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Doc Fission posted:I'll check the filter for food, but in the meantime what else should I do? Rinse the filter, do consistent water changes, maybe turn up the motor on the filter and see if it goes away? While the food source for the bacteria is still around, water changing just gives the bacteria more real estate to multiply into. Water changing is still a good idea but it won't make the cloudiness go away, you'll only remove some of the population and the rest will keep going until they run out of food. I've never seen a bacterial bloom that stuck around, under normal circumstances keeping up normal tank maintenance routines is enough and the bloom eventually goes away. I've never had to treat a tank for it so I'm not sure what else you can do apart from waiting it out - maybe feed your tank slightly less food? Phi230 posted:So now onto the topic of feeding. If there's food still in the tank after a couple of hours, siphon it out. If they've just moved they're probably stressed and aren't interested in eating, and it won't hurt to let them settle in with no food for a day or two. There are a lot of fish (often catfish) that like being fed after lights out, so that is a good thing to try. I've noticed with my cory grow out tank that keeps borderline crashing (due to not being set up well/not mature/no plants/poor maintenance by me) one of the first signs something is wrong is the corys won't eat. Corys are total pigs under normal circumstances so when they're off their food you know something is up, but I think that's normal for fish that have been moved to a new environment and not too worrying.
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Mar 22, 2019 02:25
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Wrath of the Bitch King posted:Anyone have any experience with doctor fish/garra rufa? A bizarre situation has like 15 of them coming my way, and I don't know much beyond what can be found on the internet. They seem low maintenance and can be kept without a heater. I have a nice group of these guys. Keep a powerhead in the tank, they live high flow. Rocks for them to chill on. Overall easy fish. Some of mine will come up and play with my fingers when I'm working in the tank.
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Mar 24, 2019 05:39
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All my fish seem to be doing great, except 1 of my 3 Julii Cory Catflish is laying on its side and not moving. It is alive. It doesn't seem too pale, or bloated, but I'm no expert and I just don't know. I checked my parameters immediately, 0 nitrites, 0 ammonia, and about 5ppm nitrates. My temp is steady at 25C, and I think its oxygenated enough from my filter. Here's some pictures:   Could it be stress from an undersized school? I did a water change yesterday, could the temperature variation do this? Phi230 fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Mar 24, 2019 |
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Mar 24, 2019 16:17
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Cowslips Warren posted:I have a nice group of these guys. Keep a powerhead in the tank, they live high flow. Rocks for them to chill on. Overall easy fish. Some of mine will come up and play with my fingers when I'm working in the tank. Thanks for the insight. Any food recommendations?
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Mar 24, 2019 17:03
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Upon closer inspection it seems that the cory's eyes are bulging. This is sign of a disease right? What do I do? I talked to my local fish store guy and he said I've been doing water changes wrong by adding water straight from the tap, and that could've done it Phi230 fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Mar 24, 2019 |
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Mar 24, 2019 17:14
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Do a full test of your water chemistry to determine if you need to treat your water or just gas things off; a lot of hobbyists will treat their water with Seachem Prime and let it sit for a while in a bucket/reservoir, while others will dose the tank directly with it and add the tap water. Usually popeye is a result of either injuries or poor water conditions. Keep in mind that "poor water conditions" isn't strictly representative of Ammonia, Nitrites, and Nitrates. If there's mulm aand other decaying garbage that isn't being taken care of around the substrate, that can cause it too. Usually this kind of stuff is a result of overfeeding.
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Mar 24, 2019 18:34
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Very unlikely to be problems from temperature due to waterchange unless your water is absolutely icy (and then all your fish would be distressed, cory breeding is triggered by cold water so it's least likely to affect them). The eyes of that cory seem to be protruding to me, which indicates an internal bacterial infection or swelling due to fluid build up from organ failure, and the colour does look a bit washed out. They don't have scales so you won't see pineconing. For a super new fish, I suspect this one was ill before you got it and wasn't well enough to fight off the disease itself. There would be some stress involved with being moved to a new aquarium from their previous home which wouldn't help. I've never seen a cory recover from being like this, maybe if you had access to furan2+kanaplex you could nuke every bacteria but I think the poor fish is too far gone. Their barbels look pristine too so it could be they ate a piece of bad food rather than lived in a dirty tank but who knows, diseases don't always relate to 'dirtiness' - columnaris spreads best in a clean well oxygenated tank for example. Assuming that's nitrite, ammonia and nitrate, your water looks fine. It's sad but it's really not surprising to lose fish in the first 4-6 weeks as they can have been through all kinds of stress and disease laden water before you get them. All we can do is give them good food and clean homes and hope they get better themselves. Some people medicate every fish as they get them but I don't think a big hit of medication is good for a fragile fish's liver and could push them over when they'd otherwise survive. And for some people that's the point, the weak fish die, the strong survive and they get all that waiting out of the way. I'd rather wait and see if fish come good than poison them to make sure. Oh I forgot to press send - so yeah, lots of people put prime/safe in their tanks first and water change straight into their tanks with no problem. Depends on the source water I guess, I'd never do it here as mine comes out of the tap at ph10 but I wouldn't necessarily say its "wrong" - maybe "less than perfect" is more correct. That's how the python water changer works and people swear by those. What did it wasn't the water, it was a bacteria or maybe a parasite, something that messed up your fish's ability to excrete enough water to keep their internal balance right. So now they're feeling so sick they can't even be bothered being upright. The problem with sick fish like this is they can go from fine to dying very quickly, and the chances of hitting the right combination of medications that will make a difference without overdosing or underdosing is very very slim, especially in scaleless catfish that absorb medication through their skin so it's harder to get the dosage right. I don't think you did anything wrong in this situation - I mentioned furan2 and kanaplex before as they are antibiotics that will hit a very broad spectrum of diseases. They are also toxic and can cause sterility in fish (I think that's the furan2?). Erythromycin is another antibiotic that is commonly used. I wouldn't want to use either of these on the whole tank, I'd be doing it in a smaller hospital tank to avoid dosing fish that don't need to be exposed to it. It's up to you whether you watch and wait, try to treat, or euthanise the fish. No matter what you do it feels horrible not knowing if it's the right thing 
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Mar 24, 2019 18:35
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Yeah, generally I recommend keeping a 10 gallon tank around that you use just for quarantining new fish. I usually put any new fish I get in mine for a month and will either do salted water or a combination of general cure/erythromycin (and sometimes Ich X) depending on if they're scaleless or sensitive fish. A month is going to be overkill for 99% of people, but I think at least a week is still helpful.
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Mar 24, 2019 18:42
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I only overfed on day 1 and immediately vacuumed after a few hours, and vacuumed again on day 2. I live in Florida so the water is very hard and dosed very heavily with chlorine, the local fish store said that going straight from tap is very harmful so in the future I'll pre-treat anyway. I forgot to mention my Ph is 8. It was recommended that I start cutting my tap water with RO water to bring the Ph down. Is this right? Just yesterday all three were rooting around and fine, it feels terrible being powerless/too late just after one night. I'll try and watch and wait as I don't have access to a hospital tank or medication right now, and I don't feel comfortable with euthanasia. Is there any more information that could help point to a source or possible treatment?
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Mar 24, 2019 18:54
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If you have chlorine treated water (but not chloramine treated) you can just age the water for like 24 hours, you don't even need to dose Prime or anything since chlorine will gas off on its own. And yes, cutting it with RO water will drastically lower the PH since RO strips all buffering capacity (due to a lack of minerals) and is roughly pH 6.0 water. A lot of people with more complicated setups do their water changes with 100% RO water and will add minerals if necessary to buffer from there, or just cut it with tap water like your LFS guy is recommending.
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Mar 24, 2019 19:01
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Wrath of the Bitch King posted:Thanks for the insight. Any food recommendations? They go gaga over Repashy and Bug Bites. gently caress, all my fish love Bug Bites. Even the nocturnal ones shoot out with lights on to get those things. As for pH, messing with it to lower or raise it is more fuckery than it is worth. Less than a month away from our fish expo in Phoenix! Anyone else going to the SAKE?
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Mar 24, 2019 20:22
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Phi230 posted:I forgot to mention my Ph is 8. It was recommended that I start cutting my tap water with RO water to bring the Ph down. Is this right? I think fooling around trying to get the "perfect" pH is a waste of time at best and a disaster waiting to happen at worst. The most important thing with water parameters is to keep them consistent. Preventing big fluctuations in pH, temperature, hardness are all more important than hitting some ideal water quality. If you're worried about it, find fish that prefer the parameters you've got. Lots of types of Cichlids and live-bearers for example thrive in hard/high pH water.
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Mar 24, 2019 21:19
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The cory catfish didn't make it all other fish seem to be doing ok. I saw two gouramis fighting mildly. Should I worry about that? No gouramis have any signs of injury. No other fish actually have any signs of injury. Phi230 fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Mar 25, 2019 |
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Mar 25, 2019 16:09
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In my time keeping fish I've had pretty lousy odds with newly purchased cory cats, like 50% survival rate past 1 week. I'm convinced most of the retail supply of them is pretty weak stock. Those that make it past a week tend to be perfectly healthy and live for years and years. With gouramis males will be aggressive towards each other, and the dominant one will likely kill the weaker.
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Mar 25, 2019 16:23
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I'm officially declaring my 4 foot undergravel filtered crayfish tank a failure. I had floating plants and a plant ledge so plants could grow without roots messing up the filter plates, plus my own DIY internal filter which I set up with pre-cycled media. The plants never took off, or really established well at all. The crayfish seemed fine until I moved some old plastic plants into the tank for extra cover without thinking to rinse them first and now I think the crayfish have all died. The whole thing was kind of ugly and noisy and unnatural and I'm going to strip it and start over. I've got more, happier crayfish crammed into the fluval spec V so it's not a total wipe but it feels bad having screwed up such a big tank that in theory should have been easy to keep. I just made it more complicated than it needed to be, I think. I don't know what to do next in that tank, once I've cleaned it out I might chuck some sand in and move all my grow-out corydoras into it, they could use the extra space and I could do with doing less individual water changes.
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Mar 25, 2019 18:37
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When I first got my Python water change system I was nervous about adding tap straight to the tank before adding dechlorinator but research led me to believe it doesn’t matter. I usually add it while or right after I’m done filling and haven’t seen any ill effects whatsoever. Also +1 for not chasing pH unless you are keeping something really demanding. A lot of fish are bred in outdoor pools in Florida and captive bred fish are much more tolerant of different water conditions anyways.
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Mar 25, 2019 18:56
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Yeah everything I've seen suggests outside occasional ultra demanding fish, clean and stable matters so much more than pH and hardness.
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Mar 25, 2019 18:59
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Just be aware that very little copper is lethal to a lot of invertebrates and most homes have copper pipes for the warm water lines. I can't use a Python for this reason, gotta use pure cold water and microwave it in a glass measuring cup to get the temp up before adding whatever and being able to place it in the tank.
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Mar 25, 2019 19:12
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I've always heard the copper pipe stuff but I've never had an issue. Any residuals from the pipes themselves are going to be incredibly minute, and I don't think it's worth stressing over. For my part of this anecdote, the copper pipes in my home have been here since the 50s, and if mine aren't killing inverts (I have 3 different shrimp colonies), you probably won't have issues either.
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Mar 25, 2019 20:41
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Wrath of the Bitch King posted:I've always heard the copper pipe stuff but I've never had an issue. Any residuals from the pipes themselves are going to be incredibly minute, and I don't think it's worth stressing over. For my part of this anecdote, the copper pipes in my home have been here since the 50s, and if mine aren't killing inverts (I have 3 different shrimp colonies), you probably won't have issues either. Brand new copper pipe might be more dangerous than 60 year old copper pipe. The pipe will have built up a film of tarnish long ago, and probably some sort of goo coat as well. OTOH metallic copper may not be as dangerous as feared, or it may depend on what else is going on in your tank. When I was annoyed by too many snails I fished out as many shrimp as I could and tossed a coil of copper craft wire by the filter outlet. The next day I found a couple more shrimp and hurriedly removed them. Two weeks later I was still occasionally finding perfectly healthy looking little shrimps scurrying around. By that time the copper coil was heavily tarnished, copper ions had definitely been reacting with the water. The annoying limpet snails seemed to be gone. So I took out the copper, did a water change and added activated carbon. The next day the snails were all back, they'd just been hiding in the substrate or something. Very few, if any, snails were killed by being exposed to copper metal for two weeks. Suppressed a little, but not killed. I was checking every day and found a total of 2 dead shrimp, they were both large adults. I'm no expert, I'm just guessing elemental copper isn't the most bio-available form, even for snails. When you buy snail killer it's Copper Sulfate, not just some ground copper metal. So even if your copper pipes do leech out the occasional copper ion, it might not be enough to matter. Especially if you also use activated carbon. Or maybe your PH and other factors can affect how toxic the metal is? 
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Mar 25, 2019 23:20
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Yeah, it's more of a boogeyman than anything imo. As always, there are copper test kits, so it should be something easy enough to test in your water supply. I'd love to test the difference between old/new copper pipe though, just for interest's sake. When I cut an existing ancient copper line to replace an exterior faucet the inside of it was immaculate, no different than the new pipe at least by appearance; chlorination alone is going to prevent any gunk build-up, generally.
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Mar 26, 2019 00:00
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I haven't posted any pictures in ages. Here's my "rescue" severum, Spike. When I got him he was missing tons of scales on his sides and as you can see he was missing a lot of his dorsal fin. Some rear end in a top hat traded him into my LFS after keeping him with a red devil. I guess they deserve some credit for not just letting it finish killing it, but still. You can see my jerk firemouth lurking. He's been much better since I added the plants.  Here's my fesitvum. Easily one of the most inquisitive and fearless fish I've ever owned. He takes cichlid sticks from my fingers and begs for food whenever I come in the room. 
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Mar 26, 2019 02:14
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So I’ve been conditioning my very first tank, and I recently introduced a couple of plants into the mix to help get things going. Little did I realize that this sneaky snail bastard decided to hitchhike on one of my plants. Should I keep him around or should I give him a quick and painless snail death?
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Mar 28, 2019 20:52
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Trumpet snail, will slowly but surely give birth to live young and fill the substrate. I like them as part of the clean up crew but it can be difficult to keep on top of how many there are since they burrow, and once they are established they're hard to get rid of. It's up to you and depends on what kind of tank you want to keep I guess. I wouldn't want to run a sand or other fine grained substrate without them stirring it up for me, and I don't think they work well in gravel.
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Mar 28, 2019 21:00
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Gave him the boot. Godspeed lil' snail buddy.
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Mar 28, 2019 21:35
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As with all pest snails (bladder/pond,ramshorn,trumpet), leaving even one in is a recipe for an unkillable colony. I personally like snails, but unless you know that you want them then you did the right thing.
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Mar 29, 2019 20:57
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I noticed my snail infested tank had a rock covered in what must have been 100 snails yesterday so I decided to pick it up and switch it with a rock from my goldfish tank so they could just go to town on the snails. 2 hours later the clean rock was covered in snails. I genuinely can't imagine how many snails are hiding in the substrate and think I might have to do some research for a bottom feeder who won't get too big for the tetras in a 10G. Like I've been living with the snails but now I'm wondering at what point they take over.
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Mar 29, 2019 21:09
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STAC Goat posted:I noticed my snail infested tank had a rock covered in what must have been 100 snails yesterday so I decided to pick it up and switch it with a rock from my goldfish tank so they could just go to town on the snails. 2 hours later the clean rock was covered in snails. I genuinely can't imagine how many snails are hiding in the substrate and think I might have to do some research for a bottom feeder who won't get too big for the tetras in a 10G. Why not just get an assassin snail?
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Mar 29, 2019 23:38
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VelociBacon posted:Why not just get an assassin snail? I just haven't done the research and I haven't discovered any decently stocked or knowledgable fish places (except one place that is clearly WAAAAAY over my head) who can direct me right on that stuff or stock anything like that. Yeah, that's probably where I'm eventually headed. I'm probably gonna do some research next week and then see if my local place or Petsmart can hook me up.
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Mar 30, 2019 00:23
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So I've worked with my stepdad to sketch out a custom stand for my Spec V tank and he's got some plans above and beyond my abilities and equipment so I'm going to learn some great woodworking but in exchange I'm going to have to do some manual labor for him first. I'm pretty stoked to learn some new poo poo though. I'm going to have to take some stand building pics. I think it'll turn out great
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Mar 30, 2019 03:03
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Anyone with experience using Hamburg Mattern filters (big foam wall)? I've got a 10g-ish Rubbermaid I will use for quarantine and later shrimp breeding, I wanted to buy this pre-made filter: https://flipaquatics.com/collections/matten-filters/products/matten-filter-10-gallon?variant=43066636100 but the Rubbermaid dimensions are wonky and taper out so I'd end up with the tank like this \|__|/. Any suggestions on how to fill in the sides? mango sentinel fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Mar 31, 2019 |
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Mar 31, 2019 22:30
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Remove all calcium from the water, the snails will go.
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Mar 31, 2019 23:14
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I can NOT get my goldfish tank clean. I think I might have really hosed up moving that snail rock over from the other tank. I'm afraid I transfered in something from that tank, which seems weird since that tank is actually pretty clean right now. But the goldfish tank is cloudy, the plants seem to be taking a bad turn, and I've done four water changes (and glass scrubbings, filter cleanings) and every time I do it feels like the tank gets dirtier. Is it possible these are worms? Or is it just crap floating around? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9ZIv9vIBlg I'm debating just getting a tub of some kind, moving the fish, and cleaning out the whole thing. But I don't know if I'm overreacting. I've never had this kind of problem with this tank before and I don't know if its a real new crisis or if like I just lost track of my schedule and let the filter get clogged and am panicking.
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Apr 1, 2019 23:58
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Having had a beer and done some research my current theory is that this is what happened: A) I missed a cleaning or two the last couple of weeks when I was sink/hurt. B) The filters got really clogged with gunk in said time. C) Goldfish went to town on the snails making a ton of poop. D) I over fed a bit, making way more waste especially because of the snail stuff. So I'm gonna try and stay calm, cut down feedings, and do daily water changes and hope this resolves. I'm also gonna invest in a better gravel vacuum and glass scrubber, I think.
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Apr 2, 2019 00:39
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My first question would be how does it smell? It does just look like random debris, some extra mechanical filtration would help grab that -if you've got room, add more filter floss. If the water smells nasty you definitely should keep water changing as a priority but if it smells normal let the filters catch up and it'll be fine as long as you unclog the mechanical part of the filter regularly. Normally if you've kept up with a good maintenance schedule you buy yourself a bit of leeway for slacking off while sick (especially if you cut down feeding) but goldfish chewing up snails sounds about as messy as it can get.
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Apr 2, 2019 03:25
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There was a bit of a smell but it seemed to be coming from the filters and not the water. The smaller of the two filters was REALLY gunked up and I probably neglected that longer as I cleaned the big one. Since I cleaned it I don't smell anything. It does sort of feel like a perfect storm of neglect, the snails, the filters getting clogged, and some over feeding. It just snuck up on me but the timing fits with the snails. That was probably a bad idea.
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Apr 2, 2019 03:36
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I'm worried about my Gouramis. They look super bloated like they're pregnant or obese. They look much better this morning but I'm seeing some white, stringy poop. Is this a sign of a parasite? I got some API cure all, should I try that? Otherwise, unless something changes, I'm thinking that: A) I'm overfeeding B) some of the gouramis are fighting? Its only one though that is being chased. But its strange because its the biggest one and also chases off other gouramis from its territory Phi230 fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Apr 2, 2019 |
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Apr 2, 2019 15:14
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I thought gouramis always fight over food and prime locations etc? They weren't before though?
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Apr 2, 2019 15:54
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VelociBacon posted:I thought gouramis always fight over food and prime locations etc? They weren't before though? Like they were pretty chill with eachother, but now one of then is building a bubble nest and is testy I do notice that they usually are lovely toward eachother in the morning for about an hour after the light comes on. The rest of the day they swim around, sometimes together, and graze
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Apr 2, 2019 16:00
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Phi230 posted:Like they were pretty chill with eachother, but now one of then is building a bubble nest and is testy Gouramis are not great for keeping with conspecifics. They're usually juveniles and too overstocked in fish stores to stake out territories. Now that your dominant male has posted up, he will continue to harass, attack, and potentially kill the other males unless your tank is big enough for them to get out of his territory.
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Apr 2, 2019 16:11
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