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Brackish water doesn't scare me. In fact, it's part of the allure. I'm used to altering my water chemistry (I keep Tanganyikans, and I keep their water nice and hard), so making certain the salinity stays constant is part of an interesting challenge. Although that leopard Ctenopoma is an awfully...

Okay, I just saw some pictures of scats, and I am dying. I love them. They are beautiful and funky. I must own some. My husband, seeing my obsession budding, has kindly offered that I may acquire another large tank and may put in the scats that I so long for. Is anyone keeping these? I'd be...

Ammonia badges aren't ammonia removers. They're tabby things you suction cup to the inside of your tank, and they turn colors to warn you about ammonia levels. Pretty nifty, actually. I use Prime, since it changes dangerous ammonia into non-dangerous ammonia and doesn't muck with my cycle...

That looks like a Neolamprologus brichardi variant. Maybe a Neolamprologus gracilis. I don't see the trademark brichardi facial markings. Does it have blue eyes? Also, Tanganyikan cichlids often do just fine in planted tanks. They're not as voracious of diggers as Mbuna. I keep my tangs in a...

My experience with them is limited to e-mail correspondance and phone conversations, but for me, that was enough. I live in the same town that they do, but they insist on shipping to me for $14. They use a same-day courier service, but pack the fish up the night before, and when I wondered if...

Your KH really is too low, and you really do need to buffer your water up. These fish are very used to alkaline, hard water. Brichardi are voracious colonizers. When they begin to breed, they defend their fry staunchly. Brichardi have been known to take over tanks with their colonizing, and the...

I saw their ad in a couple fish magazines and went to their site (www.aquatraders.com). The prices on light strips are really quite good. I could actually afford what I want from them. But, in the spirit of "if it's too good to be true, it probably is", I have to wonder about them. Has anyone...

I've been offered jobs at Petland and Petsmart. I am "the Tang lady" in town, because few others around here keep Tanganyikans. I think it frustrates the fish stores, because they can't make fish sales on me unless it's for dithers.

Flourish Excel is what I use for my current setups. I'll toss a DIY CO2 setup on each end and call it good. Pressurized hurts my wallet, and makes it cry. Thanks a bunch! That's exactly what I need to know!

Not the girl for you, friend. I mean, what's she going to do when she sees you feeding blackworms? Or dropping in frozen brine shrimp? She's going to sissy out on you, that's what. You need a good aquarium girl. :mrgreen:

Well, darn me if you aren't right. I forgot to divide. That'd be a good thing, since I cannot afford pressurized CO2. Could I do two DIY setups, one on each end? :mrgreen: Thanks so much for the replies!

I'm so confoozed. I'm new at this planted thing, but I do my best to get lights and lightstrips that give me about 2 wpg and plants that don't think high light is necessary for life. My husband is buying me a new large tank (either 60 or 75 gallons, depending on what's on sale that week), and I...

I'm having the opposite problem. I got a second pair of kribs on accident, and the female is keeping the male hiding in the corner. She refuses to have anything to do with him. She rules the tank, and won't let him come near her. The other pair I have, however, is a pair of really awesome fish...

Once I taught my kids how to feed their fish, and observed for a week or so, they've both been fantastic with their tanks. But kids who haven't been taught "fish etiquette" really do have to be watched, because water is fun!

My julidochromis and kribensis seem to think that spinach is the bomb, so I am definitely going to try a zucchini. And I am totally saving QTOFFER's recipe. Now I'm all hungry again.

Actually, female dwarf gouramis are not red at all. They're silver colored, sometimes with blue barring. I've never had "flame" gouramis, so I may be wrong, but I think both of those fish are males.

Vacuums break, though. Especially with all the cat and dog hair. My Python doesn't break. It just keeps on sucking. The obvious answer is to reduce my uncovered floor space by adding more and larger tanks.

Now if only they sucked up the detritus from the living room floor, too...

As a newbie, I very carefully calculated my fish by inches. Of course, this lead to a ton of mistakes, but I was so grateful for a rule to follow, I followed it religiously. People would tell me, "You cannot keep X fish with Y fish" and I'd get cowed into believing it, even if I felt that it...

You're in Mesa, AZ. Water in AZ isn't the greatest...down in Tucson, my water comes out of the tap at 20ppm nitrates. Part of the agricultural community thing, I think. Either way, you might want to try anacharis. It grows very quickly, and like a weed. It should do well stealing nitrates from...

Just to let everyone know, my son absolutely loves his tank! It took some doing, setting up a ten gallon with a sleeping five-year-old in the bed not five feet away. Creeping in with the tank was fine. It's perfectly garish, with red and black gravel, some anacharis, and a shark bubbler that...

You know, my husband said just about the same thing. "Honey, can I hang a shop light over my aquarium?" "Now you really HAVE lost your mind, hon. We're not hanging a shop light in the aquarium." In other news, I have had a large "duh" moment and realized that bulb length does not equal hood...

I was living in the Dark Ages. I thought that I had it handled. So clever, I thought. I saved a cat litter bucket, and ten one-gallon jugs which used to hold iced tea from the store. With these, I performed water changes using a common gravel vacuum from Wal-Mart. Low expense! We don't need any...

You could always hang a shop light over it, and use acrylic or something as a tank top... I'm fighting lighting at the moment myself, now. Mostly that almost all bulbs locally get sold either at 24" or 36"...not 30", and I have a 29 gallon tank and a 20 long that need 30".

I just let the stuff go. I wipe down the front of my tank, and the sides if I'm feeling particularly inspired, and let it grow all over. There's not terribly much I can do about it anyway, as I've got 20 ppm nitrates out of the tap. My solution is to add as many plants as I can manage, and I'm...