AllFishNoBrakes’ Journal

[TeeJay]

On 7/6/2023 at 2:10 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

For awhile I was cutting it up, or putting it into cute molds or whatnot. But lately I’ve been busy so I have just been doing it this way. So easy!

 

Well speaking of repashy. Just made a batch a few minutes ago. I just quickly press it into a 1x1 cube silicone tray. Let it cool and put into a small airtight container in the fridge.

[AllFishNoBrakes]

On 7/6/2023 at 12:10 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

I measure with a tablespoon instead of the tsp she uses so I can have a little bit more prepared.

I’ve only ever made Repashy once and did the exact same thing. Now that I’m through all the work madness I should invest in some other types and make some. 

[AllFishNoBrakes]

Went to my first RPP store today and boy was I DISAPPOINTED! Super bummer, for sure. I will not name the store so as to not jeopardize their business and give further hints to my location, but man was I bummed out. 
 

The long and the short of it is that their customer service was terrible, their selection wasn’t great, their signs indicating hours of operation on the front door contradicted themselves, and when I mentioned that I knew they were a RPP store the employee jumped at the chance to bash ACO at every turn and opportunity. Literally everything they said after I mentioned RPP was to bash ACO, and they were making claims that made absolutely no sense. Things like, “we have EXTREMELY hard water here so an all-in-one fertilizer doesn’t do any good” when in reality we have extremely soft water here, and all 14 of my tanks have absolutely crushed it with Easy Green. Things like “4 of 6 of our ACO regulators came in broken, and we’re lucky the tanks survived the cO2 leaks!” When if that was true the leak would be on the outside of the tank… When I mentioned that they could just email support and get a new shipment they told me, “Ya, maybe. Idk. We’re gonna go with (competitor) products anyways so it’s really just not worth the hassle”. Literally nothing they said made sense to me while they claimed they were listening to the livestream in their AirPod and actively ignoring us. Really just seemed like they were an RPP store to attract people to the store and then just slam ACO in any way they could. Really just a terrible experience all around and left a super bad taste in my mouth. My girlfriend and I both agreed that we would never return to the store. 
 

Normally, I don’t say anything, but I did email Candi and the ACO team regarding my experience. I don’t want a different member, and especially someone new to the hobby, to have the same experience I did. If that was the first, or one of the first LFS I visited I would’ve been super turned off from the hobby entirely. I simply don’t want that experience for someone else. 
 

I tried to abide by the “Cory rule” and still find something I wanted to take home. I settled on this Anubius Nana Petite (that was labeled as coming from an ACO competitor, lololol) and threw it in the blackwater tank. Shrimp swarmed the bad boy, and a lil’ Chili took their opportunity to photobomb the pic:

Not all stores can be great stores. Just hoping other Nerms don’t show up due to them being RPP and have a similar experience like I did. Enjoy your tanks, friends. Cheers. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/6/2023 at 9:19 PM, AllFishNoBrakes said:

Things like, “we have EXTREMELY hard water here so an all-in-one fertilizer doesn’t do any good” when in reality we have extremely soft water here, and all 14 of my tanks have absolutely crushed it with Easy Green.

There's likely a lot of frustration and misinformation behind that.

It's unforuntate that you had that experience at the store, RPP or not.  It's just one of those situations where some people, certain hobbyists, whatever it is can be very down/negative and dwell on that.  It's great they have the opportunity to help people, but I wouldn't want this person to give advice on a day to day basis with customers.  Maybe there is some training that needs to be done to ensure a minimum adequate level for handling "appropriate comments" on the job. 

I would hope any future visit leads to a better experience and maybe this person was having a seriously tough day.

 

On 7/6/2023 at 9:19 PM, AllFishNoBrakes said:

My girlfriend and I both agreed that we would never return to the store.

Honestly, give it time and give them one more chance.  You never know.  You never know what may or may not be changed in 3-6 months.

I'm not saying go in and support the business if there are issues, but from my own experience.... first impressions are lasting (good or bad) and it can set a tone.  The best approach is to go in with blank eyes and to just give yourself that sanity check after time passes.

[AllFishNoBrakes]

On 7/6/2023 at 11:38 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

I would hope any future visit leads to a better experience and maybe this person was having a seriously tough day.

 

As much as I want to believe that, I really don’t see that being the case. As much as they bashed on ACO they also hyped up the “other YouTuber plant guy” when he was bagging up my Nana Petite. “It’s crazy! I watched this guy growing up, and now I get to call him on the phone to place orders! They really have the best Anubius around!”  It was just strange in every way, shape, and form lol. 

 

On 7/6/2023 at 11:38 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Honestly, give it time and give them one more chance.  You never know.  You never know what may or may not be changed in 3-6 months.

Again, as much as I want to believe that, I don’t think it’s in me. This store was over an hour away… And there was really nothing pulling me back… No variety of fish I can’t get… No exclusive foods… Pricing wasn’t great… Only male Guppies… Terrible customer service and guest experience… I’ll stick to my normal stores that are 30 and 45 minutes away, and if I want to venture over an hour I’ll go back to where my girlfriend had her procedure done 6 weeks ago. That random store I found through a Google search was rad, they were welcoming and friendly, they had signs on their tanks like “buy the girls, too!” And have been in business as long as I’ve been alive. 
 

I totally hear what you’re saying, but if I’m gonna venture outside the normal couple of stores I’ll choose to go to the place where I had an excellent experience over the horrible experience every time. 

[nabokovfan87]

@AllFishNoBrakes I watched 2 documentaries this week, entirely unrelated, but one of them was very much a "follow-up" to the first.   The main concept about how generations of kids are growing up with different technologies than what I grew up with and how it's changing things for culture, what that leads to....  People use tik tok more than a library or a book, as one example.

The first one was from the perspective of a programmer (and many of them) that worked to design the internet as we know it.  Their opinions after seeing the results of their work.  The second was basically a "worst case scenario" and how that played out, not a guess, not an assumption, but showing exactly what happened.

While I can't say anyone is perfect.  Anubias isn't rocket science.  I'm pretty sure no one can screw it up "that badly" so to speak to warrant any sort of public tirade.  Hopefully the ACO can do what they need to do, the store can do what they need to do.  It's all up to us to push for a better hobby.  That one sentiment means much more than I think a lot of people realize.  I wish I could do more to fix things or help. 

Again, I'm sorry that store was such a bad experience.  I totally understand what that feels like.

[AllFishNoBrakes]

On 7/7/2023 at 2:32 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

Hopefully the ACO can do what they need to do, the store can do what they need to do.

Candi, as expected, had a quick and lovely response. One of two things is going to happen, in my opinion. 1. The store shapes up and retains their RPP status and gives a better experience for every hobbyist. 2. The store loses their RPP status and then less people will have a less-than-desired experience as they will not be listed as a partner store. Literally the only reason I went out of my way to go there was because they were listed. 
 

Either way, it’s better for everyone involved, in my opinion. We’ll see what happens!

[AllFishNoBrakes]

Well, friends, in an interesting turn of events the store in question is no longer an RPP store. While I don’t know all the specifics, what I do know is that ACO took swift action and the store isn’t listed on the website any longer. 
 

I’m not proud of myself for getting that store off the list, and honestly I feel pretty guilty about it as if I didn’t say anything they would still be listed, but I honestly believe that it needed to happen. The experience I had was so sub par… As I mentioned yesterday, if that was one of the first experiences I ever had I would’ve been turned off from that store, ACO for backing that store, and probably the hobby as a whole. After all, I work in guest service as well, in the restaurant industry, and while I understand that everyone has off days this was far beyond an off day. Overall, I’m just thankful that other people won’t have the same experience that I did and I fully back the Coop for making the decision they did. 
 

Back and support your LFS’s that have earned your hard earned dollars and let’s all work to make this hobby the best that it can be and enjoy nature daily. Until next time, Nerms. 

[AllFishNoBrakes]

It’s been an interesting week as a fish keeper. 
 

Had another ~2 hour power outage due to some electrical work being done on the building. I wasn’t home this time, and knew it should be short again, so I did literally nothing. I told my girlfriend she might wanna put the battery back up pumps in battery saver mode, but I don’t even think she did that. Just waited it out, confirmed everything came back online, and had to manually reset all the analog timers, again. What a pain that is… The good news, is that we don’t really have power outages outside of this electrical work that had to be done, so hopefully I don’t have to touch those timers anytime soon. 
 

Lost a couple of fish this week… went to water change the 10 gallon holding all the Pleco juveniles and found one floating at the top. Also lost a Hatchetfish today. I was setting up the Ziss Tumbler (more on that below) and the dude must’ve flown right out of the open top tank. Didn’t realize he was on the floor until it was too late. Down to just 2 Marbled Hatchetfish, unfortunately. 
 

I’ve been pretty sick for coming up on a week now, so I took it pretty easy with maintenance today. I topped off the aquaponics tank, did a 1 gallon water change on the (empty) 3.7 gallon, small water change on the 10 gallon Krib tank, 4 gallon water change on the Pleco grow out, and then like 1 gallon water change on the 10 gallon (empty) quarantine/grow out tank. 
 

I then moved into the bedroom and pulled 12 Pygmy Cory eggs! I noticed eggs last night, and considering we’re through the restaurant openings and county fairs I thought it was time to try something new. Set up the Ziss Tumbler and 1 of the eggs has already hatched. 11 more to go, and the little 2 gallon grow out tank is back up on the kitchen counter. Fingers crossed I can raise these guys up and increase the number of Pygmy’s in the 10 gallon. I wanna see 20+ of those little guys zooming around. Also noticed 1 tiny little fry while I was pulling the eggs, so hopefully there’s a few more already growing up in that tank. 
 

Still dealing with a little green water in the (empty) 6 gallon cube. Maybe I’ll do an additional water change on it tomorrow. Right after water change the tank looks super clear, but by the next week it’s a little green again. I really feel like I’m 1 or 2 extra water changes away from clearing up that tank; just gotta get to those extra water changes. If you had an empty 6 gallon tank, what would you do with it?

Water change on the Blackwater tank per usual. The Green Neons are getting more comfortable. Saw a group of 6 schooling around today. I’m sure as they continue to settle in I’ll see them more. Might need to add another 6. We’ll see. 
 

For all the big tanks I just siphoned off some duckweed/floating plants, topped off (small water changes compared to usual) and reset all the air stones (for all the tanks). Did what I could with not feeling the greatest, and kept thinking to myself, “this is like a 5-10% water change which is what a lot of people do all the time”, lol. I just like that 20-30% water change weekly. It’s what I’ve always done and had yielded me great results. 
 

Looking forward to adding some new fish soon! I need to decide what to do with the 6 gallon cube (Sparkling Gourami’s? Betta? Some tiny Rasboras?), the 3.7 gallon (probably a betta of some sorts), grow out these Pygmy Cory’s, and move some of the other grown out Cory’s to their next tank. Also need to hit up the LFS’s and move some of these Panda Angels and Chocolate Bristlenoses. 
 

I think I’m also going to move the Dwarf Neon Rainbows up with the Angels in the 55, and move all the wood from the 55 to the 29. The plants are so grown in at this point that you can’t really even see the wood. Perhaps the “clear Blackwater” tank in in the works after all. 
 

Decisions, decisions, my friends. Excited to play with some new things as we move forward!

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/12/2023 at 6:50 PM, AllFishNoBrakes said:

Looking forward to adding some new fish soon! I need to decide what to do with the 6 gallon cube (Sparkling Gourami’s? Betta? Some tiny Rasboras?), the 3.7 gallon (probably a betta of some sorts), grow out these Pygmy Cory’s, and move some of the other grown out Cory’s to their next tank. Also need to hit up the LFS’s and move some of these Panda Angels and Chocolate Bristlenoses. 

First, I hope you're feeling ok and getting better! Drink lots of rooibos tea. When you're done use what's left for blackwater satchels. 😉

There is this weird issue I have in my own aspect of the hobby where I struggle so much with small tanks. I love the look and the ability to take a smaller "designer tank" or something nano sized and make something beautiful with it. I can't imagine having fish in something smaller than a 20G just because I seriously struggle to get maintenance done. A 10G I've had again for the first time in a year or so and I just decided one day I was going to move the fish out and replace it with a 29G. If I had a 20L, it would've been that tank.

Anyways.... I would seriously consider a plant only tank. Maybe add some horned nerites or something, but just a tank where you can have a nice piece of wood and some plants sticking out of the tank. I would love to see a higher humidity pecktec style setup.

You can see some of his update videos that have some of his improvements.

 

[AllFishNoBrakes]

@nabokovfan87 The cube is my dirted tank, so unless I want to rip everything out and start all over it’s going to stay as is. Im already “breaking the rules” by having a stone in there, but fear not! There is no dirt/substrate under the stone to create gas pockets. I used a small deli container flipped upside down and secured it to the bottom of the tank before putting down a 1/4” of dirt with a 2” gravel cap. You’d never be able to tell by looking at it, but I definitely took steps to avoid problems with stone in a dirted tank when I was building the tank. 
 

The tank has been plants only (well, besides the snails and 2 Amano shrimp) for a few weeks and it’s just not the same. I totally feel you, but I need some action in there! I like having a range of tank sizes to play with and see what works and what doesn’t. 

[TheSwissAquarist]

Quote

 

You could try putting the Pygmy Cory eggs in the green water tank to feed them? 

[AllFishNoBrakes]

On 7/15/2023 at 10:35 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

You could try putting the Pygmy Cory eggs in the green water tank to feed them?

not a bad idea at all. Just really don’t wanna net them out of there when it’s time lol. 
 

Maybe next time I’ll try that! Green water issue is almost cleared up, though. Simply a great idea. 

[AllFishNoBrakes]

Pygmy Cory fry (and any yet to hatch eggs) got transferred out of the Tumbler and into the 2 gallon tank on the counter. Per usual, there is a fully cycled and more-than-well seasoned sponge, a good chunk of Java Moss, and some mulm in the tank. Also used the water from the tank the eggs were raised in to fill the tank. I’ll probably start sprinkling in some First Bites and Sera Micron either tomorrow morning or the next morning. 
 

I definitely feel as though the eggs came from multiple spawns, day(s) apart, as when I first put the eggs in the Tumbler one hatched within like 30 minutes. Then the next day, a couple more, and then a couple more. Don’t want the “oldest” ones to starve and that sponge should be well equipped to handle any waste that is produced from any early feedings for the oldest ones. 
 

The one mistake I may have made, is I didn’t monitor the temp in the 2 gallon tank very well. It’s sitting ~74°, and they hatched in 77-78, so that couple degree difference shouldn’t be too much, but you just never know. Fingers crossed we’re on the path to raising up some Pygmy’s! Time will tell. 
 

Cheers. 

[AllFishNoBrakes]

Yooooooooo,

Check this out! I was checking out my girlfriends shrimp tank, and I found a lone Pygmy Cory fry!

When she moved over the water lettuce in preparation for the shrimp, there was obviously at least 1 Pygmy Cory egg that hatched out and somehow managed to raise up in this tank. I’ve been dropping in 2 Xtreme Shrimpee Sticks every other day. No other foods, no other nothing. I have no clue how this fish survived other than nature found a way, and nature is amazing. Enjoy your tanks, friends. You never know what might happen!

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 7/17/2023 at 4:46 AM, AllFishNoBrakes said:

Yooooooooo,

Check this out! I was checking out my girlfriends shrimp tank, and I found a lone Pygmy Cory fry!

When she moved over the water lettuce in preparation for the shrimp, there was obviously at least 1 Pygmy Cory egg that hatched out and somehow managed to raise up in this tank. I’ve been dropping in 2 Xtreme Shrimpee Sticks every other day. No other foods, no other nothing. I have no clue how this fish survived other than nature found a way, and nature is amazing. Enjoy your tanks, friends. You never know what might happen!

Wow!!

[AllFishNoBrakes]

Yo yo,

Got back to the normal routine today for what feels like the first time in forever. Also moved the Albino Cory’s to 2 different tanks, adding to the schools already established, and the few Julii’s to the tank already housing Julii’s, again adding to the already established school. Now, the 10 gallon tank has just a ton of Chocolate Bristlenose. I removed the giant mat of Java Moss in order to catch the fish, and the amount of the mulm underneath the (essentially) Java Moss substrate was unreal, lol. Siphoned out 95% of it, moved the fish, added the moss back in, and topped off the water. Feels good to have some things moved around and “new fish” in a couple tanks. 
 

Other than that, I did the usual water changes and reset of all air stones, and squeezed a couple sponges. Just simply felt good to get a normal water change on everything in the house. 
 

Pygmy Cory’s in the 2 gallon seem to be doing well. Every time I look in the tank I see a couple fry so I’m taking that as a good sign at this time. If the solo dude can make it in my girls shrimp tank I should be able to raise some when I’m actually trying lol. 
 

Heavily considering making the 29 gallon tank a second blackwater tank. 
-I’m going to remove all the Spiderwood from the 55 Angel tank above it. At this point, the Swords and Jungle Val are so grown in you can’t even see the wood anymore. 
-Take the wood out, hydrogen peroxide the BBA on it, and allow to dry for probably a week or longer. 
-Remove (most plants) from the 29. Sooooo much PSO in that bad boy. Leave the Anubius, and add all Spiderwood to that tank. 
-Move the Dwarf Rainbows to the 55 above 

-Propagate the Anubius from the empty Betta tank. That thing is getting huge, and I’ll take some Anubius I don’t have to buy. 
-Start adding in botanicals. Idk if I’ll go as dark as the current blackwater tank, really depends on how far the Aquaneat light can penetrate the water. 
 

At that point, I’ll have the “Amazon Sword tanks” on the top shelf of the rack, the Blackwater tanks on the middle shelf, and then my girlfriends shrimp tank and qt/grow out tanks on the bottom shelf. Sounds super fun to me; simply need to decide what fish I want to add to the 29 with the removal of the Dwarf Rainbows. Maybe a bigger Tetra species. Or maybe some Rasboras. Or maybe…. Time will tell. 
 

Also took this shot of the 6 gallon cube when I drained the water during the water change today. Thought it looked cool!

 

Cheers, Nerms. 

[AllFishNoBrakes]

Drumroll please…. 🥁 🥁 🥁 

Introducing, Isshin:

I’ve been searching for a new Betta for a few months and today I found him. I’ve wanted a Samurai or an Alien since I first started in the hobby. I knew this guy was coming home when I first saw him. He was inquisitive, had lots of personality zooming around his little cup, and is quite possibly the most active Betta I’ve seen at chain stores in those little cups. He wasn’t lying on his side looking like he was asking to be euthanized. Glad to have him home.
 

I’ve known I like Samurai’s for a couple years now, and I was surprised my girlfriend was into him as well. Always helps when the person you share your home and space with is into it, too. 
 

Feels good for this tank to not be empty. Also clipped the Anubius in here in half. That was the first aquatic plant I ever bought, and it was taking over the tank. I opened up some space in Isshin’s tank, and moved the Anubius to the 29 that I believe will become the second blackwater tank. 

Excuse the glare. Normally I wait until the sun goes down to take pictures, but simply didn’t want to wait today, lol. 
 

Hope you guys are enjoying your tanks! Excited for what’s to come. 

Edited July 20, 2023 by AllFishNoBrakes

[nabokovfan87]

Beautiful Betta! Congratulations.

Any significance of the name?

[AllFishNoBrakes]

On 7/20/2023 at 2:57 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Any significance of the name?

It’s from the game Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. 
 

The game has 4 different endings, depending on specific choices or actions you make, and the longest game option is the “Immortal Severance” ending with the final boss being “Isshin, Sword Saint”. Figured it was a fitting name for a Samurai 🙂. 
 

The first Betta I had was Sekiro, and then I also had a Gourami named “Gyobu” which is another boss from the Sekiro game. Just keeping it in the family!

[AllFishNoBrakes]

What up everyone? Another Wednesday; here we are. 
 

Water changed everything except the 55 gallon grow out tank. As soon as I was ready to start draining water the Panda Angels started spawning. They literally laid like 5 eggs right as I was going to put the siphon in. Oh well, they skip a week I guess. Gave them a couple hours of privacy as I water changed everything else and pulled out this spawn:

Also pulled a Bristlenose spawn yesterday:

All of the above eggs didn’t get hatched as I already have Panda Angels and Bristlenose to move. Once I move some I’ll probably hatch a piece of the next spawns. 
 

Also had another Angel spawn since the last post;

So many eggs this past week! Again, didn’t hatch any of this spawn either. 
 

In other news, I pulled out all the Spider Wood from the 55 gallon Angel tank. Rubbed it down, sprayed it down with hydrogen peroxide (BBA) and now it sits to dry out for a couple of weeks. Step 1 of converting the 29 gallon tank to a second blackwater tank has begun! Next week I’ll probably pull the Dwarf Rainbows from the tank. I can easily say that catching fish is my least favorite part of the hobby… it’s SUCH a pain! But it’ll be worth it when it’s done. 55 gallon Angel tank now looks like this:

Really no difference as the wood was dwarfed by the plants. 
 

Also harvested a batch of BBS tonight:

Fresh out of the hatchery. 

Portioned out and ready to go. Ice tray gets frozen and used throughout the following 8 days 2 rows per day. What’s left in the Tupperware got fed live. 
 

Emailed the LFS and for the first time they told me no. Well, they didn’t actually tell me no, what they did tell me is that they just got dumped a bunch of Angels by other customers, so to wait a week and hit them up again. Really hoping they take some Bristlenose; I offered them at a screaming deal just to move hopefully half of them at least. We’ll see when I email then again on Sunday. 
 

Cheers, homies. I appreciate you all constantly reading my updates and coming along on the journey! Hope all is well with y’all!

Edited July 27, 2023 by AllFishNoBrakes

[AllFishNoBrakes]

What up what up?

Twas a day of maintenance today. Whew! Normally it takes me like 4 hours. Today was a 6 hour session.  All good though, just some additional work. 
 

Gonna bag up 20 Panda Angels and take em to the LFS tomorrow. Also offered a ton of plants, for no credit. I said maybe they can give ‘em to employees, or new hobbyists or something. Figured if people could use them, and I’m taking fish anyways, that was better than just tossing them out. 
Plants all bagged up and ready to go. 5 bunches of Pearl Weed, 2 bags full of Guppy Grass, 5 bunches of 5 PSO stems each, and 8 baby Amazon Swords with roots that I chopped off my mother plant. Hopefully some people can enjoy them. 
This tank was the most dramatic change. Cleared out about 3/4 of the Guppy Grass. This tank used to be full of PSO but the Guppy Grass choked it out. Happy to clear it out, and happy to clear out another 20 Panda Angels tomorrow. 15-20 at a time we’re getting there! Might actually have to hatch a partial spawn after my vacation. 

Took a ton of PSO out of this tank preparing to turn it to blackwater tank #2. Dwarf Rainbows got moved to the Angel tank above it, too!

Rainbows still a little freaked out, but they’re also having fun swimming against the current from the HOB. Definitely a new behavior for me to see as there was like no current in the other tank. 
6 gallon cube got a trim. Man, trimming this thing is such a chore!  At least I won’t have to do it again for like another 6 weeks. 
Baby Pygmy Cory that hatched in my girlfriends shrimp tank still cruising right along! So fun to watch this guy grow up as he was a complete surprise. 
 

Blackwater tank also went back to normal from all the bubbles that were on the surface. After a couple of days it was like 80% resolved. After todays water change, and no additional tannins/botanicals we’re back to normal. 
 

Cheers, homies. 

[AllFishNoBrakes]

Ah, we meet again. This time on a Thursday. 
 

Weird work schedule this week with the boss being out of town for his birthday at the beginning of the week, reviews, evaluations, and new menu item tastings. 
 

Last night I noticed the HOB to the 20 tall basically wasn’t functioning. Just a trickle of water on the highest flow setting. The weird thing, is that when I moved it back to low, more water was flowing. I tinkered and messed with it and couldn’t figure it out. I thought maybe some of the Amazon Sword leaves were wrapped around the intake sponge, so I trimmed a couple of those back. Still nothing. It didn’t make sense, but I decided to clean the intake sponge and voila, back in action. 
 

It’s probably a good thing that happened as we’ll be out of town next week. I have a buddy coming to watch the house and the dog, but they would’ve had no idea that the filter wasn’t functioning or how to fix it. This prompted me to squeeze all filters in todays maintenance sesh. 
 

Water changed every tank, squeezed every sponge filter, reset every air stone, and got bit by an Angelfish in the process. Can’t really blame him; I stole the eggs they had been fanning for 2 days right in front of his face. All the other times the eggs were eaten overnight, so I assumed that was going to happen again, and when that didn’t happen I couldn’t risk fry with my vacation coming up. I disposed of the eggs, and then when I went back to clean the filter the dude straight bit my hand, lol. Good papa right there. 
 

Took this picture of the Albino Cory’s in the 55 gallon chillin’ after the water change. All hatched and raised by me, which I tend to forget about, so it was fun to see them hanging out together. 
 

Cheers, Nerms. Catch you guys in the next journal post after some much needed R&R. Excited to start converting the 29 gallon to another blackwater tank when I get back. Gotta decide what additional stocking I want with the Rainbows being out of there!

Edited August 11, 2023 by AllFishNoBrakes

[AllFishNoBrakes]

What’s up everyone? Hope you’ve been well! Feels weird to have a one week gap in the journal, but the vacation was well worth it. We flew to where my girlfriend is from and met up with her dad and brother. Stayed there overnight, and then went a few hours north to the lake. Had a blast on the boat and the jet ski, swimming, and sipping adult beverages throughout the day and into the night. We hadn’t been to the lake in 5 years, and the place we stayed at was rad! We ended up staying an extra day, and for the additional night in the “Valley House” and day on the boat, they only charged us an extra $100. They do things differently in the south, for sure. Also, it’s sooooo humid out there. I don’t know how people do the 80-100% humidity in the summer down there. I’ll take the “dry heat” where I grew up any day. Anyways, back to the tanks. 
 

Water changed every single tank in the house. It’s nice to know that the tanks can skip a week every once in a while, but I prefer to keep up on it weekly. The overgrowth of the floating plants alone is enough to keep up on it! The pea puffer tank was super dim as the duckweed and red root floaters had taken over. So crazy how much they can grow in a week!

Also took the time to start converting the 29 gallon towards a second blackwater setup. It really wasn’t that bad. Pulling out the floating PSO was a piece of cake, and it was funny to watch the hundreds of shrimp come flying out of there as I pulled it above the waters surface. Threw the Spider Wood from the 55 Angel tank in there, and to my surprise they’re all floating. I guess a couple of weeks out of the water will do that. 2 of the smaller more dense pieces have sank already. The bigger, but more branchy pieces need to water log. Once they all sink, I’ll get everything situated. Here’s where the tank is right now:

 

Seeing as this was the third tank I ever set up, I have learned so much with this tank, and I’m excited for its new adventure. The Anubius in the middle towards the back definitely took a beating when I cut it from the Betta tank and moved it over here. Had some pretty hardcore melt that I wasn’t expecting, but it has sprouted a new leaf so I’m hopeful it will continue to bounce back. 
 

The original blackwater tank is the lightest I’ve seen it since it started, basically. You can actually see to the back and see the rocks in there, lol. 

I boiled up some botanicals and will top this bad boy off, as well as give the 29 (next to this tank) it’s first dose of tannins. 
 

 

I did a larger water change than normal on the blackwater tank today. Normally I just do 10%, but I went ahead and did 20% today. I was surprised to see the Pothos roots are green! They definitely look white (as you can see above) and the 10% water change doesn’t get the water level low enough to really look at those roots. 
 

 

I’m excited for the next iteration of the rack as we’ll have the Sword tanks up top, the blackwater tanks in the middle, and then my girlfriends shrimp tank and the quarantine/grow out tanks on the bottom. In my girlfriends shrimp tank we have our first berried female! We should have little tiny blue shrimplets in no time. 
 

I have a couple new stickers coming for the rack in exchange for some botanicals, and I’ll be sending out another sticker for another forum member! Super glad they started that thread as it could be lots of fun, and I always enjoy people coming together and sharing what they have. 

Finally, I’ve decided to rid my tanks of duckweed. It’s going to be a battle, especially the pea puffer tank with the red root floaters. However, I’m determined to get it done! Simply going to take some determination, and I’m just going to go one tank at a time until it’s complete.

Cheers, everyone! Looking forward to making some changes and keeping things interesting. Hope you’re enjoying your tanks, too!

Edited August 24, 2023 by AllFishNoBrakes

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/23/2023 at 6:07 PM, AllFishNoBrakes said:

 

Is that tank row on the top bowing towards where the two tanks meet or is this like a fun camera trick?

On 8/23/2023 at 6:07 PM, AllFishNoBrakes said:

Finally, I’ve decided to rid my tanks of duckweed. It’s going to be a battle, especially the pea puffer tank with the red root floaters. However, I’m determined to get it done! Simply going to take some determination, and I’m just going to go one tank at a time until it’s complete.

You got this, no big deal at all. 🙂 It'll be interesting to see how the tanks are with other floaters and if you notice any changes.