All Activity

@bigfishkayak, please remove your personal details. If anyone wants to get in touch with you, they can send you a Private Message. You can exchange contact details there.

I have 4 red lizard whip tail catfish. I purchased 2 each from two different reputable fish sellers online as they are not available locally. I received all females. I was hoping someone had an extra male that was a year old so they could breed right away as my females are ready to go. If you have one your willing to sell please contact me

The duckweed can certainly be a pain! I think the trade-off is that it is doing a great job mopping up all the nutrients

Always great to get an update! Good to see the ember tetras and shrimp are doing well still. That duckweed is vile stuff (looks ok when only a small bit in an aquarium) and so difficult to get rid of once in an aquarium and over runs so quickly?

I have probasbly had Bertie the betta about 3 months now. I didn't want a white one initially but it works well as I can see him swimming about from a distance as the tank is fairly dark! Betta are fiddly to feed as they have tiny stomachs (about the size of their eye) so get constipated when overfed and even if you feed them well they will still eat food (or baby shrimp I expect) when they come across it even if they aren't 'hungry'. I think feedind balance is probably the trickiest aspect of keeping a betta, from my experience anyway. My tanks weren't all together before so were in different wall sockets. Where I lived before we got power cuts occasionally, really annoying, especially having to reset all the timers......... lights on the tanks, but many others to do as well not tank related. I guess it sounds like a house rewire would be a good idea for safety and useability, though these things do cost a lot and will be messy whilst being carried out. Had that done a couple of times and great peace of mind once done. The superglue may need to be a special one (as per the link I sent) because it will be used on wet/damp serfaces. I have used it on wet driftwood etc with wet plants and moss and it works very well and easily. If you buy it from an aquarium or aquascaper I assume that would work on wet/damp surfaces? The mesh mats can be cut to fit any area, though you may need a special tool to do that. It can also be bent/folfed etc to whatever shape you want. I have never used any fertilizers in any of my tanks and am always giving away plants that grow too big. I don't think ferts are needed if you are using soil/plant substrate, especially if keeping fish/shrimps in the aquarium, they produce their own plant ferts. I haven't ever used a quarantine tank but I tend to do one tank at a time so the creatures are going to an empty tank anyway and they are small tanks anyway so not many fish go into them anyway. I have been ultra luck but it is better if you can have a simple and basic quarantine/hospital tank available ad once everything else is running well you could stick a betta and cull shrimps in it?.

Awwww he is stunning!! I love his colour and his fins are beautiful! Does he have a name? I'm in love with him! How long have you had him for? 🤍🤍🤍 Yes I would only put them in with low grade, cheap shrimp and I would ensure the shrimp have loads of hiding places and caves etc. Lots of Subwassertang or Java moss, lots of guppy grass, then loads of other plants. Also would make sure the betta is well fed. Thats a great idea for carpeting with moss. I'll definitely do that with my next tank, but it would be a bit hard with my 60L as its already scaped in the foreground. i would love to add moss in some spots that are bare. I think bending lead weights and pinning it in the substrate may work. Right now I have scattered rocks over the sand, but I could use them for weighing the Subwassertang down too. Maybe a combination will work best. Superglue- I had the right stuff however if either is damp it just won't stick well I found. I have had much better success with fishing line. I'll be able to just wind fishing line around the cave. They'll do really well in a 35L. I cannot wait to see what you do aquascaping wise. Yes I understand not wanting to go further and set up more tanks. It's honestly very costly, and very time consuming. It's hard work! With the fertiliser I use it says you need to do a weekly 50% water change. Which I hate! I changed today to api leaf zone and I'll see how that goes. I'm getting a fair bit of algae growth and I think there is just too many nutrients in the water and substrate. So I'm dialling down the lights and using less ferts. We'll see what happens. I actually think I want to re scape the tank already. I'm not loving it but it's so hard to do with a small tank. I'm going to look at some designs and consider what to do. I would love to buy a similar sized tank, but opticlear and no frame and make this tank my hospital/quarantine tank. Do you quarantine? Is it just too much of a hassle? My friend who has tanks, just added fish without quarantining and every fish got ich. He lost about 20 fish, some he had had for years. He is still treating them and more could be lost yet. It's really sad. I don't want it happening to my guys, so I think im going to set up a quarantine tank. Ahh yes, def need to reinforce a sideboard to take 360+kgs! Lucky he is on concrete. Im looking at the moment at some different buffets/sideboards and even came across someone selling steel frames, that you could then put a bench top on and if you wanted, doors and pannelling. My 235L tank has a stand, but I honestly think im going to build something stronger for it to sit on. I have a friend who is a fabulous welder, so I may ask him if he would weld me some frames up and then I'll add a bench top, panels and doors. I'll go pay him a visit and see if he'll do it for me. Yeah electrical cords...I have a heater, filter, air pump, and light but my heater plugs into my inkbird which is plugged in to the power board 😑 I decided I'm going to label all of the cords with different coloured labels and write on it what it is, but I'll continue to use those colours for each device throughout my fish room so it's all coordinated and I can easily tell what's what. Plus have the cords plugged into the power board in the same order for each one. Geez I think I will be paying to upgrade our electricity. We are already at the point of plugging in just 1 thing in too many and the power board trips and we lose everything. $7k it costs to upgrade. The aquarium stuff doesn't take a whole lot of energy, but living on old, 1 phase power, you easily lose it all if you overload the system. Last night we had a mini blackout but it came back on after a couple minutes. Im seriously thinking of buying the ecoflow power bank that people use when camping. As long as it's charged, I could plug in heaters, filters and airpumps and continue like normal. I think I'll consider buying 1 when I get a 2nd tank, and def make sure I have it when I set up the 235L. I think it'll make me feel more relaxed if we get a blackout, cause we get them often in our little region. Sorry, my messages are getting so long. Sorry about that. Oh and ageing the water...yes Jason clarified I don't have to given im on tank/rain water. Yay!!

Here is a picture of my Betta, not very interesting in terms of colour but easy to see in the tank as it is quite dark! He is with some high grade red cherry shrimp and it is fairly densely planted (sounds better than the truth - overgrown) but I am sure he wwill be eating some of the baby shrimp when he sees them. If you get to the stage of having a cull tank for poor grade shrimp then putting a betta in that would be ideal, otherwise it is a risk keeping shrimp with a betta so only try it with your least favourite shrimps in a well planted tank. Betta are fairly easy to keep (as other tropical fish) and interesting as they will interact with people who go near the tank and at feeding and tank maintenance time. For creating carpets of moss, I used to use pads/squares of stainless steel mesh, on which I put the moss then wound fishing line to hold the moss in place. For attaching plants/moss to wood or rock though the superglue is much easier, it may need to be a certain type/make though??? I always buy it from my shrimp supplies supplier. I saw my friend earlier and the apistos seem to be doing well so most likely I will try those in the 35L aquarium, so won't have many. Not got any further than that at this point. I wouldn't even consider putting shrimp in with apistos. What you have been reading about 'ageing' water I suspect is to get chlorine from the (tap) water? The friend I saw today (with the apistos) bought a 360L aquarium about 10 years ago so we had to modify/strengthen his sideboard to take the weight. His floor is concrete so that wasn't an issue. Even with just the 3 tanks before I moved the wiring was crazy with each tanh having, heater, light, filter - looked a real mess, but it didn't actually use much extra power as only the heater(s) were >10W.

Great! That's what I was thinking. Thank you for that. Honestly I was so worried about being on rainwater when I first started cycling my tank. Now though, I much prefer it.

Not if you are using rain water. No need to age water that's been on earth for millions of years.

Oh and Simon, I keep forgetting to ask you, your Betta! What type? Colour? Name? What shrimp is he/she with? I had a betta years ago, and I sadly didn't know what they actually require. I did upgrade him to a bigger tank but it didn't have a heater. I didn't realise everything that was needed to correctly house one. There wasn't much internet then and we just went off what the pet shop said to do. I'm really ashamed I didn't dig deeper, but one of these days, I'm going to buy another and give it a proper home with everything it needs. Does your betta pick off many of your shrimp? I would love to try and house the two together.

Thanks Simon, I actually just have an internal filter in my 60L. I see so many people say to use Sponge filters with shrimp but when I think of my internal filter, not one shrimp has been sucked into it, which people say can happen. I watch them go right in front of it and not get sucked in at all. I am thinking though of getting the 107 and putting it on the 60L and then I'll put the internal in the first 30L. I'll try Sponge filters too, the one you hook the air pump up to. I have to say, I'm not a great fan of HOB filters. I see so often them failing and water being pumped out of the tank. Heard of it happening with cannister filters too, but less often. I think im just going to have you try a few and see what I prefer. I do know too with the cannister filter to put a shrimp guard on the intake tube. I have heard of people finding their shrimp living in the pre filter compartment! Haha! Aquascaping- yeah i tried super glue, the non toxic one, but it just wouldn't stick. I have riccia fluitans on my driftwood but I used fishing line to secure it. I'll use it to secure the subwassertang to my cave. I want it carpeting the tank too. How do people get it to stay on the ground? Was thinking of making little U shaped pins, with a safe material, and pinning it in place or hold it down with rocks...any suggestion? I read it can be used to carpet a tank, so there must be a simple way to hold it down. I do have plant anchors I could use or maybe I could use them, to make a U shaped pin, and pin it into the Substrate. That may work. Are you set on either shrimp or apisto's yet? Or still not sure. What size tank do the apisto's need? Do you have a tank ready for them? What are you thinking of doing with the aquascape? Oh and I just saw the radar. We are set to be getting a week worth of rain! Even more than that possibly. I'll be set now for water for a while. I see it mentioned to age your water. Should I be doing this too? Our water sits in our plastic tanks for weeks, even months, so is pretty well aged! Not sure if I should still do the whole aging thing too.... I just realised I should probably have a hospital/quarantine aquarium set up too. I have some spare Substrate, so I think I'll grab a Sponge filter, set it up in my aquarium for a bit, do my trick with seeding Substrate. I'll just buy a cheap air pump and I have a spare thermometer although I need to grab a second one as the 100w I have spare, is too small in wattage to keep my 60L tank up to temp at night. I'll have to buy a 2nd inkbird too. I think it's probably best to hold off on approving the order for the Gertrude's spotted blue eyed fish for a bit, till I have it set up and cycled. Once the Sponge filters and substrate are seeded though, it'll be quick to have the quarantine tank set up and ready for the blue eyed fish. I really don't want to put Godfrey at risk of picking something up from these new fish. He is growing so much. Gosh I love him immensely! He is such a cutie! I cannot wait for the day when the 235L is set up and ready to go. It's going to be very exciting to get that ready. Dad has just said he didn't realise how many litres it was and therefore how much it'll weigh as he was so consumed with his business when I spoke about it with him and bought it. So he I going to go under the house and inspect the beams, joists etc and see if we should reinforce it under there. We live in a 110yr old cottage, so it probably does need reinforcing. I also may have yo pay for 3 phase power as I think we only have 1 phase and we often get surges if we turn too many things on at once and then BAM! Blackout! Lol! I think dad will do it but he has said I have to pay for the electricity the tanks will consume. We do have a pretty big solar system, but no battery. He is considering a battery in the next 2-3 years. Once they come down in cost and get better. That'll definitely be cheaper then to run the tanks. Anyway, I'm blabbering. Sorry for the long message. I could ramble on about sh!t all day long! Haha!

The Hang on Back (HOB) is a very neat type of complete filter which you won't see 'inside' the aquarium. I haven't used one though, and the aquarium needs to have a top rim and cover that allows for it to be attached. The others (links below are just for your reference) but there will be same available in Australia. Sizes/suitability etc will be shown on the packaging. I use these cheap all in one filters which come with a spray bar, just because I have always used them. I have black backgrounds so these filters are vitually invisible when in the tank, https://www.pro-shrimp.co.uk/internal-filters/5218-superfish-aqua-flow-150-8715897336836.html Most people use this type of filter with shrimp tanks, it needs an air pump as well but they aren't very expensive and you ?MAY? be able to use one air pump for more than one tank??? https://www.pro-shrimp.co.uk/internal-filters/4423-superfish-sponge-bio-air-filter-s-8715897312649.html If you get some wood that you want to attach moss to, I recommend attaching the moss using 'non toxic' superglue like below, so much easier and cleaner than other methods of attachment, has to be fish/shrimp safe, www.pro-shrimp.co.uk/aquascaping-tools/1324-seachem-flourish-glue-000116311601.html?search_query=glue&results=80 I'm sure you will have a great time looking/shopping on wednesday in Sydney! Hope you get all the bits you want etc. Ask as many questions as you want in preparation for the trip.

Yeah its probably best to get 1 male and 3 females but also got to think if they breed- do you need to be careful of inbreeding? I just had a look. Dennerle tanks are only available in Europe. I'm now just looking at Petworx simple glass cube tanks. They have them on ebay for just a smidge over $100AUD. Here we have a lot of LFS's in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, AdelIde, Perth, and a couple in Canberra, but not much if you go rural. I'm discovering more and more LFS's in Sydney though, that have a great range of things. Annoyingly, I'm 2hrs South. I'm headed to Sydney on Wednesday though so I'm going to see if I can drop into one or two stores and see what I can find. I would love to buy a bonsai driftwood and I can then slowly start to prepare for the next few tanks. What filtration do you run on your tanks Simon? People say for shrimps to just use a Sponge filter. What size is best to go for with a 30L tank? I want to buy one now to seed it in my current tank. I'm also looking at buying the fluval 107 for my 60L tank. I found a great deal on it too. Sorry for all of the questions. Yourself and Jason are an absolute wealth of knowledge!! Thank you!!

Those fish are 2-4 weeks old at a guess, they were born whilst my friends were away so not totally sure. I probably won't take some for a few months yet and not decided on how many, just 1 male though and maybe 2 or 3 females!? We certainly aremuch more densely populated than you and I guess that can mean we have more places easily accessible? Very few (extreme/isolated) places would take more than a day to get too by road. It may be that Dennerle isn't available in Australia, it is a German company but probably one of the top suppliers for shrimp 'stuff'? I believe you may also be quite restricted with shrimps and snails due to your strict import regulations/restrictions there. Like USA, you are such a big country that you probably don't need to import Dennerle products fro Europe, but have enough of your own 'stuff'. Those middle stripes on the brown shrimp (with the white spot) definitely look red to me so it will be interesting to see if it gets more colour with a bit more time. If you are using rainwater but worried that you may occasionally need to use bore/tap/mains water, you may think about getting a 'Zerowater' filter jug to keep somewhere so you can use bore/tap/mains water easily when necessary, as it will give you the equivalent of RO from tap/mains (any water source probably) water. You can get them easily/readily on ebay.com.au. I use them here in UK for my tanks, have done for about 10 years now. Probably cheaper and much easier to use and store, especially as only a backup?

Some things will break down quicker than others, so leaves are usually blanched or cooked first so the shrimp can devour them easier, otherwise they may need a few days to soften a bit.

Oh my goodness! Those fish are adorable!! Im so excited to see them in a tank of yours when you and they are ready. How old are they now Simon? What age can you take some home? How many will you get? Lol sorry for all the questions! I'm finding more and more LFS's but I would guess you have more in the UK as your population is much larger than ours! 80% of Aussies live within 1hr of the coast and we all congregate around our capital cities. Majority of us are on the east coast (like Jason and I are) but a few million live on the west coast, in Perth- the most isolated city in the world! Fun fact for you! Lol! It can be hard to get some fish as our quarantine authorities don't allow all fish in. Like Pea Puffers were apparently stuck in illegally, and now you can buy then, but the are between $175 and $250 each!! The prices are coming down though. I get my plants from a really well trusted source. I did get some red root floaters from another store and although they were great looking, I think I got a few pest snails off them. I have so far found 3 and have killed them. In my tank I have nerites and that's all I want. Ooh never seen or heard of the dennerle tanks! I must go searching for them. I really just want, plain opticlear tanks with clear silicone. I just want that crystal clear look. I have found some 30L cube opticlear tanks on ebay for $99 AUD each. I then found 60x30x30 tanks for $199, although I have found some of those cheaper elsewhere. Rainwater- we have 3 massive rainwater tanks. 2 on our big American barn, one on our house and dads looking at putting another on our other shed. Hopefully we get rain this winter as only our biggest shed tank is full. The smaller one is empty and our house one is half full. We thankfully live in the wettest town in our state and we do get loads of rain. Back in 19/20 when we had the bushfires, we were in drought then, and we had to buy water from the mains. We are lucky to though as next door has a bore and they often say to take whatever we want from it. Im not sure if bore water is better than mains, if I got into that position again where we had no water. Im thinking of buying a RO unit though as back up or maybe will use it all the time. We are lucky too as we live out in a rural town and we have very clean air, however it may change if this plastics recycling company gets its way and is approved to be built 20kms away from us. Our member of parliament just called for it to be stopped, during a speech she made in parliament this week. Our community is fighting it. Hopefully it's stopped. Thank you, yes its coloured up wonderfully, I agree! I do think it's a calceo too. I would love to get more of them and make that next tank into a home for them. I would love to make another tank for the other brown one too, if I can find the same coloured ones as him/her. Im pretty happy to have received these 2 as I didn't pay for them and they are not the cheapest either, that he has for sale in his LFS. I think they were $20 for the red and $30 for the blacks, although my guy is a bit more brown, but he may still be colouring up a bit still. From that LFS I bought a pack of 3 nerites and 6 of each DAS and RNS and I ended up with about 25 shrimp in the bag that he gave me! Lol! I am soon going to put an order in for 10 more RNS as you don't see many of them. I think I can fit more in there still 😆

Thank you! Haha love it! Interesting my guys went nuts for the nasturtium leaf and flower and left the spinach! 😄 I have my own big organic veggie garden, so they have lots of different things to enjoy in it! I have broad beans, Brussels sprouts, peas and snow peas coming. I wonder if they would enjoy those? I also have broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Cabbage, rainbow chard, silverbeet, spinach etc. We also have 3 big organic mulberry trees (white and red) and we have a huge number of herbs too. When I saw the Rosemary flowers I wondered will they get purple or blue poop?! Haha! I also have a big strawberry tower. I heard of people feeding strawberry tops...I wonder if they'll eat the leaf? I know guinea pigs love strawberry leaves. It's now kinda become a big fun science experiment! Haha! Haha I didn't want to say about blue poop but that's why I asked cause I want to see if they get a blue or purple poop chute! Haha! 🤣🤣🤣 It's funny, right now there is orange species of poop floating around the tank! 🤣🤣🤣

That shrimp has coloured up nicely! You shouldn't have a problem getting more if they sold that at your LFS, I'm sure it's a Red Calceo. Don't try any plants that may have polutants or any traces of insecticides etc! We have a bewildering array of aquariums available here, so I expect you can easily find what you want where you are being a much larger country, as I expect you have way more to choose from there (my favourites are the Dennerle aquascape tank range, the one that my nice shrimp were in is a 35L, W x H x D 40 x 32 x 28 cm). It certainly will keep you occupied sorting and setting up all the tanks you want. You say you plan to use rainwater, do you get/have enough where you live for all these tanks? Looking forward to hearing and seeing how it all goes/progresses. I got an update photo from my friend of the fish, not very clear but they are still small, he says he still has all 8 babies alive, only 3 in the photo though.

Yes. Should not be a problem. That's an amazing picture of the Red Nose. It would be fun to see it eat blue rosemary flowers. Blue poop??

Great photo, I remember my shrimp would swarm the organic spinach leaves when I added them, fun to watch.

Oh my gosh Simon, those are some stunning shrimp! Just beautiful! 😍😍😍 Your aquascaping is stunning too. Gorgeous tanks! Thank you, yes I think the brown one is a low quality. The red one, I'm not sure how good a quality it is. I just got another pic of it, so I'll pop it up. I would love to be able to identify it properly as I would love to put it in a tank with more from the same species. The LFS they came from has both calico and calceo so I'm really unsure as to what it may be. Ooh that's very exciting re:apistogrammas!! Do you have any photos of them you could share with us please? Yes its a stunning set up. If you were to have another shrimp tank, you should definitely try and recreate it! I have just been thinking about my next tank, and I have decided, in a 40+Litre tank, I want to put in bonsai driftwood, with riccia fuitans moss as "leaves" on the bonsai tree. Then have a carpet of a java moss for the shrimplets to hide in. Im also going to put some seiryu rocks that stick up out of the moss to add a bit more character. Im really looking forward to doing this shrimp tank. I just want something fairly simple in terms of maintenance and looks. I think it would look great in a cube 40L tank if I can find one that holds 40L. I mainly see them selling 30L tanks. I just think that extra room is best for them so i would prefer to go for a 40L. I hoping I don't need to get anything custom made! 😬 P.s...I'm sorry I only just saw your comment. It's been a very hectic past 2 days and I'm only just now catching up on social media etc. Sorry to leave you waiting for a response.

After reading through some posts on food and nutrition I saw someone mention nasturtiums, leaf and flower, is safe and tasty for shrimp to eat! See I have a huge nasturtium plant hanging on from this past summer. It has even made it through snow, that we got in early May! So I went and picked the biggest and tastiest looking flower, and popped it in the tank. They love it but the only problem is I have orange poop everywhere!! 💩🤣 Also I noticed I have a couple orange poop shoot shrimp. 🤣🤣🤣 Thank you for this recommendation, they love it! ❤️ Also do you think they could eat rosemary flowers? My rosemary is out in flower at the moment. Also my sage flowers fairly often too. Can herb flowers, apart from anything from the onion family I'm guessing, be given as well? Pics of my red/orange nose shrimp!!

Ahh ok. Im finding different websites have differing parameters. I'm on rainwater tanks at home. Thank you for telling me what you keep yours at. I'll work on getting back to that, but slowly. Today I ordered 3 female Gertrude's spotted blue eyed fish. Would they be fine at those parameters too Jason? Everywhere I look has different parameters from others. Or are they not a good fish to go with shrimp? Thank you! Yes Darwin Algae eating shrimp/Darwin Algae Shrimp. RNS- red nose shrimp. Thank you for that link. I'll go through that link now. Cheers