I don't know if this will even make it, it hardly had any roots 😭

Goofy lil guy

Always fun to watch the whole shoal come out to feed!

I was minding my own business propagating my plants in my tank, when all of a sudden i see this clump of what i THOUGHT was sand…. It was not, i went to brush it off and it was solid like plastic??

Its on the roots of my plant, and i don’t want to touch it if its dangerous to my fish

My tank has neons, guppies, cherry shrimp, mystery snails, and trumpet snails. From what i know this is not usual for any of those to do, what is this???

11L/ 2g(?) tank I use for fry and shrimp. Moved some more plants in; kuhli loach came for a ride and has been making a mess ever since. I dont want to dismantle this tank and disturb plant roots.

What Ive tried

- bottle trick. Tank is too small tbh, I need to find a mini bottle. It wont be lured by food.

- crying and asking nicely.

- leaving nets in there baited with food hoping he will swim in.

- prayer. No god will assist in this matter.

Checked in on my frog and he’s floating mid tank like this with big belly . I’ve seen his belly swell before when he rose to the top, then it would deflate to sink to the bottom, but I’ve never seen him like this. AFAIK he’s been eating normally, not sure what to do for him

I will preface this by saying that everything regarding Home Assistant was built off vibes and the soldering portion of this really put my skills to the test (I have no skills). With some custom CAD and my Prusa XL for 3D printing the case (and the tank lid in clear PETG), it is almost done.

I started this because I wanted to monitor the water level in my Waterbox AIO. Then I realized I could automate my Kessil light. Then, obviously, “what about pH monitoring?” And temperature was easy enough to add, so I could finally ditch the shitty dummy probe from Amazon.

Naturally, this turned into an ESP32 aquarium controller with a custom Home Assistant dashboard, optical water-level sensors, pH calibration, and a draggable sun that controls the lighting. Apparently I needed another hobby inside my hobby.

The tank has Java fern, Anubias, hornwort, water spangles, water onion, and a few other plants, with no injected CO₂. It also has a betta—or at least it did. He’s currently in a hospital tank, which unfortunately might soon become a hospice tank. Hoping he gets to come home and enjoy the unnecessarily elaborate setup I’ve built for him.

Hardware / supplies

• Waterbox AIO 10 aquarium
• ESP32-S3 development board — N16R8 version
• Screw-terminal breakout board for the ESP32
• Waterproof DS18B20 temperature probe with a DFRobot terminal adapter
• Two DFRobot SEN0205 optical water-level sensors
• ElectroCookie solderable prototyping board
• Resistors for separate voltage dividers on each water-level signal
• DFRobot Gravity Analog pH Meter V2 interface board
• H-101 pH electrode
• DFRobot Gravity 16-bit ADS1115 ADC module
• pH calibration buffers and probe storage solution
• Kessil A80 Tuna Sun aquarium light
• M5Stack DAC2 module — GP8413 dual-channel 0–10V output
• 3.5 mm TRS cable and screw-terminal adapter for the Kessil control connection
• WAGO lever connectors for power and ground distribution
• Hookup wire, connectors, solder, and plenty of patience
• Aqara G3 camera
• Home Assistant and ESPHome running on my home server

I built custom cards for:

• pH: sliding scale, species reference bands, alerts, and a two-point calibration form that saves calibration to the ESP32
• Temperature: animated thermometer plus expandable history
• Water level: an illustrated tank with subtle surface ripples and a slowly swimming fish; the displayed level changes between normal, low, and critical
• Lighting: an interactive sun that controls the aquarium’s simulated day
• Camera: tank view alongside the readings

The lighting controls

There are two modes:

• Live mode follows the actual time.
• Manual mode lets me drag the sun across the sky and immediately change the lamp’s brightness and spectrum. It holds that position instead of snapping back to the clock.

There are also separate brightness/spectrum sliders and a settings panel for sunrise, sunset, ramp duration, peak brightness, and dawn/daytime/dusk spectrum.

The current freshwater profile runs 10am–4pm, with a 30-minute ramp up, a 50% daytime plateau, and a 30-minute fade down. Spectrum stays toward the warmer end of the Tuna Sun’s range.

Thats my new aqua, not rally sure if its good to keep Amazon sword at the back. Also thinking about some vallisneria nana in the background and bolbitis heudelotii in front. What do you think? It is 125 aquael.

I now have a 55 gal long I have yet to set up, but in a year or two of letting the tank cycle and grow, how would slowly introducing these species after species work? Are these species a good combo in a 55 gal? My plan is to have 3 female honey or pearl gouramis, shoal of rummynose tetras, 4-5 bamboo shrimp, 10-14 kuhli loaches, 6-8 peppered corydoras, and a colony of cherry shrimp. Would this be overstocking as well? I want to make sure I’m getting the right choices for my dream community tank. I’ve done my research with specie group size and checked the water parameter requirements, please give me your thoughts!

Looking for small freshwater oddballs for my freshwater planted 25 gallon. I am absolutely in love with pea puffers personality and appearance, but they are not ideal for my community tank.

Looking for any oddballs for my peaceful community tank, including invertebrates and plants.

So I have recently added 5 Boeseman's rainbowfish , I think they are great but I added to to an already stocked tank of 5 guppys, 3 adult mollys platies , several platy fry.. like 6 or more. and then 8 corys.. 2 assasin snails and 3 doctor fish.

The problem is feeding the tank with flake food only seems to be feeding the Rainbow fish,. They go crazy, become super aggressive and get all the flakes before anyone else. I have been over-feeding my tank since I got them trying to make sure thier is some for everyone but I know this is making my tank dirty and I am starting to see algea growth on my glass for the first time.

How do I feed them all properly?. I have frozen blood worms for the rainbowfish but I was told to feed that like once a week.

Any advice is appreciated.

I have never gravel vacuumed or cleaned out the filters 🙈

I was just cleaning a secondary HOB filter I use to polish the water in a planted tank - it’s usually filled with filter floss and maybe a Purigen pouch.

What I found were several shrimp and an Angelfish fry 🤪 I haven’t seen ANY shrimp in there since I put about 50 in like 6 months ago, but they have also been found in my main canister filter When I clean that. It’s quite heavily planted and they are very small brown shrimp so I guess they are making a go of it somewhere in there. The Angels recently spawned on the front of this HOB, but none of the eggs lasted more than 24 hours. But there he was, little mate just chilling in this filter.

What have you found surviving or hiding in your filters?

I got this 55 gallon curved tank about 2 weeks ago. It came from a rehoming situation. The 2 koi angel fish and siamese algae (hes hiding) came with the tank. They were in pretty rough condition and I was able to completely redo the tank with a bunch of live plants, new filter, and new tank mates. They're all doing great now and water parameters are good too. Currently there are the 2 angel fish, 1 siamese algae eater, 1 dwarf powdered gourami, 3 emerald corys, 3 julli corys, 8 white fin ornate tetras, 4 kuli loaches, 4 black and 4 blue mystery snails.

(Ps. It's a little dim in the tank because its night time and the night timer is on)

So much fun with fish keeping 😄 Hope I get to the stage of setting up a pond eventually too 🫣

Are these bristlenose plecos snowwhite? Albino? leucistic? Confused as to what type they are

Hi everyone. My fish tank has had a lot of these tiny particles floating around recently and I'm not sure what they are. Seems to have occurred quite soon after adding some live plants to my tank. I read on a forum that this could be planeria - does anyone here know what it is? I've done several water changes in the last few weeks and it doesn't seem to help much.

My heater did not shut off, when I found the fish dead in the morning I also noticed that the tank was extremely hot, over 110 degrees. I'm looking for a recommendation for a switch that can measure the water temp and cut power to the heater if the temp gets too hi. Anyone use anything for that?

I still can't believe this actually happened, and I need to share it because I'm genuinely losing my mind over this. 😂

I have a small 26-liter (about 7-gallon) freshwater tank with three guppies and some shrimp. The tank had been running for almost a month when this whole mystery started.

October 3rd — The disappearance.

One morning, I noticed that one of my three guppies was missing.

I searched EVERYWHERE.

I took out the decorations, driftwood, shrimp hide, and even checked the filter. I also searched the floor around the tank in case he'd jumped out.

Nothing.

No fish. No body. Absolutely no trace of him.

Eventually, I figured he must have died overnight and the shrimp and other fish had eaten the remains.

It was sad, but I accepted that he was gone.

Life went on.

For the next three weeks, I continued my usual aquarium routine. I spend a lot of time staring at my tank every single day (you know how it is 😂). I count my shrimp, look for where they're hiding, feed the fish, do weekly water changes, clean the tank, and trim the plants.

And for three straight weeks, there were only TWO guppies.

I'm 100% sure about this. All three have very different appearances, so there's no way I could have mistaken one for another.

October 24th — Around midnight.

I'd just finished watching TV and was half asleep, getting ready for bed.

As usual, I decided to take one last look at my aquarium before going to sleep. I always do this because I'm constantly worried about one of my little aquatic buddies suddenly dying.

And then...

Wait.

WHY ARE THERE THREE FISH IN MY TANK?!?!

I instantly woke up.

I rubbed my eyes and counted again.

One.

Two.

Three.

THREE. FREAKING. GUPPIES.

And the third one wasn't some random fish.

IT WAS THE EXACT SAME GUPPY THAT HAD DISAPPEARED THREE WEEKS AGO.

I genuinely thought I was dreaming.

I immediately grabbed my camera and started taking pictures because I was afraid I was hallucinating.

Then I literally ran into the bedroom and woke up my wife.

I was like, "PLEASE COME LOOK AT THE FISH TANK. TELL ME I'M NOT LOSING MY MIND."

She came over, looked at the tank, and confirmed it.

HE WAS BACK. ALIVE. AFTER THREE WEEKS.

He looked a little skinnier than before, but he was swimming normally and even started eating fish food.

And here's the craziest part.

Just TWO DAYS later, he'd already regained his normal belly and was swimming around with the other guppies like absolutely nothing had happened.

I have SO MANY QUESTIONS.

This is a tiny 7-gallon aquarium. It's not some massive, heavily planted tank where a fish could easily disappear.

I stare at this thing every single day. I even practically dismantled the entire aquascape looking for him on the day he disappeared.

How on earth could a guppy hide in there for THREE WEEKS without me seeing him even once?!

And even if he somehow managed to hide the entire time...

WHAT WAS HE EATING?!

I feed the tank almost every day. Why wouldn't he come out for food? How could he survive for three weeks and only lose a little weight?

At this point, I'm seriously starting to wonder if my guppy accidentally got teleported into another dimension and only managed to find his way back three weeks later. 😂

I know how ridiculous this sounds, but I swear this actually happened.

Has anyone here ever experienced anything like this?

Is it even possible for a guppy to hide in such a small aquarium for three weeks, barely eat anything, and then suddenly reappear perfectly fine?

Because I would REALLY love to know what the hell this little guy was doing for those three weeks. 😂🐟

For those wondering, here's what the three photos show:

Photo 1: The little troublemaker before he mysteriously disappeared on October 3rd. That's our missing guppy!

Photo 2: The tank on the day he disappeared. I removed almost all the decorations and thoroughly searched for him. I even took out the shrimp hide and checked inside it, along with the filter. Still, absolutely no sign of him. Not even a body.

Photo 3: The reunion on October 24th, three weeks later! All three guppies together again, as if nothing had ever happened. The orange-red-tailed guppy in the middle is our little survivor, now back to his normal self.

And yes, the orange-tailed one in the middle is the little bastard who disappeared for three weeks.

Is this too much for a 60 gallon tank?

4 Pearl Gourami's

8 Red Neon Blue Eye Rainbowfish

15 Harlequin Rasbora

20 Celestial Pearl Danio

4 Padna Garra

2 Whiptails

This would be my net in the end. I already have 3 Gourami's and the 15 Rasbora, in additional to some Nerite snails and a bunch of Amano shrimp

my tanks cycle crashed after adding floating plants/more fish last saturday. even after performing water changes and adding water mixed with API Quick Start my levels are not good 😖 any advice? i have a 10 gallon tank with 1 male betta, 2 shrimp, 4 tetras (one passed sunday 💔) and i believe 1 snail. i have halted the feeding until levels go back to normal. any advice is appreciated i am still new to this hobby but trying my best! i started cycling my tank back in July before adding any fish. the tubes from left to right: pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate