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nunsexmonkrock posted:Some fish are hardier than others, what kind were the ones that passed and what kind are still living? there were two of each originally Synthbuttrange posted:Usual culprit in sudden ph crashes is your ph buffer running out, though why it recovered if you didnt do anything, I'm not so sure. Are you just doing water changes regularly? I put a bunch of petco stabilizers in until one started doing something, this was over the course of a few months where even a 75% water change would be right back off-the-charts acid by the next morning. it's all reading fine now, I'm still adding buffering stuff, and I'm doing water changes every couple weeks (as much to police up the uneaten food as anything else)
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Mar 6, 2017 19:42
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So I've had this idea for awhile to start a CO2 injected freshwater tank, and after about a year of accumulating parts and slowly putting this thing together I finally flipped the "final" switch last night and filled it with water. There's still some things to do in the initial set up to get it all dialed in and some Riccia rocks to make and add but I'm really happy with how its starting out: Parts
30" Finnex Planted+ 24/7 (may be adding a 2nd one soon...) Eheim Classic 150 canister filter Eheim Jager 75 heater (modded to be in-line) DIY 'Cerges' CO2 reactor 15# CO2 cylinder Burkert Solenoid Ideal Valve needle valve Fluval bubble counter, Rinox drop checker, and misc. odds and ends.
A. reineckii 'purple' H. callitrichoides R. fluitans (not pictured) S. repens Ludwigia spp. 'super red mini' Anubias Nana 'petite' Flame moss Christmas moss 'mini' (maybe) Lots of Bucephalandra varieties Dry start method begun on Feb. 4th. Initial planting along with the first mosses I ordered that didn't take well to the dry start. Only had it take in a few places, ended up buying more flame moss before flooding.  Dry start after 1 month, taken March 4th. before flooding  Close up during dry start  Buce stock in quarantine prior to planting, varieties include: Brownie Blue, Brownie Phantom, Black Bell, Mini Arrowhead, Blue Velvet, Kedagang, Mini Coin, Mini Lamadau, and a Silver Powder the seller included for free.  Flooded with everything running!  Closer shot post flood with the HC and Ludwigia pearling like a mofo  This is the first time I've tried a set up this advanced and involved with live plants. At some point (a month or 2 from now) I'm planning on adding some crystal shrimp or some blue tigers. Any feedback or advice is welcome. The system has the pedal to the floor right now wrt nutrients trying to get things established but I have a feeling the next big trick is trying to strike the right balance with ferts/CO2/light.
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Mar 6, 2017 20:12
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That looks so awesome! What exactly is a dry start? Growing the plants out before adding water?
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Mar 7, 2017 02:57
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Growing before adding water, with the lid on / film cover to prevent evaporation and keeping the moisture high.
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Mar 7, 2017 03:11
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Looks great wuffles!
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Mar 7, 2017 03:24
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What substrate did you use? The hardscape looks great, hope it doesn't get too buried behind those plants as they grow. Hopefully with high light they will grow bushy rather than tall and leggy.
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Mar 7, 2017 03:32
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Oh hey, it's March, which means it's time for the free annual fish expo in Phoenix! The Southwest Aquarium Keepers Event! We have guest speakers lined up, a raffle, two auctions, and the fucker is free! March 25, if you want to come, shoot me a PM and I'll get your goon rear end registered. I will be bringing a poo poo ton of bristlenose plecos, possibly some eartheaters, and some albino yellow lab cichlids.
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Mar 7, 2017 04:26
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Crosspost from sw thread, but whatever Getting closer to moving my freshwater 120g downstairs and turning it into my new reef tank. I really hate the factory stand this tank came with, so Sunday afternoon I threw this together. 2x6 and 2x4 put together with pocket screws, 36" tall so plenty of room for sump and equipment. I'll get it sanded down, then primed and painted this week.  
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Mar 7, 2017 05:33
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Tony Doughnuts posted:That looks so awesome! What exactly is a dry start? Growing the plants out before adding water? Thanks, and yeah that and what Synth said are pretty much what it is. Only thing I would add is that moisture is a balancing act and it differs somewhat per plant. You have to air it out to dry regularly and while it was perfect for the rooted plants, the moss suffered. Makes planting way easier and nothing floats away if you do it right. Stoca Zola posted:What substrate did you use? The hardscape looks great, hope it doesn't get too buried behind those plants as they grow. Hopefully with high light they will grow bushy rather than tall and leggy. The base is 70/30 Seachem Flourite black and black diamond blasting sand. The top covering is just the blasting sand. I do intend to leave certain parts of the slate exposed and one of my main goals is to fill the crevices with the buces and have a couple of large bushy areas mixed in. The 'cave' in particular should provide a nice negative space as well since it will always be in full shade. I'm basically looking to do another month of heavy growth like I did with the dry start on the rooted plants and do a trim/propagate/replant in April. While everything I started a month ago is going like gang busters, the new additions are still adjusting to their new home. The ludwigia probably needs a trim next water change.
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Mar 7, 2017 06:07
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Enos Cabell posted:Looks great wuffles! Thanks Enos Cabell posted:Crosspost from sw thread, but whatever That looks nice, I think I'm gonna have to buy a pocket screw jig for the next one I build. I just did nailers out of the scrap from the legs, but even though you won't see it from the outside I wish I had that cleaner look on the inside--I'd have more room under there for sure. Here's the guts (you can see the room the extra 2x4s take up), I'm still working on finishing the stand:  Timer, CO2 setup, Ehiem canister filter, and a really cool combination cerges CO2 reactor/diy inline heater design I cribbed from a guy on the planted tank forums Got the timer for the solenoid and lights programmed and I added a small fulval powerhead from an old Edge aquarium and a sponge filter from my previous well-established FW tank for a little more mixing and to kick start the new canister filter. Water parameters at midday today with CO2 running were Ph 6.5, Kh 2, Gh 12 -- I'm assuming the Gh is reading so high because I'd just dosed some trace elements with calcium and magnesium ions about 12 hours before hand and the rhizome bound plants and mosses aren't 'awake' enough yet to be drawing much out of the water column. Might do a 20% water change tomorrow and a half dosage of ferts and see what it looks like by wednesday.
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Mar 7, 2017 06:36
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I have another request for advice. I know my betta has more water and plants and decorations than the average betta, but I'm really worried about the one-inch-per-gallon thing creeping up on me. Is it better to go with a kit or to DIY? At what point does it become hard to manage the tank on a literal desktop? How do I take a picture of it and the tank without appearing in the reflection?
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Mar 7, 2017 12:12
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Polarized filters cut out reflections. How large is the tank your betta's in? As long as it's not literally a gallon it should be okay. Kit or DIY... what? A whole setup? Getting the parts yourself is usually cheaper. A small tank is easier to do water changes and maintainence on but it has less room for stuff to go wrong since the water quantity is so limited.
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Mar 7, 2017 12:22
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If you can catch the kits on sale they can be cheaper but you end up potentially not getting exactly what you want. I bought my first tank as a kit and laid less than $100 For the tank, hood, lights, filter, and heater. I wish I would've gotten tube lights instead of the led that came with the kit tho.
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Mar 7, 2017 13:15
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A tip I saw for getting good shots of your fish tank is to turn off all the other lights, close the blinds etc and let the main light source be the light in the tank. I always forget, or the glass is filthy, or I don't know where the charger is for my actual camera and I end up using a mobile device instead resulting in absolute potatographs like this: This is one of the brand new Platydoras I got today. They were a lot smaller than I expected and are incredibly cute and extremely shy, and have already dug themselves tiny caves under the rocks. I'm a little worried they're going to wedge themselves somewhere and get stuck or buried but despite the awkward looking shape they seem rather nimble, I saw one reversing himself into a gap so that's already a lot more manoeuvrable than a cory. Their names from largest to smallest are Toblerone, Cadbury and Kinder Surprise (kinder because it's the smallest one and surprise because I'll be shocked if I ever see it again). I figured they'd stress out in a bare quarantine tank and I'd never see them if I gave them cover, so I moved all the guppies out and put them straight in with the rosy barbs and I'm going to use the barbs as sentinel fish in case of ich etc. So, the "One inch per gallon" saying is a ballpark guideline not a rule anyway, and it kind of doesn't work. You might be able to fit 10 one inch fish in a ten gallon tank, but if they are zoomy or territorial fish they won't be happy, and you certainly won't be putting one 10 inch fish in a ten gallon tank. Your limitation is not only the tank volume, but the filtration, and the needs of the fish themselves. The footprint of the tank is more important than the total volume as the surface area of the water determines how much oxygen gets in, or if you're looking at angels or discus, the tank height is important too. A huge tank with a tiny filter won't support many inches of fish either. One of the reasons I ended up with so many tanks was so I wasn't worrying about trying to cram all the fish I wanted into just one tank and wasn't worried about having to work out compromises for temperature, hardness, flow rate etc for fish with different requirements. Plus I had immediate problems with interspecies aggression and fish on plant violence. If you want more fish and you have space for a second tank, it isn't that much harder to look after two tanks than it is to look after one. Although maybe I'm not the best person to get advice from on that front. I've seen a lot of tank stands built with 2x4s, are 2x6s stronger again? I read somewhere not to use 4x4s since they're often a bit warped and it can put the tank at risk of cracking or popping a seam if the stand isn't square and true. Enos Cabell that stand looks pretty sleek without middle supports, I like that design. I didn't know pocket screws were a thing until today.
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Mar 7, 2017 18:36
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Stoca Zola posted:I've seen a lot of tank stands built with 2x4s, are 2x6s stronger again? I read somewhere not to use 4x4s since they're often a bit warped and it can put the tank at risk of cracking or popping a seam if the stand isn't square and true. Enos Cabell that stand looks pretty sleek without middle supports, I like that design. I didn't know pocket screws were a thing until today. 2x4s only would be fine up to about 100g or so, past that you want 2x6 or 2x8 for the top frame depending on the size of the tank. This is what lets you get away with not putting another leg in the center. I built a stand in the same style a year and a half ago for my 180g 6 foot tank, and had to use 2x8s for the top frame on that one.  I'm going to paint this current stand in that same style. e: and this Kreg pocket hole jig has been a HUGE help in building stands. Enos Cabell fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Mar 7, 2017 |
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Mar 7, 2017 19:05
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I use a Nikon B500 for all my fish pics. What i found works well is taking a piece of paper and wrapping it around the flash to diffuse the flash and soften the light. I also press the lens up against the glass to eliminate glare/ the camera focusing on the glass My Bumblebee and Demasoni cichlids in my 55g tank    
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Mar 7, 2017 19:07
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Thanks for all the advice. I'll probably go the kit route Here's the tank right now. I did a tank top-off last week (evaporation loss) and a cycling yesterday. But I may as well switch to a cycling/topping off every week. I wound up having to use the tanks lights and the flash to get a clear picture. I forgot the flash filter though. Today I removed the dead plants, resettled the live plants, cleared debris, replaced the filter, and added silk plants to make up for the lost live plants. I haven't added the lava rock healthy bacteria thing yet but you wouldn't be able to see it where I plan to put it anyways. If these plants don't make it I'll go with something else.  I think Saphire Bullet has fin rot. When I bought him the Petco staff treated the odd colorations as fine (pink, white, etc), and they recommended 25% water changes every 3 weeks because I had a filter and a heater and betta conditioner (and a week later the betta stress coat stuff). Two weeks later he's mostly solid blue with bigger fins. He's more active now too. But his tail has always had a sort of darkness to it which looked odd, and the white streaks in his top and bottom fin might be transparent. You can sort of see the white streaks in the top pic, they're most noticeable when his fins are spread. Those pics came out blurry. 
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Mar 8, 2017 03:22
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2nd light arrived and I'm really happy with the results. Much better coverage and its really helping bring out more of the reds in the ludwigia  Had a small amount of clouding yesterday, did a 10% WC and its back to pretty much clear. Haven't added any more ferts but cranked the CO2 up a bit more for the additional light. Got a couple of new leaves/shoots on some of the bucephalandra so that's a good sign. The materials to make the 4dkh standard solution for the drop checker arrives tomorrow so until then I have no idea how much CO2 is actually in the water column and I'm just guessing at it--luckily there's no livestock to harm yet if I gently caress it up a bit. 
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Mar 8, 2017 16:51
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RandomPauI posted:I think Saphire Bullet has fin rot. I don't think he looks unhealthy, although I'm not super familiar with bettas. The edges of the membrane between his rays in his fins doesn't look ragged to me. I suppose it depends on which bacteria is involved but when I had a bad finrot outbreak, I had fish who had ragged edged fins one day, half the tail gone the next day, and no tail at all the third day. In other words, the diseased fins were really obvious and it moved fast. If you don't see any change in the non-pigmented areas on his fins, it might just be that's what colour he is. Just keep the betta's water clean (what do you mean when you say you cycle the water?) and the gravel clear of wastes, and if he has any mechanical damage to his fins, it should heal up by itself. He's got a lot of room to move and to rest without his fins rubbing on stuff and getting hurt in that tank. Maybe stick a prefilter sponge over your filter inlet in case his fins get sucked against it while he's asleep? Everything else looks pretty good to me.
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Mar 8, 2017 17:54
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wuffles posted:2nd light arrived and I'm really happy with the results. Much better coverage and its really helping bring out more of the reds in the ludwigia Is a drop checker necessary? I thought most people just keep tabs on their pH.
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Mar 8, 2017 23:37
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Bareback Werewolf posted:Is a drop checker necessary? I thought most people just keep tabs on their pH. I'm not sure I'd use the word necessary but monitoring pH alone isn't very helpful because there are other sources of acid and buffers in the aquarium. The true purpose of the drop checker is to fill it with a solution of a known dkh along with the bromothymol blue indicator as opposed to tank water. This is done so that the only buffer present inside the drop checker is carbonate--an effective standard solution can be made with distilled water and baking soda. The result is that any change in color of the indicator molecule due to change in pH can be attributed 'directly' to the increase/decrease of CO2 in the water column and not other factors in the tank. This gives you a better/standard reference for using pH as a proxy for CO2 ppm. For conveneince sake, most standards are made at 4 dkh because the general consensus is that about 30ppm is ideal for CO2 concentration in a planted aquarium and bromothymol blue turns green at 30ppm in a 4 dkh solution. If its blue you don't have enough and need to turn up your bubbles per second and if its yellow you have more and can turn it down. Some run a higher CO2 concentration with more light, so the 5 dkh solution bumps that transition point up to about 45ppm. If you're using tank water with a different dkh and buffers other than carbonate this system becomes confounded. You can check to make sure you have a 1 degree swing in pH between night and day if you're cutting off CO2 at night (it is, and I am) to kinda make sure you're in the ball park of what's considered normal but its a very relative measurement that doesn't get at CO2 concentration directly.
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Mar 9, 2017 00:52
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Stoca Zola posted:Just keep the betta's water clean (what do you mean when you say you cycle the water?) I do an 8 cup replacement of the water, which is somewhere around a 20-25% water change. The tank is supposed to hold 40 cups of water but the extra stuff in the tank takes up the space of, like, 6 cups of water. I also add more to make up for water that's lost to evaporation. I think I added 9 or 10 cups of treated water even though I took out 8 cups. The waters a blend of tap and mineral water, it gets betta and stress conditioner added, it sits for 30 minutes with a small heater in it, then it gets added to the tank. Saphire Bullet stays in the tank the whole time. Stoca Zola posted:and the gravel clear of wastes I didn't do a gravel cleaning because I thought that was only supposed to happen every two months. I did remove everything from the tank (Saphire Bullet was placed in a small isolation/carrying tank) and agitated the gravel to kick up dead plant matter along with anything else in it. That got removed with a shrimp fishnet. I also replaced the filter (green from dead plant matter), changed to a fish food that's easier to dose and to see get eaten, and removed 3 dying plants. Stoca Zola posted:Maybe stick a prefilter sponge over your filter inlet in case his fins get sucked against it while he's asleep? Everything else looks pretty good to me. I'll look into that right now. Footnote: The advice on Betta websites is all over the place. Eventually, everything blurred together. Like I'd need to do a cycle every few days, clean everything, move Saphire to an isolation tank but otherwise keep him in his tank water, buy one of several kinds of medicines and apply them in the main tank or in an isolation tank, expose him to certain kinds of salt baths in water hot enough to kill bacteria/fungus but low enough to not kill the fish. It was as if any method could work assuming it didn't kill him first.
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Mar 9, 2017 01:14
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Don't do the saltwater baths, heat baths, or anything related to that. We did that sort of thing when we were doing research with Bettas and even with established protocols it seemed to kill ~20% of the fish.
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Mar 9, 2017 01:52
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There's always indian almond leaf. Just try not to spend all day smelling the stuff.
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Mar 9, 2017 04:08
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Indian almond leaf is great, also called catappa or katappa maybe, I use it for all my shrimp, fry and catfish tanks. It doesn't take much to get a nice stain to the water but it's good for the fish even if you aren't keen on how it looks.RandomPauI posted:Water change stuff Ahh I get you, to me cycling is getting the nitrogen cycle going and "having a cycle" or "restarting the cycle" is a bad thing, it means the filter bacteria aren't keeping up with the wastes in the tank. I'm not sure what filter you have but if you are getting rid of all the media every time, your bacteria might need to build up again and you could have nitrogen cycle issues. That's why you saying "cycle the water" caught my attention. RandomPauI posted:I didn't do a gravel cleaning because I thought that was only supposed to happen every two months. I'd say you don't need to do a super thorough cleaning every time, but if you suspect food is building up in the bottom or you can see some gunk it's better to siphon it out when you do your water change rather than leaving it to some artificial schedule. As with everything, what works for someone else might not work for you. It's a good starting point to try out other people's advice but always expect to adjust things according to the needs of your specific fish and your specific tank. Once every couple of months might be fine once things have settled down, the only way to really tell is just monitor it yourself and clean it if it looks gunky. RandomPauI posted:The advice on Betta websites is all over the place. Eventually, everything blurred together. Like I'd need to do a cycle every few days, clean everything, move Saphire to an isolation tank but otherwise keep him in his tank water, buy one of several kinds of medicines and apply them in the main tank or in an isolation tank, expose him to certain kinds of salt baths in water hot enough to kill bacteria/fungus but low enough to not kill the fish. It was as if any method could work assuming it didn't kill him first. This is true for many of the commonly kept beginner fish too. Anyone can throw up some info on a web page, claiming to have the one true way to raise a fish (just because it happened to work for them one time). I haven't been keeping fish long but so far I've found I have had much more success when I stick to keeping it simple. The fundamental things a fish needs to be healthy are clean stable water with correct mineral levels, good food, enough room, and a stress free environment. Medication and baths should be a last resort and often don't work anyway since you might not get the right medication for the job, or the bacteria or parasite might be resistant. Before small filters were available I think it actually was common practice to throw out all the water and clean out the tank/bowl each time, but of course this increases stress for the fish even if it does supply good clean water. Or there was another method of fishkeeping where it was thought to be better to keep the fish in their own gross yellow water because they would die from the shock of being moved to clean water - the change was too great. We know better now, which is why we aim to do smaller more frequent water changes, and it's easier to enlist mechanical, biological and chemical filtration to keep water cleaner for longer than to have to dump out the whole lot each time. The way you described your water changes sounded perfectly fine to me. If you're getting a lot of evaporation you might end up with mineral build up in the water so that's something to keep an eye on, maybe a TDS tester (fairly cheap online) could help you keep track of that. I think you sound like you've done a pretty good job so far of looking after Sapphire Bullet, and the more experience you get, the easier it will be. Don't let it stress you out too much! You're giving your fish the very best home you can and that's what counts.
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Mar 9, 2017 20:30
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Yesterday the tank got a good cleaning (water problems plus the log seemed to be filled with brown algae) so Saphire Bullet was put in an isolation tank where he'll get daily bottled water changes along with water treatments and bettafix. He also has two silk plants. I can see his fins much better now and can even take pics much more easily to compare and contrast. The water problems weren't found by my testing strips: I'd been using or reading them wrong. They were revealed by a frog. The day before I went to a local fish store to see if they had sponge filters for the water-intake or suitable plants. They didn't have those but they did have an African Clawed Dwarf Frog; I'm an easy sell. This unnamed amphibian companion was trying to stay out of the tank water as much as possible a mere 12 hours after being introduced to it. She is in her own isolation tank with straight mineral water. It has a heater that'll get turned on and off as needed, a pvc pipe to hide in, and a thermometer. She'll have to make due with dehydrated bloodworms for her diet for the time being. I keep waffling on what to do next. I can try to get feeding her and the betta to work out somehow. I can keep her in the isolation tank for a month or so and then buy a separate tank and the proper food for her. I can put her up for adoption. Or I take her back to the store. Every reasonable person has said take her back to the store.
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Mar 12, 2017 10:06
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What kind of cleaning did you give the tank that requires the inhabitants to be out of the tank for multiple days? What bottled water are you using? I think you can get premix betta water, but if you're using bottled drinking water definitely can have chlorine in it unless you can get pure "organic" chlorine free mineral water wherever you are. Any particular reason you are using bottled water and have stopped using tap water? Does your water conditioner treat both chlorine and chloramines? Why exactly can't you keep the frog and the betta together? (is it just because of the bettafix?) I thought bettas and frogs got on reasonably well. What exactly is the feeding issue? Why are you using bettafix? I honestly couldn't see any sign of injury, nothing severe enough that needed medication. The white bits looked pretty intact and healthy even if they weren't blue. Have you got better pictures showing any kind of fin rot progression? If its not getting worse you probably shouldn't be medicating the fish. So both animals are in isolation now? What's wrong with putting one of them in the tank? I'm not trying to criticise here, I'm just trying to follow your thinking and get more information. If there's no shaped pre-filter sponge available you can get a cheap block of filter foam (like would go into a hang on back filter for example) and poke a hole in it with some scissors and use that over the filter inlet, it's just to prevent direct contact between betta fins and the inlet so it doesn't have to be anything fancy. A lot of people swear by test strips, but I think they can expire or fail if they aren't stored in a dry place. I haven't seen them available here, so I just use a wet test kit (API brand). Their ammonia test gets false positive results from detecting treated chloramines in the water so I don't tend to rely on it, moreso for nitrite levels during setting up a new tank, and nitrate levels for making sure my water change schedule is good enough in older tanks. If you have known good and known bad water (ie your bottled water, and then maybe an ammonia source) you could test your test strips to see if they react properly?
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Mar 12, 2017 17:57
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Anyone know of a good easy test for dissolved organic carbon?
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Mar 12, 2017 20:03
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Stoca Zola posted:What kind of cleaning did you give the tank that requires the inhabitants to be out of the tank for multiple days? I planned on using the bettafix in Saphire's isolation tank for the next 6 days. Seeing Saphire in the isolation tank let me get a close look at her; a week of isolation for small fin tears and some bad water is a bit much. They're both back in the tank, Stoca Zola posted:Water and treatment questions I'd mostly been using Crystal Geyser for bottled water, but I used Sparklets for one isolation tank. The water treatments are complete betta water conditioner and stresscoat+. The first time around I happened to have a few 1 gallon jugs of crystal geyser that were close to expiring (I forgot all about them). The tank needed to be filled so I figured why not use those? The second time I used a blend of tap water and crystal geyser, added the betta and stress treatment, let it set for 30 minutes, then added a heater to it once I remembered that the water should be at about the same temperature. The third time I was doing an emergency tank cleaning and went "gently caress it". I kept 25% of the original tank water, 50% treated tap water, and a cup of Sparklets that was leftover from filling an isolation tank. That combination was allowed to rest in the tank for a day before I adding the fish and frog back. Stoca Zola posted:Why are you using bettafix? I was told by the PetCo folk that the levels were off and they would be really stressful to the fish and I may well use bettafix to correct the damage. I'm an easy sell. To be fair, I'd planned on putting Saphire in an isolation tank and adding some aquarium salt while the very tiny tears healed. Stoca Zola posted:Testing strip stuff I was using sealed packs of the API testing strips, but I need to get more since I used my last one yesterday. The PetCo also used testing strips, but they were stored loose in closed plastic bottles. They recomended buying a wet testing system but I didn't think to pick one up then. Doh. I fed Saphire and the unnamed frog in the isolation tanks this morning. I don't know how I'll feed the frog before Saphire gets to the food.
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Mar 12, 2017 23:17
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I've now learned that shrimp like to escape. They're not the brightest bulbs, are they?
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Mar 13, 2017 01:29
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Luneshot posted:I've now learned that shrimp like to escape. They're not the brightest bulbs, are they? I had shrimp in a tank with a lid. Even with a tiny gap between the rim, I would find dried shrimp by the tank regularly.
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Mar 13, 2017 01:38
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Okay, I've got a tray set for the frog, it needs food that sinks to the bottom though, since turkey bastering the bloodworms to the bottom of the tank just causes them to shoot up tot he middle or top. Time for PetCo sinking food? Edit: The sinking food was bought for the frog, along with a nice 2 dollar tray to hold her food, and a few more testing strips. I forgot about the foam. Here's a picture of Saphire Bullet when he was still in his isolation tank. This was a surprise shot. Saphire tends to hide once he becomes aware of a camera. If the white stuff isn't fuzzy and hasn't moved after 3 weeks it probably isn't fin rot. It still worries me.  Here's a picture of the as yet unnamed frog in the tank, I couldn't quite get the camera to focus well.  Here's a picture of the final, definitive tank set-up. Until someone points out something is horribly wrong. I'm totally fine with the PVC piping given my experience with the log.  Fake edit: I keep shortening Saphire Bullet's name anyways so the Betta's getting renamed to Saphire. The unnamed frog will become Bullet to preserve the TMBG reference. Real-edit 2: I cut the background too short and didn't realise it needed glue to stick to the inside so it's taped to the outside instead. RandomPauI fucked around with this message at 04:26 on Mar 13, 2017 |
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Mar 13, 2017 01:43
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I think Bullet is a good name for a frog really. That's a pretty clear picture of Saphire's fins and it really just looks like some marbling on fin, the fin edge is well defined and intact and the rays all look fine to me. But I've never kept bettas, I've just looked at lots of pictures on the Internet and thought about whether I should get one or not - I do find the genetics behind getting all the different fin shapes and colours really fascinating. Bettas (and guppies too) have different pigment layers in their skin and you get the different colours from combinations of these. According to this interesting website there is a gene for marbling and if this gene gets mixed in with solid colour genetics it's difficult to get consistent solid colour bettas again. It could be that Saphire's brothers were more marbled and were sold as marbled bettas but he is very nearly solid blue. So maybe he's a failed marble, or maybe his parents looked solid but carried the marble gene and he's showing some expression of that gene. If he was bred for bulk sale maybe his parents weren't carefully selected at all and that's just how he came out. I think your tank looks good and clean, and maybe the best way to keep it that way is to take Bullet out to a small feeding container at mealtimes so they have time to notice and eat the food before Saphire gets to it. I think a lot of people feed their turtles that way too and the display tank stays cleaner. If all you have is dried bloodworm that might be fine if you soak it nice and wet before feeding it, that should help to avoid bloat which I think is caused by eating dried food that then gets wet and swells up inside the animal.
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Mar 13, 2017 05:30
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RandomPauI posted:
That looks like a perfectly healthy fish to me and seems like those are just his markings (note the well defined edges and the over-all health of the rays). You're taking good care of him so whatever floats your boat man, but RandomPauI posted:I've been desperate to have something to take care of, something to get me out of bed in the mornings that isn't working. ...maybe it's not really a problem with the fish? I'm not trying to be a dick, I just started going back through your posts here to see what the genesis of your tank problems were and that jumped out at me. I really only bring it up because sometimes with aquariums less is more, and you can create a bunch of issues for yourself by over-correcting. There are plenty of types of aquariums out there that involve a bunch of work and worry, but a good betta setup like you've got should be a mostly zen experience: a simple daily/weekly ritual of maintenance so that 90-95% of your involvement with the tank is simply relaxing while watching the little dude swim around. I also think your fish will become less skittish with more consistency and less time spent with your hands wet.
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Mar 13, 2017 17:18
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wuffles posted:less time spent with your hands wet. The key to successful fish keeping IMO
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Mar 13, 2017 17:30
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Anyone know of a good small, 20-30 gallon, canister filter? I've been looking but so far all I've seen are horrible reviews for turtle tank filters.
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Mar 13, 2017 17:44
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Sun Sun is pretty much the go-to brand for cheap canisters. I have a few of the 402Bs, and they are great for the price (around $60). I see they also make a smaller canister (Sunsun HW-603B) but I don't have any experience with that one. For $25 it would probably be worth checking out at least.
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Mar 13, 2017 17:58
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Enos Cabell posted:Sun Sun is pretty much the go-to brand for cheap canisters. I have a few of the 402Bs, and they are great for the price (around $60). I see they also make a smaller canister (Sunsun HW-603B) but I don't have any experience with that one. For $25 it would probably be worth checking out at least. Be extremely careful with those sun suns! I have one and the inlet/outlet that locks onto the top of the canister is fragile. The tubes that stick out of the top of the canister have little tabs on them that the part locks onto. If you gently caress with it a lot or take it apart and aren't careful you'll break it and dump 20g on the floor. nothing a liberal application of aquarium sealant doesn't fix though
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Mar 13, 2017 23:57
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I've heard of issues with the Sunsuns with built in UV, the plastic around the UV lamp degrades and breaks down. Could just have been a bad batch but probably worth avoiding those models. The guy who had this happen to his filter tried calling Sunsun support and they really weren't interested. I've got two different canisters which as far as I can tell, both look like replica Marineland C-220 filters. One is branded Hopar, the other is Biopro and I think another brand the same is Worx. The primer button works better on the Biopro but aside from that they are identical to my eye and I'm quite happy with them. When I've seen them for sale brand new, they're pretty cheap. Maybe not as cheap as Sunsun but also no fragile parts. Not sure whether they are available outside of the Asia/Pacific area though.
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Mar 14, 2017 03:28
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Azuth0667 posted:Anyone know of a good small, 20-30 gallon, canister filter? I've been looking but so far all I've seen are horrible reviews for turtle tank filters. Maybe this one? I've been happy with their lights but I haven't personally used this canister filter: https://www.amazon.com/Finnex-PX-360-Compact-Canister-Aquarium/dp/B002VFF8U4/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_sims?ie=UTF8 Unfortunately, my closest personal experience with smaller canisters bookends both sides of what you're after. I have a ZooMed Nano 10 I was pretty happy with and am currently using an Eheim classic 150 for my 20L. It's supposed to be for a 40gal but I had a lot of plumbing for it to push through (see a couple of posts up) and I wish I got a little more flow out of it.
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Mar 14, 2017 04:22
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