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Sandra the fish rookie

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Everything posted by Sandra the fish rookie

  1. Sandra the fish rookie
    @Fish Folk OH MAN.. the WOOD DRAMA in that tank.. LOL I have a giant box of wood. For the life of me, could not seem to get it to work right.. BUT.. I think I will give it another go over the weekend and see if I can get another large piece in there. I have some of those "not so cute" terracotta plant watering spikes used for plecos. I could add one (hide it LOL) so they each have a cave? My issue is researching on the web, there is so much conflicting info about Pleco's (well fish in general). I got this little clown pleco and to be honest I knew they were shy, but this is a bit nuts. I don't know if he is alive or dead, sick or healthy? I am also paranoid to over stock on bottom feeders then have no room for anything else in the tank. Its in my living room where we chill out the most, so I want some swimming fish in there as well. I am probably making this way more difficult that it should be... Trying to stock a tank is more difficult than I thought it would be. Timing with QT too is also a challenge.
  2. Sandra the fish rookie
    @CorydorasEthan and @Fish Folk eventually I want to add some Panda corydora's to the 40G. Is that going to be an issue? Feeding wise? I don't know if I can have a tank without corydora's in it.
  3. Sandra the fish rookie
    @CorydorasEthan no, the Corydora clan is in the 20G ONLY. 40G stocking is 1 clown pleco and 2 Oto's. TONS of plants.. 20G has 5 Corydora (3 albino, 2 pepper), 1 guppy (5 coming out of QT on the weekend), 1 blue mystery snail, 1 Ramshorn snail, 2 bamboo shrimp and a single cherry shrimp.
  4. Sandra the fish rookie
    I would have to get those online. Probably Flip Aquatics so that I can get more than 1. The LFS here, seem to get them but they don't last or sometimes can't even get them at all. I was even lucky to get the 2 Oto's I have. My 20G could use some plant help as well and was thinking of getting Oto's for that tank as well. Seems everyone is out of stock these days. I just worry about feeding them all. My Cory's are MONSTERS!! They eat everything I throw at them, veggies, wafers, vita bites, blood worms. so I fee the guppies first with flakes (they are PIGS too), then put the bottom feeding food in a few seconds after. Then the GIANT mystery snail comes and pushes everyone out of the way..
  5. Sandra the fish rookie
    @Fish Folk and @CorydorasEthan the clown pleco is small. I NEVER see him. I have a cave in there and plenty and other hiding spots as well. This is my 40G breeder a few weeks ago. those bright green plants (which I can't remember the name of) are almost out of the water, so I have to trim and plant the trimmings this weekend. I wanted to get some Panda Cory's for this tank at one point. I have 2 Otocinclus in there as well (they only had 2). They have been VERY easy to feed. However, I have NO idea if the Pleco is eating anything. I seriously NEVER see it. I saw it the other day, so at least I know its alive. I am hoping that the Super Red (which I want to get from Michael's fish room) will be a little more "visible". I don't even know if it uses the cave that is in there or not. Maybe I shouldn't get one? Keep the invisible one I have and call it a day? I have a lot of Corydora in the 20G and they are so happy and I don't want to ruin that. I am trying to have a better "plant" and "wood" clean up crew than my 20G, because the mystery snail and corydoras well wall/bottom clean.. plants.. not so much. The shrimp.. meh.. they try. LOL I do have a 20G that I can put one of them in if they get into it.
  6. Sandra the fish rookie
    I currently have a small clown pleco in my 40G breeder tank. I REALLY want a LF Super Red bristle nose pleco! I think it will be beautiful in the tank. Can 2 species of pleco live together?
  7. Sandra the fish rookie
    @SheWhoConquers I have sand substrate with a ton of anubia's and Java fern attached to drift wood. Its really weird, because initially it was fine, then gradually started to drop once I started to add more plants, and the wood, it dropped. Its steady at 6.8 but I ordered coral from ACO "just in case". Its the ONLY tank that has a low PH/KH. My KH in all the other tanks is 5 and GH is 12 right out of the tap, but stays round 4-5 in all my tanks except the 5g, GH =13 (sometimes higher) and KH =3. At one point I could not even get the KH to read at all.. as if I had NONE.. it was really strange. I have a wonder shell, which has helped a bit.. I watch it closely.
  8. Sandra the fish rookie
    @ccurtis I have 3 fish in there now. I have 2 Oto's and 1 clown pleco. Oh.. and snails from plants
  9. Sandra the fish rookie
    @Mmiller2001 I have been wanting to get one. Is there one you recommend? there are TONS on Amazon...
  10. Sandra the fish rookie
    @SheWhoConquers At least my PH is consistent with all my tanks "except" my 5G puffer tank which seems to be and stay at 6.8 and very little KH.. Really weird. I purchased some crushed coral from ACO in hopes I can bring it up a bit.. the KH anyway. I have a wonder shell in there but its only helps a bit. My puffer seems to be fine in those parameters, so I am leaving them alone.
  11. Sandra the fish rookie
    @JettsPapa Here you go! Besides the fact that I read these things so much I can't even tell the colors anymore.. LOL
  12. Sandra the fish rookie
    I do my chemistry (the long painful way) once a week (because I am a paranoid fish rookie). My 40 Gallon has been doing great cycling wise, and I have had to REALLY work on DON'T TOUCH IT.. LEAVE IT... and I have. However, the manual algae removal and Diatom algae was getting to be a bit much because I just HATE how it looks. My plants have gone nuts in there, and I have already had to trim them and re plant the trimmings. Saturday I caved in and added 2 Oto's (they only had 2) and 1 Clown pleco (who I say for 5 hrs. and is hiding now). I fed them an algae wafer yesterday. My chemistry has not changed since I did it on April 15th (I know less than a week, but wanted to check because I added fish). Do I leave it? or should I do a water change? PH 7.4, Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0 and Nitrates 20 ppm ( I think) the colors are sometimes tough to read.
  13. Sandra the fish rookie
    Thank you so much @Fish Folk They will be going into a 20G with 1 other guppy, 5 corydora 2 bambo shrimp, 1 cherry shrimp 1 Ramshorn snail, and a mystery snail. Do you think the fry will be okay? it is a planted tank
  14. Sandra the fish rookie
    @Fish Folk No. Just my history with guppies from the LFS. I ordered these online from Michael's fish room in NJ. I got mutt guppies. They are eating and have not seen any signs of worms. I received them April 6th and waited till April 8th to start the quarantine trio followed with another dose of Paracleans day 3, 25% water change.
  15. Sandra the fish rookie
    I have some guppies in the QT tank and they have been through their first QT trio, and 1 round of de worming. They are in the 2 week rest period and will receive their second round of deworming. Last night I saw a baby in the fake plants I have in there. Both the females are pregnant, and on is VERY preggo. She may have had more, but they may have been a nice delicious snack 😞 But there is 1 in there that I can see, swimming in the plants. Probably more to come. Question: Can I continue to de worm if there are babies in the tank? I do have a breeding net box ready to go, but not sure if it will stress them out more or not. AND.. I have a bacterial bloom happening in there suddenly as well UGH! This tank has been PERFECT till now..ALL chemistry is normal. I am feeding them now only to protect the babies from being a snack. But once the de worming #2 starts, I will not feed them till post treatment.
  16. Sandra the fish rookie
    @KBOzzie59 The instructions are: Shake well, add 1 drop per gall once a week and several drop in food once a day. However, how are most people adding this to flake food and frozen food?
  17. Sandra the fish rookie
    How do I use this stuff? Do I put drops in the water? I am trying to finish my algea wafers before opening my Rapashy gel foods. I read on the bottle to mix with food.. How? how do I mix it with dry food? I want to use this for my pea puffer Gazoo, he eats snails and frozen blood worms. He prefers to have his worms served "frozen" so they melt and he chases them around. So, what I do it take a cube, use a mallet, and break it into little chunks for him, and put the remainder in a zip lock bag into a jar back in the freezer. I would like to know the best way to use it that is the most beneficial for my fish.
  18. Sandra the fish rookie
    I finally have all my plants in place, appears that everything is growing and doing well. Tank is cycling and doing its thing. I am beginning to think of stocking options for this bad boy. Can't do anything right now, as I have guppies in QT till the first week of May at the very least. I am so torn, between what to do for cleaning crew. I love bristle nose plecos (hear they are messy/large bioload?), Khuli loaches, Hillstream loaches, Oto's.. ugh.. want them all LOL. I MUST have Corydora's (good ground clean up crew.. but so CUTE).. but this time I am going to order them them online so I don't run into the issue of having a difficult time trying to find the same ones to complete my group. I don' know which ones to get. I have peppered and albino in the other tank and want different ones for his one. Once I am done with the clean up crew, I want to move on to adding the rest. With all these plants, I need a clean up crew.. and a GOOD one! This set up.. the struggle with the wood was REAL.. I have put it together and taken it apart because it would not sit right, or looked weird.. ugh.. finding large pieces of wood has been very difficult to say the least. Then my LFS was having a hard time getting dragon stone, so I had to use some large pebble stones.. ugh. I got a shrimp thingy, and pleco cave just because..LOL.. Suggestions? FYI.. background is black.. but the lights make it look a bit bluish at night.. or from a cameras view
  19. Sandra the fish rookie
    @Will Billy funny you mention that.. I "think" that one or both females are pregnant. I did it on purpose, to get males and females this time to have my one hopefully disease free babies. I am giving the guppy thing one last shot. I ordered this online from a breeder in NJ. See picture below, its really hard to get a picture of her she moves so much and the males chase her everywhere. There is another female in there I suspect might be pregnant too. I purchased a breeder box to be ready in case. The just finished their first course of the QT combo, and 2nd dose of paracleanse. Just did a water change, and giving them a 2 week rest and plan to do another course to fully de worm them. I am worried about de worming with Fry though. 😞 My bamboo shrimp are the second picture.. they are the coolest EVER..
  20. Sandra the fish rookie
    Thank you all for the GREAT advice. Here is what I did. I still have my sponge filters (intake, extra in the tank, and inside the HOB). I added the Matrix, and the water is super clear. I am seeing less brown diatom algae as well (maybe I am nuts) I split up the Matrix between my 20G and 5 G. Both have much clearer water. In the HOB all I had was a sponge filter where I would add filter floss as needed to clear the water. Now I have the sponge filter at the very bottom, the Matrix on top and use filter floss as needed. We will see how it goes. @Will Billy current gang in the 20G are 5 Corydora, 1 ramshorn snail, 1 mystery snail, 1 guppy, 2 bamboo shrim, 1 cherry shrimp. I have 5 guppies in the QT tank that will join the club the 1st week of May (when the are FULLY de wormed). Then I think that tank will be good to go stocking wise. Water Changes 1 a week, 20-25% and this includes cleaning the inside of the glass, dusting plants and sucking up any surface left over food my giant snail has left behind (which is rare). So based on the above feedback, I am not feeding my gang enough? So once a day should be more like??? twice a day? three times a day? @starsman20 I used Easy Green after every water change so once a week.
  21. Sandra the fish rookie
    Currently I only have a course filter in my HOB and I am thinking I need something else to get more media than I have to get my Nitrates higher .. I have a lot of plants, with growth, wood, gravel, fish are doing well, fed daily.. No Ammonia.. but I can't seem to get my nitrates higher than 5-10 ppm. Tank has been going since Dec 2020. I also have a sponge filter in the tank as well. I am thinking I need to add it to the 5G as well. I need to get more bacteria on my filters. The 5G has this front drawer with the pump, and on the other side is a half wall, that I have a course filter, and some balls (which are not really holding on to any bacteria that I can see) I don't think their porous enough. I have the balls on the side where water just sits in the drawer. How much seachem Matrix do I need? Its sold in amounts. my 40G is a tidal, and its a great filter and it just works better than the others biofiltration wise and I have to wonder if its because of the Matrix in it???? Thoughts?
  22. Sandra the fish rookie
    @Colu I just checked my 40G tank and found some interesting results. I would love to hear your thought (and others too) on this finding: 40 gallon NO FISH!, Heavily planted, with new growth. Did 1 water change when it was initally cloudy due to adding more plants that arrived later than the first batch. PH 7.4, Ammonia 0ppm, Nitrites 20ppm nitrates 20ppm Temp 78. I have a HOB seachem tidal with a sponge intake filter and an air stone. It looks to be cycling? Am I right? I don't want to do anything to disturb it.
  23. Sandra the fish rookie
    @Krakens_tanks AMEN!!! The ones you mentioned.. ROCK! watch them all the time.. always learn something new.. or how I can be a better fish keeper!
  24. Sandra the fish rookie
    @Kirsten YES sponge filters.. I don't have any more of the disposable stuff.. ALL coarse sponges from ACO! and in the 40G I put an intake filter on it before it was even FULL LOL.. best thing ever! Save a money, make bacteria.. #winning!
  25. Sandra the fish rookie
    100% agree with @Krakens_tanks. BEST ADVICE EVER!! I am new to the hobby (first tank Dec 2020) and I don't know why I was in such a rush? I purchases stuff that either didn't fit, or I didn't need. Each tank I get I learn from the first one what I liked or disliked, and have learned to (and force myself) to slow my roll a bit. Think twice do once and to stop being such a spaz and impatient. I am usually so chill and patient.. but for some reason.. I wanted fish and wanted them NOW! Cycling a tank? What is that? (#deadfish) is what it is.. I have learned to just relax.. it will get there. I also think I should have taken more time to learn MORE! I am so thankful that I found all these YouTube vlogs, and this forum. I have learned more here than any other website! I am still learning from all of you.
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