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I saw somewhere (maybe here?) someone printed a gradient background which looked pretty good, better than flat colour. Blue gradients seem to be more for reef tanks, but I've seen some nice yellowy ones which look good for a heavily planted tank but might look rubbish on a sparser tank. I also saw a suggestion that crumpled brown paper taped to the back of the tank is a cheap way to get a rocky look, going to try it on my fluval spec 5 as the background on that is pretty awful at the moment. I'll take a pic if it looks any good.
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Oct 24, 2015 08:18
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I think I finally found the baby rabbit snail that came out of the mysterious hatched egg in my tank, but I think I found another baby too. It definitely seems like there are two more baby snails than I'm supposed to have. My adults are really active too, there's just four giant 3 inch snails wandering around my tank grazing and a slightly smaller Faunus that hangs out with them, then six active baby rabbits and a mini yellow rabbit snail who will stay baby-sized forever, six baby mystery snails that look like little pearls and five Japanese trapdoors. I finally have the snail tank of my dreams. Micro crab update:     I can generally see two or three at all times, but that's two or three out of a total of somewhere around twelve to fifteen so they do hide a lot. They've taken up residence in a piece of cholla wood and get along well with the other invertebrates, including baby cherry shrimp. Also snails crap a whole lot as you can see in the pictures  (Today is cleaning day for that tank)My rasboras are getting braver and I've finally seen my strawberries and emeralds venturing out into the tank. The lambchop rasboras are fearless and they form a tighter school than the other rasboras or CPDs; they don't tend to go anywhere by themselves. They would probably be a great recommendation for those looking for small pretty schooling fish.
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Oct 24, 2015 11:31
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You guys, I just did my weekly water change yesterday, and tested the water again. 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, like 5-10ppm nitrates. I'm so freaking happy to finally have this thing humming along nicely and providing me with some chill fish dudes. The rams are so much happier than they were 3 weeks ago, their colors are better, they move around more, and they make me laugh with their dumb fish selves. The swords are pretty and love to eat. I can't wait to add more fish. Thanks to everyone for providing advice and assistance during my first month of owning this tank.
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Oct 24, 2015 14:22
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Awesome, yeah inheriting a mystery tank full of god knows what, you did really well.
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Oct 24, 2015 14:24
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Everyone got moved into the 180 today, and it went pretty smoothly. All the fish seem to be settling in just fine. Click on the picture for a short video. 
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Oct 25, 2015 02:32
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We got rid of the diamond tetras and now all my little fish seem much happier and aren't hiding all the time anymore. Also today I realized that I've spent a fair bit over $100 on rasboras/danios, including over $50 on CPDs alone. I'm about to drop an additional $42 on two schools of emeralds in the next couple days but they're my favorite fish so it's 100% worth it.Guy on Facebook posted:So I haven't done a water change in probably 3-4 weeks I am doing one now but thought I'd share my nitrates. And yes I used a paint mixer to shake bottle 2 then I strapped it to the hub cap of my car and drove 60 on the freeway for about an hour so it was well mixed. Also the tank is very well established it has been running for over a year. republicant fucked around with this message at 02:59 on Oct 25, 2015 |
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Oct 25, 2015 02:52
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Excellent description, haha. That's about the right amount of shaking needed for nitrate test reagents.
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Oct 25, 2015 03:49
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When I was at the second store, there were a few regulars who would preemptively pick up bottle 2 and start shaking it when they came in for water tests.
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Oct 25, 2015 03:55
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Frontosa look great man! Are those denison barbs in with them?
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Oct 25, 2015 09:08
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Whale Cancer posted:Frontosa look great man! Are those denison barbs in with them? Thanks! Yeah, I've got 6 denison's and 3 clown loaches in there. I have another 5 clowns in QT now, and might pick up some more denison's as well. Was also happy to find another 2 frontosa fry when I tore down the old tank, so now I've got 4 of those little guys.
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Oct 25, 2015 14:45
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 I can't believe it - I found ANOTHER baby Sulawesi snail. I saw it and assumed it was something else because the grey shell threw me off, but it definitely has a little rabbit snail face. I've been able to get them all in one place and count seven, so the one baby I already had, the three I bought, and three that have mysteriously appeared. I found my giant orange rabbit snail wrapped around and eating my (dead) mini yellow rabbit snail so that was somewhat disturbing. After I took the dead snail out the giant orange started grabbing a Japanese trapdoor's shell and pulling it towards him and yep, dead too. I don't know why two snails would die on the same day but the water is getting changed today.
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Oct 25, 2015 17:31
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Swapped the filter that came with my five gallon for the aquaclear mini I've been running on my "big" tank, and holy crap what a difference it made. My betta is now happily circling the tank, now free of a perpetually strong current. I have no idea how a lovely petsmart filter rated for 10 gallons is pushing that much water relative to a (notably controllable) 20 gallon, but I'm happy. I have confirmed that the red danio is indeed a glofish, which now leaves me in a bit of a moral dilemma, because I feel like I should notify the person at the store I got them from (she didn't seem to know much about the danios), but if I do she no longer has plausible deniability if the CFIA comes in and seizes them or something. Not sure what the best course of action is. The light that came with my tank is most likely why I'm having problems with plants in my aquarium, and I am looking at replacement options. I have found a couple so far that seem good, the Current USA satellite LED plus, and the Finnex FugeRay Planted+. Both I'd need to order from the states and will cost me about $130, so I am open to alternatives if any might be available. Any suggestions?
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Oct 25, 2015 17:51
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So a few pages back I posted a pic of a little baby Platy fish. Turns out there are 3 and they are all now too big to be eaten by the larger fish. My 10 gallon tank is soon to be slightly overstocked. It is, however, very heavily planted. I should be OK?
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Oct 25, 2015 18:10
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Gillingham fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Nov 2, 2015 |
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Oct 25, 2015 19:22
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Prescription Combs posted:So a few pages back I posted a pic of a little baby Platy fish. Turns out there are 3 and they are all now too big to be eaten by the larger fish. That puts you at 8 platys, plus the shrimp, right? The shrimp are basically irrelevant, and 8 isn't horribly overly stocked. You will want to keep an eye on your standard level stuff to make sure your filter is handling it, although since your are not dumping in full sized fish your filter will have lots of time to adjust. What filter do you have on there? That might be your only concern other than maybe increased number/volume of water changes eventually.
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Oct 25, 2015 20:57
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Coolwhoami posted:That puts you at 8 platys, plus the shrimp, right? The shrimp are basically irrelevant, and 8 isn't horribly overly stocked. You will want to keep an eye on your standard level stuff to make sure your filter is handling it, although since your are not dumping in full sized fish your filter will have lots of time to adjust. What filter do you have on there? That might be your only concern other than maybe increased number/volume of water changes eventually. I'm pretty sure the filter is an AquaClear 20. I have Purigen in it instead of activated charcoal and a foam pre-filter on it that i just squeeze out every once in a while when it gets dirty/what the shrimps don't pick off it. Ammonia / Nitrites are 0 every time I check so far. Nitrates are usually in the 30-40 range. Using an API master kit with the vials. Edit: Just remembered I also have an Aqueon quietflow 10 I can throw back on if needed I suppose. Prescription Combs fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Oct 25, 2015 |
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Oct 25, 2015 23:38
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Prescription Combs posted:I'm pretty sure the filter is an AquaClear 20. I have Purigen in it instead of activated charcoal and a foam pre-filter on it that i just squeeze out every once in a while when it gets dirty/what the shrimps don't pick off it. You're probably just fine then. Aqadvisor is generally pretty conservative on filtration, and you're clearly watching things enough that it won't get out of control before you spot it. It wouldn't be bad to run the second filter though, if only so that if one of the two fails you have one with an existing culture of bacteria in it to keep things in good shape while you deal with that. However, a question: How often are you doing test, and how often/large are you doing water changes? If your nitrates are currently floating at 30-40, depending on how frequently you're doing these things you might need to make some adjustments. Alternatively you could chuck a few more plants in there and it will probably be just fine.
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Oct 26, 2015 03:30
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Filtration doesn't remove nitrates, so adding more won't help that problem but coolwhoami is right that is good to have a spare on the go. The only things that get rid of nitrates are plants and water changes (and anoxic bacteria but you might not want to rely on that). Surface plants do a better job as they get more light and more co2 so frogbit, duckweed, water sprite, etc could help. I also read that algae is one of the best plants to remove excess nutrients since the algae grows constantly and quickly, unlike a plant which just puts out a new leaf every now and then. I've found a big cladophora algae growth in the pre filter sponge of one of my guppy tanks and I'm thinking about trying to set up an algae scrubber using that but I'm not sure if I want to spread it around my other tanks. My two shrimp tanks both got a piece though and tonight I'm going to test if rosy barbs eat cladophora, if they do it won't hurt if some pieces break off and get loose in that tank. I've noticed they seem to be eating the java fern's new growth, I thought nothing ate java fern due to a nasty taste. Anyway, algae scrubber, meaning use the algae to scrub nitrates from the water. The algae scrubber gets well lit and good flow so algae grows there and outcompetes algae growing elsewhere in the tank. Anyone DIY made one, or bought one? I've seen a fairly simple air powered build that looks like it would work well but I'm concerned about fish safety for smaller fish like guppies who could get into it and get stuck. If there is a safer product I could buy I'd probably rather use that but not sure what's out there or what's good.
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Oct 26, 2015 04:13
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Alright, I've spent more than an hour trying to figure this out, so I offer it to the thread with the hope of some direction. I have a plant that I thought was some sort of amazon sword when I bought it, but its structure does not match any sort of Echinodorus short of ones that get absolutely massive, and while mine is in a darker place in the tank I would have though I would have seen substantial growth or a problem by this point. It doesn't appear to be some sort of anubias for the same reason, no central structure in the leaves. The closest thing I've found that looks like it is a variety of Dracaena deremensis, but that is a house plant and I would have thought it would die by this point. Since i'm looking into lighting I figured I should get a handle on what I have now to make sure I get the conditions right for them, and this one remains uncertain. Any ideas? (in background: Underlit Cyperus helferi which is not doing well, hence my previous post about lighting.)
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Oct 26, 2015 05:02
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Honestly you might be right, could be dracaena braunii or sanderiana lucky bamboo style plant that has not grown enough to show a long stem yet. The leaves reminded me of aspidistra at first but even those have a central vein. If you have room, try uprooting it and floating it in a piece of foam so that it gets some air and see if it grows better then. I was pretty sure dracaena would drown even if just it's roots were kept permanently wet but there are plenty of pics on Google of completely submersed ones.
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Oct 26, 2015 05:31
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Thoughts on proactively treating new fish for parasites and other things in QT? I've heard that some people just treat in the QT with Chloroquine Phosphate and Prazipro (separately) no matter what, just to control issues before they could even start in the DT.
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Oct 26, 2015 20:32
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ShaneB posted:Thoughts on proactively treating new fish for parasites and other things in QT? I've heard that some people just treat in the QT with Chloroquine Phosphate and Prazipro (separately) no matter what, just to control issues before they could even start in the DT. Aquarium salt is good for fish that tolerate it. Salt kills a lot of things, reducing the need for medication and arguably reduces stress for fish. Some people swear by Melafix, but others say that it's unreliable at best and snake oil at worst. The main concerns when using it in a main tank are fish that don't do well with it and plants.
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Oct 26, 2015 21:26
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Dogwood Fleet posted:Aquarium salt is good for fish that tolerate it. Salt kills a lot of things, reducing the need for medication and arguably reduces stress for fish. Some people swear by Melafix, but others say that it's unreliable at best and snake oil at worst. The main concerns when using it in a main tank are fish that don't do well with it and plants. The only research I can find to support Melafix is research done by the company that owns the patent for it, which is pretty reasonable cause for suspicion. It's also hard to evaluate it's effectiveness when being used for quarantining, as any fish to do fine could very well have done so otherwise. I've at least determined why the other plants were doing so terribly, as the lights in my tank are absolute garbage for anything but extremely low light plants. I'm going to haul the unidentified plant out to get its roots but i'm fairly confident after some additional research that it is some sort of cutting from a lucky bamboo, which means I ought to get it out altogether before it dies I presume. I'm also starting to wonder if the cyperus was also grown above the water and I'm having acclimation problems, as it is likely from the same supplier as the dracaena. e: Stoca Zola posted:Honestly you might be right, could be dracaena braunii or sanderiana lucky bamboo style plant that has not grown enough to show a long stem yet. The leaves reminded me of aspidistra at first but even those have a central vein. If you have room, try uprooting it and floating it in a piece of foam so that it gets some air and see if it grows better then. I was pretty sure dracaena would drown even if just it's roots were kept permanently wet but there are plenty of pics on Google of completely submersed ones. Just pulled it up, and the roots are brown but not withered, but it is almost certainly lucky bamboo based on the stem structure. I've pulled it out and chucked it in a cup with some water, we'll see how it goes. vvvvvvvvvvvvvvv Honestly, cheapest is either craigslist, or somewhere like petsmart if you're not looking for the additional parts. Coolwhoami fucked around with this message at 04:14 on Oct 27, 2015 |
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Oct 26, 2015 22:27
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I think I like shallow, rimless tanks. Where can I get say, a 20 gallon on the cheap?
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Oct 27, 2015 01:49
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Some of the snails I've bought from Aquabid have straight up holes in their shells so I've started feeding them Hikari Crab Cuisine because it specifically has calcium to promote healthy shell development.. It kind of scares me a bit because it has "copper sulfate" has an ingredient at the very bottom, but other people feed it to their snails with no problems and it's made for inverts so hopefully it should be fine? I'm not sure if it matters what kind of copper compound it is or if it's possible for there to be so little of it that it's not a problem. The food is recommended for hermit crabs, crayfish, and lobsters, but shows shrimp on the package and says it's for "other aquatic scavengers" as well so I would think that would include snails. If a company made calcium-rich snail food then I would buy the hell out of it but I'm probably one of the very few that would. I guess some of my turtle food might be good for the snails as well because of its calcium content but I need to check it for copper first. e: I need to stop reading fish forums... Some person will come in and say that copper in any possible quantity will kill all of your snails, and then some other person will be the voice of reason and start pulling out scientific data and LD50 and say that no, a product that consists of 0.000000000001% copper is not going to kill all of your animals just because you see "copper sulfate" on the ingredient list. Part of me still wants to run over and take all of the crab food out of the tank though. But some guy wrote a "How To Keep Snails" guide and he feeds his snails Crab Cuisine so it shouldn't be harmful to them. e2: I'm going to try to keep reading things that will make me feel better because I fed it to my little tiny baby snails and watched them eat it. Crabs and crayfish and lobsters are just as sensitive to copper as snails are right? So it can't be enough copper to harm any inverts. People keep saying that any food with any copper in it at all will kill everything but that can't be right. quote:Trace amounts of copper are just fine. Nothing to worry about. In fact hikari shrimp cuisine contains copper sulfate. Judging by the hundreds of baby shrimp I have currently its not killing anyone. republicant fucked around with this message at 06:19 on Oct 27, 2015 |
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Oct 27, 2015 06:07
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I think you'll be okay, copper is an essential trace nutrient after all and anything can be poison if you have too much. Don't a lot of inverts have copper based blood? Hemocyanin instead of hemoglobin, although it's not universal. So as long as it's very small amounts it will be fine I reckon. I lost the derpy fin cory last night even though he seemed fine that morning. So five left, four of which hang around together and are no longer shy, one who hides at the back so could still be sick. I'm not really sure what the deal is apart from new fish syndrome, water tests look fine, RO water and careful remineralization is keeping the pH and hardness where I want it. I'm still a little concerned they might not be getting enough food but they don't look thin or starved. I've stopped being surprised when they die now, I just hope it settles down soon. Thought I spotted a dead guppy stuck behind the filter sponge too, only he swam away under his own steam once I moved the sponge. No idea how he fitted in there, it was a very tight squeeze. Half his tail fin was worn away which hopefully he will recover from, poor thing.
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Oct 27, 2015 06:30
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Anyone here have experience with Severum? i'm seriously considering some but I have a few question. I have a 75 gallon and would like to have one or two. Is there any difference in behavior between green/gold/red/roktiel? Do I need to have a male/male or female/female. I'd rather not deal with nasty breeding aggression for once.
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Oct 27, 2015 07:42
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So I went to my LFS and asked them if they knew any more about the unidentified plant, and they hauled out their ordering catalog which confirmed it as Dracaena braunii. Their "plant guy" had been ordering them, and almost all the ones they had save the newest ones were in rough shape/basically dead. Hopefully they'll be more careful when ordering plants not to order ones that, IN THE CATALOG, state "emerge", and not submerge them.
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Oct 28, 2015 02:52
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loving lucky bamboo.
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Oct 28, 2015 03:12
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republicant posted:Some of the snails I've bought from Aquabid have straight up holes in their shells so I've started feeding them Hikari Crab Cuisine because it specifically has calcium to promote healthy shell development.. I've been adding reef calcium to my tank for the nerite snails I got from Aquatic Arts. Petsmart has 16oz bottles listed for $3.17 online and they'll match that price if you go into a store.
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Oct 28, 2015 05:12
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Thank's for the tips on my betta. Next up I have a eheim cannister filter connected to one of those ista gulfstream co2 reactors and I feel like I need to step up my plumbing game to make this thing feel secure. The cannister filter is fine but the connections to the gulfstream seem to leak slightly and I feel like I need to step up my plumbing game to get it to stop. Anyone got any recommendations of connectors/tubing I could use? Or co2 reactor with less lovely connectors.
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Oct 28, 2015 16:29
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Would some kind of clamps on your connections (maybe jubilee clamps) help keep them more secure? That way if you needed to move or change anything you could still unscrew the clamps pretty easily. One thing I'd be worried about there is if the reactor has brittle plastic, you could overtighten and snap something. Do you have to use the same plumbing as the filter to drive the reactor? If you had room for a little powerhead to drive it and keep your filtering separated from your reactor plumbing your flow might not be as high/pressure not so great, then the leaks might not be as bad. I remember reading somewhere that a canister filter takes a fair amount of oxygen out of the water so you want a bit of agitation where it comes back in to keep your tank nicely oxygenated, which is exactly what you DON'T want for your CO2 water since it'd just drive off the CO2 again due to the agitation. Keeping them separate would let you direct the two flows of water where they need to go, if that makes sense. Got any pictures of your setup?
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Oct 28, 2015 17:07
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Got half my tank going with some Dwarf Hairgrass plugs today. This bro doesn't really know what to think about it... 
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Oct 28, 2015 19:16
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Does anyone have an idea what kind of snails these are? We first started seeing them with the Japanese trapdoor snails we bought online so I've assumed that they were baby Japdoors but they don't really look like them. I'm not sure if they're some new and exciting kind of pond snail but they don't look like those either. Their shells are very round and transparent with dark speckles.     I keep finding these in a tank that has plenty of standard pond snails and they stand out because they look very different, mainly because the shells are almost spherical like little globes.
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Oct 28, 2015 21:23
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Stoca Zola posted:Would some kind of clamps on your connections (maybe jubilee clamps) help keep them more secure? That way if you needed to move or change anything you could still unscrew the clamps pretty easily. One thing I'd be worried about there is if the reactor has brittle plastic, you could overtighten and snap something. Do you have to use the same plumbing as the filter to drive the reactor? If you had room for a little powerhead to drive it and keep your filtering separated from your reactor plumbing your flow might not be as high/pressure not so great, then the leaks might not be as bad. I remember reading somewhere that a canister filter takes a fair amount of oxygen out of the water so you want a bit of agitation where it comes back in to keep your tank nicely oxygenated, which is exactly what you DON'T want for your CO2 water since it'd just drive off the CO2 again due to the agitation. Keeping them separate would let you direct the two flows of water where they need to go, if that makes sense. Here it is  The powerhead idea sounds like the best route maybe.
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Oct 28, 2015 22:55
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Man one of my Thai micro crabs died after the tank was cleaned. I'm on a really bad streak of losing animals lately and I'll be glad when it stops. Almost lost one of my dwarf gouramis last night when we discovered during acclimation to another tank that dwarf gouramis are jumpers like their betta cousins He was found and put back in water in time but it definitely almost killed him.
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Oct 29, 2015 02:30
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Shipping is hard on animals and it's not uncommon for them to keel over after apparently arriving alive and well unfortunately.
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Oct 29, 2015 02:59
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Has anyone had success with a DIY CO2 injection system? I have been reading about it as an option and while the principle seems sound, I am wondering about how practical it actually is/if anyone has had a bottle explode from pressure etc.
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Oct 29, 2015 04:21
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I used to run it but the extra co2 made my shrimp extra sleepy and they got too easy to catch for all the other tank residents. 
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Oct 29, 2015 04:28
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| # ? May 27, 2024 01:40 |
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I tossed my gopro into the pond for another round of underwater koi video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW4m9BoL7HM
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Oct 29, 2015 04:30
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