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yeah this owns
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Dec 24, 2023 05:00
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Supposed to be hopping into my car and driving to visit my family for Christmas, but instead I'm forced to research how to euthanize a mystery snail  Seems to have a collapsed lung RIP Sned Asner, you were a good snail e: nvm, whole-rear end detached mantle. Oof. I'll miss you, bud. Sockser fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Dec 24, 2023 |
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Dec 24, 2023 20:11
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Holy crap, that sucks. Sorry it happened to your snail. What would cause that? So I got some live rock yesterday. Covered in coralline algae, and an emerald crab which refused to leave it, so the employee gave him to me no charge. I set the rock in a 10 gallon tank because I do not trust crabs with my serpent star tank. And I then saw another emerald. And three snails. All cool so far. And then two small white fuzzy/hairy crabs about half the size of the emeralds. They avoid them, and I found one of them clinging to the side of the tank along the sealant before he dropped and ran off. They don't have the shape of pea crabs, and have brown tips on their claws rather than the black of gorilla crabs. I was told maybe teddy bear crabs. Either way, all the crabs are staying in that tank for now. I do want to set it up as a micro brittle star tank, but that will have to wait until I can get rid of these assholes.
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Dec 25, 2023 03:27
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Cowslips Warren posted:Holy crap, that sucks. Sorry it happened to your snail. What would cause that? Nothing I read in researching it seem correct— don’t know how I would’ve picked up a nematode infestation, my water parameters are fine, he was climbing up plant stalks having a good snail time not even 12 hours prior But it’s also kind of a mystery and not super well understood, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Little dude got to go for a swim in a glass of PBR as his last rites. merry Christmas, bud.
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Dec 25, 2023 19:23
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Rip snail bro. I fed all my tanks that house small/young fish last thing before bed last night and I guess I’d forgotten about gouramis because when one of the sparkling gouramis croaked while I was standing next to the tank it made me jump! It was a deeper sound than I expected for such a tiny fish, not as loud as the toothy clacking and smacking noises from the yoyo loaches but still fairly loud. I could pinpoint exactly where it came from in the tank and I could clearly see a male gourami was propositioning the female gourami, and she seemed pretty interested.
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Dec 26, 2023 06:39
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The thunder dome has claimed another victim. I got a cleaner shrimp about a month ago and he seemed to be doing well, then yesterday I hadn’t seem him all day. I figured he was just hiding in the rocks but then I saw one of my damsels swimming around with one of his legs in its mouth. I’m not sure which one of my assholes did him in but I suspect it’s either the female clown or the triggerfish.
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Dec 26, 2023 16:54
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I’ve had been a really, really horrible couple of weeks. My elderly cat has bladder stones. We had to have our greyhound euthanized the day after Christmas because of cancer. Then today I noticed that my melanoid axolotl was acting strange, swimming very erratically and generally being restless. I thought oh great, I’m about to lose yet another one of my pets. Welp:   
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Dec 28, 2023 23:18
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Did it lay eggs? The only thing I know about axolotls is that they're cute as gently caress
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Dec 28, 2023 23:28
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Yes, those are definitely eggs, I remember finding my first clutch and kind of freaking out, but by the fourth clutch in that winter I was much more calm about it. If she hasn't been with a male, I don't think they would be fertile, they do external fertilization so they don't store sperm. You do need to pull the babies out if you want any to survive, they're literally a little sperm looking things when they hatch, and I think baby brine shrimp are too big for them for a week or two. The white ones are definitely infertile, but the others you will definitely see start to take shape before they hatch.
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Dec 29, 2023 00:15
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Yeah they’re eggs. I’m glad that was all that was going on with her. We’ll have to wait to see if they’re fertilized in the next week or so but there is a male in the tank so I would bet money that they are. I had planned on getting him set up with his own tank during my holiday break but with everything going on with my dog it went on the back burner. Guess they’ve been busy while I’ve been in my depressive funk lol. Definitely made a trip to Petco today to pick up a 29g and a new canister filter to get the ball rolling before he fucks the rest of his tank mates to death. The eggs are getting pulled out tomorrow and going to some fellow axolotl friends.
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Dec 29, 2023 00:55
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pastor of muppets posted:Yeah they’re eggs. I’m glad that was all that was going on with her. We’ll have to wait to see if they’re fertilized in the next week or so but there is a male in the tank so I would bet money that they are. I had planned on getting him set up with his own tank during my holiday break but with everything going on with my dog it went on the back burner. Guess they’ve been busy while I’ve been in my depressive funk lol. Definitely made a trip to Petco today to pick up a 29g and a new canister filter to get the ball rolling before he fucks the rest of his tank mates to death. where you at, I'll take some axies
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Dec 29, 2023 04:17
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My koi are all happily torpored up in their holding tank in the shop for winter. The water has only developed a skin of ice a couple times for half a day, otherwise seems to be holding around 40. Not running the filter at this point, since they’re not being fed and I don’t want the thing to freeze accidentally. Do I need to bother keeping the air running in their tank, or will they get enough just from the exposed surface?
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Jan 1, 2024 07:49
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I have no idea how much waste a torpid koi still produces but I bet it isn’t zero - keeping in mind that the waste we worry about is the ammonia they constantly breathe out through their gills, not the poop they do after you feed them. I would have thought the heat of the regular filters pump and motion of the water would stop it from freezing though. I don’t know any koi keeper who turns off filtration in winter (from the ones I follow on YouTube). Cold water holds more oxygen but keeping it moving so oxygen isn’t depleted also makes sense to me. If they are in a smaller body of water than usual that is even more reason to keep the filtration running. Edit: quick google search says “leave filtration on, you don’t want pond to stagnate, koi die in winter most often due to lack of oxygen, deice or heat your pond to keep it from going below 35 F if there isn’t a deep warmer spot for koi to go to” etc. Good luck with your koi! Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 08:16 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 08:11
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I would at a bare minimum run a sponge filter There's a lot more dissolved oxygen to osmose around in a lake than 500 gallons of kiddie pool
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Jan 1, 2024 08:16
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Roger all that. I do check the water routinely so I’ll notice if anything gets out of whack. Will see what I can do about some sort of filtration. I do also have a de-icer in there and some heat pads underneath I can turn on in a pinch, plus the tank is wrapped in insulation to help keep the cold to the surface. There was one stupidly warm day (like 60 degrees all of a sudden, it’s been a weird winter) and the fish perked up and were cruising around, so they’re at least doing fine so far.
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Jan 1, 2024 18:41
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Hadlock posted:Yeah I bought some aquarium coop "easy carbon" from my LFS and added my first dose two days ago, just did another dose just now. I've been hesitant to start using it as I wanted to let the HOB seed with beneficial bacteria and not stress out the new amano shrimp too much (easy carbon is 1.5% glutaraldehyde, which I guess is a medical grade disinfectant that works by cross linking proteins, supposedly) Had massive diatom (brown) algae outbreak. God damnit Probably wasn't draining off the water fast enough after adding the easy carbon resulting in a ton of dead poo poo (algae) rotting in the tank Haven't seen the amano shrimp lately although I think they like to hide Cherry shrimp have gotten very comfortable in the tank I see them swimming around freely now Probably time to upgrade to a bigger tank finally, rice fish are about half grown
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Jan 3, 2024 10:14
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Diatoms make good shrimp food, I wouldn’t be worried about diatoms in a tank that has shrimp or snails. Another one of my elderly rasboras has passed away, I noticed him swimming at a bit of an angle last week and decided to try to keep an eye on it but the shrimp and snails in the tank had taken most of the flesh off his bones before I saw he was gone today. Meanwhile in my endler tank I noticed the blonde one struggling in some hair algae - horror of horrors he’s somehow got a prolapse that got snagged and with every struggle he’s making it worse. I’ve dosed some epsom salts and managed to cut the algae to free him but he looks miserable. Not sure if he will survive, so far I have had zero luck with any blonde guppy or endler. But I have seen guppies recover from prolapses so who knows. I think the tank is too small for adult fish and I really should move them somewhere bigger, I have a 15g which at this point only contains a bunch of cryptocoryne mother plants, I would like to switch out the substrate and get some fish back in so that might be a better home for some of these guppies. Edit: thought I should check at the 12 hour post rescue mark whether the blonde endler had survived, he is in fact swimming and eating normally again now and the prolapse is half the size that it was. So I fed the tank some smashed up peas and dosed a little more epsom salts and hopefully we can get him back to normal. For a fish that I wasn’t really fond of at first due to how unnatural he looks, he’s really kind of grown on me so I’m glad he will be sticking around a bit longer. Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 11:21 on Jan 3, 2024 |
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Jan 3, 2024 10:34
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Checked the blonde endler again to see how his survival chances are going: His tail is a bit split from where he was thrashing around while he was stuck but the prolapse has completely retracted so I think he will be fine going forward as long as I change his diet to include more squashed peas. All the fish seem to love peas thankfully.
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Jan 3, 2024 19:12
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That's great news! If I can ask, what is the usual food you feed them? So far I have not had to deal with the prolapse with any of my guppies but I want to make sure I keep on top of that kind of stuff too. They don't get peas because the plecos and shrimp grab them all up!
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Jan 3, 2024 21:19
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Stoca Zola posted:I have no idea how much waste a torpid koi still produces but I bet it isn’t zero - keeping in mind that the waste we worry about is the ammonia they constantly breathe out through their gills, not the poop they do after you feed them. I would have thought the heat of the regular filters pump and motion of the water would stop it from freezing though. I don’t know any koi keeper who turns off filtration in winter (from the ones I follow on YouTube). Cold water holds more oxygen but keeping it moving so oxygen isn’t depleted also makes sense to me. If they are in a smaller body of water than usual that is even more reason to keep the filtration running. Update, I think I have a plan and they’ll do great: 1) I’ll keep the air on. It’ll keep the water moving and aerated, and there’s a pretty healthy system in the water to deal with ammonia, nitrates, nitrites, etc. It all tests at ideal levels, and has been running sans-filtration for a few weeks. I think the low chemical and nearly zero solids output of the fish combined with the water movement is accomplishing what a sponge filter would, in this case. Nothing to sponge, plenty of water movement, good oxygenation. 2) The de-icer I have is a bit over-specced for the size of tank, and doesn’t seem to shut off as early as I think it should, so left to its own devices, it’ll actually warm the whole tank up too much. But I have an old keezer controller that will also do a heat mode. So I just picked the temp I want, got the probe in the water down near the bottom, and have that driving the de-icer. It is holding perfectly steady at 40 degrees. Can adjust that baseline and the flexibility the controller allows as needed. Currently +/- 1 degree, a pretty tight range. The somewhat aggressive aeration will also do a lot to keep the water temperature mixing throughout, so I should be able to trust that there’s not much of a gradient and the single probe will suffice. Bonus, with the heat in place, I’ll be able to bring it up to more active temperatures sooner than the weather would have, so I can get them fishies growing again a lot sooner. Can’t wait for spring so I can excavate their old pond larger, they’re gonna go from about 350 gallons to something more like 1000-1500, by both an increase in surface area, a deeper bottom, and bringing the grade up at the top. That and a proper skimmer, this huge new canister filter, and who knows what other treats. The old pond was okay last summer because there just a few of these little 3” fish, but they grew a ton. Long term, they get to go in the 1/2-acre pond out back, but we’ll give them a few years before that.
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Jan 3, 2024 22:26
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Cowslips Warren posted:That's great news! If I can ask, what is the usual food you feed them? So far I have not had to deal with the prolapse with any of my guppies but I want to make sure I keep on top of that kind of stuff too. They don't get peas because the plecos and shrimp grab them all up! I'm feeding a mix of hikari "fancy guppy", micropellets, microwafers, fluval algae flakes, and some insectivore pellets; these are all good because I can crush them small fairly easily for nanofish/fry or in the case of the insectivore pellets they break apart easily after sinking to the bottom so it lets the fish graze on them for a while. The microwafers fall a bit faster than the micropellets so it kind of makes sure the top level fish don't eat everything. Also I have freeze dried blackworm cubes which I snip up and grind in the mortar and pestle because they're too big for my nanofish otherwise - I feed bits of cube to the yoyo loaches and big rasboras. I don't think the hikari stuff has much in the way of roughage, I know its not the best quality food and I used to use vitalis tropical soft food and have a lot of success with that, but it sinks too fast and doesn't easily break up as small as the hikari does. I used to crunch up dried krill and brine shrimp too but I am not convinced that the krill shells weren't too sharp or that the brine shrimp had much nutritional value, and some of my fish refused to eat it whereas they all seem to love peas. At the moment I have so many tiny fish the easy feeding of tiny food became the priority. I used to feed peas twice a week, and just got lazy since mostly that was for the rosy barbs and they're in the pond outdoors now. I always smush the peas and push them through a 1mm mesh, so that means lots of little easy to eat particles that stay in the water column long enough for the top/mid level fish to eat, as one of my original rosy barbs killed himself trying to swallow a whole half a pea and I didn't find him in time to pull it out. I don't trust fish to know how big their own mouths are any more and I don't know how that doesn't happen for everyone else who "just feeds half a pea". Number one thing that helps prolapses - proper diet in the first place, and worming the fish so their guts don't get messed up, but number two thing is epsom salts. Just plain magnesium sulphate, it doesn't hurt the plants, I haven't seen it affect any of my fish adversely, and when it's done it's job it is easily removed with water changes. It supposedly helps relax the muscles and reduces the size of the protruding tissues via some osmotic effect. Stoca Zola fucked around with this message at 12:23 on Jan 4, 2024 |
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Jan 4, 2024 12:18
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A small amount of Epsom salts is, iirc, recommended as a micronutrient for plants anyhow. I vaguely recall gardening videos suggesting a bit of that along with some calcium for the tomaters.
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Jan 4, 2024 17:40
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Does anyone have a heater they like for a 5-10 gallon tank? I have an aquarium co-op 50W heater that can't keep a 5 gallon bucket at 80 degrees. I'm trying to hatch clownfish in it and I can't keep it warm.
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Jan 4, 2024 20:19
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Do you have a blanket/s wrapped around it
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Jan 4, 2024 20:58
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DeadlyMuffin posted:Does anyone have a heater they like for a 5-10 gallon tank? I have an aquarium co-op 50W heater that can't keep a 5 gallon bucket at 80 degrees. I'm trying to hatch clownfish in it and I can't keep it warm. Heaters can only raise the temp a set maximum amount above non-heated water in the same space based on the wattage. If it’s winter where you are, consider locating the tank to somewhere warmer. Surface also matters. I crashed the temp of a 5gal plastic tank once (that had a small heater) because I had it sitting on my marble countertop. You also want the water moving around to distribute the heat. Also make sure you have it set right. A 50w heater most of the time should easily heat 10-20 gallons.
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Jan 4, 2024 21:19
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All that, and a lid will help also check documentation that it doesn't have some kind of safety cutoff at 78 or something silly like that
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Jan 4, 2024 23:51
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Anecdotally, I’ve heard the aquarium coop heaters are poo poo. One of them boiled all the fish of a friend of mine. I wouldn’t use one without secondary temp controller
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Jan 5, 2024 00:40
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Rated PG-34 posted:Anecdotally, I’ve heard the aquarium coop heaters are poo poo. One of them boiled all the fish of a friend of mine. I wouldn’t use one without secondary temp controller Yeah, I haven't been happy with them. I bought a couple and have already had a couple of failures (fail off, fortunately) which is part of why I'm looking for alternatives. The features are nice, but I think the build quality is poor. Pilfered Pallbearers posted:Heaters can only raise the temp a set maximum amount above non-heated water in the same space based on the wattage. If it’s winter where you are, consider locating the tank to somewhere warmer. Surface also matters. I crashed the temp of a 5gal plastic tank once (that had a small heater) because I had it sitting on my marble countertop. Good suggestion. It's set at 80F, in a room that's ~65F or so, so for a tank I wouldn't expect a problem, but I wasn't thinking about conduction to the bottom. It was sitting on a metal stepladder that is cold to the touch so I stuck a towel underneath the bucket, which should help. It did eventually creep up to 80 overnight so I'm tentatively okay for the moment, maybe I was too impatient.
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Jan 5, 2024 06:43
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Rated PG-34 posted:Anecdotally, I’ve heard the aquarium coop heaters are poo poo. One of them boiled all the fish of a friend of mine. I wouldn’t use one without secondary temp controller It's not a good sign when something safety critical is built so badly it fails dangerous rather than safe.
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Jan 6, 2024 12:48
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CaptainTofu posted:It's not a good sign when something safety critical is built so badly it fails dangerous rather than safe. I had one that whistled. I thought I was going insane. Aquarium co-op replaced it though.
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Jan 6, 2024 20:09
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My heater also boiled all the fish, one day after getting them. Turns out it was turned all the way up by one of the kids.
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Jan 7, 2024 11:46
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Beef posted:My heater also boiled all the fish, one day after getting them. Turns out it was turned all the way up by one of the kids.  Fishkeeping can be such a disaster sometimes.Speaking of kids, after a year of constant nagging, my sister's kids have finally convinced her to trade out her tropical livestock for a pair of black telescope eye goldfish. She's going to give me her 5 pristella tetras and 2 remaining sterbai corydoras which were ones I originally raised and gave her. The goldfish'll outgrow the tank and filter in a couple of years. I've been trying to get my sister in the "just change more water" mindset but she has gotten away with an over planted understocked tank for a long time ie 6 months between water changes. So she thinks its going to be fine, and I think that is just not gonna work with goldfish, in the long term anyway. My sister thinks the kids will lose interest and the fish will die and then she will get to say "I told you so". I'm hoping I can get the kids to stay more interested than their mother, coach them on what to do, and keep the fish alive at least until they grow out of the tank. I think I should be able to lend them a spare filter if it becomes necessary. And I've got room in a 4 foot tank for two fancy goldfish if it gets to the point where the fish need a rescue. Kind of a pain in the arse trying to be a responsible fishkeeper sometimes though.
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Jan 7, 2024 15:30
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i really think goldfish, oscars, common plecos, pretty much anything that gets over 10 inches long shouldn't be in pet stores. but then again I also think all aquatic turtles and chameleons shouldn't be either.
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Jan 7, 2024 16:12
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Cowslips Warren posted:i really think goldfish, oscars, common plecos, pretty much anything that gets over 10 inches long shouldn't be in pet stores. but then again I also think all aquatic turtles and chameleons shouldn't be either. Agreed. I'd really like to see specialty stores for that kind of stuff where they are crystal clear with you and make sure you aren't just going to kill them.
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Jan 7, 2024 19:35
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Stoca Zola posted:
Show her some instagram photos of people with emmersed plants added at the top of the tank and try to convince her to do the same. I have 3 Philodendrons and a variegated Syngonium over my 20G and I just straight up don't need to do water changes at all anymore (and the plants have zero upkeep as well, although I might need to split the Philodendrons soon because they've grown so many new leaves). The only thing to be careful of is that some plants have toxic roots or leaves, so you'll either need to be picky with which plants you use or have some way to keep them where the fish can't eat them. It might still not be enough to filter for two big goldfish, but it would absolutely help, especially while they're smaller.
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Jan 7, 2024 21:51
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Have you considered a mangrove plantation?
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Jan 7, 2024 23:36
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Sometimes I'll do market research surveys and this one came up about aquarium accesories. I did not realize I was supposed to get a Valntine's Day gift for my clownfish.
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Jan 10, 2024 19:06
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All my fish get ghost shrimp for Christmas.
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Jan 10, 2024 19:58
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poo poo. I rearranged my star tank Sunday, and Monday one of the serpent stars had a hole/gash on its disc. I pulled him from the tank after I saw bristle worms near him, and have him in an aerated bucket. 100 percent water changes every day and he's active but I don't think any meds are safe. I don't want to put him back in the main tank and have him die, and my 10 gallon tank has crabs in it that I'm trying to rehome so I would just see them tearing him apart
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Jan 10, 2024 21:09
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| # ? May 26, 2024 21:12 |
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The Nastier Nate posted:Sometimes I'll do market research surveys and this one came up about aquarium accesories. I did not realize I was supposed to get a Valntine's Day gift for my clownfish. Looks like Troy McClure has a new career writing surveys.
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Jan 10, 2024 21:47
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