What did you get done today?

[JettsPapa]

On 7/25/2023 at 8:59 AM, Tanked said:

Basically water parameters are my biggest concern. Nitrates must: zero, low, >20 (I think they meant<20).  PH. ranged between 6.4- >7.  Sights seemed to prefer 6.8-7.2.  Temperatures ranged from 59-89 Fahrenheit.

Water must be pristine.  Water should have leaf litter and plant matter, Water must be changed twice weekly. Water must be low flow.  Shrimp eat everything. Shrimp must have supplemental food.  Shrimp must have calm, peaceful tankmates like Tetras.

We are already off topic, but I do have two questions: Are Shrimp compatible with: (1) SAEs, (2) under gravel filters?  This would eliminate the planted community tank.

 

I can't help with either of the questions in the last paragraph, but if my experience will be of help on other issues I'll see what I can do.

• My water consistently tests at 8.2 pH, and it's hard.  I have trouble differentiating between the colors, but GH is close to 300 ppm.
• 40 ppm of nitrates aren't a problem.
• I try to change around 30% of the water every week or ten days, but I don't always get to it.
• I usually feed the shrimp only tanks two or three times a week.  The ones with fish get fed five or six days a week.
• I add dead dry leaves to my tanks.  I believe it's helpful, but I wouldn't say it's essential.

[Tanked]

On 7/25/2023 at 10:45 AM, JettsPapa said:

 

I can't help with either of the questions in the last paragraph, but if my experience will be of help on other issues I'll see what I can do.

• My water consistently tests at 8.2 pH, and it's hard.  I have trouble differentiating between the colors, but GH is close to 300 ppm.
• 40 ppm of nitrates aren't a problem.
• I try to change around 30% of the water every week or ten days, but I don't always get to it.
• I usually feed the shrimp only tanks two or three times a week.  The ones with fish get fed five or six days a week.
• I add dead dry leaves to my tanks.  I believe it's helpful, but I wouldn't say it's essential.

Thanks again, I'm going to throw that question to the general discussion community

[anewbie]

A tank large enough for SAE 

On 7/25/2023 at 8:59 AM, Tanked said:

Basically water parameters are my biggest concern. Nitrates must: zero, low, >20 (I think they meant<20).  PH. ranged between 6.4- >7.  Sights seemed to prefer 6.8-7.2.  Temperatures ranged from 59-89 Fahrenheit.

Water must be pristine.  Water should have leaf litter and plant matter, Water must be changed twice weekly. Water must be low flow.  Shrimp eat everything. Shrimp must have supplemental food.  Shrimp must have calm, peaceful tankmates like Tetras.

We are already off topic, but I do have two questions: Are Shrimp compatible with: (1) SAEs, (2) under gravel filters?  This would eliminate the planted community tank.

SAE are very large fishes; an aquarium that is good for SAE is probably larger than most would keep shrimp. I can't comment on if they would actively hunt shrimp as they are largely algae eaters but they do have large mouths and are very fast. Shrimp should be 'compatible' with UGF but long term UGF seem to run into a bunch of problems and i don't reocmmend them - you are better off with a sponge filter. 'pristine' is a useless description of water condition because it doesn't really state what is 'pristine' water condition. 

[PineSong]

I caught every single guppy fry in my 29 and moved them to a 10g growout tank, then gave myself a round of applause. I went outside to Enjoy Nature Daily with a visit to the Kentucky River, where I enjoyed the sight of a very pretty spotted gar moseying along beside my kayak for quite a ways, enjoying the shade on this hot day. I really appreciated Mother Nature's aquascaping--both her moss gardens and her hardscape were inspiring. I brought home some driftwood and tired arms.

Edited August 3, 2023 by PineSong

[anewbie]

On 7/30/2023 at 8:29 PM, PineSong said:

I caught every single guppy fry in my 29 and moved them to a 10g growout tank, then gave myself a round of applause. I went outside to Enjoy Nature Daily with a visit to the Kentucky River, where I saw enjoyed the sight of a very pretty spotted gar moseying along beside my kayak for quite a ways, enjoying the shade on this hot day. I really appreciated Mother Nature's aquascaping--both her moss gardens and her hardscape were inspiring. I brought home some driftwood and tired arms.

Nice river - hopefully you enjoy canoeing a bit. Or if you enjoy a lot of canoeing not so far there are some class 3 and 4 rivers 😉

 

[nabokovfan87]

Beautiful backyard @PineSong

I just got done with half the work of the day....

Cleaned out the tidal, probably messed up the mod (hopefully not) and had to clean out the pump. For whatever reason the mulm and what not really impacts Performance and it was time for a deep clean. The speed up the pump was about half of what it should be.

After that I spend about 30-45 minutes scrubbing glue off my piece of hardscape. Enough of the moss had falled off and it was time to get it looking like hardscape again. It's definitely not pretty, but it's better and will be fine once I tie the moss or sußwassertang next time around.

Now I have to get the shrimp tank in order and drop the GH by a bit.

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

I did a thing again lol .....

Started a colony of Pao abei 

We are day one pretty recently arrived to the US. We have some deworming etc to run through still. 

 

And a group of Pao leiurus 

He was pretty sure that blood worm cube had a dangerous side. 

 

Got a clip of the Spotted congo fry. They are still growing out nicely 

 

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/3/2023 at 8:33 PM, mountaintoppufferkeeper said:

Is the eye thing a bacterial infection or just a camera trickery?

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

On 8/3/2023 at 11:25 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Is the eye thing a bacterial infection or just a camera trickery?

@nabokovfan87  I would guess more camera trickery more than eye issue. Similar to mekongs /palustris. These are F1palustris with a similar reflection 

Both new groups will go through the med trio and a few more rounds of deworming. 

[Odd Duck]

On 8/4/2023 at 12:25 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

Is the eye thing a bacterial infection or just a camera trickery?

It seems to be kind of a puffer thing.  I even see it with pea puffers.  You’ll see the eye looking all white and weird, swear it’s fungused or the corneas have gone opaque, or is that a cataract?  So then you’re glued to the tank for a while trying to tell if it’s real or not, trying to figure out what’s going on, then they turn a bit and it’s completely gone and normal.  I’ve finally reached the point where I just accept that it’s the nature of their eyes and unless I see white when looking at them straight from the side, I don’t worry about it.  None of mine have ever had anything actually happen to their eyes and I’ve seen them look white and weird dozens of times now.  There must be something unique in the refractility of their lenses, their corneas, or both, or some kind of an interaction between them.

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/4/2023 at 10:37 PM, Odd Duck said:

None of mine have ever had anything actually happen to their eyes and I’ve seen them look white and weird dozens of times now.  There must be something unique in the refractility of their lenses, their corneas, or both, or some kind of an interaction between them.

Considering what I got going on with Riddick (female black cory cull) it's good to hear this. 

There are some fish, especially deep water species that have some pretty amazing adaptations for fishing during moonlight/dusk/dawn as opposed to during the daytime.  I can't recall anything specific on the top of my mind, but it is absolutely a type of adaptation that you're mentioning.  There are a few "nature at night" style of shows that give some examples as well. 🙂 
 

Quote

It is common for sharks to be able to see well in dark and lighted areas and to be able to see colors. Sharks’ eyeballs have a tapetum, which is a thin layer of tissue that reflects light. This allows sharks to see with far less light than humans. The night shark has a green eye.

It is uncommon for sharks to see so well in the dark due to a unique feature. Tapetum lucidum, which is embedded in the shark’s eyeball and contains mirrors, is a layer of crystals. This feature causes the night sky to shine brightly, similar to the gleam you may see in the eyes of your pet cat or dog when light shines at night. Because of their excellent night vision, sharks can see extremely well in murky waters. A shark’s vision at night is estimated to be ten times better than that of a human because their tapetum lucidum features are so extensive. When it comes to hunting prey in murky waters, sharks rely more heavily on their other senses than on sight. When conditions are right, it has been proposed that sharks have ten times the vision of humans as well as a shark’s eye structure. Despite the fact that sharks can see in excellent detail, they are unable to see at a distance of 50 feet.

There are also great whites recorded as using this ability to excel at hunting far past normal hours due to avoiding human traffic in South Africa.  A bit of this is "newly" discovered and it's cool to see little tweaks in animal behavior based on these adaptations and the world around them.

[Odd Duck]

I managed to snag the other male lemon drop (blue-eyed lemon crossed with normal so should throw 1/2 blue eyed lemons when crossed with a blue eyed lemon, plus half lemon drops) bristlenose out of the 100 G nanofish tank this morning!  Now I just need to get the short fin blue-eyed lemon female out of there but she’s very wily!  The boys are in the 75 G Jack Dempsey, festivum, silver dollar tank.

“Daddy” blue eyed lemon is already back to prepping the cave and he’s taken to the new and improved, larger cave completely.  The biggest long-finned female is laying on top or beside it off and on so I’m really hoping she’s the mommy to the clutch of babies I just pulled out the other day.

My bronze cories are absolutely going off with loads of cory zoomies but no eggs on the glass yet.  It appears to be somewhat annoying to the BELBN pleco pair as it’s kind of interrupting their courtship a bit.  😆 

Pic is Daddy’s nose sticking out of the new cave (I might need to go one bigger) with the LF female laying beside it.

 

Some of the trilineatus cories are joining in with the cory zoomies intermittently.

Edited August 5, 2023 by Odd Duck
Add definition of lemon drop.

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

This arrived earlier than expected.... so much for the 11th at the earliest 🙂. My first bigger tank @ 270 gallons. Now to build the block and 3/4" plywood stand and move it in from under the porch asap. 

One of the 5 Pao abei with a pretty good food belly tonight

[anewbie]

Slowly working on setting up the 10ftx4ft aquarium. When things get this large it presents new challenges. A minor splash can be 40 gallons of water.... a leak - i don't want to think about it.

 

Shades should be put up soon - i hope. 

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

Captured a decent hairy puffer colony photo. Pretty sure these are the pair 🙂

Edited August 11, 2023 by mountaintoppufferkeeper

[Vicki]

Everyone puts good stuff here! The good stuff I accomplished today? I tested the water in my Tank of Nightmares (ToN), added some FritzZyme7, and fed all my fish! Yay! It’s the little things, I guess!

[Galabar]

Cut some Lexan for a top for my Lifeguard Aquatics 4 gallon:

[Arnam Anan]

Took out some plants i.e. pearl weed, baby tears and monte carlo. Added a powerhead with filter floss covering the intake for water polishing effect but made my tank 10 times more dirty currently. Cleaned sponge filter. Slowly taking out all the mosses. 

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

Finished 5 days of maracyn for the new Pao abei colony; did a water change and filter cleaning and caught some footage of them 

I also got to see  the Pao leiurus colony running through their courtship dance for the first time since arriving. 

Not the same as palustris but similar movements 

[Odd Duck]

As of yesterday, I have a fresh clutch of eggs in the L519 - Kiefner’s cave.  For some reason, they were laid near the mouth of the cave instead of near the back.  Dad has accidentally kicked out 6 eggs but they appear still viable so I picked them up with a turkey baster and squirted them back in the cave.  Dad has fanned some poop out of the cave since then but the eggs appeared to have stayed in.  They were out again today so I’ve got them in a breeder net now with good water flow through the sides, some freshly boiled and cooled IAL and a couple mulberry leaves, a small piece of wood from another tank, along with some rooibos supplemented tannins in the IAL tea made from boiling them after the tea had cooled down to tank temp.

All the separated eggs still looked viable (what’s still in the cave looks great but does look like there’s a few laid separately but still stuck to the roof).  Here’s to hoping the male doesn’t kick anymore out and the next time the female makes better choices on where she lays within the cave.  🤦🏻‍♀️ 

Pic of babies growing like weeds, the separated eggs, and the main clutch and Dad still in the cave - all from yesterday.

 

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/7/2023 at 6:59 PM, mountaintoppufferkeeper said:

This arrived earlier than expected.... so much for the 11th at the earliest 🙂. My first bigger tank @ 270 gallons. Now to build the block and 3/4" plywood stand and move it in from under the porch asap. 

Oh man.... that's awesome!!!

I need 2 please.  🙂
 

On 8/20/2023 at 12:10 PM, Odd Duck said:

I have a fresh clutch of eggs in the L519

That's wonderful.  I just saw pics of some on Dan's website and they are a beautiful pleco.  Very unique pattern.
 

On 8/8/2023 at 12:28 PM, anewbie said:

Slowly working on setting up the 10ftx4ft aquarium. When things get this large it presents new challenges. A minor splash can be 40 gallons of water.... a leak - i don't want to think about it.

So.... when we had the last quake we have waves in the 75G and thankfully it wasn't full to the brim.  I can only imagine... Woah!

How many braces are there?

[anewbie]

n

On 8/20/2023 at 2:53 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Oh man.... that's awesome!!!

I need 2 please.  🙂
 

That's wonderful.  I just saw pics of some on Dan's website and they are a beautiful pleco.  Very unique pattern.
 

How many braces are there?

Braces? Hum - not really braces but lid supports there are 5; talking about L519 - here is one of my young pleco - it is NOT a L519 but still similar:

Final picture of my 40B before i tear it down - might do some photos of the tear down so you can see how truly dense it is but not sure - might be a hurry when i rip everything out:

[Arnam Anan]

Performed water changes on all of my tanks, fed the fishes and now enjoying the tanks. 

[lewk]

Posting in the morning for what i got done last night. 😛 

I hatched my first batch of Scleromystax barbatus. I had 11 eggs and it looks like I'll have 8 or 9 babies based on the 2 fuzzy eggs and one yet to hatch. I'm excited as these have been some of my favorite fish.

I also water changed all my tanks. 

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

Installed two 600 watt heaters. Getting closer to the new project ......

 

Oh man 😁. They will get a nice view of the backyard. About time for a few more coop plants i think