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Brandy

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Everything posted by Brandy

  1. Brandy
    Well shoot. That tank has hardly any algae. Plant growth looks good, algae is not immediately visible, and everything looks fine. I would now say you are probably doing fine. You just might have a hotspot or two--bright areas that are not growing anything else, like the top of the filter intake. The very tips of the new growth might be a tiny bit pale, which means too bright/low fertilizer, but they are far from a major defeciency at this time. As your plants fill out they will likely squeeze out the algae, and you can easily spot treat the top of the filter intake out of the water with hydrogen peroxide or flourish excel. You may need to add some supplements of minerals if your water is soft, and I would nudge the light down a tiny bit for now--the ramp up/down may be the perfect solution. I never had good luck with amanos as cleaning shrimp contrary to everyone else. I am not sure why. I have neocaridina with my guppies though, and adults are not bothered. Babies need places to hide and then they also survive with guppies just fine. My nerites are not often happy to be on fragile leaves, but seem ok cleaning off anubias. The shrimp do well on the little leaves.
  2. Brandy

    Question

    Brandy replied to Connor Elliott's topic in Diseases

    Your fish cannot become "immune" to a medication. The medication can be the wrong kind for whatever you are trying to treat. Salt is often the easiest blanket resort for unspecified freshwater fish diseases. I sail in both fresh and salt water--boats that travel back and forth regularly have nothing growing on the bottom. This illustrates why we use salt--it is poison to fresh water life. We are counting on the fish being more tolerant to the salt than the disease. If you have a specific set of symptoms you are trying to treat you could try listing them and see if someone has suggestions.
  3. Brandy
    I also used to brew 5 gallon batches of beer--that is faaarrr messier when you have a blow out. Your house smells lovely tho! Getting it off the ceiling however...😆
  4. Brandy
    I don't think there are many issues to worry about--this is a low pressure system, not compressed gas. It can be messy, but not dangerous. There are kits that make this easier, for about $20 on amazon (you supply the bottles and chemicals). I recently used one of those and had no issues. Previously, in another life, I had a home made diy one with no valve, and it was fiddly and did "explode" yeast goo out the top occasionally. I lost interest as a result.
  5. Brandy
    The kind of info I would need are: What kind of light? How many hours a day is it on? Do you fertilize? With what? How often? What is the range of nitrates in the tank, during an average week? What kind of plants do you have? How many? Looking at the photo you provided I am guessing you have a fair amount of light (photo looks well lit, plant leaves are close together, not leggy) but not much fertilizer (plant looks a little pale).
  6. Brandy
    That looks almost like some kind of water cress?
  7. Brandy
    Well, long term, balance your tank. @Irene just put out THE best video. You may need to lower your lights, or increase your fertilizer. Without more info about your set up I can only guess. Short term there are lots of things you can try, like nerite snails for GSA and spot treating the BBA/SA with hydrogen peroxide...Those are stopgap solutions.
  8. Brandy
    If you are concerned by explosions and stability, I would opt against the yeast which will change it's metabolisim rate according to the temperature of the environment and the amount of waste product that is in the water. I have tried both and found the baking soda/citric acid to be easier to control. On an up note, explosions are messy, but not scary. No real damage is done, except maybe to your carpet.
  9. Brandy
    I see at leastt 2 kinds. Green spot algae maybe and either early staghorn or black beard algae.
  10. Brandy
    Ah. If you look at your post you say Baking soda, sugar, and Baking soda.
  11. Brandy
    I am very confused by your recipe. It will not make co2. Perhaps there is a typo? Your options would be sugar/yeast (CO2 produced by yeast as it grows, sugar=food for yeast) or baking soda/citric acid (acid-base reaction, more controllable and reliable). I went with the latter recipe. My set up has a pressure gauge, and a valve, plus a little magnet to adjust the height of the tubing inside the second bottle. It doesn't matter how much "mix" you put in, you can control how quickly or slowly you produce the gas by adjusting the tubing in the second bottle.
  12. Brandy
    I have had my EBA for about a month and a half and I LOOOVE them. I have 3 in a 40 breeder with the expectation that I would rehome one or 2 as they grow out. I lucked out with a pair, who have spawned for the first time yesterday--despite the third wheel, despite the mutt guppy dither fish I tossed in. So far they don't appear to have lost any eggs and are being very diligent parents. I expected them to need to get bigger, but apparently 3 inches is big enough. Now I really will need to rehome the third wheel (though I may just move him/her into another tank to keep growing) and develop a plan for possible offspring. They are a gorgeous, high personality, human-interactive fish that still isn't excessively agressive to tank mates. I could not have chosen better. My angelfish is much more of a thug.
  13. Brandy
    Today I counted my pea puffers right after dinner...1, 2, 3 girls, 1 boy. Good. A few hours later I went into the bathroom where the tank is to get ready for bed. There was something odd on the floor. Since I have both cats and children in my home, I picked it up with a tissue, not sure what I was about to have in my hand. It was a tiny little wet puffer, limp and still. I was sad and astonished, because the lid has a tiny gap and this fish found it. I was about to compost it when I wondered if it was the boy or a girl. Thinking that the markings would show up better in water I dipped out some tank water and flicked the puffer in. It rolled over, twitched, and belched out a little air bubble, and began breathing frantically. I could not believe she was alive! I put her back in the tank and after a few seconds she managed to swim almost normally to a secure little hiding place. Fingers crossed. I will now be counting even more obsessively. They are tough little nuggets.
  14. Brandy
    I was away for the weekend. So naturally this happened. Anyone know with Acaras, who guards the young, the male or the female?
  15. Brandy
    Thank you @Colu! I will look for that.
  16. Brandy
    @Chrisdis or blue poop?
  17. Brandy
    @JettsPapa yes that! "racing stripe". I was thinking instead of culling to the acaras, I can cull to a store if most people consider them fine. They are really bright sometimes. Kinda a lousy pic but this is an opaque female with the stripe. EDIT: Here is more the look I want:
  18. Brandy
    I think desirable is in the eye of the beholder.
  19. Brandy
    So question for anyone who does know more about grading cherry shrimp. Some of my females are a nice even red, but a little translucent. I would grade them "fire". Some are solid red and opaque. I would call them "painted fire" Some have a very distinct lighter red opaque stripe down their back. I have seen this as a line in yellow shrimp, but to me it looks like a fault in red shrimp. Thoughts? I think I will cull them--some are very dark, some are very light, it seems like it's own pattern gene, not related to color intensity.
  20. Brandy
    It will work, most of us use 10g because the meds are in 10gallon sachets. It is easier than dividing the dose. When I need to dose just 5g, I just dump the whole thing onto a folded paper and cut into 2 lines...like they do in the movies, lol.
  21. Brandy
    Stick a small rock or two in the middle. Job done. It will stay down.
  22. Brandy
    This will depend on your stocking levels and how many plants you have, but many people run a single sponge filter in a 20g. I think you will find that the biological filtration is more than adequate, you may need to change out the floss more often to avoid floaties in the water. That isn't going to hurt your fish, just maybe annoy you depending on your tolerance for maintenance and particulates.
  23. Brandy
    Longer nerm version: The drops are added until they exhaust the buffering capacity of your water, which triggers a ph shift and a subsequent indicator color shift. The color is probably brighter in more buffered water, as there would have been more "blue" drops added before the color flipped.
  24. Brandy
    The chemistry here is for the color flip, not the intensity.
  25. Brandy
    I lost one of those a few months ago, maybe my portal is connected to yours!
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