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Odd Duck

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Everything posted by Odd Duck

  1. 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. 🤦🏻‍♀️
  2. Odd Duck
    Definitely not an oto.
  3. Odd Duck
    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.
  4. Odd Duck
    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.
  5. Odd Duck
    Because it’s such a perfect fit with their cuteness and such a nice contrast with their behavior! 😆
  6. Odd Duck
    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.
  7. Odd Duck

    Snail ID

    Odd Duck replied to Dria's topic in General Discussion

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

    Snail ID

    Odd Duck replied to Dria's topic in General Discussion

    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. 😜
  9. Odd Duck

    Snail ID

    Odd Duck replied to Dria's topic in General Discussion

    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. 😂 🤣
  10. Odd Duck

    Snail ID

    Odd Duck replied to Dria's topic in General Discussion

    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.
  11. Odd Duck
    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.
  12. Odd Duck
    So sorry for your loss. That’s an especially tough one!
  13. Odd Duck
    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!
  14. Odd Duck
    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
  15. Odd Duck
    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. 😢
  16. Odd Duck
    Unfortunately without knowing more about what all your levels do, how many and what kind of fish, how heavy you feed, how much water you change every single time, how many plants, what kind of plants, etc, etc, etc, along with a dozen other questions we could ask, it’s pretty impossible to give you a hard and fast answer. There are just too many variables. Most recommend weekly 25% water changes as the safest way to go but I know aquarists that do daily 90% water changes for the species they have in that particular tank and some that do monthly 10% water changes or even less. Most are somewhere in between those extremes. It’s extremely hard to be sure exactly what bioload your tank has and how well your biofiltration is handling that load. That’s why testing is recommended and why most recommend keeping the nitrates around 20 or below most of the time as we know that’s likely to be safe long term. The experts can’t even completely agree on how high is too high long term on nitrates because it varies by species of fish. We know lower is better for fish but it gets tough to keep plants if you go too low. Some red plants don’t show their best color until you keep the nitrates steadily well below 20. i wish there was a set answer. That would make it easier for all of us. There are just too many variables to do that. We can give what are widely accepted recommendations but you will have to develop an understanding of YOUR tank and YOUR fish and YOUR plants in order to figure out what works best in YOUR hands. Quite honestly, that’s part of the fun (and the frustration) of aquarium keeping is figuring that out. 🤷🏻‍♀️
  17. Odd Duck
    I need to get pictures off my quite old camera (phone pics aren’t that exciting). Will post up once done if they’re any good. It’s not a fancy camera so don’t expect too much! It was very different at totality than even seconds before or seconds after. There was barely any difference than what would happen with light cloud cover immediately before and after. I did have intermittent light to moderate cloud cover throughout partial and some light but very transient cover during totality. Here’s my best shots of totality along with a shot with a crescent shaped sun dog during partial. My phone couldn’t even show a partial since it was so bright it overwhelmed the light sensor and camera. My only good partials with the camera were with light cloud cover to help the camera light sensor to cope.
  18. Odd Duck
    Long term elevations in nitrates are not your fish’s friend as that can cause issues for many species. It should not be your goal to wait that long before water changes. There are also many chemicals and compounds in the water that we do not measure but that can still impact fish health. We don’t ever measure sex hormones, for instance, but dominant male fish of some species can definitely produce hormones that inhibit development of other males in a tank. I’m not sure if it’s been proven in females but it wouldn’t surprise me if that happens in species that have territorial females. That’s only the first example that comes to mind and its the most obvious to observe. There are likely far more subtle things that would be harder to prove that can result from water changes not being done often enough.
  19. Odd Duck
    I would consider it great good luck getting an L276 instead of a rubbernose. L276 plecos are collected from a few different rivers and where they were collected makes a difference on their temperature ranges listed. Most resources are listing their ideal as 76-82. Rio Xingu runs warmer but they’re supposedly not as common in Rio Xingu as they are in some of the other rivers where they’re found. If you plop a heater in the 20 with the hillstreams and set it at 76 to keep it from going lower, you should be pretty OK for both species. Make sure you have plenty of narrow hiding spots too small for the pleco so the hillstreams are encouraged to hide someplace besides the pleco cave. The pleco cave truly is not to be messed with when a male is getting territorial. Mostly plecos are otherwise very peaceful towards other species as long as they don’t look too similar to themselves.
  20. Odd Duck
    I’ve had bristlenose plecos in with cories and never had a cory show any fin damage. It likely is something else entirely. Bristlenose plecos (the usual species) are very large for that size tank, by the way. There are species of pleco that have bristles on their noses that are smaller but the hybrids we usually call bristlenoses can get 6-7” long for males. I have 2 that are about 6.5” in my 100 gallon, mostly nanofish tank. That tank also has about 20 cories of 2 species and I’ve not seen any of them show any fin damage so far. The plecos have been in there close to 3 years now (I’d have to check pics to give you a date). The oldest cories have been in there longer and the youngest is only a few months old - hatched in the tank. My big boys are territorial to each other and occasionally scuffle a bit (shoving match only) but they don’t even bother to do anything to the cories except occasionally push them off the bit of food they want. Do you have any other fish in the tank? Of any sharp edges on any decor? Whoops! Just looked back at your pic and saw the goldfish. They are kind of notorious for randomly nibbling at whatever catches their eye. I once had to remove a dead cory out of a fantail’s mouth to save the fantail. Those goldfish are far more likely to be the culprits for fin damage on cories.
  21. Odd Duck
    He doesn’t look too bad and does seem less stressed than when he was in the breeder box. I would add the lowest dose of aquarium salt and just monitor for now.
  22. Odd Duck
    Floaters are more problematic as most don’t like water on their surface. I’ve found salvinias to be particularly sensitive to it which is why I don’t have them anymore. I haven’t tried reverse respiration on them at all but they might survive a short treatment of 30 minutes or so. You would have to enclose them in a mesh bag and weight it down to sink them for the treatment. That would eliminate *most* if not all animal pests like snails, hydra, Planaria, etc. It would not clear algae but they typically grow fast enough if they’re happy to outgrow algae as long as you remove dead and dying leaves promptly.
  23. Odd Duck
    I think @Fish Folk must have missed the first tag as he’s usually quick to answer. I would consider him our resident expert in shiners. Tagging him again to see if he has further thoughts if he’s available.
  24. Odd Duck
    I think @nabokovfan87 is on to something. He does look like his spine may be a bit bent. And the idea of a bonk is very valid. Could have gotten startled and run into a side or the lid, etc. I would add very low dose salt which is safe enough for nearly all plants and snails. The aim is just to get some electrolytes into the water. I use 1 tablespoon per 10 gallons for this dose. Most can also go up to 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons. If you can do the Epsom salt soaks once or twice daily with minimal stress it might help a bit. But mostly for these guys I do supportive care which means leaving them in an internal breeder box to help keep the temp steadier but an external one is fine if it recirculates quick enough or if your fish room is warm enough. It will also help to make sure they’re eating OK and not outcompeted by other fish. It also helps by keeping them closer to the surface for better oxygenation and I often add an air stone, too. It may takes weeks or months but some do recover, some don’t. Only time will tell on that one. I had one badly bent pea puffer (was fine at the store then was bent in the bag from a 10 minute drive 🤦🏻‍♀️) recover well enough I couldn’t tell him apart from the others until he got much older and his bend started to show again.
  25. Odd Duck
    I don’t typically like to use multi-drug meds because any bacteria that survive it are going to be resistant to multiple meds and much harder to kill or control. I lean much more towards using individual, more targeted meds. The antibiotics in Polyguard are not necessarily considered very strong or broad spectrum (which is why there are so many in there). I would much rather use Kanamycin (Kanaplex) for external or superficial infections or one of the Maracyns for internal infections. Levamisole (Expel-P) works better against the more common internal parasites but praziquantal (PraziPro and Paracleanse - which also has Metronidazole) has its uses, too, and hits a different class of parasite. There may come a day when I would use or recommend Polyguard but it hasn’t happened so far because it has more potential to cause big problems with resistant bacteria.
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