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TOtrees

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Everything posted by TOtrees

  1. what temp are you aiming for?
  2. Are you looking for preset, or adjustable? If 78F works for the fish/inhabitants you have, I honestly like the basic Tetra preset heaters. They're widely available, very affordable, and while nothing is perfect they're no less reliable than 99% of the various heaters on the market. In terms of how much wattage, what's the ambient room temp, ie how hard will the heater have to work? If preset is okay, and ambient temp isn't too low, I'd go with a pair of 100W tetras.
  3. Just because the water has debris detritus mulm gunk or whatever you want to call it, doesn't mean it's terrible water. I presume it's a temporary issue, and it clears up relatively quickly. Question: why are your turning your filter off, if not to clean it out? Could your turn the flow down all the way, instead of turning it off? Then, when you turn the flow back up, it might still release some gunk, but would likely be much less. In terms of what's happening, I would suspect that under normal operation, the flow of water up through the media basket is physically trapping gunk against whatever media you have, but it's like swishing a flat net to pick up debris. As soon as the flow stops, there's nothing trapping the particles against the media and they dislodge. When flow resumes, they're loose or free, and they pass through all at once. As normal operation resumes, all that gunk reattaches (because flow is again trapping/pressing it against the media), and the tank clears. Question 2: you are rinsing/cleaning out your media occasionally, right? Filters and filter media need regular maintenance. The frequency depends on many factors (what's in your tank, how much you feed, what kind of substrate, human behavior/tolerances, etc), but if you never clean out your media, well there's a big part of your problem. 🙂 In addition to rinsing your media /media basket as @reefhugger suggests, you could also add a layer of filter floss to your media basket, that you discard occasionally.
  4. If you have to have a problem, that's a good one to have. 🙂
  5. They look great, and appear to be settling in well. Only suggestion might be a solid (non-transparent) divider, to remove the stress of showing and mating and so forth. Eg males on one side and females on another. given the size of those females (length), they're sure to have bred already, unless they were kept apart from males - which is unlikely since 2 are already part way preggers. Another suggestion (once they're well settled in) might be to go with two trios, instead of 2+4. Sort of insurance, in case something happens. Once you have the next generation of babies, less of an issue (assuming they're in separate growout).
  6. Coop sponges are not good at polishing water, because of how open/coarse they are. The tradeoff is they require cleaning way less. But there are other sponges that have a much higher ppi sponge that do a decent job at polishing. And require rinsing more often. I'll also second that sponges are, to some extent, self adjusting. In your sponge filter pics @Biago yes we can see mulm at the top. This is because enough water enters the center chamber through the sponges just at the top, that everything below that doesn't need to flow through to work. All that sponge lower down is viable surface area, but it's not receiving any/much flow. But, as the pores up top get clogged with mulm, the amount of water passing through there will diminish, and water will have to pass through lower down. And so on. Unless you rinse it, which resets the process. I do think you would have no loss of filtration capacity/ability by going down to 1 sponge only, based on what I'm seeing here. I also think you might get better uplift/flow if you do as someone above suggested and put an airstone inside the sponge. Though how to do that with the easy flow I'm not sure. The few coop sponges I run (without easy flow) have the Lee's Discard-A-Stone inside, because they are narrower and produce a finer bubble than most ceramic stones.
  7. please obtain and review photos of "berried" cherry shrimps. new eggs can have a greening/brownish hue, and can easily be mistaken for fungus. Here's a thread on this forum that has pics of shrimp with fungus, and others with eggs. https://forum.aquariumcoop.com/topic/13651-red-cherry-shrimp-berried-too-long/
  8. sorry not really enough detail in your photo. does it move? what direction (eg in the pic, is there a front or back)? is it on the glass or on the wood?
  9. I have to do a "function over form" drive-by. Hornwort. In a low-tech tank, it eats ammonia/nitrates better than anything (except maybe a few floaters), and when grown un-rooted it's super easy to maintain... take it all out, pick some new tips you want to keep, put those back, compost the rest. It's great for water quality, great for egg layers, great for fry, great for shrimps, easy to maintain. Downsides: If it does have (may have) eggs in it, you have to hatch them out before you discard it. And if you have other plants that are fussier, you may need to remove hornwort so they get enough nutrients. Esp the slow growers like anubias. Also a big fan of giant duckweed, for many of the same reasons as above (water quality, ease of maintenance). Want a lot? Leave it alone. Want a little, easy to remove as much as you want. Want none? Unlike regular duckweed, it's pretty easy to eradicate if you want.
  10. @Redeye505 personally, if all you're got left in the tank is the bn and 4 neons, I'd skip the quarantine. The new fish will appreciate being in the bigger and better furnished tank a lot more than a quarantine setup, and if the do bring in something, what's the worse that'll happen? You lose 4 neons, and maybe a bn. Everyone has to do their own cost/benefit, but that's how I'd do it if it were me. One thing about assassins, they don't control this many snails overnight. You could add just one, and you'll see shells (of eaten snails) in the first week, maybe fewer snails within 2-3 weeks, and have good control within 1-2 months. If you add 4-6 or more, you'll see a much bigger reduction much faster. FYI assassins don't NEED snails to eat in order to be healthy and breed, they'll do fine on fish food, as long as it includes decent protein. +1 to the late feeding suggestion above. BNs prefer to come out after lights out. Food will be fresher then, if you've just fed it. I do think your bn will have no trouble pushing the snails off whatever food you feed. If your bn isn't looking well, I'd guess it's not for lack of food, based on how your ramshorns are doing. If the bn is healthy, I'd say the snails get whatever the bn isn't eating, not vise versa.
  11. I don't want to be negative, but I think you're asking for problems. Fish are cold-blooded, so their growth rate will vary a lot with water temp. Cooler temps WILL limit growth rate. Meaning your fry will be fry for much longer outside. There is a short period where the temps get warm enough that you'll see similar or better growth than indoors, but it's very much that dog days of summer time. Your other option is supplemental heat. But it'll hit your power bill pretty hard, and there will be times it just can't keep up. A heated greenhouse would work, is that within your means? Qualifier: bn plecos are pretty tough, and I know from experience they can be in an unheated outdoor tub down to 50s without too much problem. But that's survival, not growth. Don't know about platies, personally.
  12. TOtrees

    Worms!

    I have a similar situation, and have related questions, and @Colu always seems to be (one of) the most knowledgeable on this... Does camallanus have any water-borne stage? Ie how likely is tank-to-tank cross-contamination, via water drops? If I dip my fingers in a tank with infected fish (specifically with this parasite), say to feed pellets below the surface, then wipe my fingers on my pants or shirt, I'm assuming that cross-contamination would be extremely unlikely. I know, no one wants to come out and say impossible, because zero is zero and everything else is non-zero, which is something. I'm not asking for 100% or impossible or certainty, I'm merely looking for real-world advice. Second question, being in Canada, my product of choice (rather of necessity) is flubendazole. Wetwebmedia has positive things to say about it, so I have high hopes. Can anyone recommend a re-treatment interval, and a number of treatment rounds? I want to wipe it out for sure, not knock it down and deal with it again in a few months.
  13. Allow me to offer an objective, impartial (and very much tongue in cheek) assessment of Wayfair's setups: Choose salt or fresh water livestock, but don't mix both on a single stand. Maintenance nightmare. Also the salt water tank must be sump-less, I guess. The goldfish tank on the bottom may have a slight overstocking problem. Maybe. Slight. Angels with goldfish? Are we not better than this? No way will the plants survive with the goldfish. No way will the plants survive in salt water. Ummm... where are the filters? Both tanks appear well lit, but a) where are the lights, and b) the light for the salt water tank needs MUCH higher kelvin. Curious product placement in the cupboard with the screen/mesh door: Salifert ammonia test, and Salifert flatworm medicine. Wouldn't it make more sense to have the integrated plugs on the inside of the unit, not the outside? One serious note: the stand appears sized to take a 75 gallon up top, but doing ROUGH math at 10lbs per gallon, it's barely rated to take the weight, after substrate and etc are included. Lastly, take a guess who has too much time on their hands? 🙂
  14. Simpler maybe: ALL the water coming into the ACs comes in via the intake tube, and there is no intake bypass. I don’t know about the 70 or 110 but the intake tube on the 20 & 50 mates perfectly with 1/2” cpvc tubing.
  15. @madmark285 when you say you covered the skimmer with silicone, do you mean the vertical slits at the waterline? Did you also cover/block where water comes in here (red arrows)? I'd be curious to see a test of your filter with the tube from the ug grid completely blocked. I think that these filters let a lot of water in via ports other than the bottom tube, and not just the vertical skimmer slits. So I'm wondering if the "secret" or "hidden" intakes I've highlighted might be reducing the amount of draw through your ug grid, even though you have blocked the skimmer openings.
  16. Getting mine set up was huge. Far and away the single best time saver I have going. It is something you can do in stages. Don't forget about planning how water leaves the tanks. Drilled tanks are 100% the way to go. Yes you can build an over the rim overflow, but they're finicky, and prone to a) clogging and b) hoses coming loose at the back, and after cleaning up a few floods you quickly find ways to drill tanks without taking them down.
  17. If you want to get all scientific and mathy check out this site: https://rechneronline.de/chemie-rechner/mix-temperatures.php You can calculate/anticipate temp changes from different volumes and temps of water. I use it for predicting final temp of water changes when the new water is significantly lower temp. And if the temp change will be too great, I use it to calculate how much and what temp hot water I need to bring the cold water up to tank temp. To be clear, I don't do this for a 3 or 5 gal bucket now and then, but more if I need to fill a tank and get temp stabilized right away.
  18. Wow, sorry to hear. We're happy to be your outlet/vent. You'll get through it, and recover. Don't hurt yourself.
  19. Your description suggests this has happened multiple times. How many times? Always bettas? How long are the fish surviving?
  20. Yes you probably could breed for faster fry growth, on the assumption that there is/may be some genetic component to it. But there are a lot of other things that you'll also breed for at the same time, unintentionally. The challenge in selecting (and then fixing) a trait that you want is avoiding things you don't. Your runners don't just grow faster as fry, they'll keep going faster through all life stages. Ie shorter-lived. Also, accelerated growth likely comes with other costs, eg less energy/calories/resources to put into coloration, immune system, etc. Let me make an attempt at a discussion/justification (coming at this with evolutionary biology degree)... I like the term "runners" used above it's fairly clear what it implies. From a population genetics point of view, a runner would be an individual that grows and matures faster than other individuals. If there was a clear and consistent advantage to this (in the wild), eventually after a number of generations all the individuals would be runners, through natural selection. But in reality being a runner isn't just a benefit, there is also a cost. Most readers here will be familiar with the idea that if you keep a given species fish at the upper end of its temp range, it will "live fast and die young". Being cold-blooded, this causes their biological clock (aka metabolism, over the life-long time range) to run faster, and expire sooner. Runners just have a genetic dial on the growth/aging rate, in addition to the environmental one (it would be more accurate to say their genetic dial has a different setting). The reason (a reason) runners exist is that sometimes it's an advantage, but not always. It might also be that the trait is a legacy from distant ancestors, that isn't currently a plus or minus, but it's just variability that has continued to exist in the population. What would be the relative advantage of not being a runner, over being a runner? Longer life and larger final size (even if these come with slower growth rate) = greater contribution to the overall number of individuals in successive generations. Having runner genes in some progeny could be beneficial in transient or unpredictable climates. It can also be a population-level insurance policy. Let's say you breed in puddles, or seasonally flooded rivers (anyone say killis, or black water tetras?). Most years, say 95 out of a hundred, the standard or typical approach works, because the weather and rainfall and drying times are within expected norms. Most of the fish can condition, breed, lay, hatch, and grow and maybe even breed again within the seasonal window. But what if a 1 in 20 or 1 in 100 year dry event causes your puddle or river or whatever to dry up before the generational cycle is complete? Here killis make a great example, because this literally describes some of their life cycles, eg all the adults die, and the only survivors are eggs. What if the adults didn't have time to lay those eggs? The entire population will die, in one cycle. If each generation has a few runners, even if they don't do as well as their normal siblings under normal conditions, guess who the survivors will be in those short seasons? It's the runners. But those runners won't make 100% runner babies... some of their offspring would be runners and some would be 'normal'. After a year or two when things settle back down, the runners no longer have the reproductive advantage, and the "normies" are the one who again provide the greater contribution to the next generation(s), due to having more time to grow, feed, fatten, breed and make more eggs. Back to your question... So,
  21. LOL that's where I went also.
  22. @annalyn Do you actually have algae in this tank? I’m a firm believer that the solution should be based on the problem. Tell us more about the problem…
  23. It's just the manual DIY version of a python hook. Only carries water when manually filling a tank, and is only pressurized for a few seconds at a time. There are other parts of the hose/valve/wand assembly that are much more likely to fail than the CPVC itself. But I appreciate the concern and suggestion, thx.
  24. Cool! They remind me of the virtual game from Star Trek TNG, when the crew got hypnotized/mind-controlled playing it. So ahead of its time LOL. snip from: https://jphalt-startrek-tng-reviews.blogspot.com/2011/12/5-06-game.html
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