Recent content by LightBrownPillow

I'm moving cross country soon and am not bringing my 33g tank along :( It's an established Walstad tank, and I'm just curious if anyone has good ideas for what to do with the 50 lb of dirt & sand I've got in there. I'd hate to just trash it all, it's super rich in bacteria and nutrients, but not...

Just a short feeding video

I used to be a little, but really I only ever did this hobby for myself. I just realized to most people it's a TV with 1 channel that you can kill if you don't pay attention to it almost every day, so it takes a special kind of interest to do it.

I have a 33g Walstad tank with a heavy sand cap and I never clean the substrate. My little army of shrimp and snails do all that work, and the only soil disturbance otherwise is when I occasionally pull up plants when weeding out overgrowth. It clouds up the water for an hour or two but then...

Any animals kept by humans (and thus entirely dependent on us for their welfare) deserve good care and a reasonably comfortable life, however long that may be. That means providing breeding populations with good water quality, healthy food, and enough space for their needs, and the same goes for...

A dozen fish in 15 gallons is pretty packed in my opinion. Sure you can get enough filtration to handle the load, but they won't have much space to move around in and exhibit their full behaviors. A fancy apartment can be nice but if it's only got 2 bedrooms then 6 people are going to feel very...

Rinse it thoroughly in a big bucket and see how cloudy it gets when disturbed. That'll give you an idea of how much trouble it could be in your tank, lots of lightweight floating stuff can clog filters and just get everywhere.

So long as the shrimp you add directly are too big for the fish to eat, they'll be fine. Just add lots of hiding spots for the eventual babies and you'll have more shrimp than you'd believe in no time. You'll want to consider occasional food for the shrimp too. They scavenge plenty but for a...

I 2nd Fishfur's post, it's most likely an excess of nutrients that the bacteria are grabbing onto. Once you do get stuff under control, you might consider putting some live plants back in. Plants compete with algae/bacteria for nutrients in the water, so if you have healthy plants it is harder...

I've got a Walstad tank, 2" of organic soil + 2" sand cap, and I get bubbles like this all the time. For the first few months it would stink of rotten eggs, so was hydrogen sulphide, but for almost 1.5 years now it's pretty stink free and all of my fish/plants are thriving. So if you haven't...

My 33g planted tank has Black Diamond Blasting Sand cap on top of organic potting soil from the hardware store, and everything has been growing phenomenally for 2 years. But I also have a dozen fish, at least a dozen shrimp, three big snails, and lord knows how many Malaysian Trumpet Snails, so...

Huh, first I ever heard of something like that. I'm very much not a fish scientists so can't say much. Maybe the fish was stressed from the move and not reacting properly to stimuli, or it was already weak from living at the store and not able to avoid the crayfish over a period of multiple...

I can't say for sure, but there might be some allelopathy going on between the plants, where the stronger ones are producing chemicals which are inhibiting the other's growth. From the plant perspective, they are all trying to out-compete each other, not grow as nice neighbors. Allelopathy -...

Fish don't fully sleep quite like we do, some part of their brain is always aware of the environment. And if a critter gets too close the betta will just shoo it away or move to another spot. I haven't closely observed invertebrates at night, but I imagine they are also less active.

I've had a self-sustaining shrimp population for a few years. Started with 4 cherries, now I've got somewhere above 10 shrimp swimming around, and they have evolved from the bright red colors to black/brown/clear which better matches the environment they're in (really cool!) Malaysian Trumpet...