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demonR6 posted:Jesus I came back after a couple of weeks and the last two or three pages are dismal. They should rename the thread.. Laughed in spite of myself...
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Dec 9, 2015 03:35
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I literally test nothing, have a cool-but-totally random piece of wood I found in my tank, the water is more like a light lager than clear, but everyone has lived*.. It's like i have an outside dog, isn't it..  *except for my shrimp. someone send me shrimp. dumpieXL fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Dec 9, 2015 |
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Dec 9, 2015 04:53
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oh god.
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Dec 9, 2015 04:53
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dumpieXL fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Dec 9, 2015 |
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Dec 9, 2015 04:59
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dumpieXL posted:I literally test nothing, have a cool-but-totally random piece of wood I found in my tank, the water is more like a light lager than clear, but everyone has lived*.. Where did you get this random piece of wood from? Trying to prevent you being the next casualty to post in the thread.
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Dec 9, 2015 15:42
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On a positive note, my red empress cichlids spawned. Moved the momma and 20ish fry into a separate holding tank. Love watching her suck them all up in her mouth to move them around.
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Dec 9, 2015 16:23
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My Marisa snails laid two clutches of eggs and I've been watching them slowly get bigger, and now there are little tiny things visible in each egg in the clutch that was laid first. I found a berried ghost shrimp and a berried cherry shrimp, there are tiny little pink and blue baby ramshorns everywhere, and I found a little tiny rabbit snail that looks like a newborn so my mating pair is still doing their thing. One of my Thai micro crabs showed off its abdomen and it almost looked like it had eggs, though they've never been bred successfully in captivity so I won't even get my hopes up there. And I found three new baby Japanese trapdoors this morning, they hadn't made any new ones in a while. Babies make everything better.
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Dec 9, 2015 17:42
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This brown algae issue is really driving me batty. I'm reducing my lights to like 4-5 hours a day and reducing feeding heavily (even though I know brown isn't really related to overfeeding?) to control algae growth. This stuff came out of nowhere and keeps coming back after I scrape it off. I'm concerned that my water is suddenly more heavy in silicates or something. I've also read that brown algae can come from too LITTLE light? I'm supposed to do another 25% water change after this triple sulfa run is done, so I guess I'll do another glass scrape and gravel vac again to try to remove more of the "spores". Maybe get a silicate absorbing media in the filter?
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Dec 9, 2015 18:54
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Decided to separate e goldfish from everyone else so they would stop destroying my plants. We picked up a new 55 gallon aquarium to transfer everything to. I picked up a Marineland C220 canister and need to pick out the light for it. I'm leaning towards a Finnex FugeRay Planted+ 48 inch set up. Not sure if I will need two, but I'm going to start with one. So this tank (48x12x18) will have a C220 filter, a 9W UV clarifier, 2 850 gph power heads, heater and the Finnex lights. When I order the lights I will grab a thermometer as well. I bought a few bags of plant substrate, some black sand and will be transferring all the black gravel and quartz rocks into the new tank along with all the plants to house the Danios. Additions will be the tetras and gouramis once it's all done. The goldfish will stay in the renovated 40, now a non planted tank with a crushed coral sand substrate and some driftwood, the 2 Aqueon quite flow 20s, no heater. Am I forgetting or missing anything here?
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Dec 10, 2015 00:40
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Some bone-dry root from a large bush in the mountains. *shrug* It's been in my tank for 4 months so..
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Dec 10, 2015 01:16
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Okay.. so long as it is a hardwood and you took all the precautions to boil the poo poo out of it before putting it into your aquarium.
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Dec 10, 2015 01:24
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Nope. Just soaked it, did some water changes till it ran clearish/sunk, and put it in the tank couple weeks after it was set up. 
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Dec 10, 2015 01:38
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ShaneB posted:
If you have not enough red / blue wavelength and too much yellow/green wavelength from your lights, then it will favour algae over plants since the plants can't compete. Chlorophyll uses either end of the visible spectrum, absorbing red and blue and bouncing the middle wavelengths which is why chlorophyll looks green. Brown algae can use more of the spectrum, it's dark brown because it absorbs more light wavelengths. If your lights are a bit old the spectrum they emit can change although this is not true for LEDs as far as I know, as the process that produces the light is different, but yeah old lights can cause algae which is why you're supposed to replace bulbs every 12 months even if they still look bright. Ok so that covers "wrong" light. Insufficient light means there is not enough power reaching the plants to drive plant growth so the nutrients aren't getting used and algae or Cyanobacteria uses it instead since they have a lower power requirement than plants. Algaes don't store energy or nutrients like plants can in their leaves and stems, all they can do is constantly reproduce. I think green algae overgrowth (like the hair algae and cladophora I currently have in my fluval spec) comes from too much light and is also related to not enough nutrient. Plants are more complicated and need more nutrients to grow properly so if the light is there but the nutrients aren't quite right, algae can outcompete plants once again. Edit: While I was writing this post, a box of fish shrimp and plants was delivered! Only one DOA, which was a penguin tetra. One of the corydoras looks very seedy too after doing a little upsidedown swimming, and going by the last corydoras 70% death rate I had, I don't think this one will perk up. Three of the remainder are very perky and one is sitting quietly, which is kind of normal for cories but I will be very watchful. The two surviving penguin tetras don't seem to be bothered by spending however long in a tiny bag with a corpse of their bro, they've tried eating floating plants in the quarantine tank and had a bit of a squabble already so I think they'll be fine. They are so very tiny compared to the fish in the main tank, even the panda cories are tiny. The upside of this, is that I had forgotten that I ordered the ghost shrimp and was kind of at a loss as to where to put them. I had wanted to give the other shrimp tank a bit of a clean out and hadn't had a chance yet, vacuuming up planarians seems my best option to get rid of them at this point. So for now they are in quarantine with the fish who are all too tiny to be any kind of threat to the shrimp. There are even some plants in quarantine too so everyone has some cover and the shrimp have something to hide in and chew on. I'd been using the QT filter in the guppy tub so at the moment the main mass of guppies only has a lame sponge filter which isn't enough. Better get back to separating males/females so I can give some of these away! Giving away a ton of probably preganant female guppies feels like such a trojan horse gift  Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 06:39 on Dec 10, 2015 |
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Dec 10, 2015 05:31
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Dammit. Now I want a black water tank.
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Dec 10, 2015 19:04
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No deaths since 5 days ago. I'm thinking I might be through this cataclysm.
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Dec 10, 2015 20:00
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Errant Gin Monks posted:Dammit. The real crazy time is when you're planning a coldwater river tank, so don't worry (yet ).
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Dec 11, 2015 00:57
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Hydra outbreak starting again in at least two tanks, including the shrimp tank, the worst possible tank for hydra to be in since they can't do much to adult fish but can kill shrimp, but not the tank I had the original outbreak in. Fffffffffffffeh. At least now I know how to make and dose the fenbendazole solution, and we caught it really early when there's just a few tiny hydra so it's just a matter of squirting some liquid in the tank and they go away. Whenever I get the money to spare I'm thinking about starting a new tank to breed fish in. Cherry shrimp and all kinds of snails LOVE my tap water and it's a perfect breeding medium for them, but I haven't had any fish spawn. I want to try to breed CPDs and rasboras probably, maybe pygmy cories. republicant fucked around with this message at 08:37 on Dec 11, 2015 |
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Dec 11, 2015 08:32
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Holy wow, you people have been through some poo poo while I wasn't paying attention again, but I'm finally all caught up. Since my last update forever ago I lost my Festivum. It just really really wanted to gently caress my F Opaline Gourami and she was not into it. My Green Myrio and Red Cobamba are still growing like crazy, and my Madagascar Lace went from "pretty sure this is dead" to "this is HUGE and flowering a second time in a row? Neat!" I finally gave my M/F Kribensis caves to encourage them to make babies, nothing yet, but it's only been a couple of days. Anyway, do I get a M BN Pleco to try and breed with my albino F, a 3rd pretty Pleco, or a random non-Doradid catfish that stays under 4-5"? Fusillade, a long time ago you asked how big my current Striped Raphael Catfish is, and Tank is right around 4." The one I had before him that I gave up is now 8-9" in a friend's tank.
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Dec 11, 2015 14:36
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I gave away almost the entire contents of my guppy grow-out tub, a couple of nearly coloured males, some definite females, and maybe hundreds of unidentifiable juvenile guppies. It wasn't until I took away the plant cover and moved them to a clear sided tub that I could actually see how many there were. Their new home is a 180 gallon behemoth tank, current occupants 6 silver dollars bigger than my palm, a big clown loach, and one big black catfish who was hiding in his cave. Their new owner isn't worried about the silver dollars but suspects the catfish might try to snack on them; she didn't want them as feeders and there is plenty of cover, plenty of room to dart to safety so I think there is a good chance many of them will survive. She lost her two elderly bala sharks earlier this year and now there isn't much movement in the tank so hopefully the guppies will change this. The silver dollars actually hid and cowered in the hardscape when the guppies were added to the tank! Unbelievable. A bit later on they were a little curious but the guppies could easily outrun them; I think these silver dollars might be old and lazy. They put on a bit of a half hearted feeding frenzy when some flake food was added and completely ignored all the guppies. I do think the big catfish will ambush some unwary guppies and the loach looked keen as well, although he wasn't able to catch anything either. The confident guppies schooled up and started patrolling, the timid guppies schooled up and hid in the top corner, and a few odd confused guppies started exploring the hardscape on their own I was a bit perturbed at first thinking some of these guppies are going to be dinner, but it was amazing to see a guppy hit warp speed swimming away from the silver dollars. There is so much room for them, it seems so much more humane than the safe but overcrowded plastic tub they were in before. They aren't fancy guppies so they aren't crippled by unnecessary tails or trailing fins and they come from stock that survived in waters with predatory fish so they most likely still have good survival instincts. The end result now is I have one lightly populated tub of juveniles, one lightly populated tub of males only, one overcrowded tank of females and newborn fry, one display tank of males and fry, and my main display tanks still have a bit of a mix of guppies but I have drastically reduced the populations. There is still a lot of work to do but I'm going to be off work for a few weeks and should be able to set my guppy tubs up over the break, and finish the separation job. The new arrivals are all still alive and healthy, even the shrimp. The biggest shrimp is the same size as the smallest cory so I don't think they are in danger of being munched on. Even the wonky cory has actually perked up after eating some food. I'm feeling hopeful.
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Dec 11, 2015 16:45
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Guess I wanted to get in on the fun. Upgraded to a co2 reactor from an in-tank diffuser yesterday. Everything seemed fine last night but today I found my dwarf rainbows gasping and the corys half passed out. My honey gouramis seemed fine and bemused as to why their non-labrynth buddies were acting so strange. Changed some water and stuck an airstone in there and everyone seems to be getting back to normal. Close call, apparently co2 reactors really do work.
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Dec 11, 2015 19:41
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Hot Jam posted:Guess I wanted to get in on the fun. Upgraded to a co2 reactor from an in-tank diffuser yesterday. Everything seemed fine last night but today I found my dwarf rainbows gasping and the corys half passed out. My honey gouramis seemed fine and bemused as to why their non-labrynth buddies were acting so strange. Changed some water and stuck an airstone in there and everyone seems to be getting back to normal. Close call, apparently co2 reactors really do work. drat. Glad you avoided the catastrophe. I love waking up to no dead fish. I think I'm in the clear. Going to spend some time planting new plants to build up resistance to algae in the near term, and then add some new buddies after the holidays or something.
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Dec 11, 2015 19:43
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How bad an idea would it be to use a Funko Pop as a tank decoration? I got the Cthulhu and I'm really toying with the idea of making him a part of it.
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Dec 13, 2015 01:13
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Anything not made to be in an aquarium is a bad idea due to it leeching toxic poo poo into the water.
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Dec 13, 2015 03:42
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Okay the 55 gallon is up. I transferred all the gravel from the 40 over to the 55, added 2 bags of plant substrate and some sand (all black stuff) along with some large chunks of quartz crystal. Running two MarineLand 220 canisters on it and a uv filter plus a heater. I ordered a Finnex planted+ programmable 48 inch led light fixture to grow the plants in there which seems pretty cool. I'm very happy with it so far but I need to get some more large chunks of Quartz and make a cave on one side because I'm going for some weird alien looking tank with black substrate and clear crystal rock formations with lots of red plants and some green ones for accent. Don't ask I'm just loving around with it. Next up Cardinal tetras, boesman rainbows and some zebra danios. I want gouramis but I hear they are just too mean in more than a pair.
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Dec 13, 2015 05:12
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Sounds like a cool tank Monks
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Dec 13, 2015 16:03
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Agreed, I love red plants and I'd love to see some pictures when its ready. Sadly all the red plants I've ever had have proven to be delicious to both my barbs and my snails.
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Dec 13, 2015 16:07
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Errant Gin Monks posted:Okay the 55 gallon is up. I transferred all the gravel from the 40 over to the 55, added 2 bags of plant substrate and some sand (all black stuff) along with some large chunks of quartz crystal. Running two MarineLand 220 canisters on it and a uv filter plus a heater. I ordered a Finnex planted+ programmable 48 inch led light fixture to grow the plants in there which seems pretty cool. That planted+ 24/7 is super neat. The light progression during the day isnt gimmicky at all and just looks awesome. ShaneB fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Dec 13, 2015 |
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Dec 13, 2015 20:56
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ShaneB posted:Thanks planted+ 24/7 is super neat. The light progression during the day isnt gimmicky at all and just looks awesome. Good to know. The reviews all say the same thing but I'm glad someone here has one and can verify. It wasn't that much compared to some other ones out there so I was hoping it would be cool. Edit: okay as of right now there are 9 danios and 10 Cardinal tetras in the tank. I'm going to stay away from gouramis. Rainbows are a bit pricey to get 6-8 at once. Do Molly's work well with everybody? Errant Gin Monks fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Dec 14, 2015 |
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Dec 13, 2015 21:13
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I've got a Planted+ 24/7 on one of my tanks too, and it is awesome.
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Dec 14, 2015 01:50
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As far as I know mollies aren't a great community fish: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/fwsubwebindex/mollies.htm TL;DR version, they are much healthier in very hard, warm water.
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Dec 14, 2015 02:28
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sorry again.  I think my saving grace might be that the water is really good here. Sorry.
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Dec 14, 2015 04:28
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Stoca Zola posted:As far as I know mollies aren't a great community fish: Everytime I see mollies they're either mouth aggressive or in massive packs, plus 90% of them would be killed by my betta   :shhhh dumpieXL fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Dec 14, 2015 |
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Dec 14, 2015 04:30
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Stoca Zola posted:As far as I know mollies aren't a great community fish: Okay I'm going to go find some rasboras and rainbows and try to track down some Galaxy rasboras. Those danios (they are really danios) are loving beautiful. I won't be stocking anything new until January though. Got to get this tank stable and build my fortress of solitude, fish edition first.
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Dec 14, 2015 05:14
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Galaxy rasboras/Celestial Pearl Danios are beautiful, but a word of warning, they are very shy and difficult to keep alive. Mine live on the bottom of the tank, constantly hiding, and the first time I saw one out in the open was when it was dying of dropsy for no apparent reason at all. Not to mention the time 12 of them completely vanished from the tank without a trace, presumably having all died and been eaten by snails. And all the other inhabitants of the tank (lambchop rasboras, strawberry rasboras, emerald dwarf danios, pygmy cories) were fine so the problem was the fish, not the tank. A waste of a beautiful fish. I've grown fond of my harlequin rasboras and lambchop rasboras because they're active, visible, not ridiculously shy, and you don't spend an excessive amount of money to have a school of beautiful fish that you never, ever see unless you squint at the bottom of the tank. My emerald dwarf danios pretty much only exist in theory at this point, you'd think 15 of them in a 10 gallon would be easy to see, but no. republicant fucked around with this message at 05:54 on Dec 14, 2015 |
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Dec 14, 2015 05:44
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So far I've only lost one panda cory from the new batch, the smallest one that swam upsidedown and stayed away from the others. The rest are being super cute and schooling and resting together in little cory piles. Good appetites too. So far so good! I haven't redone my nitrate test this week yet but after all the extra water changes I did the main tank smells distinctly a lot nicer. I was going to do the other big tank as well but got a bug up my arse about all the Planaria in my shrimp tank so ended up trying to work out how to get rid of them instead. I netted out about 15 shrimp for safe keeping then vacuumed around a bit, realised I was getting nowhere so took out all the things so I could vacuum properly and rinse off any flatworms on the shrimp house and sponge filters. With nowhere to hide I could see a lot more shrimp than I ever thought I had. I really only have enough gravel in there to just cover the base of the tank so I was able to push the gravel aside and suck only the gunk up (and no shrimps). I had read somewhere once not to vacuum a shrimp tank but the gunk in the gravel was black and vile. Maybe you can get away with not vacuuming if the substrate is deeper but in this case I think it was necessary. After topping the water back up, rearranging things and putting things back in the tank I couldn't see many worms at all so hopefully I did vacuum most of them up. I'm pretty sure the bigger worms had been stealing eggs from berried shrimp. Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Dec 14, 2015 |
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Dec 14, 2015 06:10
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republicant posted:Galaxy rasboras/Celestial Pearl Danios are beautiful, but a word of warning, they are very shy and difficult to keep alive. Mine live on the bottom of the tank, constantly hiding, and the first time I saw one out in the open was when it was dying of dropsy for no apparent reason at all. Not to mention the time 12 of them completely vanished from the tank without a trace, presumably having all died and been eaten by snails. And all the other inhabitants of the tank (lambchop rasboras, strawberry rasboras, emerald dwarf danios, pygmy cories) were fine so the problem was the fish, not the tank. A waste of a beautiful fish.
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Dec 14, 2015 17:02
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Errant Gin Monks posted:Okay I'm going to go find some rasboras and rainbows and try to track down some Galaxy rasboras. Those danios (they are really danios) are loving beautiful. My betta's personality took a hard 180 in the last week or so. No major changes to the tank, but my inquisitive, swim-to-the-front-of-the-tank-to-watch-you-watching-him fish was suddenly hiding all the time. He was rarely moving from his hiding spots and wouldn't even come out to eat. So, I set up my 5 gallon hex for him in the hopes that he was agoraphobic and with a more cozy tank he'd be happier. He's got a bunch of plants from the old tank and I dosed this tank with some aquarium salt because he's seemed to be having some swimming problems. He's still camping on everything he can rest on, but I've seen him out way more already. Please excuse the bubbles on the glass. I was impatient.  So, now I have a 20g with an unknown (small) number of ghost shrimp and three nerites. I'm thinking I'd like to get a pair of dwarf gourami and some kind of schooling fish. Maybe platys since livebearers like higher ph water? Start with a quartet (1 male 3 female) and let it go? I'd love some fancy guppies but I don't have any experience with them. If I don't separate out the fry, am I still going to have a massive population explosion? Any suggestions for pretty fish that are hardy that won't outgrow my tank? I'm not getting anything till after the holiday, so I've got time to think. PS the baby snail is back. Any guesses?
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Dec 14, 2015 22:39
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Pistoph posted:PS the baby snail is back. Any guesses? It looks like some kind of ramshorn to me. They do hold their shells at different angles depending on how big/heavy it is, my biggest ones let their shells go perpendicular while the smaller ones can angle the shell depending on where they are trying to post themselves. Plus the thin eyestalks and rounded foot also look typical of a ramshorn. I'd say don't get live bearers unless you have a plan in place for the fry or for separating the females once you have "enough" fry. Gourami might eat guppy fry but I'm not sure how big platy fry are and you can't rely on other fish to do your dirty work anyway. You might get lazy fish who can't be bothered chasing down fry to snack on and then the population explosion is on. Probably not such a big deal if you have time to net out your extra fish and can readily give them away etc. What are you looking for in a fish? If you want motion maybe cherry barbs would work, or for colour, just male wild type guppies are pretty hardy. Even fancy guppies aren't that fragile as long as they don't have to contend with fin nippers or big predatory fish. Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Dec 15, 2015 |
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Dec 15, 2015 02:21
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Well this is what it looks like right now. The Finnex should be in tomorrow.  Love the color on the tetras. I just finished the goldfish aquarium stand frame so I need to set it up and get it cycling tomorrow. That's why the Ryukins are still in this one. SynthOrange posted:How'd you get the gravel to stay on top? Lol I have no idea why imgur flipped it upside down. It's fixed now. Errant Gin Monks fucked around with this message at 04:13 on Dec 15, 2015 |
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Dec 15, 2015 04:09
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How'd you get the gravel to stay on top? 
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Dec 15, 2015 04:10
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