#java loach

[shrimpapalooza]

Noodles at play

[waterskies]

Well, I turned this:

Into this:

Moved most of the vallisneria I pulled out into my 40 gal long.

The stuff that remains was the shaded out stuff in the back, but if it continues to grow like usual, then it'll be filled out again in no time.

I'm glad I can at least see the anubias again lol

I can also catch more glimpses of the creatures in here, like the Amano shrimp.

I haven't seen either kind of loach in a while! Here they are snufflin' away~

The lone remaining cherry barb still looks great against the green. I would get more if they weren't nippy!

I'm still wanting a feature fish for this tank, and I'm still leaning on the side of honey gourami, 3 of them. Or a single dwarf gourami, since I've had two before and loved them. Hmm.. choices.. decisions.

[size-two-shrimp]

My idiot fish are stealing my other idiot fish's food smh

[normal-with-adhd-is-a-joke]

the correct answers were java loach and emerald catfish /lh

hey

[prince-liest]

I saw that you are an aquarium fan! What's your favourite kind of tank fish? Mine is certainly Neon Innesa but Pterophyllum scalare are also pretty neat!!

TIL you can change the colors of text in asks! Neat!

And oooh - haha, thanks for getting me started on this! >:) I actually do have a group of neons in my larger community tank. I think they're very pretty fish and they hold a nostalgia for me because my mom had a bunch when I was young. I don't have a tank large enough for angelfish unfortunately, and I've also just in general been won over to the pros of having exclusively non-aggressive community fish in the community fish tank, so I'm not sure if I'd ever go for angels.

That said, if she hadn't been a homicidal shrimp murderer, I cannot overstate how nice it was to put my betta fish into a 20 gallon tank. People are often focused on putting bettas in the minimum safe size of tank for them, and it feels like you rarely see the interesting behaviors you get from bettas in larger tanks discussed. She used the whole tank, patrolled and explored constantly, and it was very clear that compared to the neons, who were often just vibing, most of her actions were performed with some sort of deliberate purpose. I felt almost guilty transferring her into her current 6.4 gallon tank, though it's heavily planted and has shrimp for her to pick at.

My generic "I fucking love betta fish" answer aside, my favorite fish tend to end up being loaches! I have java loaches in my community tank, which are hilarious, active noodles, and my favorite loaches are reticulated hillstream loaches.

They're very pretty: aside from the pattern, they look like tiny little manta rays, and they spend a lot of time sticking to the side of the glass and to smooth rocks. I've got three (soon to be four when I take my friend's extra when he moves) and they're very peaceful fish that do well in a large range of temperatures. Watching them flap at each other or sift sand is always really fun.

[a-deed-without-a-name]

can you tell us about your aquarium

This is the best ask I have ever received. I hope you know the gates of Heaven have opened for you and only you, Anon.

Short answer: this is it.

Long answer under the cut. Very long, 'cause it's my birthday weekend and my gift to myself is I'm gonna gush about my stupid tank.

This is the smallest tank I've had in years - a 3.6 gallon Fluval. It absolutely counts as a nano tank, which has been both a challenge and a relief.

(My last tank - which I had to get rid of years ago, the last time I moved - was a 40-gallon that mainly featured very dumb dojo loaches and destructively horny oranda goldfish. I miss them every single day but when I surrendered them to my local fish store, the 90-year-old proprietor told me very approvingly that it's very rare for orandas to breed and dojo loaches usually don't get as big as mine did, so that helped soothe the sting a little.)

This one's technically a betta tank, but I'm still split on if I'm ever gonna put a betta in it. The literature on how much room is humane is split and it's really the luck of the draw if your fish will tolerate the inverts or harass them to death.

For now, it's just neocaridina shrimp (mostly red rilis, although a lovely orange lad and a blue juvenile snuck in there and I'm looking to get a few more color morphs), bladder snails, a ramshorn named Guts, and plants. I did not actually buy any of the snails, which is a quintessential aquarium-owner experience.

I've been working on this tank for a few months now. It's my first heavily-planted one, and it went through a few stages.

First off: I fell for a carpet seed scam.

Yeah. I know. I should've done more research. On the plus side, I got very, very lucky and wound up with something that can actually grow immersed (some kind of hygrophila, I'm 99% sure). For now, at least, it's eating all my ammonia, so yay, and I'm watching it and my water parameters like a hawk to make sure I can go full teardown at the first sign of melting.

(If I were smart and hard-working, I'd've taken everything out and redone it all soon as I figured out what a colossal fuck-up I'd committed, but I am me, so we're waiting, watching, and taking baby steps towards un-FUBARing the tank.)

But the java moss and tiger lotus, at least, are real plants, and they're doing great.

Had a few issues with the neos, but they've stabilized.

And I just recently rescaped the entire tank! Including adding in some more plant variety and tearing out ~60% of the hygrophila (yes, I disposed of it safely, I'm not going to be the reason that shit winds up in the Colorado River).

The goal is eventually to remove all of it, but for now, what's left can stay; the animals like it and I don't want to stress them out anymore.

They seem to be doing great since the rescape; much more active now that the tank has some different environments for them to explore. They love their cobblestone path.

I've got a good male/female ratio on the neos, lots of wee baby bugs swimming around, and my girls keep getting knocked up!

Harlot.

(Ignore the tweezers. Long story. And the discoloration on the hygrophila; after rigorous water testing and pinching and poking the leaves a whole bunch, seems like its ugly ass just Looks Like That. So glad my dad bought those stupid seeds.)

And that's my aquarium. I've got a little bit of duckweed in there that's not growing as fast as I'd like, and my tiger lotus does not seem inclined to make lilypads any time soon, so I'm planning on getting some water spangles for aesthetics and also shrimp thrills.

I might post some more photos once the spangles are here and I've picked up a few more shrimp colors from my LFS - I don't want everyone to be brown in a few generations, but. Some more diversity would be cool, I think.

[bathypelagicbutch]

1. get a large aquarium and filtration system

2. add oak branches

3. add java and sphagnum moss

4. add other semi-aquatic plants

5. add varying sizes of lava rocks to create a unique paludarium-like land/water divide

6. fill halfway with water

7. add a kuhli loach

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[gey-beans]

I don't want to bother people about my tanks and stuff so I'll post my boring updates here as if it were a diary. Ignore this, it's a conglomerate of jumbled thoughts

Hoping to get my kuhli loaches this weekend. That tank is still cycling, but 3/4 of my tanks are at PH 8 or above, so I gotta figure that out too. Normal ammonia for all, normal nitrates for all, and nitrite was the highest I've ever seen in my cycling tank lol. I recently added plants and driftwood so hopefully that should help. Might need to get some more driftwood though... I don't like adding too many chemicals and would rather use tannins to help my tanks than some chemical.

I also moved my rasboras to my 55, which upon taking a closer look, ALL FIVE have cotton mouth. I noticed after I did a big water change, so hopefully that'll help. I think this week I'll get rid of the HOB filter on my 20 and switch it out for a sponge. Not only is it easier to manage, but it's much quieter.

An acquaintance I made online (by shipping him dead snails before I knew how to ship them) is sending me some platys and a bunch of Java moss. I'm super excited for that. I recently got rid of most of my mollys and kinda regret some of them. But it's too late now. I think their fate is to be oscar food 😔 oh well. I hope the new platys will eat from my hand like the mollys did. I might even get some other mollys with more color. There's only 3 in my 20 now

Since I removed my rasboras, my betta has been outside of his log more. I was nervous at first, but then realized he's outside it more because he doesn't need to socialize lol.

[ardentguilt]

Here’s some fish drama:

My female spotted silver dollar wants to fuck. Her boyfriend does not. He hides from her but I think as evidenced by eggs present this evening he gave in to her demands today.

My juvenile bristlenose pleco is upset because one of my freshwater long arm shrimp booted it out of its favourite log. The shrimp has claimed the log.

My two adult male bristlenose plecos are feuding over who gets to live in the large log.

Somebody keeps pulling up one of the Java Farns and dragging it INTO said log decor.

One of my yoyo loach routinely steals food directly from the mouth of one of my Siamese algae eaters.

My school of bumblebee goby despite their small size swarm and attempt to fight the gravel vac tube every time I clean the gravel. Each one of them is full of immense rage at the intruder.

theres so much drama we dont get to know about bc the fish live underwater

[shrimpapalooza]

They're all cuties!

[waterskies]

This tank is so dim because of the amount of vallisneria leaves at the surface. I keep debating on trimming it, but I don't like the look of trimmed Val. Also, it's crept up to the front of the tank again, lol

Of course, the endlers don't mind at all. It gives the babies somewhere to chill.

The loaches love to curl themselves in between the leaves, so the more the marrier for them.

The shrimp don't care at all though. As long as there is some yummy biofilm on it, then they're happy. Look at her pickin through the sand and detritus. So cute~

[toytulini]

Loach using plant roots as a hammock

[size-two-shrimp]

"Kuhli loaches are bottom dwellers"

My kuhlis climbing fucking everything:

[normal-with-adhd-is-a-joke]

I know I'm not in a place where I can care for more fish once the ones I have pass but damn do I miss owning java loaches

[prince-liest]

aquarium rescape!

So my aquarium was getting fairly overgrown in its current layout, so I decided to rescape the whole thing! Also, I'm going to be moving in July and took the opportunity to give away 6 of my kuhli loaches to someone with a nice 75 gallon tank so as not to worry about them later.

My main goals with the rescape were:

update the look to something more aesthetically pleasing to me

have a larger sandy area for the loaches to enjoy

have a dirted area without gravel covering it for the plants

have more open swimming space for the fish

get rid of my less healthy stem plants to cut down on maintenance time

Here's the result!

The water is still a little bit foggy because of the bacterial bloom that rescaping caused, but ammonia is sitting pretty at zero and I have high hopes that I haven't crashed the cycle.

The only stem plants I kept were the filigree mirio because it grows very quickly but doesn't get unhealthy at its bottoms as it does, and my moneywort, because it's a slightly slower-growing stem, I like the look of it a lot, and like the filigree mirio, it doesn't get as messy as the various rotalas and ludwigias.

I've made my mainstay plants my giant monster crypts, and did a lot of decorating with epiphytes like buce and a few types of anubias. Overall, I really like the way the forested bit balances with the empty space, and I can't wait for the plants to straighten out/grow in a little better!

Also, I expected the fish to be stressed out and hiding after such a big change, but they're all quite enjoying the new swimming space and have been out and about:

The tetras have been swimming around a lot.

The loaches are all enjoying the new rocks and sand! The rocks are seiryu stone.

Even Jin Ling, who is normally hard to get a photo of, has been exploring rather than hiding!

And all the shrimp are swimming alllll over the place.

Total fish count is 1 honey gourami, 3 hillstream loaches, 8 neon tetras, and 6 java loaches, plus shrimp and snails. Overall, I'm really pleased with the results! Excited to see how it looks in a couple of months.

And here's a final look at the old layout right before I took it down!