Jump to content

tetra

Members
  • Posts

    112
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Feedback

    0%

Everything posted by tetra

  1. It’s been a month now and I just moved them to their new home a couple days ago. So far, everyone is doing great. Even Corydoras’ fry are still in there thriving, though I believe competition for food is going to be really hard on one of the smallest little fry in there. The dojos are doing pretty good right now, but I noticed this morning that the smaller dojo of the two kept following and chasing the larger one. I did see the barometric pressure changed, so that could have been why, since they were also really active. Something bizarre that happened was that the smaller dojo wrapped itself around the larger one, is this mating behavior or are they just playing? Or is this aggression? I only saw this once, so I couldn’t get a photo. The following and chasing is not crazy anymore but still happens. The larger one is also not being attacked, just chased around. I also can’t tell 100% if one of them is a female and the other is a male.
  2. If you’re ever treating/quarantining neons, in my experience, they don’t take medications very well, specifically paracleanse. But in my experience, they didn’t get harmed using the preventative treatment (including maracyn and ich-x.) But if you’re going to use paracleanse according to the box’s instructions, just be cautious to not over-dose as it could easily kill them within a day or two in my experience. @Setiawan
  3. I’ve been setting up my 75g for nearly 2 years since July 2022. I’m almost done, but I’m still filling it up with more plants, and more fish are going in soon. July 2022: The tank was eventually filled up with water back in December 2022 after getting the essentials. Soon, I was attempting to cycle it by ghost feeding the tank, it took a while for it to cycle but after a few months it finally did. During that time, I added some rocks from our front yard in there, I eventually removed them as they were too sharp. But that banana plant on the left is still with me after getting it back in February last year, it went through a massive algae issue in the tank where everything was completely covered in algae for nearly a year. And the water had so much algae in it, that I couldn’t even see 6 inches into the tank before it was green, and the banana plant thrived. Even though the tubers and the stems were covered in algae, it survived cause it shot shoots up to the surface and had access to light. Eventually, those shoots all died off and the plant grew back to normal and is now not covered in algae, but the tubers rotted away though sadly. I still really wish I had put a black background but it’s too late now. This is how it looks now
  4. I’ve have and almost always have been cleaning my media inside tank water, I never wash it off, as I actually find putting a ziplock bag in the tank and filling it up with water far less messy/easier compared to walking to the sink and getting poop water all over the floor and having to clean it up afterwards. I saw the spots on the female cory increasing but she has not showed any symptoms yet. After, most of the spots disappeared except for 2. But the scariest thing I noticed was that one of those spots turned red. It’s not flat, it’s like a small pimple. I think this could be an injury, because I have a lot of driftwood in the tank with some sharp points (not ridiculously sharp though,) But I don’t know if that’s the case or if it’s a sign of ammonia poisoning. The lights are already out so I’ll have to take a photo tomorrow.
  5. Unfortunately, I don’t. I just mentioned them as a possibility, I never got them and currently have no sources to find them.
  6. I recently got a 5.5 gallon tank. The dimensions are 16L” X 8D” X 10H”. I have never kept any shrimp before, ever. I’m pretty new to inverts right now, as a couple months ago I got some 2 free snails from my LFS. They never said what kind they were, but I thought they were Malaysian trumpet snails as they had the same color shell and length. What’s weird is they haven’t bred yet crazy or at all yet, even after being in their new home for nearly 4 weeks. But back to the shrimp. I’m not sure which kind I want to keep, but I only want to keep one species of shrimp only. I thought about Cherry shrimp, but I’m not sure yet. I see a lot of members on here keep/breed shrimp so I would like some advice on how to keep them as healthy as possible. Diet, water parameters, etc. My water is soft so I’ll have to add minerals. Also, the tank is not decorated yet, just empty. I thought about doing a dirted tank for them, but I’m entirely not sure where to start with that. The tank is for the neon tetras that had nowhere else to go. So the only tank mates with the shrimp will just be 4 neon tetras. And where are some good sources to find them?
  7. I’ve tried everything I could think of that this point, but that ammonia still won’t go to zero. The tank is barely stocked at the moment, cleaned most of the filter (not the left completely but I’m gonna go over it this weekend), did 25% water changes every week for the past 4 weeks, kept testing every few days, and removed as much mulm and detritus in the tank I could find. I’m out of ideas. But what’s confusing me is, why isn’t the denitrifying bacteria eating this ammonia over the course of a few days after the water changes? I even have plants in there and it’s still not helping. Dosed prime every few days nearly double the tank volume. Am I missing something? As well, for the past couple of days, I’ve noticed some white spots on the Cories that were flashing, it doesn’t really look like epistylis or ich. But looking at a large spot on a female cory, I did see it is outwards, not flat like ich, but doesn’t look like epistylis. It almost looks like a fungus since it’s sort of fuzzy but not really, but I’m not a 100% sure. The photo below is a little grainy, so you can’t really tell if the spot is fuzzy. The photos taken below were before the lights turned to blue. The circled areas are where I noticed them mostly. Also, that large spot is the only spot so far that looks fuzzy. Every other spot looks like grains of sand or something like that. Most of the adult Cories have these spots but only one or two. Some on the tail as well. I suspected that it could be the BN pleco I added a few weeks back, but that wouldn’t make sense cause the Cories would have caught something a few days after being introduced. Also, the pleco’s back looks sort of weird, it changes color in the morning or during the day. I don’t know if it’s camouflage or if it’s an injury. Photo below. None of these fish are gasping at all at the surface, but the pleco occasionally opens its gills widely for a second, then closes them. For now, I’m monitoring them to see if it’s gets worse or if it’s sand stuck to them. They are all acting normally, no strange behaviors.
  8. So far the breathing has slowed down a bit. But now they are starting to play dead now. I saw one this morning lying on its side in the corner, breathing’s normal. After poking it, it got back up, as I spooked it. They both do it often now. It even got to the point where one of them had one-half of its body inside the cholla wood (there is a hole at the side of it big enough for it to fit in) and the other half drooping down to the bottom of the tank. Eventually they both got up again and did what loaches usually do. So now their “normal behavior” is kicking in now. I also added just one table spoon of salt since the quarantine is 10 gallons, with paracleanse and maracyn also as a preventative. Didn’t add an air stone as I don’t have a spare at the moment, but the breathing is improving, they’re probably just getting used to their new surroundings.
  9. After a long, long time, I finally got dojo loaches. I only got 2 since they can get a foot long. I put them in quarantine yesterday night and I saw some heavy breathing (it’s still happening right now with both of them) but maybe they are just getting used to the new environment. They looked healthy at the Petco I got them at. Except there was a fish in there with a con-caved belly, couldn’t tell if it was parasites as I only got a close look really quick. But the dojos otherwise looked healthy, no sunken belly or any bad signs. They were active, too. Even so, I’m still gonna use a dose of maracyn and paracleanse to be sure nothing bad occurs since I saw they are more prone to illness. I did see shortly after putting them in, one dojo started to just lean on a piece of cholla wood. It had some heavy breathing, but it’s been like that since I got them yesterday. It wasn’t lying on its side or anything. The other one was just sitting there as well on the bottom, not leaning on stuff though. Is the leaning part normal? I did see they act weird and sometimes act dead. But I just want to be sure, as this is my first time keeping them, as well as my first ever time keeping a loach. And also, they are active now, but not crazy like most loaches. They take maybe a few minute breaks before acting like a loach again.
  10. There seems to be a lot of conflicting information on the internet, stating that dojo loaches can happily live in water as warm as 77F (this is according to Seriously Fish) but as low as 55F. Though the warmest recommended for long term according to Seriously Fish is 74F. Other sources say no higher than 70F, then others say the warmest you can keep them long term is 68F. Then some say as low as 64F or lower. In your experience, what temperature would be okay for them? My tank is 75F right now, but I’m willing to go to 73F if it’s okay for dojos. Any lower, and it’s kind of pushing it for my tank at least.
  11. Fortunately, the rainbows seem to have stopped their obnoxious pecking at the neons, for now.
  12. I got more neons because when I first got the rainbows and the danios around 3 years ago, I also had neon tetras with them. I get that they were smaller but even then a couple years later, the rainbows weren’t interested in the old neons that were in there, despite being nearly full grown. I thought it would work because the rainbows were never interested, I guess they changed their minds. But, Lately, the larger Australian rainbowfish have matured and are now more aggressive and colorful, acting almost like cichlids in the breeding season as well. Not crazy like killing other fish, but just chasing. The males are probably 4 inches with the alpha male being 4.5 inches or so.
  13. Back in July last year, I got some neon tetras from Aquahuna and unfortunately had to keep them in quarantine for a long period of time because of some Cories I got from there also contracted epistylis and I didn’t want the disease to spread. So finally after it was over, I was gonna put the neons in a 29g with 5 Australian rainbowfish and 4 zebra danios. And after acclimating them for over an hour, I finally dropped the first tetra in. And barely after a couple seconds, a female rainbowfish chased after it and attempted to eat it. I tried to get it out of there ASAP cause it was pretty much helpless. After getting it out though, it very fortunately recovered, and got put back in the quarantine tank. I was pretty upset because now I can’t put them anywhere else. Next, a couple days ago I got some Cherry barbs and Praecox rainbowfish. The rainbowfish were about the size of the neons, maybe a little longer. And the same night after putting them in, I saw the rainbows nipping at the neons caudal fins. And the weakest neon was pecked at until I found it dead this morning. I thought that maybe they’re establishing a pecking order or something, but they wouldn’t just kill the neon like that. I get that rainbowfish are very active compared to the slower-moving neons. But I wasn’t expecting rainbows that small to harm them. They aren’t attacking them and trying to eat them, but nipping at them maybe every minute or so. The Cherry barbs get slightly picked at, but not like the neons though, even though the cherries are smaller than the neons. The quarantine tank is 10 gallons, and for now, I think it’s enough space for a couple weeks until I can move the rainbows to a 75 gallon. I only have a 29g and a 75g, so those neons are stuck with those rainbows until they get moved over, should I bring them to my LFS? Cause they both have rainbows that are willing to mess with them constantly.
  14. Unfortunately, I don’t have space for the tote long term as it will get in the way. But I thought I might add the ammonia pad to the filter so it could remove ammonia along with the denitrifying bacteria within the 24 hours time provided with Prime so I could do a water change without the ammonia stressing them. I’ve already added the Cories from quarantine with the larger ones and all seems to be going well so far. Though something strange happened before I added the ammonia pad. It was probably 10 or so minutes before I added the pad in there, I took a sponge that I had in the filter out and it let out of ton of waste, which I was expecting. But what I wasn’t expecting is that a peppered Cory (the same one that had the epistylis) started laying on its side, breathing fast on top of a piece of driftwood. Fortunately though, after I added the ammonia pad, it got back up and started looking for food again, I haven’t seen it at all again fortunately. But it was just weird. It was probably all the waste shooting out of the filter though that probably caused some sort of shock. There’s only 2 peppers right now so I’m assuming they’re a bit lonely. Also the BN pleco and Malaysian trumpet snails from the tote they were in are doing fine right now (they are in quarantine until hopefully next week.) But the pleco kept trying to go up into the Hob filter outtake, it did it probably once a day, before I put an ammonia pad on the filter so I can’t get in, and also so it removes some ammonia that is in there from the tap. I did see some biofilm there where it was grazing on, and also it’s dark in there. I did see that BN plecos really like biofilm, so it’s probably eating whatever’s in there. I know this isn’t related, but I just wanted to know why just in case.
  15. Fortunately, I already have a heavy duty tote from Home Depot to hold water. But it’s currently being used as a quarantine tank for a bristlenose pleco and 2 Malaysian trumpet snails. I was wondering if I could move the other corydoras in quarantine to the larger Cories’ tank so I could move the bristlenose and the snails to that tank then I could use the tote for water changes. It was previously used for soaking driftwood, but I didn’t have anywhere else to hold the BN and snails temporarily until I could move them to the quarantine tank, so I used the tote. Also, if I use the tote, how am I gonna get water in the tank after doing a water change since the tote is gonna be on the ground and the tank will be high up? The tote is 27 gallons and I don’t want it breaking if I put it on a chair or something I don’t think even a chair will work either. But of course I’m not gonna fill it all the way up, maybe just half way?
  16. This is the same post I made on general discussion but brought it here so it could be seen easier. The same bronze Cory’s and their 2 fry, none of those symptoms, and water parameters are the same as the other posts. The PH is 6.4, hardness is 300ppm, nitrite is 0, and nitrate is still at 50 (possible 25 maybe I’m just seeing it wrong.) also, the ammonia in my tap has rose from 0.25-0.50 ppm which is pretty bad now. So I got an ammonia absorber to hopefully assist in removing it so I could get the nitrates down without causing ammonia spikes. I put the heater in last week after being recommended to rise the temperature and I haven’t seen a flash since I’ve added it. Could maybe temperature cause flashing?
  17. I decided to switch the topic to diseases though I really don’t think a disease is going on. I haven’t seen flashing since I’ve added a heater. Temp is at 75F. The previous temp was 64F. Maybe I just didn’t see it? Though it’s been more than a week since I’ve added the heater and I haven’t seen one flash or barrel roll from the adults. This is the longest I’ve seen them not flash before. Even though the API test says I have 0.25-0 ammonia. Today though, I saw one of the fry flash. I also noticed that its caudal fin rotted away a bit, fortunately it’s growing back now. The fry are still pretty active, always looking for food. The adults are usually always under a piece of driftwood and usually sit there for most of the day until some food drops in. (I’m not feeding heavy as there is ammonia and only occasionally feeding every few days.) All of them like to sit together under there until nighttime. When I shine a flashlight in there, I see them looking for food. I thought about getting an ammonia pad to absorb most of it as it’s not going away. Is that a good idea?
  18. I haven’t given an update in the past month, so I figured I’d give one. So far, they’re doing great, no deaths, breathing problems are finally over, and no more white spots. The only thing that bothers me is that they still don’t do the short burst to the surface but instead slowly get up there, take a quick breathe, and swim back down, (fortunately they don’t sit at the top gasping anymore.) It seems the most effective treatment in this scenario was giving them essential vitamins. If I didn’t give them the supplements, they would likely would have been all gone by now. Now, they have nice and round bellies, and are always willing to eat anything that falls in the tank. Not super active, but active enough for me to be comfortable. Right now, there are only 2 peppers and 2 bronze, is it okay if I could keep them in there quarantine tank temporarily until I fix the problem with the ammonia in the tank they’re going into? (Unfortunately, there’s ammonia in my tap water) there’s five other bronze Cory’s in there right now. I was eventually gonna add 13 more peppers with the current ones, (or 12) to get a nice big school going.
  19. Update 2: I just added a heater yesterday, and the temp has been slowly risen to 74F (desired is 75F but it’s getting there) Haven’t seen flashing since I added the heater yesterday, I tested for ammonia, and it was still at 0-0.25 ppm, tested the tap again and it rose from 0.25 to 0.50 ppm, do I have to dose even more prime now?
  20. Update: I tested the water again earlier this morning, and nitrites seem to be 0 still according to the liquid test kit, and ammonia is slightly turning yellow but mostly 0.25 light green on the liquid test. I’ll check again tomorrow if there is still ammonia in the tap, if not, I’ll do bigger water changes if possible. I also let the ammonia go down naturally this time, but the nitrates weren’t really affected, so I’ll have to fix that. I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but a female cory kind of barrel rolled but only half-way and came back up again, it was a gentle barrel role though, not like a flash, sort of against the substrate, and she soon went back to looking for food, and she did it a couple more times then stopped. I have seen this before, but it rarely happens, and I’ve only seen this behavior 4-5 times from what I remember, it also happened in quarantine but just 1-2 times. But this happened in the time-scale of 6 months having them. I think it only happens in this specific cory cause I haven’t seen the others ever do it.
  21. I just tested it and the liquid test shows there is 0 nitrite and 0 nitrate. Maybe the ammonia is 0 ppm and I’m just seeing the colors wrong? But then again, wouldn’t there not be any denitrifying bacteria in the water since it’s from the tap? There would be 0 bacteria to break the ammonia down to nitrite and bacteria to break that nitrite down to nitrate.
  22. I just tested the water right now, and I think the strip may have given me false results of the nitrites, the strip showed it was 1-5 ppm which is the same even after water changing. I tried testing it with the api liquid test and it showed the nitrite was 0 but ammonia was a mix between 0-25ppm I think this may be due to my tap water having a bit of ammonia, so I can’t completely remove it. The strip showed the nitrate was still 50ppm or above, I didn’t test with the liquid test yet though. I just also noticed the Cory fry are also flashing but mostly against the substrate (same with the adults) but also occasionally. I also remove 10 gallons of water per water change which is about a 13% water change which isn’t a whole lot.
  23. I couldn’t get a heater right now, but I thought I’d give an update. I noticed the parameters haven’t change except for ammonia and nitrite, unfortunately the nitrate is still at 50, but the good news is the ammonia is slightly turning yellow on the liquid test chart, but that meant that the nitrite would go up, I tested it and according to the co-op test strip, it’s at 1ppm, I know it’s a lot right now, but I dosed prime to detoxify it. The Corydora that darted around is having some sort of struggle swimming now. It seems the only way it can swim is just darting, hitting the glass and sand repeatedly and then laying down in a spot, don’t see any signs of disease so that’s good, breathing is a little heavy though. When it does swim correctly though, its rear sinks down and can only swim for so long before sinking to the bottom, it doesn’t tumble around and fly everywhere fortunately. It’s usually sitting in a spot most of the day, specifically under a crypt next to driftwood, where it’s safe. I don’t see this behavior in the other cories. I did notice something earlier, a male cory kept harassing a female cory and following her and going on top of her constantly, never leaving her alone for a few hours. After, I noticed she laid a few eggs on the glass, she lied on her side slightly for 20 seconds or so, then got back up and laid more eggs after. Maybe that cory has a swim bladder issue or something water parameter-related. I still see some occasional flashing but not excessive. Would it be okay if I did a 50% water change once a week, cause that male cory that started darting around gets very scared of the siphon since the one I bought was a giant Python tube that I think was 2-3 feet long which knocks down stuff and scares all of the cories. It says it was designed to drain a 55 gallon tank, but it drains the 75 very quickly. I want to reduce as much stress as possible and I don’t think it would be a good idea to have that giant siphon in there and scare them everyday.
  24. I tested the water today as I didn’t test the new water after doing the water change and the water change did absolutely nothing to the water parameters. The only parameters that changed were the KH and the PH. The Kh shot down to 0 and the ph shot up to 7.2 (it was previously 6.4 which is a big fluctuation in a 24 hour period) and I cut and pulled some more dead plant leaves out. And after doing so, a male cory started darting around the left side of the tank super fast, once it stopped it just sat there, fortunately the breathing look okay, just a little fast from the speed but that’s it. I don’t know if I scared him or what, but yesterday it happened as well, but this only happened after changing the water. Maybe is the tank developing Old tank syndrome or something? The nitrates were still at 50ppm and the ammonia was still 0.25 ppm (the same as yesterday) so all that work for nothing. And I also removed as much ammonia-causing material in the tank I could see. And I haven’t added any fertilizer for a couple of weeks. I forgot to mention, the tank temp is 64F
  25. I tested the water this morning, just because I haven’t tested it in a month or 2. Parameters with the test strips (co op to be specific) Nitrate: 50ppm (a little high but not dangerous) Nitrite: 0 GH: 150ppm (my water is soft so probably the easy green doing something, but it has stayed consistent) KH: 40ppm (also a little higher than the tap) Ph: 6.4 Ammonia with liquid test kit: Ammonia: 0.25ppm-ish There has been a lot of decaying, dead leaves in the tank from some plants “melting” specifically the Amazon swords, and has probably led to partial amount of ammonia. So I did a 15-20 percent water change (which is a small water change but the volume is 75 gallons and those corydoras and their babies are the only ones in there) and added extra dechlorinator (about 2.5 capfuls of prime.) It hasn’t got a water change since early July of this year. I did clean the filter once every month or two. But after cleaning the pre filter sponge, wow was there a lot of poop and it turned the bag completely brown. Quickly after the water change, I saw a male flash then a female flash a few times. There is random days where they flash way more than usual and also swim fast (specifically a female that laid eggs before) with high speed. Which I saw was a symptom of flukes from a google search, and then the female would breathe fast for a second or two (probably from swimming so fast as I don’t see it struggling to breathe when swimming normally) the swimming with high speed only happens occasionally, probably once a week at most. These 2 symptoms also occurred while in the first day of quarantine but only with the female. She did it very often but doesn’t do it as much anymore. I also monitored their poop the only thing I’ve seen is brown ball-shape poops and that’s it, I haven’t seen any stringy white poop at all or other shapes of poop. If water quality isn’t probably the issue then it’s either the substrate irritating them, or some external parasite of some sort. I don’t want the new Cories to contract something cause it took extremely long for them to finally get back to health.
×
×
  • Create New...