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nunsexmonkrock posted:Every time I look at the ammonia I shake it. It always bubbles which I think it means it has something else in it, rather not risk it. Worst case scenario huck a raw cocktail shrimp into the tank for a bit, that'll generate additive-free ammonia for sure. Might be kinda gross fishing it back out once your tank's fully cycled though...
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Mar 1, 2021 23:28
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nunsexmonkrock posted:Omg I started an ammonia conversation didn't I lol!?! Happens to the best of us from time to time
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Mar 2, 2021 16:25
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nunsexmonkrock posted:A friend of mine offered me a 55g salt water tank or a 40 g bow front freshwater tank. - I said I have to ask my husband - but my answer will be no - no matter what my husband says. I mean, if space concerns are an issue, then yeah, there's no getting around that. But if you're concerned about being overwhelmed and diving into the "deep end" of the hobby, then bear in mind that often larger tanks require way less maintenance than you'd think. Larger volume of water means that it's parameters are more stable, since there's just more raw mass to act as a buffer to anything that might gently caress it up. And don't feel that just because you now have access to a bigger tank means you have to go all-in on stocking it with rare expensive giant easily-killed things. You can start small. Put your betta in a 55-gallon tank and blow its little mind.
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Mar 31, 2021 22:40
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mango sentinel posted:So to my knowledge cories don't really eat snails unless theyre dead, but since adding cories to my tank, the MTS population was decimated. Nothing else about the tank has changed beyond also adding a mystery snail. Food competition maybe? Cories love constantly foraging for stuff on the substrate, snails might just be breeding less from less food lying around. e: Mystery snail might have also brought in some sort of snail parasite maybe?
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Jun 10, 2021 22:16
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Wallet posted:It's only 13"x17"x14" so not super heavy. I built the stand out of cherry to hold plants and I don't think it should have any problem with the weight but I guess if it explodes we'll know I was wrong. It's on the right part where the lamp is in this photo so also directly above a lot of leg: 13"x17"x14" comes out to about 13.4 gallons. The rule of thumb for aquariums is 1 gallon = 1 lb of weight with all the gravel and equipment and stuff. That comes out to ~130 pounds. Any stand you put that on you should feel confident a person could stand on.
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Nov 11, 2021 22:35
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Wallet posted:I've seen a few tiny little snails lately in my ~13 gallon that must have come in on my plants. Looks like your usual pond snails that always hitchhike into planted tanks. They're largely harmless and don't really attack live plants much, they prefer algae and biofilms and stuff that's decayed a bit. They're a bit of a clean-up crew honestly, though some people find them unsightly and they can add a little bit to the bioload if you're at all concerned about that. e: if you really wanna get rid of them, there are chemical solutions that'll take care of them, though I think they tend to be rough on plants. Assassin snails will chew through a population of them quick, but then you've replaced your helpful snail population with a smaller prettier freeloader snail population, so kind of a lateral move.
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Dec 4, 2021 18:47
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Wallet posted:Sounds like it's not a big deal so I'm not sure I care as long as they don't take over. There's no fish in there for now so I guess they have free reign. Their breeding is largely limited by their food supply, so in a tank with fish the traditional advice is "feed less, they're eating the fish' leftovers," so as long as you aren't dumping a lot of food in there when/if you get fish in it, they shouldn't turn into too much of a roach problem
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Dec 4, 2021 19:38
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In terms of karma, it's probably not as bad as squishing a house spider*, but worse than squishing a cockroach. It's a fine line you gotta draw *dependent on how actually dangerous your spiders are
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Dec 4, 2021 19:58
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I confess, I would do it more myself if the fish didn't turn their noses up at it, leaving me to just shamefully scrape a snail carcass out of my tank before it gets lost in the substrate and rots somewhere
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Dec 4, 2021 21:00
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Mikey Purp posted:I'm planning on adding some shrimp to my 10 gallon tank and noticed that Aquatic Arts has a pretty decent deal on a mixed bag of colored shrimps. What I'm wondering is, can shrimp of different color morphs breed, and if so, what color are the offspring? If they're all the same species of Neocardinia shrimp, then I believe different color morphs can interbreed, but the resulting offspring will be mostly wild-type, a muddy grayish brown. If you want to keep them colorful, you need a single-color population and not a bag of shrimp Skittles. As for the snails, I think you're safe from having them spawn, although the nerites may attempt to breed and leave unsightly blobs of eggs glued to any hard surface that will never properly hatch outside brackish water.
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Dec 6, 2021 03:23
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JuffoWup posted:I just want to add to this with my own personal experience with the same "I've been doing internet research and want to do a planted tank" a few years ago. Don't listen to the internet about substrates. There are many crowing about how awesome ada aquasoil is. Or maybe talking of their sand capped potting soil setup. Don't do it. Just get normal gravel. Or as hinted if you plan to do cories, sand. Inert substrates will save you a lot of headaches. You can still just hit the roots of your plants with root tabs to be equally effective. But without worrying any spare nutrients encouraging single celled plants to take up residents for a bonanza party. Capped soil setups are neat and cheap and effective. But just stating out, there is a possibility of wanting to move plants around. Something you can't do with capped soils. And ada just pours out nutrients where if you don't have a lot of high growth plants (that'll need high lights and co2), algae or even cyanobacteria will take over. Very much this. Of course, like any complicated hobby, it depends. Some plants like Cryptocorynes or Amazon swords preferentially take in nutrition through their roots in the substrate, and in those cases aquasoils or potting soil covered up with a layer of sand a la the Walstad Method makes sense for lush growth (though like was said, going the capped soil route is best left for experienced aquascapers with a developed eye for setting things up right the first time, because once things are running you can't move any plants around without releasing a flood of nutrients into the water column and getting a shitload of algae). Other plants, like Java Ferns and certain stem plants like Elodea, take in most of their food from stuff dissolved in the water itself, and mostly just use their roots as anchors and secondary uptake, and those are perfectly fine with gravel and occasionally dosing the water with fertilizer. The approach you take depends on what you want to do with it.
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Dec 10, 2021 23:24
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Yeah, guppies and Endler's Livebearers love hard water, are fairly undemanding in terms of specialized care requirements, and get along well with cories, snails and adult shrimps (who also all generally do well in hard water). They might go after newborn shrimplets, but that's why they spawn a million of them at a time, just give them lots of nooks and crannys for at least some of them to hide. This is also good advice if you have a mixed-gender batch of livebearers, because they WILL breed and WILL try and eat their own young if they can catch them.
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Dec 13, 2021 02:49
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Mister Bates posted:So I am at the point where I am putting together equipment and thinking about how I want to actually scape this. I think I want to do vallisneria spiralis as my primary background plant. Sand is good, with some caveats. Some people feel that the dense particles can hamper root growth of plants (though probably not a HUGE amount), and also any fish poop or miscellaneous mulm kinda just sits on the surface and looks a bit unsightly. It can make cleaning fairly easy if you can get the right amount of flow of your siphon vac that it'll suck the goo off the ground and NOT suck up the sand itself. A heavy, fairly smooth-grained sand is recommended. Some people swear by pool filter sand, for a slightly unorthodox option. Gravel, especially something rounded like pea gravel, is good for plants and suitably safe for fish but can trap fish waste in the grains, so you really gotta get in there with the gravel vac. In either case, botton-dwellers should be fine as long as it's cleaned somewhat regularly. Cories certainly seem to like snuffling around in sand in my experience.
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Dec 15, 2021 23:54
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Mister Bates posted:Is there any particular reason not to just use rocks and driftwood I found on the ground outside as hardscape, instead of buying it? Is there anything special I should do to prepare them, beyond rinsing them off? Rocks can sometimes do weird things to water hardness, depending on the minerals. Drip some vinegar on it and see it fizzes. If it's inert, it's probably okay. Wood can contain weird organisms and funguses and stuff. Either boil it or put in the oven on a low non-fire-starting setting for a bit to sterilize it. In either case, yeah give 'em a good rinse to get rid of any residual pesticides or whatever.
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Dec 28, 2021 14:12
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Desert Bus posted:I am planning to make a snail trap soon because I want to collect all of the Malaysian Trumpet Snails (Melanoides tuberculata var. Brown) from the 10g. Maybe it will catch that last loving fish too??? I am at a loss, 30+ years in the hobby and I can't loving catch a fish. Leave the net still in the water for a minute or two then sprinkle some food inside it so he wanders in, then nab him? People have known for millennia the best way to catch fish is with bait.
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Jan 1, 2022 23:07
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TTBF posted:Hello! I'm a new betta owner and I'm stuck on two things related to feeding. A fish's stomach is usually about the same size as its eye, so feed it that equivalent volume of pellets and it will eat that in one sitting. Multiple smaller feedings are appreciated, but not super necessary. Remember, try not to overfeed. Either the fish eats it all and produces more poop without actually being that much healthier, OR it doesn't eat the food and it just rots in the sediment. quote:2) My fish does not come to the top when I put in food. He also doesn't seem to notice when food is in the tank. He definitely eats it when he eventually sees it, but should I be worried? Whenever I've seen fish owners feed, the fish all eagerly came up to the top. If it's a new fish, don't worry about it too much. Fish don't really have five second memories, they develop learned habits, and if you keep putting food in the same spot at regular times, they'll eventually start to anticipate it. Give it a few weeks and he'll start rushing up to the usual food spot whenever you get close to the tank because they now associate these stimuli with feeding time.
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Aug 7, 2022 17:24
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big dong wanter posted:Also how do you make bristlenose breed? We have a bunch of fancy bristlenose and cannot get them to breed (both regular and peppermint). Is your breeding tank equipped with sufficient hiding spots? Bristlenoses like little caves for the males to chase the females into where they lay their eggs, so the common practice is to scatter about three or four little tubes of pvc pipe or whatever so they have a selection to find at least one they find comfortable.
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Jan 24, 2023 18:02
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Cowslips Warren posted:According to advertising, every loving fish in the world. Can vouch for Triops, had them in a small setup like that as a kid and they did perfectly fine. Bear in mind, most species only live for a couple months anyway, and while they will happily lay eggs they usually need to be desiccated and rehydrated before they'll hatch.
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Mar 25, 2023 17:20
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Moon Slayer posted:I'm setting up my very first aquarium! Hadlock posted:I would add at least one plant. If you're feeling plucky maybe add some java moss too, super glue it to that rock. The plant should help keep the water values in check longer between water changes. And maybe a snail and a shrimp? ^^^ Definitely this. If it's a brand new tank, the test strips might be coming up good simply because there's nothing in there yet to produce any harmful wastes. And if there's nothing in there, there hasn't been any food to cultivate the bacteria that break down harmful ammonia into less toxic compounds. I would advise putting in one or two hardy plants like a Java Fern or something, and maybe a snail to just scoot around for a bit and seed the substrate with some bioload in anticipation of actual fish.
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Apr 17, 2023 22:48
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Moon Slayer posted:I'm Minnesotan so basically, yes. If you're using random found rocks, I advise checking to see if they're chemically inert so they don't dissolve in the water and gently caress up the hardness and pH and stuff. Dribble some vinegar on it and see if it reacts or not. If it fizzes, throw it out. Granite and similar mostly-quartz rocks are generally safely inert. That said, if using found rocks, yes you should wash them thoroughly to remove any pesticides or dust or whatever. PetSmart or similar will also usually have some rather nice-looking rocks in stock that are safe for aquarium use without any guesswork.
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Apr 18, 2023 14:52
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Moon Slayer posted:Update: for some incomprehensible reason, there are no Nerite snails to be found anywhere in the Twin Cities for love or money. Pro tip: If you get plenty of aquarium plants (ideally the ones kept in a tank in the store, not the tissue cultures packed in plastic), you will inevitably get hitchhiker pest snails as a free bonus! Honestly the term "pest snail" is kind of a misnomer, they're good scavengers and detrivores that help break down uneaten food and fish poop and algae and stuff into more soluble nutrients that plants can take up.
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Apr 19, 2023 03:13
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A sudden discovery prompts me to do a quick show and tell: My 20-long as of February. The thing had turned into pea soup despite my best efforts, so I completely tore it down, replaced the fluval stratum with gravel, rescaped everything, and tried to salvage as many of the surviving plants as I could. It was a bit of a mess, even the duckweed was dead, as was the betta that had made it its home for a couple years.  The tank as of March. Threw in some almond leaves and such for some added tannins, introduced some blue neocaridinia shrimp and some ramshorn snails. It originally started with a snail infestation, but the addition of assassin snails had exterminated them, which in hindsight may have been shortsighted on my part. The thing might not have been so algae-riddled if it had a proper detrivore cleanup crew. Thankfully the assassin snails had inbred themselves into extinction, so new snails could be introduced.  The tank as of today. The ember tetras I added a couple weeks ago have gotten over the "huddle and flee any time someone approaches us" stage, as they now firmly associate me with food and shamelessly beg whenever I get close. As you can see, the plants have gone nuts, especially the red stuff in front I forgot exactly what it was. Root tabs do a body good.  Skrimp enjoying an algae wafer before the snails swarm it. And the discovery that prompted me to go on an image posting spree...  A shrimplet! The little buggers must have bred and I didn't even notice. And the little guy isn't a total newborn, it must have gone through a molt or two! I've created life!
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Apr 23, 2023 02:16
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Stoca Zola posted:I think I have done a mistake. I had a bit of cyanobacteria tangling the moss in one of my smaller tanks so I dosed it with chemiclean (which according to the internet is just erythromycin). Tank looks great, treatment worked. But the water I removed before doing the treatment carried cyano to my waste water storage pond and now I have a bright green scum filled pond which I really don't want to have to dose. It's doing that thing where it floats on the surface like a powdery layer rather than being leathery sheets on surfaces underwater. The cats got used to drinking that water so I need to get rid of it somehow before they poison themselves. I was thinking of flooding the pond (its above ground) so that the scum layer overflows out, but then the cyano spores might end up in my real pond and foul that up?? I don't know how to easily get rid of the cyano without making everything worse. Hundreds and hundreds of ping pong balls to float on the surface and deprive the buggers of light? It's what they do in the Los Angeles Reservoir to cut down on evaporation and algae growth, millions of "shader balls"
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Apr 25, 2023 20:42
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Moon Slayer posted:How do fish know when I'm trying to take a picture of them and start darting around all willy-nilly? Fish can actually see quite far out from their tank, and if you're taking it with your phone they can interpret the looming dark rectangle hovering near them as a gaping mouth ready to swallow them and react accordingly.
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May 2, 2023 02:54
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Sockser posted:Tank was established in early Feb, has a bunch of white skirt tetras in it A rule of thumb is that, unless you're tearing the thing apart looking for them, at any given time more shrimp will be hiding somewhere out of sight than ones you can easily see. If they were more visible that initial week, it's because they hadn't found their ideal hiding places yet.
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May 10, 2023 20:07
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St. Blaize posted:I have my new shiny 20 gallon tank, been cycling for two weeks. Added a bunch of plants and now i have like 30 snails, how do i prevent them from getting put of control? You have a few options. If you want to completely annihilate them, there are chemical options, but these are kind of the nuclear option. If you want to specifically exterminate the pest snails but don't mind having snails in general, you can always introduce a half-dozen Assassin Snails. These eat other snails, and if you establish a breeding population they will rid your tank of the other snails in about a month. After that, you'll have a significantly smaller population of somewhat prettier snails that'll just sorta hang out in the substrate eating mulm and fish food or whatever. It might be advisable to merely manage your snail pop without just exterminating them though, as they do an excellent job taking care of algae and biofilm and other detritus they constantly scavenge. Make sure to avoid overfeeding, as their population booms when given an abundance of food. If you want to cull their numbers, periodically put a lettuce leaf or slice of zucchini in the tank for a couple hours, then just take it out once it's covered in snails and throw it away.
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May 11, 2023 22:50
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Dong Swanson posted:What the gently caress is this? Yeah I had that with a piece of old driftwood. Took it out, scrubbed it down, put it back in, covered in white fuzzy crap. I think washing it exposes a previously covered nutrient rich surface to the water, causing a bacterial bloom. It's harmless and should go away on its own in a while after the nutrients run out and the bacteria die off.
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May 14, 2023 15:41
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Pilfered Pallbearers posted:I’ve got a betta in quarantine that’s had this weird scale spot since I got her. Hasn’t changed in the 12 days since. Any thoughts on what it is or if it’s a concern? Fish seems healthy and fine otherwise. I think that might mean it's a dragon in disguise. Don't touch that scale, or your betta will become enraged and destroy you.
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Sep 26, 2023 00:53
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gay picnic defence posted:Are there any options for treating hard and slightly salty water for aquariums? I'm about to move to a place where the tap water is from an aquifer and the water quality isn't as good as where I'm currently living. I think the common wisdom is "adjusting fine parameters like that isn't worth the trouble." Fish, more than any particular ph or hardness, like consistency of parameters, and adjusting that stuff can frequently be like steering a car using only your feet. If you get fish from the local area, they're likely to already be acclimated to the local water. If you really do want to keep very picky species, it's much harder to reduce the hardness of water by putting any chemical thingy in it. Either use rainwater or DI water, or get a reverse osmosis setup installed in your house. Or just say "gently caress it" and start raising african cichlids or livebearers or something else that loves hard, almost brackish water. Asterite34 fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Oct 28, 2023 |
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Oct 28, 2023 04:34
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Stoca Zola posted:I use a wider piece of hose for faster suck but I also have a piece of sponge or spare filter inlet guard (or both) attached to the end to stop the smallest inhabitants from being sucked up. This means I don’t have to babysit that end of the hose. I also have each tank marked with a small piece of tape at the side/corner to know the water level I want to remove and I clip my hose in place such that the siphon breaks once the water level drops below that height. Another clip to keep the end inside the bucket if a cat brushes past. Even going from a 6mm hose to a 12mm hose would speed your water changes up if that’s something that interests you, I use a 19mm hose for my largest tanks or it would take forever (although an airline left overnight can easily drain 60 litres on to the carpet as I found out the hard way). Okay I gotta remember this trick, it's been a tricky prospect to use the gravel vac and maneuver around the shrimps. Mind you I've done like one water change in the last 8 months and nobody seems much the worse for wear (understocked, lotta frogbit, some Pothos growing in one of the filter reservoirs), but still, I'd rather not kill stuff when the occasion presents itself.
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Nov 8, 2023 21:13
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Sockser posted:My shrimp tank, overnight, has exploded with like 60 or more bladder snails. Fantastic. Cool. Just feed a little less, pest snail populations tend to explode when food is available, it will stabilize to more manageable levels in due time. There are worse things to have in a tank than pest snails. If you're SURE you want them gone, then yes you could introduce some assassin snails, though I've heard those will opportunistically go after shrimp if easier prey isn't available.
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Nov 14, 2023 19:18
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Sockser posted:Spent a good chunk of time pulling out a bunch of bladder snails and staring pretty deep into the tank Looks like a scud, a kind of small amphipod crustacean. They can be something of a pest and can nibble on soft mosses, but are otherwise a mostly harmless detrivore. Fish tend to prey on them pretty aggressively when they can catch them, so it might explain how the Endlers are faring so well. Well, them and shrimplets. e: All that said, they DO compete for food and resources with your nice shrimp, they fill a similar ecological niche after all, so they're a bit bad in that regard. Doesn't sound like their population has totally gotten out of control though. Asterite34 fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Nov 14, 2023 |
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Nov 14, 2023 22:15
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Hadlock posted:I got a HOB to attempt to polish the water a little bit and increase the size of surface area for beneficial bacteria (intake foam filter+ apparently you can "mod" them by adding additional large cell foam below the main foam block in the hopper) 1) a Pothos cutting works quite well, especially tucked into the HOB reservoir and given plenty of light. Just be prepared to trim its roots once in a great while to keep it from jamming up the motor. 2) Yes a little DIY barrier of airline tubing works. You could also make a little "baffling" out of foam or whatever to disperse the outlet flow enough that it doesn't disturb the plants. Or depending on the filter model you can just keep the water level in the tank topped up enough that there isn't enough of a "drop" from the outflow to suck any plants under the waterline. I just keep mine full enough that the current just pushes plants away from it on the surface.
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Dec 16, 2023 23:06
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