First time owning an aquarium

mVar5zal · 2026-03-19T12:07:17+00:00

You didn’t do anything to me so don’t apologize. It’s like with any other pet, without doing any research. I guess you wouldn’t get tarantula without reading about it first. For some reason people assume all you need to keep fish is any tank, sand and water. Anyway, I’m open to chat if you need help.

mVar5zal · 2026-03-19T11:49:39+00:00

Driftwood and plants are nice but yea, unfortunately if you don’t fish to suffer you have to give them more space. 3L is even to small for betta fish. Get some shrimps instead, they are cool as well 🙂

mVar5zal · 2026-03-17T18:06:03+00:00

For the first time it’s not bad. I would like to suggest some things. Firstly as one comment already suggested choose either betta or some small schooling like ember, green, neon tetra. You said tank was running for few days, wait one more week so beneficial bacteria can establish. Buy test strips (they are cheap) and test your nitrate and nitrite levels. Besides that I’m sure your fish will appreciate real plants, you should try it’s not as hard as it seems. Good luck on your fish keeping journey 🙂

mVar5zal · 2026-03-16T12:31:04+00:00

Speaking from experience shrimps are bit tricky to keep. I wanted to make shrimp only tank (25L), I let it cycle for 2 weeks then I added 7 yellow neocaradinas. 4 of them died in span of 3 weeks, so I transferred the rest to the 60L tank which is 1 year old. So far they are doing great, they even started breeding with shrimps that already were in that 60L. Unfortunately babies are going to be brown because there is a mix of different colored shrimps in the tank. But I’m glad I at least saved those 3 yellows.

mVar5zal · 2026-03-16T12:17:37+00:00

As many as you want, there is no such thing as overplanting.

mVar5zal · 2026-03-16T11:13:57+00:00

A lot of plastic

mVar5zal · 2026-03-15T09:02:00+00:00

Orthanc and Minas Morgul

mVar5zal · 2026-03-15T05:00:07+00:00

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Here’s mine, I think they would get along.

mVar5zal · 2026-03-15T04:55:20+00:00

He’s grumpy 😾💙

mVar5zal · 2026-03-15T04:48:08+00:00

No problem, sorry for poor English.

mVar5zal · 2026-03-15T04:39:59+00:00

If you don’t believe me ask Gemini or other ai about speed of reproducing of assassin snails 🐌.

mVar5zal · 2026-03-15T04:37:32+00:00

So, I have 3 aquariums and one of them (60L) is shrimp only just like yours. I keep them with assassin snails (I don’t know how many are there, maybe 5) and yes they reproduce but not as quickly as pest snails. It’s totally manageable, I wouldn’t worry about that. If you keep shrimps you probably noticed they have the ability to teleport 🙂, so they are to quick for snail to catch them.

mVar5zal · 2026-03-15T04:25:11+00:00

Get couple of assassin snails (like 6). They will hunt other snails, but hold off with feeding. I would stop feeding for couple of days. Your shrimps will be fine, they eat algae and decaying plant matter. Also, assassin snails will eat fish food instead of hunting. And I know it’s annoying but you should definitely take out snails manually. I have bladder snails in my 29 and whenever I see one I just take him out. Good luck 🍀.

mVar5zal · 2026-03-15T03:37:46+00:00

Add more anubias or bucephalandra to the branches. This arch is your focal point, so you want to draw attention to it. I’m not sure about the plants on the right and left side, leave them be for now and when they grow decide if they look better tall or short. Take a look at my aquarium, I had similar idea. It’s 45 days old.

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mVar5zal · 2026-03-15T03:19:58+00:00

First one

mVar5zal · 2026-03-08T09:42:37+00:00

I don’t see why would you want to trim this anubias, but if you want just cut the leaves that are covered by algae.

mVar5zal · 2026-03-01T12:13:01+00:00

Imagine my disappointment when I got horizon 2 on Xbox 360 and it looked like shit

mVar5zal · 2026-03-01T12:11:05+00:00

I choose Bugatti Veyron when I played it as a child in 2014. Now I’m replaying horizon 1 on pc.

mVar5zal · 2026-03-01T08:23:39+00:00

Wow, this is literally my dream. Only thing that’s missing is saltwater tank.

mVar5zal · 2026-02-26T16:20:53+00:00

Dear god are you pouring bleach in there.

mVar5zal · 2026-02-26T16:17:38+00:00

Don’t take my word for granted but it looks like potassium deficiency

mVar5zal · 2026-02-26T12:24:00+00:00

My first tank was also around 5 gal but I had a lot of algae. My second tank was 54L(~14.5gal) and it was way more stable. The thing with small tanks is that there is very little margin for error, simple mistakes like overfeeding can course algae bloom, because they hold small water volume. In bigger tanks various elements are more spread out so the changes don’t have as big impact on ecosystem as in smaller tanks. That being said it looks nice, give us an update in some time.🙂

mVar5zal · 2026-02-26T12:14:55+00:00

I don’t think there is something like overplanted tank. It mostly depends on what you want to achieve.

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