What did you get done today?

[Birdsnstuff]

I may or may not have bought a new tank at a big box store while picking up kitty litter. It was half off…😉

[jasper5150]

Tested the water in my main tank, squeezed out goo from one of the sponge filters to help get rid of the haze in the water.  Topped of the water and added a few squirts of Easy Green.

[PineSong]

On 2/26/2023 at 7:24 PM, PineSong said:

I had a great tank weekend this weekend--did the usual water changes and ferts…

I sat and stared into my 29 for quite some time just enjoying…

Definitely an "I love this hobby" weekend.

Well, I jinxed it. This morning I could not find either of the two big mama platy girls in that tank. They were healthy and shiny on Sunday, and vanished as of this morning. I tested water thinking if they had died there might be an ammonia or nitrates spike, zero for both. Just missing fish. Tight glass lid due to swordtails in the tank so I know they didn’t hop out. They were only about a year and a half old 😞

[PineSong]

On 2/28/2023 at 9:30 PM, PineSong said:

Well, I jinxed it. This morning I could not find either of the two big mama platy girls in that tank. They were healthy and shiny on Sunday, and vanished as of this morning. I tested water thinking if they had died there might be an ammonia or nitrates spike, zero for both. Just missing fish. Tight glass lid due to swordtails in the tank so I know they didn’t hop out. They were only about a year and a half old 😞

And to make it more crazy making--this morning one of them is back! No clue how she could have hidden out with all my moving the wood around looking for corpses. Maybe the other one will beam back into the tank while I am at work today?

[Daydre]

On 3/2/2023 at 6:57 AM, PineSong said:

And to make it more crazy making--this morning one of them is back! No clue how she could have hidden out with all my moving the wood around looking for corpses. Maybe the other one will beam back into the tank while I am at work today?

Oof, that happened to me with my betta. Searched all over the tank for him- under wood, in the plants, in the floaters. I was terrified he'd jumped out despite the lid but then the next day he was back again lol. I think he was hiding in the hollow base of an artificial decoration I'd put in- I found him there one time on a different day.

 

Today the wetland plants I ordered off etsy came in! I'm planning on putting them in a container pond when it's a little warmer out- so for now I just spent time planting the ones that needed planting and putting the ones that needed to be in water in temporary setups.

[Matt B]

A friend upgrated tanks, and gave me her 3.7 gal Imagitarium aquarium. No lid and the filter system was a mess, so I completely removed it and cleaned the tank up. The light is pretty neat , it swivels and can be lifted out of the way. Now it's basically a cube. Haven't decided what to do with it.

 

[Ninjoma]

Added some rock formations to give my rank some depth and finally got German blue rams for the first time. 

[PineSong]

On 3/2/2023 at 6:57 AM, PineSong said:

And to make it more crazy making--this morning one of them is back! No clue how she could have hidden out with all my moving the wood around looking for corpses. Maybe the other one will beam back into the tank while I am at work today?

Aaand just to make sure I'm qualified for a rubber room, now the other one is back, too. So, disappeared from Tuesday morning until Thursday night. Now alive and well. I give up, but grateful that these two apparently healthy happy fish did not just die and get eaten between one feeding and the next!

And saw my first guppy fry from the "guppy love island" breeding group I set up 4 weeks ago. Cute little yellow/white babies so I assume the ginga sulphureus female was the mom.

[Furbs]

Good news first. Went out found several nice pieces of wood.  Got a culture fire moss and magically ended up with a new 10 gallon tank. My chili rasbora don’t appear to have ich anymore. And it looks like the salt is clearing up the little infections I saw…

 

 

Bad news, I’ve lost half my my chilis to the floor… left the water too full on the spec v last night. I think they came out while current surfing from the air stone and pump outlet. The lid doesn’t fit full flush due to a clip on light and the heater/air hose. Another major strike against this tank for me. Left the water a solid inch below the surface, just high enough to still make it into the super high filter intake…

[anewbie]

On 3/2/2023 at 10:24 PM, Ninjoma said:

Added some rock formations to give my rank some depth and finally got German blue rams for the first time. 

One thing to keep in mind is that gbr like 82 which might be a bit warm depending on the plants and other stocking; the angels won't mind it.

[Ninjoma]

On 3/4/2023 at 8:07 AM, anewbie said:

One thing to keep in mind is that gbr like 82 which might be a bit warm depending on the plants and other stocking; the angels won't mind it.

Yep, my tank is at 82 degrees. My LFS also keeps an ambient temperature of 82 degrees which is where most of plants and all of my fish are from. 

[Daydre]

Contributed to the airline spaghetti in my room lol

Currently seeding a sponge filter and providing a little air via air stone for some plants I'm quarantining on a USB nano air pump. I figure once I'm done with both of those I can put away the USB pump and have it as a backup. 

[Gumbo99]

I finally got a fry box set up and plopped in a few mystery fry that might be platies or guppies. Never tried my hand at fry raising before, I usually just leave them to their fate in the tank one way or the other. We shall see how it goes.

Edited March 7, 2023 by Gumbo99

[nabokovfan87]

Day early, maintenance done of the shrimp side of things.  Getting ready to ship fish out tomorrow morning, sanity checks and mental prep work done!  I can either fit 3 or try to fix 6 bags in the box, we'll see what I end up with.

I decided that I'm going to do a pretty major overhaul on the tank in question and swap out the hardscape for a piece that would do extremely well with the stocking that is planned.  I am missing a piece of lava rock, hoping that I can find it and pop in some epiphytes to grow out without concern at all that the flow would dislodge them. 

 

On 3/3/2023 at 12:57 PM, PineSong said:

On 3/2/2023 at 3:57 AM, PineSong said:

And to make it more crazy making--this morning one of them is back! No clue how she could have hidden out with all my moving the wood around looking for corpses. Maybe the other one will beam back into the tank while I am at work today?

Aaand just to make sure I'm qualified for a rubber room, now the other one is back, too. So, disappeared from Tuesday morning until Thursday night. Now alive and well. I give up, but grateful that these two apparently healthy happy fish did not just die and get eaten between one feeding and the next!

And saw my first guppy fry from the "guppy love island" breeding group I set up 4 weeks ago. Cute little yellow/white babies so I assume the ginga sulphureus female was the mom.

What does the tank look like?

I'm glad you found them all.  Fish know how to hide, that's for sure!

 

 

[Schuyler]

Caught the cat drinking from my daphnia, cyclops, and seed shrimp culture/experiment. She has been begging to go into the garage the last few days. Now we know why... Not sure how I feel about her drinking that water though

[PineSong]

On 3/6/2023 at 11:42 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

 

What does the tank look like?

I'm glad you found them all.  Fish know how to hide, that's for sure!

It’s this tank, but with more cholla wood and a coconut husk added since this photo was taken. And I lifted the husk and moved it across the tank and stirred all the cholla looking for bodies.

I wonder not only how they could hide but why? The only thing I can think of is they got scared of an aponogeton I floated on top of the tank in preparation for the arrival of guppy fry. But it’s a plant! Surely they didn’t hide for two days due to a plant? They e lived in planted tanks all their lives!

[Matt B]

Making progress on the 3.7 gal. cube...🤔  Horticulture sand, Co-Op heater,  Co-Op sponge filter and playing with the Co-Op air pump! I really like this little pump! 

Still trying to come up with a lid... ???

[Lennie]

On 3/8/2023 at 1:40 AM, Matt B said:

Making progress on the 3.7 gal. cube...🤔  Horticulture sand, Co-Op heater,  Co-Op sponge filter and playing with the Co-Op air pump! I really like this little pump! 

Still trying to come up with a lid... ???

Would make a great shrimp tank!!

I would throw the filter in one of your tanks and let it grow bb. Meanwhile  add some plants/decoration and let them grown and let the tank to season for some time! One catappa leaf, 1-2 cones.

Then here you go. A great shrimp tank 😛

Only side effect is most shrimp don't show their good colors on light substrate. Maybe you can use it to your advantage and try something with dark color, like black roses maybe?

[Theplatymaster]

On 3/7/2023 at 5:40 PM, Matt B said:

Still trying to come up with a lid... ???

ive heard of people using greenhouse panel.

My idea is clear corrugated plastic, but im not sure how well that would work.

[Furbs]

It’s been a month and I finally over flowed my bucket while doing a water change to make a giant mess. And yes, I layed the siphon down while running to get towels not realizing it would then continue to drain the bucket 😁

Tested out using a pump to fill the tank from the buckets. Need an easier way to turn it on than plugging it in, bought too flexible of a hose for it as well. 

[Odd Duck]

Soooo, I did a thing.  Somebody advertised a 3 gallon all in one tank with lid (lights in the lid) for cheap.  It’s mine now.  If fits perfectly on my bathroom counter.  I used black sand I already had that I hadn’t opened yet (over-estimated how much I needed for another project).  I now feel the pain of everybody that’s complained about how long their black sand has taken to wash it.  This was by far, the dirtiest bag I’ve cleaned.  It took twice as long as it’s taken to clean a whole bag in the past and I only did a half bag so far (and only needed 1/3 of that for this tiny tank).

I used slabs of 1” foam to fill the filter spaces that have slots top and bottom to try to keep shrimp inside the tank instead of inside the filter.  I’m sure some will slip by.  I braced the foam in place with smaller pieces trimmed off the ends.  I cleaned and kept the filter cartridge as a possible last chance for shrimp to stay out of the pump.

I RR’d and moved a couple rocks with Anubias nana ‘Petite’ and a couple small pieces of Mopani with Leptochilus pteropus ‘Needle Leaf’ (Needle Leaf Java fern).  I popped the thoroughly RR’d susswassertang (with a couple tiny fronds of Fissidens sp. moss into the tank today.

There should be no scuds in this tank since they will definitely outcompete shrimp.  Since there is crazy low bioload in here, the new bloody mary Neocaridina 10-ish pack went right in after doing very, very light doses of various shrimp starter type stuff (Bacter AE type stuff of various brands and formulas - only what would cling to a dry fingertip, and how exactly did I end up with so many different little jars of shrimp powders?  I didn’t buy this many! 😝).

I shifted the susswassertang and Anubias but now the susswassertang is shifting around because it’s in the crazy gently outflow of the filter.  I haven’t made up my mind about the Suss since it might grow too fast for this tank if it decides it likes the new spot.

The tank has goofy colored silicone (different color in each corner 🙄) but the tank was only $20.00 and didn’t need too much cleanup.  It should be super easy water changes since you can lift the pump outflow (turns off the water flow), twist it around 180, drop it back down, and water pumps out of the tank into your catch container.  Then just top off the tank.

First pic is the top of the foam block and it’s little spacer chunk of foam, second the cartridge, then pic before I moved the Suss back, then finally after moving the Suss back.  I wanted to see the Anubias more as it will be the centerpiece of the tank once it settles and grows more I’ll trim off the damaged leaves later today.  I like the look of the Suss but it was covering the Anubias too much for the look I’m aiming to get.  I might have to glue some Fissidens to the back wall and see if it can adhere enough to ever so slowly do a moss wall for me.

I suspect I’ll end up changing the light and lid since this is probably too dim even for these low light plants.

Maybe I need to add some tannins to tone down the neon silicone?  😝 

Edited March 8, 2023 by Odd Duck
Correct pic discription and add tannins comment.

[Gumbo99]

On 3/7/2023 at 4:40 PM, Matt B said:

Making progress on the 3.7 gal. cube...🤔  Horticulture sand, Co-Op heater,  Co-Op sponge filter and playing with the Co-Op air pump! I really like this little pump! 

Still trying to come up with a lid... ???

 

I like to use green house panels, but at least in my area they only sell it in large sections. You would have a lot left over in that case.

I have also used polycarbonate, which is available in much smaller pieces, but the plastic material will absorb water and bow a little bit over time. Though on a tank that small I don't think there would be enough weight to it for it to warp too badly.

[Ninjoma]

I decorated an apisto cave for my blue rams with green wavy and windelov Java fern

[nabokovfan87]

On 3/8/2023 at 7:27 AM, Odd Duck said:

Maybe I need to add some tannins to tone down the neon silicone?  😝 

One big Ohko stone would be cool on the left there.  Tannins would be cool and help out the shrimp too.  Gotta love Ich-X.

What type/variety of shrimp, they're beautiful.  I'm starting mine out, finally getting it going and hoping to see progress. 

[nabokovfan87]

Sitting here trying to type with a cramped hand that hurts to move, two cuts on it, one fresh from a pair of scissors.  I was trying to cut out some junk/dried silicone out of the top of the tube and it was fine.  Went to wipe off the blade and that ended poorly.

I started the day checking on everything.  I was kind of frustrated because my norm front view of the main 29G display tank is now a side view.  It's "fine", but I really do love waking up and staring right into that tank.  Once I get the 75G setup, that view will be back and that'll be wonderful.

I checked on the shrimp after that, decided whether or not to feed them today.  I checked the email updates for the DoAs that came in yesterday and talked with support a little after that to resolve the issues and send photos over. 

In the afternoon I checked on the display and tried to fix the hygro pinnatifida.  It doesn't seem to want to sit anywhere and the flow pushes it all over the place.  After 3 attempts to get it stuffed in hardscape, I ended up wrapping it in a plant weight and tried to find a place for that.  I'll check on it tomorrow.

Tonight I attempted to start/finish the mods on the tidal 75 for the big tank.  My glue of old sealant is half dried and I spent about an hour trying to push the silicone out of the top and get the dried out portions before it ended up with a bloody finger and silicone everywhere.  I ended up popping the back of the tube and dumping that onto a place and using toothpicks, qtips, paper towels, razor blades and a lot of frustration trying to get the whole thing modded before it dried out on me. 

I'll check on things in the morning and my hope is that it wasn't just pasting in dried chunks of silicone that will just get pushed apart once water hits it.  Time will tell....