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fknlo
Jul 6, 2009


Fun Shoe
Took a few more pictures of Fat Mike today. It's been a week and he's still kicking!


IMG_1636 by jg zkc, on Flickr


IMG_1663 by jg zkc, on Flickr

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The Oncoming Storm
Jan 21, 2012

Disregard fangirls, acquire yellow tree fruit.
So a while back I posted that my B.Channoides had started knocking fins and produced some fry. Well, now the female's passed, the male is hovering around the penned-off blue jelly shrimp with hungry eyes, and the three remaining fry are in a tupperware tank with a sponge filter and a heater.

They eat cyclopeez and baby brine when I can actually get the drat things to hatch. Saturday I tried them on regular brine and they were hilarious, darting around with massive shrimp half dangling from their mouths.

I don't know how fast they're supposed to grow, or how big they're supposed to be before they can go into the community tank. The biggest one is about a centimeter long.

Edit: ^^^ Fat Mike is adorable. Grumpy Bettas :3

The Oncoming Storm fucked around with this message at 03:44 on Jun 18, 2013

Synthbuttrange
May 6, 2007

demonR6 posted:

I made some links to the plant profiles on TPT if you would like to update the OP. I will edit this if you choose to use it in the OP (or not) to remove all the clutter.

Thanks! Did have to use an edited down version to keep the whole post in the limit, but the plants have picture links now!

Queen Gnome
Jul 30, 2006

Her Lawnliness

Cowslips Warren posted:

For most fish, two is a bad number; three or four, even five, means that any aggression issues are spread out. Of course that depends on the size of your tank too! But a well planted 10 gallon can have probably 5-6 pea puffers.

Ahh, I had no idea about this! Very good to know.
I think having either 1 or 3 would be the way to go with a 5gal or 10gal tank. Would having only one be okay for a pea puffer?

Cowslips Warren
Oct 29, 2005

What use had they for tricks and cunning, living in the enemy's warren and paying his price?

Grimey Drawer

Queen Gnome posted:

Ahh, I had no idea about this! Very good to know.
I think having either 1 or 3 would be the way to go with a 5gal or 10gal tank. Would having only one be okay for a pea puffer?

One would be fine but would be a bit dull! In a planted 10 you could easily do 6 or so, depending on the rest of your stock (my pea puffers, however, tore the poo poo out of any fish they could grab a hold of, at least fin-wise) and in a planted 5, a trio would be good.

Queen Gnome
Jul 30, 2006

Her Lawnliness

Cowslips Warren posted:

One would be fine but would be a bit dull! In a planted 10 you could easily do 6 or so, depending on the rest of your stock (my pea puffers, however, tore the poo poo out of any fish they could grab a hold of, at least fin-wise) and in a planted 5, a trio would be good.

I haven't had any fish for some time now, so it would probably just be the puffs. I could watch those little guys all day :3:
A trio sounds much more manageable if a well planted 5gal accomodate them

Thank you for your reply!


edit: http://youtu.be/6o1fw9jtRNc?t=1m33s
vvv what gets me more is that the tankmates put up with abuse from the tiny little things.

Queen Gnome fucked around with this message at 15:33 on Jun 18, 2013

demonR6
Sep 4, 2012

There are too many stupid people in the world. I'm not saying we should kill them all or anything. Just take the warning labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself.

Lipstick Apathy

SynthOrange posted:

Thanks! Did have to use an edited down version to keep the whole post in the limit, but the plants have picture links now!

No problem. I did not know what the limit was but anything is better than nothing right?

Cowslips Warren posted:

One would be fine but would be a bit dull! In a planted 10 you could easily do 6 or so, depending on the rest of your stock (my pea puffers, however, tore the poo poo out of any fish they could grab a hold of, at least fin-wise) and in a planted 5, a trio would be good.

That is the one thing I heard about them, they don't play nice with other tank mates which is funny considering how small they are.

Vitae
Apr 12, 2004

MECH VITAE is already stupid.
Just wanted to post my "lazytank". I believe it's 40 gallons. It's a very very low tech tank. No c02, occasional excel dose, occasional pfert dose (macro/nitrogen). 1 Molly and 2 baby Mollies, 2 otos, a few ghost shrimp, and lots and lots and lots of guppies. Plants are a mix of java moss, crypts, rotala, cambomba, water wisteria, and some unknowns.



Definitely in need of a good trim/organization, but I love it. It helps me relax.

GrAviTy84
Nov 25, 2004

I'm having a hell of a time with hair/beard algae in my betta tank. Does anyone have any recs for a fish that would eat it? it's a 10 gal with 1 betta and 2 neons, planted.

Chido
Dec 7, 2003

Butterflies fluttering on my face!

I've got a question about lighting. My 5 gallon tank came with an incandescent bulb that makes the water look yellow and the colors in my guppies rather dull. I was checking Petsmart's website and found two fluorescent bulbs that would fit my cover well, but one is a daylight bulb and the other a 50/50 daylight/bluelight bulb. Does it make any difference if I choose the blue one? I was reading it is used more for coral tanks, but it looks rather pretty and I'd like to use it :shobon:

Synthbuttrange
May 6, 2007

Have you already tried blackout and cutting down lighting times? Otherwise, true siamese algae eaters, rosy barbs, nerites and amano shrimp tackle that kind of algae. Or spot treat with excel.

edit: The fish might get too big for a 10g sorry.

Chido: I'm more a fan of daylight bulbs, dont really like the blue cast seawater tank lights give everything. No real experience using them, so no idea how they'd affect plants or fish.

Synthbuttrange fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Jun 19, 2013

n3rdal3rt
Nov 2, 2011

Grimey Drawer

GrAviTy84 posted:

I'm having a hell of a time with hair/beard algae in my betta tank. Does anyone have any recs for a fish that would eat it? it's a 10 gal with 1 betta and 2 neons, planted.

A big water change and a blackout for a couple of days helped mine but didn't get rid of it. I probably need to have a couple more scheduled blackouts.

jamontoast
Jun 29, 2008
So I have a powerhead in my Tanganyika tank that I only turn on periodically to move stuff that gets stuck around the rockwork where you can't really get to it with a siphon tube. If it gets left on all the time, I find there's too much current in the tank and all of the fish just hide in the rockwork all day.

Walking past the tank on my way to get breakfast today, I was surprised to notice my juvenile Julidochromis regani in a somewhat unexpected hiding spot.



Thank goodness I decided against putting it on a timer.

Synthbuttrange
May 6, 2007

What a cutie. Get a net over the thing though!

http://animal.discovery.com/tv-shows/animal-planet-presents/videos/most-outrageous-largest-home-aquarium.htm
Also possibly the largest home aquarium? Something in the order of 10,000 gallons. :stare:

demonR6
Sep 4, 2012

There are too many stupid people in the world. I'm not saying we should kill them all or anything. Just take the warning labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself.

Lipstick Apathy
This snap won me a photo contest a while back.

Daddy save meeeeee!!



He was a great fish.. died a few months after that pic. My wife saw him at PetCo and brought him home. He had hole-in-the-head at the time and we were able to cure it but he kept on getting ill as a result of his lowered immune system battling the infection.

Chido
Dec 7, 2003

Butterflies fluttering on my face!

I bought both a 50/50 and a normal flourescent lights. I'm using the 50/50 one right now. I took the picture with my phone and for some reason the gravel looks very bright in it.



I like how it looks, and the hornwort Durrneez gave me looks pretty :3:. I also found a tiny plant in my tank. I had tried to have a plant in my tank months ago but it died after a week or so. I guess a tiny part of it managed to survive somehow. I don't even remember what it is and the leaves are tiny and rather pale right now, so I moved it to the front of the tank to see it better (and make it easier to take out if it dies).

I'd like to add a couple more fish, but I don't want more guppies but I can't really add anything bigger than a guppy if I want to haave 4-5 fish in my puny tank.

demonR6
Sep 4, 2012

There are too many stupid people in the world. I'm not saying we should kill them all or anything. Just take the warning labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself.

Lipstick Apathy
Funny thing about plants, even a stray leaf in healthy condition will have a good chance of sprouting a root and growing into a new plant. I see it happen all the time in my tanks and it is really neat.

And sad news, my betta Max who I have had now going on four years is not looking too good. I think old age is finally catching up to him. Over the past few months has has not been himself and recently his fins have started looking ragged, his color is dulling and he has become less active over the past two weeks. He sits on a leaf or in a dark corner of his little bridge. I am going to be really sad, he has been my office companion for a few years at work and here at my home office now.

demonR6 fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Jun 19, 2013

Chichevache
Feb 17, 2010

One of the funniest posters in GIP.

Just not intentionally.
I picked up most of the equipment I am going to put in my tank. The plan is for a 20 gallon long, though I am also considering a 29 gallon so that I can fit in my planned fish. If I go 20L my lights will reach the bottom of the tank with ease and I can consider doing a carpet. With a 29 that may be out of the question, but considering the fish I plan on stocking I may not have a choice. I'll finish my move to L.A. next week and then I can pick out the tank I want.

Equipment:
Freshwater Master Test Kit
Water Hardness Test Kits
Hydor Koralia Nano 240 Pump
Eheim Classic Canister Filter 2213
Hydor ETH Inline Heater 201
30 pounds of red flourite
Finnex Ray 2 LED Daylight 30 Inches

I also have the other assorted necessities like Seachem Prime, nets, airline tubing for DIY CO2, etc. Does it look like I missed anything obvious? I plan on starting a fishless cycle as soon as I get the tank established.

Will that light be enough for me to carpet with as well or should I consider a second? I was planning on using Hemianthus callitrichoides as a carpet plant, but I don't know if my light will be enough. I'm looking at red plants for the most part, as they will make an excellent high contrast with the fish I am planning on stocking. Of course most red plants require a relatively high lighting as well, either to make them look red or to keep them alive.

My plans for fish are pretty much set though. I am going to start the tank, after the cycle of course, with Carbon Rili Shrimp and once they have started to breed I plan on introducing everything else gradually. MTS are definitely going in the tank and I am still torn on whether or not to add Otos to help the shrimp and snails with clean up. Second to last I plan on introducing ten or so Pseudomugil Rainbowfish. This is my major question. I have heard conflicting reports on their behavior in schools and how they deal with other fish. Live Aquaria has them down as aggressive, but every other review of the fish does not. There is apparently the possibility that the males will stress each other out, so I am planning to break up the line of sight in the aquarium and give them locations to dwell in if they choose, I'm hoping they school though. For my final fish I was planning on a large centerpiece betta though. Do Pseudomugil Rainbowfish have a reputation as fin nippers? I know the betta may possibly be aggressive, but I can deal with that by relocating him to another tank if I get an angry betta. But if the rainbows are guaranteed to be a problem with the betta in the first place I'll be poo poo out of luck and would rather not add them to the tank if I can help it. Also will this planned stocking be comfortable in a 20L or will I have to go with a 29? I already checked Aqadvisor and with my filtration etc I should be fine, but they do put up a warning for the Betta and Pseudomugils.

Desert Bus
May 9, 2004

Take 1 tablet by mouth daily.

SynthOrange posted:

What a cutie. Get a net over the thing though!

http://animal.discovery.com/tv-shows/animal-planet-presents/videos/most-outrageous-largest-home-aquarium.htm
Also possibly the largest home aquarium? Something in the order of 10,000 gallons. :stare:

Oh, hey! That's JohnPTC's tank. It's only 1/5th the size of the largest FW home aquarium.

Crab Dad
Dec 28, 2002

behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB


Desert Bus posted:

Oh, hey! That's JohnPTC's tank. It's only 1/5th the size of the largest FW home aquarium.

What the hell does he do for a living that he can afford all that. Wonder if he needed a permit for that turtle.

Malalol
Apr 4, 2007

I spent $1,000 on my computer but I'm too "poor" to take my dog or any of my animals to the vet for vet care. My neglect caused 1 of my birds to die prematurely! My dog pisses everywhere! I don't care! I'm a piece of shit! Don't believe me? Check my post history in Pet Island!
Man, id love a huge tank. Specially with catfish, pangasius, clown knives, :3: i just cant get over how ugly monster tanks look. Closs to bare bottom, with maybe wood or some rocks. I would want a nice planted tank in a huge aquarium and go for many smaller fish instjead. ...and probably give in and end up getting a clown knife because oh god i want one.

Shakenbaker
Nov 14, 2005



Grimey Drawer


I have a whole lot of corkscrew vallisneria that I'm dealing with. If anyone wants some let me know, I'd be happy to mail out some to anyone in the US who wants. The tank does have MTS in it, so it's possible you'd wind up with stragglers, just so you know.

Bonus shot of my Bolivian rams being difficult to photograph:



edit: Think all the vals I had to offer are all taken now. If I wind up with more than I realized I'll let y'all know.

Shakenbaker fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Jun 20, 2013

durrneez
Feb 20, 2013

I like fish. I like to eat fish. I like to brush fish with a fish hairbrush. Do you like fish too?
Ooooo. I'll take some corkscrew vals! They're so pretty! Have you got PMs?

Shakenbaker
Nov 14, 2005



Grimey Drawer
I sure do. PM me with details and I should have them out to you by this weekend.

Chido
Dec 7, 2003

Butterflies fluttering on my face!


Are those flowers? They look so pretty!

Synthbuttrange
May 6, 2007

That's a top down shot of corkscrew vals and duckweed. Sure duckweed looks cute at first, then you notice it's covering your entire tank! It's fine if you dont have to do any tank work, but if you do, you'll end up covered in it.

Shakenbaker
Nov 14, 2005



Grimey Drawer
SynthOrange speaks the truth about duckweed. Every other week as I do my water changes I take out handfuls of the stuff from my various tanks. Still like the stuff though; it helps keep my water nice for the fish and gives a nice, natural look I think.

Thanks either way though, Chido.

Synthbuttrange
May 6, 2007

I prefer frogbit to duckweed. Same benefits, just larger plants that are easier to handle and dont stick to you.

Shakenbaker
Nov 14, 2005



Grimey Drawer
Yeah, I thought about frogbit or redroot floaters, but in the end I wound up with salvinia minima and duckweed volunteers so I just roll with it. I can safely state that duckweed has nothing on the salvinia as far as the annoyance factor goes though, good lord.

redleader
Aug 18, 2005

Engage according to operational parameters
Could you put duckweed into a mesh bag or similar and just let the bag float in a tank? Maybe that would stop the duckweed from going everywhere and being a huge pain, while still improving water quality.

Shakenbaker
Nov 14, 2005



Grimey Drawer
I suppose you could try, but wouldn't putting it into mesh cut down on the light it gets? Also the seeds off those things are tiny to the point where I be you'd still wind up with some loose and floating. I do wonder if one of those hang on refugiums would work for something like that though.

Malalol
Apr 4, 2007

I spent $1,000 on my computer but I'm too "poor" to take my dog or any of my animals to the vet for vet care. My neglect caused 1 of my birds to die prematurely! My dog pisses everywhere! I don't care! I'm a piece of shit! Don't believe me? Check my post history in Pet Island!
If youre gunna go through that much trouble, why not just use other floaters. Theyre just as good. Well, I dont know if theyre just as good/better.. need a science experiment for that.

2nding frogbit and dwl is great too. I've got alot of red root floaters now which look awesome.

JuffoWup
Mar 28, 2012

Shakenbaker posted:

I suppose you could try, but wouldn't putting it into mesh cut down on the light it gets? Also the seeds off those things are tiny to the point where I be you'd still wind up with some loose and floating. I do wonder if one of those hang on refugiums would work for something like that though.

It might work, but my issue with such a setup would mostly be asking the point. One other benefit of floaters is that it cuts the intensity of the light a bit arriving to the bottom of the tank. This means some fish are less stressed and willing to be out in the open. Of course, that also means less to little light for a carpet plant.

Shakenbaker
Nov 14, 2005



Grimey Drawer
Yeah, it'd be a lot of hoops to go through to wind up without all the benefits of just letting it do it's thing. So you've got to wipe tiny plants off your arm after moving stuff around, big deal.

demonR6
Sep 4, 2012

There are too many stupid people in the world. I'm not saying we should kill them all or anything. Just take the warning labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself.

Lipstick Apathy
Frogbit control is much more simple than salvina clogging every nook and cranny of your tank. Fishing that out is a pain in the rear end I can tell you and even when you think you got it all, it's back before you know it. I have both, the salvina was purposefully introduced back when I was starting the tank to control the excess nutrients and ammonia when I established the tank and it was quite effective. I have been trying to eradicate it from my tank since then.. The frogbit though, I pick off what I want when I feel it is getting crowded in there and move it to another one of my tanks while picking out any undesirable plants from them in the process and throwing them out in the trash.

Soylent Yellow
Nov 5, 2010

yospos
I have a tank that's currently packed full of a rather prolific strain of Corkscrew Val. I need to clear some of it out rather urgently. Rather than simply bin it, I'm willing to post it to any UK goons who want it for however much postage and packaging would be. Or if you have some Frogbit to swap, we can do it that way. Send me a PM if interested.

A word of warning: The tank in question is disease-free, but the Vals may come with free MTS.

Fusillade
Mar 31, 2012

...and her

BIG FAT BASS
Hooray, the new OP is up! :woop: It was fun to contribute to a novella.

Now, for some fishy content: I attempted to give (Princess) Bloop some company by adding several more Cichla to the tank to make a school for her. She was not having ANY of it. She turned all of her colors on, including the red in her eyes, and promptly thrashed them. She's fiesty, but still growing awfully slow, which I have been told is a trait of Orinoco peacock bass. Only at 7 inches at 7 months since I've gotten her, where other species I've kept would have been 10, 11 inches by now. Still, she is a gorgeous lady.



As it turns out, peacock bass aggression toward each other is so well documented that sports fishermen use lures painted to resemble peacock bass. They seem to work -- even if the bait is shaped like trout.




-----

Now for something that more of you can relate to: Mr. Freeze is maturing nicely!! I received him in May from a local betta breeder who could not show him because of a color fault (marbled varieties are supposed to have a 50/50 color split in ALL fins). He's become more and more blue over the past month and a half. Here are the before and after pics -- both times taken of him while he was chilling out on his water sprite up in his heated 5 gallon VIP lounge. :coolfish:



cheese
Jan 7, 2004

Shop around for doctors! Always fucking shop for doctors. Doctors are stupid assholes. And they get by because people are cowed by their mystical bullshit quality of being able to maintain a 3.0 GPA at some Guatemalan medical college for 3 semesters. Find one that makes sense.
So I'm setting up my outdoor planter pond and I have a question. I used about 3 inches of Miracle Grow Organic Choice for the dirt and my great plan was to dumb the water in hard, stir it up to get the wood chips and fine dust out (by scooping the water out down to the dirt level) and then refilling. It occurs to me: did I remove a bunch of key nutrients or something by doing that? The water was mega cloudy, even after 2 days, so I removed all the water.

Also, the dirt feels very loose under the water - should I cap it with sand or drain the water and compact it down a little? I'd like to put a bunch of plants in this weekend.

demonR6
Sep 4, 2012

There are too many stupid people in the world. I'm not saying we should kill them all or anything. Just take the warning labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself.

Lipstick Apathy
You could cap it with about a half inch of play sand once you drain it then you do not have to worry about floating things. You aren't removing anything though, I sifted two bags of MGOCPS down to a consistency of finely ground coffee and it has been growing plants for two years now successfully.

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cheese
Jan 7, 2004

Shop around for doctors! Always fucking shop for doctors. Doctors are stupid assholes. And they get by because people are cowed by their mystical bullshit quality of being able to maintain a 3.0 GPA at some Guatemalan medical college for 3 semesters. Find one that makes sense.

demonR6 posted:

You could cap it with about a half inch of play sand once you drain it then you do not have to worry about floating things. You aren't removing anything though, I sifted two bags of MGOCPS down to a consistency of finely ground coffee and it has been growing plants for two years now successfully.

Great, thanks.

Anyone in the bay area with a collection of plants I can buy the cuttings of?

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