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Andy's Fish Den

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Everything posted by Andy's Fish Den

  1. There are definitely a lot of different shades of blue that show up in my blue tank, anything from really light barely able to tell its blue to a royal blue to navy blue almost black, and the same with the blacks, from a light gray to midnight black. Once in a while I will have a red or reddish orange shrimp show up in either tank, it it sure sticks out like a sore thumb in the tank of all darker shrimp.
  2. If you don't meticulously cull the neocaridina shrimp, you will get a bunch of colors, especially with the blues and black colored ones. I have had tanks of them that I didn't cull for six or so months and I pull out all kind of colors. I also have a tank that I would throw culls into, and now there are some really nice ones of all colors, reds, blue, black, yellow, they just keep reproducing in there and making more.
  3. Crushed coral in a media bag if you have a power filter, or put a handful behind some decor if you don't want to see it. You can mix it in the substrate if you want as well. Aragonite sand that is marketed for the saltwater side of the hobby will help as well. I have also heard of people using crushed eggs shells sprinkles in the tank. Wash and dry them well and crush them up. But, with your water, I would just keep up with regular water changes and you should be good to go.
  4. I don't have any problems with USPS or UPS in my area, 99% of the time with both companies my package arrives on time when they originally say it will. I don't live in a city or town, and about a half hour from a decent size city, but still get the good service. Now FedEx is another story. I have had a few things supposed to come by them over the last couple of years, and not a single shipment has been on time, or even delivered! One shipment, originally said it would be delivered on a Monday, nothing came, got email saying it was running late, would come Tuesday. Nothing showed up on Tuesday. On Wednesday, tracking said it was out for delivery. I was outside mowing the grass, and watched a FedEx truck come down the road, never stopped, about an hour later, I got an email saying that is was undeliverable due to no one home. I called FedEx and after a bit, finally got a hold of someone at my regional hub, and finally got it rerouted to a FedEx store in a town about a half hour away. What a hassle! Now, if I go to order something online and it shows FedEx as the only shipping option, I don't order from that site. Amazon does pretty good for me, if I buy something and it says it will be here tomorrow or in two days, it will be. You just never know what time, I've had their vans pull in my driveway as early as 830am and as late as 945pm.
  5. If you have a Wal-Mart near you, go to the sporting goods area, everyone that I have been has a fridge and will have live bait in it. There are usually red wigglers, and night crawlers at least. Another thing you can try is if you have a LFS nearby that sells live blackworms, get some and a worm feeder cone. You can get a good amount and they can be stored in the fridge for a long time, just need to be rinsed off every day or every other day in cold water. I have fed both red wigglers and blackworms to my discus and other fish, and have not found anything that will turn the worms down.
  6. If you have fine particles floating in t the water that the sponges don't seem to be removing, Add a layer of poly fill. You can get a bag of it at any craft store or the craft section at Wal-Mart for a couple bucks. You'll have enough to last a lifetime, but it will clear the water up good.
  7. I haven't used a HOB filter in years, but when I did, all I used was Aquaclear. I like that I can customize the filter material to what I want to use, I am not stuck using the cartridges.
  8. If you only have chlorine in your water, you can off gas it in a bucket or something for a few hours before doing the water change, just put an airstone in the bucket and give it a few hours, you should be good. If your municipality uses chloramines, it will take much longer from my understanding.
  9. All I ever do is put the rocks in a bucket or utility sink, fill with hot water, let them soak and go over them with a stiff bristle brush to get off any dirt, rinse and put in tank.
  10. I am no chemist, and honestly do not test or mess with my water chemistry much other than to use remineralized RO water for caridina shrimp and using RO water and peat to try to get wild discus, angels and corydoras to breed. But, I would look into what is in the tank that could be causing this issue. First, what is your substrate, and decor in the tank? Some substrates will lower pH. I was going to say that your water has low to no buffer to stabilize pH, but you said that if you take water out of the tank, it reacts as you would expect from the addition of baking soda, so that would lead me to believe that it is something in the tank. I would either remove the substrate entirely to test or set the filter up on another tank and test. then, you could figure out whether it is substrate or the biological bacteria in the filter.
  11. Yes as long as the bubble is within the two black lines it is level. Believe me, in my 35+ years of fish keeping, I have had tanks that are far more off than what yours is.
  12. I have one that's the same way, I can't remember how long ago I put it in a grow out tank but it couldn't be longer than 6-8 months.
  13. I have currently a 75 gallon with 5 discus in it, all but one is in the 4.5-6" range and the other is about 2.5-3" that I won in a raffle at my local fish club. The tank is planted, only filtration now is a large ACO sponge filter and a box filter from Jehmco stuffed with floss. The fish are fed a mix of flakes, pellets and frozen brine and bloodworms. I change water once a week, roughly 40-50% I have no intentions of breeding the ones I have, but I have bred discus before. If you get young discus and are growing them up, I would keep them in bare bottom tanks and feed several times a day and change water a few times a week, but as they get older you can feed less and cut back on water changes.
  14. Adult angels will wipe out a shrimp colony. I had a 40 breeder that I would throw culls into, there was a lot of them in the tank, and I picked up at a club auction a bag with six sub adult angels cheap to grow out and then take to a later bigger auction. Anyways, by the time I took them to the later auction, all the shrimp in the tank had been picked off. This tank was not heavily planted, but I would say medium load of plants, and the angels were fed a couple of times a day so they also got plenty of other foods. I would not risk having any shrimp with angelfish except for any culls that you would pull out of other shrimp tanks.
  15. Mine and others I know with co2 run the PSI between 30-35 psi. I would lower it and see if it still blows. If that doesn't work, put a new piece of tubing on it, airline tubing is cheap.
  16. You might want to check with a LFS or see if there is a local fish club that meets in your area. The one LFS around me will have samples of various foods at times to give out for people to try before they buy, and my local fish club will get samples from companies to give out at events.
  17. I would suspect that around 36 hours or so they are dying. I hatch brine everyday in my fish room using the Ziss hatcher and co-op eggs. I use two liters water, three tablespoons rock salt, and 1-2 teaspoons of eggs depending on how many fry I have in the fish room at that time. I do not check my pH or other parameters of the water, just tap water, salt and eggs. Scrub the hatcher out after every batch. No heater in the hatcher, just room temp which is 76-80* in my fishroom. If I don't hatch near the 36 hour mark, they start dying off, even more so and soon if I do hatch more than one teaspoon. Years ago, I worked at a LFS that hatched baby brine as well as raised them to adult to sell to customers. There was a big five gallon hatcher cone that was used daily, and then we would package up the baby brine, and any left over got strained and put into one of several larger vats where they were grown out. These vats were in the neighborhood of 30-40 gallons. The baby brine would get decanted out of the hatching water, separated from egg shells, and put into fresh saltwater. I don't remember salinity levels, but it was kept around 78* and the vats were fed a couple of times a day with a powder that I suspect was a spirulina based stuff. If you want to grow some out, I would hatch a small amount in the Ziss hatcher, then once hatched at 24-30 hr mark, decant, and put into a 10 gallon tank of clean fresh saltwater and try that, feeding a spirulina powder. At least that is what I would do if I wanted to raise some out. Come to think of it, I might have to try it sometime this fall or winter when I have a little more time to spend in my fish room.
  18. There used to be a few places that farmed the worms in the US, but it has since been reduced to one, and that one farm is not able to keep up with demand. I did hear that possibly one that had shut down is back up and producing again, I have noticed several stores putting on their social media pages that they now have them back in stock.
  19. When blackworms were more readily available, I used to get them all the time to feed my fish, but I haven't had a LFS have them for over a year now. I used them a lot to get corydoras to spawn, especially wild ones. I have an accidental culture in one of my tanks, some worms had gotten into the gravel in the tank and have since prorogated themselves in the gravel substrate. The tank has some ancistrus in it and Ameca splendens and I am sure the splendens enjoy a little snack every so often when one pokes it head out of the substrate.
  20. Most stands that are commercially sold for aquariums are made out of MDF, particle board or other similar materials. I personally prefer something out of solid wood or metal. But, if you are careful, and don't spill water on the stand or if you do, get it cleaned up right away, you should be fine with a 10 gallon on there
  21. I do a roughly 30-40% water change once a week. I feed a wide variety of foods to all my fish, but the discus love frozen bloodworms and brine shrimp. They also get pellets, flakes, vibra bites, if I can get them, live blackworms. II have kept discus like this for many years, and have had some spawn and lay eggs, but none have hatched in the planted tanks, but I have pulled the pair and spawned them the way most everyone does, the pair in a 20 high tanks, bare bottom with painted sides, and raised fry in bare bottom tanks. I just don't think that if my goal is not to spawn and raise babies that they need to be kept in such a sterile environment.
  22. I have kept dry food in my freezer a lot of times, and have not noticed any difference, As for the frozen food, if you will use a cube up in a couple of days, you can pop it out of packaging and thaw however you usually do, feed the amount you feed, put it in some cold water in a small container and put in the fridge to use up the next day. I'll often do this, as I buy the 1lb flats of bloodworms and brine shrimp, break off a piece to thaw, then put what is left in the fridge. As long as it is kept cold in the fridge and used in a couple of days there won't be spoilage and can be used. Now, if you leave it set out on the counter top all day or overnight and it gets warm, I'd toss it.
  23. I have kept discus for many years, and have never done them the way the rest of the internet says that you have to. Right now, I have a 75 gallon that has 6 discus in it, two wilds and 4 domestic strains. I was always partial to the wild ones, but over the last few years have started liking the domestics. I keep my tank 82-85, it is planted, I have mesh bags with aquasoil in them along the back of the tank and then there is a layer of Caribsea peace river substrate, its a little bigger grains than sand, but not as big as gravel. There are sword plants, jungle val, and a few crypts in the tank, It is filtered with a small canister filter, a sponge filter and one of the old school box filters with filter floss in it. There are some black rams, two wild caught scalare angels and a few cardinal tetras in the tank with the discus. The only problem that I have with the other fish in the tank is the angels are so aggressive when feeding, I have to watch to be sure that the discus get a fair share, because a couple of them are a little on the shy side.
  24. I would feed a lot of blackworms when they were easier to get, my discus and corydoras loved them. Now, the only live foods that I feed are BBS, and microworms. I do want to start a grindal worm culture to feed my angels, corys, and discus.
  25. Look up Sam Scalz Nature artists, he does a lot of fish art work, I have several pieces of his, I usually get a new one or two every year at the OCA extravaganza. https://scalz.com/
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