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Thanks both.   I have encountered quite often these two schools of thinking about diatoms: someone says they thrive in low lighting, someone states exactly the opposite. My experience is clear: in my tank, they grow in the most exposed parts of the tank; shaded areas are less affected. I have...

Thanks levahe, well, I have the standard 2xT8 38 W that came with the tank two years ago. Water level is pretty low, though (150 rather than then available 240 l), so I guess absorption is quite reduced. I have a bunch of mangroves slowly growing in there, which of course do need good lighting...

I got 10+ Cryptocoyne Wendtii, and about the same number of Vallisneria, about a week ago. Fertilizing once a week with 10 squeezes of Tropica Premium. Well, now I have a well planted tank... with diatoms growing all over the leafs! The attack on the walls has somehow ceased, for some reason. I...

I believe the guy is probably having some kind of problem: he used to collect really good reviews on Trustpilot, but in 2013 he's going really down.   My only contact with him, more than a year ago by email, was quite good: he actually convinced me NOT to buy some snails from him, since they...

Thank you folks, I didn't dare to reject the package and leave those poor critters to certain death, so I collected it, and was rewarded: 9 out of 10 (5 Neritina and 5 Clithon) went to work (=eating!) as soon as plopped in. One is still not moving, probably dead. Will wait until tomorrow...

I've been waiting one month for this package, mailed and sms.ed the guy without answer. Since the money was not withdrawn either, I assumed if was perhaps out of the business. Then last Thursday the money was withdrawn and the package sent. He didn't answer any of my phone calls (from Brazil!)...

Briefly, after one month from my order of some nerites, the guy has sent them while I was abroad. They are in the traveling box with heat pack since Thursday. I can collect the package at the post office tomorrow morning: is it worth, or should i rather reject the package and complain? How long...

I never had one, but I'm still planning to, in the future. But from what I read, F8 may start to show aggressiveness with age, so it's never too late to end up with a mean one! That said, they are notoriously reported to do very well with BB gobies.   Horsefaced loaches DO grow quite a bit...

Looks great! Perhaps the waves are a bit too strong?

thanks echo, I'm indeed trying to re.think my tank somehow with more plants. I forgot to mention though that i have a dozen mangroves which are doing quite well in there. But I know that, being slow growers, I can't expect much help from them in fighting nitrates.

Hi folks, well, I'm quite new to the hobby, but my experience with rainbows and shrimp, dating back from last week, is that paleomonetes will be hunted down mercilessly... I found the shrimp sold as live food for the first time, and sais, let's see what happenw. I was thinking mainly to my...

I'm pretty much in the same situation, sand only, because from the start I didn't want plants, but also a painful amount of NO3 from the tap (35 to 40 mg/l, as declared by the provider!). Also, I have a bit of salt in (SG 1.002 at 25 C), so most plants wouldn't love it.   Tried a number of...

Good, I did that before, but it's no harm to try again. Let the Darkness be!

I last updated the blog in november, since then I was so depressed... The mangroves are looking great now, and fortunately the fish are totally OK.   I hope I'll find the energy to add some new pics, I got some good shots of the archers recently.

Many thanks Levahe, I'm pretty sure I've tried the one-bulb option, but unfortunately they're connected in series, so I can't disconnect any. No reflectors, just the white (now yellowish) covers, which I could remove anyway.   But I'll definitely go the way you recommend, perhaps getting some...

Here you go, just 24 hours after siphoning and water changing...   To answer your questions: true, the rainbows do not need salt, but they do accept small amounts; the archers do benefit of some. And it's really a pinch.   Lights are 2 x T5 39W.   I have tried so far the following plants since...

OK, this is going to be long...   Tank started Oct 2011. ~150 l, SG ~1.002 @ 25 C, pH ~8.2, NH3&4 0 mg/l, NH2 0 mg/l, NH3 50-100 mg/l (tap 40), sand bottom. Population as per below. July 2012: added 10 Vallisneria and 6 Boesemani Rainbowfishes. November 2012-now: bloom of diatoms. I always...

I love the atmosphere of #7, but... is it really like that, or just an underexposed photo?

Neale Monks has written many times on this forum about combining mudskippers with other fishes, and the answer is usually: they should stay alone. Anything smaller is food, anything bigger will scare them out of water. I have seen once a skipper with an F8, but on the long run it may not be a...

Thank you, all. Temporarily solved, my favourite shop gave me a good discount on an inner filter (EHEIM again! ), which costed me more or less like a good air pump. Hopefully temperature won't go too low. Now it's a matter of contacting the EHEIM local service, and see how long it takes and how...

Found this so far. Only thing missing is the soda bottle, containing the whole thing.   I'm still doubting, though: you need to create a vacuum for this to work, but... if the air pressure is too strong, it will actually simply blow air through the filter, and if it's too weak, there won't be...

Reading right now whatever I find! For "media" you mean I can put in the two bio-mech pellets I have in the filter, or just the sponges?

Nope, always used the power of the filter output to move the water. Of course, if there's no alternative, I can buy some piece of equipment... An air pump with the output in front of my media, inside the tank?

After less than 2 years of problematic behaviour, it eventually broke down completely: the hose adapter is impossible to extract (old problem), and now the ON/OFF switch of my EHEIM professional 3 350 got loose, and now is swinging back and forth without really acting. The online heater is...

As already mentioned, most brackish fishes do accept (and may even benefit) small variations of the salinity, so no need to be very precise in measuring tank water salinity and salt to add. In my case, almost every second week I do a water change with fresh water only (but I have a very low...

FYI, I found myself in a similar situation time ago, and I managed to solve the problem with the brilliant visual search tool of fishbase.

OK, right, the bar is along the long side of the tank, at the back!

I always wondered, MBOU: what you describe is the ideal positioning to guarantee the max ripple & therefore oxygenation, but that doesn't provide any help in debris removal from the water column... I know the answer would be a power head, but how really essential is it, when you can make use of...

I am a beginner, and I did start with brackish, mainly in order to second the water quality I have here (hard), and because I wanted some oddballs.   The way I did it:   1) fish- and plant-less cycled using freshwater: since my final aim was a SG of barely 1.002 at 25 C, I could afford having...

Yep, 5 liters is enough for a nice little home for shrimp. I couple of small snails, planorbius maybe, and some good moss.

Yeee, I got it!!   Ogcocephalus nasutus.   Thanks to FishBase!

Yeah, I couldn't believe it was a fish at first. I said, come on, it's an anchor or something! It was about 20-25 cm.  It didn't move a bit while I went around taking pics. I showed it later to the diving master, but he just told me the local name of it.

I dare to post here simply because this guy was not spotted in a tank, but off the southern coast of Brazil, not far from Rio de Janeiro. Any idea of what that is?   Cheers   Maurizio

Thanks Dr Rob, very nice comment indeed. I can say similar things of mine: fish appear happy, from what I can see, for which I'm very contented. It's just that sometimes I would like to see a few of my plants SURVIVE, and a bit less diatoms...

I'm a beginner, and struggling to get it the way I dreamt of it. But after all, it's still a little piece of Nature we're trying to recreate in there, and of course Nature takes its own course anyway. So... how happy are you with your tank?

It's a BEAUTY!

This helped me a lot, but works with added ammonia. I'm also a beginner, aiming to low-end brackish (SG 1.002 at 25 C). I have written quite a bit about the startup in my (b)log below.