Adventures in the Fishroom

[Tihshho]

On 9/9/2021 at 3:09 PM, OnlyGenusCaps said:

I may need to ask you questions about your snail propagation methods for those two.  Very nice setup!

For the two of them they are fairly similar; keep pH up as to not chemically erode the shell and feed them well. The B. Pagodula seems to be IME more picky about flow, so an additional air stone is beneficial, or cranking up the air flow in a sponge filter will work. On top of that, they are not the biggest fans of a brightly lit tank, so that's why I keep the mother crypts in the tank to provide shaded areas. If you take a look at my shrimp tanks (20L's) you will see I run dual sponges. This isn't because the shrimp are dirty (though they produce a ton of waste which no one seems to note) and it isn't to provide surface area for them to graze (though it's beneficial) it's so I can have flow. In all my shrimp tanks I have the air cranking in there to the point it's pushing the limits of flow on the filter. You have to oversize the filters to get this kind of flow, otherwise you're putting more air in which is creating less vacuum to pull water through. If I were running two sponges rated for 10 gallons each to meet the 20 gallon rating logic the sponges would be useless for filtration and literally just be weights holding the airline down. Since my tap doesn't have chlorine I don't clean sponges with tank water. I purge the sponges weekly till no mulm or tinted colored water comes out. Some would think this is the worst thing that can be done, but with an established tank this isn't an issue. The tank has substrate, plants and a second filter to keep up while the other re establishes. I never have any parameter swings with this process and never crash a cycled tank. I'm also heavy on water changes. The tanks not only get a filter cleaned weekly, but on average get at least a 50% water change. With that water change I'm topping off with half or more with remineralized RO/DI and the rest is tap. 

I'll segue a little more into sponges. Sponges shouldn't be chosen for a tank based on the 'tank size rating' you need to spec them for the flow you need in the tank. Obviously to those who want a show tank, space is a premium, aesthetics are towards the top of concerns and to follow my method would not be visually appealing or looking naturalistic. I'm setup solely for function over form and squeeze in form where I can. I'd rather have two large sponge filters in a tank rather than a small single one with the addition an air stone or a HOB with a sponge. Why? Because air provides the flow I need. Yeah I could get it with a powerhead or a HOB, but I don't get the simplicity of biological filtration that sponges offer. I also run finer sponges because I want them to gunk up and provide some mechanical filtration. Having two means I can alternate sponge cleanings weekly. I also aim for a lot of tanks to have limited outlets per tank (OPT.) When keeping multiple tanks, or a fish room in my case, OPT needs to be low. If I had the space and time to do it right I could thin out plugs by not having one light per tank, but to do that I need to change the stand and that's a multiple part challenge that I've covered. In my case, the easiest way to reduce OPT is to power as much as I can with air. 

[eatyourpeas]

On 9/9/2021 at 12:06 PM, Tihshho said:

For the life of my I honestly can't remember. Was either some big box store or a nursery? They are some form of concrete and they didn't sizzle with the vinegar test on the initial ones I bought, to which I returned to clear them out. I'm actually looking around for more, so if I find them again I'll let you know. Only thing I remember was getting the question of "Why are you putting all these pots in the cart/why are you pushing a cart around with a bunch of pots?" and getting an eye roll from the girlfriend when I explained what I was doing. 

Thanks. I will keep searching and if I find them will let you know as well. 🙂

[OnlyGenusCaps]

Thanks for the info!

On 9/9/2021 at 3:19 PM, Tihshho said:

 keep pH up as to not chemically erode the shell and feed them well

Not hard there.  I have liquid rock water, and plenty of food on hand.

On 9/9/2021 at 3:19 PM, Tihshho said:

The B. Pagodula seems to be IME more picky about flow, so an additional air stone is beneficial, or cranking up the air flow in a sponge filter will work.

I have the Brotia pagodula in a tank with an end wall matten filter.  The jet lift on it is going briskly from the central air line.  Pretty solid flow!

I think the substrate might be an issue for the Tylomelania sp.  Perhaps too course.  The Brotia pagodula are currently in a tank with finer sand.  Hopefully that will be good for them.

Thanks again!

[Tihshho]

On 9/9/2021 at 5:27 PM, OnlyGenusCaps said:

I have the Brotia pagodula in a tank with an end wall matten filter.  The jet lift on it is going briskly from the central air line.  Pretty solid flow!

I think the substrate might be an issue for the Tylomelania sp.  Perhaps too course.  The Brotia pagodula are currently in a tank with finer sand.  Hopefully that will be good for them.

Thanks again!

How deep is the tank and how many outlets? If you're only feeding water from one end it's enough to keep them alive, but not 'happy'. They live in the turbulent flows of the waterways between rocks and the flow isn't laminar. 

[OnlyGenusCaps]

It's a 20 gal.  The flow is high enough that the fish have to chase their food ( a bonus for these fish, I hope).  I think it's got good flow.

[Tihshho]

Spent some time doing general cleanup so I have a clean floor to make a mess on when the parts arrive. Everything ordered is now in transit from the Co-Op, so hopefully USPS doesn't lose the package or deliver it to the wrong address (like they seem to like to do in my case.)

While I ran through a cleanup I gave into better judgement and moved a sponge filter from one of the tanks to a cleaned tank I had sitting aside to get ready for some QT. Tank is full of water from one of the 40's to not shock the BB and I is being heated by a spare Eheim Jager heater I had sitting. Going to check in a bit to see if the tank is at 78 or boiling. Regardless, prepping for a LFS visit this weekend. 

While I thought I was out of things to do down there today, I took a look at my rearing setup. Previously I had some modified Steralite bins setup something like what you see in Dean's fish room. Issue was that the bins were too big or too small and limited the amount of fry I could hold per 20L. Figured I'd put my Engineering degree to work, took some measurements of the tank and frames and created a scale model of the tank in CAD and get to designing some rearing bins for the tank. Took some inspiration from Dean's setup and this is what I've got.

The bin design was centered around maximizing space and making it so I could add or remove bins easily and when it came to pulling them with fry to not have them completely drain in the process. Created some grommets as spacers to eventually include a riser mount to hold the water feed system that will feed these bins and allow passthroughs for pipes while keeping things neat. I have to redo them as it hit me that I'm going to have to leave a gap for water changes even when the bins are full.

Now to just export the bin files and get one going on one of the 3D printers to test fit, from there I can edit the issues and crank out the rest. I plan on making some 'double wide' bins so that as fry grow I can migrate them from one smaller bin to a double wide in case grow out tank space is limited once projects are going. 

[Tihshho]

Last night ended up pulling the Jager, yet another heater that was bound for the trash bin. Set to 78, and after a few hours of running I checked it to find it was at 87. Pulled the heater last night and let the tank settle to room temp which is around 75 and swapped in another heater this morning before I went to the LFS. Figured I'd go to the smaller one in town just to see what's going on, sad to say it seems everything going on these days has hit them hard. LFS was a small volume place and with freight being what it is, he cannot keep things in stock without bumping up volume, he can't bump up volume because no distributor has everything he needs in one place, so it's a losing juggling act for him.

Went through all the FW stuff and saw a few things and had to stop myself from cramming the QT full. Had a nice group of adult Black Ruby Barbs with them ready to spawn and the females swollen with eggs. Definitely a fun fish, gorgeous color, but I had to pump the brakes since I don't have my fry system up and those Barbs were not on the planned list. Had a stunning tank full of Gold Ring Danios, yet again had to pass. Went through a bunch of your common stuff, and live bearers, African Mbunas, a lone GBR, and then one tank stood out. At the top of the rack had a school of some small CPD's and then some Tetra that had some nice finage. Per taking a closer look, they were Splashing Tetras. I had never seen them at a store before, only read about them over the years. The males have long finage with a bit of color, the females are drab with shorter fins. Here is a picture of a male I snagged from the web.

These guys are neat as they spawn by jumping from the water to a leaf over the water and then deposit and fertilize the eggs on the leaf. After spawning the males splash the eggs (hence their name) from under the water, and in 48 hours the fertilized eggs have fully formed babies and hatch. The hatched offspring drop into the water with every splash from the male and then are on their own. Based on remembering only a bit about these species I had to talk myself out of getting them as I wanted to make sure they were going into a tank ideal for them. That and they had a hefty price tag. Being there were two males and 5 females I figured for the best success I had to get the lot, so I'm going to be doing a little digging into them before bringing them home.

While I was debating what to do, I happened to glance over at another tank that had a bunch of rocks and plants. Something else came out of hiding, a male blue eyed Ancistrus. I told myself when I was rebooting the room that I'd keep out of Ancistrus unless they were some of the less common ones, so no regulars, no albinos and was even on the fence on super reds. I previously had some blue eyes but lost them when I had someone feeding the tanks while I was away. Again, telling myself to hold off because I was still wanting to keep out of these prolific breeders and didn't want a sole male I said in my head "well if there were more I'd grab a pair, but there only seems to be one." As soon as my internal dialogue was over a female crept out... Well poop...

Besides grabbing some new heaters, some food, and some other dry goods the first new fish of the fish room came home are now in QT for 2 weeks.

 

[Tihshho]

Well today is the day that big changes start to happen. Thanks to the Co Op for getting my boxes out to me quick! It's always a good day when your door bell rings to find packages waiting for you.

Thinking about it, I hope I got enough airline. Ended up picking up more valves that I think I'll need just incase of duds as well as having replacements down the line and if I ever have to drill in additional drops. Ordered some of the Ziss valves as well to tune the sponge filters and more than likely will be ordering more of them as I only got enough to get my by once I flip every current air drop migrated to the central system. 

Tonight, tomorrow, and more than likely Wednesday are going to be busy days. Going to verify my drill points for the valves, start punching holes and paint the remaining portions once holes are done. 

[Tihshho]

Well the phrase "Measure twice, cut once" needs to be modified... "Measure twice, cut once, only drill the amount of holes to support the amount of valves you bought" Woops... As I was staring at the PVC prior to drilling, I decided to punch some extra holes thinking that it was easier to do on the ground than above my head if I ever decided I needed more drops. Welp, drilling went like a dream. Krylon got laid with multiple coats (doesn't seem like it likes layers as it crinkled in a few places) and it seemed to cure quick after letting it flash and semi cure outside in the sun for a few hours before it came back into the dehumidified house where it set even faster. Get to chucking valves and installing them to find out I punched 2 extra holes more than the valves I bought. The sad thing is, I bought 100 valves thinking I'd have spare incase some failed or to replace them later if they started to have issues years later. Well it looks like I'm going to be putting another order in to Aquarium Co-Op. 

Now to find things to add on to get free shipping...

[OnlyGenusCaps]

On 9/13/2021 at 12:42 PM, Tihshho said:

Well today is the day that big changes start to happen. Thanks to the Co Op for getting my boxes out to me quick! It's always a good day when your door bell rings to find packages waiting for you.

Tha looks like a box I bought from them a while back. Best shipment of stuff for the tanks ever!*

*Well, that didn't involve actual exciting fish arriving that is.

[Tihshho]

Getting stuff to drastically improve the hobby is always great. I just needed to not overdo so I could have actually tested the loop last night. Oh well, more valves should be showing up hopefully by Thursday or Friday. I would have next day'd them, but I didn't see that option. Back to waiting to complete this.

[Tihshho]

Cemented half of the loop together and started to run lines to Ziss valves for the sponge filters while I'm waiting for the rest of the valves to show up so I can get the last run with valves situated and ready to cement. 

While doing this I think I know what I'd change if I were to do it all over from scratch. I'd get rid of the elbows and terminate each straight run to barbed fittings so that if I ever wanted to pull down a section to add/replace valves I could. With this setup being all hard linked it's going to be an in the air job to replace valves which isn't going to be fun. 

[Tihshho]

Well this week has been full of shrimp sales, so slowly recouping the costs of the upgrades to the rooms air system. Found a decent source for some Apistos, so I think I might grab a few pairs once I've got the room situated and get them going. Figure I might get some dithers for them as well to keep them a bit more calm. Otherwise if they seem OK, they might just get a 10 for themselves (maybe a BN later depending on how many I end up cranking out just to keep up with the glass) and call it quits.

Once I get the row of 10's cleared out of the shrimp soil, as I had them previously setup for Cardinia shrimp but put it off as I want to have the shrimp projects limited to one side of the room, I'll have to find some pots to get some plants growing. Might either keep up with my Crypts or branch out to some other plants once I can find them locally. Just want to get some foliage in there prior to putting in new inhabitants. 

The Blue Eyed BN seem to be doing great, they love chowing down on some NLS Thera +A pellets (always seem to be a great go to universal food IMO) and their waste showing up in the tank looks healthy. Neither broke out in ich or are showing signs of bringing anything in. I'll keep an eye on them for a few more days, but I have a feeling I'll be kicking them out of the QT into one of the 40's either Friday or Saturday. The female put on some significant weight since being in the QT, and the male keeps hanging out in the makeshift cave of pot saucers so I have a feeling eggs might be in the near future. Getting them moved to a bigger tank where there are spawning caves will be beneficial. Though the fry system isn't complete yet, I figure I can just strip the babies from the male post them hatching if he doesn't devour the eggs and raise them in the tank in a breeder box as I've done before. Hoping to clear out some more shrimp so I can justify a big order of ZISS breeder boxes from ACO. 

Edited September 16, 2021 by Tihshho

[Tihshho]

Well this is a downer, Was hoping that the ACO order would have been delivered today, but it seems the USPS folk were slow in the process of getting it from the ACO warehouse and getting it across the country. Seems the air loops will be up and running sometime next week -le sigh-

Now with the third 40 cleared out of moss and all of my shrimp culls consolidated I'm ready to move forward in stocking once I find what I'm after. Going to take a look at the BEBN today and make a call if I'm going to move them to their new home or if I'm going to hold them another day or another week before the move. It's been a week and things look great and poop came out clean. 

[Tihshho]

Got a call from the LFS owner and he asked if I could drop some shrimp off today, so I ended up taking a look at the BEBN's and made the call to move them out to their new home. The duo have been exploring the tank after they got over their plop shock and the male has been spending a good amount of time sizing up each of the caves in there. He'll probably have one chosen as his own by tomorrow. 

Got to the LFS to drop off the shrimp and took a look around and ended up bringing some new friends home. Sitting in QT now are these 'little' guys and gals.

Brought home the dominant male from the shops tank (see the split pectoral fin) and what I thought were 3 females. Per looking again it seems during the netting process a subdominant male was mistaken for a female. Oh well... After acclimating and getting these little ones in the tank, I figured I'd leave them a treat of blackworms to pick at whenever they got comfortable to start eating. Before they hit the bottom, the four of them were at it. Glad they seemed to acclimate quick. Going to keep them at 82 for a couple days and keep an eye on them. Might pre-emptively medicate to assist in healing the split pectoral on the dominant male. Regardless, happy to have found some GBR's locally. Once I can establish a pair of these I'll more than likely let the other two go, or rotate out the females. Hoping to get these breeding so I can justify getting a pair of EBR's and a group of blacks to work with.

[Tihshho]

Thankfully it seems USPS was able to get their hands on the ACO package and get it to me today. What does that mean?

One pump, to rule them all...

Spent a few hours getting things together, got the last 3 valves in and then cemented the final two joints in the loop. So glad this is over and I'll not be working over my head on a step stool and flipped bucket for a while. 

I've got all but one tank attached to the loop, the last being the shrimp tank that I was QTing due to my last shrimp order coming in with some parasites. Currently don't see any issues with the remaining adults and even have some baby shrimp in the tank now. Just waiting till I'm done doing everything else in tanks today before ending my day with hooking those two sponge filters in. Besides that I went through and removed hundreds of feet of the old air line that was solid from age and was able to clear out the Jehmco pump I was using for the shrimp half of the room, two Danner AP-8's that were showing their age, and four of the huge Tetra 60 pumps (though one of them was moved to run the shrimp tank that's in QT.) Have to say I'm glad to have all these pumps consolidated, here are the retirees.

Going to see if any one local wants the Danners and the Tetra pumps, but I think I'm going to hold onto the Jehmco so I can tinker with a solar/battery solution for it to run tubs next spring. 

The new GBR's seem to be 100% settled and have split into two pairs. No aggression between the two pairs, but I've not provided any spawning sites. The only thing in their QT is a sponge filter, bubble bar (I like to add extra air/flow in hot tanks), heater and a flower pot. I'm pretty sure if I put two dishes in there I could have eggs within the week from the dominant pair even though they are still young. They are hitting NLS Thera A+ hard as well as blackworms, in the past I've had issues with GBR's only eating blackworms and frozen for a while, so it's a nice change that they are eating pellets in less than 24 hours of them being picked up from the LFS. 

With the loop now done I'm going to start focusing on expanding the shrimp wall with six 15 gallons once I'm able to source the wire rack I'm after (going this route due to the available space between Radon pipes coming out of the foundation) and the remodel of my fry system. Originally I was considering building a rack for the fry system, but being that I'm looking to stack three 20L's I'm toying with going with a wire rack on them as well. If any one has brand recommendations for these racks please let me know. 

**Update**

Well not all news is good news. Went to go through my evening feeding and spent some time looking at the GBR's since they are new in the room and I like to keep an eye on things. After giving them their dinner, I noticed something on the sub dominant 'pair', it seems stress ich is starting to show. Started them off with a partial dose of Ruby Reef Kich-Ich and a full dose of Ich-X and will check back on them tomorrow morning. Though the method for each med is different in terms of treating, I plan on following through with the Ich-X method and doing a daily water change. 

That wasn't the only issue with the GBR's... Remember how I said if I put a dish in, I'd more than likely have eggs within a week? Well... While trying to figure out who was breaking out with ich, I noticed the dominant female cleaning two corners of the tank with the dominant male. Eh, this isn't too big of a deal, Cichlids do this to establish territories and to do the whole courting thing. Well, she decided to come out in full view with her egg tube down... Wouldn't be surprised if eggs are laid during this med process. Here she is:

Edited September 18, 2021 by Tihshho

[Tihshho]

Not one of the best updates.

So today marks day 3 of Ich-X treatment for the new Rams. One of the two less dominant ones (female) looks like she's lost her hitchhikers and the male is a little worse for ware. Ich spots are still on him, but now it looks like he's got a bacterial infection around his right eye and it's starting to swell. I think I'll stop the Ich-X treatment tomorrow and do a large water change to vacate the rest of the meds and move forward with a treatment for bacterial infections. In the past I've seen Ram's get this swelling around their eye and it's usually not a great sign. Overall the other 3 are doing great. The dominant pair are off in their own corner doing their shimmys and picking at food with no issue, the least dominant female just roams around until the dominant female flares and then she backs off. The struggling male seems to be left alone by everyone and either hides near the heater or in one of the corners. Others have come near him when I feed, but they seem to pay him no mind.  

[Tihshho]

Sad update.

Went down to do a water change and swap up some meds to find that the two Rams that had physical ailments didn't make it. Not sure why. No fin damage, so I'm fairly certain it wasn't aggression, but since I wasn't watching the tanks 24/7 who knows. The one male who had the swollen eye I had concerns about passing over night, but the female? Never would have guessed. The other two were happily cleaning the backside of the flower pot in the corner of the tank without a concern. Either something else is going on or these two are nasty when no one is looking (plausible.)

Being that two fish passed, I figured I'd give the tank a 75% water change and got them back to having an almost med free tank. I'll be keeping an eye on these two a bit longer with everything going on. 

[Odd Duck]

On 9/21/2021 at 7:15 PM, Tihshho said:

Sad update.

Went down to do a water change and swap up some meds to find that the two Rams that had physical ailments didn't make it. Not sure why. No fin damage, so I'm fairly certain it wasn't aggression, but since I wasn't watching the tanks 24/7 who knows. The one male who had the swollen eye I had concerns about passing over night, but the female? Never would have guessed. The other two were happily cleaning the backside of the flower pot in the corner of the tank without a concern. Either something else is going on or these two are nasty when no one is looking (plausible.)

Being that two fish passed, I figured I'd give the tank a 75% water change and got them back to having an almost med free tank. I'll be keeping an eye on these two a bit longer with everything going on. 

Sorry for your loss.  Sounds like a solid plan for the tank and survivors.

[Tihshho]

On 9/21/2021 at 8:29 PM, Odd Duck said:

Sorry for your loss.  Sounds like a solid plan for the tank and survivors.

Thanks. This is why I always QT just incase something that looks fine might not be. Not sure what happened exactly, but between a breakout of stress ich it seems that something else might be going on. 

[Tihshho]

Sorry for the delay on updates to anyone following this. Currently dealing with somethings that have taken a lot of my time. Due to the current situation, the tanks were put into a minimalist routine which meant that feedings continue, but dedicated time was lost for water changes and general tank staring time at inhabitants. 

With that being the case I ran into two big problems and a third just being an annoyance, first being that the Ancistrus tank decided to go into full green water algae bloom mode. Usually, I do 50%'s on this tank twice weekly to keep up with the mess as the Ancistrus had been getting a mix of NLS pellets, Xtreme wafers, and blackworms daily so you can guess the amount of poop they generate daily. I'm a big believer of feeding heavy and compensating for water quality with large and regular water changes when it comes to breeding stuff. Being that three of those water changes were missed, seeing a green tank wasn't a surprise. Oddly enough, this tank historically has done this in the past and is the only tank in the room to do it. No windows, automated 10 hour light cycle with non crazy LED lights. This tank always has this issue when it's gone from a room temp tank to tropical temps. I bumped the tank temp up to 82 in preparation to move the GBR pair over right before my fishroom time had to be cut down. The next day I started to notice a haze, but nothing too crazy, week later the tank was neon green and impossible to see through. That said, green water doesn't hurt anything. In actuality once I got back into doing the large water changes to clear up the mess I noticed a few good things. The female Ancistrus has put on a decent amount of weight. On top of that, she's getting a solid egg bulge in her sides, so that is something to look forward too. The dwindling shrimp population (previous culls I couldn't catch out before putting the Ancistrus pair) had taken advantage of the green water to start their own colony. Semi annoying since I was trying to get rid of the shrimp in this tank, but they are cleanup crew at this point. The 40B is no longer just running double sponge filters, but I also added a Jehmco box filter packed with dual ply matting (coarse and fine) to polish the water to help keep up the clarity while schedules are hectic. So far so good, but if things start to get out of hand I'll have to go back to my trusty AquaClear with polisher prefilter solution to keep this tank clear. 

While things were in maintenance I hadn't been spending enough time looking at the GBR pair in QT. They got a quick glance with their twice daily meals and I didn't notice much besides the female picking at a terracotta saucer with the male in preparation for a spawn. Out of the blue, a couple days later she was ridden with ich. Not sure what happened, temps were constant and nothing was added with them to the QT. A day later she passed. Now I just have the lone male who is guarding the dish. Due to the outbreak on the female I'm still holding him in QT and doing a couple additional rounds of Ich-X (which I think I need a new bottle of as this one didn't really do anything though it was a brand new bottle when the other two broke out with ich.) He's ich free, chowing down on NLS and blackworms like a champ so I think he will be fine. I just need to be sure he's not going to be spreading anything to the Ancistrus when he moves. 

Final issue, the Frogbit I had in the shrimp tanks out of no where became infested with Aphids. I hate these things. Since I've noticed them, I've spent two mornings cleaning the surface of the leaves of each plant in a separate container and disposing of the drowned/drowning Aphids. I considered misting the surface of the plants with some Peroxide, but with Frogbit being sensitive to the tops of the leaves being wet for a long duration, I decided against that. Just putting in the manual labor for now. Not sure where they came from, but they need to go. 

Once my schedule gets a back to 'normal' I'll get some pictures up of the tanks. Ancistrus tank has drastically changed in appearance/layout since the last time I posted it. I stumbled upon a tote of aquarium supplied I had from prior to me moving that had a handful extra caves, so I put them in there since the male seems to be chasing the female off. I have a feeling this is due to the lack of dithers in the tank, but I'll be working on that once I get the QT tank cleared out, figure out what dithers I want to go with and get them through the QT process. 

[Tihshho]

Time for a wayyy overdue update. 

Cutting back with less water changes on the Ancistrus seemed to have been the key for them. Since I've been AFK from the forum I've had about one spawn every 15 days from them. I'm at the point that the tanks I was going to use for other projects are now being used as clutch rearing tanks just so I can keep an eye on each group. The largest of the babies (now about 2.5-3") are now with the parents, and the other 'larger' ones from the first clutch have been spread around the shrimp tanks. The rest are setup in 10 gallon tanks being reared, with the youngest clutches still in some of the Ziss breeder boxes while they put on some size.

Since I've been gone a few other projects have been picked up and are in the works:

Started a small group of Clown Pleco's in my shrimp cull tank. Started with 6 and lost one overnight after getting them leaving me with 5. From the looks of them they are all male, each of them pushing about 3". The used to take refuge in some of the caves I put in, but since I added larger clusters of wood, they cram themselves into the gaps of that.

On top of that I finally picked up some Ricefish to get ready for the spring so I can set them up in tubs. Got 6 Daisy's and two of an 'unlabled' golden Medaka variety. When I picked up the two, I thought it would have been a pair, but it seems they might both be male. Initially, they were being QT'd with the Daisy's as I picked them up together, and what I thought was the female Medaka kept curling and trying to spawn with the gravid Daisy. She was not running off from this, but at the same time she was not releasing eggs in the QT tank. Once I pulled the Medaka from the QT and kept the Daisy's solo in that tank after the QT period was over, the female Daisy's were swimming around with clusters of eggs daily. I had been rotating balls of moss in there to another tank and so far have a few fry. Not as much as I was hoping for, but not sure what was/is going on with the hatch rate or fertility. 

Most recently I picked up 6 whiptails (Rineloricaria Parva) as well as two L398's (Panaqolus Tankei) which are now in separate QT's. The whiptails should be an easy spawn project as I've had success with other whiptails in the past and these guys tend to spawn even more readily than Ancistrus... That said, I should have probably considered that more before I got them as Ancistrus are taking over tanks currently. Guess I'll need to start offloading Ancistrus to the LFS or to locals soon. 

Final and most recent project is a display tank in the livingroom. Previously had a 29 planted setup and that got torn down when we got new furniture and did some rearranging. Post new furniture, something just seemed empty without a tank. Being that the 29 was on a stand for a 40B I figured it was a perfect chance to upgrade! Not sure on stocking of it yet, ideally I'm going to go with something minimalist scape wise with simple and broad leaved plants.

Hopefully I can be back at this thread more often! 

[Tihshho]

Snapped some pictures during today's feeding. Figured it was time to put some pictures back into this thread.

Was able to harvest about another 15 eggs from the Daisy's Ricefish that I picked up a few months ago. Out of the six the LFS had left it was an even split between three males and three females. The females hold clusters of eggs every morning and previously had been depositing them in your standard floating acrylic yarn mops after every morning feeding. Since moving to the pool floaty style that Dean covered, I'm able to see them depositing the eggs, but at the same time I now see that every female that is depositing is followed closely by one of their sisters who seems to gobble up a good chunk of the eggs as the leader is depositing them on the scrubby pad. After she goes to deposit while the last female with eggs follows her and does the same. Since noticing this, I pluck eggs on my lunch break and add them to another tank in a floating breeder box that has a couple neo shrimp in them. The neo's constantly pick up the eggs and tumble them and keep them clean and I never see fugus, only the odd white egg every so often. 

Above you can see a range of eggs in different stages of development. Some have fully formed babies, others are still hazy brown and freshest ones are fairly clear with a dot. I know I know, not the greatest picture. I need to pull out the DSLR one day.

What I've noticed is that once the eggs hatch, the babies are small enough to get out the breeder box. Once they get out, I leave them there for a week or so to gobble up the greenish water that's in this hatch tank as well as the infusioria that hovers in the mulm at the bottom. Once they start feeding on Xtreme krill flake and getting bigger I then pull them and add them to a Ziss breeder box. This tank oddly enough sprouted Hydra. Not sure where they came from, never introduced any in other tanks and this tank never had anything new in it. This is also the only tank with it. Doesn't seem to be impacting the babies and I've seen no deaths, but once the parents calm down on spawning I'm planning on disinfecting the tank. 

My Fire Red neo colony is in need of a heavy cull as I'm getting less than ideal adults popping up with more of a Cherry line of color. Regardless, something happened and I got a boom of Ramshorns and a huge outbreak of baby Rabbit snails again. I'm going to thin out the Ramshorns when I cull the shrimp, but everyone was enjoying their greenbean lunch.

If you take a close look, you'll see around 5 or 6 of the 30+ baby Rabbits that emerged a week ago and they have put on some good size. 

Speaking of snails, my Green Jade tank needs a population thinning of the MTS that somehow got in there. Not sure where they came from as they were setup in a tank that had been steralized in hopes of getting the Jades in. I have a feeling one or two hitchhiked on the Crypts I pulled from one of the mother pots I have, but I can't be 100% sure. Only other option were they got out another tank and wiggled their way over which I find hard to believe with glass lids blocking their access. 

Besides that, the Green Jade tank has been a grow out tank for some oddball Pleco babies I've been getting from my Blue Eyed Ancistrus pair. Out of around 400 babies I've so far found 7 that have paradox spots. I've pulled them to grow out with similar siblings to see if I can get a Paradox gene pin pointed. The thing about Paradoxes in general though are they are a rare mutation, so the likelyhood of intentionally replicating it in volume will be slim. With the tank space, I figured I'd give it a shot. Here is one of the Paradox BEA's with the moving bed of MTS having lunch.

[Tihshho]

Wasn't sure if I wanted to add this to my thread or not, but I'm going to just incase someone else is in the market for getting plants online. I've mentioned in another thread I'm working on setting up a display outside of the fishroom. Went to put an order of some plants in (didn't go with ACO based on the majority of what I was after was offered through another vendor) and I have to say... Some of the plant specific vendors are dropping the ball. To respect the forum rules, I will not mention the company, but this is more so a reason to order plants from ACO. 

Ordered five Cryptocoryne Retrospiralis pots and this is what showed up:

If you look at the crowns of these plants there are only 2 of 14 plants that showed up with any resemblance of roots. The rest of them were bare crowns with leaves on them. Not sure what is going on, but I'm actually seeing lots of posts around the web of others receiving Crypts in this condition, or worse being that they are being sent loose leaves with no crown. I even dug into the rockwool to see if the roots melted, but there were no wasting away organics in the rockwool, just clean rockwool. Per contacting the company's support they offered a refund or store credit to replace them. I opted for credit to give them another shot as some of the other Crypts I ordered came in fine with roots. It more so looks like whomever is their supplier is sending them lower quality plants without roots. That said this could be a limitation from imported plants that are unable to contain roots during shipment into the US, but I've not seen that limitation being brought up in years. Originally I wasn't going to post this, but the latest issues I'm running into with the company just wanted me to shoot out a PSA to all saying to order your plants from known good vendors like ACO. Other vendors that are known good are either getting in lower quality plants or are knowingly shipping out lower quality plants. It didn't help that the order was shipped uninsulated, and with a 72+ hour heat pack showing up cold as ice with only being in transit for 2.5 days. 

[Tihshho]

Walked into a bit of a disaster last night in the fishroom. Out of nowhere one tank with a pot of my mother Crypt. Mioya seems to have gone through a sporadic crypt melt. Params checked out, and the only thing that changed in the tank it seems was the group of Clown plecos (L104) moved the airstone into the center of the crypt pot. Not sure this was the issue or not that caused this, but I'm hoping they bounce back. Otherwise I'll have to split another mother pot and get it going again. Here is the tank post a water change and getting a majority of the melted leaves out the tank.

After shaking the plant to get all the loose debris of melt free and a 60% waterchange that is all I had left. Dreading checking on it later this morning.

Last night I also received the replacement plant order from a place that shall not be named... Still concerned with how others are shipping plants, so my next orders will be through ACO. That said though, the display 40B is filled and I'm liking the look of the new substrate. It's inert, recommended for planted tanks, and I think it's dark enough for what I was after. Glad I was able to stumble on the last bags a LFS had of it because it seems to be a product being sold solely in Europe.

Currently running a couple osmocote tabs in various spots as well as some ACO root tabs. Dosing with an NPK regiment I was using before and just got the CO2 started on it. Will get some other pictures of the tank up later, but it's desheveled based on the condition of the plants that showed up being in temp holding pots with Dennerle soil to pep them up before they grow in the inert substrate with root dosing and column dosing.