Chick-In-Of-TheSea
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Posts posted by Chick-In-Of-TheSea
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On 6/13/2022 at 4:36 PM, Cbass said:
Not sure what everyones experience is, but I didn't have a good experience with that Seachem ammonia alert. Mine would say that there was no ammonia (yellow) but when I tested using another test kit, it was a different story. Just to be sure, you might want to get ammonia test strips and test. For all you know, you might actually have some ammonia in there!
@Guppysnail and I were talking about this yesterday. She likes them because they detect toxic ammonia but don’t show readings for “false ammonia” (what some dechlorinators cause)
@sweetpoison This is how I think of the nitrogen cycle. Ammonia is food for bacteria A. Bacteria A eats it all & gives off nitrite. Nitrite is food for Bacteria B. Bacteria B eats it all & gives off nitrate. If at the end of things you’re only reading is nitrate, the tank is cycled.
And also plants like these things too! Plants’ first preference is ammonia, second preference is nitrite, third preference is nitrate. That’s why we dose Easy Green for plants. To keep nitrate up a bit for plant food.
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On 6/14/2022 at 10:57 PM, nabokovfan87 said:
Agreed. I use fine foam it's a green color
Mine is green on one side and white on the other. It came in a big roll and I just cut it to size.
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On 6/14/2022 at 6:17 PM, TeeJay said:
the fritz zyme to do a better job.
I’m going to start a new tank with Fritz Zyme too and an extra sponge filter I have going in my main tank. And of course, gunk and dirty tank water from water changes.
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This morning I added a bigger ball of java moss to the breeder box. And this evening I see little hitchhikers on it. They sure do love that stuff. 💚
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@Dallasp Congratulations on your snail babies!
Nicely done with the baffle. It seems to be doing a good job. Make sure you seal all gaps in the lid. They are escape artists, so I’ve heard.
What type of snails are they? Looks like a ramshorn on the glass.
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@nabokovfan87 yep, the Penguin (which YOU helped me fix ❤️ - thanks again for that) is for tanks up to 50. The outflow is noisy due to flow rate and the fact that I have to leave a 1” gap for the Nerite to hang out in the air and that’s also where the mystery snail lays her eggs. So I stuff two strips of coarse sponge into the outflow and it’s perfect. Sponges are an extra bacteria surface too. Never can have too many.
Snails won’t remain in this tank, but while they are teeny tiny they will, in the breeder box. And 100 more eggs are about to hatch. Lord help me. 😳
I wonder if the 100 (mainly feeding them all their powdery foods) will crash the cycle yet again. I’m nervous!
@nabokovfan87 I have 2 coarse sponge, bio rings and filter floss in there. Found the filter floss to be necessary. There were too many floating particulates & mulm without it.
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Why do they fight @Guppysnail? Tank size/territory or just a male to female ratio they do not prefer?
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On 6/14/2022 at 2:29 PM, dan12boy said:
Definitely should be! It’s just $10 on Amazon for kindle and $18 for the soft cover. And it’s a quick but informative read
My library uses an ebook rental app now! So I just go in the app and click borrow and presto, it shows up on my tablet. Free! I will see if this book is in there.
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On 6/14/2022 at 1:16 PM, modified lung said:
If you leave it alone for a few days, making sure the ammonia doesn't go above 0.25 ppm, your cycle will probably fully recover.
I don't think you need any bottled bacteria. Your bacteria didn't die. They're just stalled.
Thanks so much for your insightful response. I will monitor.
On 6/14/2022 at 1:16 PM, modified lung said:prime releases the ammonia into the water.
Harmless ammonia? (Ammo-locked?)
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Maybe I'll go super old school and get a good ol' undergravel filter. I used those for years, and they're great. There's still one at the bottom of my 29 gallon but I disabled it because I wanted sand.
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@Dallasp what size tank do you have for the snails, and how many snails?
On 6/14/2022 at 10:50 AM, Guppysnail said:What filter do you have? I might be able to help with size suggestions. I have not 1 but two small totes full of prefilters of various sizes🤣
For the snail growout tank I just have a sponge filter seeding in my main tank, but after reading this I might get a HOB too.
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On 6/13/2022 at 8:48 PM, Dallasp said:
Hi, I am just looking for suggestions on what the best filter would be for a snail breeding tank. I previously used a HOB filter but the babies would go in the intake slots, and the adults would literally get their bodies sucked out of their shells and die from the suction. I put mesh over the intake slots but babies still seemed to get stuck in it from the suction, and it also didn’t seem to clean well at that point.
Next I tried the sponge filter, which I’m currently using, but the problem now is it does not filter the tank at all no matter how much or little air I feed.
I am at a loss on what to do. My snail tank gets dirty very fast and I now have detritus everywhere. *Sigh*
Any suggestions are appreciated 🙂
This is going to be me shortly! I just hatched a bunch! (help) 😳
On 6/14/2022 at 10:13 AM, Guppysnail said:I use prefilter sponges but I get the awful very fine ones from Amazon
I looked at those but I couldn't figure out what size fit what filter.
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On 6/13/2022 at 5:37 PM, Pepere said:
I use a syringe to accurately and quickly fill 4 test tubes, and then add reagents and then shake required time and set them down on desk. Takes all of 2 -3 minutes, and then do other things while waiting 5 minutes for reagents to work. Its fast enough for me.
Me too, Pepere. The syringe is GREAT.
I did a side-by-side comparison one day and the test strips showed 0 nitrate while the liquid showed 5 nitrate. Knowing the liquid is more precise, I went by that.
Also! TEST STRIP HACK (from a Cory video) - Cut the test strips in half and you get double the tests! It's like getting a BOGO on test strips!
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On 6/14/2022 at 10:15 AM, Flumpweesel said:
I use prime and as long as I don't test the same day as added then it doesn't give me any false readings. Although I think the false positive readings are more likely when chloramin is being treated which isn't used by my water authority.
Sounds like right l enough things changed over a few days that could well upset the cycle. Small regular changes until everything settles again I am sure it won't take long.
Thanks @Flumpweesel
Do you guys think I should add some bacteria? Fritz Zyme?
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On 6/14/2022 at 9:57 AM, Guppysnail said:
I like prime because it detoxes heavy metal ie. Copper which is in my tap water. I switch to safe which I thought was exactly the same as prime but dry. I started having shrimp and snail issues so I called seachem and they said there are several differences heavy metal detox being one. I switched back and all was well again. I’ve been a seachem girl for many years and other than amquel have never used other types so have no comparison ability.
If I keep using Prime, would the ammonia reading ever go back to zero? I feel like I'll be on daily water changes if I'm not sure.
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On 6/14/2022 at 9:53 AM, Guppysnail said:
the more I learn the more complex it becomes. 🤣
FACT.
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My gut was telling me to move away from Prime so I can rely on my readings again but a) I don't know how many water changes it will take to get Prime out of the tank or b) if changing away from Prime is a bad idea because if the ammonia is real, Prime has ammo-lock.
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On 6/14/2022 at 9:17 AM, Guppysnail said:
When I first had them and after they matured and we’re about 1 year old I was petrified something was in my tank making them ill. It shows as a pinkish white spot then sometimes the side it’s on will swell. One I lost I took a look with a magnifying glass and noticed a missing scal and what looked like a protrusion in the tank under magnification I seen it was a tiny scale missing and a tiny piece of meat missing. I was so frightened. But the next day I witnessed it happening. And seen everything. This is how I was alerted to all the drama that happens with these little ones. I had 3 to start my colony 1/m/1f and got a group of 5 as early unsexed juveniles to add genetic diversity. Turns out all 5 were boys 😣. They fought until 3/6 were left over 2 weeks. Then all was harmonious for 6-7 months until more male than female fry began surviving.
if it was not for this brutality I may ave never taken the time to truly watch and understand all the dynamics of these little ones. I also would have worried needlessly that there was a mystery illness.Wow, how things can get so complicated sometimes. Remember the days when we would just sit back and chill and watch fish? 😝 Now we are referees and tank janitors and everything else, lmao
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On 6/14/2022 at 9:25 AM, Guppysnail said:
I know of you egg yolk over feeding. I have done that. The fineness of it coats surfaces and being a protein released a lot of ammonia for me. It took several days- a week to rectify itself. I just did extra water changes to keep it safe.
Very true @Guppysnail. It took a training period to learn how much (or how little) to feed those babies.
On 6/14/2022 at 9:25 AM, Guppysnail said:You may want to check your tap as well this time of year things get sketchy. Check ammonia both before dechlor and 30 minutes after decholr for ammonia. (Use a cup for checks not tank)
I ram some experiments in this yesterday. I did it in a bucket. Tap ammonia 0. The dechlorinated water “seemed” to have a small reading. I tested with 2.5 gallon bucket and 3 drops of prime. Did it again after adding another 3 drops of prime. Seemed like hint of ammonia. I’m not sure. I don’t know how to dose prime in such a small quantity to run a good, valuable experiment. (I didn’t wait 30 minutes either, but I did stir the water). I don’t know what I’m doing LOL 🤷♀️
Failed to mention I added a sponge filter to the tank 6/1. Just wanted to seed it before it goes into 10 gallon.
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Tank refill process
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Some snails were moved to observation today but all were returned to the breeder box. Turns out they were just lazy snails.
The 2 snails that I posted about yesterday- status was unchanged all day. Sadly they had passed before I found them and before they were moved to observation.
Here are some photos of the observation area. I feel like I’m a lab technician or something.
I’m struggling with either a mini-cycle or a false ammonia reading from switching to Prime. I’m researching and panicking. Tank is 10 years old and I hadn’t had an ammonia reading in YEARS. Last 4 days had water changes every day. Today was 50% water change. I’m going nuts!
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Also if this helps, for water changes I dose the tank w/ dechlorinator and then refill from tap, water @ same temp.
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Hey guys. Have a bit of a problem going on with either a mini cycle or a false ammonia reading. Looking for some advice to see what you guys think.
Tank has been up 10 years and tested regularly. I can't even tell you how long it's been since I had an ammonia reading. Years. The only things I usually get a reading on is nitrate and the ph/gh/kh etc.
Here are the things that happened just before or during the issue.
Switched dechlorinator from AquaSafe Plus to Prime.
34 mystery snail babies born about a week ago. In breeder box. Feeding fine, powdery foods. Breeder box cleaned daily; food replaced. Snails checked for well-being daily. Moved out of tank for observation if questionable. Returned to tank if living.
5 new tetra added to tank from a quarantine tank. I added them in the morning, and then the snails were born in the afternoon. I didn't intend for both events to occur same day!
Filter (Penguin biowheel 200) died and was changed to a smaller filter (Fluval Aquaclear 30), but the media was not changed. Both are suitable for this 29 gallon tank. However, not all the media from the previous filter would fit in the smaller filter, so I had to cut some of the sponges down. Aquaclear was loaded with a coarse sponge, filter floss, and really old well seasoned bio rings. Also at this time I added a prefilter sponge, but it was the wrong size and I tore it while putting it on causing a big gap that didn't cover a section of the intake basket. It looked awful but I left it there. About a week passed and the Aquaclear had some problems. A power outage occurred and power was restored quickly. But the Aquaclear dumps all the water out when it loses power so while I was at work the filter was running dry for hours until I arrived home. I got it going again by adding water.
During the week that passed I had been on the forums and received help with repairing my Penguin. Turns out the impeller just wasn't reseated properly after I cleaned it. Switched back to the Penguin because I cannot rely on a filter that dumps all water; I'm in FL and we are going into storm/hurricane season; I can't always be home to reprime filters. Put all the old gunky media back into the Penguin. Added some more coarse sponge back since it's a bigger filter. Removed prefilter sponge because of the tear. Wanted to replace w/ finer media (floss) around the intake basket due to snails. I suspect some snails got out through the slats of the breeder box on hatch day, so, just in case, I need to "childproof" the tank. Despite the short run on this prefilter sponge, it had collect quite a bunch of stuff. Left the prefilter sponge in the tank because I plan to squish it into a new 10 gallon I'm about to start up. Also the biowheel itself was not added back because it had a tear. It had dried up anyway.
I guess that's it. I'm at 4 days of ammonia readings.
Stats
29 gallon high
Temp 78
6/11 - amm .2, nitrite 0, nitrate 10, pH 7.5. Water changed, 25%, used Prime. Found a dead tetra. It had a swollen belly, possibly was eggbound. This was its status for weeks and it was the only fish with any symptoms. While it was alive it ate well and schooled normally.
6/12 - amm .2, nitrite 0, nitrate 10, pH 7.5. Water changed, 25%, used Prime.
6/13 - same as above but used AquaSafe Plus because I had learned Prime can give a false ammonia reading.
6/14 - amm went up to .25, nitrite 0, nitrate 10, pH 7.5. Water changed, 50%, used AquaSafe Plus. Water tested immediately after water change. ammonia reading unchanged. (??)
Water test from the tap - 0 ammonia
Stocking level: 4 black neons, 5 pristella tetra, 1 mystery snail, 1 nerite snail, 1 bolivian ram, 34 mystery snail babies (sesame seed sized) in breeder box
I used aqadvisor and I'm understocked, fish wise. Baby snail wise, I doubt there is much bioload there. These things cannot easily be seen without a magnifying glass.
I'm not sure what's going on or what I should do. I'm thinking add FritzZyme?
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Leave in as much as you can if you’ve started to cycle the tank. Or change out just part of it if you haven’t added fish yet @sweetpoison
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Mystery snail eggs & inverts journal
in Photos, Videos & Journals
Posted
Status of clutch 2