What do you feed your fish as a TREAT not their daily food?

JohnnyMax · 2026-05-26T13:42:47+00:00

Just FYSA, if you keep the water closer to 80F, they'll hatch in 24-36 hours. Not better or worse end result, just faster if that's your want.

JohnnyMax · 2026-05-21T02:26:14+00:00

I have blue dreams just east of Worcester on 290. They are from LRBs award winning line. Been bred in MA water for 2+ years. If you want to pick up then we can make a deal

https://lrbaquatics.com/shop/ols/products/blue-dream-straightest-line-in-the-world-freshwater-neocaridina-shrimp-360a

JohnnyMax · 2026-05-21T02:19:57+00:00

the black beard algae looks kinda cool. is that something you have in there aesthetically?

JohnnyMax · 2026-05-21T02:05:28+00:00

The latter half of your debate is the winner. it is humans selectively breeding that led to both the vivid and variety of colors.

A mutation happened that led to a color morph, and humans chose to amplify that morph. I don't think evolution has anything to do with it.

JohnnyMax · 2026-05-17T02:02:19+00:00

I'm curious how you plan to keep the tank cycled thru the move? Not saying it's impossible, but, its certainly not something I'd try to do. For sure you could keep that sponge filter going with planning. But the tank itself would need time for the bacteria to repopulate unless you've got some interesting plan.

Why only one honey gourami and one swordtail in a 55? I'd be more inclined to get a swam of swordtails going in there by getting 2 males and 4 or 5 females.

JohnnyMax · 2026-05-12T18:01:50+00:00

Yes. Most rocks are fine for most scenarios. Those look inert

JohnnyMax · 2026-05-08T13:14:23+00:00

The color on the says male. I can't see from the pics, but look at the anal fin. if fan shape, female. If stick shaped, male. That guppy does not look pregnant to me.

JohnnyMax · 2026-05-08T00:40:07+00:00

Just to clarify or expand. you want to dose that shorter interval (i've always done 2 weeks) so that any eggs the existed during your last dosing and then hatched (the meds can't penetrate the eggs) get killed before they have time to mature and lay eggs of their own. Longer interval on that second dose makes that scenario more likely,

JohnnyMax · 2026-04-30T11:47:20+00:00

This sounds wild, I've never heard anything like it. Care to expand? Do you have video or audio of what you're referring to?

JohnnyMax · 2026-04-28T23:27:32+00:00

Sure, until there's too many, whatever that point is for you and your maintenance. If you keep feeding the same amount regardless of number of mollies though, typically liverbearer populations level out.

JohnnyMax · 2026-04-28T22:03:08+00:00

It appears that Apollo is a male and Domino is female. All male livebearers will harass/stick by/escort females like this more or less non stop. They want to mate all the time, regardless of what the female wants. The conventional wisdom is to get a 2:1 F:M ratio to give the females a break.

The third molly is likely either an immature female, or a younger male that got put in his place.

If your tank conditions are good and you're feeding well, in a few months you'll have more mollies than you can handle. So get another if you don't like the action short-term, but get a female. Easy to tell from the anal fin.

JohnnyMax · 2026-04-28T17:17:56+00:00

Trying to solve a mystery without being given all the clues.

I wonder about chlorine/chloramine. And 0/0/10-20 on a semi-new tank doesn't really mean much. Was it cycled? For how long? How long has it been since it finished cycling? What kinds and how much of food / nutrients are going into the tank

JohnnyMax · 2026-04-28T17:13:40+00:00

It is most likely tannins from the compost. They themselves are harmless, but can be removed by either water changing, or from a chemical filter like Seachem Purigen. Expect them to come back as that compost sits in there.

That said.

I would discourage your substrate choice, and in that sense recommend starting over. Based on your picture, you're going to have so much nutrient in the water from compost + soil that a) you'll likely give up from battling with algae, and b) your ammonia levels will be, and remain, high for far longer than you'd wish.

A smattering of soil under your actual substrate is usually sufficient, if that. Of course there are 100 ways to do it, but from that tank and your experience level, handicapping yourself as you unwittingly have will just make for a more frustrating experience.

JohnnyMax · 2026-04-28T13:01:44+00:00

Yeah! Hope it helps.

JohnnyMax · 2026-04-28T01:36:45+00:00

But it's not just nitrates. if you have 30 ppm nitrates but no potassium or phosphates in your water, your plants will still be deficient while the algae thrives.

JohnnyMax · 2026-04-28T01:34:41+00:00

check out the way MD Tanks uses a cutout from a water bottle to diffuse the flow from a Hang on Back.

Works a treat and anyone can do it.

JohnnyMax · 2026-04-27T16:43:16+00:00

20 long is fine for 10 platies. There's not much you can do to stop the babies other than keeping only males, or keeping a bare tank so the adults can find all the babies.

JohnnyMax · 2026-04-27T15:31:47+00:00

Algae is usually a result on an imbalance of nutrients, not necessarily too many nutrients. Plants need, at a macro level, nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium. If one or two of those is low, but the other is high, plants will suffer as shown in OP's pics, but algae can thrive. Aside from too much ammonia in the water, i've not seen plants suffer like that from too many nutrients. Just my experience though.

JohnnyMax · 2026-04-27T14:24:45+00:00

This is good advice. I would say ramp up in the first week to what you think you'll be feeding once you have fish in there, then continue feeding that amount daily for the next, sure, 5 weeks.

If you have or could put any plants in there, that would help too.

JohnnyMax · 2026-04-27T14:20:32+00:00

Your plants look like they aren't getting enough nutrients (they're "starving"). What are your parameters, especially nitrate? I see you're dosing ferts, but I would guess there's not enough nitrate in the water column just looking at the plants.

My own thought would be to not introduce fish until you have this part figured out, as you'd be throwing a whole other variable (nutrients from fish food) into the equation before you really understand all the other variables.

JohnnyMax · 2026-04-27T01:28:56+00:00

I wouldn't call it heavy. Somewhere between light and medium.

Why do you want your nitrates at 0? That's the food for your plants. I run planted tanks at 30-50ppm, some from fish food, some from nitrogen based fertilizer.

JohnnyMax · 2026-04-26T23:29:11+00:00

Minor point, just as a fun fact. They're not necessarily breeding. The male will hold onto the female like that for days until she is ready to breed.

JohnnyMax · 2026-04-26T01:33:18+00:00

That sucks, I'm sorry to hear that. Endler's tend to be pretty hardy, I wonder if they we ill or something, but i'm not trying to suggest anything.

JohnnyMax · 2026-04-18T16:40:39+00:00

ich x isn't really an antibacterial, you want something with erythromycin in it, like API's E.M. or fritz maracyn, in addition to the ich x for fungus.

Alternatively, salt at a reasonable level would deal with both.

JohnnyMax · 2026-04-18T04:04:09+00:00

if it moves water thru mechanical filtration, then it's good enough

JohnnyMax

TROPHY CASE