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Brandy

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Everything posted by Brandy

  1. Brandy
    well, I also have unlimited red cherry shrimp so I suppose that might also be an option...With heavy cover they might even be self sustaining in the tank.
  2. Brandy
    So Hypothetically, if a person had seven tanks with a healthy pest snail population in each, and a dangerous blood worm allergy, could you feed a pea puffer exclusively on snails? How many would they need each day?
  3. Brandy
    Hi guys. My kiddo has a planted tank, 10g. It is cycled, about 3 months old, running a sponge filter, ammonia, nitrates and nitrites all at 0-- nitrates are mostly waay low in this tank, we don't really fertilize it, the plants are duck weed, java moss, and left over val runners cast off from other tanks. pH is 7.6-ish, and the heater is a bit sketch, got up to 81, but is meant to be set at 78. I have a secondary thermometer in there and am eyeballing it several times a day. Water is soft. The tank has has a couple of losses. fish were medicated with the trio on the way in. We lost a betta to emaciation twice now. And now 2 of the danios are not eating and emaciated too. I am suspecting internal parasites of some kind, due to the slow sporadic attrition. The tank also contains khuli loaches and random snails. I have on hand the med trio, and levamisole. What would you recommend here?
  4. Brandy
    Yeah we are totally barely awake out here in washington! 🙂 good thinking!
  5. Brandy
    Hi Tianna! Nice looking tank. You can perform water changes to help lower nitrites temporarily, but what you have is a half cycled tank. Personally I would use an ammonia binding water conditioner like Seachem Prime combined with water changes to help boost your tank thru this last stage of the cycle while protecting your fish. Your live plants will strip out ammonia fairly well but they grab nitrites a little more slowly if I recall correctly, and you want your bacteria to grow and multiply to help do that job. This means you need to leave enough food in there for them while keeping it from hurting your fish. I would aim for small (10-20%) daily water changes, and some extra prime daily until the nitrites drop to zero. Don't clean the glass or vacuum the gravel or in any way disturb the surfaces of your tank while making water changes. Some people use a bacteria booster (ie seachem stability) but there are mixed reviews on whether they help. Ultimately there is no substitute for time.
  6. Brandy
    I love this. That you noticed it, filmed it, set it to music, and crowed about it to your wife when you got it done. My morning is so much better right now.
  7. Brandy
    I do know a live quirky group that is local to Seattle if that were a thing that was wanted. Not quite 100 people (more like 15-20), but they have a lot of style, lol. https://www.facebook.com/thefremontphilharmonic/ (their real site appears to be down) More of a goofy swing/vaudeville vibe than orchestral.
  8. Brandy
    Ironically, those are almost exactly my my water parameters at the tap. I may need to invest in a few banana plants, lol. Not being anywhere near the US SE, I will probably rely on ACO for my source!
  9. Brandy
    Wow! Thanks!! I am so excited for the mystery items!
  10. Brandy
    I suspect you are referring to what I think is a snail siphon--the protrusion just behind the antennae of the snail in the bottom right that is out of his shell. A siphon is a common structure on many mollusks which directs water across gills. In some it also aids in locomotion--jetting action in some shellfish and octopods. Honestly, I didn't know Ramshorn snails had those, but now I am going to be looking hard at mine trying to spot them!
  11. Brandy
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  12. Brandy
    @Mr. Ed's Aquatics I think I might put her in the display tank first actually and leave the happy couple in the QT a bit longer. Let her fully scope out all the hidey holes and blind corners. Let her have the home court advantage.
  13. Brandy
    Update: Contrary to all my stress and most of the proffered advice, I decided to do nothing. I watched closely, and saw that there were no torn fins or injuries occurring. In the meantime my plants continued to grow. My tank is now so packed with plants that there are times when I can't find ANY rams. I see the rummy nose school, and maybe an otocinclus, but that is about it. The khuli loaches are invisible and the rams put in brief appearances, but can also disappear. Not bad for 29g. The little female has recovered her color and her moxy. She frequently challenges the other female for dominance, and only retreats if the male backs up his girlfriend, and then only momentarily. Nobody is being hurt, and everybody is fat and sassy. A sudden darting "attack" is foiled by dodging amongst the leaves, and the pursuer loses interest in less than 3 fish body lengths. The rams are gorgeous and I am very glad I stuck it out--I am also glad I had ready options in case things suddenly went south. Thanks all for the emotional support!
  14. Brandy
    Mine is in Eco-complete (fine gravel sized). I do not use root tabs and I do not gravel vac...so the fish waste is my root tab. The tank is so heavily planted there is virtually no bare substrate to vac. I suspect it will do well, though you may need to boost it with a bit of root tabs if the gravel is squeaky clean. I seem to remember seeing Cory planting it in pool sand which is coarse grade sand. Here is a pic of a wayward val runner I pulled out last night and tossed into my guppy grow out tank. You can see the size of gravel clinging to the roots.
  15. Brandy
    Well, I have been going nuts here, thinking I also seemed to have really high phosphate in all my tanks--and +3ppm in my Seattle tap water?! I need to get some distilled water and test the test kit, I see. I am exceedingly suspicious, though the expiration date is 3/2023. Still. Question: What is the upper "safe" limit for phosphate? For fish? For plants? If I balance the other nutrients (increasing the N and K and trace) wouldn't my plants solve the problem, assuming it exists?
  16. Brandy
    If you can get a Vallisneria that already has some runners and is locally grown to you (check craigslist in the US) you will probably have the best luck. It seems the stuff will adapt to many conditions, but takes a while to adapt. So if shipped from another water type it may have too much to deal with.
  17. Brandy
    "Most aquatic plants don't spread by seeds" means these are most likely terrestrial plants packaged as if they were not. A "dry start" would work--you could get the same effect by planting lawn seed in damp tank substrate. They will sprout, but then when you fill the tank with water they will react as your lawn would if you built a pond on top of it. They will die. This is what I have heard too. There are plants that will grow in both submerged and emergent forms, but I would really be suspicious of their honesty. This is a case of "if it sounds too good to be true it probably is." On the other hand, if you have $2.65 and some time to kill and you just can't resist, at least document your efforts for future questions! 🙂
  18. Brandy
    I have always been suspicious of seeds. I figure you don't know what you are really getting, how to start them, and with prices like that I strongly suspect growing these plants is more challenging than a chia pet. I could be completely wrong of course. But I think you are better off with something a little more tried and true if you are kinda new to plants.
  19. Brandy
    could you add loaches? Is the tank overstocked? I think if you could get some loaches and then trap the daylights out of them that would probably get it down to below her notice very fast.
  20. Brandy
    I have tried red cherry shrimp with rams. I don't know if they are still in there to be honest. I put in just a few and they hid very effectively in the plants. I thought they had all been eaten but now and then I see one, after weeks of not seeing them. I do also have ottos in the tank. The ottos are doing great. The amanos I also tried. they were not my favorite shrimp. Mostly they camped on the filter intake sponge and were largely worthless as scavengers or algae eaters. I may have just gotten the laziest amanos on the planet or something, I don't know.
  21. Brandy
    I am all LEDs, why do you prefer the fluorescent lights? I used to have them, but leds are cheap and bright now. You could even consider using an indoor outdoor LED flood light in this application since the hood would provide a structure to attach to?
  22. Brandy
    When you add fish (depending on the plan) they will eat the eggs. Then diligent netting will eventually clear them. It sounds like pond snails or bladder snails--they breed like crazy. You can also trap some of them by baiting a cup with cucumber or an algae pellet. If you lift it straight up they will be caught. But without some kind of egg control, you will have to work very hard.
  23. Brandy
    Poop I think...tho not healthy poop. My test in the poop vs worm debate has always been to poke it with a stick. If it is poop it will disintegrate usually, a worm that large will retain its shape and you should be able to lift it from the tank intact with a skewer or forceps if you are gentle. Possibly you could even net it. Once out of the tank with magnification it should look like a worm with defined ends.
  24. Brandy
    Wellllll, will it STAY plants and invertebrates though? I mean if I had 75 gallons just sitting there...and the shrimp were well established and the plants had filled in...That is a lot of unused volume. I think a lot of us would find a thing that would go in there. But maybe @AdamScott has much more self control than I do.
  25. Brandy
    I just want you to see this thread. Sometimes, there really is nothing you can do. https://forum.aquariumcoop.com/topic/342-tetras-gaspinghelp/?tab=comments#comment-2037 As an update, I have a thriving school of 20 rummynose tetras, and no further losses. And I hear Cory's amazing school is doing well as well. Most fish are either farmed or wild caught. Both situations mean they can arrive with disease or parasites. We help as much as we can, but there is truth to the fact that no one can save every fish.
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