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SkaAndScreenplays posted:First of I'd like to thank everyone involved with this thread for all the indirect help. My girlfriend has been feeding me advice from this forum since starting my first aquarium. I miss the 30 gallon.
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Jan 25, 2015 14:26
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Heh, I got moved yesterday to a different room so they could remodel the bathroom in mine. The fish stayed there. I miss them when i'm not down there feeding them
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Jan 25, 2015 16:53
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Oscar update: he ate today! Also, I got a full range pH test kit and it is 7.6.
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Jan 26, 2015 01:51
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Gillingham posted:What kind of maintenance do you do on that? I never had luck fighting algae and plants dieing, then again I'm in socal where temps are not very friendly towards anything. I've sold off most of my gear but did keep my little fluval EBI that I've been meaning to do something with. Pretty minimal. It's a 2 gallon tank with a light that's overpowered (it was the only one I could find for freshwater plants that fit the lamp) so I don't add ferts and don't have a heater in it. Algae grows like crazy, but it's just green algae that the shrimp will eat. I do throw in bits of algae wafer for them, too, and I clean it up and scrape the algae off the tank regularly. I did get some black beard algae in there by accident when I pulled some anubias from my 36 gallon, but it doesn't seem to be spreading or growing much, at least.
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Jan 26, 2015 17:16
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My balloon mollies have successfully not eaten all their offspring, now I have three little dudes swimming around in my nano. Is there anything I can do to the temperature/water to shut down any further reproduction? The tank is less than a month old and the two have apparently wasted no time in celebrating their sweet new home.
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Jan 26, 2015 21:08
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Sigh. My angels decided to breed while I'm on deployment. If they successfully rear a brood with just my wife tossing food in the tank from time to time I'll be pretty stoked. Probably just eat all the babies again at the two week mark just like last year though.
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Jan 27, 2015 01:16
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xxEightxx posted:My balloon mollies have successfully not eaten all their offspring, now I have three little dudes swimming around in my nano. Is there anything I can do to the temperature/water to shut down any further reproduction? The tank is less than a month old and the two have apparently wasted no time in celebrating their sweet new home. Only one thing, decide on all males or all females. Mollies gently caress constantly. LingcodKilla posted:Sigh. My angels decided to breed while I'm on deployment. If they successfully rear a brood with just my wife tossing food in the tank from time to time I'll be pretty stoked. Kind of ironic given how protective Angels are when they start out. "Hey fucker, get lost, this is our dinner in two weeks!"
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Jan 27, 2015 09:32
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So I'm a month into cycling my 30L tank now. Plants are coming along well, HC is covering most of its area and the glosso is sending runners out like mad. I've had a little bit of an algae outbreak but I'm not too fussed about that as it picked up when I had a nitrate spike of 150ppm for some reason two weeks ago. Anyway nitrates are back to 10ppm with nitrates at 5 with no ammonia. Not long now and I can stock it with    
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Jan 27, 2015 14:02
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I've been thinking about getting a 30L and stocking it with either cherry shrimp and a betta or some tiny schooling fish like pygmy corys or dario dario. Or sparkling gourami? I'm not sure yet. Blue danios are pretty but I think they require bigger tanks. Poster above has cycled for a month. How long you planning on doing that? Is it necessary to do it so long? Also are any of the fish ideas I have for the 30L bad? Anyone have another combo to recommend? I'd like to have 2-3 different sorts in there. lorabel fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Jan 27, 2015 |
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Jan 27, 2015 21:49
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lorabel posted:I've been thinking about getting a 30L and stocking it with either cherry shrimp and a betta or some tiny schooling fish like pygmy corys or dario dario. Or sparkling gourami? I'm not sure yet. Blue danios are pretty but I think they require bigger tanks. Yeah you really do need to cycle. Its important to get bacteria colonies established to help get rid of ammonia and nitriates which can harm fish. Also if it's planted it gives the plants time to establish and take root. I used ada aqua soil in mine which leeches ammonia like crazy during the cycling phase, so stocking it before then would have been a brilliant way to kill all the fish. A 30L tank is quite small, I'm going for ember tetra and shrimp in mine because they are tiny breeds and will allow me to stock a decent amount without them becoming cramped, but Dario Dario may work too. With cycling you should keep cycling until your perameters come good, with no ammonia, nitrites and no or very low nitrates before stocking. For me, its taken a month and I will keep going for maybe another fortnight. Fuckface the Hedgehog fucked around with this message at 01:18 on Jan 28, 2015 |
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Jan 28, 2015 01:16
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Plotterboy posted:Yeah you really do need to cycle. Its important to get bacteria colonies established to help get rid of ammonia and nitriates which can harm fish. Also if it's planted it gives the plants time to establish and take root. I used ada aqua soil in mine which leeches ammonia like crazy during the cycling phase, so stocking it before then would have been a brilliant way to kill all the fish. Don't worry. I was planning to cycle, I just didn't know that it can take months. I'll buy a water kit to make sure it's ready before I put fish in it. I've been thinking I might get a 60-70L instead because everywhere I go people say bigger is better. I don't have room for something larger than that. A 30L just seemed like a good beginners tank, but maybe not. The 70L is about 63 cm long, 30 deep and 44 tall and it comes with a stand. I tried putting it's info on aqadvisor and it said the filter(bioflow 280) needed to be upgraded after just adding 10 cherry shrimp, 6 pygmy corys, and 8 danios. Is that really too much fish for a 70L? Thanks for the help! A friend has ember tetras, they're gorgeous but hard to find here. I've been wanting some of those too. I like how they're sort of like mini goldfish but not deformed. lorabel fucked around with this message at 09:36 on Jan 28, 2015 |
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Jan 28, 2015 09:30
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It took me a while because I went from scratch. If you can get ahold of some filtration matter from a friend with a good aquarium you can cut the time down a lot, as instead of establishing a bacterial colony, its just spreading one. Also bear in mind that your 10 cherry shrimp will rapidly turn into a billion cherry shrimp, as Synthorange will attest.
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Jan 28, 2015 09:35
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Haha, yea so I've seen. That's why I was thinking about a betta or something that would help keep the shrimp numbers down by eating the fry, though not by too much. Or would they/it eat the adults too? Edit: I'll ask a friend then about getting a little bit of their filter bacteria. I googled it and it looks like you can by some of the good bacteria in a bottle too. Huh! lorabel fucked around with this message at 10:25 on Jan 28, 2015 |
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Jan 28, 2015 09:39
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Plotterboy I really like your tank, I wasn't sure if I liked the tiny ground cover plants for when I was putting together my own but I think it looks great with the right rocks to go with it. I think if I ever put together a larger tank for my shrimp I would like to give it a try. I'll probably need to do this sooner rather than later, I think my 20lt is overstocked and the shrimp haven't even started breeding yet. The guy I bought from would only do a $20 minimum order and he sent me around 30 shrimp, I was expecting to lose some in shipping but that didn't happen. I've just had one die tonight and I think it's because of the overstocking (or maybe over feeding) and I haven't kept on top of water quality for them (even more important in such a small tank, I know). Possibly a failed moult, I'm not really sure. There have been a heap of successful moults but some of my shrimp look a bit of an odd colour, the clear parts look a little yellowed and a little opaque which I think might be an indicator that all is not well. Plan of attack at the moment is lots of small water changes and just wait and see; I thought about putting some shrimp in with my fry to split the load so as an experiment I put the dead shrimp in the tank to see how the fish would react; despite the shrimp being the same size as most of the fry they tore him apart and sucked his shell clean in seconds so I know for sure I can't trust shrimp with those fish. My only other spare tanks are even smaller so I don't want to use those. Anyone got any thoughts on whether tall tanks or long tanks are better for shrimp? I like the compact look of the shrimp set that I have but I feel like maybe the shrimp are missing out on surface area and there is a fairly empty column of water above them.
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Jan 28, 2015 12:57
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I think I've killed two birds with one stone. My first problem is that my guppies are overpopulating their tank, the second is that my monster goldfish Fimmion spends all his free time tearing up everything I put in his tank to satisfy his goldfish munchies and boredom (probably). I accidently transferred a guppy into the goldfish tank last week while I was replanting some stuff from one tank to another and he actually hunted it down and ate it whole. It was slightly terrifying to watch, I've never seen him swim that fast or leap out of the water like a shark. So lately I've been dumping a male guppy into the goldfish tank every day for him to hunt, which solves the problem of too many drat fish and gives my goldfish something to do besides dig up plants and shred them. In a few years I'll probably be posting about how I'm putting whole ducks into the aquarium for him to hunt at the rate he's been growing. Part of me thinks that feeding him live fish is cruel, but on the other hand it's cruel to keep fish in an overcrowded tank and guppies are prey fish in the wild anyways which is why they breed like crazy, right?  Anyways, here's some cute lil guppy fry and plants. The foxtail I bought last week is growing like crazy and making it hard to feed the fish without pushing it to one side, so I left a few strands in the guppy tank and gave the rest to Fimmion since I felt like it was providing too many hiding places for fry anyways. There's duck weed (???) that hitchhiked in the bag with the foxtail and is also multiplying. The solid leaves are some plant that was labeled "betta vase plant" and was 50% off at Petco, but it's not dead or growing much so...yeah. I dunno. There's a slimey lookin strand of bacopa won't stay planted and has been floating around the tank for months and has algea and little offshoots growing off it. And that orangy tan thing is the last two leaves of the water lily I grew from a bulb then stupidly transplanted into Fimmion's tank where he ripped all but one leaf off. It's recovering in the guppy tank now... Not pictured is the tiny patch of dwarf hairgrass that I wish would grow faster and start spreading out.
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Jan 31, 2015 05:34
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Nothing wrong with letting nature do its thing. That's how i control my mollies. gently caress around as much as they want, the angels take the fry down real quick. You would think something that big would have trouble with small spaces, but christ they'll hunt'em down no matter where
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Jan 31, 2015 12:57
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SocketWrench posted:Nothing wrong with letting nature do its thing. That's how i control my mollies. gently caress around as much as they want, the angels take the fry down real quick. You would think something that big would have trouble with small spaces, but christ they'll hunt'em down no matter where Puffer foes through all the guppy fry by the time their next brood comes around. I don't really need to feed him save for snails to keep his beak down. Still give him shrimp for the challenge and flakes for the guppies
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Jan 31, 2015 14:57
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Dantu posted:I will pickup a full range pH kit tomorrow. Late to this but if you have a pool supply near you they can test the water. Usually they want 5oz. for the sample. I take mine in all the time for hardness, pH..
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Jan 31, 2015 19:44
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I've been reading about stunted fry and whether it's poor genetics, too small environment, poor water quality, poor/inadequate nutrition, and came across a comment that the larger fry release a hormone that stunts the smaller fry. I can see why this would work, in a running water or large body of water situation this would dilute or get washed away and more fry would grow, but in a smaller body of water it would work to ensure less competition for the fitter fry. Is this a real thing though or just someone's made up theory? In my experience so far, the two fry that were the largest were ones that grew up in seperate tanks even though those tanks were very small and the water quality wasn't great, they had no competition for food (except snails) and possibly avoided the hormone effect. I'm thinking about moving the biggest fry out into my main tank, or maybe even just dumping them all in there and letting nature take it's course, and if I ever raise fry again wondering how best to avoid stunting.
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Feb 1, 2015 05:50
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It's just nature. You have fry that are meant to survive and others that are meant to be food to try and keep predators off the surviving fry, just like other animals that have runts. I've had hundreds of fry at one point in my tank and all grew at the same rate, some were normal, some were runts, but all grew at the same rate.
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Feb 1, 2015 10:10
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Aww my endlers are dying off. I lost one last summer due to the heat wave in CA, and I found another one dead today. I only have two left and on of them doesn't look too hot. I've had them for about a year now and I haven't had any issues with illnesses in my tank. I guess they are just getting old  .
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Feb 1, 2015 18:30
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Any ideas for a way to setup an underwater webcam? I'm tempted to try streaming my outdoor pond.
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Feb 2, 2015 23:21
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This is my first tank (bought for my 2 year old girls birthday) Initial, just pre-fish:  3 months later:  Very happy with how it's all going, using a co2 generating DIY substrate and the plants seem to love it.
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Feb 5, 2015 23:42
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StealthBus posted:using a co2 generating DIY substrate and the plants seem to love it. Go on, I am intrigued.
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Feb 6, 2015 01:05
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demonR6 posted:Go on, I am intrigued. Link is here: http://www.aquariumlife.com.au/showthread.php/30650-Cheap-Sand-based-CO2-Generating-Sub But the guts of it is: 1-1.5cm unwashed propagating sand - straight from bag, heaps of clay marble chips - 1 x handful per 30cm square blood & bone fertiliser - 1 x dessert spoonful per 30cm sq Cover the lot with 3-4cm well washed pool filter sand, don't want all that clay in the water column!
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Feb 6, 2015 01:43
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Thanks for that. I am setting up my 20L again but this time purely for the experiment of growing an end to end moss wall. I am going to use old faithful.. Zeobrite but this is an interesting project you have there.
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Feb 6, 2015 14:33
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I thought I'd had a disaster trialling one of my now 2cm baby barbs in the main tank, the adults zoomed in before I could intervene and I didn't see a trace of baby fish remaining. I thought they'd eaten him, turns out he was excellent at evasion and hiding. He survived hidden for three days and it took me rearranging the moss rocks to flush him out of cover. I've now moved three more across to allow a mini school and it seems like the adult fish aren't actually violently hostile, they just don't like that the smaller fish are in the spot they'd normally hang around in. Between rock piles, java moss and oak leaves there is plenty of cover and it seems like the young barbs are safe. The beacon tetra chases them when they venture out, I think because it's his only chance to throw his weight around. He doesn't seem to actually want to catch them either- unlike the penguin tetra who has tried to jump from his tank into the neighbouring fry tank twice now, lucky I keep his water level a bit low so he can't make the jump. He is spoiling so hard for a fight that I've had to shove a magazine between the two tanks to block his view. The barb fry also wanted to go at it and were patrolling the side closest to the penguins tank and antagonising him. I found some more rosy barb fry outside in the pond today, which again was a total surprise. I did top it up with some water change waste water a few weeks ago which must have carried invisible eggs out there. I've looked and looked and never seen the eggs, they must be tiny or translucent or something. I saw a dragon fly nymph chase the fish but they seemed fast enough to get away; all the runts and deformed fry must be long gone. With some scrappy plant cover, a diy solar powered pond filter and a constant supply of mosquito larvae I think they're doing okay. Kind of worried about how they will fare tomorrow, it's going to be 41 then a stretch of 35+ days so I am tempted to try to bring them inside to safety. But, the water quality in the pond tests way better than anything I can manage inside, even though it looks cloudy my guess is the sunlight and resulting bacteria and algae are keeping the water very clean. But between the heat and the nymphs they might be safer inside just the same. After another shrimp death I am biting the bullet and getting a water filter/RO system which will make getting correct water a lot easier I hope. Going to try using the RO concentrate to do my laundry and the hardness is tweakable for drinking or aquarium use. Really looking forward to giving it a go, at the moment a small water change only changes the shrimp tanks tds by about 10ppm and I don't want to do too big a change in case I shock the shrimp. It's hard to keep up and I really should catch the rest of the fry and put them in the main tank so I can repurpose the fry grow out tank to a shrimp tank and spread the bio load out a bit. Or I could just buy another tank... Edit: it was nearly 30 in the pond by mid afternoon so I have brought the fish in and have them in a plastic tub on the coffee table, this can't last as it is not at all cat proof. Might have to acclimate them and dump them into the main tank with everyone else. Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 07:01 on Feb 7, 2015 |
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Feb 6, 2015 16:33
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My wife came home from shopping with a 65 litre/17 US gal tank (a "starter" kit with light, filter, heater and thermometer), 4 small bags of smooth gravel and a couple of plastic plants. Luckily, no fish. It's my own fault; I've been talking about getting some fish and some micro crabs for a while, but had been putting it off till I'd done some proper research on keeping them alive. So, it looks like I better get some real plants to put in there. Righto. Do I need a bubble wand thingy as well? Do I need to put anything underneath the gravel? I have 3 good sized fish places locally, and I will be visiting them all before I actually buy anything. I'll try and post pics as I go along. So, from virgin tank to fishy shangri-la....hopefully ;-)
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Feb 8, 2015 18:44
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goomsnarr posted:My wife came home from shopping with a 65 litre/17 US gal tank (a "starter" kit with light, filter, heater and thermometer), 4 small bags of smooth gravel and a couple of plastic plants. If it is a hang on back filter, it will probably do enough surface agitation to not really need a bubbler. Undergravel filters have definitely gone out of vogue as today's filters can generally handle what is thrown at them. Also, poop just gets down under the plate to hang out and rot away.
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Feb 8, 2015 19:00
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You could definitely do a low tech planted tank without buying any other gear. Plants like anubias, java fern and java moss aren't fussy about substrate or lighting in my experience. Before you add any fish, make sure you've read up on the nitrate cycle, and you'll want to get a test kit that tests for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. It's a lot easier when you start the tank off on the right foot, and aren't playing catch up from the get go.
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Feb 8, 2015 19:53
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Anubias are my go-to no fuss plants, just tie them to some pretty drift wood. Also all that will be left after the nuclear winter is cockroaches and anacharis.
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Feb 9, 2015 01:02
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Tie them down good so they dont push themselves off by their roots. The only downside to anubias is that they are so slow growing that the leaves are prime algae targets.
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Feb 9, 2015 01:05
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SynthOrange posted:the leaves are prime algae targets. Yep. I have a giant section of nana petite I had to remove from the 55 because it's just gobsmacked with algae.
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Feb 9, 2015 01:08
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I don't have pictures, but I found a hitchhiker today. It's some kind of free swimming fry. I have some panda cories in my tank, but they're way too young to be breeding and I would have seen them spawning. I bought some plants about two weeks ago and I guess it came with some eggs. Are there any particularly likely suspects or am I just going to have to wait and see if it gets bigger?
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Feb 9, 2015 04:11
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Leviathan.. RIP.
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Feb 9, 2015 04:13
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Some pics of my young sunfish. They're growing pretty quick.          
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Feb 10, 2015 09:45
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Great photos! how big are they, and how big will they get?
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Feb 10, 2015 10:59
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Lets just quickly google sunfish... Yeah you're going to need a bigger tank.
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Feb 10, 2015 11:03
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Jesus gently caress. So i got moved to another room so they could remodel the bathroom in this one. The fish stayed and i watched the tank slowly get worse and worse. Algae like mad, loving plants are withering, even the anacharis looks sickly. Turns out the guys redoing the bathroom must have hit the timer and switched it off auto and set it to on. The lights have been on 24 hours a day for two weeks. Debating on just gutting the tank this weekend to clean everything and start over.
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Feb 10, 2015 16:29
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Haha. My sunfish are between 1" and 2.5". I have several different kinds. I have greens which will get the largest that can grow up to a foot, 3 Bantam which will get 4-5" and a few different kinds of longear which can get to 8-9in. It's going to be an experiment to see what works and what doesnt. I have a pond I can put the ones that don't work into when that time comes.
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Feb 10, 2015 17:25
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