Odd Duck

@mountaintoppufferkeeper No guesses from me but love all the pics and clips!

Out of stock now.

Be prepared to be extremely frustrated because they have not shipped well in my experience. I tried for well over a year to get a colony established and finally gave up. I spent well over $500.00 buying from various vendors, trying to get a higher survival rate. I was ordering 10-20 at a time only to have as much as half or more dead by the time they got to me and more died in quarantine with more of the males dying than females. They almost all came in with some of them having spots of fin rot that needed treatment. With only about 10 tiny fish at a time in a 10 gallon that has massive biofiltration (that same quarantine tank is currently supporting about 30 young bristlenose fry, about 10 otocinclus, and 2 subadult Rio Paraguay plecos) but has no excessive current, fairly dim lighting with frogbit for cover - should have been an ideal quarantine tank but still had substantial losses during QT. I never got more than 15 at a time into the display tank and they would slowly pass, always the males first. It was very hard to find any in between orders. I would get as many as I could afford as soon as anybody had them in stock (they’re pricy when you can find them), then couldn’t get more for weeks to months at a time. Someone (I don’t remember who) posted that they got in a bunch when they worked at an LFS and they did well, but I could never get anybody local to order them for me except the guy that handed me a bag of dying fish. They were literally going sideways in the bag over the course of 3-4 minutes as we spoke about what to do about them. He didn’t charge me for them, none survived past an hour. I would LOVE to see if you can get a group established as I had zero good luck with them and believe me, I tried very hard! If you have good luck and yours do well, PLEASE post up your water parameters and how you did it.

I want one when you start manufacturing them, please? 😉

I don’t mean that you have to physically measure them, just asking if you’re estimating standard length (to tail base) or total length (to end of tail). There would be at least 1/2” difference between those measurements in sterbais, more in larger species of cories or longer finned species or varieties. It’s like the difference in length between a betta’s body vs his length including his tail. Or a veil tailed angelfish. Many fish are measured by body size, not total length. Cories are generally reported in total length since they don’t typically have exuberant finnage like a long finned pleco, for instance.

It is funny but annoying at the same time. It’s like she’s trying to launch her suddenly vicious self right out of the water at me! I keep expecting to see her flying out of the tank at me a bit like the Monty Python rabbits! 😝 Mine have no less than 5 caves of various sizes and locations for 2 boys and they’ve become digging fools! At least one of them is now using the tiniest cave he can squeeze into but the eggs haven’t gotten kicked out like last time, so . . . . . . Sure, Daddy-O do whatever you feel you need to. 🙄🤪 You’re not wrong. I’m well trained by all my pets. 😆 🤣

They will do just fine in gravel. My very first ever fish tank back in 1975 came with gravel that was infested with MTS. It was left dry for at least a couple weeks in an attempt to eliminate them when picking and plucking wasn’t successful. It didn’t help. So I think as long as they’re wet, they’ll survive no matter what substrate you have.

Sterbais are slightly smaller on average compared to many cory species, 2”-2.6” (total length) I think is the general expected. Mine are almost all about 2” with a couple females a bit bigger. @beastie Are you measuring total length (nose to end of tail) or standard length (nose to tail base)?

I have 2 things. 1. When my big boy bristlenose pleco decides he has to use the smallest possible cave he can squeeze his body inside. To the point where he refused to use the larger cave and the female had to fight to try to get in the cave with him despite her trying to entice him into the larger cave. 2. When my female festivum has gotten all kinds of sassy! She has now started deliberately splashing me when I lift the lid to feed! I have to keep any open containers well away from the tank as I open the lid or she will launch water into the container. I’ve been lucky so far and am now warned. 😆 I’m sure she’ll be even worse later this week when I do the next water change. 🙄 🥜 🌰 She bullies the male, acts like she doesn’t even like him, but she’s protecting him for all she’s worth! Crazy thing!

Yep. I spent HOURS picking leaches and Planaria from the blackworms I got a few weeks ago. HOURS!!! If I can keep them going in culture I’ll feel better about feeding them to my fish. So far I haven’t seen any more in the culture. 🤞🏻

Exactly as @Colu has recommended. If he’s not eating, dose the Metroplex in the water. If you can get him to eat, dose in the food. Also make sure he’s getting enough vitamin C since there is some evidence it may play a part. It’s not certain how much of a part that plays or even confirmed if that’s real or a bit of a myth. But the vitamin C won’t hurt as long as you don’t go crazy with it. Most fish foods will have enough if they have some vegetable content (not grain, but veggies or even algae like spirulina has it).

Have you been testing daily? If you moved a good, gunky pad plus poured in FritzZyme 7 you might very well miss the ammonia dropping, nitrite spike and drop and only see minimal nitrate spike.

I don’t know of any treatment for parasites that doesn’t also risk killing snails. Theoretically, if you are keeping only snails and no fish with them, you would potentially break the life cycle of any parasites that need the definitive host (fish). If you have raised snails for multiple generations with no fish, then you are probably as close to parasite free as possible. I would have to do some serious digging into fish and snail internal parasites in order to determine if it’s possible to get snails to be fully parasite free. And the same for whiteworms, Grindal worms, and blackworms. Blackworms are especially concerning for me since they are from an aquatic environment and the others aren’t so they would be less likely to carry fish parasites. One of these days I will, but not tonight.

Vinegar eels live just fine in the tank and like to be up at the top. If you can get a good dose of vinegar eels, they could potentially live off them for several days. Live Moina, Daphnia, or Ceriodaphnia (that last one is near impossible to find unless someone local is raising them or you can find someone on eBay or something - long shot) are excellent choices since they will also live and potentially breed in your tank if they have enough cover and food. As far as how long you can leave chili rasboras, likely several days to a week if they are currently well fed and healthy, tank parameters are good, parameters are stable, and the tank is aged enough to have some good microlife.

So very true! My replacement colony of super red plecos is growing up and the largest just started showing bristles. I’m like, “Alrighty then, GET IN THAT CAVE!!!” 😆 😂 🤣

Short of testing the food you’re feeding, meat eaters, especially live food eaters, are going to always be at risk for parasites. If you’re raising your own live foods, the risk drops fairly significantly, but unless you’re doing some testing for intermediate stages inside the live food, there’s always going to be some risk for re-exposure. This is exactly why I raise so many of my own live foods now (or at least I try, sometimes more successfully than others). Are you doing weekly Levamisole for at least 4 weeks and every other week for Praziquantal while peas are in quarantine? If you suspect intestinal parasites, I would repeat the same deworming regimen as in quarantine unless you’re specifically seeing Camallanus. If you see Camallanus, then just the weekly Levamisole x 4 weeks. Always be ware there’s is risk of significant +/- total snail/shrimp die off with every dose of Levamisole and Praziquantal.

It’s really too many with my current arrangement but hopefully I’ll be able to make some progress on getting the fishroom “Offish” finally done and things will get easier. 😝

@bodotdot Since you moved a nice gunky pad, you may not see an ammonia or nitrite spike. I agree with @Galabar, try adding ammonia to about 2 ppm and test every 12 hours to see if you can catch a rise in nitrites, then nitrates. If the ammonia and nitrites clear in 24 hours, you should be ready to go.

It’s not about what I did today but about what these 2 did today. I didn’t think they were going to manage it with the way things were going when I left the house late this morning. He insisted on the smallest cave despite me offering 3 different sizes he wants only the watering spike. I put them back in since he stopped trying to breed when they were gone. It took a few days of pouting, but he decided on the spike again for breeding. She has been going in and out of a bigger cave trying to entice either of the boys into action. This guy finally took the hint. Can you see how she gives up in disgust at the end of this video I took this morning? That look like, “He’s pretty but he isn’t too bright!” Well, he must have finally figured it out because they got the deed done. There are eggs in the cave tonight after we got home from paintball. I can’t get a picture because I can barely get a glimpse past his big “shoulders”! But I should have some long-finned babies this time around since the short-finned female is in a different tank now. And look! The old lady figured out how to post her own video!

Welcome! There’s a few fishroom build threads on here, so some might be helpful. A quick search will get you to them. Some new, some old. All have some good info.

I would say the exact same about you! 🤗

I’ve been cycling tanks this way since 1975. There didn’t used to be a chart to tell you how much water to change, or anybody even using the terms “fishless’ or “fish-in” cycling. This was how it was done. Nobody tested back then. I don’t remember test strips at all and didn’t get test kits until the mid 80’s(?) or so. We were the only people we knew that had a test kit when we got ours. Mind you, we know a lot more now and I’m definitely not disagreeing with doing a chalkenge with ammonia, that’s an excellent suggestion. I’m saying cycling with food works just fine, especially if you’re using pre-cycled media from another tank, or used some filter sludge / squeezin’s, or appropriate bottled bacteria. 🤷🏻‍♀️

@anewbie, I have soooo many bad pics for every half decent pic I’ve taken. I really need to go through my phone and remove a few hundred bad fish pics. 😝

It’s been pointed out to me that I’ve never introduced myself. I go by Odd Duck on many forums so chances are if you’ve seen that name around, it could be me. I’m an “old lady” now and have been keeping fish (not continuously) since 1975. I’ve had fresh tanks for most of that time. We had a fish only salt tank for a few weeks then switched it to a reef tank almost immediately. That was back in 1983. I kept one or more reef tanks going until about 2003-ish. I can’t remember exactly when we sold the last one. Still had a couple fresh tanks for another year or so before selling those, too. I’ve had all kinds and sizes of set ups and bred a variety of fish, some purposeful, most more accidental “back in the day”. I rescued a pair of Jack Dempsey cichlids in April of 2020 to help get my dear friend out of a difficult situation (not her fish, but ended up her responsibility to find them a home). They were fascinating and gorgeous and made a ridiculous number of babies for me within 5 weeks after I got them. This rekindled my love of fish and fish keeping and away we went (dragging my poor hubby along for the ride). I now have far too many tanks and have been planning to do a fishroom and making glacially slow progress in that direction over the last year or so. The goal is getting all, or at least most, of my smaller tanks into one room with automatic overflows so I can just go around the room with my refill hose and do water changes. Much less time and labor involved, far happier fish. Potentially, eventually go full auto on water changes in the fish room at least. I have a pair of 100 G tanks on either side of my TV that I watch far more than the TV. I now have the Jacks in a planted, 75 G with a pair of festivums, a group of tiger silver dollars, and a reverse trio of bristlenose plecos. All of whom intermittently do their part to destroy the aquatic plants but they can’t access the emerse plants, so there fishies! I now have 23 fish tanks plus a 10 G and 3 jars for live food culture. Plus a 180 G waiting to be set up after the fishroom happens - it will go where the current rack now stands. I have had decent success breeding plecos and cories, ridiculous success breeding the Jack Dempseys, and some random success with a few other species. Links in my signature to lots of stuff, far from all my tanks. I’m one of those people that knows a lot about some things, a little about a lot of things, but I’ll tell you straight up if I know nothing about other things. I’m not afraid to admit if I’m wrong about something and I’ll be the first to apologize if I’ve told you something wrong or said something stupid. I am a bit prone to being brusk or brutally honest because I’m very thick skinned myself. I try hard to rein in the bruskness and brutal honesty into a more gentle honesty, especially online because it’s so easy to come across hard and harsh without expression or tone being available. If I feel I can help, I will. I mostly avoid the “Disease” section if possible because I see far too much animal pain and suffering at work, but if you need me, tag me. I’ll help where I can. I work very long hours, but short weeks in a veterinary ER, so I’m not online every day and can’t always answer back quick depending on where I’m at in my work “week”. Far too much for most people to read through. If you’ve made it this far there’s a decent chance you may already know most of this about me already. For those who didn’t, Howdy, from Texas. Sharon Pic of the troublemaker tank from about 3 weeks ago. I put an SAE in there today to see if it can better control the BBA.

Her.