pancake

Yes, the white spots are 3d. I assumed ich due to them being white and not translucent. I will turn the temp down for now in case it is epistylis. How likely do you think they would survived both meds? I know loaches are sensitive. I still still use both, they need to heal. As for cleaning equipment, is that peroxide out of the bottle to soak, or do you water it down some? If watered down, what is the suggested parts?

I wanted to give an early update due to a change. Though I have not added salt for a couple of reasons, I did add a couple of leaves sunday and removed 2 leaves today (Tuesday) that were basically leaf skeletons (+vacuumed, which removed about 40% of water, and I replaced it). This left me with 3 leaves in a 10 gallon. The yellow lump is less noticable today (Tuesday) but still there. However white 3d bumps have appeared on the same loach. I assume ich. The 3d white bumps are not on the fins or gills but on the main body. 3 are seen on one side, and two are seen on the same side as the yellow lump. Pics provided. ^opposite of yellow lump side. (2 behind 6th stripe from nose + one behind the "u" stripe) ^yellow lump side. (Dot one stripe behind yellow lump + dot on 7th stripe from nose.) I have not been able to inspect two loaches out of the 6 due to them hiding at the moment, so it is unknown currently if they have the assumed ich too. The pet stores are closed right now, but I will go tomorrow morning for medicine. Looking for suggestions on medicine and dosage (or if I am wrong for thinking ich). I do have a pest bladder snail in here I would rather not lose but... the loaches are more of a priority to me. I also have a live plant (Anubis? On a coconut husk ball, I know very little about plants) Also looking for suggestions on "best way" of sanitizing cleaning equipment that was used on this tank. I assume a water bleach solution, rinse, then a soak in dechlorinator water. As a newbie, I thought it couldnt hurt to ask this too.

They are far too small. But I did notice today that there seems to be way less worms now and some have a tan hue. So I guess they are eating the deteriorating leaf particles near them. I did see a couple of longer but still super small worms next to some snails eggs. Maybe I can get a photo of that later when the light is on if they are still there and visible. But they look like white threads and may not show up well in a photo either but I can try. Idk if they are entering the eggs or just crawl on them. My bladder snail is still super active on the glass, and laid another cluster of eggs today. I guess it's eating the worms? Sometimes it runs over the tiny worms on the glass and they just wiggle a little then stay where they are or run a little bit in the same direction of the snail then calm down.

I currently have a quarantine tank for 6 Kuhli loaches that arrived yesterday. The only other creature in there is a pest bladder snail (looks like it layed super clear eggs too). This afternoon, this tank has a ton of white worms all over the glass. There were not there this morning nor ever before. My other two tanks do not have worms. The only thing I can think of, is that the worms must have came from this plant on a coconut husk ball. It came from a big box store in a waterless bag with a pest free guarantee. Never touched their store tanks. My quarantine tank does have leaves that are breaking down, but other than that, there shouldn't be much in there. Last water change/gravel vac was a couple days ago after moving my Betta out of there. I did about 50% water. I would have noticed if they were there. The tank is glass bottom, so I guess that is why many of the worms are on the walls instead of the floor with the loaches? I'm pretty sure the longer thread looking worms are detritus worms because they move like earthworms, but there are so many micro worms on the glass walls rn that are so small I can't tell if they are moving like an earthworm or if they are gliding. They are like micro threads. I guess my question is, will the Kuhli loaches eat all these worms? Do planaria start out super small? Would planaria hurt my loaches while I'm waiting for them to get bigger so I can tell how they are moving? Would keeping the ball plant be a bad idea later or even a bad idea rn? I just find it so odd that all these worms could be coming from it when nothing is suppose to.

Using strips, so it's ranges. pH 8 ish Nitrates between 0-10 (looks like maybe a 2) Hardness hard (20dgh) Nitrite 0 Ammonia 0 KH/Buffer hard Water Temperature looks like 76-78 F for right now, I plan on lowering it to 75 later Tank is cycled and housed a Betta for a while. Brown particles are from leaves. I picked up 6 Kuhli loaches yesterday from a lfs I discovered. The guy who was selling them said these were pretty hardy and are use to the local water, and his he kept at home in tap lived a long time, so I thought I'd give them a try. They seem fine but one of them came with one little lump. The loach still eats and acts like a loach, but I thought I'd ask for thoughts on it here on what it could be or what to look out for with time. Has anyone ran into something like this? He hasn't been scratching and it isn't an open wound nor red. It's on a yellow band on the side of the loach, but up towards the back. In pictures it almost looks like a shine. It isn't white, and it isn't flat. It is located behind the fourth black stripe from the nose.

The corycats (3) and Valentino have been moved into the main tank now as everyone seems healthy and fine. The cats have been schooling together most of the time and seem fearless. I am surprised at how much time they spend in the water column. One of them made a loud squeak after they were placed into the main tank yesterday. I didn't know these could. Valentino's fins have been growing back and his scales looking better from when he was at the pet store. Everyone has been happily eating and active. Valentino was moved in earlier than planned as scales have been growing over his eyes. I wanted him in there before going completely blind so he can get use to his floating log in there where he eats from. Hopefully he will eat fine in this tank. I have a couple of small plants in there for the time being, but we will work on getting more in there. Valentino is so docile, so I think he'll do just fine. He hasn't flared but has ran away a few times. Sometimes he will watch them but most of the time he ignores them. I plan on picking up 3 kuhli loaches and some snails. I figured that will be a safe tank for Valentino since he will one day not see at all since he is a dragon scale and got the dragon curse. If he misses food, his friends will take care of it.

I have a used tank that I have cleaned, re-silicone and is in cycle right now. No fish or plants are in it right now, and I have yet to add my filter still but I do have an airstone in there for the time being. I have some smooth gravel, driftwood, and pink quartz rocks in there. I noticed that I have some brown spots showing up on the glass and was wondering what it was? Is this an algae or some organism? My Nitrates are lower than they were when the brown spots weren't there (or I didn't notice them) a couple of days ago. Is it a problem? I'm a little surprised to see it as I don't have a light for the tank yet.

If clove oil only sedates perhaps upping it's dose high enough, after the animal is initially sedated, to cause function of living to fail would work? Anaesthesia can work that way in people from my understanding.

With what looks like success with getting tanks cycled, I have some fish in quarantine now! I decided to go with a Betta Community Tank (hopefully) in my 45 Gallon cube. For the time being, fish are in 10 gallon quarantine tanks. February 6, 2024 we found Valentino, our red and white plakat Dragonscale Betta. The place we bought him from had him labeled as fit for a community tank and he most certainly seems so!! Very laid back and active compared to a Betta I had in the past. He seems pretty interested in the purple knob of his heater for some reason. He has a couple of real plants in the tank with him and an almond leaf, soon to add a second. Gravel vac and refill of his tank happens about every 2-3 days. Still getting use to feeding. He seems to like Betta pellets best for now rather than flakes or freeze dried foods. He is still willing to pick at the unfamiliar foods but doesn't seem to really like them. It'll take time! February 9, 2024 we acquired 3 Orange Venezuelan Corydoras Catfish. They seemed healthy to me. 3 was all the place had at the time, so we will have to make a trip back sometime in the future to get more. Thier gills seemed kinda red I thought but the redness have since faded by the next morning (it is February 12 now and redness seems gone). They were about 1-1.5 in when we brought them home. One of them is a little bigger than the other two. They seem active and playful. They have active times and rest times together and apart at different times. There is a couple that like to hang out a little more often together than apart, and sometimes the nuzzle their "noses". We brought them home a little thin, so we are keeping an eye on them, but they all have appetites and energy. They eat all their food. They have duckweed in their 10 gallon tank (separate from Valentino for now) for the time being with gravel vac and water changes about every two days to keep nitrates down and to remove any fallen debris from the duckweed. They have a couple of almond leaves in their tank. Pics are from the first 24 hours of having them. Corycats seem pretty difficult to photograph since they are so wiggly. The last pic of Valentino is from February 12, 2024 and with brighter light.

Well it came with the tank and stand so I was gonna try and use it until it stops since it still works. I was just going to go with a couple of air driven box filters for my tank as I'm not a fan of filters outside my tank and will probably purchase those when this canister dies. Plus I feel bad for throwing things away that still work.

On marineland's website someone said that TS2 is PRIM220 for impeller replacement and TS2 are a 6 year old model. Googling PRIM220 impeller, the impeller package has c-220 on it and the impeller looks exactly like what I have. Looking at impellers it seems that the canister is a Magiflow. These are the labels on the canister I have.

I thought the impeller looked good. She cleaned it every two weeks along with sponges and replaced floss. Balls and rings was every month I believe. I did look for an impeller replacement but they are discontinued. (PRIM220 marineland TS2) I asked about it having o rings but she said it didnt have o rings. I am not sure if that is what you are calling gaskets. Her fish seemed healthy I thought. She showed me the fish that were moved out of it and they were about 5 years old. She did say that her whole life (she always had fish) she couldn't keep catfish alive and assumed it was her water as she was on well water. Are canister hoses universal? I guess a concern I have is that if I take if off to clean it I may not be able to get it back on. So I was kind of hoping just to run some water and hydrogen peroxide through the whole unit without disassembly. I heard it breaks down safely in water after 24 hours and it can dissolve organic matter like algae.Then run new water through.

I have a second hand (used) canister filter. I was wondering what a good way to clean it would be? I don't really want to remove its hoses. The system is 6 years old. Could I just run it with water and 30% hydrogen peroxide for 24 hours to kill whatever bacteria, fungus, and gunk? Or would that harm the hose and media? The canister is dry but the hose is still damp inside with algae from being drained a month ago. (My spouse surprised me with a tank and stand with stuff from a lovely person who seemed to really take care of her stuff! Yay!)

Oh oops! I thought I was in the general discussion after searching around the forum but I guess not. Thanks for moving my post. I'll be more careful next time.

Short Version: I see that alot of suggested hard water fish doesn't seem to go above 14 - 18 dGH online. Are those ranges for breeding or does that suggest degrees above those numbers will cause health issues in the hard water fish? Could bettas handle my kind of water (20 dGH) if I decided to ever get a betta? When is water hardness a real problem for hard water fish? More details: Turns out my spouse wants to pick up a couple of tanks in about 2 weeks or so. I didn't expect to be getting them this soon, but I'm good with that 🙂❤️🐟 I decided to go ahead and start testing my tap water to get a better idea of what kind of fish would be good for us after we cycle the tanks. My water went to the hardest number the test strips had, 180 ppm GH and 240 ppm KH. After the water sat in a cup for 24 hours, the ph was 8.35 according to the electronic ph meter, but the strips had a color between 7.5 and 8.0 in the 24 hour old water. I understand that ph will change once a tank starts cycling. (strips were api incase that matters at all) I decided to do some investigative work on the GH levels in my area to get a better number. My water, which is city water, on a water quality website stated that our Total Hardness was 361 ppm where I live (which would be about 20 dGH?) The Calcium was 97 ppm and Magnesium was 34 ppm. They also stated that the ph was 7.28. I used taptool waterverse website incase readers need help if they hit the test strip ceiling too. Obviously, I have hard water. I don't really want to fight it. If I decide to fight my water, I would be going for a much smaller tank. I would rather work with my water. And, I am thankful it isn't higher like other cities near me are. I am not really wanting cichlids nor into cichlids. Snails are cool so there is that. I did see that the Pangio Oblonga (Java Loach/Black Kuhli Loach) can handle up to 22 dGH which works for my water from what I can tell. And almost every petstore in the area sells them (petco, petsmart, I havent checked out uncle bills yet). I just don't know if the pet stores use a RO system or not. Cichlids and larger tetras, guppies, snails, mollies, little frogs, and platies seem to be common around here. So are bettas, but they are in tiny cups and not in tanks. The store (which looks like a mom and pop place) we are getting tanks from does use RO water but they also buy fish from local people. Looking for hard water fish suggestions to check out if you want to drop some here, and might as well ask for plant suggestions too (low light, no CO2 injections), I haven't done my research on plants yet with water hardness in mind. Tank size is undetermined right now, as my spouse decided this week they want a stand with it instead of doing this other idea they had because this place sells them together as a kit and my spouse is picky about how it may look. I would say no fish larger than 4 inches is a safe bet.

Ok I see. It's more about how seasoned the tank is because many bottom feeders eat algae. I was thinking about it from a poor angle. I guess that explains why I couldn't find much about this online.

Like how much bottom space should a bottom dweller have as a loose guide? Like is there a square inch loose guide to keep in mind? Or a number of types of bottom types by tank size? Would 6 Kuhli Loaches, 4 zebra nerite snails, 2 mystery snails, and 4 Hillstream Loaches be too much in a 40 breeder footprint because they are all different vs a 40 breeder with 16 Kuhli Loaches and 4 zebra nerite snails since it is only two kinds instead of four kinds and the majority bottom fish in this scenario doesn't climb glass?

I see people who ask the common question of how many fish can I put in x gallon tank. And I know the answer to that is complex. Variables are involved like how often you want to do maintenance or if you have live plants in there or the type and size of fish, ect, ect. Some people give the 1 inch of fish per gallon guide. I tend to look to Aqadvisor for a guide. I haven't seen much discussion online about the footprint of a tank and bottom dwelling fish. Is there any kind of a guide measurement to keep in mind if you want more than one kind of bottom fish? Like I'd imagine you can fit more Kuhli Loaches together in say a 40 gallon than if you had some Kuhlis and some corys or hillstream loaches. And I know some bottom fish are climbers like a snail and have that space they can also move to. Maybe someone wants 3 kinds cuz they like them? I'd just like to hear your thoughts on the matter especially if you keep more than one or two types together in x tank.

Allicin is the chemical in garlic that does have the power to actively and directly kill parasites. I don't know if puffers can eat stuff with garlic in it, but I have heard of some types of fish food having garlic in it. I also don't know if it is enough to effect the fish that way or not as a preventative only. Something to research or think about I suppose. I also wonder how garlic in fish food may effect snails as they can be bottom feeders in community tanks. I'd freeze the snails if your puffer accepts that.

I saw that some time has pasted. Do you have danios and mystery snails together now? I was wanting to put gold ring danios (if I can find them) and celestial danios with a mystery snail and wondered the same thing.

I bet the air stone not dangling there also helps with flow. And I'd guess the air collar wouldn't need replaced like an air stone would? I did see in some reviews of UG filters, people wished the uplift tubes were higher.

Arent the coop jet lift sponge filters also ran from air pumps like an air stone is? The uplift pipe on those are nice.

I am not very familiar with power heads so I'll have to research about them and thier use with ug filters. I guess my immediate questions are their life span and if they would bother long finned fish. I think some of those fish go everywhere instead of just hanging out at the top of the tank. The planter box is interesting and could give different layers to a tank for fish to rest on or whatever. And I should be able to get all the mulm rotated out in sections so the same mulm doesn't sit forever and eventually makes it to my garden. I'm not sure if that matters, but just a thought I guess. I don't have sheets of acrylic to work with, but maybe I can find something else with an open top. I appreciate all your guys thoughts, suggestions, and input!

Newbie. I dont even have any fish or tanks yet. None the less I wanted a pretty good game plan before buying anything. It will be a while before I do so I have plenty of time to think. I did watch multiple filter YouTube videos including a couple from aquarium coop. I have no interest in HOB, canisters, or a sump. My choices come to sponge or under gravel filters. I actually forgot about under gravel filters being a thing. I remember my grandma had one at one time. Looking online, I noticed most people don't use them any more and some people really don't like them. Of the people who still like them, they mention how clear it keeps the water looking which I thought was nice. And while a sponge filter is easy, it does take up more space in the tank. A common complaint I have seen with UG is that mulm collects underneath. I am not sure how deep the substrate was in their's or how often they gravel vac. I did however find a UG that is made of small panels 5.5in x 2.8in. They stand about a half inch, I think. It looks like they slide vertically into each other. My thoughts are if I was to go with that filter, I could in theory move the gravel over and pull the panel up if a bunch mulm did get under, then vac it. I'll provide a pic of the product. I plan on getting Kuhli loaches, and I did find a substrate that is 3mm - 5mm in size that is still loach safe and still works with a UG filter. (Caribsea gemstone creek) I assume 2in deep substrate is good for the UG? I plan on an acrylic tank. Probably 40-50 gallon range. Footprint I think is about 35inx15in. The UG panels would be about 6 panels long x 5 panels wide and i'd plan on two uplift tubes. Maybe some floss or something with a slit where the air tube would enter to keep baby fish out of the uplift tube and allow bubbles through. I do plan on having a few real plants in my tank, but I don't want a crazy jungle. I would like some rooted ones, but unsure how that will do with a UG? I'm ok with non rooted ones too. And I plan on dumping fish water/waste in my garden outside so I don't want a father fish type tank that uses all the mulm or anything like that. 🔴 Does anyone have any experience with this particular kind of under gravel filter? How easy are the panels to pull up or how easy can they come apart if I needed to get under for any reason? 🔴 Does anyone have any insight on water clarity between a UG filter and a sponge filter? Same, different? 🔴 Any other additional thoughts about either filter choice? Or buyer beware things with brands or styles? Thanks so much

After doing alot of research, I hope to start a freshwater community tank sometime. There is so much I've learned and am still learning. I am one of those people who once they take interest in something, they kinda fixate on it. I'm a newbie that live in the States and I currently don't have any fish. As a kid I had a Betta but he was more my mom's. I just got to feed him and name him (Saturn). He was also taken care of in a different way than the ways that are suggested today. He still lived a long time, but he was pretty angry. That's as far as my hands on experience is currently. I currently have 4 small dogs, 2 boys and 2 girls. 3 dogs are seniors and one dog is under a year. I don't want to get any more dogs ever, because I love mine and it's important to me that they all knew each other. Probably a weird thing, but whatever. Two of mine really slowed down this year and they both got really sick. Although they are recovered (yes they had vet attention), they are still different than before they got sick. They are both at the end of their estimated life span. Though the one that isn't as close to their estimate range had life long bladder issues that require a special diet so I'm sure that unfortunately effects the estimate. Anywho, to get to the point of this paragraph, I thought fish will be a good pet for my future for various things I'm not going to list because this post is already long.. but I'm very interested 🐳 I decided to join a forum. Mostly because I have a question I want to ask people, about something that isn't talked about as much anymore (I'll post that in the appropriate area later instead of here) but I also thought when I get my tank, I may want to take a few pics and share it with other aquarists now and then. And, I'm sure Ill find great info while browsing around here from experienced keepers so it is all win. So, Howdy👋