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Speaking of shrimp, I picked up a vampire shrimp (Atya gabonensis) last weekend and he's just fascinating to watch. He goes on a filter feeding frenzy after a water change.
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Aug 27, 2015 15:51
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Wow thats a good action shot. I was hesitant to get a Riffle shrimp (Australatya Striolata but similar fan dealy boppers) because I wasn't sure if they would thrive without having suspended algae/etc to eat. The guy selling them claimed they'll just eat whatever off the bottom but people say that about catfish too and it isn't true then either. How big is he? His legs look a lot more robust than a dwarf shrimp.
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Aug 27, 2015 16:59
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Stoca Zola posted:Wow thats a good action shot. I was hesitant to get a Riffle shrimp (Australatya Striolata but similar fan dealy boppers) because I wasn't sure if they would thrive without having suspended algae/etc to eat. The guy selling them claimed they'll just eat whatever off the bottom but people say that about catfish too and it isn't true then either. How big is he? His legs look a lot more robust than a dwarf shrimp. Yeah, the guy is wrong. From what I've read on filter feeding shrimp, if they are searching the bottom like a normal shrimp, you done hosed up. They do need suspended food to filter from. I assume like the info I read on bamboo applies to all concerning food. Specifically, they prefer a higher spot that gives them access to the flow. IE, they would prefer a perch in front of your filter output if it doesn't blow them away. I have figured they shouldn't be that hard to maintain with proper setup and just taking shrimp food and grinding it to a powder. But that is me and I have no idea the proper answer on feeding them is other than it needing to be suspended in the water.
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Aug 27, 2015 17:26
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I've been thinking of getting one of the vampire shrimps. Would it be comically huge in my nano 2.5g with my cherries? Also, they would play nice, right?
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Aug 27, 2015 20:54
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Supposedly they get up to 6" so probably not a great fit for a nano tank! But they're totally nonaggressive, being called a vampire/viper shrimp seems like a misnomer. Right now I have him in a 5g with 2 ghost shrimp and some pygmy cories and they don't bother each other at all.
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Aug 27, 2015 22:30
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At 6" he could barely turn around on the narrow side of my tank (fluval spec 3)
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Aug 27, 2015 23:27
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Rallos posted:You might not even have copper pipes then. They'd be lead pipe then, which is, I am pretty sure, why I can't successfully keep cherries. (Our town has specifically warned residents our water has more lead than the epa allows).
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Aug 28, 2015 19:43
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I decided I want to try my hand at keeping a planted tank and a school of cardinals. I got a ridiculously good deal on a Juwel Rio 400 tank and now I need some advice on purchasing the extra bits I need to get it up and running. I have a few bags on aquasoil as well as some fine gravel to cap it off with, I also have a couple of pieces of bogwood, and some nice rocks. what I need next it to figure out what size pump I need and heater to allow me to get this all up and running. I was looking at a 'HYDOR ETH EXTERNAL THERMAL AQUARIUM HEATER 200W' and a 'Eheim Classic 2217 Plus External Filter For Fresh / Marine'. Would these go together well and are they suitable for a tank I have?
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Aug 29, 2015 18:40
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That's a big enough tank that I'm not sure that 200w is enough, I suspect you would get more even heating with two 150w (or maybe bigger depending on your typical ambient temperature) on either end of the tank. Maybe the 200w inline heater plus one other one would work? I don't have any experience with canister filters but you don't want any carbon in your filter otherwise the nutrients for the plants won't stay in the water. You might need additional water flow than what just the filter provides, to make sure your plants are getting good circulation. Depending on the plants you choose you might end up needing tons of substrate, I've seen 3 inches deep quoted as a good number for plants to root in. I wish I had room for a nice big tank like that! I'd be interested if you were thinking about documenting your set up/aquascaping, the thread can always use more pictures 
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Aug 30, 2015 04:21
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Stoca Zola posted:That's a big enough tank that I'm not sure that 200w is enough, I suspect you would get more even heating with two 150w (or maybe bigger depending on your typical ambient temperature) on either end of the tank. Maybe the 200w inline heater plus one other one would work? I don't have any experience with canister filters but you don't want any carbon in your filter otherwise the nutrients for the plants won't stay in the water. You might need additional water flow than what just the filter provides, to make sure your plants are getting good circulation. Depending on the plants you choose you might end up needing tons of substrate, I've seen 3 inches deep quoted as a good number for plants to root in. Thanks for the input, I'm now looking at a Tetra Tec 1200 External Filter Hydor External Aquarium Heater Eth 16mm Hose, 300 Watt Do I need a separate pump for this? You did say that I might need additional water flow how would this be achieved? 
Vier fucked around with this message at 10:31 on Aug 30, 2015 |
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Aug 30, 2015 10:29
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As far as I know there's nothing wrong with that Eheim, the thing is a filter doesn't want to be blasting water over the filter media as fast as possible since it doesn't make it work any faster or better. So, the resulting filter outflow might not be enough to move the water around the full length of the tank. You can probably use a little powerhead to help out if there are any deadzones, and that will also help keep the temperature more even throughout the tank if you definitely want to use an out-of-tank heater. But I am guessing you don't want random things dangling into the tank to ruin the look of the aquascape. Something that might work to spread both flow and temperature around without being intrusive to the tank would be a spraybar just under the surface of the long side of the tank, although if you were planning floating plants I'm not sure how to do it without making a mess. Hopefully a big tank haver weighs in soon because all I know with regards to spraybars is that they make duckweed go everywhere in the tank and stick to everything.
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Aug 30, 2015 12:06
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Vampire shrimp and bamboo shrimp are pretty awesome. I had several of the latter in my 90 and would dump in super small fry pellets, or coral food, near the sponge filters, and they'd go nuts. I had a few berry at one point but nothing survived. I'd love to get more but they don't ship well.
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Aug 30, 2015 13:59
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Stoca Zola posted:As far as I know there's nothing wrong with that Eheim, the thing is a filter doesn't want to be blasting water over the filter media as fast as possible since it doesn't make it work any faster or better. So, the resulting filter outflow might not be enough to move the water around the full length of the tank. You can probably use a little powerhead to help out if there are any deadzones, and that will also help keep the temperature more even throughout the tank if you definitely want to use an out-of-tank heater. But I am guessing you don't want random things dangling into the tank to ruin the look of the aquascape. Something that might work to spread both flow and temperature around without being intrusive to the tank would be a spraybar just under the surface of the long side of the tank, although if you were planning floating plants I'm not sure how to do it without making a mess. Hopefully a big tank haver weighs in soon because all I know with regards to spraybars is that they make duckweed go everywhere in the tank and stick to everything. Thanks, I purchased two more bags of aqua soil as the one I have is clearly not enough. Now I just need to find a good deal on the filter and heater.
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Aug 30, 2015 19:06
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Bah not only did the "snail free" plant unload some snails into the betta tank but it also died.
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Aug 30, 2015 22:25
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I believe I have a copepod infestation in my snail tank. My SO removed the filter and within a day there was a massive population explosion of these tiny dots crawling all over the glass, several hundred of them at least. I looked at them under a microscope and while they move too fast to really get a good look, they're definitely crustaceans. I keep seeing a bunch of them caught in mucus that is coming out of my mystery snail (the one who was releasing the eggs/poop/unknown objects) but I can't tell if they're coming out of him or if there's just so many that they end up in his mucus. I believe I've seen these in my community tank before, down under the gravel, and I was confused because I assumed they were babies that were going to grow into something but they never did. Do you guys think these are copepods? Here's a crap video I took of a microscope with my cell phone, sorry for the terrible quality but it's incredibly hard to focus on a microscope eyepiece with a phone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANbpq05U-uU These are annoying since there's like 500 of them coating the walls of my 1 gallon snail tank, but I guess I'd rather have to deal with these guys than freaking worm infestations. Also my SO brought home another animal without asking or even telling me until hours later, and normally I'd be pissed but in this case I'm okay with it:  Tiny turtle hatchling  I've invested a lot of time and money into my turtle setup and it's pretty much perfect, so I'd rather this little guy live with me than end up dying because some dumb kid put it in a bowl. Unfortunately my slightly bigger bastard turtle came up behind it and bit its tail, didn't cause any injury but I'm not going to give the aggression a chance to escalate. I crammed a 10 gallon terrarium screen top into the 55 gallon tank and that's doing the trick until I can get to the store to buy an actual tank divider.We also have this beautiful creature:  
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Sep 1, 2015 00:52
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Right around 1:38 in your video you can see one in reasonable focus zoom across from right to left. It has the backwards curved antenna and the little tail whiskers characteristic of a copepod. The central eyespot isn't visible and the body shape is a lot narrower than the tennis racquet shaped copepods we get here so I had trouble picking it at first, but that particular one convinced me that that's what they are. If you aren't seeing a lot of them trailing two egg packets they might not be adult sized yet. The juvenile copepods are crab shaped tho and I didn't see any of those in your video either. They proliferate when there is too much food, same with any other pest although I've never had copepods reach plague levels. Most of mine ended up getting eaten by baby fish, and they don't seem to do very well in moving water vs still water. They do love eating the smaller infusoria that grows on and eats snail poop. When I had problems with too many seed shrimp I could remove a heap of them by putting some soggy lettuce in and they would hang off it, but this never worked for copepods, I think they're micro predators not omnivores. Maybe you can get rid of them by mechanically filtering them out? Siphon your water up and tip it through some filter floss or something? They are good to have around though if you need live food for small fish.
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Sep 1, 2015 03:37
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A couple days of 10% water changes and my oscar tank is back to normal. I knew something was up because he wasn't eating, but now he's back to inhaling cichlid sticks.
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Sep 1, 2015 03:46
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republicant posted:Also my SO brought home another animal without asking or even telling me until hours later, and normally I'd be pissed but in this case I'm okay with it: But seriously this is getting ridiculous. That man must be stopped.
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Sep 1, 2015 11:25
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Fish Noise posted:What an adorable future poop machine. Hey look what I brought home honey, this guy I know sold me a black market baby Kraken!
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Sep 1, 2015 14:35
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demonR6 posted:Hey look what I brought home honey, this guy I know sold me a black market baby Kraken! ... but that would actually be awesome and an improvement over the current trend.
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Sep 1, 2015 19:07
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I can't wait until he shows up with a giant bag of some crazy invasive weed and adds it to the aquarium because "I heard it was a great idea!" like Salvina Minima.
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Sep 1, 2015 19:17
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Hydrilla. And a bag of baby snakeheads labeled "giant bettas".
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Sep 1, 2015 21:58
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Well he's learning at least. He's stopped dumping random things into my community tank every day and now he really really wants to breed cherry shrimp for some reason. The new turtle is kind of like having an unplanned second baby, I didn't plan on it and wasn't going to actively seek it out myself but now that it's here I'm going to accept it and love it like my original turtle. I don't care what he does as long as it doesn't cost me money and doesn't kill my own animals so he'll probably end up raising a baby caiman in the turtle pool outside. He has discovered Aquabid and that's kind of terrifying.
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Sep 2, 2015 00:11
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demonR6 posted:I can't wait until he shows up with a giant bag of some crazy invasive weed and adds it to the aquarium because "I heard it was a great idea!" like Salvina Minima. God I'm still trying to deal with salvinia minima. I managed to get rid of duckweed(!) but fuuuuuuck that stuff. Seriously republicant if you find any tiny floating plants with weirdly textured leaves just go ahead burn down your whole house because that's the only way to be rid of it. edit: the hated foe! 
Shakenbaker fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Sep 2, 2015 |
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Sep 2, 2015 01:05
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Well he's specifically mentioned duckweed as something he wanted to get because he thinks the turtle will eat it, I still really know nothing about aquatic plants but I take it that that's a horrible idea? He won't shut the hell up about cherry shrimp and I never got him a birthday present so I ordered him 50 juvenile cherry shrimp online, along with a rabbit snail and an albino bushynose pleco. That should keep him busy for a while hopefully. republicant fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Sep 2, 2015 |
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Sep 2, 2015 01:11
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Floating plants can be great, but duckweed and salvinia minima reproduce like crazy. They will very much blanket the top of your aquarium if you let them. If your boyfriend insists on that kind of floating plant try to sell him on frogbit. It's not nearly as big of a pain in the rear end as those tiny fuckers.
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Sep 2, 2015 01:17
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Oh, that's actually what he does have in a couple of the tanks (frogbit), I just didn't know the name. The turtle in particular thinks it's delicious and eats every bit of it.
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Sep 2, 2015 01:23
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Where's a good place to order cherry red shrimp from? The only fish selling place near me is Petsmart and they just have Ghost Shrimp. I'm slowly working my way to getting a shrimp tank going. I need to finish the girlfriends tank first though which now that Amazon got me all the poo poo for that I can finally get to her this weekend. Our anniversary was only almost a month ago at this point. It's the thought that counts not the timeliness of it right?
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Sep 2, 2015 02:03
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Duckweed is great if you've got fish that graze on it. It reproduces pretty drat fast so you'll always have a steady supply of fish snacks. It's a blight if you dont want it though.
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Sep 2, 2015 02:07
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Is an auto-dose pump a crazy idea just for excel and flourish in my planted freshwater? I'm winning my hair algae battle except when I travel for a week or longer.
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Sep 2, 2015 02:09
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Len posted:Where's a good place to order cherry red shrimp from? The only fish selling place near me is Petsmart and they just have Ghost Shrimp. I'm slowly working my way to getting a shrimp tank going. I need to finish the girlfriends tank first though which now that Amazon got me all the poo poo for that I can finally get to her this weekend. There's quite a few people selling them on Aquabid.com. There are lots of auctions you have to bid on but there are cherry shrimp available for "buy it now". I followed an Aquabid posting to the breeder's website and got them for $4 cheaper. http://www.imperialtropicals.com/invertebrates.html I bought 50 shrimp for $45 but they also have 25 for $25. However I can't vouch for the quality, I just ordered today and haven't received them yet. Upon closer inspection of this baby turtle it's apparent that it has pretty severe metabolic bone disease. Basically if you don't have the right UV lighting or feed the right foods, the turtle gets a calcium deficiency and its bones weaken until it ends up dying. This turtle's shell is soft to the touch so it's pretty bad, and I can't get it to eat. There are some reptile friendly vets around here so I'm going to try to get calcium injections for it and try to save it but I won't be surprised if it doesn't make it. This sucks. This is the one thing I was always terrified of my original turtle getting, to the point that I invested several hundreds of dollars in lighting and equipment and he's ridiculously healthy. He's so healthy that his shell is so strong that he survived without any injuries whatsoever when he escaped from his feeding bowl and fell off his tank onto the floor. And here's this tiny little baby who's probably not going to get a chance at life because of this poo poo pet store. God this pisses me off so much. I've got him in calcium-enriched water and offered him a cuttlebone, but he won't take anything by mouth so it's pointless. I'm going to sit him under one of my high-powered UV lights and the poor baby is so lethargic he'll probably stay right there until I take him to the vet. Sorry if this is more suited for the reptile thread, but they're not really turtle people there, it's all iguanas and stuff that's not really relevant to aquatic turtles at all and honestly "freshwater aquarium" is more applicable to them. republicant fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Sep 2, 2015 |
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Sep 2, 2015 02:21
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It's heartbreaking but maybe you will be able to nurse the turtle back to health? A local pet store sold tree frogs to my sister without telling her anything about lighting or gut loading the crickets to make sure the frogs had good calcium uptake and they went all rubbery, but once she learned about what she needed to do they did improve. Not sure if a turtle is as resilient as a frog but don't give up hope yet.
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Sep 2, 2015 02:47
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republicant posted:Well he's specifically mentioned duckweed as something he wanted to get because he thinks the turtle will eat it, I still really know nothing about aquatic plants but I take it that that's a horrible idea? NO DO NOT ALLOW HIM TO INTRODUCE PLANTS INTO YOUR TANK FOR THE LOVE OF ALLAH!!
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Sep 2, 2015 02:57
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I'm going to give it my best shot. I bought a tank divider today to keep the bigger turtle away from the little guy, especially now that I know he's very sick. I have three UVB lights that span the whole tank so wherever he goes he'll get bathed in UVB. I have liquid and powder calcium supplements as well as cuttlebone but as of now they're useless because I can't get him to take anything by mouth. I'm not sure if it's possible to force feed a turtle but I'm going to look into it. Apparently all of the other turtles at the pet store had the same soft shell so I'm going to have to let them know that their turtles are dying.
republicant fucked around with this message at 04:13 on Sep 2, 2015 |
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Sep 2, 2015 02:59
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So are all aquarium starter kits worthless? I am looking to get back into aquariums, and they all seem to have bad filters and a bunch of other stuff which isn't terribly important or in such a small amount you'll need more almost immediately. Furthermore, does anyone have a suggestion for a good stand for a 20-30 gallon tank? Most of the stuff I am seeing at pet stores nearby cost nearly $200 and is made of particle board, and while i'm willing to pay it if its my only option I feel like I can do better than that.
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Sep 2, 2015 03:52
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It's kind of like building your own computer, the pre-boxed kits are convenient and save time but if you feel like putting in the effort, you can shop around, take advantage of sales, and buy each component individually and end up spending less than you would have for the kit or spending a little bit more and getting way better quality equipment than you would have. Also pet stores have ridiculously jacked up prices. I love Amazon. (Not for stands but for filters, heaters, air pumps etc. Not sure where to get good stands)
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Sep 2, 2015 04:15
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All this time I thought that oysters were supposed to be full of pearls, but it turns out that they're actually full of amano shrimp
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Sep 2, 2015 04:31
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It's all fun & games until your S/O brings home a giant clam and wants to keep it in your bath tub. Oh yeah, honey I am converting the bath tub into a salt water aquarium!
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Sep 2, 2015 16:43
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demonR6 posted:It's all fun & games until your S/O brings home a giant clam and wants to keep it in your bath tub. Oh yeah, honey I am converting the bath tub into a salt water aquarium! And using bath salts in the water.
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Sep 2, 2015 17:25
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Never mind, I take back what I said. The store closest to me sold me a kit with stand for just over $200 (Fluval 26 Bowfront with a really decent filter). I'm pretty sure the guy gave me the stand for free on accident, and I would feel bad about it, but they keep their fish in horrible condition; Dead fish in tanks for more than a day, fish gasping for air at the top of the tanks, Aggressive fish mixed with small docile ones who are obviously bullied. Edit: Now to cycle! 
Coolwhoami fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Sep 3, 2015 |
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Sep 3, 2015 00:29
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