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A few pages back I posted about my firemouth that seemed paralyzed all of a sudden, I guess that was almost two months ago now. When I pulled him out of the 55g he was floating at the surface in a C shape gasping. For a week or so he just laid on his side in my quarantine tank breathing, but nothing more. A week later he was able to sit upright on the bottom, a week after that he could move his tail again and maintain buoyancy. This is him today: So glad I ignored all the information I found in various forums that all said to euthanize him because it was hopeless. 
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Apr 24, 2014 01:15
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Dantu posted:A few pages back I posted about my firemouth that seemed paralyzed all of a sudden, I guess that was almost two months ago now. When I pulled him out of the 55g he was floating at the surface in a C shape gasping. For a week or so he just laid on his side in my quarantine tank breathing, but nothing more. A week later he was able to sit upright on the bottom, a week after that he could move his tail again and maintain buoyancy. This is him today: Awesome to see that he made it and is doing so well! He is a great looking fish.
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Apr 24, 2014 06:24
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Always great to read a feel-good story! Did you do anything to treat him other than relocating to a quarantine tank?
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Apr 24, 2014 13:21
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Bait and Swatch posted:Awesome to see that he made it and is doing so well! He is a great looking fish. Thanks. mobby_6kl posted:Always great to read a feel-good story! Did you do anything to treat him other than relocating to a quarantine tank? I put a little bit of salt in the water and a random dose of Melafix, mostly because I couldn't think of anything else. I tried to feed him peas but he wouldn't swallow them. He really was paralyzed for a bit, when I tried the peas I was able to catch him by hand easily. Other than trying to paddle away with his pectoral fins, his body was limp. Still no idea what caused it, my best guess is that the my oscar crashed into him while fighting his nemesis, the heater. At any rate, quarantine tank has been setup as a regular tank, I don't want to risk putting him back in with the oscar.
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Apr 24, 2014 14:30
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Bizarre recovery -- I admit that I would have said put him down, too. Wonder if it was a swim bladder injury, although that wouldn't explain the tail muscle paralysis. Bass update: I have had Princess Bloop for a year and a half now, and she's finally reached 11". She's killing me with how slowly she grows. I expect her to top out somewhere between 15"-18". Here she is swanning around the tank.  Her companion, Stripey, is a bizarre hybrid of what I think are three different species of Cichla. The side splotches are from C. monoculus, the extra stripes and pale body (compared to Bloop) are from C. piquiti, and the snakeskin border around those stripes are possibly from C. kelberi. He's growing faster than she is, and I expect him to finish out at about two feet, thanks to his azul (Cichla piquiti) parentage. 
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Apr 24, 2014 18:07
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I had a dream that my puffers ate my shrimp and now I can't find my shrimp. Proof of fish telepathy?
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Apr 24, 2014 22:56
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Beautiful fish Fusillade, what size tank and filtration are you running? I'd love to house some bass someday.
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Apr 24, 2014 23:41
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A very lightly stocked, overfiltered 300 gallon. There's 8 adult fish in there. A breeding pair of jaguars (I really don't count their regularly appearing swarms of fry as biomass), the two juvie pbass, two adult severums. The cleanup crew consist of a saddleback bichir and a very prosperous striped raphael. I run an in-tank UV filter, and have two Fluval FX5s attached with just bioballs inside (ideally, one would be a wet/dry sump, but I really don't feel like fiddling with the plumbing while also wrangling a newborn. Ideally, I do a 50% water change every week, but I do skip on occasion. Different species of peacock bass get to different adult sizes. You could house a trio of one of the smaller species (orino, kelberi) for life in a 180 gallon. The largest species (temensis, pinima) get up to three feet long and really shouldn't be kept in anything less than 450 gallon.
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Apr 25, 2014 00:03
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My god Bloop is such a pretty fish. I think her dorsal looks amazing, that jet black with the bright yellow dots at the base. Gorgeous fish, Fusillade. Freshy goons, I need some opinions. I'm about to get another 75 gallon tank dropped off within the next few weeks it looks like. I won't be stocking it immediately, but I do like to know what I'm doing ahead of time. The thing is I'm not sure what I want to put in it. I'm leaning towards some mid-sized central or SA cichlids, but I'm just not sure. Firemouths have a special place in my heart due to one being my first real screw up when I was blowing my allowance at the fish store as a kid. But I would kinda like to keep angels too? Earth eaters of some sort would be pretty cool too, though. And then there's always my pipe dream of threadfin acaras, but I think 75 is a bit tight for them? Totally open to suggestions on this. Either way, I'm kinda thinking a few big fish and then some dithers of whatever fit with the big stuff.
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Apr 25, 2014 01:53
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I recall this being mentioned in the past month or so, but just wanted to show what a large aquarium with a mass of small fish could look like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZDexLMZFrU&t=1459s Note the ball of cardinals hanging out around the rocks in the center.
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Apr 25, 2014 04:05
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I don't think I could have resisted naming Stripey "Rorschach".
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Apr 25, 2014 12:25
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That video makes me want to keep buying bigger and bigger tanks to aquascape. Guess I'll be hitting up garage sales this weekend to find some.
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Apr 25, 2014 17:52
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Fejsze posted:That video makes me want to keep buying bigger and bigger tanks to aquascape. Guess I'll be hitting up garage sales this weekend to find some. I got a 55 gallon with a oak canopy and a $350 canister filter, a bunch of rock and driftwood for $20. I just need a stand and a light for it. It's been holding water in my spare room for the past 6 months without a single drip. Garage sale deals can be awesome.
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Apr 25, 2014 20:46
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Well, it has been awhile since i last updated, and that is just me being lazy really (still being lazy honestly). I picked up a tds meter which shows me around 100-200 depending on a fresh water change or near the end before the next one. So I'll need to switch to my tap filter system again if nothing more than for top offs during the week. As for the shrimp issues, I think I figured it out but I haven't added any to truly verify till I have the rest of the system sorted. Basically, I cooked them. The tank was running around 80F. So oops on that. I've set my controller for now to handle keeping the temp under a more manageable level till I make the effort to pull the heaters out one by one and synced them to the proper temp. Now for the real big kicker news I learned while looking through my youtube subscriptions. ADG does not sell ADA products anymore other than aquasoil. If you need tank, pumps, glass lily, glass co2, you'll need to head over to AFA for it. Or I should say, AFA is now the sole distributor of ADA products here in the US. My one and only experience with adg was pretty bad, so I kind of ignored them and shopped afa anyway. ADG instead bought out NA. You euro people will probably recognize the brand. They are basically a knockoff of the ADA stuff. With it comes a name change to Aquavas. So if you start seeing that here in the states, you'll be aware of what it is. Launch is apparently happening may 1st. However, it is still ADG, so it may and probably will slip (and has done so before apparently).
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Apr 27, 2014 15:18
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Hi all, a while back I asked for advice on what to start with for my 40 gallon breeder, and whether I should go straight rock, wood, or a mix. Decided to go with a mix so I grabbed the piece of manzanita I had in my old tank to give it another shot. I picked up some I think sing stones, and started a very basic placement. I've read plenty of of 'rules' for hardscaping but of course it doesn't really stick or make as much sense when I'm looking at the rocks I have vs when I see it on the computer screen. So if you could tell me some specific things that I should change or did wrong so I can fix it, I'd really appreciate it. I'm planning on having a carpet of HC in the front, and then possible trying to make a 'river' with mini swords between the two hills in addition to other plants I haven't decided on yet. Thanks! http://imgur.com/a/uAMTw E: Sorry all I could take the picture with was my bad phone camera!
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Apr 28, 2014 05:00
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Right now one of my snails is hanging from what looks like a mucus thread from the water surface and just drifting around connected to it, kind of like a spider hanging from a thread. It's a random snail that came with a plan I bought when I first bought my tank, I guess, so I don't know what it is. Has anyone seen/heard of what I am describing or knows what it is?
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Apr 28, 2014 16:49
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high six posted:Right now one of my snails is hanging from what looks like a mucus thread from the water surface and just drifting around connected to it, kind of like a spider hanging from a thread. It's a random snail that came with a plan I bought when I first bought my tank, I guess, so I don't know what it is. Has anyone seen/heard of what I am describing or knows what it is? Yeah, my snail infestation started with something similar. Get rid of it now, do not let it lay eggs or else next thing you know you'll be shelling out for assassin snails who appear to be doing fuckall. Back to the mucus thing, what's really crazy is when 20-30 of them get together to make a super voltron snail snot raft and go for a ride. Makes them easy to scoop out though.
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Apr 28, 2014 19:13
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Fejsze posted:Yeah, my snail infestation started with something similar. Get rid of it now, do not let it lay eggs or else next thing you know you'll be shelling out for assassin snails who appear to be doing fuckall. I resorted to not only assassin snails but a clown pleco, it got that out of hand. If I were to show you a pic of the substrate now, it is a sea of empty snail shells and they are still all over the place.
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Apr 28, 2014 19:55
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demonR6 posted:I resorted to not only assassin snails but a clown pleco, it got that out of hand. If I were to show you a pic of the substrate now, it is a sea of empty snail shells and they are still all over the place. A clown pleco would eat shrimps tho right? I've been scraping the glass with my net and filling up a plastic bag with snails, and there's always more when I wake up the next day. I've had roach infestations that were easier to handle. I would love to get something more aggressive to help with the snails, but since it's a shrimp tank, don't really want to mess with that bit.
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Apr 28, 2014 20:21
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Fejsze posted:A clown pleco would eat shrimps tho right? I've been scraping the glass with my net and filling up a plastic bag with snails, and there's always more when I wake up the next day. I've had roach infestations that were easier to handle. I would love to get something more aggressive to help with the snails, but since it's a shrimp tank, don't really want to mess with that bit. Mine does not bother the 15 or so shrimp I have in the tank right now. There are too many snails around for him to even give a poo poo I guess and there are shrimp of varying sizes.
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Apr 28, 2014 20:42
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Don't you all mean clown loach? I don't think a clown Pleco will go after snails. Unless they are made of wood.
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Apr 28, 2014 21:28
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Dantu posted:Don't you all mean clown loach? I don't think a clown Pleco will go after snails. Unless they are made of wood. Very possibly... I do know loaches will either gobble my shrimps or make them hide, so I'll just have to go the long route on this, unless, in fact, driftwood nibbling plecos will go after snails as well...
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Apr 28, 2014 21:36
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Fejsze posted:Very possibly... I do know loaches will either gobble my shrimps or make them hide, so I'll just have to go the long route on this, unless, in fact, driftwood nibbling plecos will go after snails as well... I really don't think clown plecos could catch a snail if they tried, much less a shrimp. Oddly enough though, I had one that loved shrimp pellets and used to come out in broad daylight the second they hit the gravel.
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Apr 28, 2014 23:53
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I've been breaking rules, mixing cichlids with non cichlids, haven't had many problems over the last decade. My long established tank however has suddenly gone into territorial disputes. I have a blue jack dempsey, he's getting his but kicked by a 10 year old 2" long botia. Torn fins, entire works. How it started, couple weeks ago a male yellow fin borleyi got mad at the Fluval FX5 powerhead and started ferociously attacking it non-stop when the lights were on. it freaked the blue jack out, and it hid behind some bushes. below is a log the botia claimed. so the botia seen the blue jack as a threat, and started attacking its fins. So, I thought I'd be smart and bust up the territories, moved the logs and bushes around. This caused WW3. I've got another botia, tiger of some sorts (can't remember the name atm), one of the long 8" ones, He's upset and beating up the rainbow shark. I have a 13 year old Leporinus, he's huge tankbuster size, and he does not like this fighting. I have a group of "once" peaceful frontosas, since the fighting broke out, they started fighting with eachother. I have 3 sets of dither fish, 6" bala sharks... they're trying to jump out of the tank. Rosy tetras, they're fighting. and the only normal acting fish, some red band barb, 4" long fish. This is in a 150g long tank. Amazing how so much mayhem can erupt from 1 fish having a hormone imbalance.
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Apr 29, 2014 03:40
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Dantu posted:Don't you all mean clown loach? I don't think a clown Pleco will go after snails. Unless they are made of wood. Yes, loach.. sorry but I was shitposting during a boring meeting and that is what I get. 
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Apr 29, 2014 14:16
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On a purely theoretical basis (I was talking with a friend who actually HAS fish), what kind of paints are safe for tank landscaping? I'm asking because I had a funny mental image of painting up and weathering Warhammer terrain for tank decorations - you know, make it look like a ruined overgrown and flooded city, some plastic building ruins, maybe a wrecked Rhino tank or two with the hatches open for hidey-holes, one of those six-inch-tall Space Marine statues for a centerpiece, all painted to look like it's been underwater and wreathed with plantlife for a good while. The paints I normally use are water-based acrylics, followed by a thick lacquer of the same kind to protect them against casual wear and tear - I'd think they are safe, but just had to ask. (Disclaimer, I do not own any fishes and I'm unlikely to change that in the near future, I've just been following this thread for a while and thought I'd ask for shits and giggles) Drake_263 fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Apr 29, 2014 |
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Apr 29, 2014 18:57
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So, do those bottles of 'bacteria starter' actually work? Some of them claim that you can add fish instantly after treating the water with it but I'm pretty incredulous. Also I'm a little bit horrified that they sell cachama (pacu) as aquarium fish after seeing fully grown ones all over the place in Venezuela (they can get gigantic! Good eating when they're dinner-plate sized though).
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Apr 29, 2014 20:12
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I'm no expert, but that does sound pretty iffy to me. Certainly the starter would kickstart the bacterial ecosystem in the tank, but they'd still be dependent on what exactly you had in the tank, wouldn't they? Take some time for the population to stabilize. As for pacu, hey, the guys selling them aren't stupid. People who BUY them on the other hand..
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Apr 29, 2014 21:10
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I tried one of those when we set our tank up, can't say I noticed any major jump, it still took another two weeks before the tests reported clear and the tank cycled. Took a trip to my LFS to pick up some food and had a look at the new specialist shrimp section they are setting up which will be cool. Might prompt me to setup a dedicated shrimp tank. While we were talking about it I mentioned it would be nice if they could get hold of larger mature shrimp which might not stand such a high chance of being turned into food. He quickly walked me round to another tank where he had a pair of full grown Amano ready to go, apparently they were donated by customer who was shutting down his tank. Went for food, came back with two shrimp who can happily hold there own against anything in my tank.
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Apr 29, 2014 21:40
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The only reputable starter I know of is Bio Spira, and I don't know if they make a freshwater version.
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Apr 29, 2014 21:57
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There is a possibility I may be getting a large tank complete with cichlids of some description, a friend of mine was given the tank + fish but knows bugger all about fishkeeping and lost a bunch due to not dechlorinating the water during changes. Since I nerded out and offered her a bunch of advice on how to keep the rest alive she's offered it to me as it's kind of a pain for her to maintain. I know bugger all about cichlids, there are what might be a couple of pairs of electric yellows and a pair of electric blues as well as some miscellaneous smaller ones I only caught a glimpse of and apparently a catfish of some description. Can anyone give me some general cichlid advice?
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Apr 29, 2014 22:22
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Drake_263 posted:On a purely theoretical basis (I was talking with a friend who actually HAS fish), what kind of paints are safe for tank landscaping? I'm asking because I had a funny mental image of painting up and weathering Warhammer terrain for tank decorations - you know, make it look like a ruined overgrown and flooded city, some plastic building ruins, maybe a wrecked Rhino tank or two with the hatches open for hidey-holes, one of those six-inch-tall Space Marine statues for a centerpiece, all painted to look like it's been underwater and wreathed with plantlife for a good while. The paints I normally use are water-based acrylics, followed by a thick lacquer of the same kind to protect them against casual wear and tear - I'd think they are safe, but just had to ask. The paint would be easy, but you'd have to be careful with the choice of glue. For paint, my wife and I made a tank background of styrofoam covered with a mix of drylok and acrylic paint. Drylok is a latex-based pond sealer that you can find at a home-depot type store. For glue, i've heard that gorilla glue is safe and I know that hot glue is. If you could use that to put the figurines together, it would hold fine in water once covered with the acrylic/drylok mixture.
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Apr 30, 2014 00:29
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Bait and Swatch posted:The paint would be easy, but you'd have to be careful with the choice of glue. For paint, my wife and I made a tank background of styrofoam covered with a mix of drylok and acrylic paint. Drylok is a latex-based pond sealer that you can find at a home-depot type store. I generally assemble plastic miniatures with a polystyrene cement - it melts the plastic on contact and then evaporates as the plastic resolidifies. I doubt it should leave any residue on the miniature. And for the record, I saw that styrofoam background earlier in the thread - that was some great work! All sorts of awesome, I've been thinking of doing something slightly similar for a gaming table 
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Apr 30, 2014 00:46
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Humboldt Squid posted:So, do those bottles of 'bacteria starter' actually work? Some of them claim that you can add fish instantly after treating the water with it but I'm pretty incredulous. The general consensus that I've heard is 'bacteria starter' is waste of money. If you want to immediately stock a FW tank the only thing I'd say, tentatively, is to lightly stock a planted tank.
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Apr 30, 2014 01:31
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Yeah, that's what I figured, thanks everyone!
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Apr 30, 2014 02:00
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You're better off asking them to just squeeze one of their filters out for you. I've started most of my filters by just squeezing a dirty filter into the new tank and that's a pretty fast jump start. Not ready to go right away, but it's good to go in a week.
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Apr 30, 2014 02:09
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Drake_263 posted:I generally assemble plastic miniatures with a polystyrene cement - it melts the plastic on contact and then evaporates as the plastic resolidifies. I doubt it should leave any residue on the miniature. Thanks! Sounds like your idea would work out great if that's the case. Best of luck on the table and miniatures, post pics if you ever put the miniatures in a tank, i'd like to see how it looks.
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Apr 30, 2014 02:13
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Ugh, my metallic betta is definitely partially blind now. There's only a small pizza slice shaped area in front of each eye that isnt covered by metallic pigment. He cant see food unless it's directly in front of him. He doesnt have trouble because he swims up to the spot I feed him regularly at and use brightly coloured floating pellets, but if they drift behind him, he doesnt notice they're there. I hope he doesnt go completely blind. 
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Apr 30, 2014 11:22
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I am looking for some goon input on a small planted cubicle tank. I don't expect to put any fish in it but I think a small shrimp only setup could be doable. From googling around here is what I expect to do.
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Apr 30, 2014 23:07
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Zaffy posted:The general consensus that I've heard is 'bacteria starter' is waste of money. If you want to immediately stock a FW tank the only thing I'd say, tentatively, is to lightly stock a planted tank. Not necessarily - Seachem's Stability actually works. I'm not sure that I'd add fish right away (people have with dosing it every day without loss of life), but lots of people have had success significantly shortening cycle time with it.
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May 1, 2014 01:28
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