I hope your family issues have been taken care of and everyone is doing amazing. I miss your fish room videos. Your tanks are so beautiful. I need to check and find out why im not getting notifications from this channel cause its definitely one of my favorite fish channels. So amazing. Thanks for sharing
@@AguabonitaAquatics sorry to hear! The heartbreak and challenges of the hobby. I hope the next time it goes better for you! They remain a dream fish for me. ♥️ I would absolutely love to see some good sources established for them in Canada.
These tanks offcourse have some fish inside but those plants that You have are just steeling the show from them. Do You ad CO2 or maybe You have a special trick to have such amazing looking Crypts and Valls? Some of them look pritty rare.
Thanks, no CO2, no fertilizers. They are mostly just heavily planted and well established... most of the trick is patience! A couple rarer plants: barclaya longifolia red, crypt spiralis "red tiger" and crypt nurii "rose maiden"
The density of your crypt forests always amazes me. Any secrets or do you think your local water has the right conditions to help them grow like crazy?
I like the marina HOB with the motor submerged. You need to replace the inserts with foam or media, but they seem solid for small tanks... aqeons of similar design are OK too, but I haven't owned them as long... had the marina for 7ish years with zero problems.
I'd love to hear about or see the details of setting up one of your tanks if you are so inclined to film that. Wonderful tour - enjoy the new fish and all the baby barclaya plants!!! Your Kali Tawa group is lovely. They're on my "someday I'll find room for another tank" list. Got to say your tanks are inspiring me. I've been adding some reds to my 40g and they're doing well and add a nice touch. I just found a source for a red barclaya bulb (US) so I'm excited to add that soon. For the 90g have you considered a rock grouping or a wood piece for under the lotus?
Thanks, I will do a video on setting up, maybe with the 13 gallons... super simple. Wood is a good idea for under the lotus as I think it will be too shaded for plants. Great idea, thanks! Now I need to shop around for some good pieces.
You will love the barclaya red. It's the only rosette plant I know of that is bright red top to bottom. They do die back once a year, mine goes down to a couple leaves then bounces back... plus sends out a bunch of seeds.
Thanks. I'm liking the hairgrass carpet; it's a lot less maintenance than I was expecting... or I just got lucky with the kind of algae that likes it, lol.
@@Sinserg Eheim canister, I have 2213's. Prone to airlocks, but otherwise indestructible. I have a bunch of HOB aquaclears, the not always restarting after power outages is the only downside, but its a major.
The new Fluval Aquaclear filters are supposed to restart with no problems after a power outage. I went to Petsmart today and they have them in stock now, so I got one to replace my previous Aquaclear 50. It seems much better actually and the thing restarted every time during my testing.
It's so nice to have you back! Glad you're ok. The tanks are looking great. Are your lights on timers? Also wondering how long you keep them on each day. I'm trying to tune my lighting to combat BBA.
Thanks! Just took time to have some time again. They are on timers for 15 hours per day, but they are pretty low intensity (cheap) LEDs and fluorescents.
your aquariums are wonderful. it can be seen that you have a lot of experience. can you please tell me what light you use and how many hours a day? Thank you
@@walstadmethodstepbystep Full spectrum, full power, they are not a super strong light, but with the RGB have good color rendition and are strong enough for plants with moderate light demand.
Nice tanks, love your fun planting schemes. Cheers from Sweden! oh have some great days now on your holiday! A Pseudomugil nerd here and Apistogramma too.
Hello Aquabonita I’m in love with your aquariums and I can never get enough watching your videos over and over again! I had a question, I see you don’t really use any aqua soil? Like ADA, netlea etc Are you purely growing crypts and other plants in sand and gravel? If yes, how do the plants get their nutrients?
Thanks. Just sand and gravel, fish poop, 25-30% weekly water change. I use root tabs in a couple tanks with more demanding plants and higher light. They are all established tanks, up to 26 years continuous. All the plants, I would consider easy for our water parameters... took a while to figure out which ones work!
Sorry was on holidays and haven't been posting much lately (too much going on at work). Corydoras geryi; in my mind, the most strikingly marked and colorful cory out there.
Your crypts look beautiful. How did you get them to look so good? Mine always seem to struggle getting to a nice tall height despite using aqua soil and pond soil with low-med light. Would you recommend not using any substrate additives to get a taller growth as you have done?
Sorry for the late reply, was on holidays and have had too mucho work lately. They actually seem to do better with less nutrients to start. I plant them in straight sand and just let fish poo do its work... most of my tanks are growing fry so, eventually there is a fair bit of nutrient. The only other things that way be helping are 30% weekly water changes and all my tanks have pretty good flow from canisters, hang-on-backs or internal pumps.
@@AguabonitaAquatics How old is this tank? Because I also love these crypts! Even in my CO2-aquasoil-using tank they mostly just hang out rather than get lush like this😅
@@humanelements2 About 5 years. It has just had fish poop as additive, but has been vacuumed heavily a couple times to reset. Last time was about a year ago. It now has a hairgrass carpet rather than crypt parva as the new light was too intense for the parva, so I tried hairgrass. Apparently it can be grown without CO2 if you have enough light... it's doing quite well.
@@AguabonitaAquatics thanks for the advice! It sounds like patience and not bothering crypts is the best way. I have a 20G tank with good light, ferts, + CO2 but in 6 months my crypts haven't grown much. My hairgrass, S. repens, pogostemon, and other plants all need regular trimming but the crypts just sit there, haha. Except for the Crypt. spiralis; that one still grows slow but is noticeably taller and leafier.
Do you still breed them? I would love to chat with you as I am a local and having a hard time finding these fish without having to have them shipped across the country
Lol, ya. Just had work and family stuff, so haven't posted for a while. I don't have any for sale right now, but have about 40 red neon eggs on the go.
@@AguabonitaAquatics oh amazing! I'm looking for reds closer to August (waiting for the current tank to get established with plants and shrimp). Is there a good way to possibly contact you? I see I can't just message you on youtube privately.
Hi Dean, Krista Belisle here, I had asked you at the Calgary auction about how you raise the pseudomugil luminatus eggs once collected from the mop. I followed your recommendation and I’m happy to tell you that I have had success! So thank you very much for your advice. All the best.
I just watched this video today Dean. The little deck pond looks great. It’d break my heart and my back to break it down at the end of the season though. I got to see your pond and it looks great!
Terrible. They bred a few times out in the pond, but when I took them back inside they just melted over a few weeks for no apparent reason. I'll have to try again... when I have money to burn; they are expensive!
@@AguabonitaAquatics oh no that’s no good at all! Yeah they are expensive. I’m in Australia and they’re pricey here. I’ve got 5 juveniles at present but maybe I should have gone with the forktails 😬
@AguabonitaAquatics I'm hoping to find somebody locally here in northeast Pennsylvania that will sell me some at reasonable price to get them breeding in my pond.
@@tsafa If there is an aquarium club close by I expect someone has more than they need... I picked up awesome looking platinums for about $4-5 each last weekend at our club auction.
Hi when do they start to have full coloring like that with the blue shimmer on the body? Mine still looks a bit translucent Understanding that the males usually are the ones with prominent coloring. Ive had mine for roughly a month and theyre approximaately 1 inch
Awesome video, I saw this sort of behavior in my Congos so I stumbled upon your video. Just wondering, what kind of plants you got in there? I see some Anubis and another’s, I would love to get some of these plants for my tank.
I love these fish likewise ur selve but i am thorn because i only have to tanks 20 long &10 gallon but i dont know if a 20 long is suitable to house them in and if so how many can i keep in a 20 long?
Six in a 20 long would be OK for breeding, but I'd say long-term keeping would be best done in a 30 gallons plus. They seem to be doing great in my 40 breeder.
Thank you for sharing this amazing story. As an Edmontonian myself following Gary Lange's story, it's quite amazing to see these fish so close to home. If there is by any change you have some extras that you'd be willing to sell, I'd happily take them off your hands. Once again, thank you for sharing!
@@AguabonitaAquatics Gary is coming to Calgary in May?! Are you able to send me a link to the details? I'm assuming he's coming the CAS? I chatted with Curtis and he's got quite a few down there, so I'll pick some of them up from him.
@@AguabonitaAquatics Thank you for this. I have bought a ticket! Are you located in Edmonton? Happy to pick up those Kali Tawa off your hands if they're still available. Thank you!
Beautiful video and fish!! Are they peaceful with slower fish and do they feed relatively up top? I want to add them to a river tank with stiphodon gobies and want to make sure they will get along with the gobies and not gobble all the food at the bottom 😅 thx for any insight!
They are fierce competitors, I would suspect they would acquire virtually all the food fed from above. It may be possible to feed the gobies larger pellets and have them receive an adequate amount of leftover food, but you may end up with some real chunky kali tawa. In my experience raising them from fry with large cories, they eventually outcompeted the cories for food, so much so, that I had to separate them. The cories could get some leftover pellets, but basically no frozen foods and just small amounts of baby brine shrimp. It may be possible, but I would say it would be difficult as you may have to target feed the gobies while the Kali Tawa are distracted with other food. Kali tawa are next level, ravenous feeders and don't seem to have a problem with taking food from the bottom. A just as beautiful alternative is the furcatus blue eye (forktail rainbowfish), they are heavy feeders, but aren't nearly as food crazed and only half-heartedly go after pellets on the bottom. Pictures don't do them justice, when people see them in my fishroom, they want to keep them more than any other fish I have!
Thanks for your insight! My plan would be to feed them up top with their own food, the gobies would get sinkable algae wafers and repashy. But Yeah my biggest concern is whether the tawa would gobble everything up after they ate no matter what. It sounds like that’s the case? :( If that’s the case i will pass on them and wait till I have no gobies, the gobies are sweet slow little guys 😭 Can furcata handle flow? My tank has moderate flow for the gobies and the furcata have teeny fins 😂❤ If they can I’d love to have them!
@@Fishnkitts they are a nice fish too and I liked them even better as they slowed down with age and you could see just how pretty they are. When young they are lightning fast!
I’m the said gentleman who Dean talked about. No Planaria worked great, but the recommendation I’d give if you have mystery snails is to get them out of the tank for a few days if possible. I’d do a 30-50% water change every other day for a week or so to get rid of the No Planaria left in the tank, or most of it after the treatment is done. The mystery snails definitely don’t like it. 3 out of 4 I had died because I didn’t change the water after. I just didn’t realize that’s what was making them sick. Pest snails did not get affected (of course), but the big snails will suffer. I’d treat the tank, wait for the hydra/planaria to die, then do a few water changes to get rid of the No Planaria leftovers.
The jewel cichlids were really cool about 20 years ago, when I last I saw them. Brilliant red in the full sun. Angels would be neat to see in the wild, I guess I will have to head to the Amazon for that.
Thanks. They eat the live foods you are trying to feed to fry and can eat tiny fry and shrimp. They are considered unsightly, but if you look close they are pretty cool. Like a tiny anenome.
Thanks! That's what I love about this tank, it's a real toss up about what I like best about it... shrimp, blue eyes, rhads, cories, plants; it's an even heat and the leader changes by the hour.
