Phill D
-
Posts
50 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Feedback
0%
Content Type
Forums
Downloads
Store
Events
Blogs
Gallery
Profiles
Posts posted by Phill D
-
-
Over the weekend i saw a dwarf blue crayfish at a local fish store and man it was cute. Because it was so tiny like maybe an inch long just a baby. There's a part of me that really wanted it but also i've heard they can hassle fish and plants when they grow up
-
1
-
-
Is it on the glass or floating near the glass?
-
3 minutes ago, BrandyLaRae said:
I was actually shocked at how interesting and entertaining my Mystery Snails turned out to be.
Just a thought because you didn't specifically mention snails.
Good luck!
I like snails but i've never bought any. I actually prefer the tiny pest snails that hijack on plants. Back in the day i'd get those all the time and be like, woo free snails. Right now i just have a tiny ramshorn thats like 2mm long. If theres any others i cant see them
-
2 minutes ago, Lynze said:
Shrimp are pretty versatile and adaptable, especially Neocaridina shrimp. I believe there's a type of shrimp for everyone's water 🙂
You don't have to chase parameters for them. If you're worried about it you can always find them bred locally in your same water parameters, or at least close. Stable parameters are more important than perfect numbers. Plants and shrimp sound perfect for a little 2 gallon.
Well i tried putting 5 ghost shrimp in my 5g planted and 3 died the first day. 1 the second. 1 remains. I know, ghost shrimp make up all kinds of subspecies and they die all the time because they're 39 cents. But, this weekend i got 5 red cherry shrimp for my planted bowl. 2 of those died the first day, 1 more today. 2 left. Fortunately its a male and female. So, idk why they kicked it but my assumption is my tap water has too much trace copper. Or, i know my substrace (i use a mineralized substrate thats also impregnated with bacteria) has trace copper in it for plants. So maybe that's it. I know shrimp are sensitive to that metal, but, exactly how sensitive? The water, especially in the bowl, is/was clean. When i tested the 5g the nitrite was 0, ammonia was 0.25-0.5 and nitrate was 20 or 30. I didn't test the bowl water though because they're filled from the same source and there was no decaying matter (at least visible) in there i would think are releasing nitrogen or ammonia. Only fertilizer i use is easy green
-
Some species do seem to exhibit, what might be called personality or inquisitiveness. I remember in one of his videos Cory was talking about how bettas tend to display curiosity or inquisitive nature and that's a trait we humans tend to associate with intelligence. Maybe there's something to it and maybe not, interesting either way. Also heard of people getting their fish to perform tricks for food. And of course some will recognize their owner as "the lifegiver!' come to feed. The first few days i had my betta he would flare his gills if i stare at him too long. When i tried to take a picture he would stop. I tried to trick him to use my phone to show him himself, to see if he'd flare his gills at himself. He wouldn't do it. Now also he doesn't flare at me because i guess he's used to me. He's also started on making his bubble nest lol
-
1
-
-
I just traded my old 10g reptile dry terrarium to my friend for her old 2g aquarium. She used to keep her kid's betta in it and as for my terrarium i had no use for it anymore really. Just taking up 20 inches of space.
Anyway. The little tank needs cleaning but is otherwise sound. except it doesn't have any hardware (pump, lid, light, etc) except for a magfloat.
Does anyone out there have any ideas what i could do with it? I don't have good luck with shrimp in my water or i might go that route. I don't wanna jump through hoops getting my water parameters perfect for some skrimps tbh. Maybe use it for cultivating plants? Or is there a way i could use it to grow live food for my fish? I've never done live food before. Or maybe some other idea i havent considered
-
My nearby LFS has (shockingly) lots of otos at a time and in large numbers they do like to school together and nap in the same place. Even mine (i only have 3) very often sleep in the same spot near each other. When they go grazing they tend to do their own thing most of the time (in large numbers this probably changes). I've also read that they are comfortable foraging alone but when spooked they look for the shoal. And, additionally (adorably?) i've read shoals of otos with group together with shoals of corys. That's something i want to see.
-
The bacteria also live on the surfaces inside the tank walls, gravel and filter housing. If your Aqueon is like mine it has one of those plastic inserts with the pegs to give surface area for biofilm. I'd suggest getting a sponge-type prefilter for your pump intake, in addition to your other filter media. If you want to keep using the internal cartridges you're basically forced to replace them over time because their fine media clogs up. So, you can keep replacing those OR replace them with a cheaper sheet of polypad that you can cut to size, OR replace the cartridge with a coarse sponge pad that never has to be changed (but may need to be rinsed and squeezed out every month or few months or even years). But that coarse pad won't have carbon (if you want carbon) and it won't "polish" the water like a polypad. If me, i would replace the cartridge with a combo of coarse sponge and polypad. And if i had room throw some biorings in the bottom
-
Generally, i think, your fish can adapt to the pH of your water provided it remains consistent (like a consistent routine and all that) But like the other poster said if you go chasing a number its like whack a mole. And your fish might be distressed at the sudden quick changes outside normal fluctuation. So, unless your pH is way outside the bounds of normalcy. e.g. my tapwater comes out at high 7s, maybe even 8. My tank water doesn't change much in pH over time either (maybe because of buffers in the water or from the substrate i use) but my fish dont seem bothered by it even though they may prefer something slightly lower.
add: i see that your KH is null. Maybe raising this would serve to add some stability to your pH fluctuation because if i remember correctly the carbonate hardness buffers sudden pH changes. although, i've heard plants grow faster with lower pH so its up to you
-
I have incidental experience with this. Back in the day i had 5 zebra danios. Some were longfin some were short fin. I think the store i bought them at kept them together as just "zebra danio." Anyway, they made babies on their own at some point and the babies seemed to randomly adopt the fin genes of one of their parents. So some babies looked normal and some had long fins.
edit: i guess i should also point out i never personally witnessed them bully each other. I had a loach with them too and they loach ignored them as well and vice versa. But of course this is anecdotal and your experience may vary
-
Maybe some kind of insectivore fish, put in there temporarily, will make chicken nuggets of them. Of course i guess you'd have to find a more permanent home for him once he's done
-
Here's 2 more of mine, closer up. Also after i finished scaping the tank. Sometimes my pics get flipped upside even after i re-orient, copy and save. idk why. I haven't named him yet but i grew up reading classic literature so i was thinking maybe Cervantes
-
4
-
-
5 hours ago, JudyS said:
Here goes...very first post on this forum. This is Fred (my hubby named him), a Dumbo. He shares his Aquarium CO-OP Betta Log with his buddy, Mr. Kool, the Kuhli Loach.
He's doing one of the classic betta mean-mug moves. Tilting the eyelids down like a cartoon villain
-
2
-
1
-
-
On 10/9/2020 at 5:18 PM, Tiffany said:
Phill D- I just pluck them straight out of the can. I use the regular cut and split them apart. I leave the seed and all. Nothing is ever left. 🙃
I tried that last night, but i didn't see any of them go for it. They could have while i was asleep maybe. How long do you leave the bean in for until you pluck it out? I was thinking maybe a day. Otherwise i have hikari mini algae wafers. Gonna try sticking one of those to the wall and see if they notice it. They forage the plants and wood very actively between their naps but seem oblivious to prepped food.
Oddly enough i did see my black kuhli go after the green bean a few times.
-
Just got this one today. It's a black orchid. 2nd time i saw him at the same store while getting something else, and decided to go ahead and grab him
-
3
-
-
Fwiw when i was a kid i had a 2g tank with no plants, 1 betta and 3 tetras using no filter but just the same ceramic airstone and kept that going for about 5 years despite having no idea what i was doing. I never used any chemical treatments (that i can remember) and always fed them Tetra tropical flakes. And the substrate was about 2 inches of blue gravel. I don't remember how often i did water changes but i wanna say it was like 50% once a month.
That being said, my understanding is that part of the purpose of filter media (specifically sponge-type whether its a sponge filter, a prefilter for an intake, or a sponge pad) aside from catching larger more tangible pieces of debris is also to provide additional surface area for that nitrifying biofilm to exist on.
-
1
-
-
If you don't like pygmy corys i would go with panda corys because they don't get much bigger (i think they get up to about 2 inches) and they spend most of their time surfing the gravel and are very active but peaceful. I'm sure you could put 5 in and still have space for a display fish. Alternatively 3-5 otos would appreciate the cholla wood. Or if you could get your hands on them maybe a small school of rosy loaches. I've never had those but they stay pretty small and will scavenge like corys. Or, and this is something i want to do one day, get a few (maybe 3?) scarlet badis. They're very little, can be colorful, and seem to have an interesting personality for a fish. But can also be territorial with each other (not necessarily toward other species although boisterous fish may spook them) but they can also be more tricky to feed because they prefer live or frozen food.
Don't worry too much about the substrate unless its something abnormally abrasive. Their natural habitat isn't very sand-like. Especially if you use a rounded gravel. I use activ-flora lake gems and my panda corys seem pretty up-beat. Another possibility is a group of kuhli loaches for a 10g. They don't produce much waste for their length and don't bother other fish. The last bottom feeder i might suggest is the dwarf chain loach. I've never kept them but i think they look cool and they only get maybe 2.5" (i think) although they might be better suited to a 20g or more. When i was younger i made the mistake of getting a Yoyo loach for my tank (only one when i should have got a group) basically because it looked cool. But those get way too big for a 10g (5 or 6 inches full grown) and can single handedly eliminate 100+ snails in a matter of weeks. They're also powerful swimmers against a current. Mine rocket shipped himself out of the tank right onto the kitchen floor.
-
1
-
-
5 minutes ago, Ben Ellison said:
Well I think there is a few prevention "meds" out there that are doing what you want.
#1 salt. Dependant on what plants you are running you can safely run a bit of salt 24/7 and it will be very therapeutic.
#2 tannins. Driftwood and various leaves you can get release tannins which are very helpful in keeping fish healthy.
#3 diet. A widely varies high quality diet goes a long ways to healthy fish.
That was actually one of the reasons i put cholla wood in the tank was because i read that it releases a small amount of tannins. Also because otos seem to like grazing on it. When i get my 10g set up i think i'm gonna put some mopani wood in it. I am trying to keep them on a somewhat varied diet of good reputation foods (hikari wafers, fluval bug bites, freeze dried brine, and plan to get some repashy). I haven't used aquarium salt before, hesitant to because of the amount of plants. I just use stresscoat and stresszyme as part of my maintenance routine. I don't plan to med the fish beyond the quarantine phase, but like i said i was curious if it were something that had ever been done.
-
4 minutes ago, Rikostan said:
Welcome Phil! Sounds like you really hit the ground running since coming back.
I'd love to see some pics of the tanks when you get a chance.
Enjoy the forum!
Yessir. I've always liked planted tanks but back when i was a teenager and then later in my 20s i didn't really know how to find good information for my situations. Especially as i didn't really know anyone (online or off) that was also in the hobby. But now with the current state of the interwebs it's almost always easy to find something close to what you're looking for, especially on youtube. The problem then becomes trying to weed out the good info from the bad and trying to discern what's the most accurate or reliable.
-
1
-
-
I have a single black kuhli loach i got at petsmart, because, well, he was by himself. Anyway right now i have him in a 5g but in a few weeks i'm gonna move him into a 10g and get some other kuhlis for him to huddle with. My question is, will the black kuhli shoal with the striped kuhlis? I like the way the striped ones look more, so i want to get those. Although not at the expense of the life style of the one i already have. Would i be better off getting, say, 3 of each? Or all black ones and no striped ones? Or does it even matter for these?
-
For the folks using the canned green beans, do you do anything do them first or pluck them straight out of the can and drop them in the tank? Also, when trying things like zucchini slices, is it safe to use something like a wooden kabob skewer to hold the vegetable slice down (like pierce the skewer into the gravel while the vegetable is stuck to it) or, are those skewers made of treated wood that would leech chemicals?
For what its worth, mine are constantly grazing on plants and cholla wood, so i'm wondering if i use my planting tweezers to strategically place these algae wafers on spots they frequent, if they'll just derp their way onto it and realize its food
-
Oddly enough i just asked the almost exact question on a different thread so i'm curious about this too
-
Tried to look this up but didn't find anything. Has anyone ever considered, heard of, or thought of, what i can only think of describing as preventive medication? I mean beyond just the initial quarantine period for a new fish. It's something that just occurred to me one day for some reason. The concept of say, maybe once a year, doing a med dosing on your tank just in case any of the fish have something that hasn't yet displayed symptoms. Is this even a thing? Has anyone done it or is there any validity to it? On the one hand i'm curious if it would have any benefit, on the other i could see it being excessive or paranoid.
-
Hey guys, a new fan of the co-op here. I actually just got my aquarium out of storage a little over a month ago after about 10 years in stasis (did a lot of moving around the country where it wouldn't have made sense to keep fish that i have to continually pack up and move). Since then i've been doing a lot of reading and watching a lot of videos to get back into it. Been intermittently binge watching some of the longer RFT videos too, not gon lie. Only been a month and already ordered from the co-op twice.
My primary interest is in nano tanks and planted tanks. I also, almost always, keep a betta if anything. Although i don't have one currently. At the moment i have a 5g hex thats about 5 weeks old with 3 otos, 2 panda cory's, 1 black kuhli loach and a ghost shrimp. The pandas and the kuhli were impulse buys because they were the last ones left at petsmart (2 weeks prior they had whole group) but honestly i just felt bad and figured that at least if they don't have a shoal, if i take them they'll be able to eat. The tank also has water wisteria, bacopa caroliniana, mini dwarf hair grass, hornwort, and cholla wood. This is actually the first week of livestock after i let the tank sit with plants for 4 weeks. So they're in the middle of their med trio dose right now (first i let them eat for 2 or 3 days because my understanding is to fast them for 4-5 days during the dosing). They all seem to be doing well, except the ghost shrimp (they started out as 5 but now he's the sole survivor skrimp. I didn't know beforehand they come from brackish water). I was largely concerned about the otos having no appetite but they decimated all the visible soft green algae in the tank within a day. Now i have to figure out what else they'll eat or if they'll start to accept algae wafers (tossed a few in over the weekend but didnt witness them go for it), although they are still picking at, what i assume is biofilm, on the cholla wood and plants.
Also have a 1g bowl with mini dwarf hair grass i plan to turn into a shrimp bowl but i haven't gotten any shrimp for that yet. And just bought a 10g aqueon kit on sale so after that is planted and allowed to sit for a few weeks i'm going to move the pandas and kuhli into the bigger tank and give them some bros to shoal with. Then put a betta in the 5g with the 3 otos. Although i am definitely jonesin' for some pygmy corys too. The plan for both tanks is to be fairly densely planted, a bit forest-like in rear with some carpeting plants up front as well as a few trimmed stem plants up front and corners.
tl;dr i like derpy fish
-
1
-
suggestions for tiny tank
in General Discussion
Posted
I'm hoping my 2 living cherry shrimp make a new generation of superior skrimps. Also my single ghost shrimp is still kicking. He lives with panda corys, otos and a kuhli loach so they leave him alone. He did literally try to grab a wafer and drag it to the back of the tank to the hornwort to presumably hide and eat it. He made it halfway down the tank before the kuhli took the wafer from him