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Such grumpy looking guys, gobies.  One of my albino cory still has a swollen looking gill cover on one side. He's had it for months. It looks like a giant blister on the side of his face. He's not showing any signs of distress, he's eating and healthy as every other cory in the tank. Should I do anything about it?
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| # ? Jul 31, 2012 23:18 |
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| # ? May 18, 2013 12:20 |
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Please note that what is sold as 'dragon gobies' are filter feeders/need small live food and need brackish water. Gobioides broussonnetii is the scientific name and nearly all the ones you see in the pet trade are in the phases of starvation and dying.
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| # ? Aug 1, 2012 00:55 |
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Cowslips Warren posted:Please note that what is sold as 'dragon gobies' are filter feeders/need small live food and need brackish water. Gobioides broussonnetii is the scientific name and nearly all the ones you see in the pet trade are in the phases of starvation and dying. Which is why I rescued mine. I feed him sinking shrimp pellets which he loves, though he doesn't eat them directly. He sits and waits until my Cory eats them, and expells particulates from his gills. Then the Dragon Goby moves closer and eats that. In the 5 weeks since I got him, he has restored his iradecent blue sheen, which means that he is healthy. I was actually dissapointed when I went into my pet store today and saw the tank refilled with 20 more Dragons. If I had the money and the tank space, I would have bought all of them and gave them ideal living conditions. My local store is very saddening. It has frogs for sale, but most of them are bloated and dead, and are now buy one, get two free. Their Dragons are no longer in a tank with Red Finned sharks, but are now placed with the Oscars, and their Plecos are labled as feeder fish. The only alternative is Walmart which is somehow even worse. I miss the Petco near my college. They actually cared about their fish, and saved me from adding an Oscar to my planted, sceniced, tropical community tank. As for the Brackish water, it isnt' a necessity, as the Dragon Gobys can be slowly aclimateted to less salty water, though I keep mine slightly salty but not brackish. (Probably helped the poor guy because he was swimming in fresh at the pet store, and labled as highly aggressive.) Some aquarium owners don't like them because they tend to be timid, and are more nocturnal, but mine became very sociable after two weeks of being in the tank and swims around during the day, though he seems kind of depressed ever since my Dwarf Gourami died of a parasitic infection.(Stomach became very bloated, and had the typical white stringy poop. It infected my guppies as well, but he Dragon Goby, Pleco and Cory remained unaffected. I cleared it up in the guppies, but the Gourami, my original fish, sadly passed away. I just bought a pair of Blue Gouramis to fix the hole left in my aquarium's ecosystem left by my Dwarf Gourami's death. Right after he died, my three of my female guppies gave birth to 27 guppy babies. As I currently have 2 beautiful males, and 4 females, I want to turn as much of the fry into food as possible, and the two Gourami seem to be enthusiastic about the job. (I really don't want to transplant the babys into my mom's 10 gallon tank that has 47 guppies in it and, surprisingly, no ammonia, nitrite, and only very trace amounts of nitrate.) That being said, her guppies have bread so much that her males are very dull, with the exception of my runty male which I got from her tank and who has become quite large and beautiful.(A shimmering blue with a large tail, and his son has a shimmering blue body with a bright orange tail. I have been moving every guppy over my limit of 3 females and two males over to my mom's tank.)
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| # ? Aug 1, 2012 01:50 |
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Fusillade posted:Gobies are pretty awesome! Have you ever considered making a monster fish keeping info thread, Fusillade? I for one would be into it, since your bass seem much more involved and intense to care for, as opposed to normal tank-keeping, and while that's too much for me personally, it is interesting/awesome to read about. I've looked around on MFK forums but it's hard to sift through the 'gently caress YEAH MASSIVE OSCAR IN A 20G' posts to find the good husbandry stuff. Bichirs and other large predators included; I find them all crazy fascinating but I don't want to have mammoth species-only tanks so I live vicariously through the forums. 
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| # ? Aug 1, 2012 05:16 |
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Thinking about adding some dwarf chain loaches to my community tank, now that I've gotten all the tetras a new home. Current inhabitants, Blueberry the betta, four cories (Hindenberg, Blisterface, #3 and #4), a lot of cull shrimp, a lot of mts, and an unsightly mass infestation of freshwater limpet snails. They're cute and I'm hoping they'll do something about the limpets, but will they hassle the cories or betta?
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| # ? Aug 1, 2012 11:04 |
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SynthOrange posted:Thinking about adding some dwarf chain loaches to my community tank, now that I've gotten all the tetras a new home. Current inhabitants, Blueberry the betta, four cories (Hindenberg, Blisterface, #3 and #4), a lot of cull shrimp, a lot of mts, and an unsightly mass infestation of freshwater limpet snails. They're cute and I'm hoping they'll do something about the limpets, but will they hassle the cories or betta? Just go balls deep and get a half dozen assassin snails. No more limpets or MTS, and that way you can add another 5 or so cories and make them happy with a larger school.
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| # ? Aug 1, 2012 12:32 |
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Cant get them in Australia unfortunately. Quarantine laws.
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| # ? Aug 1, 2012 13:40 |
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So I just got back from a ~10 day trip, and my fish tank managed to survive. I was a little worried about having to use one of those dissolving travel feeder things, but everyone did great. There are even shrimp alive now! The only problem I have is that the tank did amazingly well, and now I have plants popping 4 inches out of the water and things of that sort. 
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| # ? Aug 2, 2012 00:19 |
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What kind of feeder did you use? Chalk block? Gel?
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| # ? Aug 2, 2012 02:15 |
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SynthOrange posted:What kind of feeder did you use? Chalk block? Gel? One of those white discs. I guess that might be a chalk block?
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| # ? Aug 2, 2012 03:37 |
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If any of ya'll are in Lakewood, CA or the surrounding areas and would like a pretty large Koi, my gf's cousin has one that she needs to get rid of. It's basically too big for the tank, like, has trouble moving around in there. i would take it but I don't have anywhere to house it, and if I did take it, it'd just get donated to my LFS but Lakewood is kind of a drive to donate a fish. Anyway, offer is on the table. It's white with gold accents apparently. E: A really bad picture 
SaNChEzZ fucked around with this message at Aug 2, 2012 around 22:18 |
| # ? Aug 2, 2012 22:16 |
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I'm thinking of getting duckweed for my aquarium. My Betta likes things floating at the top of the aquarium and I'm getting tired of my tacky looking silk plants that I removed from the part that sinks. I've read that some people view it as a pest plant kind of like an actual weed. I kind of like the look of it and don't mind removing some here and there if it and tossing it in the garbage propagates too much. As a bonus it seems to be rather inexpensive because of that, I'm tight on budget. What do you guys think? Are there any other minuses or pluses?
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| # ? Aug 3, 2012 00:48 |
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Duckweed is pretty great. Some bettas eat it, so that's an added bonus. Like other plants it soaks up nitrates. The downside is that anything you stick in your aquarium gets a nice coating of duckweed, like sticking your hand in a bag of polystyrene pellets or glitter, so there's a tiny bit of extra work, shaking off all the duckweed after doing any aquascaping, etc. I didnt mind it at first but got tired after awhile of the extra clean up, so I swapped over to frogbit, which are pretty much gigantic scale duckweed and dont stick to everything. Tossing out handfuls of it into the garbage is pretty much guaranteed. It's a good thing though, it means nitrates getting removed from your tank system.
SynthOrange fucked around with this message at Aug 3, 2012 around 01:06 |
| # ? Aug 3, 2012 00:54 |
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A plus: scrubs nitrates from the tank that your bacteria don't get to. Also, I'll consider the large fish thread, sure. 
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| # ? Aug 3, 2012 00:55 |
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I like how frogbit looks more than duckweed. My assassin snails love to paraglide and swoop down on snails, and the shrimps'll climb around on 'em. If you hit up the planted tank forum, people often give away handfuls of frogbit.
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| # ? Aug 3, 2012 06:50 |
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Yeah, if you pay for shipping I'll give you a poopton of nonduckweed floaters. Pm me! Im actualy trying to grow duckweed myself..used to have tons but its all disappeared for..whatever reason. Just all gone. Salvinia replaced it. And I am trying to grow azolla now : ) I dig floaters for some reason... I've got so far duckweed, dwarf water lettuce, water lettuce, frogbit, salvinia, hygroryza aristata, azolla. Id love to get my hands on some red root floaters and other species of salvinia. What else is there? water meal? wolfia? That bumblebee goby hasnt eaten since Id gotten him last Sun..so getting worried. LFS said worms would be fine, maybe pellets.. but hes turned his nose at the bloodworms I threw in... he saw it, bit one and spit it out and thats the extent of interest Ive seen..will try frozen shrimp shrimp tomorow.
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| # ? Aug 3, 2012 07:32 |
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I had azolla from an outdoor aquatic nursery. It didnt survive shock of the transition to being an indoor plant though, and it's really awful when it dies because it disintergrates into all the individual leaf bits and clogged my filter for ages til it all died off. Real pretty if it survives, and it's not very bouyant, so when it was around, I'd see my shrimp riding them down form the surface all the time. Cute as hell, but they proved hard to keep alive. I've seen water meal infesting the local lake, awful stuff if you hate the mess that duckweed makes.
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| # ? Aug 3, 2012 07:46 |
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Thank you all for the advice and to Malalol for the offer, I' PM'd you!
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| # ? Aug 3, 2012 08:51 |
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Are there any sort of dwarf lobsters or crayfish I can have in a planted tank with guppies and a betta? I love crayfish but I know they are opportunistic and will snatch a slow-witted fish if they can catch it. I saw some red dwarf lobsters at the LFS and I asked one of the guys that worked there about them. He says they'll uproot plants so I definitely don't want that. I've had bamboo shrimp in the past and I loved the heck out of it, so if I can't find a cray I can have in my planted tank I'll go with one of those. Ideally I want red cherry shrimp, but the guy at the LFS told me the betta would eat the shrimp. Is this true?
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| # ? Aug 3, 2012 09:03 |
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My blue betta will eat juvenile shrimp on occaision but prefers worms because they're less effort to catch. The other one showed zero interest in shrimp eating. At any rate they will not put a dent in cherry shrimp numbers once you have a breeding population going.
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| # ? Aug 3, 2012 09:11 |
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CPO. Orange dwarf cray. The best!
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| # ? Aug 3, 2012 16:34 |
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Just be careful with dwarf crays. Some of 'em like to get their murder on and eat dwarf shrimp and nanofish. Some will, some are super chill. Have a back up tank ready in case yours turns out to be Murderface McDeathclaws.
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| # ? Aug 4, 2012 01:31 |
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I once had a standard cray, rescued from a feeder tank, who grew to about six inches. He was a pretty good shrimp eater, and he was notorious for ripping the claws off his female, but he was very tolerant of one molly who had started out as a fry-food-snack and grew to a healthy nice male. Who spent most of his time trying to inseminate or impregnate the crayfish. I don't understand still why any other fish was fair game, but the horny bastard was one the cray ignored.
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| # ? Aug 5, 2012 02:36 |
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Cowslips Warren posted:I once had a standard cray, rescued from a feeder tank, who grew to about six inches. He was a pretty good shrimp eater, and he was notorious for ripping the claws off his female, but he was very tolerant of one molly who had started out as a fry-food-snack and grew to a healthy nice male. Who spent most of his time trying to inseminate or impregnate the crayfish. I don't understand still why any other fish was fair game, but the horny bastard was one the cray ignored. Strange animal friendships rule. We had one at my local zoo between an anaconda and a duck. He was supposed to be food, but not only did he not eat him, the duck often slept on him. I made a very sad discovery in my panda/neon tank. One KIA and one female laying on her side. She looks like she has a bloody spot near her vent, I doubt she'll be alive in the morning 
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| # ? Aug 5, 2012 03:21 |
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Man, these chain loaches. "Guys, we've been swimming back and forth for the last half hour, shouldnt we do something different?" "Let's swim up and down for the next half hour!" "Yaaaaaay!"
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| # ? Aug 5, 2012 08:13 |
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This is my Fluval Ebi, which is my first planted tank and one of 2 desktop tanks.  The glass needs a good scraping but you get the idea. I replaced the stock light with a 26w Finnex. I'm still running the stock filter with floss jammed in the first chamber. The driftwood is propped up on a clay pot "cave" that the shrimp really like. It's tough to see though since the Java moss has taken over so thoroughly. The inhabitants are: About a dozen Chili Endlers (a number I'm trying to reduce by removing the females but one always ends up escaping and pooping out more babies)    3 Otocinclus  4 Amano Shrimp  And a colony of Fire Red Shrimp.  Juveniles:   I'm going to start CO2 injection soon. It'll be my first experience with it and I'm pretty much terrified I'll kill everything. But I want to do this planted tank thing right. Looking for the most idiot-proof method and so far that looks to be the sugar, baking soda and yeast in a bottle method. I'm not at all handy with things like that so I'm looking at the Hagen Nutrifin Natural Plant System.
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| # ? Aug 5, 2012 21:04 |
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I'm still waffling between DIY and buying a mini expensive kit. But. $... I'm definitely getting the check valve, and using 2 bottles in case of yeast dumpage. So.. soda bottle with yeast > tubing into an empty bottle > tubing into tank.
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| # ? Aug 5, 2012 23:15 |
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Yep, 2 dead pandas. Hopefully this isn't the start of something worse.
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| # ? Aug 6, 2012 02:36 |
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Progress is going along slowly, ordered some shrimp and they seem to be adjusting well It also seems like I have about two dozen+ assassin snails on the way   Random progress shots here
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| # ? Aug 6, 2012 19:01 |
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I stopped into my local pet/animal supplies shop to ask about ordering a new tank on the way home from work. Instead, I saw they had 54 litre complete aquarium kits (tank, hood with lighting, heating element, and filter) reduced to £49 from £99. I bought one on the spot, mainly for the convenience of getting the hood lighting with it. I'll be liberating some decorative gravel from work tomorrow (we sell it in 1 ton bags, so a small amount won't be missed), and then beginning to set the thing up. I have a couple of questions. Firstly, would it be a terribly bad idea to use small slate chippings as a substrate? The internet seems to hint at 'yes' due to the potential for algae buildup. Secondly, the tank came with a Fluval Stingray 10 filter. I've already ordered a hang on back filter off Amazon, so I won't be using this for the tank. Is it worth keeping to use with my old small tank, as I've never been satisfied with the current filter, or do I ebay it for beer money?
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| # ? Aug 6, 2012 20:13 |
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Depends on the size of the chips and type of fish you're intending to keep. It'd be not great for bottom dwelling fish and other floor foragers. Planting stuff in it would probably be mostly out of the question too. Second question is up to you really, we cant judge and compare the filters! Day 3 of Dwarf Chain Loach ownership: They're still going. I dont think these guys have an off switch, they're just swimming and exploring in a tight little shoal all the time. I dont know where they find the energy.
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| # ? Aug 6, 2012 23:25 |
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Well I found one that wasnt moving. It leapt out the tiny gap in the cover for the hob and heater apparently.
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| # ? Aug 7, 2012 22:03 |
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Has anyone here had to deal with Hagen customer service? It has been the worst customer service experience of my life trying to get my aquaclear 70 fixed. I am considering posting the emails I have received from them and possibly going to the BBB about it. I will never buy another one of their products no matter how much I love aquaclear.
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| # ? Aug 9, 2012 14:14 |
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My girlfriend recently acquired four fishes and a 10-gallon aquarium. Two fish are black neon tetras, and two are tuxedo platy's. The tetras are fast swimmers, and gobble up flakes at the top quickly, while the platy's cower at the bottom of the tank. We haven't seen them eat, unless they've been eating flakes that disperse to the bottom of the tank without us seeing. How do we ascertain that the platy's have been eating?
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| # ? Aug 9, 2012 14:15 |
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the walkin dude posted:My girlfriend recently acquired four fishes and a 10-gallon aquarium. Two fish are black neon tetras, and two are tuxedo platy's. The tetras are fast swimmers, and gobble up flakes at the top quickly, while the platy's cower at the bottom of the tank. We haven't seen them eat, unless they've been eating flakes that disperse to the bottom of the tank without us seeing. How do we ascertain that the platy's have been eating? You can do two feedings, one to the tetras and then a couple of minutes later, the tetras should be good and let the platy's eat. Or, you can use a turkey baster with some tank water/flakes in it, and put the tip right in front of the platys and burst your flaky load in their face.
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| # ? Aug 9, 2012 14:22 |
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For anyone that has had Corydoras habrosus, do you have trouble keeping them alive? I just can't get them to survive and I have no idea why. I really love the little fish, but I've been through at least 20 of them. My first batch I think I know what happened, but the rest of them shouldn't be having any problems. I have a three left and those ones seem fat and healthy, but the ones that died would seem to waste away and die. My water parameters are fine, they're in a planted tank (with CO2) so even the nitrates are pretty low, with the pH around 7.0. It's just mind-boggling. The only thing I can think of is that my female GBR haaaaates the cories, even when she's not in breeding mode. Hell, she killed most of my cherry shrimp too. Maybe I'll try dwarf chain loaches...
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| # ? Aug 9, 2012 14:31 |
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Thanks for the advice, hopefully our new excursion into fish-keeping goes swimmingly...
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| # ? Aug 9, 2012 15:37 |
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I did a wc yesterday and one of my lampeyes looking seriously bad after : ( Or maybe it was before and I didn't notice.. params looking fine, 0/0/20-40. Every other fish is doing swimmingly so I am not sure what is up with her.. shes staying on the top breathing heavily and seems to float tail up occasionally and now today, her lights are out as well. I dont know what I did wrong. On the other hand, I found 2 lampeye fry which is super cool. But I didnt realize til AFTER the water change, where I was cleaning floaters and messing with the surface..hope I didn't kill any, sigh.   Also a DIY CO2 q, ...what should the mixture eventually look like? I dont know if I have a leak or just..failed the yeast batch. Its milky, cloudy looking.. and there was foam on the top, swirled it around and now..kinda nothing? I sealed everything with silicone, I dont *think* theres a leak...
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| # ? Aug 9, 2012 16:55 |
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Malalol posted:I did a wc yesterday and one of my lampeyes looking seriously bad after : ( Or maybe it was before and I didn't notice.. params looking fine, 0/0/20-40. Every other fish is doing swimmingly so I am not sure what is up with her.. shes staying on the top breathing heavily and seems to float tail up occasionally and now today, her lights are out as well. I dont know what I did wrong. If there's one thing I've learned in fishkeeping, it's if one is doing that poorly or obviously has something wrong with them, just put them down. It's more humane than "wait and see" because the result is more often than not "dead". It's the reason why I have a little bottle of clove oil in the fishkeeping stuff and there's always a bottle of vodka in the liquor cabinet. One for the fish, one for me.
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| # ? Aug 9, 2012 17:29 |
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| # ? May 18, 2013 12:20 |
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I would like some ideas for my 37 gallon. It has live plants (just anubias and onion plants) and a sandy bottom. I am running two aquaclear 70s (yes I like lots of filtration). I currently have seven zebra danios, and I plan to get a school of cory cats. My ph tends to run higher, maybe around 7.8 or so. I was going to do two fancy goldies but now I am attached to the zebra danios and dont wasn't to take them back. What community fish would be good for the setup I have?
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| # ? Aug 10, 2012 17:38 |
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