What did you get done today?

[Guppysnail]

On 1/26/2022 at 1:37 PM, anewbie said:

Did some water changes as usual per wednesday. In the large tank i pulled some jungle val:

 

This one was only 4 ft; the larger ones were around 8ft. I think i pulled 10ish plants; but never fear i still have twice that in the tank. The problem is they were spread off the side and literally strangling the sword plants (the roots of the jungle val were causing a lot of damage to the swords and on that side of the tank i have some nicer swords - not that common behari (sp) which is on the other side and I wish was strangled.

-

I also did a water change in the 5; and debated giving this fellow a hair cut:

 

But coudln't find my knife. I'll get a better picture of him when he moves away from the corner so stay tune 😉

Not picture but i also removed a java fern that had an 8 inch rhizome and 12+ inch leaves from my 40b. Really nice plant but i wanted to give the crypts a chance to regrow as they were being strangled.

My snails are jealous of the Hollywood hair-do. They only ever manage a bit of green spot algae. 

[anewbie]

So what did i do today. Well the usual saturday water change; but since i had moved the angel to the 29 and since I don't use flakes in that 29 I have to wean him off his flakes to pellets (or at least bug bites). This means he will get a bit hungry the next few days and this means i had to remove those cardinals from the 29. So.... grab the net and spend an hour chasing cardinals around the 29 (one really shouldn't over plant their tanks it make catching fishes really painful). Ok. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5 and 6. 7. 8. Hum... where is number 9? Sigh. Did angel eat number 9? did number 9 jump out? is number 9 hiding somewhere? Forget number 9 and move 8. Ok change the water - did #9 show up? no number 9. Fill tank. Do the other 3 tanks. Now check again is number 9 around? No number 9. Ok take shower; go to the store; make lunch. Check tank for #9. no number 9. eat lunch. check tank. There is number 9 but he is hiding at the back behind the plants. SIgh - we will chase him tomorrow. Check tank - now number 9 is in front taunting me. Grab mini net; look at the wall while inserting net - uh oh he senses something - quick snag him - that is what #9 gets for taunting me. Anyway at least i now know number 9 wasn't last night dinner for the angel. 

 

Cardinals are really nice looking when they are happy but they are really mean taunters.... maybe next time I'll stick with guppies - guppies you don't have to chase - you just put the net in and they hop in.

[PineSong]

Continued my valiant struggle to divide up my guppy fry by sex. Two hours spent removing plants and wood so I could catch them, and cleaning their tank and trying to identify males.. This process resulted in a grand total of three juveniles I felt confident about putting in the male guppy tank. Three.

I have about 40 more in their side of the grow out and another ??? in the other side, born last week. Let's just say I prefer my colony breeding tanks and am not going to be doing this dividing thing much longer. Just need a bigger tank and I can remove the matten filter divider and call it a colony.

Stirred up so much ickiness redoing their plants and wood that I did a gravel vac and hung a HOB full of carbon and floss on the side and I'm going to let it run all day.

Hope all of this didn't stress out my shrimp. I saw all of them in the tank when I had it stripped down, so they have survived for 22 days and look like they have grown considerably, but today was a lot of uproar for them.

[Streetwise]

@anewbie, I am over jungle val. I feel like it tries to out-compete my other plants.

[castiel]

Went to my other LFS and bought some spiderwood for my tank as well as got to see lampeye killifish in person for the first time which made me question even more what I'm eventually going to stock it with. The wood is currently in a bucket with a lid on it because when I had it just in the bucket my puppy drank water out of it and I don't need her figuring out there's wood in there and trying to eat it lol. 

[anewbie]

On 1/29/2022 at 2:37 PM, Streetwise said:

@anewbie, I am over jungle val.

Yea that stuff gets annoying; i have italia val in the 29; but it hasn't been given a hair cut in months so is quite long. Truth be told it really helps the apisto in there as they like the shade but it lets enough light through for the lower crypts. The problem is the red tail otto and cardinals can get lost (like totally 150%) in the stuff so i never know what i have in the tank. It does look pretty though....

-

I did actually discover something the other day with the jungle val in the 120; it had spread as the stuff does but it started growing roots around the sword plants (whatever you call it - bulbs?); and it was literally strangling the plants. 3 days after removing the intruding plants the swords started recovering. I forget the name of the two plants i have on the left side - they are not as common as some other swords so I felt good that i at least understood why they weren't growing. However after removing about 10 (out of 25-30) plants the tank was no longer as shaded and the angels started acting weird.

Edited January 29, 2022 by anewbie

[eatyourpeas]

Cleaned all the canister filters, and the SW V-Sump, all filled with lots of 💩

Unfortunately there is another no-contact order due to a second sewage spill, so no water change for the marine critters. All FW tanks got a WC. 🐟  🐌  🐡  🦀  🦐

Time to listen to my lecture and knit... 🙃

Edited January 29, 2022 by eatyourpeas

[Georgiapeach88]

Well still going!!  scooped out all my ramshorns I could find in my 36g tank…. they had overrun me few months back and I just simply haven’t had time to get to them. Then drained enough water to find my bristle nose pleco. Catch all my corydoras. Sigh I’m exhausted already. Now drain tank completely down and start scooping substrate!! 🤬🤦‍♀️Wth didn’t I see this MD fish tanks you tube page last yr when starting this tank. He bags his substrate and does tanks in awesome layers of bags with sand gravel... I will never ever have planted tanks without these baggies again! . Found on Amazon plastic zippers just fyi. Still scooping crud out after bagging what I need to overhaul my tank. Now to get the shop vac out and clean the rest of the tank out. Redo my layers of substrate. Get driftwood and plants back in there and fill with water to get my fishies all happy again. Pictured to come front and back pic of my manzanita wood. That’s going in this tank. 

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

Beautiful piece of wood! @Georgiapeach88

Edited January 29, 2022 by xXInkedPhoenixX

[Georgiapeach88]

On 1/29/2022 at 6:14 PM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:

Beautiful piece of wood! @Georgiapeach88

Thank you their will be some spider wood as well in with all the plants I may need more plants 😂😂 all my stuff minus sand and gravel too.. The arch inspiration photo is the heavily planted pic with the arch that is from MD fish tanks on YouTube it’s a gorgeous Amazon inspired tank. found my perfect wood to get a similar look

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

@Georgiapeach88 ah totally see how that wood you have would work- the inspiration tank is very pretty, but I daresay I actually like your piece better. I'm also a fan of spiderwood- it comes in so many more unusual shapes being rootwood a lot of the times and smaller pieces are great for anchoring rhizone plants. Looks like you have a good thing going there!

Edited January 29, 2022 by xXInkedPhoenixX

[Evan374]

Few new rocks to the collection

 

[Vanish]

On 1/29/2022 at 1:18 PM, PineSong said:

Continued my valiant struggle to divide up my guppy fry by sex.

Im trying to get my guppies under control, too. Last week I pulled 40 females out of my 75g colony and put them in their own 20g. Yesterday, I pulled 8 males out of that 20g... what the heck?!?

[Pinky]

swapped out the substrate in my 10 gal today, because im pretty sure the sand I had was turning my tank purple like grape koolaid.

upgraded to black flourite sand and im so much happier with how it looks now, even if rinsing it at the kitchen sink is hard lol. 

[HH Morant]

I changed the water in all 3 tanks. The downstairs 120 is the 1st picture. The 20 gallon quarantine/grow-out tank in the kitchen is the 2nd picture.

 The last 3 pictures are the new upstairs tank - about 115 gallons - between the dining room and the kitchen. I put away all the tarps, towels, and equipment so it looks like I hoped it would.

Edited January 30, 2022 by HH Morant

[PineSong]

On 1/29/2022 at 11:10 PM, HH Morant said:

 

 The last 3 pictures are the new upstairs tank - about 115 gallons - between the dining room and the kitchen. I put away all the tarps, towels, and equipment so it looks like I hoped it would.

It looks great!

[Odd Duck]

On 1/29/2022 at 2:37 PM, Streetwise said:

@anewbie, I am over jungle val. I feel like it tries to out-compete my other plants.

Just get an adult pair of Jack Dempseys.  They’ll tear up that jungle Val for you.  Ask me how I know.  🙄

[anewbie]

On 1/29/2022 at 11:11 PM, Odd Duck said:

Just get an adult pair of Jack Dempseys.  They’ll tear up that jungle Val for you.  Ask me how I know.  🙄

Well yes but won't they also eat the cardinals, the guppies, the hongsloi, and even the angelfish; and when they are done bite my fingers when I try to feed them ?

Edited January 30, 2022 by anewbie

[Georgiapeach88]

Well it was a process and a half but finally got most everything done on my 36g Amazon inspired tank. Got few extra rocks holding down my driftwood. But otherwise mostly finished. Need more plants. Gonna place some nana petite and need more Amazon swords. Want some buce wavy green too. Sorry for the cloudy pic hopefully will clear up by morning. I’m officially off to bed lol 

[H.K.Luterman]

On 1/29/2022 at 2:37 PM, Streetwise said:

@anewbie, I am over jungle val. I feel like it tries to out-compete my other plants.

I have the opposite problem! I've been trying to get jungle val to take off in my 75 for years, but my sword and tiger lotus both seem to gobble up all the root tabs. X3

[Odd Duck]

On 1/29/2022 at 11:31 PM, anewbie said:

Well yes but won't they also eat the cardinals, the guppies, the hongsloi, and even the angelfish; and when they are done bite my fingers when I try to feed them ?

The fish, possibly anything that fits in their mouth.  I’ve never had them bite my finger but they’ve sure hit my arm when they were in breeding mode!  Much more startling than painful.  😳🤪🙄😂😉

[Odd Duck]

Not today (just finished a 12 hr shift), but yesterday, I changed water in all the tanks (except one) on my rack (8 x 10G - 2 QT’s, 6 plant holding, all will be fry or shrimp tanks eventually, plus 4 x 5G culture tanks).  Moved one cory to my current 100G (the other will go into my “new” 100G once I get her a group and the tank is ready for fish).  I bought2 young, blue-eyed lemon bristlenose plecos and 3 young, tiger silver dollars which have joined the lone cory for some company.  The BN plecos will go into the “old” 100G, the silver dollars will go into the 75 as dither fish for the Jack Dempseys and just to be pretty.  They should be big enough for Jacks not to harm them.  If they don’t eat my plants too much, I’ll add another trio.  I’m hoping to give the Jacks more consistent confidence plus help the tank be a bit more lively.  They have another month of growing time in QT and they should already be big enough to be safe.

I’m completely cleaning out one of the 10’s to install a UG with matten filter as substrate a lá @gardenman.  I have had an ACO sponge filter in there, then “stored” 3 older sponge filters in there to keep the BB’s alive.  I’ve also had a sponge-filled, optimized, HOB filter on the tank.  Overkill, I know.  I’m hoping to eliminate a bunch of janky, old, poorly functioning HOB’s on these 10G’s that don’t reliably restart after water changes and sometimes just after power outages.  The plan is only sponges as much as possible because I can run a lot of filtration off only air, and air pumps are easy to back up with battery UPS.  With a matten sponge as “substrate”, I should be able to eliminate most, possibly all the HOB’s on these tanks.

I also lucked onto a local guy selling used UG filters for 10G tanks (after I already ordered 3 new 🙄) so I should have enough to do the rest of the tanks if I decide to do all of them.  I still need to do an accounting of all the used filter parts.  I’ll see how things go, but I’ve been tracking Gardenman’s progress, love the idea, and I’m going for it.  Should be able to get things set up as soon as my black, 40 ppi sheet sponges arrive.  I only had on hand 30 ppi sponge sheets in bright blue.  😝  I’m not using bright blue since it definitely won’t stay bright blue.

I’m also working on getting a 1 G dispenser jar (an old sun tea jar) ready to be a scud culture tank similar to the very clever setup @Torreyposted the other day.  I’ve got a small, circular UG in there, some ceramic biomedia (not nearly as much volume as I was expecting when I ordered), will likely add some bioballs, then will do a layer of plastic craft mesh, then dried oak leaves blanched to soften them.  Then I’ll tuck some scuds in to get things started.  If it works for me so I can just decant a few scuds, then top off and have a water change instantly done, add a few leaves here or there, maybe a dab of old fish food, I’ll look for another sun tea jar and double up on the scud cultures so I won’t need any in my blackworm culture tanks.

I’m getting closer to having an actual fish room, just need to get more books shuffled around, bookshelves moved, then new rack put together, tanks moved, old rack moved, Low Row tanks moved, then air loop built, big air pump placed and running, and voila!  Fishroom!  We’re even thinking about installing a utility sink (we already have a scavenged stainless steel sink to use) in the closet with a sump drain.  I won’t be able to have an auto top off without really cutting up the slab (well beyond the simple sump drain), but at least I’d be able to much more easily drain and refill most of my tanks.  It would even be much easier to reach my paired 100 G’s.  But that’s down the road a bit.

Big plans and it only takes time, effort, and sometimes money!  😆 

[Odd Duck]

I’m home from work early since I just tested positive for COVID today.  🤦🏻‍♀️ 🤷🏻‍♀️ 😞 

I felt like my allergies were up the last couple days, woke up this morning with slightly scratchy throat, but that’s all.  Starting coughing after I got to work.  They had tests available for staff and my test turned positive in about 3 minutes, supposed to read at 10 minutes.  🤦🏻‍♀️ 

Hubby almost got sent home for a potential exposure, but he doesn’t have to QT since he’s had all 3 vaccs (so have I).  Still he’s going test today.  If he’s negative, I get to live in the master bedroom for a while and see if he turns positive or not.  I’ll be popping out long enough to feed fish and that’s about it.  I just spent the last couple hours sanitizing all common touch surfaces, everything I can think of that I might have touched in the last few days including alcohol wipes on the fish tank surfaces.  Good thing I’ve got exam gloves on hand.

Also a good thing I’ve been prepping to move tanks and haven’t been adding fish or shrimp to tanks to speak of.  The silver dollars and the 2 tiny blue-eyed yellow plecos are the only ones I’ve gotten in weeks.  Plus most fish tanks are now set up with “Scud Jewelry Box Refugiums”.  There might even be a few blackworms in some of the scud refugiums.

Edited February 1, 2022 by Odd Duck
Typos

[Fish Folk]

Sold to LFS today:

20 BNPs

20 EBAs

bunch of mutt guppies

bunch of golden white clouds

 

[Fish Folk]

On 2/1/2022 at 11:42 AM, Fish Folk said:

Sold to LFS today:

20 BNPs

20 EBAs

bunch of mutt guppies

bunch of golden white clouds

 

All fish, for $104.00 total.