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JettsPapa

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Everything posted by JettsPapa

  1. Welcome to the forum. First, if you haven't been adding an ammonia source your tank isn't cycled. I'm not clear on whether or not you did. In any case, no, don't clean the tank, and especially don't clean or replace the filter media. If there's algae on the front of the tank you can scrape it off so you can see better, but don't do any more than that.
  2. There is no substitute for clean water. I'd skip the Prime and just do water changes to keep the combined ammonia and nitrites low; ideally below .50 ppm, but definitely below 1.0 ppm. The safe level depends on your pH, since ammonia is more toxic at higher pH, but those values are a good general guideline. Edit: Add Prime or a similar product to neutralize chlorine or chloramine when you add fresh water. I don't have to bother with it, so I forgot to mention it above. I just meant that I don't recommend using Prime instead of doing a water change.
  3. I've heard that explained as "Do like I say, not like I do."
  4. I'd let it go, and ideally let it grow out of the water. It's a flowering stem. It will sprout one or more flowers at each node, followed by leaves, and finally roots. At that point you can cut the stem on each side of the nodes and you have new plants. I've gotten as many as six from a single stem.
  5. I agree about not adding more species, but I'd like to suggest adding ten or so more panda corys instead of the danios or white clouds.
  6. I may need to backtrack. I found my copy last night and read the first few chapters. From reading that much it doesn't appear to be written for juveniles, like most of his early work, but so far I haven't found anything in it that most people would find offensive. Much of the dialog is a little difficult to follow, because apparently he wrote it like he imagined people would be speaking in 2075, with words like "the" and "a" often left out, and with words that he made up. I assume I've read it before, since I had a copy, but I have zero memory of it, so maybe not. If I have read it it was at least 30 years ago, and maybe 40.
  7. I would never trim crypts down to the roots. I have some that are so dense that fish can barely navigate between them, and they still look great. I may pull them up and spread them out (and sell the excess), but I can't imagine any reason to cut them off.
  8. It's an early one. It's been decades since I read it, but from what I remember it's okay.
  9. A week or so ago I noticed my copy of Friday by Robert Heinlein on the shelf. I remembered not liking it much when it first came out, but didn't remember just why, and it was a long time ago, so I decided to give it another try. I still don't like it. It will be going to the used book store the next time I go. I enjoy his earlier novels, even though they were mostly written for a young audience, but he really went off the rails with his later stuff (definitely not for a young audience).
  10. Mine will eat frozen bloodworms, but they go weeks without getting anything other than snails (unless they grab a shrimp once in a while, but I doubt it).
  11. It's my understanding that 0.25 ppm is within the margin of error. As long as it isn't showing any higher I wouldn't worry about it too much.
  12. I like the idea of a shrimp only tank (or shrimp and snails), but if you really want fish also celestial pearl danios (also sold as galaxy rasboras) would be a possibility. However, I would only put them in a heavily planted tank. You could probably have five of them. Shrimp have a very low bioload, so the number isn't really important. You could start with ten (assuming you're referring to neocaridinas; red cherry shrimp and the other color varieties), and they could increase to 50 or more without overloading the tank.
  13. I'm not clear on whether or not there are fish in the tank. Others may disagree, but if there are I would never recommend depending on something that came from a bottle to take care of ammonia and/or nitrites instead of doing water changes to lower them immediately. If there are no fish then there's no problem with it.
  14. I don't think it hurts anything, but I also wouldn't depend on it working. I believe that type is harmful, but it's also my understanding that it's uncommon. I'd be surprised if that's what you have.
  15. I don't use the beneficial bacteria, and am skeptical about its usefulness anyway, but everything else looks okay. Keeping up with the water changes is the most important. No, the algae isn't harmful. In fact, many fish keepers scrape the algae off the front of the tank and leave the other sides alone. If you do want to get rid of it, I'd recommend not worrying about that until you get your tank stabilized. There will be plenty of time then, if it doesn't clear up on its own (though lowering the amount of time the lights are on, or lowering their intensity, probably won't hurt).
  16. That's one of my favorite "novelty" country songs, along with this one:
  17. I have another one. I was outside watering plants or something (it was 30 years ago, so some of the details are fuzzy) with my son when he was around 3 or 4. He had a little plastic bucket that he brought up to me, and he asked for some water in it. I filled it about halfway, not knowing what he had in mind. He took the bucket, walked over to the cat, and dumped the whole thing on it. Of course the cat freaked out. I felt like I should correct him, so I said "Will, that wasn't very nice." He stopped giggling just long enough to say "No, but it was funny!" That's been a family joke ever since.
  18. Welcome to the forum. You said you've been doing water changes, but how often, and how large? If they weren't at least 50% each time you really weren't doing much good. I'd recommend doing one at least that large daily until it gets under control (down to no more than 1.0 ppm). It might also be a good idea to get an independent test. I wonder about the test accuracy, because I'd expect your fish to be in bad shape with it as high as 10.0 ppm. Most places that sell aquarium fish will test your water for you. I believe they usually use strips that don't test for ammonia, but that's not a concern here anyway.
  19. One of the funniest was about 30 years ago. My wife and I, and her sister and husband, were going to San Antonio to stay at a nice hotel on the Riverwalk for a few days. They'd flown in from Virginia, so we took my truck. I pulled up in front of the hotel and we waited while my brother-in-law went inside to see about the rooms. A few minutes after he went in several men came out to the truck with a cart. At every hotel I'd ever stayed at previous to this if you wanted your luggage in your room you carried it there yourself (this place was above my pay grade), but I'd seen this kind of thing on television, so I knew why they were there. For a little background, I was driving an old Ford extended cab pickup, with a hitch in the back for a gooseneck trailer. Since we didn't have much room in the cab for luggage, and we didn't want to expose it to the weather, I had borrowed two 55-gallon barrels from work, put the luggage in them, put the lids on, and laid them down in the truck, with one on each side of the hitch. I put a rope across one, down through the hitch, across the other one, and tied on the other side to keep them from rolling around. Anyway, I guess these fellows took one look at that old truck, and me untying the ropes holding the barrels down, and wondered just how far back in the woods did these folks come from, because one of them looked at me and asked, very politely "Sir, will these be going inside?"
  20. I dropped off a package with a "Live Shrimp" sticker on top and all four sides at my little local post office Tuesday. The guy behind the counter jokingly asked "When are you going to start shipping dead shrimp?" I replied "Hopefully never. People tend to want their money back if the shrimp are dead." I worked for probably one of the best known beekeepers in the world in the mid to late '90's. Try showing up at the post office with a 2-pound package of bees.
  21. Hello, I'm also a big fan of 360 Aquatic, and have sold them quite a bit of stuff (mostly plants). There's a small chain called Fish Gallery, with two stores in the Houston area and I think one or two in Dallas. They give store credit for plants, shrimp, etc, and I've been told they'll pay directly if the quantity and quality is enough.
  22. I'm surprised to hear that. I've shipped dozens of packages of live shrimp and/or fish, all labeled as such, with the US postal service, and never had any issues.
  23. Mine does just fine on snails and occasional frozen blood worms. I wouldn't worry about it too much.
  24. I wish you luck, but the market for used aquariums isn't very good. I hope I'm wrong, but I'd be surprised if you get as much as $10.00 for it, and it may be quite a bit less than that.
  25. I wouldn't argue with anyone who said those are the ideal breeding parameters, but the water temperature certainly doesn't need to be in that narrow range. Here is a link to a reply I made to a new shrimp keeper a while ago. You might enjoy it:
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