What did you get done today?

[Opie]

I did a test fill of my 125 that I re-did the inner seal on!

[ange]

Had a run-in with the coolest fish that I never get to see. I'm thinking about sexing them and finding them a partner but quite frankly don't know how I'd begin. It looks like a female but I feel like I'd have to have it up against a male to know for sure!

[Ruud]

Moved the Sterbai cory's over to their own tank. Emptied the Cube tank - substrate and plants gone, fully bare bottom now. This tank will house the L134 colony when they come in, just need to figure out where to house the L213 that is currently still in here. Pics to follow

[H20CultureLabs]

Brought in the daphnia for the winter and set up a resurrection jar with leaf mulch. Trying to find another organism to culture for live food!

[Odd Duck]

Lights came on to this new excavation by the rowdy, big boy, blue eyed lemon bristlenose plecos in the 100 G nanofish tank.  Yes, that’s spent fertilizer granules dredged up from the depths of the substrate.  What a mess!  All the sand that was under hardscape is piled up on either side instead of where it belongs.  You can’t even see his nose in the pic he’s so deep under the hardscape.  🤦🏻‍♀️ 

I just put the tiny (compared to them) watering spikes / caves back in this tank yesterday to see if they might transfer back to the caves instead of digging under the hardscape.  I filled in all the dugouts yesterday when I put the spikes back in.  They barely fit in the spikes but they don’t seem completely happy with caves the next size up.  I can’t even tell when they’re on eggs or fry when they use the spikes.  All I can see is pleco tail when they’re in the spikes.  🤷🏻‍♀️ 

 

[Guppysnail]

On 11/8/2023 at 3:06 PM, H20CultureLabs said:

Brought in the daphnia for the winter and set up a resurrection jar with leaf mulch. Trying to find another organism to culture for live food!

Moina , grindle and white worms are super easy. Red wigglers , peanut beetle larvae, wingless fruit flies. Black soldier fly larvae. 

[anewbie]

slowly working on setting up the 180 i have in the basement (72x24x24 inches); I think i'll put wild caught discus and gbr in that aquarium with a few geo (not sure which species). Kind of a pity to put such fishes in it as it is in the basement and will not get much viewing time - maybe i'll just think about putting them in it but never actually pour the water.... gotta think about; always wanted wc gbr.

[ange]

Restarted my Walter worm culture. I was "only" a week late but between the transition from one tank to another and other things in my life it just wasn't a priority to me. I'm very grateful to have a fridge that I could keep them in during the wait.

[Matt B]

I cleaned my 'Nano Nermy Sponge Filter'!!

[Tanked]

Finally got back to the LFS.

• reintroduced Hornwort to all of the tanks. It has been 3 years since the Great Hornwort Apocalypse
• replaced the failed Tiger Lotus
• replaced a Cardinal plant (I think)
• added some Dwarf Hair Grass for the first time.
• Added 2 SAEs to the 65, and 3 each Bloodfin Tetras and Cherry Barbs to the 29.
• Installed a "Bio Holster" that was supposed to be included with the Aqueon filter I bought years ago🤨.
• Broke down the HOB on the 75 gallon for the first cleaning in about 5 years🙄

 

[anewbie]

I spent the whole day taking one lousy picture:

 

And for those who want a closer look:

[Odd Duck]

@anewbie, I have soooo many bad pics for every half decent pic I’ve taken.  I really need to go through my phone and remove a few hundred bad fish pics.  😝 

[Opie]

I put a piece of drift wood in my tank. I’m hoping it will sink,at least some.

I plan on tying it down tomorrow.

On 11/9/2023 at 6:19 PM, Odd Duck said:

@anewbie, I have soooo many bad pics for every half decent pic I’ve taken.  I really need to go through my phone and remove a few hundred bad fish pics.  😝 

I feel that. My wife takes amazing pictures through the glass with little thought. I’ll be there trying set like Ansel Adam’s and get just a glare. One time the picture just looked like the ghost a fridg, from the reflection of the fridge behind me .

[James V.]

Set up two new betta tanks and a shrimp tank! I have no desk space anymore but it was worth it lol

[ange]

On 11/11/2023 at 1:53 PM, James V. said:

Set up two new betta tanks and a shrimp tank! I have no desk space anymore but it was worth it lol

These are awesome! Where'd you get the tanks?

[ange]

Fixed some more Repashy. The floating cubes are a (so far) unsuccessful experiment. If anyone has tips gettinf Repashy to stick I am all ears! I've only had luck with terracotta and other textured surfaces. These are too thin to weather.

[Odd Duck]

It’s not about what I did today but about what these 2 did today.  I didn’t think they were going to manage it with the way things were going when I left the house late this morning.  He insisted on the smallest cave despite me offering 3 different sizes he wants only the watering spike.  I put them back in since he stopped trying to breed when they were gone.  It took a few days of pouting, but he decided on the spike again for breeding.  She has been going in and out of a bigger cave trying to entice either of the boys into action.  This guy finally took the hint.

Can you see how she gives up in disgust at the end of this video I took this morning?  That look like, “He’s pretty but he isn’t too bright!”  Well, he must have finally figured it out because they got the deed done.  There are eggs in the cave tonight after we got home from paintball.  I can’t get a picture because I can barely get a glimpse past his big “shoulders”!  But I should have some long-finned babies this time around since the short-finned female is in a different tank now.

 

And look!  The old lady figured out how to post her own video!

[James V.]

On 11/11/2023 at 11:53 AM, James V. said:

Set up two new betta tanks and a shrimp tank! I have no desk space anymore but it was worth it lol

Thank you! I got all three from PETCO a while back, I just repurposed them 😁

[jwcarlson]

Caught this lady holding an egg.  But didn't catch the "t-pose".

[nabokovfan87]

On 11/11/2023 at 11:53 AM, James V. said:

Very beautiful!  Nice work.

[nabokovfan87]

On 11/11/2023 at 4:47 PM, ange said:

Fixed some more Repashy. The floating cubes are a (so far) unsuccessful experiment. If anyone has tips gettinf Repashy to stick I am all ears! I've only had luck with terracotta and other textured surfaces. These are too thin to weather.

When it's frozen it might take a second to thaw, but it should always sink.  Hm. maybe you just need slightly bigger chunks?  What is your recipe when you make it? How much water to powder and is the water piping hot?

On 11/11/2023 at 6:39 PM, Odd Duck said:

I can’t get a picture because I can barely get a glimpse past his big “shoulders”!

congratulations!  I equate the video to two kites fightiing eachother. 😂

[ange]

On 11/12/2023 at 6:49 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

When it's frozen it might take a second to thaw, but it should always sink.  Hm. maybe you just need slightly bigger chunks?  What is your recipe when you make it? How much water to powder and is the water piping hot?

The Repashy itself is fine! I make it float by dipping it into floating resuable ice cubes (the fruit looking things in my photo). The issue is that once fish start to nibble on it the whole thing slips off and goes straight to the bottom of my tank. I like to have some Repashy floating and some sinking so that there's less competition for food. I use 2 parts boiling water to 1 part Repashy. My Community Plus also gets freeze dried daphnia in the mix.

[anewbie]

Probably the last weekly update on my bedroom tank as these must be redundant after a while - but once again i did a weekly sunday water change and took a few pictures:

 

Not a great picture - too zoomed in but a lovely Cryptocoryne balansae; i have a lot of these and they all seem to do well once establish. Quite lovely plant even if it is a lousy picture. The plant behind it is POS and i gotta say the POS love this aquarium - it has grown into a giant forest that covers the back 1/4 of the aquarium (that is roughly 65 inches long and 2 or 3 inches deep); makes a great mop if someone drops some eggs.

 

Picture of my lace apogoeton. This is actually a large leaf lace and they get super large with a bit of co2 but since i've not turned on the co2 (yet?); the leaves are well constrained in size but it is really growing right now with 4 or 5 new leaves the past 2 months - one of the reason i'm not sure co2 is needed. The blue circle is the larger piece of pinto anubia (last week i photo'ed a smaller piece that had rotted off. The rot actually happened about 1.5 years ago so it wasn't a new thing and both pieces have been slowly growing.

While taking these pictures i got distracted by this little guy:

While it is just one who came to check out what was happening the aquarium actually has 25 or 30 of them but they don't come out as often as they used to - havent' really found their nest yet but every now and then i see them group up and fly around like little bumble bees. In the old 40b i knew exactly where to find them because they all lived together in the back right corner but now who knows. The orange laser are even more annoying - i have around 20 of those - some as much as 5 years old and in this aquarium i'm lucky to see 1 or 2 a week.

However one fish i see every day every hour every few minutes are the puppies:

 

(sorry for the blurry picture - didn't realize....). While he looks angry he is really happy as a puppy can be happy. This particular one insisted on swimming up the python not once nor twice but three times.... 

Edited November 13, 2023 by anewbie

[nabokovfan87]

On 11/12/2023 at 5:07 PM, ange said:

The Repashy itself is fine! I make it float by dipping it into floating resuable ice cubes (the fruit looking things in my photo). The issue is that once fish start to nibble on it the whole thing slips off and goes straight to the bottom of my tank. I like to have some Repashy floating and some sinking so that there's less competition for food. I use 2 parts boiling water to 1 part Repashy. My Community Plus also gets freeze dried daphnia in the mix.

Yeah, the way you might get around that is to use something called a worm feeder.  you can let the repashy defrost and then sort of squish it into the grate to hold it's place.  The ice cubes are just too slippy of a surface for the repashy to grip for an extended period.  Love the idea, but I think you're just running into friction issues!

[ange]

On 11/12/2023 at 10:15 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Yeah, the way you might get around that is to use something called a worm feeder.  you can let the repashy defrost and then sort of squish it into the grate to hold it's place.  The ice cubes are just too slippy of a surface for the repashy to grip for an extended period.  Love the idea, but I think you're just running into friction issues!

I have a few worm feeders that I can use. Don't know why I hadn't thought of that!