KaitieG
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Posts posted by KaitieG
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I agree--I think the issue with neons in general is that they are farmed in such massive numbers and then go through all the shipping stress. You can have that issue no matter where you buy them. For what it's worth, I bought a batch of 12 from my LFS around July of last year, and they all settled in well. Two recently died after a big tank move caused some stress. Everyone else is doing fine, and my water is very hard and PH is 8.0-8.2. No guarantees, but I feel like they were worth the try for me!
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My understanding is that GH minerals generally do not evaporate, so you can have your GH climb if you're just topping off due to evaporation. As the water evaporates, the minerals are left behind and tend to build up. That said, my GH is as high as yours and that's out of my tap AND in my tank--guppies like it 🙂
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Hi!
This is a little tricky--but you're not the only one with a similar issue. I used to live at a house in a similar situation, though that had a small RO unit, since 40ppm can cause some issues for children and pregnant women when it comes to drinking water. If I were in your situation, I think I'd consider a couple of things:
1. Adding a bunch of fast growing, nitrate sucking plants like guppy grass, floating plants (salvinia, duckweed--though this spreads like mad once it gets going, frogbit, etc.), hornwort, water sprite, etc.
2. Buying some water--like distilled water from the grocery store. You can also buy a small, but fairly well rated, RO system for about $50. I know the cost isn't ideal, and I'd try loading up on plants first, but it's an option.
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20 minutes ago, TheDukeAnumber1 said:
I agree with teaching them to swim asap. Going through that now with mine and teaching them how to handle themselves and be comfortable in the water is so valuable.
Also I've employed chicken wire pond coverings before and if it's secured well it can also be a deterrent.
My parents have a pool, so she's been in the water, and the older two know how to swim, but I wouldn't trust the 3 year old alone--she still sinks! If I try anything this year, I think it'll be shallow, and if she's swimming by the end of the summer, I'll know I can plan bigger for next year...with the escape routes @Brandy described.
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The neighbors would probably appreciate that for their dog who likes to visit. I wonder what our chickens would do with one in a kiddie pool.
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I've been playing around with the idea of doing an outdoor pond tub and moving some livebearers or white clouds out there, but the thing that's holding me back is having a three year old. Has anyone done these outdoor containers with little kids? What kinds of safety measures did you figure out?
My first idea was to use an extra 300 gallon stock tanks that's sitting around at the farm. Then I quickly decided that would be a TERRIBLE choice given the human fry around here! 🙂 Maybe I'll snag it when they can all swim in a couple years. The older two swim like...well...fish. Other sizes/shallow options that would be safer?
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I think that @Irene has done one--mentioned in a video somewhere.
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12 minutes ago, LaurieinIA said:
@KaitieG here’s the results. To my eye, the test strips show lower results than the API liquid test. I’m reading the tap strip as under 20. The aquarium strip as 20-40. On the liquid tests, I see 10-20 and 40-80?
I wish there was an affordable way to just get an actual number instead of comparing colors
Given those tests and the fact that I can never differentiate between 40 and 80 on the liquid tests (or 10 and 20 for that matter) I'd vote that you're around 40 ppm--that would fit with the colors for both the liquid and strip tests, right? And that's not so bad, especially if it's temporary!
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Wow! He is really BEAUTIFUL! I'm sorry I don't have any good suggestions for you--I lucked out with a pretty chill betta, but WOW! He's lovely!
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9 minutes ago, LaurieinIA said:
That would make sense! I’m in rural NW Iowa. On City water, but they have to get it somewhere...
Yep--I think that is a good possibility! If so, it should be temporary, which would be good!
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It would be interesting to see the comparison! I'm not sure where you live, but I know around here (rural WI farmland) Nitrates tend to rise in wells in the spring as everything thaws and stuff (manure/fertilizer, etc) moves into the ground water. Not sure if you could be experiencing something similar with your tap water source.
I would probably do my best to ride it out for a while if I were you and if nitrates aren't going crazy high since hauling all that water would get old really fast, but that may just be me!
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I think an issue you may be seeing here is that it's harder to drop nitrates with water changes when you have nitrates in your water source. RO water had no nitrates, so say you're diluting 40ppm tank water with 0ppm RO water...you do a 50% WC, and you have 20 ppm nitrates. When you're diluting 40ppm tank water with 20ppm water (I'm not sure yours is actually that high), you're not going to go down nearly as far.
As to how to solve that...well...that's harder 🙂 Usually the answer is "add plants", but not sure what will work with African Cichlids. I think there are some plants that work, but others may have better specific advice!
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11 hours ago, TrishK said:
This is where I get stuck. PLANTS HATE ME. I have killed some of the most difficult to kill plants pretty quickly. My cactus only lasted 72 hours. My friend gave me silk plants for my house and those wilted. No joke. I killed fake plants. This has made me super nervous about trying live plants in my aquariums. Can I still have happy, healthy, thriving fish with fake plants in my tanks? I know my goldfish are doing great, but I worry about the more tropical fish. Any help I could get would be appreciated.
I think your tank plans sound like a lot of fun! As for aquarium plants, I would say my aquarium plants look about 90% better than my houseplants 🙂 I'm not the greenest thumb with houseplants either! There are a couple advantages to aquarium plants--you don't have to water them, and at least for slow growers, the fish automatically add most of the fertilizer!
That said, I believe that you CAN have a healthy tank without plants! Like others have mentioned, it'll just take more frequent water changes.
One other idea to try is that you can grow many kinds of plants immersed in your tank--where the roots are in the tank but the plant itself is in the air. Some good candidates are pothos and peace/Easter lilies which you can get pretty cheaply at many stores, or with pothos, you can usually get someone to just give you a cutting from it and it'll grow that way. They're pretty good at drawing nitrogen out of the water, and they're cheap and readily available in case you don't have much luck the first time 🙂
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16 hours ago, Demobanana said:
Is it really that important? My floor isn't that level (either that or its the carpet) and the right side of my 10g tips a little compared to the left side. At first I was worried but nothing happened so I didn't care anymore.
I would tend to agree with @Sal. I don't think it matters much for smaller tanks, but for big ones it may be more of a structural issue. For us, it mattered because it drove my husband crazy that the water line was about half and inch off. I honestly didn't even notice--the tank has a rim for goodness sakes 🙂 But seeing as how he had to do the work and how it bothered him, now we have a nice level tank!
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2 hours ago, MichelleMichelle said:
My shipment was so close 😫. I'm in Wenatchee WA about 4 hours away from Aquarium Coop. Now its all the way in Elk Grove Illinois. How does USPS justify this? I hope my plants survive if it ever shows up.
I was born in Elk Grove Village 🙂
I live in Wisconsin now and had one Coop shipment go from WA to PA back to WA to WI. Never figured out that one, either, but I'm happy that MOST of the time they do a good job getting things where they need to go. It's just those other times that can be mind-boggling. 🙂
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On 4/10/2021 at 8:34 PM, James Black said:
For the Photo Contest I was thinking we could have multiple topics to enter in.
Something Like...
- Prettiest Betta (because it seems that most people have one)
- Best Scape
- Best Looking Invertibrate
- Prettiest Fish (this way no matter what everyone can join in)
What do you think?
Ugliest fish might be a fun one too!
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12 hours ago, k0olmini said:
What do you do to make sure the top is level?
When my husband did the stand for our big tank, we filled it with water to leak test, and while it was full, he measured the space between the water and the rim in several places. He then custom built a set of shims to match those measurements (our house is old, so we have the uneven floor issues others have mentioned.). That took care of the leveling--now the water is even at all points on the tank.
If you're also asking about smoothness on the top of the stand (please forgive me if I've misunderstood) to avoid putting pressure points on the glass bottom, then there's 2 things here. If you have a tank with a rim, the rim supports the glass, so small imperfections are okay. If you have a rimless tank, the glass bottom will sit directly on the surface, and even minor imperfections in that surface can cause stress points, so most people with rimless tanks put a piece of foam in between the tank and the stand. There's a good recent video by MD Fishtanks on youtube that shows him prepping the foam pad for a new tank/stand in his Natural Biotope tank project if you're interested.
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48 minutes ago, Marc said:
I agree, I got 2 types of endlers and a strain of guppies and swordtails. they have all had explosions and I'm about out of tanks, trying to find the right fish to help keep their populations down. I know what fish don't work for that.
Alright, I'll "bite" 😉. What fish DON'T work? I'm hoping an angel will since that's my plan for the big tank!
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On 4/8/2021 at 7:48 PM, Phillip said:
Soooo I kill Java fern too! Didn’t think you could kill Java fern 🤣
Java fern dies every time in my tanks that also don't grow floating plants. Anubias do great and even flower. No clue why!
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6 hours ago, Daniel said:
Most people only want colorful fish and for guppies and Endlers that equals males. And the other thing (and I totally do not get this part) many people are fearful of a population explosion and therefore do not want female guppies.
Having experienced a population explosion when I was just starting out with ONE tank--no extras--that was quickly overrun, I do kind of get this. I really like my female guppies--a lot better than the males actually, but boy can they produce fry! I probably could have not fed them anything else and then had them eat their babies, but they sure weren't interested even getting fed only once a day. I'd had the impression that they'd take care of the fry population a lot more than they did.
I also live in a very rural area, so there aren't many places to get rid of the "extras"--my "L"FS an hour away took some of them when they were old enough to show colors (took...not bought), but I went from 5 to 50 in one month before separating into M/F tanks. That was shocking. And if you don't have multiple tanks or a good place to give/sell the fry, or a good predator, you can get overrun pretty quickly.
This time I have a plan 🙂 But I also have more tanks and space and options. Not everyone does.
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I haven't really heard of this, but it makes sense that it would work to me. We use it for our chickens, but I have such hard water that I'd never need to put it in my aquariums 🙂 Anyway, a quick google does not make me a pro, but my quick google says that some people do indeed use it in aquariums, especially for breeding snails. It sounds like you have to be careful how much you add at one time so that you don't cause huge Ph swings and thereby kill your snails/fish. So maybe it was not the product itself that was the issue but a Ph swing? Did you test the Ph before and after adding the coral/oyster shells?
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Hi! I had the same reaction when I first started reading it 🙂 Then I found the explanations! It's something that came up one of Cory's livestreams where he combined normal and nerd to describe fish keepers who are "normal" in everyday life and then become crazy nerds (in a friendly, not a derogatory sort of a way) when it comes to fish. It's basically been adapted to apply to most people who hang out on the forum/livestreams/members, etc..
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39 minutes ago, Littlefish said:
There was a local breeder, Bioaquatix, here in Fl who had hard water raised cardinals. Not sure if he still sells retail or is even still open.
I think he is--I was recently looking at his angelfish on Aquabid.
Question
in General Discussion
Posted
The rubberlip pleco is another option for this size tank (though bristlenoses come in so many cool varieties, those are what I'd be looking at too if I didn't have so many sword plants in my tank--I hear tell they like to eat those!).