u/mammajamma101

So I’m brand new to keeping fish so I’m not the best at ready their behavior. One of my guppies seems to be addicted to swimming up and down by the airstone bubbles. I’ll include a video in this post and in comments if that’s possible.

I’ve only owned these guppies for a little less than 2 weeks and maybe 3ish days ago I noticed that I would see all but one of my guppies by the front of the tank when I got home. When I looked for him I found him swimming up and down in the back of the tank by the airstone. I thought it was cute because it looks like he’s playing. Ever since I noticed this I started looking for him in that corner and it seems he’s almost always there doing the same thing, swimming up and down up and down. A lot of the times the other guppies join him and do the same thing, I even caught one of my Khuli loaches joining them (idk if it was accidentally or not, it’s rare I even see them during the day).

It really does seem cute and like they’re playing but he keeps doing this behavior and I’m worried maybe it means he’s sick or has something wrong with him. Do you have any guppies or other fish that do this? Is this normal? Could it harm him? Is he just weird? Maybe he’s on an exercise routine lol?

Thats the gist of it but to cover all my bases I will list info about my tank below:
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Tank size: 20 gallons

Cycling:
*I cycled this tank for a month with just plants and the hardscape/decor and some bonus hitchhiker bladder snails. Products I used:
- Seachem Prime (remove chlorine)
- Seachem Stability + API Quick Start (beneficial bacteria)
- Dr. Tim’s Ammonium Chloride.
I only bought fish after my tank was able to process ammonia in 24hrs (from 4ppm to 0ppm).

Water Parameters:
*I use the API freshwater test kit as well as the 5 in 1 test strips for quick checks)
- Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate all 0 (or very close to zero from what I can tell)
- pH: usually 7.4-7.6
- Temperature: 78°F/26°C

Note: my water has a greenish yellowish tint, likely from tannins from the cholla wood and also some reflection of all the green plants.

Livestock:
- 6 male fancy guppies (Local Aquarium Shop)
- 5 black pepper corydoras (Petsmart)
- 3 Khuli loaches (Local Aquarium Shop)
- 1 Clown pleco (Petsmart)
- 1 nerite snail (Petsmart)
- 1 rabbit snail (Petco)
- Unknown amount of bladder snails (came on plants from local shop)

All except the bladder snails were purchased within 2 days of each other and it’s been a little less than 2 weeks that I’ve had them.

Food:
- Fluval Bug Bites Tropical Flakes (1-2x per day)
- Fluval Bug Bites Bottom Feeder Formula for small fish (1-2x per day, I try to dunk them in while the guppies are distracted by the flakes, they’re so greedy I fear the bottom feeders don’t get enough food)
- Live Detritus Worms & Live Black worms. I’ve only fed them each of these once and plan to give them these only once a week as a treat.

Hardscape/Decor:
- Fluval Stratum
- Aqua natural Black galaxy sand
- Aqua Natural gravel
- Dragon stone
- Slate stone
- Some seashells
- Cholla wood
- Crystals (citrine, clear quartz, red and flower agate, ocean jasper) all are inert, don’t dissolve in water and have smooth edges.

Plants:
Submersed:
- Brazilian Pennywort (also have some floating)
- Bucephalandra brownie
- Anubias nana
- Dwarf Sagittaria
- Tiger Lotus
- Madagascar Lace plant
- Bacopa monnieri variegated
- Vallisneria
- Lacy Java fern
- Java and Christmas moss (I think it’s dead idk)
- Banana lily
- Red root floaters

Emersed:
- Monstera deliciosa
- Monstera esqueleto
- Raphidophora tetrasperma
- Philodendron gloriosum
- Philodendron micans (in clean LECA)
- Philodendron Jose buono
- Lucky bamboo
- Silver scindapsus (in clean LECA)

(I used aquarium safe superglue by Imagitarium to attach some of the epiphytic plants)

Tech:
- Airpump with long bar shaped airstone
- Sponge filter for 20 gal
- Hygger corner filter for up to 10 gallons (only in here to seed it so I can cycle a 10 gallon aquarium faster)
- Heater preset to 78°F/26°C
- Currently using a regular plant light for the aquarium, planning on getting one made for aquariums)

*I don’t have a lid but I don’t spray anything near my aquarium, no candles, if I do it’s in my bedroom with the door closed
*I haven’t used pesticides in over a year and the plants have been rooted in water

So am I just a paranoid first time fish parent or is there something wrong with my fish?

About a year ago I bought a SANSI BR30 40W LED Grow Light Bulb but I have yet to use it because I just can’t find a way to set it up that is functional and also looks good (and I may have shoved it in a corner and forgot about it). This bulb is super heavy and wide so it doesn’t fit a lot of regular lamps and it does weigh down the “gooseneck” type light bases.

I want to use it mainly for a ~5ft tall cereus spiral cactus. Ideally I’m looking for something like a floor lamp that is height adjustable or at least tall enough for my cactus and something that allows for adjustable positioning of the light bulb. The stand would also obviously have to be safe to use with this bulb and fit a US E26 socket.

The Sansi website does sell this lamp in a set with a tripod stand. I didn’t know they had this when I bought just the lamp :/ … It also seems they don’t sell the tripod separately and I’d rather not have another one of these bulbs gathering dust in storage. Plus this tripod is not exactly visually appealing.

Does anyone have any ideas on fixtures I can use with this lamp? Any products you’d recommend? And if you have this bulb could you share how you’ve set it up? TIA!!

Hi! I live in Maryland and today I noticed a mushroom growing in the pot of one of my Hoyas. It’s a Hoya compacta and I keep it in an ikea greenhouse cabinet, it’s got ventilation and sits around 60-75% humidity. The soil is made up of a mix of tree fern fiber, sphagnum/peat moss, coco coir/chips and some orchid bark. Although I live in MD a lot of my plants have been bought online from many other states including CA, FL, MI, MN, WA, NJ, NY… I can’t remember where this specific plant was from since I’ve owned if for about 1.5 years.

I’m not really concerned (unless I should be) about the mushroom, I actually love mushrooms and think they look super cool. I’m just curious as to what type of mushroom it is since it doesn’t look like any of the ones I’ve found on Google when searching for common houseplant mushrooms. Let me know your thoughts! Thanks in advance!

PS. Yea I accidentally broke it when I was taking pics :(