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We moved my betta from a 20 gallon community tank with a dwarf gourami, kuhli loaches, hummingbird tetras, and a couple plecos to a 10 gallon with nothing but a large number of snails and he seems much happier. I think he's okay with the smaller living space since it means no other fish pissing him off, he's such a solitary reclusive fish and he REALLY hated that gourami. We tried putting the gourami in the snail tank but it kept biting at my snails so that wasn't going to work.
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Oct 29, 2015 04:44
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Of the five surviving panda corydoras I have left, I either have three females and two males, or 3 cories who have worked out about eating pellets/frozen food and 2 who are desperately still searching for live food. I tried checking sexes looking at their pelvic fins but I'm not sure that any of them look that different. Anyway, there are three fat ones, two thinner ones. One of them is particularly thin and I'm a bit worried. I'm starting to wonder if the one that dropped dead the other day actually starved to death, he was probably the littlest one overall  - I don't know if pandas are usually wild caught for import here, it didn't occur to me that these guys might not know how to eat fake/dead foods yet! I spent a good couple of hours this afternoon trying different foods and watching who eats what but I didn't once see that skinny cory eat, although he was constantly swimming and digging so he did still have a lot of energy. I have bought two types of sinking catfish disk (for loaches/cories not plecos, I'd understand if a cory didnt want an algae disk), frozen shrimp, frozen "community" food, dried tubifex, dried bloodworm, and two kinds of sinking pellet. With the lighter, floatier stuff, (this includes the frozen stuff) I have to overfeed ridiculously for any to get to the bottom and land in a place where the cories will find it. Even using a tube to get the food items low in the tank it doesn't seem like they see the food and swim for it. They're more likely to find it after it's stuck under a plant or at the edge of a pebble, and the guppies end up eating most of it. A panda cory is so timid that even a guppy half its size will push the cory out of the way and snatch food from in front of it. The tubifex is too popular to make it to the bottom of the tank before tetras and guppies eat all of it, and the dried bloodworm just doesn't sink at all. I'm considering getting tweezers and half-burying a bit of dried tubifex so that the cories at least get a chance to dig it up. For the sinking disks, even the snails were finding them and eating them faster than the cories were. Eventually I did see one of the fatter cories push past the snails and chew at the edge of one kind of disk. I'm pretty sure the sinking pellets have been palatable to at least some of the cories but invariably the guppies snatch them and swim off with them so I was hoping to switch to disks to make sure they were too big for the guppies to steal. At this point I think I need to get rid of the guppies completely until I'm sure that the cories have worked out how to eat non-live food and are eating reliably without competition. The tetras are fine, they never leave the top half of the tank and don't seem to even consider looking on the bottom of the tank for food. I already took half the guppies out and have them in a tub (which they don't seem to mind) but I don't think it has reduced the competition enough. Maybe I need to buy some more cories so that they have a more confident school? Maybe I need to feed them when it's dark? Anyone got any ideas?
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Oct 29, 2015 15:29
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Speaking of corys, I got 7 yesterday! 6 of these bros (all they had):  and 1 of this gorgeous bro. He was all alone with some other fish in a tank, so I took pity on him and hoped he would hang with the other guys just fine. He's also BEAUTIFUL, and more active than the other 6: 
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Oct 29, 2015 16:43
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Are those corydoras reticulatus or maybe sodalis? Your solo bro with the yellow fins is definitely a Sterba's Cory. You'll soon see if you have stuck up corys that only like their own kind (everything I've read seems to point to this being the case). Sterba's are usually pretty common and easy to get hold of if you want to get a few more to make a second school. They're probably the most frequent "fancy" cory (ie not bronze cory/peppered cory) I've seen available here, anyway. But he might be fine just seeing other fish his size and type around even if he doesn't school with them. All their barbels look really healthy! I would have loved to get a bunch of hardy peppered corys but my partner put his foot down, said they were ugly, and that we had to wait and get pandas because they're SO CUTE. I can't argue on the cute but I think they might be the flimsiest fish I have at the moment. Pretty sure Sterba's at least are no trouble to keep, I was looking at getting some myself at one point but decided my tanks were probably a little too cold for them. Plus obviously they're not as cute as panda cories (  )ACAB - all corydoras are beautiful!
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Oct 29, 2015 19:12
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2 of them got their barbs stuck in the net when transferring them after acclimation from the bag to tank... it was really distressing to me. Is there some kind of special net I should get to snag them from the tank later if needed? I felt so awful having to essentially yank them from the mesh.
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Oct 29, 2015 19:44
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Whenever possible, I try to use a specimen container to capture and move fish. You can just trap them against the glass and lift out, it's much less stressful for the fish. Something like this http://www.amazon.com/Lees-Convales...cimen+container If you do need to use a net, what you can do is put the net with the stuck fish upside down in the new tank, and then use your other hand to stretch out the netting that surrounds the fish from inside. That is usually enough to get them loose.
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Oct 29, 2015 19:55
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After possibly busting the fin of one of my new cories getting him out of the bag I went looking for advice, the best idea I saw was to tip the water out of the bag into a nearby bucket, and then to tip the loose fish out of the bag into the tank, in theory no worse than the small amount of time they'd be out of the water while in a net while still avoiding getting bagwater into the tank and completely avoiding tangling in a net. I think maybe it sounds good on paper but might be a lot more awkward in reality. You can get very fine mesh nets such as are used for straining brine shrimp, and I do have one of those but the frame was too big to fit in the bag so I had to use my nasty wide hole net for fishscoopings. Maybe the fine mesh would have been snag free too.
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Oct 29, 2015 20:07
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Stoca Zola posted:After possibly busting the fin of one of my new cories getting him out of the bag I went looking for advice, the best idea I saw was to tip the water out of the bag into a nearby bucket, and then to tip the loose fish out of the bag into the tank, in theory no worse than the small amount of time they'd be out of the water while in a net while still avoiding getting bagwater into the tank and completely avoiding tangling in a net. I think maybe it sounds good on paper but might be a lot more awkward in reality. You can get very fine mesh nets such as are used for straining brine shrimp, and I do have one of those but the frame was too big to fit in the bag so I had to use my nasty wide hole net for fishscoopings. Maybe the fine mesh would have been snag free too. When I was transferring fish out of bags, I would just set the net on the edge of the bucket, and then pour into the net from the bag till I caught a fish. Basically strain the water. It also worked well at handling shrimp. Now, catching things once in the tank was another matter. CPDs are surprisingly quick for as mellow they usually are. However, they have almost no stamina and will start free floating and panting after a minute or so.
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Oct 29, 2015 20:12
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JuffoWup posted:When I was transferring fish out of bags, I would just set the net on the edge of the bucket, and then pour into the net from the bag till I caught a fish. Basically strain the water. It also worked well at handling shrimp. Now, catching things once in the tank was another matter. CPDs are surprisingly quick for as mellow they usually are. However, they have almost no stamina and will start free floating and panting after a minute or so. Trying to catch 5 small tiger barbs was the most frustrating experience in recent memory.
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Oct 29, 2015 20:14
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ShaneB posted:2 of them got their barbs stuck in the net when transferring them after acclimation from the bag to tank... it was really distressing to me. Is there some kind of special net I should get to snag them from the tank later if needed? I felt so awful having to essentially yank them from the mesh. Oof, yeah. Cory barbs do that. And yes, panda cories are pretty flimsy. That was not a fun lesson.
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Oct 29, 2015 22:47
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Ordered 12 emerald dwarf rasboras, received 15, all of which are alive and very healthy. Aquatic Arts is fantastic and apparently they will be expanding their inventory soon since they've moved to a bigger location. I'm done stocking my tanks and I have all the equipment I could ever need, so... I'm done. Until my turtle grows big enough to move into a 100 gallon sometime in 2016. I guess when animals die it won't be as sad since it will give me an excuse to buy new things. I think getting new tanks is finally permanently out of the question since I have a catfish tank, puffer tank, shrimp tank, rasbora/danio tank, snail tank, community tank that doesn't really have a theme, an aquatic turtle tank, and a frog terrarium. I honestly can't think of anything else I would want. Also I think the "dead" micro crab that I pulled out of the tank may have actually been an exoskeleton, in retrospect. I'm used to many different kinds of shrimp molting but I just kind of forgot about that with the crabs. I hope that was it anyway. republicant fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Oct 30, 2015 |
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Oct 30, 2015 00:29
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republicant posted:I have all the equipment I could ever need I remember saying that once, thousands of dollars ago.
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Oct 30, 2015 04:02
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republicant posted:Also I think the "dead" micro crab that I pulled out of the tank may have actually been an exoskeleton, in retrospect. I'm used to many different kinds of shrimp molting but I just kind of forgot about that with the crabs. I hope that was it anyway.
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Oct 30, 2015 06:36
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I need a heater suggestion for my 75. I previously used my hydor inline but its not compatible with my current canister. Im debating trying a fluval e series or going back to an aqueon pro.
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Oct 30, 2015 06:48
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Fish Noise posted:Was it more translucent than usual, and was the bottom plate thing I forget the name of flapping open loosely? I don't remember it being open, but it was unusually brighter white than the crabs normally are and all the legs were fully stretched out. It was unusually rigid too and when I pulled it out of the water it just looked like a filmy blob. I've been tweaking the media inside my filters and now every tank has Purigen and either Seachem Matrix or some kind of Fluval/Aquaclear/etc biological media, and microfiltration pads to keep the water crystal clear. Feels good man.
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Oct 30, 2015 10:38
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Well I feel like a bastard this morning. Yesterday I added the 5 little clown loaches I had in QT to my big tank. I knew there was a chance my frontosas could go after them, but they've never gone after other fish before, even when I was trying to get them to eat unwanted fry. Well, this morning there was only 1 of the little loaches still in there. I pulled him back out and into another tank, but I'm seeing no signs of his friends.
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Oct 30, 2015 16:00
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Enos Cabell posted:Well I feel like a bastard this morning. Yesterday I added the 5 little clown loaches I had in QT to my big tank. I knew there was a chance my frontosas could go after them, but they've never gone after other fish before, even when I was trying to get them to eat unwanted fry. Well, this morning there was only 1 of the little loaches still in there. I pulled him back out and into another tank, but I'm seeing no signs of his friends. RIP fish buds.
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Oct 30, 2015 16:02
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republicant posted:I don't remember it being open, but it was unusually brighter white than the crabs normally are and all the legs were fully stretched out. It was unusually rigid too and when I pulled it out of the water it just looked like a filmy blob.
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Oct 30, 2015 21:26
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Fish Noise posted:That sounds very dead. Small crustacean molts tend to be translucent and floppy. Dammit. Well they gave me a few extras at least.
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Oct 30, 2015 21:39
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Aaaaaaaaa I found a tiny little bright pink baby ramshorn in my tank tonight. The seller sent me older ramshorns and quite a few of them have died so I didn't think they were going to breed but they are. This little guy is on the same level of cuteness as my baby rabbits, it's got a tiny little crystal clear shell and a bright pink body. Kind of glad now that I've always kept the pink ramshorns separated from my blue ramshorns, I don't know what kind of weird shade of purple that would produce. Does anyone know if fish or snail genetics blend like that, or are there dominant and recessive traits that don't mix? I guess would they make purple babies, or entirely pink or entirely blue babies that would carry a gene for the recessive color?
republicant fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Nov 1, 2015 |
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Nov 1, 2015 02:06
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republicant posted:ramshorns ... I didn't think they were going to breed Hahahah. 
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Nov 1, 2015 02:08
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SynthOrange posted:Hahahah. Well that's incredibly ominous. Hey they probably won't be worse than these Japanese trapdoor snails, who apparently can give birth to up to 20 babies at a time. My snail tank is already full of them and they haven't even really started multiplying exponentially yet. 
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Nov 1, 2015 02:13
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It's actually not too bad if you have multiple types of 'pest' snail in your tank since they'll compete with each other and you get a nice mix of snails about, instead of being overrun with just one type. http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum/showthread.php/86644-Breeding-colourful-ramshorn is posting about ramshorn interbreeding. Looks like they'll turn out brown if you mix em? OR NOT? 
Synthbuttrange fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Nov 1, 2015 |
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Nov 1, 2015 02:15
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SynthOrange posted:It's actually not too bad if you have multiple types of 'pest' snail in your tank since they'll compete with each other and you get a nice mix of snails about, instead of being overrun with just one type. Well that sounds good since I am the lucky owner of pond snails, Malaysian trumpets, ramshorns, AND Japanese trapdoors. Plus a self-inflicted mystery snail infestation since I am obsessed with juveniles and bought a dozen of them. At least they're easy to prevent from reproducing though, they have to lay their eggs above the waterline so you can just get rid of them. I have a bunch of nerites and one Faunus ater, which of course can only reproduce in brackish water so they're good. I wish they could be genetically engineered to be pink and purple and adorable, that would solve all my problems. My biggest problem right now is probably having a tank with 56 rasboras/danios in it and only ever seeing maybe 10 at a time. It's a decently planted tank with a current that isn't particularly strong or rushing so I don't get it. I don't think they feel overcrowded because they're all similar fish who enjoy having others of the same type around. I have 7 lambchop rasboras who are always visible all the time and I'm wondering if maybe the smaller fish feel intimidated by them, but I'm scared to remove them from the tank to find out because I don't want to end up needlessly stressing them and killing them. When I had diamond tetras in there they definitely freaked the little fish out, and when the tetras were removed the rasboras got a lot braver. Maybe tweaking the decorations and moving things around a bit will help. republicant fucked around with this message at 04:15 on Nov 1, 2015 |
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Nov 1, 2015 04:04
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It's early days yet. How much movement outside the tank is there, could something they can see be upsetting them? It can take a long time for fish to settle in and get used to their new routines, or associate you with being a friendly food source. Little tiny fish that are frequently the prey of other creatures have every reason to be distrustful. Do they come out more with the lights off? If so, your lighting could be too intense for them. When I had problems with my first three rosy barbs being timid I found they came out of hiding when I had the whole tank wrapped in a black garbage bag to block the view of any movement from outside the tank, then over a period of weeks I slowly opened a gap up and peeled the bag away until eventually there was only one corner of the tank covered that they could hide in if they felt scared, and when my plants got a little bigger I didn't need that corner for them any more either. You can't rush things though and maybe constantly hiding is their natural behaviour to ensure survival. Guppies seem to have an instinct for swimming places they don't belong, no wonder they are an invasive species they seem to push the boundaries of the territory they have access to which makes sense as they breed so fast they quickly fill up any favourable body of water. This time I found one in the corner of the tank behind my corner filter, the filter itself came with a little sponge to tuck into the gap at the bottom and prevent access to that corner space, but the guppy managed to get in via the top, since the filter was a little too low in the water. I was able to rescue the guppy this time without injury - the other one with the messed up tail has already grown back a couple of mm in the bare spots so I think he will be fine eventually.
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Nov 1, 2015 04:48
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republicant posted:Well that's incredibly ominous. Hey they probably won't be worse than these Japanese trapdoor snails, who apparently can give birth to up to 20 babies at a time. My snail tank is already full of them and they haven't even really started multiplying exponentially yet.
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Nov 1, 2015 05:32
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I'd be interested to see how your snail populations balance out, in my tanks with mixed regular pond snail, MTS and ramshorn, there are no ramshorns left and the other two prevail. In tanks where its just ramshorn and pond snails, the ramshorns prevail. I'm pretty sure they eat each other's eggs (apart from MTS which are livebearers, obviously, and are going to eventually win any population explosion).
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Nov 1, 2015 05:43
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Stoca Zola posted:I'd be interested to see how your snail populations balance out, in my tanks with mixed regular pond snail, MTS and ramshorn, there are no ramshorns left and the other two prevail. In tanks where its just ramshorn and pond snails, the ramshorns prevail. I'm pretty sure they eat each other's eggs (apart from MTS which are livebearers, obviously, and are going to eventually win any population explosion). I'm going to have to begin a campaign of actively killing every single pond snail I see then because I paid for the pink ramshorns and I'll be damned if they're going to eat their eggs. I'm going to keep all my blue ramshorns in the one tank they're in now and move all my pink ramshorns to one tank so hopefully they'll have strength in numbers. Or maybe even take this 3 gallon travel tank I have and set it up as a pink ramshorn breeding tank and try to make sure no pond snails or MTS somehow end up in there. Once they're not "endangered" anymore then I won't intentionally try to breed them and I'll just let nature take its course, but as of now I bought 15 of them and only have like 7 left and I want to maintain a population of pink ramshorns without having to buy more. They're so useful for finding dead animals very fast so they don't get a chance to foul up the tank. Here is the biggest idiot who has ever attempted to keep fish, in case anyone was wondering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EC_byvRtDI
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Nov 1, 2015 11:15
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republicant posted:Here is the biggest idiot who has ever attempted to keep fish, in case anyone was wondering: Lmao I tried to look for other vids of his tank but he's got a 100 9/11 'truth' videos 
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Nov 1, 2015 11:39
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SynthOrange posted:Lmao I tried to look for other vids of his tank but he's got a 100 9/11 'truth' videos I'm just glad he apparently got out of the aquarium hobby and got into conspiracy theories instead. *slings live fish as hard as possible out of net into bucket full of dead fish* I wonder if "All fish set free" has anything to do with this. There was a happy ending to the situation though. I don't know who the hell looks at fiberglass "cotton" inside a speaker and says "Hey look at this random object, I'll put this in my fish tank (packed full of koi) (that I keep outside in a shed)!" And of course we all know that when you have a catastrophic emergency in your tank and your fish are dying, the very first thing you do is grab a camera and start recording everything, that's like fish tank 101 right there. Jackasses like this guy are the people I can't get along with in fish groups, they see animals as objects and not living beings. He's too busy putting all his bags of fish food in the tank and pulling his bubble wands and air tubing out while the last few remaining live fish languish in a bucket, obviously they're not the priority there. And if you call people like this out they always say "Uhh they're just fish lol who cares?" I hope someone kicks this guy's rear end IRL. republicant fucked around with this message at 13:47 on Nov 1, 2015 |
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Nov 1, 2015 13:26
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I couldn't watch once I worked out there were still live fish and he was very much doing nothing to help them. Speaker "cotton" could have had anti-fungal or anti-fire treatment in it, you can DIY your filter media but doing the bare minimum of rinsing it first was probably beyond this guy I have had nightmares exactly like this, everything going horribly wrong, fish desperately needing help but having nothing to help them and nowhere safe to put them etc. Not so much now that I've had some months of success keeping fish! Hope he sold his tank for cheap to someone who set up a really nice home for their fish.
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Nov 1, 2015 13:56
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Hey, I found two more of the little clown loaches in my tank. Looks like it wasn't a complete disaster. I'm holding out hope the others are still hiding.
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Nov 1, 2015 18:38
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Skinny cory was doing "I'm dead" impersonations this morning. I poked him with the handle of my net and he swam feebly about an inch away, hoping he will still be alive when I get home from work so I can try hospital tanking him. It's hard to tell if he's sick or just showing a normal amount of cory bottom resting laziness. He had a slight curl to his body and was lolling to the side. If I get him isolated he won't have any food competition and I'll be able to observe him a bit better. Fingers crossed that I'm just overreacting.
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Nov 2, 2015 04:52
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I'm looking at getting an external canister filter for my tropical setup and would like some advice. I had an Eheim canister some years back when I previously had a tank which was good but they are pricey like most of the well known brands. Looking around I have found ones from brands that I have never heard of before which I assume are cheaply produced in China or somewhere similar. Are these reliable/good and is there a particular brand/model anyone uses/recommends that I can put on a 27.5 gallon tank or are they best avoided and I should stick with a Fluval or Eheim. I'm in the UK so ideally one that's available here would be good
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Nov 2, 2015 12:25
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lovely Treat posted:I'm looking at getting an external canister filter for my tropical setup and would like some advice. SunSun is a cheap, pretty well regarded brand. Just a rebranded AquaTop
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Nov 2, 2015 13:39
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Slugworth posted:SunSun is a cheap, pretty well regarded brand. Just a rebranded AquaTop Is this the same just a different name on it? http://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Pond-So...+pond+solutions http://www.sunsun-china.com/en/product/html/?420.html Edit: Or this one http://www.amazon.co.uk/JBL-e401-External-Canister-Filter/dp/B00GA5BW4C/ref=sr_1_1?s=pet-supplies&ie=UTF8&qid=1446468538&sr=1-1&keywords=jbl Seems cheap although it looks huge for something that is supposed to be only 450 l/h Shitty Treat fucked around with this message at 14:25 on Nov 2, 2015 |
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Nov 2, 2015 14:20
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This one is great and only $80 from amazon. If you get the "pro" kit you get some media also. 525 GPH. Amazon Link -e- Just realized you were talking about a 27 gallon tank. That one might be overkill but sun sun is a great brand.
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Nov 2, 2015 15:31
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lovely Treat posted:Is this the same just a different name on it? Sure looks to be the same. If I recall correctly Marineland canister filters also seem to the same product. The AquaTop filters are well regarded as quality filters, and at a fairly reasonable price. SunSuns are seen as essentially the same with a few cost cutting parts here and there (specifically the plastic tubing adapters are a thinner plastic than AquaTop) at a great price. The brand in your first link I have never heard of, but I would be surprised if it differed greatly in quality. You never know though.
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Nov 2, 2015 16:35
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Allpond solutions appears to be a store so I assume they are importing the sunsun filters and calling it their own name. Will buy one and see how it turns out. Thanks
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Nov 2, 2015 19:05
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Any suggestions on a book or website about keeping bettas? I'm going to set up a desktop planted aquarium at work after the holidays and I want to be prepared.
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Nov 2, 2015 19:08
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