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That was always the downfall of my many shrimp colonies over the years. They would inbreed themselves sterile and slowly decline in numbers until they were all gone  Definitely get a little diversity in there after a while. My last and most successful colony was the one where I ordered shrimp online from a few different sources.
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Mar 12, 2016 05:55
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Good to know. There's already shrimp from two different sources in here, so hopefully that helps.
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Mar 12, 2016 05:56
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Wow, liveaquaria has L-46s. I haven't seen any for sale since I've been back in the hobby.
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Mar 13, 2016 03:57
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Bulky Bartokomous posted:Wow, liveaquaria has L-46s. I haven't seen any for sale since I've been back in the hobby. Saul Paredes (Unungy) gets them in, so does John K (Snook on Aquabid) down in Florida. With the dam going up soon, I am totally fine with anyone stripping the poo poo out of those waters, illegal or not.
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Mar 13, 2016 06:38
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Cowslips Warren posted:Saul Paredes (Unungy) gets them in, so does John K (Snook on Aquabid) down in Florida. With the dam going up soon, I am totally fine with anyone stripping the poo poo out of those waters, illegal or not. I'll do some googling but I'm assuming the dam is going to destroy their ecosystem? E: Yup. http://exelmagazine.org/article/race-against-time/ :
Bulky Bartokomous fucked around with this message at 12:40 on Mar 13, 2016 |
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Mar 13, 2016 12:36
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drat I would love an L-46 or two, but it's hard to justify that asking price. One of my LFS had a breeding pair last year for $500, maybe I should have jumped on that. So I think I mentioned my super close LFS shut down a few weeks back, which is a major bummer. I was selling all my excess assassin snails and fish that I've been breeding to him, and was worried I'd have to start offloading them individually to people. Talked to the best LFS in Omaha (about 45 min away) yesterday, and he was more than happy to buy all my frontosa and red empress going forward. Stoked that I don't have to deal with crazy internet fish people now! Enos Cabell fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Mar 13, 2016 |
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Mar 13, 2016 17:34
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Alright, did away with the 130W Power Compact hood idea on the Spec V. I happened to pick up an 18" Satellite LED+ off Amazon Warehouse for cheap. According to the specs, it should give me something like 40 par at the substrate. Went to Petsmart today and picked up one each Anubias nana, Anubias frazeri, rosette sword, and Cryptocoryne wendtii all at 20% off since the silica gel they were in had dried out. The nana had dropped all its leaves but the roots and rhizome were in alright shape. Everything else was in decent shape. Waiting for a CO2 regulator and solenoid to drop onto Amazon Warehouse to complete a pressurized setup. Until then, Flourish Excel. Yes, I'm a cheap bastard. With bonus lighting effects! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8qt12GeZRs Unfortunately, our one good LFS went under and nothing has came in to the fill the void. There are a couple of indie places but they usually both have tanks that don't look good and usually have a dead fish in one or two. The tank has two zebra nerites, a tiger nerite, and a black racer nerite from Aquatic Arts.
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Mar 14, 2016 04:28
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Just repeating my love of Phosguard. I can't believe how quickly it tackled my brown algae issues. I'm guessing my muni water supply or my pipes (yikes) contain a good amount of phosphates. I just replace it when I do a water change and the only algae I get now is green.
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Mar 14, 2016 17:50
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ShaneB posted:Just repeating my love of Phosguard. I can't believe how quickly it tackled my brown algae issues. I'm guessing my muni water supply or my pipes (yikes) contain a good amount of phosphates. I just replace it when I do a water change and the only algae I get now is green. I put some in my fluval 206 a few weeks ago and yeah, it worked great. Haven't changed it at all yet though.
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Mar 14, 2016 17:57
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Enos Cabell posted:drat I would love an L-46 or two, but it's hard to justify that asking price. One of my LFS had a breeding pair last year for $500, maybe I should have jumped on that. If it helps you did not miss a deal with the "breeding pair." Males and females, even when sexed correctly, don't always breed. Some males always get the girls, some never do. A good zebra tank has a mix of both males and females and if breeding them was that easy, they'd be $30 now. But zebras breed slow, grow slow, and have maybe a dozen eggs at a max. 5 to 8 is more common. So the price will always be high.
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Mar 14, 2016 23:21
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Cowslips Warren posted:If it helps you did not miss a deal with the "breeding pair." Males and females, even when sexed correctly, don't always breed. Some males always get the girls, some never do. A good zebra tank has a mix of both males and females and if breeding them was that easy, they'd be $30 now. But zebras breed slow, grow slow, and have maybe a dozen eggs at a max. 5 to 8 is more common. So the price will always be high. Yeah, that makes sense. I suppose if they really were proven breeders there is zero chance they'd be for sale in a LFS. I snagged a bunch of adult africans today from a guy that needed to make some space. Came home with 3 greshakei, 3 kenyi, 2 bumblebee, 2 johanni, an acei and a demasoni, all for $50. That should finalize my 120g stock, after they spend the next month in QT. Enos Cabell fucked around with this message at 02:19 on Mar 15, 2016 |
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Mar 15, 2016 02:14
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You can get Bristleworms in freshwater too! Keeping shrimp was good fun, all sorts of odditys show up when fish are not around to gobble them up. 
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Mar 15, 2016 09:26
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Be honest with me here - can I responsibly keep any fish aside from a betta my 5 gallon tank? Initially, I had hoped to get a group of tiny fish, like neon tetras or dwarf rasboras. I read about other people doing it. But the longer I look at my aquarium (it's been running with just plants and stow-away snails for about a month now), the more I question whether it's fair to keep more than one fish in such a small space. Are bettas fun once they're in a proper aquarium? Never had one before, and (this sounds stupid, I know) it's hard to imagine them being much fun since they're always so depressing at the store.
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Mar 16, 2016 02:03
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I wouldn't keep anything but a single betta in a 5g tank, not sure off the top of my head if the chi is one where you would need to drop the water level so the betta has an air gap to breathe. If you want a bit more going on in your tank you could add shrimp but depending on the betta he might decide to eat them; lots of people don't have problems though. The big problem with most little fish is that they stress more if they are not in big schools and that isn't really compatible with little tanks. I've not kept betta but I've heard they get to know you, beg for food, same as any other fish and with a bit more room they swim around more and are a bit more interesting than how they appear in a jar at the store.
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Mar 16, 2016 02:21
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Stoca Zola posted:I wouldn't keep anything but a single betta in a 5g tank, not sure off the top of my head if the chi is one where you would need to drop the water level so the betta has an air gap to breathe. If you want a bit more going on in your tank you could add shrimp but depending on the betta he might decide to eat them; lots of people don't have problems though. The big problem with most little fish is that they stress more if they are not in big schools and that isn't really compatible with little tanks. Yeah, I kept a betta when I was younger and he would eat from my hands, he was pretty interactive as far as fish go.
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Mar 16, 2016 02:27
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Had a big blue betta that would explore his tank all day, trying and occasionally succeeding at eating the shrimp that shared his tank. Then he decided to jump out through the gap one day.
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Mar 16, 2016 03:03
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Come on guys 5g isn't that small. Surely he could keep 2 or 3 tiny inch long fish in there without it being cruel? Schooling fish like Cardinal Tetras are most happy in decent sized schools I think, so those are out of the question? Or could he keep 6 or 7 Tetras in there? I'm also curious since I only mess with small shrimp tanks nowadays. But have considered the idea before. Pea puffers and snails maybe?
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Mar 16, 2016 03:36
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I've got a 4.5g tank, it's pretty tiny. If you want a school though, ember tetras or celestial danios.
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Mar 16, 2016 03:38
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I LIKE COOKIE posted:Come on guys 5g isn't that small. Surely he could keep 2 or 3 tiny inch long fish in there without it being cruel? The fluval chi is a tall tank not a long tank too. Not much room at all for little male fish to put on displays if keeping a group. Brevibora dorsiocellata or the dwarf rasboras are probably what you're thinking of and maybe they'd be okay; but they're both micropredators so you start getting into the territory of how to feed them suitable small meaty food. Here, I'd have to grow my own but maybe its easier to buy that stuff wherever you are. You're right though maybe a pea puffer would fit, or a couple of sparkling gouramis. You're pretty limited though if you want healthy fish that last more than a few months. I wonder why so many of the smaller fish are red/orange?
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Mar 16, 2016 09:58
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I have kept betta fire years, a five gallon is just enough for one fish, adding more is not advised. Aside from the betta being territorial just about everyone here knows maintaining water quality in a small aquarium can be a challenge, adding multiple fish complicates it. Adding a school of anything you are now going against all of that. Even with a small nano canister filter and weekly water changes and water quality monitoring I would not advise because we all know we eventually get lazy and start to lose interest then living things die.
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Mar 16, 2016 12:56
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I LIKE COOKIE posted:Come on guys 5g isn't that small. Surely he could keep 2 or 3 tiny inch long fish in there without it being cruel? I kept a school of 6 cardinal tetras in a 5g for a few months, and they just hid in the plants the entire time and didn't really eat. Moved them into a community 20g and their color got way better, they started actually swimming around the tank, and joined the other fish in eating every day. Though technically the bioload in a 5g can handle a few tiny fish, there just doesn't seem to be enough room for them. Though it's perfect for a handful of shrimp.
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Mar 16, 2016 13:52
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Thanks for your input, everyone. Very helpful. I'll do some reading on bettas and shrimp. I'd like to have a bigger tank someday, but am short on space at the moment.
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Mar 16, 2016 16:50
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How do bettas hold up to snails? Would a 5gal with a betta and something like an Apple snail or nerite work together?
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Mar 16, 2016 16:55
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Why does my (50 gal) tank stink despite good water parameters and something like thrice the "necessary" filtration? Also, how often do filters need to be changed (rather than just rinsed)? Also, I'm assuming that since have multiple filters, I should stagger outright changing the media?
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Mar 16, 2016 17:38
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What kind of filters and what kind of media?
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Mar 16, 2016 17:41
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I've done one final check on the plague tank tonight, just thought I'd update in case anyone was interested. Everything seems to have settled down. Fins have grown back. In total I lost four penguin tetras and two corydoras, the eelgrass seems to be melting too probably due to having the lights off while treating the fish. There has been no spread to any other tank, nor any ill effect on the shrimp or guppies, snail population seems OKish too. My water parameters were fine apart from hardness being very low, a possible culprit. I never found one of the missing cories, another possible culprit. Lastly thinking back, Saturday night before it all went down, I noticed a melted stump of a banana lily that the snails had demolished and reached into the tank and took it out. Normally I use long tweezers or wash/rinse my hands and arms first. I found out there is a poisonous ingredient, chloroxylenol, in a lotion I use fairly regularly (it's highly toxic to both fish and cats uh oh) so there is a slim chance I had some on my hands when I put it in the tank, this is my last suspect for what set this off. I have ruled out a rogue predatory shrimp as an option. To treat the fin rot I used eSha2000 which claims to be a filter safe plant safe shrimp safe broad spectrum treatment for fungus and fin rot. It apparently is not snail safe so I'm hoping it kills off the ramshorn snails while the MTS hide in the sand. No evidence of snail die off though. I was a bit sceptical of the product claims since they are pretty broad but it does seem to have done the job and salvaged the tank. I did increase the hardness too. I don't believe the dead catfish was due to medication as he had similar finrot issues to the other fish. I did one whole treatment then continued on the lower dosage as recommended on the packaging to try and salvage the tailless tetras, but they were too far gone and did not survive in the end. Total about six days of treatment, then a water change but adding enough medication to replace what was removed, then a couple more days. One tail less tetra held on for days and days, I really thought he'd pull through. I probably could have stopped treating earlier if not for him. I'm still going to disinfect everything that touched dead fish or dead fish water just in case the cause is contagious but I guess I'll never know the cause for sure. I definitely recommend keeping separate equipment (ie nets, gravel vac, glass scraper) for separate tanks, it's a lot less stressful being able to maintain other tanks safely while a disaster is going on in one tank. Not sure if I will replace the lost tetras yet, going to see how things go for a few weeks before trying to restock. The largest one, big Joe Hockey is unfortunately back to his bullying ways already but there is a lot more plant cover now so the remaining two other tetras might be okay. Honestly I think these fish will grow too big for the tank they are in (90lt), they were supposed to be in the longer tank (110lt) but Joe was not a good community fish and only calmed down once he had his own school in his own tank. They're cute and tiny in the fish store but Joe is easily over 2 inches long now.
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Mar 16, 2016 17:50
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Hummingbirds posted:Why does my (50 gal) tank stink despite good water parameters and something like thrice the "necessary" filtration? What kind of stink?
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Mar 16, 2016 17:51
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I have two canisters on my 55 (redundant system) and I replace the media every three months. I alternate between the two but I don't smell anything out of the ordinary otherwise.
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Mar 16, 2016 19:48
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Mr. Despair posted:What kind of filters and what kind of media? One internal (rated for 30 gal) and two external (50 + 30 gal). Mix of mechanical and biological in each. I don't know what the flow rate are for them as they're all different. Stoca Zola posted:What kind of stink? Like a eutrophic retention pond, kinda. Water changes don't seem to help. Fwiw I have very little algae issues and only one fish with a considerable waste output (pleco that was inherited with the tank or else I wouldn't have it, and intend to give it to the local aquaria store soon).
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Mar 17, 2016 05:35
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JuffoWup posted:How do bettas hold up to snails? Would a 5gal with a betta and something like an Apple snail or nerite work together? Bettas dont seem to bother smaller snails, no idea about how they interact with apples.
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Mar 17, 2016 05:40
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SynthOrange posted:Bettas dont seem to bother smaller snails, no idea about how they interact with apples. Huh, mine pretty regularly will loudly peck at one of the small pond snails in his tank, so maybe it's one of those "depends on the betta". I doubt it'd mess with a larger snail though.
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Mar 17, 2016 07:02
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 I would like to nominate my rosy barbs for Most Ridiculous Freshwater Fish 2016. They are digging up and eating the clay root tabs I put in the gravel just now. I've only found two types of plant that they don't demolish and now they are frantically demolishing the fertiliser instead. Re: eutrophic smell, do you have any surface agitation or other oxygenation? I thought that smell usually resulted from poor oxygenation which lets the stinky bacteria go berserk on the nutrients. Difficult to reconcile a smell like that with an otherwise healthy tank 
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Mar 17, 2016 09:19
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RIP my fish.. they are all hanging near the surface and I cannot figure out why. I did a water change yesterday, nothing dead in the tank.. I added another airstone in case it's an aeration issue. The only thing I cannot control is the water temp which is border 80F being it is hotter now. I can only turn the thermostat for the house down so much where I can't keep up anymore.
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Mar 17, 2016 17:53
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Something's foul in the water supply? How're the water params?
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Mar 18, 2016 01:36
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Do you have much surface agitation? You might get a bit of temp drop from aiming a fan at the surface too. I wouldn't have thought 80 was super too hot, at least not in the short term but I suppose that depends on the fish.
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Mar 18, 2016 03:48
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It's two fold the temps in my office get really warm during summer months so ambient at 80 reflects in the aquarium. With the higher temp the water is less oxygenated which in turn creates a double whammy situation for me. I ended up doing another partial water change which gradually lowered the water temp from 81F to 77F I also have pump with dual airstones running now that is really oxygenating the water in an effort to tackle that issue as well. The last resort is once it gets warm enough I am having to adjust the thermostat for the house down to 74 to get this room down to 78 which really really sucks for my electric bill as you can imagine. I have a ceiling fan which keeps it okay for me but that does not cut it for the aquarium.. I might look at alternatives though because that is not going to work over the summer for me. Also it's not a foul water issue, it is a heavily planted tank all fish.. the big ones are accounted for leaving a few Cardinal Tetra, Celestial Pearl Danio and four cories which I can see are still there as well. I did the partial water change a couple of days ago so it would have eliminated that and not to mention I have upwards of 500 red cherry shrimp in there so overfeeding is literally impossible between them and the metric poo poo ton of snails that are all over the place - I'm looking at your Clown Loach you aren't doing your job! I'm really hoping the extra boost from the air pump blasting the two airstones remedies the situation and I am keeping an eye throughout the day to see where the temps peak and the situation in the tank. demonR6 fucked around with this message at 14:53 on Mar 18, 2016 |
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Mar 18, 2016 14:27
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 At my other LFS.  Two foot long ray just chilling.
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Mar 19, 2016 07:30
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Fejsze posted:I kept a school of 6 cardinal tetras in a 5g for a few months, and they just hid in the plants the entire time and didn't really eat. I've got a 5g tank with 5 celestial danios and I've been really pleasantly surprised by how active they are. They're always chilling in the open and their colours have really come out. I find keeping up with water changes isn't an issue because one bucket is a 60% change and it take like 10 minutes to do.
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Mar 19, 2016 12:02
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SynthOrange posted:
I showed this pic to my wife and told her it is some dude's outdoor salt water hot tub.. she won't let me get one.
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Mar 19, 2016 14:00
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It's actually a freshwater ray!
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Mar 19, 2016 14:25
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