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Looks cool, what do you usually have in it?
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Jun 14, 2015 18:35
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r0ck0 posted:Sort of an outdoor freshwater aquarium. My 5 year old barrel pond, cant believe I've had it so long but its pretty low maintenance. What a cool idea! I'd love to hear about how you set it up. Something like this could be a really fun project/make my backyard something really unique
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Jun 14, 2015 19:38
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When people talk about using old tank media to start a new tank what does that mean? Add some gravel from my tank at work to a new tank? Or water from the tank at work to the new tank?
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Jun 14, 2015 22:41
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Len posted:When people talk about using old tank media to start a new tank what does that mean? Add some gravel from my tank at work to a new tank? Or water from the tank at work to the new tank? A newly setup tank won't have any of the friendly bacteria or nutrients that a cycled tank will, so you should take some of the substrate/gravel/filter-pad from an established tank, and use it to kickstart the new one. So setup the new tank, de-chlorinate / condition the water, then add in the water+gravel from the old tank.
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Jun 14, 2015 23:21
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Len posted:I'm looking up things about sand as a substrate in case I buy that little tank from the thrift shop. I keep reading about toxic gas bubbles and that has me afraid I'll gently caress it up and kill whatever I put in it. What's a quick and dirty for using sand and not gravel? Would this be an okay sand to get? http://www.amazon.com/Carib-Sea-ACS...rium+sand+black I bought a bag of this for my 20g because I wanted black sand. It is far and above cheaper than anything I could have gotten that's actually made for aquariums, only $7.99 for 50lbs! I only used about half the bag, and that's with a pretty deep layer. It's really pretty, I think, and the fish and shrimp seem to like it. One of my bettas routinely lays full on sideways across the sand with no ill effect on his fins. The plants are doing well in it with root tabs, too. I've also heard good things about pool filter sand if you want white. Play sand is commonly recommended, but I've heard that it's so fine it gets kicked up too easily and can make a mess. Whatever kind you end up getting, make sure to wash it really well. For something as small as a five gallon, you could easily get away with the bottle method. Just fill a large plastic bottle halfway with sand, fill the rest of the way with water, cap and shake. Pour out the water (the sand is heavier and stays in the bottle). Repeat until you can add water to the bottle and it settles and looks clear within 15-30 seconds. To add to the tank, make sure you have water already filled about halfway in the tank, then submerge the bottle. When you upend it underwater, the sand will gently pour out, leaving any additional nasty water in the bottle. Dump that water. And repeat as necessary till you have as much sand as you'd like in your tank. I did it with my sand because it was nasty weather out when I bought mine and I couldn't wash it outside easily. If you have a backyard, the bucket method (easily found on youtube) may be easier. I dunno, I haven't tried it. I agree with Stoca about the gas. I have dug through my sand a couple times (moving or planting plants, trying to find an errant nerite) to no ill effect. I haven't done any upkeep on the sand other than surface suction to remove debris. My friend who just took down his massive tank after 6 years had a sand substrate that he never touched except to move plants. His fish were all really healthy. I might be a little leery of a hang on back filter for that small of a tank, assuming you're getting a betta. Bettas have really delicate fins and most don't like a lot of current. If you do end up with that one, make sure you baffle the flow for them. If you aren't super invested in that kind, I would suggest something like this with a spray bar. You can reduce the water flow by directing the outflow toward the tank wall. Or you could look into a sponge filter. Once they're established, they do a great job in small tanks with no real water movement. They're used a lot in hospital or fry tanks.
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Jun 15, 2015 01:26
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I picked up that little tank. It's a Marineland PFES O5HX. Looks like it came with an old filter designed for it? I dunno. I don't think I like it and will be looking for something different. Edit: Looks like this is basically the exact thing. http://m.petsmart.com/h5/hub?id=htt...d-300065%3Fnull The hood has a giant open space where the filter it comes with goes. What would the magic search terms be to find a hood that doesn't have a giant open spot for a filter I don't want to use. Len fucked around with this message at 14:40 on Jun 15, 2015 |
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Jun 15, 2015 14:35
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McStephenson posted:What a cool idea! I'd love to hear about how you set it up. Something like this could be a really fun project/make my backyard something really unique Its just a barrel with declorinated tap water in it, I took out the filter the first summer after installing the electric fence. Leave it outside year round, what doesn't grow back I add back in spring, most plants will grow back. fish will last if they can stand the cooler temps. it never freezes here. I have had good success with minnows, danios, goldfish, koi, mosquito fish, ghost shrimp, snails, and tadpoles. Made it to the front page of reddit http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/39u18c/5_years_of_barrel_pond/ r0ck0 fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Jun 15, 2015 |
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Jun 15, 2015 15:43
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I was thinking about it and I think I'm going to just bring the old directors betta home to that tank I bought. He's in at most a five gallon thing but probably less right now. I plan to get a new filter for this tank and sand instead of gravel. Would I be able to just transplant the water and fish from what he's in now to the new one and then add water to make it five? Or would that be a bad idea?
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Jun 15, 2015 19:11
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Two of my Long Fin Blue Danio died today, and one is on its last legs. Quick timeline for the tank: Got used 40g tank from co-worker with well used gravel with years of use and fish droppings. Set it up, waited a week, put in anacharis, anubius and an amazon sword, added a Male Betta Waited a week, tried to put in three gourami, returned two of the three, got four cory cats waited a week, added two java fern and 8 long fin zebra danio two days ago. What did I do wrong/what caused it to happen? I fed a small amount (enough for them to eat in 1.5-2 minutes) twice a day for the tank since i got them. Acclimated them to the tank to avoid tank shock. I did a 20% water change and conditioned it about 5 days ago, as to not shock any new fish. Thoughts? All the other fish seem fine, but one of the danio seems to be moving slower than the others and i'm worried he's going to die! SapientCorvid fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Jun 15, 2015 |
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Jun 15, 2015 22:35
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Do you have a test kit to check your water parameters? Your ammonia and nitrites should be at 0 ppm and nitrates should be less than 50 ideally.
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Jun 15, 2015 22:49
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Rallos posted:Do you have a test kit to check your water parameters? Your ammonia and nitrites should be at 0 ppm and nitrates should be less than 50 ideally. So...  I took the two dead fish back to the store (it's a local independent shop) and asked him what he thought might have happened. He said that the long fin danio are sort of poorly bred so maybe it was the fish and not the tank. I got a full testing kit (which I should have already done, i know that now) and ran back home. Did all the tests, and the Nitrites and Nitrates are well within what they should be! Nitrites are 0 ppm and the Nitrates are about 20 to 25 ppm. The ammonia looks like it's somewhere from 0 ppm to 0.25 ppm (my fiance's girl eyes say there's some green in the solution). I did a 25% water change (which the danio seemed to like) just to make sure. Everybody seemed to perk up a bit. With the way my tests ran, is it the fish or my tank? I'm new to this hobby so I'd appreciate your thoughts, goons! I added in a shot of the tank since its fun to look at fish. 
SapientCorvid fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Jun 16, 2015 |
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Jun 16, 2015 01:05
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If your newest fish are the ones that died, it's likely that they were sick already and it's a bit hard to guess what did them in unless they had obvious external signs like white specks or patches, or grungy gills. It's a good idea to quarantine new fish if you can to keep your existing fish safe (especially since cories are sensitive to medications and harder to treat). Poor breeding or poor diet or poor conditions could make the fish sensitive to existing bacteria and more likely to get sick, less able to deal with adverse water conditions etc. Even a fish that isn't diseased might have had organ damage from a previous illness and might have a shortened life span. I'd be aiming for less than 20 nitrate not less than 50. I probably have the same kind of test kit as you and I also have a lot of trouble telling if there is any small amounts of ammonia, it's hard to judge if that yellow has any green in it. Definitely worth holding a piece of white paper/card behind the test tubes and always doing the tests in the same lighting if you can. I've never managed to detect any nitrite until just recently, I've got a brand new tank which is still cycling and the nitrite colour change is really obvious. If you've got no nitrite and a lot of nitrate your filter bacteria are probably working, but maybe not fast enough to keep up with ammonia although I don't think your tank is heavily stocked. Your substrate is probably helping to act as a filter if it's matured but not if it got dried out before you used it. How new is your filter? If it was brand new when you started it is still possible it hasn't finished cycling yet. You can minimise damage to your fish by keeping up with frequent small water changes, at least until you're sure there's no ammonia and you get the nitrate levels a bit lower. Oh, I just re-read that it's all used so maybe the gravel is a bit too dirty and is releasing nitrates of its own from accumulated grunge. Another thing you could try is dropping the water level a bit so that you get a little more water movement where the filter outlet comes back into the tank, I'm assuming your filter is a hang on back to the left of your tank there? Bettas, gouramis and cories can all sip air from the surface if they have to due to poor oxygenation but danios can't. Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 02:56 on Jun 16, 2015 |
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Jun 16, 2015 02:48
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Stoca Zola posted:If your newest fish are the ones that died, it's likely that they were sick already and it's a bit hard to guess what did them in unless they had obvious external signs like white specks or patches, or grungy gills. It's a good idea to quarantine new fish if you can to keep your existing fish safe (especially since cories are sensitive to medications and harder to treat). Poor breeding or poor diet or poor conditions could make the fish sensitive to existing bacteria and more likely to get sick, less able to deal with adverse water conditions etc. Even a fish that isn't diseased might have had organ damage from a previous illness and might have a shortened life span. I'd be aiming for less than 20 nitrate not less than 50. I probably have the same kind of test kit as you and I also have a lot of trouble telling if there is any small amounts of ammonia, it's hard to judge if that yellow has any green in it. Definitely worth holding a piece of white paper/card behind the test tubes and always doing the tests in the same lighting if you can. I've never managed to detect any nitrite until just recently, I've got a brand new tank which is still cycling and the nitrite colour change is really obvious. If you've got no nitrite and a lot of nitrate your filter bacteria are probably working, but maybe not fast enough to keep up with ammonia although I don't think your tank is heavily stocked. Your substrate is probably helping to act as a filter if it's matured but not if it got dried out before you used it. How new is your filter? If it was brand new when you started it is still possible it hasn't finished cycling yet. You can minimise damage to your fish by keeping up with frequent small water changes, at least until you're sure there's no ammonia and you get the nitrate levels a bit lower. I rinsed the gravel until water ran mostly clear, which I was told to do to keep some bacteria but not tons of it. The filter is a fluval 50, which is new. Aaaaaand I just rinsed the bottom foam filter in tank water. Did I just doom my fish to a pee death? 
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Jun 16, 2015 03:05
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When you rinse stuff in tank water it's intended that you remove the water from the tank to your aquarium only designated bucket, not do it inside the tank. This is the correct way to not kill off your bacteria. If the water in your tank is now grungy just do a bit of a water change and keep an eye on things. Cruddy lumps floating around look bad but don't necessarily equal chemical death poison, although some fish might get crud in their gills and associated irritation. Do a water test and see what the numbers say if you're really worried. But watching how the fish are reacting is the best way to tell if something is going very wrong, if they start trying to jump out you probably need to do a big water change, if they look like they aren't fussed they're probably fine.
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Jun 16, 2015 03:34
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PS I am new to the hobby too, but I've done a lot of obsessive reading. There is a lot of good info online as well as a lot of superstition, misleading sales pitches, etc. Check different sources, and so on but the best way to learn is experience and by making a few mistakes here and there. Don't get discouraged and just try to be the best fish owner you can be.
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Jun 16, 2015 03:41
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My writing was misleading: I took tank water out and used it to clean the foam filter, not inside the aquarium itself. My betta has been a pig and has been eating the catfish's food I think, so he is constipated. No pineconing, so I'm hoping it isn't dropsy, but we will see I guess. I took the sad, weak danio out and have him in a small container by himself to see if he improves: I dunno what I can do help him though
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Jun 16, 2015 04:09
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If you drill some holes in the sides of the container and float it in with your other fish at least they'll still have filtered/oxygenated water and you can still keep an eye on them. Depending on how big the container is it might stress the fish out even more to be separated and in a small amount of water that could be prone to temperature swings etc, and I think stress is a big killer of fish. Being listless or unable to orient in the water is a bad sign, being shy or hiding can be a bad sign OR could just mean that fish might just be the runt that gets picked on. Ooh that made me remember something I was going to ask, do you have a heater and thermometer? Your betta will like being warm and even temperatures help fish to stay healthy. If you have day/night fluctuations it can be another source of stress, in nature a fish is in a larger body of water so it doesn't change much. Your tank is a reasonable size so I wouldn't imagine you'd have rapid temperature changes but it's just another variable to keep track of. Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 06:47 on Jun 16, 2015 |
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Jun 16, 2015 06:38
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So my Betta started beefing with the shrimps so i moved the shrimp into their own tank, after moving house he started beefing with the cories so i now have 3 fish tanks going on. is this how it starts?
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Jun 16, 2015 06:57
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Yes! I had a tank with rosy barbs, got them a bigger tank but they were scared, bought more fish so they could school, then got a rescue from my sister of a beacon tetra and a penguin tetra then the penguin terrorised every other fish and needed to be separated, the beacon tetra was lonely so I had to get more, none of these fish are shrimp safe so I needed a separate tank for that.... Then you need a hospital / quarantine tank, breeding tank, maybe another one to grow out any fry or to grow plants unmolested by fish or snails; maybe a tank to grow brine shrimp for fish food if you are into that sort of thing. One tank is never enough! If you're careful you might be able to stop at two or three.
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Jun 16, 2015 07:12
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Stoca Zola posted:Yes! I had a tank with rosy barbs, got them a bigger tank but they were scared, bought more fish so they could school, then got a rescue from my sister of a beacon tetra and a penguin tetra then the penguin terrorised every other fish and needed to be separated, the beacon tetra was lonely so I had to get more, none of these fish are shrimp safe so I needed a separate tank for that.... Then you need a hospital / quarantine tank, breeding tank, maybe another one to grow out any fry or to grow plants unmolested by fish or snails; maybe a tank to grow brine shrimp for fish food if you are into that sort of thing. One tank is never enough! If you're careful you might be able to stop at two or three. Well I'm currently saving up for a 5ft tank because I impulse bought an electric blue acara without knowing its potential hugeness so I think it has begun thoroughly woops. big dong wanter fucked around with this message at 08:34 on Jun 16, 2015 |
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Jun 16, 2015 07:56
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Update: The little long fin I put in isolation died overnight. the last five seemed okay but I took them back, fearing that I brought in some sort of infection by introducing these fish. Got 5 normal zebra danio.The betta looked worse today, and from everything I'm reading it looked like columnaris or cottonmouth, so I bought a 10 gallon quarantine tank, filled it with tank water, treated the 10 gallons and did a 25% water change in the main tank, put a aqueous quiet flow 10 and a 10 gallon heater. Two tablespoons of aquarium salt went in as I added the water. Ceramic cups for hiding places. Put him in at the end, seemed to have a bit of trouble with the flow of the quarantine tank. Checked him and he died. I'm actually pretty upset about it... The neon blue dwarf gourami is my next worry: he seems okay right now but I'm seeing tinges of white on his lip and I'm worried he's going to die as well.    http://imgur.com/a/HTWkg Thoughts? I'm kind of reeling/upset about seemly messing this up but I feel like I'm doing what I am supposed to, it just seems like a lot is going wrong all at once... SapientCorvid fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Jun 16, 2015 |
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Jun 16, 2015 23:49
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Looks like my work tank is going to be coming home. They decided that I don't need to be in my room at the daycare anymore and I don't trust anyone else around my tank after the last time I got "help" with it. What's the easiest way to bring a 10 gallon tank home? I have giant Sterilite storage totes is it okay to syphon the water down into that for the trip?
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Jun 17, 2015 00:07
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McStephenson posted:Thoughts? I'm kind of reeling/upset about seemly messing this up but I feel like I'm doing what I am supposed to, it just seems like a lot is going wrong all at once... Tell me more about your source water. Is it chlorinated? What is the pH out of the tap? What is the pH in the tank? (beneficial bacteria don't do so well below a pH of 6). Does your water have lots of dissolved minerals in it (hard, helps buffer pH), or does it have very little (soft, pH is vulnerable to large swings)? I agree with what others have said about small water changes. And Len, for that 10 gallon tank, I'd put the fish in a small tupperware container, siphon the water and discard it. Leave just enough to keep your substrate (soil, gravel, etc.) wet.
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Jun 17, 2015 01:23
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Fusillade posted:Tell me more about your source water. Is it chlorinated? What is the pH out of the tap? What is the pH in the tank? (beneficial bacteria don't do so well below a pH of 6). Does your water have lots of dissolved minerals in it (hard, helps buffer pH), or does it have very little (soft, pH is vulnerable to large swings)? Should I test my tapwater first? Or would just adding the stress coat and stuff work to make it fish safe? I've put a lot of time into those guppies and I really don't want them to die so I really want to make sure that I do this right. And for the betta I already have everything I need ordered and in the mail. He's going to have to accept the incandescent bulb it came with for now because that on top of everything else I had to order is just a little more than I have right now. I did end up getting that blasting sand though. Gonna steal that idea for sure. And once the guppies get all settled in from the move I plan to replace my gravel with sand.
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Jun 17, 2015 01:26
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Fusillade posted:Tell me more about your source water. Is it chlorinated? What is the pH out of the tap? What is the pH in the tank? (beneficial bacteria don't do so well below a pH of 6). Does your water have lots of dissolved minerals in it (hard, helps buffer pH), or does it have very little (soft, pH is vulnerable to large swings)? Houston, Tx. it is chlorinated and it does have chloramines (hence using a water conditioner). pH range is 7.25-7.5 or so. Hardness is 229-308 mG/L. As it comes out of the tap, the pH is 7.8. The pH test using tank water I did yielded about the same, 7.8, whiiiiich is a bit troubling to me. did a 25% water change twice today (once to try to control the ammonia i thought i might have, and once to set up a quarantine tank that sadly didn't work for the betta. )What does this tell me for a 40 gallon tank with 4 cory cats, 6 zebra danio and one neon blue dwarf gourami? SapientCorvid fucked around with this message at 02:59 on Jun 17, 2015 |
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Jun 17, 2015 02:02
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McStephenson posted:Thoughts? I'm kind of reeling/upset about seemly messing this up but I feel like I'm doing what I am supposed to, it just seems like a lot is going wrong all at once... I've seen lesions like that on my beacon tetras after they arrived in the post and they slowly healed over time. I had some advice that it was most likely lost skin from fighting or friction from them swimming into the sides of the bag during transit. It doesn't look super fluffy in your pics so I would just watch it for now and see if it gets bigger or if it heals on its own. If it is columnaris there are a few strains of the disease, one that kills very quickly and doesn't leave many survivors ie everything dead within a day or two (so you wouldn't have to wait long to find out if that's what you have), or the other strain which gradually kills affected fish over a few weeks without leaving many symptoms. The classic white fluff of external infections isn't the only way it can manifest. I'm sorry to hear the betta died, since it happened fairly quickly it does suggest he was sicker than he looked or something else was going on. Seeing your gourami pictures reminded me about something that I didn't think of earlier. Gouramis can carry iridovirus and it's possible that they can pass it on to some other fish species, including bettas, and there is no cure. From a quick google I see one of the symptoms is an enlarged spleen in the fish which can mimic constipation. I wonder if that might be the culprit for your bettas death. He didn't necessarily catch it from the gourami either, it's just that gourami breeders often have outbreaks so it reminded me. It's nearly impossible to import gouramis here due to iridovirus concerns especially after a commercial fish breeder was illegally using cheap gouramis as feeder fish back in the 90s and had a massive die off of stock due to infection. The import laws got changed so that a big proportion of imported fish must be killed and tested before the batch is declared clean and safe - the only way to judge whether a fish is infected is to examine its internal organs. One of the hard parts about keeping fish is finding a supplier who keeps healthy fish. If you have got all these from the same place it could be that their supplier has bad breeding practices or poor water quality or various disease outbreaks which then lead to confusion and heartbreak and discouragement as you lose fish despite doing everything right. Then the next hardest part is not rushing to buy various fish medications and throwing them in trying to save doomed fish. Melafix and Pimafix are basically poisons and don't help at all. If you try to get antibiotics you need to know whether you're treating gram negative or gram positive bacteria, whether the bacteria is aerobic or anaerobic etc and then treating the tank can kill off your filter bacteria. You're better off soaking the food and getting the medicine inside the fish where it will work best, however by the time you realise a fish is sick most likely it has stopped eating and getting the dosage right is really hard. The antibiotics and various dip treatments you can get are often poisonous to the fish and can damage their livers if used excessively. You're better off starting out with healthy fish than struggling with the guesswork of trying to fix sick fish, although having said that I don't mean just flush your sick fish down the toilet, it's just a hard and confusing task trying to run a fish hospital. Quarantine is so important to keep your healthy fish safe. The last hardest thing is to slow down when buying new fish. I would suggest don't buy any more fish until everything settles down, wait and see what survives and whether anything is spreading between fish species. If you do have a massive outbreak and everything dies you might need to strip your tank down and give it a clean out with peroxide or bleach before using it again. But I'd be waiting a couple of months between fish purchases just to make sure everything is healthy and stable and then keeping new fish in quarantine long enough that you can see if they are healthy before adding them to your main tank, which means cycling and running two tanks while you're intending to buy more fish.
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Jun 17, 2015 02:50
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Not all water conditioners can handle chloramine so the other thing I can think of is to just make sure it specifically mentions chloramine on the label. 7.8 is a pretty decent pH and as long as it's stable and not swinging it should be fine. It is expected that pH drops a bit over time, especially if you have driftwood or not much buffering in the water, you probably want to keep your pH changes within about 0.2 and doing small water changes rather than infrequent big ones does help with that.
Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Jun 17, 2015 |
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Jun 17, 2015 02:52
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Stoca Zola posted:One of the hard parts about keeping fish is finding a supplier who keeps healthy fish. If you have got all these from the same place it could be that their supplier has bad breeding practices or poor water quality or various disease outbreaks which then lead to confusion and heartbreak and discouragement as you lose fish despite doing everything right. From source to store, fish potentially go through so many stages where things can go wrong from severely inbred populations to all sorts of shipping problems to infected supplier tanks to store owners who keep buying from the supplier with the infected tanks because they're so set in their habits and afraid of changing anything that they'd rather eat the loss rather than try other sources with good reputations and this is turning into a rant, cutting it off now. When it comes to fish, poo poo just happens sometimes. Even if you personally have water quality and diseases on lockdown, it's hard to tell what the human element is up to on every step of the way to your tank.
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Jun 17, 2015 04:43
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I went to pick up some frozen fish food earlier this week and the local fish guys have moved to a smaller shop. Makes sense, they must have been losing money on rent for the huge place they were in before. I was interested to see how their stocks survived the move. They used to have a big cichlid display and a big salt water display, both were missing. But their regular stock displays were in bad shape. So much fin rot, dead fish lolling about in the sump where they'd been sucked through, one tank at least they'd labeled "not for sale, we have ich" but the only healthy looking stock were new arrivals who just hadn't gotten sick yet. A real shame since they had panda cories, which I've been wanting to get for a long time now, but I'm not spending $9 per fish for ones that are super likely to die. I do have a tank I could use to quarantine them in though..... I'm tempted but I know that place isn't healthy.
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Jun 17, 2015 04:56
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Stoca Zola posted:things, shops keeping bad fish The conditioner is from Aqueous and it does take out chloramines! I made sure of that, knowing that my water source uses them. I'm pretty disappointed about the fish, and as much as I like the store owner I guess i'm going to have to get fish from elsewhere. After rushing to set up a decent quarantine tank, buying a copper ich aid, new filter and doing all of this, I'm pretty sure I should just go to the good shop that costs more and vet/drill the staff there before adding any more fish. That being said, this has shocked me into just keeping the tank where it is, doing daily water changes and hoping for the best. I guess I should start doing things to the quarantine tank like adding gravel and all that...
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Jun 17, 2015 05:38
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Keep a sponge filter running in your main tank. Keep an extra heater and a 10g tank sitting empty. That way you can set up a cycled QT tank at the drop of a hat by just using water and the seeded sponge filter from the main tank. This also ensures that the temp and bacterial balance will be pretty close to the the main tank, putting less stress on a fish going into QT from main, and also making sure new fish get used to your water parameters easily.
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Jun 17, 2015 07:37
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I'd advise against adding gravel to a QT, you want to keep it as bare as possible. Desert Bus knows whats up, keep a sponge filter running in your sump or display so you can instantly have a hospital/QT ready to go. So I had quite the scare yesterday. I have all of my tanks plugged in through GFCI adapters, to keep things safe. Monday night at 9:30 I noticed that the 3 tanks in my office were powered off, and the fish in all 3 tanks were resting on the substrate and not looking so hot. I reset the GFCI, dropped in a few extra bubblers to get the water oxygenated asap, and everything seemed fine. Judging by the light timer they had only been without power for a few hours at most, so not too bad. Tuesday when I get home from work, I notice that the lights on my 55g community tank downstairs still haven't come on. Ran over to check on it, and sure enough the GFCI had tripped the same time as my upstairs tanks did. This tank had been sitting with no water movement at all for nearly 24 hours. I pop my head in that room to check the tanks before leaving for work every day, but since it was before the lights are set to come on, and the other tanks down there were obviously running, I didn't notice that the 55g was powered off. Amazingly, I didn't lose a single fish. That tank is full of dennison's barbs, boeseman's rainbows, zebra loaches and a few plecos. Just glad this didn't happen in winter, or they'd have likely all died. Enos Cabell fucked around with this message at 15:24 on Jun 17, 2015 |
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Jun 17, 2015 15:10
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Is something overloaded or shorting to keep it tripping like that? Hope no current is leaking in your tanks, it could be a worse result than no power. I'm looking at daisychaining a powerboard off another powerboard so that I can get enough outlets to run the heater in my newest tank that is currently still cycling. My cats drinking fountain usually runs from those outlets and I've had to turn it off pending getting more outlets, due to the age of this house some rooms only have a single outlet which drives me crazy and with my current set up I've run out. Anyway a good reminder that I should get a board with some kind of protection on it. Noticed some commotion in the main tank last night as every male guppy chased around and harassed a fat female, she looks about like a swimming marble and pretty sure I can see a set of eyes in her gestational dark spot so I've moved her into the breeder box to give her some peace. Not sure how long before she'll drop her babies and not sure if I'm going to keep them or not but at least she gets a rest from all the attention. The three males from the previous batch of fry have coloured up nicely but the single female is small and skinny looking, shy and not really thriving. Not sure if maybe she has worms, I might set up a treatment tank just in case.
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Jun 18, 2015 03:12
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I feel excited about starting my tanks completely over brand new. I ended up bleaching my turtle tank to get rid of drain fly larvae which in hindsight was not a good idea, but I got all the bleach out and confirmed that with chlorine test strips and my turtle's happily at home. Cleaned my betta's tank with regular chlorinated water and he's doing well too. We also have a slightly more than 10 gallon tub with crawfish and two kinds of just common creek fish. The turtle tank has a large decorative ReptoFilter with a bag of BioMax media inside it, the betta tank has an EcoBio-Stone, and the craw/fish tank has both an ammonia-reducing filter insert and a synthetic Moss Ball that's supposed to reduce nitrite and nitrates. I have a bottle each of Seachem Stability and Microbe-Lift Nite-Out II that I'm putting in all the tanks to jumpstart the nitrogen cycle, and then a bottle of Fluker's Eco Clean that I'm only putting in the turtle tank. And then I have Aqueon Ammonia Neutralizer and Seachem Prime (binds nitrite and nitrate) on hand to take care of any spikes that may occur. My aim is to boost the natural bacteria in the tank as much as possible and fighting ammonia/nitrite/nitrate until the cycle can handle it on its own. And my products say that they convert them to a nontoxic form that can still be handled by the bio cycle so it's not counterproductive. With all these chemical sidekicks behind me I feel like I'm much better prepared than before, and I'm looking forward to not losing any more animals.
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Jun 18, 2015 07:35
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So... I found my last addition to my tank. (when it is ready: i'm still in stabilize-and-be-safe mode) http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=830+2855+1065&pcatid=1065 Love the way these guys look! Does anyone keep Rasboras and if so, what do you think of them? Also, my zebra danio are showing some red behind their gills and while i'm still doing 20% water changes, I'm concerned for them. Do red gills take a while to heal/go away, given what has happened in my tank?
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Jun 19, 2015 06:25
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McStephenson posted:So... I found my last addition to my tank. (when it is ready: i'm still in stabilize-and-be-safe mode) Harlequin rasboras have been around in the hobby forever. They're great, super-peaceful kinda-schooling fish (i.e. they prefer groups like tetras or danios, but don't really run around together all that much). I love 'em; they're awesome, pretty fish that can be trusted with pretty much anything, and don't get too large for anything but the smallest tanks.
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Jun 19, 2015 15:50
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kaosAG posted:kinda-schooling fish (i.e. they prefer groups like tetras or danios, but don't really run around together all that much) The "correct" term is shoaling, they swim in loose groups. Schooling is what a large group of sardines does, where they swim in unison. Anyhoo, my favorite is the celestial pearl danio, very hardy, attractive fish that is easy to breed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoaling_and_schooling
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Jun 19, 2015 16:29
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I'm not sure myself of the difference between red healthy gills and red sick gills. It's where oxygen is exchanged into blood so I think they're supposed to be purplish or red, and fish have variable transparency of their body parts so it's hard to compare against pictures. What's the general demeanour of the fish? If they're flicking or darting, gasping or breathing too fast, or there is visible irregularity of colours on the gills then maybe something is wrong but maybe it's a normal appearance if the behaviour of the fish seems normal and happy. If you're using stresscoat type products it'd go into the gills as well as on the fish's skin which might be irritating them?
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Jun 19, 2015 16:40
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I've got the new betta tank all set up and warming up. The sand looks really nice thanks for the suggestion there guys. I'm still waiting for the air pump and sponge filter which should be here today. In the meantime I have the hang in filter running to get out the random floating bits of sand. Plants are going to have to wait a pay but in the end it's going to look really nice I hope.
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Jun 19, 2015 16:43
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Just counted seven new baby feral guppies! That's enough for me, I've put the mother back in the main tank and if she births any more they can be subject to natural selection. I remember having to feed the last lot of fry fairly often, but off the top of my head I don't think I need to feed them straight away? I can't remember. Well, it's probably too cold right now to hatch them any brine shrimp for food so I hope they like hikari first bites and ground up pellets. Looks like there are still plenty of vinegar eels too which they might find palatable. I'll drop some of those in first since they'll stay wiggling for a while yet.
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Jun 19, 2015 17:54
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