Lexi B

Bought two pennywort plants so each of my Bettas could have a nitrate guzzler, but one of them arrived to me with the roots rotted. Only one of the stems made it, but hey, he's doing fine.

Temperature: 78 Ph: 7.6 Amm: 0.5 Nitrite:1 Nitrate: 20 (nitrate is also in my tap at about 20ppm, but I have live plants) My Betta has been through a lot these past couple weeks. His fin rot I believe was originally due to stress, since after an accident that almost killed him he spent a week laying on the floor of a breeder box. When he was able to swim around and energetic, I was able to move him to a new cycled tank, and that's when I started treating him for fin rot. I used maracyn as directed, and it cleared on the edges of his tail and the other fins have healed in the past week. But the deepest injury on his tail is progressing, and after testing the water I've found my cycle has crashed. My plan was to treat another dose of maracyn and Ich-x, but now that my tank has parameter issues I don't know if it's better to hold off on medication to keep the water pristine with changes or not. I'm very concerned for him. Most of his tail is ok except for the deep damage, which is getting too close for comfort. He's still energetic and eats like a pig, though.

I have two cube betta tanks that are 6 gal 12x12x12s. I've never tried a sword plant, but I worry that maybe they would be too large for that size tank? In particular, I was eyeballing red melon sword. I'm not worried about my light or nutrients in soil and the water column, just space.

I had to move back in with my parents, so I've never had aquariums here before now. I was really perplexed that my nitrates were so high for how often i do water changes and my small bio load, so i tested the water against all my taps and some bottled water. All of my tap has nitrate in it, the bottled water control has none. What do I do? I can't keep the nitrate levels down in my tanks because every time I do a water change, I just replace what was lost. The live plants can't keep up with it either.

Does aquarium co op ever stock red/gold racer nerites, or just the more common varieties? They're soo pretty

Yeah my thoughts exactly. I have some good news! The Betta appears to be good as new! (amazing how much has happened to him) I was able to snag a tank on sale and will update when it's finished cycling and ready for him. He's too feisty to be let out of the breeder box in the bucket unfortunately

I wish I had. We were so frazzled at them time that all I could think to do was look for the survivors before the roof collapsed at all. I do have some good news though. After the some water testing it appears that the fritzyme may have helped kickstart a cycle. It's not perfect, but it's improvement. Danny himself has also perked up. He is now swimming, though it's a bit awkward. I was able to feed him a very small portion of frozen brine and he hasn't laid on his side in hours 🙂 I'll continue to do frequent water tests and changes as necessary and added catalpa leaves for anti bacterial tannins. I think the heat is really helping.

Yeah, I did. Unfortunately by the time I got to the filter everything was dry.

So, water just to preface, water parameters are not ... Stable. This is going to be a long explanation. Skip to the end for a tl;dr My fish tanks were crushed by a tree yesterday, and I was able to save a very small group of my fish. One of which is my Betta Danny, who I really thought wasn't going to make it. Danny spent at least 40 minutes out of water, and was barely alive all last night. He had been laying on his side for several hours breathing hard, and then earlier today I went to check on him and he jumped to life for a brief moment. For a few seconds, he swam normally, came up to the surface for air, and has been alternating between laying on his side and sitting upright. I don't want to get too hopeful, since I really don't know what to think, but he seems to have a lot of fight left in him. He's not very mobile. He reacts to some stimuli, but I don't want to bother him much because he is very weak. I don't know what I can do, if anything, to help him improve. My nitrogen cycle is dead, and I'm having to hard start it with dirty fish water from the lfs and lots of fritzyme, so water is not perfect. My survivors are in a five gallon bucket with a filter and heater, and I'm trying to get a tank cycled so my Bettas can be separated without use of boxes. Tl;Dr: my Betta was out of water for at least 40 minutes, seems to be slowly coming back from deaths door. What can I do for him given the situation?

I'm in Washington. Most of my fish are actually from the coop. I was able to salvage the bio balls from my 20 gal along with the sponge filter, so I am hoping that maybe I can force a cycle on one of my tanks in storage for the Betta at least. It's been a wacky day

A tree fell on my home today and shattered all of my fish tanks. By sheer luck a handful of fish fell into the water change bucket behind the tank, but I obviously don't have the cycled tanks to safely house my survivors. I have a handful of shrimp, a single false Julii Cory, what appears to be 2 pygmy cories, and a single ember tetra. Would your store be able to take them in?

My betta has always had poor eyesight, but recently i've been getting more concerned that it's getting worse. I can't get a clear shot of his eyes because the light in his tank is always too his back when he's closest to the glass. He also appears to be a bit more stressed today than usual, which i think is because I fed brine shrimp and he seemed to have a hard time locating it. The reasons I suspect diamond eye are poor vision, and a small metallic glimmer at the top of his eye that is the same color as his scales. He was a petco betta, and is admittedly of poor genetic quality. He has what looks like a small kink in his spine that has never appeared to affect him, but i think makes it more clear that he is quantity of quality. Mostly I am worried because I currently don't have the space to move him from his tank to an isolated and smaller tank, and wont have that space until I move out in 7 months. What can I do for him now, assuming I could be dealing with loss of vision?

You might think that the bronze corydora is the best because of how common it is or albino morphs, but you'd be wrong. Perhaps the cryptic patterns of the false Julii would tickle your fancy and think they are most ideal, but you'd be wrong. You see, this is not a question of your favorite corydora, but rather the true best species of cats. Which Cory will rule them all? The pygmy Cory. Don't believe me? Here is a list of facts that are 100% evidence why pygmy cories are better than all other cories. 1. Small bodies. Smaller fish can be kept in larger groups. Sure, you could have a group of say 10 cories in an appropriately sized tank. But why have 10 regular cories when you could have 20 pygmy cories? 2. Objectively cuter. It's been proven with FACTS and LOGIC that small things are cuter than big things. Don't ask me for citations. 3. Single stripes. Pygmy cories have a black racing stripe on their side, just like how race cars have cool stripes. That means they're fast and cool. 4. Basically helicopters. Pygmy corydora like to hover in one spot for some stupid reason. You know what else can hover? Helicopters. Beat that other cories 5. They t-pose one all the other fish. Yes, all other cories appear to t-pose due to their straight pectoral fins, but pygmy cories just do it better. These are my facts. No other Cory is better. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

Awesome thanks both of you. I assumed it's just because the tank was still young. Hopefully it goes away and maybe Ill look into nerite snails.

My smaller 5 gallon Betta tank has had a mild flare up of brown algae. I'm mostly worried for the plants since it's beginning to form on the leaves. I dose easy green and easy carbon as recommended, with an 8 hour light cycle from a 20" stingray. There are currently 2 small Java Fern, 1 established anubias nangi, a floating water wisteria, and a questionable cutlet of anubias golden. The substrate is inert sand. There is a small sponge filter for filtration My 20 gal used the same sand and at about this age had some brown diatom algae as well, though it seemed to outgrow it on its own. I suspect maybe silica in the sand could be the cause? Are there any recommendations to help the rank fight off the algea? I've considered adding a nerite snail, but currently I'm more concerned with if I could improve the light /nutrient balance in the tank and whether I should increase or decrease either.

It's in the surface layer of the sand. I was advised by one of the co op employees that it wouldn't actually affect them if the water quality was good?

Yes, I posted in diseases as well about the cories. All my other parameters seem to be ideal on paper. Ammonia, trites and trates: 0 Kh:6 Gh:8 Water temperature: 78

pH 8.0 Nitrates 0 Hardness 8 Nitrite 0 Ammonia 0 KH/Buffer 6 Water Temperature 78 for some reason my corydoras seem to lose their barbels infrequently among their population. I have some with long, healthy barbels, and others with none. I'm not sure why that discrepancy is. I have begun to suspect the high ph is the source. My tank uses a mix of soft sand and some crushed coral, (about 1.25 pound for the 20l) to counteract the slightly acidic and soft tap water. But it seems that might be out of hand. The tank receives a 25% water change weekly, along with thorough substrate vacuuming. I'm worried about the health of my cories. I don't want to lose any due to the injuries, and i'm not sure how to correct the issue. Has anyone else had this problem?

Oh. Yes. My mistake. I'm just not sure where the source of my issues are coming from, and the pH seems to be the only outlier.

Hi everyone. I've been doing some detective work on my fish tanks, but i am absolutely perplexed on this matter. On my regular water tests, i've noticed that my ph has suddenly become very acidic in both of my tanks. I have a 20L, which is about a year old, and 5g which is only a few months old. Both tanks have a high ph, the 20 is at 8.0 and the 5 is 7.8. They both have a little bit of crushed coral mixed in the substrate, which i know raises ph, but i don't know that it's supposed to be this harsh. Other than the coral, there aren't a lot of similarities between the tanks. They both use the same type of sand, and get dosed with easy green and easy carbon as directed for their light and plantedness. The 20 has drift wood and river rocks as the primary hardscapes, while the 5 has seiryu stone. I don't believe the rocks are leeching. The tap water I use is, if anything, slightly basic. About 6.8. While the 5 gal seems to be doing alright, I suspect the high ph has contributed to the loss of a few cherry shrimp, and difficulties with corydora barbels. Where should I go from here? Is the coral to blame? How can I make my tanks safer for my pets?

I've finally convinced my partner to let me set up another betta tank! (Only 4 more tanks to go..) This is Daniel "Danny" Phantom, and the absolute turd burglar made me go over budget when picking him out, but he's so handsome. His tail makes him look like a ghost! He's in a 5 gallon tank, vibin at 79 degrees, and just got most of his silk plants replaces with live ones. Wish them luck!

I bought these guys off of Amazon because the reviews were good and it seemed ok. But when they arrived I noticed it warned about containing lead, which obviously I don't want killing my fish. I know that in some states, warnings need to be put on things for very rare chances, so maybe it's something like that? Has anyone ever used these? Are they safe or should I just err on the side of caution and leave them be?

Im not the most experienced at all, but when I had an issue with algea over growth it was definitely from. Too much light. I had been using a dinner planted plus for an 9 hour period, but didn't know that the intensity was far too high. Had to dim it quite a bit. I also started dosing easy carbon, which seemed to give the plants an extra boost before I realized the light issue.

Wow! I didn't realize a lot of those would grow that way! I'm still learning with planted tanks, since I just have the one 20 gal. So far I've been fortunate enough to only have killed most of a scarlet temple, but I've saved it!! Worst case scenario, I move the wisteria into the 20 anyway.

Pretty dumb question. Can you treat "floating plants" the same as a water column feeder such as anubias or java Fern? Water wisteria is particularly in question here. Im planning to set up a tank with an inert substrate, and don't know if that limits my options down too much.