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Our tank finally cycled yesterday, I say finally, it was bang on two weeks. I'm guessing that is fairly normal but it felt like an age. Unfortunately I was in the office all day but my wife took a trip to the fish shop and brought back six Zebra Danio. They look a bit lost in this big tank but appear to be settling down a bit now. They spent most of the evening chasing each other about, I guessing working out who the boss fish is? One of they also has half a tail fin, whether he came home like that or got it here while arguing with the others I don't know. Good to have fish in though! The snails have been growing rapidly and the plants have exploded.
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Nov 12, 2013 22:05
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| # ? May 9, 2024 21:33 |
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Jekub posted:Our tank finally cycled yesterday, I say finally, it was bang on two weeks. I'm guessing that is fairly normal but it felt like an age. Unfortunately I was in the office all day but my wife took a trip to the fish shop and brought back six Zebra Danio. They look a bit lost in this big tank but appear to be settling down a bit now. They spent most of the evening chasing each other about, I guessing working out who the boss fish is? One of they also has half a tail fin, whether he came home like that or got it here while arguing with the others I don't know. Buying fish is pretty much the best thing ever. How big is your tank?
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Nov 12, 2013 23:39
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Jekub posted:Our tank finally cycled yesterday, I say finally, it was bang on two weeks. I'm guessing that is fairly normal but it felt like an age. Unfortunately I was in the office all day but my wife took a trip to the fish shop and brought back six Zebra Danio. They look a bit lost in this big tank but appear to be settling down a bit now. They spent most of the evening chasing each other about, I guessing working out who the boss fish is? One of they also has half a tail fin, whether he came home like that or got it here while arguing with the others I don't know. It's great to see fish exploring isnt it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpQTg-8Tl_c A video of when my fish were newly introduced. They're all 'holy poo poo, holy poo poo, new stuff aaaaaaaaa!' 
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Nov 12, 2013 23:42
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Whale Cancer posted:Buying fish is pretty much the best thing ever. How big is your tank? It's 30 gallons give or take, so for six tiny Danios that must be about as exciting as life gets. They are fascinated by the snails and the bog wood which has various holes and tunnels through it is apparently the most fun thing ever. The cat is also highly impressed that we have introduced what appears to be a buffet into the house. I have noticed that some of the sucker cups which hold the pump inlet tube on have a weird white slime thing growing on them. The same as seen in this video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3eBumVVoYI I've not been able to find a definite answer as to what it might be, anyone have any ideas?
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Nov 12, 2013 23:51
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Bacterial film which will grow pretty much on everything in the tank. It's probably more obvious because it's black and its rubber which is easier for bacteria to get a foothold on. Scrape it off during cleaning if it bothers you, but I dont usually worry about it. When I set up my tank initially, it covered everything, then got gradually eaten by shrimp and/or replaced by algae films.
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Nov 12, 2013 23:57
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I always meant to post my fish tank here so here is a picture. As you can see my plants aren't super healthy currently, I suspect that a DIY CO2 system will be necessary in the future. I have 4 guppies and 3 corys in my 10 gallon. Everyone seems to be very happy but corys are really loving hard to photograph properly it seems like.  If you look hard you can see one of my corys hiding on the driftwood in the back.
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Nov 13, 2013 05:05
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The java fern looks alright to me. The crypts and anubias arent terrible either, but obviously not in the best condition. Leaves dont live forever and will die off though, so just trim the older ones that are looking ragged.
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Nov 13, 2013 05:13
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Happiness is prodding your Anubius with a chopstick and seeing half a cup of O2 pop off its leaves. Does someone have a video of a betta jumping the two or three inches out of the water people say they can? Mine barely gets his gill slits out of the water. Eifert Posting fucked around with this message at 12:25 on Nov 13, 2013 |
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Nov 13, 2013 11:42
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9_A7g2UiVI Looks like a shortfin though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA5IptmjgUc For a fancy fin type.
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Nov 13, 2013 12:47
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pahuyuth posted:I woke up to find one of my spotted corydoras in bad shape (dead). I've never seen anything quite like it, and I'm not able to find any fish disease pictures that look like my poor little guy. His eyes were bulged, his belly swollen, and there was what looked like oozing blood (red blobs) around his fins and on his belly. Any ideas what that could be? Even if we can't tell exactly what the disease was, is there a particular broad spectrum medicine I should use just to be safe? Bulged eyes, swollen belly, and internal bleeding on the fins and belly are all symptoms of a bacterial infection. You're probably already being vigilant, but definitely keep an eye on other fish for any odd behaviors. If you have a planted tank I wouldn't recommend treating it directly since many broad spectrum treatments don't play well with plants. You can get a 10 gallon aquarium really cheap to use as a hospital tank. Jungle Labs fungus clear is actually meant to treat bacterial infections, and it saved some of my favorite fish a few weeks ago. I would be careful with any medications with cories, they're more sensitive to such things due to being scaleless.
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Nov 13, 2013 19:41
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Cyn Greythorne posted:In order to effect more efficient water changes in a heavily planted tank, could I drill through the side of the tank and install a valve to more efficiently drain water to a desired level? I have exactly that set up on my 200L tank. I got the hole cut at a local aquarium shop since the dude had the necessary diamond tipped circular saw. On either side of the hole is a threaded fitting that has a rubber gasket. These things are designed to make a water tight seal and can be tightened up as much as necessary. From there I have a tap fitted and a garden hose connector that is used for both draining and refilling. The only real downside is that I don't ever end up doing gravel vaccuuming and it does accumulate quite a bed of goop this way.
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Nov 15, 2013 18:29
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What do you guys have set up for light timers? The little mechanical wheel timer power strips I have keep failing really fast.
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Nov 18, 2013 00:17
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I've got a few of those, but I'm going to spring for a digital one after this one goes. It still works but its getting noisy as hell.
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Nov 18, 2013 00:22
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Medicinal Penguin posted:What do you guys have set up for light timers? The little mechanical wheel timer power strips I have keep failing really fast. I just bought the poo poo timers you pick up at Wal-Mart that cost a couple of bucks where you place the pegs in the start/stop and have never had an issue in three years which is my oldest timer. Same timers in fact I use on all the lights that have timers in my house and those are four years now since we bought the house.
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Nov 18, 2013 00:25
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How would you guys dose a shrimped tank for potassium?
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Nov 18, 2013 07:07
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I'm looking at switching out the gravel in my 20 gallon to done sort of sand and turning it into a planned tank. Anything I need to be aware of so that I don't kill the fish that are in there at the moment? Right now I just have done platys and some Cory's.
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Nov 18, 2013 19:44
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Feeding my fish earlier, I noted to myself that I had one strange looking rasbora. Then I remembered that I don't have any rasbora, so that fish had to be something else. Looks like one (and probably only one) of Sharknado's kids managed to survive against all odds. The parents were never removed (three spot gourami), there's like six yoyo loaches, six Bolivian rams, and a solid dozen black ruby barbs in the tank, all of which would happily gulp down anything. I'm guessing the little guy or gal feels pretty confident now, since it was darting out for flakes among the larger fish but I kinda worry it'll get chomped. It's like...maybe half an inch long? Just a babby.
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Nov 19, 2013 01:41
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w00tmonger posted:I'm looking at switching out the gravel in my 20 gallon to done sort of sand and turning it into a planned tank. Anything I need to be aware of so that I don't kill the fish that are in there at the moment? Right now I just have done platys and some Cory's. How're you planning to do this? As long as you keep most of the water and filter, keeping the fish in a spare tub or tank while you're doing the change and let the water clear up before putting them back in, and acclimate them it should be okay. Synthbuttrange fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Nov 19, 2013 |
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Nov 19, 2013 01:50
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SynthOrange posted:How're you planning to do this? As long as you keep most of the water and filter, keeping the fish in a spare tub or tank while you're doing the change and let the water clear up before putting them back in, and acclimate them it should be okay. I have some large plastic bins that I've been doing water changes with and I was thinking of moving them into the bin with some of the olds water from the tank (while putting the rest of the water to the side in a 2nd bin. From there, emptying out the old gravel and take plants from the tank, setting up the tank, then adding the fish back to the tank. Would this work, or should u really be doing it with new water etc
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Nov 19, 2013 02:08
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No, that seems fine. You might need to keep them in the bin for a little bit until the water clears up, so be prepared for that or wash the sand a lot.
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Nov 19, 2013 02:15
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Im looking for nerite snails. Does anyone have any they want to get rid of?
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Nov 19, 2013 05:53
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Medicinal Penguin posted:What do you guys have set up for light timers? The little mechanical wheel timer power strips I have keep failing really fast. If you have a Harbor Freight nearby, grab one of these. They have a battery so they save your settings if your power goes out. They're basically a cheaper priced one of these, which people seem to love.
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Nov 19, 2013 06:41
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So some of you might have noticed in the crayfish thread that I have a dozen crayfish I'm pit fighting (experimenting on). Once the study is over, I'm not sure what to do with them, and I don't want to eat them. What kind of interesting and easy to maintain setups could I have?
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Nov 19, 2013 06:52
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No advice for potassium that won't kill shrimp?
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Nov 19, 2013 07:45
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No clue, sorry. I just use flourish complete and excel, nothing more complicated than that.
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Nov 19, 2013 07:48
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Eifert Posting posted:No advice for potassium that won't kill shrimp? I just dose brighty k daily which works with shrimp supposedly. No shrimp personally as this tank really doesn't work well for them. As for lighting timers, I went from a mechanical and digital setup (digital strip for co2/pump/heaters and mechanical for light) to an apex lite. I got tired of the two timers drifting around. Still working on setting the apex completely up, but the basics is running for now till I get the full programming setup to what I want.
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Nov 19, 2013 12:09
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In the last week I've put a bunch of plants in my tank. I'm going low tech only using lights, root tabs and liquid ferts. My light is a 48" Finnex Ray 2. I figured the best way for me to figure this out was throw a bunch of plants at the tank and see what sticks. Here is a photo. Plants: Jungle Val Anubias Anubias Nana Anubias Nana Petit Crypt Wendtii Java Fern Narrow Leaf Fern Java Moss MM HM Rotala Indica Brazillian Pennywort Stargrass Hygrophila Aromatica Bacopa caroliniana Fish Stock: 1 Polypterus Senegalus 1 Polypterus Delhezi 6 Female Congo Tetras - will be adding 3 males to the mix 1 Dwarf Synodontis Petricola 2 Crenicichla Regani 1 Green Terror
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Nov 19, 2013 23:50
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Need some advice on a filtration issue. I've got a 165 gallon pre-formed pond liner that I am turning into an indoor pond. The issue is, it's going to be sitting directly on the concrete floor, and it's only 18" tall. This means that a canister filter would be sitting next to the pond rather than under it, and they would even be approximately the same height. The internet seems to be split 50/50 on whether or not a canister *needs* to be beneath a tank. So that is iffy. An HOB is not physically possible. Underwater aquarium filters seem underpowered (The Fluval U4 is the strongest I can find, and I would need at least two, preferably three) Underwater pond filters seem... I dunno, flakey. I'm gonna have a 18" softshell turtle bumping around the pond, and no pond filter I've looked at seems like it won't immediately break, as they all seem to be essentially a filter box with a thin pipe running up to the surface. I suppose I could just go without the pipe to the surface, and use an airstone for oxygenation purposes. (This is the style I am looking at - http://www.thatpetplace.com/pondmaster-1500-pond-pump-filter-kit ) What am I overlooking? Does anyone here run a canister filter at the same level as their tank? Building a stand for the whole thing so that I could safely use a canister would be unpleasant - It's a 6x4 pond, set in a 6x7 surrounding deck, all said and done probably 1500 lbs. Raising the whole setup off the ground would require a lot of lumber, which just makes moving it a couple years from now that much more of a nightmare.
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Nov 20, 2013 05:41
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Buy a big eheim like a 2262 and you should be just fine.
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Nov 20, 2013 06:06
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Slugworth posted:Need some advice on a filtration issue. I've got a 165 gallon pre-formed pond liner that I am turning into an indoor pond. The issue is, it's going to be sitting directly on the concrete floor, and it's only 18" tall. This means that a canister filter would be sitting next to the pond rather than under it, and they would even be approximately the same height. The internet seems to be split 50/50 on whether or not a canister *needs* to be beneath a tank. So that is iffy. The only real reason to have a canister set below the tank is so that if you have a power outage or whatever, the canister doesn't drain into the tank and overflow it. Sure, the siphon effect probably has a little something to do with it, but that's going to be offset by the complete lack of head pressure against the pump anyhow. I'm with Whale Cancer, you can't go wrong with eheim canisters, especially the classic series.
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Nov 20, 2013 06:50
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Well, glad to hear a little more support for canisters. The 2262 is a bit pricier than I am aiming for, so I will probably go with the 2217 or an AquaTop CF500. The 2217 is a smidge underpowered, but worst case scenario I can always supplement it with a second one and still be under the price of the 2262.
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Nov 21, 2013 00:59
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Found a very very long freshwater bristleworm in one of my shrimp tanks. It was sandwiched against the glass in the Aquasoil and a bright white colour with red veins, It fled as soon as I grabbed it with my tweezers, and changed to a deep red colour as it moved. Any idea if these guys are bad news? None of the online forums seem to have any clues.
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Nov 22, 2013 15:33
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I think it's pretty neat that you have a freshwater polychaete specimen! Only about 2% of all species of polychaetes are freshwater.  A way to tell that a bristleworm is carnivorous is by looking at its pharyngeal jaw: if it's fairly large, chances are it poses a threat. However, this method isn't 100% accurate and it's hard to say what's "large" if you don't have a lot of reference points. It'd probably be best to err on the side of caution as most polychaetes are carnivorous.
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Nov 22, 2013 19:39
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Kharnifex posted:Found a very very long freshwater bristleworm in one of my shrimp tanks. It was sandwiched against the glass in the Aquasoil and a bright white colour with red veins, It fled as soon as I grabbed it with my tweezers, and changed to a deep red colour as it moved. That creature in your avatar.. just imagine that worm is one in the same but skulking around your aquarium.
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Nov 22, 2013 22:03
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Excellent, I'll try to catch it. He was about 4 inches long, 5mm in diameter.
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Nov 22, 2013 22:29
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Kharnifex posted:Excellent, I'll try to catch it. He was about 4 inches long, 5mm in diameter.  WOW! That's a big one. Can you take a picture of it when you catch it?
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Nov 22, 2013 23:42
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So with all this talk of worms, I thought I might upload a [very old, and low quality] video of something I found when I was migrating my old shrimp tank. It popped up out of the substrate when I was netting out the last of the babies and shocked me more than a little. If it helps, it appeared to have tightly packed spines running up and down each side of its body. Anyone have any idea what this guy is? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuYg9EFlP0Y
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Nov 23, 2013 07:35
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Pretty much a freshwater bristleworm.
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Nov 23, 2013 07:36
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It has been a few weeks. Had some new additions to the tank and the plants are filling out nicely. No trimming done yet as they just now are starting to hit a size where I might need to soon. As you can see, new additions are 10 more celestial pearl danios bringing me to a total of 12 CPDs. I think I mentioned them in my last post, but you can see them there. They are growing well with some starting to eat the regular pellet food. I'm dropping in some tetra bloodworm gel mix once a week just to help things out for those unable to grab the pellets. So far, there has been minimal signs of algae as you can see on the glass (none on the driftwood). I'm also not seeing cyanobacteria which is also a blessing. This photo was taken right after my water change earlier. Tests before that water change still showed 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, annnd 0 nitrate. So yeah, my fish are not pooping enough to keep up with the plants' demand. Because of that, I'm looking at heading out to the local shop (petsmart sadly) and picking up two otos later today since the one guy is a bit lonely right now. Future plans also include 10 dwarf cories which should help them out. Other addition is one that made more sense the more I thought of it. I'm now the proud owner of an apex light controller. Useful little gadget actually. My work schedule has me only able to really mess with the tank on the off days, so having something to help monitor while I'm at work is a good thing. Since it has a ph probe input, I'll probably get one. I'll use it as a check to hopefully reduce chances at end of tank gassing from happening.
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Nov 23, 2013 12:21
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| # ? May 9, 2024 21:33 |
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jamontoast posted:So with all this talk of worms, I thought I might upload a [very old, and low quality] video of something I found when I was migrating my old shrimp tank. It popped up out of the substrate when I was netting out the last of the babies and shocked me more than a little. Hah drat! that looks exactly like the one I saw (save the colour changing)
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Nov 23, 2013 14:20
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