Crystal

The vinegar eels will last months in that tiny container while sealed (I leave my vinegar eel backup culture sealed like that for months and they are still alive).

The microworms are 50/50 depending on the temp of the room. Less than 20C, most are alive. Above 22C almost certain a few are alive to start another culture.

Unfortunately, they still haven't got to the free-swimming stage yet. The last batch was just about free swimming, but they disappeared one night.

They stopped laying eggs about a month ago - the male was being an idiot and trying to chase the female away from the eggs and now she is ignoring him.

I think I may have to seperate them for a bit until the male deflates his oversized ego.

They are more territorial than blue rams, but they could care less about other species. They completely ignore the cories and danios.

I just use plain sand and add liquid ferts. I had problems with potting soil and algae.

Lighting:

HO T5's are my favorite - perhaps you can find a used fixture on here or Kijiji.

It isn't so much wattage anymore - since incandescent light bulbs seem to be vanishing.

I look for a K rating of 6,500K - 8,000K. I have used 10,000K before with no issues (other than trimming stem plants every week).

Mine never touched algae, but they never touched my plants unless they were starving. My ramshorns ate more plants, and algae, than my sphixis did. Maybe I have plant-phobic sphixis... They eat any dead or rotting plant material with gusto, but no live plants unless they were starving. Loved to lay their eggs in java moss - never ate any of the moss though as far as I can tell, that moss grew like a bad weed...

Theoretically your fish should be fine... You take better care of that tank than I take care of mine.

How much salt were you adding? I had to add up to 1tsp per 5g to get any recovery. Nerites have no problem with salt, they breed in brackish water and can easily be converted to saltwater setups.

Try sitting and watching the tank from a 10 foot distance for 10min - is there a lot of chasing, or stess, happening?

Can you please post a picture of the full tank setup?

I always add some plants to my tank as it seems to help - even just a crypt or some java fern.

One last question - can you tell us the ph from the tap vs ph of the tank? All I can think of is a ph swing stressing the fish (although I never had a problem with that even when my tap was 7.5 and tank was 6.1, and I had fairly sensitive fish).

I have seen on and off with various fish in QT.

I up my water changes (since I am often a bit lax in that area), I add aquarium salt (about 1 tsp per 5g) and ensure the heater is at least 22C usually within 2-3 weeks it all clears up. After 4 weeks, I start lowering the salt levels by not adding salt to my water changes.

- I assume you know not to let untreated water touch your biomedia, correct? Including when you dump it in your tank, dump it away from your water intake...

... Both bags of shrimp have some kind of fern plant in there with the shrimps, anyone able to identify the plant that came with the shrimp bags?

Probably Java moss, I think it is the most common plant added to shrimp bags for them to hang on to. Low light, easy to keep. I have had success even growing it in window sills.

I have sphixis in my 90g heavily planted tank, and don't have a problem unless the snail population gets fairly large (aka. more than 1 snail per 2 gallons). They prefer dead plant leaves over the live ones and they have their hands full with that and whatever leftover food hits the bottom.

What kind of moss was it Jason? All I have is java moss and some sort of native moss, while they absolutely love to lay eggs in it, I have never seen them so much as nibble on it.

My ramshorn snails put more holes in my plants than my sphixis do.

I got a bag of gold rams, some plants I really wanted (towards the end they were really cheap), I got several bags of cories for surprisingly good prices.

And of course, my favorite, "that is a nice big bag plants - could I buy a stem or two from you?". So far everyone I have ever asked was more than willing to take a couple of bucks for a few stems.

Did a few fish swaps at the auction as well.

I went home with far more bags than I have in years.

I was very surprised that the auction wasn't full - normally a snow storm hits on the day of the auction and keeps the more far-flung and cautious people home.

Anyone else starting to get excited?

Countdown: 4 days! (no, I am not calculating the hours just yet...)

You can still get a pair of multis in there, you will just have to remove the fry once they are 1/4". I had a Multi pair in my 3g for a long time - until I bought them a 20g!

Too small for occies I think, mine were quite quarrelsome in a tank under 10g.

Shrimp tank, if you like shrimp. Perhaps a crayfish or some other unusual thing.

maybe a pair of occies, or a trio of multis? The fry fry sell easily enough and the parents tolerate the fry for a long time (or in the case of the multis - forever). I love shellies.

I second the razor blade.

I find them at the dollarama and dollar stores with handles and removeable and disposable blades.

Lol.

It depends a bit on the species and age of the fish. Some species are easy to sex when young, some are nearly impossible to sex no matter the age.

On average, from what I have seen, the males from the same clutch are a bit bigger than the females and a bit more elongated. The adult males are a bit slimmer than the adult females.

Sometimes simply watching a tank of sub-adults or adults there may already some that have paired up to help you guess at the gender.

It really depends on species, can you at least give us a guess? or at least location? African? Mbuna? South America?

Nice colors.

How about a full tank shot? Or are they still in a grow out tank?

The females I had tended to lay 3-8 eggs every 5-8 days. The fry all grow up together and will defend one another. The fry will leave the shell within a week or so, and live around the base of it and in the space between shells until they get bigger and take up a shell themselves - unless you get some multies like I had that wanted absolutely nothing to do with shells. The sibling fry get along very well even into adulthood (which is not the case wihen adding new adult fish to the tank).

I know the pet store in Morinville has 10-20 multis - I gave her some fry a few years ago and they keep breeding in her tank.

Mine are currently being stubborn in the fry department, although I know I have at least 1 male and 1 female, not too sure about the other 2.

When I got into aquarium when I was 10 years old my favorite book was Aquariums for Dummies. A good basic overview, and you could research further into the areas you were interested.

Yes, the eggs will be big enough for you to see with the naked eye, but actually spotting them can be tough. Barbs are egg-layers and are a bit more difficult to breed than livebearers (guppies, platys, swordtails, etc).

I tend to put a large sponge on my intakes just to keep the live daphnia I feed my fish with from being sucked up. I squeeze it in the 'waste' water when I am doing water changes.

I have done canisters with just bio media, but I always end up putting some sort of floss or filter sheets in them, or on the intake, just to clear up the water that last little bit.

Shrubs that are usually 5-15 feet in height. Slender whippy branches, spotting on the bark, zig-zagged leaves, and they are one of the few plants in AB that have that kind of acorn. They tend to prefer damper soils, aka don't bother with the sandy dry areas, try to search within 200M of a small creek with poplar or willow trees. I don't ever recall seeing them close to a big stand of spruce or pine. There are tons along the quad trails around Athabasca, they are the shrubs that try to attack you (if that helps ).

I have only ever seen the many branched shrub like a willow, never a single trunked "tree"

Around here, ensure the acorn is under 3cm, and that the plant is a shrub not a thick stemmed plant and you pretty much can't go wrong. Oh, and the squirrels won't fight you over them.

Could he have blasted into a wall and have a partial concussion or be a bit stunned? Or is he completely alert, but just unable to move?

Maybe try dimming the lights for a day or so and add some salt.

Welcome!

There are more than a pleco-holics around here.

I don't count as a pleco-holic though, I only have 9 albino BN plecos.

My tank never had a problem if salinity bounced .003 in one day, but it was hardy fish and corals. By odd chance, is your temp normal or did the heater fry?

Keep doing water changes and adding excess prime to help anything still alive survive.

The one time I had a die off like that, my mother cleaned the front of my tank with Bonami which I assume got sucked into the skimmer air intake...

Alder cones, like the local ones? Wrong time of year to find lots, but there are usually tons around Aug-Nov.

Depending on how many snails are in the gravel it may smell, you might consider cooking them outside - anyone for a weekend BBQ?

I personally have black sand in all of my aquariums, as far as my plants go, I have far better luck with sand than gravel.

Beautiful rams.

I have a 1M/2F gold trio, but they have never laid eggs. They always seem to lose one another in my heavily planted 90g.