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Just got another $100 credit from trading in assassin snails. 
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Nov 5, 2015 00:07
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Enos Cabell posted:Just got another $100 credit from trading in assassin snails. Wow. How much do they give you for each?
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Nov 5, 2015 00:18
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Rallos posted:Wow. How much do they give you for each? A buck a pop. I take in 100 every six months or so, and there is no sign of them slowing down.
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Nov 5, 2015 00:35
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Should just paint a bunch of MTS up to look like assassin snails and make all the money.
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Nov 5, 2015 02:49
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Enos Cabell posted:A buck a pop. I take in 100 every six months or so, and there is no sign of them slowing down. drat, so you get some assassin snails to try to take care of an infestation of other snails reproducing like crazy, and then your assassin snails start reproducing like crazy. There must literally be something in the water here because those four new baby rabbit snails appeared and there's baby rabbits all over the place, there are baby Japanese trapdoors EVERYWHERE, baby pink ramshorns starting to appear all over the place and the first one that hatched is huge for a baby; he must be doubling in size every day, and some stupid nerite keeps embedding its nonviable eggs in everything. The glass, the filter, the rocks, the *other snails*. I'm sure the only reason the mystery snails aren't laying eggs is because they're still too young. These aren't even pest snails that are expected to crap out hundreds of babies. I'll take it as a compliment to my tank that maybe I have really good conditions that are awesome to reproduce in or something. My blue ramshorns bred too and babies are appearing now. Worst case scenario I do have puffers and a turtle who all love tasty snail snacks. I'm getting less sensitive about feeding live snails to things since they're forcing me to cull their population like this.
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Nov 5, 2015 09:11
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republicant posted:drat, so you get some assassin snails to try to take care of an infestation of other snails reproducing like crazy, and then your assassin snails start reproducing like crazy. I started out with hundreds of pond snails in my little shrimp tank. I added two assassin snails. Fast forward ~3 months and I have 60+ assassins and the only thing that remains of the pond snails are empty shells. 
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Nov 5, 2015 13:50
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republicant posted:drat, so you get some assassin snails to try to take care of an infestation of other snails reproducing like crazy, and then your assassin snails start reproducing like crazy.
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Nov 5, 2015 14:16
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republicant posted:drat, so you get some assassin snails to try to take care of an infestation of other snails reproducing like crazy, and then your assassin snails start reproducing like crazy. About 3 years ago I had probably 1000 MTS in one of my tanks, and added 4 assassins to see what would happen. This week when I tore down and cleaned that tank I was only able to find one MTS, a huge sucker that was hiding in the sump. Assassins breed pretty fast, but nowhere near what MTS can do. They also don't swarm the glass like MTS, so you can have tons without it being an eyesore. I leave about 20 when I clean house. Enos Cabell fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Nov 5, 2015 |
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Nov 5, 2015 15:58
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So I nabbed a Fluval Q1 pump from Amazon, because reviews said it's super quiet. I plugged it in and connected it up and drat if that thing isn't unusable due to volume. Additionally, I feel like it was pumping out so much air that 2 airstones and a sponge filter were just churning the aquarium like crazy. I switched back to my tiny old pump that gives me a little bit of bubbling from a single airstone and powers air through the sponge filter, and closed off the second. This seems a lot more reasonable. So my question is basically: what's the deal with these big airpumps? Are people just chugging a ton of air into their tanks and require these things sometimes? After my betta tank is set up next year I'll probably just take the old airpump and sponge filter and use it in that, and just eliminate airstones and such completely from the DT.
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Nov 5, 2015 16:08
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Assassin snails are cool looking, too vs being an eyesore like a pond snail.
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Nov 5, 2015 16:11
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http://fortcollins.craigslist.org/pet/5300228783.html
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Nov 5, 2015 21:00
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Fukken laffo.
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Nov 5, 2015 21:07
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Nov 5, 2015 21:08
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This is my tank except not on purpose. Also enjoy never getting rid of them as they asexually reproduce en masse. Too bad they can't sell to this person: http://vancouver.craigslist.ca/bnc/wan/5234417069.html
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Nov 5, 2015 21:11
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Stoca Zola posted:The fluval specs filter sponge has two windows in it which hold little bags of media, you could pop those bags in your existing tank/filter to seed them, or put media from somewhere else in those holes to seed the sponge (or why not both!). It's not a huge deal, as long as you provide an ammonia source that bacteria is in the air and everywhere and it will get where it needs to be one way or another, and the tank will cycle. I've had a dumbo beta for 1.5 years in my spec V. My LFS actually helped me solve the flowrate problem by pointing me to a ball valve plumbing fixture something like this. I found one the right size for the tube, cut it, and it fit perfectly down in the well and it's worked perfectly for my lil guy. When cutting the tube just make sure to measure twice yada yada.
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Nov 6, 2015 07:04
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DOGPILE!!!!  There's an algae tab somewhere under there. 
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Nov 6, 2015 08:11
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In the short few months that I have kept guppies I have come to the conclusion that they have some inbuilt instinct for going places guppies are not supposed to go, and this is why they are so successful as an invasive species. I've posted before about the guppy that swam up the corydoras feeding tube and got stuck behind a snail, the one that was living underneath the sponge section in my Fluval Spec V filter compartment for at least a month, and since then I have rescued a couple that have gotten themselves trapped behind various in-tank filters. Tonight much to my horror I saw a guppy in distress swimming INSIDE MY SPRAY BAR. It seems impossible to me that this could happen, the only way in is through the pump impellor and the guppy was completely intact, just trapped in the tube. The outlet holes are way too small to be a point of entry, or else he could have just left the same way he got in. I have no idea how this could happen, he didn't get in there while small, then grow later, as I've had that filter out a few days ago to fill it with seachem matrix and the spray bar was not in the water for all that time. I do not comprehend how a guppy could pass through a spinning pump impellor either. It seems very unbelievable but I wasn't going to run and grab my camera when I could be ripping off the spray bar and tipping the poor fish out ASAP. The spraybar in question is only 4 inches long and maybe 1/2 inch wide so there wasn't exactly a heap of living space for a guppy, even a juvenile like that one. I tipped him out and believe him to be unharmed, could not see an injured fish floating limply or any such thing. Feral guppies = awesome + tough!
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Nov 6, 2015 12:17
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I Inc got hikari algae tabs for my mystery snail (rip), shrimp, oto, and bristlenose but they never touch it. Instead I find it disintegrated and fallen apart with a few pest snails. Do the hikari tabs just suck or something? What are yall using?
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Nov 6, 2015 12:17
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My shrimp get fluval shrimp granules, fluval vegetable sinking pellets, shelled smushed soft peas, spinach, nori (in small pieces), sinking catfish/loach wafers (sera and hikari), gunk scrapings from inside filter tubings, indian almond leaves + other riparian leaves and associated bacterial scrapings. I don't feed them very much and I don't feed them every day. I don't have algae eater catfish but maybe your catfish would like some parboiled zucchini or cucumber slice? I'd guess your shrimp are already full if they aren't swarming those wafers. Edit: I am new at catfish my corys seem to be derps who don't find the food very fast and I remain unconvinced that they are eating enough of it.
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Nov 6, 2015 12:26
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I use hikari algae wafers and my tank inhabitants love the stuff. I also use their protein wafers and some generic protein pellets.
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Nov 6, 2015 12:29
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I feed a small amount of pellets for the tetras once a day, skip a day or two a week. Everyone seems fed so I suppose I won't worry about it. Found two assasin snail babies, and one of my shrimp is finally carrying eggs. I love this.
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Nov 6, 2015 23:03
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I spent the big bucks and got a ton of Repashy....and none of the fish or shrimp ate it. Not even the loving snails did. So I got rid of it and am sticking with New Life Spectrum. It's the same poo poo I even got the electric eel (when I worked at the zoo) to devour with relish. Not bad for pellets.
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Nov 6, 2015 23:47
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I used to be an NLS guy but I've moved to Kens Fish Food. Food quality is outstanding and the pricing is great.
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Nov 7, 2015 02:20
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Hah, I actually use a mix of NLS pellets and like 5-6 different Kens pellets and flakes.
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Nov 7, 2015 04:39
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My snails seem to enjoy eating Hikari Crab Cuisine and we give our cherry shrimp Fluval Shrimp Granules. The fish in general get ZooMed Spirulina 20 flakes, and the tiny rasboras and CPDs get Hikari Micro Pellets, and then some of the fish are given bloodworms/tubifex worms/brine shrimp/frozen beef heart. The betta gets Omega One betta pellets and betta flakes. Also the snails and catfish seem to enjoy Omega One Veggie Micro Pellets and Omega One Shrimp Pellets. For algae wafers we use Omega One Veggie Rounds, I think Omega One products are some of the highest quality food you can find at most pet stores. Real ingredients like "Whole Kelp, Spirulina, Whole Salmon, Halibut, Whole Herring, Krill, Cod, Shrimp" instead of the mysterious "Fish Meal" most cheap fish foods have as their main ingredient. It looks like my oldest mystery snail and my beloved fat bastard zebra nerite both died today. They were both huge and probably at the end of their natural lives but it sucks losing them, especially both on the same day. 
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Nov 7, 2015 09:42
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I saw this giant space slug in the yospos pics thread and thought of you republicant I'm sorry that your snails died 
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Nov 7, 2015 11:52
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Here's a current photo of my 4 foot planted tank. Hoping to setup co2 and get some more plants soon. 
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Nov 7, 2015 14:21
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Stoca Zola posted:I saw this giant space slug in the yospos pics thread and thought of you republicant Aww thanks man.  Maybe it will be a good excuse to get a couple new gold or ivory mysteries, to help with the grief and also because they're pretty.
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Nov 7, 2015 15:03
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I added a 4th female swordtail to my tank about 2 days ago, and the male swordtail will not. leave. her. alone. It's incessant. He was never like this with any of the other females. I'm kind of concerned about the level of stress he is placing on the female. Should I just plan on removing the male swordtail at some point and avoid any of the gender issues?
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Nov 7, 2015 17:39
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ShaneB posted:I added a 4th female swordtail to my tank about 2 days ago, and the male swordtail will not. leave. her. alone. It's incessant. He was never like this with any of the other females. I'm kind of concerned about the level of stress he is placing on the female. Are you 100% sure it is female? If a male isn't fully grown sometimes its sword won't be grown out yet. Could also be that the rest are pregnant and the new one isn't. It seems like all my livebearers gave birth at once. I managed to catch most of them (~30), and have set up a temporary tank to hold them because the breeder box was way too crowded (and my tank is already pushing it population wise). Behold, an incredible kludge of a tank: 
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Nov 8, 2015 01:42
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Looks good for a nursery tank. Not every tank in a house is going to be a show tank.  Here's Bloop chowing down on a fistful of Massivore. 
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Nov 8, 2015 03:32
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Nice Pbass, I'm overrun with jealousy. Still throwing around ideas for what to restock my 75 with. I've almost convinced myself on gambling on an EBJD. I don't know if I should try one or just set $35 on fire though.
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Nov 8, 2015 14:27
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I'm now down to 3 panda corydoras from 8, and they are the same fat three that have been eating well and looking fine right from the start. The last remaining male was acting a bit shady, avoiding the others, and possibly shimmying a bit - hard to say because they seem to like swimming against the current and I guess it would look about the same. I didn't see him much yesterday but I'd glimpsed him up the back poking around in the vals and under the driftwood. And thats where I found what was left of him this afternoon, after the snails had their way with him. He'd looked pretty good compared to the last sick fish, his barbels were fine and no outside signs of disease, just the possible shimmying and shy behaviour to indicate anything was wrong. I read something tonight, which I'd not heard of before with cories and that is that a cory that is stressed in shipping by post can release toxins into the water and can poison themselves in the confines of a shipping bag. Anyone else ever heard of that? I know they have a bit of something in their spines but I think this was refering to toxins from somewhere else. I've had these fish for just over 5 weeks now so I think these losses so far are still all new fish syndrome/sick fish that were shipped sick and did not recover but I had hoped more of them would survive. Maybe some of it is self-poisoned shipping stress? I don't think I am giving them wrong or poor conditions, maybe they could use a better cave of their own as there are plants, leaves and a bit of driftwood for cover but it might not be enough for them. I'm thinking about getting some more but not from that same place again. The cories might be cheaper but the end result is 3 cories for the price of 8, I might as well be paying $20 a fish from the other place and see if they're a bit healthier. After the pain in the arse of finding the dead ones and getting them out, even though none of the other fish are getting sick from it, I'm definitely going to put the effort in to quarantine any future cory purchases. Went back to the local store to get some more frozen food earlier this week. Checked out their livestock again just in case they had any panda cories and regretted it straight away. Almost every fish had fin rot, almost every tank had something dead floating in it, the only healthy looking fish were the albino corydoras and I suspect thats because fungus doesn't show up that well on white. Their sump/weir tanks at the bottom had random fish that had been sucked into the filtration swimming around in them, ignored. The carcasses of those that died in the filter were still there stuck on the filter sponge. It looks like they have a grille across the water INLET on each display tank and nothing on the water outlet, so there's nothing stopping a weak or sleeping fish that gets too close from being sucked in. It's so frustrating seeing everything in such poor shape, but I suspect if they sold healthy fish they'd stop making sales so it's not in their interest to do anything any better. I still feel like a fish noob but I think I could do a better job, they can't possibly be doing even the basics like giving the tanks a daily once over to remove the dead ones. Or maybe they do and they can't keep up with how many die per day. It's just awful seeing so many sick fish. If I could buy frozen food and get it mailed I would do so rather than giving them any more of my money. Looks like I really have to keep trying to get fish shipped here, I keep forgetting how unbelievably bad the local shop is. It's going to be too hot next week for shipping fish so I'll just have to wait until it cools down otherwise I'll probably get a box of steamed cories knowing my luck. I hope the little group of 3 does okay in the mean time; my sister's solo peppered cory seems fine by himself but then, he's the biggest thing in the tank where he lives.
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Nov 8, 2015 17:50
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You can buy frozen food online. You should also be good to order fish online whenever. A reputable shop will ship with either heat or cool packs. I've ordered fish in the middle of a Midwest summer and winter with no casualties.
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Nov 8, 2015 22:59
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I'm in Australia (and not in a major city) and I haven't found a web store that will sell frozen food online due to how unfrozen it would be by the time it arrives. I might still ask whether the store does use cool packs; mostly I'm concerned about the last leg of the journey where things come five hours by road after being airmailed to the nearest city which is 500km away. I'm not worried if the temp stays in the 20s but we are going to have a stretch of 30+ weather for a week and I just don't trust that a cool pack would last long enough to effectively protect a fish. Most of these places do have DOA guarantees it's just I'm sick of putting little dead corydoras in the bin
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Nov 9, 2015 01:14
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Oh sorry I didn't know you were in AU.
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Nov 9, 2015 01:52
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It probably works about how you'd expect it to in AU for people living in the eastern states but I'm in the center south, right on the edge of the limit that some of these places ship to, and completely out of the shipping area for others. Maybe it's only the unscrupulous stores that are okay with shipping this far, I feel bad for any fish that I order. The shop I've used ships in non-breather bags with air gaps that slosh around, not sure if they're just using air or additional oxy. They haven't ever answered an email I've sent them trying to find out more, the fish just show up on my front step. So I'd be interested to try a different place to see how their practices differ. It makes sense to leave air for cories but they did it for the tetras I bought too. edit: I got a reply from the store I'm thinking about buying some corydoras from with regards to hot weather shipping. They "chill the water" before shipping the fish, and claim the polystyrene box is enough to keep it cool. Well, it's better than nothing I guess. I think I'll start with a small order first to see how well that works. Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 09:08 on Nov 9, 2015 |
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Nov 9, 2015 02:48
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I finally upgraded to a new tank a couple weeks ago and picked up 6 Julii (false) Cory juveniles last night. After acclimation they all went to bottom corners and were incredibly still and I was terrified. Turned off the lights and went to bed. Woke up this morning and they were flying everywhere around the tank in the low dawn light. I turn on the aquarium light and they scattered to the four corners and played dead again. I turned off the light and left the room for 5 minutes and when I return they are zipping all over the tank again. I mean it's cute but does anyone have experience with Corys being this light adverse or are they just shy because of the new climate? I have plants in the tank, but since it's fairly new all the plat cover is mostly vertical and hasn't spread out to provide cover from the light. If they are really going to be this light adverse I suppose to could re-do some of the plating and add a lot more anubias and other shade plants around the tank. Also one of the juveniles is absolutely tiny I hope he makes it...he's very lethargic compared to the other five.
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Nov 9, 2015 16:56
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Do you guys think it's possible for a dozen celestial pearl danios to die, get eaten by ghost shrimp/ramshorns/a giant mystery snail, and there be no trace of it whatsoever? Would that leave little fish skeletons or anything? There are supposed to be 14 CPDs in my tank but I only ever see 2. There's been a huge stupid chunk of wood that most of the fish have been hiding behind forever so I haven't been able to see what's been going on in the tank, I finally moved it today but the CPDs are just... Not there. I mean maybe they're all clustered together behind the air filter or something but it doesn't seem like it. It's incredibly frustrating for $50 worth of fish to just somehow vanish.
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Nov 9, 2015 17:26
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I've got a couple of big dried indian almond leaves that my cories can scoot under, and just tonight I added 2 halves of a plastic plant pot held in place with a couple of pebbles as mini caves for the cories to duck into. Do you have driftwood? Rocks or pebbles they can lean against? A lot of cories don't come from places where there are plants in the wild so they might not instinctively hide in them. I've only had my panda cories for 5-ish weeks and mostly they aren't light adverse, they vary between poking around under the plants (valisneria at the back and pennywort at the front, neither are great cover) and poking around out in the open. I have light brown fine sand so they might feel confident that they blend in with it pretty well. The driftwood I have is shaped like a tree and I have it so that the branches point upwards, there is a bit of shelter close to the "trunk" and the cories quite often sit under the "tree". Sometimes they just perch on the flat pebbles that I put in for them. I do have a full cover of duckweed though which goes a long way to muting the LED lights I have in that tank. The penguin tetras I have also in that tank are terrified of the light even with the duckweed but come out and zoom around once it gets dark. And I have a lot of super relaxed wild guppies swimming about which might be soothing company or at least indicate a lack of predators. It probably wouldn't hurt to leave the light off longer while your cories settle in, and I think it's a good sign that they do zoom around when there is no light. The cories I had that went to the corner and stayed in the corner most of the time whether it was light or dark, are the ones that got sick and died; whereas the ones that always derped around doing their own thing are the ones that have survived. One thing I think I did wrong with my cories was not making sure they had some quiet time in a smaller quarantine tank, to ensure they could eat and get strong before putting them in their tank where they have to compete for food with the other fish. I might have had a couple more survivors if I'd made sure to feed them up. Do you have any other fish in the tank? I've read that it's worth breaking up sinking tablets for cories with smaller mouths so they can get at them easier. Or feed them worms/brineshrimp to start with to make sure you entice them to start eating. I turn my filter off when feeding floaty stuff like that so the cories don't have to chase it around, they really don't seem very good at spotting food and heading over to it and mine seem to operate more like Roombas, they'll get over to it and suck it up eventually. If you've got no greedy competitor fish in with your cories they will most likely be fine as long as you watch and make sure they are actually eating what you're offering them, especially the small one. I still don't have a solution for what to do when the tankmates all eat faster and more greedily than the cories, apart from that I netted out a bunch of greedy little guppies tonight and now I have 2 plastic tubs full of guppies. I try to trick the guppies with flake at one side of the tank and sinking foods for the cories at the other side, but the guppies are pretty quick to find and gobble anything they can fit in their mouths and will feed from any level in the tank. The tetras are fine because once food items fall past about half way they lose interest. I nearly got some trilineatus cories myself, they were recommended to me along with pandas as being a good starter corydoras in that they stay fairly small so you can fit enough (lots) of them into a smaller tank (I mean, not everyone has 55gal or 75gal, I'm not talking nano-small) but they are still hardy enough for a beginner to manage. I hope you have better luck keeping your new little guys alive than I have with mine.
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Nov 9, 2015 17:57
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