What are you doing to your tank today?

[BPSabelhaus]

Resetting every single timer. Glad I didn't do it after the first outage lol
Forgot, yesterday the wife was feeding the goldfish and asked "Is the pond large enough for them?"
Muahahahahaha!
We have talked about it in the past / planning for it for awhile. But if she's saying go....
This is definitely the last winter for the bog filter on this pond before I need to replace the case. The larger plan uses the old stock tank as the new bog tank with a double pump to.return from the bog to the table to feed plants and return to the main pond. I'll be able to do a mini river / waterfall feeding from one to another

 

[BPSabelhaus]

Of course I missed one timer. Went into the kiddos room to turn his reading light off at 11:30, only his reading light was off lol
Go to feed the swordtails "What is this thing? Hydra? Eggs hatching?

:leans in close:
Hmmmmmm
:scratches glass:

Oh lol Guess one of the dogs or kiddo got some food on it lol

 

[Sewerrat]

In Consolidating some tanks down to 10 aiming for seven. In process of buying a house unfortunately it's older and I don't think the floors will handle all the tanks. Hopefully I'll have time in the next year to reinforce them for larger tanks.

 

[BPSabelhaus]

In Consolidating some tanks down to 10 aiming for seven. In process of buying a house unfortunately it's older and I don't think the floors will handle all the tanks. Hopefully I'll have time in the next year to reinforce them for larger tanks.

Pfft be that buyer and drop a last minute ultimatum that room X needs reinforcement lol

 

[newjungletank]

I've been away for a while. In my main tank, I just lost my largest male borelli opal. These fish just don't seem to last long. He was born in this tank about 6 or 7 months ago and was full size, beautiful markings, and everything. I guess being a tank bred cichlid must have something to do with it. There are still two juvenile males and an adult female left. These were all born in the tank as well. There used to be two females, but I have only seen one for the last month.

Surprisingly, there has been pretty much zero aggression with this reverse harem, even when the female was sitting on fry.


I thought this was cool. The two little males crossed and looked like a two headed fish.


Last female.

I still have two more males and two more females in other tanks.

 

[BPSabelhaus]

Kiddo got me a new pond piece lol
He has long been "experimenting" freezing his minifigs in ramekins. Last night he decided to build a box around the minifig then freeze that.
Well, his experiments brought a new result finally lol At least it was a good teaching moment and he finally figured out what an experiment is supposed to be

It fits together really nice, clean break. Not sure where it will go, but I need to move plants and rearrange for the fall soon anyway.

 

[Fishfur]

Kiddo got me a new pond piece lol
He has long been "experimenting" freezing his minifigs in ramekins. Last night he decided to build a box around the minifig then freeze that.
Well, his experiments brought a new result finally lol At least it was a good teaching moment and he finally figured out what an experiment is supposed to be
View attachment 908526
It fits together really nice, clean break. Not sure where it will go, but I need to move plants and rearrange for the fall soon anyway.

Minifigs? I have to ask, what is a minifig? The ramekin definitely looks like it would be a simple glue up to reassemble.

 

[BPSabelhaus]

Lego people I could easily glue it, but we have plenty. Probably be the first thing water hits going into the bird bath. Might glue it together in a broken form.

 

[Fishfur]

Lego people I could easily glue it, but we have plenty. Probably be the first thing water hits going into the bird bath. Might glue it together in a broken form.

I’m an aunt, not a parent. Would never have guessed Lego figures - had a weird vision of actual figs from a teeny tiny bonsai fig tree turning to slush as they thawed

 

[BPSabelhaus]

There's plenty of minifigs buried under the actual fig. I'm sure of that lol

 

[Fishfur]

I’m trying to figure out if there’s any way I can grow the fern in the pic on a branch above water in one of my tanks.

It’s a rabbit’s foot type of fern so it’s an epiphyte but it’s a lot bigger than the usual one I see, though I’ve seen the more common smaller Davallias grown this way.

Species name is Phlebodium aureum.

Currently it hasn’t got any stolons, just a central bump with a few hairs on it, but it is supposed to grow furry stolons.

The foliage is gorgeous. I can see it my mind’s eye - creeping along a fairly stout branch basking in the humidity & warmth above the water

Wants high humidity, temp at 60F or more and absolutely no direct sun, all of which would be available above a tank.

Foliage is super ruffled, starts out light dusty green, turns dusty blue green with maturity.

And if it was growing in the middle of an aquarium, my plant nibbling felines would have a hard time getting at it. They like munching ferns, sneaky little menaces that they are at times.

 

[BPSabelhaus]

Could start by just moving the tips out of the water and see how it reacts at first, then a bit more to see if it grows?

 

[tinylostwine]

Today i caught a fish. Now you might think wow why is that a big deal. Well that little devil has been avoiding being caught for weeks but I snagged her I did - poor thing was really mad and bit my pinky. Anyway background it is being moved to a new home upstairs as i separate her from the male. The male still has to be caught and he is even more clever than she is - and a lot meaner

 

[Fishfur]

Could start by just moving the tips out of the water and see how it reacts at first, then a bit more to see if it grows?

I just got the fern - succumbed to temptation when I saw it, didn’t I?

I’ll also have to see what it looks like with the soil cleaned off the roots and I expect it will need a nice bed of sphagnum moss to cover the existing roots and give them something to grow into.

I’ll have to see if I can get my hands on a suitable branch - cork would be great but it’s expensive and floats so maybe a piece of it glued or tied to a submerged branch? With the moss glued or tied to the cork?

Why do I cone up with ideas like this to torment myself with??

 

[Sewerrat]

Pfft be that buyer and drop a last minute ultimatum that room X needs reinforcement lol

Would probably miss my chance if I did that. In jersey not uncommon for a house to sell under a month it's also rare to find something under 700k (usually a fixer upper) not willing to risk it might be my only chance to buy unfortunately tired of crazy rent rates mortgage will be a 1/3 of my rent.

 

[BPSabelhaus]

Obviously don't be that person in this market lol

Anyway, watching the sorority today and noticed some odd behavior. There is a single old female Endler that I had trouble netting out. She has established herself as mid pack in the sorority lol Chases the females smaller than her and gets put in her place by the larger ones lol

 

[mulletmcnasty]

Just visited the LFS, grabbed 6 gold rice fish and a baby convict chiclid, not being kept together though.

 

[BPSabelhaus]

I keep going back on forth on rice fish or shrimp for the open ten. Since I got the sticklebacks I have been leaning shrimp more. Still want the rice fish for various reasons, but need to get the shrimp colony rolling lol

From my orange / white koi pattern goldfish female and white body multicolor including blue butterfly koi spawn this year. First one to show promise. White with black head and caudal. This tank is so hard to photograph. Going to kick the swordtails out of the kitchen ten and start moving pretty baby goldfish in.

 

[Ksway]

Did my first water change on my new plant set up

 

[AsShrimpleAsThat]

What am I doing in my tank today? The all holy, Water changes!

 

[BPSabelhaus]

Going to do a want list lol
I want to: Remove duckweed from the daphnia tank to feed the goldfish.
Remove other duckweed to compost.
Move swordtails into open 10 gallon on the rack and move the baby goldfish with potential into that tank in the kitchen.
Bring in two buckets of rainwater / culture water to warm up for a change / top off of the stickleback tank. Not sure if I want to actually vacuum etc... or just clean the filter and top off.
We'll see how the day goes.

 

[Leeman75]

Finally completed the swap out of fish and decor between my 75 and 55. The 75, which is in my living room, now houses my Tanganyikan Cichlids and a school of Buenos Aires Tetras (hopefully to be replaced soon with a school of Cyprichromis Leptisoma.




And the 55, which is in my basement, has my South and Central American Cichlids in it.

 

[BPSabelhaus]

Observing the sticklebacks thinking about moving them into the 30. Not today though, have all the plants pulled out etc... thinking about moving some leaf litter over and getting more elodea and moss in.
Edit: Swapped the light, added two small caves and more elodea. Going to add a few gallons of rain water. Only want it around 15 gallons full. Then collect live food for all the tanks while sorting daphnia, scuds and if I find any water lice they can go too, to have the new tank well stocked with food for the introduction. Hoping the new environment full of food might trigger some spawning behavior. Doubt a full spawn, but seeing the males at least change color would be nice.


Baby Betta. Not what I want, will ultimately be a "cull" that will make someone happy. Too much royal blue and feather tail. I want purple and no ragged edges. Might have potential if the lighter skin turns out to be cambodian and the heavy blue then expresses as purple. Until then, ugly cull lol

 

[newjungletank]

Yesterday, I cleaned out my 5 gallon Fluval Evo tank that houses 5 CPDs, a male apistogramma borelli opal, and a cherry shrimp or two. I have a spraybar mod and I also have the Intank media basket. Everything but the apisto has been in there for over a year. Since adding the apisto, the algae growth has really taken off and so have the piles of mulm. I can't seem to keep nerites alive for more than a few weeks in the tank (I think it's due to the soft water). I scraped most of the glass and siphoned out about 3/4s of the mulm. I also used a brush to clean the giant anubias a bit.

I took a bunch of water lettuce to the LFS and picked up two oto cats to add to that tank. I like to have at least 3 together, but it's overstocked as is. He was able to find me two really small ones. They had blackworms ins stock as well, so I got some of those as well.


Kind of cleaned up 5 gallon.

I also picked up a bristlenose to go in my 29 gallon community tank. I got the smallest one they had, but it is now the largest in that tank. I was removing it from the bag from the store after floating it so that I could catch any duckweed. I was over the sink and the cup I used is black on the inside and I couldn't see the bristlenose in it. I was pouring a little water off the top and apparently the fish was hanging around up there and it ended up going right into the garbage disposal. Luckily, it was easy to get it out. Probably took 20 or 30 seconds to get it back into water. That was a little stressful for sure.

 

[tinylostwine]

Long morning of much needed fixes on aquariums as well as usual water changes on basement tanks. Spent about 45 minute chasing some rat around - had to remove the driftwood and he still manage to be evasive. I walked away for a bit but left the net in the aquarium and that blood rat just swam into the net for me. Sigh. Of course when i walked back over he took one look at me and quickly swam out.... double sigh. next time i'm gonna have to move a fish at some future time i'm putting it in a bare bottom aquarium. Either that or i'm buying someone who will cooperate. On to good news my a. winkelfleck bred so now it is time to raise some bbs. a. winkelfleck are the best. Here is a picture of the male:

 

[Fishfur]

Long morning of much needed fixes on aquariums as well as usual water changes on basement tanks. Spent about 45 minute chasing some rat around - had to remove the driftwood and he still manage to be evasive. I walked away for a bit but left the net in the aquarium and that blood rat just swam into the net for me. Sigh. Of course when i walked back over he took one look at me and quickly swam out.... double sigh. next time i'm gonna have to move a fish at some future time i'm putting it in a bare bottom aquarium. Either that or i'm buying someone who will cooperate. On to good news my a. winkelfleck bred so now it is time to raise some bbs. a. winkelfleck are the best. Here is a picture of the male:
View attachment 908780

Handsome boy. I wonder who the species is named after? I feel your pain regarding catching uncooperative fish - been there, done that. It’s never fun.

 

[mulletmcnasty]

My reaction when I added my little convict cichlid to my scud infested tank

Went to the LFS to buy some food only and walked out with a pair of peacock gudeons and 6 Darwin Algae shrimp.

 

[BPSabelhaus]

Waiting on tech issues with kiddos first day of school. Fed fish, topping off tanks and psyching myself up to move the sticklebacks later maybe.

 

[addieandleothecat]

just set up the plants and rocks! Day 2 of the tank after me not having any aquariums for years. Yay! So fun to see everybody else’s replies and it makes me so excited to be involved in aquarium things again

 

[mulletmcnasty]

Going to the LFS to pick up some black worms for my peacock gudgeons, they are very hard to feed, hope I can keep them alive.
I'll probably buy something else as well, but what?

 

[StarGirl]

Going to the LFS to pick up some black worms for my peacock gudgeons, they are very hard to feed, hope I can keep them alive.
I'll probably buy something else as well, but what?

Wow that's weird mine eat everything

 

[Lucy]

Unfortunately, I have let the algae take over my tank as usual. It gets a lot of full sun. Oto likes it, so does my nertite.
Did a quick water change & one of my Sparklers was on full display with the gals dancing around.
Those colors!
I mean, come on ladies, who could resist!

I spent a lot of time watching them dance & waiting for an embrace. Maybe they needed privacy after lights out.

 

[BPSabelhaus]

Enjoying having the sticklebacks in a tank I can actually observe them in. Most are standard mottled tigrinus / snakeskin patterns but one has a series of 4-5 porthole markings in a row down both sides. Probably just a unique mutation, but I do wonder about different collection points having different variations.
I should try a different spot in the same watershed with different water parameters just to see.
Also, Brain is coloring up nice. Blue and red in his fins with a lot of black still

Rack slightly rearranged with 10 gone and space for a couple plants.

 

[tinylostwine]

So today (and probably every day for the next 3 weeks); I'm feeding my frys bbs because well I have babies to care for.... I have baby winkies (a. sp winkelfleck); and baby wolli (a. wolli) and soon (i hope) baby ibs - though i probably shouldn't get ahead of myself on the ibs (ibs are Ivancara bimaculata). I guess there is also a chance i'll have baby m. egregius (last time they go to wrigglers and then kaboom they all vanish an hour later).

Sadly i'm a [] and want all these species to have babies because they are all really interesting. I'm like a kid in a candy store with a 1000 different type of candies and I can only pick 3 or 4 of them. Could it get any worse ? I keep telling myself it was a mistake to setup that ro unit; a *big* mistake. Hum. Also if all these babies get bigger i'm gonna need bigger aquariums

 

[BPSabelhaus]

Gave Woodstock an earth worm and he loved it

 

[StarGirl]

Going to pull some crypts tomorrow to bring to my Mom. They are getting pretty thick in my 55g.

 

[mulletmcnasty]

Wow that's weird mine eat everything

I have a suspicion that they may have been wild caught. Still trying.

 

[newjungletank]

I finally set up my Fluval 207 on my 29 gallon tank. This is phase 1 in my new tank set up as I will move the sponge filters from the 29 gallon to a new 20 gallon long and/or 10 gallon once I buy a new tank stand. My current 5 gallon and 1.5 gallon stuff will go in those new tanks. So, for the time being, I have the 207 and two sponge filters on my 29 gallon. My gosh does that 207 move some water, even with the flow control set to about 50 percent. I still need to figure out the best way to direct the flow and control it. All of my floating plants are in one corner.




On another note, now looking down from above, I see that one of my neon tetras is looking a bit off. Bulging midsection and skinny tail, but swimming around fine.

For reference, here's a normal one from above.


Any ideas on 207 setup or my neon tetra.

 

[kansas]

I have a 407 on a 55 gallon tank. I put on a spray bar to diffuse the current. I paid too much for one from Fluval but it would be easy to make your own.

In the 3 years I've had it, I had a couple problems. The hoses became plugged after a while. This was inconvenient but easy to fix by removing them and washing them. Since then I do this on a semi-regular basis so I can do it on my schedule and not 11:00 at night.

About a year ago, it started sending bubbles with the water. A LFS told me this was caused by a leak in the large gasket. Foe once in my life, I had thot ahead and bought an extra gasket and it was an easy fix. Since then, I bought some extra parts that might fail as there are non available locally.

One other thing to watch for is plant debris blocking the intake. I intend to replace the one that came with the filter with a sponge.

I like the filter cause it's hidden and quiet.

 

[newjungletank]

I have a 407 on a 55 gallon tank. I put on a spray bar to diffuse the current. I paid too much for one from Fluval but it would be easy to make your own.

In the 3 years I've had it, I had a couple problems. The hoses became plugged after a while. This was inconvenient but easy to fix by removing them and washing them. Since then I do this on a semi-regular basis so I can do it on my schedule and not 11:00 at night.

About a year ago, it started sending bubbles with the water. A LFS told me this was caused by a leak in the large gasket. Foe once in my life, I had thot ahead and bought an extra gasket and it was an easy fix. Since then, I bought some extra parts that might fail as there are non available locally.

One other thing to watch for is plant debris blocking the intake. I intend to replace the one that came with the filter with a sponge.

I like the filter cause it's hidden and quiet.

Do you have any floating plants in the tank?

Do you clean the tubes by hooking them up to a garden hose and spraying them out? I've seen a lot of people recommend ditching the fluval tubes and just going with vinyl tubes and aftermarket intake and output fittings, like stainless steel or glass lily pipes.

When I bought the fluval, I also bought one of the aquarium coop prefilters for the intake, but it's huge, ugly, and actually will not fit until I take one of my sponge filters out. It's actually the size of both of my sponge filters stacked on top of each other.

 

[kansas]

Duckweed, hornwort, and another one that was a hitchhiker.

I've never changed the hoses. If you do that, please post about it. I take the hose off and wash them in a sink with good water pressure and then rinse them in a bucket of water I've treated with dechlorinator.

The hoses are a design flaw as are the clasp that hold the canister together.

 

[Leeman75]

All this talk about canister maintenance reinforces my HOB preference. I cleaned my lone canister filter a few weeks ago and it added probably 90 minutes to my WC routine. While today, I rinsed sponge filters and media for each HOB and wiped them to clean gunk and it maybe added 10 minutes total.

I suppose if they weren't so blasted expensive, I'd still maybe try one of the nice canisters like the Fluvals. But I can set up an entire 6' tank for the cost of an FX4 or FX6.

Didn't mean to get all ranty there Fish maintenance done for the week. Now I can fish watch the day away!!

 

[BPSabelhaus]

Stickleback tank has so much live food in it that they just swim around and snack when they feel like it. Feeding the large mosquitoes larvae to the Bettas and all the leftovers get put in there since I moved them in. The smaller daphnia seem to be ignored in favor of the mosquito larvae and allowed to basically be free swimming snacks.
This is the polka dot pattern one

 

[newjungletank]

All this talk about canister maintenance reinforces my HOB preference. I cleaned my lone canister filter a few weeks ago and it added probably 90 minutes to my WC routine. While today, I rinsed sponge filters and media for each HOB and wiped them to clean gunk and it maybe added 10 minutes total.

I suppose if they weren't so blasted expensive, I'd still maybe try one of the nice canisters like the Fluvals. But I can set up an entire 6' tank for the cost of an FX4 or FX6.

Didn't mean to get all ranty there Fish maintenance done for the week. Now I can fish watch the day away!!

To be honest, I second guessed the cannister filter after I bought it and waited a month and a half before I installed it. My two small aquarium coop sponge filters have been working fine for close to a year. I wanted to try a cannister to cut down on mulm and algae growth. My floating plants grow fast along with surface algae that is like green slime. I supposed I could have just bought a surface skimmer and been done with it. But, I like to try new things.

 

[Wendybrass]

Gave my tanks some much needed attention after 2 months of doing the bare minimum ( pleasantly surprised at the minimal amount of attention they actually needed) and found my way back to fishlore after a long time away. Not on purpose - tech issues apparently. Anyway it's good to be back. Think I'll make a cuppa and get caught up on what you've all been up to!

I’m an aunt, not a parent. Would never have guessed Lego figures - had a weird vision of actual figs from a teeny tiny bonsai fig tree turning to slush as they thawed

I just learned this from my grandsons as well. Who knew?

 

[StarGirl]

All this talk about canister maintenance reinforces my HOB preference. I cleaned my lone canister filter a few weeks ago and it added probably 90 minutes to my WC routine. While today, I rinsed sponge filters and media for each HOB and wiped them to clean gunk and it maybe added 10 minutes total.

I suppose if they weren't so blasted expensive, I'd still maybe try one of the nice canisters like the Fluvals. But I can set up an entire 6' tank for the cost of an FX4 or FX6.

Didn't mean to get all ranty there Fish maintenance done for the week. Now I can fish watch the day away!!

90 minutes.....what are you doing to it for it to take so long? My 407 takes like 30 and most of that is filling back up with my 2g bucket..... Yes they are blasted expensive but so worth it !!!

 

[Leeman75]

90 minutes.....what are you doing to it for it to take so long? My 407 takes like 30 and most of that is filling back up with my 2g bucket..... Yes they are blasted expensive but so worth it !!!

5 minutes to clean it. 85 to figure out how to get the darn siphon to work again so it will start the flow cycle.

Just kidding! The canister is not in an easily accessible place, but there was a lot of rinsing and wringing out all sorts of media. Wiping all the grime from every surface, cleaning the tube's. Cleaning the intake and output and getting the grossness off those. Then, it took awhile to figure out how to make it work and siphon again. It had been long enough since the last cleaning to forget how I figured out how to do it.

Then, it was a day of anxiety wanting to be sure I
didn't mess the seal and the system up and would wind up with an empty and and very wet floor.

 

[kansas]

Do you have any floating plants in the tank?

Do you clean the tubes by hooking them up to a garden hose and spraying them out? I've seen a lot of people recommend ditching the fluval tubes and just going with vinyl tubes and aftermarket intake and output fittings, like stainless steel or glass lily pipes.

When I bought the fluval, I also bought one of the aquarium coop prefilters for the intake, but it's huge, ugly, and actually will not fit until I take one of my sponge filters out. It's actually the size of both of my sponge filters stacked on top of each other.

This thread reminded me to clean the tubes.

 

[mulletmcnasty]

Got the Ziss hatchery today and I'm trying it out to see how it goes. I like that I can immerse it in a tank, saves me heating etc and I can utilise the equipment that I already have to run it.

 

[Fishfur]

Got the Ziss hatchery today and I'm trying it out to see how it goes. I like that I can immerse it in a tank, saves me heating etc and I can utilise the equipment that I already have to run it.

With the name Artemia Blender and the overall appearance of it on the package, I had to look twice to realize it really was a hatchery and not a gadget for making brine shrimp purée!

Looks handy.