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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

I failed to noticed that I had my website set up so comments will only be displayed from people that have already posted comments, meaning I had to approve comments before they showed up. This has now been disabled so the only thing stopping your comments from getting published immediately is the Akismet filter. So as long as you post real comments, there should be no problems.

This is the story about how I got into fish keeping. This was no more than a year and a half ago.

You can see two goldfish in a tiny container. In the background you can see the bright red colors of a carnival booth with different colored bowls of water. You all know the game. The object is to toss ping pong balls into these bowls to win goldfish as a prize. Well I won two little goldfish that I knew nothing about. I left them with my girlfriend, who knew just as little about fish as I did.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve added a section to write about some of the fish I’ve kept or encountered while engrossed in this hobby. The link to the index is permanently up on the top of the site, but you can click here if you don’t want to move your cursor way up there. I  hope to write some less technical things about the fish as those have been written by other people on other websites already. I prefer to write about my general opinions and experiences with the fish. Hopefully those stumbling across can give their own input whether it’s in agreement or contradictory.

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

I took a few video clips on my camera and spliced them together so you can see some of my tank occupants. A lot of the clips are during feeding time, which is why the fish are so overly excited.

I was reading through one of the forums I frequent and stumbled across an old post, where one of the members posted a picture of a tank he worked on for a client. My jaw dropped when I saw this aquarium. This tank is the work of Tom Barr, also known as plantbrain in many of the forums. I  believe all the photos are his as well. I don’t know much about Tom other than he is well respected for his aquarium work, and he apparently does this for a living. Add me to the list of those that admire his work.

Read the rest of this entry »