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itsfoxtail

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Everything posted by itsfoxtail

  1. itsfoxtail
    Wow, what an absolutely stunning tank! I love the wood sticking out of the water and the light focused in the middle. Looks like a little section of the amazon and it looks like heaven.
  2. itsfoxtail
    Wow! This was an awesome read and had so much great info! Thank you for taking the time to write this! I've never heard of anyone using a pasta maker for homemade food or a food dehydrator for that matter. I just love the ingenuity of nerms I could listen to their ways and discoveries forever. I'll be looking forward to your future food post! I'll also be looking forward to seeing the growth of these adorable babes! And the future projects. I'm hooked now. The things people have cooking up in farms and their basements truly baffles me.
  3. itsfoxtail
    He is magnificent! Those not blessed with the pinch bow before him. Joking aside he's so cool! Is he a crayfish?
  4. itsfoxtail
    First of all; beautiful pair! That is an absolutely stunning female! Bettas are all very unique and grow at their own rate, though the length of a dime after 5 months does sound a lot smaller than normal. The people who get their bettas to adult size in three months do a sort of "power growth" method of high protein high temps with lots of small feedings a day that just skyrockets growth rate. The average/normal hobbyist won't be able to get them to grow quite that fast unless they have a pretty impressive setup. I find mine are about full-grown anywhere between 3-7 months with a couple shooting off as the biggest, and a couple always ending up as the runts. GIH is real and it is definitely detrimental but just from what you've said my very first instinct is that they simply haven't had enough room to grow. Giving them a water volume of the 5 gallons plus the 32 gallons is a great way to dilute the GIH but probably didn't give them enough "growing room" to swim, as 5 gallons isn't very big dimensionally. I believe like most fish bettas thrive when given as much room as possible as soon as possible in their lives. That being said, bettas once they hit the age where they begin to sort of develop a pecking order/get their aggressiveness on/establish their own territories (I'd say starting anywhere from 2-4 months) really should be separated from one another. Not only does this provide them with GIH-free water, it also keeps their stress level down and lets them establish their own "territory". They grow like little weeds when they get their own food and own space with exercise seeing others for only a bit each day. Jarring isn't a fun task and not only does it make you feel sort of guilty for keeping them in such a small space (though you know it's only temporary so they can go to good homes) but it takes an immense amount of time for water changes and such. This is typically what deters people from breeding bettas. So TLDR: I'd say they probably needed more swimming room when growing up and then their own space to grow the rest of the way! Wow, that was long-winded; sorry! I suppose I'd also ask where you sourced your pair from? If it is from a place like Petco or the like, they do typically have poor genetics and it definitely could be a contributing factor. Silver lining is: even bettas that seem stunted have the potential to grow when given their own space. I had a little lady that was the runt of my last litter. She was itty bitty compared to everyone else. I finally pulled her out and put her in her own little gallon cube, thinking I'd maybe just set up a tank to keep her since I'd become attached and lo and behold she began growing.... and growing.... and growing; she even developed some very pretty colors that I wasn't expecting! I'm sure not all bettas are capable of this but there's always hope for these little guys; they're resilient! Edit: I see now you said you have them in an unused tub and realize you meant bathtub (lol) so they probably have lots of room now, which is great! I'd say varying diet a little, and most definitely giving them some frozen brine shrimp would be the first step, see if you see any change, and then maybe tackle the task of separating them to see how growth rates begin increasing! This would just be what I would do in your situation; I've bred bettas a handful of times but I'm by no means a professional so I do hope some others can chime in with their experience!
  5. itsfoxtail
    Nerm City? Sounds heavenly. Where do I sign up?! For a first batch I'd say its DEFINITELY a great hatch rate! I think I only had like 2 or 3 hatch the first time I collected eggs. Especially if they're scatters like @Minanora said! I think I legit maybe shed a tear of relief the first time my corys decided to lay in a patch instead of them scattered. Haven't done it since but boy was that one relaxed egg-collecting experience, lol! Ooh, I'd love to follow along the next time you decide to spawn your angels! Seeing what color percentages come out sounds like so much fun!
  6. itsfoxtail
    Welcome to the forum! This is such a wonderful place! I love the username! It's so relatable!
  7. itsfoxtail
    Wow, so considering that you probably got upwards of 20 eggs to begin with? That's a great number for a batch! Looking forward to more pics! That's awesome! What sort of color percentages do they throw? Is yours considered a marble angel? I'm not really up to date on all the angel types lol.
  8. itsfoxtail
    Yay!!! Oh I'm so glad they hatched! Seven is a good amount too! How many eggs do you think ended up hatching vs fungusing? Assuming they're cories they aren't picky eaters, though bbs are of course always a fave. It's so much fun to see them just scuttle along on the ground when they're so small, acting just the same goofy way they do as adults. They grow pretty fast too so it's fun to compare sizes day to day! I'd recommend taking a picture each day because you often can actually visually watch some pretty incredibly progress! Also a friend that you lend angelfish with? That's amazing! Have you guys had any successful spawns? Oh, and where can I find a friend like this? 🤔😆
  9. itsfoxtail
    Just say there was an egg tax for holding them for him. The longest egg-till-wiggler stage for a Cory I've had was 7 days almost exactly for my Julii. I'd say as long as they still look dark/getting darker and not fungused give them a chance! Within reason of course. Looking forward to seeing your tetra breeding project, though. Breeding tetras and killifish always seems like some next level stuff to me so I like to live vicariously though others. Your angelfish is stunning as well! 😍
  10. itsfoxtail
    🤩 That is amazing! I wonder how long until we start seeing these guys in the hobby? I for one will be absolutely doing more research so I'm prepared for when they do. Makes the thought of them evolving out of our own tanks a tad more scary and plausible now... though I'm not sure what damage they could really do with their little fork hands. That guy is also making me question what life decisions I've made so that I'm not ALREADY walking my fish like dogs. A true legend.
  11. itsfoxtail
    Ooh, yay! The darker ones look promising! How many days along are they now? I think different types of cories take different amounts of time to become wigglers. At least in my experience they have, anyway. Baby cories are so so exciting! I'm pumped to see if hopefully some hatch! I've also had super good luck with throwing a neocaridina shrimp or two in with cory eggs to keep them fungus-free. I've had a MUCH higher hatch rate since adding them. They're such good little egg nannies. Also what type of bristlenose do you breed? They look beautiful!
  12. itsfoxtail
    There is?? What shrimp? I must know! New life goal: own a land-dwelling shrimp. (If I should live long enough to see one.) Possible second goal: walk said shrimp like a dog.
  13. itsfoxtail
    The most helpful red circles I've ever seen. Thank you. They're so cute! Literally thought the one scuffling in the sand was a little piece of wood 😭
  14. itsfoxtail
    I would absolutely think that would work. I've overloaded my pea puffer tank with snails before a 7 day vacation and when I came back they all still had fat tummies and I even saw a few snails that managed to evade them the entire time. I know yours is a bit longer but I wouldn't doubt they would be alright. I have left them for 5 days multiple times with really no food besides whatever they can scavenge and they were just fine. Granted they were incredibly happy to see me and some bloodworms when I came back (lol). They can go quite a while without food but loading up is always my preferred option. They are quite gluttonous, but in my experience they do sort of save some for later instead of eating absolutely all of them which would bode well for your vacation! Just my little two cents!
  15. itsfoxtail
    They're evolving. Better watch your back.
  16. itsfoxtail
    First of all the tank is coming together amazingly! Second of all... I thought I was pretty good at iSpy... I'm beginning to wonder now...
  17. itsfoxtail
    Nerites all day! Don't get too big and area awesome little cleaners!
  18. itsfoxtail
    Just my two cents: I've found the more ornamental caridina species seem to rely more on TDS than others. Higher ph/harder water usually means higher TDS so therefore we have a harder time keeping them in higher ph. I know there are some awesome shrimp people out there who are adapting them to neocaridina parameters and for that I cannot wait! I keep my caridina in soft water out of fear mostly (lol) but I'd say if you have a low TDS and minimal gh/kh in your water there's always room for experimentation!
  19. itsfoxtail
    I've been curious about using the SaltyShrimp minerals on a "regular fish" aquarium. If you do so let me know how it goes!
  20. itsfoxtail
    Congrats! They're absolutely adorable! As a noob pleco keeper I have no advice but am curious to see if you soon find yourself with a much bigger colony! Especially if there's already another clutch!
  21. itsfoxtail
    I've never kept a species that needed quite that low of ph so that could definitely be why mine didn't do as well. (And I'm definitely no pro so take my experiences with a grain of salt.) I tried an experimental blackwater setup for more common fish: rams, cardinal tetras, and rummynose (nothing too crazy; right around 5-5.5 ph or so). They did fine for about a year but I noticed one day they seemed to be slowly becoming more sluggish. They would go after the food just a tad less voraciously. Maybe it was my imagination but I swore they were breathing a little more labored. Nothing super obvious or out of the ordinary but I think most fishkeepers just kind of ... idk "feel" it when something is off. I tested just about everything, tried little changes here and there of things that I wondered if it was: maybe the new food? too much flow? needed more leaf litter? Finally I threw in just a little tiny pinch of Seachem Equilibrium into a water change. Within an hour they were all back to their old selves, rummynose zoomin' around, rams being feisty as ever. The TDS for the tank was somewhere around 35 or so and with the minerals it only bumped it up to like 50 before it dropped over the coming days/weeks but I swear by it now. Once a month I just throw in a little pinch and I've seen no decline since. It definitely could be my own imagination or the fact that these fish are probably multiple generations away from their wild counterparts but I suppose whatever works, right? Makes me wonder if it's beneficial to mimic rainy/off seasons in the aquarium. Or more likely I'm thinking way too far into this, lol. I won't lie I had to google the Abacaxis because I've never heard of it and it is a beaut! I swear I see a new Apisto almost every day now, haha!
  22. itsfoxtail
    @Desktop Aquatics They are absolutely stunning fish! Probably nothing I'd ever keep but I can live vicariously through you! Can't wait to see pics!
  23. itsfoxtail
    @tolstoy21 Couldn't have said it any better myself! Have you ever had any problem long-term not re-mineralizing at all? I've seen a slow decline in fish in pure RO all the time unless I add just a tad of minerals here and there. I'd just be careful to make sure the other fish are either already rehomed if you do a massive water change, or do several smaller ones to bring down the ph just so you don't send them into shock. Apistos and tetras wouldn't mind/would like the lower ph but I'd still do it at least remotely gradual if they're in there. (i.e. several 15%-20% instead of a large 80%).
  24. itsfoxtail
    That's a great idea! How long does it typically take for it to suck up all the detritus? Do you just shuffle it around from tank to tank throughout the week?
  25. itsfoxtail
    I would absolutely think that these two species would breed well in the same tank! In my own experience the Corys won't typically prey on the shrimp simply because the shrimp are pretty quick and good at getting out of the Corys' way. That being said I'm sure some tiny shrimplets have been eaten somewhere along the way but not enough to keep the population from booming. The shrimp won't bother the Cory eggs either. The only real hurdle with this will be keeping the Corys from eating their own eggs, lol!
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