Dipping plants before transplanting them.
Methods, concentration of solution, which chemicals etc.

Doing a new tank with minimal soil substrate - something I've not done before. Will be taking cuttings of swords, 'plantlings' of java fern and some java moss if I can get away with it but not interested in the amount of algae that will transfer.

Dip? What dip with? What %? How long? Would it be easier to just bomb the new tank with algaecide prior to introducing new fish? Would this affect established bacterial levels? It's water and plants, why am I overthinking this?

>>4527426
I would only dip it in 40°C water for about half an hour to get rid of hydra and dose vermifuges to kill planaria. The other hitchhikers are likely benign.

I want bryozoa in my tank.

>>4527441
I could throw some at you from across the pacific?

>>4527466
You got the freshwater ones?

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>>4527479
A couple, apparently.
>In New Zealand, 8
freshwater species and 953 marine species have been discovered but not all of them have been named yet
(Gordon et al. 2009). There are still about 330 species yet to be described.
https://fs.fish.govt.nz/Doc/23013/AEBR_75_small.pdf.ashx

>>4527486
Damn. Shit, man. I'd take them but the shipping to here seems to be like $150. Thats way too much without even knowing if they would make it through the trip [spoiler]or worse, immediately become snail food when I add them to the tank[/spoiler]

>>4527486
That looks like something straight from all tomorrows.

>>4527418
That looks like… what is the stereotype of people who use pink leopard print?

>thousands of species of freshwater fish
>you only buy about 10 different ones in fish shops and their variants
Fucking why

>>4527426
Algae, planaria, hydra, none of them are actually issues. I've never seen planaria or hydra actually destroy a well dialed in shrimp colony. You might see like a 10-20% productivity hit but if they're in optimal breeding conditions they'll 100% outbreed the attrition. And hydra shouldn't be a problem in a shrimp tank, I only notice them go wild when I feed tons of nano live food like live baby brine

You'll never actually get 100% of the algae with a dip that won't also kill the plant and if you can't get 100% it's not worth trying imo. You just need to manage lights and nutrients to avoid major blooms. If you're doing actual soil thin layer with a thick cap is the way to go to avoid nutrient pollution in the water column which is a big issue with these tanks and the main reason I avoid them.

>>4527682
There are thousands of species available though yeah if you're looking at petco it's only hundreds. But common species are usually common because they're well adapted to aquarium life and generally appealing. Goldfish, bettas, koi, and several of the livebearers are all domesticated fish that display all of the traits of domestication we see in other vertebrates so they end up being more popular because they *literally* evolve to be more cute and appealing to us even without us manually selecting for it. Apparently there's some measure of the distance between the eyes, can't remember the name, that is measurably different between domestic and wild species of bettas and livebearers because we find more 'human' looking proportions more appealing.

>>4527426
Piggybacking off of this, I've always used hydrogen peroxide. About a tablespoon (~15ml) for a 5 gallon quarantine tank will get pretty much everything.
The primary caveat is that you can't have ANY livestock in that tank. I also wouldn't leave the plants in there for more than an half an hour.
You can rinse the plants off afterwards but from what I understand hydrogen peroxide fully breaks down into water over the course of 24 hours.

Any apisto breeders with opinions on if you should make the hole in their cave big enough for the male to get inside or not? I've seen people confirm the male can fertilize eggs without getting inside, and apparently it makes the female feel safer?

>>4527697
Do you rarely see any unique fish because nobody breeds them?

I found a red stringy worm in my pond, is it a parasite?

>>4527768
I wouldn't say I rarely see unique fish. Unless your definition of unique is warped by having seen tons of weird fish on youtube that 30 years ago you'd never have a chance to see unless your local fish store took a chance on ordering them from a catalog. Aquarium Co-op admits their selection is *mostly* basic bitch beginner fish and they get in weird stuff i've never seen all of the time:

https://forum.aquariumcoop.com/topic/32832-new-fish-for-the-week-529-64/

they post weekly updates on the stuff

But yeah popularity plays a big role as does the difficulty in breeding them and supply side effects also help. Non-specialty livebearers sell for pennies because it's more difficult to get them to not breed than it is to get them to breed. Because they sell for pennies a lot of people keep them. Because a lot of people keep them and they have short lifespans, every store stocks tons of them.

So I have like a bucket inside my pond to sperate the fry from the bigger fish and I noticed some mosquito larvae swimming around the bucket with the smaller fry. Will they be ok?

>>4527826
mosquito larvae just filter microscopic stuff out of the water

>>4527848
is that bad or good? Don't my fry need to eat those?

>>4527797
>'oddballs'
>still common stuff

>>4527903
where are you shopping where a schoutedeni puffer is 'common'? Like what do you want, a fish store where they have some random pleco looking thing that hasn't even been described by science or assigned an L number yet? Because the ship sailed on that in the 90s.
Our perception of common has been warped by being able to buy online.

>>4527797
Wtf is that elephant nose fish

>>4527869
Ideally the fry would eat the larvae, but they are probably too small.
I find it unlikely that they meaningfully compete with eachother. Maybe drop in fry food every now and then.

>>4527945
https://www.aquariumsource.com/elephant-nose-fish/
it is LITERALLY an elephant nose fish.

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AHHH BROS. He went directly for the outflow, he's gotten too smart. Been there for hours, he's addicted... don't think I'll see him move ever again.

>>4527917
They're uncommon variants of common fish kept in aquariums, I should have elaborated.

>>4527982
Is that a bamboo shrimp or vampire shrimp? It looks like a vampire. If it is, it will still grow quite a bit and become too heavy for the plant.

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>>4527986
>variants
They're different fucking species. This isn't Pokémon.

>>4527991
It practically is desu, especially bettas, people collect and fight them.

my ph is below 7. no co2.
I've never done that before

>>4527986
I mean, if you're gonna go down that route there are what, like a dozen orders that contain freshwater fish and within these orders the body plan is more or less the same for 99% of the species. Almost everything kept in the hobby is some kind of teleost. The most common outside of this order are probably some kind of ray or bichir

If you want to see someone who has a great collection of non-teleost fish the eel pit guy on youtube has a massive cistern full of them. Gars, sturgeon, paddlefish (I think, idk might be in an aquarium and not the pit), etc. Of course the issue with almost all of these is they cannot be bred in captivity and/or they require truly massive water volumes to keep and massive amounts of food as well. I think Corey once said he spent like $300/month or something retarded to feed his two mbu puffers and they're "only" like two foot fish. The smallest sturgeon gets to be about 3 feet, you're probably looking at a 1,500 gallon tank minimum to keep that thing longterm. The people who do keep stuff like this usually have to keep them in ponds or zoo tier enclosures.

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>>4528017
also outside of this there's also true oddball shit like freshwater sponges but they just aren't really available unless you're self collecting. As far as I know nobody has really propagated them in captivity and they also mostly just look like some kind of gay weird algae. Freshwater inverts outside of the common ones tend to be either very destructive and not conducive to community/planted aquariums or small and highly edible.

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>>4527990
Never knew about vampires.
They seem to have a couple of hefty legs, and mostly blue morphs (although I saw a photo with the exact same colors as mine) this one has them all thin so I think it's a bamboo shrimp unless the store deceived me. He has molted twice in the last ~3 months so I don't think he's too young.

Here's a daytime webm of his discolored pre-molt self next to a white bee for size.

>>4528040
it's a bamboo for sure. I have both in one tank. Their little silly hand movements are different even. Bamboo holds its fans out for much longer I find while the vampire is always returning one to his mouth. My bamboo shrimp figured out a similar lifehack of hanging out on a floating plant near the powerhead and doesn't move much from there. The vampire shrimp is heavily nocturnal and only comes out of his little cave when the light is off or when the floating plants grow in so dense that it's dark.

>>4528040
Yeah, he’s a bamboo shrimp. Color of vampire shrimps depends on the water parameters (they can also be whitish or reddish) but they have 2 big claws-like legs on the front like you said.
I hear bamboo shrimp are hard to feed and starve to death, though. Although people say the same about vampire shrimps and mine just eats pellets it picks off the ground.

>>4528044
>>4528046
Vampires are better capable of scavenging off the ground because they have slightly sturdier fan-hands than bamboos. One vampire of mine always parks itself on the Anubias right underneath my Seachem Tidal while the other always hides in the cave right underneath. Methinks an undercurrent from the Tidal flows through there so it's no worse for wear.

>>4528033
>gay weird algae
kek

should I worry if a cherry shrimp dies in my tank or will it just become food?

I've been thinking of getting a bamboo shrimp too, they just look cool. Is there any special care requirements? Does my tank need to have alot of algae?

>grow beautiful carpeting grass
>fucking corys dig it all up

>>4528074
If nothing has picked it apart within a day, I'd pull it out so you don't get a massive ammonia spike.

>>4528033
There’s the bryozoa me and the other anon were talking about as well. They are cool.
>>4528074
Nah, don’t worry. Even it it doesn’t get eaten the ammonia spike won’t be too relevant. About the same as the stupid moths that drown themselves in my tank.
>>4528075
They starve to death as they grow in size. There’s an anon from this thread who tells a horror story about how he tried keeping one long term with all the proper infrastructure imaginable and still fail.

>>4528075
good water flow, perching spots, and powdered food that they filter out of the water

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>>4527713
also not this anon but related, anyone breed borelli? I decided to try again. This is my setup. Sorry for glare.
pH - 6.8
Hardness - bout middle of the road
Temp - About 70 freedoms

1. Do I need to genocide the snails or will momma fish be able to protect her eggs against them? Can I add cherry shrimp as a mix of cleanup crew/live babies for food or will momma fish not be able to defend against them?
2. Do I need to heat? I bought a heater just in case I need to raise temps for therapeutic/breeding purposes, but do not generally run heaters.
3. Will fry take to powdered fry food or tiny shit like freeze dried tubifex or should I culture microworms/vinegar eels? From what I've researched, after about 1 week they will take to live baby brine which is my fry food of choice.

I previously tried in a 10 and they never spawned and after about a year the male got some kind of bacterial infection and rapidly declined and died.

>>4528088
I've never bred them personally but I could attempt some of your questions.
1 Cichlids like eating snails and will probably eat any that are small enough to fit in their mouth, they would definitely eat any shrimp even amanos.
2 Most breeders keep them above 78f/26c I would definitely add a heater even when not breeding.
3 Not much knowledge on this unfortunately, if you're not hurting for time you can always try a powder at first and if they die off you know for the future.

I would guess temp was the main issue if you had the last pair that low. They're from really warm waters in nature and large breeders have been keeping them even warmer for generations.

>>4528081
if my mystery snails are sucking on it should I just leave them alone?

>>4528082
>They starve to death as they grow in size. There’s an anon from this thread who tells a horror story about how he tried keeping one long term with all the proper infrastructure imaginable and still fail.
what the fuck how? Aren't they just filter feeders?

>>4528130
>Aren't they just filter feeders?
Yeah. And that’s the problem. Naturally they live in habitats with a high amount of water turbidity caused by organic material. Aquariums have nowhere as much floating particles to keep them fed.
It’s the same reason why you can’t keep shit like barnacles in saltwater tanks, and why it’s hard to keep clams, feather stars and the likes.

>>4528106
Borelli are from the Rio Paraguay basin and are more of a subtropical or even temperate fish so they are kind of an exception to normal apisto rules. I have heard various stories of people who have bred them from people who had them breeding at room temperature, 70 or 72, and then people who bred them at 76 or 78. Also apparently more hard water tolerant than amazonian apistogramma. Borelli have been found in water as low as 40 degrees in the wild and I know people who live in California can keep them outside year round. I kept them alive at 66-72 degrees for over a year so I'm fairly sure that temperature is at least tolerable.

As for eating adult shrimp, the 10 gallon I had them in for about a year saw constant cherry shrimp population growth. This is a very tiny and fairly placid apisto, males are about 2.5'' at adult size. The amano shrimp i have in that tank right now is definitely the largest creature in the tank.

>>4528130
Depending on how you keep your tank there may not be much edible particulate in the water.

>>4528143
I did say attempt lol. Most of what I've been looking into has been cacatuoides and I assumed it would carry over.
It's always weird when people say they have calm peaceful cichlids, really wonder what I'm doing different. I've added a 2 inch blue acara to a 75g and found him deepthroating an amano almost as long as him the next morning (I apparently missed one when moving them)

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>The Australian oyster blenny, Omobranchus anolius, which is believed to have been introduced into New Zealand from Australia (see distribution map), is reportedly preying on local barnacles and eating their penises.

>Sparkling gourami getting aggressive over the danios tearing ass around the tank in perma-fuck mode
Good luck, little one. They didn't even skip a beat while I was netting them to another tank.

>>4528151
I think the shrimp issue comes down to individual personality and environment a lot more than people think. For example I have two bettas who have both completely genocided their cherry shrimp, I had a paradise fish, which is bigger and supposedly much more shrimp aggressive and he had no impact on the shrimp population. I had odessa barbs in a 20 long with a large number of shrimp and they saw a few casualties but survived and outbred it. I moved the same odessas to a freshly planted 30 gallon and they killed every single shrimp within 3 days. Once that tank grew in more and the barbs were all adult sized I added some more shrimp as an experiment, and picked blue velvets instead of red cherry because they would be better camouflaged against the black substrate and background. I am now watching them breed in that tank and they're still thriving 6 months later.

>API and Salifert tests give completely different nitrite readings in the same cycling tank

I'm going back to fish-in cycling next time. This is getting silly.

>>4528088
Your female apisto isn't stuck in there with snails. They're stuck in there with her. My female apisto is generally submissive and avoids other fish, but when she's breeding she turns into fucking Doomguy.

>>4528211
Can confirm. Had one female kill her sister and partner, then started to turn on the pearl gouramis.

I'm about to move into a new place and figured since I'd have place for an aquarium I'd get one; maybe a 40 or 50gal

So my question js about the population. I was thinking of getting 4-5 Koi, 1 Jumbo Fancy, and 1 Pleco.

You think that might be too much for a tank of those size

>>4528247
Alternatively I was considering a shrimp tank

>>4528247
You could do 4-5 fancy goldfish in a tank that size, maybe less if you don't want to be tied down every week with a water change. Koi just get too damn big for aquariums even if they take a while to get that way.
Skip the pleco, a group of goldfish will eat more algae that a pleco ever does and they prefer different temperatures.

>>4528247
Buy some Kohaku/tricolor swordtails and a bristlenose pleco.

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>>4527713
Nah man, sometimes it can annoy or confuse the male when he can't get in with her or see her leading to him swimming off and her trying to woo him again.
>>4528088
1. No, snails are fine.
2. Maybe? I only run one in winter but having a constant temp around 26c seems to help
3. Hikari first bites & baby brine are the way to go. Microworm cultures are easy enough but my fish are picky.

Good luck anons, I hope they spawn like crazy.

>>4528130
Mine are doing fine but the high flow sections are pretty cloudy, I have a fucking ton of plants and I think that plus the poor rinse job I did on the flourite combine to ensure there's plenty for filter feeders.

My friend has a lot of koi in an aquarium and while they're a manageable size now I figure once they mature and get bigger the tank won't support them anymore so I was wondering if anyone knows how I could donate them once they do

Do fish get stressed if the back of the tank isn't covered?

>>4528310
Depends on the fish. Some fish like a darker, covered area, some don't give two shits and get used to it. IMO, don't look too far into it.

How feasible is a saltwater tank with anemone and clownfish? How hard is it to do, expensive, tank size?

>>4528138
so it's not a good idea to have them in a 15 gallon?

>>4528156
>For example I have two bettas who have both completely genocided their cherry shrimp
aren't cherry shrimp too big for their mouths?

>>4528299
how long have you had yours? So more plants = more food for them?

>>4528359
4 or 5 months, they've both molted a couple times at least, and I've seen them shit so they're eating.

If I have some algae growing in a bucket of water I had outside can I just take that and throw it in my aquarium for my shrimp or fish?

>>4528296
just gave them their inaugural water change. The tank had like 20ppm nitrate I wanted to dump. The one female survived the hose water when I moved that tank assuming she was dead so I figued they'd all be fine especially considering this is may hose water versus november hose water.

>>4528357
They have teeth and can bite shrimp to death and nibble on them. I don't think they usually eat the adults, just kill them.

>>4528352
Clownfish are the platys/goldfish of saltwater, very easy fish. There are several types of anenomes that are pretty simple though anenomes can be kind of dangerous in that if you kill them they can spike ammonia very rapidly. They can also move and have a habit of death jumping into powerheads. Clownfish will also shack up with several kinds of soft coral including pulsing xenia and green star polyp which are so easy to grow that most high level saltfags consider them weeds.

Another classic small tank combo is a goby/pistol shrimp.

>>4527768
If people breed a lot of a fish it no longer is unique. Neon tetra is a pretty unique fish from the amazon forest but since it is bred a lot it is considered common

>>4528082
I was planning to set up a tank with a huge diy filter with no mechanical filter to keep those but it seems like the tiny sulawesi filterfeeding shrimp is available in my country now. I’m looking for information on them but it is pretty scarce. I feel like the attempts to breed them failed since I see some videos with babies and then people stop posting videos.

>>4528357
>>4528399
Some female guppies can eat adult dwarf shrimp. It is more about personality than size.

>>4528437
most of the filter shrimp can't be practically bred in captivity iirc. Those ones are the most based filter shrimp though because they fling their hands around like little italians.

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>>4528296
Took some more photos so I'm not posting the same image over and over. Please excuse my phone camera.

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>>4528457
Always lurking

>>4528398
leave it for mosquitoes and feed those to your fish

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>>4528458
nice 'gramma
this is my old one who dropped dead on me, this pic was like 2 weeks before i found him gasping on the substrate. Little boy in the new setup is too young to look pretty. Just sliced my finger open smushing some snails for him and his girlfriends to eat. I hope the older lady doesn't hurt him after the /ss/.

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>>4528399
>There are several types of anenomes that are pretty simple though anenomes can be kind of dangerous in that if you kill them they can spike ammonia very rapidly.
>Clownfish will also shack up with several kinds of soft coral including pulsing xenia and green star polyp which are so easy to grow that most high level saltfags consider them weeds.
I was just thinking of like the classic kinda ones. Basically I just want to make a tank that looks like the scene from Finding Nemo. The greenstar does look cool though, if it's easy enough I might just do that. I'm probably too retarded for the tentacle ones.

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Anyone have any experience with the new micro crabs that are popping up now? They seem kinda cool but I don't see the worth getting them over shrimp.

>>4528477
thai micro crabs are fucking gay.
>tiny as fuck
>boring looking and gay
>hide all of the time
enjoy only seeing molts for like a year then it dies without breeding. If you want actually cool freshwater crabs that can work in community tanks try pom pom crabs.

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Collected a ton of marcoalgae for native salt tank. It looks fucking amazing rn, but do you think it will last? I set up a better light for the seaweed and fertlized with easygreen if that helps

>>4528468
Thanks. He was beautiful, looking forward to seeing your new guy grow. I'm thinking of going some elizabethea or sp. alto tapiche when I get some space/an open tank.
>>4528479
10/10 anon, looks awesome. Really got me wanting to do something similar.

>>4528479
no clue but i love macroalgae, keep us posted. One of my "one of these days i'm gonna do it" tank ideas is macroalgae with salt adapted guppies. Personally I like it a lot more than coral and it also fits in a lot better with my home's aesthetic. I think saltwater tanks look better in a home that has a very clean and modern look, or one that gaudymaxxes. I like a lot of natural wood, earth tones and overall 'homey' looking stuff. Frankly if I had 70s tier wood paneling I'd probably be completely happy. Fluorescent coral tanks clash with that.

Can you add plants after a tank's established? I.E. I'm two months into this tank and I wanna add some new hardscape and a java fern, would that throw anything out of balance?

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>>4528474
Put... Put your shrimp in it.

>>4528534
Do it. Sometimes, new plants will 'melt' or 'die', but unless it literally disappears it should kill off the old leaves and regrow new ones better suited to your tank/lighting. It will do nothing to the tank parameters, except consume a tiny bit more nitrates and trace.

Java fern needs the rhyzome exposed to light and will happily allow itself to be glued onto hardscape in lower light areas. Toptip.

Do kuhli loaches dig up plants?

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>>4528549
Depends how deep you plant them. They snoof around the substrates and may inadvertently do so if you've planted them 1/32" deep.

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My community tank with new lighting

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And I'm freeeeeeee
FREE FLOOOOOOOOATIN'

>>4528044
>>4528046
>>4528055
interesting.

I feed the aquarium a single blend of pellets (for the green neons) with BacterAE, to keep the film in the tank.
I measure whether I'm over or underfeeding by looking at my otocinclus stomachs, because when I got them they were starving with 2mm wide bellies and after a couple days of eating the first algae they got BLOATED with over 1cm width, giving me both extremes to compare to. If the tank needs a boost I drop a different blend of shrimp king complete and snowflakes for all the bottom feeders, but it's rare, about once every other week or less.

No way to know if the bamboo shrimp will die I guess.

>>4528629
He has seen the light.
What clay did you use in your hardscape again?

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Btw what are these gnats? They are tiny yellow-ish things and leave silk(?) on top of floating plants, which I thought was mold for a while.

>>4528652
FIMO Professional black with slate bits attached (just pressed it on before baking), plus siliconed slate gravel.
I advise against the Professional line unless you have a pasta roller, wish for carpal tunnel or work in a 40c+ environment. In any case place it betwixt your ass cheeks for 30mins to warm the block before shaping it.

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There is so much duckweed that underneath the surface is dark because they block the light. Is this too much duckweed? What's a way I can make a sort of divider so there's a hole for light?

>>4528685
Airline tubing. You can plug it into itself to make a floating loop, or I guess rig it up other more complicated ways if you want for different dividers. But duckweed is a tiny bastard that might slip under it. Probably will work though, definitely works for all other floaters.

>>4528629
Protips: hold your phone further back and zoom in. Holding it just at the threshold of its minimum distance to focus is going to exacerbate the difficulty it is having autofocusing on a small, moving object. Rest at least one edge of the phone on a table or something instead of holding it freehand because this will also cause it to jiggle more. Third, if the object is too hard to focus on, tap on the screen to focus on a nearby object that's the same distance away.

Cool looking scape, btw.

>>4528685
The airline tubing will work but just get used to scooping it out every week or two. That's what you do with floaters - they're a nutrient outlet that's quicker than a water change.

>>4528711
duckweed is also edible. embrace it. you're a farmer now.

>>4528569
how often do they dig around? if it's gravel do they still try?

>>4528711
I've never been a fan of airline tubing rings as, unless you make them small, they never quite get perfectly flat, even with heating and flattening, and often warp with time.

>>4528685
3D printed stuff floats if you have a printer. Like I stated above, if you're trying to section off large sections for light, airline tubing just doesn't cut it. I've used this in the past and it works great:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1080391207/aquarium-floating-plant-corral-including

>>4528479
Macroalgae tend not to be too difficult to keep. Usually if it melts away, it's because it's in a sump with inadequate flow. In a display it's generally not an issue, however be aware that like a gazillion things will try to eat it from inverts to fish.

>>4528474
>>4528352
My first saltwater tank was a spare 20G with a RBTA and two clownfish, but be aware that it is difficult for many to keep anemone in new tanks.

Also be aware that clowns being hosted in anything is more a benefit to the clown than the anemone or coral. Clowns can and do irritate and kill coral and even anemone that aren't big and healthy enough. Once an anemone is well-established, they can benefit from clowns, but a lot of anemone are sold too small for that.

If you're in the DMV (US) area, there's TONS of people who have them available through facebook or craigslist or the local clubs (myself included).

>fish swim into pump outlet
>shrimp swim into pump outlet
What compels animals to surf into glass walls like this?

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>>4528760

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>>4528685
What you need to do is get two suction cups and tie fishing line connecting them and put them in your pond/tank/tub as a floating divider. Leave enough slack for them to bend. Over time, toss out some plants or use them to fertilize or feed something else.

If my new planted tank is a month old and I'm detecting very low nitrites and no nitrates, should I assume it's still cycling or is it safe to say that nitrates are being kept at 0 by the plants?
That was the reason for me to try doing a planted tank, less bucket-hauling for water changes, but I figured I'd at least see some nitrates on the scale at some point to be sure. LFS just got some really nice tetras in and I'd like to start livestock today.

>>4528867
Honestly my man, I don’t measure. That’s the best part about a planted tank, you really don’t need to in most cases. Just scrub the algae down and do an occasional water change. What kind of filtration do you run?

>>4528875
Hang on back power filter with some filter padding. The hardware is new and it came with one of those "activated carbon" cartridges, gonna keep the padding and replace the cartridge with some regular sponge once it starts falling apart.
I've had some ghost shrimp living in the tank without issue for at least a week and the plants are all growing or budding new leaves so everything seems ideal to add some new stock.

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Has anyone added pond water with lots of microorganisms to their tank? I want to drink father fish's koolaid and try it but I fear parasites.

>topfin has live plants
>snail free
>add some anubias nana to my tank
>snails
FUCKING PETSTOP

>>4528867
Any nitrites means it's not "fully cycled", zero Nitrates are probably due to the plants absorbing the small amounts produced.

Also fyi, shrimp ignore nitrites entirely, but for fish it's way more acutely and rapidly toxic than ammonia, though still is dependent on the temp and PH.

>>4528684
White fly. Agricultural pest.
>>4528685
Glue 2 pieces of airline tubing stacked together in a circle and let it float. You can have several “windows” like that.

>>4528913
Pond/bladder snails are harmless. I’ve grown to enjoy them.

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Shrimp

Next house I move into I’m turning the pool into a koi pond and I’m going to keep koi, goldfish, cichlids and macrobrachium shrimp.
A pool filter is basically the same thing as a regular filter, right? Maybe too small?

>>4529021
And yes. I’m going to still use it for swimming.

>>4528752
RBTA?

How do you go about it then if clowns will irritate small anemones? Like do you add the clowns last after the anemone has established?

>>4528786
damn that is a clear pond. Is that driftwood or rocks? What kind of plants are in there? Are you using a filter or just a bubbler?

I've seen some people use those filter ceramic rings as gravel, is it a good idea? They just house good bacteria don't they?

>>4529034
I usually see that as a way to cycle a new tank fast by adding used rings to a new tank.
If you like the look I'm sure shrimp babies would love hiding in them but a bit ugly for my taste.

>>4529034
You can use anything as substrate. When I was a kid I used marbles on my goldfish/gambusia/angelfish tank.

>>4527418
okay please help me i'm retarded and new to setting up a new tank.
all i had to do to finish all of the physical components of my tank was to add substrate to it but... i thought washing it was optional.
now my water is fucking cloudy as fuck.
i did like a 75% water change already and it's STILL cloudy.
help please, I just want the water to be clear again.

>>4529151
just let it sit you retard, it'll clear up on it's own.

>>4529151
What the other anon said. Be patient. Let it sit. 75% water change is just making more of a mess of things.

>>4528518
>salt adapted guppies
Why not try native fish? There are so many different types and collecting is as easy as visiting the tide pools
>be aware that like a gazillion things will try to eat it from inverts to fish.
I noticed that they do sometimes. I have an baby urchin in there even. So far everything sticks to eating the dying or loose pieces

how much should I be feeding my betta? Is 2-3 blood worms a day too much or little?

>>4529161
how long should i let it sit for? should i keep the filter on as well?
i've been letting it sit (without the filter on) for the past couple of days but the dirt hasn't been settling to the bottom of the tank, it's stayed clouding up the water.

>>4529034
You can if you want, but as substrate they will be immediately gummed up with surface bacterial film and utterly useless for their intended purpose.
That said, you could do far worse for a substrate. It would just be cost prohibitive.

>>4528890
Used to have a 55gal drum I kept outside that invariably grew algae, various water critters, duckweed despite my tanks never having it in them ever. Used to suck a couple litres of it up every other week to faux-seed my tanks with a bit of extra scratch. Sparkling gouramis loved it. No idea what level of risk there is for undesirable organisms. I say give it a shot, but limit it to one tank.

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>LFS has taken $1500 off the last Waterbox 180.5 they have left

just put a 60 liter rated sponge filter in my 500 liter pond with two goldfish.

How many jumbo goldfish can I put in a 20gal tank?

I don't have much room for a tank but I want at least 5 fish that are nice to look at. Assuming the Gal/Inch rule I assume just one

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smaller living spaces are more intimate

>>4529254
>goldfish
>20g
don't do it, man. goldfish get big.

>>4529254
>just one
Maximum 1.

>>4529255
Looks like shit.

>4529290
>i have an opinion!
kek

Who are you quoting?

^schizo

>>4529192
Two or three bites of food is good. I'd recommend getting another kind of food as an exclusive bloodworm diet will turn your betta into a fatass. They're best given as a treat a few times a week.

My frogbit is giving me the opposite problem to duckweed- perfect horizontal growth but the roots are growing way too deep for my liking. Is there a way to get them to stop? They don't seem like something I can just trim, although I've heard they stay short if you fertilize the water. I do have the option of just taking them out and only keeping the water spangles but that's not ideal.

>>4529344
post pics

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>>4529347
I swear the tank looks better in person other than a bunch of dead plant stuff in one part.

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what is this?

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>>4529386
It's only been a week and the growth already looks really nice from the top.

>>4529386
>>4529389
do have any fish in your fish tank?

>>4529391
because maybe some fish might eat those unwanted roots

>>4529387
I think common name is sea robin? might be a different species but similar movement.

>>4528883
Cool. Activated carbon works for about 30 days then hits the limit of its absorption and actually just leeches bad crap into your tank. You’re better off without activated carbon.

>>4529391
No just some shrimp with more on the way
Some of the plants straight up died so I delayed my fish purchases to let me drain most of the water and replant stuff.
Also the tank is ~2 weeks old so to my understanding not fully cycled yet.
>>4529392
Oh, that makes sense. Problem is none of the species I'm getting (platies and dwarf gourami) are inclined to do that.

>>4529393
>sea robin
thanx. i found this:
https://www.thesprucepets.com/facts-about-the-flying-gurnard-dactyloptena-orientalis-2925141

and they can get to 16 inches which is too big for my tank.

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>>4529398
Platys nibble on roots but probably won't do much to frogbit.

Have you considered our lord and savior?

>>4529196
never turn the filter off.

What else do you have in the tank? Do you have plants or anything?

cloudy water is perfectly normal when first setting up a tank, don't worry about it.

>>4529201
eh never mind then, I just had some left over and I saw some guy using it as substrate which I thought was clever. But like the other guy said it does look kinda ugly.

>>4529399
I remember my first time catching one of these.
They make a fucked up noise, too.

>>4529341
I think I might have spoiled my Betta. he doesn't really touch the food I sprinkle in for the corys and shrimp.

>>4529397
What does AC adsorb and why does it leach it back out?

>>4529415
I remember going flounder fishing with my dad as a kid.
Multiple trips but we never caught a flounder just those fuckers. They had a nice bright red color to them.

>bought Red Tiger Lotus Bulb from GGA
>stick it in my tank
>nothing for a few weeks
>worry it might have died
>dig it up to check on it like a dumbass
>slight growth, and I separated the root from the bulb
did I kill it or is there any hope to save it?

>>4529412
i don't have any plants. i have a few small rocks here and there, my two sponge filters, and a heater. along with my substrate. but that's pretty much it.

>>4529421
i only went river fishing with my dad and we caught carp. they were inedible and we're not allowed to throw them back in the water so we had to smash then on the head with a hammer to kill them and then we buried them.

>>4529434
What a fun hobby

>>4529434
Aside from private property, our local environmental body more or less condones bashing those cunts on the head if spotted while kayaking. Big messy fuckers destroying local habitat.

>>4529261
What about Glofish?

>>4529418
AC is generally used for smelly water, such as getting rid of that sulfurous smell when you're using shitty fertilizer. Also clears up the water over time if you're too lazy to boil your wood before putting it in.
Chemical filtration has no effect on water quality or pH.

>>4529254
20 is ok for one goldfish, no other fish. If you want a group of goldfish a 55 is what you should be looking at.

>>4529429
put some plants and a few snails in, it'll be better for your tank and might clear it faster

>>4529434
can't you feed them to dogs or something?

>>4529486
we are cat people so we don't own dogs and i don't know if fish is in a dog's natural diet. it might make them sick (but i don't know).

>>4529434
>>4529486
>>4529487
Pretty sure you can actually just eat them yourself

>>4529418
It only works for so long and after that just leaches stuff back into the tank. You have you change it often.

>>4529415
I’ve caught those from shore (in a brackish bay) and from a fishing boat. They’re usually bright red. They’re viewed as the raccoons of the sea and not worth eating.

>>4529403
What is this creature called, I want it.

>>4529492
Corect. Any carp can be eaten if it’s big enough. You bake it in an oven with white wine, lemon, and butter. Delicious.

>>4529485
i have only a very thin layer of substrate, is this adequate for any kind of plant? or would i have to add more to my tank for anything to thrive.

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>>4529033
Thanks! It uses a sponge filter that’s solar powered so it’s on from 7am to 8pm. Bottom is dirt with pea gravel on top. Rocks are dragonstone and there’s one piece of mopani wood. Some anubias, Christmas moss, ludwigia, frogbit, water spangles, and red root floaters. The fish are white cloud mountain minnows and ricefish. I have not figured out what kind of snails to get.

>>4529509
what are you going for in your tank? Personally I like the soil+ gravel/sand combo for the most natural kind of bottom. Growing plants helps keeps the tank clean and they'll absorb the fish shit.

>>4529509
Many plants don’t need substrate at all.

Anubias, moss, Java ferns, any floating plant…. None of those need substrate. Also many leggy/vertical plants like hogwort and ludwigia would do fine in your tank.

>>4529504
Florida Flagfish. I see them pretty frequently at the nearby LFS

How do you usually move plants that have well developed roots?
I'm moving an anubias hastifolia that's been in the same spot for about a year and a half and the roots are almost a foot long. Do i just kind of ball them up and shove it under the substrate? It feels like a shame to chop them back.

>>4529519
Even if you could meticulously replant the roots in new substrate, you'd want to trim them back because the roots will grow differently in the new environment and the current root structure might be wasteful there.

>>4529523
That makes sense.
It has different types of roots, I assume the ones that are covered in tiny hair are the more important ones? It almost looks like they're covered in cotton, pretty cool.

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>5gal, planted, cherry shrimp only, never a single nitrite/ammonia problem in its 4 months
>then suddenly 2/7 die within one week
>the only water param that's off is chlorine, which suddenly shows 1.5ppm??? instead of its usual 0
>do a water change, throw in sodium thiosulfate tablets
>also throw in a bunch of pic-related
>few days later, all fine
>then have to leave for a 2-week trip
>come back
>only one shrimp remaining, the other 5 died (corpses gone)

Did Tetra kill my shrimp? Or was it... me?

>>4529399
nice I want one now

>>4529493
Yeah but what does it do exactly.

Are there any guides to installing an Aqueon hang on filter to a Truvu acrylic tank?

Bought a 60gallon Truvu and the Aqueon Quietflow 75 secondhand but can't fit the filter into the specific slot on the Truvu aquarium.

Some weird shit happens in my tank at night

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>>4529598
Fuck

>>4529542
it has microscopic pores in it that give a very high surface area and then stuff sticks to it. they even give it to people/animals as a treatment for ingesting certain poisons. you can always read the wikipedia article about anything you're interested in
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activated_carbon

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>>4529625
Thanks - don't know why I didn't just do that in the first place.
Kinda thrw me snake oil vibes on account of always hearing people say 'it just magicks stuff right out - idk what though, but it does!"

Sorry if this is offtopic but I don't know where to ask as I have lurked multiple boards and threads and this is the most related thread I could find.
How good is a job as a diving instructor/commercial diver? does anyone here have a job like that? I'm going to get my open water diver certificate soon and I want to make a living out of it

>>4529642
doubt you'll get any answers here, sorry. this place is mostly hobbyists with home aquariums
hate to say it but you might have better luck lurking somewhere like reddit

>>4529598
Get kulhi loaches and things'll get even weirder.

>>4529645
yeah I know I just wanted to try my luck here
maybe I could make a thread about animal related jobs?

>>4529642
Honestly, it's probably one of those things where to get the best perspective from those that _actually_ do it, is to be that nosey asshole and ask all the questions during one of those double-weekend training deals locally. At least that way, you've got your foot in the door.

Been thinking about it myself. Grandaddy was a frogman during WWII and ended up retiring while still spearfishing and clam diving for the morning catch to bring back and cook at their fish and chip shop.
I fucking hate breathing out of a regulator tho lol. Best of luck.

>>4529652
Yeah, it's something I've been doing and got some good answers, but I also want a different perspective from users here because you usually get a more raw and honest opinion.

>>4528442
Yes, the Sulawesi one seems great and I would love to breed them but they have been available for a while now and I haven’t heard much about people successfully breeding them. So even if it is theoretically possible to breed then in captivity but they are so fragile that it is unlikely to get consistent success on that then the big ones are better in the long term. They have a wider range so wild extraction doesn’t affect them as much and live longer so they will stay in my aquarium for many years. Being able to breed dwarf shrimp is obligatory for me specially for these ones who are hard to find.

>>4529625
Always curries my goat seeing the pricing of activated carbon of unknown spec in the fish hobby.
Working light-volume bulk supply of consumables in the petro/air purity/refining sector, we source 4mm pellet 4x8 AC for about $1.50/kg and that's only by the ton. Don't get me started on trace elements, fucking $100 for 1L of solution with 30g of actual elements within.

>>4529721
I think I added an extra zero there, looks like 3g of elements with flourish trace.

>>4529649
You could try the maritime thread on /n/, or maybe make a thread on /out/.

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>>4529676
All the filter feeders have a brackish breeding stage afaik, hence why they haven't been captive bred - and they're essentially water roaches in the wild so people don't bother, see Amano shrimp.

The good news is they all live 2-5+ years if well treated (amano over a decade isn't unheard of, anecdotally) so they're not often needed to be replaced once they get going.

That reminds me, I definitely should get a vampire shrimp now that my pH has leveled around 7.6 and the bamboo pair seem happy. Couldn't hurt with all the plant bits floating about - nobody warned me that spiral Val sheds leaves like a husky, which then quickly disintegrate.

>>4529021
>>4529023
Thats fucking BASED, add a fly river turtle for good measure :3

>>4529776
iirc the sulaweisi ones are part of lake ecology there, think they're 100% freshwater but information is very sparse on them in general. I think like the other sulaweisi shrimp they make shrimplets. My guess is the struggle in getting enough particulate to feed tons of filter feeding babies is a major reason there isnt much breeding. also the fact that they arent as colorful as other caridina.

Does anyone have experience with moving aquariums?
I was thinking of picking up two five-gallon buckets with lids, one for the fish and the other for gravel + hardscape. It's only a thirty-minute drive to the new place and I could have the tank set back up within about two hours, it should be fine as long as they're in that established tank water, right?

>>4529510
what's the brand of that solar sponge filter called? I might need to get one. I didn't know ludwigia could get that red, need to pick some up

>>4528082
>They starve to death as they grow in size. There’s an anon from this thread who tells a horror story about how he tried keeping one long term with all the proper infrastructure imaginable and still fail.
is it ethical to get one still if they'll starve to death? Will giving them fry food work?

Are green neon tetras worth getting over regular ones just because they're smaller? Or is it not that much of a difference?

>>4529943
Ethics rarely apply to animals, and most definitely not in this case. If it’s moral or not, depends on where you live, I guess. But yeah, you basically have to spot feed them.

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Dutch aquascape anon here, just finished the pipe work on the 23 gallon setup. What do you think? Co2 tank goes in next and then I get to pressure test. If I have no leaks, I can order my plants and get to scaping. Designed and 3d printed a bunch of parts for this tank

>>4529776
>All the filter feeders have a brackish breeding stage afaik, hence why they haven't been captive bred
Most of the commercial shrimp out there have a brackish stage and are captive bred on mass. And I’m pretty sure most amano shrimps are captive bred nowadays. I guess there’s not enough demand to justify a breeding operation? Which is odd. If they were to breed and sell caridina dennerli shrimp I’m sure it would be a major hit.

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Glass lid brace prototypes, will be printing in clear PETG.

>>4529997
I would put a crazy sump under there instead but you probably already had the canister

>>4529974
In my experience, the green neons have been hardier and less prone to fighting than regular neons. They have less red on them, but their stripes look Star Wars laser-green when you see them from a higher angle.

>>4529981
how long do they live before they start getting too big?

>>4530027
hm, I do kinda prefer their colors too. The local petcos don't carry them though, might have to buy online or look further.

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It's been 3 or 4 months since I said I was going to redo half my tank. I finally got my new plants due to the most bullshit spring I've ever seen and the job is done.
You never realize how many plants you have until you start moving all of them because holy shit I didn't know I had so many anubias.

>>4530078
Plant pots are good hiding spots for fish, but what are the best natural ones?

>>4530086
I tried multiple times to get moss to grow on them but no luck. Now I'm playing the long game of allowing algae to cover them.
You could also do a coating of silicone and roll them around in substrate but I think that looks a bit weird.
Just stacking rocks is always an alternative as well.

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>>4529344
Never mind, my ghost shrimp that I got a week ago already had kids and they seem to love hanging around the roots. Obviously hard to see but there's at least 5.
Can I keep them in there or should I figure out a way to put them in my smaller densely planted tank? And do I need to feed them or can just I let them eat plant detritus like their parents.

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>>4530122
2/2
Found an old video of my tank from a few months ago.
I'm so chuffed with how it's come.

>>4530122
panda cories are cute as fuck

>>4530123
>Day 36
>The corydoras have not yet realized that I'm an otocinclus

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>>4530150
There's a single baby in there atm. Watching it grow up makes me want to look into starting a cory breeding project.

>>4530162
Some of my otos used to school with my rasboras when I added them a few months ago. I wish I had a video. Very cute fish.

>>4529940
Sunsbell Solar Pond Pump, Air Pump, Solar Powered Pool Fish Tank Oxygenator Oxygen Aerator Air Pump Pond Kit, for Garden Fish Tank Pool Fishing Pond https://a.co/d/0afTULj

>>4530292
that looks pretty. So you replaced the air stones with a sponge filter or something?

Will a single Hillstream Loach be aright in a 15 gal?

>>4530485
Yep, hygger sponge filter off Amazon. Temps here are hitting the 80s so I’m hopeful the wcmms and ricefish get frisky.

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>>4530568
Here’s a good pic of how to have it set up. Still haven’t figured out a good snail for this tub.

>>4530508
yep. I keep 3 in a 30 and they're nice and chubby. Ideally give them some seasoned (been in water for at least 2-3 months) rocks and especially wood to suck on and if you're not already feeding a specific sinking food, feed them some sinking pellets every so often.

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i'm excited bros

>>4530591
Tissue culture prices are brutal but they usually seem to convert to a new tank better than clippings in my experience.
Hope everything works out for you, that first week when plants decide to hop out of substrate over night can be frustrating.

>>4530591
Goin Dutch?

>>4530591
23 gallon Dutch list
Hygrophila Odora
Rotala SP. Bangladesh
Rotala SP. Walichii
Rotala ramosior Florida
Pogostemon helferi
Cryptocortne wendtii tropica
Echinodorus Tenellus
MICROSORUM PTEROPUS SP. HARDY LEAF
Lilaeopsis brasilaensis
Ludwigia arcuata
Alteranthera Reineckii "Mini"
Rotala macrandra

There’s my list. All ADA tissue cultures aside from the microsorum.

>>4530584
oh wow, you have it on the roof?

Would Mystery snails be alright or would it get too cold/hot?

>>4530589
I have a ton of driftwood in my tank so it should be alright. I just need to find somewhere to buy one.

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seriously this is just all they do all day is gang rape my yellow snail

So I have 15 gallons

currently
5 julli
1 betta
3 mystery snails
1 nerite snail
4 cherry shrimp
lots of plants

I'm thinking of adding 6 green neons to finish it off.

I would like to add 1 hillstream loach and 3 kuhli loachs though, is that too much?

>>4530650
Just upgrade to a bigger tank.

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HELLO SIR ARE YOU HAPPY WITH YOUR MEAL

>>4530663
I don't have the space for a bigger tank

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>>4530668
What does that sentence even mean

>>4527496
<spoiler>test</spoiler>

>>4530689
Sorry fren, I think there's only 2-3 wordfilters and that's it - we barebones here.

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>forgot to boil driftwood before putting it in
>now the water is light amber-colored

Well fug, how do I fix this? I can't very well do a 100% water change

>>4530747
Well either you’re patient and accept having a black water tank for a few weeks/months, or you take the wood out, do a big water change, and leave the wood outside submerged in a bucket for a while.

>>4530747
>>4530811
wouldn't running carbon possibly help?
eg. Seachem MatrixCarbon
it'd suck out all the organics put in the water by the driftwood, clear up the water and make it clear
Seachem Clarity might also work in binding with the molecules

>>4530812
>>4530747
Carbon will fix it pretty quickly, but it's just tannins. You've made fish tea. Doesn't hurt them but usually corresponds to lower ph. Water changes slowly fix it too but carbon will absorb it as it continues to leech, which it will at some low level for many months.

>>4530668
Ok but FYI a 15 gallon tank isn’t big enough for that list of fish, even with plants. What you’re proposing should not be done. You will be wasting your money when the livestock that cannot survive die off.

>>4530822
yeah you at the very least need to cut the cories. the "inch per gallon" rule is bullshit but those both get to about 2.5'' and are relatively chunky fish for their length. More bioload than a similarly long cardinal tetra for example.
The mystery snails also add bioload and aren't very good cleaners, you kinda got a lot going on at the bottom for a 15 gallon without much floorspace. Unless you like snails cut them too, just get a nerite, an amano and whatever cherry shrimp will survive your betta (possibly none, so be ready for that).

If you want a betta and hillstream loach in a 15 I'd do it like this

1 betta (avoid red heavy bettas, they are more aggressive)
1 hillstream loach
8-12 of your favorite 1-1.5'' or less schooler. I recommend green neon tetras, or just normal neon tetras. Be careful with some of the smaller sub 1'' rasboras, bettas can and will eat them.
1 amano shrimp
1 nerite snail
8 cherry shrimp (they will breed anyways, pick dark/muted colors, avoid red if you want the best chance that they won't be munched by your betta, I have had much better luck with blues and greens mixed with anabantids)

>>4530668
>>4530822
I don't agree with this poster that you're way overstocked, but it depends on your filtration and footprint as much as the volume of the tank.

That said, 6 is a shitty small size school for neons or similar schooling fish, and 3 kuhlis will never be seen.

If I were you, I'd either leave it as-is or add the hillstream and/or another 1-3 julii corys, and no other schools. Amano shrimp and/or nerite snails as necessary for algae, but they're basically free adds from a net bioload standpoint.

How accurate are those basic bitch glass thermometers that suction cup to the side of the tank?
I've got a few nerite snails but they're basically always hibernating. My tank's at a constant 74~76 so they can't be freezing, right? Algae's pretty well under control so I put sinking pellets in but they usually just dissolve into debris and I've only seen the shrimp actually eating them.

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Went to a friends house and she had a marine aquarium with both a blue tang and a clownfish

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>>4530955

>>4530955
hecking based NEEEEEMOOOO!!!!!1 tank

>>4530955
are they actually compatible fishes? idk much about reefs
though i heard that clownfish are basically the guppies equivalent there

>>4531014
They shouldn't have too many issues. Clowns usually pick a small territory and defend it while tangs just want to keep swimming non stop.
Tangs in general are really difficult to take care of in small home aquariums, that movie has killed thousands of blue tangs by people buying them and putting them in tiny tanks for their kids.

>>4530955
>>4530958
When taking pictures of marine tanks, adjust the white balance to somewhere much warmer and you'll get much better results (it's the slider that goes from orange to blue, slide it towards orange).

>>4531014
>>4531020
Yes, assuming the tank is correctly sized. The first movie also resulted in a LOT of clownfish sales (and deaths) as well, however it did create a so much demand that R&D was economically viable to figure out how to breed them commercially, which gave rise to all the designer clownfish and clownfish that are much hardier and cheaper for home aquaria in general.

Blue tangs also recently became commercially available captive bred (from Biota), so hopefully someday we can also stop taking them from the wild. But, due to their size requirements, I wager that tangs in general will always have more needless deaths due to irresponsible people.

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>>4531014
They don't have issues, specially considering the Blue Tang is a very territorial species, even attacking other fishes when they're introduced to the aquarium.

like >>4531020 said, the Clownfish was sneaking like at the back of one of the filters of the aquarium, i assumed it was because of a lack of an Anemone but apparently they can live perfectly without one

also, not only Blue Tangs were affected but a shit ton of fish in general, since a lot of kids tried to release their fishes on their toilets

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>>4530822
>>4530841
>>4530862
My filter is for a 20 gal, and it has a large sponge over the suction thing too to get more bacteria.

I don't think it's completely overstocked, the corys have plenty of space and the top is pretty empty with just the betta. I probably could remove one or two of the mystery snails though. The betta is perfectly friendly, doesn't bother the corys or shrimp.

I admit I'm new at this but I mean comparing to other overstocked tanks I think mine looks pretty empty.

I'm perfectly fine with the tanks as it is and can just leave it, but the top area just seems really empty to me.

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>>4531049
they have plenty of hiding places. Probably would never see kuhli loaches if I add them yea, forget about those despite how cool they look.

You guys ever have the autism brain worms tell you to make a new tank?
Mine are saying add another 10 gallon above the one I have and run them together like a sump. Seems like a fun way to have cherry shrimp and snails breed in one and a couple pea puffers in the other.

>>4531057
I wish I could have like a dozen species tanks for oddball fish

>>4531057
i had it for the past few years. Now I've scaled up to 10 tanks which feels like a good amount. I will probably someday condense some of them into larger tanks. I have an empty room in my basement that's like 15x30 that I want to turn into a bar/aquarium gallery.

>>4531057
My cycle is get tank -> overstock it -> move excess stock to new tank -> repeat.

I got some baby synos thinking they're nigriventris, they turned out to be eupterus. Returned all but one, but I want to keep that one and that's another 30 gal at a minimum, 55 if I want to put other stuff in it.

Just found out I had a mulberry tree in my backyard, shrimp stonks going up this fall.

So I completely neglected the water features of my house when I moved in and it's been about a year and I've decided to start maintaining them. There are 2 ponds and only one has a pump and filter and the other is stagnant. The one with running water is about 300 gallons and the stagnant one is similar, but a little smaller. The stagnant one is actually pretty clear probably because I let it dry out completely and I'm working on getting the muck and algae cleaned out of the running one. I'm planning on getting some mosquitofish since they are apparently pretty hardy but I do have a huge frog living in one of the ponds. Will the frog eat my fish?

>>4531212
>Will the frog eat my fish?
Probably. You could try getting adult goldfish which are large enough to not be eaten by it, but they aren’t easy to find.

>>4531226
Would they eat the mosquito larvae? I could just relocate the frog but I would feel kinda bad since he's lived here longer than me. Mosquitofish can also live in stagnant water, can goldfish? The frog is in the pond with the filtration so there are slightly less larvae in that one anyway.

>>4531212
The frog will eat a handful of fish but not enough to matter, generally. Mosquitofish will live in anything wet, they'll do great. Goldfish are hearty but I wouldn't put them in the stagnant water - it can support small fish but a single adult goldfish is ~200x the weight of an adult mosquitofish (8oz vs 1g avg, huge variation ofc). You could toss a few in the moving pond and they'd probably do fine.

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Trigger status: pulled.

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>>4531257
>$9 for fucking Java fern

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>>4531258
Seven at my LFS, so I figured I’d get it all in one order.

got some older guppy females that are supremely fat and bloated as fuck with puckered buttholes. The rest of the tank is fine. Are they just super constipated?

>>4531014
clownfish are treated like the guppies equivalent, however they are real bastards
they become extremely territorial, and if you stick anything in the tank they go full aggro and will bite it - aka your arm if you stick it in the tank, they will bite you and draw blood
it's not just a little 'love bite' - it hurts and can come out of nowhere when you're not expecting it, causing you to jerk your arm and potentially hit your rock work
not only do they do this to you, but they also will harass other fish that come near their territory, so then it's like you have one spot of the tank that none of the other fish want to go near
and to top it all off, they can live for over 20 years (which is crazy) -- so you have a little terror living in your tank for 20 years
for these reasons, I do not have a clownfish
Blue tangs are fairly peaceful, except towards other fish that look similar or other algae eating fish; they just require a lot of swimming room - the minimum size would be 125 gallon 6 feet but you should really have more than that, as they get very large
Not even joking, I remember reading some post on a reefing forum that someone's clownfish jumped out of their tank and bit their eyeball somehow [which could have been a lie!]
CLOWNFISH ARE THE BASTARDS OF THE SEA

>>4531212
Make sure to put in some nice green shit like lily pads or water hyacinths
If you do go with goldfish you could probably do frogbit or even duckweed because they'd be able to snack on it

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>>4530811
>>4530812
>>4530815
I'm running a filterless planted tank; given that can I just throw packets directly into the water to get rid of tannins?

>>4531330
Are you fucking with me right now? I legitimately cannot tell and now am curious.

>>4531331
I'm not. I'm also retarded enough to not boil driftwood.

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>>4531341
Please don't. You want something like this anon.

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>>4527713
My apistos are spawning right now in plain sight inside a kurrajong pod, it only has enough room for her to maneuver around inside, but he can see her and is fertilizing from the opening. I'd love to get some pics/record the act but I don't want to disturb them. Hope this helps.

>>4531305
saltwater aquarists are just too gentle, a good flicking will show that little faggot clownfish who's boss. Gotta learn to put the fear of God (you) into them. I regularly mock execute my rowdiest platies.

>>4531345
Thank you. I'm ordering something like that now

>>4531318
There's a few small lily pads in both ponds but pretty sure water hyacinth is a big no-no where I live (FL) but I'm sure if I poke around I can find some other easy water plants if I poke around.

>>4531365
Yeah less about the specific plant and more that green shit in your ponds generally looks better

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Can anyone identify this plant? The one that has those long leaves that split off near the tips. It came bundled in with some other plants I bought like a year ago and it seems to slowly be growing. I don't know what it is, but it looks kinda neat. I'd like to propagate or grow more of it if I can. I know the stem plant is rotala rotundifolia, I'm talking about the shit growing near the rotala's base.

>>4531405
Java fern 'Windelov'

so I'm looking at maybe two top fin pro 30 filters or two seachem tidal 35 filters for a 40 gallon breeder tank.

can you guys help me decide?
anyone know any better options?
I have a decent aquaclear now but it's noisy as hell.

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>lost 6 of my 7 original cherry shrimp
>there's a gorillion babies
>but still have lost all motivation, no longer spending minutes staring at the tank
>sometimes feed them a day late, now my tank just makes me feel sad

Is this normal?

>>4531405
java fern, it's harmless and you can even stick it to a log or rock and let it grow to become a full-sized plant, though that takes a lot
>>4531460
feel the same too, the moment i realized i fucked up with my aquarium with a shitty substrate that doesn't let plants grow decently i lost my motivation, at least i feed my fish regularly

>>4531460
I could never really get mine to take off either.

The tank was perfect and they were the only thing in it and it just didn't matter.
They dwindled and eventually they were all gone.

You see tanks where people have thousands in the bottom during feeding crowding around, I have no idea how you would get that many without just buying them.

>>4531465
>i fucked up with my aquarium with a shitty substrate that doesn't let plants grow decently
can't you just add root tabs?

>>4531472
I've grown plants in straight up rocks.
Go to apple bees and look at the rocks in the flower beds, those kind.

Just depends on the plants you want.

>>4531341
Boiling driftwood wouldn’t be a problem but it’s better off being soaked outside. Boiling any kind of rock is dangerous/retarded.

>>4529424
Its fine. I have 2 in my tank. One took off right away. The other is just starting to root out. Its been a year

>>4531475
i wouldn't even steal from applebees. pick a more upscale establishment if you actually love your fish. it is true though, substrate is free.

>>4531444
I currently use the seachem tidal 35s on 3 different tanks, I really like them
the sponge / seachem matrix bags that they sell slash come with the tidal 35 imo is very convenient and nice, where you can just throw the sponge + seachem matrix in your sump / tank a month in advance to populate with beneficial bacteria, and then transfer it to your tidal 35, instant biofilter
I like that the tidal 35 is adjustable - if you don't have the distance between where the water comes out and the top of the water that big, they are practically silent (only sound you get is from the water falling and hitting water)
the tidal 35 is also very nice for taking out the motor and cleaning it, snaps off easily, can take out the little propeller and clean it, put it back in - zero issues
there have been a few times where I let the water level get a little too low in one of the tanks with one running, and I was worried that I had broken it - but just taking it out and cleaning off the propeller was enough to get it going again
I have been using them for around 5 months, no complaints so far - only good things to say
I haven't ever used the top fin ones, but I do like the seachem tidal 35s a lot

is it worth it keeping ghost shrimp or will they just end up dying or disappearing?

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does anyone use h2o2 dosing in their tank? specificially smth like a söchting oxydator?
I have a bit of a yellow tinge in my macroalgae tank that doesn't clear with rox carbon or purigen, and I've found online that ozone apparently is the holygrail for removing yellow tints. Further reading is telling me h2o2 is mostly the same to ozone, and it would be way cheaper for me to setup.

>>4531049
that's a lot of water volume taken up by the statue

>>4531212
>>4531255
Yeah, mosquitofish will live in anything wet, unless it freezes or remains near freezing for prolonged time.
They breed faster than guppies and even if the frog gets some, it probably won't matter.
Though you won't get any more frogs because mosquitofish eat tadpoles and basically everything else that moves, unelss you feed them very well.

>>4531646
Even if you do feed them, they eat everything that moves, roughly 75-125% of their body weight every day, mostly in floating insect larva but anything that catches their eye will be attacked. As a kid I used to spit in an old stagnant pond on my grandfather's farm to watch them churn water attacking the phelgm.

Tadpoles rarely survive in any body of water with any fish, that's why most species lay in vernal ponds and similar temporary water.

>>4531305
I have had a pair of maroon clowns for years now, which are the largest species, so much so that people who see my tank for the first time are confused because they didn't realize clownfish get that big (they don't... except maroons, up to 6"). They definitely attack my arm when I'm messing around close to their anemone. However I've never bled from it. Do you have thin skin or something?

As for territorial issues with other fish, I surprisingly haven't had any issues with them. For instance, my Royal Gamma Basslet decided to occupy the same rockwork on which their two anemone are on and they all get along fine, similar to other inhabitants. They seem to be intelligent enough to know who is actually messing around and who is just nearby.

I very much doubt that eyeball story as they are pretty shit jumpers. They can... just not very well. Out of all the marine fish I've had, clownfish are actually among the worst swimmers. They're not bad, especially compared to freshwater stuff, but comparing them to tangs or anthias or basslets, they're just not as agile or fast. They really only beat out like... gobies

>>4531643
Volume well spent.

>>4531360
>flicking
Don't you have your fish whip handy?

>>4531708
fish whips are a scam, don't work any better than a finger and you get 8 of those for free. In fact the different sizes and lengths help. Some trespasses only merit a pinky flick, the stiff middle finger flick is for unforgivable transgressions.

>see a cool piece of wood at a garage sale
>boil it for an hour, rinse it off, put it in the tank
>still leaching a bit
>actually kinda like the darker water with my tetras

>>4531730
Tannins aren't bad in any way except aesthetic.

>>4531712
Personally I prefer to make my fish pick out their own switch.

>>4531731
I've been hunting for some wood because my tap pH has been inching upwards lately for some reason (from ~7.4 to 8.0) and I've read that wood helps to keep it stable at lower levels. Apparently it's the tannins that do that so I'm gonna roll with this and hope the municipal water stops being full retard.

>>4531731
aesthetic is mixed too, not always bad. I think it makes a lot of blackwater fish look better, the colors pop more when everything is kind of dim.

>>4531737
Learning your water source changes is always a pain in the ass.
Around me the city switches the source in spring and fall. So summer water is absolutely perfect soft and slightly acidic and winter is similar parameters except it has a bunch of silicates in it.
Every fall I would wonder what kept happening because I had a huge outbreak of diatom algae.

>>4531701
>maroon clowns
ooo that's neat that yours are thriving - friend of mine had to sell his maroon pair to LFS after about a year when they started attacking others biting off fins (and attacking his arm!) maroon are supposed to be the most aggressive of all clownfish afaik
maybe yours are also very happy with their anemones, feeding, and water condition and are less aggressive as a result

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pls halb

>>4531743
>maroon are supposed to be the most aggressive of all clownfish afaik
This is true as far as I know as well. I'm pretty happy with them. First off, they're a mated pair, which is harder to do with maroons than others (the female kills the male way more often among maroons). Second they've been not aggressive with fish.

What they are aggressive with though is scaping and my arm. They are big and powerful enough that they actually move rocks, so if they don't like the look of their house, they will fucking move shit around, coral included. I have had to rescape things. I've found though they like the look of hammers (I assume because they are similar enough to anemones in appearance) so they will leave them alone, so I have moved all my hammers and zoas there and everything else away.

I've considered trying to raise the fry but since they're not designer maroons, it'd be hard to sell them (assume I could successfully do it).

But yeah, I am under the impression the scape around them is such that it keeps them happy and in a small (for their size) zone.

>>4531546
I went for the Tidal 55

I bought one today, gonna see how it's doing in a week and may add a second one.

I would rather have two larger filters and turn down the flow rate on them I think, that would at least give me the option for more filtration capacity on demand later if i need it.

So far i have to say i like it, i hope it doesn't have any issues but it just checked all the boxes so i had to at least try it. Seachem hasn't let me down yet, so i have high hopes.

>>4531608
They are kinda intended to be food.

You can't breed them in just regular fresh water, needs to be brackish, they will probably eventually just die in your tank.

>>4531730
I actually like tannins, not a fuck ton of them, but having some in there make it look more natural, the fish tend to like it too.

>>4531821
This, you're incredibly lucky if you can get any kind of "feeder" to survive for more than two weeks after pickup. They're handled poorly in transport and aren't kept in the best conditions at the store.

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>how do I get rid of pest snails?
>oh my god what the fuck is wrong with my tank why is the water brown?!?
>I wish I could add more fish, but the stocking calculator says I can't.
>oh fuck I'm out of API tests what the fuck am I gonna do? My tanks are gonna crash now!
>I will never buy a wild caught fish! That's bad for the environment!
>wow, that 70 dollar mopani twig was so expensive! Oh well, better safe than sorry.

Any others?

>>4531643
it's hollow inside, it's just a big hiding space plus algae grows on his head.

>>4531862
>aquaclear is the best filter ever made

>>4531873
new thrembos

>>4531476
>driftwood
>WOOD
>is rock

>>4531862
Answer all of these to prove you know better

>>4532061
>eat them
>not drinking your tank water frequently enough
>stocking calculators are just suggestions
>gauge by taste
>catch them yourself, capitalism is indeed bad
>better to be safe than expose your fish to termites, their natural predators

>>4531646
There's hundreds of new tiny tadpoles in the stagnant pond right now. They'd certainly be well fed in that one, plus there's more larvae in that one since it's still. To sacrifice the tadpoles or not... I could always move some of the fish over later.