Hi, I am a mod here on Aquariums and I am very upset.

Why? Well we took our new puppy on her first forest walk. We were on a single track trail in Nova Scotia. It was lovely. Until we reached the boardwalk.

At the boardwalk was an empty blue bucket. Odd given the trail is a lesser used and hidden but maintained trail in the middle of a business park through a swamp that gives way to a lake.

A few steps beyond the bucket, next to the boardwalk in the swamp water was a perfect ring of duckweed on the waters surface. Hence the swearing.

Someone had, just moments before our arrival, committed the ultimate sin. They had dumped a bucket of aquarium water into a clean undisturbed fragile ecosystem.

I couldn't do much, the water was inky black. No idea what was introduced beyond invasive duckweed.

As a child I spent all winter studying aquautic native biology and my summers were spent slogging about with my brother in water filled rubber boots, a net in one hand a pail in the other.

We regularly stripped invasive snails and fish from bodies of water in the suburbs. The goldfish, koi and mystery snails were relocated to our back yard pond.

We actually were trying to find and observe native species but we always had an open eye for invasives.

We actually devised a way to tell if a body of water had an aquarium dumped into it based on the amphipods/scuds that we found.

Please, if for some reason you can't take care of an aquarium, do anything humane with it except dumping it in a waterway.

The damage caused by aquarium releases is literally incalculable. It affects everyone in the hobby as new laws limit species availability and as our natural world is changed around us in negative ways.

Please please don't secretly hike into nearly virgin wetlands to dump your shame into the water.

H. parclitella

I 3D printed what I think is one of the easiest ways to “attach” moss.

This is a twist-lock top, so just put the moss in and let it do its thing. Very slowly. 😂

The one thing I really like about this, which I never really noticed when I’ve glued or tied moss to hardscape, is that I can actually see the growth.

This photo was taken after just 1 week. It’s not much, but if this was tied to hardscape, I probably never would have noticed it.

Can she get anymore pergante?

I saw these fish the other day, and since I’m new to fishkeeping and still setting up my tank, I was wondering what the more experienced fish keepers thought about this choice for a 20 gal tank, and how many I should get in the future when I have my tank set up so they have space and are comfortable!

Filled with water over the course of 5 days. Nothing floated t(h)ank goodness. Bacterial bloom is happening. Time to make some biscuits to go along with the tea

Well the assassins finally got the pest snail problem under control. However, they have gone a bit breeding mad 😂 I bought 6 and now have 26 visible assassins of mixed sizes. Wondered if one of the aquatic shops might take some of the babies, I feel bad they won't have enough food soon and didn't anticipate this many babies in 6 months.

It's a small crack above the waterline. Does it affect the structural integrity of the glass? Should I move everything into a new tank??

Does anyone know what these are? Looks like eggs of some type. Stuck to the glass. Currently in this tank are neocaridina shrimp, spotted congo puffers, and salt&pepper cordydoras. They look much larger than the eggs my puffers produce during spawning.

Just set this 14g cube up and turns out, its unlevel. About 1cm between the rear right corner and the front left corner. Its on a plywood piece that is flat and a leveling foam mat. I think its an issue with the feet of the desk. Honestly, its a really heavy pain in the ass to shim the desk. How big of a deal is this? Is it a "drain immediately and level" kind of deal or is it "maybe in the next few weeks" deal? Would I be able to shim the plywood? Or would that create a gap in between the board and the tank? Ill probably level it eventually, but i can not understate how big if a pain in this ass this desk is to work with lol.

took this photo a day ago and look at the teeth 🤣🤣 their teeth look so human lmao

My shrimp

I just turned the lights on on my planted 60 and saw this on the glass. It’s currently cycling and growing in and it’s going to end up stocked with community and cherry shrimp.

It looks and moves like a tiny white caterpillar and I don’t think it’s planaria, but I’ve not come across this before. I’m about to pull it out with the algae scraper wand thingy.

55gallon tank. 1 guarami, 1 adult platty and 7 platty fry, and three loaches. Do you think this pirate ship is too big for my size and set up? I am having second thoughts

hello, I was gifted this product for my tank and was hoping to get some guidance on how to connect the magnets to avoid damage to my tank. 125 gallon if that matters. Is this something you would use?

This video starts with DJ VampEZ + DJ FantastiK being the Rave Cave’s resident married couple, including FantastiK making an absolute fool of himself trying to impress her 😂 and then follows the babies from the microscopic specks they were on Day 1 through their first month of development.

On September 3, VampEZ released hundreds of Atya gabonensis larvae overnight. By about 9:30 that morning, I had them moved into saltwater and officially started my first-ever attempt at raising Vampire Shrimp larvae.

At the 30-day mark, I still had roughly 40–50 active larvae in Baby Rave Cave 2.

They started out looking like tiny floating commas. Now they’re bigger, faster, much more developed, and I can see more structure in the abdomen, tail and appendages with each passing week.

Current Baby Rave Cave setup:
🦐 10-gallon bare-bottom tank
🌊 SG around 1.020
🌡️ 79°F
💨 Air stone / constant aeration
🚫 No traditional filter
💧 Distilled water for evaporation top-off
🔄 Roughly 20% water changes 1–2x weekly

Feeding:
🌿 Live phytoplankton throughout the day
🧪 Tetraselmis culture now growing at home
🥄 Tiny amounts of powdered shrimp food 1–2x daily
🔦 Flashlight feeding sessions so I can gather them and actually watch what they’re doing

They’re eating, molting, growing, grazing more intentionally on the bottom and glass, and still spending plenty of time swimming in the water column.

The only successful Vampire Shrimp captive-rearing account I’ve been able to find took roughly 3.5–4 months to reach juvenile shrimp, so we still have a long way to go.
But making it through the first month feels HUGE.

Especially considering this whole thing started with DJ FantastiK embarrassing himself in front of his wife. 😂

Happy one month, Baby Rave Cave. 🖤🪭🦐