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If you're getting more corydoras don't get a mix of species, in my experience they don't get any social benefit from it and the non matching types ignore each other, 2 or 3 more would be fine although if you've got bronze, peppered or albino corys they all get fairly big for a tank as small as that. I couldn't see it in the video, if it's a panda or leopard cory having 4 total would work fine. I had a bit more of a read about Kribensis (pelvicachromis) and they apparently aren't as aggro as I thought. You could easily fit a single pair in that tank I think and they're pretty easy to get hold of and care for. I wouldn't get too many more danios, you don't want them racing around and stressing the poo poo out of that betta, and black skirt/widow tetras have potential to be nippy again which could end up with a chomped or stressed betta. If you have to get more, pick one or the other. For a tank that size I would have stuck with one type of bottom dweller, one type of small schooler and one "something else" which in this case would be the betta. I'm not the fish police and I do think it's possible to make a small community work, it's just harder to keep the fish happy which in turn makes it harder to keep them alive. Fishtanks are germy as gently caress so the best way to keep them healthy is clean water, good food and avoiding stress, so their immune systems can do all the work. Also you want to make it easy as possible for whoever is maintaining the tank so they don't end up putting it off and letting it get out of hand. You've kept fish, you probably know all this, I'm just trying to be the voice of moderation instead of encouraging you to buy all the things. If you want to get more fish I recommend you to pick only one of these - get the african fish, get more corys, get more danios, get more black widows. Pick two of these at the most, if you're confident that the tank and the person caring for the tank can handle it. I don't think the tank is big enough to fit all of these in. I could be wrong maybe it's a bigger tank than it looks!
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Oct 13, 2018 05:26
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Is bottled water going to need to be dechlorinated or can I trust it to be just water? I have well water so I've never had to bother dechlorinating, but my well water is testing at 80 ppm nitrate all of a sudden so it seems pointless to add in a water change. Luckily I only have a ten gallon that usually just needs topping off so it's not gonna break the bank.
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Oct 13, 2018 06:16
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VelociBacon posted:Alright dipped my strip as they say. Is there a thread favorite test kit?
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Oct 13, 2018 06:49
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Water change day. Cleared out a massive pile of moss cause it had started to take over the tank. Found a couple of shrimp in the filter once again one of them was a decent sized one which was hard to get back in the tank but I made it happen one way or another
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Oct 13, 2018 07:03
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FuriousxGeorge posted:Is bottled water going to need to be dechlorinated or can I trust it to be just water? I have well water so I've never had to bother dechlorinating, but my well water is testing at 80 ppm nitrate all of a sudden so it seems pointless to add in a water change. Luckily I only have a ten gallon that usually just needs topping off so it's not gonna break the bank. It will almost certainly have been treated to make it safe for drinking, so I'd dechlorinate. 80ppm nitrate is nuts! EPA puts the safe level for human consumption at 10ppm so I hope you're getting water for yourself to drink too. But congrats on catching it before it messed up your tank. VelociBacon posted:Alright dipped my strip as they say. I'd be a bit worried you're running quite soft, not much carbonate hardness either, you don't want it getting too acidic since the beneficial bacteria doesn't like it and once you get livestock in, the natural organic processes tend towards acidity so you need some buffering to avoid an unexpected pH crash. What's your source water like? I think you could remedy it pretty easily with some thing like seachem alkalinity for kH and you'd be getting some amount of gH from the seachem flourish.
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Oct 13, 2018 08:19
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My tests for GH, KH and Ph all look similar to the test strip and it doesn't seem to affect the fish terribly much. I knew going in that I had soft water straight from the tap so I altered my stocking to reflect that. I haven't ever bothered to buffer my water and things seem to be going pretty well all told.
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Oct 13, 2018 08:23
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Stoca Zola posted:It will almost certainly have been treated to make it safe for drinking, so I'd dechlorinate. 80ppm nitrate is nuts! EPA puts the safe level for human consumption at 10ppm so I hope you're getting water for yourself to drink too. But congrats on catching it before it messed up your tank. Yeah after absolutely nothing got the tank to test low in nitrate even after 80% water change the culprit became pretty clear. What does break the bank is buying red bull instead of powdered energy drink, but yeah I looked up that EPA number too and had an "Oh poo poo!" moment since I drank a lot of tap water. I don't think it's been going on for long because I do test the tank water religiously and this wasn't an issue before. If I didn't have a fish tank I probably never would have noticed until it gave me brain cancer or whatever.
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Oct 13, 2018 08:30
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Stoca Zola posted:I'd be a bit worried you're running quite soft, not much carbonate hardness either, you don't want it getting too acidic since the beneficial bacteria doesn't like it and once you get livestock in, the natural organic processes tend towards acidity so you need some buffering to avoid an unexpected pH crash. What's your source water like? I think you could remedy it pretty easily with some thing like seachem alkalinity for kH and you'd be getting some amount of gH from the seachem flourish. Hm do tanks tend to get more acidic the longer you leave it before a water change? With only plants I mean. I checked the strip right before I did a 60% change (water was getting really dark from tannins). I would have thought my source water is pretty good since it is entirely snowmelt and rainwater. Here's a link: http://www.newwestcity.ca/database/files/library/2017_Water_Quality.pdf I spend most days at work trying to correct people's blood acidity and didn't expect to have to think about pH at home quite so much as well! That 500mL bottle of seachem flourish is going to last me forever. My 5g tank needs about 1mL of it per dose.
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Oct 13, 2018 11:40
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I bet your water is clean as gently caress (otherwise fresh water with 80ppm nitrates counts as dirty in fishkeeping terms), but that also makes it soft ie not many dissolved minerals (unless the snowmelt runs over limestone or something). Like Dr Garbanzo says, it's not a problem if you pick fish/shrimp/whatever that suits that water chemistry, and if you keep up with water changes. Some fish are triggered to breed by water like that as they take it as a signal for it being the start of spring. There are a few kinds of fish that simply can't survive in water that soft, or they can't handle fluctuations; different species have different osmoregulation abilities. Anyway, anything organic, like rotting leaves, snail poop, whatever the hell the random bacteria are doing, it does make a fish tank tend towards becoming acidic over time although with a low bioload it will be pretty slow. A stagnant fishtank with no water changes can use up all it's buffering and go into a runaway pH crash, turning into a rotting stinking deoxygenated mess as the H2S producing bacteria are about the only things that thrive in those conditions. Anyway water changing with water that contains some dissolved carbonates is usually enough for the tank to reach some kind of equilibrium, it's not so much hitting an exact desired pH but finding a stable point that your tank and you with your water changes can maintain. If you don't have kH in your source water and it's being consumed by processes in your tank, eventually you're going to run out.
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Oct 13, 2018 12:03
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e: disregard
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Oct 13, 2018 12:12
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DeadlyMuffin posted:Is there a thread favorite test kit? Api master kit.
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Oct 13, 2018 13:02
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How sensitive is the API master kit? By that I mean- do I really have to shake for exactly thirty seconds and wait exactly five minutes and all that jazz?
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Oct 13, 2018 17:31
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Dip a strip, its a trip.
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Oct 13, 2018 17:57
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With the API, or any test kit like that, being consistent test to test is really important. Following the exact written instructions it's important too but doing the same thing every time is more important. Otherwise you can't reliably compare your results this week to last week
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Oct 13, 2018 18:10
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Luneshot posted:How sensitive is the API master kit? By that I mean- do I really have to shake for exactly thirty seconds and wait exactly five minutes and all that jazz? It's fairly robust. You will have to wait the full time but, shaking for 20 does just as well as 30. Azuth0667 fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Oct 13, 2018 |
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Oct 13, 2018 21:44
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I usually just do all the tests and then set them aside while I clean the tank and suck stuff out. By the time I'm done the five minutes have passed.
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Oct 13, 2018 22:27
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I got some new fish at the store today:   on topic: https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/11-fertilizers-water-parameters/83545-calibrating-test-kits-non-chemists.html
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Oct 13, 2018 22:41
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r0ck0 posted:I got some new fish at the store today So how was it? How do you even prepare salted fish, do you have to soak the salt off first or is that a desirable feature? I saw my yoyo loaches getting smoochy with each other today, not sure if any spawning happened but if not it was a practice run. I have four females and two males and the females are loaded with eggs. If they drop any eggs here's hoping the gudgeons and corydoras eat them all. I didn't get any video of the best stuff that happened but you can get the idea of what it was like from what I did capture. And they were doing it in the dumbest places, over a tiny puff of hair grass or the straggliest crypt. The first 30 or so seconds is from a "normal" day. https://youtu.be/GMV7t8RFZBc
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Oct 16, 2018 18:32
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I've been doing daily water changes on the new tank, since we had to get them in there sooner than I was hoping. When I got home from work today, everything looked mostly fine, though something looked off and I couldn't quite figure out what. Pouring the water in revealed the missing feature: those four goldfish had murdered the elodea. I also found a bunch of dried eggs all over the filter. It must have been chaos in that tank today. They seem to be otherwise settling into the new tank fine. To sort out disturbing the surface area, I ended up installing the older filter I used for them. I'm not sure how if it'll even help with filtration very much, but the flow on the surface is a lot better now. Once I can get more spare sockets, I'll set up the air pump as well. I'll take some photos either later after I've fished this mess out, or tomorrow. It sure is a whole lot more work to maintain these larger tanks. I don't know how folk can have so many on the go, but here we are. I've also moved the smaller two goldfish into the previous tank. They seem pretty happy in it, and I'll take a photo of them in it tomorrow as well. It's so much nicer having a better view of them, rather than navigating around a tank on the floor.
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Oct 16, 2018 23:36
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My lovely boyfriend built me a lovely tank rack that can hold a couple of 20 longs, which means I finally got to set up my Budgett's Frog tank! Hooray! I tore down the 10 gallon to do it and moved the ghost shrimp/filter media over to the new 20, just because it'll be months before anyone even has budgetts frogs to buy. Moved a ghost shrimp each into my African Clawed Frog tank and my Chili Rasbora tank. They're both still alive after a week! Here's a brief look at all the tanks I've got set up, if anyone wants to look. I'm on a budget, so if anyone has any suggestions for any hoods/lights for cheap, I'm all ears.
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Oct 17, 2018 01:29
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I moved my Black Molly out of the Beta/Community tank because I suspect him of murdering Angelfish #1 and he was harassing Angelfish #2 and just generally seemed to be kinda bullying the tank. I put him in my goldfish tank where he immediately seemed to get put in his place and seemed scared the bigger goldfish. He spent a few days hanging at the top of the tank and hiding in corners but seems to have settled down and is now doing what I wanted him to do, cleaning up all the brown algae in the tank. I want to get a heater to help him adjust especially with winter coming but I think he'll be fine. Of course now my beta/community tank has gotten noticeably dirtier without him there picking on poo poo. So I'm gonna have to get something for that, maybe another Molly and just hope for better results. I dunno. I also am constantly cleaning algae from the tetra tank but that's lowly planted so I want to add some more plants soon and hope that helps. If not maybe I'll get some snails for that tank since the plants don't show up under the blue light so I don't care that much if they eat them.
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Oct 17, 2018 02:25
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Axqu posted:Here's a brief look at all the tanks I've got set up, if anyone wants to look. I'm on a budget, so if anyone has any suggestions for any hoods/lights for cheap, I'm all ears. I've seen guys build some hoods out of rain gutters. Just cut to length, get some end caps for it and stick a light inside
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Oct 17, 2018 02:55
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SocketWrench posted:I've seen guys build some hoods out of rain gutters. Just cut to length, get some end caps for it and stick a light inside Holy crap, that's a really good idea!! I work at a hardware store, too, so I can get it discounted. Thanks man!
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Oct 17, 2018 03:13
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Shrimp tank update: Took these pictures last week, before and after pruning:   I've also run into a problem; all my red cherries died. Because of how heavily planted the tank is I didn't notice them gradually disappearing until yesterday when the last adult (of four) died. I've had them roughly a month. I wondered if it might be due to the Amanos bullying them away from the food. But there's so much detritus and plant life in that tank I would think the cherries would have plenty to eat; plus when the Amanos are done with the algae wafers there's usually plenty left over, which ends up going to the snails. Water tests (ammonia/nitrite/nitrate) all look totally fine, and the baby cherries that hatched before the parents passed away are growing and seem happy as can be. It was suggested it might be due to soft water, but total hardness here is ~350ppm so I doubt that's the problem. Any thoughts?
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Oct 17, 2018 05:25
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You can never tell with cherries, if something happened 6 weeks ago to upset them and they've gone into decline there's nothing you can do. The first batch of cherry shrimp I got were someone's culls and they did much the same thing. If you get them breeding in your tank before they die the new babies will be used to the conditions and do better. Lol reading comprehension, that's actually what's happened for you, right? I don't think you did anything wrong, shrimp just sometimes can't adapt to changes fast enough. STAC goat if mollies are social fish I'd not be surprised if a singleton was being a bully. That's the trouble with using a fish to solve a problem, it often just substitutes it with a different problem. I think they might behave better with a few mollies but maybe you don't want a few mollies in your tank?
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Oct 17, 2018 05:35
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Two of them were actually berried when they arrived; I bought them online so I honestly would not be surprised if the shipping was the source of stress that caused the decline. I'm probably going to tear down my 10 gal and turn that into a Walstad too, so I'll have a lot more room and can keep the Amanos in there instead where they won't be so dominant over the cherries.
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Oct 17, 2018 05:59
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I just don't want to overcrowd the tanks. Community tank's already pretty packed (10G, 14 neon tetras, 1 angelfish, 1 beta). The beta seemed fine when it had the extra angelfish and molly but it always felt too crowded for me and they seem much happier since I took the molly out. I worry 2-3 mollies would just be pushing the tank and risk upsetting everyone else. I suppose I could try it and worst case move them to the 20G goldfish tank to socialize with the guy in there (I'm debating giving him a friend anyway just so he isn't so timid). But it doesn't feel necessary at the moment. My biggest mistake has been being too overzealous buying fish, not having them work together, and then having to set up a new tank. And I can't afford, don't have room for, and don't want to care for a 4th tank right now. So I'm just trying to exhibit self control. So right now I probably just get a heater for the 20G/molly and up my water changes on the community tank to keep the mess at bay while I adjust the feeding routine (its a "community" tank in both senses of the word and there's been multiple people feeding, so I got everyone on board with a stricter schedule and more conservative feedings). The cool thing is I feel comfortable enough with my knowledge and experience at this stage that I feel like I can make decisions on the fly and adjust to each tank's problems and needs. And then some day I'll be in a pet store buying food or equipment and impulsively buy something again like I did last week with my gorgeous black moor who I love intensely. And who I've managed to train to feed drat near from my hands. Because I'm convinced goldfish are part puppy. edit: Out of curiosity, is there a known/trusted/good place to buy shrimp/snails online? None of my pet stores carry them. I could probably ask to get some but I haven't been impressed with many of the employees and I've actually haven't seen the one guy I had a rapport with who talked about getting things for me in like 8 months. STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 06:04 on Oct 17, 2018 |
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Oct 17, 2018 06:02
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Hmmm... speaking of I just found a very small shell on the glass of one of my tanks in the dark. I don't see anything in it but it wasn't there earlier today when I changed the water. I haven't added anything in weeks that something could have stowed away on. I have a fish tank mystery.
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Oct 17, 2018 06:39
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Stoca Zola posted:You can never tell with cherries, if something happened 6 weeks ago to upset them and they've gone into decline there's nothing you can do. The first batch of cherry shrimp I got were someone's culls and they did much the same thing. If you get them breeding in your tank before they die the new babies will be used to the conditions and do better. Lol reading comprehension, that's actually what's happened for you, right? I don't think you did anything wrong, shrimp just sometimes can't adapt to changes fast enough. If you do get more Mollies, at least three females to spread out the sexpest male stress if you intend to have them breed, but then watch out, they gently caress worse than rabbits (one round is good for two batches of fry). All males I've found at least three in total, but more if possible. Even without females one will try to be alpha of the group. A large group spreads out the aggression. Small, and well, they'll all bully the runt of the group till he dies. That's my experience with Mollies. You'll know which one becomes alpha, the others will point their bodies upwards to show submission STAC Goat posted:Hmmm... speaking of I just found a very small shell on the glass of one of my tanks in the dark. I don't see anything in it but it wasn't there earlier today when I changed the water. I haven't added anything in weeks that something could have stowed away on. I have a fish tank mystery. Snails are magic. They can transport in as eggs that you won't see. Small update; I got my new water lettuce in today. I figure a few would look nice since the frogbit and duckweed all got scooped in the great surface purge. The shrimp know something's new and all of them have been bolting around since going nuts in the roots. I even saw berried shrimp for the first time in this tank. So far four cherries are berried and three of the blue velvets are berried. Also found some hornwort that snuck its way in sometime as the stalk just breached through the moss. Not sure if I want to keep it or not. For now it'll stay. SocketWrench fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Oct 17, 2018 |
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Oct 17, 2018 07:27
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Alright folks, hoping for some suggestions. Just picked up a 29 gallon (so 30x12x18) to put upstairs. Moving the 55 down to my new office room, since its taking up way too much space in the living room. Going to go heavily planted. Picked up some really nice looking monte carlo, some proper planted substrate, and an Eheim canister filter. Plus maybe some misc. rocks/wood for hardscape. Only a $400 trip...whoops. So, I get home, and realize my CurrentUSA light I've got on the 55 is 36 inches wide at minimum. I mean, I could make it work, but its going to look funny. So, I need a light. Heavily planted tank. Dosing with ferts and liquid carbon. Might setup an auto-drip system for the ferts/carbon, and a timer for the light if it doesn't come with one. The Finnex stuff looks good, but its pricey. Any thoughts on another one of similar to what I have (the 24" CurrentUSA)? Or maybe the 30" Beamswork? I'm also okay with making a hanger system for a hanging-style light (I have to build the stand anyways). Could also grab two smaller clip ons. Basically, without fully ignoring a budget, but I'm willing to spend for something good - what should I look at? The google rabbit hole is way too deep tonight.
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Oct 18, 2018 00:14
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Finnex has a 6 month warranty and not great support when the power supplies fail if I recall others experience, I can add my own that my finnex clip on lasted maybe a year. The LEDs looks great but the power supply quality isn't there to justify the price. You might get lucky and get one that doesn't fail but that's a gamble IMO. Beamswork seem pretty good, I haven't heard any bad reviews. I think the white/blue lights don't look as natural though, it's something worth looking into because who cares if the plants like it if it makes them look like they're under a cheap fluoro; I think it's important that it looks nice to you as well as grows plants and it seems that plants care about brightness more than anything else. I think some of the multicolour LED lights are a bit gimmicky, Chihiros comes to mind, but maybe it's about getting it to look right visually more so than providing the exact light wavelength profile for a plant. You know what looks good to you better than anyone else, just don't forget to factor that in. My big planted tank never looked better after I started dosing with a dosing pump, I thought I'd be able to remember to fertilise myself but the tank did a lot better with consistency from the pump. I water my liquid fertiliser down so that I can run the pump longer and get a more accurate dose but it turns out plant fertiliser can and does go mouldy so I haven't worked out how to deal with that yet. I wouldn't have thought dosing would make so much difference and I would never have bought the dosing pump but I saw one on special and now I have no regrets. Just a little quirky setting it up though, had to disassemble the pump heads to unkink the internal hose as it didn't work out of the box. No pressurised CO2 in my tank, just an upturned container that holds gas in contact with the water. A little dissolves over time so it's better than nothing but it's also fish safe. I'm using vinegar and sodium bicarbonate in a DIY coke bottle kit. Stinks a lot less than the yeast method. I think there's a difference in algae between no CO2 and some tiny amount of CO2 too, the plants just do a bit better and algae is almost gone.
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Oct 18, 2018 01:54
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That little shell I found in my tetra tank yesterday is now crawling up my empty 5 G tank. I wonder where the hell he came from. I hadn't added anything to the tank in weeks (except a silly Halloween decoration). If I'm not noticing any serious problems (besides algae) should I worry too much that there might be more hiding?
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Oct 18, 2018 06:06
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Snails are good at hiding.
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Oct 18, 2018 06:11
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Is it bad to clean your mechanical filter often? Are you supposed to let some bacteria build up in it or something? I'm quite confused.
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Oct 18, 2018 06:15
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You give it a rinse. Squeeze the sponge/shake up the media and rinse with dechlorinated water, give the impeller a scrub if needed.
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Oct 18, 2018 06:27
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VelociBacon posted:Is it bad to clean your mechanical filter often? Are you supposed to let some bacteria build up in it or something? I'm quite confused. Squeeze out the sponges etc in the water your about to dump from a water change. Bacteria will still be there as long as you dont dip it in chlorinated water etc. The biggest thing with mechanical is it will be collecting all the fish poo poo etc and limit flow if you dont clean it.
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Oct 18, 2018 06:28
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Gotcha. So I shouldn't run it under the tap hey...
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Oct 18, 2018 06:49
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For the purely mechanical part running it under tap isn't a huge disaster as long as you do a final rinse in dechlorinated before it goes back in the tank. Hopefully you have ceramic or other media that will hold the most of the bacteria and your tank shouldn't crash just from a rinsed mechanical portion of the filter. But if all you have is sponge? Yeah treat it with a bit more care.
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Oct 18, 2018 11:53
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Stoca Zola posted:For the purely mechanical part running it under tap isn't a huge disaster as long as you do a final rinse in dechlorinated before it goes back in the tank. Hopefully you have ceramic or other media that will hold the most of the bacteria and your tank shouldn't crash just from a rinsed mechanical portion of the filter. But if all you have is sponge? Yeah treat it with a bit more care. Yeah the filter is just sponge. I'll do better, fish dad I promise.
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Oct 18, 2018 11:56
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I was being a bit hypothetical, ha! not specifically targeting your specific sponge. You still don't have fish back in your tank, right? so you've got a lot more leeway than someone who has only a sponge as lifesupport for a tank full of fish. I'm a childless fish-mum, they are a substitute for my stunted maternal energies I think.
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Oct 18, 2018 12:35
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