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Sapere_Ceta

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  1. Sapere_Ceta
    Yeah! I’m excited to see his growth over time! I find him so cool! Lol! Too funny! I’m sure he will too 🤣
  2. Sapere_Ceta
    Yeah! I was pretty surprised by how large he is. It seems this species typically gets 6 inches, though some apparently get to 8 inches. So over time, I’ll continue upgrading him to larger bins until my mom and I move out, and then I’ll move him to his own large aquarium.
  3. Sapere_Ceta
    I upgraded the crayfish QT bin to a larger one, probably 2.5-3 times the size of the previous one. I was expecting a crayfish of 3 inches at most, since that was the average size of a young adult I was told. I’d say he’s 4 1/2 inches. He settled in really well, so I knew he’d tolerate an upgrade. I set it up and added my giant anubias nana, along with gravel and the previous leaf litter. Then I gently scooped him up, and waited patiently until he decided to get off and go into the new bin. He hid under a leaf for a little while, but he quickly started to explore after he adjusted to his new surroundings. I decided to name him ‘Gandr’ because his little legs remind me of staffs, making me reflect back to Gandalf from LoTR the The Hobbit, who is one of my favorite characters of the franchises. I also found it fitting because he is so exploratory, and Gandalf was the one to start everyone on their explorations, joining them as well. This fella also is extremely loud, and woke me up at 3:30am by yanking on the heater cord nonstop (so it was clanging against the plastic) and by later trying to climb onto the sides of the bin (he was previously successful doing so in the smaller setup). It gave me a good laugh, though I’m sure I’ll have to adjust a little to his adorable shenanigans. I blanched a spinach leaf today to see if he was interested in eating it, but I forgot that crayfish aren’t nearly as active until it gets darker. So I removed it after little interest was displayed. But this is him with his little spinach leaf at the time: The fish have also all settled in well, and seem to be getting along. The betta did make two little dashes at the Indian ricefish once, but it was nothing concerning to me. He loses interest in them quickly, which I think makes him a great match.
  4. Sapere_Ceta
    Right?! I’m seriously obsessed with him 😆
  5. Sapere_Ceta
    Afternoon, everyone! The fish and crayfish arrived today! I was notified they’d be here early, so I maybe got an hour or two of sleep (I sleep during the day typically, unless a flare up is keeping me from sleeping, so this was the opposite to when I’d normally be up). I had everything prepared over night, though I did end up boiling some of the leaves that just wouldn’t sink. They all arrived well packaged with a working heat pack. This was when I took some of the packaging off. I got them all out to make sure everyone was okay. All but one Indian ricefish (an extra out of the six I actually purchased) were looking well. The outlier was pretty scrawny and swimming pretty poorly. I temperature acclimated them for 25 minutes, making sure they weren’t being too energetic. If they were, I’d have taken them out of the bags earlier so they weren’t expelling a lot of energy, that would be better saved for when they’re added to the QT bins. After the 25 minutes were up, I released them out of the bags into my net, which was under my bucket, and added them to the QT bin. The crayfish went in a separate bin, of course. I just gently picked him up from behind his large claws, and placed him in the bin. All but the one weaker looking Indian ricefish survived (which I’d say was to be expected). It took about 3 minutes for them all to perk up and explore, even for the betta. It was nice to see. The Indian ricefish are very active, and it’s fun watching them shoal near the top of the tank or sometimes dart around the middle. The betta is very calm so far, exploratory too. He doesn’t seem to mind the other fish. The crayfish is very shy, understandably and is a little clumsy when walking on the bottom surface of the bin, so I’m thinking I might add some mesh, though he seems to be getting the hang of it so far. I added salt 1 tbsp per three gallons, and maintain that level for two weeks. If something presents, the treatment of course would take a bit of a detour, amount wise. After that, the salt will be fully water changed out, the fish will be transferred to the 20 gallon and parasite medication will start. It would be much easier to dose in the 20 gallon, as bins are usually not exact amounts. I don’t want to risk an overdose (especially since the packets aren’t labeled with the amounts), and since nothing but them will be in the 20, treating in there should be fine (it shouldn’t affect the beneficial bacteria or plants either). For that medication, they will be treated for a week, though that amount could change for longer and more dosing if parasites are suspected or symptoms of parasitic infection are presenting. On another note, we have biofilm showing on some parts of the driftwood, and the water is slowly clearing up. I always find biofilm pretty neat looking.
  6. Sapere_Ceta
    I did a small water change to remove a little bit of the fog the substrate caused. It’s a little better. I’m going to leave the rest of it alone for a while, most likely. I also might straighten up the sand a little bit as well, though it’s hard to see much when it’s so foggy, so I will let that clear up first. I do think that my bacteria is slowly building back up as well, adding to the fog. I was adding thawed out fruits to the quarantine tank on occasion to keep the numbers from dropping too low from all of the treatments. Currently, the tank is looking like this: I’m excited to see the fog reduce and the tank settle in. The rest of today and tomorrow will be a break until the fish arrive (which I think are more likely to arrive tomorrow, rather than tonight, judging by the shipping updates). I also forgot how enjoyable deep substrate is to look at. I know a lot don’t prefer the look, but I’d say I prefer it more than the shallow substrate look. Anytime I see aquariums with deep substrate, it feels as though that a slice of nature was cut out from the rest of the environment. It makes me feel like it’s its own little world that I can observe.
  7. Sapere_Ceta
    I set up the QT bins and added leaf litter I collected in the fall. They should sink pretty quickly, but I can boil them if needed. They seem to work well for these setups, for supplying cover without the risk of damage to them (from any aquarium salt, medication, etc). I’m still figuring out a Quarantine plan, what order I'd like to go with. I have finally got ahold of General Cure, and I stocked up on aquarium salt and a homemade bulk of tannins (along with CopperSafe and a few other medications). There are some medications I can get if needed, but the stores near me (including their online websites) typically only carry things like Melafix, Pimafix, and the less effective Ich treatments (so typically not a good selection). I typically do daily to nearly daily water changes on the QT setups, depending on how significant the bio-load is. I enjoy the smaller and more shallow bins, as I’ve found they seem to hold oxygen much better than a deeper bin, which is why I don’t usually have to utilize air pumps.
  8. Sapere_Ceta
    Morning, everyone. The past week has been extremely chaotic, as well as a downer. Samphan’s Gill flukes did not respond to the multiple treatments I tried, and worsened to the point where his gills wouldn’t work and he faced extreme fatigue. I transferred him to a smaller shallow setup to try and give him access to the surface, which seemed to help. But hour by hour, he got worse until finally passing away by Friday morning. I buried him in my oldest Succulent’s pot. I believe he had these when I got him (since December 18th), and they didn’t respond to any of the treatment that was done in quarantine. By the time he showed symptoms after Quarantine was finished, it was probably when they were getting much worse. I finally got hold of a strong medication to use on anything that was in the tanks Samphan ever went in, and completed treatment yesterday. My plants took a bit of a beating from all of the various treatments, but they’ll recover. I was really sad and still am, especially since Samphan was the first fish I had gotten in six years after I had to take all of my aquariums down. But I tried everything I could get access to and constantly monitored him and the water. A hard lesson of the hobby is that sometimes you just can’t help to the extent you imagine you can, and that doing your best might not always be enough to save them. But what matters is how well you try to help or save them. Two days ago, I ordered fish to quarantine, as everything has been treated and disinfected (though I need to finish disinfecting some equipment today). I ordered a male betta, six Indian ricefish, and (for another setup) a male bronze turmeric crayfish. The crayfish will be in a large bin until my mom and I move out of my grandpa’s home, then he will have his own aquarium. The rare plants still have not shipped, when I ordered them on the 4th, and I have reached out to the company but they still have yet to respond to me. I tried to contact the seller who sold me Samphan to notify them on what occurred and to keep an eye out on their fish, if they might have them too, but their entire store, email, and stock is gone. Yesterday, I added the plants I have to the 20 gallon and filled it up. They’re a little ratty and the tank is foggy, but once it all settles in, I will trim them down. I will take a better photo of the aquarium filled up eventually, one where you can see it from the front, so all of the plants are visible, but the glare is very bad until it gets dark out. I also need to clean it up a bit and let the fog reduce. I also might have to adjust the lighting, and I’ll have to add a new filter and heater to the tank. The filter I had replaced is too large (they sent me a different one from what I ordered). I have it hooked up to maintain the bacteria still though, and added an old heater, as my small one is currently running on one of the QT bins. I also just want to thank you all for being really kind and supportive. It’s nice to be apart of a community I have long since missed, especially with a collection of people this awesome.
  9. Sapere_Ceta
    Unfortunately, he didn’t make it. Putting him in there did help give him the ability to get air easier, and he started to move around slightly better. But over the course of last night, his fatigue seemed to be getting worse and worse the later it got. It’s really heartbreaking to have lost him. He seemed like he was doing better until yesterday. I keep thinking if there was something I did wrong, and so kept going through everything over and over again. My mom even helped me go over anything I did the past week to see if I made an error (I write everything down when a fish is sick), but we couldn’t find anything. I just feel like I’ve failed him. This was the first fish I’ve had in over six years. I’ve had to give everything up because of my disability, and I thought it was finally time to try having a fish again. I don’t know what else I could have done. By the time he started getting worse again, I could tell it was going to be too late..
  10. Sapere_Ceta
    I understand, I think that’s definitely worth looking into, and I’ll start looking into it. He started having extreme difficulty keeping himself up in the tank. So I decided to quickly jump onto setting up a shallow holding tank. I matched everything as well as I could, and I scooped him out with my hand quickly to add him to the tank. He made it through, though it definitely did cause his breathing to spike. But I feel as though this gives him a better shot while I figure out another game plan if he makes it through. He was looking so bad in the other tank, that to me, there’s no shame in trying another approach at this point. I’m gradually adding salt to get up to the 1 tablespoon per 2 gallon dosage in the meantime. I figured it at least can’t hurt, and I guess we’ll see how he is tomorrow.
  11. Sapere_Ceta
    Unfortunately, I can’t find ESHa GDEX anywhere. I’m not really sure what to do. I feel like he’s getting worse. He keeps staying to the top, but he’ll abruptly stop swimming and just start to drift downwards until he swims back up again. I don’t know if I should set up a smaller tank and put him in that, or just leave him in this one..
  12. Sapere_Ceta
    Alright, I’ll see if I can find it. I’ll bring it up online now. Thanks for the advice
  13. Sapere_Ceta
    Unfortunately not. I tried to find Prazipro and was unsuccessful, and I couldn’t find general cure either. I had went online for the shops near me, but most had neither. I ended up looking on Amazon, but the shipping is so delayed that it would take weeks to arrive. Any purchase I've made on Amazon recently, like the copper test kit for instance, has gotten lost while shipping and has yet to arrive.
  14. Sapere_Ceta
    I originally had him treated with salt of the same dosage you recommended, started it on December 18th when I got him. I added him to an upgraded and larger holding tank maybe eleven or twelve days ago (that was the final day of salt treatment), and then he started showing symptoms not long after. I’m not confident salt did anything for him.
  15. Sapere_Ceta
    I decided to do a 15% water change without dosing copper for the water replaced. I don’t see any typical copper poisoning signs, like rapid breathing or erratic swimming. But the lethargy, no appetite, and staying close to the surface without much gill movement has me a little worried. So, I feel as though water changing is a safe precautionary measure. He was doing so well the past few days.. I’m not sure why he’s seemed to have taken a bad turn. I’m hoping the water change I did will reduce any stress. Do you all think I should do more, I’m trying not to stress him out too much since I did another earlier (it was supposed to be the only one, but his symptoms still had me worried). I’ve thought about completely moving him to a different setup, but I don’t know if it really would be the best idea, and his symptoms aren’t seemingly dire, so I feel as though a transfer wouldn’t help. Any thoughts on how to approach this, or potentially thoughts on if I should keep water changing out the medication, take it out completely, or leave it in as is?
  16. Sapere_Ceta
    Over a week ago, I mentioned how my betta fish was showing signs of a parasitic infection (I’m pretty certain they are some type of gill fluke) and asked for some thoughts to confirm my approach. It’s been eight days so far of Copper Safe treatment. For the past few days, Samphan was showing much more normal behavior (doing his wiggle dances, being active and exploratory, not flashing or twitching). However today (day eight), he’s pretty lethargic and sticking close to the top. Not much gill movement (so no heavy breathing), no appetite at all (which is a new symptom) and occasional head twitching. I did a 10% water change and dosed Copper Safe only for the water replaced (as it is chelated and remains in the water for up to a month and until its water changed out). There was no behavioral change, good or bad. I’m unable to check the therapeutic level of copper because the copper test kit I ordered that was supposed to arrive the same day as the medication keeps being delayed, and there’s no other way I can get it. So I’ve been very careful to calculate the dosage amount and dose with a syringe to keep it exact as I can. I’m a little worried, given the lack of appetite and lethargy. I do know that lack of appetite can occur with Copper Safe. It could also be that more parasites have hatched and are now bothering him as well, as another thought I’ve had. But I want to confirm with you all if keeping the Copper Safe in the water (and still continuing treatment) is a good idea. What are all of your thoughts?
  17. Sapere_Ceta
    I feel similarly. It’s a lot better for my head pain and pressure, since it affects my vision a lot as well. But I saw the little trick above, so perhaps I can try that in the meantime until the new dark mode is released.
  18. Sapere_Ceta
    It happens. An animal floating is usually associated with being dead, as it is often used as the representation of it (like the floating dead goldfish in the cartoons). So to see an animal floating for other reasons is a bit unexpected, and that’s perfectly okay. The aquarium hobby involves a lot of experiences, both good and bad, that we learn from. If it’s any comfort, bladder snails are hermaphroditic. So even if you just have one snail, down the road, there will probably be more that show up.
  19. Sapere_Ceta
    Hm, snails can float for a lot of reasons, as normal behavior or indicating something wrong or a change that occurred. A bad smell would definitely indicate death, but bladder snails tend to be pretty small, so it would be hard to gauge. For normal behavior: eating at the surface, purposely trapping air in the shell to travel across the aquarium (like miniature hot air balloons haha), and potentially for some other reasons. For the other: a sudden change in water parameters causing stress, poor water quality, too much fertilization (if you happen to be dosing way too much copper), or potentially death. That’s typically after multiple days of not moving and continuous floating, though that might not always mean that the snail is dead.
  20. Sapere_Ceta
    Take it one step at a time. The plant issue could be a lot of things. Maybe go through a list of troubleshooting (substrate, lighting, method of planting, if the plants are new and melting because they’re adjusting or we’re emersed, water parameters, nutrient issue, etc), and cross off any that don’t apply. Over time, you’ll see an option of a few options that could be what’s occurring. Plants are pretty resilient, so you can typically take your time trying to figure out the issue. Brown algae is typically brown diatom algae, which goes away on its own after some time. But there’s some ways to combat it, like doing more frequent water changes until water conditions tend to stabilize (perhaps the setup is new, or maybe the nutrients are in excess in the water column). Fertilizers typically don’t have enough copper concentrated in it to harm snails, so perhaps it was natural causes or something unrelated.
  21. Sapere_Ceta
    Thanks! That’s a very clever method! I’ll have to try that out when the opportunity arises! I was dropping and knocking over so much of the hardscape. My only saving grace is that I spray foamed them together in sections so I could take them out and add them back together without too much hassle. But when the spray foam was drying, my hands were covered in it for weeks (I somehow completely missed the label of it being necessary to use gloves), and I was using mesh bags to hold it all together. Though there were sometimes where I’d have to hold it for around 45 minutes until it wouldn’t dry, which luckily only happened two or three times total. All of the driftwood is hot glued to the sections so I can take them off with the rocks. All in all, I believe there’s five or six sections total, but a few rocks came off on the structure on the right side when I had to take it out to spray paint and seal it all. It’s a little easier to get in small spots sometimes, as I’m pretty petite (5’1) so my hands can usually fit in the trickier places. But having to move them and set them up was the real challenge because they are heavy for me.
  22. Sapere_Ceta
    I’d like to add a crypt or two and a red melon sword. I’m not 100% certain if it will completely hold upon uprooting plants if it was done underwater. But that is a section I was aiming to be pretty taken over by plants. So I most likely wouldn’t be uprooting it anytime soon. Once it would get to the point where I wouldn’t want more plants, I’d probably have to stay on top of maintenance and uproot them while they’re still very small. In the case that I would have to uproot larger plants, I might be able to drain the tank extremely low for that area to keep the sand pretty compact while I uproot the plants. I’d probably have to set up a holding bin for all of the equipment and for the fish (but only one is living there). Keep 50-60% of the water in heated buckets to add back when it’s finished.. So I guess that is another option if I really was concerned about it falling.
  23. Sapere_Ceta
    Thanks! I’m hoping to be able to fit a lot of them in, but I might not be able to use all of them. It depends on what I can fit in without it being overcrowded. I do want them to be able to grow in and maybe overwhelm the tank a bit, so we’ll see. A lot of the plants I have are very slow growing, so if I am able to fit them in the scape without it being unsightly, I won’t necessarily have to stress about them outgrowing the tank for a while. When that starts to happen, I most likely will take the mother plant out and only keep the plantlets produced, allowing them to grow in once again. Or, alternatively, I could break the plant down into smaller plants and replant those in the spot the large plant once was. I do want the plants to take over the top half of the aquarium space. It would hide some of the driftwood at the front angle (from the side it would be visible), but I like seeing that change and growth occur in the tank. It makes the scape a little more interesting.
  24. Sapere_Ceta
    I’ve been at a standstill with the aquarium for now. My Chiari and my endometriosis have been extremely flared up, so I’ve been trying to rest up as much as I can, though sleeping has been pretty difficult to achieve. I thought I would share some photos of Samphan, who has been doing much better since yesterday, after being on six days so far of treatment (he’s been battling some really resilient gill flukes). He’s back to preforming lots of wiggle-dances and exploration, and it’s enjoyable to observe.
  25. Sapere_Ceta
    Females also tend to remain fertile for a longer duration as well, so you could potentially see more fry show up in the future even without the presence of other males.
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