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I have a 10 gallon tank that loves to murder panda corys, and I'm hoping your wisdom spots something obvious and stupid that I've missed. https://imgur.com/wqWM5ab The LFS and I've tested the water dozens of times, and it always comes back fine: pH mid sevens, temp 24, ammonia and nitrite both zeroes, nitrate ranges from 20-40. The tank's been running about a year and a half. Every eight or nine days I kick up the sandy substrate and suck out a third of the water, mix in the same amount in a bucket at a similar temperature, pour in the right amount of water conditioner, wait about five minutes, and pour it back. And every two to six weeks, the last half-dozen or so panda corys I brought home from the LFS all die, while the two venerable adults keep a running tally. This is round four* for me now, but this group of rather small fish is doing better than any so far (with only one dead and one seemingly-sick after a week). For their part, the LFS says they've heard no complaints about the fish and "sometimes they just die, that's the hobby" is wearing thin. This is my doing somehow. (*I killed round three by loving up a water change and pouring too-cold water into the tank, that's on me) The other occupants are six or seven cherry shrimp, some unkillable number of bladder snails, and one fat happy assassin snail that does his best. The only plant to speak of is a clot of RIparium moss, that's grown to a prodigous size under the LED grow lights on a rough 8/16 cycle. The filter is a too-large Eheim 2211, and I wash its substrate out in clear wash water every month to six weeks. Decorations are your bog-standard aquarium thingies, sold at fish places for the purpose. (If you're thinking this is a lot of bioload for a small tank, you'd be right if they all lived to adulthood, but I don't expect all six of those small fish to do that and lo, they are not) The only thing I put into the tank, aside from water, is a quarter-pellet of sinking fish food per fish-day, a few flecks of shrimp food, and lately, a capful of Rally because I've no idea what else to do (and Canadian regulations would keep me from buying what I wanted even if I did). The clues so far: - The dead fish look fine, except for the fact that they're dead. - The living fish act "normally" for panda corys, which isn't saying much. The moribund ones sometimes have balance issues, sometimes have buoyancy problems, and sometimes just... die. - There's no pattern to where I find the bodies. Some sink, some float, some turn up in the moss, some I never find at all. - There is a pattern in when I find them - things usually go bad a day or two after the water change. The next scheduled one's tomorrow  - I saw one small fish being hectored by a shrimp not much shorter than it was. Something tasty is either on the fish, or is the fish... or maybe the shrimp was just being a dick. - The fish that brought me here was acting languid and reacted only to persistent pestering (with tweezers) and loud sounds. I found him under a decoration, along with a cloud of detritus. I do clean under there when I clean the tank, but man do I get silt clouds when I pull up the decor. Sick tank? Diseased adults carrying something that kills the young? Sunspots? Pets eating each other? Anthrax in the siphon hose? flakeloaf fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Feb 19, 2024 |
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Feb 19, 2024 05:22
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How long does a pet store have the Panda Cories before you buy them? In my experience, they seem to be much more sensitive than the bronze or peppered Cories. Not sure that's a breeding thing or because the line is so inbred or what.
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Feb 19, 2024 13:21
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I can't see anything wrong with your temperature, or your maintenance schedule, although maybe the nitrates are a little high it still wouldn't be killing your corys that fast. If your substrate was leeching anything the shrimp should feel it before the corys do. Maybe the collecting detritus indicates a lack of flow? And maybe you could try feeding them something different (repashy? vitalis soft pellets?) because they're young, they're growing, they need food to recover from the stresses of shipping and they're currently competing with snails for a quarter pellet of food. And I'm not sure how fussy they are about food either, have you seen them eating? You've got a big enough cleanup crew to not have to worry about overfeeding while you're getting the newbies stabilized. My experiences agree, panda cories are very fragile, especially when brand new freshly obtained. They don't like it too warm, they're small, they probably need regular small meals because they're sold as juveniles, and maybe they don't recover from stress as easily as other corydoras. I don't keep them any more because it's too sad when they die, and much like your situation, the tankmates of mine were completely fine.
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Feb 19, 2024 14:22
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Yeah, I have found pandas to have very high mortality rates when purchased, especially when small and especially from big box stores. IF they survive the first week, they are pretty hardy but it's always a roll of the dice unfortunately.
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Feb 20, 2024 02:10
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Thanks so much all of you for your help. Fragile fish and inexpert handling don't mix.Cowslips Warren posted:How long does a pet store have the Panda Cories before you buy them? In my experience, they seem to be much more sensitive than the bronze or peppered Cories. Not sure that's a breeding thing or because the line is so inbred or what. A great question. This tank was pretty full, the fish were (are) pretty small, and while the store does have a policy to hold new fish for a few days before selling them, I haven't seen many of those signs in the fish room lately. Stoca Zola posted:I can't see anything wrong with your temperature, or your maintenance schedule, although maybe the nitrates are a little high it still wouldn't be killing your corys that fast. If your substrate was leeching anything the shrimp should feel it before the corys do. Maybe the collecting detritus indicates a lack of flow? I do wonder about that! This filter moves a lot of water, but the outflow bar is on the back of the tank about an inch under the surface, pointed more or less straight down, and the return is also on that back wall because hoses are ugly. There's a bit of a cloud kicked up whenever I move those decorations (which you can see the remnants of below), which I can definitely do more often. I just don't want to stress anybody out. quote:And maybe you could try feeding them something different (repashy? vitalis soft pellets?) because they're young, they're growing, they need food to recover from the stresses of shipping and they're currently competing with snails for a quarter pellet of food. And I'm not sure how fussy they are about food either, have you seen them eating? You've got a big enough cleanup crew to not have to worry about overfeeding while you're getting the newbies stabilized. I have seen them eating! https://i.imgur.com/woxzDy5.mp4 Adult 2 and youth #4 are exploring the cover on the right but they'll be along shortly, I'm sure. Lights coming on means food, and you see the assassin's right there because he knows the bladder snails (whose eggs and large adults I sweep out regularly) will be along shortly. That guy was hauling rear end across the tank last night too, clearly in the mood for something he couldn't find underneath a fake castle. A CanPol poster suggested I dial back the food because the snails wouldn't be there if there weren't the food to support them, but I'd rather clean the water more often than starve small fish. I didn't get to it today (which explains the algae), but that's what tomorrow's for. quote:My experiences agree, panda cories are very fragile, especially when brand new freshly obtained. They don't like it too warm, they're small, they probably need regular small meals because they're sold as juveniles, and maybe they don't recover from stress as easily as other corydoras. I don't keep them any more because it's too sad when they die, and much like your situation, the tankmates of mine were completely fine. Yeah  It is a big fish store though, and there's lots of life to choose from! Kuhli loaches are interesting, bronze cories are said to be hardier, I liked the betta even if he did hate the shrimp, pea puffers hate everybody but they especially dislike small snails... if this group sticks around, great, if it doesn't, I'll explore a bit more diversity. I'm about done with frogs though, diving across the floor to catch crickets was annoying and ADFs are, by all accounts, too dumb to live. e: ok i'm guilty about that algae let's change this water e2: The colour wasn't exactly appetizing, but it smelled fine (a bit like wet garden) and the nitrate was on the 20 side of the "20 to 40" range. And now we wait
flakeloaf fucked around with this message at 03:15 on Feb 20, 2024 |
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Feb 20, 2024 02:37
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I have an albino cory question... or rather, more pointing out their weird behaviours and if anyone else has experienced anything like this. So, when the lights are on during the day (11am to 3pm) they're very chilled out, the usual cory sleeping and grazing stuff. But the moment the lights go out they go crazy. One hangs out near the heater going up and down and nibbling the weeds at the top of the tank. He/she has now trained the other ones to nibble the weed at the top of the tank too - the weed does clump together and cover one end of the tank, so maybe there's safety in the cover? Another one frantically grazes non-stop and every space seems to get vacuumed. In the day time they're so peaceful, but night time they're off tap. I thought it could be an oxygen issue since they're hanging around the top of the tank, but they only do this behaviour when the lights are off and at night, and don't seem to be gasping for air any other time. My water is fairly good, the PH is a bit hard, but other than that it's really stable. I've had all 3 for about 18 months now and they're all healthy and seem very stress free. It's just really strange, but it is cool to see these little fish having their own unique personalities.
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Feb 23, 2024 02:09
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How many snails is too many snails? I have pea puffers to feed but they're fat and happy and the snails keep coming and they don't stop coming. Ramshorns and mystery snails, the mystery snails I love and cherish but the ramshorns I've started crushing without remorse. I know the snail supply is directly proportional to the amount of food added to the system but my kuhli loaches are slow eaters and the mystery snails are big dudes who eat a whole algae disk on their own so it's hard to reduce food for everyone but the ramshorns.
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Feb 24, 2024 17:25
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Tough call with the mystery snails, since you can't hatch only a few at a time. Big clutch or none. I've donated a bucket full to my lfs, and sometimes just pluck them out as treats for the neighbor's chickens. Kind of a conundrum. Sympathy for the too many snails club. Maybe the way to go is allow one clutch to hatch, and as they're growing, cull the pop to whatever level you feel like you can feed, and keep plucking clutches until they're all mature enough that you're looking at old age, then allow another generation to hatch. B33rChiller fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Feb 24, 2024 |
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Feb 24, 2024 20:36
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toggle posted:I have an albino cory question... or rather, more pointing out their weird behaviours and if anyone else has experienced anything like this. Corys are very active at twilight and dawn. They may feel most secure straying from the bottom when the lights are off.
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Feb 25, 2024 15:04
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When my panda corys are "acting normally", which the remaining six are all doing in a very alive way, by the way (thanks thread!), they glass surf, steal air bubbles, pick at decorations, chase the shrimp, dart around the tank seemingly for no reason, and rest on everything that can be rested upon. They're fantastically bizarre little fish.
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Feb 25, 2024 15:23
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This was from the outdoor cichlid/koi pond at my hotel in Hawaii:
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Feb 26, 2024 00:42
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So, I want to add a fish to neon tetras sometime in the future. I have 12 neon tetras and one guppy. Are bettas safe? Or should I get a gudgeon or blue bolivian ram? Also, I would have such a hard time not petting those pond fish.
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Feb 26, 2024 05:53
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I think it really depends on the betta. We've got 3 bettas, 2 are doing great in community tanks and one needs to be kept in solitary because she'll kill anything she can.
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Feb 26, 2024 13:39
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In my experience, Bettas range from Ted Lasso to Jeffrey Dahmer in personality.
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Feb 26, 2024 13:48
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Wikipedia has a single unattributed comment on the Betta page that blue Bettas, on average, are way more hostile than red ones Usually I would add a {{ citation needed }} but I don't disagree with it
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Feb 27, 2024 05:48
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Ordered 30 micro brittle stars from a dude on ebay with 100% rating. They were supposed to arrive today. They arrived Monday. But they didn't get delivered to my house Monday, because my mom got the mail early, LEFT THE KEY in the mailbox, and drove off. So when the mailman came, he found the mailbox wide open. So he left a note saying he found the box open and would reattempt delivery tomorrow, took the key and our mail, and marked the box as "delivered to front desk/reception." So I got the email of delivery yesterday. After some Abbot and Costello worthy comedy with my mom, speech to text, and the delivery being marked as done, we finally figured out it was not delivered, and after she went to the post office direct, was told it would be delivered tomorrow, Tuesday. Got the box. No styrofoam? I'm used to that. No marking on the box to show live animals either. Bags of packing peanuts and a hot/cold insulated grocery bag, that held the starfish, with a heat pack directly in the insulated bag. And they were all dead, of course. I don't know if it was being held in a mail truck for the entire day again, or the shoddy packing. I'm half torn between tearing down the 10 gallon I set up for them (I'll find someone to take the drat gorilla and emerald crabs that came free with live rock) and letting the shipper send me another batch, free of charge. Between this and all the hillstream loaches I bought from a usually great lfs, this has been a bad buying fish season so far.
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Feb 28, 2024 01:58
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Had tank pH of 6, did 40% water change, added dechloinated tap water pH 8, got ph7. Also two squirts easy carbon algaecide Come back two days later office smells... Whack. PH test only goes down to 6.2 was probably like 5.8 based on the color 40% was probably too much. But the water was really clear the next day. Today it's green again. I've got a very vigorous pothos rooted in the HOB I'm guessing the water change disturbed a bunch of the green dust and fish poop at the bottom. I've had nothing but problems since I put this HOB in my 10 gallon. Sponge filter was way easier to deal with Doing a 25% change today in two parts, just did about 15% it's back up to ~6.2 which is very tolerable for a rice fish Amano shrimp hanging in there. Haven't seen the cherry shrimp for at least a month I've got 35 half inch long rice fish in a 10 gal tank I've been meaning to move them to a larger tank but kind of in analysis paralysis I want to do a 40 gal breeder but don't have the space to set it up. Maybe they will go in the garage for a bit until I can get my office sorted out Edit it's at 6.8 now. Sucked out about 5-10% of some cloudy water, hoping I pulled a bunch of particulate out of the water column this time. I should probably invest in an aquarium vacuum thing Hadlock fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Mar 6, 2024 |
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Mar 5, 2024 22:31
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Do you have any buffering capacity? pH swings like that seem crazy.
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Mar 6, 2024 01:15
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Not especially no. Six months ago I was experimenting to see if I could get rice fish eggs to hatch in an empty glass bottom tank with some Java Moss and later Java Fern and some floaters thrown in there. The Java Moss is now probably 5-10% of the volume of the tank (the fish love swimming through it) but the experiment was a success and it's time to upgrade I guess part of the reason why I added the HOB (and soon after, the pothos plant) was to provide extra surface area for beneficial bacteria to soak up ammonia since there's no substrate I tossed in a finger sized piece of cuttlefish bone today. Gonna switch to 10% daily changes until I can figure out what to do
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Mar 6, 2024 01:44
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B33rChiller posted:Do you have any buffering capacity? pH swings like that seem crazy. Was ~6.6 by bedtime, was under 6 this morning, did a ~10% change today + overfill it's at a hair over ~6.2 now. I think the water coming out of the tap is about 8.0ph Weirdly amazon had a same-day delivery aquarium siphon-vacum so gonna try and slurp up the worst of it. The problem is that the fish are both so drat curious, and so drat small I'm terrified I'm gonna slurp one up and kill it I found an out of the way spot for a 40 gal downstairs I can borrow for a while, I think I'll try and set it up over the weekend with some old filter media to jump start it
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Mar 7, 2024 05:37
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You can put a net over the intake of your siphon, if you want to screen out any fish. it might be unwieldy to have the handle hanging off the side, but just put the net over the end of your tube, and strap an elastic around it. Then you won't get anything up the tube bigger than the mesh of your net.
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Mar 7, 2024 07:00
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So one of my bettas has twice now wedged herself into a place she couldn't get out of. Do they learn from near-death lessons or do I need to adjust my hardscape?
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Mar 7, 2024 12:59
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Adjust your hardscape. You're the human being with the cognitive ability to recognise a problem and opposable thumbs to enact changes to solve the problem, there's no good reason to let your fish get injured or die trying to somehow teach it a lesson. Edit: wow sorry that comes across as kind of harsh and a bit mean. I think you answered your own question though, you have to fix it or that pinch point is going to keep being dangerous for whatever reason. Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 16:16 on Mar 7, 2024 |
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Mar 7, 2024 16:10
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fish are smarter than a lot of ppl think but also fish are generally dogshit stupid
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Mar 7, 2024 17:14
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Found a big lunker snail roaming around on top of my tank lid yesterday. Ooh, going walkabout, eh? I dropped her back in, and had a browse through the foliage. Yep, huge clutch of eggs right on the underside of a pothos leaf. I'm glad I caught her before she fell off the back. I've found a few wedged behind the cat tree, or under the radiator previously. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_Tc00LbqSE B33rChiller fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Mar 7, 2024 |
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Mar 7, 2024 17:35
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Second attempt at getting micro brittle stars from this dude in Florida. This time at least they came in professional looking box, with a styrofoam insert all around, and filter floss to cling onto. Unfortunately, I don't think any of that mattered because he put the heat pack directly next to the bag holding the starfish. They were pretty much mushy limbs by the time I got the box open. It's been a while since I've received any fish, but since when did that become normal? Why would you put the heat pack literally next to the bag of water!!
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Mar 7, 2024 22:15
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I’m so sorry that keeps happening! It’s one of the worst feelings to open a box of dead livestock, especially knowing they can be shipped safely with just slightly more effort.
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Mar 7, 2024 22:31
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The Diddler posted:So one of my bettas has twice now wedged herself into a place she couldn't get out of. Do they learn from near-death lessons or do I need to adjust my hardscape? I lost half my danio population with no bodies, symptoms or apparent tank issues. Turned out one swam into a piece of cholla wood and one by one the rest were following inside it to eat the one before them. Eventually noticed a golden glow, yanked the lucky fella out, and trashed the wood. Fix your scape, I'm afraid.
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Mar 7, 2024 23:12
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Last year I bought some dwarf hair grass on eBay. I got a note left in my mailbox about needing to come to the post office to pay extra postage in order to receive some mail. Dude literally shipped it in a Ziploc bag inside of a standard size letter envelope. It of course exploded in a sorting machine and I was presented with a baggie of soggy envelope. Got a refund at least.
Prof. Banks fucked around with this message at 14:33 on Mar 8, 2024 |
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Mar 8, 2024 08:28
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Ph was just under 6 this morning again. Vacuumed up a bunch of goop from the part of the tank where that stuff tends to settle; also added about 1 tsp baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and topped off the tank with about 1.5 gal of 8.0ph water; pH mostly stable at 6.7. So slight improvement.
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Mar 8, 2024 09:10
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Is there a reason you're chasing a specific pH? Vast majority of fish in the trade will adapt just fine to the water coming out of your tap (once chlorine/chloramine are dealt with ofc). Chasing pH is expert level poo poo and I wouldn't even attempt without using RODI water as a base.
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Mar 8, 2024 16:29
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I use RODI (Actually even cleaner, I use Milli-Q from my biotech laboratory because the lab manager explicitly said I could), and remineralize with Equilibrium before adding. I fertilize plants with Fluorish Excel and Fluorish Trace. I used to add Seachem Neutral Regulator but the pH still hung out at 6.2-6.4 anyway so I stopped. My pH is 6.2, and my Platys and Corydoras look happy and they're all breeding constantly.
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Mar 8, 2024 17:51
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Our water source is a glacier fed mountain lake, so it's like chlorinated distilled coming out of the tap. I add Equilibrium at 1/4 tsp / 5gallon bucket and alkaline buffer at 1/2 tsp / 5gallon. I also have some aragonite gravel sprinkled on top of the plain aquarium gravel substrate. Keeps the pH around 7.4, GH at 150+ mg/L, and KH ~50-60mg/L I mineralize heavily for the guppies and snails. I used to work at a place with liquid rock water, scale all over every water fitting in the place. It was great to be able to bring water home for a smaller tank. Note: I never gravel vac, just let the mulm feed the plants.
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Mar 8, 2024 19:00
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Enos Cabell posted:Is there a reason you're chasing a specific pH? Vast majority of fish in the trade will adapt just fine to the water coming out of your tap (once chlorine/chloramine are dealt with ofc). Chasing pH is expert level poo poo and I wouldn't even attempt without using RODI water as a base. My pH test bottoms out at 6.0 and after doing a 10% water change with 8.0ph the test solution drops weren't even changing color indicating it's below 6. Ph dropping below 6 immediately after a water change implies something is seriously fucky with my tank, right? Especially with moderately hard water Also as stated I have ~35-40 fish in there and no substrate to do standard bio filtration /buffering because it was supposed to just be a fry hatching experiment so there's not good buffer. Just a giant blob of very healthy Java Moss + whatever is living in/on the sponge filter+HOB. And then a giant blob of hair algae growing on top of the Java Moss. I suspect my hob-planted pothos is doing quite a lot of the heavy lifting in my nitrogen cycle I'm going to try and setup a new proper tank over the weekend and start getting it cycled Today my pH is 6.8 with no changes overnight. Looks like I have a bunch of hazy bacterial bloom probably from vacuuming and disturbing all the algae on the glass bottom Hadlock fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Mar 8, 2024 |
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Mar 8, 2024 20:09
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Ooh, maybe some crushed oyster shells in a bag for that HOB? Could help, maybe?
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Mar 8, 2024 20:44
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How did the top of my 40 breeder tank get off-square so the lid doesn't close? I opened it today and it was wedged in tight, had to pull real hard to get it open, and now it won't close, it rests on top of the tank rather than on the lip where it should. One corner would fit but the other corner is way off. I feel like I'm going insane, the rectangular hinged glass lid is the right width and depth but the whole top of the tank isn't square to it.
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Mar 9, 2024 18:35
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Are both of the glass panels of the lid fully seated into the plastic hinge?
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Mar 9, 2024 20:00
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After removing and replacing it several times, I've got it wiggled into a position that opens and closes and lays flat shut when it's closed, but there's still a much bigger clearance on one corner than the other. The hinge and back plastic strip all seem fully seated and aligned with their panels. My carpenter's square isn't with me, but even before the hinge, the top looks off-square against just one of the glass panels of the lid. Whatever, it's working now, I don't care if it's crooked.
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Mar 9, 2024 23:14
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i was just gonna suggest time to get a new tank, might as well upgrade to twice as big
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Mar 10, 2024 01:14
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 07:36 |
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 Here, have a stupid fish meme. Anyway, speaking of pH, my friend has a planted tank that has been without livestock for a year and a half years. This is a Walstad-ish tank I set up for her, with dirt under gravel and some java ferns and what I think is guppy grass, but the main plant is a truly massive immersed pothos with a magnificent root system. I kickstarted it with some sludge from my tank, so I assume it still has good bacteria etc. She borrowed my test kit and all the parameters are perfect except the pH is 6, which she wants to change before trying fish again. I told her that fish care more about stable parameters than perfect parameters, but she wants to add some coral rock. I said I would ask my online fish people what they might suggest.
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Mar 12, 2024 00:01
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