Louie

During Dec it is risky ordering USPS .  I had a box from Soothing take over a week once it got to the state of Florida . It seemed just to sit at the sorting place but since the temps were in the 70s it made no difference and the shrimp all arrived fine but if this was a cold state it would have been very different outcome ..

Pika,

           I am lucky that the mail carrier is excellent . The whole area loves him and suspect every house takes care of him for Christmas but the sorting post office which is further north is a horror .

      I have been lucky that even with delayed packages I never had any losses but than again I do not order late June till late Oct .   It is simply to hot during the day .

Poopians,

                   The stagnant water is the smell . 

Shrimpo,

                  What temp do you keep them at ?   I have 1 M /2 F (pics in gallery) but no babies .  They have mated but females never berried , not that I am aware of .

Soothing ,

                  I have noticed the same thing with my cloning crays . As adults the blue comes and goes . They molt blue but don't stay blue . 

The good thing about micro worms is that tiny fish grow faster and they have greater nutrition but the plus with brine shrimp is that they will swim in the water column. Granted it is freshwater so they will die but they last long enough for mid water swimming fish to grab them.

Subtle,

              Oh you are one of those bio-types , lol .   I have friends like that .   My planted tanks with fish are any types of plants which they find a crime .

Hungle,

             They were available at the pet store (Exotic fish) for most of the winter but I do not recall the price.  I had tried to get reticulated Hillstream loach for an unheated tank with good circulation and interestingly enough those were not available .  I should have ordered them but now to hot , might come "winter" .

The problem with some loaches is that the adults as far as color look very different than the young . Not all but seems more species than not.

A friend had saddleback loaches for a few years .  I found lovely as young but at roughly 4 inches they became drab and nothing at all like young.

MABJ,

               How do you like the azoo's as far as built and filter and light ?     I was looking at the Azoo mirror box for a desk tank .

I use Penguin filters on my shrimp 20 gallon tanks but since planted tanks I remove the bio wheel because after a few months it gets stuck plus not needed .

I also put a chemi -pure or purigen in each one and changed every 5 months .

I now see one of the fish, I see his head .

Panda loaches are very pretty.  From what I have seen at pet store , they vary in shades more white , more black while some are drab .

In fact they went from amazing to dull as far as differences go.

Have you considered the inexpensive tap water purifier by Aquarium pharmaceutical . I have used when I needed soft RO type water when I kept killies and can tell you that it works great . You just hook it up to your faucet as needed .

The key is to run it 50% slower than recommended and on cold water thus cartridge lasts longer .

I found it a very underrated product .

I also use tapwater but never had problems everything thrives but either way it removes all impurities .

I have only seen them in magazines and sites .

They seem to be very difficult ? 

My "woman" lol (wife) of many years is visiting one of my daughters and her family in CA . It gives me the chance to eat plenty

of junk with no brutal lectures about cholesterol, etc and since our neighbors left yesterday for 3 days . I'm watching their

bullterrier who is like a good friend . We stay up all night eating assorted Chinese take out .

She enjoys chicken fried rice and boneless spare ribs .

Than we sleep during the day as we are about to do now but she snores .

subtle,

We have managuense here and as a whole I find the south and central American cichlids very underrated as far "being smart" .

I have an old pair of Oscars in "pond" (250 gallon home depot pvc pond) in the yard but watching the wild cichlids for years in same

canals you notice that they learn .

Some canals no one fish's because the cichlids will not strike at lures nor live bait even if dangled in front of them .

High,

The non native fish are here to stay as you know they have been here since fish became a hobby . The only fish that have

trouble are the peacock bass . There are plenty but the killer cold spell years back took a massive toll on them .

The other exotics recovered or recovering but the peacock bass did not bounce back as one would expect.

Country,

I used to fish snakeheads by a certain large canal in Broward county which might be where your brother in law goes . They are here to stay but interestingly enough for such a tough fish not as spread all over Miami as most exotics.

Doc,

Keeping a set up and running tank empty is not easy , lol . What type of led is that ? Very bright and nice .

I hope to breed them but they are unsexable babies now .

I would like to be able to keep 1 M /1 F together , If I get a pair because with 4 you never know . I know they are not as

aggressive as the Alleni and I find the white nicer not as ghost pale as the Alleni.

I have not had luck breeding crays . I have 2 f /1 m CPO who mate but no babies ever and have not seen any females carry eggs .

I purchased a "blue" dwarf but it is actually a blue strain of Cajun , not some exotic dwarf as I had thought .Put it in a 15

gallon and going to get a few more Cajun dwarfs , hope they breed .

My self cloning are another story and multiply nicely .

Hungle,

You don't keep crays because of the claws? I think you mentioned some time ago that you don't keep

anything that can pinch .

I was not into crays either till years ago . They don't bother me when I do water changes and afraid of me .

I find the harmless CPO crays very interesting as far as the way they interact with each other and roam around

the tank but I would never keep them with shrimp as some do nor fish.

Funny thing is that I keep fish outside in assorted water troughs and raccoons might come through now and than , perhaps they can catch a platy here and there in the more shallow troughs but the one time I kept some self

cloning crays in a 20 gallon under my terrace they showed up in numbers .

Subtle,

                Nice video. I have never seen them.  I agree that lots keep fish in inadequate size tanks . At one time Pacu  were in vogue as babies . Everyone knew they got huge but regardless people purchased them for their 10 gallon starter tanks .

Imagine thousands died this way .

I actually caught a few in a canal in Key west in the early 90s.

I ordered 4 white Clarkii crays .  They are small but if I get a pair will separate them to breed. Imagine I will need to separate the 4 either way as they get older but for now all 4 will be in a 20 long .

Has anyone bred Clarkii?

If so temps, etc would be great .

Thank you

Okay thanks .

It came out nice . What is the little ornament I each tank which looks like a chandalier?

Mantis are interesting . I never kept any but got rid of plenty from uncultured live rock .  Some are very pretty and some are drab looking .

Subtle,

              I am also a big fan of weekly water changes . I change 5% twice a week for my shrimp . For my fish I change 10% twice a week . 

All three of these videos are fantastic I think everyone here will love all three .  The white tiger shrimps in the second video are very nice indeed.

I particularly liked the 3rd video because of the crayfish . I do keep CPO  but I would never keep them with shrimp . Funny how he says that CPO will try to mate with shrimp because a friend who keeps CPO told me he saw this with his cherry shrimp and I thought he was mistaken.

Also interesting on the pinochio shrimps which I was looking at but will now abstain from getting any.

Soothing,

                     No plants in your tank, no driftwood ?

Soothing,

                 He purchased a pair from dealer who sold diff types of octopus , small cuttlefish from a newsletter that used to go around in the 70's early 80's called Fauna . You could subscribe to it for a $1 a year .

They would sell you whatever and up to you to than see if legal to own and get a permit . Granted no one did .

It was all types exotic listings . I do not think that it was till the early till mid 80's that the government came down on exotics without permits but either way you name it, it was sold .

In the mid 80s fauna became just reptile listings and a diff company published and owned it .

Either way the pair lived together in his 55 gallon tank which is strange as is because they are solitary . He had about 40lbs live rock and filter was an undergravel and each octopus had their own glass soda bottle which they lived in .

They bred after he had them 6 months , I forgot which one died after that(imagine female)  but all the eggs hatched .

The color on those octopus were amazing .

I kept some exotics but never anything dangerous in the slightest way and most you can still buy .

Soothing ,

                  I notice that a lot of the smaller tanks are acrylic , like those filter, light included nano reef type tanks .