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Luneshot posted:Alright, novice question here. Picked up some neon tetras yesterday and today found two of them dead, stuck to the filter. I'm afraid the filter is too strong for them to cope with if they get near to it, but I also don't know if maybe they died of other causes and the filter pulled them in. Is there any way to mitigate this? Here's the filter in question. I bought about 30 neon tetras for my 75 gallon planted tank, lost 5 of them in a terrible novice quarantine tank, and then said 'gently caress it' and moved them into the main tank. After the move I lost 5 more within the first week... then nothing changed. The same 20 neon tetras are roaming around and looking plump as all hell. (just sharing so you have an idea of what to expect) I wouldn't worry too much about whether your filtration is too strong for the neon tetras. Maybe Stoca has some more insight about this, but personally I have my filter outflow set up for LOTS of current in the tank. At first I was worried it would stress all my fish out, but everyone is prolific and seemingly stress free. My 20 tetras don't even school together (means they're not stressed) most of the time.
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Jan 7, 2017 23:01
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Stoca, thinking about dropping a school of danios into my 75g planted tank tomorrow. Current occupants are 20 neon tetras, about 17 cory catfish, and 2 clown loaches. Anything I should be aware of?
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Jan 7, 2017 23:03
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It's only a 20gal tank, I bought 7 tetras just to have a buffer in case a couple died (which they promptly did, of course). 5 is a pretty small school but I'll keep an eye on them and eventually buy a few more once I'm sure the tank can handle it- I don't think it's fully established yet so I'm taking it slow on stocking. The only other tank occupant is a male platy that I had to isolate from the two platy ladies (pladies?) due to the incessant bangin'. Aside from a little bit of fin-nipping they seem to be getting along fine- the platy just seems happy to have friends and he's constantly shadowing the tetras, which they don't seem to mind too much.
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Jan 8, 2017 01:00
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Anyone in SoCal want a Fluval EBI (7.9 gal nano tank) plus a bunch of other fluval accessories? Offer me half of it, or beer, or anything, I just kind of want this stuff out of my garage. Pic and more detailed inventory: http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sgv/for/5950050166.html .
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Jan 8, 2017 02:12
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sharkbomb posted:Stoca, thinking about dropping a school of danios into my 75g planted tank tomorrow. Current occupants are 20 neon tetras, about 17 cory catfish, and 2 clown loaches. Anything I should be aware of? Regular zebras or something different like kyathit? I reckon they'll love the flow. My only real experience is with zebra danios and the wars they had with my penguin tetras (similar shape/size/colour and both wanting to live in upper part of tank causing territorial issues) and that when happy, the males can be relentless chasing after the females trying to breed so it's pretty important to have a school to balance all the attention around - and you've got that covered. They ignored my corys and I have them in with guppies now and they are fine and peaceful. I haven't had any issues with illness aside from the really old female that I had, but they can catch/carry neon tetra disease so that might be something to watch out for. They will probably stay at the top levels in your tank, swimming against the flow and this seems to be the optimal conditions for them. Even my worst looking derp danio fry that probably should have been culled have grown straight and strong with a good bit of current to swim against and it's hard to pick out the "bad" ones now. I usually only see them feed from the surface or from food floating in the upper levels so I hope they don't outcompete your tetras for food, they can be a bit pushy and maybe a bit imposing for smaller fish. Not a problem with guppies since they'll eat from any level and don't know that they're a small fish but I'd expect tetras to be a bit more nervous. I haven't kept neons but none of the other tetras I've kept will eat from lower in the tank. With a 75g maybe you can just feed two ends of the tank and avoid conflict that way?
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Jan 8, 2017 02:57
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Stoca Zola posted:Regular zebras or something different like kyathit? I reckon they'll love the flow. My only real experience is with zebra danios and the wars they had with my penguin tetras (similar shape/size/colour and both wanting to live in upper part of tank causing territorial issues) and that when happy, the males can be relentless chasing after the females trying to breed so it's pretty important to have a school to balance all the attention around - and you've got that covered. They ignored my corys and I have them in with guppies now and they are fine and peaceful. I haven't had any issues with illness aside from the really old female that I had, but they can catch/carry neon tetra disease so that might be something to watch out for. They will probably stay at the top levels in your tank, swimming against the flow and this seems to be the optimal conditions for them. Even my worst looking derp danio fry that probably should have been culled have grown straight and strong with a good bit of current to swim against and it's hard to pick out the "bad" ones now. I usually only see them feed from the surface or from food floating in the upper levels so I hope they don't outcompete your tetras for food, they can be a bit pushy and maybe a bit imposing for smaller fish. Not a problem with guppies since they'll eat from any level and don't know that they're a small fish but I'd expect tetras to be a bit more nervous. I haven't kept neons but none of the other tetras I've kept will eat from lower in the tank. With a 75g maybe you can just feed two ends of the tank and avoid conflict that way? I'll go ahead and get a school of danios and see how things go! I've been putting off any kind of expansion because I was worried about the amount of time I would be gone for the holidays, but everything survived my absence. My neon tetras actually do eat from the lower tank. I will feed them their floating flakes (which they eat), and then drop a bunch of sinking pellets to my cory catfish. When I come back 10 minutes later the tetras will be hovering directly over the corys on the tank bottom hoovering up any food that gets stirred up by corys.
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Jan 8, 2017 04:15
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sharkbomb posted:My neon tetras actually do eat from the lower tank. I will feed them their floating flakes (which they eat), and then drop a bunch of sinking pellets to my cory catfish. When I come back 10 minutes later the tetras will be hovering directly over the corys on the tank bottom hoovering up any food that gets stirred up by corys. This, but Endler fry (also top feeders) and younger cherry shrimp. The fry will eat the floating flakes and then go swim just above the sinking algae tablet and catch all the crumbs that the shrimp break loose. Funny enough, although they sometimes get so close that they bother/scare the shrimp, the concept of actually *biting* the thing goes over their heads. On the other hand, older Endlers in the other aquarium will happily swarm and fight our swordtails (thrice their size) and anyone else that stands between them and the Ancistrus' algae pellet  . Good thing she? is actually a mean, gigantic sized thing who droves everyone away by hitting them with her tail until they let her have her food, because I can easily imagine them scaring a smaller, shyer fish.
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Jan 8, 2017 10:46
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Oh, here's my two tanks by the way: 20 gallon with 5 neons and a platy(tailfin visible inside the house).  And a 10 gallon with two happy female platies.  You can definitely tell which one has a jury-rigged dark blue background made of fabric. I'm gonna apply it to both because I really like the way it looks. The really old fluorescent tube on the top has a very pink color to it compared to the pure white of the LEDs on the lower tank.
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Jan 9, 2017 01:31
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I'm in charge of the animal room at the science center I work at, and while I have the reptiles and amphibians set up pretty well, we don't have any fish. I'm not really a big fish person - if I'm going to do something aquatic for myself, it's going to be salamanders or maybe killifish, so I don't really know what would be a good choice for a fish exhibit. We have two tanks - one is an acrylic 34" x 18" x 24," the other is a 48" x 12" x 30" - 63 and 75 gallons if full. We don't really have much money, but what would you guys recommend for nice public exhibits? I'd like to do something native, but I can't really think of anything that seems suitable for the tanks and interesting, so I'm open to any suggestions.
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Jan 12, 2017 18:47
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Where is native for you? I watch a guy on YouTube called Dan Hiteshew and he has just set up a native tank with rocks and wood he collected himself and some shiners that he bought as baitfish, I think he got 18 for $10 or something like that. He managed to identify what kind of shiner they are, although I don't recall exactly what they were. They're not a super fancy fish but watching them school and eat is pretty interesting. I think the big cost for him was the tank and filtration and you've already got the tanks sorted. I think he was planning to add crayfish (locally caught) although mixing the fish and the crayfish will most likely result in fish fatalities so that's probably not something you would want to do. But you've got two tanks so maybe one could be local freshwater inverts and the other fish? Anyway I like the series he's doing for his native tank as he talks about what he's doing for each part of the setup and why he does it that way. Native fish are interesting to me since for whatever reason you usually don't get to see them up close like you can in an aquarium. If you set up some nice habitat you'll see natural behaviour and that in itself is interesting even if the fish aren't visually pretty. And I think a crayfish tank would be pretty cool too, as I think they dig and rearrange things to set up their territories how they like. Or if you don't have local crayfish maybe you could have local shrimp? I think everyone should try keeping shrimp at least once. And don't forget local plants, maybe your local freshwater biotopes are rivers with no plants, or maybe you have lakes and there are local plant species you could grow? Plants do increase the complexity a little as then you need to match the lighting of the tank to the requirements of the plants, which could increase the cost a little depending on what those requirements are. I think it's a really interesting project and I'd be interested in what you decide to do. A colony tank of small fish could be just as interesting as a tank with just a few larger fish.
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Jan 12, 2017 19:22
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I'm in upstate South Carolina. The idea suggested to me by my boss was to get a small largemouth bass, but a quick search has shown that that's really not a great idea - it also looks like bream and similar fish really won't do well, either. I can't think of any particularly cool smaller native fish, either - I know if I were making a display of Florida, that would be a different story - when I'm netting for salamanders, I catch all sorts of killifish and everglades sunfish and other neat species, along with grass shrimp and so on. Down further south by Columbia I sometimes find swampfish, which are neat, but I don't know if they're really suitable in tanks. Crayfish would be neat, but that's a lot of space for a crayfish display - they'd probably eat anything else I'd put in with them, so I'd want something smaller for them. Non-native inverts would be cool, like cherry shrimp and so on, but I'm not really sure what would go well with them if I went that route - I have to get the best bang for the space here, vs. at home where I could just keep whatever I wanted and not care that it's a single-species tank.
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Jan 12, 2017 21:54
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Your 75 gallon would do well with a few sunfish. Not sure what's native to South Carolina, but bluegills and pumpkinseeds are pretty fish that I imagine are present in your lakes.
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Jan 13, 2017 17:41
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Smaller sunfish that should occur in South Carolina include the Black-banded, Blue-spotted, and Dollar sunfishes. Looks like Heterandria formosa, Bluefin Killifish, Golden Topminnows, and Fieryblack Shiners are also in the area. Probably various pygmy sunfish and madtom catfish too. And of course whatever other assortment of minnows, darters, topminnows, shiners, etc. Some of these may be pickier about eating than others.
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Jan 13, 2017 23:26
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Huge ice storm in the forecast for Sunday/Monday, and the local power companies are telling people to be prepared for extended outages. I snagged one of the few remaining generators in town today, fingers crossed that we don't have to use it.
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Jan 13, 2017 23:45
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What are the consequences if there is a power outage? I'm thinking about my canister filter that sits in the cabinet below my 75g tank. Will all of my tank's water start draining on to the floor?
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Jan 14, 2017 00:32
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Temperature and oxygen. I'll need to power heaters to keep the tanks warm, and air pumps to keep them oxygenated. I've got some battery powered air pumps as backup, but no other way to keep the tanks warm. Your canister filter would be fine, it's sealed so no way for it to overflow.
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Jan 14, 2017 01:13
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If the power is off for too long the water inside the canister can go stinky, so you can get around that by closing your pipes like you would during maintenance, tipping the standing water out from inside the canister and then giving it a quick rinse before putting it back together and turning everything back on. You probably don't want old stink water going back into your tank. I don't know how long it takes to get bad, we had no power for a whole day here and I didn't think of the canister at the time and had no ill effects in that tank but your mileage may vary depending on how clean your filter was at the time of the black out and how sensitive your fish are.
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Jan 14, 2017 01:42
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sharkbomb posted:Will all of my tank's water start draining on to the floor? I have a horror story about this. I worked at a pet store for several years and we had this gigantic filtration setup for the fish. The backend for this system took up an entire room, as you'd imagine it would have to in order to keep that many fish in one space. Anyways, one day this thing broke. And the result was that it poured nonstop water (and fish) all over the place. It took a good couple of hours to get it to stop and by that point half the store was flooded and there were guppies swimming around on the floor. 
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Jan 14, 2017 20:50
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Just fed the big tank and kept an eye peeled for Endler fry, since their mother gave birth a week ago and I have been netting out the survivors to the fry tank. Found a very shy tiny guy hiding in a bush, and managed to get it out and into the net... but he is very definitely not a guppy. He's orange with a black tail and looks slightly bigger and plumpier that the guppies. Coloration matches that of the three platies we have, which is in itself a mistery, as all three of them are male. We had seventeen at one point, born from a normal platy pair who has since passed out, and all of them ended up being half-sized males. I thought they were malformed/sterile as a result of their stunted growth, although they seemed and behaved like happy, healthy fish so I did not worry too much. Very clearly I was wrong, and at least one male is functional. But the mom's identity is a mystery: either one of them was female all along and has reverted, or they somehow managed to get one of the female xiphos pregnant. The latter seems more likely, as one of them looked fatter as of late. But she's at least twice as big as them (even for a swordtail, she's huge) and really aggressive, so much we had to move a male out because she would not stop harassing him, and the other (lyretail, so sterile due to malformed gonopodium) has also been hit and chased a good number of times for trying to get close. How the tiny guys managed to get close enough to impregnate her is a good question in itself  . Hope the guy survives, as he was the only one I could find, and we get to know what the hell he is 
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Jan 14, 2017 23:50
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Definitely platy-swordtail hybrids. Mom has gotten much thinner since I last saw her. Was not planning on that to happen, but well, here they are so v v. Netted out eight of them (though I suspect one was a stray guppy). Their colors go from red wagtail (father and all their uncles) to orange or red, to almost colorless, so it'll be funny to see how they look when they stop being the size of a mosquito 
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Jan 16, 2017 22:57
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I've got some riffle shrimp coming soon! I don't know much about them apart from that if I'm lucky they will live their full lifecycle in fresh water and I might be able to get them to breed. Also that they are escape artists and they like a lot of oxygenation and flow. So that will be an interesting challenge. I bought a 60lt tank from a local buy/swap/sell and it looked in bad shape so I redid the seals and I think now it will be a good tank for a shrimp colony. I'm also expecting some new peacock gudgeons to help with the genetic diversity of the colony I'd like to set up. I've found one fry from one of the original spawnings that is still alive and surviving in the tank with the adults, and it is a good size and starting to show more pigmentation now. I've moved the ones that were in a breeder box into their own tank to make room for a spawning tube full of cousins (yay finally managed to pull the cave before the other female ate the eggs, she was definitely lurking with murder in mind) and I've had a bit more practise at keeping the tube sufficiently oxygenated now so I am feeling confident I should be able to raise these guys up. I started thinking maybe it's time to put some guppies back outside in the pond to free up some room for a future gudgeon colony, but I was shocked (literally) to find there's something wrong with the pump that runs the filter and the pond water was electrified. I actually put my finger in it and got zapped twice because the first time it felt exactly the same as when I messed up the nerves in that arm and I thought I'd done that again. Anyway the pond is a no go for now since I am out of reliable pumps and the filter isn't running. The cats had been drinking out of it so I wonder what drinking electrified water was like? I'll have to make sure the next pump I get is low voltage because electrified pond water is bullshit and feels bad. Actually now that I think about it, I am pretty sure the pump is supposed to be 12vdc low voltage but I was definitely feeling an AC zap - I'll have to look in the morning and see.
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Jan 18, 2017 19:55
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My rear end in a top hat (not really) turtle has now decided that his tank mates are delicious and the few survivors that have lasted this long are starting to disappear. Or it could be natural causes and she's just being a good little cleanup crew, who knows. We're moving house to a larger place soon, so I'm thinking of starting another fish-only tank so I have somewhere to breed guppies and grow live plants without the reptile terror eating the poo poo out of everything. I also have an idea for a tank partition in the turtle tank and am wondering if anybody has done something similar. The issue is the turtle just tears up live plants, but they are so good for water quality. My idea was basically a mesh wall that blocks off 1/5 of the tank or so next to the filter intake so the plants have somewhere to grow unmolested.
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Jan 19, 2017 14:24
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I'm thinking about changing my 75g tank over to turtles... kinda sick of the fish...
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Jan 19, 2017 17:49
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I wonder if this would be a good situation for a freshwater sump? You could have sections in the sump for filtration media as well as a planted refugium, without compromising tank space or safety for your turtle (I'm paranoid about adding mesh etc to a tank, potential for animals to get stuck). Although, this complicates things a little since usually you'd set it up with an overflow to transport the water down to the sump, and this might require the tank to be drilled, etc. Would you buy a new tank for your turtle and reuse your old turtle tank for fish? You might be able to find a nice setup that has all that stuff already done so you don't have to worry about drilling holes in your tank yourself. Another set up I've seen is a little bit like hydroponics, a planter box above the tank with terrestrial plants growing in baked clay media. Water drains back into the tank on the other end of the planter. No tank drilling required and is probably easier to DIY, but not sure exactly which plants are suitable or how much actual benefit there is regarding cleaning the water. A lot of people swear by pothos but I've heard counter arguments that it doesn't actually work to clean the water unless you provide sufficient bright lighting for the plants (same would apply to underwater plants, I guess). I've looked at growing plants in the media chamber of a hang on back filter but the plant started going a bit rotten, didn't like having its roots wet 100% of the time. Agh, I have a half set up quarantine tank for the new fish (needs more water), and I've hardscaped the shrimp tank but I wanted to change out most of the water before the shrimp arrive. Running out of time! Hopefully they'll get here tomorrow.
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Jan 19, 2017 18:21
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sharkbomb posted:I'm thinking about changing my 75g tank over to turtles... kinda sick of the fish... Aquatic turtles make absolutely horrible pets. They need ten gallons of water per inch of shell minimum, so you might fit one adult turtle in that tank if you care about doing it properly. They live a long time and very few people are equipped to take care of them properly, and they're almost impossible to get rid of (no one really wants them - I've been advertising some from work, trying to get their numbers down, and I managed to find one taker in four months). If you have to do turtles, get something small like mud or musk turtles - a 75 gallon tank with small turtles could be really neat.
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Jan 20, 2017 00:38
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OneTwentySix posted:If you have to do turtles, get something small like mud or musk turtles - a 75 gallon tank with small turtles could be really neat. This this this 1000x this. The various kinds of musk/mud turtles max out at around 4 inches in shell length, especially the females. The super common red eared slider can reach almost a foot long, and no, they don't "grow to fit the tank". You need a cannister filter rated for at least twice the size of the tank (so for a 75g a filter rated for 150g) because turtles are very dirty, especially if you feed them in tank. The turtle will also need a basking area out of the water with both USA and UVB light or they can get bone/shell problems. A sturdy heater that will keep the water at between 75 and 80F is also very important. You can keep fish with your turtle, just be prepared to lose them.
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Jan 20, 2017 00:54
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Stoca Zola posted:I wonder if this would be a good situation for a freshwater sump? You could have sections in the sump for filtration media as well as a planted refugium, without compromising tank space or safety for your turtle (I'm paranoid about adding mesh etc to a tank, potential for animals to get stuck). Although, this complicates things a little since usually you'd set it up with an overflow to transport the water down to the sump, and this might require the tank to be drilled, etc. Would you buy a new tank for your turtle and reuse your old turtle tank for fish? You might be able to find a nice setup that has all that stuff already done so you don't have to worry about drilling holes in your tank yourself. Saltwater companies came up with a solution for those that are afraid to drill their tanks and also don't have a tank pre-drilled for overflow work. They make hang on overflow boxes. However, you may have to invest in a leak detector in case the suction is ever lost. Preferably, the detector is set to turn the pump off along with alerting you. http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=18358 as an example
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Jan 20, 2017 03:29
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Ahh I have seen those, do they still work if your water level is not close to the top of the tank? It depends on the turtle I guess whether you have aquatic ones in a full tank always in water or ones with lower water level to give basking room etc. There's a DIY PVC pipe overflow that you can hang on your tank that I've seen plans for too, with that one I think you can set your own water depth by the height of the overflow pipe. I tried making a smaller version of this to test it out using black garden pipe but it really fails quick if it isn't 100% airtight. So I can tell by the parcel tracking status page that my shrimp and fish are in the van being delivered right now! Any minute now they're coming!
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Jan 20, 2017 03:44
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Yeah those premade overflows are designed around saltwater tanks which are usually filled right up to the top so they probably won't work with a low water level setup. As you've said, it is of course entirely possible to build your own, just make sure you've got the water routing sorted out right before using it. Comedy option: Sump ABOVE tank.
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Jan 20, 2017 07:39
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That could be pretty cool! Assuming the canister filter is still going, a sump with maybe a bit of sponge in the first bit, a big refugium with plants and shrimp, then a little overflow back to the tank, with a stand to showcase both tanks and no chance of the turtles trashing the plants. My shrimp and fish eventually arrived! Nothing died, two of the shrimp moulted in the bag, and the fish were too small and pale to tell what I ended up getting. They had good appetites though so I think they'll be okay. No visible damage, actually this shipper packed every single thing in its own bag which I think has gone a long way towards everything being in such good shape.
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Jan 20, 2017 10:04
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Stoca Zola posted:That could be pretty cool! Assuming the canister filter is still going, a sump with maybe a bit of sponge in the first bit, a big refugium with plants and shrimp, then a little overflow back to the tank, with a stand to showcase both tanks and no chance of the turtles trashing the plants. You can also stick your heater in the refugium and remove your chance of the turtle knocking it around as well.
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Jan 20, 2017 15:21
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At some point I will have to figure out how to actually use my DSLR. In the meantime, here are the two decent pictures i took out 30. They are of a Keyhole that frankly, shouldn't be alive. He was in my QT while my other two keyholes were spawning. Somehow he got a wound on his head that looked like he tried to kill himself with a fish sized shotgun. There was a dime-sized hole in his head that was pretty deep. He got really lethargic and I thought seriously about putting him down. Instead I tried to Melafix and Furan 2 for a few days as a last ditch effort. He steadily got better. You can still see where wound was because there's no scales, but amazingly all the missing tissue filled in. Despite all this poor guy has been through, he is the least shy Keyhole I've ever owned.  Uninjured side for comparison: 
Bulky Bartokomous fucked around with this message at 16:06 on Jan 22, 2017 |
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Jan 22, 2017 03:03
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sharkbomb posted:I'm thinking about changing my 75g tank over to turtles... kinda sick of the fish... Get a tortoise. They're more fun and the tank is loads easier to clean.
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Jan 22, 2017 15:19
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My tank has been very frustrating lately. I dropped about 25 Danios into my 75 gallon (current occupants of 17 cory catfish, 2 clown loaches, maybe 18 neon tetras) about 2 weeks ago and there's just been a steady trickle of deaths. On average I'll scoop 1 dead Danio out per day, and I've lost 2 Neon Tetras. I do a 50% water change about every 2 weeks and run a Penn Plax Cascade Canister Aquarium Filter rated for 150 gallons. The aquarium has been extremely stable (no deaths) since July 2016. Of course I didn't quarantine the Danios when I put them in, so I think I probably rolled the dice and lost.
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Jan 23, 2017 00:11
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sharkbomb posted:My tank has been very frustrating lately. Sorry to hear that. I probably would've temporarily upped the water change schedule when I dumped the danios in. They might've caused an ammonia spike. You can try adding some Prime to see if it will help to stabilize things, maybe (if you haven't already).
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Jan 23, 2017 11:14
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Sharkbomb you might have just got some dud danios too, I would have thought if the ammonia peaked it would hit all the fish, not just the new ones. Although, thinking about that a bit harder, new fish are usually much weaker than well settled fish, through poor water conditions or poor diet before you got them, so it might actually affect them first after all. And, actually, throwing your stock levels, tank size and filter into aqadvisor.com, it does look like you don't have enough filtration capacity for the livestock you have (although plants will add to that a bit). Your tank is slightly overstocked as well (assuming you got zebra danios not one of the smaller kinds) and the clown loaches are the biggest contributor there, but if your fish are not yet full sized that part might not yet be true. I don't take what aqadvisor says as a hard limit but its good for a ballpark idea. So yeah, until everything settles down, and maybe even after that, I agree that you need to stick to a more frequent water change schedule, or change a larger amount each time. Every time you make a big change to a tank - and 25 more fish is a pretty big change, the balance is upset and takes time to find a new stable state. If you've tested and you aren't seeing ammonia/nitrite and your filtration is definitely keeping up, then you can just chalk it down to new fish syndrome I think. I would expect deaths for anything up to 4-6 weeks, anything still alive after that is probably pretty good. Getting lots of fish to allow for deaths is one way of adding livestock, the other way is adding a small number, then a few more, then a few more - good for letting the filter build up slowly but what a pain in the arse with quarantining doing it that way. And my favourite way to add fish is getting the minimum number of fish for them to have the social structure they need, then breeding and raising some myself. It's more effort but it's a lot of fun, much like for adult fish you just need to supply clean water, good food, and safety and the fry do the rest of the work. And then those fish have always lived in your tank and are completely used to the conditions you can provide. Aha, I worked out whoever put the data into aqadvisor has done the same mistake for a number of filters - the cascade 1200 they've got listed as 150gal/hr which is not enough, but I looked it up myself and that filter actually does 315gal/hr so they've just taken the tank capacity number off the box and used that instead of the gallons per hour, which is usually in fine print somewhere. I still think that might not be enough, I've come across numbers stating you want to be moving at least 4 or 5 times the total volume of the tank through your filter each hour, and a lot more than that for hillstream species for example; 315 is barely just hitting that for a 75 gallon tank. So you could have hit the cap of what your filtration can handle, the only way you'll know for sure is if you're finding ammonia or nitrites when you test the water. Also don't do what I did this weekend and unplug your canister because it's making a noise like its got air in it, and forget to work on it and plug it back in again. Thankfully that tank has a lot of duckweed and bright lights, the fish still seem okay, and aeration was fine since I have a few airstones in that tank. But what an idiot move, I've had a bad couple of weeks in fishkeeping! At least my new shrimp have settled in and seem happy, no escape attempts so far. It's not going so well with the peacock gudgeons, the biggest new one coloured up enough to be visibly male and he is a full sized adult compared to the other two. I decided to try moving the big one to the main gudgeon tank to give the extra female a partner and give the smaller two ones in quarantine a better chance to get to the food. Turns out, even female gudgeons can get extremely hostile and territorial. All four fish were out having displays and posturing and escalating to physical violence. The large female gudgeon saw the newcomer first, started flaring and darkening her colouring almost to black and began thrashing the new male. He ended up over near the other male and then it was full on complete bodyslam violence. They do seem to have a routine of displays and threats but that only lasts about 5 seconds before the beatings commence. It was like a cat fight or a cartoon fight, circling and spiralling and then smashing into the substrate and kicking up a cloud of particles. It also seems that only the left 3 inches of the whole tank are prime gudgeon territory, I didn't notice this at all with the three fish I already have since the smallest female was spending a little bit of time on the right side of the tank, but the newcomer male despite having 80% of the right side of the tank to himself, kept coming over into the other males territory and getting into fights. I've taken the new guy out and put him back into quarantine, no real damage done to his body but his fins are a little bit ragged - the fighting was fast and fierce and really didn't let up. And I've removed a hang on filter from the right hand side of the main tank. I had it turned right down and didn't think it was affecting the fish at all, it wasn't even making the plants move. However now with that filter gone, the remaining three fish are exploring the right hand side of the tank like they've never seen it before. From the research I'd done before, there should be easily enough room in that tank for 2 or 3 pairs so I couldn't understand why they were all being territorial at one end. I am guessing they really hated the imperceptible amount of flow that the hang on filter provided. There are still 2 sponge filters in the tank and I've converted half of one of the breeder boxes into a filter media chamber so I think the tank will be okay minus that one filter. I hope this means they now actually use the whole tank instead of just the very very left side but I'm going to have to wait to find out, I think I'll try and grow out the smaller gudgeons so that I'm adding three adults at once instead of just one and that should hopefully disperse the aggression a bit better.
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Jan 23, 2017 17:15
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Thanks for your considered thoughts, Stoca. I suppose it's definitely possible I'm overstocked - maybe if the Danio die off continues I'll get down to a more suitable population! I really regret purchasing the 2 clown loaches this summer-- the fuckers stay completely hidden inside an airstone ornament 24/7, and I maybe see them once every week and think "oh, they're still alive." Totally not worth it if they're putting a heavy nitrogen load on the tank.
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Jan 23, 2017 18:34
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They might settle in, seeing other peoples tanks on YouTube the clown loaches are usually poking around all blase front and centre (or sleeping/playing dead). I've seen in an acquaintance's tank a singleton clown in with some huge silver dollars, and a big black catfish and he wasn't at all shy even though normally they like company of their own kind. You never know with some fish though, they don't always behave how their profile says they should behave. I got home from my first day back at work this year, normally I do 5 hours of part time but there was a lot going on so I stayed for the full day (getting new staff set up for the start of the year) and when I got home, I found the youngest fish fry I had still in the breeder box had all starved to death. I didn't have time to feed them first thing so I'd put extra paramecium and microworms in the night before, hoping they'd be able to pick at them but it just wasn't enough. I did suspect that once I was back at work I'd have trouble keeping the new babies fed so I'd thought about setting up a drip feeder - I just didn't expect them to all die after the very first day. Pretty sad seeing them all laying flat like tiny fallen leaves on the bottom of the box.
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Jan 25, 2017 02:23
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Update: something has gone wrong in my gudgeon tank, either there were dead baby fish for long enough that it poisoned the tank and is affecting the adult fish, or something went wrong earlier and that is what killed the fry. I went to do a water change just now and noticed I could only see one gudgeon and she was black with stress, listless, and clamped fins. I ended up pulling out the driftwood to see if I could find the others, one was just hiding behind it and the other was wedged right inside a cave in the base of the wood. Not stuck as far as I can tell but that one isn't swimming right at all. None of them seem to show any external damage apart from the stress colour and clamped fins. I've just done a big water change and I hope it's not too late to fix whatever the issue is. At the moment I suspect contaminated media from the filter that I set up after moving the oversized hang on filter, even though I rinsed the media out. That's the only "new" thing that has changed since everything was last fine. I reused some media out of the filter for my pond since that is out of action until I get a new pump, it didn't smell bad or look dirty but I rinsed it in old tank water before using it just the same, and the thing that makes me suspect it is that I did notice the gudgeons on the opposite side of the tank to that filter (in the area that used to be affected by the hang on filter). I just assumed they were checking out that side now that the source of water flow was gone, but in hindsight maybe they were avoiding bad water coming out of the replacement filter? Oh actually, I did change the sediment filter and carbon block on my RO system so maybe something isn't right with the water? I'd already done a routine water change earlier and today's water change was on account of dead baby fish. I'll soon find out if the water is the issue, I did a water change on my fry grow out tank too and so far they seem fine but if they die suddenly I can blame the RO system. I had planned to do a water change on the quarantine tank too but I think I'll wait and see how everything else goes so that I don't end up wiping out my gudgeon population. The guys in quarantine all seem quite fine. I hate this time of year, the tap water smells about as bad as swimming pool water right now. I hope my RO membrane isn't failing and letting chlorine through - I've always added a little dechlorinator just in case because I just don't trust what I can't test for. I haven't been able to get hold of a chlorine test kit, they've been sold out every time I look. So chlorine is another suspect even though I only use remineralised RO water. Tank wipe outs are the worst, there is not a lot that kills everything at once so quickly and it is usually stuff you can easily take precautions for, like rinsing hands before doing work in the tank, dechlorination of change water, etc. I feel like I've already taken all the precautions, I can't pinpoint exactly what went wrong, and now I don't know what I need to do to stop the same disaster from happening in my other healthy tanks that haven't been affected yet. And on the flip side, I don't want to just stop maintaining the other tanks because that will only help in the short term.
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Jan 25, 2017 04:46
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Okay, it's not the water. Nothing that had a water change today has died, and the three distressed fish are still alive. One of them tried to swim under the sponge filter, which was sitting flat on the substrate and she only managed to wedge her front half under it. I turned the lights out for them because I guess she's feeling very vulnerable and stressed. I didn't put the drift wood back in yet because its very touch and go, I'd rather be able to see if they've died. They've still got pipes to hide in though. I tested the water for nitrites, wasn't sure if it was worth testing for ammonia due to getting false positives from any treated chloramines but in any case there was no nitrites in the water so I still have no idea what has made them get so sick and stressed. And if it was nitrates, I did a big water change already. If they're still seedy again tomorrow I'll do another big water change I guess? Edit for update: Checked on them just before bed, and while their colouring looks a lot better and at least one of them has stopped clamping her fins, the other female looks terrible still. The male also has improved colour and his tail is back to normal but he isn't swimming quite right. In good news however, the fry that are in their own grow out tank have started feeding from the surface which is a huge relief. I have been really hoping these guys will learn to eat processed foods because it's hard keeping up with live food for them, and I don't think they should be eating just worms. This way at least they're now accepting a bigger variety of food. Prior to this they have only ever taken moving, live food from the water column. I tried them on finely chopped freeze dried tubifex earlier on and they picked at it a little so I'm hopeful that this generation will be easier to feed than the adults. I do wonder if the adults only eating live food caused some kind of problem in the water, maybe I hadn't rinsed the worms clean enough before feeding and some bacteria got in? Maybe the live worms burrowed where they couldnt be eaten and died there? Still no clue. Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Jan 25, 2017 |
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Jan 25, 2017 10:59
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