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I have to clown loaches in my 55 and not one has ever caused a problem.
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Jul 27, 2015 20:36
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demonR6 posted:I have to clown loaches in my 55 and not one has ever caused a problem. Those aren't clowns they're jokers.
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Jul 27, 2015 23:56
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I had a motoro stingray for a few years when I worked at the zoo. She was kept in a way too small tank but with my water change regiment she was outgrowing it fast. I would never ever put any fish in with her or any other stingrays like frontosa or pretty much anything I don't mind disappearing (in the case of the fronts they would likely stress her to the point of death by picking at her skin). For "nice" loaches stick with kuhlis.
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Jul 28, 2015 00:30
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What do you guys use as your water conditioner? I've heard nothing but fantastic things about Seachem Prime and it seems to be what all the super serious hobbyists use, so I picked up two 500 mL bottles. In a review for Prime someone said that Stress Coat makes bacterial infections worse, and I've been using Stress Coat up to now when my bottle is almost empty so I guess I need to do more research.
republicant fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Jul 28, 2015 |
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Jul 28, 2015 01:07
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I bought a RO system because the chloramine dosing of the water here is variable so I was finding sometimes I didn't have enough conditioner in the water and it was frustrating to be in the dark as to how much treatment would be enough. Some days the chlorine really stinks coming out of the tap which doesn't fill me with confidence that I've put enough conditioner in. I still have some Supachlor which I use every now and then mostly since it also reacts with metals and ammonia, and I'm using a mix of RO and carbon filtered water so that the hardness doesn't get too low. I needed a specific anti-chloramine carbon filter too since a lot of them are only suitable for chlorine. Bonus of this system is having plenty of tasty drinking water as well as water suitable for fish. With regards to stress coat, I think I've said before I don't think Aloe Vera belongs in water with fish. The "study" they did to prove that stress coat worked was on goldfish only so I do not think the results can seriously be transferred to other fish, many different tropical species are kept and you could not treat most of them the same way you would treat goldfish! See for yourself how scientific this looks. Anyway Prime does have a good reputation; I'd avoid buying water conditioner in bulk quantities though since some types break down over time becoming less effective at doing their job and possibly become poisonous (although I can't find a link to back this up, pretty sure I've read it somewhere). If you're using a lot and get through it before it starts going cloudy then that's fine. Water conditioner which has cloudiness or white bits in it has started to break down and shouldn't be used. Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Jul 28, 2015 |
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Jul 28, 2015 02:18
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republicant posted:What do you guys use as your water conditioner? I've heard nothing but fantastic things about Seachem Prime and it seems to be what all the super serious hobbyists use, so I picked up two 500 mL bottles. In a review for Prime someone said that Stress Coat makes bacterial infections worse, and I've been using Stress Coat up to now when my bottle is almost empty so I guess I need to do more research. I have used Seachem Prime for years in all my tanks and it works great. And yes, everyone in the local fish group here avoids stress coat and pretty much everything else because it is unnecessary.
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Jul 28, 2015 03:04
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I definitely think you're right about water conditioner getting too old and becoming harmful, because I had no choice but to use a super old bottle of ChlorOut a few months back and it wreaked havoc in my tank and seemed to make the ammonia problem I had even worse. I usually go through a ton of water conditioner and it's cool knowing I'm set for the near future. If it does seem like I'm not ever going to use it all then I'll probably give a bottle away to somebody. The boyfriend brought in a bunch of random creek snails to put in his puffer tank and I'm doing everything I possibly can to make him realize what a horrific idea that is. I'm assuming that they carry parasites and flukes and diseases that will infect all the fish, am I right? All I can think about is schistosomiasis but for fish. Not to mention breeding and infesting the tank themselves... Good lord, he's learning better fish care, he really is, but it is a long process.
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Jul 28, 2015 03:35
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Anywhere that snails, fish, birds, crustaceans, aquatic worms and so on live together, it provides pathways for the life cycles of different parasites to complete. You don't want to feed fish with anything that comes from a wild waterway that also contains fish! Especially not puffers, do they count as scaleless fish with regards to the difficulty in dosing them correctly? I get the feeling they could get sick really easily. You might get lucky and avoid infection but it isn't worth the risk. It's pretty easy to breed snails yourself in a plastic tub/tote but ideally you start the snail farm first and get the fish after, to allow your stocks to build up and get big enough to make a meals worth.
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Jul 28, 2015 04:29
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Thank you for giving me more logical reasoning to school him with. Plain boring wild disease snails have no appeal anyway. I fell in love with a little bitty ivory mystery snail today but couldn't get him since I was 100 miles from home. Why risk your fish's lives for boring snails when there are colored mysteries, ramshorns and apple snails??? ....I really want a snail tank.
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Jul 28, 2015 05:06
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You're going to come home one day and find a bunch of saltwater clownfish in your tanks.
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Jul 28, 2015 05:33
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I've got a couple of austropeplea lessoni snails which are pretty cute, their eyes are on their bodies, not on their antennas and their antennas are little fat triangles like rabbit ears. They tend to live in softer water than some snails and only have thin shells, so you can see the speckled pattern on their bodies through the shell. I'd like to have a snail community but keeping on top of the population explosion is too hard, I think the ramshorn snails eat the eggs of the other snails because every tank I have that has ramshorn snails in, the other snails' populations decline.
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Jul 28, 2015 05:42
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SynthOrange posted:You're going to come home one day and find a bunch of saltwater clownfish in your tanks. With coral reefs and African arowanas. And then I'll get to clean up the aftermath. Edit: Turns out arowanas are freshwater but that just makes it even more likely...
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Jul 28, 2015 06:31
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And speaking of snails...
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Jul 28, 2015 07:09
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Slugworth posted:http://m.petco.com/product/119923/Petco-Brooklyn-Metal-Tank-Stand.aspx Thanks for this. It's exactly what I would like... And it's on backorder, no ETD.  Calling around Atlanta, I'm told that only Santa brings decent breeder stands to town around the holidays. While I await Petco/Christmas, I'm dreaming of stocking: 10 Boesemani Rainbow fish 12 CPDs 10 Red Cherry Shrimp 1 Bristlenose Pleco Aqadvisor states that the CPDs prefer cooler temps than the others. Should I change plans?
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Jul 28, 2015 14:00
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Cowslips Warren posted:I had a motoro stingray for a few years when I worked at the zoo. She was kept in a way too small tank but with my water change regiment she was outgrowing it fast. I would never ever put any fish in with her or any other stingrays like frontosa or pretty much anything I don't mind disappearing (in the case of the fronts they would likely stress her to the point of death by picking at her skin). Thanks for the info. Did some more reading too, and I'd rather not go with a 240g tank. Spend enough of my time doing water changes as it is.
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Jul 28, 2015 14:18
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Enos Cabell posted:Thanks for the info. Did some more reading too, and I'd rather not go with a 240g tank. Spend enough of my time doing water changes as it is. Try sewellia lineota. Hillstream loaches that don't need fast current and are fine in a species tank. They look a bit like stingrays.
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Jul 28, 2015 14:22
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Cowslips Warren posted:Try sewellia lineota. Hillstream loaches that don't need fast current and are fine in a species tank. They look a bit like stingrays. Thanks for reminding me of those! Wouldn't be a good match for the front tank, but I have a few others that could handle a few.
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Jul 28, 2015 20:28
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Came home today to two cherry shrimp, an otocinclus catfish, and live plants in the only tank that doesn't have UV lights. I guess it could be worse.
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Jul 29, 2015 01:38
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Thats practically additional 0 bioload. If the plant's a java fern or anubias you're all set up.
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Jul 29, 2015 01:39
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SynthOrange posted:Thats practically additional 0 bioload. If the plant's a java fern or anubias you're all set up. It just pains me that he puts live plants and an algae eater in a tank that has no UV light and no algae. So many bad decisions. republicant fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Jul 29, 2015 |
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Jul 29, 2015 01:50
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Why would you have a UV light on a fish tank? You don't mean UV sterilizer. Plants don't need UV light to grow.
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Jul 29, 2015 02:27
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Wait do they really not? I had assumed they were like non-aquatic plants and needed sunlight/UV for photosynthesis. Can they survive with the light from a color-changing LED (that's the only light source in the tank)? My driftwood is making my tank acidic, I knew it would but I didn't realize it would happen so quickly (it was just put in yesterday after soaking for a while). I have both pH Up and Proper pH 7.0, will those react with the driftwood in any way that would be harmful to the fish? I just want to make sure before I start dumping things in there and kill everyone.
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Jul 29, 2015 02:40
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No, you'll need a decent CFL or LED light source to cover the full spectrum that plants need. "cool daylight" CFL bulbs have been keeping my tank plants alive for years.
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Jul 29, 2015 02:43
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Found it! I knew I'd posted this before. Plants need blue and red light, blue for foliage and red for flowering and fruiting. Different algaes use different chemicals to chlorophyll. Once you start heading into UV territory it's what land based vertebrates need for vitamin D production but it doesn't penetrate water well enough to be of use to plants.
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Jul 29, 2015 02:46
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Wow I had always just assumed it was the UV component of sunlight that they needed and not the rest of the spectrum. That's so crazy that I've had such a fundamental misunderstanding of that for forever. Thank you guys for the physics lesson really. UV lights are super important for my turtle so I've been dealing with them for a while and I guess I just extended that to plants as well. I'm going to do some reading on this. So are there fluorescent lights that do not give off UV? I think another mistake I'm making is thinking that "fluorescent light" and "UV light" are completely interchangeable. So it is the only tank that doesn't have fluorescent lights and those are what's important for plants, not the UV component that some fluorescent lights also have? republicant fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Jul 29, 2015 |
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Jul 29, 2015 02:51
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Florescent lamps that produce UV have a special inner coating that causes them to emit UV. The coating determines what range of light the lamps produce. Unless it's a special use lamp like reptile or dermatology lamps, ordinary florescent lamps do not produce anything in the UV range. And if UV lamps produce enough light in the ranges plant require, I have no clue at all.
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Jul 29, 2015 03:01
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I think that's how I got so horribly confused. I've spent so much time dealing with UV lights specifically meant for reptiles' vitamin D synthesis and never had any regular fluorescent lights, and I just kind of assumed they were all the same. I have a reptile CFL that gives off UVB as well so that added to my confusion. Do those red lights I've seen specifically for plants do anything special?
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Jul 29, 2015 03:10
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You'll have a hard time growing enough aquarium algae to be the sole source of food for algae eaters; "plant" lights tend to aim their wavelengths to benefit plants while not encouraging algae, and if you use a broad wavelength generic white house light you might end up with just black beard algae (black brush algae??) that almost nothing eats because it's too tough. You can feed algae wafers or cooked zucchini instead, and shrimp will eat bacterial films, pellet food, all sorts of things. Tank algae is for snacks between meals, so don't worry if you're not going to be able to grow any. Red grow lights are for growing your "tomatoes" and other hydroponic crops indoors. It simulates fruiting season I believe. In an aquarium red can be "colour enhancing" depending on what fish you have, the rosy barbs I've seen looked radioactive red at the store under a colour enhancing light and just look normal shiny orange under my lights here. Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 03:26 on Jul 29, 2015 |
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Jul 29, 2015 03:17
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Ugh it looks like what the pet store guy called an "otocinclus" is actually a Chinese algae eater. It has the distinctive row of diamond shapes across its body. It's in the puffer tank so we have an overcrowded tank with two aggressive species. There are a lot of hiding places but I don't know how this is going to go. It's beyond stupid. Yeahhh after consulting AqAdvisor this thing is 100% going back to the pet store.  I'm glad the people at Petco know so much about their fish that they tell you something is a peaceful tank cleaner and it turns out to be a super-aggressive fish murderer. Although LFS isn't any better with their "domesticated" puffers. Sorry for the stupid colored light but this seems to definitely be a CAE: 
republicant fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Jul 29, 2015 |
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Jul 29, 2015 03:31
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You do not need to worry about pH and do not use any chemicals to raise or lower the pH. Avoid any sudden changes in pH and your fish will be fine. If you are worried about pH measure your GH and KH with an api test kit. Your driftwood will not cause the pH to go too low to cause a problem for your fish. The less you mess with the water the better.
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Jul 29, 2015 03:58
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republicant posted:Ugh it looks like what the pet store guy called an "otocinclus" is actually a Chinese algae eater. It has the distinctive row of diamond shapes across its body. It's in the puffer tank so we have an overcrowded tank with two aggressive species. There are a lot of hiding places but I don't know how this is going to go. It's beyond stupid. Oh yeah that's no oto, CAE all day long. Maybe get a ruler and pop your boyfriends hands? He sounds a lot like me when I was really getting into aquariums when I was a kid. It was all fine and dandy until I picked up this cute little firemouth cichlid and tossed him into my haphazardly stocked community tank...
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Jul 29, 2015 04:03
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I'm kind of wary to keep blaming the pet store employees for all these things when I suspect it's probably largely his fault. We did see a Petco employee kill a ghost shrimp in front of us trying to get it in the bag and not even realize it though so maybe not. Also selling a bristlenose pleco with no mention of driftwood at all is kinda lame, obviously if you're buying an animal you should research it yourself and find out all of its needs but I think pet stores should at least make an effort to educate people before they put these fish's lives into their hands. The Chinese algae eater was free at least (I guess I can see why), one of the fish that get donated to Petco and they give away for free. Apparently if my SO didn't take it then it would've gone to a little kid buying goldfish to put into a literal bowl, I wonder how that would have turned out... republicant fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Jul 29, 2015 |
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Jul 29, 2015 04:10
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I get the impression that places that sell fish don't care if they die because it means more sales, making the customer feel like they did something wrong and need to buy more equipment and additives to get it "right", rather than that they sold a sick fish or a completely inadequate sized tank, incompatible fish or gave inadequate advice about the requirements. And again, fostering the idea that fish are disposable pets that you can just flush and buy more = more sales. My local place isn't too cutthroat but the people in there have no idea about the fish they are selling beyond splitting up the goldfish from the tropicals, and keeping the hardwater cichlids separate. Although they do keep their bettas in tragic little jars, really horrible and I feel so sorry for them. I went in there back when I was starting out and asked something like how many barbs should I get to reduce aggression, or how do you tell male from females and the guy stared at me with his mouth hanging open for an uncomfortable amount of time before clumsily trying to sell me a different fish. They have constant problems with disease, and at least some of that is down to the supplier, but they don't watch their tanks and remove dead fish, they don't have strainers on their filter inlets so fish are constantly getting sucked into the sumps and either injured or they starve in there, their display tanks are tiny and bare and brightly lit so super stressful for a fish to be in. And their tanks share water among a column of tanks so disease spreads rapidly. There's maybe not enough people or the business isn't doing well enough to put more effort in, I've only ever seen Slackjaw and a woman who is either his girlfriend or his sister as staff in there. Maybe they really believe that fish are disposable? They don't seem to be slick cynical salestypes, unlike the guy at the other shop. The other fish shop at the other end of town has big dirty overgrown tanks with random odd fish, including floaters and half eaten ones where he's kept goldfish in with yabbies. There's just one guy running it and he tries to get everyone to buy the biggest tank possible, he's the distributor for Boyu and those tanks are all huge and well out of my price range. Not sure how much of that is ridiculous mark ups but tanks seem to be a lot more expensive here. I'd love to get an extra tank for my guppies to live in but I don't really want to give either of these businesses any more of my money.
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Jul 29, 2015 05:24
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They never seem to discourage you from buying a fish either, for obvious reasons I guess. I forget what type of shrimp it was but I was telling my SO that we couldn't get them because our tank wasn't fully cycled and they were very sensitive to water quality, and this guy was all no yeah it'll be fine they're pretty tough, when I'm on the internet on my phone reading about how they're deathly sensitive to ammonia and nitrite. I get that you want to make a sale but a good fish salesman would turn the conversation toward bottled bacteria or ammonia binders, those are way more expensive than a shrimp anyway and relevant to the customer's needs without causing the death of a shrimp. Whether they're actually needed or worth the money is a different matter but it would be better than lying about the shrimp. I'm still in the "crappy unskilled job" part of my life so I've thought about taking a job at Petco or something, but I think I would get fired for flat out refusing to sell a fish to a customer. Putting a betta in some stupid tiny tank with no heater = get out of here. Plus having to clean tanks all day at work and then come home and clean tanks would completely kill the hobby for me. I heard a Petco employee say "There's no such thing as too many turtles" as I'm looking at the overcrowded tank full of turtles with obvious shell deformities... Yeah no.
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Jul 29, 2015 05:41
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Jesus loving Christ, watching this adventure unfold is... well, it's a thing, alright.republicant posted:The Chinese algae eater was free at least (I guess I can see why), one of the fish that get donated to Petco and they give away for free. Apparently if my SO didn't take it then it would've gone to a little kid buying goldfish to put into a literal bowl, I wonder how that would have turned out... SynthOrange posted:Florescent lamps that produce UV have a special inner coating that causes them to emit UV. The coating determines what range of light the lamps produce. Unless it's a special use lamp like reptile or dermatology lamps, ordinary florescent lamps do not produce anything in the UV range. UV sterilizer bulbs look like fluorescent bulbs missing the phosphor coating because that's literally what they are. Well, they apparently also use quartz instead of glass, which finally answers my question of "so why the gently caress are these MORE expensive?" asked when I discovered sterilizer bulbs in standard aquarium T8 sizes in a Royal Pet Supply catalog five or so years ago. They were from one of the common aquarium bulb manufacturers, but I forget which one exactly. Just imagine what kind of a disaster would result if one of the shittier stores wound up with one of those babies for whatever reason. "Yeah, sure, this'll fit right into your light fixture!"
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Jul 29, 2015 07:05
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Thats probably the other part, not to have people mixing expensive bulbs in with cheap ones when the expensive ones can burn and blind you by being in the same room.
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Jul 29, 2015 07:18
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My poor betta loves to lurk/sleep in this corner but the current kept pulling him backwards across the tank and he had to constantly swim forward again. I decided to help him out and he approves. It's kind of wonderful to see a fish actually use something that you specifically made for it. Sorry that it looks like I took this picture with a potato. It's an even bigger victory when you spend half an hour rigging up a bubble system with one air pump, a check valve, an air control valve, three T valves, three bubble stones and a bubble curtain and FINALLY get it where an equal amount of air is coming out of everything and one isn't about to blast off with ridiculous air pressure while another one has nothing coming out of it. I honestly can't believe I actually got it all to work the way I wanted it, usually the air does whatever it wants and I just have to accept it. republicant fucked around with this message at 09:01 on Jul 29, 2015 |
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Jul 29, 2015 08:53
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Ugh. I went on vacation for 5 days and out of loving nowhere my 10g is infested with cyanobacteria again. I treated it a couple of months ago with erythromycin, so I'm not going to do that again because there's obviously something wrong with the ecosystem. I think the cause is my year-old, lovely walmart bulbs. I just have no desire to deal with this again. Thinking about just breaking down the tank completely, buying a finnex stingray, and rebuilding it in a fresh 10g that I have sitting around.
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Jul 29, 2015 16:48
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My poor betta is looking pretty pitiful these days. He's got two huge tumors(?) on each side and his eyes have scaled over.   Has anyone else dealt with this? After some searching it looks like it could be lymphocystis. He doesn't seem too affected by it, he's still active and eating. Here's a bonus photo of his younger, handsomer days. 
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Jul 29, 2015 17:46
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That is one ugly fish. You should just put him in a glass of water and stick it in the freezer.
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Jul 29, 2015 18:46
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