gardenman

About six months ago I moved some of my older Super Red Bristlenose pleco fry around to other tanks. They were about two inches long when I moved them and unsexable at that size. The two I'd put into my 30 high I'd thought were both males as they chased each other nonstop. A few weeks ago I added seven of the fry from the December spawn into the 30 high to grow out. I wasn't really paying a lot of attention to the two supposed males already in there. They'd largely become background fish who were just there. Yesterday I noticed that one of the two older plecos was getting kind of chubby. A closer look showed that this "male" pleco was in fact a female. The other one is definitely a male, so I've got a young adult pair of Super Reds in that tank now and the female looks pretty ripe. The only real problem is my male in that tank is now largely ignoring her and the caves and just hanging out on the back of the filter tube. I suspect if he showed some interest in her there'd be a new spawn of Super Reds in that tank. She looks primed to spawn, but he's not showing a lot of interest just yet. They're still a bit young, but I suspect I'll see some action there before too long. Neat! I may have to see if I can find some fishy Viagra for the male to speed things up. He's checked out the caves on occasion and was hanging around them for a bit, but now has taken over the filter tube as his hangout. If he continues to appear uninterested I may sneak in a male competitor to fire up the old hormones a bit. A bit of competition tends to stir things up and I've got a lot of males in my fifty who would be only too happy to have a female of their own.

The focus here has been mostly on using drilled tanks for water changes. They can also be used for a central filter system. One large sump filter can handle multiple tanks with just one system that then needs servicing. There's a greater risk of disease spreading unchecked, but that can be minimized through the use of a UV sterilizer.

I use fine pore sponge filters and I don't find that they clog. (I also use mechanical filtration on most tanks with a HOB or canister.) I think a lot of the "gunk" people think is clogging their filter is actually the bacteria that's living in the filter. With a "normal" water flow most sponge filters lack the power to suck in a lot of debris. They're more designed to slowly circulate water through the sponge. Most debris will settle to the bottom of the tank and become mulm rather than get trapped in the filter. If you're using a powerhead on a sponge filter they're more likely to clog, but most sponge filter makers don't recommend using powerheads as slower water flow through a sponge filter is better. If you look at videos of Matten filters in use the water flow is often absurdly slow considering the amount of sponge surface area. When I add food to my one tank that's only filtered by a sponge filter, none of it gets drawn to the filter. A flake will float down an inch (or less) from it and just drop straight down and not move towards the filter at all. They really don't suck in debris with a typical waterflow. I think people see all of the "gunk" that comes out when you clean one and assume it was clogged, but I'm pretty sure that much of what they're washing out is the bacteria they want to keep.

I tend to come down on the "it can't hurt and might help" side of things. I would avoid some of the insanely expensive options, but any of the name brand stuff should work okay. A few years back there was a lunatic fringe company that sold small glass vials of starter bacteria for well over $100 a dose. I would avoid those kinds of products. The "normal" stuff should work okay for you though.

Your problem is you want algae and the aquarium gods are fickle gods. The more you want something, the less likely they are to give it to you. Start chanting "I hate algae!" and the aquarium gods will bestow untold amounts of algae upon you.

Some crushed coral/aragonite mixed in the gravel or stashed in the filter can help a bit.

Mine has gone past the fuzz stage and is just a large brown lump now. I check it every day hoping to see some sign of life, but there's nothing. It's not rotting, so that's good, but it's also not growing. I'm to the point where I want it to do something. Grow, rot, just change in some way. Two months of nothingness is getting a bit tedious.

I use my smartphone to photograph everything when it comes and document everything as I open it. I'll be doing that sometime next week when the eight snails I have coming finally get here, assuming Fed-Ex decides to deliver them. My order is from an e-Bay seller and was bagged and readied for shipment on Sunday with a 72 hour heat pack and insulated shipping container. It was sent Fed-Ex two day delivery and was expected to arrive on Tuesday. It sat in Fed-Ex's Boise facility Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before finally being moved on to Memphis later in the day Wednesday which is where the snails are still as I type this. Fed-Ex insists bad weather slowed the shipment. I looked up the weather in Boise and also Memphis and it's been fine. No precip, moderate temps, and no real weather issues of any kind. The snails should be spending their third day in my tank as I type this, instead they're somewhere in Memphis. I'm not optimistic that they'll be alive when they finally do get here. They still have to go to either to the Philly or Delaware Fed-Ex hubs before they end up on a truck to me. They likely won't be delivered on Saturday or Sunday so that makes Monday the most likely day they'll finally get here. That'll be eight days from the time they were bagged. Suffice to say I'm not happy with Fed-Ex right now.

Would a fish want a bare tank? To a large extent it depends on the fish. Many of our fish come from rivers and don't have crystal clear water. They may avoid plants in the wild. They may be open water fish who like swimming where there's nothing around them to get in their way. They may only venture into the shallow water to hunt for prey then retreat back to the more open area afterward. A beautifully aquascaped, planted tank may be far more foreign and stressful to some fish than a bare tank would be. I've watched a lot of fish collecting videos on Youtube and the different areas they collect certain fish in is amazing. Sometimes they're casting nets in the middle of a river. Sometimes it's right along a shoreline. Sometimes it's in a still lake. It all depends on what kind of fish they're looking for. I've seen them collect fish in water that was so murky that even in the collection container it's hard to see the fish clearly. We tend to take fish from all over the place and plop them in a crystal clear tank with plants from Africa, South or Central America, and weird stuff like castles, shipwrecks, etc, that they'd never see in the wild. Unless a fish came from Texas they likely never saw Texas Holey rock in the wild. We make these tanks using stuff from all over the world to try and recreate a "natural" habitat for the fish that's often something they'd never experience in the wild. We give plecos caves to breed in. In the wild they'd burrow into the mud banks of a river to make their own cave. Most of us don't have deep mud banks in our tanks. Most Oscars you buy these days are raised commercially. They were likely bred and raised to sale size in bare tanks or vats of some sort. They likely have never seen gravel or plants until they hit one of our tanks. They likely have never even seen another type of fish until they hit one of our tanks. They probably spend their first few hours in our tanks going "What the heck is that thing?" They don't know what's safe or dangerous. It's a whole new world for them and likely very, very stressful. A bare tank has less stuff for a fish to stress out about. It's a bare tank. It's likely something they're very used to. Smart fish like Oscars and some of the other bigger cichlids may get bored in a bare tank over time and as they do you can introduce stuff for them to play with or interact with, but to start with, a bare tank may be the least stressful environment for a new Oscar. It's what they're used to.

Zebra Mussels are already here and have been for decades. Power suppliers wouldn't be spending millions removing zebra mussels from water intakes unless zebra mussels were already here. Confiscating moss balls will have exactly zero impact on the situation since the problem's already here and has been here for decades. This is a situation where the government "does something" but achieves nothing. Zebra mussels in an aquarium could become a headache for the aquarist, but in terms of preventing their spread, that's a fight that was lost decades ago.

I have four tanks and I don't mind doing water changes, but the ammonia content of my tap water (well water) is off the scale high. That makes adding "fresh" water more stressful for the fish. I keep my tanks heavily planted and mostly just top off the evaporation with water I store in old kitty litter containers where bacteria in the containers have largely eradicated the ammonia and nitrites, but left behind nitrates, the very thing I'm supposed to be removing with a water change. In most cases the "new" water is of poorer quality than the "old" water I'm supposed to be removing. My fish are thriving in my tanks and so are my plants. (With a few exceptions.)

You're lucky. Here's a photo of mine when it arrived on 1/06/2021 and also a shot of it this morning 3/05/2021. The only difference is mine is now wetter. No growth at all. It's not rotting, so that's good, but it's not growing either. It's just sitting in a big old hole I made in the middle of my planted tank for it. I pulled it out and put it on a paper towel to get a better photo. I've rotated it. Examined it frequently. And nothing. It just sits there. I'm to the point where I'd almost want it to rot so at least I'd know it won't grow. Word of advice to potential buyers, don't make a hole in your planted tank for the lily until you know it'll grow. Otherwise you may be staring at that hole for a couple of months or longer.

I was surprised when my January first order to NJ was shipped without an insulated bag and no heat pack. Nighttime temps were in the twenties and daytime temps were in the thirties/forties. The plants survived but wouldn't have if they'd been left in my mailbox for an hour or two. I bought them in as the mailman was driving away and the plant temps were still in the fifties when I opened the box. I'm early on the mail route and had they been in the unheated mail truck for longer or stuck in the mailbox for long, they'd have been goners. I raised that issue with the Coop customer support and they say they use weather modeling software to determine if heat packs or insulated bags are required. Yeah. If you're shipping something tropical and alive to NJ in January, heat packs and insulated bags are required. The reason I felt comfortable ordering then was due to people here talking about how well packed everything was with insulated bags and heat packs. My $60+ order of plants came with neither. As I told them at least give me the option for a slightly higher fee. I'd gladly cover the cost of the heat pack and insulated bag, but they don't even give you that option. My red dwarf lily is still doing nothing at about eight weeks now since I got it. Is that due to it getting too cool? Is it just a dud? Is it a late starter? I don't know. It's not rotting so that's good, but it's done nothing since I got it. I don't know how cold my plants got along the way I only know how cool they were when I opened the box. I'll likely order from the Coop again, but not in winter. Had I not been there immediately to bring the plants in, they'd have likely all died. If/when I order again it'll be when temps are more moderate. Not too hot or too cold. You just can't safely ship tropical stuff to NJ in January without some protection regardless of what your weather modeling software says.

I have a suspicion egg size matters. Larger eggs like cichlid eggs might be harder for shrimp to handle but the very small, dust-like eggs of something like a neon tetra might get eaten more readily. I'm not speaking from personal experience here, just supposition. Likewise, very small fry might be more susceptible to being eaten by a shrimp as opposed to larger fry like those of a molly or swordtail.

If the other fish in the tank are of decent size, say larger than a guppy, they could eat any pleco fry. Keep that in mind if you do a mixed tank. My swordtails consider baby bristlenose plecos a good treat. Once the babies are an inch or so long they're safe, but until then they're at high risk. I might be a bit nervous about larger female guppies also. Some of them can get pretty big. Small tetras would be ideal tankmates.

Back to the original question, my best guess would be more light. Crinums will survive just about anything, but thrive in medium to high light. If I had to venture a guess I'd say you'd get more crinumy leaves with more light.

I've had eight snails stuck at Fed-Ex's hub in Boise, Idaho for four days now. I tend not to think of Boise as being all that busy of a hub, but apparently I'm wrong. Maybe they're using snails to move the package given the speed it's going? And bear in mind, this package was sent Fed-Ex two day shipping. It was scheduled to be here on Tuseday, then Wednesday, this morning they're saying Thursday, but it's still in Boise. I have a suspicion it'll be a bit later than Thursday given how things are going. The good news is the shipper used an insulated shipping container and a heat pack when they were shipped. The bad news is heat packs only last 72 hours and they were packed for shipping on Saturday. Snails are pretty tough critters though, but I'd still prefer them to get here sooner rather than later.

I know they keep red ramshorn snails with their plants as some came with my plant order.

I gave my Midas cichlid plastic golf balls and also weighted artificial plants. The silk type of artificial aquarium plants with weighted bases. He'd pick them up and move them here, there and everywhere. He loved to redecorate his tank.

Yeah, it gets frustrating. Jennifer Lynx, aka Sold Gold Aquatics on YouTube, stopped keeping goldfish because of these issues and she loved goldfish. I don't know what the cull rate on fancy goldfish is from birth to maturity, but I'd bet it's over 80% that don't reach adulthood healthy. If you get a healthy adult fish, you're generally going to be okay, but not many grow up healthy. It's very frustrating.

A lot depends on your filtration also. In aquaculture filters aren't typically sized based on the size of the tank/vat/pond, but on the amount of food that will be added daily, the protein content of the food, the water temperature, and more. The folks at bioaqua.vn have an extensive article featuring all kinds of math and calculations on sizing a biofilter for aquaculture that could be applied to aquariums. (If you're truly insane anyway.) More fish, bigger fish, require more food. More food makes more waste that requires more filtration. You'll find aquaculture tanks that are way, way more crowded than most aquariums, but the fish thrive. I watch a lot of videos about koi on YouTube and some of the Japanese koi houses are just packed with koi in what appears to be absurd concentrations, but they have the filtration to handle it. It ultimately comes down to water quality. If the fish aren't suffering and seem happy, and the water quality is okay (ish) then you're good. My fifty gallon tank is absurdly overcrowded, but the fish are thriving. (Granted it does have three filters running on it, so that helps. A big sponge filter, a moving bed biofilter, and a big canister filter.) Put those same fish in a clean, unfiltered tank, even one four times the size, and they'd be dead in a day or two. Filters matter.

Swim bladder issues are very, very common among fancy goldfish. As a general rule I like buying fish young and raising them up, but with fancy goldfish you're generally better off buying them as adults as many of the young fish will develop swim bladder issues and there's not a lot you can do about it. There's no real secret to keeping goldfish. Good water quality. Get healthy fish. Feed them right. Keep them in ridiculously large tanks/ponds. The longer body goldfish like comets, shubunkins, etc. tend to do better than the compressed body types like orandas, lionheads, ranchus, pearlscales, etc. An old pet shop in southern NJ called Tisa's in the 70s/80s used to have a tank of calico orandas in the front of the store that was amazing to look at. I tried recreating that a few years back by buying eight calico orandas as very young fish. Six of the eight went on to develop swim bladder issues as they matured. The two survivors did fine and lived about five or six years, but it was disappointing to have so many have swim bladder issues. I've pretty much given up on keeping the fancy goldfish. The compressed bodies have created so many swim bladder issues that the fish just aren't worth the trouble to me. You're seeing a lot of "short body" fish now becoming more mainstream in the aquarium hobby and I suspect that will lead to more and more swim bladder issues also.

I agree. Tetras spawn pretty much nonstop and the females tend to get a bit round when they're ready to lay eggs. The eggs are too small to be easily noticeable. Chances are these are females who are carrying eggs and spawning regularly.

Modern shipping, whether UPS, Fed Ex or USPS goes through hubs. Suffice to say some hubs are more efficient than others. If a package goes through an efficient hub it could be in and out in hours. If it ends up in a less efficient, overwhelmed hub, it could be there for days. And a lot depends on what grade the package is. First class, gets one priority of handling. Overnight, another. Priority mail another. A few years back the main east coast hub for the USPS was in Florida. I live in NJ. An LL Bean order went from Maine to Massachusetts, to Pennsylvania. I assumed it would come to me from Pennsylvania since it was about thirty minutes from my door. Uh, no. It disappeared for three days and ended up in Florida. Then it disappeared for three more days only to end up back in, you guessed it, Pennsylvania. The same facility where it had been six days earlier. Then it came to me. My local post office said that the package had been in an unsorted bundle of packages that had arrived in PA the first time and that the bundle had been scanned, but not the individual package, but the USPS knew my package was in that bundle of unsorted packages so that's why the tracking showed it in PA six days before it got back to PA. That whole bundle, along with lots of other bundles, then made their way to Florida to be sorted. Once sorted, it was bundled again with packages for my area and sent back to PA where it was then placed on a truck for delivery.

A 55 watt 6700k compact fluorescent on a 20 long (a pretty shallow tank) would likely be in the medium to high range in terms of light output to me. You should get around 4,000-5,000 lumens from such a bulb if my memory serves me correctly.