alexyay

Tanks are currently covered in plants which I'm growing lol :c will look at it tomorrow.

Thanks :thup: Here's a quick (cruddy) video of him bubblenesting -

I know, hence why he's the called the skinny one.

More pictures :dnc1: Pond (?) snail eggs - haven't had them eating plants too much, pretty much do cleanup crew and become DPF food. My kuhlis have different patterns - one has only stripes, the other has spots - is that normal variation within the species? Or could they be different types? I saw four today, which is one more than I thought I had! (I got five, but only ever saw three out at one time) Spotty Stripey The honeys compared to each other - note the male looked exactly like the female a few weeks ago! He's looking gorgeous now! I was having issues with the DPFs not eating anything other than snails, but two of them ate white worms today (one ate so many I thought he was going to explode) - not sure exactly what to do with the last one, I've seen him picking at snails but hopefully anything like parasites have been killed off with the dewormed. Skinny guy was the only one I got photos of - one other is a bit skinny but ate today, the other looks pretty healthy -

I don't usually shoot in RAW (seriously, I don't have any proper justification - I usually try to get the best photo on camera and I think I'll get a bit lazy if I start using RAW lol) - but I will definitely do so for this. Hmm, I wonder whether expodiscs are waterproof lol. I don't know whether the DiCAPac will fit my kit either - the S10 seems to fit my lens but the S5 fits my camera. The S10 looks like it fits larger cameras, so mine should be okay, it's just not listed. I'll try without flash first, but if anyone's got any suggestions as to what I should put one in (I assume any clear plastic waterproof bag will do?) let me know. I can't really afford a nice strobe, unless anyone's got any suggestions for that (if I find I need one, I'll probably buy it over there).

Do we have any fishy photographers here? I need a bit of help! So I'm going to Hawaii :dnc1: and I'm wanting to do some reef photography. Here's a list of the kit that I have - Nikon D7000 105mm 2.8 Macro An external flash gun I've been recommended the DiCAPac for housing my camera, now I've just gotta find one that fits. I'm thinking that without any light I'm going to have trouble getting photos without them being super blue and needing higher ISOs. I'm only planning on being in shallow reefs - so there should be plenty of natural lighting too. Should I house my external flash gun and use that? If so, what the heck do I put it in? Of course I'm going to have to carry this all and coordinate everything unless I can find a family member to be a slave for me :nilly: so any tips appreciated. What kind of settings do you have your camera on? Recommended Kelvin scale? Or do you stick most things on auto when under water? Anyone got any gear I can borrow :thup: haha, I can afford some stuff, but the nice $2000 housing is so not within my budget.

The other two tanks have plenty of snails, so they're my snail growing tanks. I think so - and I have 2x 32(?)W T5HO tubes so I'd hope that's enough - it is melting a little but still growing, so surviving but not thriving. The moss is pretty good, though.

!drool: What a gorgeous tank - and fish too. Love the black aro!

So, I now have one female and one male honey gourami in the 90L. And since removing the other male, this guy's pretty happy. I intend on getting better photos tomorrow morning - he's a gorgeous red colour at the moment My original plan was to remove they honeys and get 2 blue rams and 1 apisto, but at the moment I'm thinking of breeding the honeys. So I've got a few questions - - He's been bubblenesting for a week. She doesn't seem to care at all - she even destroys the bubbles when he's not looking (which isn't often, he's super protective of it) - is she going to spawn with him? Or do I need to find myself another female? - IF she can breed with him, are honeys tolerant of line breeding? It would only be for this generation - this would be my first spawning, so it is mostly for the experience at the moment - What are my options for food? Are there alternatives to live food? I don't really have the money or the patience to set up a brine shrimp hatchery at the moment, I currently only have white worms. Is there something I can buy from the store to feed fry? I can set up one of my tanks outside to make green water for them though. - Is the gold or red dominant? I'd be happy to buy a gold honey (what my LFS has in stock at the moment), but not if I'm going to end up with gold fry - I'd love to get the red colours out. These are my current thoughts? Once she spawns (if she spawns), remove her and put her in the 70L. Once the fry hatch, put them in the 18L with a sponge filter and heater? I figure they will either get eaten or sucked into the filter intake, so I presume removing them is the best option? Is it necessary for the 18L to be barebottom? It's got gravel in it at the moment, I'll just need to get rid of that first lol. Technically I don't really have anywhere to set up the 18L, but I'll find somewhere. Super cruddy pic -

Small update - I intend to take some more pics tomorrow morning. I had to euth Kaiden (the Betta fish), as he was no longer able to swim or coordinate himself properly. He ended up spending his last day lying down on his side in a breeder net and I wasn't sure how much longer he'd have to live like that so euth seemed the best option This is what it ended up looking like - I also lost two BN siblings, and I'm still not sure why. The only thought is that they starved themselves, as they wouldn't eat any kind of wafers and would only eat courgette - I was trying to switch them back to the Aqua One wafers which I knew they used to eat. The third one (unrelated to the first two) is still looking healthy and fine. Water parameters were fine. So the 70L now has 7x Pristella tetras 6x Black neon tetras 1x BN (After adding the pristellas the black neons have really come out of their shell! They were always incredibly shy - wouldn't even eat in front of me - now they're schooling happily with the pristellas) I bought 3 otos for the 90L, but lost one in the process. I also have one threadfin rainbowfish (the only one that was in stock) - I plan on slowly making a school of 7 out of them. If HFF have any in stock next weekend I'll buy a couple more for him. Uh, the honey gouramis that we sexed as females suddenly decided they weren't. I now have one female, two males. I've given one male to Dad, as he was bothing the other male. I'll mention the honeys later on in the thread as I've got loads of questions about them. So 90L stocking - 2x Honey Gouramis 1x Threadfin Rainbowfish 5(?)x Kuhli loaches - I've only ever seen three out at a time so I'm thinking of getting two more just in case I lost a couple. Haven't seen any dead bodies though :dunno: 1x L129 - I don't see him much but I know where his hidey hole is so check up on him occasionally. 2x otos (need 1-3 more) Uh, the dwarf puffers. I haven't had much luck there. I first got one from my LFS, which I shouldn't have gotten but I had been setting up their tank for so many months I was running impatient. It wasn't healthy in the store, and was lethargic from day one. I couldn't get it eating. I had them hold two for me and went to pick them up - one passed away in the shop, and because of the issues they gave the second to me for free. Unfortunately he wasn't very healthy either (I wouldn't have bought him) and passed away pretty quick. Went to HFF to get three of them and they're looking super healthy and happy (only had them for 5 days though) - dosed with a dewormer just in case the others had something, and I just did a 90-100% WC today. They picked away at the large snail population instantly - they don't seem to be interested in bloodworms though? Caught one eating white worms (he is the skinny one of the lot too which is good), but haven't seen any eat the blood worms so I'm a bit concerned about that. Pics - And from Dad's tank - Kevin is near impossible to photograph. I'm gonna stick the honey gourami questions in a second post.

What kinds?

Even in a 300L, I'd stick 6-7 discus in there at most imo

That's BBA for sure - the SAEs will only eat any new tufts so will stop it from spreading, however your best bet is to dose with something like Flourish Excel (note: it'll melt twisted val if you have any) which should kill it off (for BBA I dose slightly higher than the recommended amount)

Yep, thought I'd give it a go and see what it was like.

Supposedly "Riccia glauca" liverwort. Any idea on what it might be?

I haven't joined, but would it be OK for me to come along, just to see what it's like? Thanks.

It's the chlorine that kills the bacteria (I think?) so rainwater should be fine, but just squeeze them a bit. I only wash my sponges (well filter wool in my case) if it's impacting the flow or I need to replace them (sticking in them to cycle another tank for example). Assuming you have plenty other filter media giving them a quick rinse shouldn't have a bad effect on the bacteria colonies, so cleaning them occasionally is OK.

Yep, I usually either cycle by using old filter media, or sticking a prawn/shrimp in there to rot & doing a 100% water change once it's cycled - I'm personally not a fan of fish-in cycling unless you're doing regular water changes to avoid any ammonia damage.

Thank you :happy1: I do intend to, I just keep forgetting. FNZAS are welcome to use any if they want though (just contact me for a higher res version).

Thought they were probably all females, was just testing my luck! Am interested in swapping the larger one for a male if anyone's interested

Tank update :happy2: Not much of a change in plants, still working on that. 90L stocking plans are staying the same, but I now have a L129 pleco in there and am thinking of adding some apistogrammas, maybe. Probably not, just a thought right now. So I currently have the golden pristellas split into two groups until I get my dwarf puffers - 4 in the 70L and 3 in the 31L. I never want to try to catch tetras again (in a tank full of caves that they can hide in, and places where they can avoid the nets :an!gry ) 31L - sorry for the shoddy lighting. I was going to get rid of the mesh but the christmass moss has finally popped out and is starting to grow. 3x golden pristella tetras (temporary) 90L - sorry for the shoddy picture and random plants everywhere. Currently trying to convert water wisteria, also have some floating ludwiga that thrived for a week and then just about all rotted away which is a shame because it's super pretty. 5x Kuhli loaches 1x L129 Pleco 3x Honey gouramis If someone feels like sexing the honeys for me, feel free to! 2 smaller ones - the slightly larger one - 70L - 6 x Black neon tetras 4x Golden Pristella tetras 3x Bristlenoses 1x Betta Now for a bit of picture spam Bad photo of the pleco -

!drool: Nice plant, awesome flowers.

I find that plants usually go upwards when they're having trouble with light. Ambulia seems to be pretty "bushy", though. For carpets - you *might* be able to get away with a kind of chain sword. Dwarf sag and a moss "carpet" could work too. Swords and crypts for fore-mid-ground plants. Java fern can be really dense too if you grow it right.

These photos are a pretty good comparison. Regular, Sunset.

You sure you've got the right plant? The rosanervig is pretty easy to tell apart from normal polysperma - you can see the "veins" on it and it's a much lighter green.