Search results

Convicts are freshwater cockroaches. Scorpionfish are the saltwater variety (long story from my LFS days in the 1980's, and I'm sure I'll get the details of it wrong).

The old trick of putting a bag of peat in your filter still works. Or a layer of it beneath the gravel. Either way you end up with "blackwater". I've never understood the aquarists' fascination with RO water when nature gives us plenty of good water for free from the sky. Is a rain barrel an...

I think there is a common misconception that angels are peaceful fish. Among their own kind, they can be quite pugnacious.

I used to breed angelfish on a large scale, and was amused by many of the internet legends of how to sex angelfish. I always reality checked the indicators against my known pairs. None of them held true, except the only sure-fire way to tell: wait for them to spawn, the one depositing the eggs...

I've always wanted a 40 breeder. Closest I ever got was giving one as a gift to my kid brother. If you want to be a bad influence, feel free to post some photos when it's up and running.

Methylene Blue is tried & true, recommended for generations by fish keepers around the world. When I was doing commercial scale angelfish breeding, however, my yields were dramatically better with ordinary Hydrogen Peroxide than with MB or any other method. It's untrue that only unfertilized...

Soil (a la Walstad)

My LFS keeps them in stock all the time... $0.99 ea regular price. The sunday paper has buy-one get-one-free coupons there for all fish under $5.00. So I end up getting them for like $0.50 ea. Bumblebees need to be kept with small salt-tolerant fish that won't bother them. I think that...

Yeah common names can suck like that. More commonly I've seen Diodon hystrix sold as "Porcupine Puffer".

I picked up some youngsters over the weekend. They were being kept in pure freshwater, and looked really grey, but overall had good form. I adjusted them up to brackish water conditions, and have been feeding them an array of quality frozen foods to condition them. Their colors have come...

I have a very long history with my LFS. I went there as a kid all the time. They got me started in marine fish when I was ready to move up. When I got into high school, they hired me to work there. I met a girl who also worked there over the summer (who went to a different school than me)...

Considering that they grow to a size of 36 inches (and, yes, I've seen them close to this size) I think the more appropriate question would be how large an aquarium you would need to house just one. And I don't think 300 gallons is big enough to house just one. I saw a full size adult in a...

The worst lies are the ones that contain an ounce of truth. Don't always believe what you're told (unless I'm telling you heheh) In full truth, most female dwarf gouramis are nowhere near as spectacular as their male counterparts. Some LFS's used to require you to buy them in M/F pairs but...

Hey I didn't pick it apart. Didn't you see the smiley? festae

Hippocampus zosterae The only marine fish that I feel comfortable keeping and breeding in a pickle jar. Hippocampus zosterae would be lose in anything much bigger than a 15 gallon tank. Very invert-friendly (unless said invert is a very tiny arthropod). And they are as prolific as...

So lets start putting male festae's in 10 gallon tanks. :D I've had some problems keeping male gouramis together. Sometimes you can get away with it. But the dwarf species seem to be pretty intolerant. Oh, they get along at the pet shop in overcrowded conditions. But try keeping a male...

An alternative approach to managing nitrate would be to establish a refugium sharing water with your main tank.

I smell a troll. Flowerhorn, Jack Dempseys and Texas Cichlids are all different species. Texas Cichlids and Jack Dempseys are from different continents. African cichlids are too distantly related to have any hope of producing live young. It would even be a stretch to think that a male of...

30 gallons is about right for a pair of convicts with nothing more. Convicts are pound for pound pretty tough fish. I had a mated pair in a 150 gallon tank with a mated pair of managuense. The managuense were about a foot long and the convicts just a few inches. The convicts would beat the...

So then what's this "goldfish bowl" thingy I keep hearing so much about?