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 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 |
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Jun 20, 2013 02:42
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I sure do. PM me with details and I should have them out to you by this weekend.
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Jun 20, 2013 03:29
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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.
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Jun 20, 2013 04:07
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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.
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Jun 20, 2013 04:42
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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.
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Jun 20, 2013 05:25
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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.
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Jun 20, 2013 14:22
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SynthOrange posted:plants that root in water (like pothos) I had no idea what this was so I looked it up and I think it's growing all around my house:  Am I right? because if it is I may have to experiment a bit...
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Jun 23, 2013 22:50
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Awesome, thanks. Definitely going to give it a shot. Thanks, whoever planted it and let it run wild around my house!
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Jun 24, 2013 01:15
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It definitely looks like it could take over my house if it wasn't fighting the goddamned air potatoes. Grows 8 inches a day and the vines just looove to snap off from the tuber when you try to pull them up. gently caress those things and whoever brought them here forever, ugh. The pothos outside seems to do pretty well, but I do wonder if it'll be shooting off leaves the size of my head inside as well, of if it'll behave. It looks nigh-unkillable outside at least, I know I've hit it with the mower and it just keeps on truckin'.
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Jun 24, 2013 03:10
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I gotta do something about my snail farm. Zebra loaches look like they'd make the most sense for my 75. A group of 6 or so should get me at least one with a taste for snail flesh, right?
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Jun 25, 2013 02:43
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Thanks. I knew that they'd eat snails but I kept seeing "not an obligate snail eater" so I wasn't sure if some were just difficult or what. Chain loaches were actually the other kind I was thinking of, so maybe them. Kinda wanting to stay away from yoyos since they get a group of them would eat up a whole lot of bio-mass in that tank when they're grown.
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Jun 25, 2013 03:19
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demonR6 posted:My clown loach has been methodically picking apart the snail population and doing a great job at it. Sure he icked on me the week I got him but since then he is a super star leaving a trail of empty shells in his path. Clowns just get too big for my taste, even if it does take forever. They're awesome fish to watch play around, but I'll wait until I can do something stupid like a 300 and a shoal of 'em. Just them and like...rice fish or something. SynthOrange posted:Well, it just means that they dont require snails to eat. If there's plentiful and easier sources of food around, the snails might get ignored. Ah, okay then. I took at as a "some do, some don't" thing, but that helps. They'll have snails for days in that tank, though I do wonder if I'm going to be left with piles of shells everywhere, like a skull throne 
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Jun 25, 2013 04:08
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Malalol posted:What other fish would you keep with goldfish? Paradise fish are assholes on a grand scale. Wouldn't recommend them with goldfish unless you like the finless look.
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Jun 25, 2013 04:56
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durrneez posted:Yes! My package from Shakenbaker arrived! He very generously gave me some corkscrew vals and a few MTS. A few frogbit or duckweed hitchhiked but I'm actually really happy that they did. My Walstad still suffers from some hair algae so it'll be nice to have some floating wonders. Heh the hitchhiker should be duckweed. I don't think there's any salvinia in that tank, so you should be safe. Enjoy your plants and shelled friends! And speaking of things floating in that tank:  My lavender gourami is feeling his oats, it seems. Explains the rough housing he's been doing with his golden lady. Malalol posted:A mild rant while im on break. People's dumb. If you tell most people what a goldfish actually needs to live, they think you're full of poo poo because of that time they won one at the county fair and it lived for a whole year!
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Jun 28, 2013 02:38
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My money is on the plastic plants being your culprit, honestly.
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Jul 3, 2013 03:25
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So long has he's got something to lounge on, I know my betta loves to lay on his driftwood log catching shade under the anubias that grown on it. The thing with the plastic plants is that sometimes those little edges are just enough to snag their fins or scratch their bodies, but that kinda depends on the fish and all. You could maybe just tie a clump of anubias or java fern to a rock and give him a lounge spot. Don't need fancy substrates or lights for either of those, and they're generally cheap to come by. Bought a couple tiny, skinny narwhals today:  Best or coolest algae eaters? Yes.
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Jul 4, 2013 00:10
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Lacrosse posted:I've never heard them called narwhals. Is that a farowella? I was being stupid about it. As I took the picture I noticed the snouts and a dumb joke was born. But yeah, two farowellas. Couldn't tell you for sure which species, but still pretty happy with them. They'll be going into my 75 which was sorely lacking in algae eaters, and I've always liked them more than plecos. Also significantly cheaper than any cool plecos 'round these parts.
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Jul 4, 2013 00:34
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Sure thing. I've gone through just about all of those too, aside from the Siamese or the goby. I'm thinking worst case scenario I can get a few otos to keep the leaves of my plants clean. Flag fish are crazy if they find something they like, but that isn't always algae. The pair in my 55 cleaned off all the salvinia minima I had growing on the top of it on more than one occasion I do really like nerite snails for algae most of the time, but I want loaches in this tank and they'd just be expensive snacks, so something with fins seem my only option.
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Jul 4, 2013 03:04
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Yeah, Lacrosse is 100% right. Clown loaches are just not a fish most people can take care of. Honestly irks me seeing them in stores most of the time, same as baby oscars, iridescent sharks and the like. Sure they won't outgrow the tank they're in, but it's because they'll die from stunted growth first.
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Jul 4, 2013 22:49
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tboeske01 posted:I am going to be moving them up to a 125g tank when they get bigger. I have no plans to keep them in a tank too small for them. Heh from worried to jealous that quick. A big ol' tank of clowns is one of my pie in the sky dreams. What pops into my head always when people talk about clowns is the time I set up a little three gallon for my sister because she wanted a betta. A few days later I get a picture of a clown loach and a yellow lab in it  She told the guy at the store how big her tank was, he spouted the "1 inch to gallon" line and pointed her at those fish. Next time I went to visit I took them back to the store and ranted more than little. Ugh.edit: just remembered I still had the pic. Behold! 
Shakenbaker fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Jul 4, 2013 |
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Jul 4, 2013 23:32
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Chido posted:Small update on my 5 gallon tank; I haven't killed the hornwort Durrneez gave me Could try an amano shrimp or two. Is there a specific reason you'd rather keep away from snails though? Because a single nerite would probably take care of all your algae woes.
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Jul 6, 2013 03:12
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. Now I'm having a bit of a problem with algae I didn't have before. It's starting to grow on the lower part of the tank and on the gravel, so I'm not sure how to deal with it as my tank is so small. I've been leaving the light on longer lately for the hornwort, so that's probably what's encouraging the algae to spread. the thing is, I still would like to add two more guppies or Endler's livebearers. If I get those two fish for a total of 4, I don't think I can get an algae eater small enough to do ok in the tank, and I'd rather not get snails.
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Clearly that's a larval form and it's getting out of the water to finally sprout its wings and fly away.
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Jul 7, 2013 06:33
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dirtycajun posted:After a many year hiatus of the wonderful world of african cichlid keeping I think it's time for me to come back. After having spent years mourning the loss of my paired frontosas to their wonderful ability to break my loving tank hood and escape in a horrible suicide pact I wish to try again. This time with a smaller tank and smaller fish. I got a 45 gallon tank and a stand for super cheap and am hunting down lighting and such now. Could try some kribensis. They've been pretty bullet proof for me and spawned pretty easily, and the only plants they've shredded of mine were some cabomba that was right next to the hole they dug out to spawn. My big male was just shy of four inches and was tank boss, females are a bit smaller. Mine nip at my hands when I give them tubifex cubes, the lovable little scamps. If you're wanting happy cichlid and plant times though, maybe look at the new world and get some apistos? They're a bit more on the delicate side, but there are some absolutely stunning fish to be had. Cacatuoides and agassizii are probably the easiest to find and come in all sorts of colors. Oh, and that Bolivian ram is a South American cichlid, too. I've a school of six of the little guys and they're a blast. They're solidly plant friendly, and so are blue rams.
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Jul 8, 2013 06:06
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Eh, uneven paint on the back isn't a huge deal. If people are spending more time looking at the paint than what's in the tank you've probably got other issues.
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Jul 9, 2013 05:17
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Chichevache posted:It is still a pain in the rear end doing six coats when two or three should suffice. When I pay for it I want it to work. Six coats? Yeesh. Can see why you'd be irked by that then.
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Jul 9, 2013 13:38
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Topping off and pruning the tanks tonight and realized my female apisto was throwing some funny color. Watched her a bit and then: Eggs! Eggs in a very messy tank. Why couldn't she have done this like tomorrow or something once everything's settled? Oh well. I have no idea if the male did his job or not, but still cool all the same. I went ahead and added some anti-fungal to the tank so here's hoping. It's just the two of them, a bunch of snails, and plants out the wazoo so I shouldn't loose any fry to predation that isn't parental. Would really love to raise up a batch of babies, both for learnin' and for spreading the apisto joy.
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Jul 19, 2013 02:19
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Aww my little vals, making it out there in the world. I'm like a proud papa  Kinda jealous you can get clover to grow, my attempts with it went south pretty quickly. Never got any growth from them, and they eventually just withered down to the point I pulled them up and tossed them. I'd love to be able to get something like a carpet of them going, such a neat looking little plant. You mentioned wishing you'd gone for black sand instead of the white, which got me wondering what everyone here does for their substrates in general? When I got back into the hobby last year I spent a fair bit of time trying to see where I could save a few bucks since if you go buy substrates from the store they get costly pretty quickly. I knew I wanted to go planted off the bat so I got nice light and planned for soil under sand, and wound up buying pool filter sand to do that tank. It's off-white in color, largish grain size for sand and looks very natural, akin to riverbed white. The 50lbs bag I bought cost me $7.00, and so I've still got enough to do a decent sized tank out in the shed. It also cleaned up very fast, not much particulate floating off of it at all. My betta's tank has Safe-T-Sorb in it for substrate. It's baked fuller's earth, reddish-brown in color and about the size of standard gravel. I originally bought it to use as an additive in the soil for my other tanks since it's basically a poor man's laterite but figured I'd give it a shot as a substrate itself. It's got good exchange to it, so if you're fancy pants you can pre-load it with fertilizer by soaking it in a water/fertilizer mix. It also works as-is, since it'll soak up whatever's around and then your rooted plants can pull out whatever they need back out of it. Again, nice and cheap with a 40lbs bag going for about $5 at Tractor Supply. There's more than one kind, so go with the green label since it's just the fired clay. Wanted black sand for my 75 both because I wanted something different and I thought it would hide some of the mulm and such better than the white sand in the 55. Wound up going with Black Diamond blasting sand, which is actually coal slag but is totally inert. I got the finest grain I could find at the store at the time and it's very fine sand, much finer than the pool filter sand. It's not uniformly one color of black so it actually looks pretty natural. It's pretty close to Tahitian moon sand, really. Bought two 50lbs bags of it, for a total of $16.00, again at the local Tractor Supply. For the little betta tank I set up for my sister, I did something less natural and more flashy, and bought some crushed garnet. Again, it's inert so it's safe, but it obviously does not look natural at all. It's maroon in color, but it's definitely sand-looking since it's crystalline. I think I payed about a $20 for 25lbs for it, ordering it off of eBay from a company that sells sandblasting supplies. Just wash it like you would any sand and it's good to go. It certainly makes a statement, I think. I really want to one day make a gaudy as all hell tank with that stuff, white rocks, and African cichlids. One day... So does anyone else get some bizarre enjoyment from sand and junk, or am I a nut?
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Jul 22, 2013 05:43
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durrneez posted:Honestly, I'm pretty surprised that the clover is doing as well as it is! All of my bacopa and most of my wisteria melted but somehow I get clover to grow? I feel you on being a messy planter. I hear tell that those long metal tweezers are great for keeping your planting neat since they're a lot smaller than fingers are, but I can't speak from experience. What I always tell myself is that nature doesn't have many ponds with pristine bottoms either, seems to help  On the apisto eggs front from the other day, I see no sign of fry and my female's colors are back to normal. Not sure if it's the water or something else I'm missing. Bah.
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Jul 23, 2013 02:30
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Got a text from my sister today. Turns out that snails, you know, multiply like rabbits. So I stopped by the pet store to get her an assassin snail since I know no where around where she lives carries them, so I'll just mail it to her. I browsed the store like usual, the dudes at the counter tilted their head at one of the tanks for me to check something out. They have licorice gourami. Tweediei and deissneri.  I should just start keeping a few spare tanks set up and empty...
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Jul 25, 2013 00:07
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Chido posted:I have some snails that might've come with the hornwort, maybe the anubia. They seem to be pond snails and there's one I can't quite figure out what it is. They're still very small, but I'd rather avoid having a snail infestation if I can. I want to get a nerite snail, but I was hoping i could maybe have some ottos instead since they are cute, but I don't think my tank is big enough for them MTS = Malayasian trumpet snails. They're kinda long and pointy shelled things. Good for general cleanup and for stirring up the sand and soil in those sorts of tanks, but have to be on the scale of convict cichlids when it comes to things that can multiply in an aquarium if left unchecked. So I've been messing with my big tank for a little bit today, and my lavender gourami is suddenly a bitey little bastard. He's bitten my hand or arm every time I've put it into the tank today, no less than a dozen so far times  . Little guy is completely fearless. I don't usually name my fish, but the little jerk has earned one I think.
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Aug 3, 2013 21:32
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Chichevache posted:My vote is for Sushi. Maybe. I was told by someone else that Namor might be a good option, but I have to think about it. Did figure out why he's been super grouchy though, it's becase there's an assload of fry floating now. I didn't see them at all yesterday, but there are a whole bunch today. Guess I need to boil up some eggs for 'em or something.
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Aug 4, 2013 18:57
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Chido posted:Name him Sharknado Done! Behold, the most fearsome creature to have ever been birthed by the waters and the skies at the same time:   I think I know how stormchasers feel now.
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Aug 7, 2013 03:09
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This is awesome. Good luck with the baby jags! durrneez posted:holy frijole that's a lot of MTS! tank looks spotless though SynthOrange posted:Shakenbaker, gotta concur, that does seem like a lot of MTS. I had a giant explosion when I first introduced them after having a snail-less tank for a year, and they went through all the uneaten debris in the substrate. They're back down to more reasonable levels now, thankfully. Yeah, I got about a billion MTS. It looks worse just before lights out which is when I took that, but I'm not about to argue with the numbers. I know it's because I overfeed, but I never learn. I want to get some loaches for that tank, but yoyos get a bit bigger than I want, and dwarf chain loaches were like $16 a pop for my local store to get them for me which is a bit more than I want wanting to spend on something that needs a school, you know? Maybe I should just get around to setting up a pea puffer tank and tossing them treats. Lord knows I'll never run short on food for 'em.
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Aug 7, 2013 04:38
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your fish specimen is very pretty.
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Thread title hitting a little close to home...
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Aug 7, 2013 23:16
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demonR6 posted:Sadly you can see giant plecos now in most bodies of water here now. They are considered an invasive species here in Florida where asshats that buy them at the local bog box LFS sell them like minnows not bothering to tell people they have a baby that will end up growing into a two foot monster that will get dumped into our local waters. We've got more than that! There's breeding populations of peacock bass roaming our waterways and, honestly, probably every common South American cichlid. I've known people who kept convicts in ponds here, because I guess we needed even more roaches...
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Aug 24, 2013 00:07
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Fusillade posted:Re: pbass: If you are in Miami or Dade counties in Florida, they're there because F&W pretty much said 'eff it, the native fish populations are screwed already, might as well make some sport fishing tourism revenue off of it'. They are pretty sensitive to cooler waters and salinity, so I don't think they have strayed far from where they were introduced. Yeah, I think they only go up so far as lake Okeechobee with maybe a little upstream but that's still a good amount of area, since the glades are pretty large. It's a shame they wrecked the local fauna, because it's hard to argue with how awesome the huge garfish look. One of my many pipe dream tanks is to do a native setup with warmouth or shellcracker, maybe a few bullhead cats. That's kinda Florida in a nutshell though. My house is overrun with air potatoes (kinda like kudzu, but with acorn to fist-sized tubers) and I watch the geckos chill on my windows at night to eat the bugs that come to the lights. Also: retirees
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Aug 25, 2013 01:41
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I actually had no idea what mad toms where until now, and reading up a little on them is pretty cool. I don't think I've ever caught any so they're news to me. Thanks for the heads up! The deal with wanting the warmouth and shellcracker specifically is that those are the fish I would catch when I was coming up, so it's partly a nostalgia thing. I can't really get away with channel cats or those blasted mudfish in any size tank, but mid-size sunfish seem doable. Could probably do a couple of them in a 75, but I'm already sitting at five tanks so...maybe later.
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Aug 25, 2013 02:48
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This week I managed to finish stocking my 75 gallon. Two three-spot gourami, two farowella, six Bolivian rams, six very small yoyo loaches, and 12 black ruby barbs, all living in blissful harmony at the moment. No losses during the whole process, which I'm kinda proud of. Yoyos were not really what I wanted loach-wise, but so far they've been really fun to watch and they seem to get on well enough so far with the rest of the tank. Been breaking up Sharknado's (the male three-spot gourami, my lavender) bubble nests to keep him from going destroyer of worlds on the tank, and so far it has worked out. I have totally been loving the barb school, they've long been a fish I wanted to keep and in the last week my local store was finally able to get some in for me. I do kinda think I should swap the gourami from my 55 (a pair of pearls) with the ones in my 75, but for now we're good, at least in that tank. My 55 is very much too heavy on kribensis. They're breeding like roaches and that isn't what I want at all. I need to remove them and replace with a few blue rams I guess? I don't know. Either way I'll have the fun of removing like...15 blasted kribs from a planted tank at some point soon. I realize this is going to end up with a complete uprooting and rock removal, but there's no other way at this point. I should never have bought them, argh! I'm dumb as hell, but that's what happens when you set up your first tank in a decade or so. "One tank to house them all" is such a horrible mindset. My other problem is that I want to start another tank immediately. My bedroom has an east-facing window with a fairly unobstructed patch for the sun to get through. So...I kinda want to set up a 20 long in the window and go Walstadt. I've got enough plants that really all I'd have to do is make a tall stand and buy a tank, but I've got a whole lot of tanks already. Thinking just shrimp and snails to start, finishing with a small group of brown spiketailed paradise fish because I have some unhealthy obsession with them. If I do this, I'll literally have more tanks than I have rooms in my house, and that's a dangerous threshold to cross I think. So yeah, I have the worst of all possible problems ever.
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Sep 15, 2013 19:31
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durrneez posted:PICTURES PLEASE Here's a few from the 75 at least: The the tank from a distance. Really wish I knew why every time I take a picture of a tank it looks bent...  I like this one, it shows off the color on the rams, and the streamers on the guy in back. I think Bolivian rams are totally underrated. I know they look really pale and bland in the store, but get them home and happy and they're gorgeous. Also pictured: a very well-fed yoyo loach.  Little bit of all the fish in the tank in this one. The barb school has really livened up the tank, even more than I thought they would. Couldn't get a good shot of the really well colored barbs, but some of them look fantastic.  So yeah, that's my 75. For the record, this is the tank that was really snail-y last time I posted it. The loaches have done their job and I'm really happy with this tank now. I'll get shots of the 55 tomorrow. I broke down the HOB filter earlier and the water's full of all sorts of floating mess, so it isn't exactly photogenic right now. candywife posted:I have a ton of plants in with my Goldfish, Fimmion, and he keeps uprooting them. Keeping plants rooted can be a challenge. If you're just using gravel they get uprooted easier in my experience, but even in sand and dirt they'll still get pulled up without much difficulty. Basically if a decent sized fish wants then uprooted, they get uprooted. Nice thing about aquarium plants though is that they're all basically just weeds anyway. You can leave them floating for a few days even, shouldn't hurt them at all.
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Sep 17, 2013 01:02
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Neitherman posted:Have any of you fine ladies and gentlemen kept pea puffers? I really want to try my hand at keeping them but I wanted to see if there was a voice of experience I could consult before diving into anything. I've done a fair amount of research and the big takeaways I got were these: These have been on my nebulous and lengthy list of fish I want to keep for a while now. Watching them in the store is awesome, lots of personality in those little buggers. Put me in mind of tiny cichlids. Live food's pretty easy, at least, since all you need is a snail infestation and your problem is solved! Or set up a little cherry shrimp tank if you want something attractive to look at. They're supposed to be pretty voracious, so they should put on a good show at least. And for the sand, look at pool filter sand. Less than $10 for a whole lot more than you'll need, plus it cleans easy. Good luck with your little pufferbuddies!
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Oct 1, 2013 01:28
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