras do. The tank is 1 month old.