Odd Duck

In the 200 G, you could probably add 4-6 more and they’d have plenty of room for each their own territory. They could pick their own mates.

Very nice! 3 cm isn’t bad for a pleco that only gets to 8 cm! Quick read says to look for more ondontodes on the pectoral fins and a broader head in males. That’s all I know and Google and planetcatfish.com helped me. 😆 Nice win, for sure! Hoping you have a true pair!

Make very certain that you do multiple water changes before you put snails back in and be prepared to do a potentially sacrificial snail to see if the No Planaria is cleared enough to put multiple snails back in. I’ve read that nerites are particularly sensitive to it. I’ve also read that the effects can linger for weeks. So when you think the med is clear, do a couple more water changes, then try a single snail of each species. If all is OK, try a few more snails. I can tell you with certainty that it kills bladders, ramshorns, nerites (I missed one in a tank), and MTS. So presumably also chopstick snails or any others in that family. I’ve read it kills mysteries so I would remove any apple snail species just to be safe. Quite frankly, since it kills MTS, I would assume it can kill any species of snail. It does do a good job killing planaria and likely most any other flatworm species. Just be very cautious before you add a bunch of snails back into that system.

Unless you are prepared to maintain multiple live food cultures, pea puffers are not a good option. I have whiteworms, Grindal worms, Daphnia, Ceriodaphnia, scuds, bladder snails, pond snails, and ramshorn snails. I also have microworms and vinegar eels in case I ever have babies again - but I also use them for other fish and babies. My pea puffers have never taken any type of dried food at all and are barely interested in frozen bloodworms. Frozen Daphnia and brine shrimp are a complete bust. I’ve tried and will try again with blackworms as soon as I can get some again.

It looked like it was going to be worse, then it turned into just a nudge. Nudges are tolerable. 😝 That was a very nice little clip to capture!

I’m still alive this week. It’s been very busy at work and I’ve gotten 31 hours in between Sunday and yesterday (was scheduled for 24). My goal is 25-28 hours a week since it’s very intensive ER work and I’m too old for getting crazy hours. I have one more 8 hour swing shift scheduled today (Tuesday is my “Friday”) and then I can recover for 4 days. We have a fish Expo and auction this Saturday but I expect to be getting some quality nap time in until then. 😆 I’m still not sure how they’re going to pull off running an auction over top of the hubbub of an expo but that’s their plan. We’ll know soon enough if it will work. Wish me luck at work today. I’m tired of running codes this week.

You can trim the roots back to about 2” long. The roots will fork at the trimmed spot and become denser and even better for fry to hide. You can even trim them shorter but it seems to take them longer to produce more roots again.

I would also guess this is an injury since he is bent to the left no matter which direction he is swimming. I have had fish that recovered quite well from injuries like this and others that didn’t. It usually happens when fish get startled for whatever reason, because, well, fish. 🤷🏻‍♀️ It’s impossible to prevent every possible reason why fish might get injured. They can be unfortunately quite creative in unexpected ways, sometimes to their detriment. It is an unfortunate part of fishkeeping that sometimes you will lose fish. It’s nearly impossibly to tell how old a fish is when you get it. Smaller than adult size fish are usually young, but could also be stunted and have organ damage from poor care. There is no way to be 100% certain that you have young, strong, healthy fish when you get them. This can lead to premature deaths even if you’ve done everything right. Some fish just don’t live a long time either. 2-3 years is fairly common for many small tetras and rasboras for instance. If acquired as adults, they could already be 3 when you get them and in the end stages of their life. As long as you learn from your experiences and do your best to prevent bad things from happening, then you can’t blame yourself for fish deaths. I would follow @Colu’s advice to the letter because it’s right on point. If you’re worried about the salt levels start at 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons and see how everybody reacts. If all OK, then gradually increase the concentration to 1 tablespoon per 3 gallons since the goal with salt treatment at this dose is to pull out any swelling in the tissues. Good luck with your fish and keep us updated.

I have BDBS in 8 of 28 tanks but I am gradually changing it out of my non-display tanks. Mostly because it’s a pain to catch fish on in grow out tanks. I only put it into 4 of my 10 G grow outs because I was planning to breed shrimp in those tanks. Turns out I’m more interested in fish than shrimp and better at breeding fish than shrimp. So it doesn’t make sense to keep the sand. I have learned that I won’t be doing a clay bottom layer with any fish that are the slightest inclined to dig. You might have noticed the topic I started about the blue eyed lemon plecos. They have decided to dig holes in my substrate and now that tank is looking like a disaster from the clay layer getting stirred up. It isn’t the sand that’s the issue, only the clay. I think sometimes the problem people have is they get the wrong grade of BDBS since it comes in different grades. The “Fine” is just that, extremely fine sand. It would be easily stirred up, more difficult to rinse, more likely to compact, etc. The medium certainly can compact, but IME doesn’t get stirred up at all since most of it settles right back down to the bottom if it’s vacuumed up by your siphon. You can get a lot siphoned up if you’re really disturbing it a lot. I don’t try to vacuum the sand deeply like I would gravel. I only skim the surface, or sometimes hold the vacuum above the surface and stir the sand with my other hand so any gas bubbles get siphoned straight out. I mostly depend on digging snails to keep the sand from compacting and becoming anaerobic, but I do poke around a bit while cleaning to check for gas bubbles accumulating. If I find any, I poke around a bit more until I’m satisfied there aren’t any more gas pockets. Sometimes I’ll smell that rotten egg smell if not all of those gas bubbles get grabbed by the siphon, but often there isn’t any smell to the bubbles and they’re completely benign. There are risks to every substrate. You have to read enough to figure out which risks are acceptable for your situation.

Yes, I’ve been following along here and there since you started this topic. Sometimes I get so behind on reading the forum that I don’t always read each post depending on how tired I am. 😆 😬

Well, the eggs that were kicked out of the cave have hatched and I didn’t even realize it! The last time I checked on them they looked funguses and I stopped checking. I left them in the breeder net just in case any did hatch and have only glanced in the net while I was doing other projects. Tonight I was fiddling with that tank because I put a tiny pump on the intake of the Fluval HOB breeder box. While I was watching to see if the flow looked right I checked the breeder net that’s inside this tank and saw one egg I thought was fungused move! On closer look with a flashlight, I’ve got at least 5 little guys that would be coming out of the cave in about 3 days or so in there. I did have some IAL leaf pieces and a mulberry leaf they could have eaten on if they were so inclined but they haven’t quite finished resorbing their yolk sacs yet. Maybe another 24-36 hours. I put the tiniest speck of paste food in there just in case, fed the other babies, and I’m going to bed. Gotta get up in 4 hours for another 12 hour shift taking the day shift covering for another doc. At least I got some babies out of this clutch!

My angelfish tank is looking better and better. I’ve added some new swords and have more waiting to be added. It seems to have triggered the new pairing that I’m enjoying watching their behavior even though the rest of the tank isn’t appreciating all their behaviors. Still no breeding tubes down consistently. I did decide to leave them in this tank for now despite everyone else’s disgruntlement. Even though my big blue eyed lemon bristlenose boys have mucked up the water in the “nanofish” tank, their behavior and the interaction between them and the girls is still fascinating to watch. The cories in my paired livingroom tanks are all about the zoomies over the last several days. The breeding has settled down, but zoomies continue, especially in the newly mucky tank. 😝 Mucky is apparently fascinating for everyone but me. 😆

Have you kept blue eyed lemon bristlenose plecostomus before? These babies don’t look very “lemony” but they eventually grow up to this. Ignore the cloudy water in the last pic but if you keep bristlenose plecos, don’t use a dirt bottom layer. Ask me how I know. 😆

A few days isn’t nearly long enough for the sponge filter to become fully populated with beneficial bacteria. I leave old filters in for a few weeks and make certain some of the mulm gets into the new filter. Your biofiltration is gone and you are starting over with a fish-in cycle. You’ll want add some bottled bacteria as soon as possible. If you have another tank, squeezing some debris out of a seasoned filter into this tank is even better. It will “dirty” things up for a bit but will help re-establish your beneficial bacteria. In the mean time, do frequent water changes and use Prime or other water conditioners every other day until your biofiltration can develop. Depending on the salt dose you’re using, the plants might have been able to stay in. Most plants will tolerate 1 tablespoon salt per 10 gallons and some will even tolerate 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons. Taking the plants out also reduced your biofiltration. The plants were absorbing ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate and with them out, these compounds are feeding the algae/Cyanobacteria. If it’s only one fish with fin rot, I would recommend you move that fish to another tank or a tote for treatment. Do as close to a 100% water change as you can. Add bottled bacteria - there are a variety that will work and sometimes combining different types and brands works even better. Do “emergency” dosing with Prime (or other dechlorinators) for the fish in the tote/hospital tank and in the main tank. Frequent water changes will help control your parameters, getting mulm from a well-seasoned tank into your new filter or using some bottled bacteria, and dosing with Prime or other dechlorinator will all help. Definitely do not do a thorough clean of the substrate yet but you can try to vacuum the Cyanobacteria off the substrate and other surfaces in the tank. But don’t try to get debris out of the substrate yet. That debris is mulm which holds significant amounts of beneficial bacteria that your tank needs to get back in balance. Good luck and don’t give up because it will get better with time.

Now you’re talking! Definitely needs a sit and stare spot on each side. Lounge and stare works, too. 😆 I never thought about it this way, just know that random tank ideas pop into my head while in the shower. Unconscious association? 😂 🤣 I’m so looking forward to seeing how you develop this. You always seem to come up with a quirk that I never would have thought but it always looks great!

Morayartti? Love it! Do you have a Sherlock, a Watson, and an Irene?

Yep, 2.5 years of me being the only one to disrupt the layers when I moved plants around. And now this hot mess! I never had more than a few seconds of clouding with a little puff of clay from pulling out a deep rooted plant. Now I look at my tank and see puffs every few hours (so I know it’s happening when I’m not watching, too), and it’s constantly varying degrees of cloudy. It clears (well, decreases) for a bit, then clouds back up again. I don’t know what it’s going to look like from one minute to the next! Crazy boys!

We won’t talk about stems. Or jungle Vals. 😆

One of my BEL guys has apparently decided to dig for the Earth’s core. I told him this is NOT a Jules Verne story! He ignored me and kept digging. He’s wallowed so much he finished filling in his previous spot but his new spot is down to clay again! Between the clown pleco hollowing out and enlarging his favorite cave (wood gnawer), and this dude digging under that same piece of wood, they have it tilting forward by about 5” at the top! Don’t worry, he won’t get smushed. First pic is one end of him - see the eyeball? Second pic is the other end see the yellow streak up against the wood? That’s his tail with one of the babies right beside him. That’s Crypt. pontederiifolia and Crypt. wendtii ‘Red’ corm and roots all exposed, by the way. 🤦🏻‍♀️ I guess he needed more iron in his diet. 😆 🤷🏻‍♀️

Buces usually grow just a bit slower than Anubias for me. I don’t think I have “the touch” for Buces. Some do well, some don’t, even in the same tank.

@xXInkedPhoenixX, I must point out one serious mistake. Your sofa is facing the wrong direction for appropriate tank viewing! You will clearly need to rearrange the room to correct for this dreadful error! 😆 😉 😂 This is going to be so awesome and you’re going to do great scaping! You have enough depth front to back to run “tall” down the middle and have 2 roughly equal depth “faces” from each side. Or you could do a swooping curve of tall with a deep “face” on one end of each side. Or if you want more hardscape you could do limited plants enough to highlight the hardscape and provide cover and security with more swim room. I would probably start with decisions on fish species, then decisions on hardscape choices and plants. Take lots of showers. I do my best tank planning thinking in the shower. You can practically feel the light bulb go on above my head. 😆 Then I start sketching and making lists. Be PATIENT looking for your wood and rocks! Don’t settle for close enough. Always try for at least “nearly perfect”. It will BE perfect after you plant it, but don’t settle for something on the hardscape that doesn’t make your heart sing. You’ve got this! Looking forward to how it comes out. BTW, you could fit an actual sword and battle axe in this one! 😂 🤣 😘

Buces are always pretty slow growing compared to other plants. Brownie ghost is fairly average size and growth rate for Buces. They like enough flow to keep stuff from settling on their leaves but it’s too much flow if they won’t stay glued to wood. 😆 They like on the high side of low light, more a medium light really, to get the best color. But your water params better be on point if you do “medium” light with a Buce or you’ll end up with algae. A bit lower light they will still do well but might not get as intense leaf color as with more light. Size wise, leaves end up about 1.5 cm I think, plant will sprawl a long ways if it likes your conditions and they do tend to grow upward off the wood or rock where they’re attached. They hold better and tighter on wood than rock, usually. The plant probably won’t get more than about 2”-3” off the hardscape if it’s clinging tight but can grow much “taller” if it’s growing up away from the hardscape.

We don’t talk about susswassertang club. Don’t think about, don’t look at it, and don’t move it to another tank. Just let it be and it will either acclimate or perish. If it disappears, just wait. It could still come back. It’s a bit fickle sometimes, but if it likes where it’s at you’ll soon be pulling out handfuls of it. It likes a bit of flow, but nothing strong enough to batter it around. It doesn’t mind fish that don’t thrash around in it, but it’s not fond of living with big cories. It would probably be fine with dwarf cories. It’s great fry or shrimplet cover but good luck getting shrimp back out of it. It tends to fragment and will often scatter and spread if roughed up. It holds on to duckweed like mad if you have duckweed that gets pushed down into it by an HOB’s overflow (ask me how I know this). When happy, it will grow into giant mounds.

You need to immediately redo the tank, pull out all those ugly Crypts and send them all to ME! I would love to have this problem and have been trying to get my hands on Crypt. aponogetifoium for quite some time. I have no good suggestions for solving your problem but I am very jealous! 😉

I slowly lift the sponge filter (or prefilter) to the surface, then quickly pop it out and into either a pitcher or one of the handled cups that hang on my rolling water mixing barrel. They are only used for the tanks. I always clean the sponges before siphoning or I’m lifting them out while trying to aim the siphon in their general direction by catching the gravel vac or siphon hose on something adjacent or pressing the hose to the glass with my body for the big tanks. 😆 I’m sure some of my fish tank cleaning or planting related contortions would be comical for anyone else to watch. 😂 🤣