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Hadlock posted:So been panicking about moving the fish cross country and then "instant cycling" a tank to dump them in without killing them all. This is my current plan: Forgive me if this is stupid and it probably is but I had no idea I could get pre seeded media from angels plus. I used it to start the tank I have now with no problems. Maybe that's useful? Being able to buy a bunch of filter media ready to go? I dunno I hope it helps.
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Apr 21, 2023 23:34
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poo poo need to add the reasonention it is that I think the fritz zyme poo poo is a scam, didn't work for me trying to fishless cycle. Did Jack all
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Apr 21, 2023 23:35
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If you run co2, gotta replace those o-rings every now and then…
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Apr 21, 2023 23:55
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Hadlock posted:So been panicking about moving the fish cross country and then "instant cycling" a tank to dump them in without killing them all. This is my current plan: I've never flown when moving aquariums but this sounds reasonable. I would definitely bring extra bags and dechlorinator tablets (so you don't have to deal with liquids-on-airplanes rules) as backup. Make sure to not feed your fish for a few days ahead of the move so they're low on poop. Be careful with the bioballs if they've accumulated any detritus/mulm as you don't want to disturb anything that could be an ammonia/nitrite/nitrate bomb. That being said, a quick rinse in aquarium or dechlor'd water should remove any loose stuff and the bioballs are 100% worth taking.
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Apr 22, 2023 00:09
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So the 10 gallon I bought developed a crack. Not leaking yet though got the betta in a bucket while I get a new tank.
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Apr 22, 2023 00:19
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i must compose posted:Forgive me if this is stupid and it probably is but I had no idea I could get pre seeded media from angels plus. I used it to start the tank I have now with no problems. Maybe that's useful? Being able to buy a bunch of filter media ready to go? I dunno I hope it helps. Yeah I called two local aquariums and I told them my idea one said "maybe?" calling them was a mistake they're a lot closer to my house but they're a saltwater place. The other guy was "just grab some bio balls and throw those in your new filter you'll be good to go" and practically hung up on me A pretty wide selection of YouTube videos seem to suggest you can instant cycle a tank so long as you have sufficient stuff and the plan is to pack everything in the tank except the bricks so thinking it should be fine
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Apr 22, 2023 00:25
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i must compose posted:poo poo need to add the reasonention it is that I think the fritz zyme poo poo is a scam, didn't work for me trying to fishless cycle. Did Jack all I saw a couple guys online suggest it, seemed to be the go to, several of them told stories about using it for tanks at shows but I have no idea if they're lying or not My guess is because it's live bacteria, those bottles probably have a short shelf life measured in months. Or if they're stored outside in the sun it'll nuke most if not all the bacteria since tropical aquariums rarely get above 85F for more than an hour or two
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Apr 22, 2023 00:29
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Hadlock posted:I saw a couple guys online suggest it, seemed to be the go to, several of them told stories about using it for tanks at shows but I have no idea if they're lying or not Boom goes the dynamite. The place I bought mine from is an ancient place next to a fashion bug of some such strip mall poo poo
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Apr 22, 2023 01:29
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Hi hi, so Ive been running a couple tanks for years now and everythings been doing well so I mostly just stop by the local fish shop to see whats new, but I went in the other day and they had rope fish, which id never seen before but they looked adorable and a quick google search suggested they were relatively hardy and easy to keep so I said why not and bought two. I had an extra 55g tank , and keep an extra bucket filter running on my big planted tank for just such occasions where I need to cycle a new tank quickly, so I tossed on the auxiliary filter and grabbed a few plants and a big chunk of drift wood from existing tanks and set it up. So far the tank is extremely barren , I had a fake cave I put in there for them to get some shelter and have a bunch of plants on order, but they wont arrive till monday or tuesday. The plan is to do a sandy substrate (as I heard thats their natural habitat and gravel can irritate their bellies) heavily planted aquarium. I am thinking the plants will be the main draw with the ropefish making occasional appearances but I was toying with the idea of some small schooling fish. Im not sure how much I can get away with in a 55 gallon, since if I go too small the ropefish will eat them. Im also curious, Ive never fed live blood worm before, Ive used frozen but I was surprised when I asked for bloodworms they had a bucket of live ones... I googled it and apparently theyre either salt water worms that are gonna die in my freshwater tank or fly larva that grow into flys in like 2 weeks, hows that work if I dont manage to feed them all before they grow into their new stage of life ? am I just going to open my fridge one day and get swarmed by flies ? I imagine not since theyre kept cold in the fridge but I clearly do not know. So those are my questions, 1. Should I get some schooling fish to make it more interesting and if so which? 2. Aside from being master escape artists and needing a tight fitting lid, is there anything I should know as a first time ropefish keeper? 3. Live bloodworms, how do they work?! Ill put pictures once the plants arrive in a few days
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Apr 22, 2023 01:35
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Hi posted:Hi hi, Ropefish are fun and awesome and suicidal so make sure your lid is perfect. Also, keep the water level about an inch or so from the lid. Live blood worms are okay, but a varied diet is better. if you can get them into Repashy gel food, or BugBitez pellets (my axolotls loving went apeshit on those, and didn't need any acclimation to them), that's good. As for dither fish, I'd think something like zebra danios would be good, if not guppies for a naturally reproducing live food source.
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Apr 22, 2023 02:48
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Tenchrono posted:I was feeding the fish this morning and saw something small and tiny shoot out from the pygmy cory lair. It took me a few minutes of looking to try and find it, but I think my corys spawned! It was the tiniest little thing that had black vertical stripes on it. Hopefully there are more and they make it, the only other tank mates are some cardinal tetras, gold tetras, and some rasboras. That is deffo a fry. They are extremely hard to see and good at hiding. I honestly didn't even see any fry until a few weeks after they started spawning and I could tell it wasn't a newborn so they managed to hide until they were at least a few weeks old. I wish I had advice on getting them to adulthood but I honestly don't know what I'm doing right. Maybe the fact I grind all my food in the mortar before I put it in.
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Apr 22, 2023 04:30
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Cowslips Warren posted:Ropefish are fun and awesome and suicidal so make sure your lid is perfect. Also, keep the water level about an inch or so from the lid. Which bugbites are you feeding? I have a large cichlid tank so I have big bags of cichlid bugbites on hand already but I know they make different kinds. Also with the live blood worms, is there a reason to not just dump the whole container in the tank? Im not sure if its because theyre new and still acclimating or because theyre largely nocturnal but they dont have much of a reaction to the worms being dropped in, they just slowly pick them off as they meander by so I have no idea whats "enough" food since I cant really use the two minute rule. Conversely I assume theres a reason they are kept in the fridge, would the warm tank water expediate the growth process or what, surely theres a reason you keep them in the fridge ?
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Apr 22, 2023 13:31
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Hi posted:Which bugbites are you feeding? I have a large cichlid tank so I have big bags of cichlid bugbites on hand already but I know they make different kinds. The cichlid kind should work, I just used the bottom feeder. Not sure about the black/blood worms, mine were always eaten fast by various fish when they poked their heads up.
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Apr 22, 2023 14:31
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I had also read that the ropefish will eat snails if given the opportunity. As someone with multiple planted tanks I have no shortage of self replicating snails, will they actually hunt and eat the live snails ? they dont seem like they would have the bite strength to crack a shell, nor do they seem to have a narrow enough mouth to eat the snail while in the shell. But if I could toss a net full of snails from other tanks in once in a while that would be great.
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Apr 22, 2023 15:05
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A sudden discovery prompts me to do a quick show and tell: My 20-long as of February. The thing had turned into pea soup despite my best efforts, so I completely tore it down, replaced the fluval stratum with gravel, rescaped everything, and tried to salvage as many of the surviving plants as I could. It was a bit of a mess, even the duckweed was dead, as was the betta that had made it its home for a couple years.  The tank as of March. Threw in some almond leaves and such for some added tannins, introduced some blue neocaridinia shrimp and some ramshorn snails. It originally started with a snail infestation, but the addition of assassin snails had exterminated them, which in hindsight may have been shortsighted on my part. The thing might not have been so algae-riddled if it had a proper detrivore cleanup crew. Thankfully the assassin snails had inbred themselves into extinction, so new snails could be introduced.  The tank as of today. The ember tetras I added a couple weeks ago have gotten over the "huddle and flee any time someone approaches us" stage, as they now firmly associate me with food and shamelessly beg whenever I get close. As you can see, the plants have gone nuts, especially the red stuff in front I forgot exactly what it was. Root tabs do a body good.  Skrimp enjoying an algae wafer before the snails swarm it. And the discovery that prompted me to go on an image posting spree...  A shrimplet! The little buggers must have bred and I didn't even notice. And the little guy isn't a total newborn, it must have gone through a molt or two! I've created life!
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Apr 23, 2023 02:16
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My two Otos in the 10G just decided to stop fleeing when they see me this week. Not begging, but I can actually watch them now! Been a few months since putting them in. Everything in the 75G is 100% begging as I walk past though. The shiners, dace, stonerollers, and SAEs form a ball that follows me past. The darters make a line on the bottom and calmly watch.
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Apr 23, 2023 02:29
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Asterite34 posted:
I too was like you at the beginning of the year. That wore off in two months when the first batch of babies started getting berried. Then again, you have fish that are big enough to eat the shrimplets while I have pygmy corydoras that need their food to be ground, their mouths are that small. As you can tell by my tone, I still haven't gotten around to solving my shrimp overpopulation problem.
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Apr 23, 2023 02:44
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Okay so I haven't given up on the hex tank, I've been filling it and draining it periodically but I see there are bubbles at the surface making me think maybe there's soap or something in it. I feel like I would've noticed when I cleaned it with a hose and vinegar but maybe not. For reference here's whats in it: A shitload of glofish gravel A large piece of driftwood Two anubias A java fern Jungle val That's it. E: should mention bubbles are there only when water is agitated, like with the filter. They take a little longer to pop than normal and they begin to create a small foam around the edges overnight.
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Apr 24, 2023 00:15
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After this most recent water change there's almost no bubbles; wiped interior down well too but I'm afraid to put anything living in it. Is it animal abuse to use a snail as a canary in the coal mine once it's cycled again?
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Apr 24, 2023 01:30
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i must compose posted:After this most recent water change there's almost no bubbles; wiped interior down well too but I'm afraid to put anything living in it. Is it animal abuse to use a snail as a canary in the coal mine once it's cycled again? Yes. Is this the tank that could have mildew-resistant caulking poisoning the water? It's going to keep being a problem if so.
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Apr 24, 2023 01:32
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Strip it bare, and sanitize with liquid oxygen. Then if there's anything left amongst ashes, rebuild with known good parts.
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Apr 24, 2023 02:58
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I don't think that's the problem because each of the sides looked to have original caulking. Would it cause the bubbles? What should I look for to identify if that's the problem?
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Apr 24, 2023 05:39
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I think "kills vertebrate and invertebrate life"is a pretty good diagnostic measure for there being something very wrong. If the caulk itself isn't fungicidal, the tank could have been treated with copper, which apparently can leach out of the silicone and back into the tank. To be scientific about it, you need to check whether your source water foams a bit even when it's not in the hexed tank, if you think the foaming is the indicator of problems. You might be able to get a test kit for copper or get your LFS to test for copper for you. You might be able to find more information about treatments that are ongoing in your water supply, many treatments are safe for human consumption and not safe for fish inhabitation. You might be able to run activated carbon in your filter (regularly replaced) to help suck unknown nasties out of the water. I can't recall if you have other tanks which are fine, I'm assuming this is a solo tank which makes it harder to narrow down the source of the issue. It might NOT be the tank, ie a house water softener might be messing up the water chemistry.
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Apr 24, 2023 10:52
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Stoca Zola posted:I think "kills vertebrate and invertebrate life"is a pretty good diagnostic measure for there being something very wrong. If the caulk itself isn't fungicidal, the tank could have been treated with copper, which apparently can leach out of the silicone and back into the tank. No I've got another 38 gallon tank going for about six months with no problems so I'm assuming it's not something about the water supply. Maybe I'll have them test for copper. Oh and the water from the tap does NOT foam.
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Apr 24, 2023 13:07
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I got some fish! Four little tetras. I brought a water sample in to PetSmart and they tested it then upsold me on some starter bacteria which, fine, it was only $8. The little guys mostly huddled in the bottom the first day and then yesterday were more active and darting around. Hopefully that means they were exploring their new area and not trying to escape a hostile environment. But one of them was dead this morning.  The other three all seemed fine and thinking back yesterday afternoon I did notice that three of them were sticking together pretty much constantly but one was going off on its own more and more. I'm "hoping" this means that I just got one that was at the end of its life but I'm still worried what I'll find when I get home this afternoon.
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Apr 24, 2023 14:57
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i added my first coral frags to my tank the other day, a mushroom and a kenya tree. the mushroom looks ok but the Kenya tree looks like poo poo. I've read that they are basically impossible to kill, super hardy and also like to shed but this had to be dead right? The polyps all fell off and its shriveled and white.
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Apr 24, 2023 21:45
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I thought everything was fine since I didn't find anymore dead ones for a few days but today I found 3. One was clearly a bad molt. The others got too yucky for me to tell. Maybe this is just how it's going to be with hundreds of shrimp but I would really like to get my nitrates down. I'm going to cut back on the feeding a bit and I ordered some purigen. I could do a big-rear end water change but that is likely to make things worse because the thing that shrimp hate the most is changes in water parameters, even if I do drip it in. Look at me, one day complaining about the overpopulation, the next mourning a few dead shrimp.
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Apr 24, 2023 22:27
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After my last guppy had that red mark on it, it died. Now, maybe 2 weeks later, 2 of the 3 remaining guppies have fin rot. I’m going to get some melafix tomorrow, but if my parameters are really 0 across the board (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate), then what should I be doing differently? I admittedly only do a 40% water change once every 3-4 weeks, so I should get better at that I think.
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Apr 25, 2023 00:30
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nwin posted:After my last guppy had that red mark on it, it died. Skip melafix. Nitrate should not be 0 unless you have a super planted tank. I'd do at least 20-30% water changes every few days for now.
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Apr 25, 2023 01:51
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nwin posted:After my last guppy had that red mark on it, it died. Are you in the US? On the fish meds side of things Fritz Mardel Maracyn is an actual antibiotic and gonna do a lot more for you than Melafix. Aquarium Solutions Ich - X is also very effective and can be safely paired with Maracyn.
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Apr 25, 2023 02:04
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Warbadger posted:Are you in the US? On the fish meds side of things Fritz Mardel Maracyn is an actual antibiotic and gonna do a lot more for you than Melafix. Aquarium Solutions Ich - X is also very effective and can be safely paired with Maracyn. Yea to the US but no good LFS around me (Percy and petsmart only).
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Apr 25, 2023 02:28
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Moon Slayer posted:I got some fish! Four little tetras. I brought a water sample in to PetSmart and they tested it then upsold me on some starter bacteria which, fine, it was only $8. I got some harlequin rasboras from petsmart and I had a loss everyday until I tossed in a trio of meds: specifically, Maracyn, ParaCleanse, and Ich-X. Not sure exactly what was doing them in, but I suspect parasites.
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Apr 25, 2023 02:54
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nwin posted:Yea to the US but no good LFS around me (Percy and petsmart only). Order them online. Not too expensive and great to keep on hand for situations like that. Note that Maracyn Oxy is different and not what you want.
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Apr 25, 2023 02:57
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Update: all three fish looked perfectly fine this morning. I couldn't find Dr. Snailbert yesterday afternoon which was a little concerning but I assumed he'd burrowed under something. Sure enough, this morning he had ascended to the top of that mountain-like decoration I have and was waving his antenna around in triumph.
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Apr 25, 2023 14:21
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I think I have done a mistake. I had a bit of cyanobacteria tangling the moss in one of my smaller tanks so I dosed it with chemiclean (which according to the internet is just erythromycin). Tank looks great, treatment worked. But the water I removed before doing the treatment carried cyano to my waste water storage pond and now I have a bright green scum filled pond which I really don't want to have to dose. It's doing that thing where it floats on the surface like a powdery layer rather than being leathery sheets on surfaces underwater. The cats got used to drinking that water so I need to get rid of it somehow before they poison themselves. I was thinking of flooding the pond (its above ground) so that the scum layer overflows out, but then the cyano spores might end up in my real pond and foul that up?? I don't know how to easily get rid of the cyano without making everything worse.
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Apr 25, 2023 19:26
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Stoca Zola posted:I think I have done a mistake. I had a bit of cyanobacteria tangling the moss in one of my smaller tanks so I dosed it with chemiclean (which according to the internet is just erythromycin). Tank looks great, treatment worked. But the water I removed before doing the treatment carried cyano to my waste water storage pond and now I have a bright green scum filled pond which I really don't want to have to dose. It's doing that thing where it floats on the surface like a powdery layer rather than being leathery sheets on surfaces underwater. The cats got used to drinking that water so I need to get rid of it somehow before they poison themselves. I was thinking of flooding the pond (its above ground) so that the scum layer overflows out, but then the cyano spores might end up in my real pond and foul that up?? I don't know how to easily get rid of the cyano without making everything worse. Mechanical separation isn't gonna work anyways, so I definitely wouldn't try flooding it (there's gonna be plenty of spores in the water left behind to get things started again). From what I've read you're looking at chemical treatment to eradicate it or drying up the pond for a while. It's not an easy thing to eradicate.
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Apr 25, 2023 20:33
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Stoca Zola posted:. The cats got used to drinking that water so I need to get rid of it somehow before they poison themselves. I was thinking of flooding the pond (its above ground) so that the scum layer overflows out, but then the cyano spores might end up in my real pond and foul that up?? I don't know how to easily get rid of the cyano without making everything worse. Welp, sorry what? I've got a leathery mat of what looks like cyan colored stuff in my pond, what's wrong with it?
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Apr 25, 2023 20:38
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Stoca Zola posted:I think I have done a mistake. I had a bit of cyanobacteria tangling the moss in one of my smaller tanks so I dosed it with chemiclean (which according to the internet is just erythromycin). Tank looks great, treatment worked. But the water I removed before doing the treatment carried cyano to my waste water storage pond and now I have a bright green scum filled pond which I really don't want to have to dose. It's doing that thing where it floats on the surface like a powdery layer rather than being leathery sheets on surfaces underwater. The cats got used to drinking that water so I need to get rid of it somehow before they poison themselves. I was thinking of flooding the pond (its above ground) so that the scum layer overflows out, but then the cyano spores might end up in my real pond and foul that up?? I don't know how to easily get rid of the cyano without making everything worse. Hundreds and hundreds of ping pong balls to float on the surface and deprive the buggers of light? It's what they do in the Los Angeles Reservoir to cut down on evaporation and algae growth, millions of "shader balls"
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Apr 25, 2023 20:42
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When should I do my first water change? Here's the timeline as of today: Plants - 1 week Snail - 5 days Fish - 3 days
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Apr 25, 2023 21:19
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Hadlock posted:Welp, sorry what? I've got a leathery mat of what looks like cyan colored stuff in my pond, what's wrong with it? Cyanobacteria toxicosis. Blue green algae produce toxins (aptly named cyanotoxins) and if you drink too much it does a ton of real bad things to the liver and nervous system.
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Apr 25, 2023 21:25
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