@riverina · 📍 Nashville, TN · joined Mar 2026 · Level 3
Wild-type livebearers and rainbows. Hobby prices, farm scale.
Orange girl in the 10 gallon is at day 10 now. Eyes are dark and obvious, she's still fanning, and I've been sitting on my hands like everyone told me. Pic below of the shrimp bag setup I use when I top off with RO. Did anyone here actually catch the moment the shrimplets dropped, or do you only ever find them the next morning?
Quick check in on the orange girl in the 10 gallon. Made it through day 8 with the eggs packed tight and I can see eyes starting to show as dark dots now. Pic below of her from across the room, no glass tapping. Lights and routine unchanged. How long from eyed eggs until you usually see shrimplets?
Quick update from the 10 gallon. Berried orange is at day 7 and the eggs are still packed under her tail, she's been fanning them a lot. Keeping the lights and timer the same like you all said. Pic below of the tank tonight. Day 8 tomorrow, wish me luck.
Pic below of my upside-down soda bottle on the shelf. I've been getting spotty hatches, maybe 50 percent, with about 28 grams of salt per liter and a heater loose in the water. Looking for what numbers other people settled on before I buy a proper hatchery cone.
Update from the 10 gallon orange neos. I started warming the RO in a bucket to tank temp and dripping it in through airline, and the berried female is now at day 6 with eggs still packed under her tail. Not calling it yet because day 8 is where the last ones dropped. Pic below of my bucket and airline mess. Will report back.
Got a colony of orange neos in a 10 gallon and every berried female drops her eggs around day 8. TDS sits at 180 and I do a 15 percent change weekly with remineralized RO that reads about 170. Temp is 23C. Nothing aggressive in there except a few ramshorns. Anyone seen this stop after changing how they top off?
Posted a couple weeks back about frogbit shading my crypts in the 20 long. Only been a few days since I trimmed roots and pulled half the cover, but there's already a tiny new leaf unrolling on the wendtii. Not claiming victory yet, just glad I didn't buy a new light. Pic below of the scape day mess from when I rearranged things, still sorting plants.
Pic below of tonight's slice. Way fewer than the first night so I think the population is crashing. Glass is spotless and the shrimp are grazing like nothing happened. Going to do one more night then call it and start feeding really light tomorrow.
I have frogbit covering about half the surface of a 20 long and the crypts underneath are barely putting out new leaves. Is it worth thinning the frogbit to a quarter of the surface, or should I just add a stronger light and live with it? I keep it for the fry cover but the plants below are starting to stall.
Pic below of my endler 10 gallon with a big floating mass on top. It started with 6 and I'm now at around 25 with all the fry I haven't pulled. Plants look fine and nitrate is low, but I know livebearers breed past what a tank can handle. Where do you draw the line, and do you cull or just rehome?
Update for anyone who followed my snail thread. Did the blanched zucchini overnight like shrimplord and cass said and pulled the slice at first light before it went slimy. Pic below of the slice, it was crawling. No feeding since Tuesday and the glass is already way cleaner. Going to repeat tonight and then restart feeding really light.
Pic below of the guppy grass clump with newborn fry tucked inside. I stopped bothering with breeding traps and just float a big handful in the tub, the fry hide in it and the adults can't reach most of them. Only downside is it drops needles everywhere when I trim. Anyone running it with other fry or does it only work for livebearers?
Overfed a tub once while I was rushing and now the glass and every leaf is covered in tiny bladder snails. Pic below of the wall this morning. Is it worth running an assassin snail or two, or do you just stop feeding and let the shrimp keep them in check? Not sure if it's worth a full tank breakdown.
She finally dropped this afternoon in the planted tub, 37 fry and they're all hiding in the floaters. Pic below of mom a few hours before. I raise for hobby prices so I don't want to cull too hard, but I only have so many tubs. Do you keep everything for the first month and sort later, or sort early?
Picked up a heavily gravid red swordtail female at a swap and she's in a clip-on trap now, pic below. Gravid spot is almost black and she's boxy. I know traps stress them, so I only want her in there until she drops. Is there a way to tell if it's hours or days? Don't want to leave her in too long.
Took the crushed coral advice from the guppy tub thread and put a mesh bag in the outdoor tub this morning. Pic below of the bag sitting by the floaters. Will test ph morning and evening for a few days and report back. Anyone leave theirs in all year or pull it in winter?
Switched my outdoor guppy tubs to a half RO half tap mix after the phosphate talk here. Fish look the same but I'm a bit nervous about pH swings with the lower buffering. Anyone running mixed water on livebearers and just adding a pinch of gh/kh booster? Pic below of the tub setup.
Following up on my tea colored tub. Juvies are eating hard and the males are starting to show tail color. Ammonia and nitrite still zero. Pic below of the culls bucket from today's sort, not too bad this round.
Outdoor guppy tub has hornwort, frogbit and a bit of oak leaf litter. Water is clear but dark tea brown, fish look great and eat well. Is the tannin a problem for juvies or just cosmetic? Ammonia and nitrite both read zero.
Got the juvies up out of the outside tubs a day early because the forecast dropped. They are in the indoor tub with the hyacinth roots and the seeded sponge, floated the bags for twenty minutes first. Pic below of the tub. Anything I should watch for in the first couple days besides ammonia?
setting up an indoor tub for the guppy juvies I'm bringing in from outside this weekend. Pic below of the tub as it sits. I have water hyacinth roots and a sponge filter I can seed from my shrimp tank. Is a day of running enough or should I wait for it to settle a bit longer before moving fish in?
Nights are dropping into the low 50s F here and I still have a few tubs of guppy juveniles outside. Pic below of the tubs as they are now. Do you move everything inside once it dips under 55 or do you just stick a heater in the tub and keep going? Hate losing the end of the season growth but I don't want a cold shock either.
My neo tank sits at 150 TDS right after a change but is at 190 by day five with no new feeding or additions. Soil substrate, a few catappa leaves, sponge filter. Is that just the soil leaching and the shrimp waste, or should I be looking at the top-off water? I'm topping off with tap right now. Pic of my meters below.
Day three in the 10 gallon with moss and a couple catappa leaves, thanks to the advice in the other thread. Most of the group is tucked into the moss and I only see two or three grazing at a time. Is that normal for the first week or should I be seeing more by now? Sponge filter running, soil substrate, TDS about 150.
Setting up a 10 gallon for the neos I just got and I can't decide whether to load it with moss first or go heavy on catappa leaves. Sponge filter, soil substrate, TDS about 150. What did you add first and did it matter?
Got a batch of neos last week and two of the berried females lost their eggs within a day of arrival. The rest look fine and are eating. Is that just stress from the trip or should I worry about my water? TDS is 220 and temp 23C.
Thinking of moving a small colony of my fancy guppies into a heavily planted 20 long with no CO2. Hard water here, around 12 dGH. Do the plants hold up against the nibbling, and do you find the fry survive better with lots of stems? Curious what plants people have had luck with.
Picked up a few neos last month and drip acclimated for an hour like I always do, but lost three out of ten the next day. My tank is around TDS 220 and the seller's was closer to 140. Is that gap too big for a drip, or am I missing something obvious?
Mine's a wild-caught zebra pleco before export rules changed. What's the one animal you'd clear a tank for tomorrow?
Boesemani males coloring up already after quarantine. These are the best I've had in two years of importing.
