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2 inches is fine. It's hard to tell from your photos. I find having a very pointy pair of aquarium pinsettes helps for planting. Plant at a 45 degree angle and go about as deep as you can.
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Jul 3, 2023 16:05
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Rated PG-34 posted:Aquarium Thread: “2 inches is fine. It's hard to tell from your photos”
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Jul 3, 2023 16:43
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Rated PG-34 posted:2 inches is fine. It's hard to tell from your photos.
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Jul 3, 2023 18:56
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Is this a good place to ask about outdoor koi ponds or is there a better thread for that?
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Jul 4, 2023 20:12
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There’s a few of us with ponds, although I’m not sure if any of us keep koi. Personally when researching my own pond I found it impossible to avoid information about koi since ponds are the easiest way to keep koi. I follow a couple of koi keepers on YouTube, and in fact heaps of decent info is available there especially people doing it DIY. I guess it depends on what kind of information you’re looking for, can’t hurt to 
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Jul 4, 2023 20:30
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Bad Munki posted:Is this a good place to ask about outdoor koi ponds or is there a better thread for that?
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Jul 4, 2023 20:32
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I’ve got this little pond at my patio, have had it for years but I always just left it as little more than a noise maker, no fish or intentional plants. This year, I completely gutted it, got it all cleaned up and nice, and decided to actually run with it. We have some plants in there and they are all extremely happy. The anacharis has become a nice little mini kelp forest, there is creeping Jenny well established at a few places, there are a couple moss balls that are growing nicely, and those floating bulbous plants are multiplying super well. The waterfall draws through a filter box with a couple layers of filter and a bunch of bio balls, the pump is specced at something like 800gph, although it’s slowed a bit as things established, but with the whole pond being roughly 300 gallons, I figure it’s still cycling at least a couple times per hour at worst. All my test strips (the typical 6+1 set) read well. I was traveling for a couple weeks and then came home with Covid, all right when it started to get super hot and sunny here, so there was a fairly strong algal bloom, but I managed to knock that back in fairly short order. From what I can tell, the pond is healthy. Anyhow, in the spring, we put a couple koi in. I was still figuring my stuff out and that was a bit hasty at the time, so only one survived. I feel bad about that. But the one is definitely thriving, he went from <3” to an east 8” now. Thing is, he hides all the time. We have some good caves and hidey-holes in there, some of those edge rocks have caves that go way up under/behind them. Good for staying safe from predators. Since we had finally really stabilized the thing, and recognizing that koi are social, we got him a couple friends. Biggest ones we could readily find, although they’re still only 2/3 his size at best. When we introduced them, he immediately came out of hiding to swim with them, not attacking or anything, he’d just zip over and swim right next to or under them and such. As best I could tell, the little guy was chuffed. The two recent additions are still new as of now, so I expect them to hide for a bit, but I’m not sure what I might do to coax them all out, I’d like to see them all cruising around more and I’m not sure what I might be missing here. I’ve been trying to lure the OG fish with food, but he seems to prefer hiding to eating, he’ll only take the food if it falls right in front of his favorite hiding spots. Like I said, he’s massive compared to when we got him, so I know he’s getting enough to eat. Any ideas on how to help these fishies be more comfortable so they’ll come out more? Bad Munki fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Jul 4, 2023 |
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Jul 4, 2023 20:59
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I’m thinking safety in numbers is the right move, but judging by the size, you might not be able to add too many more numbers to your pond. In my experience fish enjoy cover and even if they are safe they will make use of cover. Something else that might be a factor here is depth - lots of koi ponds I see are very very deep and while the ponds are bare for ease of cleaning the fish can get cover by deep diving out of view. Koi who can’t go deep might feel insecure. Like this for example: https://youtu.be/X1Ad7Toa8F4 Fish can see and react to all kinds of things and get funny ideas about what’s going on, maybe they’ve seen a bird or movement in the sky or above the pond that they find threatening? Or could be raccoons depending on where you live. Maybe they’d like something like an umbrella over one side of the pond to throw shade? Whatever it is, it will take time for anything to change. For fish in a tank that are acting weird, I always think it’s worth seeing if they act more normally when the lights are out, so for pond fish maybe seeing what they’re like at night will reveal whether something they’ve seen has stressed them and they feel safer in the dark. Or not.
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Jul 4, 2023 21:20
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I’m not actually worried tooooooo much about overstocking this pool in the long run, as long as I can keep it healthy for the season. I have a half-acre pond further from the house I’d like to move them to as they outgrow this little pond. But I also don’t want to grow their numbers too fast. The pond is about 18” at its deepest, although I’m strongly considering zeroing it down to the dirt and rebuilding from scratch this fall/winter, at which point I would like to go deeper (and bigger all around d). For now, I’ll see about adding some more cover toward the middle, and/or maybe something floating.
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Jul 4, 2023 21:34
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The water hyacinth should eventually spread and provide more cover. A water lily might be an easy addition too. The thoughts provided above already cover most of what I've thought of already. Providing more cover over the pond, so the fish see less of the sky could help them feel more secure. Shade cloths, umbrellas, etc, yeah that's what I've used with my tub.
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Jul 4, 2023 21:45
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Follow up for much later this year, I plan to overwinter them inside this year, I don’t think this pond is deep enough to keep it from freezing up almost entirely, even with a heater. I should be able to keep a tub in my garage or barn around 40-45 pretty readily. How big of a tub should I use for three koi (I expect them all to be around 8” by then), and when should I transfer them? Before torpor, or while they’re transitioning, or what? Just want to get a plan together before I need it so I don’t have to scramble. 
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Jul 4, 2023 21:53
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Well it’s pretty ugly but I doubt the koi will care: had a piece of foam board in the shop, a few square feet worth, so I just put that in over OG’s favorite corner to make a nice big cave of solid shade. I’ll leave that in for a week or six while the plant cover continues to spread and we’ll see if that helps his disposition.
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Jul 4, 2023 23:13
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Yeah 18" is kind of shallow, eventually a raccoon is probably going to wander in there and solve your overstocking problems for you. Looks very cool though
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Jul 4, 2023 23:41
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Hadlock posted:Yeah 18" is kind of shallow, eventually a raccoon is probably going to wander in there and solve your overstocking problems for you. It’s a good point, we do live out in the country and there are a lot of the bastards out here. They recently started getting into my grill (absolutely tore the thing apart for bacon drippings) and I had to go to war with them. I was hoping 18” would be deep enough to deter the raccoons from fishing, and the caves that are in there certainly give the fish safe refuge either way, but if they’re getting harassed at night, that’d explain why they’re reluctant to come out at other times. For now, I’ve put a camera at the pond to see if the raccoons are visiting or not. If they are, I guess I can see about further reducing the population. They’re up like 300% here in recent years, to the point they declared it perpetual open season. May also put some netting over the pond just to further secure it.
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Jul 5, 2023 01:13
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Hadlock posted:The "let the eggs chill out in chlorinated water" trick seems to be working, they're on day... 4 or 5 and developing really well. Just sitting in a ~3 oz sauce dish and they get fresh water from the sink that sits for ~10 min to temp equalize. They've had eye spots for a couple days now. In another day or two I should start seeing them wriggle in the eggs periodically Eggs hatched on day 11, which given our heat waves and desire to save money on AC is pretty much exactly in line with what everything says. Literature says they hatch in a 250c day, meaning if it's 25c x 10 days = 1 (250c) day. 25c is ~77F and the house cools down to ~72 at night and peaks at ~80 briefly during the day (when we decide it's time to turn on the AC since we WFH)   I expect more to hatch, this is just what's hatched in the last hour or two Second edit: above is a fry only 2 hours old, below is maybe my most mature fry about 12? days old? 14? Not gonna do the math right now  It's really surprising, fry really are just a stomach with eyeballs when they're born, and a tail to crudely propel them away from danger, for the first week And a yolk as life support to grow out the other organs and finish the job of building the circulatory system etc. I guess basically they grow and grow in the egg until they fill all the space, and then hatch, inflate their float/air sac which instantly doubles their volume, and try not to get eaten until they develop enough to be able to eat food. I guess if they were in slightly larger eggs they could develop for a couple more days, but they're R selected and just create a ton of smaller eggs instead. The other set of eggs I collected most recently, apparently I poured out most of the old chlorinated water (there's always a tiny puddle left over), then I guess set it down and forgot about it, came back... 6? 8 hours later? and they were, not quite dried out, but defintely stuck to the bowl. Added more water and a couple days later they've started collecting "spots" on(in) the eggs as well as eye spots as you'd expect them to develop normally  Aquarium is mostly fine, something approaching a midge fly laid some eggs in the aquarium and all the scattered random algae has condensed around the bloodworm tubes that now inhabit the bottom of my tank. There have to be 50-70. Appear to be harmless. Definitely have a ton of green water, hopefully I've got some infusoria eating that stuff? Fish seem to be thriving so I guess so. Also feeding "fresh and natural ultra fresh shrimp deligith newborn gish micron shrimp patties". I guess whatever the fish fry don't eat, end up algae/bacteria food which the infusoria then eat which ultimately feed the fry. I seem to be holding steady at ~32-35 fry in the tank so apparently that validates my theory. Doing a 10-15% water change every 3-4 days  
Hadlock fucked around with this message at 03:44 on Jul 5, 2023 |
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Jul 5, 2023 03:24
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Cory's always talking up the benefits of green water on his aquarium co-op streams and vids. It's like the benefits of aquatic plants all through the water column, and feeds all kinds of support for your local food web. He says the same thing about algae too. It's unsightly, but overall a good thing for the health of your tank.
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Jul 5, 2023 03:49
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B33rChiller posted:Cory's always talking up the benefits of green water on his aquarium co-op streams and vids. It's like the benefits of aquatic plants all through the water column, and feeds all kinds of support for your local food web. it’s definitely good/necessary if you’re trying to hatch eggs and raise fry
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Jul 5, 2023 03:58
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 This plant has gone absolutely bonkers in the last few days. It's like day of the triffids. I know I need to trim it back but it looks cool and I think my fish seem to be having a good time swimming in and out of it.
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Jul 5, 2023 18:31
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HazCat posted:As a freshwater person, I appreciate the hard work that salt water people do to make my hobby appear frugal and low maintenance. god my freshwater tank is a dream. clean the canisters every couple months, do a partial water change and feed the fish and thats it. my reef tank is a labor of love and a black hole of money...and i still am stubborn enough that i want to upgrade it from a 65 to a 120g down the line
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Jul 6, 2023 20:19
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Post pics
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Jul 7, 2023 00:26
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After months I've finally got to the point where not all of my corals are being assholes and some are opening up    And my freshwater: 
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Jul 7, 2023 11:20
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On May 25, I put a pom pom crab in my tank. I named him Mr Apples After about an hour he found a good spot to bury himself in the substrate, and that was the last I saw of him. I assumed that he was dead as gently caress, perhaps eaten by shrimp. Until today! He's out crabbin about and being a super cool little dude and I'm so jazzed to see my li'l crab bud again 
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Jul 7, 2023 20:54
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Where did you find such giant lucky bamboo? I've not seen it such large diameter before
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Jul 7, 2023 20:57
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Hadlock posted:Where did you find such giant lucky bamboo? I've not seen it such large diameter before amazon, 18 inch stalks
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Jul 7, 2023 21:36
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Sockser posted:He's out crabbin about and being a super cool little dude and I'm so jazzed to see my li'l crab bud again He's a cute little guy! This is my experience with the kuhli loaches in my heavily planted tank. Once a month I wonder if they somehow all died, then I spot one sneaking around in the crypts two weeks later.
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Jul 8, 2023 14:59
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Wallet posted:He's a cute little guy! Ditto. I bought some kuhli loaches in 2018 and would go months without ever seeing them, so I would just assume they were dead. It’s always a big deal whenever I get to see one and each time they’ve gotten longer and fatter.     
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Jul 8, 2023 15:38
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Ok Comboomer posted:it’s definitely good/necessary if you’re trying to hatch eggs and raise fry Achievement unlocked, found a chaos emerald, special stage unlocked. Color on these photos is unaltered   It's hard to count but I appear to continue to have ~30 fry, they all seem to be mostly healthy. Of the last group that hatched, I put more than half in the outdoor pot, they seem to be doing great Started feeding them some hikari first bites, and wow, fish reaction to food arriving is... Not sure how to quantify this, double? That of the other stuff I was using. The other stuff comes in a salt shaker though, which is way more convenient. The hikari comes in a lame ziplock baggie I have 4 or 5 new fry in the outdoor pot, plus two adolescent fry so that's probably plenty. Adolescent fry starting to really look like rice fish 
Hadlock fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Jul 9, 2023 |
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Jul 9, 2023 03:42
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So this big guy got a tumor in the head and pretty much couldn't do anything. He would swim in the weirdest position and passed. We put the other fish in the tank since there is no longer an aggressive fish in the tank 
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Jul 10, 2023 05:38
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I have a 20 gallon planted tank that, for the past couple months, has had seven cherry barbs and, up to recently, five panda cories. My wife and I went away for a week. Someone fed the fish but I think it got really hot or something. When we got back, one of the pandas would swim vertically near the top of the water constantly, just kind of hovering there. Water parameters have been fine, or at least no big changes. Nitrates/nitrites consistently showed 0. Ph ~7. Water is fairly hard but, again, they've been doing ok for a couple months. I did a >50% change but a couple days later that cory was dead. A few days after that, a second cory would hover like that, though maybe not as frequently. I did another small water change to add cooler water to get the temperature down a bit. It was maybe 76 or so at the time. That cory died yesterday. Now I see another one doing the same thing. Water temperature is around 72. I have no idea what the deal is that would cause literally them to individually do this one after another.
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Jul 10, 2023 18:38
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I tried for a long time to keep pandas and gave up, after experiencing the same thing. I don’t know if currently available livestock are genetically weak or if they are heat sensitive or what, I tried different providers and other fish in the same tank were fine. One batch I got had a really awful skin disease that didn’t respond to any kind of treatment. I will love panda cories forever but watching them die off is too sad, and I’ll never keep them again.
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Jul 10, 2023 19:07
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Yes, I won't do panda cories again for the same reason. I've tried for years to keep them but something always seems to happen. Not sure if they're more high stress than other cories but I can never get them to go long-term sadly.
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Jul 10, 2023 21:09
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wow, goldfish can grow pretty fast, eh?
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Jul 11, 2023 00:33
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I have really bad luck with harlequin rasbora. They spook really easily and will concuss themselves on the glass or jump to their doom. At the moment, I have some plastic wrap over the top to prevent jumping, but I hope to take it off soon (and prepare for some losses)
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Jul 11, 2023 00:41
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For whatever reason, all of the koi (the old and the new) were in a good mood today. Everyone was out and about having fun, not like something was wrong, they were just cruisin’, chomping plants, eating food from us. Thinking maybe the new ones have finally settled in and they’re actually all feeling pretty cool together. Bodes well!
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Jul 11, 2023 01:11
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My nerite snail died.  All ten tetras that have been in the tank just a little shorter than the snail are doing fine and the testing strips are all showing normal. Over the last month I did notice the snail was falling more, like he'd be on a plant or at the waterline and just let go and sink. Then over the weekend he started really slowing down and just stopped. Do they just ... get old?
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Jul 11, 2023 01:44
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Aquatic snails live like, a couple years max. If you get more than 2 years out of them you're doing pretty good. This is mostly true for R selected species
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Jul 11, 2023 01:47
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Leal posted:So this big guy got a tumor in the head and pretty much couldn't do anything. He would swim in the weirdest position and passed. We put the other fish in the tank since there is no longer an aggressive fish in the tank Sorry about your big guy. A Green Terror species tank is such a cool idea. Underrated fish, imo.
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Jul 11, 2023 11:18
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Welp, lost a pearlscale goldfish, rip. Water parameters all normal. I think a 35g (heated) container pond just isn’t suitable for fancy goldfish with the temp swings around here in the Bay Area Edit: maybe I should’ve had the heater set on something higher like 72 instead of 65 Rated PG-34 fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Jul 12, 2023 |
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Jul 12, 2023 02:57
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Dunno about 35g container pond but I have 3 fancy goldfish (1 oranda and 2 Sarasa Comet) and seeing 55-90F temp swings mostly daily in the inland bay area, maybe the additional 100g water mass is enough of a buffer In other news my last set of fish eggs hatched/hatching today, almost 11 days to the hour, so far I have... 3? Which means up to 7 more eggs might hatch  starting to regret buying the 10gal tank and not just getting a 20g which is like, 1.5" wider and ~4" longer? Would have fit on my table and given me double the volume. Currently have ~30 fry in the 10 gal which is plenty for right now but concerned about tank size here in 3 months or so as I'll have potentially 40 fry in this 10g tankAlso have, I think I counted 9 fry in my ~8 gallon "round planter" tank, plus two that are ~5-6 weeks old at this point for 11 total for a grand total of... maybe 50 rice fish maybe local aquarium guy/local independent fish shop will buy some off me? Or maybe I just go big and get a 120 gal aquarium.
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Jul 12, 2023 03:28
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Hadlock posted:Dunno about 35g container pond but I have 3 fancy goldfish (1 oranda and 2 Sarasa Comet) and seeing 55-90F temp swings mostly daily in the inland bay area, maybe the additional 100g water mass is enough of a buffer You don’t bother with a heater? Whereabouts are you? I’m in Dublin.
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Jul 12, 2023 03:38
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