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demonR6 posted:Hearing the issues with the dragon scale bettas has kept me away from buying one. Our betta I mentioned having the health issues was moved last night into a smaller QT tank with an epsom salt mix hoping to treat his condition. Not expecting a miracle but I don't want to put him down since he is not pineconed like the wife though. We switched to feeding him live blackworms and unlike the pellets and other food he has almost no interest in anymore he goes nuts for the live food. Maybe you can check to see if anyone locally has live food? Could try. He still goes after the pellets he can see with gusto though. Just have to make sure it's directly in front of him. If it floats past him he loses track of it. Same issue afflicts opaque white bettas too. Ugh. Feel so bad for the poor guy but he's not suffering and isnt having trouble getting caught or stuck on stuff.
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Jul 28, 2014 14:33
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demonR6 posted:Hearing the issues with the dragon scale bettas has kept me away from buying one. Our betta I mentioned having the health issues was moved last night into a smaller QT tank with an epsom salt mix hoping to treat his condition. Not expecting a miracle but I don't want to put him down since he is not pineconed like the wife though. We switched to feeding him live blackworms and unlike the pellets and other food he has almost no interest in anymore he goes nuts for the live food. Maybe you can check to see if anyone locally has live food? That's good to hear that he's perking up a bit with the diet change. I had Bettas when I was a kid, but they only lasted so long as my mother loved Angel (devil) fish. Angel fish are assholes. I've been tempted to get one again, but I'm afraid the Mollies would get him.
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Jul 28, 2014 16:23
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I got a new beautiful dumbo betta last week for a 5-gallon fluval (modified to lower the flow rate dramatically). The first week he was swimming around constantly and built a giant bubble nest, but the last couple of days he has started to seem lazy or lethargic. Right after he eats he gets very active for a little while, but then settles in to rest at various places all over the tank and today he is spending almost the entire day nestled in a new hiding log I got him. Just curious if anyone has experience with some different kinds of bettas and their general activity level. I've read different places that they are supposed to be very active, but others said their bettas are like lazy cats. Can it vary just based on personality? This is my first tank so I'm probably just overly worried, but I want to make sure I have the best home for the little man.
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Jul 28, 2014 19:34
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I have a 4 year old betta that is the laziest sack of poo poo you'd ever seen. Describing him like a cat is a perfect way of putting it. Oh, he eats fine, moves fine, and sees fine, he's just the laziest fish I've ever owned. He's been that way since I bought him and he's never changed. You just might have just "lucked out" and got one like mine, hah.
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Jul 28, 2014 23:03
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I got a 8 gallon fish tank from a friend before they moved, I've never had an aquarium or know anything about it. The water was... a tea color and there are definitely way too many fish in it (2 neon tetra, 1 male guppy, 4 female guppy and an albino cory). I did frequent water changes, cleaning, an additional filter and vacuum the gravel. I bought one of those master test kits and finally got the Ammonia and NH2/3 down to 0 ppm. The guppies gills are still pretty red and one of the female is just kinda laying around even during the day. Another female guppy has this weird pink thing coming out of her vent. I'm kinda assuming they were too far gone and couldn't have been saved. What should I do from here on out? Are the fish fine if I kept them in the tank still? I'm not sure if a bigger tank is too much for me to handle or where to put it at the moment.
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Jul 29, 2014 00:15
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SharkTattoos posted:I got a new beautiful dumbo betta last week for a 5-gallon fluval (modified to lower the flow rate dramatically). The first week he was swimming around constantly and built a giant bubble nest, but the last couple of days he has started to seem lazy or lethargic. Right after he eats he gets very active for a little while, but then settles in to rest at various places all over the tank and today he is spending almost the entire day nestled in a new hiding log I got him. Depends on the amount of activity around and the fish. When I kept a betta in my shrimp tank he was always checking out what the shrimp were up to. And eating a few.
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Jul 29, 2014 00:27
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So are Dwarf Gouramis still ridiculously susceptible to disease or has the situtation improved? Lots of articles citing a 2007 study that the fish are dying left and right due to viral disease.
married but discreet fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Jul 29, 2014 |
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Jul 29, 2014 18:04
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Inaeseru posted:I got a 8 gallon fish tank from a friend before they moved, I've never had an aquarium or know anything about it. The water was... a tea color and there are definitely way too many fish in it (2 neon tetra, 1 male guppy, 4 female guppy and an albino cory). Generally the bigger the tank, the less effort needed to take care of it because there's more water to balance things out. The problem is you'll have to cycle it in first. How long has it been since you got the tank clean? Sometimes it takes a while before fish come around. That guppy laying around might still be stressed because of the conditions or because of the change of conditions. Far as the other one goes, everything I can find points to a prolapsed uterus. If anything you should isolate her to keep her out of the breeding game to let her try and recover.
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Jul 29, 2014 20:52
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IM_DA_DECIDER posted:So are Dwarf Gouramis still ridiculously susceptible to disease or has the situtation improved? Lots of articles citing a 2007 study that the fish are dying left and right do to viral disease. All three of mine died of it about a year ago. lovely disease. Takes forever for them to go, and they look awful the whole time, and there is nothing you can do about it other than euthanasia.
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Jul 29, 2014 21:59
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Slugworth posted:All three of mine died of it about a year ago. lovely disease. Takes forever for them to go, and they look awful the whole time, and there is nothing you can do about it other than euthanasia. That sucks. I was really looking forward to getting a Gourami and now I'm totally second guessing my decision. 
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Jul 30, 2014 01:37
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IM_DA_DECIDER posted:That sucks. I was really looking forward to getting a Gourami and now I'm totally second guessing my decision. What size aquarium do you have?
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Jul 30, 2014 21:32
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IM_DA_DECIDER posted:So are Dwarf Gouramis still ridiculously susceptible to disease or has the situtation improved? Lots of articles citing a 2007 study that the fish are dying left and right due to viral disease. Every one I've had over the last 2 years has died within a few months after developing sores on their sides. I've stopped buying them now as I don't want to lead a fish to death. Other Gouramis are absolutely fine though, I've had no issues with them. I've got Pearl, 3-spot, Golden, Golden Honey, Opaline, Indian and Honey Gouramis and they're all fighting fit. Just the Dwarfs that seem to die a lot.
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Jul 31, 2014 11:08
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I've got some golden honeys in my 50g and they look to be about the same size as the Dwarfs that I've seen in stores. I'm not sure how much more growing they have to do though. I found a video on my phone of my 50g in it's early stages. I'm not sure if the corys just thought the GBR was one of them or what. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lstYb08tbbk After adding a mate for the GBR they got very aggressive towards the corys, so I removed them but the corys have never been the same since. They just sit and hide all the time unless I throw some bloodworms in the tank. It's a shame because they were really awesome before I decided to try and make the GBR stop sulking.
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Jul 31, 2014 11:30
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Ansith posted:
This is so cute. They think they're
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Jul 31, 2014 13:09
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So after 5 weeks I finally got some nitrites in my goldfish tank. I figured my frequent water changes were interfering with the cycle somehow so I toned it down a notch and started trying to keep ammonia at 1.0ppm instead of 0.25. Even at 1.0 the fish was continuing to heal its burns, so I figure it was acceptable on a temporary basis. Sometime yesterday nitrites appeared out of the blue and the ammonia level started dropping. The question now is do I keep the same process up for the next part of the cycle? Is nitrite more or less toxic than ammonia? I'd like to get the cycle completed ASAP since the fish has more than doubled in size since I got it and soon it'll be so McLargeHuge that I won't be able to establish a duckweed colony that can survive the goldfish onslaught.
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Jul 31, 2014 17:29
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Ansith posted:I've got some golden honeys in my 50g and they look to be about the same size as the Dwarfs that I've seen in stores. I'm not sure how much more growing they have to do though. You could try rearranging the decor and adding another few corys? Shame because a pack of active corys is always going to be way more hilarious and entertaining than a GBR pair ever could hope to be.
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Jul 31, 2014 18:04
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Eyes Only posted:The question now is do I keep the same process up for the next part of the cycle? Is nitrite more or less toxic than ammonia? I'd like to get the cycle completed ASAP since the fish has more than doubled in size since I got it and soon it'll be so McLargeHuge that I won't be able to establish a duckweed colony that can survive the goldfish onslaught. Nitrites are less toxic than ammonia, but still keep up on daily changes until they're 0.
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Jul 31, 2014 18:22
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Ansith posted:I found a video on my phone of my 50g in it's early stages. I'm not sure if the corys just thought the GBR was one of them or what. :3 this video is so cute! How much different does your 50g tank look now? I really like the plant and driftwood placement.
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Jul 31, 2014 23:18
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Got some more babies! I *think* they're granite mollies, but I'm not 100% I did have some platys recently but they all died  Christ knows what I'm going to do with them all if they survive.
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Aug 1, 2014 08:24
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cheese posted:You could try rearranging the decor and adding another few corys? Shame because a pack of active corys is always going to be way more hilarious and entertaining than a GBR pair ever could hope to be. I'll give rearranging it a go. The tank is pretty full because I had to move some fish over from my 20G over to it so sadly adding more at the moment is out of the question. durrneez posted::3 this video is so cute! How much different does your 50g tank look now? I really like the plant and driftwood placement. I pulled the whole thing apart to get the GBRs out, even only having the driftwood in there they were still a pain in the rear end to catch. I swapped most of the taller plants over to the filter intake side and then the weeks following I had a few plants die. It's different now and I'm not happy with it at all, I really liked it the way I had it in the video too. Here it is at the moment: 
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Aug 1, 2014 10:56
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Sostratos posted:What size aquarium do you have? 10 gallon. I guess that leaves me with either Sparkling Gouramis or Honey Dwarfs. Sparkling Gouramis then! 
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Aug 1, 2014 16:54
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internet inc posted:He died. I got a dozen Neons from PetSmart in March and luckily none have kicked the bucket yet. I think having an 0.2 ph difference between their old home and new home helped them a lot. Always sucks to lose a fish though.
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Aug 1, 2014 17:47
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IM_DA_DECIDER posted:10 gallon. I guess that leaves me with either Sparkling Gouramis or Honey Dwarfs. Sparkling Gouramis then! I was going to recommend pearls, but that's definitely not big enough for those. Sparkling are awesome looking little guys. I plan to put together a small tank for them someday, but right now I've fallen victim to a devastating cichlid addiction.
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Aug 1, 2014 23:30
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In my 20 gallon there's some weird brown poo poo caked onto the glass walls. I took a paper towel to scrub it off and see what it was and it's pretty tough to scrub off. What could this poo poo be? It doesn't seem to have been negatively effecting anything since it has been there for a while and growing little by little. I also have hair algae, if there's any correlation, and I'm about to change the timer so it gets less light. As far as cleaning the tank goes I change the filter every few months and I do a monthly water change of ~20% and I just did a 25% change today.
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Aug 4, 2014 22:59
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high six posted:In my 20 gallon there's some weird brown poo poo caked onto the glass walls. I took a paper towel to scrub it off and see what it was and it's pretty tough to scrub off. What could this poo poo be? It doesn't seem to have been negatively effecting anything since it has been there for a while and growing little by little. I also have hair algae, if there's any correlation, and I'm about to change the timer so it gets less light. As far as cleaning the tank goes I change the filter every few months and I do a monthly water change of ~20% and I just did a 25% change today. I get that stuff occasionally in very small lumps (1-2 mm across) so I clean it off right away. I believe it's just another form of algae, but I wouldn't let it grow at all. It could knacker your water chemistry, plus it looks bad. With respect to water changes, you might want to increase them to 10-15% every week to fortnight. Reducing light is a great move to reducing algae and make sure you don't over-feed. Any uneaten food will simply become nitrites/algae eventually. Out of interest, what kind of filter do you have? I have a Juwel Bioflow 3.0 which consists of many different layers of sponges. The top layer is a sort of wool-like structure, about 1cm thick. I find I need to clean/replace that every few days. The top set of sponges I clean about once every 3 months or so. The lower set much less often. If you've got a similar setup, you might want to clean your filter a little more often too (not too often) to get rid of a build up of shite.
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Aug 5, 2014 13:20
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I use Aqueon filter cartridges, I think they're just basic as gently caress. There's nothing to it, it just has carbon rocks or whatever in it and there aren't separate parts to replace.
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Aug 5, 2014 14:21
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Ah I see - they look like a combination of three bits of the Bioflow - Activated Carbon sponge, the cotton wool type stuff and the Phorax/Cyrax pebbles. Do you find that the filter is covered in algae/green/brown mush after a few days? If so, simply blast it under the tap to shift it. I find it keeps the filter working well and gets rid of the crap that builds up in there.
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Aug 5, 2014 15:10
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I use basic as well but had to resort to bags from one of the other brands because the lovely Marineland i5 or whatever the hell it was is discontinued now. Not surprised because they suck balls.. noisy as hell, the replacement carts were expensive. The bags I am using now are cheaper and last two weeks in between changes.
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Aug 5, 2014 17:11
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loving Scats... I have 3 of them, they're going to drive me insane. Any ideas about plants that they won't eat? Gonna try anubias as per my girlfriend, but I was hoping java fern might work too.
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Aug 6, 2014 08:38
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Those two arent eaten by most aquarium dwellers. If they do get eaten then you might consider just a hardscape. 
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Aug 6, 2014 08:47
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Yay, I found another batch of apisto fry yesterday! Last round I totally misjudged the age (they were closer to 5 days than 1), and wasn't prepared with anything to feed them. I have a batch of BBS that should hatch by lunch, so hopefully I'll be able to keep them alive this time. At the very least, I know that I have a solid breeding pair, as this is the second time they've brought the fry to free swimming stage.
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Aug 6, 2014 14:20
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Stopped by and bought some feeder ghost and brine shrimp today on my way home from work. Managed to wind up with half of both on the floor. Brine shrimp was completely on me. I don't know why I thought a bag would stand upright while leaning against the outside of a bucket, but it ended up exactly as you'd expect if you're less dumb than I am. Had to mop a dollar's worth of brine shrimp off my tile floor  Ghost shrimp was a new one though. I always acclimate ghost shrimp on the off chance that they'll manage to live through the cichlids or loaches and scavenge around a bit, so I had them in a bowl, doing drip style. I go check on them when I'm thinking it's time to toss them in and half of them have jumped out onto the floor  I didn't know they'd suicide themselves like that. No luck at all with shrimp today, I guess.
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Aug 7, 2014 01:55
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Shrimp are kinda dumb about that. Whenever I clean up behind the stand on my shrimp tank there's always a few crispy dried up shrimp back there.
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Aug 7, 2014 01:57
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I bought 2 assassin snails hoping they would help stabilize the amount of hitch-a-ride snails. They killed all of them in less than a week. I feel sad now.
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Aug 7, 2014 02:04
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Should have bought the carefully-managed-culling snails then. Throw in a few protein pellets for them now and then now that their main food supply is gone.
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Aug 7, 2014 02:06
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re: gouramis How about chocolate gouramis? They're small, cute, and peaceful. edit: oops apparently they're super delicate
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Aug 7, 2014 05:33
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I'm starting a new shrimp tank, I have an already established fish tank. How would I go about jumping starting the whole cycle thing? I gather it's put filter/substrate from old tank into new, but what else needs to happen?
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Aug 7, 2014 07:13
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All that dirty water from when you squeeze out your fish tank filter? Dump it in your new tank. Add an ammonia source too, either pure ammonia without additional detergents added, or food sources, fish food or raw fish/shrimp to rot and produce ammonia in the tank.
Synthbuttrange fucked around with this message at 07:24 on Aug 7, 2014 |
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Aug 7, 2014 07:22
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Chichevache posted:I've spray painted my 30 gallon and got everything all set up now. I only have a few pieces of Ohko stone so far, but I like what my scape looks like at the moment. I'm going to pick up some more pieces when I'm in the Bay Area next week, assuming they have some. The pictures look a little washed out thanks to a quick point and shoot, but the rocks and substrate are much redder in real life. The Ohko stone is particularly attractive with shades of orange and yellow all throughout it. I will be back in San Jose next week, so when I get back I would like to begin my dry start of the HC. If anyone else has found a good FAQ for how to do a dry start I would love a link to it. Well it has been quite a while since I was supposed to start the tank up, but I finally got it running a few days ago. Right now I have an amazon sword, miscellaneous anubias, and some dwarf baby tears. I don't have a CO2 tank yet so I will be relying on Flourish Excel until then. I dosed it with two capfuls two days ago and yesterday I already had some pearling from the baby tears. How often should I be dosing with excel at the moment? The only inhabitant besides the plants is a betta I couldn't help but bring home from the store. *edit* I forgot, the lighting is a Finnex Ray 2 and the filtration is from an Eheim classic 250. The flow from the Eheim was too strong for the betta so I reduced it by about half. Chichevache fucked around with this message at 07:28 on Aug 7, 2014 |
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Aug 7, 2014 07:25
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SynthOrange posted:All that dirty water from when you squeeze out your fish tank filter? Dump it in your new tank. Add an ammonia source too, either pure ammonia without additional detergents added, or food sources, fish food or raw fish/shrimp to rot and produce ammonia in the tank. Any suggestions on where I get the ammonia?
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Aug 7, 2014 07:56
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