What do you get when you cross a Guppy with a Molly? No, that’s not a joke. A lot of people aren’t aware that different livebearers can interbreed. They fall into two groups. Mollies, Guppies, and Endlers can breed to produce offspring. Platies and Swordtails can breed to produce offspring as well. I pulled the bonehead move of leaving on male Guppy in my community tank with my female Mollies. Even though I knew that cross breeding was possible, I thought they male Guppy was way to small to mate. Well, this is what I have now.

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Detritus is the biological term for fish poop. People often wonder if there is some animal that will consume the waste of other organisms in the aquarium.

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I’m finally settled into the new home. The plants took a beating in the move, but they’re slowly coming back up. I never put the Moai statues back into the tank. I wanted to go with a more natural look, so I added some more natural scape pieces.

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Posting hasn’t been on my mind lately. Escrow closed on the new home about a month ago, but I’m still not in the new home yet. I knew it would take some time, even just to move the fish tanks, even though the new home is only fifteen minutes away.

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Sorry for the break in posting. I may be moving in the next month. That’s good news, but I’m definitely not looking forward to moving my tanks. The move isn’t far, but breaking everything down is a pain.

Well, it’s been just about two weeks since I got my Olive Nerite Snails. I wanted to see if these little guys could live up to their fabled algae eating skills. I let my 20 gallon tank get some algae built up before the guys arrived. I put a single snail into the 20 gallon tank. Check out the before and after shots.

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I always feel peculiar when I upload videos of my aquariums to YouTube and file them under Pets and Animals. Animals is definitely correct, but pets I’ve always though of as family members that are animals. I don’t think my tank inhabitants make that cut. Anyway, I got some new additions to my tank, my Olive Nerite Snails. They eat algae. They mate. They do them both at the same time. It’s not overly interesting, but this is apparently what these snails do all day from my observations.

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We have all seen tanks overrun with algae and have probably all dealt with it ourselves. How do you get rid of the blasted stuff? Let’s start by getting one thing straight. You can’t get rid of algae. The fact of the matter is, algae is always present. Whether it is present in quantities that are noticeable is a completely different story.

Algae can look very good in a tank and give it a more natural look. I have some stones in my tank that have grown a fair amount of algae on them. I think the stones look much better with this growth. It adds more color to the tank than would exist in an algae free environment.

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I did a water change and was dosing my liquid fertilizers and carbon supplement when my plants started pearling. That’s nothing out of the ordinary, but there was one stem plant that had its top cropped of during one of my trimmings. It had bubbles pouring out of it at an incredible rate. I have a picture and a very short clip of this.

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I have a spare 10 gallon tank that is just sitting in the garage. It seems like such a waste. I’m currently deciding what to do with it. Here are some of my options.

Nerite Snail Breeding. These little critters are prized among aquarium keepers as algae eating machines. They are highly adaptable, able to live in salt water, brackish water, and fresh water. Their eggs, however, are only viable in brackish or salt water. I would get some snails, acclimate them back to brackish and try to breed them. Then I would have to get a second tank for acclimating them back to fresh water for sharing with others.

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