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Well gently caress  On vacation for two weeks. Had a friend and her daughter taking care of the cats/fish tank. Cats are fine. Fish tank...is much less fishy. I think they were overfeeding, but not 100% sure. Down 3 rainbows, a couple of swordtails, and apparently all but 2 cories From like 20. The pleco, on the other hand, is now huger than ever, so I'm not sure if he was on "corpse removal" duty or what, since I only found a few bodies. Doing a reno right now, going to move the fishtank into the basement. So I'll wait on getting replacements until then (also, its hot as balls out, not a good time to order fish). Little bummed out
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Jul 14, 2018 20:25
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| # ? May 25, 2024 07:01 |
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Just to get a reality check, how many gallons would people feel comfortable putting on top of this? Doesn't have much support in the middle but the legs look pretty solid. It's 3 feet long, 16 inches deep without the front flap.
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Jul 14, 2018 21:01
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Mozi posted:Just to get a reality check, how many gallons would people feel comfortable putting on top of this? Doesn't have much support in the middle but the legs look pretty solid. It's 3 feet long, 16 inches deep without the front flap. 5-10 gallon top. And even then, anything over 5 I'd be hesitant. 8 pounds/gallon (approximately), plus its a dynamic load.
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Jul 14, 2018 21:13
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... that's not quite the 50 I was hoping for. Glad I asked, hah. That's 5 on it now.
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Jul 14, 2018 21:23
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Mozi posted:... that's not quite the 50 I was hoping for. Glad I asked, hah. That's 5 on it now. Oh boy yeah no lol. 55 gallon tank is 500'ish pounds or so. You'd have a very wet floor very quickly.
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Jul 14, 2018 21:30
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Aw crap Siochain that sucks about your corys and fish Pleco on clean up probably helped by processing everything into fish poop, I think maybe it could have been worse without that.
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Jul 14, 2018 22:11
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Stoca Zola posted:Aw crap Siochain that sucks about your corys and fish Yeah, I did a "quick" 70% water change...the filters were so clogged with poo poo it was amazing. Peter Plecostomus (Petey for short) was definitely making GBS threads like a boss. Ah well, c'est la vie. I've got a 30 I was given, my 55, and my 20 - might move the remaining fish into the 20 once the basement is ready, strip the 55 and re-scape it, move them back to the 55, and put the 30 upstairs and do a fully-planted puffer tank.
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Jul 14, 2018 23:34
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Mozi posted:... that's not quite the 50 I was hoping for. Glad I asked, hah. That's 5 on it now. Yeah anything that big you'd want an engineered stand. Your basically throwing 2+ of yourself up on the table forever
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Jul 14, 2018 23:41
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For my 55 I just DIY'd one out of 2x4's - the basic structure only took 2-3 hours tops. Something like this: http://www.reefaquarium.com/2013/building-a-aquarium-stand/
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Jul 15, 2018 00:15
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Siochain posted:For my 55 I just DIY'd one out of 2x4's - the basic structure only took 2-3 hours tops. Something like this: Wow, that looks great and very doable... thanks for the tip! I was just tossing around ideas on GlassCages and CustomAquariums and the stands were always more than the tank itself, and I didn’t want one of those particle board jobs off of Amazon.
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Jul 15, 2018 11:41
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I forgot how happy cories make me. Now I'm debating if I need to put them in a 29 gallon with hillstream loaches or let them chill in a 20 with pleco fry.
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Jul 15, 2018 22:18
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Cowslips Warren posted:I forgot how happy cories make me. Now I'm debating if I need to put them in a 29 gallon with hillstream loaches or let them chill in a 20 with pleco fry. Corie's rule. I'm getting quite bummed out today about losing most of mine I had babies and everything. Nothing I can do about it, but, gently caress. I loved my cories. Ah well, I'll make them a newer, and better, home. Might have a line on a cheap 65 gallon.
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Jul 16, 2018 01:02
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I have been cleaning my RO system today! The parts came in the mail so it was time to pull everything to pieces and wipe out all the gunk, sanitize, rinse, then put the new filter, carbon and membrane in and then rinse some more. Here's how the old parts looked after probably 18 months of use - all the yellowy brown parts were originally white, and in the case of the black carbon block on the right that was also originally white. The filter and carbon block should be replaced every 12 months but I lost track of it a little bit. The membrane is about 3 years old and can last up to 4 years but I wanted to replace it and put a flushing valve in to make the new one last even longer.  My system is pretty simple, the water hits a 1 micron filter first, to remove particles, then the carbon filter itself has a 1 micron filter and is designed specifically to handle chloramines. A regular chlorine only carbon block would wear out a lot faster with chloramines going into it. This carbon block protects the RO membrane from chlorine which would degrade it and shorten its life, and makes the water more suitable for drinking and fish use. At this point the water is quite drinkable but not necessarily soft enough for aquarium use, so it is then forced through the reverse osmosis membrane, and the system outputs the clean "permeate" water from one hose and the "brine" which is the concentrated unwanted stuff through a second hose. My system also has a mixer which allows water from just after the carbon block to be mixed with the low TDS membrane output, and turning the tap lets you pick what concentration water you want to use. I pretty much only use that to get drinking water how I like it; I use pure RO for my fish and remineralise it depending on which tank it's going to go in because I'd rather be certain that the required minerals are present. And finally, today I added a flushing valve. The waste water brine line has to be pressurised otherwise none of the water would go through the membrane, and this is done using a flow restrictor which sets the pressure to the correct level for the membrane. In order to flush the membrane this flow restrictor has to be bypassed, which is possible in systems that have an external restrictor. My system had an inline restrictor which just sits in the waste hose where it comes out of the RO unit, it's not even visible without removing the hose and I had to take it out to do this change. I bought a valve which allows water to pass when open, and has a built in flow restrictor when closed. Because I don't run my system all the time, the membrane gets dry and the brine can deposit and reduce efficiency and life of the membrane. Now before running the system I can open the valve, allow unrestricted water to wash by and hopefully remove deposits, and then close it for regular RO usage. It costs around $50 to replace both the filter and the carbon block and the RO membrane is $75. There are cheaper membranes out there but apparently counterfeit membranes are now a problem as Dow have started putting holographic seals of authenticity on their units! https://i.imgur.com/wYDfqsZ.mp4 I moved my 9 surviving sterbai from the kitchen counter tank and have resigned myself to never getting eggs from these particular fish again since the yoyo loaches will eat them faster than the corys themselves can. But they do seem happy in the new tank and I'm glad they're somewhere bigger and more stable. I am a little bit worried about making sure everyone at the bottom level of the big tank gets enough food though since the loaches are so drat greedy and speedy; I don't want to overfeed the tank but I have to spread the food all over to give any cory a chance to eat. There's kind of a hierarchy, the tetras and loaches will eat anything from the surface, while the big porthole rasbora will only eat large and medium things that fall in the top half, the gudgeons will eat small and medium things that are falling in the bottom half, they'll pick at small pellets that have landed on the driftwood but won't eat from the bottom, the corys hoover the bottom and the driftwood. The loaches will eat from every single level in the tank, anything large to medium size gets snatched, they hoover the driftwood faster than any other fish. The only thing I'm not sure of is if they ignore small food or eat it if they find it. In theory tiny pellets that make it to the bottom might work for the corys to eat, but those pellets have to get past the tetras and gudgeons AND then be ignored by the loaches. I would not ever recommend mixing loaches and corys and it isn't something I wanted to do but they needed somewhere bigger than 15g and I just haven't got started on the 60g cube yet. It's going to end up being populated by any of the original cory's offspring that I can't find homes for I think, that's if I ever manage to get started on it.
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Jul 16, 2018 20:02
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I'm thinking of getting a tank with dimensions 36" long, 18" wide, and 16" tall - seems like that would be really nice for a planted tank, I could do some really interesting aquascaping and the height would make it easier to work with, also could use less powerful lighting. I like using small critters to give more of a sense of scale so I'd probably stick with stocking with various small shrimp and assorted snails, maybe a small crab? And a few endler's guppies.
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Jul 16, 2018 21:37
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That is a 40g breeder if I’m not mistaken! You can google image search 40b or 40 breeder aquascape to get ideas for how plants will fit and how the scale will look, which is one of the advantages of those standard sized tanks. Examples: a low maintenance crypt jungle  A more typical scape:  And aqadvisor.com is invaluable for getting a ballpark idea of how many fish can safely be housed, for example 
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Jul 17, 2018 06:31
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drat, that crypt one looks good. That's kind of what I'm debating going with using the 30 I got. Put it in the living room, fully plant it, and then stock...something? I still like the idea of dwarf puffers. How well do some of the cory's do in a fully planted tank? Would they be happy, or would I be better getting something else. I'd love to do that tank fully planted, 3-4 puffers, and a small school of cory's. Just want to make sure they'd be happy without a bunch of substrate to root through. I miss my cory's
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Jul 17, 2018 12:48
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You'll have to have a smaller school of cories proportionate to how much open space you have.
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Jul 17, 2018 12:52
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Siochain posted:drat, that crypt one looks good. Putting a puffers on the 30 I'm eventually setting up. Puffers are a single species fish. They're huge bitches to put with anything else aparently and will just attack things.
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Jul 17, 2018 12:55
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Stoca Zola posted:A more typical scape: I'm not sure why it never dawned on me to use the hardscape to keep vals in a specific area before this picture but my god I wish I'd thought of it like 5 years ago when I had them in my tank. I threw away buckets of those things 
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Jul 17, 2018 12:56
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Stoca Zola posted:That is a 40g breeder if I’m not mistaken! You can google image search 40b or 40 breeder aquascape to get ideas for how plants will fit and how the scale will look, which is one of the advantages of those standard sized tanks. Thanks! Yeah, I have a vague idea of how I want it to look - would be cool to have sort of a raised tidal-pool like area on one side - will have to look around for more inspiration.
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Jul 17, 2018 12:59
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Shakenbaker posted:I'm not sure why it never dawned on me to use the hardscape to keep vals in a specific area before this picture but my god I wish I'd thought of it like 5 years ago when I had them in my tank. I threw away buckets of those things Those bastards will put out runners into open water and grow a chain of them loose just to spite you if you try to cage them in. A bit easier to remove when that happens though so not such a bad thing. Sometimes I wonder if those tidier looking strappy leaved plants you see in aquascapes are some kind of sagitaria or something else that isn't a val variety. I've never had luck keeping vals under control so if they are vals I have no idea how they do it. I'm trying Crypt. balansae instead in my big tank and so far it is growing pretty huge but its much slower than vals at least so maintenance will be less frequent I hope. I often wonder if there's much difference between the species available here and what you see people aquascaping with. One of the dwarf cory species, hastatus I think(?) are a mid-water schooler rather than a bottom feeder so they might appreciate a planted tank. They'd probably still like some space to rest on the bottom though. Agh there are too many corys I'd love to keep, I want a big school of pygmaeus, I want more trilineatus, and I'd love some aspidoras too, which are like corys only longer - to me, they are like a cory cosplaying as a mermaid  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0GC9DxxPp8&t=24s Super cute!
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Jul 17, 2018 16:17
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I have sections of Cholla wood with Christmas moss tied on top sitting in my tank and decided since I have some new driftwood coming for the twig catfish that I'd move some of it aside to make room. Now for a while I've been wondering how my shrimp have been progressing because I don't see many small ones or berried females around. I moved the first piece of wood and jesus, little red dots zipped out all over the thing from the moss. I guess my shrimp have been doing the nasty. So far the Twig's favorite spot is a section of lucky bamboo I have in the tank he spends his day skidding up down and around. When I come home at night he's on the front glass almost every time till the lights turn on, then back to his corner. He doesn't seem to like the zucchini though. I mostly find some shrimp on it and a curious tetra or two pecking it, but he seems to leave it alone.
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Jul 18, 2018 18:07
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMsT-q_iGc4
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Jul 19, 2018 00:13
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The cliche is playing out here at my sister's house, she's gone away for 4 days and left me to feed the cat and fish. I get here to find a tank full of milky water and a dead tetra and she's only been gone one day! I remember her complaining about dirty looking water last week and wonder if she did a water change before she left, so I pop the cover and check the filter and it's completely clogged with sand. Seems like the movement of the corys near the filter inlet is enough to kick the sand up to get sucked in but the sand is fine enough that it hasn't jammed the impeller. I'm cleaning the filter and doing a water change to try and salvage the situation and I'm going to put a sponge on the end of her inlet to stop it happening again. Not a total disaster, just teething troubles on a new tank. Just bad luck for it to come to a head while she's away. She did do a water change before she left incidentally, but didn't check the filter. There was about a cup of sand spread all over it.
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Jul 19, 2018 10:07
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I need mass java fern. drat having to wait till October to ship!
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Jul 20, 2018 01:39
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I heard somebody tell me they used spring water from the store to do water changes, is that a good idea? Would you still have to treat it?
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Jul 20, 2018 02:03
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Applebees Appetizer posted:I heard somebody tell me they used spring water from the store to do water changes, is that a good idea? Would you still have to treat it? Yeah I dunno about that. Cost aside I imagine the trace minerals in tap water are nice. Probably still have to dechlorinate it as well as water else they put in the bottles to make it shelf stable
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Jul 20, 2018 02:51
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Gaaaah my axolotls grow a lot more with earthworm pellets and Repashy than just plain earthworms. Time to move them to the 55, which means I need to move/transfer several dojos and plecos. Or I guess I could find a 40 gallon reinforced tote for the axies.
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Jul 20, 2018 18:55
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So I think I've decided where I'm going with this tank now that I've grown a school of cories out. Next fish I add will be 10-12 Bolivian rams, who I feel don't get the love they deserve. I've kept them before and they felt much less fussy than any of the other dwarf new world cichlids, and honestly outclassed only by kribs as far as "gently caress you I will live in soup" goes. I love their little group dynamics and once they color up they're a very attractive fish. I love the little streamers  Kind of like tiny Heckels, to me at least. The next fish is where I'm asking for input. I'm kind of thinking of doing Odessa barbs, about 15ish. I know barbs can be nippy little jerks so I do worry about the streamers on my ram buddies, but in a group that size the barbs should be loving with each other pretty much, right? The tank is a planted 75 gallon so there's plenty of room and sight breaks too, to help on that front. I think I remember Stoca Zola having some of the Odessas at some point, or am I just associating barbs because of avatars?
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Jul 21, 2018 01:16
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I wanted to get some Odessas but I haven’t got room at the moment and my “barb community” idea I had kind of goes against best practice for keeping a shoaling fish. I’ve got rosy barbs (15) which have a worse reputation as nippers and for me they haven’t hassled the guppies they are with at all. My guppies have sword tails too which you’d think would be tempting. From my reading and in my experience barbs just don’t fin nip when you have a large enough school of them, I would say you need at least 10 for a comfortable school. Barbs are omnivorous but they don’t really nip fins as a guaranteed feeding behaviour like say a serpae tetra, it’s more a displacement behaviour when they are stressed from not having a big enough shoal. They do still rip at plant leaves, and seem to prefer broad soft leaved plants like hygrophila polysperma. Your plan to have 15 Odessas in a 75g sounds like an ideal scenario for well behaved barbs to me and I believe odessas aren’t as rough on plants as rosy barbs. I don’t know if they are as greedy with food as rosy barbs are, but with a tank that size you can feed different foods at each end and probably avoid any food stealing issues.
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Jul 21, 2018 06:07
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I was worried that the cherry shrimp I put in my tank had either died or been eaten by some of the other tank inhabitants but I discovered during my water change yesterday that they're all still hanging out but under the driftwood which is what my other shrimp did before they got too large to occupy those spaces. They'll still be a while off giving a shrimp explosion though as they wouldn't yet be 2 cm long which the others where when I got them. Part of the reason I was worried is because I've only seen one or two shrimps at a time since I got them which was concerning but nothing to worry about.
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Jul 23, 2018 10:55
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Right after I posted I noticed a stack of bubbles on the surface of the water. Looks like my gourami is attempting to get things going with his lady so I draped some ludwigia over the thermometer cause his bubbles keep drifting along the tank rather than staying. He’s been trying for months but until now hasn’t attempted a nest that I’ve seen. I think he has the shits with the lights as well cause he was squirting water at the lid while I was watching the tank
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Jul 23, 2018 11:34
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That's really cool, I've seen a lot of "how to breed" stuff for bettas but not really anything for gouramis, although I guess it would be similar. Maybe people don't breed gouramis usually because they can be assholes? Maybe they are in communities so often that their nests usually are disturbed? Exciting times.
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Jul 23, 2018 12:45
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Stoca Zola posted:That's really cool, I've seen a lot of "how to breed" stuff for bettas but not really anything for gouramis, although I guess it would be similar. Maybe people don't breed gouramis usually because they can be assholes? Maybe they are in communities so often that their nests usually are disturbed? Exciting times. From what I’ve read it the same sort of bubble nest action and also why a stack of gouramis aren’t great in a community tank because they become aggressive jerks to the rest of the tank. The rest of the fish don’t seem to mind but I think I disrupted his mojo trying to make something suitable for his nest to hang in where it won’t get blown across the back of the tank. My cories seem to be attempting to get it on as well but the other cories normally gently caress that one up for themselves
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Jul 23, 2018 12:58
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In my 20+ years of fishkeeping I've never seen a fish that looks like this: Any ideas what could be wrong? I'd like to try to treat him but I don't think I have a good idea of what I'd be treating at this point. In the spring I put him in a QT with some furan 2, but it didn't really seem to do anything. He looks like he's covered in excess slime and sand.
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Jul 24, 2018 03:02
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Classic ich with irritated excess slime coat? Looks very similar to my sisters corys when he got it. If it isn’t affecting your other fish yet it might still happen so watch everyone closely. Ich is treatable only in certain phases of its lifecycle ie when the parasite isn’t on your fish so it takes time before you see any results. You want something like ich-x or even slowly increasing salt to 1 to 3 teaspoons per gallon, it will depend on what your fish can handle and whether the ich is resistant to anything. Increasing the heat will make the lifecycle of the parasite go faster but don’t forget to add more aeration to counter the lower oxygen in warmer water. It looks still treatable to me at this point, the fish looks a bit rough but excess slime makes it look worse than it is I reckon.
Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 03:20 on Jul 24, 2018 |
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Jul 24, 2018 03:12
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Other theories: costia, slime coat disease (another parasite) and it is actual sand stuck to the slime? Trichodina or velvet could also cause skin irritation and slime. All of them are treated in similar ways and Furan2 would only work to help prevent secondary infection after the damage these parasites cause to skin without killing the parasite itself.
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Jul 24, 2018 03:25
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Dr. Garbanzo posted:Right after I posted I noticed a stack of bubbles on the surface of the water. Looks like my gourami is attempting to get things going with his lady so I draped some ludwigia over the thermometer cause his bubbles keep drifting along the tank rather than staying. He’s been trying for months but until now hasn’t attempted a nest that I’ve seen. I think he has the shits with the lights as well cause he was squirting water at the lid while I was watching the tank I had one of my Emperors try over the weekend. He's had his spot staked off for a while. Then I saw him courting a lady around through the plants till she went with him down to his moss castle and wedged herself in followed by him. I dunno if they were successful, he just keeps patrolling the area
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Jul 24, 2018 07:51
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Stoca Zola posted:Other theories: costia, slime coat disease (another parasite) and it is actual sand stuck to the slime? Trichodina or velvet could also cause skin irritation and slime. All of them are treated in similar ways and Furan2 would only work to help prevent secondary infection after the damage these parasites cause to skin without killing the parasite itself. I think you’re on the money here. I’m very confident it isn’t ich. I think it might be velvet. I’ll try treating for that.
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Jul 24, 2018 12:14
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| # ? May 25, 2024 07:01 |
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So my son and i built a fish trap and we caught a Jewel Cichlid. It's awesome, such a pretty fish with tons of personality. From what I've read they are supposed to be super aggressive but this one is really chill, hasn't hurt any of the other fish we put in with it, a few mollys and another type of small cichlid.
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Jul 24, 2018 19:08
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