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Drop in a shot of the good stuff. Sea chem stability.
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Nov 16, 2019 21:00
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Stoca Zola posted:Also my internet has been dropping out on and off for a couple of days so I started writing but couldn't post an answer to VelociBacon - pretty much take everything out, set up a temporary tub or bucket with your plants filter and shrimp using tank water, then change all the substrate at once. This will let you clean any loose mulm and garbage out of your water that gets stirred up via water changes, and also monitor the new substrate for leaching ammonia, which you can deal with again with with water changes. And when it's safe you can move everything back. It's just too messy and a pain to try and do that kind of thing in parts. Yeah I kinda figured this would be the answer. Maybe I'll just transition to plants that don't grow quite so fast or plants that I can cut down and not have to replant. Do you have to take out duckweed and cut the bottom off and replant? I feel like I've seen people online just trim it down in the tank.
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Nov 16, 2019 21:27
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Unless you have a different duckweed than I do, you’ll be scooping clumps of it out regularly, not trimming it.
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Nov 16, 2019 22:01
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One thing about cherry shrimp is they will breed. Its pretty neat, but it does get worrying when you start with only 6 and then suddenly there's 50 of them a year down the line, then they all die out from inbreeding awhile later. 
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Nov 16, 2019 23:25
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Luneshot posted:Unless you have a different duckweed than I do, you’ll be scooping clumps of it out regularly, not trimming it. Yeah I think I'm actually thinking of hornwort.
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Nov 17, 2019 06:07
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The growing tips of hornwort are pretty obvious and you can cut off and save a few inches of those to propagate, there's absolutely no point keeping the lower stems as I don't think they regrow and branch off. I would toss those and replant the newer fresher growth. But then, my hornwort never stayed planted, never grew roots (it isn't a rootable plant, it's a true floater). Any time it went anywhere near the substrate it would just rot and the new growth would float freely. If what you have has roots, it isn't hornwort.
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Nov 17, 2019 16:21
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Stoca Zola posted:The growing tips of hornwort are pretty obvious and you can cut off and save a few inches of those to propagate, there's absolutely no point keeping the lower stems as I don't think they regrow and branch off. I would toss those and replant the newer fresher growth. But then, my hornwort never stayed planted, never grew roots (it isn't a rootable plant, it's a true floater). Any time it went anywhere near the substrate it would just rot and the new growth would float freely. If what you have has roots, it isn't hornwort. I don't have these yet, just other varieties of stem plants. I'd just like to transition to plants that I can cut in-tank and not have to replant. I'm happy my tank is growing well but it's a crazy amount of work and the substrate makes it so much more of a pain on top of that. Maybe I should switch back to some form of leafy plant now that I've got the tank management nailed down.
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Nov 17, 2019 16:41
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I think I’m going to have to get rid of my festivum. He’s damaging tankmates with his bites. The Severum can hold his own but he caused a wound on my clown loach. Ugh. Cichlids.
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Nov 20, 2019 16:49
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I could use some advice as a first-time aquarium owner. I bought the 14.something gallon Fluval Flora, which comes with a kit for a bunch of aquascape-y type stuff. Here's what I got so far: My two major concerns are the dwarf baby tears, which look like poo poo and have some wispy slime stuff on them:  I think the substrate probably isn't deep enough, as I've got difficulty getting them planted in it super well. Some pieces look like they're doing pretty good, but others look like they're dying. Is there something I should be doing with them? I'm using the c02 device that came with the tank(although I don't know if I'm doing it enough/right) as well as the Gro+ supplement as well. My light setting is a default setting, like 11.5 hours of the full spectrum and then like a couple more of the night setting before it cycles off completely. The other kind of concern I have is that I think I got a bit cocky trying to do a moss wall on my first try(because I didn't really love the white matte background on the tank):  Is this destined for ignominious failure? I sandwiched them between two pieces of mesh, but I'm thinking in retrospect I probably should have threaded them to the outside of a single piece. I'm also concerned about that if it does grow they're just going to foul up the filter too. Hamhandler fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Nov 21, 2019 |
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Nov 21, 2019 00:39
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I think it's too early to tell with that moss wall, I've seen the mesh method work for others but when I've tried it myself I've found the moss inside can die off and not do very well since there's not much light or circulation inside the mesh sandwich. Possible to use the same mesh but wrap thread across it and just have the moss sitting against the outside of the mesh (well, like you said). When it wants to grab, it can grab the mesh rather than having to grow through the tiny holes. You can facilitate the moss getting easier grip on the mesh by scuffing it thoroughly with fine sandpaper. I find moss grabs anything with a natural texture much more easily than it grabs smooth plastic. You can avoid issues with the filter inlet by sliding a piece of prefilter sponge over it, either buy a pre-made cylinder or cut a piece yourself. A piece of black stocking and a black rubber band achieve the same but I find mesh clogs faster than sponge. I think your substrate is too coarse and inert for the dwarf baby tears to root in well, but the slime could be from lack of circulation at the very bottom there. To me the leaves look mostly healthy and the slimy bits seem to be centred on old leaves that are dying off and breaking down. With a plant that small it's hard to trim off the dead gross bits, which are normal and to be expected when planting new plants. Could you get a second hang on back filter to put on the other side of the rear of the tank to increase circulation? I think the last thing I'd comment on is your rotala at the back looks like you've still got it bunched and weighted, it will do better if the stems are separated and planted but again the substrate looks too coarse for the stems to stay down. Bunched stems will again suffer from lack of circulation and could rot in where it's all bunched together. The leaves don't look quite right to me either, like they have come from a higher lighted tank and now the newer growth is smaller and greener because it has both less light and less nutrients. Would I be right to guess that this tank hasn't been set up for very long? What are you using for nutrients? Just thinking something that might work would be to cap your coarse substrate with about an inch of some kind of plant substrate (one of the ones that looks like tiny balls), I think it's not unusual to have inert stuff at the bottom so that you get the required depth without using so much substrate. Then replanting everything into the finer substrate. As you don't have any crazy active fish messing with the substrate the smaller stuff shouldn't fall down into the larger stuff too much. Someone else in here might have better ideas about this though!
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Nov 21, 2019 02:22
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Stoca Zola posted:I think it's too early to tell with that moss wall, I've seen the mesh method work for others but when I've tried it myself I've found the moss inside can die off and not do very well since there's not much light or circulation inside the mesh sandwich. Possible to use the same mesh but wrap thread across it and just have the moss sitting against the outside of the mesh (well, like you said). When it wants to grab, it can grab the mesh rather than having to grow through the tiny holes. You can facilitate the moss getting easier grip on the mesh by scuffing it thoroughly with fine sandpaper. I find moss grabs anything with a natural texture much more easily than it grabs smooth plastic. You can avoid issues with the filter inlet by sliding a piece of prefilter sponge over it, either buy a pre-made cylinder or cut a piece yourself. A piece of black stocking and a black rubber band achieve the same but I find mesh clogs faster than sponge. The rotala has been in the tank for a little less than a week, and the dwarf baby tears about two weeks. I've been using the Fluval Gro+ stuff that came with the tank for nutrients, and the substrate is Seachem Flourite Black. I'll definitely look into trying to find a plant-oriented substrate that's a little bit smaller grain and then replant everything and separate the rotala in that this weekend. I'm going to turn the filter's flow up a little bit and go from that. I had it at like half or three-quarters because it was uprooting the dwarf baby tears. I had no idea what the flow should be, I was concerned it was too much because it was moving the plants around and all that but I hope finer substrate will fix that. I don't have any fauna in the tank yet, I was planning on holding off for about a month or so and let the tank get cycled. I was concerned that the gunk on the baby tears was algae, or that the added nutrients in the tank would cause kind of an issue with that and was thinking about getting something like amano shrimp a little bit early before I introduce any fish. Thanks for the help, it's much appreciated.
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Nov 21, 2019 22:34
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Clown loach died overnight in the QT. Dammit.
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Nov 22, 2019 16:08
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Looks like I've got a columnaris outbreak in my 120g planted rainbow tank.  Anyone successfully treated that in a planted tank? Thinking it might be better to pull all the fish into a 55g hospital tank and medicate there. From what I'm reading API Furan-2 and Seachem Kanaplex should be able to treat it, but I'm not sure what to do with the plants, substrate etc. Would suck to get them all healed up in a hospital tank and then have them get sick again when they go back into the DT.
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Nov 22, 2019 19:30
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I can keep LPS corals growing like crazy but I’ve never had any luck with plants. I did treat columnaris with the Furan 2 and Kanaplex. I used Focus as well to try to get some of it internal.
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Nov 22, 2019 20:18
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I have a 55 gallon with a new led that cannot keep duckweed alive. Possible reasons might be the sponge filters, and the yellow labs eating it, but even in my other 55 with yellow labs and sponge filters, the duckweed goes until it's eaten. In the first, it just turns white and dies.
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Nov 23, 2019 02:43
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Cowslips Warren posted:I have a 55 gallon with a new led that cannot keep duckweed alive. Possible reasons might be the sponge filters, and the yellow labs eating it, but even in my other 55 with yellow labs and sponge filters, the duckweed goes until it's eaten. In the first, it just turns white and dies. What did you have before for lighting if it's a new LED?
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Nov 23, 2019 04:06
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Bulky Bartokomous posted:I can keep LPS corals growing like crazy but I’ve never had any luck with plants. Enos Cabell posted:Looks like I've got a columnaris outbreak in my 120g planted rainbow tank. Furan2 and kanaplex didn't hurt plants I don't think when I tried them with my corydoras. Something else that might help get rid of any columnaris biofilm in the tank is the chemiclean anti Cyanobacteria treatment, I don't know what it's ingredient is but it seems to be an animal and plant safe oxidant of some sort. I used it when I had what I suspected was columnaris and while I lost a single loach the outbreak didn't spread in the chemiclean treated tank (but I used salt as well). I wouldn't use chemiclean at the same time as the other medications though but maybe it's what you can use to treat the tank while the fish are in QT.
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Nov 23, 2019 04:26
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I keep thinking I'm going to get organised and sort something out but so far I haven't - I've got gallbladder surgery on the 9th and as far as I can tell I'm not going to be able to lift anything more than 10kg for at least 3 weeks, and probably no carting 2 full jerrycans until 6 weeks. So my usual water change method of carting 20+kg around in each hand and bucketing into tanks isn't going to work. All I'm doing in preparation is being really diligent about doing as many normal water changes as I can in the time that I have left (instead of letting it slide for almost too long like I usually do). I have a really long hose that I use for my large water changes which pumps direct from my mixing tanks in the laundry but the hose itself is probably too heavy to carry to start with too. Plan A is make my partner do everything but that will wear thin I'm guessing. Plan B, cut feeding down to every second or third day? Plan C only do top ups? Anyone else got any ideas? Edit: all it took was posting about it and I've already had some ideas and think I'm about three quarters of the way there. The part where I remove water from the tanks is pretty much covered already by my sump pump and hose. For filling I can carry the jerry cans empty, put them near the tank I need to water change, then fill with the long hose. I'll need someone at the other end to turn the pump on and off OR perhaps a remote smart switch of some sort - no idea what's good and what's poo poo on this front. I have found a small but powerful enough pump that fits in the neck of the jerry can and enough tubing to get the water out and into pretty much any tank, as long as the head height isn't too high. I've got a wooden stand I can use to get the empty jerry cans high enough for the taller tanks. I think I can do this! Even if I don't find a smart switch I think my partner will be much happier about flicking a power switch on and off than he would be about carting water around for me. Edit2: running a test with the tiny pump and it seems to manage about 1 lt/min which is absolutely painfully slow. I don't intend to be hurrying anywhere though so I suppose that's okay! Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Nov 23, 2019 |
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Nov 23, 2019 16:54
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I have a female betta in my tank that was always completely non-aggressive but then I added a honey gourmai today and she went right after the new fish. I waited a minute or two to see if she'd gently caress off but she didn't so I put her in a breeder box. I want to at least let the gourmai acclimate to the tank before I let her out of fish jail but I know these are timid fish so I'm not sure if it will still be a problem. None of the other fish are bothering him and the betta fish lived peacefully with everything else until this. The rest of the residents are five neon tetras, en eletric blue ram, and a bristlenose pleco. It's a 38 gallon tank with plenty of hiding places but I know both fish hang around the top a lot. I'm a dumb dumb and I forgot that bettas and gourmai are related and this could present a problem. I guess the short version of all this is will I be able to let them go together once the gourmai is settled or do I have to keep her in fish jail forever? I don't have any smaller tank I could put the betta in by itself and it's not really feasible for me to get a small set up for that so this is really my only option.
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Nov 26, 2019 07:28
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Cowslips Warren posted:I have a 55 gallon with a new led that cannot keep duckweed alive. Possible reasons might be the sponge filters, and the yellow labs eating it, but even in my other 55 with yellow labs and sponge filters, the duckweed goes until it's eaten. In the first, it just turns white and dies. I’m just spitballing here, but could it be a nutrient deficiency?
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Nov 26, 2019 09:49
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CPL593H posted:I have a female betta ... do I have to keep her in fish jail forever? You might be able to put a divider in your tank, 38 gallons is plenty big enough that you could give her a quarter to herself and the rest of the fish would still have plenty of room. I think if you add the betta last they are more wary and there is a smaller chance of fighting (but the chance of fighting is still probably pretty high). As it stands, you added a competitor to the existing fish's territory and that is a recipe for disaster. I do think a tank divider will give you the least amount of grief in the long run even if maybe it is a pain to set up. I don't know where you can get them or if there are standard sizes but I think fish youtuber lifewithpets makes them? In other news tonight I am trying a full rehearsal of my low-weight water change scheme. Less than 2 weeks to surgery, I have mostly kept to my water change schedule and tonight I have been water changing the tanks furthest from my water supply. If I route the hose out the back door and in through the side door it is less distance than going the other way internally through the house which gives me plenty of length to get all the way to the doorway of the far fish room. From there I am using my existing short water change hose/pump/sump to fill the cans without needing to manage turning off a distant pump, and now it is just a matter of seeing if the small pump can get the water into the tanks from the jerry can at floor level or if I will need to clear space for the wooden stand to raise the height. The heaviest thing I've had to lift was the hose itself and so far it has felt very easy. I am now feeling even more confident that it will all work. Meanwhile my family has made some not so subtle suggestions that maybe I should just get rid of all the fish and tanks (?!) as if selling up would be in any way easier (or easy at all in this town)! for reference I am a grown adult living in my own house and my fish tanks are none of their business.
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Nov 26, 2019 18:24
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Fishkeeping is second only to competitive masturbation in how disliked the hobby is by people who live with the practitioner. It's messy, takes a lot of time, and fishkeeping has its own problems as well. I'm lucky to live with people who are cool with the nano tank but if it occupied a whole room in the place they'd hate it.
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Nov 26, 2019 23:36
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Fishtanks under the bed in the dormroom.
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Nov 26, 2019 23:58
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Stoca Zola posted:You might be able to put a divider in your tank, 38 gallons is plenty big enough that you could give her a quarter to herself and the rest of the fish would still have plenty of room. I think if you add the betta last they are more wary and there is a smaller chance of fighting (but the chance of fighting is still probably pretty high). As it stands, you added a competitor to the existing fish's territory and that is a recipe for disaster. I do think a tank divider will give you the least amount of grief in the long run even if maybe it is a pain to set up. I don't know where you can get them or if there are standard sizes but I think fish youtuber lifewithpets makes them? I have a cannister filter so I don't know how that would work logistically unless I put the intake and the output in the same spot which I don't really want to do, and even if I did that would be its own l problem. The betta was the last fish added before I put the gourmai in and the rest were pretty well established by that time. I'm going to wait a few more days and let her out to see what happens and if she remains fighty then I'm going to put her back in the breeder box and figure something else out.
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Nov 26, 2019 23:58
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CPL593H posted:I have a female betta in my tank that was always completely non-aggressive but then I added a honey gourmai today and she went right after the new fish. I waited a minute or two to see if she'd gently caress off but she didn't so I put her in a breeder box. I want to at least let the gourmai acclimate to the tank before I let her out of fish jail but I know these are timid fish so I'm not sure if it will still be a problem. None of the other fish are bothering him and the betta fish lived peacefully with everything else until this. The rest of the residents are five neon tetras, en eletric blue ram, and a bristlenose pleco. It's a 38 gallon tank with plenty of hiding places but I know both fish hang around the top a lot. I'm a dumb dumb and I forgot that bettas and gourmai are related and this could present a problem. I guess the short version of all this is will I be able to let them go together once the gourmai is settled or do I have to keep her in fish jail forever? I don't have any smaller tank I could put the betta in by itself and it's not really feasible for me to get a small set up for that so this is really my only option. Betta and Gourami are relatively closely related. They have similar reproductive patterns, territoriality, etc... Keeping Gouramis together with Betta is similar to keeping multiple Betta together. They'll need broken lines of sight and plenty of room. People keep sororities of female betta successfully. It may sound counter-intuitive, but you might have success with adding more females, along with stuff to break line of sight in order to spread out the aggression and force smaller territories. But, that's a very risky situation with your established female. I think a better solution is to rehome one of them in a different tank. edit: when I read your post at first, I totally missed that it's a honey gourami. My opinion is that the betta has a 100% chance of killing the gourami if they are allowed to share a tank. No judgement intended against you, 
Zaffy fucked around with this message at 05:58 on Nov 27, 2019 |
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Nov 27, 2019 05:53
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Zaffy posted:Betta and Gourami are relatively closely related. They have similar reproductive patterns, territoriality, etc... Keeping Gouramis together with Betta is similar to keeping multiple Betta together. They'll need broken lines of sight and plenty of room. People keep sororities of female betta successfully. It may sound counter-intuitive, but you might have success with adding more females, along with stuff to break line of sight in order to spread out the aggression and force smaller territories. But, that's a very risky situation with your established female. I think a better solution is to rehome one of them in a different tank. Yeah I was thinking about it and realized I'd have to probably find someone else for one of them and it's probably easier to send off the betta because I don't know anyone with an aquarium but my brother's wife does have filtered micro tanks for bettas. I just really hate to do it. Especially since the whole thing happened because I had a brain fart. edit: One of my neon tetras somehow got into the breeder box with the betta and she killed it. 
CPL593H fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Nov 28, 2019 |
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Nov 27, 2019 07:33
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Platystemon posted:I’m just spitballing here, but could it be a nutrient deficiency? It's very possible. I don't dose any fertilizers, the lights are not on for 8/10 hours, and the tank is kinda overstocked with various cichlids. Of course they are all small and perhaps don't make enough bioload.
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Nov 28, 2019 22:33
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Cowslips Warren posted:It's very possible. I don't dose any fertilizers, the lights are not on for 8/10 hours, and the tank is kinda overstocked with various cichlids. Of course they are all small and perhaps don't make enough bioload. Why not dose some fertilizers? I think a number of groups make all-in-one very easy pumps-per-gallon style dispensers that you just do once or twice a week.There are a lot of growth factors your plants won't naturally get. I think you'd be surprised at how much bioload your cichlids are producing, especially if you have quite a few.
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Nov 29, 2019 01:11
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I made a mistake. I bought some seeds off amazon. I should have known better, but I'm not very good at plants. I thought I was getting Hemianthus callitrichoides, (baby dwarf tears), but it turned out to be some mystery plant that blew up into a thick carpet 4inches deep that has taken over my 5gal in just 2 months. I just spent an hour pulling them out, there was so much plant mass that the water level dropped an inch and a half and there is still more to pull.
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Nov 29, 2019 05:26
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got any pics of these plants?
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Nov 29, 2019 05:31
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I've heard you often get a hygrophila species. Found a video looking at it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSMZZwHHeEs edit to add: part 2 update https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMdy5fAp-A0 Yours sound like h. polysperma to me, you could keep these trimmed as a background plant but they really aren't a carpeting plant. Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 07:11 on Nov 29, 2019 |
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Nov 29, 2019 07:08
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yikes at the resulting plants: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfSPxDO9850
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Nov 29, 2019 07:15
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VelociBacon posted:Why not dose some fertilizers? I think a number of groups make all-in-one very easy pumps-per-gallon style dispensers that you just do once or twice a week.There are a lot of growth factors your plants won't naturally get. Oh no, which is why I am surprised the duckweed is not exploding! In all my other tanks it goes nuts.
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Nov 29, 2019 15:11
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Stoca Zola posted:I've heard you often get a hygrophila species. Found a video looking at it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSMZZwHHeEs edit to add: part 2 update https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMdy5fAp-A0 That looks exactly like what these are. I got em off Amazon.
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Nov 29, 2019 15:52
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Pretty new babies   Purple Queen Anthias, a small shoal of four currently in my QT tank.
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Dec 1, 2019 05:17
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They look simultaneously fancy and shy and awkward! I love them!
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Dec 1, 2019 16:13
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TKIY posted:Pretty new babies So pretty they barely look real.
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Dec 1, 2019 19:23
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With the holiday throwing off my chore schedule, I had free time yesterday and did water changes on all my tanks. Now usually this time I am halfway done with one room and my entire Sunday is off because of it. Maybe I should do changes again today. gently caress it, I'm getting more dechlor for xmas!
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Dec 1, 2019 22:27
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So, I'm saving up for a 30 gallon. Are there any community tank friendly freshwater puffers? If not, I may get some peacock gudeons or set up a salt water tank for a pair of sea horses (I've kept both types of tanks)? I had to get rid of my 5 gallon due to confirmed TB and I miss the hobby dearly.
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Dec 2, 2019 02:43
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Aerofallosov posted:So, I'm saving up for a 30 gallon. Are there any community tank friendly freshwater puffers? If not, I may get some peacock gudeons or set up a salt water tank for a pair of sea horses (I've kept both types of tanks)? If you're new to this I wouldn't suggest getting a puffer fish because they can be difficult to properly care for. Puffer fish are aggressive and usually need to live in brackish water. There may exist some that fit within your preferences (and if I'm wrong someone correct me) but I've never seen any that fall into that category.
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Dec 2, 2019 09:54
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