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Kirsten

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Everything posted by Kirsten

  1. Hi! So glad you've helped set up a tank for your daughter and are encouraging her interests. If her favorite colors are pink and purple, you've gone a long way to helping her see this as a hobby that fits her tastes. This hobby tends to be a little male-dominated, which makes no sense, so I think it's especially important to encourage girls to explore it. This plant looks like Scarlet Temple to me, a stem plant. Stem plants get their nutrients in equal parts from the water column and from the substrate. They'll often put out roots along their stems. Don't be alarmed if you see the lower stem start to rot away and the top parts float free. That's how they propagate and move around in nature to find the best situation. Easy Green should be fine, and they like medium to high lighting, so I think you'll also be fine there. Be prepared for them to grow tall, towards the light. When they get too tall for your liking, you can cut their stems and replant their tops (though some meticulous nano tank enthusiasts will remove the lower, less lovely stem and replant just the top). Mine are wrapped in foam as well, and I had the same question about whether I should remove it or not. The place I bought it from said I could keep it on, so I'm trying it, and it's been a month or two now with no ill effects (other than some not getting enough light, getting spindly, and floating free).
  2. Since they're already a mix endlers and guppies, may as well cross them with whatever you like! Endler fanciers like myself will often like to keep purebred "N-class" endlers, directly related to the wild-caught endlers that have never been crossed with guppies. Those, we keep in separate tanks in separate parts of the house, even, from any guppies. But if you know you have a hybrid, and don't much care about the coloration of the offspring, feel free to add whatever's available, endler or guppy. I've heard that endlers are often more hardy and less likely to eat their young than guppies, but I have both breeding away in separate tanks and I haven't noticed much difference! That said, with two males, I think you'll have plenty of genetic variation to see you through at least a couple years of endler-guppy husbandry. You'll have fry before you know it, and those fry will have fry, and congratulations, you now have 200+ young fish to feed and rehome. At that point, it's really survival of the fittest, and males will do a little mating dance to win females, who'll get to be choosy, so I think you can let nature take over at that point and let the fish select their preferred mates. But a fish swap with other livebearer owners is never a bad thing for keeping the stock genetically exciting. Just make sure they know you have hybrids.
  3. Sorry to hear about the loss of some of your females! I haven't tried mollies yet, but I do have growing colonies of endlers, platies, guppies, and swordtails. In my experience, yeah, females do tend to be much shorter-lived than males. Giving birth to large, healthy, developed young is really hard on their bodies, not to mention getting constantly chased by the males. That said, it does seem unusual to have two die so close together, both from hard births. Does the male have a huge head or something? That's more of a joke than a sincere question, but maybe he does have some genetic thing where his offspring are very hard to give birth to. Are they balloon mollies? One thing I know about mollies is that they need Very Hard water to thrive. Many are even kept in brackish tanks before being sold to pet stores. I don't know if there's a strong connection between GH and ease of childbirth, but making sure you have their preferred hardness levels could probably help in many ways.
  4. Totally natural and normal. If you don't have any algae eaters in there yet, the algae should eventually die off on its own as the plants grow and take up all the nutrients. But I wouldn't be surprised if you have a couple of snail stowaways on some of your plants that can take care of it.
  5. Nah, not seriously trying to breed. If one or two make it, awesome! But I have enough livebearers making babies everywhere, don't need a ton more. That said, man, borellii are hard to find and expensive! So I'd like to at least have some replacement spawns make it through. While I have plenty of south american livebearers, I'm worried that none will thrive in the soft, acidic environment the apistos need. So some endlers might do in a pinch, but I think I want other soft water fish for this tank.
  6. I'd go for 20+ silvertip tetras. They school in such a cool way!
  7. So I guess my question is: would larger tetras like Diamonds still work as dither fish, or would the apistos prefer to see smaller tetras like embers? Another option I just remembered is 10 or 20 Silvertip tetras instead. They would probably look good with the Borellii, but it might be a lot of yellow...
  8. You're in good hands here on this forum! I remember visiting my local pet store recently, ignored as always by the young, overworked and underpaid employees, but hearing the young man working in the fish department say, over the phone to some other customer "Okay, what do you know about the nitrogen cycle?" I pantomimed to him that I was fine and to keep going, he was going to be there awhile! As for me, I started, perhaps quite unwisely, with some API quickstart, stress zyme, and a butt-ton of plants and made it through. Sometimes canned beneficial bacteria can do the heavy lifting, sometimes it can't. Since it sounds like you're already halfway there with nitrites, I'd recommend some fast reproducing snails like ramshorns or malaysian trumpet snails, which can survive almost anywhere there's waste or algae, produce some themselves, and can help feed the beneficial bacteria as the final stage emerges to turn nitrite into nitrate. Live plants also help a lot, not just in using every part of the nitrogen cycle, but also for providing even more surface area for the beneficial bacteria to grow. Get even more planted and keep slowly feeding it fish food and you should see 0 nitrites, and lots of nitrates soon enough!
  9. hahah, wow, lookit that big mama! I even had one or two old matriarchs like that among my pygmies. Alright, you may have sold me 🙂 Think they'll like a Black Diamond substrate?
  10. LOL I love your consistency! I dunno, I keep trying 6-10 pygmy cories, which are so so cute, in all my soft water setups and then never see them again. Should I try a larger cory like Corydoras paleatus for this tank? I gotta say, I like their style. Will they get into trouble with the apistos? I have so many livebearers that I'm practically a bad fishkeeper at this point, so I'd rather have 1 or 2 fry make it through the gauntlet than try to breed for profit. But I would like 1 or 2 to survive to carry on the linneage should I screw up!
  11. So, now that I've got a rough sketch of what I want to do with my windfall 30 tanks, time to narrow it down a little. I think I want to try apistos, though I can't decide yet between cacatuoides (top) and borelli (second picture). I like a lot of finnage and a lot of contrast, especially with purples: I'd love to make a good South American biotope, even if I can't manage a true place-specific biotope for these colorful lil fish in a 30g tank. I know Cory recommends a classic 3-layer approach with apistos, neon or cardinal tetras, and hatchetfish, but I'm not fully sold on it. First, I've just never really liked straight neons. They're so ubiquitous and can have poor health and the red and blue is cool, but I'm not sure it's the right contrast for either of these. Cardinals seem a little better, bigger, more thorough coloration, but it seems like they're often wild-caught and I'd prefer tank-bred if possible. However, I do like ember tetras. I like their energy and tiny size and color, of course. But again, not sure it pops well with either of these. What I really, really love are those sparkly diamond tetras. Any lore out there saying I can't keep apistos and diamond tetras together? Diamonds don't seem like fin nippers, and they've certainly got some long fins themselves. Since this is only a 30g and I want to leave room for the apistos to maybe have babies, I probably won't have much space left for a top dweller like a hatchetfish or pencilfish. Is that okay? Both hatchets and pencils seem interesting enough, but not showstoppers. Are there any other South American mid-top dwellers I should consider?
  12. Whew! Sounds exciting! But 4-6 rams already sounds like a lot for a 30-40 gallon. I haven't kept them, but the guides I've seen say 30, minimum, for one ram, and 5-10g more for each after that. From what I know about them, I'd choose between either a mated pair of rams OR an accara, to go with all those other fish.
  13. It's true, copper can be harmful to many aquatic species, especially snails. Since most metals may be alloys of some kind, or may be plated or coated over a cheaper base metal (not to mention the risk of rust or corrosion when immersed with good air flow), I'd avoid metal if you can. One exception is the lead plant weights sold for aquariums. Apparently those are fine for fish! But you probably won't find lead in too many commercial items these days. Plastic should be fine, though. Some people get worried about the paints, but I haven't seen anything conclusive about it. People use plastic plants, skulls, pirate ships, Spongebob pineapple houses as decorations all the time and as far as I know the fish are happy 🙂
  14. Yeah, my partner really loves the big, bubbly, wobbly goldfish and instantly gravitates to them whenever we go to the pet store. Goldfish do terrify me a little with the level of maintenance they need and how destructive they are. But this gives me a new idea. Save his office wall space for a nice big tank someday, hopefully bigger than a 30, with 1 or 2 fancies, tops, a big ol crinum like Cory has and a billion java ferns to help keep the water halfway clean. As for my 30's, I asked his opinion on angels vs. natives in the dining room and he's leaning towards natives. It's quite the conversation starter, at least! And if that doesn't work out, I can always try angels instead. And in my office, I think I'm going to do both my 15g killi tank AND a 30g apisto tank. I wasn't using my desk much anyway now that I have a treadmill with a shelf, and who really needs a TV when you have fish? 😄
  15. Is a 16g big enough for a 9 lb. Domestic Shorthair Tabby (Felis catus)?
  16. Ahhh this feature would send me to the MOON if it were available. We could all test out our shipping methods without high stakes consequences, know that our fish & plants were going to good homes, help newbies out with sponge filter media. Fingers crossed!
  17. My MTS continues! Just got a great deal on Craigslist for two 30 gallon tanks with mesh critter lids (I think they were used for reptiles before) and a 16g. 16g is going to be my first kili tank, once I find a lid for it. One 30g I think is going up in my partner's office, where it's always nice and warm. Going to do the classic apistos+tetras+hatchet fish there where they'll enjoy the heat and get to watch us watch movies in the evening. But the other 30 I'm thinking about putting in the dining room, which is more like my hobby room these days. It has big sliding glass doors out onto the deck and back yard, so it gets pretty cold in the winter (64-ish) and warm in the summer (78-ish). And while I use it as a hobby room, it's more like a gardening staging room and where I take zoom classes. Not a room for relaxing for long periods while watching my fish. So what 30g idea would work best for this transitional room, mostly seen in passing and from afar, with a lot of temperature fluctuations? I could try Cory's "unheated" idea for longfin rosy barbs and paleatus cories, but since cories don't like it THAT cold, I'd probably still stick in a heater to keep it at like 74. Or I could try Cory's idea for a single mating pair of angels (heated, of course, especially in the winter). Stuffed with tall plants and pretty low maintenance, and would look nice from afar. Or should I go for my unheated North American tank idea with maybe a school of rainbow shiners? Something else? Has anyone tried one of these and have tips or warnings?
  18. Yeah, I'd do EITHER the bristlenose OR the honeys, not both.
  19. As someone who started out with 6 endlers and now have...way too many to count just a few months later, I think the answer is "yes!" Endlers are very hardy and don't tend to eat their fry as much as other livebearers. Honestly, having some larger fish around to snack on some babies will be a big help. My local pet stores need you to call ahead to see if they have room for you to even DONATE them, and trying to sell them locally or even shipping them has been a challenge. So, I'll be cheering on those gouramis and diamond tetras to get a hankering for endler babies if you go that route. They ARE gorgeous, fun fish, though, and I love them, so I can't say it's a bad idea.
  20. I love diamond tetras, too! They're so sparkly! I've often thought of putting Diamond tetras with a large-ish school of Diamondhead Neon tetras. Now your tank is diamonds! But yeah, having seen diamond tetras next to pearl gouramis...it's not bad, but I think the honey gouramis would have more pop. For a 29g, if you want a single centerpiece, I might also recommend a bristlenose pleco. They're more nocturnal, but would still be plenty visible in a 29 and would look quite different from your tetras!
  21. I think the term is "gravid spot." Good luck!
  22. Just looks like a poop casing to me. I usually only see that when they've been fasted for a little while. She doesn't look skinny to me, but make sure she's getting her share of food at meal time. Her poops should get more food-colored the more she eats.
  23. Yeah that looks pretty consistent with a very light body fungus / bacterial infection. The slime coat is thinner on the fins, which makes them more vulnerable. And being sheer also helps us detect it sooner than other parts. I'm not too familiar with discus to tell you if that's a cause for concern yet. If I saw that on a platy's tail, I wouldn't be concerned, though I might test the water just to make sure all was well. But Platies are also super tough and plentiful, so I can afford to be laissez-faire.
  24. I recommend keeping an eye on them, making sure they're still eating, making sure the water's pristine and the temp's nice and high (discus are especially sensitive to things like that). I've noticed that weaker fish tend to be a little more vulnerable to body fungus, especially if the water's getting up there in nitrates or there's any stress or crowding. So, it could be a chicken-or-egg scenario of weaker fish getting bullied, feeling stressed, getting sick, dying, or stressed fish getting sick and weak, getting bullied for it and dying. Not saying that's definitely the case here, and plenty of fish can clear up after the conditions improve, but I'd still keep an eye on them.
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