Thread 5038459

betta than eva edition.

Discuss anything aquarium related here, including MD fishtanks, tanks, bowls, inhabitants, bettas, shrimp, decor, plants, duckweed and issues. Before asking questions in this thread, make sure you give us at least some details when asking a question, such as:

>Tank size (include dimensions, not just volume)
>Unusual Parameters (nitrate, pH, GH, KH)
>Any inhabitants + how long you've had them
>Age of the tank
>Pictures are always helpful

Tank Cycling:
>www.modestfish.com/how-to-cycle-your-aquarium/

Stocking and Water Change Calculator:
>www.aqadvisor.com/AqAdvisor.php
>www.hamzasreef.com/Contents/Calculators/EffectiveWaterChange.php

Articles and Care Guides:
>www.seriouslyfish.com/knowledge-base/
>www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/
>www.aquariumcoop.com/
>www.theaquariumwiki.com/wiki/

Aquatic Plant Database:
>www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/plantfinder/all.php
>www.flowgrow.de/db/aquaticplants

previous >>5021317

My betta died after 3 years of having him :(

>>5038551
That's a good life for a betta splendes. The males tend to start really degrading by 2 y/o.

My current one is still going pretty strong but just hit 30 months with us (so is pushing 3 y/o). He's in hard water and I use the tank to breed various snails, but clearly doesn't care.

They're basic bitch fish but I do love them. Might reuse the tank for a couple pair of sparkling gourami next, or get another betta.

How shallow can you make a aquarium? Are there any fish that could live in an inch of water?

>>5038459 (OP)
That's a cool white betta.

How are there even so many variations of this one species of fish?

>>5038569
Temporarily? A ton of them. Ricefish, bettas, tetras. Permanently? Only shit like mudskipper.

>>5038459 (OP)
How would you decorate this tank without obscuring the back wall? I like the how the red fish contrast with the black background but other than that the tank looks aesthetically boring. No plants.

>>5038615
Inactive thread. I've decided I want to put a Java fern glued to Lava rock in the back right corner.

Thanx for all the helpful advices!

>>5038578
thanks
bettas are easy to breed and old compared to most domesticated fish, they have had lots of time and chances to create different morphs.
>>5038569
consider the logistics of that, a heater would barely fit, cant use sponge filters, have to refill every hour, etc.
>>5038615
whispy non-stem plants like valis, whose excess growth is more vertical than horizontal

Anyone keep Sulawesi shrimp here? I plan on getting some in the next few months when enough algae and biofilm builds up

>>5038551
He lived a long life

>pet store has been out of stock of my favourite tank size since i bought the last one nearly a year ago
maybe i should learn glassworking

Can anyone here redpill me on microfauna in fish tanks?
Ive come across some infomation lately that its a huge benefit to add microorganisms such as copepods into your aquarium to manage waste and detritus.

>breeding honey gourami pair
>new tank
>female introduced fine
>male deteriorates, doesn't eat, dies in 3 days
the only difference is that the male got his pecs stuck in the net for a few seconds during transfer, i guess he hurt himself trying to escape and that did him in. i used a jar to transfer the female, and will be doing so for every fish in the future. god fucking damn it.

don't net gouramis

>>5038960
the female spent all 3 days trying everything to court him while he swapped between lying in the sand and floating near the duckweed. it was depressing. he was even recovering for a while, getting more active, but he died overnight. i thought he would pull through. sorry for double posting but i really cared about him. he was so pretty when he was in breeding mode.

>>5038922
The benefits are real, but it's hard to sustain them at populations to benefit the tank unless you don't have fish. Snails really do the same thing but without the same worries. One day I'd like to run a freshwater sump/refugium where I can grow daphnia that will slowly travel into the main tank.

>>5038971
where could you even get copepods, daphnias, seed shrimps or fairy shrimp eggs for you tank tho?

>>5038984
its very easy to ship eggs, some aquarium supply stores online should have them. or you can just try to capture small organisms from the wild and cultivate whatever you find in its own setup

>>5038987
what's a good online store?
I feel like getting them from the wild is also begging to get leeches and flatworms
I wanna have vampire shrimps in a tank full of microfauna

>>5038994
no leeches or worms if you raise them in a separate tank and isolate the animals you want. dont know any stores, but google should find something. its the only thing its good at now.

>>5038920
Might be worth asking them directly if they can order it for you anon. Stores tend to get tanks on containers and if no-one requests an unusual/less sold model it typically won't be on the container.

>>5038922
>>5038984
PhillipsFishWorks sells bags of bugs, scuds, isopods etc. Put some in a new tank a week ago and I see them often, swimming around or crawling over leaf litter. Really adorable little guys. I added Otocinclus lately and the microfauna started hiding, until they realized those fish weren't going to eat them. Adding tetra soon, hopefully they start hiding again and don't swim openly after that or they'll become snacks.

Shrimple as that

>>5038994
Vid of a scud/microfauna enjoying life

Can you smell what the Rock is cooking?

Thoughts on getting six Chili Rasboras for my 5.5 gallon shrimp tank? I would consider it heavily planted.

>>5039247
Forgot to add, ignore the water level, this picture is a few days old.

>>5039247
I say go ahead

Thoughts on Pea Puffers?

>>5039667
Adorable, they buzz around strangely unlike any other fish. Big eyes that hyper focus on food and they pounce surprisingly fast. I have a small group in a 10 gallon and absolutely loved them. Main downsides are you cannot really keep anything else with them, so algae tends to overrun a bit

>>5039667
spherical snail hitlers

>>5039694
>Main downsides are you cannot really keep anything else with them
I have a plan for that.

I have an idea for a 29 gallon tall community tank involving Pea Puffers modelled after some other people’s tanks that had success with breeding them in similar setups.

https://www.reddit.com/u/pinkpnts/s/NGaeEFt1mS

https://www.reddit.com/r/PeaPuffers/s/KNNyKqqQXK

15 Pea Puffers (4 males, 11 females)
10 Kuhli Loaches
6 Amano Shrimp
20 Neocaridina Shrimp (apparently the Peas go crazy for baby shrimp).

Kuhlis and Amanos will be the cleanup crew, picking up whatever the Peas leave behind. According to the people I've been talking to, the Peas get really curious about the Amanos but don’t attack them. Whatever isn’t a Puffer will be going into the tank at least 3 days before the Puffers themselves.

This tank will be heavily planted with plants that are excellent nitrate absorbers. Java Moss, Moss Balls, Limnophila Sessiliflora, Hornwort, Hydrocotyle varieties, Salvinia, Frogbit, Tiger Lotus, Pearlweed, Monte Carlo, Amazon Sword, and Water Lettuce. I’ll try to make it look as much like a jungle as possible to provide line of sight breaks. I may even consider aquaponics with Pothos or Monstera.

I’m also putting a fine mesh bag of Eheim Substrat Pro underneath my substrate for more biological filtration + a Hygger Double Sponge Filter (rated for 40 gallons). My substrate will be aquasoil (don't know which brand yet) capped with sand.

I’ve set up a small 2L tank for Daphnia breeding and a 5 gallon tank for snail breeding. Both to be used for food. From the side of the tank will hang a Fluval 0.5 Gallon Breeder box where I will raise live blackworms. This tank will be connected to the main tank so it would constantly receive fresh tank water.

Thoughts?

>>5039873
I would worry that the puffers would stress the shrimp out, they might even pick off their legs. Even if the whole shrimp is too large to eat they'll likely still nibble on them.

If you're doing a 29 gallon jungle tank, I'd recommend just getting Amazon puffers instead especially if you can stretch it to a 50/55 gallon. Put them in with some Otocinclus and loaches and have a blast. I'm not saying your 29 gal pea puffer community wouldn't work, just that I'd be concerned for the shrimp

>>5039895
I understand your concern with the shrimp but that's exactly why I want to have so many plants as it offers them a ton of hiding spots. I would love to have some Amazon Puffers but I don't have the correct tank for them. They're fairly active swimmers so I would feel bad putting them in a 29 tall, not to mention I need to have a minimum of 6 puffers to reduce aggression.

Would apistos or rams bully corydoras if they were together in a 29 gallon? I want to do a South American tank but I worry about the lack of space at the bottom. I don't really care about breeding I just don't want them to fight over territory. I know I could probably get pygmy corys who don't hang out on the bottom as much but I'd like something a little bigger.

Also, would it be bad to just get a single apisto or ram? I've seen conflicting info on group sizes, where some places say they do better in larger groups and others that they do better alone or in a MF pair

pic unrelated

Am I looking at Scutariella japonica here?
https://files.catbox.moe/dr128j.jpg
https://files.catbox.moe/7r52sq.jpg
I noticed that white stuff on them a day after I bought them. Didn't think much of it but now I have 4 shrimp with that stuff. Also had 3 deaths over the past week.

I found this guide http://www.shrimptank.ca/2014/03/white-worms-neocaridina-shrimp-head and it suggests salt water baths..

Anyone dealt with this before?

>>5039050
cute!

I agree with the Professor on this one, and that's why I let my cat drink from the fish tank. It's what they would be drinking in the wild, plus it has more nutrients.

>>5040308
Add some floating plants, they're great nitrate absorbers. Some of my favorites are Salvinia and Water Lettuce. You could add some carpeting plants if you don't want to obscure the background.

Confirmed I have planaria in my display tank. I was saying in the last thread, I was pretty sure because I found it in some of my jars (cough marcusfishtanks cough).

Anyway I'm setting a trap now to at least thin it out. Has anyone had their neocaridina shrimp coexist with planaria? The shrimp already survive and breed with goldfish and two dozen minnows. I'm hoping I can ride it out.

I have goat dewormer but I don't want to have to collect all my snails. I also don't want to zap the detritus worms.

Pic not related. A vase I left in the sunlight and got swamped in Algae. There's a bladder snail hiker in there with the java fern. He got huge. I couldn't snap any planaria.

>>5040308
For the mid and foreground, look into cryptocoryne plants. The tend to grow 6-8 inches high and bushy. Good mid ground plants. Luteas are great, Lucens look like shit.

my java moss has been colonized by what I assume is hair algae, and it's trapping bits of detritus and I think contributing to cloudy water.
Is there any way to salvage it or do I just have to throw all the moss out?

>>5040612
If your tank is big enough, add 1-2 Siamese Algae Eaters. They tend to eat algae that no one else does.

>>5040612
Flourish excel works. Either dose the tank in general or use a syringe and spray a capful mixed with water directly onto the algae. You can also just pick the algae out with your fingers or tweezers or use a turkey baster you blow the debris off of the moss.

You can also snip a few cm long pieces and seed them in other spots in your tank. Then forget about them and let them take over.

>>5040624
I'm a bit reluctant to introduce algae eaters because don't I then become dependent on having a certain amount of algae growing all the time? It never used to be a problem with my tank but I had a couple of weeks of elevated light levels and it seems to really have kicked off an algae problem, black algae on the leaves of other plants too.

>>5040637
So the fertilizer allows the other plants to out-compete the algae?

>>5038615
needs more of those red fish

>>5039247
how does the water level even get that low to begin with?

>>5040644
It works way better ad an algaecide than a liquid carbon. Your plants are going to get almost all of their CO2 from gas exchange even with excel.

>>5040644
>become dependent on having a certain amount of algae growing all the time
Don't worry, once the algae is gone you can supplement their diet with algae wafers, widely available and very cheap.

>>5040681
Evaporation, I don't have a lid lol

Is she too fat?

>>5040308
I replaced the barrels with a volcano!

>>5041055
This tank looks good from every angle!

Which fish are the best to talk to and why is it livebearers?

TEEMING with life.

>>5038459 (OP)
hey guys, help me perfect my aquarium
I haven't had a fish in like 15 years and back then I was just a teen that didn't care
now I really want to care. I got a 10g vertical fishtank kit on sale from petsmart. water here is pretty hard so gonna fill it 50:50 tap water and diluted, got prep fluid for the tap.
got a tall hidey rock, and bought a java fern, amazon sword, and anubias. got some slow release fert pellets and liquid fertilizer, and biological starter too. also got an airstone I'm gonna bury under the gravel.
did a lot of research, tank is too small for goldfish to thrive. I have a 30g tank in storage that I might try later if I feel confident for that. after I get the water in and cycled for a bit, I'm gonna plant into the gravel and run the tank for a couple weeks and check water balance periodically. if everything looks good, I was hoping to introduce maybe 6-10 tetras to the tank. then a little later, 3-4 corydoras and a nerite snail
really invested in making sure my new tankbros will be as happy and healthy as possible, so if any of yall have good advice or want to sanity check my plans i'd really appreciate it

>>5041097
oh, sorry. here's additional deets.

tank is a top fin column starter kit. 12.5 in L x 12.5 in W x 19.5 in H

tap water in my area is pretty hard and is probably suitable for goldfish? carbonate hardness is 120ppm, but general hardness tops off the strip test at 180ppm. the fish I'm choosing seem to prefer half those values, that's why I'm gonna try half distilled.

>>5041097
sounds like a good stocking plan I think you have everything to succeed with this

>>5041098
Guppies and embers like harder water so you could also embrace it and go with them

>>5041100
*not embers, endler's livebearers, typo

Livebearers are based and never stop fucking. Imaging living your whole life just swimming around fucking bitches all day. What a life!

>>5041107
isn't that a bit too much livebearers?

>>5041101
>endler's livebearers
I looked them up, those are hella pretty fish! I agree they seem easy to care for. It seems they are enthusiastic breeders, though, which is not what I'm looking for.

>>5041098
>12.5 in L x 12.5 in W x 19.5 in H
A tank that size could hold about 30 guppies as long as you don't have any floating plants like hornwort or your guppies will multiply. But 20-30 seems like a good number. Or a single betta. But I'd go with the livebearers because livebearers are based.

>>5041110
They will breed but if the fry don't have anywhere to hide then they'll all get eaten. These animals consider their own children to be a food source and will eat their own babies.

>>5041112
I was considering salvinia, only reason I didn't buy any is cause it was out of stock today. How would they feel about that?

>>5041115
>salvinia
I'm not familiar with that plant so I googled it and found this pic and it looks like fry would definitely be able to hide in that so I might get some for my tank.

For me the joy of having livebearers is watching them multiply and create life so if I was you I'd add three males and a female with the floating plants and watch them multiply. Then when the tank get overcrowded you can take out the floating plants and wait for them to die off (about 3 years). Then add more floating plants when the numbers get low. Rinse repeat.

That's why I do with my 90 litre livebearer tank. When there's about 100 fish in there I'll remove the hornwort and watch them eat their babies.
For this reason I prefer hornwort because it's easier to remove than salvinia which needs to be scooped out. I can just grab a handful of hornwort and lift it all out (shaking out the fry).

So, yeah. Livebearers all the way.

>>5041090
>>5041091
Based. Just needs a blue Betta to act as the centerpiece. And name him Simon.

>>5041131
I tried that but bettas are solitary fish that don't do well in a crowded environment.

RIP Simon. :(

>>5041110
>>5041124
genuine exchange of knowledge in /aqg/

>>5041097
Good luck my dude. That amazon sword is going to grow far too large for that tank so be prepared to trim it. Give it a good amount of substrate underneath, some sort of aquasoil. You can always put the soil in a zip lock bag if you want it to be really tidy, topped with whatever your top substrate is.

I strongly recommend planting immediately, day 1. They'll take a while to get roots into the substrate and you'll want that before the bioload gets up when you add fish. As you add organics (or bottled ammonia, or a small number of tiny fish) to cycle the excess will be happily consumed by the plants instead of growing algae which will happen if you don't have plants. Remember that the water doesn't cycle on it's own, you're growing a bacterial colony which will grow to the size of the food available to it. Meaning if you aren't actively adding a little bit of food/ammonia to the tank (even with no fish in it), the colony simply won't grow. You'll know it's there once you start seeing nitrites and then later, nitrates. The tetras sound great, make sure they're on the smaller side for a 10g tall. Cory's are a bit more sensitive to water quality so it's good that you plan on adding them after. Add the snail when you add the first fish, there should be enough algae and waste in there right away to feed one snail.

>>5041098
Don't go for goldfish, you're right in your first post that the tank is too small for them. Don't worry *too* much about matching fish to your water type, unless they're wild caught most domestic bred fish are more used to their fish farm/store's water than their natural habitat. You can always ask your local store what their water is like and see how healthy their fish look before purchasing. Should tell you if they're totally fine in your local water or not.

Good luck my dude!

>>5041186
Oh also keep in mind water parameters can actually matter more for your plants than your fish. Amazon swords for instance can be a bit picky and like water close to, of course, the Amazon (softer, slightly acidic). It's worth looking into your plant choice as well as the livestock.

>>5041186
>>5041188
I didn't know that about amazon sword, I'll see what I can do. There's a lot of gravel in there but it sounds like that's not enough.

I did realize the ammonia problem a little too late. I ordered some of the fish food pellets I can add to the water tomorrow. I also realized the java fern and anubias really need to be tied down, so I'm getting a volcanic rock or two.

once I do get the food or liquid ammonia I'll check on things over 10 to 14 days and see if the nitrites and nitrates develop as expected

>>5041194
Gravel isn't a great substrate in generally. It has no nutrition, allows fish waste to fall down between the pebbles and slowly rot over time and is hard to vacuum clean. My preferred method is a decent layer of aquasoil topped with sand, personally. Since you've already filled the tank you can still do the soil bagged in a zip lock (a mesh aquarium one, not the plastic food storage kinds) and just reach down and slip it beneath the gravel, it would do a world of good for any stem plants above it.

Good move on the fish pellets. Add just a tiny bit every 3-4 days along with a little daily splash of your bacteria in a bottle and it'll get setup pretty fast. The java fern and anubias really do want to be bound to something yeah, I recommend an aquarium safe super glue or some twine and a rock as you said or a piece of driftwood. I'm a big fan of driftwood in tanks, they slowly leech organics into the water that provides a great start to your bacterial ecosystem and a lot of fish like interacting with wood. Some even need a bit of wood or biofilm in their diet to be in top shape (suckermouth fish mostly like Otocinclus or some species of pleco).

You seem to have a really solid plan. Wish you the best of luck my friend.

>>5041205
I heard a bit of conflicting information about driftwood, someone said it's fine to dump it in cause fish like the tannins, but I've also seen someone say you should boil/soak it for a couple days before putting it in

>>5041215
They're both correct. The tanins they leach into the water are either completely neutral or slightly good for the fish, depending on the habitat the species evolved for and how shy/confident they are. A lot of fish come from blackwater streams/lagoons (particularly South American fish) and enjoy the slight murkiness. However it makes the tank look a little less clean from a human perspective so some people really hate it. It's an aestethic choice really, up to you. Some people go all in on tanins and make an authentic blackwater aquarium like this tank by a well known youtuber.

Boiling the wood does two things - removes a lot of tanins (though some will still leech slowly into your water over the following months until they're gone completely) which makes the tank look clearer, faster and it also helps release trapped air inside the wood, which helps it sink faster. Driftwood, especially large pieces, can take weeks or even months of being fully submerged before they finally sink on their own. You can also get tanins out of water easily by adding some activated carbon, a lot of companies sell this stuff (look up Purigen by Seachem for example) which quickly removes organics from the water to make it crystal clear. There are downsides to that though. Organics in the water are beneficial to your microculture and to your plants, so I don't personally add activated carbon to my tanks for the first few months and even then, I only add it for a week or so to polish the water up.

My overly round ember died, lived about a month :(
I thought she was gravid, maybe it was parasites, or some kind of infection? Before she died, the bloating went down but she developed greyish patches and some kind of fluid filled cysts.

>>5041297
Sky (water) burrial, within hours the body is almost completely gone

>>5041124
>add three males and a female
Bait! That's just bait!!! That's gooner bait for a fish gangbang!

>>5041090
>>5041091
Flanders :3

>>5041108
>trying to talk sense into flanders
Hi newfren welcome to /aq/

Does anyone have experience with Red Headed Tapajos, the mid-sized Geophagus? I've read around about them and found conflicting info on their final size - do they end up around 5 inches, or do they reach 8 inches as some sites claim? Anyone kept them?

>>5041337
zomg, nice catch!

idk why i wrote that when i should've said
>two females and one male
maybe i was projecting my own fantasy of being b l a c k e d my multiple BFCs (Big Fish Cocks). i should really proof read my shit before doing the captcha thing. i'm so sorry.

but then again would a gang bang really be the worst thing in the world for these fish?

>>5041108
You can never have too much of a good thing.

>>5041470
Oh lawd he back

>>5041470
Understocked. You should add 3 goldfish.

Making of new shrimp tank. I was going to put my rilies in here or some yellows, but I also just got a ro filter so maybe it's time to upgrade to crystal shrimp

I fucking hate Canada, I can't get basic fish meds here. I need some Seachem Metroplex to treat my future Pea Puffers and everything here is ridiculously expensive/unavailable.

>>5041627
Why do you need to spend stupid amounts of money on NameBrand Chemicals™ to """treat""" your dying fish? Just let them die. You're falling for a Jewish trick to make you spend your shekels.

>>5041541
>just put cold water fish in a tropical tank bro
Yeah, nah.

>>5041630
this has to be bait

>>5041645
The only two things that are certain in life are death and you dying a virgin. We all die and so do fish. Life isn't precious. Let the snails eat the dead fish and thus continues the circle of life.

>>5041693
>snail hands typed this

>>5041627
if you plan to breed them in any way you let the weak and sick die, unless you want to use even more drugs on future generations. just remember that by virtue of living in captivity most fish have survived longer than their average lifespan in the wild before they even reach a sellable size.

>>5041842
An easy way to tell the LARPers is when they push Joe Rogan tier nonsense. Anyone that owns a tank, that isn't some 10g low tech with a handful of tetras, puts shit in the tank.

You're probably the guy on the Facebook groups saying you don't need a filter because you put a petco anubias and some java ferns in your tank.

>>5041915
>natural selection is "joe rogan tier nonsense"
enjoy your inbreds who can only survive in sterile water. just dont cough near the tank.

>>5041605
That's a beautiful scape! They'll love it

>>5041915
I have three tanks, two very high tech, and I let weak small fish die off. Half the time it's more stressful for a sick fish to be chased around with a net, pulled out away from it's school into a hospital tank, treated with meds and left alone for weeks. The survival rate is low and that same fish is likely to have issues again in the future. It's more merciful to let those ones die peacefully among their friends imo. If it were a large cichlid or something absolutely, but for one of my hundred or so tetras, no.

>>5041920
Natural in my artificial fish tank lol

>>5041924
>AKA you treat fish and dose tanks
No one is arguing for heroic efforts to extend the life of danios. Also, small fish don't tend to linger. Sick and die tend to occur within the same day or next day. If nothing else the tankmates will sense weakness and bully the shit out of him until he dies.

>>5041915
>Anyone that owns a tank, that isn't some 10g low tech with a handful of tetras, puts shit in the tank.

Chems are a good way to nuke your tank and cause more trouble than they solve.

Just let nature do its fucking job man.

>>5041962
or just quarantine the fish, jeez.
it stops being "nature" when you put fishes into glass boxes

>>5041971
>fishes

>it stops being "nature" when you put fishes into glass boxes
All life on earth is contained here until Elon improves his space rocket game.
In the wild, my fish live in muddy puddles so my great big tank full of purified water and cat piss is like a five star hotel for them, and they thrive in it.

don't' mind me. just posting the classics.

>>5042020
>my fish live in muddy puddles so my great big tank full of purified water and cat piss is like a five star hotel for them, and they thrive in it.
Common misconception. Those small bodies of water are still hundreds of gallons of volume, constantly renewed with rain, which is more pure than your purified water unless you are using RODI.
Think of it this way: a "small" pool of water found in the wild will still be several feet in diameter while your tiny ass tank is what? 30" at best? lmao
Even a puddle that's a mere 3" deep and 6' across is over 50 gallons, and has access to anaerobic bacteria that your tank won't have.

>>5042025
Shouldn't that be named maximum size? Or maybe minimum number.

>>5042027
I said puddle, not pond/lake. You don't even know what type of fish(es) that I have so how can you say with absolute certainty that they will be happier with your "anaerobic™" bacteria? DO I need to spend thousands of dollars on a bottle of bacteria for my fish to thrive? Didn't think so.

>>5042032
I said puddle too. You really think ponds and lakes are 6' across? lmao go outside, retard.
Also I'm not the guy you're replying to. I didn't comment anything about medication or chems and you obviously have no idea what anaerobic bacteria in the ecosystem will do. I'll give you a freebie though, it's how most of the nitrate in nature is taken care of in bodies of water (not plant life, although it certainly does uptake some).
This shitty puddle right there is bigger than your tank, and fish won't be living there very long.
I don't have to know exactly what type of fish you have or what tank you have. You're on /aq/. Chances are it's the usual basic bitch fish in a nano tank. Even if it's not, nothing I have said is untrue. Natural bodies of water, even ones you consider puddles, are going to be larger than you think it is. The tiny pools you see created on road potholes and whatever shithole you live in are not puddles in which fish reside. The ones that can actually be found in nature with fish living in them are far larger than your tiny brain can imagine apparently. GO OUTSIDE WHEN IT RAINS, DOOFUS. The bodies of water that stick around more than a few hours are not what you think they are.

>>5042036
>I'm not the guy
Then you must be a girl. post feet.

>>5042036
>I don't have to know exactly what type of fish you have
>but let me tell you about it anyway

>>5042036
>GO OUTSIDE WHEN IT RAINS
But that's what fish do and I'm not a fish. I'm a hu-man! I don't need to go outside to jump in puddles when I have a perfectly good fish tank in my basement so if I wanted to get my feet wet I'd dangle them in my fish tank and watch the fish pick off the dead skin from between my toes. There's your anorexic bacteria buddy. Fucking toe jam. Speaking of feet post yours.

ngl, but "puddle" is such a funny-sounding word.

it's like a cross between 'poo' and 'cuddle'
>puddle

>>5041938
>AKA you treat fish and dose tanks
No I didn't say that, I don't put any medication in my tanks. It's awful to do that. Kills the microclimate.

>>5042027
This is more of an issue with people overstocking tanks. The right sized fish in a tank with a good deep substrate and plenty of plants/driftwood get an incredibly good life.

What are you arguing in favor of, since you seem to have come into the Aquarium General thread to rant about how Aquariums are awful? Or is your point just that we should accept that they are inherently unnatural?

My grandpa just gave me a 40 gal tank. What is the biggest fish that can comfortably live there?

>>5042064
Are you looking for a fish that'll happily live alone, or one who wants to be in a pair or group?
Are you going to have live plants in there?
What's your tap water like, how hard/soft is it and what's its PH?
Do you want a confident fish that'll come say hi to you or are you okay with a shy one who'll want to hide a bit?
Planning on adding any other, smaller fish to that tank or just one big boy?

>>5042064
If you wanted to switch it up, get 3 sunfish. Cool NA fish get like 8 inches. They are voracious fish eaters so it's species only.

>>5042060
Deep substrates are bad for fish health. Traps too much shit that heterotrophic bacteria and parasites feed off. Just look at any discus breeder in existence. Still want an anoxic environment for anaerobic bacteria (don’t to this in a planted tank, you need that NO4), do it in your sump.
>>5042027
> Think of it this way: a "small" pool of water found in the wild will still be several feet in diameter while your tiny ass tank is what? 30" at best?
Bettas are found in 5cm deep puddles. As are a lot of small amazonian fishes after the wet period.

>>5041448
We eat them here. Well, big geophagus
genus species. They usually grow up to somewhere around 13-15cm. 8 inches sounds like a bit of a stretch.

>>5042482
>Deep substrates are bad for fish health. Traps too much shit that heterotrophic bacteria and parasites feed off.
That's just straight up wrong. Discus breeders are the biggest retards in the hobby, they're so stuck on the misinfo of the 80's and they peddle it like snake oil.

>>5042497
Why are they wrong? They certainly must be doing something right, considering that most people cant keep discus alive and they breed them for a living.
And the one discus breeder who told me this is quite literally an aquaculture engineer.

>>5042084
Preferably one that can live alone but i would also be ok with one medium sized fish that can live with a bunch of smaller fish

>>5042103
Always wanted to try that. They are a beautiful fish. Hell, just one male and couple of females to make him color up good.

Gonna need one hell of a lid, though. They're surprisingly athletic.

A trio would probably outgrow a 40gal breeder pretty quick, though, wouldn't they?

Man, a sunfish tank would be so cool. Tannins and floaters, sandy bottom, those blue/green speckles flashing.

I ain't even that anon...

>>5042505
Many of the most healthy, natural tanks out there have deep, rich substrate beds for the purpose of getting that anoxic enviroment (yes even in heavily planted tanks, it won't out compete the plants for nitrate). Whereas discus breeders stick fish in the most hideous, artificial, nasty looking tanks imaginable and have pride that they lay eggs on their breeding cones. They go with bare bottoms so they can vacuum up waste more easily, because they have no plants, no shrimp, no scuds, no live substrate, nothing to handle it. Their focus on simplfying the process has steralized the fun out of fishkeeping. I have far more respect for people who keep healthy tanks than people who have bred discus in tiny empty boxes.

>>5042497
>Have deep substrate
>Disturb it by uprooting some plants
>Fish die from the worst flesh eating bacterial infection I ever seen

Yeah nah, this is not going to happen in nature but tank substrate are ticking time bomb

>>5042556
On the fifth day God gave us a "gravel vac".

>>5042576
Good luck gravel vaccing a densely planted tank

>don't use anti parasitics on your wild caught imports, it's not natural
love this general

>>5042647
There is nothing wrong with doing that in a quarantine tank but dumping chems into your display tank is just stupid.

>>5042528
>natural tanks
You see, that is the problem. Deep substrates make natural tanks workable, but it doesn’t change the fact that natural aquariums are inherently shit-tier and will always provide worse fish health that other methods due to the increased presence of pathogens.
> rich substrate beds for the purpose of getting that anoxic enviroment (yes even in heavily planted tanks, it won't out compete the plants for nitrate)
This doesn’t even make sense, considering that the reason for having an anoxic environment is to have the bacteria assimilate nitrate down there. In planted tanks, you want to have as much nitrate as possible, and you have to dump copious amounts of it in the form of fertilizer every other day to make sure the concentration never drops below 10ppm. In breeder tanks, they have automated water change mechanisms that also makes this pointless. It’s just a bad practice that eliminates a relatively minor problem in most aquariums, as weekly water changes pretty much guarantee that nitrate won’t be a problem.
> Whereas discus breeders stick fish in the most hideous, artificial, nasty looking tanks imaginable and have pride that they lay eggs on their breeding cones
Yeah, these tanks are ugly, no question, but they are the absolute best for fish health. If you want aesthetics, look at regular discus aquariums that have thin fertile substrates that are enough for plant growth.
>>5042556
This is even worse if you follow the father fish method and use a baked humus substrate. That shit works wonders but will kill everything in the tank if it ever into the water column. Actually, if you plan on using baked humus, please do use 5 inches of sand above it.
>>5042651
Which microfauna is fenbendazole or ivermectin going to destroy in your tank? Detritus worms? Dactylogirus are a health hazard to all fish and they can survive in the substrate in their egg form for a while.

>plants on the one side of my tank facing the sun are coated from top to bottom in this emerald green algae
>cherry shrimp seem to have zero aptitude for eating it like they do for brown/black algae
Should I get an algae eater fish? There's a hillstream loach at my local pet store that caught my eye. Would the loach snack on the shrimp?
Thing is this is supposed to be a low-maintenance tank since there are parts of the year where I'm gone for a good 2+ weeks at a time. I won't be able to feed the little nigga and I don't want to come back to a rotting corpse killing my whole tank or my autofeeder somehow clogging my filter and killing my entire tank of fish again.

>>5042802
Hillstreams don't really get big enough to snack on shrimp and they're pretty specialized fish. They've made for hunkering down flat to a surface and eating biofilm/algae underneath them, not equal sized animals. Don't just throw one in your tank though, they really want fast flowing, highly oxygenated water and most tanks just aren't suitable for them. A few otocinclus might be a better choice for your tank.

>>5042735
Nitrates in my main display 180g are stable at 10-15ppm and I haven't done a water change in weeks. I fertalize with APT 1 (no nitrates) and if they ever do dip below 10ppm I'll change to something a little more full spectrum with nitrate in. It's simply balanced naturally around the bioload. The tank is mediumly planted (with CO2) and is modestly stocked plus a ton of detritovores living in sand and leaf litter so it's extremely self maintaining. I'm not saying that regular, large water changes aren't a good thing for many tanks (especially tanks with no plants due to having plant eaters like African cichlids or Severums) just that I personally prefer a more balanced ecosystem approach to fishkeeping. I plan on adding discus in the future when the plants are more grown in and I'm specifically aiming on creating the closest simulation to their natural biotope as possible.

>>5042802
Amanos will go for green algae

>>5042632
>densely planted
I spotted your problem. Just use floating plants and problems weren't.

>>5042802
>I'm gone for a good 2+ weeks at a time. I won't be able to feed the little nigga
Pic related might help.

>Should I get an algae eater fish?
Algae Eaters are cunts, and they get big fast. I put one in my tank and it killed all four of my chain loaches before jumping out of the tank. I had him for about a year and a half and in that time he grew from about one inch to a bit over five inches. I tried a second Algae Eater and he only lasted about six months before jumping out of my tank. So fuck Algae Eaters. I hope they suffered while dying on my floor.

First sighting in over a week, wonderful purchase.

>>5043056
neat

>>5043056
crab

>>5043056
Welcome back, specter crab!

>>5043007
If I use floating plants only then why on earth would I have deep substrate? I also had a bunch of floating moss and salvinia natans in the tank btw.

Happened to an other person too:

>>5043312
I really don't think you can have a properly anoxic environment to create hydrogen sulfide in a few inches of aquarium substrate. It's never made any sense to me and there's never been any actual testing on it. All these cases have to be bacterial, because people don't actually clean their substrate with plants as the excuse.

>>5043346
Particularly in a planted tank, root penetration will make it basically impossible for the conditions to arise anyway even if they could.

I tore down my shrimp tank after mass death, and a huge bubble (4cm diameter) rose up as I started removing the substrate, so I am not sure how impossible it is to have noxious gasses.

I used 2 mm grain size substrate.

>>5038569
i use a litter box w aqua soil and it has housed guppies swordtails and danios for months

>>5043351
similar thing happened to me once. water turned blue n smelled like rotten egg. ouu i'd never forget that

Im doing some 3d designing and i wanna know how big the inner diameter of one of these tubes is. Can somebody that has something like picrel measure theirs for me please? I can't find the measurement online.

>>5043403
I mean the translucent green one. Outer diameter would be fine too but in that case I'd also need a estimate of the wall thickness.

>>5043346
>I really don't think you can have a properly anoxic environment to create hydrogen sulfide in a few inches of aquarium substrate.
Exactly 100%
>All these cases have to be bacterial
Exactly
>>5043369
>>5043351
I'm betting these are just bacterial population explosions that can happen in an indoor tank because of the lack of sun-equivalent UV.
Also maybe some sort of founder-effect. So you seed the bacteria in your aquarium and because it's a closed system there are no competing micro-organism species to keep the bacteria in check in case of a population explosion.

Hornwort grows great, but I hate that my fish nibble on it and wind up swimming around with huge shit chains of partially digested plant hanging out of them.

>>5038960
If it’s any consolation, your loss is a valuable warning for me and my own honey. Wouldn’t have thought of that possibility myself.

My tank parameters just took a huge hit. I believe i over fertilized plants. I recently bought some val and dwarf hairgrass, put root tab grid in and dosed with easy green.
Now my nitrate and nitrite have spiked.
I have done a 50% water change, plan to do around 20% every other day.
Any other suggestions?

Tank has 12 amano shrimp, 6 blue jelly shrimp, 3 nerite snails, 8 harlequin rasbora.

>>5043575
It takes time for plants to lengthen out their root systems and begin serious growth. They aren't really able to use fertilizer after immediately being put into a tank. There's also generally a little bit of shock that delays their growth too from being in a new enviroment. Don't go hard with lights and ferts from day 1.

You mention some shrimp, snails and rasbora - how old is that tank? Does it have other plants that have been around for longer? Easy Green has:
>Water Soluble Nitrogen (N) 2.66%
>Available Phosphate (P2O5) 0.46%
>Soluble Potash (K2O) 9.21%
So it's definitely overkill if the current plants can't handle it without nitrites/nitrates spiking. Better to use a fert without nitrogen for the first few months. Don't worry too much about the water changes, just continue to test and change as needed. If you over-water change then you'll swing the other way and deprive the plants of any nutrients at all (given their roots are not developed enough to really benefit from those tabs just yet). This is also why people often get algae at first, they put a bunch of light and nutrients into a system that's not ready/able to make use of it, so the algae does instead.

>>5043575
even heavy root feeders can be sustained with water column dosing without root tabs or a soil substratem and they can end up causing all kinds of problems like this because "slow release" can never really be guaranteed. Would just never use them again.

Anons with carpeting plants, how do you clean your tank without uprooting them? As is with sparse plants, I’ve accidentally pulled up the roots when I’ve been siphoning the floor.

>>5043601
Gentle turkey basting while siphoning. I saw a cool tip somewhere years ago to use elastic bands to tie the baster to your hose to make it easier.

>don't see them for over a week
>Today see two together for the first time since introducing
I think my chances of seeing all four again are basically zero but I think I'm spending way more time looking at my tank to find them so overall it's a benefit.