PluckyD

@beastie I love the beautiful yellow on yours. I got some longfins from aquahuna a couple months ago and I love them, but the thing that intrigued me about the Linni is that their body actually seems more gold/yellow than silver/grey, which appeals to me. I put the longfins in with some goldens and I notice they don’t seem to behave quite the same, as if they were different species. Also, I noticed they got very “chesty” very quickly with heavy feeding even though my goldens did not. I put them in an outside pond for now so can’t take pics easily unfortunately.

For pond snails and the mini ramshorns, I just squish them against the glass with my finger. For my discus, I just do a quick squish and he gobbles up the whole thing. For little fish, I like to squish them thoroughly so their shell bits are very fine and can be consumed by fish or shrimp. Generally, I only have too many snails if I've been feeding too heavily, so I will squish a bunch in place of feeding for a few meals. This usually happens when I haven't yet established a strong shrimp colony in the tank, Frankly, the snails are helpful to have during that time to eat the excess food. At some point though, I start squishing the snails for the shrimp to shift the population from the former to the latter. I think it's also a good way to know if your calcium levels in the tank are depleting. When they are too low, the snail shells with be very soft, but when they are high, the shells can be very hard, in which case, be extra careful so as not to cut yourself. Never squish a shell from the opening side because that can cut your finger. If I were to try with the larger sized ramshorns, I would personally try a plastic spoon or something to protect my finger, but honestly, I like those little guys and have never tried to squish one.

I have this same problem and haven’t found an adapter solution. My workaround has been to fill up a tub by the sink and use a powerhead to pump the water into the tank. Unfortunately, the powerhead doesn’t work on a long hose due to too much back pressure so this only works if your tanks are relatively close by.

Does anyone own the “Linni” variety from Aquarium Glaser, or at least seen them? I am quite curious how their colors differ from the classic variety. I could only find the beautiful pictures of them from Aquarium Glaser themselves and a head-on picture from dansfish, but I can’t tell what the body *really* looks like.

In my experience, *all* fish will eat snails. Some just might need a little assistance from you 👆(<—- snail meal preparation device)

Another update to show that Pod continues to thrive since his deworming treatment. He has gotten even plumper since last month and seems like a normal discus fish shape now? I’ve had him just over a year and he’s right around 5+ inches, which is on the smaller end of the spectrum, but I believe still healthy. It’s possible he is a she and could be smaller for that reason too. He still has the faintest hint of a dimple in his center which I have read different accounts about for discus, but I hope it rounds out as he continues to put on more weight. He gets 2-4 frozen cubes of something or other (bloodworms, brine shrimp, spirulina, etc) every day along with a dry pellet on auto feeder 4 times a day. He used to be very picky but I’ve gotten him to eat most things with a staged introduction. I am now closer to water changing every 3-4 weeks or even longer, but that’s already more frequent than all my other tanks. Nitrates stay around 20-40 with dosing fertilizer and heavy feeding. He has shown no ill effects, again, since his deworming, (I.e. no hiding, weird poop, pimples, slime coat shedding, etc). I dropped his tank down from 86 to 82 degrees for now and may have to cut down on some feeding if he shows a noticeable drop in hangryness. At this point, I think this is a case closed situation so will not bother updating anymore, but just wanted to share a success story around treating discus, and thank you to this forum and those who helped.

Thanks for additional ideas, but I am basically following the directions as I have done for the hundreds of Aquarium Coop strips I've used before my current bottle. The bottle is less than a month old. I am mostly curious if anyone else has had a problem with strips they've received in the past month or two.

@mynameisnobody Yes, I have them lying flat per the instructions.

I have been using Aquarium Coop test strips for a while now and recently started my third or fourth container of the 200 pack, and I notice both the packaging and the strips are slightly different. For example, you can see in one of the pictures comparing the strip to the bottle, the 6.4 and 6.8 boxes for pH don't have the black outline. That's a minor thing of course, but I also notice these strips seem to "bleed" for lack of a better term a lot more. I don't have this problem every single time I test, so I don't know if it's some condition of my water or just duds in the package. Any idea what it is and how I should interpret the results? For context, the picture showing multiple strips are for new outdoor tubs I am setting up that are still cycling, but the other two are from tanks that are mature (~1-2+ years old). ETA: In case you're wondering, at least one these pictures was taken at the 1 minute mark, the other two possibly 2 or even 3 minutes. However, my previous test strips often stayed consistent in color up to the point of drying.

Ah yes, I plan to keep it at 86 while it’s still cold weather wise, but will actually unplug the heaters once it warms up. We usually keep our house around 78-80 in the summer, so that will be the “cool” season for the tank 😜

Good timing @jwcarlson, I had just been considering posting an update and am making the time now due to your prompting 🙂 I venture to say, Pod seems to be doing well these days. Looking back at pictures from since I got Pod last year in April, I can now see how he had grown but gotten slowly slimmer until I asked about him in October. He then rapidly declined, degenerating to the condition of a Charlie Brown Christmas tree of a fish tree in January (unfortunately, I was unable to care for my tanks beyond feeding during those months). I did do another round of the Absolute Dewormer at your prompting, but that was the last round. He hasn't had a hiding episode in several weeks now. More promisingly, he had slowly gotten back to the proportions he had been when I first got him, and now I think he's even plumped a bit beyond that while also being larger in size. He is a very personable fish and exhibits no hiding behavior. I've also managed to get him onto several different dry pellet foods. I will be honest that I am not taking care of him the way some discus keepers might, but he is a member of the community tank which I keep like most of my other planted tanks. I water change every other week on average. The Bloody Mary neos and the sterbai cories have both reproduced. I also replaced the the nerites with some otocinculus that seem to be thriving as well. I do keep the tank at 86 for Pod's comfort though. Thanks for checking in and I hope this is helpful to anyone else who might have similar issues.

The only common denominator is the tubs themselves. I agree this seems to be happening. My only concern is that whatever is leaching might not be chlorine but it’s still causing damage to the inhabitants. I suppose the only hobbyist way to find out is to put creatures in anyway?

Unfortunately, all 4 are! So I cannot just chalk it up to the new plastic. I kept guppies in the one I had last year but they tend to be so hardy. I’m not sure if they just toughed it out, and maybe another more delicate species might not fare as well.

I wasn't sure if I should revive this thread or start another, but I am experiencing something similar with my outdoor tub ponds. I started 3 tubs this year and have 1 that is over a year old, so 4 in total. I am using the HDX 27 gallon tubs from Home Depot. I never tested for chlorine before, but am now using the Aquarium Coop test strips which include it. After half-filling the ponds and letting them stew for a week, I was quite surprised to find chlorine was still around 2.0. I thought perhaps my dechlorinator had gone bad (I had transferred some Prime into a repurposed Easy Green bottle), and it no longer smelled stinky fresh, so I ended up opening a new bottle of Fritz Complete. Another week and *over half a bottle of Fritz complete later*, the chlorine still reads high. Perhaps the plastic is leaching something? I did successfully breed a lot of fish in the first tote last year so I hope it's just weird readings, but it would still be nice to know what is going on.

Thanks, although I know he still has a lot of fattening up to go, and I do wonder if he will ever be round and plumpy like yours or if he's stunted already. He seems to have grown in size more instead of just fattening up, so maybe when he's done getting bigger, he will plumpen more. I was planning to do another round in a couple of weeks to give it a full month after the last round. Do you think it is better to do it sooner?