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Copepod set up. Siphon the mulm, squeeze it through a tea bag and rinse.

>>5111478
how much copepods do you have with this setup?

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View the dawgs, 2 Atlantic Sea Nettles

i only have seetheopods in my tank :c

>>5111489
How many hairs are on my head? No idea lol 1000s? 10000s? I siphon the mulm, spray it through a tea bag (cheapest fine mesh bags available), and then rinse water over it. Shake the bag out in the tank. The fish act way differently than for flakes or pellets. Something about the lateral movement

>>5111500
Checked. Those are cool. How much work is it?

>>5111503
Kek

>>5111507
haha fair i meant more like a density
do you manage to separate the mulm and the copepods

>>5111510
It's fairly dense. I shine light near the top and siphon them up. I usually have another cup I dump them into. Then I transfer from the bowl to bags.

When I'm cleaning, I put a few baster fulls of discard mulm and a bunch of the water into crystalizing dishes (anything glass works, just that size) and put it on a warming pad (5-10 above ambient). Then when each dish fills up to the point of where I can see the dots, no magnifying glass, I strain the copepods out and discard the rest.

Without the warming pads it's actually kind of slow. That's why I added daphnia

I ended up adding a starter culture of both copepods and seed shrimp to my sump mechanical filter section. I can no longer find either but it's a relatively small number in about 5 gallons of packed k3 and nylon cleaning pads so I don't know if that means anything.

Hopefully they help process the brown gunk and occasionally have some swept through the filter to feed the fish. If not, oh well, I'm only out like $20.

Next step is going to be adding a few ramshorn to it to see if they survive. And then maybe some cull neos, though I'd really like about 100 of them or ghost shrimp in the main tank. My lfs has ghost shrimp for 3 for a quarter but the owner told me he's pretty sure they're predatory, so not willing to roll the dice and risk losing any fish to them.

Tank has been cloudy since I added some dried oak leaves about a week ago. The ich symptoms have been fairly quickly disappearing, continuing to dose 40mg/day of ich-x but it's down to two fish I can see any dots on. Three of my four albino corys I bought from LFS died but such is life, I'm pretty sure they brought in the ich. All four hillstream loaches, two garras, and two BNPs are doing well, the Wubenmuster (sic?) has even started grazing leaves during the day.

Lights just went out I'll post a Pic in the morning. Rainbows are coloring up and growing, even the dwarf neons are looking decent now.

>>5111538
sounds good anon! IIRC ghost shrimp live about a year and while they will spawn in fresh water, they die afterwards.

at least two, maybe four weeks left before I can add any feesh to my own tank. in the meantime the exploding snail population is keeping me entertained.

>>5111545
Problem with "ghost shrimp" is there are roughly 30 species that fall under than umbrella, and another 2x that could easily be confused, several of whom also live in brackish FL fishing zones and get trawled up together. Including some prawns that end up like 5" long and predatory.

>>5111546
Not him but for this sort of thing it's almost always Palaemonetes sp.

>>5111538
Seed shrimp are mostly filter feeders. Copepods both eat film and filter feed, but they are lazy bitches and will filter feed first. I'd try the ramshorn or bladder snails.

Hiw big is your main? And how do you feed in the sump, does it tube in through the bottom or do you have a hob powerhead?

>>5111558
Display tank is about 60 gallons, sump is about 25 gallons with 18ish sectioned off as moving bed, overflowing into 5 gallons of static media, which flows through the bottom of another wall into a ~2 gallon partition with the outflow pump and a few bits of static media that made it through the separation. Water flows to the sump from near the top of the main tank via two gravity-fed 3/4" pipes, and main tank has circular flow with one wave maker pointed roughly at the front, center substrate of the tank (has removed all the mulm from the substrate) and one pointed toward the back top of tank to increase aeration and create the circular movement. I have 2-4+ clams filter feeding in the main tank, but the static media section of the sump has started to accumulate brown gunk/mulm (not nearly enough to impact flow in any way) so I figured it could support detritovores to maintain equilibrium.

How fussy are captive-bred fish to hardness levels? Would the common kinds of tetras be seriously upset in, say, 240ppm water at 7.4 pH?

>>5111591
Depends fish to fish but for the common trade fish that technically come from acidic water like neons, cardinals, black neons, embers etc there's no problem keeping them in hard water and I've done it myself with Embers. My understanding is that they don't need low ph to survive it's just that the acidic environments help keep prevent bacterial infections and they can suffer in harder water but you should be fine with good maintenance. The only caveat is breeding, many fish can live fine in the wrong ph but it prevents their eggs from being fertilised. The other question is "should you?" but it really doesn't matter I think for these kinds of fish. Though many fish really can't survive in the wrong ph, and it's much more common for hard water fish in low ph to struggle where they can suffer gill damage and stuff.

>>5111606
I'm not looking to breed, just to have fish that are healthy and displaying good colour. Unfortunately it seems like everything that's fine in harder water (bloodfins) is also too big/not shrimp safe.

>>5111759
Neons, black neons and embers are shrimp safe, I think cardinals aren't. All of the diamond body shaped tetras are a bit risky I think like you said, bloodfin, black widow, phantoms etc they're more aggressive.

>>5111838
Do you think head-and-taillight tetras would fall in the latter category?

My shortlist so far is black neons, H&T, cherry barbs, hatchetfish and danios (but I'd have to get a lid)

>>5111848
My dad kept hatchetfish and he doesn't know anything about ph levels, I think they're pretty hardy and won't bother shrimp due to being top feeders. I think they look weird and inbred though so I never got them lel. Danios and cherry barbs are always a big risk, people say they're fine but eventually they can get a taste for adults and will probably mop up shrimplets, you'd need really heavy planting. I had zebra danios before I had shrimp and just the way they act I wouldn't try it. But they're great fish otherwise, all the danios are pretty underrated and don't get talked about a lot anymore in the era of nanotanks. Maybe because they kill shrimp I'd guess which everyone wants now. Black neons will be fine, hardy and shrimp safe but you should still have lots of plant cover to make sure you don't lose too many shrimplets. I've not had head and taillight so can't comment. I think it's just the same advice as always, with the absolute smallest, passive fish your shrimp will be okay and with anything else you'll lose shrimplets without heavy cover and most fish can get a taste for shrimp so you're just running a risk. For every "look at my massive RCS colony in my community tank" post there's another "I added 6 cardinals to my tank and all my shrimp disappear???". With heavy planting and letting the shrimp establish for a generation of breeding first you can still get a self sustaining group even with the occasional shrimplet loss.

>>5111852
Zebra danios are the king of the sub 55 gallon. By far the best fish you can get, bang for your buck. Fearless and the fastest swimmers in the tank. Hardy as fuck. Everyone knows you can cycle a tank with danios. They make the other fish come out too.

As for shrimp eating, yeah they do that, the juveniles specifically. I have 15 in my main tank. The shrimp do outbreed them, but it's gotten to the point that the danios won't even touch flakes or pellets. I'm literally feeding my shrimp fish flakes so that the danios can eat their babies.

If you want to get a shrimp.colony established in the display tank, it's a numbers game. You have to be prepared to dump something stupid like 2 shrimp a gallon. That's what I did. I put 50 shrimp in a 40 gallon. It got down to like 10 at one point, but a couple of successful molts and the colony explodes.

>>5111852
Hatchetfish do look fucking weird but I kind of like it, gigachad chin fish. They remind me vaguely of African butterfly fish, which I had way back in the before time.
>>5111865
Interestingly zebras are out of stock in my area (for now at least) and it's more giant danios, CPDs, some other species I haven't heard of.

I don't mind if some baby shrimp get eaten but I don't want something like tiger barbs that will shred all the adults, too. Guess I should've mentioned rasboras, they're a possibility

>>5111759
In addition to the others mentioned, Ember tetras, CPDs or Emerald rasboras, Daisy's rice fish, guppies & endlers, dwarf fireball platys, any of the microrasboras or espei (lambchop) rasboras are all shrimp safe, as are otos, stiphodon gobys, dwarf plecos (the 2-2.5" ones) and corys. You may lose a few of the smallest babies now and again, but if you feed the tank and include some dense moss, large pore volcanic rock, or cholla wood, you'll have plenty survive.

>>5111867
If you want a true danio with shrimp, glowlight (d. Choprae, not the glofish zebras) are a bit smaller but otherwise essentially the same. In general any true danio (not CPDs) will actively hunt juveniles so you need hard cover (not just moss) to outbreed predation. White clouds are another similar option, bit smaller than zebras but not quite as active.

They're great fish though, as another anon said they basically never stop moving and are lightning fast, plus will school fairly tightly with regularity.

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Thoughts on white clouds?

>>5111983
Easy fish. Good for tubbin'. The males can get very colorful. Do best in high 60s to low 70s. Once they're comfortable they're pretty lazy and just sorta hang around unless the males are displaying at each other.

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Promised a pic then forgot. Sorry for the glare - plant light behind me is causing that.

Just added some buce yesterday, from some guy on r*ddit that sold me a ton of it. We'll see how well it takes, it was hard to get it all jammed in somewhere.

Gonna do a 30% w/c today, first since filling it, because tds has crept up due to the ich-x

>>5112021
I like buce a lot but it takes ages to grow in meaningfully.

>>5111759
I've high hardness, almost 8ph water. I keep guppies, tetras(many), pleco, shrimp(amano and neo), endler, puffers, rasboras, snails, an aquatic frog, corydoras... no issues. no real breeding, but everyone lively and colorful

>>5111759
pretty much if it is living in your local fish store you can probably run it

I wanna pour bleach in all of these and watch the stupid beasts slowly dissolve alive

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My new bell siphon/ebb&flow rack.
This one will be all Bucephalandra.
Around 250 Browine Ghost 2011 to be specific.

I’m not so much a fish guy but an aquatic plants guy.
If you’re into the nano plants and others for your tanks, I’m the guy to know.

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It may be a common aquarium plant, but I have that Grandaddy Purple Ludwigia cut.
It looks insane if used correctly in your aquascapes.

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My anubias nana petite is no joke.
Zero melt
Grips anything
Spreads fast.

I also have it in Snow White.
It looks like flowers.

>>5112030
>>5112133
We should have a chat.

>>5112021
*Buys his buce from a Reddit fag.

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I’ve got a tank full of hornet shrimp.
Call them my Killa bees.
Just ordered pic for the tank.
Going to do a Wu Tang aquascape.

Finally got a hold of some green kubotais and they're great little fish, very active and curious and they're actually brightly coloured not memed under ridiculous light filters. Very happy.

>>5112145
For $2 per plant, I'd buy buce from Hitler or Bibi

>>5112191
What buce did you get?

>>5112191
>This driftwood branch was promised to me 3000 propagations ago

>>5112193
It was a mix of a lot, but off the top of my head, I think there were three big mats of brownie green, and rhizomes with several leaves of Khedagang, skeleton king, red blade, brownie ghost, mini coin, green godzilla, and another couple I can't remember. All came in healthy with some serious roots, but buce is a pain in the ass to get to anchor itself, I'll be fighting the battle of trying to find somewhere the fish don't pull them up for a few weeks. Most seem solid where they are now, at least.

>>5111477
>>5111478
>>5111500
I was never that interested in aquariums for fish but the ones for invertebrates are both fascinating, cheap and simple to manage, it helps that crustaceans and co are not prima donnas. I just wish I had more free space.

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>>5112227
This is why freshwater shrimp have become so popular, if you have a flat surface of any kind you can put a 30x30x30cm cube on it and have a colony. Would highly recommend.

>>5112208
Nice.
Smorgasbord.
That’s unheard of cheap too.

>>5112208
Glue them

>>5112240
I'd have to pull the wood out and it's a giant, like 36" long branch. Otherwise it doesn't take, from past experiences. Or I guess I could dry some of the cholla and glue to that but from my experience it ends up with the buce on the bottom.

It's been 3 days and only 2 of the smaller bits have moved, so I think I'm in the clear. 5 hillstream loaches, 2 garras, and 2 bristlenoses plus over two dozen large snails so there's plenty of opportunities to move them. The mats are staying put nicely and a lot of them went into a hold in the wood which I stuffed full enough to hold them. A few more are in the root structure of a fuck-off huge anubias barteri which has about a 5" diameter sphere of roots that'll hold anything.

>>5112239
Hence why I bought so many, I'm used to paying $6+ for a similar size, and a 3x3ish mat is usually like $30 not 5. Some dude in salt lake is mass producing them and had a ton to sell - sundadanio was his username, feel free to hit him up to see if he has more. They were all heavily rooted, which is the real rarity, because new leaves are faster and easier than a full root system.

>>5112145
I'm a big fan of buying and selling like that. Create a cottage industry. Etsy is kind of like that but it's more like a couple major players and a lot of guys coming and going. The problem is it's hard to find places and as soon as someone opens up their board it gets spammed. Or the board is a graveyard.

>>5112133
What do you do, grow and sell?

>>5112145
Know what you don't pay when buying from reddit and aquabid? Sales tax.

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Starting from regular red cherries I now have several blue mutts. Hopefully they're not mega inbred maybe I should buy a bunch of new ones to top up the gene pool.

>>5112273
Can't hurt, if you can get them for a good price. You shouldn't pay more than $4/shrimp in the US for decent grade of any color of neocards, and arguably more than $2 for low grades is too much.

>>5112273
do you practice culling? remove the blues to another tank

>>5112279
Nah I just have the one tank for now.

>>5112281
it's normal. if you don't practice some form of culling you'll loose the cherry genetics and they'll drift to wild type color

>bought a bunch of plants from the LFS
>not a single hitchhiker
lame, what's even the point

>>5112350
I get that they revert to wildtype, I just didn't think they'd go blue. I have an orange/yellow one as well. I don't think it's natural/random mutations I think they're just recessive colours from the breeding set up.

>>5112350
Only if there are multiple lineages. I've had orange rilis in a tank for 5 years and they're still all various grades of orange rili, no wild types.

Was thinking out loud about how culturing the live food is worth the effort. My wife looks and me and says 'what effort? You just move dirty water from.one bucket to another'. For some reason it had me dieing laughing.

coming up on about a year for the pseudo blackwater experiment. this has been fine in terms of appearance and maintenance. the only problem is when you add tannins with rooibos tea they do not last. an evaporation top up at 2 weeks will noticeably lighten the water column. in around 90 days it will be nearly clear again. this is a good thing if you just want to experiment with what your tank may look like if you flood it with tannins but don't want to commit to anything yet.

>desperately want a betta
>only have 2 10 gallon community breeding for profit tanks
Technically the second one is empty but that’s only because I haven’t had to separate any populations/grades yet. Dammit I want a betta so bad.

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>>5112714
U jelly?

Srsly bettas are the best fish, I will never not have a betta.

>>5112702
All the botanicals and tea methods end up like this, people do it "properly" by having a sump full of peat which also really drops the ph.

>>5112734
I see. That's high effort.

>>5112734
AKA if you aren't building out a 60+ gallon tank, just pour some tea in every month.

>>5112722
they seem boring, why would I want one

Anubias Barteri is the king of aquarium plants isn't it.

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$450 for 15 juvenile shrimp. Worth every penny.

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Is this mulm or algae all over my flame moss? And how the hell do I get rid of it?

>>5113088
Looks like classic hair algae, my amanos eviscerated this stuff when I introduced them. Otherwise I would try to remove as much manually as possible and trim the moss where it's too hard and consider changing your lighting period. Considering the moss grow in though the tank doesn't seem fresh? Any recent changes?

>>5113111
I have 8 amanos in there but they just arrived this week, so

>>5113112
My experience is that amanos will stop eating algae when they have other stuff available. I got mine as canaries before I got the shrimp I really wanted and they stripped off hair algae and some green spot but now they're fed with everything else and the stuff grows back in and they won't touch it. Maybe you accidentally added too much of the shops water when you introduced them causing the bloom.

>>5113121
Nah, it’s been like this for a few weeks now. I think the main problem is I’m using a nano feed that snows all over the tank, so they’re just covered in grime that becomes algae. Hopefully the amanos get to work. Maybe I should just cut the lights for a month.

>>5113143
Oh if you have that bacter ae stuff or similar just throw it away it causes way more problems than it solves. Shrimplets absolutely don't need any products like that to survive in a planted tank.

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>>5113149
I used bacter AE maybe 2-3 times back in mid Jan-mid Feb when I first started the tank on a fishless cycle just to really get it cooking but I haven’t used it in at least a few weeks now. I’m referring to the ACO magic small fish feed. This tank is a community breeder for profit. habrosus corys, these high grade blue dream OE neos I just added yesterday, and assassin snails. I added the amanos last week cause I know even if there’s 100 cherry shrimp in here they don’t exactly tackle algae. Maybe I should have gotten 16 Amanos instead of 8.

>>5113154
Probably an excess nutrient issue then, but if you're going for profit I'd probably not try to change anything. You wouldn't want more amanos with your fancy shrimp and if there's other food for them then it'll interfere with them eating the algae.

>>5113154
NTA, but my favorite small fish feeding method is to mix a couple different brands into the aquarium co-op (or other) squeeze bottle. Shake it up good and give a squeeze or two. You can mix bacterae in too if you want.

Next best is the Ultra Fresh brand, but I like to mix it up. Despite the chinkshit name I've been extremely happy with every ultra fresh food I've purchased - I have the guppy one, baby fish one, veggie pies (absolute top tier, 30% fish/insect protein, 70% spirulina and similar quality plant sources), betta pellets, and they're all very high quality without wheat or other garbage fillers.

If you're serious about raising fry in-tank, you probably need to be raising bbs as well. But even so, you'll lose a ton of fry to the amano and habrosus adults.

>>5113168
>you'll lose a ton of fry to the amano and habrosus adults
Huh?

>>5113171
Cory fry are fucking tiny. As in, fits in the claws of an amano tiny. Both habrosus adults and amano shrimp will absolutely eat them while they're barely mobile living in the aufwuchs/mulm.

>>5113176
Oh. I have a cory fry tray I was just gonna scoop the eggs into, as well as an empty grow out tank ready to go.

>>5113180
Oh, carry on then.

Get the grow out set up well in advance tho.

>peppered corys twice the price of bronze corys at the LFS
wat the heck

>>5113219
If you’re referring to >>5113154 that’s a salt & pepper dwarf with perspective doing all the work, barely an inch

>>5113224
No, i went to get algae wafers after work, my tiny LFS just got in bronze and peppered cories (paleatus) and peppers were 10.99 each, bronze 5.99

>>5113086
Are they expensive because of the red eyes?

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>Trying to find info on keeping freshwater Japonic eels on YT
>Assaulted with nothing but Asian NIGGERS torturing sea food by skinning a stingray alive for 15 minutes or some retard hacking randomly at a massive moray with a cleaver with no goal
Make me regret how much I've defended East Asian culture. God fucking damnit bros, I can't stand people who hurt animals on purpose. How fucking hard is it to just kill something in a single chop? Just use a stun gun or cut its head off in one swoop.
It makes me literally shake (not joking) with rage and want to go bash some faggots head in with my steel toes.

>be warned that blue eye neon rainbows are shy, won't do well with more boisterous fish
>find a good deal, say Yolo and buy anyways
>add to tank with danios, Odessa barbs, bigger rainbowfish
>they come beg for food like platys

So the internet is just fucking stupid, I guess? They're cool looking fish, can't wait for them to color up a bit.

>>5113245
I know anon

I know

>>5113308
>So the internet is just fucking stupid
As a general rule of thumb, every topical message board for an offline hobby either:
>stays quiet like this one
>devolves into gatekeeping

How many chicks have you seem with a perfectly healthy betta in a half hallon vase to know the advice is crap about needing 10 gallons with a filter.

Fish are cheap for the most part. Take chances and have fun.

>>5113236
Depends on how you define expensive. I purchased these directly from Michael Häsler, the guy who was able to stabilize the OE gene in neocaridina. They were originally valued at over $100, as he not only pulled off the OE gene but then went on to use it to win the German international shrimp competition. I purchased these a few days ago and with the overnight shipping it came out to $40/shrimp >>5113086
I just checked his site again though and I’m a bit frustrated as it appears he just updated his stock and reduced the prices. It seems if I had waited a week I could have ended up with about 10 more shrimp for only 50-60 more dollars. I also think I ended up with a hefty amount of males, which is pretty annoying.

>>5113323
I know to ignore the gatekeepers but usually seriouslyfish is right on the money. But not this time, and to my advantage.

Luv rainbows, simple as.

>>5113323
there is an extreme case of this. i read on /herp/ that the reddit for chameleons slowly turned in to an insular asylum that insists on completely incorrect care parameters for the species, contradicting all of the published documentation, zoo keeping methods, breeder methods, all of it. i don't know enough about chameleons to say but I have noticed something similar happen with social media in regards to small mammals. the social media fad method to care for things like guinea pigs involves a ridiculous fleece blanket substrate idea that appeals to the dollhouse building demographic typically interested in that type of pet. the thesis revolves around the idea that urine will soak through to the bottom and the surface remains sterile somehow, wash once per week. that, to me, is completely insane.

>>5113308
Mine are very boisterous with each other and the males especially aggressive to the females, definitely bad advice.

>>5113323
The problem with this is that you need to go overkill on advice to help minimise people just killing all their fish as soon as they get home. If you tell people the truth that you can keep smaller aquariums than you would assume and that filters aren't strictly necessary without all the details and knowledge behind how that works then even more fish are going to die horribly a few days after being introduced than they do now. It's a small evil.

>>5113335
I wish there was a mammal you could reasonably keep in a bioactive enclosure without much maintenance. Would love to have a little gerbil I could watch in a slice of nature, but inside a glass box.

>>5113344
Why can't you keep a gerbil/hamster in a glass box with a mesh lid with soil and some hardy terrarium plants? Cleaning issues? I thought they were natural burrowers.

>>5113308
Ppl said celestial pearl danios are shy fish yet they are the most outgoing in my tank especially the females.

Seems like people just parrot the meta and there is a ton of room for experiments.

Also, otos do fine in pairs or small groups

>>5113347
Cleaning and general bioload issues. You'd need like an 8x8' footprint and still spot clean frequently, because mammals' high metabolisms mean a shit-load of shit.

That was the takeaway last time I researched it, anyways. You'd also be hard pressed to set it up in a way that it didn't just become a box of dirt, what with most of the mammal candidates being nocturnal and their burrows likely being in the center where you can't see anything.

Guinea pigs in an outdoor setup are the next best thing, but a big step up in time and effort commitment and not, yknow, indoors.

>>5113335
Guinea pigs poop like every 20 minutes and are not litter trainable I can't imagine how keeping them on fleece could possibly work, sounds absolutely nasty.

my tank has cycled
it has finally happened
now I'm too afraid to add anything

>>5113408
How much ammonia did it "cycle" with? You can always up the input to improve biofiltration.

Once you see nitrates and zero nitrites it doesn't really matter, though. The dangerous parts for fish are the very beginning with no incoulate, and the couple days you see nitrites.

Also you need more biofiltration. Don't care what your current level is, if it's your first tank, you need more. Only exception is if you already have a moving bed sump of at least 20% the size of the main tank. Then you're good.

Just throw some platys or zebras in there and be done with it, pussy. They'll be fine.

I'm going to pull the trigger on a container pond.

>150g rubbermaid stock tank, drilled with an overflow near the top, and with water off a tarp between two sheds feeding rain into it
>on marine grade wood base with solid polyurethane between the tank and the wood
>surrounded by marine grade wood that fills the gaps with expanding spray foam
>4W solar powered air pump driving two 4" diameter 15ppi sponge filters
>pond stone/pea gravel substrate, roughly 2" deep
>bunch of plants in baskets, tbd based on availability, plus water hyacinth, water lettuce, and anacharis for floaters
>greenhouse-style acrylic covering for the top for winter, which with a floating ball and the aeration should hopefully keep it from freezing

Going to try danios, medaka, or white clouds this summer. If it doesn't freeze solid over winter, I'll add one goldfish. Wish me luck.

>>5113413
actually I was thinking of two (female) platys to snack on the hydra, or 5 cories

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>>5111477
Im getting into fish, I was cycling a tank to have a Planted aquarium with nano fish but ghost shrimp i got for 79 cents each have stolen my heart. So much personality. Yea I got some string algae that came in with some of the plants but its kinda relaxing watching it slowly move in the wated

>>5113462
I get it, you don't need smashed and slammed rainbow shrimp really, all the value is in how active they are. Its cool to see their little claws shred through things and how they do that retarded floaty swim through open space like they're not at the bottom of the food chain. I think amanos are better for this though, they're clearly a bit smarter and I like how they pick things up and run away.

>>5113482
Amanos in a cherry shrimp tank are like a crow in a flock of pigeons.

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>>5113512
I know they're great.

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first cull from my guppy tank...
moved to 40G plant tank on my porch to eat mosquito larvae, he's a lil guy in a big place with no other fish...

>>5113614
If there’s no other fish in there it’s not a cull tank it’s just a tank. Don’t let it reproduce with that spinal deformity, make sure something deals with it before adding other guppies in.

>>5113614
does he have a willy? maybe he's already injected his unfortunate genes into a big momma?

>>5113629
pretty sure he's too juvenille for that, but honestly have no idea
>>5113615
i don't have a procedure in place yet, currently he is isolated with purpose

>buy a crypt from the LFS among other things
>it's like 20 minutes away from my house, it uses the same mains tap water in the low tech plant display as I use at home, same no CO2, it's not emersed grown (at least while it's been at the shop)
>it's out of the water for about 30 mins total before it's in my tank replanted
>still drops most of it's leaves
Why are they like this

>>5113783
they are BITCHMADE plants and I don't get why people like them so much

>>5113784
Leaves and roots, none of this epiphyte nonesense, without the pain of swords 3 months later.

>>5113785
real MEN grow SWORDS and then just RIP and TEAR them down to size when they grow uppity.

the MANLIEST men grow DUCKWEED and turn it into PROTEIN POWDER to get SHRIPPED off of.

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Female clownfish has a large white bump on her eye, must have happened some time today or yesterday. Otherwise seems healthy, nothing introduced to the tank in years.

Does it look like physical trauma, bacterial infection or a parasite?

>>5114209
looks like an injury

>>5114211
That's what I was thinking after googling a bit.
Going to seperate and treat them every day until healed, just to prevent infections. What would you recomend? I have:
>Metholyne blue
>eSHa 2000 (some premium thing)
>NT Labs antibactierial
>Cupramine (basically just copper)

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>>5114213
Going with eSHa.

Brahs I got fucked up by my torch coral. Both hands are covered in red bumps and they are insanely itchy, kept me up half the night.
I thought I had scabies at first which I got once from a hostel, but when I thought really hard I remember trying to pick up a coral and getting a handful of the tentacles. And then I dropped it as usual and used my other hand and did it again...
tl;dr don't touch torch tentacles.

>>5114413
I got some nasty fingerbed infection from reaching into the tanks bare handed

>>5114414
Good to know, gonna be more careful in the future. It's crowded in there so I'm always bumping stuff as well.

I was experimenting with spirulina as a back up daphnia food source. I know it doesn't have enough fat but I can mix in crushed fish flakes. Green water production is my bottle neck right now.

My takeaway is use sparingly. 1/2 a teaspoon is enough to make 3 gallons of circulating water stink a day later, while it's being eaten. More alarmingly there's the slightly hint of skin on the surface. If that doesn't clear up, I'll probably pull some of the batch and start a new colony.

So far from using green water, my observation is that you can harvest 20% of a green water culture a day. So you would need 5x the volume of green water for the densest swarms of daphnia.

>>5114998
I haven't done daphnia myself, but if I was going to I like the sound of using straw/hay as a low polluting feed. Your yield is lower but you avoid issues with colonies crashing and annoying maintenance, especially if you want to keep it indoors. I suppose it depends on what you need the daphnia for.

>>5115005
I'm not sure it would work. Does it have enough fat? As for water quality, I do control, I manage it indirectly. I scoop about a liter of water out a day when I harvest the daphnia so it's always getting a daily small water change.

Commercially I think they use wheat germ. I'm also cultivating as a food source for fish so I need large quantities of feed.

>>5115013
It's not the straw they eat, it's the bacteria and algae that occur as it rots. It certainly isn't as nutrient dense as adding actual feed but that's kinda the whole point. Unless the handful of threads I've read on it were all lying, it's probably sufficient. But I'm by no means an expert, it's just what I want to try.

>>5114415
Obviously the solution is to get a bigger tank and let them grow in. Then when it's crowded again, get an even bigger tank.
Serious note though, that's why some reefers wear gloves.

>>5115016
I'm aware of how filter feeders eat. Same I/O concern. Straw is like 1% fat. That will be a bottleneck on population. Maybe a good thing for a jar or self contained eco system, but they will quickly clear it out.

You can tell if they are underfed because they will enter sexual reproduction. Smaller males and females with black eggs will appear. The eggs are dormant and you have to change water conditions, temps, and lighting to get them all to hatch.

>have three swords (one rose, two ozelot)
>rose is the oldest, doing great
>one ozelot is doing good but just today I noticed yellowing on one leaf with snails munching on the bad part
>the other ozelot has leaves turning brown and clear from the stem up, probably going to lose them

haven't fertilized anything as this is a new tank with a bunch of mulm, should I give them some root tabs? I don't think bladder snails are causing the damage, just munching on the dying parts.

>>5111477
mmmm forbidden margaritas

>>5115129
Yes, give them tabs. Amazon swords will usually adjust and keep growing without if you have something helping the mulm get into the substrate but most other more specialized swords need the fertilization.

>>5115137
my nitrates are fairly high, should I go for more iron/potassium in the tabs? also having some dwarf sag growing around the swords shouldn't hurt them, right? I was gonna take pictures tomorrow when I actually add fish in

>>5115130
I keep thinking I'm on /ck/.

The whole "root feeder" thing is pretty bunch deboonked, root tabs cause their own issues I'd just try a complete regular liquid fert, in a new tank you're probably missing some random nutrient.

>>5115138
Tabs usually are higher on those, but the nitrates in the water are so much lower concentration than they can be in real dirt it won't matter much. Dwarf sag and swords will compete but I don't believe either will kill other plants, should be fine.

Just put root tabs in at random throughout the tank and you'll have a jungle of those two before you know it.

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>Get sick of seeing the office plants dying
>Start draining the excess water and subtly drop hints to everyone that they're over-watered
>Suddenly a planter of twigs turns into a crawling succulent almost too big to pick up
>3 dying papayas riddled with scales make a 360 and begin explosive growth
>2 other plants I don't know similarly recover in mere months
>Move in a new office this month, everyone stole my plants so I put in a bid to bring a freshwater tank to sit near my desk
>Approved for 20-30gal
>Pikachu
Thinking of a hidden corner bubble filter 'peninsula' that focuses on a massive amount of aquascape growing out of the tank, just fucking going hard on generating a canopy.
Any channels/prominent people doing such things one could nudge me towards for ideas?

>>5115234
>uncared for office plants
>office move this month
You don't happen to work in Watford do you...

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my shrimp finally spawned after two months :D

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>>5115382
Grats, now they'll take over.

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>>5112714
I caved. Any name ideas?

>>5115616
nobody has given a reason betas don't suck yet

>>5115638
Fish in general kinda suck tb h
Get a moray eel instead

>>5115638
They don’t suck. They’re cool little dudes, and I think they’re neat. I don’t really give a fuck if some loser dislikes them.

>>5111477
If you drank that, would you die?

>>5115645
Based betta enjoyer. They realy are fun, curious fish.

>>5115616
Monet

>>5115648
No but it might make your stomach hurt. Mostly it's give you the shits.

Uh, I mean: it would be extremely painful.

>10 gallon betta tank
What can I put in here that will peck on hair algae without pissing off my betta or becoming a meal for it? I’ve tried amanos but he eats/attacks them he’s a fucking beast.

luv me fishy
fishy luv me

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Thoughts on keeping catfish

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Name my betta

>>5115804
tiramisu

>>5115715
More, bigger amano. A good sized amano will ignore or otherwise not be too bothered by a betta.

>>5114998
Following up.
>Green water can't keep up for daphnia production
>put a couple grams of spirulina in a 3 gallon bowl
>oh shit it fouled the water
The little buggers cleaned the water and exploded in population. Water is loaded with ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate now though. It's a bit of a bitch to change a ton of water. You have to use a strainer. So I'm hoping it doesn't come to that. There's duckweed on top

>>5115776
Corydoras are the only genus worth keeping.

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I just got a Queen Arabesque Pleco.
Crazy looking lil guy.

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Setting up another 20 rack of 10’s in the basement.

>excuse the garden plants.

>>5115804
Alopecia

>>5115129
Seachem Flourish is an amazing product.

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>>5115173
>>5115852
Thanks for both recs, the one sword is definitely losing all the underwater leaves but curiously not the long-stemmed leaves from when it was emersed.

also i have finally got some fish: 4 peppered corys. they have stirred up a bunch of mulm into the water but it's slowly decreasing with each day. they alternate between 'sitting' on their pelvic fins, glass surfing, shoving their whole faces in the sand and occasionally flashing, hopefully that's not due to gill parasites.

i love them.

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>>5115856
The stuff works wonders.
Such tiny amounts too.
Bottle will last years.

Does anyone have any experience with cold water species/chilled aquariums?

I’m a Michigan anon and I’ve always wanted to an aquascape inspired by my state, using the materials and fish that are local.

>Driftwood
>Petoskey stones (I have a method)
>Brook trout or brown trout

Something natural that mimics the AuSable river.

>>5115860
check with the DNR, you might need a permit to keep game fish like trout. they'd also require a very large tank.

>>5115862
No permit needed.

I’ve seen them kept in 75’s without issues. Was just wondering about running a chiller and running current.

>>5115864
you gotta have some crazy motivation to pay to run a chiller on a tank
you gotta be breeding something netting you hundreds a month to justify that nonsense
which is immensely unlikely because the market of people running tanks with chillers for the fish you produce is very small
especially in fucking michigan
just run them outside?

How do you balance floating plants with proper surface agitation/oxygen exchange? If the fish feel more secure with a blanket of floating plants at the top, but having that reduces surface agitation and eventually leads to a film, what are you supposed to do? Why do I never see anyone talking about this?

>>5115873
if you contain your floating plants inside the confines of feeder rings away from direct flow of the filter you can do both without issue. i was able to get a red root culture going while running a hob full blast like this. just secure the ring to the least active section of the surface. film can be addressed with an airstone in the same tank. away from the feeder ring.

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>>5115873
I literally just made a post on this

>>5115877
I have endlers in my community tank and the fry all live in my frogbit roots, baskets for exterior plants, and today i removed the bambo holders and like 6 fry popped out 'wtf wwhere my cover'

>>5115876
You still get the film with the feeder rings though. Also in my experience the rings always float toward the filter output anyways which is annoying.

>>5115880
film in inevitable. rings can be secured to the side with suction cups.

I designed some floater rings with paths through the walls for water to flow, film still developed. I think you just have to full send floaters so the film is lost in the leaves.

>>5115873
Just pull handfuls out every week. If you're a sperg that can't just toss it in the trash, dry it out and grind it up to create green water or snail feed.

>>5115848
I'm jelly. I wish I lived in a house built after WWI that had an actual fucking basement.

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Do you think I can take this driftwood out to tie down the moss without releasing an ammonia bomb?

>>5115986
My poor betta died of columnaris when I disturbed the substrate, but it was a 4 year old tank with a lot of mulm and I uprooted plants.
Maybe tie it together with a water change and siphon around it while you lift it?

Is it difficult moving with a small fish tank? I heard you have to nearly drain it, keep the filter wet, transport the fish etc.

>>5115804
Marble

>>5116012
Here's what I would recommend
>bucket up substrate. Don't drain completely, keep some water
>put filter media in a bag. Keep damp
>Bag up plants. They don't have to stay submerged, just humid
>bag fish. There should be 1 part water to 2 parts air.
>drain tank completely
>reassemble in final location

The substrate and filter bacteria will preserve last weeks as long as they are damp. Plants will last a week easy even with no light. Fish will only go a couple days though.

>>5115871
Definitely a good point.
However, along with aquariums, I have a fly fishing addiction.
Particularly the brown trout.

If one of those chillers costs 100’s a month to run…fuck all that, I’ll just go fishing more.

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My marketplace score from this morning.
4 bow fronts 36 gallons and an acrylic 30 gal for $125.

Anyone buying new tanks needs shot.

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This fish room is about to be hard.

Just got to get my layout right.

>>5116043
I thought you could get away with keeping the substrate and plants in, but just having a bit of water. Does it just depend on the size of the tank and whether you can transport it easily?

>>5116058
the chiller won't cost hundreds, but it will cost nearly a hundred. hell even if it's 50. that's $600 a year... up to the individual but I try to think of unecessary expenses like that as potential money that could go to investments and make me money

>>5116065
yeah in a 20G you're looking at ~50lb substrate plus tank, hardscape, and water weight; getting maybe towards 150lbs.
You could drain that low and manage it

but a 75G tank? you're looking at 2-3x that weight and it's unmanageable, so everything has to be removed. I personally was able to move a 75G with just substrate and water drained to it but I doubt most people could.

>>5116072
also something I unfortunately learned in one of these moves. when I removed my sand that looked OK before I touched it...
once i was scooping and mixing it up, it was full of bacteria and became black and smelly
I had to do an emergency run for sand at the fucking pet shop any pay their stupid prices
so if you're doing anything like this plan ahead with new substrate instead of moving the old

>>5116065
It is infinitely easier to just break it up and move everything. Plus there's a non zero chance you break the tank. They don't handle movement or impact very well.

Setting up a blackworm culture cause they aren’t available for sale at literally any LFS around me and you can only get them online if you’re willing to risk sorting through leeches and other trash. I’m gonna be a worm dealer.

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>>5116396
Was just discussing this with my brother.

Here in Michigan just about every rural store has a yellow sign out front that says “Walt’s Crawlers”. They’re everywhere.

Somewhere a man named Walt sits upon his worm empire, laughing at us plebs.

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holy shit these lil guys are exPENSIVE

>>5116419
I just spent $120 to get 12 chilli rasboras for my murder hornet tank
it was worth it but yeah wtf

>>5116428
they're so gorgeous but
>72 dollars for nine IF I buy on sale day
>42 dollars for nine glowlight rasboras on sale day
>40 dollars for 10 lambchop/harlequins any time

If I want to grow pothos out of the top of my tank does it need a lot of light? I have two 10 gallons on a rack system but the lights for the tanks wouldn’t be hitting the pothos.

I want to put a carpeting plant in my high grade shrimp breeding profit tank. Someone stop me.
>what’s the best carpeting plant?
I have CO2, my hygger light might hold be back but it’s only for a 10g so it isn’t that deep, should be fine. Gonna trade out my floaters for mounted pothos.

>>5111500
nice

>>5116396
That's next on my docket. I have to find more space in my house lol. One thing I've found with the live food is it takes up a shitload of space unless you want ro delicately do water changes every day.

>>5116419
They're expensive because you can only get them online or at petco. Most LFS don't want to deal with them because of how poor a health they are always in. Something about the source.

>>5116472
Nah. The ambient from the tank and any overhead or windows is sufficient for pothos, generally.

>>5116482
Now to decide if it’s worth risking my amanos. I just know those fuckers will try to use it to escape.

what’s up my aqgers how do you monitor your pH? I got a digital reader but the thing is inaccurate as fuck even with proper calibration. But I haven’t needed it in months so it’s extra fucked now. I’m about to put a CO2 injection in my tank and I don’t trust just a drop checker. My understanding is when the pH has dropped 1 point you’re at optimal CO2 concentration, and the drop checker allegedly sucks at measuring that.

>>5116487
>My understanding is when the pH has dropped 1 point you’re at optimal CO2 concentration
ph is a logarithm so a 1ph drop is a 10x increase in acidity, which ends up about 30ppm because of the normal gas exchange equilib tends to be about 3ppm co2 but I don't know if that's actually optimal. 30 was just a number pulled out of the air as a guessimate for an amount of co2 that doesn't seem to cause problems in fish. Never seen any actual justification for it, lots of people have success at 15. Depends on what you're trying to do.

>>5116472
it doesn't care
I just watched this video and didn't know about tons of these alternatives to pothos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv-3kmWVqIM&t=3s
i immediately went and chopped some english ivy and threw it in my tank...
>>5116478
also just watched this one, informative
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDceep5m2eI

honestly I hate watching his vids because his narration is tedious and redundant, but the information is stellar
there's also just lists of the plans in the video description

>>5116486
worth it. I have large chunks of wood leaning against the top of my rimless tank, nobody has escaped...

>>5116487
I just use test strips, they tell me GH/KH/PH
all I care about is trends, if something is changing. it doesn't have to be perfectly accurate
I had success with very little CO2, but wasn't running anyhing that necessitates it and my dwarf hair grass never took off (i blame my cheap lights though)

Are these pothos roots rinsed enough? Grabbed it from my LFS today to hang on the back of a couple of my tanks. It was super root bound, I spent probably 40 minutes unbinding it and then another 40 minutes rinsing the roots the best I could in the sink. I’m gonna let them soak in dechlorinated water for a bit before I put them in the tank, but do they need to be rinsed more? Can I cut at the bottom of the stem and just let new roots grow or is that gonna kill it? I don’t even know how I could get more dirt off of them at this point.

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>>5116609
>forgot pic

Where do you place your drop checkers in your tanks?

>>5116611
that's a lot of pothos, it'll probably be fine if you have a tank that fits all that. ideally they would be cleaner. roots already trimmed pretty far
>>5116633
low and opposite the diffuser

>>5116636
It got spread across two tanks

>buy buce brownie ghost tissue cultures
>they’re green
Did I get scammed or do they only change color when immersed?

>>5116649
>do they only change color when immersed
yes
it's gonna take a hot minute

>>5116651
Okay. I also planted them in the substrate cause I swear I’ve seen so many photos/videos of them in the substrate but now everything I’m reading says it has to be mounted on hardscape. Thoughts? Sand substrate if that matters. They’re hella small.

>>5116652
Don't put them in the substrate. They'll die.

You can put epiphytes ON the substrate, just not in right? Does this help them grow better or are their roots purely for anchoring?

>>5116760
This is what I thought as well but apparently I’m just wrong >>5116652

>>5115848
How often do you have to clean the lid. I ran sponge filters at first, but that shit made a mess. Why do all the mega fish keepers insist on bubble filters? Wouldn't hang on backs be more convenient?

>>5116760
>>5116766

I've planted epithytes in substrate before I knew better. The rhyzomes were fine. But I also have gravel which allows for better water passage through it. Sand might be a different story.

Is there a bushy variety of anubias that won’t spring to the surface but instead stays short? Or a similar leafy plant that could be mounted to hardscape and have that leafy bush look? I’ve already got buces on there, tank gets co2 and ferts if that matters.

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>>5116774
probably because it's easier to plug in one air compressor than 300000 HOB filters in your average house fishroom

considering getting some of these cunts when I get my lid built

Will assassin snails hunt live blackworms? I have like 12 in my tank and I’m almost certain they aren’t eating enough cause there’s zero other snails, and I target feed the fish to keep algae in check since it has high light and co2

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>>5116774
I have polycarbonate lids and never clean them(i've only had them on for a few months, but don't see myself cleaning them anytime soon)
you can 3d print collars or buy them from coop, or use super fine air stones in the sponge filter
it'll make the bubbles super fine, which is quieter and splashes less at the surface