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My neons are such fantastic little troopers. They spent most of yesterday afternoon/evening huddled together in a corner after the move, but later that night and especially this morning, they were out exploring and foraging as if nothing had ever happened. I'm sure they'll be excited to eat...

After having done more research on dart frogs (I'm still not interested in keeping them, but they're neat animals), it seems they drown rather easily, actually. They're also rather small, of course, so you would definitely want to keep any water feature to a very shallow depth and make sure to...

The stuff sold in the pet trade is the root wood from the mopani tree, which grows in the deserts of southern Africa. It's also called the turpentine tree for its sap. It's special because it's very dense, which means it often sinks immediately, or very quickly. It's more well-known among...

There's a 2-part epoxy putty called Splash Zone which we've used in marine research for holding things down. You can apply it underwater and it holds really well. That said... I don't think it's particularly animal-safe. We let it cure for a day or two before putting animals in, but it does work...

Well, it's been over a month since I updated this journal, but I do have a big update. Just finished moving house, including the fish. Genuinely one of the more stressful experiences of my life, and I didn't even have to drive anything (just moving to different on-site housing (for stupid...

Yeah, I've switched to using API's water conditioner. I don't mind the sulfur smell of Prime all that much, but the smell of API's is definitely more pleasant, and I don't need the ammonia detoxification. The API bottle also has a cap that doubles as a little measuring cup, which is really...

I feed dry, mostly. I don't have anything special. Hikari vibra bites in the smallest size, and some of the tropical green granules from Ken's Fish. I usually crush them up since my neons are still pretty small, and I find that smaller food particles reduce bloating/over-eating and help make...

Honestly, give a quick glance at FB Marketplace. Some people sell "used" tanks that are basically brand new for very cheap. If you're lucky enough to stumble across a listing from someone who knows their stuff, they'll often show pictures of the tank holding water and tell you how long it's been...

Not much of an update, but the frogs are doing well! They eat voraciously, once they find their food... The terracotta dish has worked out alright, but it does take them a minute or two to find the food, and unless I'm watching the tank for the following ~15 minutes, I can't always tell if both...

Please tell Squiggy that he's a very handsome fellow. I love how his face is so jet black you can hardly make it out in the photo. Can't believe he was a $4 Petsmart betta. And Squiggy is such a perfect name

Yes, hopefully you'll be able to find something if/when you move! Do isopods eat bone? I've never heard of them doing so. I guess if you don't find live frogs, maybe look for tiny little skeletons? Of course, it'd be much nicer to find out that they were just really well hidden. Good sense to...

Ah man, I really hope your frogs turn up at some point! Firebellies are really cool little guys. I can't have them, unfortunately, but I really wish I could. It is really strange that nothing has turned up of them... I agree, I feel like four frogs is a lot to decompose in such a short time, and...

I also have pieces of petrified wood in my tank and I love them! When wood fossilizes, it usually gets mineralized by quartz and other silica-based minerals. There should be little to no calcium carbonate in them. I didn't test my petrified wood before putting it in the tank since I was pretty...

I can't believe it! They're starting to look like actual fish!

No, those aren't a natural part of the shrimp's body. Something is growing on it. Ordinarily, shrimp clean themselves often enough that they don't get fouling organisms growing on them. Molting also helps shed off any unwanted pests. However, if shrimp are ill, they may not clean themselves as...

This feels like a stupid thing to argue about in a thread about aquariums, so I won't continue after this, but all advice I've come across says that Aglaonema can only be grown outdoors in the USDA Hardiness zones 10-12, which are the subtropical areas of the US, really only limited to smallish...

Hm... I live in the northwest US, in salmon spawning country, and I've never seen an Aglaonema growing here. They're not native (it is called the Chinese evergreen, after all). It's a subtropical species that's notorious for its intolerance of cold temperatures. Apparently they get damaged by...

Hey there! I think this forum isn't the best place to ask about dart frogs, since we're largely a freshwater fish forum. I'm not thinking about keeping dart frogs (...yet) but I've dropped by dendroboard.com (as in the genus Dendrobates) a number of times while researching frogs in general and...

The tetra I had in mind was Aphyocharax rathbuni. I understand what you're saying about water stability with a shoal of acceptable size though. I do have some experience siphoning very shallow water (we have long, shallow sea tables at the marine station), so I'm definitely aware how much of a...

I've been contemplating paludaria lately and am very interested in setting one up for frogs. Ideally, I'd also like to house a school of small tetras in the water portion. Because of the lower water level, it'd probably work out to about 10gal of water. However, the footprint would remain the...

This is what I did when I asked Gary's advice on cycling my very low KH tank a while back, and it worked like a charm! I had the pre-seeded sponge filter (3 weeks in an established tank), about a metric ton of frogbit, and only six neon tetra. No ammonia spikes at all. Actually, I think I need...

That's a relief to hear you've used mopani with your ADFs without issue! I'll definitely use the piece that hasn't had sap come out, then. Which is great because it's a really pretty piece. It has a hole through it that looks to be just big enough for the frogs to swim through at their current...

Yes, these two pieces were very dense. They sank in the soaking bucket immediately. I'll definitely leave them soaking. I have to move house in a couple weeks anyway, so I'll hold off on scaping until then. Actually... I might try to look for different wood for the ADF tank and save the mopani...

That's true, although the difference is that the wild is an open system, whereas a tank is a closed one, so any toxic compound is going to be more concentrated in a tank. I made an edit to my original post about this, but I found a fair few axolotl people recommending mopani wood. Since ADFs and...

I recently bought a couple pieces of mopani wood for scaping my ADF tank. The wood I got is from Zoo Med and is stated to be safe for aquariums. I do know that mopani wood has a lot of tannins. I don't mind a tannin look, but figured I'd soak out some of it so it's not quite so strong. I had...

I don't know if Repashy makes a gel shrimp food, but when their gel food is still warm, you can spread it onto sticks (tip courtesy of @Magnum Man ) I think the way to DIY this would be to blend up dry shrimp food into a powder and mix it with gelatin. You could either use popsicle/ice pop...

Do you have any thoughts on Eheim's "classic" series? I'm thinking of switching to canisters and recognize the benefit of a trusted brand. Their "classic" canisters are a bit more budget friendly than the pro series, so would be more accessible to me

We just had a thread with the same sort of critter! You can find it here The branched organism looks like some sort of colonial ciliate. I don't know of any ciliates that make tubes that get sand stuck to them, so I wonder if it's a small tube-building worm that the ciliates are growing on. I...

Good to know, thank you! I'll work on getting them an adjustable heater. You're right, the mini hygger ones aren't too bad in terms of price. The 50W one is only about $18

Two heaters is usually best, so you have a backup in case one of them gets "stuck" on or stops heating altogether. I think the general recommendation is 50W per 10gal, but I have a 50W heating about 20gal of water right now and it seems to do fine Pool filter sand is smooth grains of silica...

It's a good sign that her behavior is normal and that she's active and eating well. With that in mind, I think the best thing you can do is make sure to do frequent large water changes as a form of first aid. She's already helping herself heal by having a good appetite, so maintaining very good...

Ok, so.... the answer could be "neither", but also "both", depending on your perspective. As far as I can tell, this looks to me like either a solitary cup coral, or a corallimorph "anemone". In either case, "coral" would probably be the more correct answer. They're both related to stony corals...

I agree with Gary. Looks like mostly quartz, with some iron oxides (rust).

Green is a good color to avoid for rocks. It could be relatively harmless fluorite, but it could also be olivine (not known to be toxic, but weathers easily in water), copper compounds (potentially toxic), or malachite (very soluble AND toxic). Green is just a very unpredictable color for...

Thank you! I guess my question then is whether you think 80F/26.7C would be detrimental long-term 🤔 It probably wouldn't be a huge deal to go out and get a little 25W heater set to a lower temp, but it'd be nice to be able to use equipment I already have. Yes, I saw that you had lost some :(...

I'm definitely excited to watch them grow! As I said earlier, they're too young to sex, but hopefully I got lucky and got at least one male. I wouldn't be sad if both of them turned out female, but it would definitely be cool to hear the calls. I did put in a couple mini terracotta pots...

Admittedly I don't know a ton about ciliates, but I do know that they won't be harmful to your fry. They don't have any stinging cells like cnidarians. They're filter feeders that eat tiny little microscopic things, so no need to worry!