Tony s

Trying to decide if it looks like an injury or bacterial in nature. We’ll ask the expert. @Colu Besides lack of appetite, anything else your seeing? Did you see it before? Or is it new?

Yeah, not sure you can do either, but it’d be very cool. Both require clean moving water. Some mayflies can do okay in softly moving water, but not a lot. And technically not semi aquatic. Larvae are fully aquatic. Same as dragonflies and damselflies. You could actually have dragonflies and damselflies larvae in your aquarium. But you’d have to leave the lid off for them to emerge. Predacious diving beetles could work. But they’d eat everything else. Same with giant water bugs. (I had one of those frozen in a jar in my freezer for. 30 years. My wife was mostly not amused 🤣 ). Water boatman would work. Water striders could work but you’d need a lid on top. I think the diving beetle would be really cool as a pet.

Yeah, most probably not, you more than likely had standard green spot in the tank. Blue green algae is a different thing altogether. It’s not an algae at all. But a photosynthetic bacteria. It’s really nasty stuff. Usually takes some form of erythromycin to kill. Same as a bacterial infection on your fish. And it stinks. Most algae is not harmful and doesn’t smell bad. This stuff can do both. And instead of feeling fibrous like a plant. It’s pure slime. You’d know for sure if you had it.

If you’re looking at rams. Rams like it very hot. Hotter than your guppies can do. Apistogramma borelii could work. You could probably squeeze in an acara. But wouldn’t do more than 1. And when it gets big. Guppies may go missing

Sometimes they just rest. Sometimes there’s nothing we can do. If your water is perfect for the snail and you offer food, you’re doing everything right for him. The problem is since nerites are all wild caught we have no idea how old he really is. And snails have short lives anyway. I know that’s not what you want to hear. But it’s a possibility. Hopefully he’s just resting. My clutch of mystery’s I hatched out 18 months ago is also starting to pass. It’s just part of the whole aquarium deal. You have them from young. You watch them grow. And you respect them when they go. It’s honestly beautiful, but sad. Hopefully though, yours is just resting now. Enjoying his new tank. Oh, on the algae on snail thing. Mine have algae on lots and no algae on a few. I don’t believe it’s harmful in any way. Sometimes mine ride each other, eating the other ones algae.

@clownbaby take a look at this post. Those are @Guppysnail’s pictures of her tanks.just stunning. You can pick out several different plants. Pothos , monstera, draceana (sp) and lot of others. I’m sure she’ll Id others if you want. Notice the egg crate she uses as support in the back 12k Posted Wednesday at 04:41 AM Almost any houseplant that can thrive with “wet feet” meaning they do not require a drain hole in the pot does well. I’ve tried dozens of types that work. The ones that thrive the most with the least light are peace lilies, lucky bamboo and pothos. Here are a few of my tanks showing emergents. You can get creative with many. Plant life project is a YouTube channel that explores many emergents.

Welcome! Fantastic stand!

Hello Miss Ryder, pleased to meet you. And don’t be in that big of a hurry to be an adult yet. Take your time and enjoy what time you have left. Learn, grow, explore a bit first. He actually does have a brain, it’s not built anything like ours though. People make the mistake of trying to measure an animal’s intelligence by the standards of human intelligence. Most animals are vastly more intelligent than they get credit for. Some of it’s hard wired in. Insects and things like snails especially. They don’t have to think, hmm.. should I run from that. They just know. As far as learning behavior, most animals can be target trained. Getting them to respond to a target. When keepers want a Komodo dragon to shift pens. They ask. You’re not forcing animals to do anything that way. I’ve seen keepers working on training everything from larger animals down to small spiny tailed lizards. But the point is, a dog is very intelligent, but it’s not the same as a human and shouldn’t be. You say that. But that kind of career is absolutely the best kind. If you’re enjoying yourself, work becomes suddenly not like working at all. In that thing, you should know that there are a lot of us here with that issue. So we absolutely understand. Like you, here we can function better than normal. I like this. 😀. You’ll never going to believe what my degree is actually in. Not kidding 😀 anyway, I wanted to circle back to your topic to say hi, and welcome!

You have a couple of good options. You’re going to want a gh of around 140. And kh close to the same. Your ph needs to be very close to neutral. You can use the Seachem products. They’ll have mixing instructions for your target. You can use aragonite or crushed coral in your substrate. That will dissolve over time and give you the numbers you want. You can use wondershell in the tank and it will also dissolve. But in a spot that is easily accessible. The only downside to the dissolving compounds is that you’ll have a bit of a gh and ph dip after your water changes. But that should be fine. Other people do it, you’ll maybe have a bigger swing through.

@Lee Friedmann honestly wasn’t kidding about the discus, much. If that’s truly what’s coming from your tap. You’re basically blessed (or cursed, depending) with almost ro water from the tap. You have oh so many options. You can run a ph of 6 or lower quite easily. Gives you access to almost all South American fish. Including ph sensitive species (like discus) and the full range of wild caught species as well. I’d maybe add a bit of buffering agent ( not much) to help stabilize your ph. Seachem makes and acid and alkalinity buffer that you can target a specific ph and keep it stable. now if you want things like guppies or platys or snails, you’ll have to add an element of gh as well. Seachem equilibrium works well for this. It adds both calcium and magnesium to your water. Most products only add calcium. If you opt for this route it is going to be more difficult. You’d need to be very consistent with the addition of chemicals to keep your water at the same levels every water change. But it’s doable. but it really does depend on what fish you want. The one that really hits the right way. and I would redo that test strip. The pink in the gh spot is a bit odd.

Has absolutely nothing to do with the buffering capacity of the carbonate. CaCO3 + H2O = Ca2+ + CO2 + 2 OH– pH = 14 – log [OH–] = 14 – log [CaCO3/2] or stated slightly better calcium carbonate in an aqueous solution breaks down into calcium hydroxide and carbon dioxide. Calcium hydroxide is a basic compound, not a buffer. Now, the reaction is not very strong and reaches a saturation point relatively quickly. If was a strong reaction you’d lose the carbonate very quickly and have very limited buffering capacity at all. CaCO3 + H2O = CO2 + Ca(OH)2 using observational data. When you look at usda’s national ph maps and compare them directly with the hardness maps, they overlap almost exactly. Where there is hardness, ph run high. Which is the majority of the US. but, anyway, I thought it was fairly obvious. I had thought that most people already would have figured it out.

From Brandon Sanderson. all of the Stormlight series.

They should be okay. Haven't heard they're horribly aggressive. Or... could do gold ocellatus. which are finger biting little rage monsters 🤣

That’s actually great! Live bearers and snails would be great for you. You could also do something like shell dwellers. Or any small Lake Tanganyika cichlids. Multifsciata would be cool. Sand and shell substrate. They constantly rearrange the tank.no plants but they’re excellent parents so you’ll have lots of babies. Or an all guppy tank. Or all platy. Something with lots of movement and of course, babies.

Yes, superglue is safe in the tank. But… and I’m just wondering here. Is it safe if it’s ingested. Not toxic. But coins are inert when small children swallow them. Socks are safe when dogs eat them. But I’ve known both things to cause serious issues. I’d scrape off as much as possible. And you’ll like the look better knowing that it’s mostly gone.

Wow, your little guy is such a tough little guy. That just really looks rough still.

It depends. If you're using a quarantine tank to introduce new fish (which you should do for a month on new fish), and you don't see any sign of disease, then probably not. If you're using your quarantine tank to treat a disease outbreak, you should sterilize it every time. as well as any equipment you've used in it

My lfs has the same philosophy. It's not inhumane if you can keep your ammonia less than 0.5, and your nitrites undetectable. There's no damage to fish this way. as has been suggested it takes constant water monitoring and constant water changes. It's more work this way, but also teaches good habits. If you're going to get a bigger tank for your pearl, a better way would be to put in an extra sponge filter now. that way when you do get a bigger tank for the pearl you can transfer that sponge to the new tank. It will have its own colony of bacteria, and your new tank will basically be instantly cycled. you would still need to monitor it, but it shouldn't require anywhere near as much work

You have enough calcium to not bother with it. translate to degrees is roughly 15dgh and close to 9dkh. That's perfectly normal water for most of us. especially those of us with limestone aquafers. You kh is sort of midline. it's definitely lower than we have in most of the midwest. Mine is normally around 13dkh (260ppm kh). if that's the consistent number, you don't need to add anything. the animals you have in tank will do just fine with tap

LOL I know right. I used to love studying chemistry. even at Purdue. but, I must admit I was slightly wrong at the mode of action. But I could always see the correlation.🙂

There is a direct relationship between hardness and ph. Hardness comes from the amount of calcium and magnesium in the water. the most common form of calcium is calcium carbonate. calcium carbonate basically breaks down to calcium hydroxide which is a strong base. The more calcium the higher the ph is. Here this site explains it better than I can. https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=d9e066257a3db667JmltdHM9MTcxNzAyNzIwMCZpZ3VpZD0wZTU0NmFiNi1jMWZhLTY4MDYtMWIzMi03OTAyYzAyOTY5YzQmaW5zaWQ9NTIwOQ&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=3&fclid=0e546ab6-c1fa-6806-1b32-7902c02969c4&psq=water+hardness+and+ph+relationship&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93YXRlcm5pdHlsYWIuY29tL2hhcmQtd2F0ZXItcGgtbGV2ZWwtdnMtc29mdC13YXRlci1waC1sZXZlbHMtYWNpZGljLXZzLWFsa2FsaW5lLw&ntb=1 It's one of the reasons that regions with little to no calcium can have ph in the low to mid 5's, but most of us cannot

Sounds very good. You can always @ colu if you have serious concerns about any diseases. He's our expert 🙂

you have the api master test kit? That's actually one of the more sensitive kits for nitrates. But you really have to shake it to death to get it accurate. test strips are even harder to read. maybe there is something beyond those. not sure what though. I do believe both seachem and fritz are developing or have developed their own master test kits. But I haven't used them yet

Discus. you should definitely add discus.🤣 your ph says you have very soft water. you have a lot of options. what kind of fish would you like. understanding that live bearers, snails and african cichlids are going to be a lot more work as you'll need to keep adjusting your water for them.

your water looks good. are the rest of your corys showing any symptoms. sluggish, not eating? the tetras may have brought in something, but if there are no symptoms, probably not. sometimes we just lose animals. most of the time we're just guessing as to why. if no symptoms, just keep an eye out for now. if you see something, let us know.