What did you get done today?

[Ninjoma]

In preparation for the Indian lilac crabs I ordered, I added an area where the crabs can leave the water. 

I also added a large piece of wood that they can climb to get to it 

I also did my best to crab proof the tank, so they don't escape. I've found my fiddler crabs going for stroll in my living room more than once. Crabs are hard to contain! 

[Ninjoma]

My Indian lilac crabs arrived yesterday and are starting to get settled. 

Edited May 7, 2023 by Ninjoma
Adding a few more crab pictures

[Daydre]

finally was able to do the basic setup on my outdoor container pond! I'm excited for the plants to grow in and to get it cycled so I can add fish

[Schuyler]

Today I went to the Chicago aquarium with a coworker during a work trip. I don't think he was as excited about the freshwater as I was.

There were some crazy plecos!

And a saltwater Betta

[Ninjoma]

I redid the terrestrial portion of my fiddler crab paludarium. I'm using a proper terrarium soil mix this time instead of sand, upgraded my light to a proper grow light and have a humidity control system. 

[anewbie]

One of these days i should post more pictures; but did the usual change on my 120; my lilies now completely cover the top of 1/2 the aquarium (that is 8 sqft of surface covered) and my jungle val leaves are exceeding over 8 feet (which at this point is getting annoying). I think next time i cut one i'll lay it out on the floor with a ruler. My festum snagged another serape and i still have another 7 weeks till i move (and can sep them). Oddly enough (or perhaps not) it is the females (which are relatively small - maybe 3 1/2 inches - that does the snagging  - so much for the theory they will only eat what fits in their mouth - i think the theory should be they will eat what they can break into small pieces to fit in their mouth.

[Galabar]

Added a small Finnex 20" accent light to my fry tank and fish and plants are popping now. 🙂

With those Aqueon tops, which are divided in the middle, two smaller lights might be the way to go.

[Cmike15]

Finally made caves out of the coconuts I’ve had for a while. 

[Galabar]

I just bought another 1.2 gal and 30 gal.  Uh oh! 🙂

[Galabar]

Added an accent light (Finnex JL-20S) to my 29 gallon:

 

[Galabar]

Moved one of my 29 gallon tanks to "surround" myself with fish. 🙂

The Imagitarium stand is actually very easy to slide along the floor (it seems to have the same material on the feet as those furniture sliders).

 

My view: https://photos.app.goo.gl/yXA6Fi7GFKDUMEDeA

Edited May 18, 2023 by Galabar

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Ahhh!!  So excited!  Brand new Marineland 200. The old timer is 11+ years old (probably older, I lost track) and stalled a few times on me in the last 2 weeks. I think some sand got into the pump because the intake was just a tad too close to the substrate. I have since shortened the intake tube.

Anyway. Isn’t it beautiful?!?!  These are soooo reliable 😍❤️😍❤️

And a fun add on. My ceramics have shelves now!!

A plastic cartridge or cartridge frame helps filter performance when placed next to the biowheel. Prevents sponge/floss from drifting toward the wheel and stopping it.

The loadout: coarse, polishing, ceramics. All well seasoned except the floss, which I swapped because it was pretty clogged. I will do a water change today and add a couple shots of Fritz Zyme 7. I have a ACO sponge filter going in the tank too, so I’m not overly concerned with bacteria loss.

Music to my ears!

The old timer:

He’s still kickin though. (Also a baffle is on there to reduce current and dampen sound. I keep a dropped waterline for my mystery snail friends to climb up and lay their eggs. The baffle was cleaned up and applied to the new filter.)

But check it out - the old timer is still kickin good!  He’s getting a strong vinegar/water flushout and will be a backup.

[nabokovfan87]

On 5/21/2023 at 5:53 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

The loadout: coarse, polishing, ceramics. All well seasoned except the floss, which I swapped because it was pretty clogged. I will do a water change today and add a couple shots of Fritz Zyme 7. I have a ACO sponge filter going in the tank too, so I’m not overly concerned with bacteria loss.

Definitely look into the prefilter sponges. You can add two (one external, one internal) and they are pretty well integrated for that filter specifically!

Looks good. I enjoy that marineland is encouraging reuse as opposed to the wasteful cartridges. It's a nice touch.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 5/21/2023 at 7:22 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Definitely look into the prefilter sponges

I do have one; forgot to mention it in the post. It’s an ACO one since Marineland doesn’t make one for their 200.

[nabokovfan87]

On 5/21/2023 at 6:27 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

I do have one; forgot to mention it in the post. It’s an ACO one since Marineland doesn’t make one for their 200.

Well shoot.  I though you got the fancy pro series penguin!

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 5/21/2023 at 9:42 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Well shoot.  I thought you got the fancy pro series penguin!

Wanted to continue to use my custom baffle for the 200 and knew the 200 would last over a decade, so why not buy it again?

Edited May 27, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea
Pro 200 not found?

[anewbie]

Every wednesday i do a water change on my 120 (as well as saturday).... today I pulled a couple of young jungle val:

 

These are already 5.5 feet long - how can you tell they are young - the leaves are still narrow and the root area is smallish (compared to older plants). Don't begin to ask how long the adult plants get - it is quite sad problem ... Why did i pull them - well this plant has an annoying habit of spreading into the various Echinodorus I have - not only do these Echinodorus suffer from lack of light due to the canopy created by the vals; when they spread they will sometime wrap their roots around the Echinodorus rhizone and 'strangle' it. So despite being not awful plants these particular youngsters were misbehaving and well - ones fate is often determined by ones behavior - what can i say....

 

I also did a partial trim of the canopy to allow more light to reach the bottom - which the fishes reacted negatively to - as they kind of prefer the shade.... what can i say someone will always gripe if you make a change.

Edited May 24, 2023 by anewbie

[nabokovfan87]

I had a slightly calm day.  I think it started with a cup of tea, maybe that was yesterday...

Once the day had gone through most of the chaos and what not, I cooked dinner and then went to go ahead and clean out the small 10G tank I have.  I siphoned the gravel, cleaned the filter, and did a 40-50% water change. 

Right now I am mulling over pairing off two colonies of swordtails and trying to push those into having a bit more in the big tank.  I just really am unsure of what next steps to take.  The "big event" of the week was finding one of my males with his sword missing off of his tail. 😞

I fed all the tank this morning, including the shrimp.  When I had gone back into the room to check on things through the afternoon it was nice to see just how many of the shrimp were in the feeding dish trying to get some food.  I feel like I can feed a little more these days or even start to sell some.  The goal for me, as always with every tank, is to get plants going.  I seriously need to get more plants in every tank I own.  It's hard to explain, but the weeks past losing some of the large females, seeing the dish today filled with shrimp was a relief.  It was a welcomed breath of fresh air.  I always walk by or wake up and stare at the tank, but seeing them all in one small dish and seeing the growth of the group was a nice thing.  It reminds me of reading a news article and hearing about a recovering shark or fish population. 

I need to run some water tests and sanity check everything, but for now, for today, I'm content with just enjoying this small accomplishment.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 5/24/2023 at 11:09 AM, anewbie said:

Every wednesday i do a water change on my 120 (as well as saturday).... today I pulled a couple of young jungle val:

 

These are already 5.5 feet long - how can you tell they are young - the leaves are still narrow and the root area is smallish (compared to older plants). Don't begin to ask how long the adult plants get - it is quite sad problem ... Why did i pull them - well this plant has an annoying habit of spreading into the various Echinodorus I have - not only do these Echinodorus suffer from lack of light due to the canopy created by the vals; when they spread they will sometime wrap their roots around the Echinodorus rhizone and 'strangle' it. So despite being not awful plants these particular youngsters were misbehaving and well - ones fate is often determined by ones behavior - what can i say....

 

I also did a partial trim of the canopy to allow more light to reach the bottom - which the fishes reacted negatively to - as they kind of prefer the shade.... what can i say someone will always gripe if you make a change.

Wow!!! That is impressive! 

On 5/27/2023 at 3:46 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

seeing them all in one small dish and seeing the growth of the group was a nice thing

You like the feeding frenzy. You need to get a pack of shrimp lollies. They are so much fun! Well worth the cost! 

[Odd Duck]

I got a fair bit accomplished today.  Sold 24 super red bristlenose plecos, 6 portions of susswassertang, and at least triple that much Christmas moss to my LFS.  Got a decent amount of credit and spent it all on Pygmy cories - I just love them!  All 3 Kubotai rasboras they had, and a big group of otos to share between a couple tanks.

Yesterday I picked up a 10 gallon tank that had 6 Pygmy sunfish Ellassoma evergladei, mixed adult and juvie (the fish I actually wanted), 3 fish that were supposed to be chili rasboras (1 is, 2 aren’t), a bunch of mixed neo shrimp, a very nice clump of Anubias nana, and a wood piece that has some nice Java fern on it.  There’s a mixed bag of other plants in there - some stems, some frogbit, some duckweed; some assorted “pest” snails that will get sorted into my various snail culture tanks depending on species and color, and who knows what else in there!

There’s a possibility that there could be sunfish fry in there, so I’ll sort out a bunch of the plants doing my very best to eliminate the duckweed, and see if anybody grows up.  I’ll keep working at sorting out snails and shrimp - I can put shrimp into the 100 G nano tank, some into my 20 long, maybe some into the 20 high and the 29 G.  There’s quite a few shrimp in there, mostly wild type, a few with some color.  No color will go into the 20 high with the angelfish pair that are doing nothing.  🤦🏻‍♀️  Some probably into the 29 G also since I think I finally have a pair of koi angels from the 100 G ready to go in there.  Maybe.

Got full water change done on the super red grow out.  Did a full water change on the cory grow out that went bust a couple months ago and only 2 survived 😢.  Those 2 are in the 100 G nano now with friends.  Topped off everything else so it no longer sounds like Niagara in the whole house.  😝 

I’ve got some Crypt. lutea that I’ve been meaning to get planted in the 14 G cube and I’m hitting them with RR now.  They’ll get rinsed and stay in a shallow dish in the windowsill until I can plant them later this week (12 hr, 10 hr, and 10 hr shifts starting tomorrow morning and that 12 hr is always the busiest shift of the week).  So they wait in a dish until Wednesday or Thursday depending on how slammed I’ve been on each shift.  😝

Finally getting caught up on the “Low Row” that have been a bit neglected.  I’ve given up on the hummingbird tetras I wanted for the 14 G.  They just don’t seem to ship well and I can’t get them in sufficient quantity at once to establish a breeding group, especially since the males always seem to be the first to die.  I’ve gotten 20 at a time more than once and ended up with only a few females surviving for any length of time.

The 6 G cubes have 4 and 5 of the Pygmy sunfish in them (already had 3) and they’re appropriate sex ratios in both groups to breed.  🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

I’m hoping for self sustaining groups of Pygmy sunfish, Pygmy cories, and maybe chili rasboras with minimal effort.  We’ll see what happens.  If I end up with enough to sell some now and then, even better.  I’ve decided that I need to either have matten foam bottom over UGF’s or bare bottom tanks for my 10’s.  No more sand for them.  I’m either growing epiphytes or growing in dishes/pots.  Too messy and too much hassle to catch fish out otherwise.  If I’d had a bit more energy I would have reset the BN growout tank today, but I had too many smaller projects to get done.

That tank has a colony of blackworms in it so it’s very hard to just dump that sand.  If I get some cories laying eggs again, especially if my sterbais or gold lasers lay, they’ll grow out in that tank until the blackworms are gone.  Then I’ll probably reset them.  I keep sucking them up a bit at a time and trying to,get them established in the blackworm tower tanks but not really having any luck so far.  I’ll probably have to grab handfuls of sand and try to sort out worms that way.  Enough word vomit.  Didn’t mean to make this post this long, but I got a lot of little things caught up that I’ve been meaning to do and overall feeling better about the tanks.

[Galabar]

Grabbed a free tank and stand from Craigslist and cleaned it:

[Fish Folk]

Completed an involved move of a 33-long to new room (plus the 2x 5.5 gal killi tanks inside the cabinet). Space is now ready for a new 45 gal tank.

Had to net out Rainbow Shiners and Mountain Redbelly Dace into buckets with airstones…

Lower levels and disconnect wiring + airline tubing from Killi tanks…

Then drain water, move tank, stand, etc. Lots and lots of airline + wiring to reorganize…

But now…

The lower living room is feeling the MTS…

Now to set up that new 45 + stand 😎

[Odd Duck]

Looks fantastic!  You’ll never need a TV in that room!

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 6/2/2023 at 4:10 PM, Fish Folk said:

Then drain water, move tank, stand, etc. Lots and lots of airline + wiring to reorganize…

What kind of air pump do you use? 

[Fish Folk]

On 6/2/2023 at 12:25 PM, TheSwissAquarist said:

What kind of air pump do you use? 

I use a single PondMaster pump for most everything.