Recent content by threecharacters

I disagree with a variety of posts here, 15 gallons is a perfectly fine size, but your temperature, flow choices, and tank size will definitely limit what you can reasonably keep. I think you should look for a small bottom dwelling species that likes higher flow and low temps. The bottom...

Honestly, I would prefer CO2 over lighting. The benefit of CO2 for plants is significant. I bet the guy at the store suggested you upgrade lighting because insufficient lighting will cause carpeting plants to "reach" for more light which can ruin the look of a carpet. However, running strong...

I should've been clearer. I have no intention of keeping the fish I catch. I'm more interested in seeing what's around kind of like herping. I don't really have a good place to keep any of them anyway. I'll look at the local regulations for catch and release.

15 gallons will work fine. You will probably want a filter at that size if you want to keep fish. It'll almost certainly freeze if it gets below freezing and it's above ground. When I visited Thailand, people kept Betta year round in large outdoor pots (big but probably not much more than 20...

I'm moderately interested in collecting local fish (Colorado). What type of net would y'all recommend? It seems like the main options are a casting net, fishing nets with long poles, or some kind of folding net (seems to be favored by Heiko Bleher).

Very hard to tell by the photo, but they are most likely detritus worms or planaria. Detritus worms are harmless, but planaria can be carnivores. Planaria have wedge-shaped heads and eyes (not always visible) while detritus worms do not. I got planaria in one of my shrimp tanks and they would...

Another cool option would be a tank with Northern Studfish (Fundulus catenatus). It's a US native, the males are neon blue with stripes and it's the largest known killifish.

A few ideas would be Something with a massive school of decently sized loaches done up in a semi-biotope. A large discus tank. A paludarium with reed frogs living over Microctenopoma ansorgii. Check out Orange-Spotted Sunfish. They're smaller and showier. I caught one on a rod once and I was...

It's good to go with what you know will work. Honestly though, at that price point a used iPad is a little cheaper and definitely higher performance. This one has an actual SSD vs eMMC and the Apple A13 processor is rated about 200% faster than the Intel Core m3-8100Y Processor on the ASUS. The...

Not an expert on this, but video editing is generally considered a fairly demanding process on computers. I'm pretty underwhelmed by all these options. Processor: First option has slowest clock speed (2 GHz), but most cores (8). Second option has middle clock speed (2.1 GHz) and 4 cores. Third...

FYI, the algae looks like staghorn algae. In my opinion there was some pretty bad advice in this thread. There was some good advice too though. Seachem Excel can be used to treat algae, but you have to be careful because it can reduce dissolved oxygen levels to the point that fish suffocate. I...

What tests you need depends on what you want to do, and how complex you want to get. If you just want to keep freshwater fish. You may be able to get away without test kits. You will need to test ammonia and nitrite when cycling, but assuming you're doing large weekly water changes you really...

Good points. I'll probably just have to add a heater if I get those guys, and keep it at 76-77F or so. I was aiming for a really clean look without any equipment except canister filter inflows, but it's not that hard to hide a heater, and if I really cared I could get an inline heater.

I'm planning on picking up a UNS 75P sometime in the next year (~36 gals, essentially a rimless 40 gallon breeder). I want to to a stream set up with sand, rounded pebbles and stones of many sizes. I want to base the tank around a bottom dweller. Some initial options I came up with were Panda...

What testing kits do you have? Can you tell us what the maxed out value was at least? You want the liquid tests not the test strips. What are your actual water parameters (like the numerical value)? If the bristlenose is OK, water hardness is not the problem. Skinny would suggest a parasite...