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Bonster posted:I am beginning to hate Coraline (encrusting) algae. I mean, it's pretty on the rocks, a nice bright purple, and it prevents bad algae growth, but then it gets on the glass. I have chronic pain, and that poo poo doesn't want to come off without a hard scraping with a (tank-safe!) steel mesh sheet. And I mean scrubbing. It's way better since I moves to a glass tank, since in the acrylic I couldn't scrub without potentially scraping the tank, and it's growing a lot slower now with two filters running, but... I really am beginning to hate Coraline algae (on the glass). I use an old credit card and it works weirdly well.
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Aug 29, 2022 00:21
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My pond is full of this algae stuff that's like hair. It's sometimes up to 2" long and it's just like all my pond and every rock has fine flowing hair. It's really hard to pull off the rocks, the goldfish try their best but they can't make much progress. I didn't have this stuff last year at all. Is it a concern at all?
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Aug 29, 2022 00:28
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Baronjutter posted:My pond is full of this algae stuff that's like hair. It's sometimes up to 2" long and it's just like all my pond and every rock has fine flowing hair. It's really hard to pull off the rocks, the goldfish try their best but they can't make much progress. I didn't have this stuff last year at all. Is it a concern at all? Do you put ferts in your pond or light it in any way? Any recent change in plants in that pond (probably if you have goldfish it's pointless)? You get algae like that if you have too much light or an imbalance in the nutrients available in the pond vs what the plants are using up.
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Aug 29, 2022 02:38
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VelociBacon posted:Do you put ferts in your pond or light it in any way? Any recent change in plants in that pond (probably if you have goldfish it's pointless)? You get algae like that if you have too much light or an imbalance in the nutrients available in the pond vs what the plants are using up. I don't know what ferts are but the pond gets a ton of sun lately, feels like bath water some days. I have a uv filter on my filter and every month put in some nasty smelling liquid which is some sort of probiotic for ponds to help keep it clear. The baby fish love it though, it's like a dense forest for them to hide and forage in. 
Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Aug 29, 2022 |
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Aug 29, 2022 17:18
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Baronjutter posted:I don't know what ferts are but the pond gets a ton of sun lately, feels like bath water some days. I have a uv filter on my filter and every month put in some nasty smelling liquid which is some sort of probiotic for ponds to help keep it clear. It shouldn't hurt anything. My patio tub gets that going on too. So long as you don't mind the look. And YAY more babies!
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Aug 29, 2022 17:27
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Yeah as long as the algae isn't like toxic or anything, I can get used to this gross green hair covering everything. I sort of hope it dies down once it gets cooler. It's funny watching the fish try to deal with it, they grab on and violently shake their heads back and forth trying to pull it off. Here's a picture my wife took to show her family a baby fish. The baby in this shot is about 1" long for scale. You can see how thick and long the green hair is. 
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Aug 29, 2022 17:32
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yer kids know to eat their veggies. Kinda jealous.
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Aug 29, 2022 17:33
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Your water looks pretty clear, hope my pond shapes up along those lines! I put my liner in my hole and started laying the rocks in this weekend and hopefully will get it done and running soon.
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Aug 29, 2022 17:55
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Stoca Zola posted:Your water looks pretty clear, hope my pond shapes up along those lines! I put my liner in my hole and started laying the rocks in this weekend and hopefully will get it done and running soon. If you want any pond tips let me know. I got an extremely respected local "pond guy" to consult and I'd have been hosed without him if I just followed what youtube said. I had a whole well researched plan and product list and he took one look, told me most of the products were garbage that just pays youtubers to promote and then told me what I actually needed to keep the pond healthy.
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Aug 29, 2022 17:57
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I am a new pond owner/keeper but your algae doesn't look outrageous to me. If the algae was 18" long I would be more concerned. The algae is just absorbing excess nutrients in the water. That looks like I would expect the shallow end of a natural pond to look in warm weather Ponds have a lot more (20x or more usually) volume so algae growing to it's mature size isn't really a problem like it would be in a 30 gallon aquarium as the fish can just swim around it
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Aug 29, 2022 18:06
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Baronjutter posted:If you want any pond tips let me know. I got an extremely respected local "pond guy" to consult and I'd have been hosed without him if I just followed what youtube said. I had a whole well researched plan and product list and he took one look, told me most of the products were garbage that just pays youtubers to promote and then told me what I actually needed to keep the pond healthy. Would love to see a sample list of products he recommended. I'm happy with my Amazon stuff so far but only been using it a couple of months
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Aug 29, 2022 18:07
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Is there any plant you can put in a pond with goldfish or is it a totally pointless activity?
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Aug 29, 2022 18:36
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Here's my thinking on ponds - I want to keep it simple and low maintenance, I also want it to be fairly reliable. With this in mind I got a kit so I wouldn't have to worry about leaky liners or sourcing decent hosing. I figure digging a hole in the ground means the sides can't collapse, and as well as that, the dirt I pull out can be used to build up the sides above "ground level" to prevent any random surface water from running into and polluting the pond. I was initially planning to DIY as much as possible but I found a big kit for about $500 cheaper than they usually are, and this meant all the parts neatly boxed for easy delivery to my regional location too. The liner is 8' x 11' but my pond area is a kidney shape that is a little smaller than that. To start with I felt like I was "missing out" if I didn't dig a 8 x 11 rectangular hole but I figured it would be nice to be able to get across to the rest of my yard. So here's before I finished getting it level and deep/wide enough: I thought I had a picture with the liner in but I don't. I'm doing a 3.5 tier gravel/rocks ecosystem style pond, with a skimmer with leaf basket and a big piece of filter mat mechanically filtering at one end, and a waterfall filter with 2 layers of finer filter mat and an assortment of every piece of large filtration media (collected in years of buying second hand aquariums) in a bag at the other end. I'm probably going to run a DIY "bog in a barrel" filter too, which I have most of the parts for already. I don't intend on doing any water treatment beyond dechlorination if I end up using tap water, essentially the pond is probably going to be a receptacle for all the fish tank water change water to get it started. I am a little bit conscious that it could become eutrophic but I've trialled a mini pond and so far it is doing well with a smaller bog filter, and a couple of pond plants, not much algae, no bad smells, so we'll see how it scales up. I have been sometimes watering my lemon tree with fishwater but I started my aquarium hobby as a nano-tank keeper looking at all the little guys with a microscope so I feel bad about all that "live" water drying out and dying under the tree so here's hoping those tiny guys will colonise the pond and help keep it healthy. I've got a few pond pots to plant up, the plan is that any plant that escapes the pot gets chucked - I've seen eelgrass get out of control in a pond before, which ended up trapping too much detritus, so I want to avoid that. I might try javafern out there, or crypts, or if I can find any viable scraps of h. polysperma that might like living in full sun. But I want to keep the pond mostly clear for decent water flow. I've got some bacopa monnieri that was originally aquatic but is now overgrowing a terrarium so I want that as a marginal or emersed plant. So hopefully that will help keep the nutrient levels down. Plus hornwort which floats, and some hydrilla type water weed, which I think is leggy enough that it shouldn't impede flow. Just thinking about other plants - my mum has a couple of water lily with her 11 gold fish, no problems. She has another water weed type of plant which I think is just generically called pond weed, it has broad leaves, and rhizomes and the goldfish spawn like crazy in it, and hide under it. It might be too tough or just taste bad because they do seem to leave it alone. My mum barely runs her filter and to my mind these pondweeds are keeping her fish alive. I wouldn't mind seeing how that stuff grows, whether it could be contained in a pot, etc. I'm planning on rosy barbs as the first inhabitants of my pond and they are about the same as goldfish in their plant munching, just with smaller mouths.
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Aug 29, 2022 19:47
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Stoca Zola posted:Here's my thinking on ponds - I want to keep it simple and low maintenance, I also want it to be fairly reliable. With this in mind I got a kit so I wouldn't have to worry about leaky liners or sourcing decent hosing. I figure digging a hole in the ground means the sides can't collapse, and as well as that, the dirt I pull out can be used to build up the sides above "ground level" to prevent any random surface water from running into and polluting the pond. I was initially planning to DIY as much as possible but I found a big kit for about $500 cheaper than they usually are, and this meant all the parts neatly boxed for easy delivery to my regional location too. The liner is 8' x 11' but my pond area is a kidney shape that is a little smaller than that. To start with I felt like I was "missing out" if I didn't dig a 8 x 11 rectangular hole but I figured it would be nice to be able to get across to the rest of my yard. So here's before I finished getting it level and deep/wide enough: H. poly is illegal to sell/mail in the USA, but I think you're international? If in the USA message me about definitely NOT sending you cuttings of H. poly var. Sunset.
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Aug 29, 2022 20:11
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That’s the exact one I have but I don’t think it would survive shipping from AU. I can see why it would be banned, it is very very hardy, almost unkillable via neglect and I’ve seen a floating half leaf sprouting roots. I’m surprised it’s not banned here too now that I think about it. (There are sad uncared for patches of h. poly in all my tanks that don’t have herbivores in)
Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Aug 29, 2022 |
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Aug 29, 2022 20:41
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I think a big problem is that it WILL survive shipping. It's on the US Federal Noxious Weed Registry. What I have is from a purchase over a decade and a half ago, pre-ban, and it fills my tank if I glance away for half a second.
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Aug 29, 2022 20:46
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I put water lettuce + water hyacinth in my 450 gallon (1700 liter?) pond/outdoor tank while it cycled, that poo poo ate all the excess nutrients right up, my If you don't have a major mosquito problem, to jump start the tank cycling process, I'd suggest setting a bowl/bucket outside near your pond area, throw a handful (or two!) of local grass, tree leaves, dirt, rocks plus a gallon or two of water in there, let it naturally collect/grow the local bacteria/algae/microbes. A day or two after you fill your pond (when the chlorine goes away), pour your "fermented" bucket of pond slop into your nice clean pond to inoculate it. The local dirt, rocks, leaves etc are going to fall into the pond anyways, might as well let the critters growing on that stuff establish themselves and duke it out now Hadlock fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Aug 29, 2022 |
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Aug 29, 2022 21:11
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is this H.poly y'all talking about hydrilla? Ah thanks db B33rChiller fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Aug 30, 2022 |
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Aug 29, 2022 23:02
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B33rChiller posted:is this H.poly y'all talking about hydrilla? No. Hygrophilia polysperma
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Aug 30, 2022 00:26
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Does anyone have experience growing plankton? I'm struggling to keep isochrysis galbana alive and I don't want to keep buying cultures just to kill them.
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Aug 30, 2022 04:45
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So I never realized how smart fish are. Like I knew they could learn things, but they really surprised me. We just have a 10 gallon tank. It's got 7 tetras and a betta. I've been trying to train them that "light comes on=food". So I flip on the tank light and throw in some betta nugs, then when he eats one I throw in the bug bites fish flakes. Then a bit later I'll flip the light off. My kids "help" me sometimes, but the aquarium is on a center island between the kitchen and dining room and I always stand on the same side and they watch from the other side. It seemed to be working. I'd flip the light on, and they'd go over to the hole where I drop the food. Lots of activity. Everyone's happy. Last night my son stood where I usually stand, because he wanted to do it all. So I stood off to the side of the tank. ALL THE FISH CAME TO THE CORNER I WAS STANDING AT! even when he dropped the food in it took them a minute to realize it. So "my face=food" Tldr: I tried training my fish to associate the aquarium light with food, but I only succeeded in making them want to eat my face.
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Aug 30, 2022 17:28
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My pond fish can spot me about 30' away on my deck and all start swarming. When they see me coming down the stairs they go nuts and start splashing and jumping. They also actually seem to like to play. My wife likes to try to "pet" them, ie chase them with her hand. They run away, but instantly loop back to be chased again. If she instead makes her hand run away from them, they'll chase after her. They seem to actually be having fun? Anyways, POND TIPS: -Ponds with fish should be at LEAST 3' deep and with solid structures to hide in, anything less is setting up a fish buffet for predators or will force a big ugly net. Plants and other "soft cover" are also very good for them. -Don't skimp on your filter, it's going to make or break your water clarity and be your biggest source of upkeep. I got an oase pressure filter one size bigger than recommended and my pond looks like tap water and I have to clean it less often. These pressure filters are so easy to maintain, you just attach a hose to the cleanout outlet, flip a toggle, and pump it out with a big handle on the top. No mess, no taking anything apart, you just wring it out until the water coming out isn't gunky anymore. Great for your garden. -If you have a creek/waterfall situation, have a bypass. As in have a T junction after your filter with one pipe going to the water feature and one pipe going direct to your pond and a valve on each. This lets you adjust the flow of your waterfall/creek to exactly how you want it, and lets you totally turn it off while still allowing the system to cycle. Such a thing was essential for diagnosing a leak I had and figuring out it was in my waterfall. -Don't cheap out on a pump, it's better to spend $300 on a good energy efficient pump that will last forever than spend $100 on some crap that's going to need a fussy and stressful replacement a few years in. -Always have excess liner along your edge, folded in. Terrain shifts and it's so handy to be able to pull a little extra liner up here and there. This goes double for any sort of waterfall area that you've built up yourself. -Have a float switch for your pump!! This will save your pump from burning out running dry. I thought it was a silly paranoid thing because why would my pond ever go down so low? Well, it did a couple times due to minor leaks and a bunch of leaves forming a dam in the skimmer box. The float switch automatically turns the pump off if the water level goes too low and can save you hundreds for just a tiny bit of extra install work. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 17:50 on Aug 30, 2022 |
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Aug 30, 2022 17:36
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My German Ram fish has turned black, has white poop and is hiding a lot. Should I take him to the hospital tub and medicate him or let him live without meds?
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Aug 31, 2022 00:36
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Aerofallosov posted:My German Ram fish has turned black, has white poop and is hiding a lot. Should I take him to the hospital tub and medicate him or let him live without meds? What are the tank parameters? As for fish smartness, I once trained red-bellied piranha where to go in their tank when I needed to do maintenance; several taps along one rock on one side, and they'd move to the other side. They'd stay there until I tapped the other side, because I'd only clean one at a time, and then they'd swim all over the tank. Also had a stingray trained that when I'd walk by, she could swim up and spit water out of the tank to get my attention. She never wanted pets, only treats. My cichlids see me and go wild trying to get me to feed them.
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Aug 31, 2022 02:48
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I kill my breeding rack pump when I feed them, and that gets everyone going.
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Aug 31, 2022 02:54
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I was just surprised that my face triggered their FOOD reflex, but my son's didn't.
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Aug 31, 2022 03:00
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They can see well enough to know the difference, my mums goldfish used to hide from me and come out for her, and it took many episodes of me looking after them while my parents were away before they started accepting me. I thought I’d seen a study on it, and while I was looking for that one I saw a story about one where they showed fish look at and recognise each other’s faces. I’ve also seen somewhere that they choose “friends” that are their preferred fish to hang around with. In trying to avoid anthropomorphism sometimes it goes too far and fails to recognise real animal ability and behaviour I think.
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Aug 31, 2022 04:31
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 My son grabbed this plant from a local pond, rinsed it and put it in the aquarium. Does anyone know what it is and if it's safe or if it'll take over my aquarium? Also, I don't know if it's related but we started getting algae on the glass shortly after that was put in. Is it something I need to worry about or will it kind of just disappear after a bit? You can kind of see the algae in the picture, but it's hard to get a picture since it's just dots on a glass. Looks kind of like dirty water marks. The shrimp seem to be eating it. The plant not the algae. Maybe the algae off the plant but they ate the plant.
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Sep 1, 2022 18:33
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You're probably going to have a ton of snails now.
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Sep 1, 2022 19:17
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Stoca Zola posted:They can see well enough to know the difference, my mums goldfish used to hide from me and come out for her, and it took many episodes of me looking after them while my parents were away before they started accepting me. I thought I’d seen a study on it, and while I was looking for that one I saw a story about one where they showed fish look at and recognise each other’s faces. I’ve also seen somewhere that they choose “friends” that are their preferred fish to hang around with. In trying to avoid anthropomorphism sometimes it goes too far and fails to recognise real animal ability and behaviour I think. I know I’ve plugged it before but the book Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are was fantastic and among other things changed my mind about anthropomorphism. E: I’ll expound more later, flight just got called. Bulky Bartokomous fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Sep 1, 2022 |
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Sep 1, 2022 19:22
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Looks like guppy grass or najas grass to me, a native American and often grown for shrimp and fry to hide in. If it does well, trim and replant the new green growth and throw out any straggly bits. Not sure what it's requirements are but it might be sad without sunlight.
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Sep 1, 2022 19:32
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Stoca Zola posted:Looks like guppy grass or najas grass to me, a native American and often grown for shrimp and fry to hide in. If it does well, trim and replant the new green growth and throw out any straggly bits. Not sure what it's requirements are but it might be sad without sunlight. It's been a week and seems greener My tank gets a lot of indirect light from Windows. It's by a sliding glass door that goes into a sunroom and a dining room window on the other side. No direct sunlight, and I only turn the aquarium light on to feed them. The pond we got it from it was all over. It didn't seem to root but could. It slowed us way down kayaking through it. VelociBacon posted:You're probably going to have a ton of snails now. I already have a ton of snails. I apparently must have missed one of the clutches, because after I fished out like 20 a week later there's a bunch of new babies roaming around.
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Sep 1, 2022 19:44
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Cross posting from the yobB33rChiller posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP7JgvqdYDs
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Sep 4, 2022 00:36
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Not sure what is going on with Event Horizon, my black serpent star. He's developed white lesions at the base of his legs, near his body; nitrates were a bit high a week ago, like 25ppm, so I have been doing water changes (20-25%) every 2-3 days, dropping it down. The goby seems fine, the other brittle star is active and eating, the feather worms seem fine. Got some white buildup on the feather worm rock but online images indicate it might be sponges?
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Sep 4, 2022 03:48
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Pineapple sponges?
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Sep 4, 2022 04:25
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Possible but they look less like pineapple and more like blobs. Update on Event Horizon: today I saw two of those loving hydroid jellies chilling on his arms, where the lesions are. Oh gently caress that poo poo! I grabbed him out (kept him in water in a measuring cup while I set up a HOB fry holder) and set him up outside the tank. Also noticed he had lost about an inch of leg at the tip, so that came out too. Yes, those little jelly looking creatures are hydroid jellies. The only place they could have come from was the only new live rock I got back in June? Or the reef stew live food mix I got back in July to get live copepods. I see some pods but not many, so I suspect the jellies have been eating them. Oddly enough I have not seen any damage to the other brittle star (I think there were two others but they look the same, unlike Event who is a black serpent star, but they hide more while Event is out and around in the tank more) or the goby. Now hopefully Event can chill in his fry box and regrow and heal. And I can start turkey baster-sucking these fuckers out more. Cowslips Warren fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Sep 4, 2022 |
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Sep 4, 2022 16:08
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Just checked out a pic of a black serpent star, Event Horizon is a fantastic name  . I hope he gets better. I guess like anything, good nutrition is important for healing and not having to compete for dinner has to help.
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Sep 4, 2022 17:57
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I put some christmas moss in the pond, seems to be thriving. Came super densely packed, glued it down to some bricks and a week later seems to be absolutely thriving. I ordered some java moss and it came thinly spread on some 5x5 stainless mesh and just kind of blew away over the course of two weeks, although it looks like it's rehomed a lot of itself on some other crap in another corner of the pond Mildly concerned java moss + christmas moss will not survive the winter, I don't think it gets into the 30s for more than a couple days a month but the winters here it can stay in the mid 40s for weeks Was hoping the christmas moss vendor sold willow moss, which I guess is really popular in the UK as it's cold hardy, but they don't. Any suggestions for a willow moss vendor on the US east coast? I wanted to put some in now, so it can establish ahead of the fall
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Sep 6, 2022 18:28
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 This is Edit: my mystery snails have rapidly grown, they're like golf ballI sized, guess with a 7.0 I can safely add another cuttlefish bone without worrying about skyrocketing the ph Hadlock fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Sep 7, 2022 |
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Sep 7, 2022 00:52
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That looks fine. With very few exceptions in this hobby stability > a specific pH.
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Sep 7, 2022 01:34
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