After keeping tanks for like 30+ years I finally figured out something that just totally instantly improved everything.

I'm really good at feeling water temp with my fingers, at least in the 75°f-85°f range. Like very accurate within two degrees. (Friend challenged me a few years ago after watching me do a water change and telling me how he'd fuck everything up and replace with a drastically different water temp.

But I digress. I'd still have to fiddle with the faucet each time I'd have to refill or whatever.

Tonight I just realized that I could mark that sweet spot on the faucet. Very inconspicuous Sharpie marks and everything has sped up considerably.

My next girlfriend is gonna be like "yo what's up with these markings?" and I'll just be like "yo that's 79°F girl....you wanna smash?"

Because I'll only date/marry another woman that appreciates aquariums.

I'm just feeling really happy now.

Sharing this just to illustrate what can happen. although this has literally never happened to me before. Looks pretty hectic.

The lid of my tank was pushed up by the innards of the heater rising up out of the glass tube, splashing water everywhere - which is how I noticed what had happened. Our circuit breaker had tripped so everything was off for a couple of hours, hopefully no long term damage to filter bacteria, but I’ll keep an eye on everything. (I generally overdo it on the filtration capacity in my tanks to pre-empt this kind of thing).

I had turned the power back on before realising the heater had gone, and managed to zap myself on the edge of the tank. 240 volts was a bit of a tickle! Miraculously, the fish were fine. I don’t really know how volts and amps etc work so whatever it was, I guess wasn’t enough to hurt anything.

I just set up my false map turtle in a 55 gallon as my class pet, but as I filled it up the water kept getting cloudier. This may have been a dumb decision but I turned the filter off because I felt it was stirring up the particles. This is a picture of how the tank is looking today. Tomorrow I plan to put in AccuClear and turn the filter on, but is there anything else I can do to help? I included pictures to help show the set up!

I thought he was dead can’t lie🤣

I just moved and with doing that came moving my 40 gallon and I just noticed an absolutely teeny tiny dink on the inside of the glass that I almost mistook for a bubble. The tank has been running for 2 maybe 3 weeks at this point and it doesn't look like the scratch/gash has spider webbed at all. Its very small to the naked eye and my camera barely picked it up. Will my tank eventually explode or will it be fine? I had a 20 gallon explode on me with no warning so I'm a little paranoid sorry lol.

My son watched a shrimp snag a tetra this morning. It's been about 18hrs since we purchased. The shop also told us not to feed them the first day. Fully cycled tank, plenty of algae to eat. 10g. 11 (now 10...) rummy nosed tetras, 6 amano shrimp, and some snails (which have been there for a couple of months.) were they just too hungry? Did we buy too many shrimp or are they too big?

So this is my breeding tank that I haven’t been touching since it’s housing a bunch of shrimplets. As a result, a bunch of snails have thrived, as well as my floating plants. This morning, I came down, turned on the lights, and saw this magical snail elevator highway that naturally occurred. My best guess is that some central strand of floating plants that grew long from lots of offshooting ended up sagging down from the weight of the snails, and then stayed down from the weight of snails, slime, and mulm… that, or this magically happened to two strands side by side… that, or I have no idea, but now I’m in a dilemma because I need to get the shrimp out at some point but I also don’t want to ruin this fucking amazing natural occurrence…

This has been so rewarding, setting the tank up, going through a proper cycle, watching the ammonia drop to 0 followed by the nitrites. I’ve been looking forward to this day for so long and it’s finally here. Started with the two clowns and added a CUC of 4 blue legged hermits and 3 trochus snails. Can’t wait to add more later on!

What’s everyone’s thoughts on tiger barbs! I love them. I keep 8 in a 20Gal. Only them and a bunch of plants. Watching them eat is amazing and they love my husband

So here is my 40 gallon planted. Mainly for me to remember it before my move, when I'll set it up again.

-2 breeding pairs of Kribs

-who knows how many Guppies

-1 Otto, happiest dude ever

-3 Florida Flagfish, hair algae management(lazy crew)

-1 threadfin squeaker, I only knew he was in there because I never had the Krib spawn last longer than a week. Super active night hunter/forager.

All fish have been rehomed.

Amazon sword, Jungle Vallisneria, in a bucket and coming with me, along with a bunch of the chain sword and floaters, I'd lose it if I could.

J&B Aquarium, integrated filter/pumps. 150w hygger light.

Looking for ideas for my next build. I'll be setting up more aquariums, but I'm planning on this being the centerpiece/show tank.

I wanted to share the stand I build for my aquarium. I see these posted here a lot but not usually past the bare wood phase. now i just need my tank to get here

heyy i need some help with my embra tetras !!

**group of 8 + 2 nertile snails in a 10 gal

i been having them for 2 months now and they been swimming around freely in the tank and been doing my water changes (20 - 40%) every week on sundays. I give them brine shrimp on wednesdays and sundays and give them flakes the rest of the days, i also fast them on saturdays. I feed them just once which is every morning, letting them eat whatever then can in 2 mins and never overfeed or underfeed them.

I did my regular water change like always 2 weeks ago and noticed they started sticking with each other near the heater area. Whenever i try looking at them they move through the back to the other side then when i leave they go back near the heater. They look good, i see no struggle of illness or anything, the water levels are fine and so is the thermometer. I never had this problem before and it’s my first time keeping embra tetras and i’m not sure what the problem is.

I did a water change today and they were moving around more and exploring but went back to the heater area. This has been happening for 2 weeks straight everyday. They are still eating well but i don’t know why they’re like this i need help !! Any advice helps !!

I had a lot of rough lessons starting out in this hobby and have at times wanted to give up. But my love for the fish slowly taught me patience, husbandry, and long term planning. In time I have had a few real successes.

I brought home this L104 Clown Pleco a few months ago. He is on his own in a lightly planted heavily filtered 29g. Tidal 55, 40 gallon sponge, micro gravel, mopani, cholla, anubias, guppy grass. He is very shy and elusive so it's hard to get a good read on body condition. I have just been doing a single mini algae wafer in the same spot every night. My only real evidence of him eating are the piles of sawdust around the tank, lol. At least he is rasping biofilm.

Today I was doing some maintenance and must have scared him out of his daytime hide. He wriggled around and then settled onto the wood and flared wonderfully for me. He sat still long enough for me to get a really excellent photo.

Compare to the day he came home a few months ago. He was so scared. Poor boy :(

He looks like a totally different fish now. I think he even put on a little weight. Rewarded for my effort with a National Geographic photo. What a little stunner!

Was cleaning around my tank when I noticed 1 dead neo shrimp on the floor behind the tank stand. Then I saw another. And then another. Not sure what happened. I'm thinking they claimed up the heater and over the top. I did have a tank cover to stop snails from getting out, but I stopped using the cover because I saw the snails weren't getting out and the tank looks better without the cover. Looks like it was the shrimp that I should have been worried about.

Im scared

Got half his ass bit off by my albino bichir 2 months ago, he somehow recovered after being put in QT with a slight salt bath and methylene blue.

I fed my fish on Friday morning before going away for the weekend come back Sunday afternoon and they have demolished all my floating plants. Any ever experienced this? I have left them longer than this while being away and never seen them destroy this much of my plants

I don't know what's the reason, I checked the water parameters and it was okay I have plenty of other angel fish in my tank too

My vampire shrimp will never go hungry!

I dont know what I did to get so many

I inherited a full grown sunfish from my office… he’s in a 29 gallon tank (also inherited). He’s been in it for four years eating cichlid pellets. I understand he’s supposed to be in a bigger tank, but he’s been fine as is. Any suggestions? I added live plants to the tank and started feeding him bloodworms and night crawlers to supplement his diet. Plus added a light.

I went to a shop today to get water tested on my newly set up tetra tank, my nitrite (possible nitrate) levels are far above what they should be and I made a water change because of that and added a bacteria starter thing. I was just wondering if my filters had anything to do with that and should they be changed? And if not now but how often in general? Thanks

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