What are you doing to your tank today?

[mulletmcnasty]

Not as many tanks as I used to have - at one point I had 17 running in the bedroom and a few more in the living room. But at the mo’ I have 8 tanks but two are just for live food for the moment.

If ‘I’ am ever graced by the lottery deity, I want a huge conservatory for the plants but all around its edges will be tanks, plus a stream & pond somewhere in the middle - said stream will run under a wall that can be dropped down & closed for the winter to keep the heat in, but it’ll run to an outdoor pond + water garden and I’ll be happy with living quarters in a corner somewhere .

I only have 4 just now, but always planning.

 

[Fishfur]

I only have 4 just now, but always planning.

Me too - ‘tis a curse of a sort, always trying to figure where I can tuck in another one .

 

[Lucifer]

What am I doing to my tank today? Well this is more about what I've been doing the past 4-5 weeks.

I had a 5 ft 150G tank that had become free about 5 weeks ago so I decided to make a planted tank.
The plants are starting to settle in and I keep adding cuttings periodically from my other tanks.

The lights I used ended up being non-aquatic lights. A company that specializes in plant lights for grow tents etc (Spider Farm) brought out these new led's this year. As the tank is over 2 ft deep I searched long and hard for a light which would maybe work well on a deep large tank. I seemed to keep coming back to the uber expensive lights which would require multiple to fill the tank. So I started searching LED's specifically designed for plants in the grow tent industry.

I ended up purchasing 4 x 3.5ft lights which daisy chained together with an IP65 weather proof rating. Are they bright! like definitely brighter than any aquatic light I have.

There are drawbacks of course, mainly that there is no dimming function built in and the light is on the yellow side. I think I prefer the whiter look of my other aquarium lights but I digress.

Other than that though they are great and paying only a bit over $200 AUD for the lot I think is pretty good.

Yesterday I added a C02 reactor. i was running C02 with the usual diffuser and I think was doing a pretty good job but with a tank this size I think has limited benefits. I'm hoping the reactor will have a better saturation of c02 over the tank. There was quite a bit of pearling going on today so I assume it is working ok.

The tank is still growing in so not looking that great yet but I'm hoping the swords planted right across the back and some val will eventually cause a nice green backdrop.

It has about 20 tiger barbs, a dozen rosy barbs and a handful of clown loaches along with a couple bristlenose.

The FX5 & FX6 on the tank were already well cycled ( 2 years) so i wasn't worried about the cycle and adding fish.
I call it an experimental tank so I'll keep playing around with it. Make some mistakes, learn a bit hopefully.

 

[AlexL31]

Just shut down the tank and got rid of all the fish as we are going to look at moving over to cicilids from tropical. we are going to doing a whole new set up

 

[newjungletank]

Mother fishes fry are all gone and it looks like more spawning behavior again.

 

[BPSabelhaus]

Big ol' snail

 

[Fishfur]

Big ol' snail
View attachment 909567View attachment 909568

That one looks more terrestrial than aquatic - any idea what species it is?

 

[BPSabelhaus]

That one looks more terrestrial than aquatic - any idea what species it is?

There is a couple species in there. The darker ones like that are native while the yellow are invasive.

 

[Fishfur]

Got some of the plants I scored at the expo dealt with and so far the new snails & fish seem to be doing well enough.

My moina & scud tank now houses the Giant ramshorns too - being massive plant eaters I figure the snail poop should help encourage some infusorial or at least bacterial growth which will provide some variety for the moina. There aren’t many in there as yet - hopefully they’ll get to reproducing, something they excel at when conditions suit them.

The daphnia are doing a little better - clearing up what I feed them. The moina aren’t managing that as yet but it’s greenwater so it shouldn’t bother them. Or so I hope anyway.

 

[mulletmcnasty]

I went to the LFS and only spent $8 on some mini cichlid pellets for convict brother, yes, that's his name. That's a real achievement for me.
Not a good picture, but it's the only one I have.

 

[tinylostwine]

Well not so much to the tank but i'm hatching more bbs. I picked up a ziss hatchery - not sure if it is better or worse than just using a soda bottle but i was kind of in a hurry to get this going since i have three active set of frys that really want to be fed 100 times a day (ok ok not 100 but they would not object to 4 or 5). The fishes I'm currently feeding live bbs to include:

a. wolli (these frys a tiny)
a. sp bluthekl (these are small but not as tiny)
a. Winkelfleck (these are actually 3 or 4 weeks old but i don't think that many made it that far - it is kind of hard to tell since the frys mostly stay hidden in leaf little and similar).
-
All three of these fishes are very different. The a. sp bluthekl have almost no colouring but magnificent finage. They are not chicken and will stand their ground but they don't really like people so when i feed them they step back and wait for me to put food in the tank before eating.
-
a. wolli - these are mind boggling chicken of humans. I see the female once or twice a week and she definitely doesn't come out to eat until i leave the room. One of the males is more aware of me and as long as the female isn't near will come and eat as soon as i put the food in the aquarium. There is another one - i think larger male - that i only see once a month or so. I mean really a 29 with 3 fishes and i can't even spot one for months at a time. But once in a while i'll catch a glimpse of it.
-
a. winkelfleck - well these are are the sort that when they see you will open their mouth and expect you to drop the food in their mouth and if you miss they expect you to try again.... i mean really - can you move .00001 inch to grab the food if i miss ?
-
In terms of water condition the a. sp blutheki are probably the hardest to breed. I have mine in ec 22-23 water with ph probably low 5s to mid 4s. This is their 2nd brood in 8 or so months.

 

[Fishfur]

I finally got to see the Ruby tetras when I went to feed tonight. Unfortunately, 3 didn’t make it so that leaves 9 but they disappeared after I put them in their tank. Left their lights off for a couple days and hoped they’d come out.

Tonight I got my first glimpse of them, all swimming very fast in a pretty tight school. Looked amazing - but they vanished soon as they noticed me. I think I got a whole 5 seconds to see them!

I think their tank needs a lot more decor - but they are super cute little fish. Hope I can get a few more.

I thought the Endlers would make good dither fish for the Rubies and maybe they have but for now, it seems I won’t get to see much of them - they vanish like smoke soon as they notice my approach.

I wonder if adding some Embers might be a good idea? Could always move the Endlers to make room.

 

[kansas]

Bought a betta for the Flex 9 and saw one of the kuhli loaches I put in the 55 Saturday.

 

[tinylostwine]

Fed the frys:

Really quite amazing these guys can actually stuff a bbs into their tiny mouths; watched one take both hands and push it in there

And did the monthly water change on the discus aquarium:


They are a bit less colourful than normal as they are still kind of upset with me for mucking with their aquarium. They actually don't have a problem with the refill it is the removal part that makes them really angry.

 

[mulletmcnasty]

Hi guys, going to buy some tetra test strips today, there seems to be a debate about there accuracy. I really am getting them because they measure Gh. With the liquid test kits, I've never been able to discern a result, it's just too subtle.
Anyone have experience with the strips?

 

[Fishfur]

Hi guys, going to buy some tetra test strips today, there seems to be a debate about there accuracy. I really am getting them because they measure Gh. With the liquid test kits, I've never been able to discern a result, it's just too subtle.
Anyone have experience with the strips?

I used them for years and within their limitations they’re no less accurate than liquid reagent tests. I liked them for the speed of the results and used them primarily as a quick checkup.

If there were discrepancies I didn’t expect I’d test again with a liquid reagent.

For GH & KH they simply can’t give you as accurate a result as a liquid test because they use a colour comparison chart.

Liquid reagents usually have you counting drops until a colour change happens. So you should get a pretty accurate result. But if you have trouble seeing the colour change, the dip strip may well be a better choice for you.

The dip strip can’t give you a result like the liquid test - no 7 drops = 7 dGH. On the strip you match colour as best you can and each colour corresponds to a range of values.

They’re great for getting a decent idea as to whether the water is very soft, soft, moderately or very hard.

 

[BPSabelhaus]

Me a couple weeks ago commenting on somebody's new Betta.

"Wow, the dots / snakeskin top fin is a neat trait. Gonna have to look into it. None of mine expressed that"

Today:

 

[Fishfur]

Me a couple weeks ago commenting on somebody's new Betta.

"Wow, the dots / snakeskin top fin is a neat trait. Gonna have to look into it. None of mine expressed that"

Today:
View attachment 909744

Subtle and very attractive. Nice fish.

 

[BPSabelhaus]

Thanks, but still a lot of time to go lol Also waiting on a male to develop a bit more so I can actually do a proper second spawn. The female I want to breed is getting better every day. More and more colors are setting. Pink, blue, purple, black, white, red, yellowish brownish goldish marbling / grizzle pattern. Neither fish is showing any feather tail traits.

 

[Fishfur]

I will be spending most of the day working on whipping my apartment into organized shape but I got some Ember tetras to keep the Rubies company and a few more piano snails because I think I might just raise them for sale. It is ridiculously easy to do.

A female is only going to have maybe 8 offspring in a year so I won’t be overrun with them if they don’t sell and I quite like them - they’re a bit quirky - right up Quirk Alley, my home ground as it were .

LFS has their annual tent sale this weekend and last night I got some extremely nice submersed grown (local guy raises them) plants for 15% off. This guy’s plants are always very healthy and worth buying - grown in a planted type substrate (might be Fluval’s) and the pots are always full of roots instead of barely any like so many conventional potted offerings from Tropica , etc.

15% off the fish & snails plus a light fixture bargoon in the tent and two rolls of 3/8” RO tubing in black, something I had given up looking for because I wasn’t going to get 100’ of it when I only need maybe 10’. (Second roll is insurance in case I make a mess of the first one, since the setup is an experimental one). But it’s still only 30’ instead of 100!! Price was definitely unbeatable at $5 per 15’ roll.

The plants are cleaned up but floating for now because I expect my helper to arrive anytime so the plants final disposition will have to wait.

The Embers were all very lively this morning when I fed the tank and the Rubies were all out too. So they seem to have been a good addition.

 

[Leeman75]

Going to get started with WCs soon. Need to do some rescaping a bit in my 75 as I have some new fish that I'll be getting today and tomorrow. Getting some Multies today and some Cyprichromis Leptisoma tomorrow.

 

[Fisch]

Broke my kneecap, so now after surgery I am on crutches and water changes have to wait a bit. As the tanks are pretty well established, the parameters are good, the fish are holding up. Should not be a problem.
Pest snails have a party as I cannot be a vigilant in my 'collection' habit.
But I had my Rabbit Snail baby sighting, first since over six months. She is now ~1inch long, so very cute. I will need to get her some company.

 

[StarGirl]

Broke my kneecap, so now after surgery I am on crutches and water changes have to wait a bit. As the tanks are pretty well established, the parameters are good, the fish are holding up. Should not be a problem.
Pest snails have a party as I cannot be a vigilant in my 'collection' habit.
But I had my Rabbit Snail baby sighting, first since over six months. She is now ~1inch long, so very cute. I will need to get her some company.

Oh no!!!! Hope you heal up quickly!

 

[Fishfur]

Broke my kneecap, so now after surgery I am on crutches and water changes have to wait a bit. As the tanks are pretty well established, the parameters are good, the fish are holding up. Should not be a problem.
Pest snails have a party as I cannot be a vigilant in my 'collection' habit.
But I had my Rabbit Snail baby sighting, first since over six months. She is now ~1inch long, so very cute. I will need to get her some company.

OUCH!! I hope you heal quickly - this kind of thing is never fun .

The snails can wait - just be sure to take good care of yourself.

 

[TClare]

Did water changes on all the tanks, but quite small ones again for the third week running, it hasn’t rained for ages and we have to be careful not to use too much water. And the drought means that next week we are going to have power cuts again, supposedly all night from 10 pm until 6am - not very good for the fish if it’s every night…

 

[Fishfur]

Did water changes on all the tanks, but quite small ones again for the third week running, it hasn’t rained for ages and we have to be careful not to use too much water. And the drought means that next week we are going to have power cuts again, supposedly all night from 10 pm until 6am - not very good for the fish if it’s every night…

We’ve had an unusually wet summer - it’s sad that rain can’t fall where it’s needed and not where it’s going to cause floods. Living just a few miles north of one of the biggest lakes there is (Lake Ontario) it’s easy to lose sight of how fortunate we are here to have abundant water.

 

[Leeman75]

Hoping for rain or relief for all who need it!!

My Shellies have been in the tank about 14 hours now. Though they got chased by just about every fish while the new hierarchy was being established last night, things are way calmer this morning! Hopefully the 8 new dithers I get later today will further help my little multies. I'll share more with pictures in my tank journal later, but here's a little sneak peek!

 

[BPSabelhaus]

Broke my kneecap, so now after surgery I am on crutches and water changes have to wait a bit. As the tanks are pretty well established, the parameters are good, the fish are holding up. Should not be a problem.
Pest snails have a party as I cannot be a vigilant in my 'collection' habit.
But I had my Rabbit Snail baby sighting, first since over six months. She is now ~1inch long, so very cute. I will need to get her some company.

Knees are a very strange thing for us bipedal beings lol I remember recovering from hernia surgery. They do all the checks, everything is moving, I have all sensations feeling great etc...
Go to stand up, all is well. Ok, take a step.

:FLOP: lol Muscles that control the knee cap were still asleep. For another three hours lol So much mobility relies on such a small point. Get better

We’ve had an unusually wet summer - it’s sad that rain can’t fall where it’s needed and not where it’s going to cause floods. Living just a few miles north of one of the biggest lakes there is (Lake Ontario) it’s easy to lose sight of how fortunate we are here to have abundant water.

Proper water management helps. Much of the Green river was diverted to prevent flooding the young towns of Kent and Auburn. Now Kent and Auburn flood due to the channels being too small for the modern infrastructure dumping more rain in. But just down from my house a huge chunk of formerly stagnant and dead marshland full of contamination from years of :ahem Boeing: industrial contamination.

But over the course of a couple months one side is now a beautiful free flowing part of mill Creek watershed once again. The other side of the road is where I collected my sticklebacks in very nasty orange water full of nasty particulates.
The other side I can't wait to see the coming spring growth and hopefully in a few years salmon

Sticklebacks are getting big. I thought feeding a Betta bloodworms from a dropper was cool. Hand feeding Alex the dragon and Woodstock the cichlid was was really cool.
But feeding a wild caught Stickleback? That was cooler lol They come up to the glass and interact / act much like Bettas. 30 gallons but half full, heavy with elodea and hiding places. 2-3 females and 5 females all just doing what they do. Can't wait for the males to get their red patches.

 

[Fisch]

Knees are a very strange thing for us bipedal beings lol I remember recovering from hernia surgery. They do all the checks, everything is moving, I have all sensations feeling great etc...
Go to stand up, all is well. Ok, take a step.

:FLOP: lol Muscles that control the knee cap were still asleep. For another three hours lol So much mobility relies on such a small point. Get better

Yep, that is how it is going, the flop part...

Did water changes on all the tanks, but quite small ones again for the third week running, it hasn’t rained for ages and we have to be careful not to use too much water. And the drought means that next week we are going to have power cuts again, supposedly all night from 10 pm until 6am - not very good for the fish if it’s every night…

Looking forward to move from the desert back to the Midwest. We take so much for granted. Do you run a generator?

 

[TClare]

Looking forward to move from the desert back to the Midwest. We take so much for granted. Do you run a generator?

We have got a generator we can use for emergencies, but its a petrol one, I wouldn't want to run it all night, also we don't have the wiring set up to run all the tanks, we might be able to work out something if it gets really bad. Normally we get plenty of rain here but things are going weird lately...

 

[BeachCruiser]

Did a partial rescape to thin out a big clump of plants & provide more caves for the Apistos.
From this:

To this:

New rocks are the same granite & will patina up in a few weeks. Looking forward to the grow in!

 

[newjungletank]

Looks like the borelli in my tiny 1.5 gallon holding tank have bred again.

 

[Fisch]

We have got a generator we can use for emergencies, but its a petrol one, I wouldn't want to run it all night, also we don't have the wiring set up to run all the tanks, we might be able to work out something if it gets really bad. Normally we get plenty of rain here but things are going weird lately...

Yes, it is strange. Utah got a lot of rain this Summer, very unusual for this area

 

[BPSabelhaus]

Loving my sticklebacks, but realizing now I have an almost native PNW biotope. I have some java ferns in there, otherwise it's elodea, feather something lol, pond starwort, duckweed and willow with sticklebacks and peamouth chubs


My experiment with growing taro "failed" IE it produced a different result. I had a theory in the back of my head that decomposing taro was a strong food source for daphnia and other microfauna. The tubs I had put some rotten taro tubers that froze in have really strong production. The ones that don't, have more mosquito larvae and less microfauna. So my original plan had small tubers planted in the bottom to slowly rot.
But, I changed my design entirely at the last minute then overfilled the tank a bit because that's what I do lol. Instead the tubers started rotting in the substrate, grew some fungus and for the first time my indoor culture is exploding.
The larger taro I think will still sprout, maybe even the smaller ones. If not, taro is cheap. It's a heavy starch so it makes sense it would be good food. Glad that observation stuck.



Edit: I think Woodstock is hungry. Sitting on the couch watching him watching me. Then he just does this like 90* twist "lay down" type move. Stays mid column looking at me then turns upright, does a little circle and bites the water surface and has been staring at me while I type like "Do I get a treat?"
Yep, hungry boy lol Bet the kiddo is next and it will just be a demand for chicken nuggets lol No little dance lol Loves his Pleco bites.

 

[tinylostwine]

Started preparing a another 29 gallon aquarium for a. lineta.

 

[TClare]

No power for 30 hours!! Yesterday power was cut from 8.00am until 2.00pm due to rationing, but the reconnection went wrong it came on for about 2 seconds and then went off again. Something in the transformer had been damaged. I phoned the electricity company 4 or 5 times yesterday and each time they said they would fix it as soon as possible but by night time they still hadn't come, they said many transformers had been damaged after the reconnection in different areas, and they did not have enough teams but would fix it during the course of the night. They didn't. I began to be worried about the fish. Then at 5.00am today it was due to go off again anyway until 10.00am. Around 8 this morning we set up our small generator to run one heater and one filter in the big tank and the same in the Guianacara tank, but could not connect any more. Made more phone calls and it was eventually fixed at 2.00pm and has been on since. It is due to go off tomorrow at 5.00am again. I kept the boards that we use at night over all the tanks to reduce the heat loss, but the tanks went down below 21C (below 70F) and the big one is taking ages to get back to normal. All the fish seem fine so far though.

 

[Fishfur]

No power for 30 hours!! Yesterday power was cut from 8.00am until 2.00pm due to rationing, but the reconnection went wrong it came on for about 2 seconds and then went off again. Something in the transformer had been damaged. I phoned the electricity company 4 or 5 times yesterday and each time they said they would fix it as soon as possible but by night time they still hadn't come, they said many transformers had been damaged after the reconnection in different areas, and they did not have enough teams but would fix it during the course of the night. They didn't. I began to be worried about the fish. Then at 5.00am today it was due to go off again anyway until 10.00am. Around 8 this morning we set up our small generator to run one heater and one filter in the big tank and the same in the Guianacara tank, but could not connect any more. Made more phone calls and it was eventually fixed at 2.00pm and has been on since. It is due to go off tomorrow at 5.00am again. I kept the boards that we use at night over all the tanks to reduce the heat loss, but the tanks went down below 21C (below 70F) and the big one is taking ages to get back to normal. All the fish seem fine so far though.

It’s nerve wracking when things like that happen. Hopefully the fish will cope.

 

[BPSabelhaus]

Taro tank

Scud tank

Daphnia are reproducing. Let's how long until I crash it this time lol

 

[BPSabelhaus]

Need to scrape the glass on the baby goldfish tank (full exposure to Alex's enclosure and UV lights) But just look at that
Edit: Should have added father is a white butterfly koi with many color expressions including blue patches. Mom is a goldfish with white "koi" (Orca) markings. Two of my most pretty goldfish. Unfortunately Fannie the fantail spawned with him early in the season and no eggs developed from that spawn.
My selective process for this spawn is going to be carriers of blue like I think this one has. Needs a lot of time still of course

 

[StarGirl]

Put Tiger Nerite in the 5g and doing a WC today on it. Have to siphon up some BGA that I scraped off the leaves. Cleaned the front glass. Guess I need to clean that tank more often.

 

[BPSabelhaus]

I know that feeling well lol
"Was it really that bad? Oh, there's my old scraper"

 

[StarGirl]

I know that feeling well lol
"Was it really that bad? Oh, there's my old scraper"

Its a single betta and only 2 weeks so yeah not terrible but I have to figure out where the BGA is coming from. Usually If I get the tank every week I dont ever see it. So could be that.

 

[BPSabelhaus]

Bad enough you found a Betta? Wow lol But it is a carpet of green on the inside of the glass. I've seen 4 ft salmon just suddenly appear when there is build up on the glass at the fish ladder for the locks. No wonder algae and things like duckweed feed so much of the food chain.

 

[PseudotropheusKenobi]

Got my first Arowana today! Albino Silver, yet to name him/her! Added another wild Moba to my collection today too.

 

[tinylostwine]

I did the water change on my 180 but made a few tweaks during the week to reduce time. The first was i purchased a thicker 1/2 inch id hose for my python. The issue is the old python had thicker tubing so the 90% turn you make out of the tank to the pail didn't crinkle the hose but the new ones come with paper thin hoses that constrict when you make the turn. It was cheap and shouldn't have been necessary but it is what it is - the 2nd is i replace the pump that use to pump the water from the 40 gallon pail to the bathtub - instead of 500 gph though 1/2 inch tubing it is now 900 gph though 3/4 inch tubing. I had 3/4 inch tubing left over in my closet so it was just ordering a new pump - also i paid attention and got a pump that sucked water up from the bottom. Anyway this reduce the water change effort from 60 minutes to 30 minutes and you know time is money. Now if only they made python with 3/4 inch connector

Totally unrelated i thought about how to fix the blind issue. So this house i moved into have these heavy blinds in the bathroom that no one can open/close because the 1:1 weight on the string is too great for the average person to raise or lower the blinds - we are talking seriously heavy blinds.

What I need is a couple of gears and a continous string with a lock on the inner most gear (the one that is1:1 with the blind) so that i can raise and lower them with my pinky. Oddly enough no one knows where to get such a beast.... given that seller couldn't raise or lower them nor the person who recommended them i can't figure out why this isn't a product. Well i can always just put a paper bag over my head after all if i can't see out then no one can see in

 

[BPSabelhaus]

I'm kinda done with reality for the moment lol
New method of testing if a tank even has a chance of leaking water? Leave it dry and put a land snail in it.

No the tank didn't leak, but apparently it could lol Yes, those are antennae/feelers. They're slimy and moving lol
Guessing it's a tiny gap that when filled with water pushes shut.

 

[StarGirl]

Finished WCs and tried to take the floating log out of the 5g betta tank. He was not happy and kept going up to the top where it was at. So he won.

 

[BPSabelhaus]

He already filed plans with the city to build a daycare center there

 

[newjungletank]

Yesterday, I 3D printed a spraybar for my Fluval 207 from this design on thingiverse Fluval 07 Series Spray Bar by ZCalilung

It came out pretty good. I don't think my fish liked being blown around by filter, eve at half capacity.



I added some more water and now it looks like this. One of the sponge filters you see blowing bubbles across the top will be going to future 20 gallon long.

 

[BPSabelhaus]

Top offs don't need to be boring