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Got around to cleaning up the tank a bit today. the angels in their moving about and "gently caress you, i can fit through that hole" attitude tear the plants around the tank, including the pothos i have dangling in water. So i started tracing pothos vines and tugging them up since most had rooted into the substrate. i found a few Popeye vines. The ends are really slim and small from their original growth and then balloon out to these 1 inch circumference vines from sucking up fish poops. I wish i'd thought ahead and taken photos with them out on the floor, they were frickin' amazing.
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May 16, 2015 11:54
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I recently bought two albino cory cats to add to the 6 non albino corys I have. When I first added them they were swimming around and looked like they were about to mate. This was several days ago and they are still extremely flipping their poo poo and swimming all over the tank and not chilling with the rest of the corys. I had read that albinos will join the existing group of non albinos, but I'm worried that these guys won't and are getting stressed out being just the two. Any thoughts?
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May 16, 2015 14:13
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I've read that some albino corys are bronze corys and some albinos are peppered corys. You'd think it shouldn't matter since there are a lot of claims that corys will just school together, but I've seen counter claims that corys are fussy about which corys they'll hang around with. Even the wikipedia page for bronze corys says that they will tend to separate out into species groups. What are your other corys? You're probably right that they are stressed out, do you have other fish that might be spooking them? Any plant cover? Every time I've had stressed fish the only way I could get them to settle down was to either have the lights off or cover a portion of the tank in a black garbage bag to give them a sense of privacy. Do they flip their poo poo even at night time? I've always wanted to get corys myself but I keep putting it off because I want to do it right. I'm thinking about biting the bullet and getting a second non-nano tank - I've had my penguin/hockeystick tetras in a tank that is too small for too long now. I was hoping they'd settle down in a single species tank, with leaves and floating plants for cover, but the aggression and squabbling has been constant and I think the only thing that will make it better is to give them more space (and get more fish for the school). I've got room for a 25gal at most and since I'm getting a bigger tank I want to set it up properly so that I can get some corys as well. I'm looking at Exo Terra riverbed sand for substrate since I've lucked out every time I've gone looking for playsand or silica sand or builders sand or pool sand, there is just nothing appropriate locally available, and all the fish shops sell is gravel. This sand is meant for soft turtles, and claims to be ultra fine and smooth and also suitable for frogs, salamanders etc so I am pretty sure the corys will be okay. It's kind of brown which isn't great but I didn't want to get a super white reflective sand to make the tank too bright. I'm thinking about getting either panda corys, or trilineatus (leopard, false julii) or some pepper corys if I can't get either of those (I've given up on my original plan to get dwarf corys, feeding them tiny live food seems a bit hard for now). I hope corys will be fine versus the tetras, I don't ever see the penguin tetras take food from the bottom or ever really pay much attention to that part of the tank so I think they'll ignore them. The other advantage of getting a new big tank is that it frees up the little tank to use for my expanding population of shrimp!
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May 16, 2015 16:21
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So I'm getting an office tank set up because I don't really have room at home right now and keeping fish is something that has always fascinated me. I got the Fluval Spec III (2.6 gal) and I plan to keep a betta and some red cherry shrimp in there with some live plants. I'm looking for low light plants (just going to be using the stock light that came with the tank . For heat I will be using a hydor 25W heater and ecocomplete substrate. Any recommendations on some good plants that I should be looking for? I want some sort of carpeting plant if possible with a few taller things to kind of break it up a bit. How many cherry red shrimp can I reasonably keep in a planted tank this small without overloading it? (assuming there will be 1 betta as well) Content: I went to one of my local petstores yesterday and I was under the impression that they were pretty good. We always buy our dog food from them but I have never checked out the fish section. I go over to look at the bettas that they have in stock and just generally browse. They have a small wall of tanks maybe 4 tanks wide and 5 tall. I looked and immediately realized something was wrong. One of the tanks had a piece of paper taped to it that read something along the lines of "We have had a bad day, we wont be selling any fish from this tank". Inside the tank was a ton of guppies and probably 25 dead ones on the bottom. The rest of the tanks were similar carnage with there being dead fish in every one of them (more than one). The water didnt look cloudy or anything so I was just   I wish I had taken some pictures of this. Never seen anything like it before. What could have happened to cause a mass die off like that in many tanks? I don't think I will be purchasing fish from this store...
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May 18, 2015 15:32
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Rallos posted:So I'm getting an office tank set up because I don't really have room at home right now and keeping fish is something that has always fascinated me. I got the Fluval Spec III (2.6 gal) and I plan to keep a betta and some red cherry shrimp in there with some live plants. I'm looking for low light plants (just going to be using the stock light that came with the tank . For heat I will be using a hydor 25W heater and ecocomplete substrate. In my limited experience, Java moss fits all of your requirements. I bought one batch with my first 10 gallon tank and it's carpeting nicely. I have to fiddle with it from time to time to keep it where I want it to be, but it grows like crazy under low light condition and looks cool. Also, anacharis is a stalky plant that can't be killed, as far as I can tell.
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May 18, 2015 16:20
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Rallos posted:"We have had a bad day, we wont be selling any fish from this tank". That sign makes me think someone hosed up a water change, got a dosage wrong or mistook what chemical they were using. If some of the guppies were still alive they're apparently pretty tough so might have held on longer. Some pet stores have a common water supply for all their tanks so that could be what happened, and it left them with no place to rescue fish to, or maybe they didn't notice the mistake in time. Mass rapid die-offs generally are poisonings rather than disease although apparently there is a strain of fast acting columnaris that can kill overnight. It couldn't hurt to ask what happened either, it could be something simple like a trainee using windex to clean the glass. You could probably judge a lot from the reply they give you, if they give a plausible reason and seem upset about it they're probably a more reliable store than if they spin you some garbage tale or worse say "lol iunno oh well they're just fish". If you're getting shrimp you can try giving them some dried leaves to eat while you're waiting for plants and biofilm to establish, I've tried oak, Indian almond and some other riparian leaves and the red cherries seem to prefer Indian almond leaves over anything else although they will move on to other leaves once those are gone. They stain the water a little bit but it isn't too bad. I seem to recall 1 shrimp per litre so around 10 might be okay, just make sure they have places to hide or they might all get munched. I have never kept betta but I've heard some ignore shrimp while others don't abide them. Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 16:59 on May 18, 2015 |
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May 18, 2015 16:55
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Stoca Zola posted:That sign makes me think someone hosed up a water change, got a dosage wrong or mistook what chemical they were using. If some of the guppies were still alive they're apparently pretty tough so might have held on longer. Some pet stores have a common water supply for all their tanks so that could be what happened, and it left them with no place to rescue fish to, or maybe they didn't notice the mistake in time. Mass rapid die-offs generally are poisonings rather than disease although apparently there is a strain of fast acting columnaris that can kill overnight. It couldn't hurt to ask what happened either, it could be something simple like a trainee using windex to clean the glass. You could probably judge a lot from the reply they give you, if they give a plausible reason and seem upset about it they're probably a more reliable store than if they spin you some garbage tale or worse say "lol iunno oh well they're just fish". That seems to make sense about the chemical mix up or the like. I will ask them about it the next time I am in the area. Stoca Zola posted:I have never kept betta but I've heard some ignore shrimp while others don't abide them. I've also heard that so I will have to see how it goes. I've heard that some betta really give no fucks and others just want to  all over them shrimpies.How long should I wait after planting before introducing fish/inverts (aside from the snail infestation that I hear usually accompanies live plants  )? I got a couple small pieces of driftwood also to let some biofilm build up on.
Rallos fucked around with this message at 17:10 on May 18, 2015 |
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May 18, 2015 17:06
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You would still want to cycle your tank, even for shrimp, although their bioload is smaller than a fish (but you're going to have a betta too right? So you definitely want to cycle your tank). Also don't forget to rinse your plants if you're getting them new, in case there is any residual non-shrimp friendly chemicals (eg a fertiliser containing copper). I used a previously used sponge filter in my shrimp tank and with live plants to help it didn't take very long to cycle. You should still do it by measuring your levels of ammonia/nitrite/nitrate and you can't really tell ahead of time how long it will take. So to answer your question, wait until your tank is cycled. If you aren't sure what I mean there is a lot of good info on the nitrogen cycle out there.
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May 18, 2015 18:04
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Stoca Zola posted:You would still want to cycle your tank, even for shrimp, although their bioload is smaller than a fish (but you're going to have a betta too right? So you definitely want to cycle your tank). Also don't forget to rinse your plants if you're getting them new, in case there is any residual non-shrimp friendly chemicals (eg a fertiliser containing copper). I used a previously used sponge filter in my shrimp tank and with live plants to help it didn't take very long to cycle. You should still do it by measuring your levels of ammonia/nitrite/nitrate and you can't really tell ahead of time how long it will take. Appreciate the info. I was just asking if there was anything additional. I got a test kit so I will wait until the levels have stabilised before putting in fish/inverts. I didn't know about rinsing of plants, does this still apply if I'm getting them from my LFS that has them in a tank with fish currently?
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May 18, 2015 18:34
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Yeah I would, just in case. Shrimp don't like certain chemicals that fish have no problems with, for example copper and some fish medications. Your LFS might have dosed some fertilisers for the plants so rinsing just minimises the risk of shrimp harm.
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May 18, 2015 19:06
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Here's a cautionary warning for those of you that use DIY CO2: Always use a check valve. I took off my CO2 bottle last night with the intention of re-attaching it in the morning after mixing in new sugar and yeast, and forgot to raise the tube up onto the aquarium. Because I am an idiot, and didn't put a check valve along the tube, I woke up to 15 gallons of aquarium water siphoned onto my rug. It isn't a good way to start the day.
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May 19, 2015 17:08
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Stoca Zola posted:it could be something simple like a trainee using windex to clean the glass I've heard this theory tossed around before, but I've never heard of anyone losing fish to windex. I've used windex to clean all of my tanks for 15 years and never lost a fish to that. As long as you aren't spraying the bottle directly into the tank, it's not going to harm anything.
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May 19, 2015 17:14
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Enos Cabell posted:I've heard this theory tossed around before, but I've never heard of anyone losing fish to windex. I've used windex to clean all of my tanks for 15 years and never lost a fish to that. As long as you aren't spraying the bottle directly into the tank, it's not going to harm anything. That's exactly what I'm talking about. I'm picturing open top bulk tanks, trainee spraying excessive windex directly on the side of the tank and overspray going everywhere or dribbles going into lower tanks, etc. I didn't mean to imply that windex was super dangerous, just that accidents can happen. I can picture some people being less careful because it's not their own fish, too. Still, I'm only six months or so into the hobby, I'm still a bit paranoid and trying to find my feet although I haven't had any deaths apart from dumb escapist snails for quite a while now.
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May 19, 2015 17:37
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Yeah, that could definitely be a problem. I just didn't want anyone to be scared off of using windex or similar to clean their glass. As long as you spray directly onto the paper towel away from the tank, there is little to worry about.
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May 19, 2015 17:53
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Got my tank over to the office today (was quite a hike carrying the box and a 20 lb bag of substrate on the train and then walking 5 blocks to my office building) and got it set up and turned it on. Everything seems to be working fine except for the heater. I got Hydor 25W Submersible Aquarium Heater and I stuck it to the inside of the tank and plugged it in. The light on top is supposed to come on that it is heating but so far after about an hour it doesn't seem like it's doing anything. I have a little digital thermometer in the tank to see how it is going. The instructions say that it should start heating after it acclimates to the tank temperature. How long does this take? Does anyone have experience with this heater? How long should I give it before I assume that I got a bad heater and return it?
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May 19, 2015 21:57
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The one instance I've directly heard of windex wiping out a tank involved it being applied to the INSIDE glass.
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May 19, 2015 23:48
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Rallos posted:Got my tank over to the office today (was quite a hike carrying the box and a 20 lb bag of substrate on the train and then walking 5 blocks to my office building) and got it set up and turned it on. If it's not done anything by the end of the day it's a safe bet that it's dead. So has anyone deliberately raised macrobrachium shrimp? My LFS has a few of these pinchy guys in. Synthbuttrange fucked around with this message at 01:48 on May 20, 2015 |
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May 20, 2015 01:18
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For once the stars aligned, and my L200 pleco decided to lay out in a perfect spot for a photo. I had to hold my breath while getting out the camera, and managed to get a few shots off before the tank light timer switched and everyone scattered. L200 Green Phantom Pleco DSC_9373.jpg
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May 20, 2015 05:21
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Wow that's an amazing colour, doesn't even look real. How close do you think the picture captures to what it looks like irl?
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May 20, 2015 06:43
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Stoca Zola posted:Wow that's an amazing colour, doesn't even look real. How close do you think the picture captures to what it looks like irl? Those colors are pretty much dead on for a healthy L200. They are purty fishies.
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May 20, 2015 10:18
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Just moved a couple baby convicts to the RC shrimp tank. I'm curious if they'll be able to grow large enough not to be eaten in the adult tank without becoming a threat to the shrimp.
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May 20, 2015 11:27
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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kevinzl/ecoqube-c-your-window-to-nature Any thoughts on this?
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May 20, 2015 13:01
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1.5 gallons is tiny. They're making a big deal like putting plants in a fish tank is a new thing? Whats the benefit, to grow a minute amount of herbs, which is marginally useful for maybe one meal, or to keep the water clean, which you can do with aquatic/floating plants? The full spectrum lights are up fairly high so would that even reach the aquarium? I think trying to combine two things into one like that results in a bad job of both. A real aquaponics setup looks more like this  with a 1000L tub for the fish so I dont know what they expect you to put into a 1.5 gallon micro tank. You could DIY it with a bigger tank that could actually humanely hold fish and rig something to hold a decent number of plants yourself if you really wanted to do that sort of thing properly. Oh lol I just saw this at the very bottom: DISCLAIMER Herbs and micro-greens can be extremely great filters and will thrive with the EcoQube C, but for that same reason, it is EXTREMELY unsafe for food consumption. Chemicals used for aquariums are NOT safe for human consumption and the plants WILL soak these chemicals up. Consumption of the plants grown in the EcoQube C is NOT recommended for humans. And yet near the top there's a blurb "How this start up can end world hunger..." What a crock of fish poop.
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May 20, 2015 13:17
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... and I just noticed they have a UV sterilizer as well, which of course cleans the water, and recommend to keep the tank away from sunlight, which of course reduces the algae. But isn't the plant supposed to reduce the algae and clean the water? I think they've claimed some pretty big claims that just don't ring true or add up with the other information they have further down the page. I think if you want a plant for your office, get a plant! If you want a fish tank, get a tank! Don't make a fish suffer for the novelty of a plant growing out of the tank.
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May 20, 2015 13:25
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Stoca Zola posted:Wow that's an amazing colour, doesn't even look real. How close do you think the picture captures to what it looks like irl? Desert Bus answered, but yeah that is exactly what he looks like. They are super cool looking plecos. I've also got a similar sized (6.5") blue phantom pleco in another tank, but he hardly ever comes out, so it's really hard to get a photo. I think the green is more striking than the blue anyway.
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May 20, 2015 13:38
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SynthOrange posted:If it's not done anything by the end of the day it's a safe bet that it's dead. Yeah, heater is dead and on it's way back to amazon and this heater is on it's way. It came highly recommended from a fish forum. Any of you goons have experience with it? It Rallos fucked around with this message at 15:48 on May 20, 2015 |
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May 20, 2015 15:28
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Rallos posted:
Feed & Seed had an issue like this once. They didn't have heaters in the tanks, they just relied on the building heater which failed one night when it got really cold. Next day whole tanks were dying off.
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May 20, 2015 16:28
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My Betta will now eat of my hand  . Of course, he probably thinks my hand is food since he keeps biting me after he takes and eats the pellets/shrimp... Oh well, it tickles.
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May 20, 2015 20:09
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Cool! Been trying to teach my fish that, they just hover and stare
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May 21, 2015 14:57
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SocketWrench posted:Cool! If it's a betta he'll jump for it so start by holding a pellet a tiny amount out of the water when you'd usually drop one for him and then eventually he will realize hand = food and you can catch him. He lets me poke him occasionally when hes eating now.
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May 21, 2015 15:01
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Update: Got a couple of low light plants and stuck them in the tank. Upon opening up the bag of water I noticed that I got 2 free nerite snails in with the plants. My tank hasn't cycled yet, are they doomed? I'm enjoying watching them scoot around the tank so far. A co-worker of mine has an established freshwater tank in her office (hers is at least 55 gallons, with a huge oto in it, at least 7 inches long). She offered to siphon a quart of water out of her tank to put in mine to get the cycle started faster. Is this a good idea? (my tank is a tiny Fluval Spec III 2.5g)
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May 21, 2015 18:22
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Rallos posted:Update: Got a couple of low light plants and stuck them in the tank. Upon opening up the bag of water I noticed that I got 2 free nerite snails in with the plants. My tank hasn't cycled yet, are they doomed? I'm enjoying watching them scoot around the tank so far. The water wouldn't matter too much. Get some of her filter material if you can. By the way, I doubt she has a 7 inch oto. That's probably a pleco of some kind.
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May 21, 2015 18:26
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GreyPowerVan posted:The water wouldn't matter too much. Get some of her filter material if you can. Yeah, I thought it was an oto but I'm probably wrong. He's huge, and cool looking. I'm not even sure he'd have room to turn around in my tank. She has a canister filter and said it's kind of a pain to get to so I don't want to be too bothersome.
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May 21, 2015 18:37
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Rallos posted:Yeah, I thought it was an oto but I'm probably wrong. He's huge, and cool looking. I'm not even sure he'd have room to turn around in my tank. She has a canister filter and said it's kind of a pain to get to so I don't want to be too bothersome. I have a cannister and you just unplug it, pull out a little basket with the filter media, take some out, put the basket back in, plug it back in. Unless she has some super complicated filter. Ask her for some gravel from the bottom of the tank instead and stick it in with your filter. That would be more useful than the water, I don't think many of the filtering bacteria are free-floating.
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May 21, 2015 20:31
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GreyPowerVan posted:I have a cannister and you just unplug it, pull out a little basket with the filter media, take some out, put the basket back in, plug it back in. It seems like it's an older more complicated one so I'm not gonna mess with it. Got some gravel and put it on top of my filter sponge so we will see how it goes.  This is a pleco, right? Almost a foot long. Sorry for the huge image, phone pic. Rallos fucked around with this message at 22:01 on May 21, 2015 |
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May 21, 2015 21:49
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Yeah, that's a common pleco. They get pretty huge, and always seem to have a string of poo poo twice as long as them trailing behind.
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May 21, 2015 22:36
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I'm sure you guys are irritated by my ignorance but Google can only help so much. I replaced the iridescent bulbs with fluorescent and the brown algae began to disappear off the rocks and decorations but now I have green algae growing as a thin layer on the glass and decorations. I'm not sure if it's the lighting or the fact my dwarf catfish (I think?) died. Could he have been a one fish algae eating army or is the lighting the cause? It's on a timer right now for about 8-9 hours a day. It was 12 but I flipped a couple diddlybobs and have it shut off during the day when no one is in my room at work.
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May 21, 2015 23:04
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Is the tank hit by direct sunlight during the day?
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May 21, 2015 23:43
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Enos Cabell posted:Is the tank hit by direct sunlight during the day? It is not. No sunlight at all in my room actually.
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May 21, 2015 23:45
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When I was trying to work out lighting I found a graph explaining photosynthesis: You've probably stopped providing light in the yellow range which brown algae was using and now are providing light for chlorophyll to use, but your nutrients are getting used by the algae instead of your plants. Another thing that can affect algae is whether your plants are getting enough carbon dioxide through sufficient water movement in the tank so that they can outcompete the algae for nutrients. If your water inlet is too splashy I think it drives off carbon dioxide. Maybe your nutrient balance in the water is a bit wrong and is favouring the algae too. Are you dosing with anything or is it just from left over food? Maybe more frequent water changes or vacuuming up uneaten food straight away would help, or like you say, get something back in the tank that will eat the algae.
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May 22, 2015 02:49
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