(Unsure if I’m doing it wrong, but I seem to only be able to upload one image. See below for more).

I’m less than one week away from my anniversary with this tank. One whole year, and a whole lot of changes.

Sometimes I miss how fresh and clean it looked in the early-mid stages, especially when the Limnophilia Aromatica was bushy. But I love how it looks now, so colorful and a bit messy.

For any first starting their tank and getting buyers-remorse if it looks odd or ugly to start, just remember that it’s gonna grow and change!

Some people would call this an infestation.

I call this a good start.

#SnailLoversUnite

This is one of the fish tanks at one of the local fish stores that I like to go to

Here's some additional shots of the various fish in the tank:

They don’t move like daphnia and I do hatch baby brine shrimp. Did I get some eggs in here somehow? This many?!

This is a living dinosaur known as an African butterfly fish. Wikipedia Entry These guys have been around for some time and are the only surviving species of their genre. The closest living relative is an Arowana and these guys have a similar looking mouth and body structure.

As for Behavior they don't actually do much. They spend a lot of time pretending to be a leaf and hiding and waiting to Ambush pray as their Ambush predators. They're wild caught when you buy them from the store as they are extremely difficult to breed in captivity. It can be done but it is rare.

Since the Wild Caught you'll probably need to start them off on a diet of Live Food if you intend to keep them. I started mine on crickets and I was able to switch him to a form of cichlid sticks that are used to feed arowanas that float. They are picky about their dry food though so good luck on that.

Overall I've had them for a year and have found him to be really forgiving despite my newish aquarium mistakes. He has survived both massive general hardness increases and massive pH drops. They are unbelievably tough.

I don't know if you can see this but those fins are made for flying. You need a tight fitting lid or they will jump from the tank. They're also both a weird contradiction to kind of own. They need a lot of cover near the top of the water line but they like to have spots of Open Water. So you cannot just put in floating plants and call it a day. You need to remove enough of them but there's open spots of water for him to poke his head out to eat food. He also has a very hard time eating when there are floating plants around him.

Here in this picture he's waiting for food because it's feeding time. They are very intelligent. He does not run for me anymore when I stick my hands in the water to try and feed him as long as I don't spook him.

He's one of my favorite fish I've ever owned. Currently he lives in a bog Style fish tank with a ton of floating plants up top but lots of open spots of water for him to poke his head out. The pH in this tank is around 5.5 with a KH level of 0 and a GH of 5°.

This has got to be one of the dumbest betta fish I've Ever Raised. Can't figure out where the food is but I know he can see things and he's just kind of bad at eating in general he likes to jump out of the water. To be fair this is the first I ever got from like a reputable breeder normally when I keep Petco bettas

Full tank shot:

So many fry; send help 😅

These are baby brine shrimp I hatched that are being circulated by the current of the filter/bubbles.

The medaka are growing up in a tiny hatching tank because my planted grow-out tank is still cycling. This is just a portion of the fry. I don't think I transferred this many fry over from my indoor pond; I bet a bunch of eggs came attached to the plants that I added in. Not pictured are also a few white cloud mountain minnow and peacock gudgeon fry.

Wanted to a include a better picture of the white sale thing in this tank who looks absolutely Majestic.

Bonus pics:

This tank has no filter and no heater. It reads zero on all levels. GH/KH 5 deg. Working on pushing higher

One of the tanks I am working on and intend to post pictures of when I can get some good ones is my "cold water" no filter walstd tank. I designed it specifically for a community of dwarf crayfish to live alongside Rosy Red Minnows and zebra danios. Thought you guys would appreciate a better picture of one of these crayfish who is in good health.

Here are some additional behaviors of these guys interacting

Picture of mating:

Pictures in the tank

He was dying. He had been on his back for 24 hours. I picked him up out of the fish tank and he could barely move. I dropped him in this fish tank in the pipes so that he could find some protection from the mollies.

And he bounced right back. He's still a little slow but he's making his way around the tank on all of his legs now. And he's able to give off enough of the threat display that the Molly's leave him alone.

I really need to go through and figure out all of the parameters of this tank.

Got these guys about a month ago and have tried to move them to a couple of my various tanks in my house and they always struggle so for now they live in the magic quarantine box that keeps everything alive.

I also got a dwarf crayfish I threw in my cold water tank where there are other dwarf crayfish living. And it started having serious struggles so I put it in this tank and it popped right back up and seems to be doing okay.

The secret is apparently a tablespoon of sea salt for every 3 gallons of water....

Stupid magic mystery box that seems to keep everything alive.

Never seen a nerite snail eat pre-made fish food. These come from NorthFin which I heard quite a few people in the aquarium Community claim is some of the best food and in my mind this is confirmation because I've never seen nerite snail eat anything other than tank algae.

Thought you guys would just appreciate!

This was while I was rearranging a few things in my indoor pond.

I know I know my underwater indoor pond camera blinked out right as we were going to see more. Does it look like it was moulting? Do you think it survived? A few seconds later I saw a loose bit of shell in the water…

Like the title said I'm building a 55 gallon freshwater tank community, and I've decided to document the journey here. It's my goal to create something fun and to spark good conversations about the hobby.

So tell me your expirences, stories, cristiscism, everything.

I have purchased a used tank that will need some work and will document that as well, but to start here is my current stocking list. Please excuse the quality of the image. I'm open to switching some species out if there are any suggestions. I'm definently set on the Pearl Gouramis though.

I tried a 4 day antibiotic course but forgot to remove the filter. It reduced the spots but I just came back from a 2 day trip and this what she looks like :(

The bumps are cloudy looking and some of them move with the water.

Is it truly that bad of a combo as some forums suggest?

I'm getting back into the hobby and wanted to recreate a tank i kept in college. I'm looking to do a planted 20-30 gallon and I kept a combo of white clouds, zebra danios, and a betta very successfully back then. The fish seemed to be very active, in good health, and had great color. I remember I kept the tank around the 74-76 degree mark. Everyone seemed happy.

I really wanted to replicate that tank at a bigger scale, but my now I'm seeing advice that says it's a bad idea.

Anybody have any thoughts/suggestions?

I'd consider another centerpiece fish instead of the betta if anyone has any suggestions

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/39054119

First successful attempt at breeding gold Lazer Corydoras (CW10). It took me a year for the parents to start spawning and in April I collected the first eggs, 8 in total. Now 2.5 moths later the 2 fry that survived start to show their beautiful colour! And the best thing is, the parents spawned again. I have around 15 eggs with 1 already hatched.

How did they do? Do they need root tabs? Are they fine without ever touching saltwater? Any bright light requirements?

Still not sure how many there are this year but it's at least 6!

UNS 45L low-tech iwagumi, no CO2. Planted with monte carlo and a "moss ball" torn up to decorate the seiryu stone. It was dry-started in January 2025, and has grown in a little bit but not as quickly as I'd like it. Stocked with 7 medaka rice fish, a massive amount of ramshorns, and 5 orange neocaridinas (which are showing cherries now). I have done only 1 water change on it since leaving the dry start, and weirdly has zero algae and is the least demanding tank I have.

The vastly oversized filter you see doesn't have filter media, but instead houses several terrestrial plants including some pothos (marble queen), some ficus variety, and a variegated syngonium. I picked a giant filter (made for 15 gallon setups) in order to create a "sump" to increase the water volume in the overall ecosystem to ensure everything stays stable.

I’ve had this tank for about 9 months now. While it’s been very beautiful, my background has been rough. First it was a simple foggy-glass film. Then I removed that to try to add a white one, which only looked worse.

But finally, I was able to afford a dream item - a lightscreen.

And damn, the difference is insane lol. It may show off the algae more, but it really makes the colors pop.

Origin: Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia Diet: Plants, lettuce, pellets and algae Size: up to 10 cm. Mine are 5-6 cm right now. Lifespan: Up to 5 years! Current age: around 7-8 months considering size, some fresh shells and selling + people breeding them fast for popularity.

I'm still figuring out how I'm going to set up a planted aquarium, after last having goldfish as a kid about 30 years ago. So forgive my naivete!

On that other big social media site, there's the AquaSwap community where I see a bunch of folks local to me in NYC are trading/selling/buying all manner of aquarium stuff (fish, plants, hardscape, more).

So for my friends on Lemmy: do you participate in trade with your local community? Where are they? Are they only on that other website…? Meetups? Mailing lists?