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I had the same experience with my red cherries turning brown after about a year. I added a few new bright red ones, but they didn't last long since my shrimp stopped breeding and started dying off recently. At first it was kind of slow, so I assumed those were all the ones I originally got reaching old age, but then the past week it's been sudden mass die-offs of the remaining ones, even younger ones. I tested the water for everything except water hardness and carbonate hardness, but I ordered that test kit from Amazon yesterday. Nothing funny showed up on the other tests, so aside from a possible molting problem, I'm stumped. Hopefully that's it and I can fix it and get some more shrimp, though they were really thriving the first 8 months I had them so it seems weird that there would be a sudden change to that.
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Sep 21, 2015 23:52
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Sudden shifts in water hardness can cause osmotic shock for invertebrates. You should test the water gh/kh of the tank and the makeup before doing a water change. Too big of a difference between tank water and the replacement water can be deadly.
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Sep 21, 2015 23:56
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Yeah, I definitely plan on testing both my tap water and the tank water to see what's happening there. I'm not sure how to fix it if that is the issue, but I guess I have some time to read up on it while the test kit gets here. I still can't believe every store I went to was sold out of that one or just didn't carry it. Sucks since I really don't want all my shrimp to die before I get this sorted, but that might actually happen  shrimp friends, nooo.
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Sep 22, 2015 00:30
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OK, here are the goods of the aquarium I inherited: Tank:  The two big guys I cannot identify:  There are two of the orange dudes and three of the striped dudes:  Two of these dudes:  Again, two of these:  Two of these guys. One seems to like to hide because I can only see one regularly:  Plants:   Is this guy having scale issues? Is he ok?  So, again, my first desire is to get the algae under control and the water clear. I want to first get new charcoal filter pads for the existing filter and add a new, better filter along with it for awhile. I'm going to scrape the algae off the walls and maybe going to have to manually clean the ornaments. I'm also going to be doing regular water changes to assist with clearing, 20% at a time every other day or so. The bulb in there right now is a 17W LED 4000k. Is this OK, or should I swap it out for something superior? I'd prefer something more attractive, perhaps? Is this a good start? ShaneB fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Sep 22, 2015 |
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Sep 22, 2015 00:44
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Looks to me like you've got two koi, three tiger barbs (one green, two standard), a couple bolivian rams, and a couple mollies of some type. And I think you're crazy for saying the plants aren't nice looking - I quite like them.
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Sep 22, 2015 01:42
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Slugworth posted:Looks to me like you've got two koi, three tiger barbs (one green, two standard), a couple bolivian rams, and a couple mollies of some type. Ah, yeah, those are bolivian rams and NOT panda cats, as I thought they were. I basically have nothing that eats algae and waste, do I?
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Sep 22, 2015 02:01
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ShaneB posted:OK, here are the goods of the aquarium I inherited: Agreeing on the koi. The one does have damaged scales, but I can't tell if it's from an injury or an old disease. Then you have tiger barbs, the more orange ones I believe are albinos. They're pretty nippy, but shouldn't bother your koi at least. Then, yeah looks like some kind of ram. You also have two (probably) male bettas. Under other circumstances they may well fight to the death, but there is a lot of space for them to stay away from each other and they're probably in more danger from the tiger barbs. It is a very weird assortment of fish. As for lighting, it depends on what you want. Putting the lights on a timer and splitting up how long they are during the day will help clear out your algae. If you want to grow plants (which you already have a good start on, I didn't think this would be an option from what you were saying about fish moving the gravel around), then you'll want something with a higher color temperature. I have had good luck with Finnex and they're cheap and you're just starting out. I'm guessing that a lot of your algae problem came from someone who wanted plants but had too low of a color temperature on the lighting and tried to compensate by leaving the lights on too long. Plants are going to be iffy just because you have those koi, but you're going to have to make some stocking decisions anyway. Those koi don't belong in a 55 gallon, they really need to be in a good sized pond because they are going to get very large and they are very messy. They need colder water than the rest of the fish as well. The bettas should not be housed together and should not be housed with the tiger barbs at all. Bettas can do well in community aquariums, but it depends on the individual fish. The rams are relatively peaceful and won't interfere with other fish or plants. If this was my aquarium, I'd move the fish out temporarily, replace the gravel with something I liked better, rehome the koi, read up on the rams and see if you're up to caring for them, decide if you want the semi-aggressive tiger barbs in the tank, and move out at least one of the bettas. That pretty much leaves you with a blank slate. I'd split the lighting to 5 hours on, 2-3 hours off, and then 4 hours on. That killed off most of my algae and my plants did well with it. Other than that, make sure that whatever fish you get will be appropriately sized for a 55, that they are behaviorally compatible, and that they they are meant for the same temperature range.
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Sep 22, 2015 02:27
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Dogwood Fleet posted:If this was my aquarium, I'd move the fish out temporarily, replace the gravel with something I liked better, rehome the koi, read up on the rams and see if you're up to caring for them, decide if you want the semi-aggressive tiger barbs in the tank, and move out at least one of the bettas. That pretty much leaves you with a blank slate. So basically I need to either sentence the fish to death or stick them in a local freshwater pond or something? I'm not really attached to them, and I know they aren't exactly a cat or a dog, but I'm not sure what is acceptable practice in the aquarium community on how to deal with stocking issues. So I should keep: - the two gold dudes - one of the bettas - the two rams And remove: - the two koi - one betta - all 3 barbs (?) Where do I remove them... to? And can you give me some stocking tips on what types of fish are attractive and will be at home in this aquarium? Also: where do I move fish to temporarily? And suggestions for gravel?
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Sep 22, 2015 02:36
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ShaneB posted:So basically I need to either sentence the fish to death or stick them in a local freshwater pond or something? I'm not really attached to them, and I know they aren't exactly a cat or a dog, but I'm not sure what is acceptable practice in the aquarium community on how to deal with stocking issues. Ah, sorry. The gold dudes are a color morph on the barbs. I wouldn't keep them, but that's more of a personal preference. I'm not sure on the best way to rehome fish. You'll have trouble giving away the koi, especially the one with missing scales. Do not release aquarium fish into the wild, ever. Craigslist would probably work for the not koi, and I'm pretty sure that anyone would be happy to take the rams off your hands if you decide to not keep them. On the gravel, I just don't like the color. Pool filter sand looks good and is fairly cheap and there is a wide range of gravel at chain pet stores. https://liveaquaria.com gives good basic information on popular fish. Peaceful fish will probably easier for you to deal with. I wouldn't get any new fish right away, you're still figuring out what you want to do with the tank and you have a lot of reading to do and you want to find a good store to get fish from and you'll want to know what a good fish store looks like. No one here will complain if you ask about stocking suggestions, I just didn't give a list because I started to and didn't know where to stop.
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Sep 22, 2015 03:04
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ShaneB posted:So basically I need to either sentence the fish to death or stick them in a local freshwater pond or something? I'm not really attached to them, and I know they aren't exactly a cat or a dog, but I'm not sure what is acceptable practice in the aquarium community on how to deal with stocking issues. The koi will definitely be better off somewhere else - They can live up to 40 years or so, and definitely won't have anywhere near that lifespan in that setup. Fish are about the easiest thing in the world to humanely rid yourself of - Find a decent fish store in your area (ie, not a big chain) and tell them you have some free stock for them.
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Sep 22, 2015 03:10
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Dogwood Fleet posted:Ah, sorry. The gold dudes are a color morph on the barbs. I wouldn't keep them, but that's more of a personal preference. I'm not sure on the best way to rehome fish. You'll have trouble giving away the koi, especially the one with missing scales. Do not release aquarium fish into the wild, ever. Craigslist would probably work for the not koi, and I'm pretty sure that anyone would be happy to take the rams off your hands if you decide to not keep them. I don't love the color either. I would really like to get a lot of ground cover plants like I've seen in some photos, it looks really pretty. I think I would like to make the entire environment look a lot more "natural" rather than a tank with a few plants and ornaments in it. That would probably be easier to do with fewer fish in the tank to start. I will advertise the 5 barbs and the betta on Craigslist and see what happens. For whatever reason I like the rams. I like how they like to hide under the ornaments sometimes and just be chill dudes. Is there some reason I wouldn't want to keep them?
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Sep 22, 2015 03:14
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You've got five tiger barbs there, the dark striped ones plus the other orange ones are golden tiger barbs (Xanthic not albino) and if they are schooling together that's about the absolute minimum number for barbs to behave themselves. Barbs behave better with a big enough school, it's only when they are in a small number that they aim their nips elsewhere. Tigers do have a bad reputation for fin nipping though, worse than other barbs so I don't know if they ever calm down as much as say rosy barbs. They form a pecking order in the shoal and if you get a couple more they should keep that pecking inside their own species instead of including other fish who don't know how to react properly and get nipped as a result. But with two koi I don't think you've got room to add more fish at all. Koi will live for a really long time (decades at best) and grow to over a foot long assuming they don't get stunted in a too small tank, barbs live 5-6 years, the Rams around 4, and betta probably has the shortest lifespan but I am guessing this is due to common mistakes when people keep betta such as tank too cold, tank too small, tank too dirty/overfeeding, flow too strong, etc. So for betta, 2 years at worst and maybe 5 at best. They aren't a social fish at all and probably don't appreciate the company. You could keep the Rams and the barbs, maybe get three more tiger barbs for a good sized school, and you'd still have room for more fish. I use aqadvisor.com for helping with tank and filter capacity calculations, and a bit of fish compatibility info, but seriously fish.com has more detailed info per species. Aqadvisor doesn't even list koi as an indoor/tropical fish though. Rams like it warm and so do bettas while koi and barbs probably do better in a little cooler water. How warm is your tank running, and what pH/hardness is the water? It's better to work out what your water supply is like and to get fish that suit your conditions than to have to adjust the water too much. I wonder if in the distant past someone had the koi in a pond and couldn't part with them when they had to move, and the koi outlived them only to confuse all subsequent tank owners? Anyone know how to judge the age of a koi?
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Sep 22, 2015 03:31
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Reason not to keep Rams: if your tank is warm enough to keep the Rams happy it might be harder to keep other fish that don't like it warm. Or hard to find other warm loving fish as tank mates. Or keeping the tank too cool will make the Rams not do so well. Please try and research this yourself as I am going from memory and have never kept Rams myself. I also don't know why autocorrect keeps capitalising "Rams" lol.
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Sep 22, 2015 03:35
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http://www.coloradokoi.com/koi_age.htm Looks like there are. What're you going to do about the algae? You might want to check the light fixtures, see what kind and how old they are. Flourescent lights degrade with age and go from the spectrum that plants like to the spectrum that algae loves. Or get a nerite snail and let it go to town.
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Sep 22, 2015 03:36
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My current algae plans consist of algae killing solution added to the water, a scraper, better filtration, and probably some manual cleaning of the ornaments. I'd also probably want to get an algae-eating peaceful fish, yeah? The fixture is a 17W LED 4000K bulb. The thermometer looks to be a stuck-on adhesive thing reading 81F.
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Sep 22, 2015 03:48
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Slugworth posted:Unless you see the barbs being aggressive, I would say keep them. That's a big tank, and if it's not currently a problem it probably won't become one. I sort of feel similarly about the betta - I never would have suggested it, but if it's working in an established tank, so be it. It's working okay now, but I have no idea what will happen once those koi are out. I'd still take out one betta and find a place for a 5-10 gallon setup, but I really like bettas and finding places for betta setups. edit: spot treating with small amount of hydrogen peroxide (get a bag of plastic transfer pipettes, they're cheap on amazon and you'll want them for measuring anyway) will help with the algae, as will spot treating with Seachem Excel. Dogwood Fleet fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Sep 22, 2015 |
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Sep 22, 2015 03:48
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Your current algae problem could be from over feeding and associated excess nutrients even; knowing you have tiger barbs if they are anything like my barbs they treat every meal like they are starving to death and could easily trick someone into thinking they needed to be fed more.
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Sep 22, 2015 04:12
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Stoca Zola posted:Your current algae problem could be from over feeding and associated excess nutrients even; knowing you have tiger barbs if they are anything like my barbs they treat every meal like they are starving to death and could easily trick someone into thinking they needed to be fed more. The koi are the feeding assholes. As you can imagine.
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Sep 22, 2015 04:12
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re: plants, the floating bunch looks like moneywort, you can stick the base of the bunch down in the gravel if you don't want it floating. It's pretty undemanding for a stem plant. The big mass of stuff in the gravel is cryptocoryne wendtii, which is a great easy, attractive plant. I wouldn't mess with any special algae treatments, just get rid of the koi and feed less (the fish probably only really need half of what you think they do), and let the plants eat up the nutrients that are allowing the algae to grow. As for algae-eating/cleanup fish, the go-to is the bristlenose pleco, they stay at a moderate size and eat the hell out of algae. The rams look like bolivians, so they should be alright with the slightly lower temperatures that the rest of the tank will be happy at. e: also, if you really want to change out the substrate, be aware that the cryptocoryne will likely melt, which is to say lose all of it's leaves and look dead. Leave it there, it'll regrow just fine...best to just try not to disturb the substrate around it though, that's a huge old plant. kaosAG fucked around with this message at 07:36 on Sep 22, 2015 |
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Sep 22, 2015 07:33
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Holy cow. Honestly the algae is probably not your biggest problem at all right now as opposed to the ridiculously incompatible fish. I put your tank into Aqadvisor to get its opinion on things: I may be wrong but that betta's fins look like they have been ripped to shreds, whether by the other male betta or by the tiger barbs. Bettas and koi are at completely opposite ends of the temperature spectrum and there is no water temperature they can coexist at. No matter what your water temperature is, either the bettas or the koi are extremely stressed, miserable, vulnerable to illness, and probably going to have a dramatically shortened lifespan. The tank is also overcrowded and exceeding filtration capacity so all of the fish are probably stressed out and susceptible to disease. Releasing aquarium fish into the wild is a major no but please consider donating some of these fish to your local fish store. You didn't put this tank together or pick out these fish so it's not your fault, but whoever did this had absolutely no idea what they were doing and have inflicted lots of stress and probably lots of suffering on these fish. There's so many things wrong here that this tank really shouldn't be allowed to exist in this state for longer than it will take you to decide which fish you're going to keep and help the others find a new home. You need to decide whether you want to go with cold water or warm water/tropical fish. If you go with warm water then you should only keep one of the bettas, and if you do keep a betta then you need to get rid of the fin-nipping tiger barbs. I hope this doesn't come across as hostile toward you since I don't intend it that way, but whoever put these fish together seriously screwed up.
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Sep 22, 2015 10:00
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Regarding the koi with the missing scales, I found info that koi carp were crossed with leather or mirror carp in order to get different patterns of scales/no scales. I don't think that koi is actually sick after all, I think it could be a doitsu koi but perhaps not one that came out the way the breeder wanted. So don't worry you probably don't have a manky sick fish after all.
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Sep 22, 2015 11:30
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Not Your Senorita posted:I had the same experience with my red cherries turning brown after about a year. I added a few new bright red ones, but they didn't last long since my shrimp stopped breeding and started dying off recently. At first it was kind of slow, so I assumed those were all the ones I originally got reaching old age, but then the past week it's been sudden mass die-offs of the remaining ones, even younger ones. I tested the water for everything except water hardness and carbonate hardness, but I ordered that test kit from Amazon yesterday. Nothing funny showed up on the other tests, so aside from a possible molting problem, I'm stumped. Hopefully that's it and I can fix it and get some more shrimp, though they were really thriving the first 8 months I had them so it seems weird that there would be a sudden change to that. This is exactly what I'm going through right now. I don't even think I have any shrimp left, except for a few I've found hiding underneath some driftwood. From 200 constantly out and about to 0 in the span of 2 months. I've been going over what has changed but can't really figure it out: -added boiled/soaked driftwood ( tannin leakage but it's fairly negligible at this point ) -KH/GH of 6/4 -no copper ( tested ) -use neutral regulator + equilibrium with water changes to keep up ph/remove chlorine/chloramine/keep up gh/kh -temperature stable/unchanged -do weekly water changes -added 10 more galaxy rasboras So either the additional galaxy's preyed on the shrimp ( comical since they are barely bigger than most of them ), some of the other existing stock decided to start preying on the shrimp without prompting (has been fine for 6 months previous ), something I'm not/can't test for leaking out of the driftwood is killing them. Unfortunately I have no shrimp population left so I can't really test anything. 
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Sep 22, 2015 19:06
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Stoca Zola posted:Regarding the koi with the missing scales, I found info that koi carp were crossed with leather or mirror carp in order to get different patterns of scales/no scales. I don't think that koi is actually sick after all, I think it could be a doitsu koi but perhaps not one that came out the way the breeder wanted. So don't worry you probably don't have a manky sick fish after all. I agree with this assessment, the scales on that particular fish is a result of line breeding, not disease. You'll see similar patterns if you do an image search for 'mirror koi'.
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Sep 23, 2015 00:13
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I posted the koi on CL free, and I am amazed how many people with koi ponds also read CL free. I think I have someone coming to get them right now, thankfully.
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Sep 23, 2015 01:34
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That's great news, with the two biggest polluters gone from the tank it should be easier to clean up. I'm wondering if having two big fish has been keeping the smaller fish too cautious to bother fighting with each other, once the koi go I'd keep an eye on everyone since the bettas may regain confidence to go and fight one another, for example. Last night I did a small water change and gravel vac in both my tanks, replanted the rotala stems that the rosy barbs pulled up, threw out about 2/3 of the hornwort and made a new bunch out of the ends where the new growth was. I have two kinds of duck weed, and in the rosy barb tank they eat all the small stuff and only the large leaf variety remains. The other tank has both kinds and when it overgrows I move handfuls of the small type over to the other tank for the barbs to eat. I can't really do anything in the tanks without my arms getting coated in the stuff, the big duckweed comes off easily but the small stuff goes everywhere. So I finished up, washed my arms and a while later had a coughing fit. I could feel something in my chest and managed to get it up and it was a little piece of duckweed! I have no idea how, I never use my mouth to start suction on the gravel vac and wet duckweed doesn't exactly fly through the air in order to get breathed in, well even a dried out piece wouldn't do that I don't think. Woke up this morning feeling crap and like a weight is on my chest so I dread to think what kind of bacteria was on the duckweed and how sick I could get. Pretty bizarre though, I have no idea how I didn't feel it happen, or even when or how it could have happened that I inhaled some duckweed.
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Sep 23, 2015 02:37
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ShaneB posted:I posted the koi on CL free, and I am amazed how many people with koi ponds also read CL free. I think I have someone coming to get them right now, thankfully. Did you post them on the Chicago CL? I think I saw your ad.
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Sep 23, 2015 03:01
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Stoca Zola posted:That's great news, with the two biggest polluters gone from the tank it should be easier to clean up. I'm wondering if having two big fish has been keeping the smaller fish too cautious to bother fighting with each other, once the koi go I'd keep an eye on everyone since the bettas may regain confidence to go and fight one another, for example. OK, the koi have been adopted! Hooray! I found the other betta that was hiding all the time. He looks like hell, to my untrained eye. Sorry for bad photos, I rarely see him so used my phone when I had the chance:   He has kind of a blue tinge to him, and his fins don't look so good to me. The other more active betta seemed to chase him a bit down into his hiding spot, where I can't even find him. I need to get these betta out of the tank, I think. Rallos posted:Did you post them on the Chicago CL? I think I saw your ad. Yeah.
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Sep 23, 2015 05:11
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Jumping in with a quick question about my goldfish here. I've got a goldfish in a 38 litre tank sitting at the bottom (specifically in the corner near the filter intake) whenever the lights go off. He seems quite lively when the lights are on and is feeding happily too. We've had him for over 2 years now, and I know he's a he because he's sprouted breeding tubercules. At least I think they are, because the protrusions are located entirely on his gills and nowhere else (please correct me if I'm wrong here). Any idea why he may be sitting at the bottom when the lights go off? The only thing I can think of is water alkalinity: we put some coral in the tank a while back because it was too acidic and it's swung too far over the other way. I've since taken the coral out and done a partial water change, but the behaviour doesn't seem to have changed at all. That said, it doesn't explain why he's fine when the lights are on. I'm a little concerned since it's irregular behaviour, but he seems to be fine otherwise, so I'm not sure what's up.
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Sep 23, 2015 10:43
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I hate to jump on you but 38 litres is way too small for a goldfish. That's what, 10 gallons? You'd want to have a LOT of filtering and do lots of water changes to keep the nitrogen levels down. Have you got a ammonia/nitrite/nitrate test kit? What do you feed him and how often? If given enough room a goldfish will grow and grow so maybe he's getting stunted after 2 years in a tiny tank. You were probably right to try and buffer the water with coral but nitrogen wastes become more toxic the higher the pH of the water is. You don't want the pH to swing more than 0.2 in a day or it can hurt the fish - so what were your pH readings? It's more important to provide stable conditions than to chop and change trying to chase a "perfect" number. Anyway maybe he is having swimbladder issues and isn't able to maintain his position while he's sleeping, and is just getting sucked to the inlet because thats how the water flows. If he's awake he can actively fight to get his position right in the water. What kind of goldfish is he? A regular comet or one of the weirder balloon shaped fish?
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Sep 23, 2015 12:11
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We're in a small apartment at the moment and we're going to transition him to a bigger one once we're able. We're aware it's not a perfect situation, but he's also relatively young/small. We've done water tests and everything came back perfect. The only thing we didn't test for was water hardness, since we don't have the kit for it. We're going to take a sample to the aquarium down the road later. At the moment we feed him a vegetable/bloodworm mix and mix in deshelled peas from time to time. Frequency tends to be once every two days since we're just coming out of winter. pH read rather steeply alkaline, hence the removal of the coral. It was in there for in excess of 4-5 months so it wasn't like it swung suddenly and we took it out in a panic. He is never on his side or floating. Whenever he sits on the bottom of the tank, he's perfectly upright. The only visible change I've seen is the appearance of the tubercules. He's a redcap, by the way; not the oranda type.
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Sep 23, 2015 13:06
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It'd be nice to get some actual numbers, I've seen a post elsewhere where someone was panicking about their terrible alkaline water when the pH was only 7.8 which isn't really that bad. What actual numbers do you get for a perfect water test? At least you're aware that he should be in a bigger tank and the food sounds pretty reasonable. If its too cold maybe he's not digesting his food properly (oh hi, fellow southern hemisphere citizen!) although I'm not sure exactly how that works, I don't keep goldfish myself. I came across something similar when I was reading about koi earlier, they need a certain temperature before they can digest food so its better to not feed them at all when its too cold. I was wondering if he was a fancy body type since we have a fat little telescope goldfish in a tank at work and I've seen him struggling against the flow and resting on the bottom at times. He has an arched back, bubble belly, double tail and long fins so it's a big effort sometimes and I feel sorry for him. I haven't really got any advice apart from if there is a chance he could get sucked against your filter inlet, maybe put a sponge over it to help prevent any damage? I would say stop feeding him at all for a few days and watch what kind of poop he does, if its a trailing one he could just be constipated which can have an affect on how they swim. Anyone else got any ideas?
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Sep 23, 2015 15:03
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Stoca Zola posted:
This is very interesting and didn't find out until recently. Koi kept outside should be fed a low protein diet when temps are low and a normal mixed diet when warmer. Low protein means no blood worms. Same thing would apply to gold fish. http://www.thekoikeepers.com/feeding/feeding.html Do you have a heater in the tank? You may try raising the temp to the 70s. Also might want to research adding some epsom salts to the tank.
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Sep 23, 2015 15:36
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So right now I have 5 barbs and 2 Bolivian rams. Ive rehomed the koi and bettas! Should I add a few more barbs to increase their school size? Is it a matter of just buying and dropping them in? I've ordered: Net Aquaclear 110 Scraper system Thermometer New glass lids New bright daylight bulb Water testing kit If I want to clean the tank really well of algae and replace the gravel, how do I do this thoroughly without harming the ecosystem in there?
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Sep 23, 2015 17:01
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Nothing good happens quickly in this hobby. Your best bet is to remove the gravel in stages, you don't want to do it all at once. Do you already have a gravel siphon vac? Your first step should be to clean the gravel as much as you can while you do a water change. Then take 3-4 scoops out a day until it is all gone (use a tupperware or something similar.) For the algae on the glass, if your scraper isn't doing the trick you can always use a razor blade. Just be careful near the silicone in the seams. When you replace the substrate, don't just pour it in from the top. Use a container and pour it out at the bottom of the tank. If you are using sand, make sure to rinse it well in a bucket first, and you might need to add it over a few days. I'd hold off on adding any fish yet. Get the tank set up how you like it first, and then your new fish will be extra happy.
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Sep 23, 2015 17:21
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Enos Cabell posted:Nothing good happens quickly in this hobby. Your best bet is to remove the gravel in stages, you don't want to do it all at once. Check. I do have a vac. I'm gonna clean out a bunch of water (20%) as soon as I have a free evening. I'll then follow your suggestion on removing the old gravel. How do I remove the gravel that the plants are integrated into? Just tell them to deal with it and hope they bed into the new gravel just fine?
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Sep 23, 2015 17:35
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I'm not really a planted tank guy, so someone else will have to chime in on what type of substrate you're gonna need. In any case you'll probably need to remove as much gravel as you can, then gently dig out the plant and shake the rest out of the roots.
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Sep 23, 2015 18:10
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I've used the "jiggle plant up and down on the spot" method to get a plant up while leaving the substrate behind, you want to do very short gentle jiggles more like vibrating the plant than yanking it up and down, although not sure how well this would work with a super established plant. I'd still save it until water change day and do it before changing some water. Also just thinking, don't change too much water too quickly, you don't want to destabilise the tank by replacing too much at once. If you do 20% every single day I feel like that's going too fast and could stress the fish (the exception to this is if you detect any ammonia, you want to get rid of that as it will kill your fish quickly, same with nitrites). Take everything slow, and watch, measure and wait after you change things to make sure everything is happy afterwards.
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Sep 23, 2015 18:43
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ShaneB posted:Check. I would leave whatever is stuck in the roots and just cover it with the new stuff...actually, I'd leave the old gravel around the plants on the right side of the tank, period. Just add to a deeper depth than the current stuff and cover it up. Like I said above, disturbing that plant is probably gonna make it melt (not the end of the world), and it's so big and awesome I'd just leave it alone as much as possible.
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Sep 24, 2015 00:52
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Both betta fish donated to someone who said they understood taking care of them. Phew. The one dude was all torn up and hiding inside a fixture his whole life. How lovely.
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Sep 25, 2015 01:58
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| # ? May 15, 2024 23:43 |
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I won pink ramshorns and a variety pack of colored mystery snails on Aquabid, they arrived yesterday and feeding time in the invert tank is a lot more colorful now. Tomorrow or Saturday is Celestial Pearl Danio Day. (and kuhli loach, Sulawesi snail, black devil (faunus ater) snail, and hummingbird tetra Day!)   
republicant fucked around with this message at 09:55 on Sep 25, 2015 |
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Sep 25, 2015 09:44
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