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Rythe posted:Got it, great information. I did the filter clean out and dosed with quick start. Now to let the tank sit and cycle. Test the ammonia and nitrate at the end of week. Once you have zero ammonia and some amount of nitrate you should be good. If you have both there is something wrong. If you notice you have zero ammonia and zero nitrate add some fish food and let it decay for a source of ammonia and the bacteria can use that as food to continue the cycle until you start getting nitrate. See this thread for better info: https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/11-fertilizers-water-parameters/1279009-how-often-do-i-dose-ammonia-fishless-cycle.html r0ck0 fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Aug 24, 2018 |
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Aug 23, 2018 23:04
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Speaking of for the first time today I tested close to 0 with ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates. I think I'm actually cycling!
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Aug 24, 2018 00:07
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STAC Goat posted:My moss balls are kind of falling apart. Is that natural or a sign of something? Maybe the fish are just pulling on them when I'm not looking? There's just random little pieces of moss stuck in the filter and floating around. Goldfish love moss balls. They'll eventually eat them
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Aug 24, 2018 10:08
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The place I was looking at getting some rainbow fish from just emailed me, apparently their mail provider started putting incoming orders in the junk folder from some point in June so they’ve just found everyone’s enquiries and have a massive backlog to go through. I’d forgotten I had asked for a quote. Since then I’ve set up DIY CO2 and automated fert dosing on my big planted tank, got my water change automatic sump pump set up, got a big air system in the fish room half set up, and bought an extra tank “just in case” and over night temperatures are no longer freezing. So it’s probably just as well there was a delay, I’m in a better shape to quarantine some new fish than I was before. I think if I set the new tank up now as barebottom with some floating plants and put the new tank’s filter on one of my other tanks it should seed with bacteria and be ready by the time the order gets processed. I’ve so far managed to attract one buyer for my extra corydoras fry, I’m not sure she’s got compatible fish but at least she asked about what temperature to keep them at and what would they eat. But she was moving house and didn’t want to buy new fish until everything was set up and settled in at the new place. Haven’t heard back from her yet and not sure that I ever will :/
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Aug 26, 2018 06:02
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Don't suppose you could post a few pictures of your tanks?
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Aug 26, 2018 13:16
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I've been meaning to go around and do a tour of the state of things, it's been a while and things have changed a bit. Might see if I get time tomorrow, I'm due an algaescrape and water change on the big tank so it should be looking nice. Or I could do a before/after, that might be interesting. I can never really tell how much difference a water change makes.
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Aug 26, 2018 15:24
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Stoca Zola posted:...and over night temperatures are no longer freezing. What? I went for a hike the other day looking for fissidens, didn't think I would actually find any. I think this is F. Grandifrons. This was growing on rocks in the waterfall area, but not the water fall pictured. Next time I go back I will take a better picture of where it was actually growing. It was very dark where it was growing on a near vertical wall. I read that fissidens grows in these waterfall areas because it has high demand for co2. Better pic in whitewater here. http://www.shrimpspot.com/topic/3704-fissidens-incurvus/    
r0ck0 fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Aug 26, 2018 |
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Aug 26, 2018 16:44
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r0ck0 posted:What? Southern Hemisphere winter, and it's been uncharacteristically chilly. Cold snaps and frost, really glad I put a heater in my pond this year which has kept it 16ºC (60 F) when air temp was 0ºC. I couldn't sleep so I took a wander around with my phone and made a gallery of my tanks. I'm missing 4 tanks either because the pictures came out badly or I forgot to get a picture of them all together. https://imgur.com/a/6ZRtmdc pst r0ck0 that moss looks awesome!
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Aug 26, 2018 18:55
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Impressive variety! I love the planted tank with rasboras, planning on something like that myself. The cabinet looks like it will come out really nice too.
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Aug 26, 2018 21:34
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r0ck0 posted:Seachem flourish supplies trace elements like iron but not the major fertilizers. Its not meant to supply nitrogen, phosphorous, or potassium. Do you test your gh/kh and nitrate levels? You will probably want to dose nitrate and phosphorus on opposite days as flourish to get the green back in your plants and prevent an algae bloom with the new light. And depending on your gh/kh you might need to dose something like seachem equilibrium to raise your ca/mg/k levels. You have to balance the light with the plants and ferts or you get algae. This calculator is good for figuring out how much to dose: http://rotalabutterfly.com/nutrient-calculator.php Thanks for the advice! I use the API Freshwater Master Test Kit to test my water parameters. Unfortunately that does not come with a test for GH/KH so I don't test for those. I'll look around at a few LFS for the additional chemicals/tests because I'm sick of not being able to grow anubias. Picture of tank for reference: 
Neitherman fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Aug 27, 2018 |
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Aug 27, 2018 15:30
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Very nice and clean looking setup! Is that anubias afzelii? I didn't have much luck with anubias to start with but it just takes time, LOTS of time. Once it gets a bit bigger and more established it speeds up a bit, or maybe that's just me losing track of time.
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Aug 27, 2018 15:54
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Stoca Zola posted:Very nice and clean looking setup! Is that anubias afzelii? I didn't have much luck with anubias to start with but it just takes time, LOTS of time. Once it gets a bit bigger and more established it speeds up a bit, or maybe that's just me losing track of time. Thank you! I have anubias nana and anubias congensis and I would love if both the driftwood and rock were totally covered in those. I'm going get some API Leaf Zone and see if it'll help my plants reach that goal more quickly. If anyone has specific fert recommendations I'll take those into consideration as well.
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Aug 27, 2018 16:12
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Neitherman posted:Thank you! I have anubias nana and anubias congensis and I would love if both the driftwood and rock were totally covered in those. I'm going get some API Leaf Zone and see if it'll help my plants reach that goal more quickly. If anyone has specific fert recommendations I'll take those into consideration as well. The API leaf zone is only potassium and iron, pretty much the same as seachem flourish. You don't want to double dose iron as it is toxic to inverts at higher levels and you'll still be missing the major fertilizers. You want something that has NPK. https://www.amazon.com/Seachem-Plant-Enhancers-different-100ml/dp/B003QP4CDC/ There are cheaper options, buying dry ferts in bulk, but for your size tank this should last awhile. Be sure to test for nitrate when you start dosing to make sure you don't add too much, you want 10-20ppm nitrate and 1-2 ppm phosphate. This is very helpful to figure out dosing amounts: http://rotalabutterfly.com/nutrient-calculator.php
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Aug 27, 2018 16:45
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Thanks again. I grabbed API Root Tabs and right now I'm putting together an order that includes that NPK kit because I couldn't find it at any LFS. I can also throw in a GH/KH testing kit. Any other recommendations? I'm not growing anything crazy here, just corkscrew vals, two types of anubias, and bacopa. Edit: For further reference, here are some close-ups of my plants. You can clearly see the yellowing and leaf disintegration. I just found a LFS that sells that NPK kit so I'll probably grab that later today.   
Neitherman fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Aug 27, 2018 |
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Aug 27, 2018 19:32
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A while ago I read somewhere that almond tree leaves make good long term shrimp food. So I'm now leaving for 3-4 weeks of travelling and having some doubts about it. Does this really work? I can ask someone to come over and throw another leaf ever week or so but not feed them every day of course.
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Aug 27, 2018 21:43
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The shrimp eat the biofilm that grows on the leaf, so they last a long time. If the tank is mature it should be fine. Maybe have someone feed a bit of whatever you normally do once in a while as well?
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Aug 27, 2018 23:16
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I'd be more worried about evaporation over a month. Do you have an automatic top off or a well fitting lid to reduce evaporation? I have a very simple ATO that uses a timer and a tom's aqua lifter pump and a gallon of water. The timer turns the pump on for 1 min twice a day. Its not perfect but works, would be better with a float switch. I read more horror stories about people having someone feed their tank and coming back to a fishpocalypse because of overfeeding. I'm very lazy so I also have an ehiem auto fish feeder. https://www.amazon.com/Eheim-Everyday-Programmable-Automatic-Dispenser/dp/B001F2117I/
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Aug 28, 2018 00:53
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The shrimp tank has a cover so the evaporation shouldn't be too bad, especially now that the summer heatwave is over. Setting up a pump would be a fun project but definitely overkill. My fish tank does have an automatic feeder that I calibrated quite well I think, so hopefully no fishpocalypse. No feeder for the smaller shrimp tank though. I'll check if they're already grazing on the leaves and if so I'll just have someone come over every week-10 days, supplement the food and check the water levels.
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Aug 28, 2018 11:04
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Dangit, crab! That food is clearly labeled as 'Shrimp Dinner'! How rude... 
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Aug 28, 2018 21:27
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I went pet store hopping today to try and find the best one and ended up at an aquarium place that so totally isn't right for my level of hobbying and spending but holy shot do I want a giant rear end shark tank and a bunch of expensive rear end pretty mini lobster shrimp things and the ugliest, meanest fish I've ever seen and giant "gently caress you" pieces of coral and driftwood bigger than my 20 G tank... If I had thousands of expendable dollars and a whole room to make an aquarium...
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Aug 28, 2018 23:55
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Ended up having to trade in the jewel cichlid we caught because it got too aggressive (surprise), after months of it being docile. I think it may be because of introducing new fish, the fish that were put in with it he didn't have a problem with. Also what was even worse is he kept digging up all the plants and that was a major pain in the rear end. So my son put him in a bucket and got $3.50 credit for him at the local fish store, picked up a betta, 6 neons and a small angel fish 
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Aug 29, 2018 00:58
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I lost one of my black phantoms today. It wasn't really a surprise seeing as he already had most of his tail missing from fighting and still continued to fight. I saw him not looking well this morning but he was stuck to the filter when I got home this arvo so I fished him out and got rid of him. Given he was only in there for at most 12hrs I don't think I need to do a water change until the weekend. In other news my tank has quite a bit of black beard algae growing in the tank so I'll dose it with excel over the weekend. Some of it has already started to die so I think I can get rid of it. I've also nearly had my tank for a year but it didn't have any fish living in it till November or December at the earliest cause I had to move house before I got the tank cycled.
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Aug 29, 2018 11:10
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Do you have any recent pics of your tank Dr Garbanzo? I have a few bits of BBA but nothing I can't pull off by hand. I'm trying to change more water each time to see if that helps.
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Aug 29, 2018 12:35
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Nothing since May but I can grab a pic tomorrow. I tried knocking it off but that seems to have spread it further through the tank so I’ll try a different approach. A lot of the quartzite I put in has turned fairly green but I don’t mind too much cause it helps tie the tank together a fair bit really.
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Aug 29, 2018 12:43
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I have finally began beating a horrible roundworm that I noticed two months ago called camalanus worms. It started by noticing some of my fish became bloated and I could see the worms literally sticking out of their vent. I've lost half my stock in these two months. I googled medications and could only get my hands on meds containing flubenazole but these worms are resistant and it failed. I had to order pig and sheep dewormer containing levimasole off eBay as this stuff is only prescribed by vets as levimasole is used in cancer treatment and also used to cut cocaine so you can't just pick it up here in Ireland. I mixed the powder with water and dumped it in the tank. I had to block all light coming in the tank with tinfoil as light will dissipate the medications. After 24 hours I removed it and the amount of worms I had to vacuum from the substrate was mind blowing. The medication doesn't kill the worms, it paralyses them and they detatch from the intestinal walls, so you gotta vacuum the tank thoroughly. Just need to repeat the medication in 2 weeks as it won't kill worms that are in their egg stage. I'm just glad it's working and can look forward to buying some new stock.
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Aug 29, 2018 20:16
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I’m glad you finally got the right stuff to treat your fish. I had a case of camallanus in my tanks which I caught early as a guppy fry had caught it and she was so small the worms didn’t have much room to hide. Praziquantel did nothing so I used a bird dewormer to get levamisole and found all my tetras and some of my guppies had the worms. I eventually lost the tetras I think due to internal damage that the worms did, as they pretty much wasted away over weeks and months. The guppies all survived aside from the little fry as a worm got stuck half way out and it killed her. It’s the reason I quarantine my fish for 6 weeks if I can, you just won’t see the worms any sooner than that and they spread before they become really visible. It’s a horrible disease but it’s also unmistakeable and the treatment (levamisole) is widely known and pretty much works if you can get it. So as far as fish diseases go it’s super gross but it isn’t the worst. I’m sure you will beat it and hope not too many of your surviving fish have the same damage my tetras did.
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Aug 30, 2018 05:02
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So as promised some progress pics of the tank. It's gone from this:  To this:  I'm pretty happy with it although I went for the wrong type of moss. I picked flame moss cause thats what they had at the time and it grows upwards and gets super dense to the point that trimming it ends up with moss all through the tank.
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Aug 30, 2018 10:34
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I think the flame moss looks amazing! I had some vertical moss but couldn't keep it alive, the snails seemed to preferentially eat it every tank I had it in. Not sure what sort it was, didn't really look as bushy as yours. Your sword looks great, and so do your crypts, and that ludwigia too. Really good mix of open space and cover for the fish. Is that mayaca fluitans that was in your first planting but is gone now? I had something similar that just didnt do very well in my tank. And I see what you mean about your algae rock, I think it looks fine and its a good food source for any future algae eaters you get. What lighting did you end up using? It looks really nice, clear and bright.
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Aug 30, 2018 12:57
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Dr. Garbanzo posted:So as promised some progress pics of the tank. Holy hell that looks amazing. Love it. I'm revamping my tank(s) soon, and going to setup a small rack with 4-6 20 or 30 gallons. Definitely hope I can pull off something as nice looking as that. I love your "Tree" in the middle - so awesome.
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Aug 30, 2018 13:17
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Dr. Garbanzo posted:So as promised some progress pics of the tank. I got Christmas moss myself and the stuff has turned into hedges in my tank. I love yours though, that stuff looks great
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Aug 30, 2018 19:50
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Dr. Garbanzo posted:So as promised some progress pics of the tank. Awesome tank! I love the way the "tree" has grown in and completely shrouded the rocks at the base, also holy gently caress that is some fluffy moss.
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Aug 30, 2018 20:14
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Thanks for the compliments guys. As far as the plants go it’s been a bit of a set and forget thing that I trim out every second water change. It certainly was mayaca and it never did particularly well so I switched it out for ambulia which seems to do much better but needs weeding to stop it spreading across the tank. I ended up going with a makemyled setup which was worth the money and it’s only running at 35% because if I go any higher the algae takes over.
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Aug 30, 2018 21:17
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That's awesome looking. Definitely the short of thing I'm gunning for. Really, really impressed. I haven't been able to find driftwood or trees like that but I'm gonna look online for my next tank. Which I'm definitely getting now that I'm obsessed. Even though I have no real room. I've got my 20 G goldfish tank more or less set although I feel like it needs something. I don't wnat to get carried away because I have to give the plants time to grow. I just planted my 5 G tank at the start of the week and I'm gonna get a betta and some neon tetras for it tomorrow or this weekend. I'll ask about what might be able to live or flourish up my goldfish tank when I'm there. Then I'm gonna buy a bag of sand and just play with the 10 G tank I bought on a whim as a quarantine. I have a wrecked ship ornament I really like but didn't go in either tank so I'm gonna build a whole Shipwrecked/Black Sails/Pirates beach thing with it and the sand and just play around without any water or fish for awhile. I'm also gonna hit the hardware store and pick up some small pieces of PVC tubing to experiment with hiding places for the goldfish. I figure I'll just put them in the tank for a while and if the goldies like it I'll find a way to work them into the aquascaping. Hoping to have some nice pictures to share this weekend.
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Aug 31, 2018 01:12
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Amano shrimp with some ripe eggs, soon to be fish food. https://i.imgur.com/CYfESs8.gifv
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Aug 31, 2018 05:04
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lil eggies!
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Aug 31, 2018 05:59
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More shrimps! Some have eggs but probably can't see here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWD2ozRdpGo
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Aug 31, 2018 14:33
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r0ck0 posted:Amano shrimp with some ripe eggs, soon to be fish food. Man, if it wasn't that hard to breed those buggers I'd load my tank up. I never see my Cherries berried, but I see little baby shrimps all the time Alright, now I feel like less of a loser. Trying to grow a carpet of dwarf hairgrass from seed. Been about a week now and I'm finally seeing little stems of grass popping up. I was so sure they were gonna be a failure i was ready to scrape off the top layer and already ordered some clumps to plant instead SocketWrench fucked around with this message at 15:45 on Aug 31, 2018 |
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Aug 31, 2018 15:30
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I'm very early in the planning stage for a tank. All I know I want for sure is a betta and some plants. I've got a friend who keeps a couple of community tanks and she pointed me towards a local store she trusts to know their poo poo and have healthy stock. I had a betta in middle school. I did a "research" paper on aquarium fish and apparently didn't do too bad finding out what to do. I expected to find out I was a monster, like the time my parents bought me two goldfish in a tiny bowl when I was 5. Those died pretty quickly. I seem to remember keeping the betta alive for a couple of years. I tried introducing a couple of tetras that didn't make it. My biggest mistake was definitely over cleaning the tank. I'm going to follow this thread and do some more reading. If you've posted about your betta tank, can you let me know so I can filter your posts? Thanks!
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Aug 31, 2018 23:15
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I’ve never kept a betta so ignore most of my posts - aside from the standard beginner advice about cycling and easy plants, for a betta I’d definitely recommend you get a tank with the best possible sealing lid. If you get a jumpy one they can go out the narrowest gaps (and the same is true for many jumpy fish). If the lid has gaps buy some foam or similar to pack the holes so they can’t get out. Once I finish moving my dwarf cray fish from my fluval spec V I’ve considered putting a betta in that tank, but I think I’d have to cover it with cling film to make it jump proof!
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Sep 1, 2018 06:41
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Probably the number one piece of advice for bettas is to ignore most of the store products for bettas. You don’t need “betta water”, and for God’s sake don’t put them in those tiny “betta aquariums”. I wouldn’t put a betta in anything smaller than 5 gallons- those tiny 1-2 gallon aquaria are like keeping a dog in a cage its entire life. It might survive, but its certainly not going to thrive.
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