Odd Duck

I regret using a thin layer of baked clay under 2” of sand in my 100G nanofish tank that has my big boy blue-eyed lemon bristlenose plecos because they are always stirring it up! Once they got big enough, I haven’t had a day of completely clear water since. It will get almost clear just in time for one of them to grub around again and toss sand all over the place. It might help if I only had one male in there, but they scuffle every so often and stir it up. No injuries, but soooooo annoying. I’ll probably have to try to move one of the boys sooner rather than later if I ever want my water to stay truly clear again. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Definitely not an oto.

Epsom salt soaks can be very helpful for constipated fish. You might even consider vibrational therapy as that has been known to help fish and other species with constipation. A waterproof, ahem, . . . personal massager, suspended in the water seems to be enough. Some fish even seem to be attracted to them. Stand by and be ready to remove it with any sign of distress. Leave in place only 10 minutes the first time and I wouldn’t go over 30 minutes. But you could do this every 8 to 12 hours if you see some improvement but not full resolution in one to two treatments.

You may not get an answer from @Hoi Polloi since they haven’t been on the forum in almost a year. I haven’t kept threadfins in well over a decade but they seemed content in what I would consider moderate flow when I had them.

Because it’s such a perfect fit with their cuteness and such a nice contrast with their behavior! 😆

Are those organisms moving under their own power? I don’t see anything in your pic that looks like it has organelles or structures inside them. Those look very irregular in size and shape so less likely to be parasites. Most parasites will have a fairly narrow range in size but that’s still usually a fairly consistent size among a single population and very consistent shapes from one to the next. They may vary in shape depending on the angle they’re viewed at, but will still be nearly the same length, same total width if laying flat, etc. I did have to look up that organism since it isn’t something I’ve run across before to my knowledge. It seems much more likely to occur in stressed and over crowded fish in breeding ponds and may be secondary to other problems when the water is still seasonally cooler than the fishes optimal temp. Apparently the Chilodonella organism is very quick to release from the fish upon its death so may not be found on swabs of lesions even shortly after the fish’s death. It is ciliated and motile, so it should be clearly moving around within the water droplet if present. Hope this helps clarify. A video of it moving would help tremendously with identification.

I think I would call that brown - brown shell, black body. Blues are a translucent whitish shell over a dark brown, near black body.

Measure your fingers while you’re measuring! 😂 I can do every inch from 1/2” to 8” all with one hand. 😆 🤣 And both hands span 8” apiece from pinky tip to thumb tip spread wide so I can take that as far as necessary. 🤣 I’ve measured fish, furniture, windows, etc, etc, etc. 😜

I use my hands to measure lots of things (yes, I’m a complete nerd) and my fairly average hands have 1” from the tip of my pointer finger to the middle of my first finger joint, 2” to the middle of my second finger joint, 3” to the start of the big knuckle swelling, 4” to the back of my big knuckle. I could go on but it would get too boring. But it’s very useful for me to know the measurements of various parts of my hands because I can get rough measurements of many things very easily. You may find that you CAN estimate things well once you know your HANDY measurements. 😂 🤣

Ramshorns do come that dark, but I’m a little concerned you may have a giant ramshorn there. Is it a trick of the light or does that snail have lines running around the shell? And what is usually referred to as “ramshorns” are Planorbis corneus, and they usually max out at 3/4” across, fairly uncommon for them to get bigger but can make it to 1” sometimes. They don’t have lines running around their shells. They can be solid colored or have leopard spots, but I’ve never seen or heard of lines around the shell in this species. Giant ramshorns AKA Colombian ramshorn (Marisa cornuarietus), do have stripes around their shells and get much bigger, up to 2.3” across as adults. My concern is these guys can be invasive in certain areas and are more likely to eat live plants vs. just decaying leaves. If fed well, it’s less likely to be an issue. Again, I can’t quite tell from your pic and it may be just a trick of the light on the shell. You should be easily able to make out stripes on giant ramshorns in person. There are many other species of ramshorn snails, but most haven’t made it into the aquarium trade.

How exciting! Plus a lot of work! I wish I had a mostly empty room to move my tanks into. I’ve got to move so much stuff out of my Offish before it can become my Offish that I’m still mostly stuck in idle. 😂 You can still install a sump that sits under the utility sink so your sink drains into it. Keep the tanks all on stands and you can still get a decent drain rate with your python or generic equivalent. That’s what we’re going to have to do for the Offish.

So sorry for your loss. That’s an especially tough one!

You are far too hard on yourself. I know it isn’t what you’re looking for but it’s still gorgeous. You always seem to manage to pull it together and I have complete faith you will again!

There are at least 6 species called “Kuhli” loaches. Let me see if I can find the good article. Found it. This article has some very good information and info about the individual species of “eel loaches” as they recommend they be called since only one has the species name P. kuhlii and as @doktor zhivago mentioned, is now thought to have never been imported into the US and possibly never exported from its home range. Funny the tidbits my creaky old brain has collected! 😆 https://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/features/keeping-kuhli-and-other-eel-loaches-in-the-aquarium

Came here to say this. I’ve used some old tanks many, many times before, but I wouldn’t use that one, sad to say. 😢