Helena

Thank you for your help! I use 3 parts RO and 2 parts tap because that is what the fish store recommended since we do not have any added minerals to our RO unit. So the tap is used to balance it out. I'll buy a test kit and start narrowing down my kh and gh. I appreciate the advice

Unfortunately she passed away. I am not sure what my gh and kh are but my ph is 7.2. When I do water changes I do 3 parts RO water and 2 parts tap. I fertilize my water every 3 days with easy green 3 pumps of easy green, two pumps of easy iron (both aquarium co-op), half a cap of seachem potassium, 1/3rd a cap of seachem phosphorus, and some prime when using tap water. For food I alternate between frozen bloodworms, frozen baby brine shrimp, hikari sinking wafers/algae wafers, viformo sinking tablets, and blanched zucchini. I have a 20 gallon with 6 panda cories, 5 zebra danios, 4 kuhli loaches, and 1 Columbian zebra pleco with a lot of red root floaters, Anubis, and Christmas tree moss. I have had my Mystery Snail for 9 months and it wasn't until before I went on vacation that she laid her first (and I guess last RIP) clutch so I thought she was doing good. In the future is there anything else I can do better to prevent this from happening?

Thank you! I'll let her be and keep bringing her out for the smell test. I'm going to use RO water for my water changes since my tap has a fair amount of ammonia in it. I really hope she's just hibernating

Hello! I just came back from vacation and my sister did a water change a week ago but forgot to plug back in the filter. So there was no filter going for 6 days but I did have a bubbler. All my fish seem fine and accounted for but my mystery snail is deep retracted. She does not smell but I've never seen her this far into her shell. How do I tell if she's hibernating or dead? Water parameters: nitrate: 40ppm Nitrite: 0ppm Ammonia: .25ppm I did a 40% water change yesterday and plan to do another 40% today with a gravel vac but I don't want to crash my cycle. I added extra prime to detoxify the ammonia but I am not sure what else I can do.

Hello! 5 Days ago I bought a bamboo shrimp (first ever shrimp) for my 20 gallon. Yesterday I had a very hard time finding them and then today they were out in the open so I thought they were just exploring. But now they are acting very weird. For about an hour they were on their back flicking their swimmerets. But now they seem to have stopped flicking, they are twitching every 20 minutes or so, but still on their back. I have attached photos and videos. The pictures of them on their back where they are more pale is how they are now. But as you can see, they lost color in about 40 minutes. Is this a sign of molting or are they dying? Tank has been running since early September 2022 Nitrates: 25 ppm Nitrite 0 ppm Ammonia 0 ppm

Thank you! I thought my cory catfish ate a lot but man those little Danios will eat themselves until they are perfect spheres and even then try to keep going!

I have kuhli's on very small pebbles as seen in the picture (there is two, one just dug in the derpiest way possible). This is when I first got them and they were small, they dug very awkwardly but it was doable. Now that they are bigger they don't look as awkward but if I was to redo it, I would probably get sand. They don't mind the pebbles though I have a mix of the white pebbles shown and Seachem Flourite Black Clay Gravel. They don't mind either

Here's a better side by side comparison and my water quality

Hello! I noticed I have one very large Zebra Danio. All of the other ones look fine but is this a sign or bloat/constipation, egg holding, or just how they are built? In true danio fashion the little speedy guys are hard to get a picture of. I only feed them every couple days because I try to avoid having grapes with fins. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Update: I did a gravel vac, threw away my old filter, and kept a couple of those little worms in a glass jar with a lid and they have turned into flies. Does anyone know if panacur c works against fly larvae? They seem to be worms and it's a dewormer so I feel like it should work but I am not sure if all worms are created equal. I want them dead please!

But . . . They're aaalllliiiiiiiive *Insert Frankenstein gif* They are wiggling and worming as soon as I pulled one out. How could they have gotten there? And how do I remove them?

Hello! I just did my weekly water change and my monthly filter change and I notice there my filter pad is covered in tiny red worms! Does anyone know what these are?! I feed them frozen bloodworms, frozen baby brine shrimp, and viformo bottom feeder pellets. From my knowledge frozen bloodworms= dead bloodworms so does anyone know what they are?!

I thought that too but my parameters are still: Ammonia: 0 ppm Nitrate: 10 ppm Nitrite: 0 ppm (I am using the API liquid drops and I made sure to "wash" the tubes with a paper towel and damp ro water prior to testing)

I did a 30% water change yesterday but I noticed that there are small bubble on the top of my water. This is on the opposite side of my air bubbler and I do not usually have bubbles on the top of my tank. Given that I just had a fish die from something I am not sure, does anyone know if this is a cause for alarm? I have bought aquarium salt, kanaplex and paracleanse but it has yet to come in. All of my fish are acting normal still. But is this a cause for alarm? Also I did notice that I buried the fish who died but in the little floating container I left it out on my counter for a day or so and when I came looked back, the floating plants I put in it (I thought it would be less harsh and stressful if I blocked some light) had a white film around the roots. I threw the plants away, got a new airstone and changed out the airline tubing but it was weird. I'm not sure if that's normal after a fish dies

The panda was placed in the floating container using water from the tank and was given an airstone. Since it was just a container there was no filter to the water. Once the fish was laid to rest I did not pour the water back into the tank. That being said, I did notice suspicious activity from it 30~ hours prior to being quarantined. (suspicious activity being it avoiding food even when presented in front of it and then the white tuft on the fin) I will go and buy aquarium salt, kanaplex and paracleanse. I am also going to do a water change and vacuum just Incase I need to start treating

Update: I was able to go to the store and get some clove oil to put down the little guy. May he swim in peace. That being said. I did notice this morning his tail had started to turn more translucent and there was a film on it. The bits on it are excess food I left in hopes of him eating some but that did not happen. All of my other fish (6 normal pandas, 1 long fin, 4 khulis, and 5 zebra Danios) are all acting normal and show no signs of struggle (all eating normally, active, and social). Should I treat my whole tank or do you think what got this little guy was prior care illness? If I should treat my whole tank: what medication should I look into? I have no idea how to diagnose what got this little guy.

Yesterday the tuft looked like cotton but it is gone now. I am not sure what happened to it or where it went but now the ends of their tail is see through (as you can see in the first picture I sent. I added the two long fins on Nov 25th, they were given to me by my LFS owner because he was transitioning tanks and in the transitioning of his tank he lost some of his pandas so he rehomed them to me. I currently have him floating in a gallon jug in my fishtank because I do not have a quarantine tank or a separate heater/sponge. I gave him a little bit of food and they have not touched it. He is laying on his side and his stomach looks so sunken its sad 😞 PH 7.4 and Temp 76 For food I alternate between frozen blood worms, frozen baby brine shrimp, and Viformo bottom feeder tablets I only feed enough that they can eat within 15 minutes and I alternate between 20% water changes and 40% vacuum every week I also do not have any medication on hand This is his poor little stomach. He doesn't look like he has any external scratches. He is breathing very rapid but he is on his side. All of my other fish seem to be acting normal (all come out for feeding and are shoaling like normal)

Also yesterday I noticed his tail seemed to have a white tuft on it . I thought it was a fungal infection but today it's not there anymore

Hello! My long fin panda is not doing good. I noticed when I got them that they didn't take with the rest of my other panda Cory's (total 6 normal 2 long fin in a 20long). I would separate the food into different sections of my tank because I thought the issue was them being out competed but they still wouldn't eat. They are significantly smaller than my other pandas even though they were bought at the same time. But I just put it into quarantine because it seemed to be in the same spot for too long and when it swam it was very sporadic and more like "hops". Everyone else in the tank is fine, it is just this little guy. Three days ago I noticed panda Cory eggs. I removed a couple because they started to grow a haze around it and I thought that was bacteria. So maybe it ate a bad egg? Also I can't tell if it has a bad spine or not. What are your thoughts and how should I treat them? (Attached photos of same fish different sizes if that helps diagnose) Ammonia: 0 Nitrite: 0 Nitrate: 15ppm

I used 100% silicone (made sure there was no additives) and I did not seal up all of the gaps. I actually made it modular so each side is segmented in 3 pieces incase I wanted to change the angle later. The substrate I have for the black is Seachem Flourite Black Clay Gravel and the white is some small gravel I got on amazon, if you are interested in the specifics let me know and I can hunt down exactly what I used. To make the hill for the tree, I didn't have a lot of black substrate (it's expensive) so what I ended up doing was buying a cheap 100% plastic pot from Home Depot and cutting it to the height I wanted, then I got some cheap filter bags (make sure they have drawstring and not a metal zipper) and filled it up with the white sand and put a couple around the pot to fill in the space. Then I topped it off with my black gravel so you can't see any of it. I have a 20 long and the 15.5 lbs bag was enough to cover my whole tank because of the pot and filter bag/sand combination I did. If you don't want gaps in-between the two sides then you can mix some of the substrate and use that as a filler for the gaps. Personally I don't mind some mixing of gravel and as you can see, my khulis like to wiggle between them.

Thank you everyone for suggesting Ottos, they do seem like helpful fish but I think I will wait until I get a larger tank. I have redroot floaters and I thought the cherry shrimp would pop. Plus I have never had shrimp and would love to try my hand at having them!

I unfortunately did not take pictures of my process but I do have one: What I did was lay out paper on the bottom of my tank to see what angle I wanted for the path, traced it and then cut it out, then I got small pieces of slate off of Amazon and stacked and glued them with silicone. Since I have a black rim on my tank I had to make it tall so it will stand out. But just make sure you wait a couple days for the silicone to dry

That is a good idea! I will definitely look into this! Thanks for the suggestion

Yes I was thinking about getting some shrimp! I've been a bit nervous since I got khulis and I've heard mixed opinions on them and shrimp. But I'm glad to know that the shrimp would eat it. Since my tank is barely a month old, I was going to wait until the 3 or 4 month mark to make sure it's fully established. I think in my next tank cleaning I'll do a light scrub on the rocks and make sure it's not on the Anubis

I do! The first pic is when I just started the tank so the white cloud minnows we're replaced with my fish: panda Cory's, khulis, long fin zebra Danios, and a Columbian Zebra Pleco (pleco and Danios are impossible to photograph)