What did you get done today?

[PineSong]

On 9/3/2022 at 5:59 PM, mountaintoppufferkeeper said:

Recorded a decent gif of the hairy puffer adolescents displaying. Tail up puffed out dominant display,  tail down belly exposed submissive puffer of the encounter. 

They are like the fuzzy slippers of the fish world!

[Jayci]

Had a weird day while cleaning the tank. I had just come back from a 2 week vacation, so I haven't had time to really observe the tank in a while.

I discovered a Hillstream loach baby fry! My 3 loaches had never bred before (owned them for almost 2 years). I just assumed I had 3 of the same gender! I hope the little guy makes it!

I also discovered 2 baby snails that I have never seen before. My tank hasn't had snails in well over a year; I didn't even try to kill them. I think they were bladder snails or pond snails, and over time they just died off in my tank. I think the water wasn't good for them.

Anyway, it was cool seeing these new snails. The shell looks like they might be a spiral type, like a Nerite snail. My well water has in fact changed over the years in my house, so I'm wondering if the water activated some snail eggs from plants. I bought plants almost 2 months ago. It's really interesting to wonder where the snails came from! In any case, I welcome the snails.

[airandwater.aw]

Didn't do much but feed today but recently my super red high coverage koi angelfish spawned again and I've finally figured out a system to get better survival rates and I'm super stoked about it💖🐟🌱

[K McZongo]

Did some tank maintenance while listening to todays Stream. Noticed some unintentional but expected bristlenose (Super Red/albino) fry in my congo tank. For whatever reason can't get a good photo. Looked like there was a few tiny fry about 1cm and a couple pushing 2-3cm guess I missed a couple spawns. Guess I'll grow them out even though they normal colors. Might have to take out the male bristlenose since I don't want to have too many.

[anewbie]

Not much today; after a lot of water changes over the weekend; just checking my festums (this is one of 7):

[Jeff]

From the first day I started to watch Cory's videos, he hooked me on  - let nature be nature. So, I didn't do anything about the mulm in my tank. Howev-ah (Stephen A Smith voice), it got so bad, my tank was becoming darker by the day, due to the mulm build up. My light couldn't penetrate as much. I held off as long as I could.

And I do weekly water changes - including a cleansing of my filter each water change. I just couldn't any more. So, I de-cleansed my tank (as best as I could) of the mulm. 

And my tank looks almost brand new again! Buuuut....mulm is kinda like Duckweed...it almost doesn't completely go away....but boy o boy....my tank is brighter, and clean as a whistle!

My energy and excitement for my tank is refreshed!

[Patrick_G]

On 9/5/2022 at 12:57 PM, Jeff said:

And my tank looks almost brand new again! Buuuut....mulm is kinda like Duckweed...it almost doesn't completely go away....but boy o boy....my tank is brighter, and clean as a whistle!

You’re still letting nature be nature, your mulm removal just simulated a nice spring flood washing all the mulm downstream. 😁

[Jenja]

I spent the better part of an hour prying hair algae out of guppy grass...then skipped the water change I intended to do  before my hellish task. Nitrate is 20 or 30ppm (firmly in the orange zone on my api  liquid test), so I'm comfortable not tidy up the mulm for now. I present my shameful after photo...

[anewbie]

Wednesday was water change day so today I snapped a couple of pictures; these were added to the aquarium 3 weeks ago; still young but colouring up nicely.

 

[nabokovfan87]

Cleaned off the diffuser with the bleach dip for the CO2 system and then I decided that I need to let the amanos have a few days at the BBA on the wood again.  Hopefully it's small and soft enough for them to get it removed.  There is also some strands in the moss that I need them to clear up.

It rained here today, so on a whim I decided to test the rain water against the other tank (panda horde) that I needed to verify nitrates on.  It might be ironic, it might not, but the water parameters were identical to my tank with the exception of nitrates and nitrites.  Nitrates were about half, (10 vs. 25) and the nitrites were present in the rain as opposed to the tank.  Kind of alarming based on other results I've seen, but I guess it's "good" that the water parameters are consistent.

I'll feed the pandas here shortly, their light just popped on.  The other fish are doing fine and I think I spend more time popping the plants back in the substrate more than anything.  I do see some more red amanos, but I am assuming this is because I'm literally only feeding krill based food right now. *hopefully*

It's a quiet day, fish are just chilling, and it would be so nice to get a spawn based on the weather, but I don't have my hopes up! 😂

[Guppy Guy]

Found a random guppy head in my tank while cleaning. Michael (my biggest angelfish) wasn’t hungry when I fed him, and he had that same guilty look my dog gets when he ate my cookies, so I am pretty sure I know who it was 😂 

[TeeJay]

Made my first bbs diy hatchery. Going to start it up tomorrow when my eggs get delivered.

[PineSong]

On 9/5/2022 at 11:33 PM, Jenja said:

I spent the better part of an hour prying hair algae out of guppy grass...then skipped the water change I intended to do  before my hellish task. Nitrate is 20 or 30ppm (firmly in the orange zone on my api  liquid test), so I'm comfortable not tidy up the mulm for now. I present my shameful after photo...

No shame! Your fish don't mind 🙂

 

Today I learned why white clouds will never run NASA. They're just not that bright!

In half an hour of catching fish in the tub pond, I caught 10 of the approximately 200 koi swordtail fry that are out there, and 25 WCMMs. The amazing thing is that I only have 5 WCMM's to start with, so either one of those little guys got netted 25 times, or each of them got caught 5 times, or.... you get the picture. I eventually ended up putting them in their own lily-basket corral so they would stay the heck out of my nets!

[anewbie]

On 9/13/2022 at 9:09 PM, PineSong said:

No shame! Your fish don't mind 🙂

 

Today I learned why white clouds will never run NASA. They're just not that bright!

In half an hour of catching fish in the tub pond, I caught 10 of the approximately 200 koi swordtail fry that are out there, and 25 WCMMs. The amazing thing is that I only have 5 WCMM's to start with, so either one of those little guys got netted 25 times, or each of them got caught 5 times, or.... you get the picture. I eventually ended up putting them in their own lily-basket corral so they would stay the heck out of my nets!

I have to agree that some fishes are very good at avoiding the net; while others just crawl into it. My issue is with guppies vs swordtails; you just can't avoid netting guppies while spending hours trying to catch a swordtail.

[OutBout]

Went for a walk today alongside a creek that's having its wetland area restored.

[nabokovfan87]

Got my order for a new Miir bottle for daily water.

I also got THIS for my aquascaping tools.  16oz cup from their Climate+ side.  I was trying to find something to hold my tools when working so I don't have to scratch up a specimen container.  I wish the base was heavier (double walled, stainless steel) but having something where I don't care if something damp is set into that container, that's the priority.  I found another one that was marketed as a "food canister" and sold by a coffee gear manufacturer and it looked pretty awesome.  I have a ton of Miir stuff, so this is just the one I opted for to try out their new Climate+ line.

Maybe one day we'll get a custom ACO Miir bottle?

Anyways, I wanted to share this just for the sake of, benefit of, anyone who has their tools out and needs a simple solution.



The tanks are doing fine, fed the fish, picked off some more algae from the black corydoras, feeding some worms.  @Chick-In-Of-TheSea will laugh at this hopefully.  I dropped in a bit of repashy in the tank and then this one amano shrimp that was on the wood grabbed it, was forced to hang upside down like a bat for a minute, and then tried to run off with it!  Amanos are fun, but they do not realize how big food is sometimes.  😂

I dropped in some shrimp sticks and feeding some bloodworms.  Nice easy day today and just enjoying the fish and the tanks. 

I upped the light on my black corydoras tank to try to give some of the higher demand plants more light.  CO2 is dialed in, dosing ferts is dialed in, now it's literally just down to crossing my fingers and begging these things to grow!  New moss on the log is doing nicely.

Edited September 16, 2022 by nabokovfan87
autocorrect issue

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

@nabokovfan87 make sure your scaping tools are dry for storage. I used to store mine in a cup and they left this rust spot. And they are supposedly stainless steel tools.

 

[anewbie]

Did the usual 3 hour saturday water changes; the other day took a few pictures of additions:

 

Soon it will be cooler and my water changes won't take as much time; though my fishes won't like me as much. Hopefully i will move before all my new additions are full grown else I'm going to have a real problem.

 

[nabokovfan87]

On 9/17/2022 at 4:31 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

@nabokovfan87 make sure your scaping tools are dry for storage. I used to store mine in a cup and they left this rust spot. And they are supposedly stainless steel tools.

They definitely will rust even Stainless.  It's less likely, but I've seen a ton of them with it.  I think most of mine are anodized Stainless, but yeah! You're 100% correct.  I usually let stuff dry out and then store it there.  It'll be SO NICE to have it in hands reach instead of, "Hmmm, where is that.... oh there it is".

Edited September 17, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 9/17/2022 at 5:12 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

They definitely will rust even Stainless.  It's less likely, but I've seen a ton of them with it.  I think most of mine are anodized Stainless, but yeah! You're 100% correct.  I usually let stuff dry out and then store it there.  It'll be SO NICE to have it in hands reach instead of, "Hmmm, where is that.... oh there it is".

I’ve been thinking of getting one of those magnetic strips that holds knives and using that for the aquascaping tools and the magfloat.

[nabokovfan87]

On 9/17/2022 at 2:16 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

I’ve been thinking of getting one of those magnetic strips that holds knives and using that for the aquascaping tools and the magfloat.

I don't know if it's tropica, but someone sells one.  I just hate that it doesn't have a base for stuff to drip in. 

[TheBlueBeetle]

Water changes on the 75 and 125 today. Finally observed my flag fish eating algae (which is why I hired them!). And my keyhole cichlids started chasing or courting each other. ( had them since they were small, don’t know their sex)

[anewbie]

On 9/17/2022 at 4:12 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

They definitely will rust even Stainless.  It's less likely, but I've seen a ton of them with it.  I think most of mine are anodized Stainless, but yeah! You're 100% correct.  I usually let stuff dry out and then store it there.  It'll be SO NICE to have it in hands reach instead of, "Hmmm, where is that.... oh there it is".

Mine hasn't rusted in 3 years and i never do much to dry it off - just set it in a pail; there are different types of stainless steel and some won't rust period and others; well they might as well call it iron.

[Odd Duck]

On 9/17/2022 at 4:18 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

I don't know if it's tropica, but someone sells one.  I just hate that it doesn't have a base for stuff to drip in. 

That’s when you use your ACO towel.  😃 I have a towel on hand with every group of tanks and dry my tools, often before I set them down, definitely before I put them away.  One of my pet peeves is instruments/tools that don’t perform well.  If I let my scissors rust it’s my own fault.  Wipe them dry closed, then open them as wide as possible and wipe them again.  Then they (mostly) lay on a dry towel in their own drawer.  The poor quality scissors lay between a couple tanks in the 10 G rack because the better scissors are all the way in the other bedroom.  They don’t perform particularly well (these came free with a guy’s close out of aquarium stuff), so if they rust it won’t hurt my feelings.  😆  Even with that, I don’t deliberately leave them wet.

[nabokovfan87]

Great point @Odd Duck. That might actually force me to dry things every time before hanging them.  Metal stand definitely is getting some magnets and hooks.  I tend to be the mindset of a chef/surgeon when I work and always needed an extra set of hands.  I always seem to need to ask for help for "please hold this for a second" and it could be a list of 5+ things by the time I'm actually done with the work.  A specimen container and the "cheap" equipment always gets the brunt of it!!! 😂

At least now, they have a home 🙂   I just got a drawer holder / block for my cooking knives as well, so yeah.... OCD or something must be kicking in!


How are your tanks doing, how is the moss garden going?