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SWilson

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Everything posted by SWilson

  1. I'm learning (well, re-learning) Cantonese! I was born in Hong Kong but lost it after moving away when I was young, and was a dumb kid wanting to assimilate to American culture so I refused to speak it with my mom. Such a shame. I'm taking lessons now, it's slow going but coming back. "Sik tang mm sik gong" is my main Cantonese phrase. lol So amazing to be a polyglot! Good on you!
  2. Yes! Mine love snails or frozen anything (and especially bloodworms), but that's about it. I have occaisionally (and only very recently) seen them pecking at algae wafers I toss in there for the plecos, but I think it's only because they saw the endlers eating it lol
  3. I did try trimming one of my amazon puffers. I used Tricaine, but I don't think I used enough. I was scared and I couldn't find very clear information about dosing. The directions that come with the bottle were for commercial use, and it was a bit difficult to try to convert the dosage down to a single fish in a tupperware container. Because the fish was not fully sedated, the trimming was very difficult too. Much harder to get the cuticle trimmers on the tiny tooth than I thought. In the end we were both traumatized. lol. I don't mean to worry you more, I think I got worried and trimmed when I didn't need to. That is the one time I've had to even try to trim though, now coming on a year with six amazon puffers. I have just left them alone and just increased the # of snails I'm breeding so I always have small ones, the lack of which was my problem before. I unfortunately mostly have ramshorns, which are the ones that the puffers easily snatch out of the shell. With bladder snails, I do see the puffers take the whole shell in their mouth. My puffers ignored clam on a half shell and freeze-dried krill. I did try the repashy on a rock (I use soilent green mixed with bottom scratcher) but because I keep a lot of endlers in the tank with the puffers, I suspect that the endlers ate it all. I haven't had a chance to re-try this again. I also feed my puffers with frozen food using tweezers, so I can confirm that each of them is eating. Their little bellies are helpful -- you can immediately see if they're getting food in or not. For what it's worth, when I bought them, the LFS guy said that there are many people who keep them who never have to trim their teeth, but you don't hear about that because they're not fishtubers. He could've just been saying that to get the sale, but they are a pretty reputable store that's beeen around a very long time. There are many things in fishkeeping lore that get said once or twice and then are just repeated over and over -- "you'll have to trim your puffer's teeth every six months" could be one of those things. Though it's not bad for anyone planning to keep them to prepare themselves for that. Good luck @Schwack with your puffers! We should keep in touch and compare notes!
  4. Saw this very cool looking catfish at a pet store, would love to know the species if anyone can ID it (and I’m certain folks here can) it was black body with white spots, Pleco-shaped with whiskers
  5. Disaster in the fish room! One of the HOB filters in my 55 gallon overflowed and dumped gallons of water floor, soaking the power outlet, tripping the breaker. All soaked into my concrete floors/floor boards. Giant mess all around. Oh and my indoor cat ran out at the same time. 😤r (he later returned home safely, but very wet from the rain) Sigh. Maybe this is just a rite of passage in the hobby, but not a great one. I'm a new homeowner and am really out of my depth in terms of what damage I've done to the outlet (not to mention water damage to the house itself) and what's safe to do. Against my better judgment but out of desperation, I plugged the power strip with most of the electrical components besides the problem filter back in after drying everything off with towels. But that kept tripping the breaker every few hours. I need to have some water flow and oxygenation going in the tank (it is pretty heavily stocked), so I plugged in just one hob filter (the one I'm calling the not evil one) into the wall outlet. It seems to be able to manage that without tripping the breaker. Because plugging in a higher load trips the breaker, I'm worried there's some water damage to the inside of the outlet. 😞 I think I know why the HOB filter overflowed, and believe I have a fix to that. They're called sponge filters 😂 Any advice on better practices re: the electrical would be greatly appreciated. This is really the first time I called the room where I've set up my tanks the "fish room" -- it was really supposed to be my office and served as that but the fish tanks have completely taken over...including my desk 😅 So now my home office is our dining table and my office is a fish room. 🙂 My partner can't say anything because they took over the garage for their future reptile related business. But an overflowing fish tank seems like the perfect way to inaugurate my fish room. I would have rather popped champagne but oh well. The night before the flood, I set up tank #6: another soil capped with substrate tank. Hopefully a future betta home (plakat female most likely, don't worry not putting flowy fins in with that hardscape) This is a g*d-awful tank photo, but I'm too excited to share it to go down and keep trying to photograph it. Just take my word, that it's very simple and lovely in person (at least I think so). I'll probably need to add more plants to battle the algae, and have plenty of val from other tanks I can add to the background. But I really hope the crypts take off and spread. Each of these plants have been just living in a bucket of water (with light, and a dose of easy green maybe once or twice when I remembered) for almost 2 months. Would love a future Co-op Club event (or a video) that is a tutorial by Jimmy on filming/photographing your tanks for amateurs. 😃
  6. I’m not sure if this matches your aesthetic for the tank, but I’ve also seen and myself used terra cotta pots for your rooting plants. I dunno why but an underwater potted plant is really cute to me 🙂
  7. Thanks for asking! They are doing well, at least as far as I can tell. They are still glass surfing, though I feel like it has gotten better with the addition of the endlers as dither fish. The puffers also can hunt for babies to entertain themselves in addition to glass surfing. I bought some window tinting vinyl recommended on another user's post, but haven't had a chance to apply it yet. I plan to put that on the back and sides, which hopefully will help. I have 1 or 2 that are getting long in the tooth, but they still appear to be eating well. I did try to trim teeth for the first time after I noticed one had really long teeth and a bloodworm or brine shimp would get stuck in their mouth, causing other fish to try to steal it during feeding. I used Tricaine instead of clove oil, but the instructions are kind of confusing about dosing. I was conservative and I don't think I used enough. The fish was not completely sedated and it was an traumatic experience for both of us (did not puff up though, thank goodness). I did take a video of the process, and I've been meaning to edit it down and share it in case it is at all useful (at least of an example what NOT to do 😬). Plus, it was much, much harder to get the cuticle clipper on the tooth than I expected. At least, I have not come across people having issue with that in my research. In the end, I thought I had managed to clip some but after releasing the fish back into the tank, my partner noted no difference at all in the length of the teeth. 😤 Seems to be doing okay though and getting enough food. Another trick I've been meaning to repeat is repashy on rocks. I did that once, and I think the puffers ate some but the endlers ate a lot of it.
  8. score at my local book store! also wanted to give an update on my Walstad-inspired tank: AKA green hair algae city. Which I know I introduced from the rotala that I propagated from another tank. I started to pull out some but it was uprooting the rotala and pulling up soil so I just left it alone. BUT the scarlet temple never looked so good! Seriously some of these stalks came back from the dead. And my pink flamingo crypt is growing out pink leaves. 😍 This method is amazing, I am a convert. I recently added my betta Lo Ban in here, will add some pictures soon. His tail fin is looking better after the course of metronidazole. I haven’t been posting here as much as I would like. I had a long post written on my phone and accidentally deleted it which took the wind out of my sails for a while. I have big plans for the office-fish room — hopefully soon. Including 5 10 gallon tanks purchased at the sale previously known as the $1 per gallon sale. For now, I’ll just wrap up with this snail train:
  9. You've clearly thought about this a lot! I did something far less ambitious recently, but that worked well for holding transporting two fish (a betta and a young bristlenose pleco) for about 4-5 days, including a10ish-hour drive. I'm just sharing this in case any of it is helpful, though I realize not directly translatable to what you've got to do. I found a roughly 7 quart tupperware (with a locking lid) at home depot that had tall sides. I've tried searching for the exact one online but haven't quite found it yet. I'll post it if I find it. I don't know how big your angelfish is, but I would say the container is at least 10 inches tall. It fit perfectly in the floor well of the passenger seat too. What about packing the fish and plants in the same containers, so the plants can oxygenate the water and consume nutrients? When I bought the fish that I transported, I didn't have access to my old aquariums for cycled filter media, so I bought prime and a bunch of plants at the same time and kept them (including the rockwool pots) in the container with the fish. I think your idea about floating the sponges in with them is a good idea to keep up your biological filtration. I think the fish will be okay to go longer without feeding (depends on the type and how many, and if they're juveniles ,of course). Like if you were going on vacation or if you were quarantining, you could not feed for at least 4 days (probably up to a week, though I have never made it that long without caving and feeding fish) and they might be ok. plus, if you're keeping them with the plants and using your own established tank water, there may be plenty of micororganisms in the containers for them to eat. How I did it for the drive was I bought an airstone and heater, and I bought a power inverter for my car. Now, the one I got was relatively cheap, I didn't really have time to research them, and the heater was I think a 75 or 100 watt heater (overkill for the container of course but I was planning to use it for a real tank when I got home). And this power inverter couldn't handle running the heater and the air pump at the same time. a nano heater might have worked. In my circumstances, I could more or less maintain the temperature at high 70s, so I just ran the air stone. I sat the container on a heavy blanket and wrapped the sides and top to insulate it. Of course, a powersource and heater for 4 separate containers is going to be difficult. So I like the idea of heatpacks, I think that would work. I don't know what your space situation was like. But something I just learned that betta breeders do to heat multiple small tanks is to place them inside a larger container that is partially filled with water that is heated and voila, multiple heated tanks. Uh oh supplies - I found having airline tube made it easier to do water changes while I was on the road - scooping works just fine of course but with the airline tube, could put the container next to the sink and let it drain while I multitasked. That or a turkey baster would help you be able to spot clean any waste. Good luck to you!
  10. The spirulina brine shrimp would be fine to feed curly. I've never given Kanaplax before but since it's given with food might be a good idea to mix with the brine shrimp. I agree with the above advice about salt and antibiotic. You can use both (if you're able to use salt, not sure if you have snails or if you added live plants). I'm no expert since my betta got much worse than that and he's still healing. 😕 But, you'll want to make sure the water is warm enough - around 80 degrees or at least 78. Here are some additional things you can try: - adding tannins to the water with indian almond leaf. - Maracyn 1 and 2 - frequent water changes to keep the water quality up (then again, as is typicaly I've also heard been told not to do as many water changes if not necessary for water quality because of stress, there seem to be many more people in the frequent water changes camp though) - the one antibiotic that seems to have finally worked for my fish is metronidazole. Good luck! We are rooting for Curly!
  11. So I clearly haven't had enough coffee yet today because for a half a second I was like, "oh my god your pea puffer ate your roommates? how terrible!" 😂
  12. This thread makes me feel much better and further confirms I've found my people. So far, I have paid nearly $200 for a green phantom pleco at my LFS. On the way out I contemplated naming him "Pleasedontdie." He hasn't, as far as I know (I can count with my fingers the number of times I've seen him hah). All together for my 6 Amazon puffers, not including tax and shipping, I spent somewhere between $150-180. It's best not to really know. 😅 Luckily, my partner can't say anything to me because they're into panther chameleons, which are like $300-500 a pop and super finicky/don't want anything to do with humans. And fancy bearded dragon morphs. 🙂
  13. May I ask how you use the potassium carbonate (a link to another thread or article if you have one) in the aquarium? Is there a resource out there at gives info about what concentration to achieve a certain level of increase in KH? And how often do you have to re-dose?
  14. @Torrey thank you thank you thank you so much for all of this. I've been in the early stages of thinking about focusing on bettas in my hobby for a bit, and this is all very helpful. I think it's time I became a member of the Coop for this Gianne talk!
  15. Betta fin rot This is Lo Ban ("boss" in Cantonese) Was definitely not planning on getting a betta but saw him at the LFS and yada yada you all know the rest. 🙂 If you'll indulge me, my betta obsession origin story begins with a difficult experience in college. Which now over a decade later I finally have the language to describe as depression, stress, anxiety, and a bout of alcoholism. I was very lonely, and I don't even remember how, but one day I found myself in a fish store in Boston, and saw a blue fish with beautiful long fins in a planted community tank. I bought him, a tank (yes same day, I know), and took him back to my dorm. I honestly don't even remember if I had any substrate, filter, or plants--despite the fact that I distinctly remember seeing plants in the tank he was in. My roommate and I decided to call him Bob Marley (once again, it was college). Bob was my therapy. I loved that fish. Fast forward to the end of the school year, and I need to go home across the country. I meticulously studied the requirements to bring a fish on the plane with you (wasn't sophisticated enough to think of shipping), which were posted on the airline's website. I get to the airport counter at Logan airport, only to have the person tell me I cannot bring him (this was just after we stopped being able to bring liquids through TSA). "but maybe someone in the back will take him home." I leave the counter, with my fish and my bags. And I call my mom, I'm crying (okay I was bawling -- those were emotionally fragile years) about how they won't let me take my fish. My mom and I don't have the greatest relationship, but I'll be forever grateful to her for the advice she gave and her empathy in that moment. She straight up told me to lie to the check-in counter and say that my friend is coming to get the fish. So I do that. I get to TSA. My carry-on, with a fish in a bag in a styrofoam box inside, is sitting in the xray machine. The TSA guy looks at the screen, and looks at me. And I look something like this: 😢 sniff sniff. And he looks at the screen. And he looks at me. And he waives me through. 6 hours on a plane, Bob and I land in Portland. I check on him while we are waiting for our pickup, and the friggin bag has been leaking and he is in less than 1" of water. Long story endless, Bob lives for 5 more years after that at my parents' house, where he got a much larger aquarium (but we still didn't know anything about plants or filtration or conditioning water, so I have no idea how he survived that long). He was constantly building bubble nests and loved to flare at a pen. Bettas really are amazing, and I do believe that they used to be much hardier than they are now (I got Bob in '06). Anyway, fast-forward to about three months ago. I'm in love with a betta again. Lo Ban earned his name by chasing around the endlers that he originally shared the 40 gallon breeder with. Then I notice a little tear in his fin, then the color loss on the edges. Then the full-blown fin rot. I take the endlers out of the 40 to reduce crowding in the tank. It still gets worse and worse. I moved him first to a 20 gallon long with only 5 male endlers in there (he never bothered with the male endlers when he was in the 40, just the big females) and then finally to a 3 gallon by himself. I keep him at 81 degrees. I've treated with salt, maracyn one and two. This is what he looks like as of about 3 weeks ago (and still pretty much the same today): (not to mention that his body turned blue, which was a little disappointing but the base of his tail still has that pretty mettalic color) He's lost the most of top half of his tail fin. I'm also realizing as I'm looking at these before and afters, that I thought he was a half moon, or half moon plakat, but he's a veil tail. Fortunately, he is still active and interested in food. He swims up to me any time I approach the tank. Finally, one medicine that seems (fingers crossed) to have stemmed the rot is metronidazole. I'm not sure, it only looks like it hasn't gotten much for the first time in months. When the metronidazole is done, my plan is to do frequent water changes, low levels of salt (I'm currently just putting in 1/2 table spoon once a week with a 50% water change), and indian almond leaf steeped water. I'm not sure how long to keep him in this 3 gallon quarantine tank. It's got substrate but I hadn't put any plants in it yet because of the salt. I'm hoping someday to move him into the 15 gallon dirted tank, which he'll have to himself except for the one mystery snail. But this setback has been disappointing. I'm not sure what I could do next if the metronidazole doesn't work.
  16. Next up is my 40 gallon breeder: This has been set up for about six months, maybe more. I also mostly planted this with propagations from other tanks, except for the lilies and swords. I don't have a view of it from the top, but I copied @Isaac M's idea of using a bath caddie and aquarium rocks for an emersed planter, and have a pothos growing out of that. I'm very pleased with the plant growth in this tank, here is a photo of it when I first set it up for comparison: Now here is a fish related question: my dream for this tank is a salt and pepper AKA habrosus corydora colony breeding project. I moved out all of the endlers and all but 2 mystery snails from this tank, hoping to reduce risk of eggs being eaten. I have seen eggs a few times now (just starting in the last couple of months) but no fry, at least none that I've been able to spot. There are about 10 cories (I wanted a bigger group, have lost a few, and will keep checking in w/the LFS to see when they have them back in stock to add a few more). I thought this type of cory could colony breed but perhaps not, maybe they are eating their own eggs? The group is also still relatively young, so perhaps they are just not ready yet. I'm fairly certain I do have males and females based on the size differences. Should I try removing the eggs next time they lay? I would love to hear from anyone who has had luck breeding these. In any case, I'm trying to not worry to much about whether or not they breed and try to focus instead on enjoying and trying to take good care of the tank. They are so cute though, I just love the wiggles! Alrighty, I think that's it for this one! Thanks for reading! Thank you! It was your recent Walstad-inspired tank journal that gave me the last bit of inspiration I needed to go for it!
  17. Oh dear! I didn’t even know that could happen either. I hope it’s ok…
  18. As I mentioned in my edited top post, I decided to convert this thread into a general journal of my aquariums, in the hopes that I'll have more content to post and to keep it up. I welcome any and all feedback, and hopefully there will be some useful information here too for folks. I'll start with my newest set up, which is a 15 gallon cube. This actually came as a kit with a fluval filter and light, it was my partner's mystery snail tank that they broke down. (I got both of us into aquariums, aquariums led my partner to reptiles, and as they breakdown aquariums to focus on reptiles, I get more fish tanks. Yay!) I turned it into my first dirted tank! 1" of organic dirt (maybe a little less, I was nervous b/c of the lower water volume) topped with a crushed coral ecocomplete mix. For the height in the back I stacked sponge filter media cut to size. I basically built "stairs" for the slope. I've seen people use media bags, this was just what I had on hand. This is planted with 1/2 new plants I purchased and 1/2 plants moved over from other tanks. I'm most excited about the fact that my pink flamingo sprouted its first truly pink leaves literally the day after I planted it in here, while it had been slowly browning in my non-dirted CO2 tank where I had it previously. I planted the @#$# out of this thing, hoping to get out ahead of an overload of nutrients and algae. Aquascaping wise, I am most proud of this aquarium. I feel like experience and research has paid off here. Background: rotala, valisinera, and red melon sword Mid/front: bronze cryptocoryne, bucephelandra, pink flamingo pink, and scarlet temple (which also had been suffering and not looking very scarlet in my other tanks, I'm hoping it will make a comeback here) Javamoss, subwassertang, and baby java fern attached to the hardwood. And duckweed of course got in here. I have an albino mystery snail in there right now, and malaysian trumpet snails. I'm hoping to put my one of my bettas in there once I feel it is safe. It has been set up for one week as of today (9/30).
  19. Okay - it's been a long hiatus, but you know, life. I actually got thisclose to rehoming the puffers through my local aquarium club, but then I just couldn't. A couple of things happened that renewed my appreciation and dedication to them. First, I went to an aquarium store in Portland while I was there visiting family, and they have a display tank with Amazon puffers that are full grown (about 3") and they were just so cool. Second, I started spending time with the tank with the prospect of taking them out, and they just swam up to the glass and looked at me with their little cartoonish eyeballs and their silly little bucktooth faces (neoteny at work, y'all lol). I just couldn't. Luckily for me, the person I had connected with to rehome them to was so supportive and it turned into a lovely conversation about long-term enjoyment of the hobby. Here's a recent video of the 55 gallon tank -- I have moved over most of my endler's livebearers females here to serve as dither fish and my hope is that the colony can just live in here and the puffers can help control the population. The endlers were previously overwhelming a 40 gall breeder with no predators. Well, the colony is living in there alright but I do not think the puffers are getting to enough of the babies. *facepalm* You know, the glass surfing is still happening, but I think it is a lot less since the addition of the endlers. I am planning to add a window tinting background to the back and sides, which will be a pain in the rear since the tank is already set up and about 5" from a wall, but I hope will be worth it. Inhabitants also include a Green Phantom Pleco, Vedder, and a Clown Pleco, Wilbur, both of whom I never see lol. I'm sure this is overstocked, but the water quality stays pretty good, probably due to the "ceiling" of frogbit and duckweed that covers the tank. I also added a second HOB filter. Overall, I enjoy this tank, but since I either sold or moved almost all of my male endlers to other tanks, there isn't a lot of color in here.
  20. I wanted to bump the question on re-using water from dehumidifiers for water changes or top-offs. I've been wondering this myself -- when I tested the water collected in my dehumidifier (just with a test strip), the parameters (in terms of ammonia nitrite nitrate) seemed fine, it was just really soft water. Though I am not really sure since the AC test strips in general are showing much lower pH and KH for me compared to liquid tests. I have tried using that water a little bit in a betta tank, and it seemed fine but I just got worried about my lack of testing and certainty that there wasn't anything potentially harmful in the dehumidifier water. For now, I've opted to just use the humidifier water to water my house plants. But I live in California and being water efficient is a necessity. Because of that, I've also been moving towards doing fewer water changes, its a great excuse to buy more plants. 🙂 Including pothos or other emersed plants that can help eat up the nutrients. The main reason I do them now is if the hardness or pH seem way off in the tank, or if I'm servicing the filter. Using Caribsea eco-complete substrate has also helped, in our experience tanks with that almost never read high nitrates no matter the stocking level or feeding. I have to admit it's been hard to fully commit to the no water changes method. I don't feel confident that everything will be ok and I feel like a "bad" hobbyist for not doing them (I know how ridiculous that sounds). Not to mention, hauling 5 gal buckets has been my gym membership for the last year+ and how else am I going to stay in shape. 😄
  21. It's a 5 gallon right? You'll get many different reactions/opinions on the overstocking question. Some things to consider include (and you may have already checked all these off or know it, this is just in the spirit of being helpful, and is by no means exhaustive): - Do you have a testing kit or strips, so you can monitor the water quality? - How often are you able/plan to do water changes? - How many plants do you have, would you like to add more plants for the added filtration benefit? - Do you have a temporary way to separate fish if something happens, like fighting, injury, sickness? (doesn't necessarily have to be a full-blown quarantine tank, there are many different ways to create a separate container, but I've found the added cost is, if you keep warm water fish, needing to ensure you have another source of heat, an extra airstoneo or filter, etc.) - Would it make you happier to add another fish, some more color, a different personality, etc? I'm still trying to practice what I'm preaching here, but I personally think this hobby is at its best when you are learning, being amazed, having fun, trying something you haven't tried before -- or trying something again and applying the lessons you've learned. All these things can happen when you get a new fish, but can also happen by observing and dcaring for the tanks you have as is. There is a lot of wisdom in @Guppysnail's advice to go slow, and appreciate harmony and "easy mode" while you have it. I myself am trying to learn to treat this hobby as a marathon, not a sprint. I guess this is all a long-winded way of saying that only you can really answer your own question. Whatever you decide, this community is always here, and full of ideas and advice to help you keep enjoying it.
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