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STAC Goat posted:Definitely something I've been reading more about and trying to figure out the best way of approaching since none of my local places are terribly well stocked or informed on stuff like that. What kind of snails are they? I thought most can't successfully breed in freshwater?
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Nov 10, 2018 02:18
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I think we identified them as "bladder" or "pond" snails when the first one showed up. I started with one and now basically pick and kill 30 a day so they're definitely not having a problem breeding. Here's today's haul. I decided to start keeping them in a jar for the hell of it. I'm sure it will be filled by Monday. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P18ek56sTO4 The truth is if they didn't multiply so drat much that I'm terrified they'll eventually take over everything I really do actually like them.
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Nov 10, 2018 02:29
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VelociBacon posted:What kind of snails are they? I thought most can't successfully breed in freshwater? Freshwater snails: Pond snail, bladder snail (I don't know the difference between these two but one seems to lay a jelly mass of eggs and the other lays eggs under a flat brown protective cover), Malaysian trumpet snail (live bearer), apple snails (lays eggs out of water), ramshorn snails, blond snails, assassin snail, rabbit snail, Waterhouse snail, Essington snails (more live bearing snails), probably every country has their own native aquatic snails too. Some of these are pests, some are decorative, some functional - either as clean up crew or substrate aeration. They're a bit like guppies though, when they're happy they'll breed and no aquarium is big enough to contain an unrestrained population. Without predators every kind of snail can become a nuisance, even assassin snails. The easiest to manage are probably Apple/mystery snails since they put their gross alien eggs up out of the water where you can easily remove them and if the eggs dry out they are no longer viable. They all add to the bio load of the tank, and this can be a problem if you can't see them and don't realise what's happened. MTS can be buried and hidden in massive numbers, and I've seen ramshorn snails burrowing under rocks or hiding inside driftwood in large numbers too. Makes it hard to remove the excess and it makes it hard to judge how heavily loaded a tank is. I think it's useful to have a cleanup crew in an aquarium but you're swapping one kind of maintenance, gravel vacuuming and glass scraping for another - snail culling. My sister has had a proliferation of snails in her new tank and had been putting the snails out in the bird bath, where the snails have been happily grazing on algae. They're probably easy food for birds who like that kind of thing, too. Honestly I wouldn't recommend doing it since snails can carry parasites which rely on the snail being eaten by a bird and then the bird pooping into water for the parasite to spread.
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Nov 10, 2018 05:55
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Ok, so when the whole snail thing started and it was just 1 I threw the guy in my unused 5G that I had never emptied for reasons. This was of course dumb because now there's a bunch of snails crawling up the walls even though I don't even know what they're living on in there. I want to empty the thing out and clean it, not just because of the snails and stagnant water but because I'm thinking of setting up a betta in there for my desk or maybe moving my pesky molly with some friends in there. But I have to clean it first and I gotta deal with that snail problem. Would emptying the water, cleaning the filters and tank walls, and leaving it dry for a week or something be enough to kill any snails and eggs? Or do I need to do more? There's nothing actually in there besides gravel, dirt, and filters but I'd like to preserve the substrate. I have no idea if there's any worthwhile bacteria in there (although the living snails suggest there might be) but if nothing else that stuff costs money. But I definitely want to make sure i clean out that snail problem before I set up whatever I'm gonna do with it. And honestly, I just want to get rid of it anyway before I have a mess of stinky water filled with snails.
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Nov 10, 2018 06:39
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Drying everything out is a pretty good strategy against snails, they pretty much all need moisture to survive and even the ones with a door on their shell dry out eventually. You could wipe off any eggs that are on the filter and keep it cycled in your other tank to speed things up once you are ready to use it again. Any beneficial bacteria or friendly microfauna in your substrate wouldn't last since it needs moisture too, but once you add plants or whatever all that stuff will come back assuming you don't bleach dip your plants like some people do. I guess the only thing is making sure there aren't dried out dead snails in the substrate since they'll stink up the tank once the water goes back in if you don't remove them.
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Nov 10, 2018 08:45
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So, for a planted tank, would a pack of seachem basics (flourish, excel, iron) be sufficient? I'm mostly aiming at a low tech tank because I don't feel comfortable setting up a CO2 setup. I'm buying my supplies in advance of the tank, so I'm just trying to decide what's important. The substrate I am going to get is ecocomplete.
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Nov 11, 2018 06:08
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Eco-complete is kind of rough, probably not suitable for small carpeting plants, no nutrients to speak of but has some cation exchange capacity, which is the ability to hold nutrients and make it available for plant roots - so it works well in conjunction with root tabs. I think it would also grab and store nutrients from the water column too. I think because it's quite hard, it doesn't break down like some of the baked clay type soils so you won't have to dig it out and replace it after a couple of years - that is why I chose it for my big planted tank. It's too rough for corydoras, or burrowing fish like kuhlie loaches, etc. I'm using it by capping it with sand to make it smoother but over time it does work its way to the surface, as you'd expect from trying to put large grains under small grains. It always self-sorts upwards. So far the fish are all still okay. I don't think excel is needed or even recommended, it doesn't provide CO2 in any meaningful way to plants and it is both an algacide, herbicide and potent poison. It's bad to get it on your skin and it will certainly kill vallisneria, probably a few other plants too. Maybe useful to have in case you need to spot treat algae but I don't think it's good to use regularly. As far as I know Flourish is pretty adequate, I've never used it or seen the ingredients but as long as it has NPK + micros it should be good. Having extra iron, some epsom salts in case you see magnesium deficiency, and maybe some source of potassium should cover most plants and any odd deficiencies. Just depends which kind of plants you want to keep I guess. I think the most important thing is matching your nutrients, your lighting, and your planting density, and making sure you have enough circulation such that the plants have decent access to nutrients and CO2. Even without adding CO2, there is still some dissolved in the water in equilibrium with the atmosphere, it just isn't very much, so it's important to make sure all plants have access to it. You can balance a too-bright light by reducing the time it is on each day (always use a timer!) but every tank is different, every tank changes over time as the plants grow etc so you just have to try it out, see what happens and adjust if things don't work quite right. In short: I'd add root tabs to your list, consider carefully which plants and planting style you want and whether they are compatible with eco-complete, have a read to see if any of them have a greater need for a particular get a decent bright light with a timer, and plant as many plants as you can right at the start to have your best chance to avoid algae. What kind of look are you aiming for? A mostly planted jungle, some striking hardscape? Edit to add, I've just been scrolling through the facebook planted aquarium group I'm in and there are tons of people saying "my plants look bad! I'm using flourish!" and people telling them to switch to nilogC thrive so who knows. Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 13:02 on Nov 11, 2018 |
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Nov 11, 2018 12:56
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I'm back from a few pages ago when I had some mystery ammonia spikes. Thought the issue had been resolved but nope - after doing a bunch of sand cleaning and water changes to get the ammonia down to 0 it started climbing again. It's like the cycle crashed but it's been a good couple of weeks now and no nitrite has appeared - just ammonia. We're doing 30-50% water changes depending on the ammonia level as the tank is inhabited so it needs to be kept under control. What gives? Any clever suggestions?
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Nov 11, 2018 16:33
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Have you added quick start bacteria to the tank?
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Nov 11, 2018 17:31
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No, I'm not sure whether it's safe for axolotls.
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Nov 11, 2018 17:35
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Bollock Monkey posted:No, I'm not sure whether it's safe for axolotls. I'm not an expert so please wait until someone else here comments or you read more about it somewhere but I'd assume since it's the bacteria that would otherwise be present in a cycled tank that it would be safe. A lot of dechlorinator agents also work as emergency ammonia reduction - the one I use is Seachem Prime. Seachem posted:Prime® may be used during tank cycling to alleviate ammonia/nitrite toxicity. It contains a binder which renders ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate non-toxic, allowing the biofilter to more efficiently remove them. It will also detoxify any heavy metals found in the tap water at typical concentration levels. Use at start-up and whenever adding or replacing water. When transporting or quarantining fish, use Seachem StressGuard™. When adding new fish, use Stability®. Both are ideal for use with Prime®.
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Nov 11, 2018 17:40
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Sometimes axolotls can have reactions to additives in tank chemical stuff because they are amphibians and not fish. I know some nitrate remover really upset him. I don't know what's in the solution they use to suspend the bacteria or how that might affect Max. We've been using Seachem Prime as our dechlorinator for a long time now so covered on that one!
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Nov 11, 2018 19:07
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Doesn't ammonia still show up when you use Prime? I'm pretty sure I read that once but that might be an old tale. It's not toxic and locked but still reads as present.
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Nov 11, 2018 20:20
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That's true for API liquid test kits, since they are detecting ammonium and that might have come from chloramine or ammonia. What does your clean tap water test as, before you put it in the tank? I feel like for sure if you had lost your cycle you would have a clue why.
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Nov 11, 2018 20:51
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So i just did about a 40% water change on my 20 gal tank after removing all the gravel (wanted to go without it for awhile), I siphoned most of the water out into 5 gallon buckets and poured it back in with some fresh tap water that I treated for chlorine. The fish are now acting funny, not very active and hanging out at the top or bottom of the tank. This can't be an ammonia spike is it? I also put some new rocks in the tank if that means anything. Water temps are around 80 after just putting a heater in for the winter. I put the air stone in with my portable pump for added oxygen is there anything else i can do?
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Nov 12, 2018 00:40
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Applebees Appetizer posted:So i just did about a 40% water change on my 20 gal tank after removing all the gravel (wanted to go without it for awhile), I siphoned most of the water out into 5 gallon buckets and poured it back in with some fresh tap water that I treated for chlorine. The fish are now acting funny, not very active and hanging out at the top or bottom of the tank. This can't be an ammonia spike is it? I also put some new rocks in the tank if that means anything. Water temps are around 80 after just putting a heater in for the winter. I put the air stone in with my portable pump for added oxygen is there anything else i can do? I would think you removed most of the bacteria present in the tank by removing the rocks. Have you checked the ammonia? I assume you raised the temp of the tank slowly to that temperature?
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Nov 12, 2018 00:49
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They might just be stressed from a drastic change to their environment. Are they in bare bottom now? That might look weird or wrong to them, especially depending on the colour of the surface under the glass. Ammonia will hurt their gills, so if it was that I'd expect to see gasping or erratic swimming. There are other things that can come from in the substrate though, such as sulphur compounds from anoxic areas which could maybe affect them but you did do a water change so I would have expected that to be minimised. How do they behave with the lights turned off? If you've only just done it I would not expect you'd have a build up of ammonia yet from having lost some beneficial bacteria, hopefully your filtration has sufficient surface area on its media compared to what you've lost from your gravel. When in doubt, test your water!
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Nov 12, 2018 01:15
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1) The fluval spec v has an opening under the light. Can I cut some plastic for it or will it be betta safe even open? 2) I mostly want some easier plants, like java moss, a few crypts and maybe a buceph or two. Anubias are definitely happening. I'd like a marimo, too. I used ecocomplete and flourish before, but I might try that thrive stuff so I don't have to juggle so many. My bioload may be some nerites, scrimps and a single betta. Should I invest in excel or just not do fertilizers? I'm aiming for a low tech-y set up. 3) Have people had good experiences with betta transshippers? The only fish store here is a lovely petsmart that sells goldfish bowls and betta cups.
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Nov 12, 2018 03:33
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Stoca Zola posted:They might just be stressed from a drastic change to their environment. Are they in bare bottom now? That might look weird or wrong to them, especially depending on the colour of the surface under the glass. Ammonia will hurt their gills, so if it was that I'd expect to see gasping or erratic swimming. There are other things that can come from in the substrate though, such as sulphur compounds from anoxic areas which could maybe affect them but you did do a water change so I would have expected that to be minimised. How do they behave with the lights turned off? If you've only just done it I would not expect you'd have a build up of ammonia yet from having lost some beneficial bacteria, hopefully your filtration has sufficient surface area on its media compared to what you've lost from your gravel. When in doubt, test your water! Yeah from what I searched it suggested ammonia spike, but there's no way it could happen that quick after a fresh water change. I have plenty of filter media, plus the ceramic beads to help keep the good bacteria so that shouldn't be a problem I hope. They seem to be doing ok with the lights off so maybe the drastic change of scenery was it. If they are still acting weird tomorrow I'll test the water. Also have to treat for ick once this issue gets taken care of. Really like the looks of the tank without gravel tho, the tank seems so much bigger without 3 to 4 inches of gravel. I still have a few plants left alive, will swords (or any live plant) be ok without any kind of gravel?
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Nov 12, 2018 04:06
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Swords possibly won't like it since they're root feeders, crypts don't like their roots disturbed and can melt but usually come good - there are tons of plants that feed from the water column and do okay floating. I have floating rotala, hydrophila polysperma and difformis, water sprite loves floating too. I've had variable success with free-floating anubias as it's a bulkier plant so it doesn't always stay oriented with leaves pointing toward light. Something like Bolbitis can just grow in a clump without necessarily being tied to something too. Forgot the obvious, mosses and susswassertang don't have roots so don't need substrate.
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Nov 12, 2018 05:00
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Stoca Zola posted:That's true for API liquid test kits, since they are detecting ammonium and that might have come from chloramine or ammonia. What does your clean tap water test as, before you put it in the tank? I feel like for sure if you had lost your cycle you would have a clue why. Zero ammonia at source. I'm so baffled! We'd become a bit lax at testing because the tank's been running with no issues for three years, then a few weeks ago tested and the ammonia was really high so we removed Max and undertook water changes to seemingly little effect. Within 24 hours and with no animal in the tank ammonia was climbing from, say, 0.25ppm to 1ppm. Someone here diagnosed an ammonia bubble so we made sure to rifle through the sand as well. After a week or so of water changes and sand disturbing it seemed to settle, only to start spiking again not long after Max went back in. I know there needs to be ammonia to start a cycle, but at no point has nitrite appeared. We're using Prime to detoxify the ammonia but have to do daily water changes to keep it below 0.5ppm. I have no idea what's happening and it feels like there's no end in sight.
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Nov 12, 2018 09:18
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How big is your filter, how often do you clean it, what filter medium do you use? How thick is your substrate? If its not from Max, if its not in the substrate, there's really only the filter left. Or... do you have a cat? I have seriously heard of cats peeing in aquariums twice now. A cat, a bird, a misbehaving child?
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Nov 12, 2018 10:48
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Stoca Zola posted:Swords possibly won't like it since they're root feeders, crypts don't like their roots disturbed and can melt but usually come good - there are tons of plants that feed from the water column and do okay floating. I have floating rotala, hydrophila polysperma and difformis, water sprite loves floating too. I've had variable success with free-floating anubias as it's a bulkier plant so it doesn't always stay oriented with leaves pointing toward light. Something like Bolbitis can just grow in a clump without necessarily being tied to something too. I've got the sword between some rocks holding it down, and two more plants (not sure what kind) in a piece of wood. If they die off I'm going with fake plants because I really haven't had much luck with the live ones and don't really feel like trying to figure it out lol. This is primarily my son's tank so i want it to be simple for him. If he wants to get more into live plants later on it's up to him, but for now this setup with bare bottom should be much easier for him to maintain and I think it looks a lot better than i thought it would. It was actually his idea.  What do you guys think? I'm going to add a sponge filter as well to help with filtration obviously, but it will also provide a more area for good bacteria since there is no substrate now 
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Nov 12, 2018 16:45
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Applebees Appetizer posted:I've got the sword between some rocks holding it down, and two more plants (not sure what kind) in a piece of wood. If they die off I'm going with fake plants because I really haven't had much luck with the live ones and don't really feel like trying to figure it out lol. This is primarily my son's tank so i want it to be simple for him. If he wants to get more into live plants later on it's up to him, but for now this setup with bare bottom should be much easier for him to maintain and I think it looks a lot better than i thought it would. It was actually his idea. Regarding the no substrate I think it's a compromise that the fish almost certainly don't like for the aesthetic benefit of the humans looking after them. Personally it would bother me knowing that I've made that decision but I'm not trying to shame you or your son etc.
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Nov 12, 2018 17:15
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Well I did some research on it and from what I've read/seen the fish don't seem to care either way, unless you have African Cichlids, those were the only fish that routinely came up as far as doing better with a substrate. This is just experimental really, gonna see how it goes, but the fish are fine now with the exception of one molly that has ick. Also we have a clown loach that I swear thinks it's a molly, it doesn't act like a loach at all it's weird.
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Nov 12, 2018 17:32
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Stoca Zola posted:How big is your filter, how often do you clean it, what filter medium do you use? How thick is your substrate? If its not from Max, if its not in the substrate, there's really only the filter left. The filter is only small (axolotls don't like fast flowing water) and uses a sponge. I give it a squeeze in old tank water... Once a month I guess? I last did that after the mystery spikes started up again after putting Max back in. Substrate gets shifted about but it's not very thick overall, maybe just half an inch at its deepest. No cats or other pets, no kids. Don't think my partner is pissing in there either.
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Nov 12, 2018 17:38
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Bollock Monkey posted:The filter is only small.... At this point the only thing that makes sense to me is a lack of adequate filtration. You get a really good surface area for bacteria from porous ceramic media like seachem matrix, or biohome. Just using sponge filters is fine for shrimp and fry that don't have a heavy bioload but I think you need more for bigger livestock. A good way to judge how porous something is, is to touch it against the surface of some water. Matrix and biohome visibly draw water into themselves and become wet all over! Some ceramic media doesn't do this and isn't very good, you want the stuff that really soaks up water. So you get internal surface area as well as external surface area, and different conditions are available for bacteria to grow. Anyway you might be able to DIY something that adds extra filtration without making excess flow, there are lots of examples around of air driven plastic bottle filters which would just bubble out the top the same as a sponge filter, in fact you might even be able to add something on top of your existing sponge filter so it's not taking up more room in the tank or needing extra airlines. I've done one myself where I cut the bottom off a well rinsed juice bottle, filled it with seachem matrix, rammed a cut piece of sponge in the bottom to contain the media and permit water to come in, and then just stuck an airline down the neck of the bottle and sat it in the tank with the sponge at the bottom. The same airlift principle as a regular sponge filter draws water in through the sponge and up through the ceramic and out the top. Or you could probably buy some kind of box filter and put decent ceramic media if you don't like ugly DIY. An alternative would be a sunsun 603B canister filter, the filter outlet has a valve on it which you can turn right down and filling the canister with ceramic would be way more than any bottle could hold. The pump is only 6w which is not very powerful at all. So why is it you see ammonia rising even after you've taken Max out of the tank? I think that's just the chemistry of the situation, I am guessing he excretes urea which breaks down into ammonia much like human or animal piss which smells worse the longer it sits around. So he's not in the tank but his urea is still there, slowly breaking down into ammonia, but doing it at a rate faster than your filtration can handle. I didn't think of this before but it doesn't really make sense that these animals we keep in tanks produce ammonia directly from their bodies otherwise they'd constantly be burning themselves, it's just that we usually ignore the step where the urea breaks down.
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Nov 12, 2018 18:44
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Interesting thoughts. But why would this happen now, after three happy years, at least half of which he's been pretty much the same size? And wouldn't urea have been blitzed by the week of huge daily water changes when he was out of the tank?
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Nov 12, 2018 19:19
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Yeah good points. Maybe it's much easier for pockets of waste/urea to form in a low flow environment? So when you water change it's possible you aren't siphoning out where the most concentrated wastes are? Maybe there are zones of undesired bacterial activity, which have been able to form due to lack of flow? As a fishkeeper I don't have much experience with that, all my tanks have as much flow as possible within comfort levels of the fish, so the water column is well mixed, I can picture that not being the case in a bigger tank with extremely gentle filtration but I honestly don't know. All I can say is that keeping it the same isn't working and adding more (but still gentle) filtration is a fairly safe thing to try changing. We know filters eat ammonia, your problem is ammonia, seems logical to me.
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Nov 12, 2018 19:30
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A handful of zeolite in a filter might help, too.
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Nov 12, 2018 20:51
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Applebees Appetizer posted:I've got the sword between some rocks holding it down, and two more plants (not sure what kind) in a piece of wood. If they die off I'm going with fake plants because I really haven't had much luck with the live ones and don't really feel like trying to figure it out lol. This is primarily my son's tank so i want it to be simple for him. If he wants to get more into live plants later on it's up to him, but for now this setup with bare bottom should be much easier for him to maintain and I think it looks a lot better than i thought it would. It was actually his idea. For your thoughts, live plants will make your life easier keeping the water stable. They'll suck up poop etc and generally make fish happier. Go with something low maintenance like some anubias
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Nov 13, 2018 00:44
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I bought a big java fern attached to some driftwood and dropped it in, seems to be growing pretty well or at least not dying without me adding anything to help it, unlike my poor fish. Update on my awful first tank and ich: I think I hosed everything up and now all my corys except the fat one has weird white growths, I'm not even sure if it's ich anymore. There's thin stringy white stuff growing on them and some aren't even shaped like spots they're 1-2mm long, really thin and a couple are shaped like tiny horseshoes. Googling has given me nothing similar and it's really stressing me out. I changed the water about five days ago stupidly and replaced the meds I took out but I'm not sure it's working. I want to change to a mix of esha 2000, exit and gdex since it seems like it should cover most things (?) but what's the best way to get the old medication out (a mix of malachite green and formaldehyde)? My plan is to change about half the water and replace the carbon in the filter and let it run for a while - then remove the carbon and change the water again. Will 12 hours be long enough? Really want to get the new treatment started. Edit: or maybe I should finish this course? It says on the bottle if you change 50% of the water you can start the treatment again, which I've done, and I'm halfway though it (dosed on Saturday and Monday so it would finish this Friday). Dong Swanson fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Nov 13, 2018 |
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Nov 13, 2018 01:41
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That really doesn't sound like ich, it could be fungus or columnaris, which got that name because the bacterial colonies form in stacks like columns. Or if you ever see those things move maybe they are flukes or anchor worms? It's hard to say without seeing it. Even with seeing it, I never did find a cause for my white lump covered corys. Just thinking, the horseshoe shapes could be the eggs of anchorworms? They are not even worms, they're skinny copepods I think. Your plan for removing medication sounds spot on to me, and depending on how the corys are, I'd consider finishing the current medication before swapping. If your guys have flukes I think they are usually treated by praziquantel, not sure if the medication for ich/velvet/costia would work. It's so hard treating sick fish when you aren't sure what exactly is up. Keep looking, and maybe have a read of wetwebmedia's fish disease pages. They have an email address you can write to and a team of volunteers helping out with fish advice, I have got some good help from them in the past.
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Nov 13, 2018 03:54
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Hey guys - pretty new to the whole fishkeeping thing, and looking for some advice! I hope it's okay to ask newbie questions here  I have a betta fish that I keep in a 19 liter (5 gallon) tank, and I recently got an Eheim 2006 internal filter for up to 45 liters (~12 gallons), as it was the smallest they had. I put it on the short end, near the back of the tank, with the nozzle facing straight ahead along the long end. Unfortunately, it seems like the flow it creates is too strong for my betta, even at the minimum setting. Towards the front it's fine, he can swim without a problem, but towards the back he's having difficulty swimming against the flow. I put one of the plants in front of it, which seems to help, but it's still not good. What should I do? Keep it on and hope he acclimates? Take it out and leave him without a filter? Leave it on during the day and turn it off at night? Turn the nozzle towards the wall?
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Nov 13, 2018 13:16
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You could try turning the flow so it hits the tank wall, another thing you could try is putting some finer sponge or even filter floss in the media chamber as it will be harder to push water through the denser media and this would both reduce the flow and provide a bit of mechanical polishing to the water. The sponge looks pretty coarse in that filter. I know a lot of betta owners cable tie sponge over their filter outlets but your outlet isn't really a protruding nozzle so that would be hard to do. Still, putting it in the back corner facing a long side, with the nozzle pointing towards the adjacent short side, would force the water to bounce along the glass and should make it a lot calmer in the rest of the tank while still circulating the water to some extent. Got any pictures of your fish or your tank? Feel free to post them! Here's one of my new gastromyzon chowing down on a wafer. I've had them for just over a month now, and they've been both super cool to watch and a lot easier to keep and feed than I was initially led to believe. I think they're ready to come out of quarantine and start life in the display tank. 
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Nov 13, 2018 13:55
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Thanks for the advice! I moved the filter to the long side in the same corner and turned the nozzle towards the tank wall, and it seems like he doesn't mind that. So that's good! It looks like the local pet store sells Juwel bioPlus fine filter sponges, would it work to cut it to the appropriate size and replace the current sponge with that? Here are a couple of (terrible) photos of my fish and his tank:  The tank!   The fish! His name is Lapis.
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Nov 13, 2018 19:30
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I think Lapis is a pretty boy! I guess the issue with doing a straight swap with the sponge would be any beneficial bacteria on the old sponge would get lost, your filter wouldn't be able to process wastes any more and it could crash the nitrogen cycle in your tank. I'm not sure how much you know about the nitrogen cycle or whether you've gone through that process of growing bacteria on your filter sponge yet but you've got live plants so that will help keep the water clean too, to some small extent. So I'm not sure what the best way to do it would be. Maybe cut your existing sponge in half, keep half and replace half? But for now you probably don't need to worry about it if the betta is happy with the new configuration.
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Nov 13, 2018 20:22
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Unfortunately Lapis was an impulse purchase (which I know is bad and something I shouldn't have done - pets should be an informed decision). I knew enough not to put him in a tiny bowl, but not much beyond that, so I trusted the pet store's advice. From what I've read, what they said wasn't wrong, but they said nothing about temperature and cycling. I've had him for a week and a half now and have been steadily reading up and upgrading his tank. I only just got a filter yesterday, so if I'm going to switch out the sponge, I'm thinking it's better to do it sooner rather than later, since there hasn't been much time yet for bacteria to grow, right?
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Nov 13, 2018 23:50
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Fantastisk posted:Unfortunately Lapis was an impulse purchase (which I know is bad and something I shouldn't have done - pets should be an informed decision). I knew enough not to put him in a tiny bowl, but not much beyond that, so I trusted the pet store's advice. From what I've read, what they said wasn't wrong, but they said nothing about temperature and cycling. I've had him for a week and a half now and have been steadily reading up and upgrading his tank. I only just got a filter yesterday, so if I'm going to switch out the sponge, I'm thinking it's better to do it sooner rather than later, since there hasn't been much time yet for bacteria to grow, right? maybe just rub the sponges together before you put the new one in. Seed the new one with the old one's gunk.
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Nov 14, 2018 01:03
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So uh I think my axolotls, which are maybe 5-6 inches, laid eggs. Because the driftwood had many small black jelly-covered balls on it, and all their gills were bright pink-read, and nothing else in the tank lays eggs like that. I thought they were too young! They wore the drat promise rings too!
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Nov 14, 2018 04:11
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