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a timer is probably one of the most important parts of my aquarium, tbh. I have a digital one that my dad gave me years ago, but you can get the mechanical ones for pretty cheap.
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Jul 23, 2017 19:06
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Week 3 crayfish count still 10. I fed them mashed peas and slivers of cooked carrot for something different, which was a success. They munched up all the pieces of pea they found straight away, but carrot was frantically gnawed on, dragged away and stored in their little caves. And after a while I added some worms and any vegetable matter was spat out as they lunged for the worms that drifted downwards through the water. I have not seen any missing claws on the larger crayfish but one is missing part of a rear leg, so it looks like aggression is met with retreat rather than fighting to the death. For now at least. The largest crayfish has markings like eyespots on its tail. I have 5 that are definitely bluish brown, 3 that are reddish brown and 2 that are paler and more greyish blue, but these are the smallest ones and don't seem to be growing as fast as the others. A couple of the blue ones like trying to climb the glass at the front of the tank and appear to be female and I haven't seen if I have any males.
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Jul 24, 2017 00:22
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5 of 6 panda Cory cats dead within one week of purchase. Poor little guys  No obvious signs of disease until after the die. Two of the dead ones had a red blood spot on gills or abdomen.
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Jul 24, 2017 16:38
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I don't suppose anybody here is in the NE Ohio area and wants six Amano shrimp, five platies (four female, one male), and six longfin zebra danios? I'm moving soon and have to give them a good home, because I'm certainly not taking them with me across the country. Barring that, any suggestions on what I can do with them?
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Jul 24, 2017 18:43
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Bulky Bartokomous posted:5 of 6 panda Cory cats dead within one week of purchase. Poor little guys I think I went through 15 to get the 6 that I have now and although they didn't crash and burn as quickly as yours, the symptoms (ie not much to see, they just died) were pretty similar. Same old story of stressed out corys, sickened before you got them and it's such hard work to nurse them back to health. They hide being sick quite well too, where another fish might float oddly in the water, corys don't float well at the best of times so they just sit on the bottom same as always. Sorry for your loss I think pandas are still my favourite corydoras despite how fragile they are at time of purchase, they're petite but without being so tiny that they're challenging to feed. I haven't had any trouble with my survivors once I got through settling them in, but it's so heartbreaking (and wallet breaking) to get to that point. In similar sad but inevitable news, at work today I overheard teachers trying to track down who had "the net" because they needed to "pull out that dead fish". I'm guessing one of the goldfish from the cramped disgusting cloudy tank didn't survive being ignored for 2 weeks over the term break. Extremely disappointing but unavoidable since no one seemed to give a poo poo about it except me, and I'm pretty much a bottom tier nobody who can't make anyone do anything. I found one of my second generation peacock gudgeons sitting on some eggs today, I honestly didn't think any of the fish in that tank were mature enough to breed but apparently I am wrong. Also it appears they are not seasonal breeders since it's midwinter and their tank isn't particularly warm at the moment, previous successful breedings were in summer- I have added a bigger heater to the tank as previously I've ran their tanks on the cool side of tropical and I have mostly female fish, I'd like to see if more heat makes more males. It looks like all they need for breeding is any enclosed space as this gudgeon chose a pipe fitting that had fallen in the tank and was floating at the surface instead of any of the sunken tubes that were available. Knowing that they aren't always fussy will make it easier when I set up the tank for the breeding colony - I have some "ruins" that I can use to attach a heap of cave tubes to at all levels, and that should give them plenty of options for breeding territory. I'm going to pull the huge crypts out of the cherry shrimp colony tank and use those, and reclaim all the various java ferns from the fry grow out tanks, I'm not sure yet what I will use for cover for the baby fish but I'm guessing java moss might be fine. There are a couple of pieces of goldvine in the rosy barb tank that aren't particularly aesthetic so I might tie some moss to those and reuse in the colony tank. I'm hoping it won't be too ugly but at this stage I'm just aiming for an environment that a sustained population can thrive in.
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Jul 24, 2017 20:17
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Near disaster today, heater failed "on" in the crayfish tank. It had been running at 22ºC and the thermometer came unstuck and fell to the bottom. I could still kind of read it, 2 past one of the 10s markers. Turns out, it's been running at 32ºC (89f!!) for I'm not sure how long. I did notice the crayfish were being a bit sluggish recently but everything else seemed fine, they were still eating etc. I think maybe its not outside the realms of possibility that in nature these crays could get stuck in a smaller body of water during summer, and that it might heat up, but still that's way too hot for an extended period of time. I was also thinking if it rained in this hypothetical warm puddle, they'd get a trickle of cooler water and it probably wouldn't kill/shock them, so I figured it would probably be safe to dribble in some cooler water via an airline similar to drip acclimating. I put an airstone on the end to stop it from stirring up the substrate too much. Pretty much as soon as the siphon started up and the cooler water started going in, the crayfish perked up and started scuttling around, so I think I did the right thing. I brought the temperature down to 26ºC in about an hour which I don't think was too fast, and I've swapped out the busted heater for a much smaller mini-betta heater so there should be zero chance of the tank overheating again. Also today I worked out that I've got white water mold growing in my riffle shrimp tank! I've never seen it anywhere else before. It's just in the filter inlets and its amazing stuff - thick, robust white strands. Must be due to the constant powder feedings for the riffle shrimp, I'm most likely overfeeding since I read that filter feeding shrimp frequently starve to death due to lack of appropriate sized food. I figure it's just some aquatic fungus right, might make good food for the shrimps/snails/crays? I had a look at it under the microscope and it was crawling with tiny greeblies so it might be a good infusoria food too. The only information I could find about it was that it sometimes grows in pools and spas.
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Jul 26, 2017 18:42
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Stoca Zola posted:Near disaster today, heater failed "on" in the crayfish tank.  I hope they'll be alright!
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Jul 26, 2017 18:48
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So far so good, I've counted 8 crays, all seem to be okay, the biggest one is MIA but that isn't unusual. I even saw 2 alive cherry shrimp so the tank might have survived unscathed. Phew! It was pretty awesome dropping some worms in and seeing 4 big crays emerge from the rocks to start pouncing and munching on them. I'll be sad if I lose any from overcooking but so far I've been expecting more fights or severed limbs and I haven't seen any of that. I'm trying the egg tumbler I bought ages ago to hatch the tube full of gudgeons. Kind of tricky as I can't see how strong the flow is in the chamber. I figured its better to get the male out of the tube and eating again so that he can get a few more females laying, I'm really worried that I'm going to lose a heap of females from being eggbound as my gender mix has come out really unbalanced. It's going to be a balance between wearing out the males and risking the females from leaving them too long without laying their eggs. I have farmed so many boxes of worms though I should have plenty of live food to keep the males full of energy. I hope.
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Jul 27, 2017 15:24
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Stoca Zola posted:I think I went through 15 to get the 6 that I have now and although they didn't crash and burn as quickly as yours, the symptoms (ie not much to see, they just died) were pretty similar. Same old story of stressed out corys, sickened before you got them and it's such hard work to nurse them back to health. They hide being sick quite well too, where another fish might float oddly in the water, corys don't float well at the best of times so they just sit on the bottom same as always. Thanks. Yeah it is hard, I'm always sad when I lose fish but even more so with pandas because they are so drat cute. Hopefully the last one will make it. Given the mortality rate of his batch I'm going to do an extra week of QT.
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Jul 27, 2017 23:27
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I was a bit heartbroken to see a manky discoloured looking crayfish stuck upside down in some moss feebly waving his legs, falling out and landing on his back with his legs in the air, then twitching a bit every now and then. Thought for sure it must have been a belated casualty of the heater disaster. Turned away for a second, when I looked back there was a very healthy and proud looking slightly bigger crayfish sitting next to an empty molt - kicking myself for not staring at the crayfish's "suffering" for a few moments longer. I've kept shrimp long enough that I should have known better. Looked around the tank a bit harder and saw a couple more molts - they must have all had a bit of a growth spurt from increased metabolism due to increased temperature. Really surprised he just did it out in the open though, he didn't seem at all interested in hiding after moulting.
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Jul 28, 2017 16:54
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Discovered a new life form in my tank! A tiny spec with 5 'tendrils' sticking to the glass. At first the tendrils were sticking straight out, now they're pointing down like one of these things. Any idea what the heck this is? Way too small to photograph.
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Jul 30, 2017 00:35
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Does it look like any of these guys? https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/bugs-you-might-encounter-in-your-aquarium.35994/
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Jul 30, 2017 06:26
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Sounds like a hydra to me.
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Jul 30, 2017 07:08
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They're harmless unless you have shrimp or fry, and mostly they eat other tiny live critters in your water - if you get a big outbreak its usually from overfeeding. Usually they come in to a tank from plants, I think gouramis eat them and so do some snails. If its a green one it might be one of the species that photosynthesizes so they are less predatory.
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Jul 30, 2017 12:48
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Yep, I think it's hydra. Must have come in on the new plant I added. Weird, I don't feel like I'm overfeeding. I only feed the betta every other day, and I feed him one little piece at a time to make sure he gets everything.
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Jul 30, 2017 21:37
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Puppy sitting means I'm not home much so no idea if my blue acaras fry are shrinking in populous or spread out like mad. Feeding baby brine twice a day. But fingers crossed.
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Jul 30, 2017 22:32
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I should have known better but tonight I killed 4 rosy barbs, or rather, my inattention to detail gave them the opportunity to kill themselves, motivated by food. This time I was feeding the tank some brine shrimp, but I wanted some to soak and fall to the bottom for the catfish without the rosy barbs intercepting. So I propped the feeding tube in the tank, in a position I thought would direct the falling shrimp to a good place, dropped in the shrimp, and went on to feed the other tanks. Of course I forgot the tube until hours later, at which point four barbs and a number of guppies had pushed themselves up the tube chasing the source of the food, and got jammed. I didn't even see the guppies until after I shook the barbs out - they looked stressed but will live I think. The barbs were quite dead though, so that brings the total of rosy barbs I've lost to food related incidents to 6. Are all barbs this bad when it comes to food? Spoilered for if you don't want to see dead fish and the tube that killed them, I lost two good ones, one slightly deformed one, and one of the stunted balloon ones. I did want to reduce the number of barbs in the tank, but not like this  I also had a penguin tetra pinecone up and had to euthanize it, one of its fins was bitten off so I'm down to 9 and I'm blaming stress from aggression. I'm definitely going to let that population dwindle, they're just too aggressive even with every possible thing I could think of to do to defuse the situation. I'd like to get some sucker loaches for that tank which might fare better than the otos did, a different enough shape and markings that I doubt they'll become a target. I've got a 20g tall which I'm going to set up as a hillstream quarantine, I've got a giant sponge filter powered by a powerhead with a Venturi attachment that makes tons of bubbles to use and a bright light for algae so I'm going to run the tank for a bit to try and build up some biofilm before buying any. I think they'll be fine once they get in the tank I want to put them in, it already has plenty of flow and oxygenation for the yoyos. I really don't want to lose them due to poor housing during quarantine so I hope I'm on the right track. Sewellia seem popular but the only sucker loach allowed on the import list here are Borneo suckers, pseudogastromyzon which are a bit less flat, less stripy, but a bit of color in their fins. Anyone here keeping sucker loaches?
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Jul 31, 2017 19:09
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Stoca Zola posted:at which point four barbs and a number of guppies had pushed themselves up the tube chasing the source of the food, and got jammed. 
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Jul 31, 2017 22:59
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The more tanks you have, the more rolls of the dice you get for something to go wrong. In this case I think it was more poor decision making than chance but still... The flip side is, you also get more chances for things to go right. Week 4 crayfish count is 10 crays and one carrying a lot of eggs. So I'm past the point of worrying I'm doing something wrong in that tank, and know as long as I can keep things stable as they are now, the crays will continue to be happy. Tried to get a picture of the brown cray with orange eggs but she kept hiding. I found a few nice smooth rocks in the backyard pile so the quarantine tank is coming together nicely. I'm going to use the old water from today's water changes to fill it and see how it goes. It occurs to me I haven't even water tested this tank so if I make a mess at least I've got a wet/dry vac now to clean it up. Edit for progress:   Just sand, rocks and a couple of accidental snails, a piece of eelgrass that was floating loose in another tank, and I think there's a tiny piece of java fern in there too somewhere. It's a bit more than a barebones quarantine tank but I might end up keeping the fish under observation for quite a while so I want them to be comfortable. Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Aug 1, 2017 |
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Aug 1, 2017 12:27
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Just got into the hobby by watching a bunch of videos from this dude on youtube called kind of diy and also a lack of outdoors hobbies I could do like gardening. My neighbor gifted me a small tank (he's into the hobby too) and I put a betta in it. I bought another slightly larger tank off of amazon that's 3 gallons. Was thinking of moving him or just getting another betta. Is there a part in the thread (i'm only on page 6) that has betta for beginners? How not to kill these guys? I'd dig some plants for visual looks but also I read some of it helps with the cleaning of the water? I got a betta leaf on amazon and lil dude likes it but it seems to have some white looking stuff on it. I'm guessing this is bad. You can kinda see it here. 
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Aug 2, 2017 19:02
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Hi MasterControl, I watch a lot of fish keepers on YouTube too. Joey's channel is pretty good but each video tends to have a pretty narrow focus. I also like Rachel O'Learys channel on keeping smaller fish. There isn't a local fish club in my town, or even in my state so the internet has become my substitute. As far as bettas go they are such a common first fish that they come up fairly often. I think in the last 5 or so pages there have been a couple of new betta keepers posting in the thread. I've not kept them myself, but over the last two and a half years fishkeeping has become a major hobby for me so I've done a lot of reading. Bettas aren't too hard to keep but there are a few points to keep in mind (and these are pretty much common to keeping all fish). They need clean water - a filter, filled with beneficial bacteria to help process wastes as part of the nitrogen cycle. If you don't know what the nitrogen cycle is, it's the first thing you should read about. The water also needs to be treated to remove chlorine/chloramine. You'll periodically need to swap some old water out and put new fresh treated water in, maybe 25% every week. This is to remove the accumulated wastes that are in the water, all the filter does is convert it to a safer form. You also need to keep fish at the right temperature, which for bettas is more on the warm side. So they will need a heater. Some plants for cover to help them feel safe and give them somewhere to rest. It might sound like the tank would be getting a bit crowded by now and that's probably true - a betta could do with a bit more space to swim around in than a tiny jar. Some people say 5 gallons minimum but it's obviously possible for a betta to survive in a smaller amount of water than that. The idea is it is easier to keep a larger volume of water in a stable condition, and stability is extremely important when keeping fish. Correct food is probably the last requirement, and that's a quality staple food with a bit of variety such as frozen or dried worms, etc and most importantly don't overfeed the fish. Specialist needs of a betta are that they need the water movement to be not too strong, and they need their tank to have a lid both to stop them jumping out, and to keep a layer of moist air in the tank which they can breathe from if they want. More advanced fish care involves working out if you have hard or soft water and making sure your pH is stable over time. Also checking to make sure you have zero ammonia, zero nitrites and under 40 nitrates in your water. You'll need test kits to keep track of those. Lastly there is a bit of maintenance that you have to do every now and then like vacuuming poop out of your gravel, cleaning any algae off the glass, making sure the filter isn't too dirty (this depends on what kind of filter you have). Your betta seems to have made a bubble nest, this is not unusual because he's not smart enough to realise a lady betta isn't going to come along and be impressed by his construction. He's probably happy for now. I think the new tank you bought is a good learning opportunity for you to set up a bigger home for your little guy, while he is safely housed in his current tank. Look at stuff like how to cycle the tank, what kind of filters and heaters are good for bettas, whether you want to try adding some easy plants like java fern or anubias and how to set up the tank so the fish has places to swim and places to hide. Don't be scared to ask your neighbour for help if you aren't sure, it is really handy to have someone with experience at hand to help out. There are lots of right ways and lots of wrong ways to do things so all you can do is collect information and collect experience and find out what works for you and your fish. We all make mistakes along the way, no one is a natural born fish keeper and it's all just part of the learning process.
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Aug 2, 2017 19:59
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I've been enjoying some fish keeper videos lately myself, and was actually wondering what the good channels would be. Also, we've been looking at a dwarf pufferfish for one of the old tanks we had; has anyone here kept them before? On cool things, we've recently tried to offer more variety in both of the other goldfish's diet (the ones from the other tank). They seem to love their greens, but they go wild for brine shrimp and it's pretty fun seeing them seemingly get excited over it. We've been potting some live plants as well, and noticed that they've picked their favourite spots among them. It's kind of fascinating and fun watching them, and I've been finding myself getting more and more interested in the hobby.
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Aug 3, 2017 01:03
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Who here has experience with Pygmy corys? I'm thinking I'd like to do a school of 12 or so in my tank. Full stock would be 12 harlequin rasbora, 12 Pygmy corys, 1 clown pleco, and 1 "centerpiece" fish, maybe a honey gourami or something else that's purported to not be an rear end in a top hat. That said, I had a dwarf/blue gourami (or something, light blue with a black spot) in my last tank and he was a gigantic rear end in a top hat to everyone all the time. Either way, the single bigger fish is TBD. AqAdvisor's stocking calculator says that would put me around 80-90% stock according to their calculations, depending on the last fish. I have two substrates, a fine sand and a rougher, black gravel which I hope will eventually be (mostly) covered in plants. The sand is in the front and middle of the tank and is pretty open. All of the cover afforded by driftwood or plants is on the rougher substrate. (There's some pics of my tank set up if you check my earlier posts here.) My question is this: Would I need to add some cover in the sandy area for them to really thrive? Are they going to hurt themselves in the black gravel or rocks anyway? The sand only covers about 30-40% of the bottom of the tank, so that seems like it might be a tiny bit crowded for a 12 fish school. I'm avoiding the larger Cory species for the same size reasons (and because I worry they'll tear up all my barely-rooted plants. Grow already so you stop floating away!!!) I could definitely use some bottom scavengers because the rasbora literally never get below the bottom half of the tank and no matter how light a touch I have with food, there seems to be a collection of it in the sand at each weekly cleaning/water change. I'm much happier with this tank so far and the rasbora seem happy so far, but gently caress me if cleaning the sand isn't way more of a bitch than I ever expected. White sand makes it look crazy dirty after just a few days, not to mention I have a little algae growth on a few of the rocks/shells that's wanting to spread to the sand when I ignore it. (Go get it, lil Pleco.)
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Aug 3, 2017 04:50
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CrashScreen posted:I've been enjoying some fish keeper videos lately myself, and was actually wondering what the good channels would be. I guess its a matter of taste and what you're looking for in a youtube video. Maybe we should all post the channels we watch? Here's a few that I watch - some of which are educational, and some are inspirational, and some its just interesting to see how other people keep their fish and what they do with their tanks, and what the hobby means to them. Joey (King of DIY) - how to build pretty much everything related to fishkeeping yourself (well, maybe not heaters). He recently crowdfunded an "aquarium gallery" and is in the initial stages of putting it together so most of his recent videos are about that, but he has a huge back catalog of projects, some of which he revisits later with improvements. Dustin's Fish Tanks - low-tech and simple planted tanks using capped dirt as substrate. He is kind of obsessed with plants and his youtube persona is a bit loud but he is dedicated to the hobby. Rachel O'Leary - she has fish species profiles, a lot of general and specific information and tips, stuff about aquascaping and she keeps, breeds and sells mostly nano fish. She also does speaking tours and is pretty awesome all round. Pecktec is another guy who aquascapes and keeps nano fish but he does a few different things on his channel, not just aquarium stuff. I pretty much stick to the fish oriented content. Corey McElroy runs a fish store (Aquarium Co-op) and has a different perspective at times than other fishkeepers you see on youtube. Current project is an 800 gallon custom tank overstocked with clownloaches and tigerbarbs. He does a lot of unboxing videos (of live fish deliveries). Bob Steenfott - a somewhat regular guy just doing regular fish keeper things in his fishtanks. He loves plecos, rainbowfish and cichlids but doesn't limit himself to just those fish. Current major project is making room for a huge tank. Michael's Fishroom - another regular guy only he has a basement full of guppies, angelfish, swords, mollies, and platys that he breeds and sells. L.R Bretz Aquatics - a champion shrimp breeder, also a stay at home dad with over 150 tanks spread through his house. Invented the "floating take-away lid" method of keeping bubbles from spongefilters from spraying everywhere. Often does livestream Q&A sessions to share his knowledge. Current project is converting all his tanks to auto-water change, as well as rearranging his outdoor ponds, building shrimp breeding racks to keep up with demand - he's a busy guy. Dan Hiteshew - just a regular guy keeping fish and sharing his routines, successes and failures with youtube. Also does a bit of outdoors stuff and has been keeping a display tank of native fish from his region (somewhat unsuccessfully). This frequently involves the various inhabitants eating each other but the biggest killer was a recent outbreak of columnaris which obliterated almost all the fish in that one tank. Greg Jones - uploads a fairly steady trickle of videos with various tips, tricks, DIY projects and updates on his fish and turtles. I think he runs the "My Aquarium Box" thing too. Mark's Shrimp Tanks - A Scotsman living in Norway and his ongoing love affair with shrimp, moss and susswassertang David Ramsey - Doesn't do frequent uploads but has a lot of info on growing live food for your fish and fry, and some information on breeding a few species, a couple of product reviews. The Water Box - currently inactive due to personal circumstance but for a while there had some good videos on planted tanks and aquascaping. The Green Machine - very serious aquascaping-as-fine-art channel. Anime Store Adventure posted:Who here has experience with Pygmy corys?
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Aug 3, 2017 18:22
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Thanks. I might do shrimp too but I haven't decided yet what the rest of my tank will look like. I'm a little afraid I'll end up with 2000 shrimp or concrete like unfertilized eggs I read about online.
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Aug 3, 2017 18:26
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There are actually three species of pygmy cories. Habrosus is the largest, and they and pygmaeus tend to prefer the bottom. Hastatus is more rare and expensive, and live between Bott of the tank and the middle.
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Aug 3, 2017 23:29
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tU4k4zjCCM You can tell it's not a goon tank due to the lack of snails.
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Aug 5, 2017 02:39
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Thanks for this. I got a slightly larger tank - the 3 gallon tetra on amazon and put in some plants and a coconut along with a betta my daughter picked out because it was pretty. I kind of want the 5 gallon one because like you say it's cramped in this little 2 gallon. What the heck do people put in this 2 gallon normally? The fluval on amazon is 5 gallons and looks pretty. Also prime and I can be lazy and eat pizza while ordering it and then waiting for it to arrive at my door. Should I just buy gear at the store on it's own? I have a series of questions, maybe this is too much? Sorry if so. My Neighbor is cool but I'm a goon and when I can get  responses, I much prefer that. I'd like to buy some plants and try to get this thing to do some self cleaning of sorts. I've got a lot of pothos I'm growing for my coffee shop so there are cuttings galore. I do have ones with roots but they're kind of algae ridden in a glass vase. Bought two plants on amazon and they arrived dead. So, I'm on aquarium plants like the op suggestions but jesus their shipping costs. Anything and any amount I should roll with? I hear java fern, java moss (one in the small tank already) and anubias. Do I use a syphon to clean the poo on the bottom of the tank? How much and how often should I feed them? I've been doing one pellet when I wake up and one when I get back from work. I've got wardle "betta" food and it doesn't really say how much other than not so much that they don't eat in 3 minutes. Help my sperg figure out weighing out how much I should feed them. One of the tanks is in the light on my countertop - are there any cleaning supplies I should look to get? Last question, where do people go from bettas? Before finding dory years ago I loved the look of clown fish but that's salt tanks. I want to say I'm also of course trying to watch videos and read up on this stuff so I'm not just going  give me the easy answers.
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Aug 5, 2017 13:43
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Facebook Aunt posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tU4k4zjCCM
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Aug 5, 2017 14:12
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Basically nothing goes in a 2 gallon. A betta can survive in one, much like a human could survive for years locked into a motel room as long as the toilet worked and food was delivered regularly. They can be used as grow out tanks for the very tiniest species of fry and shrimplets. Possibly as a temporary quarantine for isolating or medicating very small fish. Even with a sponge filter it is basically impossible to keep the water parameters stable in such a small tank. PH swings, temperature swings, waste build up and so on make it deadly even to fish small enough to live in 2 gallons of water. Probably no other fish as large as a betta could survive in one. But bettas are tough. They can gulp air at the surface, so they can survive slightly toxic water conditions that would kill normal fish who depend on their gills. (That's why so many people think goldfish are tiny things that only live a year or two: in a fishbowl they do only live a year or two, in the wild they can get more than a foot long and live 25 years.) The manufacturers know all this of course. They sell you an inexpensive tiny tank knowing that some newbies would balk at the cost of a properly filtered 5 or 10 gallon tank, so it's tiny tank or nothing. Then once you have aquatic pets and realize your tiny tank is inadequate for the fish you bought, they can sell you another tank. You'll be happier with a larger tank too. In a cup all a betta can do is just sit there being boring. Given enough space he will swim around, showing off his gorgeous fins as he pokes around. For fish they have a lot of personality. He will probably learn that the hand shadow means food, so he'll be all charming and come right up to you when you're around.  You can usually spice things up with a pretty snail and maybe a couple Amano shrimp or small cory catfish to make the ground level more interesting (occasionally there are super aggressive bettas who murder everything, but most will tolerate things that don't look like bettas or food). So overall a bigger tank isn't just better for the betta, it's more fun for you.
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Aug 5, 2017 14:37
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MasterControl posted:The fluval on amazon is 5 gallons and looks pretty. I have the old-style fluval spec V and it has a great oversized filter/room in the pump chamber for a small heater, but there are trade-offs. The tank is an okay length but quite narrow, fairly hard to aquascape, awkward to siphon/clean. The pump is kind of too strong for such a small tank, although this can be fixed by cutting holes in the return tube to divert some of the flow. The original LED light was pretty dim, and I had failed lights after less than a year. I think the new style light is better but I haven't seen it in action. The lid is plastic, doesn't fully seal so there is usually a fair bit of evaporation, and it seems to be shaped in such a way as to trap as much stray food and dust to get gross fairly quickly and isn't easy to clean. Not sure if the newer version spec has a different lid. I wouldn't mind some of these trade-offs if the tank wasn't so drat expensive. It's not a terrible tank but if you're going to get a tank that long you might as well get a deeper (wider not taller) one and more area and gallons to play with. If you like Fluval I think the new Flex tank looks like a more usable shape (although I'm not sold on the sideways bowfront). The Aquael Leddy range of tanks look pretty nice too and I feel like I saw a smaller juwel all in one type tank not that long ago that looked really good but I can't think of the model name right now. I do like the all in one type tanks, either with the rear area like the spec and flex or with the filter boxes in the lid like some aqua one tanks and my 2 blue planet tanks have. They make it look a bit tidier but the downside is getting spare parts isn't always easy or possible, especially getting something like a replacement impeller for the lid-filters. You have to buy the whole pump assembly and can't just get the smaller part, in some cases. A pretty important thing to think about is "how do I keep my fish alive if something goes wrong" and I think that is a reason why sponge filters and air powered box filters are so popular. They can't break and they accept air from any manufacturer's air pump. Sorry, got a bit side-tracked there but its a factor to consider when thinking about setting up a new tank. Facebook Aunt posted:...overall a bigger tank isn't just better for the betta, it's more fun for you. I've found this to be completely true, and if you're worried that a bigger tank means more work, I've found it really isn't that much difference between maintaining one of my 5 gallon fry tanks to one of my bigger planted tanks. I save a lot of time in not having to carefully poke around in cramped circumstances, I can safely use bigger siphons to move more water faster, bigger filters don't clog up so quickly, can process more wastes and so on. For aquarium plants to act as cleaners, ie nutrient export, you need to look at faster growing stem plants (plants having a stem that grows up and many leaves on each stem that grow sideways) for the plants to keep up with the wastes a fish can produce. Easy stem plants - elodia/egeria/whatever its called, hornwart (but I think its pretty ugly), rotala rotundifolia, actually any of these that are stem plants. Even aquarium favourite pothos needs extra light to make much of a difference to waste levels in the water (according to some anecdotal evidence anyway). Floating plants that have access to atmospheric CO2, like duckweed, frogbit, etc can help. Any plant is better than nothing but it is kind of a major endeavor to get a self cleaning tank. You're looking at many plants, lots of water, not many fish. I guess in a tank with a single betta these conditions are close to being true, but its probably easier especially in a small tank to just do the water changes, vacuum the poop with a siphon, and plant some easy care plants in a layout that looks good to you. The beauty of java fern and anubias is that you don't even need fancy plant soil since they'd rather just be tied to something than have their roots buried. All anubias are not created equal! I've got one that's huge (possibly barteri but I have no idea), an anubias "nana" that has nice little leaves and a "nana petite" that has many leaves the size of a fingernail. Small tanks usually look better and are easier to maintain with small plants. I think java fern "windelov" looks pretty cool and stays pretty compact, I haven't had much luck growing regular java fern, but I have a fairly big narrowleaf java fern plant that I think would fill a 5 gallon tank. I think I've had that plant for maybe 2 years? So I'd still say its a slow grower. Of all my anubias I think the "nana petite" is the slowest growing. One I've not kept but looks good is Anubias coffeefolia. Since I already have tanks full of snails, hydra, planarians etc I've been buying plants from ebay/gumtree/etc as there are usually hobbyists who trim their tanks and then sell the offcuts fairly cheaply. I've got a few cheap plants that way, and sometimes the seller throws in some extras that they'd happened to be trimming at the time of my order. It's been a good way to get a variety of plants to see what works in my conditions. But yeah, this is a good way to get aquarium pests, but the same is true of any plant that isn't tissue cultured. Avoid postage by going to a shop that sells aquarium plants and transporting them out the door yourself! Cleaning supplies I use for tanks: damp paper towel, white vinegar (only for use on cleaning waterspots off the outside of the glass), I have varying siphons for the various sized tanks that I have, a few different algae scrubbers but the same result can be had with the side of an old credit card, a razor blade, a pad shaped piece of filter floss, or for really stubborn flat algae on the glass, the melamine foam "magic eraser" style cleaning blocks (I got a bunch of them for very cheap from ebay) work really well to clean glass. Make sure you never use anything with soap or grease on it anywhere near an aquarium. Get your own buckets, scoops and tools and keep them separate from regular household versions. Anything you plan to use in the aquarium make sure it is very well rinsed in aged/conditioned/old tank water before use. I don't know enough about bettas to tell you how to feed but what you're doing sounds reasonable. You don't want to overfeed and it's pretty hard to starve a fish. I've never kept a betta although I still consider myself a beginner. I started with barbs that my sister gave me, then got some danios and larger tetras. I made the mistake of getting guppies, although I love keeping them, they breed too quickly. All these were my "practice" fish although I've never treated them as disposable or lesser than any of my other fish. Once I felt more confident at keeping water conditions stable, I got some panda corydoras, otocinclus, and peacock gudgeons. These are all a lot more expensive, and a little bit fussier with water parameters but not overly difficult to keep once they are stable. At some point I started keeping shrimp too, and I would recommend everyone should try keeping cherry shrimp, they're pretty cool to watch. Avoid crystal, tiger, bee etc shrimp unless you're sure shrimp are your passion because they're harder to keep and much more expensive. I got some yoyo loaches and striped raphaels next, both are pretty bulletproof fish to keep but they're larger and more longer lived than lots of the small community type fish that I'd been keeping up to that point. A striped raphael can live over 20 years, and yoyos can live over 10 years so that was the point where I was sure I'll probably always have aquariums around, same as I will always have a few cats. My next fish will most likely be some borneo suckers, and I have plans to set up a breeding colony of peacock gudgeons (I'm not sure if such a thing is possible but I want to try). I would like to have a community of different coloured barbs but that isn't possible at the moment as my barb tank is at capacity (even after I accidentally killed 4 of them on Monday). I don't think I'll ever get into salt water, but there isn't any reason you couldn't jump straight from keeping a betta to starting with salt water - if you can afford it, that is. There are a lot of similar principles regarding stability and managing wastes, and the specifics change depending on what you want to keep (I would say the same is true for keeping freshwater fish anyway). If you find yourself enjoying the hobby and want to take the next step, a common thing to do is set up a larger tank as a community and throw a bunch of fish together. You can either just match fish by which ones live in similar water conditions, which ones have compatible behaviour - looking at which parts of the tank the fish are most likely to swim in so that it is balanced between top, middle and bottom. Or you could look at a geographical area and pick fish that might live together in the wild. The interesting part is doing the research to make sure your fish are compatible, to make sure you have enough room for the types of fish you're interested in, whether you would need special food for any of the fish, etc. So while a community tank is often the next step, it isn't always successful and there are lots of ways it can go wrong; but it doesn't have to be hard as long as you do your research first. I reckon there's nothing wrong with gathering lots of information, opinions, etc. from lots of different places because we all have our biases and it's good to measure things up for yourself.
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Aug 5, 2017 19:44
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So looks like I've found a steal of a deal on a 55 gallon on kijiji with an Aquatech 30-60 waterfall filter and a fluval heater for it. Likely picking it up Monday, then I'll start planning the scape and plants, etc. Currently planning on a lightly to moderately planted tank (with a pirate theme at the wife's "request"). But, fish planning time. I'm going to go with a community tank, and I'd rather have more small fish than a few big fish. I'll get everything setup and planted before I pull the trigger on any fish. Current plan would be: 6x Panda Cory 6x Swordtail 12xNeon Tetra or Glowlight Tetra 1x Albino (or regular) Bristlenose Pleco (later addition if necessary) Runs me just under 90% according to aqadvisor, so well within my comfort zone. Cory's cover the bottom of the tank, neon's and glowlights should run low/mid, and the swordtails will run mid/high. The bristlenose would be added later once the tanks fairly established and there's lots of algae for him to eat (along with algae pellets, etc. for him). Anything here stand out as a bad idea/bad combo? Any alternatives I should look at?
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Aug 6, 2017 04:14
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I think six pandas would be barely visible in a 55, I have six in a 25 and there is plenty of room for them. I would get more, bumping it to 15 still leaves you at 95% and aqadvisor doesn't take into account any benefit you're getting from plants, I always assume the number they give you is for a bare tank. Ideally with artificial decor (pirate ship for example) you want to make sure either there is plenty of room for a cory to get in and out, or no access at all. They're not very flexible and could get themselves wedged in a tight spot - I've heard the same advice for using rocks and wood in the hardscape, try to avoid creating crevices that they could get stuck in. I wouldn't run the tank any hotter than 24C/76F for the sake of the corys. Also just the one filter probably isn't enough for a tank of that size, I don't know how the lid of your tank works but if you could add a second hang on back or a canister filter it would ensure you have enough filtration. I think your choice of fish is pretty good, you could start out just with the sword tails once your filter is established, then add tetras a couple of weeks later, then corys once you're sure the filter is coping. Bristlenose last since he's going to do the biggest poops. If you do the ammonia dosing method of cycling and can prove how fast the ammonia is processed by the filter there's probably no reason you couldn't add everything at once apart from keeping the catfish separate from any medicating that needs to be done. What do you have in mind for quarantining the fish?
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Aug 6, 2017 05:17
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Stoca Zola posted:I think six pandas would be barely visible in a 55, I have six in a 25 and there is plenty of room for them. I would get more, bumping it to 15 still leaves you at 95% and aqadvisor doesn't take into account any benefit you're getting from plants, I always assume the number they give you is for a bare tank. Ideally with artificial decor (pirate ship for example) you want to make sure either there is plenty of room for a cory to get in and out, or no access at all. They're not very flexible and could get themselves wedged in a tight spot - I've heard the same advice for using rocks and wood in the hardscape, try to avoid creating crevices that they could get stuck in. Thanks for the reply! Good idea on the Cory's - I'll definitely up the overall number. And I'll make sure any decoration's will work for them. Filtration wise, I'm going to throw in a large-capacity sponge filter to go along with the existing one. I'm picking up the tank tomorrow, so that plan may change as well. I'm going to fully plan this out before I buy anything for it, so once I get a change to inspect everything I'll go from there. I also determined that what I thought I would use for a stand won't work, so I'll need to build one anyways. I have an existing 5.5 gallon that I'm going to stick a smaller sponge filter in for a few weeks to get it built up with bacteria. I'll then slap it into the new tank when I go to add fish so it can get itself fully cycled much quicker. I'll then move my tetra's from the 5.5 to that tank, and use the 5.5 as quarantine when needed. I can just fully clean and move the small sponge filter back and forth to cycle as needed when quarantining fish. The swordtails are coming from a friend who just had 29 fry a month ago - by the time I get this tank ready, his will be good to go, and I'm comfortable with his fish being fine to just put in. So I might put the tetra's and cory's from the LFS in first, and once I know they're not sick, the swordtails from him can be stocked. Now I just need to figure out design and plants, but I have some ideas.
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Aug 6, 2017 15:52
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I would do a single male sword and the rest females. Swordtails can get pretty big and stocky. The cories and tetras you have in mind are pretty low waste makers. With proper water changes and the plants, I'd do at least 12 pandas and 20 tetras.
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Aug 8, 2017 02:56
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Cowslips Warren posted:I would do a single male sword and the rest females. Swordtails can get pretty big and stocky. Okay, cool, I was thinking I could up them a fair bit. Picked up the tank yesterday - its a 55 tall. In pretty solid shape - the hoods a little chewed up (PO did some "customization" work to fit a different filter), but its solid. Need to convert the fluorescent bulb to LED, but otherwise I'm happy. I'm going to start ordering substrate and planning. For the cory's, are any of the planted-tank substrates better/worse? I know they need something fairly soft, and just want to make sure I don't buy a bunch of substrate that they won't be happy with. I also need to find somewhere in Canada its not effin expensive. I also need one very tall decoration - hopefully I can find a big driftwood branch. I picked up a nice smaller one yesterday because it had lots of space underneath, should make a good pleco-lair. So, to ask another plant question - recommendations for something nice and tall? Amazon swords? Anything else fun to look at? I'm going to try and stick mostly low-tech (aka I'll probably homebrew CO2 if necessary), so anything "easy" is best.
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Aug 8, 2017 13:14
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I added my sole surviving panda Cory from QT to display last night. He has been glued to the others non-stop.
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Aug 8, 2017 13:37
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Siochain posted:Okay, cool, I was thinking I could up them a fair bit. I always liked java fern and anubias; but they are tied to wood or rock, don't bury their 'roots.' And above all, get a 10 gallon tank and QUARANTINE THE poo poo OUT OF YOUR FISH. A 10 is much easier to medicate than a 55. Expect to lose some pandas, they are not the strongest cory. I like sand, normal play sand, as a substrate. Might not work with Amazon swords though.
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Aug 8, 2017 15:27
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Cowslips Warren posted:I always liked java fern and anubias; but they are tied to wood or rock, don't bury their 'roots.' I've got a 5.5 I was going to use for quarantine, just with heavy/frequent water changes. Think that'll do (to start, anyways)? I figure since everythings going to be small, that it will work as a short-term quarantine tank. If not, I'll see if I can hunt up a cheap 10-15 gallon to use. And I'm aware panda's are a little fragile Makes me sad, but I'll give them a shot. Hopefully the little guys can flourish in my tank once I get it all up and rolling. My LFS has some that seem fairly energetic/healthy, but I'll see how they look/how many they have once I'm ready to stock. I was going to do swordtails first, but I think it might be the tetra's (so they self-quarantine), then the swordtails (known reliable disease/problem free fish from a friend who's hardcore into the hobby), then the panda's, and the bristlenose in a month or two once the tanks fully settled and happy. This week is get supplies ordered and build the stand.
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Aug 8, 2017 15:59
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Bulky Bartokomous posted:I added my sole surviving panda Cory from QT to display last night. He has been glued to the others non-stop. That is a drat cute mental image 
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Aug 8, 2017 16:12
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