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All three fish are still alive. Their colour is just about back to normal. None of them are swimming particularly well though. I've done another water change but at this point I think I'll probably lose the small female, even though she's the most active she still has her fins tightly clamped and swims in a clumsy, slow-shimmy style which looks terrible. She does seem to be able to get where she wants to go though. The others have unclamped their fins but they are all hiding and lethargic so all I can do is wait and see how they look in the morning. I haven't bothered trying to feed them yet, they do not look at all interested in anything but hiding. Something else I noticed, I can't see very many snails in that tank at all. I suspect a lot of them were on the driftwood when I took it out but still, I remember there being a lot more and now I can't see any, not even dead ones. I should check behind to see if they've all climbed out, those ramshorns have been pretty much unkillable in the past so it really surprises me that they are now missing. WTF went wrong with my water 
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Jan 26, 2017 20:33
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| # ? Jun 10, 2024 03:18 |
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Well everything from Christmas is put up and away, the house has been cleaned top to bottom, garage organized, cabinets organized (bedroom still a loving mess), new computer desk and monitors dual (27inch so sexy) and a gun safe on order to be installed. I finally found time to get the 55 out of the garage but not set it up yet. It's going against the wall behind my desk. I painted the stand black when I got it so it matches my desk now. I think I'm going to do a cichlid tank!
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Jan 27, 2017 18:08
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Anyone know how to stop nerite snails from laying eggs all over my tank?
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Jan 29, 2017 18:46
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Maybe remove your females and keep only males? Not sure if it's the same for all nerites but I found a pic showing that the male olive Nerite has a skin flap around his right eyestalk where the females have nothing. I also read horned nerites don't lay as many eggs or they are not as noticeable. Some people claim to get no eggs by keeping only one of each variety of Nerite but they might have just got lucky and have only males, as other people say they still get eggs doing this. From what I can see, no one has found anything that eats Nerite eggs, so you have to clean them up yourself or wait for them to break down over time. Nerites are so pretty but I don't think they are available for the aquarium hobby here in Australia.
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Jan 29, 2017 19:09
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Hi thread, I've been reading along for a while and might get into the hobby later on and come around with a million questions. Just out of curiosity, why can you keep bettas in relatively small tanks compared to other fish? Does it have something to do with their natural original habitat? Or they just produce less waste than similarly sized fish so they don't pollute the water as much?
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Jan 29, 2017 22:14
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Their original habitat included filthy mud puddles and they evolved to breathe from the surface in case they ever became stuck in a small silty body of water. They don't need to be kept in a school, they are so territorial so you don't need room for a lot of fish, compared to say neon tetras which are smaller but should be kept in groups of 8-10, and they don't swim in the same way either. So they can survive in a smaller body of water and they don't need that water to be highly oxygenated. But those bettas you see kept in tiny jars, they are often getting daily water changes, they still need clean filtered water so for the average hobbyist it's easier to keep them in a bigger tank due to the extra stability of a larger body of water. They like it warm too so the larger tank of water can be heated and will maintain its heat more evenly too. So it's possible to keep them in small tanks but not necessarily easy or ideal to do so.
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Jan 30, 2017 00:38
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I bought some tank weed a while ago and now I have millions of snails. I also at the same time bought a Rainbow Fish and acquired a small blue yabby. The snails ate the yabby and the guppies overbred and ate the rainbow fish, while the khuli loaches watched in fear. TL;DR, I only have guppies and loaches in my tank now, and a million snails. What is the next best thing to do for my tank? More fish? More weed? Kill snails and put fish in time out?
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Jan 30, 2017 14:28
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Get some assassin snails?
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Jan 30, 2017 14:33
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While bettas might tolerate small environments, they would still be more happy in bigger ones. Be nice to your fish and do get a tank that is larger than a flowerpot. Relatively being the key word in 'relatively small tanks'.
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Jan 30, 2017 14:33
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Yeah I'm most likely just getting inverts, but I always wondered since they also mention bettas as small tank fish. Thanks for the insights!
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Jan 30, 2017 18:59
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Bettas can work with inverts but, it depends on the betta. My first betta didn't care about his 20 cherry shrimp tankmates. My second betta waited until I was elsewhere and slaughtered them all .
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Jan 30, 2017 21:13
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is there a betta version of  ?
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Jan 30, 2017 22:30
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You basically have two bars. The first is "this is fine and good for the fish", the second is "this is really poo poo, but the fish is alive for the moment." With bettas, that second bar is VERY goddamn low. Like sealed chicken egg sized bags with a spoonful of water for shipping. Think of those little gallon-and-under betta containers as living inside of a car. Not living out of a car where you could open the doors and walk around, but stuck inside. With no plumbing.
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Jan 31, 2017 01:08
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Anyone have tips for what to look for in a piece of furniture to use as a tank stand? I'd like to set up my new (used) 20 gallon but I cannot find a stand I can afford. I'm looking at end tables and coffee tables in thrift stores, but worried about finding something sturdy enough.
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Jan 31, 2017 01:45
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peach moonshine posted:Anyone have tips for what to look for in a piece of furniture to use as a tank stand? I'd like to set up my new (used) 20 gallon but I cannot find a stand I can afford. I'm looking at end tables and coffee tables in thrift stores, but worried about finding something sturdy enough. Check craigslist for people getting rid of their tanks and see if anyone will part with a stand? What about the iron metal ones, or do you want wood? BTW, for any Phoenix or AZ goons, we have a fish expo, the SAKE, coming up in March! Free to attend, and guest speakers and a raffle and two auctions. PM me if you want me to register you! (and yes it is free)
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Jan 31, 2017 02:45
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We don't use Craiglist much here. There's a big local fish buy/sell group on Facebook but I've had no luck with it. Was just wondering if there's any designs I should look for or avoid. I'd assume something rectangular like a dresser is stronger than a coffee table with four legs? I guess it's more of an engineering question than a fish question.
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Jan 31, 2017 12:25
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The standard DIY aquarium stand design has the weight of the tank supported by vertical wooden legs which are braced top and bottom so that they can't skew. Depending on the size of the tank, it might have cross supports at the top, or plywood to distribute the weight evenly, but most of the work is done by the vertical supports. Here's an example of one for a tank much bigger than 20 gallons. I don't think you need a middle support or a heap of cross beams for a 20 gallon tank as it's not that heavy. In metric you'd have about 60kg of water + 20kg of glass/substrate/whatever. I don't know what that is in pounds, or how heavy you are, but I reckon you could test whether something is strong enough to support the tank by sitting on it and wiggling to see how sturdy it feels! Coffee tables can work, as long as the legs are braced and under the weight of the tank - and some coffee tables have that same box-like construction supporting the top surface. A dresser or sidetable could work too as long as you can see how thick the internal support materials are. You really only need to start getting super serious about material strength once you get to the much heavier tanks. I think the main thing you want to worry about aside from the strength of the vertical supports, bracing, and whether the top surface is even, is how water resistant the materials are - something like chipboard or ikea style plastic coated cardboard might be strong enough initially but fail quite quickly after exposure to water.
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Jan 31, 2017 13:29
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My keyholes spawned for the first time since I put them in their own tank! I was worried they lost that loving feeling for good.
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Feb 1, 2017 14:24
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Bulky Bartokomous posted:My keyholes spawned for the first time since I put them in their own tank! I was worried they lost that loving feeling for good. I hope you had a waterproof speaker with a full loop of Marvin Gaye playing 24/7 in the tank.
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Feb 1, 2017 18:01
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Stoca Zola posted:The standard DIY aquarium stand design has the weight of the tank supported by vertical wooden legs which are braced top and bottom so that they can't skew. Depending on the size of the tank, it might have cross supports at the top, or plywood to distribute the weight evenly, but most of the work is done by the vertical supports. Here's an example of one for a tank much bigger than 20 gallons. This is a great explanation. Thank you.
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Feb 2, 2017 02:03
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I've seen some really flimsy looking stands that come with the tanks, like what the hell is this one: That looks like plywood or particle board or I don't even know, with just one pole taking the weight. Or this which is just mdf and the large size is for a 60lt tank:  So that's why I think for smaller tanks you can get away with other furniture for your stands, it would have to be at least as strong as that thing.
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Feb 2, 2017 02:34
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I wouldn't be surprised if both of those stands were fairly rigid. On the 1st one you've got 4 posts distributing weight to the bottom plate equally, I'd have made the base itself larger but, that's probably why they don't hire me for their design team. The second one you've got mirrored curves that are going to end up directing force in a downward angle at roughly 30 degrees just based on the slope of the curve. Given the weights at play here it's pretty safe to assume that with opposite but equal force at that angle would lend itself to being less top heavy and wobble. In short, fancy design with clever engineer. or I'm totally wrong and they're absolute crap.
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Feb 2, 2017 06:22
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Yeah they're probably fine even if the first one looks a bit top heavy to me. Wood is pretty strong, and metals even better so I don't think it would be too hard to find a piece of furniture that can safely hold a 20g tank. I've got one on a coffee table myself (an older style chunky styled table). My 30g is on the kitchen counter, I've got another one on a sturdy melamine topped desk. Only two of my tanks are on proper stands now that I think about it.
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Feb 2, 2017 06:29
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My 29 is in a marble top bedside table. Fairly sturdy and I don't worry about it. The 55 I have yet to set up (why can't I stop buying guns so I can set the tank up) came with a cabinet stand
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Feb 2, 2017 06:50
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 Today I accidentally organised to buy someone's entire cherry shrimp colony from them. They were selling a cool little bookshelf tank, which I thought might make a nice shrimp tank. They mentioned that they also had some plants and gravel to sell. And shrimp. And it turns out when I asked how much for any of these things as I was interested in all of them, they were all still together in a tank that the seller hadn't gotten around to breaking down yet (she's leaving the country). This second tank was the one she moved everything to when it had outgrown the first tank. I don't know if I'm a sucker who got bait and switched or if I'm just lucky and had good timing but she's going to sell me the lot - lights, heater, filter included and even fill a water container for me with some of their home water to help let them acclimatise. The plan is to drop the water level and transport everything in the tank (15g). She's got some black carribsea sand as substrate so I don't think it will stir up too much muck & she reckons she took the tank here 5 hours via car doing it that way and everything was fine. I hadn't actually planned for a shrimp colony just yet but I did want to try cherry shrimp again and I'm at the point now where I really need to split up my peacock gudgeon fry. I think an established shrimp tank could be a very nice environment for fry to grow out! And the shrimp can eat any fry food that the fry don't find. I'm now definitely at 100% fish tank capacity, after this shrimp tank there is no more room for any other tanks.
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Feb 5, 2017 17:42
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Stoca Zola posted:I'm now definitely at 100% fish tank capacity, after this shrimp tank there is no more room for any other tanks. We've all said that before.
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Feb 6, 2017 14:11
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Anyone have experience setting up a tank using the walstad method? I want to set up a tank to move my corries to and get cherry shrimp. The last time I had cherry shrimp, before my beta decided to murder them all, frequent water changes usually resulted in a die off. I think this kind of low maintenance tank would be the best way to start another colony.
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Feb 6, 2017 21:44
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Stoca Zola posted:I'm now definitely at 100% fish tank capacity, after this shrimp tank there is no more room for any other tanks. You can always add volume by digging down.
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Feb 6, 2017 21:52
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Azuth0667 posted:Anyone have experience setting up a tank using the walstad method? The cherry shrimp colony that I'm picking up on Thursday has been set up in a tank with a handful of dirt/organic potting mix capped with inert black sand/fine gravel. The plants look amazing (although they are typical lowlight plants) and the shrimp seem happy and healthy, despite the current owner using rainwater which I would have thought would be too soft for them. The owner swears by the handful of dirt method. I've tried it myself, using a half inch layer of dirt/potting mix and capped with an inch of pea gravel and it is messy as hell. The gravel is maybe too big, I used too much dirt, the water goes brown and smelly and there have been bacterial blooms galore, but the plants I put in that tank seemed to do really well. You have to stick with how you plant the tank though, pulling up a plant disturbs so much crap that you pretty much need a 100% water change! You just aren't meant to mess with the plants I think. The way I did it, it takes lots of water changes and lots of patience for the bacteria to settle down and for the tank to become inhabitable by non-plants. I never actually got to that point, months later the water is still brown and gross. I've read you can get around that by pre-treating the dirt/potting mix - soaking it, putting it outside in the sun, letting it dry out, soaking it again, etc for many cycles and this lets the bacteria mineralise the organics to make them more useful for the plants when you eventually use it in your tank. There are people on YouTube successfully "dirting" their tanks by just digging up soil from the yard and baking it in the oven to sterilise it but this depends very much on what your local soil is like. Here I have barren red sand, so not useful. I haven't been able to get the recommended John Innes #3 potting mix that is commonly mentioned either. I want to try the mineralising process on the potting mix I have to see if it works better, there's some disgusting hot weather coming up so that might be a good time to get my dirt baked. There's an ex-turtle tank that I want to break down because something is wrong with it. I have a big mattenfilter which is the prefilter for a canister and a trickle filter so I think the filtration is fine. The plants do okay, maybe the return flow is a little too strong but it's a deep tank so the lower levels are a lot calmer. The issue is, over the last week or so I keep finding single dead female guppies. I'm starting to suspect the males are badgering them to death since the other fish are fine and no male guppies have died, the dead females look intact and healthy with no signs of disease so it's a real mystery. It was supposed to be a breeding tank for a particular patterning of wild guppy that I like but that just won't work if all the females die. The plan is to move them all to smaller tubs and then maybe I can redo this dud tank with a dirted bottom and have a dedicated plant growing tank. I still don't actually have room for the new shrimp tank and have yet to start making room! But that's today's plan. I got up for a drink in the night and caught my rosy barbs spawning so I wouldn't mind gravel vaccing that tank for eggs to put out in the pond too.
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Feb 7, 2017 08:39
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I'm using dirt capped with pool filter sand in my new (used) 20 gallon tank. In fact, I just set it up tonight! My hope is also to have cory cats in there eventually. The woman who owns the local fish store has a cory obsession right now, so she has many varieties in stock, including beautiful black venezuelan corydoras  It is indeed messy so far, but it isn't too hard to clean up the stray dirt with a mini python vacuum.
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Feb 9, 2017 01:39
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Ended up postponing picking up the shrimp tank today since it's the middle of a 40+ degree C heatwave. Might spend the time to break down this ex-turtle tank. It has a built in turtle dock which I never wanted to remove, I had an idea to have a tray of plants in shallower water there to get more light but I wonder if it's contributing to the issues with that tank. The corners have cutaways which allow water flow and the fish use it as shortcuts. But it blocks light to 1/3 of the tank, and duckweed gets trapped under it. I could cut the silicone and take the dock out and just have it as a deep aquarium, I'm never going to keep turtles but I might keep deeper bodied fish that would appreciate the height.
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Feb 9, 2017 04:46
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Woke up this morning to find that my new (used) 20 gallon is leaking. I know that's always a risk with buying secondhand, but this is the first time it happened to me. The guy who sold it to me seemed fine. Wouldn't think someone with such a nice house would need to sell broken stuff on Facebook for extra cash. Still, I should have done my due diligence and tested it before setting up. Lesson learned.
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Feb 9, 2017 11:59
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Can you see where it's leaking from? or is there just a puddle around the tank? It's probably going to be a mess to get the dirt and sand out but resealing a tank isn't that hard if you want to try and patch it yourself. I recently redid a 15 gallon that I got cheap where the silicone was visibly missing - it was the first time I'd ever done it and I would say the hardest parts were just trying to not use too much silicone, and trying to keep it neat. I couldn't find my masking tape so I couldn't get crisp edges but it still looks fine once filled. I just followed a youtube video to give me an idea of what to do and it didn't take very long at all. As the guy in the video says, if an unused tank gets stored somewhere where it gets cold, it can wreck the silicone, so maybe the seller didn't know they sold you a dud? Who knows. I took all the plants and stuff out of my ex-turtle tank to have a go at moving the fish out so I could work on removing the dock, adding sand, etc. I can't catch any of the bloody fish. The dock gets in the way, they just hide under it, there are only lids on each end with a wide brace in the middle, it's really hard to manoeuvre the net, in short it's driving me nuts and I give up. I even dropped the water level and it didn't help at all. Think I'll just put the water back in and do everything with all fish in. Its just guppies and a trio of stray rosy barbs but even putting food in the net and hoping something would swim in to eat it didn't work.
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Feb 9, 2017 16:28
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Lost my second biggest Frontosa overnight =( He was right around 9" almost 10", and at least 6 years old. Noticed he was swimming a little odd last night, bumping into the glass and objects in the tank. Pulled him out into my hospital/observation tank, and he seemed to calm down a bit. Didn't notice anything physically wrong, but he seemed off somehow. This morning when I went down, he was stiff as a board. Always sucks losing a fish, but losing big fish hurts more for some dumb reason.
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Feb 9, 2017 16:30
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Does anyone know where to get a reasonably priced reverse osmosis filter? I really want to start a tank in my new house with city water, my attempts previously to do it without RO water failed.
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Feb 13, 2017 15:48
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high six posted:Does anyone know where to get a reasonably priced reverse osmosis filter? I really want to start a tank in my new house with city water, my attempts previously to do it without RO water failed. I've been using this refurb Spectra Pure 90gpd unit for the last few years with zero problems. It came highly recommended from a few reef forums. http://spectrapure.com/Refurbished-90-GPD-RODI-System
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Feb 13, 2017 16:01
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The one I use is just a three stage RO filter with sediment filter -> carbon -> membrane. I don't have the deionisation part and I don't know if you need them? I can use mine for both drinking water and for fish water as the TDS is adjustable via a mixer valve. I did have to pay a bit more for my carbon to get one that could handle chloramine; if you don't know whether your water is chlorinated or has chloramine, it's definitely worth finding out so you can get the right filter which will give your RO membrane a longer life. The guy I got mine from keeps discus, so it was good not being pressured into buying some overpriced "drink alkaline water for health!" bullshit system. It looks pretty similar to the one Enos Cabell posted, although mine has a dual TDS meter built in. Useful to set the mix, or see whether the membrane is still working. Not really necessary, I'm just too lazy and don't want to go find my TDS meter every time I use the RO system. It's so good to have change water quality to be a known factor. One less thing to worry about. Oh I picked up the shrimp tank yesterday, drained the water level right down and kept it in a Jerry can to put back in once we got home, and managed to do the move with no casualties. I should post a picture, it's exactly how I've always wanted to set up a tank for shrimp. Black Tahitian moon sand, layered over a tiny bit of dirt for the plants, healthy crypts, Windelof Java fern, a couple of nice established little anubias, a really nice LED light. And tons of healthy red cherry shrimp, saddled females and berried females galore. According to the previous owner, she once went on holidays and left the colony under the care of her grandmother for 6 weeks. The grandmother overfed and didn't do any water changes so there were lots of dead shrimp when she got back. This colony that I have grew from the survivors of that disaster, who repopulated and outgrew their original tank before being moved into the one they're in now. Hopefully that means they're tough, not that I intend to give them a hard life. I was intrigued as to how she was keeping such a healthy colony, and she had been using rainwater from her tank for water changes which I would have thought was way too soft for cherry shrimp. The TDS of the shrimp tank water is around 110, and the water she gave me from her rainwater tank has a TDS of 30, possibly because it's a concrete tank? Not sure. I wanted to be sure to be able to water change without shocking the shrimp so I will be doing more tests tomorrow. With my RO system and various remineralisers I should be able to mix up something pretty close I think.
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Feb 13, 2017 16:42
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 So far, so good! Maybe not the best pic but you get the idea. I decided to try moving a couple of poorly coloured cherry shrimp into the peacock gudgeon tank to join the clean up crew. I figured adult shrimp are much bigger than gudgeon mouths, so possibly safe. Unfortunately I can't see those shrimp any more and I suspect they were both eaten so I won't be doing that again.
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Feb 15, 2017 17:46
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Bought 6 leatacara dorsierga or red bellied acaras a 4 months ago anybody have any experience with them?Got them as juveniles and now they've doubled in size and are starting to colour up, they're really hard to sex though
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Feb 18, 2017 00:46
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| # ? Jun 10, 2024 03:18 |
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I don't know what's doing it but, something is consuming my pH buffers. pH was 7.6 and kh was 161ppm a week ago. This was after a water change and they aren't phosphate based buffers so I don't think the plants are doing it. Now the pH dropped to 6.0 and the kh dropped to 53.7 ppm. That drop killed my bacteria too so now the tank is cycling again. Filters haven't changed, water hasn't changed and the only new inhabitants are MTS which I think area now dead. gently caress.
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Feb 18, 2017 16:49
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