Phill D

Thats another obstacle presented to me as i currently have 3 new otos in my quarantine tank i cant move until tomorrow

Some type of fungus is what i kind of thought, but i haven't seen enough fish diseases in person to really judge. A friend of mine thought it might be columnaris. It's not apparent in the picture but the tank is densely planted so i want to avoid salt. If it matters the parameters are pH high 7s, temp 76, ammonia and nitrite 0, also tannins from mopani wood. I've since put a dose of maracyn in under the belief of columnaris.

I have a panda cory with a white spot on his head a bit behind his eye. Before i treat and so i don't just carpet bomb him, i want to see if anyone knows precisely what it is. Noticed it 1 or 2 days ago. At first i thought it was ick but its only that one spot and its not spreading across his body or to the other fish. He also seems lethargic and a bit more pale than his fellows. Atm i'm kind of leaning toward hole in head but that doesn't seem right either. The spot doesn't look recessed, and there actually looks to be some little hair-like fuzz attached to it. But i can't get a closer up picture to really display it

Betta can be one of those species very unique from one individual to the next. Like dogs. Mine for example ignores his tank mates 99% of the time. But when he sees me dropping food in, he'll eat his floating food then go to the bottom of the tank and scare the loaches away from the wafers while he takes 5 or 6 bites. The Cory's aren't particularly startled by him though, despite being less than half his size. He'll even go so far as to pick the wafer up and crunch a piece off. It reminds me of keeping show dogs a very long time ago, there'd always be one who tried to bogart the community bowl even if he had his own.

I've read about that too. I often see my otos and panda corys sitting or eating next to each other. @MerkySky In regards to hardness i havent checked mine in a while but when i did the KH and GH was about 6*. I keep otos, corys, java loaches, and a betta in 2 tanks with similar conditions and pH. Also recently added a scarlet badis to one of them. I haven't seen any adverse affects from the fish being in water that's not natural to their home environment. As Cory often says, it's better the parameters are stable and consistent than to try chasing a specific figure, because the fish will adapt relatively quickly. Unless of course those parameters are toxic or unsafe (but even then sometimes lol life finds a way). Plus the kH will help reduce the extremity of your daily pH fluctuations.

Those look really nice. My only critique would be get some friends for your oto (just 2 more at least) because in my own experience they like to rest near each other when they're not foraging or when they get startled. And if you get them to start eating algae wafers the other fish will usually eat what they have left over (the ingredients arent so very different than normal sinking wafers). Mine tend to get spooked by the betta when he comes near (but essentially ignore the ghost shrimp and other fish)

Get your tacos supplies ready. I have 5 of those and although i don't expect them to multiply it would be pretty cool. My tank has a lot of places for babies to hide. Pandas are the cutest ones imo. This happened to me a long time ago with zebra danios. I just looked in the tank one day and say a bunch of babies

So i got some new fish yesterday and have them in quarantine right now. I got these from a local fish store because they're species i cant get at the nearby petsmart. 3 striped kuhli loaches, 2 scarlet badis (apparently a dominant male and either a female or sub male) and 5 pygmy corys. I've never kept these particular species before but to my eye some of them smaller than what you might buy at the big box store. The pygmy corys in particular are clearly a range of 3 different ages with one seeming full grown, and the 2 smaller looking 1/2-3/4 inch long (which is also the size of the female badis) Anyway, about 10 minutes after i introduced them to the quarantine tank one of the corys started torpedoing around like a football, then stop like he was dead, then try to move again but with no real ability to stay upright. He'd just fall into a plant (i have a large clump of floating hornwort in the quarantine tank) or fall to the gravel belly up for a while. Normally i wait a day or 3 before doing my med trio dosage so the fish have time to chill out and maybe eat a bit, but given this situation i dosed right away because i thought there could be an infection present. At one point yesterday afternoon i thought he was dead so i prodded his tail with tweezers and he flipped out and zoomed away. So i let him chill for a few hours to see if he was just in shock and needed some time. However at around 7 it was pretty clear he was done for. None of the other fish bothered him during this time. The oldest pygmy i've noticed seems to cuddle up to the smaller ones as if protectively. It seemed to try this with the male badis too but of course he would just swim away because he has no interest in that. The tank itself besides the hornwort also has a shrimp cave, topfin HOB, air stone, and a 1/2" purple mystery snail. The parameters when i tested yesterday are 76-77*, nitrite 0, ammonia 0-0.25, nitrate 10-20, ph high 7s. The water source is the same as my other tanks so i think hardness and other additives are probably pretty close to the same. Anyway move on to today and the 2 smallest pygmy corys, as well as the female badis, look to be having a similar kind of struggle today. None of the other fish are harassing them but they're just kind of laying there struggling like a drunkard with a hangover. When they try to move it's not very graceful and all 3 have ended up resting in the same sprig of hornwort that i guess is a low current zone of the tank, so they don't have to do much to stay put. The kuhli loaches, 2 largest pygmy corys, and male badis are all acting pretty normal and unconcerned. So i'm not really sure what to think. I don't see any exterior signs of infection. Have you experienced this before? Could this be just transport shock? (i live about 30 mins from aforementioned fish store). Could it be med shock, or a reaction with carried parasites? Is there a size where a nano fish is too small to medicate safely? This fish store is very well regarded locally - but is also the same fish store i got 5 cherry shrimp and they all died within a few days. In contrast, i've gotten 15 fish from the nearby petsmart and have only lost 1 (an otocinclus) during quarantine and it happened on day 2 or 3 without any real warning. So that detail also makes me concerned about the relative quality of fish i'm buying (even though their in-store tanks look very nice). This local small store has a 7 day guarantee but given the 20some miles honestly i'd have to lose multiple fish for it to make sense driving all the way up there again to get credit or replacements.

I wouldn't worry too much about the substrate. It's probably overstated like it is with kuhlis and corydoras, or a misinterpretation of symptoms. Unless someone has some concrete evidence toward it. I never heard of the zebra not getting along with Bettas. I kept my loach with zebra danios and otos and they basically ignored each other. Another similar loach would be botia angelicus or i think also called burmese border loach. I've seen people keep groups of those in community tanks with larger and smaller fish, same with Yoyos. But loaches as a whole, except for Kuhlis, will eat snails. They pull them right out of the shell (kuhli's don't have the mouth anatomy to do it). So just about any loach will work. Maybe not rosy loaches because they're so small. I'm not sure about them. Dwarf chain loaches will work too and they only reach 2.5 or so inches, about half that of a Yoyo. But they're not easy to find and can run like $12-20 each

They do also like being in groups if you have the tank space for 3-5 and don't mind getting that many Also they can be super derpy and fun to watch just in general

Most loaches seem to like anything they can grab. In the wild they're kind of a micro predator for worms and inverts and larvae. From what i've seen and kept, they'll eat bottom feeder sinking wafers. They'll also eat freeze dried blood worms and brine shrimp (when it finally stops floating) and i'd imagine also go after live and frozen foods. Mine will eat algae wafers too if my otos haven't finished it and they want a snack between meals. I've also seen my kuhli loach pick at a green beans

Atm i have Hikari sinking wafers and Hikari mini algae wafers, Fluval bug bites (betta) and Hikari freeze dried brine shrimp, and Aqueon tropical flakes. I feed my bottom feeders twice a day with the sinking stuff and the betta 2-3 times a day with the floating stuff. For that, i rotate the food at each meal just a simple 1-2-3 pattern.

"They don't even know i'm not one of them" So this picture is rightside up on my phone and computer but when i attach it here, it flips. Does anyone know what causes this? I also had some 5-6sec clips i wanted to include but there doesn't seem to be a way to attach those. Unless i'm missing something.

It's a trap - there's also gonne be pictures of my 5g hex. This would make the 3rd time or so i've done a scape on the hex but the others were many moons ago.

A single Yoyo or Zebra loach will commit complete decimation of those bladder snails i think. At least mine did like a decade ago. Idk what exact species of pest snails they were but he took down at least 100 of them in a month. Despite being only 2 or 3 inch long. Of course if you have other snails or shrimp you'll have to keep them separated from the loach during and after his mission

I've never used sand. Not to say i haven't thought about it. But reading about how it can trap gasses or suffocate plant roots i decided not to. I know some coarse sand types can mitigate that. Personally i use a rounded gravel. When i was little i had an albino cory on gravel. Now, i was a kid, but i dont' remember it being an issue. Right now i have panda corys on a rounded gravel (activ-flora). There's a handful of more blocky pieces but overall its rounded. I've only had these pandas a few weeks and they're basically an inch long. But so far they're having no ill effects from being on gravel. I use wafers, they eat their fill, take a nap, wake up and graze again. I don't see any redness or irritation on their bellies or barbels and their behavior seems pretty normal for corys. I spend a lot of time watching them because i love watching fish like that. Tirelessly working and foraging around, investigating and looking for things.

Mine also waits until the wafer has softened. I use the hikari sinking wafers. A little more fat and protein than the algae wafers. My kuhli and corys will eat those together, although sometimes the kuhli will wait til the corys are done. So i just leave the wafers in til they get eaten. As for algae wafers, i use those for my otos but my kuhli and corys will eat them too after the other wafers have been gobbled up. But thats generally only after the algae wafer has been in there a while and got real squishy. Remember the squiggly bois don't have the mouth structure of other bigger loaches they seem to prefer food thats tiny or easy to break apart. The only caveat is that mine is a black kuhli and i've read they're more outgoing than other kuhlis and more likely to eat out in the open

I was thinking that too. We're down to 1 cherry shrimp now in the bowl. Idk if it matters but these cherry shrimp i got were only half an inch long if that, so i assume very young. If their max size is closer to an inch. I might just wait until one of my tanks gets really seasoned (6+ months of getting mellow) before introducing shrimp to any of them again.

You basically just described all my fish. I always keep dwarf catfish, loaches and bettas. Right now i have a betta, otos, panda corys and a black kuhli. 10 years ago i probably would have got a yoyo loach and dwarf crayfish at the same time not realizing it would turn into the Thunderdome. My tapwater comes out somewhere between 7.4-8 and stays in the mid high 7s while in my tank despite the fish and plants doing their thing.

Yeah pretty sure mine died of natural causes but my kuhli loach turned their corpses into chiggen nuggets. He doesn't eat much though so i had to remove the leftovers later lol

Just checked right now. For the shrimp bowl exclusively. Temp stays around 76, pH high 7s usually 7.6, nitrite right now 0.25, ammonia 0.25 (both could be slightly less i'm not good at discerning the color differentiation on these vials), and the nitrates are really high right now maybe 40-80. That's surprising because its double whats usually in my tanks that actually have fish (20ish) even though both have plants and are the same age. Might be because i put a mini algae wafer in yesterday to see if they would eat it. TDS is 299, but i see that as an ambiguous number. Didn't test GH and KH right now but in my 5g and my tap water tested at 100-110 for both.

Yeah i keep bottled RO water at home because i drink it at work. I need to be able to take drinking water with me and also have one of those zero filters that spits out something pretty close to RO. And occasionally have gallon jugs of distilled lying around. That could be a route but then i'd have to go about remineralizing it. The plants in my tanks do well enough on the tap water which, by tap water standards, is actually pretty clean. I don't use a timer on my lights though because my routine is so structured by necessity

Could it be like, the beginnings of staghorn algae?