PerceptivePesce

A Montessori?

cool, that'll be fun! Is this a public school?

@Fish FolkTell us about the cyanobacteria lab experiment, please!

I wish I had known more about iron supplements before I started stocking all epiphytic plants in my aquarium about 3 months ago. A few weeks ago I switched to a 100% ferrous gluconate product from a product that had a mixture of dtpa, edta, and ferrous gluconate because I was seeing a cascade of deficiencies. My tank runs a higher pH so the plants werent utilizing the all the Fe that was dosed, and if they don't have enough iron then they can't uptake other nutrients. I can tell the plants are doing better now and the hair algae has stopped multiplying. My buce are looking better for sure, they might make it!!

Wow, that's fascinating info @Odd Duck I do know some LSU Ag folks. They're in horticulture, but this will certainly make interesting conversation next time I see em, and who knows, maybe I'll get some good leads. Thanks for taking the time to share!

Yeah, I doubt there are any aquatic vets in my area. Specialty vets around here probably means they'll come to your property to palpate cows and horses.

Thanks @Guppysnail I'll look at some of the fancy vet offices in the city, Shreveport, LA., to see if they offer aquatic services. I was thinking they could smear a couple of glass slides and look at it under a microscope, but I guess it's not that easy. I found the young male, who wasn't eating yesterday, dead this am. His tail wasn't the most beautiful, but it was interesting- like flames.

Is it possible to bring tank water to a vet for an analysis? Or maybe a dead fish? I'm a little worried that something may be wrong with my tank. I culled a larger fry a couple days ago, monday, when I noticed he had a swayback and bubble chest. Yesterday, I noticed a young adult male guppy wasn't eating, and there is a young adult female who is doing a lot of bottom resting and her gills are moving fast, but she did eat. I have a 3.5 month old planted 90g tank. I do ~30% gravel vac WC once a week with remin rodi. I recently added new fauna; the neocaridina shrimp made it, but the exotic snails met a tragic end. The guppies were added 2-3 months ago and Ive had a few occasional deaths, but now it seems like I'm seeing more sick fish all at once. I'm thinking the guppy I culled on monday, the swayback/bubble chest, had dropsy, but I'm getting conflicting info when I search... Is dropsy contagious or not? pH- 7.5-8.2 (lower when lights are off, higher when they are on) Nitrates- 10ish Hardness- 7dGH Nitrite- 0 Ammonia- 0 KH/Buffer- 5dKH Water Temperature- 77F

Oh, wow. Everything looks so healthy! Good job, neighbor!

Temp 77F 7dGH & 5dKH pH swings from 7.5-8.2, lower when the lights are off & higher when they are on. I've got digital pH & TDS meters. API tube tests for GH & KH, and high pH. Fluval tube tests for Ca & phosphates. ACO strip tests. Other than nerites and shrimp, I have guppies. The guppies seem fine, I've had them for over 2 months and they make babies all the time. However, I did cull a larger fry this morning that had a sway back and bloated chest. I assume it's dropsy and I've never seen that in my guppy population until this morning.

@Cinnebuns I have a sad truth to share. First, everyone needs to know I'm an aquarium newbie. My 90g tank is around 3 months old. I use remineralized rodi water, and my parameters are within the seller's recommended parameters for Faunus Ater. I have a couple of nerites that have been in my tank for over a month now. I also ordered 10 (got 12) neocaridina shrimp with the FA snails. I've lost 4 shrimp, that I know of, but the ones that made it seem to be doing well. I received 4 black devil spikes in the mail on Jan 12th. They were all alive when I put them in my tank, and they immediately raced to the top (in hindsight I assume they were trying to get out). The next morning, they were all laying on top of my substrate where they stayed until I removed them yesterday on the 22nd. They were all dead and smelled horrible, like feces. I'm really sorry this happened, but I wanted to share my experience to add to the body of knowledge about these snails. Lord, have mercy on me!

I'm starting to understand. These numbers match the fluval test when considering something is definitely leeching into my tank. Increasing the Ca ppm to 30-40 would explain the extra dGH. GH & KH are both going up 2 degrees over what I dose, so it may be CaCO3 leeching because it increases GH & KH equally. I use a digital scale that measures to the hundredths. I think I'll increase the GH I dose by 1 degree and see if the GH goes higher than 7dGH, or if 7dGH is some kind of equilibrium for whatever is leeching. I dont know if that will work, but I guess I'll try.

Oh, And I was dosing a 4:1 ratio. Oops, heh

Oh, crap! You're right, I forgot! I was just going over my old remin numbers and was confused as to why they didnt match what i just posted. Sorry! My old Ca:Mg numbers, what I've been using, are total 4dGH & the ratio is 3:1ppm. Ugh, now I have to start over.

I just got 6dGH which is a GH number I've gotten before. It fluctuates between 6 & 7

Well, that was easy. So I have 40, maybe 30ppm of Ca... The last time I tested GH, 4 days ago, I had 7dGH. I add 3dGH of CaSO4.2H2O and 1dGH MgSO4.7H2O in a 3:1 ratio of Ca:Mg to rodi. So, that must mean there is something leeching Mg in the water, or I'm doing something wrong... I'm gonna do a GH test now!

I read somewhere that fluval Ca tests may register results for freshwater. I got a color change so I think it worked! However, the units of measurement fluval uses is mg/L, and I only understand PPM. Is there a way to convert mg/L into ppm? I tried a Google search but I'm getting conflicting info, plus I don't quite grasp what I'm doing. 😁 The results of my test: After adding #2 reagent the water turned hot pink. After adding one drop of the last reagent, #3, the water color did not change. After adding the second drop of reagent #3 the water turned purple. The instructions say to multiply the number of #3 drops by 20mg/L. So I have 40mg of Ca in 340 Liters. What's that in ppm? (I added the "hot pink" distinction because the provided color chart shows a pastel pink. Because of the hot pink I'm thinking a multiplier of 1.5 may be more accurate? ) Help! 😱

I was sad to learn that skittles packs revert to original boring color too. Shrimp are like play-do, if you mix all the colors together they just turn brown 😆

Cyanobacteria algae, aka blue-green algae. I'm giggling at the communication error. It works either way!

You're right. I should have explained more thoroughly. I use remineralized rodi, my tds is around 220ppm. 200ppm is the average most remin rodi users are in, give or take 50ppm. I'd like to see OPs spring water test results. It may be perfect for a freshwater tank!

@Remi de Grootgreat info about snails being sent without water. I'll save that for the future. @LennieIve read that most snails dont eat cba. I hope faunus ater are the kind that do! I've let my backwall accumulate algae... it was brown, now it's green. I hope it's not cba. I guess I'll find out if letting it grow was a mistake.

Freshwater tanks run around 200 TDS. I think @RennjiDKis right. Try testing your tap water.

All 4 of them (ordered 3) are on the glass and moving up. It was so hard to get my phone cam to focus on them and then I forgot to turn off the flash so this guy got a blast of light. 😬

I just put the snails in the tank. They're all alive and moving fast! I've only had nerite snails before these faunus aters. Nerites move real slow I guess. These snails look like rabbit snails. These guys have a kind of "hop" movement. Is that why rabbit snails are called rabbit, because they hop?

My blue shrimps are here! They were shipped on Monday. They were supposed to be delivered yesterday but were delayed. They are all alive and being drip acclimated. I treated their containment water with conditioner, fritz complete, as the instructions suggested. Treating was not listed as a step in their online instructions, so thank heavens I had some fritz laying around. I also ordered some faunus ater snails. They were delivered in a plastic container with a wetted paper towel. This threw me for a loop... I'm floating the container... I guess that's what I'm supposed to do... ?