What did you get done today?

[Odd Duck]

On 3/9/2023 at 1:44 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

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. 

I’ve got a couple dark gray river rocks in there that the Anubias are glued onto.  I tend not to mix different types of rock or different types of wood in scapes.  At least not much, especially not for tiny scapes like this.  My 100 G angel tank has mixed texture petrified wood, but it’s all pretending to be actual wood in various stages of rotting so it kind of doesn’t count?

The dark gray stone blends well enough with the black sand that I’m sure I could put another type of stone in there and get away with it, but I don’t think I want to.  This tank will be viewed from that left end and the front, so I want the slope effect of the scape from that end and somewhat triangular arrangement from the front.  I’m hoping the needle leaf Java fills in a bit more on the far right to give me a more pronounced triangular shape eventually.

I don’t really want to add more wood to the tank, which would be the only hardscape I would want to add on that end esthetically.  I’ve got other plants I could add to that end, but they are higher light plants.  I’ve ordered a better light that will go on my 2 G tank (since I think those Pink Panther crypts will be needing it to get better color) and that tank’s light will go onto this tank, which will be a big step up in light intensity for this tank.  I’ll be adding a few red root floaters to that tank to temper that light.  II’ll likely add a few to this tank for the same reason once that (relatively) stronger light goes on this tank.  I suspect I’ll be plucking out RRF from each of these tanks pretty much every week to keep them controlled.  Now I need to cut a new top for this tank this week.

I don’t think even Ich-X will stain these neon colored silicone lines enough to tone them down!  I’ve been waiting a bit to see if the Mopani pieces were going to tint the water any before I added more tannins, but it doesn’t look like they’re going to do much.  They’ve been submerged for months and months, but it’s such a small tank, I wanted to see what happened with the wood first.  I’ll be making some rooibos tea later and put a smidgin in here and the rest one of the angel tanks.

[Odd Duck]

Oh, @nabokovfan87, I never answered your question about the shrimp.  These are Bloody Marys, Neocaridina davidi.

[nabokovfan87]

On 3/9/2023 at 12:20 PM, Odd Duck said:

These are Bloody Marys, Neocaridina davidi.

They looked familiar, very nice.

[anewbie]

I did a healthy check on my female D50 (picture below) since i hadn't seen her for a few days; it appears she has a little nest in the back where no one can see her.... so what did i do today - i disturbed my fish trying to find her.

(this is pre nesting; when nesting they turn bright yellow and she was very yellow and quite angry at me):

 

And this is the proud father - though what exactly he is proud of i have no clue but for a wild fish he is incredibly friendly and a bit demanding:

 

[Matt B]

On 3/7/2023 at 2:40 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... ???

Low tech lid.   Cut a piece out of a clear plastic container.. and the blue lid, works as a temporary aquarium lid!  

[Schuyler]

Another plug for joining your local aquarium club and getting involved.

I replied to an email from someone getting back into the hobby. He asked me what kinds of fish I kept so I told him killifish.

It turns out he was the librarian for a killifish club back in the day and used to write articles for a few magazines. On top of that he only lives a few minutes away.

I ended up visiting with him. He gave me a bunch of copies he had of killifish magazines from the 50's-80's and a starter culture of wingless fruit flies.

[nabokovfan87]

Last night (technically very early today), I turned everything off on the tank and I was trying to tidy things up.  I pulled out the table on the side of the tank and move it to it's new spot beside the 75G home.  (Clearance from the door and all that)

I took apart the CO2, moved it to the other side of the 29G where the table was and moved the spraybar down a little bit to make room for routing the CO2 lines.  They need replaced.  I have the parts, but won't do that until the 75G is up and running.  For some reason the tank seems to be losing all the leaves on plants.  It might be simply the tank was moved and things got beat up, but I get the feeling something else is up.

I was talking with @Lennie about corydoras and measured my big female.  3" nose to start of the tail.  3.5" total length.  She freaked out in the specimen container, but she was ok this morning.  After lights out and all the work was done, I scooped out leaves, heard a big splash.  Didn't hear anything on the floor, was terrified to check on things in the morning.  Didn't see anything.

This afternoon I knew I had to break down the filter and figure out what was making a little noise in the pump.  I cleaned everything and scooped more leaves.  The Scarlet temple is basically nothing and I HOPE that something grows.  I turned up the lights, will have to up duration next.  Dial in CO2 again, repeat it all on the 75G when that gets up and running as well.

Got everything back together and I think I still hear a little bit of noise in the filter.  Tomorrow is maintenance day and I'll check on that stuff again tomorrow once it's had a chance for the grease to line the impeller shaft.

 

[Ninjoma]

I felt like my 29g was still lacking, so I added a wood centerpiece. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. 

[nabokovfan87]

@Ninjomao

It looks awesome! Nice choice, well planted.

[jwcarlson]

Collected 35 eggs from two days of a pair of my CPDs spawning.  

Also water changes on most tanks.  

[Shadow]

Today after 3 weeks with a brand new tank, its cycled...0 nitrites and 0 ammonia. Stressful few weeks, but all the better as a learning experience. To top it all off, one of my albino yellow king cobra guppies had fry...most I think have OR WILL be picked off even with all the plant coverage, but I am seeing a couple smarter ones using the roots/rocks as shelter from the bigger guppies. 

[Miska]

I got started on my gardens. They will be places for our ponds! 

[Furbs]

All I’ve done is check my fert level and spend an hour debating if I really wanna transfer to a scratch free new tank… 12+ year old used tank. 
   If I do that I’m really considering adding in aqua soil under the complete. I’m not convinced eco complete and root tabs only was the right way to go. I may also build up the rocks to form a terrace on one side or along the back to help fill the vertical space 29g tanks have.

  On the other hand I do have several nice drift wood pieces I could use instead. I’ve been putting that off to grow more moss for one of them. 

[wes.crockett]

My wife and I are headed out of town for the weekend, so I had to get my fish-chores done today. Cleaned the main (10g) tank and the quarantine tank; where my Honey Gourmi is rehabbing still. None of my fish would pose for pictures, but here we are anyways...

In the coming weeks, I will be transitioning from this 10g tank to a 35g frameless cube that I picked up for 1/2 off at Petco last week. I am very excited to try a real aquascape.

 

 

[anewbie]

Kind of boring i guess but preparing a new batch of bbs for mom's fry:

[Cmike15]

More of the cleaning i did yesterday but late so i couldn't see much until it cleared. I did probably 50% water changes and gravel vacuuming. I needed to clean up the bottom and rinse out my java moss. 

I tested the bigger tank and the smaller and the nitrates are probably zero so i setup an alert to remind me to add easy green since i've been forgetting. After the cleanups i added 3 blue mystery snails. They are moving about so probably happy overall. 

[Theplatymaster]

Took out some converted moss from my jar:

and moved it to my 2gallon tank.

got a WC done:

Edited March 19, 2023 by Theplatymaster

[Ninjoma]

I made some solid progress on my fiddler crab paludarium. 

Also this is officially my party leaf. 

[Ken Burke]

Sometimes you gotta sit in front of your tanks and say, “life’s good”

[Daydre]

did some trimming and duckweed removal

 

[cavdad45]

Water changes in all 3 tanks, used old water to water my indoor plants and in my seed starter for this year's garden.

Moved a few male endlers from growout tank to GenPop. Moved my massive mystery snails to a tank for servicing

[Birdsnstuff]

Plugged in the new heater I put in my betta's quarantine tote YESTERDAY! that I forgot to plug in. I wanted to replace a heater that didn't seem to be consistent so I bought a new one, put it in the acclimate, and promptly forgot about it. It was 65 in that tote this morning. Yikes!

[nabokovfan87]

Drained the tank, fixed the position and re-leveled it.  Checked things as it filled up and then went ahead and got some things in place for the final setup.  The fish rug is back!  I might move the food fridge over, not sure.  It's a small thing, but I really appreciate that I finally have this thing setup.  I can't wait to move CO2, plant it, and have hardscape in there. 

After lunch (PB&J that was delightful!) I'm going to do maintenance on the QT tank and figure out if/how I can hang the light from the ceiling.

 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Water change on 29g. Created Walstad jar.

 

[Ninjoma]

I'm getting a bit custom with my fiddler crab paladarium. Going to use a modified turtle topper as the terrestrial area.