Nat

Thanks Ryan! I have one loach currently and it doesn’t seem to care about my other fish either. If they turn down baby shrimp, then I’m guessing danio fry would be ok too. My cherry shrimp haven’t bothered danio fry once hatched, but I’m sure they enjoy any eggs they find, so I’ll have to get they free swimming before adding them, but seems like it should work reasonably well. I’ll look into setting up some rock piles for the loaches 👍 Thanks!

I have an unheated 20 gallon long tank nested under my 40 breeder that I want to use for a project tank! Are reticulated hillstream loaches viable to breed along with cherry shrimp? What if I add in already hatched celestial pearl danio fry? Would they or the baby shrimp be preyed upon by the loaches? Here is how the tank is currently set up, just thin layer of sand, a cholla wood log with epiphyte plants stuffed into it, mos balls, and a sponge filter. I can try to add more moss for cover, it just grows very slowly for me. I have just removed the golden white clouds who wouldn’t stop eating their eggs 😓 I can add more plants/rocks etc too if needed - any suggestions or experience welcomed 😊

I love my golden white cloud minnows! Trying to spawn more currently - I have 6 in this 20 long (sorry light is weird) that sits at room temperature spawning. They aren’t expensive fish, but raising fry sounds fun to me! They love lots of room to swim, and I love watching them do some cool mating zooming around dances in my 55 gallon tank that are completely differently than in their temporary 20 gallon tank. So really, as much space as you can give them, they will love it!

Here’s a couple of my favorite photos of my CPD’s and cherry shrimp taken with an inexpensive clip on lens with my iPhone. (thanks to @Irene for the clip on lens tip in one of her videos! ❤️)

Does Scarlet Temple prefer to feed from its roots, or gather nutrients from the water column? I have been making this long piece of cholla wood into a movable plant wall, and obviously the rhizome plants love it, but was wondering about scarlet temple. I want to add some more red tk the tank, but would hate to lose one of my stems of this pretty plant to a test if it’s a doomed endeavor. This is my 10 gallon betta and ramshorn snail tank.

Updating this thread again, in case someone trying to treat velvet finds it. I've saved the remaining 11 of the 18 rasboras using the following treatment: Dosing Coppersafe to the dose recommended on the bottle (1tsp per 4 gallons), adding aquarium salt at the dose of 1 tablespoon per gallon, raising temp temperature to 80 F, and blacking out the tank with two layers of towells. I also fed the aquarium coop fry food (they have tiny mouths) as well as live baby brine once a day. I tried twice a day, but they were not very receptive to an evening feeding since I hadn't previously been feeding twice a day. When I initially added the rasboras to the quarantine tank, I dosed the copper to 1.5ppm by measuring using the API test kit, rather than the instructions on the Coppersafe bottle. After researching the bottle contents, I found online that the recommended dosing would bring the tank to 1.5-2.0 ppm, while what I had dosed the tank with to get what I thought was 1.5 ppm according to the API test would have been about a third of that strength. This would explain why I was still losing fish at that dosage. (Moving them to the quarantine tank was after slightly over a week of daily treaments of IchX and having the planted tank at 80F, with continued detioration and eventually death of two fish, as noted in my original post) It's been several days since I last saw any of the parasite visible on the rasboras in quarantine, but will continue to keep them in the salt and copper solution with the tank blacked out for 15 days since the last day of visible parasites. I feed them once daily, and they are now active and voracious eaters. If anything goes wrong for this plan or the parasite reappears after this treatment, then I'll update this thread. Oddly enough, the community tank the rasboras were in when they developed the disease, no other fish developed the disease or symptoms, so I am still unsure of my diagnosis of velvet. (Sterbai and Gold laser corydoras, and ember tetras, some as young as a few weeks). In any case, it seems to have been some sort of external parasite, so I am continuing to keep equipment from this tank and the quarantine tank separated from my other tanks, and will do so for several weeks. It was sad to lose more rasboras again, but at least I learned something from this experience - hopefully this can help someone else in the future as well.

Thanks! It seems a temp change of lowering temp by 2 degrees from 78 to 75 along with adding my two health schools together seems to have triggered it. I moved the group to a bare qt tank and dosed with both salt and copper and haven’t lost any more for the last couple days. Can’t say for sure if it was either the salt or copper as I did both since everyone was looking really bad/dying, but the combo seems to have worked. A few look pretty weak still, so trying to feed well and hopefully the rest will make it. It sounds like you have experience with rasboras - any chance you can speak to their temperment as well? This is my first group of rasboras. The school I had (was 18 but now I’m down to 11) have seemed to be pretty aggressive both amongst themselves and against my ember tetras who were in the tank with them, and kept them chased into the plants and corners of the tank. Is constantly chasing each other normal? Or do I just have some particularly angsty fish? Thanks!

Updating this thread - since posting this I have lost 6 of the rasboras. After losing the first two, I visited my lfs and they diagnosed it as velvet and advised I treat with copper in a qt tank. That evening I transferred them, having already lost another. I dosed the 10 gallon cycled qt tank with 1.5 ppm copper, turned off lights and blacked out the tank with several towels, and set temp to 80-82 F. Also dosed some aquarium salt as tank is bare bottom. At this time, almost all fish were obviously weak, swimming far slower than usual, with several now exhibiting sunken bellies. I fed live baby brine to try to boost their strength. Following day (today) I lost two more, who had already been obviously sick (sunken belies). Fed another feeding of the live baby brine for breakfast and the refrigerated leftover brine feeding for a late dinner. Checking at dinner, the remaining fish still have signs of the disease (specks on tails and skin) but also seem to have much more energy than the previous night. I’m setting up my brine shrimp hatchery again tonight and hoping at least some of my school (I’m down to 12 from 18) will pull through.

I’ve used a turkey baster to move several day old fry with no issues - I wasn’t able to net them either hah. So far I’ve pulled eggs, when I can find them, hatched in a breeder box, and then transferred them from the box to my grow out tank using the turkey baster and it has seemed to work well. *edit to add - they were corydoras fry - forgot to mention that

Thank you! Yay Oregon! 💚 This is my only rimless tank - and while I love the look, the evaporation is not my favorite hah. For now, it’s my fry grow out tank, but someday I may have some fish actually live in it full time 😂

Thank you! Glad to be here! Yes, I didn’t think I was the type to get obsessed with something, but I seem to have been proven wrong (but don’t mind a bit 😂)

Thank you! Yes, the MTS is a real problem haha. But one I am enjoying for the most part, so far!

How does one successfully treat velvet? So far, I have tried IchX for a week with no success. (Thinking it was ich, before determining from pics and good local lfs employee that its actually velvet) Lfs has recommended copper safe (I have a cycled bare qt tank to use) set temp at 80F, cut the lights, and I’d add some aquarium salt too. Lfs said to dose the copper up to 1.5 ppm and just leave it. Can anyone who has successfully cured a fish of velvet provide any experience or advice? The fish in question are neon green rasboras and the school size that remains was still a significant investment and just feel sick that I might lose them all. I have a previous post titled “Ich or velvet? Neon green rasboras not doing well” if you want more background on my situation. I can update that thread with what I try and if it works as well. (Still new to forums, so want to be sure I do it right 😅) Thanks in advance for any help!

Yeah, I've had ich on my tetras before unforunately. They all survived with no issues. That's what's a bit weird about this - it's clinging to the same places and same ways on the fish, but overall looks like much smaller specks rather than granules. Looking at them closer this evening, I think they are doing better. The ones with less spots seem to have a little bit of whitness to them, which may be a secondary infection. Going to look into aquarium salt and see if I can safely add any without stressing out the corydoras in the tank. If not, I'll have to wait until the ich/whatever parasite this is seems to be gone, and then try some antibiotics on any residual infections left. At least that's the game plan.

Mine aren't acting ichy, but being ichy can for sure be a symptom of an external parasite. For yours, I would try some aquarium salt - the coop has a great article about how much to dose and it should be readily available even in Canada. I personally haven't had much success with Melafix doing much of anything. Yeah, the betta may be being aggressive too, that'll definitely stress them out and cause sickness. Might need to get a tank divider or separate tanks for long term or mister betta can definitely stress them to the point of getting weak/sick/eventually dying. I'm starting to think that the whitishness on mine isn't a fungus, but a secondary infection after the ich, which seems less plentiful on the fish showing that. If it's not ich on my fish, it seems to be an external parasite, and responding to the meds I'm using. I'd be dumping in aquarium salt too, if I didn't have a lot of cories in the tank who I don't want to chance being sensitive to it. Unfortunately, my quarantine tank is already occupied by some neon tetras (someone local gave them to me free and they definitely have fungus, sigh) who will hopefully finish recovering soon.