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Found an old picture of a betta I had that passed away recently, from when I first got him, and a picture from only a few weeks before he kicked it.  Behold the glorious Chopin. It's amazing how ugly bettas can get as they age.
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Dec 11, 2014 02:55
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Looks hideous, but healthy. How long did he live?
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Dec 11, 2014 03:00
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SynthOrange posted:Looks hideous, but healthy. How long did he live? I assume somewhere around two and a half, maybe three years? I estimate he was about a year old when I got him since he was pretty big, but he'd suffered from a fungal infection of his tail/fin-tips too, so when he got a bacterial infection about a week before he died(and unfortunately I hadn't noticed since it blended in with his gross grey side splotches) it probably proved too much for him. Treating him didn't help much since I wasn't sure what specifically was wrong.
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Dec 11, 2014 03:34
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I've hosed up bad. Bought some otos and cories online, and put them straight into my tank. The cories had something, died overnight, existing cories, tetra and guppy also gone, mollies look like they have it too. I have no idea what it is, but fish are going from perfectly normal to dead within 24 hours, if not far less. I'm worried this could wipe out everything. It's not the water, no external symptoms, they just start sitting on the bottom of the tank, then go belly up. gently caress.
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Dec 11, 2014 12:51
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Maybe you accidentally contaminated the tank with some chemical from your hands or whatever you used to put the new fish into your aquarium? It seems pretty unlikely for healthy fish to die of disease that quickly whereas I would imagine something toxic introduced to the tank would hit everything at once in the way that you describe, killing the weakest first. It's something I'm really paranoid about myself since it only takes one casual slip up. Forgot to say: I'm sorry for your loss.
Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Dec 12, 2014 |
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Dec 12, 2014 03:01
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Thanks Stoca. After some research, it is almost certainly Columnaris. It's a bacteria with devastating effect. I wouldn't wish this upon my worst enemy. The recommended medications of Kanamycin and Nitrofuran aren't available in Australia, as far as I can tell, so I've dosed the entire tank with Triple Sulfa, with a double dose in the quarantine bucket, which is supposed to at least stop the bacteria from growing, but doesn't kill it. I know that the OP already mentions using a quarantine tank, but can I request that it is updated to emphasise that a quarantine tank, and disposing of the water that the fish came in, should be an absolutely mandatory step in introducing new fish?
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Dec 12, 2014 05:35
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Yikes. Thats a pretty loving bad run of Columnaris. It's killed fish from what, three different goons here already in the last two weeks?
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Dec 12, 2014 06:12
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Well that's enough to convince me. I'm in Australia too and I was going to get some extra rosy barbs either tomorrow or Monday (enough to let them school properly) and I was debating whether to quarantine or not. I'm definitely going to quarantine now. I've managed to keep these three fish alive for maybe a month; they seem quite happy and healthy and now that I've moved them to the big tank, I don't want to risk adding stressed or sick fish and losing the lot. It looks like my set up, with moderately hard water, higher pH and many plants is an ideal environment for Columnaris to take off and I want to be extra careful if our fish suppliers are dealing in contaminated fish. I'm mid way through cleaning out the little tank that the fish were in before, as soon as the fish were gone the snails got cocky and came out of the gravel in masses. I would say there were easily 30 snails where I thought I had 5 or 6 at the most. I've pulled all the plants out and put a piece of lettuce in to try to lure them out. Looks like it was mostly snail poop that I've been vacuuming up from that tank, not fish poop, but it seems to have helped the tanks cycle just the same. I had planned to put plants back in there but I think I'll leave them out while I am quarantining fish. Do you think it's worth pre-emptively dosing the quarantined fish with something like triple sulfa just in case? or maybe a bit of aquarium salt? Actually maybe what I'll do is have a medicated tank, empty with just an airstone for bathing new arrivals, then put them into the little gravel/planted tank for quarantine after that. I'm not willing to accept "They're just fish, it doesn't matter if they die, just buy more" which I keep hearing from people around me. Of course it matters.
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Dec 12, 2014 07:16
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I know this is saltwater, but there are some things that do overlap. And here is one of those: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyx0jy4x4CQ Basically, you know those large chiclet sized eclipse gum packages? With the double lid that either opens the whole thing or just a pour spout. Anyway, use that to thaw your frozen food. It is sealed for shaking to break it up and also sealed to keep the odor levels down. Also, you get a pour spout. I love those things anyway and use them regularly at work, so I'll have to stock up on a few and use feed my fish some frozen brine once a week. Or any other frozen food really.
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Dec 12, 2014 16:43
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Perhaps I spoke too soon, the fish have been acting a bit weird today. Ever since they've been in the bigger tank, they've been doing the occasional lap lengthwise of the tank. It's seemed like a normal thing to do, a growing fish "stretching its legs" so to speak. Today they have been racing around in ridiclulous zigzags at breakneck pace. I am pretty sure one has cleared the surface once or twice, although my tank is covered so I am more worried about them hurting themselves than falling out. They also seem to be either trying to school with, or fight with, their reflections in the glass. I'm not sure if they even see their own reflections from the inside but the way they keep facing and swimming at the glass makes it seem that way. They don't seem to be chasing each other as much as evading something. I saw one of them dash to the bottom hard enough that a little cloud of sand puffed up after the impact. And just now when I checked them, they were huddled together in the bottom back corner, under their java moss, rapidly breathing and looking the worst I've ever seen them. Although, when I moved to the other side of the tank to get a better look, they positioned themselves on the other side of the powerhead inlet where I couldn't see them so they aren't exactly limp and on deaths door. I have a cut piece of sponge over the inlet strainer like a sock so that they can't be sucked on to it and get hurt, and they tend to hang around it and pick at it. I turned the tank's light on to get a better look at them and their colour seems good, the same as always. No weird marks and no visible damage to fins or tails. They even seemed to relax a little with the light on and started doing small patrols of the tank. I just don't know these fish well enough to judge whether they were actually distressed, sleeping, just having a breather after some more maniac zigzagging, if they're scared and trying to avoid perceived surface predators and stressing out because their school isn't big enough, or whether something they ate didn't agree with them or whether they are legit dying. Tank parameters are: Ammonia 0 or very close to 0 (hard to tell if there is a hint of green in the yellowness, certainly its not as high as 0.25 compared to the colour chart) Nitrite 0, Nitrate 5, pH 8 and all of these look about right, the same as last time I tested the water. I've propped up some black plastic on the outside of the tank in their corner hoping that the issue is behavioural rather than medical, if they feel more sheltered there maybe they will stress out less? The plants in the new tank aren't as crowded together as the old one, so the loose java moss cloud was supposed to help give them more cover but maybe it just wasn't enough.
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Dec 12, 2014 17:31
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Fimmion update pictures...  He's only a year and a half old (a baby in goldfish years), and already huge. Such a cool fish, he eats outta my hand and loves music. Uhhh yeah, don't get a goldfish unless you're prepared for this to happen... I definitely did not know that goldfish got this big or lived very long when I won him at one of those ping pong ball games at the fair.
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Dec 12, 2014 22:24
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Nice job, I'd wager that your fish is the only one from that fair still living.
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Dec 13, 2014 03:08
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The three rosy barbs are still alive, but are still hiding under their java moss behind the filter inlet and looking distressed. I've increased their cover by adding black plastic garbage bags on the back and both short sides, and I've turned off all the lights. It's hot today so I've got a piece of foam propping the hatch in the lid open, and I've added an airstone to help with surface movement for evaporation/cooling. There is still some lightning fast movement in and out of that corner every now and then so I think they are scared and stressed. Still no clamping of fins, but they are still rapidly breathing. It's hard to see but their gills don't look discoloured or anything. They're not interested in food at all at the moment, instead of coming over to be fed they hide as soon as they see me. The only thing I can think of is I did a small water change of about 5 litres and it was definitely after this that they've been acting weird. Maybe that's what scared them?  Here's what they were like before. Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 06:38 on Dec 13, 2014 |
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Dec 13, 2014 06:34
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Enos Cabell posted:Nice job, I'd wager that your fish is the only one from that fair still living. Probably  He's definitely the biggest goldfish I've ever seen. I hope he gets monstrously huge and lives forever. I had a goldfish before him, named "cracky" because a crackhead gave him to me in a dirty peanut butter jar after he rescued him from a red tagged methlab-explosion house. Cracky only lived a year before he was eaten by a raccoon. Cracky never got even half as big as Fimmion though.
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Dec 13, 2014 08:14
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candywife posted:Probably I like that your fish have gritty origin stories.
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Dec 13, 2014 08:59
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drat, I don't have one single fish that was rescued from a meth lab. That's way cooler than picking one up at the LFS.
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Dec 13, 2014 17:04
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Stoca Zola posted:The three rosy barbs are still alive, but are still hiding under their java moss behind the filter inlet and looking distressed. I've increased their cover by adding black plastic garbage bags on the back and both short sides, and I've turned off all the lights. It's hot today so I've got a piece of foam propping the hatch in the lid open, and I've added an airstone to help with surface movement for evaporation/cooling. I'm no expert, but they look like they just got spooked. Reminds me of my angelfish panic. When I get home from work in the morning i turn the lights on. Everyone in the tank comes alive really quick because they know it's feeding time, but the angels are like watching drunks try to ride bikes. They kinda swim on their sides and bump into plants and along the bottom for a few minutes and then right themselves and are fine after that. Only happens when I wake them though, most of the time they're already waiting for me
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Dec 14, 2014 01:48
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Thanks for the reassuring words. That gif was the "happy" view where they're just doing laps and looking for wigglers to munch on. Full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr0tleCYnPQ They certainly aren't a slow swimming fish. Now, I can't even have the light on in the room without them completely disappearing under their java moss. But they revert to normal behaviour when it's dark and they think no one is looking, and my water measurements are still good. I think (hope!) they'll improve when I can add more to their school. For now I'm just trying not to stress them as they launch themselves and bump into the sides of the tank and I don't want them to hurt themselves.
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Dec 14, 2014 02:50
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If they're just the three, then yeah, that's way too few for them to feel secure at all.
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Dec 14, 2014 02:57
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Yes. I think I was just lucky with them prior to this, or they felt safer in the smaller planted tank. I did a lot of reading to make sure I could give them a big enough tank and a better life than they were having in my sister's 5 gallon tank. I've always intended to get more when I had capacity to house them and had a better grip on keeping the water parameters under control. I think I will buy 5 if I can, the quarantine tank is a bit small but it worked okay with daily water changes last time and maybe safety in numbers will help reduce stress for the new fish. Hiding fish:  Edited to add: HOLY poo poo life loving finds a way... Whats this?  Magnified:  This has to be a rosy barb fry, I haven't ever had any other fish. The tank he's in, I've smushed the gravel around horribly, vacuumed it, ripped out plants, smashed the gravel around some more; as far as I know my rosy barbs are way too small to be breeding size, the water's too alkaline, I've never even seen any eggs. This is so unexpected - it's ridiculous that anything survived all that. I only just found this guy while I was scooping out some excess gravel and now I don't feel like I can mess with that tank any more OR put new barbs in it as a quarantine, since they'll just eat any other survivors. Maybe I can move the hang on back filter to the tank that the plants are in, put the new fish in there, and leave the fry where he is with the sponge filter going? I do have some fry food which I'd been using to feed my infusoria and I've added a few scoops of water from the infusoria jar as an alternative food source in case the fry powder is still too big for him to eat. Just amazing. ... So far I've spotted five fry! Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Dec 14, 2014 |
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Dec 14, 2014 04:11
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Stoca Zola posted:Thanks for the reassuring words. That gif was the "happy" view where they're just doing laps and looking for wigglers to munch on. Full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr0tleCYnPQ They certainly aren't a slow swimming fish. Now, I can't even have the light on in the room without them completely disappearing under their java moss. But they revert to normal behaviour when it's dark and they think no one is looking, and my water measurements are still good. I think (hope!) they'll improve when I can add more to their school. For now I'm just trying not to stress them as they launch themselves and bump into the sides of the tank and I don't want them to hurt themselves. I like your tank. Currently I only have gravel and fake plants. If I wanted to add some sand, like you have, how would I go about doing it?
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Dec 14, 2014 05:49
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Tiny Lowtax posted:I like your tank. Currently I only have gravel and fake plants. If I wanted to add some sand, like you have, how would I go about doing it? Thanks! As far as I can tell, opinion is divided on whether sand is a good idea or not. Some say don't have it at all, it doesn't allow water movement through the substrate, you end up with anaerobic pockets or "dead zones" full of bad gasses and these can somehow kill your fish. Others say sand is great, it doesn't allow food or waste to fall through gaps, making it easier to vacuum only the surface. And the anaerobic zones are important for allowing certain natural types of bacteria to grow and there is no way for the gas from a dead zone to actually kill fish and no evidence that it has ever actually caused a mass fish kill like the naysayers claim. I wanted some sand because I intend to get corys later on once the tank settles down and supposedly sand is better for their bellies to rest on. I have probably under an inch thick of sand to be on the safe side. I'm using washed play sand but silica sand would be way better, I ran it under the tap and tipped off all the cloudy stuff and my criteria for when the sand was clean enough was when what was left in the bucket settled leaving clear water within 5-10 seconds. Washing the gravel was about the same. Normally you're supposed to lay out your zones of gravel/sand, build different levels using plasticard supports, plant the plants THEN add water. I was dumb and already had water in the tank because I wanted to get the filter cycling ASAP. I just made sure I had clearance at the top so I could put my arms and substrate in without overflowing everything. I used bigger "frog rocks" to build up the taller sides, filled the gravel first, then put the sand in the empty zone in the middle. I did some experiments, putting gravel on sand makes a horrible mess, and putting sand on gravel is even worse (and the gravel works its way to the top anyway) so I determined in advance I had to use something to seperate the zones. The frog rocks work quite well, they're flattened and they stacked into kind of a wall that doesn't easily move or allow much spillage from one side to the other. They ended up fairly buried in gravel and sand so you can't see them that well. I accidentally overflowed the gravel on to the sand a bit when I was trying to plant on that side but it doesn't look too bad. The easiest way to add sand where I wanted it to go was to scoop up a small cup (I used a silicone muffin pan) with (still wet) sand, carefully lower it right ways up into the water, then tip it out gently right near the bottom. It kind of flows out everywhere but didn't make much of a mess or cloud up the water as it wasn't falling very far. Slowly and gently tipping lets you control more finely exactly where the sand goes. If you already have gravel you'll probably have to scoop some out to make room for your sand and work out a way to stop the two from merging together.
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Dec 14, 2014 06:25
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I forgot to say I have plastic mesh under all that against the bottom of the tank to protect it in case I dropped anything heavy in there. I've read to use egg crate but I have no idea what that is, egg crates are cardboard here so I used strips of gutter mesh.
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Dec 14, 2014 07:49
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Finally got up the gumption to build a light stand I've been planning. PVC pipe needs to be painted so I'll likely take it with me to work on Monday and paint it during lunch. Got two 40w 2800 lumens daylight Ecobulbs that light up the room well enough I don't need to use the ceiling light. The plants responded quickly too. The Java ferns are growing plantlets like mad and the Anacharis is shooting out new stems. Even the Pothos perked up. The fish seem a bit calmer now and the shrimp are starting to pop up with the better lighting. also tried a trick I read about with the java fern. Buried the whole root system for a week and pulled it back out. the roots grew around and attached to the gravel so now that weights them to the bottom. :edit: Just looking in there now, one of my Platies is pooping what looks like eggs. Did she just abort a possible pregnancy or what? SocketWrench fucked around with this message at 11:13 on Dec 14, 2014 |
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Dec 14, 2014 10:52
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Looks good SocketWrench, nice simple and sturdy. I love open top tanks with plants growing out, it seems more natural to me. Too scared to try it myself though, in case the fish jump out, or the cats jump in. I checked up on the baby fish tonight and noticed there is one swimming around happily in the snail jail and another one in the crustacean tank  - it must have been about a week ago I topped them up using reject tank water from the big tank, but in the same container that I'd used when I vacuumed the gravel of the small rosy barb tank. So each got an egg or two and most likely I watered my garden with a bunch of fish eggs. How long do they take to hatch anyway? The extra fry look a little bigger than the ones in the main tank, maybe not from the same batch of eggs, or maybe less competition for food has let them grow more? Copepod and ostracod nauplii are even smaller than brine shrimp nauplii so probably make good fry food. There is plenty of snail crap in both side tanks, plenty of paramecium eating that, then it all follows from there.Here's a pic of my involuntary fish nursery:  I put some extra hornwart in the middle tank for cover and I've got it lit with some led strips hopefully to attract the nauplii and baby fish to the same place to let nature take its course. The bigger fry in the right hand tank seems to be interested in the powdered fry food I offered him and was mobile enough to chase it as it drifted through the water. I can clearly see the fan of his tail whereas the others don't seem to be as developed as that yet. My sister's white clouds spawned but she had trouble keeping the fry alive, I don't think she was feeding them often enough and in the end one of the adult white clouds leapt into the nursery box and ate the two that had survived. So my main concern right now is making sure they have enough food, since water quality doesn't seem to matter to them at all and they are safe from predatory adults. RE: your egg pooping platy, better out than stuck in! maybe it's her way of telling you she doesn't like the new lights, maybe they didn't get fertilized in time, who knows. Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 13:04 on Dec 14, 2014 |
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Dec 14, 2014 12:33
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Stoca Zola posted:Looks good SocketWrench, nice simple and sturdy. I love open top tanks with plants growing out, it seems more natural to me. Too scared to try it myself though, in case the fish jump out, or the cats jump in. Yeah, occasionally find the remains of a curious shrimp, but the fish have never made an effort to jump free 'cept the mollies when I was training them to jump for food. I can't imagine it takes the eggs long to hatch, prolly a few days at most since nature likes to snack on helpless eggs. Of course fry will grow really quick or really slow depending on food, water conditions and temps, and the like. When I had fry before i had a tank heater they grew really slow, but the ones that came after i put in a heater grew really quick and are almost the same size as some of the older ones. quote:RE: your egg pooping platy, better out than stuck in! maybe it's her way of telling you she doesn't like the new lights, maybe they didn't get fertilized in time, who knows. Yeah, there aren't any male platy around, though there is a swordtail, but he doesn't seem too interested. I've noticed some of the male mollies chasing and nudging them like they do their own females, so I'm wondering if she might have been upset from that. Everything else is normal, she doesn't even show stress colors (both platies when stressed will turn black on the edges of their scales from the upper fin to their mouth)
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Dec 14, 2014 14:03
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Stoca Zola posted:I forgot to say I have plastic mesh under all that against the bottom of the tank to protect it in case I dropped anything heavy in there. I've read to use egg crate but I have no idea what that is, egg crates are cardboard here so I used strips of gutter mesh. (apologies in advance for mobile link). Egg crate is a plastic grid used as a light diffuser under fluorescent lights, or to create an opening for an air return, in a suspended (drop) ceiling system. You can usually find it at home improvement stores (near lighting fixtures, or ceiling systems). Eg http://t.homedepot.com/p/Plaskolite-4-ft-x-2-ft-Suspended-Light-Ceiling-Panel-1199233A/202025149
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Dec 14, 2014 15:07
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Ahhh thanks ragzilla, I remember that stuff from the ceilings at school. I had no idea that was also called egg crate, I used to raise crickets when my sister had frogs so egg crate just makes me think of http://www.theroachcafe.com/egg-creat-12-pack/
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Dec 14, 2014 16:18
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SocketWrench posted:Yeah, occasionally find the remains of a curious shrimp, but the fish have never made an effort to jump free 'cept the mollies when I was training them to jump for food. Mollies, platies, and sword tails will cross breed.
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Dec 14, 2014 17:02
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omnibobb posted:Mollies, platies, and sword tails will cross breed. Everything I've read says Mollies and guppies can and platies and swords can, but those two from group A can't with those from group B
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Dec 14, 2014 19:13
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Today I got four rosy barbs from the LFS, I think a 50/50 mix of male and female going by shape although they are too young to know for sure. One male has a very pink belly compared to the others, which are all a fairly even yellow-gold. I have acclimated them and got them in the quarantine tank and, in comparison to how they were in the shop, they seem lively and happy and have started rooting around in the substrate and experimentally nipping the plants. I'm looking for signs of injury or disease because they put on a big fight against being netted in the store. Pinky seems to be missing a scale which I will keep an eye on; I am assuming the pink belly is natural rosy barb colouring and not a sign of disease - he looked super red under whatever lighting they had at the store. They all seem to have fairly red gills, however since they are more pale than my other three it might be that the gills stand out more than what I am used to. They don't seem ill or stressed at all, they didn't even seem to care about being bagged and carried around. They are a little smaller than my existing three but not dangerously so, perhaps this will help the hierarchy settle down a bit when quarantine is over. I've got the quarantine tank at the end of my main tank hoping that the timid fish will see the new ones and that it might calm them down a bit. They're still very spooked, even with 3/4 of the tank covered and the lights dimmed. I'm tempted to make the quarantine period a short one, I'm torn between wanting to get the school up to a reasonable size to settle the scared fish down and wanting to protect them from incoming disease. Of the baby fish that I discovered yesterday, I can still see at least 5 of them that have survived the night. I saw one picking at gunk on the ceramic noodles in the tank so I feel a bit better about their chances of survival if they are able to find food by themselves. Three of them show interest and chase the particles of fry food that I've tried to feed them, not sure if the others are still too young or if they are a bit defective due to the rough treatment they've had so far in life. Still, if they all survive, I'll have 14 rosy barbs to contend with which is really too many! They should be okay while they're still young but who knows how long they take to reach full size.
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Dec 15, 2014 10:12
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When it came to feeding fry, i just crushed some flake food up really fine and they all did just fine. After a week or so they'd start picking at the bigger flakes as they sank
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Dec 15, 2014 10:57
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Bonus babysnaps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpftXL0OLvA I didn't think I'd be able to film them as the effective range of this magnification method is about 2mm inside the glass but the sunlight drew him over and he seemed unfased by the lens being poked right at him.
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Dec 15, 2014 12:37
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Finally got off my arse and started setting up my 30L tank. Hardscape was done today, and I'm hoping to head down to the LFS later this week and grab some glossostigma for the foreground, though I don't know what to put in between the rocks. Pic below:  Gonna fill this mother full of shrimpies! Somebody fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Dec 17, 2014 |
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Dec 16, 2014 07:12
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I've had my first fish death - one of the new ones from Monday. When none of them dropped dead on the first night, or through the next day, and they were all still healthy and active looking Tuesday night, while the other fish were still spooking and stressing I thought it would be better for all of them to be in one school in one big tank. The theory being that reduced stress would be good for everyone but if they got sick I could just treat the one tank. A couple of the new ones schooled up with the original three straight away. The fish that died is one that hung back and avoided the other fish the most, although it was still active, eating, no discolouration or fin clamping or any other warning sign that I could see and it wasn't avoidant the whole time either. I found it floating kind of belly up, pale, gills closed, belly somewhat blackened and swollen (but this discolouration lined up with how it was floating I think). On closer inspection one of the fins was torn off so possibly it died from trauma and the bloating and blackening was just post mortem rotting? Or the other fish knew it was sick and attacked it? I'm not sure and I'll be keeping a close eye on the other fish, although I don't know what I can actually do if there is something bacterial going on. The three rosy barbs I already have apparently murdered other fish before so I can hope it was just murderous bullying or perhaps protecting the school from disease. I didn't see any signs of aggression when the new fish were added, and the stress and spooking has all but vanished. My water chemistry is still Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate < 5; the pH is higher than I'd like at 8 but it seems steady. I've been watching one of the other fish that seems darker than it was; but it's hard to say whether it's just going olive green like one already has done or if it's actually sick. Wait and see I guess. Oh and on top of this, one of the original fish has done some gross white teardrop shaped poops that make me think of tapeworm segments. I don't know how likely that is in fish but I fed them some smushed up pea in case it was constipation or something else. Any one got any ideas? Hard to accurately capture as the scales are so shiny. The black mark near the tail is supposed to be there.  On even closer inspection the fins ARE still there, what looks like a red stump does still have a tiny transparent fin coming out of it.  I think rosy barbs might be a bit of a pain to use colour to judge if they are sick or not. Going red is normal, maybe going green is normal? They certainly change colour depending if it's light or dark (the tailspot intensity changes, in one of my fish it almost disappears completely at night). Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 05:13 on Dec 17, 2014 |
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Dec 17, 2014 04:50
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I try not to worry too much about new fish getting sick. Sadly I kind of expect it by now. Getting them from the shop, acclimatizing them and putting them in a new tank is really stressful. The lack of skittishness is a good sign though. Also once a fish is dead, its just meat. Its tankmates might have nibbled on its fins after it died.
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Dec 17, 2014 05:34
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Yeah it wouldn't surprise me, a rosy barb's day seems to consist of nibbling everything in the tank then going back and nibbling it again in case it turned into food while they weren't looking. Okay I won't worry too much then, mostly I just don't want something to spread to the others. But even if they ALL die, I still have at least 7 babies in the nursery tanks (found a couple swimming near the top in the main tank and have transfered them to safety) which is plenty of rosy barbs to make a new school assuming I can keep them alive. There are still some babies in the main tank that I couldn't catch, they are hanging around under the frogbit and various floating plants that the other fish have uprooted and I haven't tried replanting yet due to the stress situation. I think calling these fish hardy is something of an understatement, one of the tiny babies was hanging out near the water outlet happily getting smashed by water from above and coping with it/swimming against the flow just fine. Not to mention avoiding being eaten by their voracious parents.
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Dec 17, 2014 05:46
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So I have been wondering why my cherry shrimp keep dying since I started keeping them a few months ago. I got a letter from my city water department today stating that the EPA has found unsafe levels of lead in our water. That combined with the fact that the water is 15 dkh out of the tap probably explains it. Have already started doing water changes with a 25/75 tap/rodi mixture, but I don't wanna change the parameters too quickly.
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Dec 17, 2014 17:44
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Hey guys, my little 10g project has had an outbreak of algae (bacteria?) for the past couple of months and it's really starting to annoy me. This poo poo is everywhere - gravel, plants, heater, walls, you name it. It peels off in sheets from the gravel/plants. I'm not completely sure what it is but hopefully someone with more experience can identify it. Light googling led me to believe that it might be cyanobacteria, but I'm surprised that it would be able to outcompete the plants because the tank is so heavily planted. Sorry for the lovely pics, apparently taking pictures through glass at an angle doesn't work too well!    The pics are from about a week post water change, but it usually shows back up within a couple of days of clearing it out. Tank is about 7 months old, with a generous amount of Amazon Sword, Java Fern, Wisteria, and Anubias, 8 hours of light a day, ~80F, adequate filtration. I haven't tried a blackout because it's kind of a pain in the rear end logistically and I'm not even sure what it is I'm trying to kill here.
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Dec 17, 2014 22:40
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| # ? May 20, 2024 06:36 |
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Slugworth posted:So I have been wondering why my cherry shrimp keep dying since I started keeping them a few months ago. Yikes that's pretty bad. Wonder if there's copper in the water too? That's really bad for inverts.
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Dec 17, 2014 23:29
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