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mango sentinel posted: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. Well they each seem to have a "zone" where they keep to themselves. They can swim freely without being attacked as well as long as they don't get too close to the bubble nest
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Apr 2, 2019 16:27
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And my tank is back to normal. Whew. I'm still probably gonna do daily water changes for the rest of the week just to be safe, and keep an eye on the filters clogging, but I'm guessing it was just that perfect storm of neglect and waste.
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Apr 2, 2019 21:09
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mango sentinel posted: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. I agree %100, Gourami and Betta are in the same family, like humans and chimpanzees. Gourami males will become very territorial, especially with other males. They may seem to be ok with each other, but eventually one will get the upper-fin and kill the other.
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Apr 3, 2019 01:41
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I have some BBA on hardscape that I tried to scrub off with a toothbrush - I'm dumb and it spread in the whole area that I scrubbed. Is it safe for my shrimp if I drop the water level below the BBA, dose that directly with hydrogen peroxide, wait like an hour and then fill the water back up?
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Apr 3, 2019 03:13
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Using a triple dose of excel would be much safer, imo. Assuming you have it and that's an option.
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Apr 3, 2019 03:20
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Wrath of the Bitch King posted:Using a triple dose of excel would be much safer, imo. Assuming you have it and that's an option. I can buy it but do you mean adding it to the water column? I've heard that it really can gently caress with shrimp. Or do you mean applying it directly to the BBA? e: My career in a way boils down to managing people's CO2 and it would break my heart adding it in the form of excel to the water column and making my shrimp have to breathe harder to maintain their pH. Yeah I know I'm dumb. Also I have a very young shrimp that I worry wouldn't do well.
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Apr 3, 2019 06:30
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I think peroxide 3% is relatively safe and would prefer using it to excel. But I think people dilute it before doing the water level lower and spray thing, so I'd do some research first for values. It decomposes faster than excel too so no residue after treatment. Any overspill of peroxide isn't a problem and if you accidentally misted yourself it's going to do less damage than excel I think. Edit: I thought it was on here but it must have been on Facebook, someone got misted excel in their eye or maybe the mist had been on their hand and they rubbed their eye and it hurt them, swole up their eye, they thought they'd go blind etc. It's pretty nasty stuff which is why it kills algae so well. On the flipside, some shrimp keepers have peroxide dosers that they run in their tanks because they believe it helps reduce bacterial diseases in their shrimp. Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 06:49 on Apr 3, 2019 |
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Apr 3, 2019 06:44
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Stoca Zola posted:I think peroxide 3% is relatively safe and would prefer using it to excel. But I think people dilute it before doing the water level lower and spray thing, so I'd do some research first for values. It decomposes faster than excel too so no residue after treatment. Any overspill of peroxide isn't a problem and if you accidentally misted yourself it's going to do less damage than excel I think. Yeah I've seen those peroxide dosers - obviously my 5g tank is way too small for something like that. For what it's worth you don't want Hydrogen Peroxide in your eye any more than Excel. Maybe I'll have to try this though, I was thinking I'd actually brush the peroxide onto the area. It's interesting, I've got a large and small piece of wood hardscape in there and I removed the small one and boiled it to kill the BBA I guess 3-4 weeks ago, worked perfectly, and interestingly there is absolutely no BBA on it at all still despite it spreading on the larger piece of wood. I can't boil the larger piece because it's more integral to the tank and many plants would come up with it if I tried to remove it. I got my Shrimp Mineral GH/KH+ from ebay a few days ago too which helpfully gives a TDS reading for dosing. It says it's for RO/distilled water but my tap water is really low in anything but chlorine which I neutralize. Straight out the tap my water has a TDS of 4 which I'm hoping means I don't have to worry about using that product and somehow overdosing it (I've been using Seachem Equilibrium to a certain TDS and feel like i'm overdosing that).
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Apr 3, 2019 10:47
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VelociBacon posted:I can buy it but do you mean adding it to the water column? I've heard that it really can gently caress with shrimp. Or do you mean applying it directly to the BBA? Chemical CO2 isn't the same as injected CO2 and shouldn't really affect their ability to breathe. Realistically, Excel does very little for plants and is more of an algaecide. I posted about it before, but I've killed BBA before by triple dosing Excel in the water column every other day for a week and had no ill effects on fish or inverts. That's my anecdote though, so take it as you will. Some people have reported spot dosing with excel to great effect, but I'm not one of them.
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Apr 3, 2019 15:42
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Spot dosing was only effective for me when the spot in question was entirely out of the water and I was able to squirt Excel directly on it and let it sit for a minute.
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Apr 3, 2019 15:50
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I lost a second neon tetra to unknown reasons. Water quality is still good, the gouramis aren't bothering them at all. What could I be doing wrong? I noticed that despite vacuuming the sand just 2 days ago, there's this dirt-like substance layering over it already, and clogging the intake-prefilter. Could it be my snail population running out of control? Also maybe I'm doing too big of a water change? That being said, despite using blanched vegetables/lettuce to trap the bladder snails, practically overnight their population exploded. I am gonna get 2 assassin snails today - will they breed too and go crazy or should I only get 1? Phi230 fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Apr 3, 2019 |
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Apr 3, 2019 17:20
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Snails gonna snail - can't remember if assassins are live bearers or not, you might still get breeding with one not two. You're swapping one snail problem for another but I think assassins are decent clean up crew snails just the same. Something's not right in my panda cory tank, I noticed them looking a bit listless and some of them holding their fins a bit low. I spotted a single tiny panda in the main tank so I've tipped the two I was rearing in the breeder box in to the main tank now to keep the smaller one company. But as soon as I did that, the others started flicking against the sand. I've done a quick 25% water change before work (fastest I've ever done) and I'll probably change more tonight, I've been acutely aware of trying to avoid overfeeding in the breeder box but I suspect that is part of the problem. I'm not behind on water changes for their tank so I don't know what's up, couldn't see anything obviously wrong and nothing new added so hopefully I can catch whatever is happening before it gets out of hand.
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Apr 4, 2019 04:32
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I lost another tetra!  Are my nitrates too high? I'm doing regular large water changes
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Apr 4, 2019 15:47
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That looks fine to me. They're new fish, they're neons which are super inbred these days, which means poorer immunity to low levels of bacteria which don't bother other fish at all. I don't think you're doing anything wrong. Some fish from some suppliers are just harder to keep than others. Or, you might have bought some that were freshly delivered rather than had been in the tank at the store for a few weeks already, so they were particularly stressed out and hadn't recovered yet. How long have you had them, about 2 weeks or so? Losing a few fish in the first month or two is pretty normal, you don't know which ones you bought were duds or new or bad genetics, or got nitrite poisoning during shipping or whatever - not unless you know a lot about the seller's practices or had been keeping an eye on the livestock at the store. Some people stake out the store, work out when the deliveries are, and only buy fish on the day before a new delivery is due to make sure they're buying survivors not weaklings. For new fish in a newly established tank I think keeping the water as clean as you can is a good practice. It's what Rachael O'Leary from youtube does rather than medicating and she's nursed some seriously sick looking fish back to health just by giving them the cleanest water possible and good quality food. As long as your fresh water is the right parameters, I don't think it's possible to over-change your water. Keep it within reason, you don't want to make looking after your fish a terrible chore. I don't match my parameters perfectly so generally I don't do more than a 50% water change unless it's an emergency. I'd call a large water change more than 50%. Have you got any pictures of the "dirt" on your substrate? It could be diatoms which are common in a new tank, or it could be snail slime with regular detritus stuck on it. Snail poop looks like brown coils and that doesn't sound like what you're describing. I haven't got much going on in my tanks at the moment, maintenance is flagging as work has been driving me nuts and I've had no energy to do anything beyond minimum life support of water changes and feeding. Tonight my carefully crafted callus that developed from smushing up fishfood came off while I was smushing up fishfood. I used to get extremely painful blisters in that spot and was quite pleased when it started to toughen up and now it's gone   (Sorry if this is too gross) (It's tetra tropical colour granules stains not doritos)
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Apr 4, 2019 17:47
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I will get pictures of the dirt. It is also clogging my pre-filter sponge. A buddy of mine said that it could be oxygenation issues? Anyway a real update, I got 4 assassin snails. I didn't see them this morning, but I assume they're out there . . . hunting. I pulled out over 100 (I stopped counting at 100) bladder snails yesterday. I am gonna do a second round tomorrow. Today is day 3 of my fast, I plan on feeding the fish again tomorrow. The gourami's bellies have gone down to normal levels, the one gourami stopped pooping white. I think I just straight up constipated my fish. As for breeding, I actually talked to my LFS yesterday and almost all of their fish are locally bred here in FL, so I'm hoping that means that I avoid some of the shadier business practices that are common that I read about.
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Apr 4, 2019 17:55
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This thread is making me miss fish keeping. I had a small 10g tank as a kid like 15 years ago that I quite enjoyed. And apparently I was super lucky because I did so many things wrong. What's the startup cost look like for a low tech planted 55g (+/- 15 or so - I'd shop around for a good used craigslist deal)? Assuming a good deal on tank I'm thinking $250 to do it right? I want like a bigass school of tiger barbs (part of me is still that 12 year old) or something and maybe some bottom fish (Sterba's corys are cute AF) and longer-term a couple centerpieces that can make it with a tiger barb school around but I'd get to that later.
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Apr 4, 2019 20:39
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Sounds like a decent budget for a used package deal. Check out local FB fish groups if you have any, always tons of deals to be had in my area.
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Apr 4, 2019 21:00
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Stoca Zola posted:they're neons which are super inbred these days I really like neons, but I've heard this is the case. Is there any way to get better stock? I have delusions about breeding them...
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Apr 4, 2019 21:56
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Wait, I was always under the impression that neon tetras are nearly impossible to breed under captive conditions and almost all of them are wild-caught. Has that changed or am I thinking of something else?
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Apr 4, 2019 22:16
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Luneshot posted:Wait, I was always under the impression that neon tetras are nearly impossible to breed under captive conditions and almost all of them are wild-caught. Has that changed or am I thinking of something else? That's cardinal tetras
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Apr 4, 2019 22:52
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I've had like all my neons die now. I can only find one at this point. The weird thing is I've only found a handful of bodies. I have no idea what's happening to them. I thought the larger fish were eating them but now they're in with the other tetras who can't even seem to eat snails. So one day I just expect to find a neon graveyard.
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Apr 4, 2019 23:03
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ChickenMedium posted:That's cardinal tetras I believe cardinals are being breed in captivity now too
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Apr 4, 2019 23:46
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Re: assassin snails, just keep in mind that they're purely carnivorous. They aren't going to be a great cleanup crew for most things, and they won't touch algae.
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Apr 5, 2019 00:40
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Wrath of the Bitch King posted:Re: assassin snails, just keep in mind that they're purely carnivorous. They aren't going to be a great cleanup crew for most things, and they won't touch algae. Yeah, I'm using them exclusively to annihilate the bladder snails. I'm gonna take them out after the baldder snails are gone and put in nerites. I always wanted shrimp too
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Apr 5, 2019 02:50
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DeadlyMuffin posted:I really like neons, but I've heard this is the case. Is there any way to get better stock? It's definitely possible with the right conditions. This guy Mark in the UK has various videos about his breeding projects. He's done cardinals as well as neons. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-TzbHUj6bm5UnK_dZhHJwIXT8VhaOMhs I think one of the problems with farmed fish is there's no culling going on like there would be in a hobbyist breeders tank. The big farms allow the inevitable deformed fry to make it to adulthood because there's no way to do quality control on that quantity of fish. Egglaying fish always seem to produce a few duds and in the wild these would be consumed by predators or die from inability to access food, but in domesticated conditions food is readily available and no predators present. The only thing left to kill them is disease. Anyway hope this video playlist helps! Edit to add: Panda cory update: second water change today and they immediately became lively and normal. I might have to up the frequency of their water changes, feed less, or change more water, seems like something they didn't like was building up. Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 06:44 on Apr 5, 2019 |
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Apr 5, 2019 04:22
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Stoca Zola posted:It's definitely possible with the right conditions. This guy Mark in the UK has various videos about his breeding projects. He's done cardinals as well as neons. His videos are what inspired me, actually :-) I'm planning on trying glowlights and celestial pearl danios first, before trying neons. They look much easier.
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Apr 5, 2019 07:15
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I've had fry from my penguin tetras when they were younger, I saw the wigglers stuck against the glass but had no means to raise them and none survived. I think age might be a factor for tetras as now that I've had them for years I've never seen any spawning behaviour since those early times. I suspect a lot of fish, and I've seen it for sure in corys and gudgeons, are reproductively mature and active well before they are full adult size, and seem to be more successful then. My penguins weren't adult size either now that I think about it. Anyone know if this is true?
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Apr 5, 2019 08:41
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Pretty crazy progress. I think I've got too much light on the tank and can't dim the LED any more so I'm shortening the photoperiod. Are there any issues with having the lights on for only 3-4 hours per day? There is some ambient light during the day, but maybe I should put a night light... The roots on one of the pothos also started to rot. I trimmed it back and re-planted it, but I don't really understand why it rotted in the first place  A week or so later 
DeadlyMuffin fucked around with this message at 08:25 on Apr 6, 2019 |
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Apr 6, 2019 08:23
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DeadlyMuffin posted:Pretty crazy progress. I think I've got too much light on the tank and can't dim the LED any more so I'm shortening the photoperiod. That setup is gorgeous.
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Apr 6, 2019 14:46
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DeadlyMuffin posted:Pretty crazy progress. I think I've got too much light on the tank and can't dim the LED any more so I'm shortening the photoperiod. Beautiful tank! Is that a Kessil light? Running CO2?
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Apr 6, 2019 16:22
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Wrath of the Bitch King posted:That setup is gorgeous. Thank you :-) I've never done a hex before and was a bit apprehensive, but I love it so far. Enos Cabell posted:Beautiful tank! Is that a Kessil light? Running CO2? Yes and yes! You can see the CO2 on the left side. I wanted a light with the umph to get to the bottom of the deep tank, and I've used kessils on my sw tank for years. I've got it turned all the way down and it's still crazy bright. I'm used to t5s for fw, and this is a lot more light DeadlyMuffin fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Apr 6, 2019 |
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Apr 6, 2019 17:26
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Man, I replaced the little sponge at the front of my filter yesterday and it went from orange to black in 24 hours. It also took the tank from cloudy to clear so I'm thinking I should keep an eye on that thing and replace it again soon. I replaced the same one on the little filter today and I'm thinking it just catches crap that slips through the filter and was beyond functioning. So I'll let it scrub out the filter a bit and then start again fresh. I figure as long as i keep the big gross filter and the little sponges I shove in the back I should be fine for not making the same mistake I did when I replaced the main filter pad itself. I've never done this much maintenance to my filters before but I suppose (a) my fish are bigger now and (b) maybe its so bad because I've never done this much maintenance before.
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Apr 8, 2019 01:20
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Welp, we're back here again. It's heartbreaking, and extremely frustrating. Mid-breakdown of tank trying to work out what the gently caress is wrong. Starting last week, I had listless fish and occasional flicking. They appeared to improve with a double water change and general tank clean up but were listless again today and I had planned to change their water again. Now they have this, which has escalated from a couple of fish with a couple of spots yesterday. It was so mild yesterday I couldn't tell whether it was bits of sand stuck on them or not, but I started treating with esha2000 just the same. It apparently has done nothing to help as today the worst fish looks like this. Some still have nothing, the smallest baby died, one of the babies is quite badly covered but the one pictured here is not too bad. It's definitely fungus not ich, its like short flat tufts that stand out from the fish. I had noticed food going mouldy extremely quickly in the fry box and was cleaning that out with a turkey baster, and at the time I didn't think anything of it. As far as I can tell now, the piece of goldvine I've had in this tank ever since I set it up four years ago has started to rot. As well as this, the bolbitis was infested with java moss, which was trapping tiny bits of food, which had all become mouldy. The coconut halves seem solid but have developed a layer of what appears to be mould or something as sand has stuck firmly to it. I just think its a culmination of a number of decaying organic sources which has got to the point of overwhelming my fish. I am going to strip this tank back to sand as best I can and remove and rinse everything and do a huge huge water change, then redose the medication in hope that it will save my fish. I love these guys too much and having them breed for me was a dream come true - I don't want to lose them now. Wish me luck! Edit for end of water change/strip: That super covered one seems to be rolling to his side, and his barbels are somewhat curled up. Not looking good. Barbels grow back but he has it bad to get this sick so quickly. Others, I noticed as they brushed past stuff some of the white bits came off. Maybe the medication is working? Maybe it's slime coat? Who knows. Both the surviving fry still seem to have a lot of fight in them. Really only two corys that look super bad and hopefully the big water change will buy time if they die while I'm at work tomorrow. Shrimp don't seem to care, about either the fungus or the medication, and neither do the emerald eye rasboras in the tank. I'm a little worried how they'll take the temperature change but it can't be helped, I wanted as much fungal material out of the tank as possible. It was in 80% of the plants, the susswasertang I added for cover for the fry was caked in fuzz, and even the indian almond leaves I'd added for their antibacterial/antifungal properties were mouldy. Double edit: forgot to say, the trilineatus corys in this tank are also completely unaffected. Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Apr 9, 2019 |
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Apr 9, 2019 15:50
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Final report this morning: all fry dead, the curled barbel super sick cory also dead, everyone else lively (even the shrimp) and all white stuff seems to be gone. This feels like a success in the scheme of things but it's too early to let my guard down and celebrate yet. We'll see.
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Apr 10, 2019 05:24
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Stoca Zola posted:Final report this morning: all fry dead, the curled barbel super sick cory also dead, everyone else lively (even the shrimp) and all white stuff seems to be gone. This feels like a success in the scheme of things but it's too early to let my guard down and celebrate yet. We'll see. Feeling your burden here. Read your first post and didn't know what to say but definitely hoping for the best. Glad your shrimp are alright  .
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Apr 10, 2019 05:26
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That sucks, man. Despite the whining I do from time to time about my learning pains coming up on a year now it seems like I've really been blessed with fish death and disease. Everyone told me I'd kill my goldfish and they're still alive and kicking to the point where its becoming a problem. I've been kind of rough with my glo tetras and they're still all alive and kicking. My betta's been bounced around and forced to have all kinds of roommates but now he seems so happy and playful in his own home. My only real problem has been that I can't keep neon tetras alive... and don't even know where they go.
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Apr 10, 2019 05:52
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With all the plants taken out I can see a heap of berried shrimp too so I hope they all survive the disturbance. They're our native paratya shrimp which at times are clear or at other times brown, green, spangled with white dots depending on what they're standing on. I realised this morning I don't have to toss my plants, I can give them a dip to nuke the mould but I'm not sure what to use. Potassium permanganate seems like a good option but possibly awkward to deal with; I know a lot of people do bleach dips too but I've give up long ago at finding plain unscented no surfactant bleach around here. Any other options? Oh, I guess peroxide would work here too. Might try that first before getting too carried away.
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Apr 10, 2019 07:03
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I'm starting to piece together equipment for a planned 6' 125g planted tank in the living room. Going to go high tech planted on this setup, picked up a used dual stage stainless co2 regulator, parker stainless solenoid and swagelok nupro needle with all stainless swagelok fittings. Also picked up an FX6 canister filter and set it up on my 180g frontosa tank to get it seasoned. Anyone here running an FX5/6 with co2? Trying to decide how to best diffuse the co2 in the tank, while minimizing in tank clutter. Thinking of either building my own reactor, or going with one of these: http://nilocg.com/na-advanced Curious if anyone else has experience connecting one to the FX6, it uses larger ribbed hoses and I'm a little wary of messing up the connections. Also need to figure out lighting, I'm really digging the goose neck + pendant LED look so thinking maybe AI Prime HD or Kessil A360s (maybe 160s?)
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Apr 11, 2019 14:07
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Stoca Zola posted:With all the plants taken out I can see a heap of berried shrimp too so I hope they all survive the disturbance. They're our native paratya shrimp which at times are clear or at other times brown, green, spangled with white dots depending on what they're standing on. I realised this morning I don't have to toss my plants, I can give them a dip to nuke the mould but I'm not sure what to use. Potassium permanganate seems like a good option but possibly awkward to deal with; I know a lot of people do bleach dips too but I've give up long ago at finding plain unscented no surfactant bleach around here. Any other options? Oh, I guess peroxide would work here too. Might try that first before getting too carried away. Yeah I've heard of people using peroxide or even salt. Might take more than one treatment, but live fungi and algae are generally more sensitive than plants. The spores can be quite hardy though.
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Apr 11, 2019 19:41
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Oh God oh god oh god theres a puddle of water at the base of my 20G. oh god oh god oh god Theres a drip coming from the wire of the filter oh please oh please oh please be it
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Apr 11, 2019 22:09
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