Welcome to the C.A.R.E Forum - Look here first.

[Mike Casey]

Hey everyone, 

I'm Mike from Guelph, ON, Canada. I've been back in the hobby for about 1.5 years and definitely have MTS. I currently have 9 tanks of various sizes from a 55 down to a 3 gallon bowl! 

Really looking forward to seeing what everyone is up to!

Cheers!

[da_Fishylover]

Hi, I'm new here. I've been in the hobby for two years now and I absolutely LOVE FISH. I'm hoping to learn more about these amazing creatures.

Bye🙂

[Guppysnail]

On 5/20/2022 at 3:48 PM, da_Fishylover said:

Hi, I'm new here. I've been in the hobby for two years now and I absolutely LOVE FISH. I'm hoping to learn more about these amazing creatures.

Bye🙂

Welcome to the forum. 

[da_Fishylover]

On 5/20/2022 at 12:50 PM, Guppysnail said:

Welcome to the forum. 

Thanks!

[Tiana Hastings]

Hello everyone! I am so glad I finally figured out how to find the forum! I am a new member of aquarium co-op however fish have been an intricate part of my life on and off. my very first "aquarium" that I had was when I was 9 my mom got me some sea monkeys, I was so excited about them and just as they got bigger to where I could see them my mom accidentally knocked over the little container 😂 I was devastated however we lived in a swampy area and I happened to find small shrimp back in the swamp and put them in my sea monkeys aquarium. We moved A LOT while I was growing up so I would always end up getting an aquarium and having to rehome them quite soon after however that did not deter me. My mom thought she knew everything about aquariums so it led to a lot of my fish sadly passing away (she had never kept an aquarium in her life before I was 9 and got those sea monkeys) but I was learning even if she wasn't lol. Now that I am in my own home and happily married I can finally have fish and care for them properly which brings me great joy!  Finding aquarium co-op on YouTube was a huge blessing and an even greater blessing was finding out they were 20 minutes away from me! Finally a reason to like Washington. 😂 I currently have 4 aquariums of my own and a mini pond on my deck, my husband just recently got his very first aquarium for his desk which has gotten me all excited! I have plans for extensions to my hobby but trying to hold off a little bit since I'm currently pregnant with our first and man does that slow down my water changes 😂 Happy to meet everyone and can't wait to get to know everyone!

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

I'm coming back to the intro thread to ask what "ORD" means.  ???

[Softbreeze]

No idea on ORD but wondered if there are many other members from UK?

[Guppysnail]

On 6/10/2022 at 10:09 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

I'm coming back to the intro thread to ask what "ORD" means.  ???

Out of Reactions for the Day. An absolute constant for me 🤣. I just love so much of the great stuff everyone posts 🤗

[bryanisag]

Hi from Cali!

I like live food, live bearers and live nice fish. 

[Skipwithr]

Hello all,

Greetings from VA. I first started keeping fish maybe 15 years ago, while still in grade school. Got back into the hobby roughly a year ago. I found Cory and the Co-op crew back in early 2020, just at the start of the pandemic, and the YouTube channel got me excited enough about fishkeeping to get back into the hobby.

I currently have a 20g long that houses 3 pea puffers and 4 kuhli loaches, and a 10g neocaridina shrimp colony. In the works I have a 55g community, which I'm still considering options for, a 29g which I currently have no idea what to keep in, and a 75g which will house a long time dream fish of mine, a Jack Dempsey. 

Attached is a picture of the pea puffer tank, shot with my potato camera. Driftwood, dragon stone, anubias and java fern, and one plant I'm not 100% sure of but I think it's a crypt. 

[caiteanngrace]

On 7/8/2022 at 11:09 PM, bryanisag said:

Hi from Cali!

I like live food, live bearers and live nice fish. 

Wow what a great tank!

[caiteanngrace]

Hi I’m Caitlin! I’m used to 10 gallon betta tanks but recently inherited a 29 gallon with a 15 year old pleco and one lonely tetra. The pleco needs to find a larger home somewhere but for now we are calling him Barney and keeping his water clean. He lived in this tank his whole life but when my aunt moved to another state she asked me to take him. The tetra is named little guy. My current goal is to find “Barney” a home and then have a pair of dwarf cichlids, some tetras and some hatchet fish. I also want to get rid of the rainbow gravel, and create a more natural scape with live plants. I’m going to kind of lurk around learning about these topics in depth. I love the videos and have learned so much but am looking for a more interactive experience with some other fish people. There is no fish club in my area (upstate New York. Like Canadian border upstate) so this felt like a good alternative. I also have two cats. Sammie, a Scottish fold, and Cleo, a feral cat I kept in my house until she decided I wasn’t so bad. 

[JettsPapa]

On 7/11/2022 at 5:39 PM, caiteanngrace said:

Hi I’m Caitlin! I’m used to 10 gallon betta tanks but recently inherited a 29 gallon with a 15 year old pleco and one lonely tetra. The pleco needs to find a larger home somewhere but for now we are calling him Barney and keeping his water clean. He lived in this tank his whole life but when my aunt moved to another state she asked me to take him. The tetra is named little guy. My current goal is to find “Barney” a home and then have a pair of dwarf cichlids, some tetras and some hatchet fish. I also want to get rid of the rainbow gravel, and create a more natural scape with live plants. I’m going to kind of lurk around learning about these topics in depth. I love the videos and have learned so much but am looking for a more interactive experience with some other fish people. There is no fish club in my area (upstate New York. Like Canadian border upstate) so this felt like a good alternative. I also have two cats. Sammie, a Scottish fold, and Cleo, a feral cat I kept in my house until she decided I wasn’t so bad. 

 

 

Welcome.  "Little Guy" appears to be a black neon tetra.  They're one of my favorites.  When Barney gets a larger home I'd encourage you to get more of them.

[Betta]

Thank you Cory for this forum it seems to be very nice and very conversational! My husband and I learned about this forum from GirlTalksFish and she is just amazing! So are y’all! Thank you so so much for all y’all do! We just recently got into the hobby this year and learned the patience of it and the rewards of it! We still only have just a betta and two snails but this week we’re ordering a couple of female honey gouramis so he will have company then within the next month or so we’ll add 3 Amani shrimp and 2 Khuli loaches. 
it is a 10 gallon so We wont put anymore in after that, just lots of plants Java ferns and windolov and some frog bit! We got some hornwort but most of it was dead when it got here and we only have a few pieces left that we separated to get better and grow so we can add them in….maybe!
we’ve heard hornwort greatly takes away from other sources in the aquarium? 
we’ll hope I haven’t went on and on too much! Have a great day!! 

 

[Craig Halstead]

Hello

I love the idea of this forum!  I joined a few days ago now to try and get help with a sickness that I'm having in one of my tanks.  

So far everyone has been very helpful.  This is the first time I'm having to treat sick fish.  It's so tough!  

On another note I'm from a small town call Capon Bridge WV.  This forum is going to be great as we don't have a aquarium club that is local.  I'm working at starting a group but it's a slow process.  I currently have 3 tanks setup and a 10g QT.  Below are a few pictures.

 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 7/29/2022 at 9:44 AM, Craig Halstead said:

Hello

I love the idea of this forum!  I joined a few days ago now to try and get help with a sickness that I'm having in one of my tanks.  

So far everyone has been very helpful.  This is the first time I'm having to treat sick fish.  It's so tough!  

On another note I'm from a small town call Capon Bridge WV.  This forum is going to be great as we don't have a aquarium club that is local.  I'm working at starting a group but it's a slow process.  I currently have 3 tanks setup and a 10g QT.  Below are a few pictures.

 

Very nice! Welcome to the forum!

There is a diseases section on this site. If you haven’t already, navigate there and create a topic with the issue that’s going on. Someone is bound to know something. We have hobbyists of all levels here.

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/11/2022 at 3:39 PM, caiteanngrace said:

The pleco needs to find a larger home somewhere but for now we are calling him Barney and keeping his water clean. He lived in this tank his whole life but when my aunt moved to another state she asked me to take him. The tetra is named little guy. My current goal is to find “Barney” a home and then have a pair of dwarf cichlids, some tetras and some hatchet fish.

Once you get to 50 posts there is a section that opens up where you can post here trying to find him a new home 🙂

Welcome to the forum!

On 7/29/2022 at 6:44 AM, Craig Halstead said:

Hello

I love the idea of this forum!  I joined a few days ago now to try and get help with a sickness that I'm having in one of my tanks.  

So far everyone has been very helpful.  This is the first time I'm having to treat sick fish.  It's so tough!  

On another note I'm from a small town call Capon Bridge WV.  This forum is going to be great as we don't have a aquarium club that is local.  I'm working at starting a group but it's a slow process.  I currently have 3 tanks setup and a 10g QT.  Below are a few pictures.

 

What an amazing setup!  Welcome to the fun!

On 7/18/2022 at 11:48 AM, Betta said:

Love the moss balls!  Nice work 🙂 Welcome to the forum!

[The Killer of Fish]

Howdy all. I have been watching Cory and Coop videos for a while now when I was trying to learn something. In the past six months I learned about the podcast app and so I downloaded it. I have started with the earliest episodes and methodically have been listening to them. Sometimes I would fall asleep to them.
I love the podcast version because my phone doesn’t have to stay open on YouTube to watch/listen to an old LiveStream. The downside is I can’t like it on the podcast and that translate to a view and like on YouTube.  If YouTube would let you listen with the phone closed the Coop podcast app would be obsolete. 
Anyway, I digress. Looking forward to learning and sharing with all. 
 

Thanks to Cory and the Coop for providing this safe outlet. I’m getting tired of the Facebook groups. 

[zbb]

Hi all,

New to the forum and to the hobby, and we're getting our "feet wet" with a 15gal Flex15 and the rest of the kit from Aquarium Co-op in Edmonds. Feeling lucky to be local to what seems to be one of the best freshwater stores out there. 

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

@zbb welcome to the forum!

[The Killer of Fish]

On 10/12/2022 at 6:01 PM, zbb said:

Feeling lucky to be local to what seems to be one of the best freshwater stores out there. 

Your local?!?  Yep you are lucky.

Welcome.

[MostlyRock]

Hola Class!

I got my first fish tank when I was 8, it was a little hex tank, maybe 3 gallons? It came with a pair of Black Moors. Between 8 and 9 I spent as much time at the library as I could, back then the Internet was called the BBS and my TRS-80 needed to wait until my parents were asleep to dial into the various BBS nodes to search for info, the library was easier. By the time I was 9 I had finally convinced my Mom that I need a bigger tank for the Moors, but I didn't tell her that that would be a perpetual condition. By the time I moved out, there wasn't a wall in my room without several tanks. By the time I was in my 20's I was into several different freshwater species and had setup my first Reef tank.

I was a commercial service plumber, and I built custom setups for people on the side for many years. My apartments were always covered in tanks. About 12 years ago I hurt my back pretty badly, my boss laid me off AND my ex left me with a toddler. I sold off all of my fish, tanks, most of my equipment, pretty close to the whole gambit, and enrolled in college full time. I kept up with the bills by doing plumbing work, mostly for people I had done work for professionally, but a lot of it was for fish stores and people wanting custom setups. My kid came with me on a lot of those jobs, and legitimately helped me with pipework when there were tight spots I had a hard time getting into. Toddlers are far more capable than some people can comprehend.

Once I became gainfully employed in IT, I focused on building an environment my kid would do well in, which BTW, is NOT as easy as building an environment for fish to thrive in, I'm just sayin. No tanks. I was clean, I tell you, CLEAN! No MTS, No pathological need to build the perfect environment for [insert fish here], nothing. Yes, I admit that something was always missing, there was a hole that I couldn't really ever fill, but I was completely out of the hobby.

A few months ago, here I am settled in my new house in Sanford, FL, not a tank in sight, and my kid's friend brings over a 10 gallon tank with 2 comets, both bigger than the tank if you include the fins in the total length, 2 guppies, and ABSOLUTELY ZERO FILTRATION. She would top it off when her Mom complained about the water level being too low, but that was it. and they were all STILL ALIVE! She asked me if I would take the tank, and I immediately went to the closest LFS to my new place, found an employee with a goldfish pond and got the Comets into a reasonable environment... then I found a 29... and setup a planted tank.

I cycled the 29 with feeder fish, which was an epically bad idea, because they started breeding fast and now I have a kazillion Platy and Endler fry in there. Netting out the Platys and Endlers is not fun once there is a considerable amount of plant growth, I tell you what, WoW! That tank sits next to my desk, so I decided to make it a tank for mostly shrimp and Chili Rasboras... Hillstream loaches, Kuhli Loaches, Otto Cats, RL Plecos... yeah, I need a bigger tank. The main reason for the Chili Rasboras is they are gorgeous, especially in schools, but it MAY be because my PH is around 9 out of the tap, and GH and KH both read 300 according to the Tetra test strips and API liquid test kit, so it would make no sense for me to just go with dechlorinator and keep African Cichlids, at all... Nope. I've got to break out the RODI filter and make this complicated.

On top of that, I just picked up a 120 (48 x 24 x 24) that needs to be re-sealed, and a 40 breeder to use as the sump. What am I going to do with that one? Totally going planted community... still refuse to go the easy route. So, as of now, I'm collecting what I need to build the new setup, cycling extra filter media with the 29, and TBH, keeping an eye out for more tanks. I'm completely off the wagon.

I ran across Aquarium Co-Op while searching for something aquarium related, and now after my first order, I have a too big shopping list again, and I'm LOVING all of the videos. Corey is a solid dude, I really enjoy his "rants." Even the stuff I already know is interesting, but learning about how much the industry has evolved over the last 12 years is mind blowing. 

I'll start a build thread on the 120 when I get around to re-sealing it, I look forward to interacting with you all.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 10/27/2022 at 11:52 PM, MostlyRock said:

and my kid's friend brings over a 10 gallon tank with 2 comets, both bigger than the tank if you include the fins in the total length, 2 guppies, and ABSOLUTELY ZERO FILTRATION. She would top it off when her Mom complained about the water level being too low, but that was it. and they were all STILL ALIVE! She asked me if I would take the tank, and I immediately went to the closest LFS to my new place, found an employee with a goldfish pond and got the Comets into a reasonable environment... then I found a 29... and setup a planted tank

Hahaha this is kinda what happened to me. I was in & out of the hobby a few times (mainly because of moves, one being out of state) and finally bought a house and set up a 10g. Then a friend brings over a bunch of pristella tetras because his landlord decided he can’t have a fish tank. Sooo now I’m overstocked. Fortunately still had a 29g with all the stuff so the fishies got an upgrade. Aannnnd now another 10 was set back up because I needed a baby mystery snail growout tank. And since most of those guys are adopted out it’s a snail/shrimp tank that I’m just treating as a nano tank. Planning to add some little nano fish to school around. Possibly ember tetras.

 

[Guppysnail]

Hi @MostlyRock welcome to the forum. I hope you know this is NOT an MTS recovery group. We are the guy who sits next to you in a bar and says “have one more” then helps you find “reasonable”explanations why one more is necessary 🤣

Your tank is gorgeous and I’m looking forward to following along. 
 

[MostlyRock]

Hi @Guppysnail, thank you! Yeah, my recovery from MTS has gone swirly, the only place for me now is among my brethren... the Fish Nerds. 

Speaking of "have one more," @Chick-In-Of-TheSea, I'm gonna pick up a few 10s soon. One of them will be a shrimp tank.

The other two? The kiddo is now a... teenager... and the angst is strong with this one. As a toddler, fish were magical and exciting. Now? Booooring.... until they saw an Axolotl. I knew nothing of Axolotls, so I did some research and they prefer sand because they like digging, but they can have serious issues from sand until they are about 3 inches or bigger. They also hate each other until they are past the juvenile stage. So, together we are going to get a couple of Axolotls, raise them in their own individual 10 gallons, and move them to something at least 4' wide with a mature plantscape when they get big enough. I'm far more excited about a project with the kiddo than the Axolotls, but I gotta admit, they are pretty kool. It also gives me a reason to get another big tank, so there is that. The hardest part is going to be the temp. I live in FL, so there is pretty much never going to be a need for a heater, Axolotls prefer colder water than I can easily facilitate. It's gonna take some MacGyvering.

The 120, is waiting on someone to help me move the tank off the stand, so I can rebuild the stand along with resealing it. The stand is actually in really good shape, but the doors are TINY. I MIGHT be able to get a 10 gallon in and out, definitely not a 40 breeder. I'm going to get cabinet doors the size of the face and remove most of the front of the cabinet, so I have to reinforce the stand so it'll cope with the lack of support. It's gonna take a while.