DarthRevan

So update, I got Maracyn Oxy on accident instead of the packets but it still was doing ok for a while. It says on the bottle not to use it for more than 5 days. After day 1, the cottony growth on my bettas fins went away. I dosed it the full 5 days to be sure, but now the growth is coming back on the backside of the fin and he’s still losing his dorsal fin pretty fast. Should I switch to a different treatment, or do a massive water change and continue dosing Oxy? The bottle I’m using is pictured below, and I’ll try to grab a photo of my betta (he never sits still so it’s hard lol)

Thank you so much I will check it out! 🙌

Hey everyone, recently I’ve noticed my betta’s fins looking a little ragged. At first I thought maybe one of the platies had been nipping him (they’ve been really aggressive, one is pregnant and the males fight a lot because I don’t have a good male to female ratio: fixing that ASAP) but now I think it’s fin rot. I did a fish-in cycle so I think he may just have a weakened immune system and that’s what started it. The tank is fully cycled as of last week, but I can’t tell if his fins are healing or not. Should I give it time before I start treatment? Also, I’m having a hard time finding info online about treatments. I have rams horn snails and I’m getting some amano shrimp in a couple of weeks, and I want to make sure if I do have to treat it that the treatment is safe for inverts. I see BettaFix pop up a lot as a recommendation, and on the API website it says it may harm snails but it doesn’t say anything about shrimp (I assume anything that’ll harm snails will harm shrimp but I’m not sure) or if it’s like copper where if you use it once it’ll basically ruin your tank for inverts forever. I don’t have money right now to set up a quarantine tank for the betta, hopefully here in the future I can. Water Parameters (measured with API test kit): Ammonia- slightly above 0ppm Nitirite- 0ppm Nitrate- 20-25ppm Ph- about 7.6 Hardness- between 200-300 on the Aquarium Coop test strips (we have very hard water in Phoenix AZ) Tank is heavily planted and has floating plants

That’s true I forgot most fish you get at stores are juveniles and likely to develop new colors as they mature lol. I was also thinking the same, especially since other fish don’t have anything on them, I just wanted to be extra sure since I’m brand new at all this. The color is definitely concentrated around the head and on the side fins and I don’t think it’s spreading it’s just becoming more pronounced. Thank you for the help and peace of mind!!

I hope these are a little bit easier to see, I took screenshots from a video instead lol. It’s definitely a gold color, not silver or white (unless lighter colors look gold/browinsh because of the black scales).

So about 3 weeks ago I set up a brand new aquarium (heavily planted 40 gal breeder). I’m doing a fish in cycle (by necessity not choice). I’ll post a picture of my tap water parameters below for reference, I do keep my tank between 77 and 78 (it usually sits right at 77.5). The water parameters are what I measured from an API test kit. Nitrites and ammonia are currently at about .25 ppm each, I’ve been dosing a capful of Seachem Prime every 24-48 hours to keep it nontoxic while the tank cycles. I know fish in cycles can be rough on fish. I can’t tell if this Molly has ich or not. It’s hard to tell from the photos but the spots and patches on the fish are very clearly gold, not white. I hadn’t noticed it before but my roommate says that the Molly had gold on her the day I bought her, and I haven’t really seen it get worse but it’s a little hard for me to tell. Does anyone else have black swordtail mollies that have gold coloration on them? Also, none of my other fish have any spots on them and it’s been 3 weeks so I would assume if it was ich it would’ve spread by now. Also, behavior wise the Molly seems fine. She eats normally, swims all around, doesn’t rub her sides on any of the plants or aquarium walls. Sometimes I’ve noticed her shimmying on the bottom but that only lasts like 30 seconds then she’s off exploring again, and that doesn’t happen often (maybe a couple times a week). I’m by my tank 10.5 hours a day while I work so I have a pretty good idea of changes to the norm in my tank. Also sorry for the terrible photo quality it’s harder than I thought to photograph fish 😂

I’ll try that! Substrate is a 1:1:1 mix of sand, gravel, and Fluval Stratum capped with more sand (Caribsea Super Naturals). And in the middle I have a kind of river splitting up both sides with just some regular Petco brand coarse sand. I will check out the thread, thanks! I don’t have control over intensity with a Stingray 2.0 unfortunately so I just have to limit the time the light is on.

Yep I updated my light schedule yesterday! Ammonia is still sitting between .25 and .5 as of this morning, 0 nitrite, nitrates are around 10ppm naturally in our tap water here. It’s slowly creeping towards .5ppm ammonia based on the last few days, I just set the tank up Saturday and have been dosing Prime. I also dosed Easy Green a few days ago which I will not be doing again until it’s cycled lol

So this is definitely some kind of red algae clump. I was trimming some plants and I tried getting it off thinking it was some krill flakes but it’s solidly attached to the the plants. I cut my light from 10 to 8 hours a day and I’m gonna hold off on dosing Easy Green unless my plants really start looking terrible. I’m still not sure what it is but based on Google I’m pretty sure it’s a red variant of black beard/brush algae. So far my otos and platies won’t touch it, so after my tank is cycled and stable I’m gonna get some amano shrimp.

I thought that at first too but the only flakes I feed are Xtreme Community and the red flakes I’ve seen sitting at the bottom were washed out. But it’s possible there’s like a clearer algae that attached itself to the flakes that got caught in the moss making it look like the whole blob is an algae mass lol. I may also just be overreacting because so far everything that can go wrong has gone wrong with this setup 😂

Hey everyone, I just got a 40 breeder set up and it is my first tank. I set it up this Saturday 8/14 and I’m starting to see some red clumps of algae in my Java moss. This tank is not fully cycled, it’s a long story but I’m basically doing a fish in cycle by necessity (I’ll try to link my other post on that if I can figure it out). I started with a few plants and now have a ton. I added some easy green but I’m not sure that was the right thing to do right away, I was just worried about losing plants. Now I'm starting to see these red clumps all over my Java moss directly under the lights. I have a Finnex Stingray 2.0 and run it on a timer for 10 hours a day (I have scarlet temple and Monte Carlo so I wanted as much light as possible). My main concern is I’ve never seen or heard of this type of algae, and I'm hoping it’s not toxic. My otos either haven’t noticed it yet or won’t eat it. From my Google research I found it may be a form of black beard algae (Rhy something species) but I just want to make sure it’s not going to be a huge problem. Once my tank is established and cycled I’m getting some amano shrimp in addition to the otos so hopefully they can keep it in check.

Knights of the Old Republic is one of my favorite games so I had to incorporate it haha! And yeah this is the first place I go to when I have questions or issues! There’s a great community here 😄 That was pretty much my plan, except the Prime but I’m glad several people brought that up because it will definitely make it easier and save some fish! I actually was getting some mini water lettuce from OfferUp, but the person ran out so now I’m trying to find people or LFS that would sell any floating plants (besides duckweed, it grows too fast for my tastes). Especially because my light seems pretty bright (it’s a Stingray 2.0 and most people say it’s “low light,” but it is still pretty bright) and my betta will probably appreciate the shade. I’m just hoping it doesn’t overshadow my Monte Carlo or scarlet temple too much because I know they need as much light as possible. I’ve seen some people use airline tubing so I may try that method to keep some areas clear.

So after the water change yesterday and finally getting a heater installed, I think the tank is relatively stable now. No one died last night and everyone seems happy. The ottos are stuck to some hair algae growing on my moss bonsai tree, the platys aren’t gasping anymore, and the betta is active and eating. I think the issue was mainly the major temperature swings over the last couple of days. I’m still testing for ammonia it seems to be sitting steady between .25 and .50, if it spikes I’ll dose some Prime. Thanks again for the help and advice everyone!

That is an excellent idea, I will try that! Plus it will make less of a mess dealing with my Aqueon water changer that I had to rig up to extend an extra 25ft lol. It would be so much easier to just drain it with the water changer then just dump in water from a bucket/jug. Thank you! And thank you to everyone else who helped me today, you guys are great and I’m glad we have this resource!

Yeah that’s what I’m running into as well. I’ve watched so many videos from Aquarium Coop, Prime Time Aquatics, Girl Talks Fish, etc I should’ve known better than to believe I could just throw a bottle of bacteria in and have an instantly cycled tank. That’s basically what two of my local fish stores (not Petco/Petsmart, actual mom and pop stores) told me. I have been testing every day and I will definitely continue that. I’m getting a bottle of Prime tomorrow, and now that I have my heater in the tank I’m hoping it’ll stay around 78 so I don’t keep having massive temperature swings. Also, does anyone know a good way to make sure your tap water stays cool? I thought maybe my hot and cold knobs were flipped but no, my tap just runs at 80 or higher during the summer (again I live in Phoenix, AZ it’s 100+ here 24/7 until November/December). I don’t want to get a chiller but I’m thinking that may be what I have to do to keep the water temp stable when I do water changes.

Welp, bad news. Just lost another Otto. I know for sure this was due to temp. My tank went from 76 to 82 in like an hour due to my tap water coming out hot. It’s cooled back down to 80 though and it’s holding steady. Hopefully I don’t lose anymore, but it seems like I should’ve gotten plecos or waited until my tank was established 😞 Thank you for the article @TankofFish I will follow that guide!! @quikv6 that is perfect. I’m getting some tomorrow before work! Fingers crossed.

That is true I didn’t think of it that way. I was like “oh it’s only ‘half’ stocked so it’ll be fine.” I just did about a 40-50% water change, added another dose of API dechlorinator and another 1oz of Fritz. For the Prime, do the bacteria still eat the detoxified ammonia to continue the cycle? I saw it and I was worried after reading it I’d have a bacteria die off because I’m removing all the ammonia. Now that I think about it it could’ve been temperature. I live in Phoenix, AZ and our water is very hard. Our KH is 161ppm and GH is well over 200, not sure by how much though. But the LFS near me all raise their fish in our tap water. In fact I had a few fish I had bought and left at the store for a week die, and I was told it’s because they were raised in RO water. But I didn’t have a heater, so the tank got down to 76, but it started at 90 before I added them because our tap water comes out hot no matter what. So they sat in a bag for about 5 hours until I could get the temp down. Then it dropped overnight. So that may have been it. I just did a water change and it raised the tank temp up to 82 before I saw the thermometer and now another otto is struggling. I’m not sure what to do about that because I use the cold tap and it comes out hot anyway. The good news though is that the rest of them are fine, the tank is clean now, water parameters are holding steady (temp is slowly dropping, it’s at 80 now and my heater is in the tank set to 78 since it just came in). I also just got my shipment from the Coop and got all the plants planted. So I’ll see how it goes over the next couple of days now that everything should hold steady.

So I wasn’t too sure about the bacteria in a bottle thing either, but long story short I was talked into buying some fish before my tank was even set up, and he said he’d hold them. A lot of items got delayed from Amazon and he basically said you need to come get your fish (after about 2 weeks). So I was in a hurry and him and another store said the Fritz would be fine. I also thought it would be ok since the tank was about half stocked (if you follow the 1 inch of fish/gallon rule). They did say I would get slight ammonia spikes, then nitrite, then eventually I would just have nitrates like a normal cycle, just over about a week instead of weeks. Also Fritz is refrigerated so it was recommended more highly than the other bacteria products. But I think I should still do a 30% water change at least since the ammonia is getting up there. But you guys are right I don’t think doing an accelerated cycle is a great idea. Lesson learned I guess lol. I have plants on the way from Aquarium Coop, they are supposed to be delivered this afternoon so I will be planting the tank more heavily. At the moment I have a few bunches of Java moss, 3 Mexican oak leaf stems, 2 Anubias coffefolia, and two crypts. As for feeding my betta, he is starting to interact with me more but my glass is reflective so he’s spending a lot of time chasing himself. He doesn’t flare at all, just swims back and forth. Not sure if that’s normal or if it’s aggressive/stressed behavior. This morning I waited until I could get his attention and he did eat a few bites. At the moment I’m feeding Hikari vibra bites in the morning (a small pinch) and Xtreme community flakes at night. I also just checked on my remaining ottos and they all seem to have full bellies. They’ve been stuck on the wood most of the time so I’m not sure what they’re eating cause I know the glass and rocks don’t have any algae yet.

Oh yeah I have API water conditioner whenever I put new water in the tank (which I’ve only done once when I filled it). I’ll try the vegetables, hopefully they will eat it and not get outcompeted by the platys. I’ve been trying to go light on the fish food, but my betta hasn’t been getting any, by the time he realizes there’s food it’s mostly gone. And the platys usually pick up any leftovers on the substrate

Hey everyone, I finally got my very first tank started on Saturday! Everything seemed to be going fine yesterday, but today I woke up and had two deaths. I have a 40 breeder, 6 platys, 7 ottos, and a betta. I lost one platy and one otto so far. The tank is brand new and was not fully cycled, I was told by two LFS that I could just add some Fritz Turbostart 700 to get it going. I have a Seachem Tidal 55 filter packed with sponges, and a few plants/moss bunches (getting many more today). I tested the water yesterday with an API master test kit because I was worried I was over feeding cause I have no idea how to feed a community tank. I tried the 2 minute rule but not all the fish got food, especially my betta. After the test, the ammonia test was a pale yellow so I’m thinking the ammonia is between 0-.25. Nitrites were 0, I didn’t test for nitrates. This morning I immediately tested after removing the bodies, and ammonia was between .25-.50. Nitrites are 0 and Nitrates were between 10-20. I’m not 100% sure the issue is water quality cause the rest of the fish seem fine, not gasping or anything and moving around like normal. One platy is very aggressive and almost constantly chases the females and my betta. I’m removing him ASAP, but I’m not sure if that’s why one of the platys died. As for the ottos, they’ve been sucking on the wood I have in there, but I haven’t been able to feed them cause I know there’s no algae in my tank yet besides on the wood from soaking it. I bought some Hikari algae wafers but they have fish/krill in them and the ottos wouldn’t touch it, and the platys were attacking it so they couldn’t get some anyway. So I’m not sure if it’s water, harassment/stress, or starvation. I know the level of ammonia is toxic right now, I’m going to be doing a water change ASAP but I would expect the other fish to not be doing well if it was water quality. After the water change I’m adding another 1oz of Fritz Turbostart and keeping an eye on everything for the day. Does anyone have any thoughts/suggestions/theories?

Update: finally got everything set up. Used Fritz turbo start to jumpstart the cycle, this betta seems a little aggressive and some of the platies have chased him off a couple times, but he was by himself the whole time in the store so he may just need to get used to tank mates. I also saw him chase a couple of ottos but he gave up when he realized he couldn’t catch them. I don’t think I’ll be getting shrimp with this guy. I’m getting more plants from the Co-op Monday, these were just the best that my LFS had today. Does anyone know of any good algae wafers for the ottos? I got Hikari ones but they seem to be more for plecos because there’s fishmeal and krill in them. I put it in for like an hour but only the platies would eat it. Maybe they only eat at night? I couldn’t find any info on that online.

I will definitely have hardscape lol I just haven’t talked about it because I already know what I’m doing for it. I’m going to have Malaysian driftwood and probably seiryu stone or something similar that’s dark/gray. I was just more worried about possibly killing plants and fish 😅 I have seen a lot of aquascapers reference that rule and I definitely plan to use it as a starting point 😁 I do plan on adding more colors as well, my LFS has plants that Aquarium Coop doesn't offer at the moment, I just wanted to get a good green background going before figuring out where I need the extra pop of reds and bronze lol. I definitely got the curved scissors in my cart from Aquarium Coop lol, I see everyone use them and they seem to make things way easier once you get the hang of it! Ah ok I wasn’t sure how that worked, I thought the bubbles were actually adding O2 to the water 😂 I’m going to have a Seachem Tidal 55 HOB, I went with that one because it’s bigger than I need and it has an adjustable flow so I’m not blowing my poor betta around lol. And I did not know that, thank you for the heads up. I was told bigger finned bettas are slower and have a harder time catching things, so they’re more recommended in a community setting, but if they’re generally more aggressive then that would defeat the purpose! I’ll be shopping around more once my LFS gets a new betta shipment in 😁

I freaking LOVE that tank setup! I bet it looks even more amazing all grown in now. I can only hope to be anywhere close to that 😂 Alien bettas are really cool too I agree but there’s nowhere I can get them here and I’m hesitant to order fish online lol I also love crypts, they just add such a unique look to the foreground and break up the stems lol. They are really cute I love to watch them just swim around looking for food at my LFS haha. They breed a lot as well though so be careful 😂 Plecos are really cool and they hold their own in a community I feel like lol. I may get some of those instead of Ottos. Hahaha I feel like sometimes fish and reptiles do go hand in hand. But I’m sure the betta will appreciate not having so much action going on all the time if it was getting stressed before lol. My partner wants a bearded dragon in a bioactive terrarium but I was like that’s all on you I chose fish for my hobby 😂 But thank you for the advice and encouragement, I will definitely be posting updates. I’d love to see updates on your various tanks too once you get them sorted! Back to work for both of us I guess 🤣

This was super helpful, thank you! I love hearing stuff like this because it gives me other perspectives than just the 4 or 5 people I watch on YouTube lol. I’m really hoping I don’t get an overly aggressive betta who wants to eat snails and shrimp lol, but my backup plan is to have a 10 gallon set up for it if it becomes a problem. I’m still debating on whether I want a veil tail or a plakat. I love the showiness of the veil tails but I also love the streamlined predator look of the plakats lol. But I know they also are able to catch more shrimp/fry so I’m not sure 😂 and thanks for the advice with the cholla wood I had not thought of that before, I was hoping a lot of plant cover would do it lol. I hope if I get Endlers they don’t reproduce that much, but I was also looking at some mollies because they’re fun to watch and a little bigger. If you have pictures that would be great for inspiration! I’ll see if I can find your posts lol

I love the way that looks! It’ll add a lot of texture to the tank. I just checked though and it’s sold out 😭 Hopefully it comes back in by the time I’m ready to order lol