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Rallos posted:Please post pics. I'm gonna order my shrimp today from theshrimpfarm (should ship next week). I'm excited! Yeah, my nerite (named Dickbutt. He was a jerk, literally pushed the drip acclimation tube out of his tank onto the table) found his way out of the tank and I found him on the floor days later. He sat with his back end floating for hours. I only knew he was alive when I messed with his trapdoor. It was loosely open and when I poked it with my nail, he pulled it shut. If their trap is shut tight, they're probably still alive. I think the floating is just because there's air in their shell and isn't a good indicator for whether or not they're dead. Also, update on my ghost shrimps. I added the ones that lived to the big tank. I had one female who's berried, so I put her with who I thought was the chillest betta in the tank. I was wrong. Clay chased those shrimp every time he saw them, while the other two just kinda look at them then swim off. On the plus side, those shrimp are FAST! I'm gonna move Momma over to a different section if I can catch her, though. I'm gonna be picking up some special ordered cherries at Petco today (the only fish stores within a two hour drive are Petsmart and Petco  ) I'll take pics once I get them situated!
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Jun 5, 2015 15:38
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-Inu- posted:Pull it out of the tank and smell it. Dead snails smell REALLY loving awful (like, vomit inducing awful). You can also gently shake it, and if the trap door opens then it's dead. Though I once had a dead rabbit snail with a closed trap door. I couldn't tell if it was dead until I gently opened the trap door and took in the smell of literal death. Semi-related, I had 4 Nerites, 2 died after a month for no reason. Now the remaining 2 seem like they're basically dead but still hanging on. They mostly just stay in one place and don't ever move. Every now and then I'll see an eyeball poke out then disappear. Occasionally I'll see one look like it's trying to eat - mouth is open but the tongue never comes out to scrape the glass. It's like they've just...given up? But it's been weeks now and they're still not dead. I imagine eventually they'll starve but it's pretty weird behaviour.
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Jun 5, 2015 18:23
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Rallos posted:Please post pics. I had a go with a real camera instead of using my phone or tablet cam and I don't know if these are better or worse than my usual fuzzy potato pictures. First I managed to spot a male red cherry hanging out in the duckweed roots.  And I think this is a female, for comparison next to a shrimplet that is perhaps 2 months old.  More shrimplets hanging out on the sponge filter.  Next, the female rednose shrimp was doing laps at high speed and this is the best pic I could get.  I spotted a male chameleon shrimp hanging off the underside of the filter sponge but this ended up being a better pic of the rednose shrimp. Please ignore lovely cardboard tank background.  I had a real hard time finding any of the chameleon shrimp but eventually noticed this one, I'd mistaken her for a snail the first few times I saw her. She turned side on for me so I could see her eggs better. She has a stripe down the middle of her back and often looks like a twig against the dark substrate. I'm sure I saw her without eggs a week or so ago, otherwise she's been holding on to the same eggs for months!  This is the first time I've had an opportunity to see these shrimplets up close, after seeing them swimming further back in the tank. I think they have to be chameleon shrimp juveniles due to the their shape and minimal colouration. (Coral is in fresh water because it had moss stuck to it and was really gungy and brown, the shrimp picked it clean in no time).  I think these shrimplets are rednose shrimp, they look like proper shrimplets now not nymph/naupli whatever the correct term is. Still very very tiny.  Fingertip for scale  Finally saw the zebra striped chameleon shrimp that was hiding in the sponge. Very bad pic but hopefully you get the idea. I have two that are usually banded like this, I think they can go fully dark too.  A different view of same shrimp, picture still terrible.  I'm pretty sure this is a female chameleon shrimp, not a red cherry. There are definitely some that maintain some kind of red colouration and the chameleon shrimp have a more robust look to them than the red cherries; you can just make out a paler stripe down this ones back so I think she is one that spends half the time being brown and the other half being red.  I started this tank as I was worried my original shrimp tank might crash and I'd lose all of them (didn't happen). The red nose and the chameleon shrimp are both caridina but I figure they are wildly different and won't interbreed. The chameleon shrimp are the most jumpy and suspicious of lighting changes or movement outside the tank and will vanish in a flash if they feel threatened. They are probably the most interesting to watch though once they let their guard down (that is, if I can spot them). It's usually easier to spot the jet of debris they throw up as they sort through the gunge on the bottom of the tank, I would say it is reminiscent of a cartoon dog digging a hole. The rednose shrimp seem the least bothered by anything going on, they seem to either sit very still and pick at one spot on a leaf, or cruise round and round the tank. They'll come over to look if you shine a light at the side of the tank. I am pretty sure they eat living leaves and not just gunge or dead leaves, as I've seen them mob a piece of najas that I put in, which now has no leaves, and I don't think the snails even had a chance to get near it. The guy I got them from assured me that they'd be very happy just picking at the surface of decaying leaves but I've seen one doing a victory lap while munching on a piece of mashed pea. I don't know that there is a lot of knowledge about the best way to keep the rednose shrimp, the guy who sells them lives in their natural range so it is very easy for him to give them ideal conditions and he doesn't have much advice for different conditions. Since these guys are the ones who have been climbing out I suspect they aren't really happy in the community. Lastly, the red cherry shrimp are doing well, sometimes the original adults are hard to spot since the male chameleon shrimp look a lot like male cherry shrimp. The baby ones are growing up so fast and seem healthy. The different species don't really interact with each other much. The chameleons stay mostly on the bottom, the cherries stay mostly on the sponges and moss at midlevel, and the rednose shrimp hang from plants higher up. I think I probably would not put rednose shrimp in a community tank again now that I've kept them for a little bit, but the other shrimp seem to get on just fine with each other. I would like to one day have some australian glass shrimp Paratya australiensis or maybe some Darwin algae shrimp Caridina sp NTnilotica, and I really like the speckledy Blackmore River shrimp however I don't want to overcrowd or make it too difficult to get each shrimp the right food so I'll stick with what I've got for now.
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Jun 5, 2015 20:14
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So the snail that got out is still kinda floaty with air in his shell. I pulled him out of the tank and poked him and bit and the door was firmly shut so I think he's still alive. The other nerite (that was healthy the day before) was definitely dead this morning.... Gonna give escapee a few more days to perk up. The pond and ramshorn snails are doing great....  Stoca Zola posted:shrimp pics Great pics! Love me some shrimp! Will post my own pics when mine arrive next week! Rallos fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Jun 5, 2015 |
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Jun 5, 2015 20:16
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I have a pea puffer in a little 5 gallon, and in the past few weeks I haven't seen him eat once. The time period on its own tells me he's probably doing okay, and when I put worms in the cone for him, they're all gone some time later (though I do have some tiny rainbows that also eat worms, I doubt they eat all of them). Like I said, he seems fine, looks totally normal and fat, but I never ever see him eat, whereas in the past he would just go up and feast when I fed him. The behavior doesn't coincide with me adding the rainbows or anything like that, so it's kind of out of the blue. Does anyone know what's going on here?
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Jun 6, 2015 06:00
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Ghost Captain posted:I have a pea puffer in a little 5 gallon, and in the past few weeks I haven't seen him eat once. The time period on its own tells me he's probably doing okay, and when I put worms in the cone for him, they're all gone some time later (though I do have some tiny rainbows that also eat worms, I doubt they eat all of them). Like I said, he seems fine, looks totally normal and fat, but I never ever see him eat, whereas in the past he would just go up and feast when I fed him. The behavior doesn't coincide with me adding the rainbows or anything like that, so it's kind of out of the blue. Does anyone know what's going on here? My figure Eight has recently started doing the same thing. He used to come to the top and take from my hand, now it's like he's afraid to let anyone see him eat (but the food is clearly vanishing later) So also interested in an answer. Maybe someone told them they were getting fat?
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Jun 6, 2015 07:15
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Did I just make a stupid decision? I got a freshwater setup from a good friend with great used gravel. I cycled it, put some plants in, and after a week put in a male betta. Today I put in three gourami- he assured me that gourami and betta would be okay but I'm looking on the Internet and now I'm freaking myself out. There are good cover areas and places to hide, but did I just curse myself?
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Jun 7, 2015 00:03
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Honestly, I've never tried it out because everything I've read has basically said 'betta or gourami', not 'betta and gourami'. How big is the tank though?
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Jun 7, 2015 00:39
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SynthOrange posted:Honestly, I've never tried it out because everything I've read has basically said 'betta or gourami', not 'betta and gourami'. How big is the tank though? It's a 40 gallon tank with about 5 pieces of rock/wood cover and 6 hard to kill plants. I'm hoping the tank is big enough to accommodate them!
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Jun 7, 2015 00:52
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If it gets bad you can get a little plastic divider and stick it in the middle.
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Jun 7, 2015 01:05
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McStephenson posted:Did I just make a stupid decision? What kind of gourami? Some are bigger shitheads than others.
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Jun 7, 2015 03:36
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McStephenson posted:It's a 40 gallon tank with about 5 pieces of rock/wood cover and 6 hard to kill plants. I'm hoping the tank is big enough to accommodate them! I had a betta with 3 dwarf gouramis, a pearl, a couple three-spot/opalines, and a moonlight in a planted 55 and never had a problem. As long as there's cover to break sight-lines, it'll be fine.
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Jun 7, 2015 06:30
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What's a good website to buy plants from? I googled and got a whole bunch of places but I don't know how to tell which are reliable and which aren't. I've seen aquabid pop up in the thread but would that be the cheapest/best place to get java moss from?
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Jun 7, 2015 14:28
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I got a fist sized chunk of java moss for 5 bucks from ebay from a local guy. It came with free ramshorn snails, and had a few strands of stringy moss mixed in, and was mailed in a ziplock bag inside a normal postage envelope. Java moss has to be probably the easiest moss to buy, I think it even comes back to life if you re-wet it after it's dried out. It's pretty much an aquarium weed. I've seen dodgey listings for peacock, willow and christmas moss at bumped up prices and the images for these looked very much like just regular java moss. I don't think there is any way you can go wrong buying plain old java moss, even if a seller only gives you a tiny chunk it grows and spreads pretty quickly. I would say buy cheap stuff from not too far away. If you were looking to get fancier moss there is a chance you could get sold a misidentified species but I wouldn't be too worried about that for java moss.
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Jun 7, 2015 14:53
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Shakenbaker posted:What kind of gourami? Some are bigger shitheads than others. I got one dwarf, one opaline and one three spot. The three spot seems to be the biggest rear end in a top hat. He and the opaline are always near each other feeling each other out and the light nips are from the three spot 90% of the time. They don't mess with the dwarf. The dwarf is calm and fun to watch: he's cool with the betta and I haven't seen him nip anything or anyone. The opaline seems to be somewhat okay: active, calmer than the three spot, not seeming to try to be dominant. The betta is starting to calm down a little- he doesn't flare as much as he was doing before. He still hangs near the bottom under cover most of the time but he kinda did that anyway. I got them at a local shop that is cool with returns: I was debating returning the opaline and the three spot but now I'm maybe just thinking the three spot. Thoughts? SapientCorvid fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Jun 7, 2015 |
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Jun 7, 2015 17:07
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McStephenson posted:I got one dwarf, one opaline and one three spot. The opaline and three spot are both the same species, so that may be why they're messing with each other. Could be two dudes duking it out, could be mating behavior, could be one fish is a jerk  You can google for a better idea of what to look for but check the dorsal and anal fins to figure out what sexes they are and you may have some insight. Male's fins tend to be longer and pointier, and the female's shorter and rounder. If you wind up trading one in, there's about four common types of three spot that show up all the time: gold, blue, opaline, and lavender. Three spots all tend to be grumpy little cusses in my experience (I have personally been viciously attacked), but some are more laid back than others. If you drop them both I recommend pearl gourami, they've about the same size but much more relaxed fish. If you go for them try for a male and female pair, because if you give the male someone to show off for they're very pretty fish.
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Jun 7, 2015 21:21
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Shakenbaker posted:The opaline and three spot are both the same species, so that may be why they're messing with each other. Could be two dudes duking it out, could be mating behavior, could be one fish is a jerk I ended up taking the three spot and opaline back and got 4 Sterbai Cory cats. The dwarf gourami and the betta almost immediately relaxed when I took the other two out so I feel like it was a good decision. SapientCorvid fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Jun 7, 2015 |
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Jun 7, 2015 21:37
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I think I'm about to lose my other Figure Eight. Couple months ago one of the two started acting strange, stopped eating, began sitting on bottom on his side, and then eventually just died. No obvious signs of anything else. When I found him dead there seemed to be bruising on his stomach. Now my other one is doing the same drat thing. Water levels are all fine, haven't added any new fish, decorations, or changed feeding patterns. Any suggestions before this one goes the same way? It's a little over two years old now so I'd think anything it brought with it from the wild would have already killed it. Edit: He has a dark spot on his back that was definitely not there yesterday. Edit2: Apparently I hosed up last time I tested and my nitrates are way too high. shiiiit. Gibbo fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Jun 11, 2015 |
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Jun 11, 2015 00:07
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At least you know what is up... Hope a solid water change can help, fingers crossed you can fix things in time. The bruising effect just seems to be what happens when a fish has died and is stuck in one orientation, I saw it on some of my sickly store bought rosy barbs after they died, I don't think it's diagnostic of anything. The cloudiness is clearing in my new tank, the wood is showing some white slime as would be expected:  A couple of the vals are flowering too, cute little purple flowerettes that don't seem to last longer than a day or two. Unfortunately a lot of the leaves are melting so I think it will be a while before the plants are properly established, I had them temporarily in the pond outside where they weren't doing very well, thought they'd like to come back in but the changing conditions has probably pissed them off and I wouldn't be surprised if they dump all their leaves. The pennywort is doing well, I'm seeing a few tiny leaves emerging where I had planted bare stems. There are 5 MTS and a few planarians in the tank so far and I'm attempting a fish-less cycle.
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Jun 11, 2015 05:46
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I don't think he's going to make it. What I don't understand is why this happened to two of them so far apart. If it was the water, you'd think it would have been both at the same time or neither. This one also went from acting normal to basically dying in 48h. The first was behaving strangely for a period of time before finally going into a final throws state. Guess I'll do what I should have the first time and inquire at the LFS next time I go in...  Guess I can get a snail finally.
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Jun 11, 2015 07:17
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It must be sick fish day, noticed this morning that one of the beacon tetras was swimming at an inclined angle, and flapping her fins a lot harder at rest than the others. She seems to have redness around her pectoral fins and at the underside of her body near the bottom of her gills. I've got her separated in a breeder tank hanging off the main tank, if she's just injured I'm hoping the reduced flow will help her recover and if I have to feed her medicated food she won't be competing with others for it. Anyone seen anything like this? I've finally managed to get a good look at one of the larger of the small shrimplets:  Definitely a rednose shrimp! The wideset eyes are a dead giveaway, the nose is formed and barely visible. I noticed three of my chameleon shrimp are berried AND saddled as well. One was close enough to the front of the tank that I could see eyes and legs clearly in the eggs; they must be very prolific breeders to get saddled again so quickly, it's not something I noticed with the red cherry shrimp at all.
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Jun 11, 2015 08:12
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Gibbo posted:I don't think he's going to make it. What salinity are you keeping them in? I think they need like 1.005 to 1.008.
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Jun 11, 2015 08:44
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Desert Bus posted:What salinity are you keeping them in? I think they need like 1.005 to 1.008. 1.006-1.007. Half of why I said "At least I can get a snail now."
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Jun 11, 2015 12:32
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Sorry, Gibbo and Stoca. It's always really sad when a neat fish gets sick. My tank is pretty new and the cycling is taking forever. I set it up a month ago and I'm cycling with my fish in. The current stock is 3 bettas, ~9 ghost shrimp and 3 cherry shrimp in a divided 20g high. I was supposed to get more cherries, but most of them died in the shipment. I only had one death, though. I don't have any friends with an established aquarium to grab media or anything from, so I bought some Seachem Stability to help jump start the process. I haven't had any ammonia spikes yet and haven't seen any nitrites or nitrates yet. Ammonia is consistently at zero. I don't think I'm understocked, but I guess maybe I don't have enough ammonia for the bacteria to eat? Any tips on cycling that I'm missing here? I'm also battling a pretty intense brown algae problem. I know most new tanks go through it, but I've heard a lot of conflicting information about causes and solutions. Some people say it's a low light situation, or poor spectrum lighting, others say too much light can cause it. Some things say that excess phosphates or silicates can cause it, but I'm not sure how to test for that? Could my nitrates be reading as zero because the algae is eating it? I don't think I'm overfeeding, though I do feed twice daily, and the shrimp seem content with grazing. I have a bunch of water wisteria that I'm slowly proliferating around the tank to phase out the fake plants, an amazon sword that's getting covered in brown algae, some java moss that's growing pretty happily, and that little grass-like plant from a few posts back that I'm not sure what it is. I was hoping the amount of plants I have would outweigh the algae for nutrient consumption, but it isn't working yet. I dose every few days with Excel and they have root tabs. Will the algae go away on its own eventually? Are there any other steps I can take to cut down on it or figure out the cause? I also have a little patch of hair algae growing in the corner that I read is a sign of good water quality, so I guess I'm happy about that. On the topic of shrimp, I had my cherries in the quarantine tank for about a week and only one died. I put the three survivors in the same section of the tank and haven't seen them since. The ghosts, on the other hand, are still full of personality and I've got at least two that are berried. I'm hoping with all the hiding spots in the tank I might have a few shrimplets survive. I think I'm sticking with ghosts for now. Pics? Pics. I got a used DSLR for my birthday with a couple macro filters. I had fun. I'm supposed to get my extension tubes next week for even better photos! I'm excited!   Mamma shrimp came right up to the wall for me to take pics. Got a video of her juggling her eggs, too! And some shots of Ichabod and Leo. Clay was scared of the lens.   -Edit- One more set of pics because I can't help myself. Betta coloration is so cool how it changes! This is Leo when I got him from my mom  And this is Leo as of today, 3 weeks later.  I'm a little disappointed just because I was hoping that pink would turn red, but oh well. He's gorgeous no matter what. Pistoph fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Jun 11, 2015 |
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Jun 11, 2015 15:31
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Ive been wondering this for a bit, but is there a certain point where a heavily planted fish-tank no longer has to have the water cycled. I have a small 8 gallon that basically just has shrimp and plants, and a heavily planted/stocked 50gal. right now I'm doing it every 2 weeks
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Jun 11, 2015 17:51
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I believe what you are looking for is called the Walstad method; I've read a bit about it and also freshwater deep sand beds for their ability to break down nitrates in the anoxic zone. I don't think it's an easy way out, I don't have the patience to get the tank set up and wait for it to mature to the point where the substrate inhabitants and bacteria can do the needful. Maybe it's something to work towards, I am trying fine sand as a substrate to see if the rumours of toxic bubbles are true or not. But I don't mind doing small regular water changes anyway in the meantime. Ok so the critical thing I think is, how deep and how fine is the substrate, if you have biggish gravel you'll never get anoxic zones, you'll just get trapped rotten food leftovers and poop and you'll always need to vacuum or it will be a huge nitrate factory. If you have non-sifted sand it compacts too much and the anoxic zone doesn't get sufficient diffusion to react the nitrates out, the upside is that it's easy to gently vacuum the crud off the surface. These style of tanks seem to run with low flow and no filter, and the surface crud is seen as a feature not a problem, so if you're still running a filter it will be doing the work not your substrate. I'd still rather be taking some water out and putting fresh stuff in since if you're dosing fertilisers they will build up or if you aren't and you don't do water changes you could end up with some mineral deficiency if the plants used it all up. With regards to cycling a heavily planted tank, it's entirely possible to not see a peak of ammonia. I think if you have a very slow ramp up of ammonia the population of bacteria could ramp and keep up with processing it, and if you already have a lot of plants they could be guzzling up the very small amount of nitrate that comes out the end of the process. I think this is what happened in my very first tank since it was a plant tank that had baby fish added to it. I think of it like this: the dark blue line is a fish less cycle where you are dumping ammonia in until the bacteria develops enough to drop it down to the level you want (0 for an aquarium). The purple line maybe is using a pinch of fish food instead. The pink and green lines maybe show a big tank and a small fish. Sorry for random control system graph, ignore all axes this is just to show there is more than one way to get the system "under control".  The idea is, when you're setting up a new tank ready to stock with fish, you want to see that peak as proof that your bacteria are established before you risk adding livestock. Doing it the slow gentle way might leave you more prone to crashes if anything upsets the gently established bacteria ie a bad water change, adding more livestock, etc. you just don't know what your bacteria is capable of handling since you've not been able to measure it. It isn't proven. It doesn't mean you're guaranteed a disaster either, especially if you aren't planning to add more livestock to the tank. Just keep measuring, keep doing small regular water changes, and the tank will mature one way or another. Probably would help to make sure you haven't got carbon (activated charcoal) in your filter doing all the work for you since you will get a huge spike when it reaches capacity. Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Jun 11, 2015 |
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Jun 11, 2015 21:42
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I was at the local thrift shop and they had what looked like somewhere between 2 and 5 gallon tank with a lighted hood for $6. It was shaped like a hexagon I think. Any reason I couldn't get that as a tiny tank for at home? Could I still put plants in it? Would that size be okay for a betta and some shrimp?
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Jun 11, 2015 23:01
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If you do betta and shrimp make sure they have plenty of places to hide. I have heard that it really depends on the betta. Some love to munch on some shrimp and some couldn't care less. I picked up 3 assassin snails for my growing pond snail problem. 
Rallos fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Jun 11, 2015 |
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Jun 11, 2015 23:38
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Thanks for the advice and the graph! Yeah, I have quilt batting and ceramic filter media in my mini canister, no carbon. I don't expect to add much more livestock except maybe more ghost shrimp eventually, but I'm happy with the setup for now. Guess I'll just be careful with my water changes and keep an eye on my water quality. Do mts eat brown algae? Or is it not worth the infestation? Len posted:I was at the local thrift shop and they had what looked like somewhere between 2 and 5 gallon tank with a lighted hood for $6. It was shaped like a hexagon I think. Any reason I couldn't get that as a tiny tank for at home? Could I still put plants in it? Would that size be okay for a betta and some shrimp?
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Jun 12, 2015 02:37
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I took a bit of a gamble and dosed my sick fish with some metronidazole on the off chance that it was a gram positive bacteria or some kind of protozoan nasty. I've got some tetracycline but read that it wasn't recommended for a fish struggling to breathe since it reduces oxygen capacity, and since the inflamed area was so close to the gills I didn't want to risk it. I soaked some food but fishy wasn't interested in eating it so I added some to the water and crossed my fingers. The fish survived overnight and seems to be coping quite well in the small tank, it would be half a gallon at most but beacon tetras tend to find a comfortable territory in the tank and hang in one spot so the lack of room isn't bothering her at all. To clarify she's in a hang-on-the-side breeder box, that way she is still in good warm filtered water while being mostly isolated; I figure there is no point worrying about any bacteria in the tank since it's already there, it's just a matter of treating the fish that is ill, and having it somewhere easily accessible for monitoring and removal in case of death, it also stops other fish from munching on her and getting sick if she dies. The metro that I put in will eventually wash out into the main tank but I think it is there long enough to give her a therapeutic dose. I do think she is appreciating the low flow, the tank is supplied with a trickle from an air lift pump. Yesterday she sat right under where the aerated trickle entered the tank, struggling. Today she is oriented better in the water and I can't see the red streaks near her fins like yesterday, and she's sitting in the middle of the tank looking quite normal. I've been fooled before by fish having a rebound before they crash so she will be staying in that little tank for a bit longer yet.
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Jun 12, 2015 08:09
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IM_DA_DECIDER posted:Babbys first fishtank! Only took about 2 years from buying the basic equipment and the single large rock to actually planting. I guess I'll have some fish in 2015... Get any fish?
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Jun 12, 2015 12:23
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Not much has changed with my stock. Currently all the tanks are as (under)stocked as I would like, and the fish are grown. My posts will become more interesting once my own spawn doesn't require quite as much attention. Here's my same damned old boring fish that I've been posting pics of. She's about 15 inches now. I expect her to stop at about 18, maybe 20 if I am a good girl and keep up with my water changes.   
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Jun 13, 2015 02:34
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^ Peacock bass? Here's my co2 reg with the solenoid. Got the clippard mouse solenoid to replace the manual shutoff valve that came with the reg. I got a few extra connections with the 1/8 to 1/4 elbow but oh well. My solenoid power adapter has an LED in it. The adapter is from an old router. Also installed the swagelok check valve 1/3 PSI. It works really well since I installed it backwards and thought I had either a huge leak or a clog. Luckily I figured it was the check valve before I took anything apart. Didn't even stop to check the check valve when putting it together, such a rookie mistake. 
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Jun 13, 2015 04:27
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r0ck0 posted:^ Peacock bass? Yes, she is an orino, so she won't be a tankbuster the same way a temensis would be. Congrats on getting your troubleshooting sorted out. 
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Jun 13, 2015 18:48
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I'm looking up things about sand as a substrate in case I buy that little tank from the thrift shop. I keep reading about toxic gas bubbles and that has me afraid I'll gently caress it up and kill whatever I put in it. What's a quick and dirty for using sand and not gravel? Would this be an okay sand to get? http://www.amazon.com/Carib-Sea-ACS...rium+sand+black And the aquaclear 20 would be okay if it's 5 gallons like I suspect it is right? Because I'll probably just buy one of those for it. This is my tank I can see all the time it's going to look wayyyyy better than the one at work.
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Jun 14, 2015 03:08
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The stuff I've read suggests if you don't have deeper than an inch of sand, you won't get an anoxic zone since that's about as deep as oxygen can diffuse into sand therefore you won't get "toxic gas" buildup. But also the idea is not to violently stir the sand up so any gas build ups shouldn't be released anyway and even if they did, a bubble moves too quickly through the tank to the surface to dissolve anything toxic into the water. The anecdotal evidence of fish deaths due to toxic sand seem to involve plants being pulled up or other majorly messy situations, but there are lots of fish experts who doubt it's possible for fish to die from trapped gas and have never seen it happen so in these anecdotal events maybe there are other factors in play. Some people suggest poking into the sand with a bamboo skewer to let the bubbles out, others rely on MTS to gently stir the sand and others don't do anything in particular at all. The best part about sand is that gunk can't sink into the gaps between the particles so it's going to be cleaner and easier to keep clean than gravel. If you want plants you probably need more than an inch of sand for them to root into. I've seen lots of tanks online using Tahitian moon sand successfully, the only thing I know about it is it isn't rounded enough to be ideal for cories. I think if you're worried about fish dying, take them out temporarily before you do major replanting or anything likely to disturb the sand in a messy way - I've read jiggling the plants up and down gets them out of the sand without messing up the layers too much.
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Jun 14, 2015 03:43
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I've been browsing Amazon for fish tank accessories and found this: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XR6OE2Y?psc=1 I'm still new to fish tanks but that just looks terrible in every way.
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Jun 14, 2015 15:02
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Len posted:I've been browsing Amazon for fish tank accessories and found this: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XR6OE2Y?psc=1 There are a disturbing number of "fish tanks" that are designed solely with the purpose of decoration in mind. A classic:  This one gets extra points for the salt water set up 
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Jun 14, 2015 18:08
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Man, I moved my Betta to my 20gallon because I couldn't stand him swimming around in the little 5gallon I had for him. I can't imagine people buying these tanks
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Jun 14, 2015 18:11
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Sort of an outdoor freshwater aquarium. My 5 year old barrel pond, cant believe I've had it so long but its pretty low maintenance. http://imgur.com/a/HpVOH
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Jun 14, 2015 18:32
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