svelez

I have considered the assassin snails, but would need to rehome the rabbit and mystery snail in there. Which is definitely a possibility. But yeah, I have at least temporarily knocked down the population by throwing in a wafer and then scooping out a mass of snails with a net. Good to know this is what some of you have also resorted to! I might just have to do that a little more religiously. When I try to starve the snails they tend to go for my crypts, and they seem to have a fondness for red dwarf lily (aka they killed it). They need to go!

I definitely have pest snails, ramshorn, and they're driving me crazy. I can't quite figure out how to get their population down without it being detrimental to the cories. The cories love having a bunch of leaves in the tank (catappa, guava, etc.) to hide in, and I notice the fry definitely gravitate to those leaves. BUT the snails eat the leaves, and then multiply like crazy. I know cutting back on feeding the cories might help, but with the leaves and other botanicals in the tank, the snails still have a constant food source. I would definitely like to get rid of them, though, to reduce bioload.

It is a 40 breeder. They by no means seem cramped at the moment, and they do seem very happy in their group. It's quite a joy to watch the juveniles schooling with the adults. So cute!

Hi everyone! When I acquired a group of 19 pygmy cories last year for my new 40 gallon tank, I figured they would never breed because my water is so darn hard (usually around ph 7.9 - 8.2, GH 8-10, KH 10). Well, with all the wood and leaves I have in their tank, the GH did drop a little, but maybe they just don't care either way because they are now breeding like rabbits. I have at least 7 additional juveniles now and am still seeing newly hatched fry every week. The only other residents in this tank are some snails. How many pygmy cories do you think can comfortably be in there?! I don't want them to end up crowded, but I must admit am enjoying the whole nursery vibe this tank has going on right now ☺️. Also was considering eventually adding some sort of micro rasbora (chilis, etc.) to fill in the upper water column, but not sure how that will work anymore. Let me know your thoughts!

I do have a UV sterilizer! Thank you for the advice 🙂

Thank you for the replies! Any suggestions for what to do with the snails? Bladder and ramshorn I don't really care, but I have 4 mystery snails that I'm not sure what to do with during this process. Plus I don't know if they could be carriers/in-between hosts, so can't move them to another tank with fish, obviously.

Hi everyone, It's been a frustrating few months, and unfortunately I threw in the towel and euthanized my remaining rasboras (a mix of chilis, phoenix, and dwarf spotted). I ordered them back in March/April from a store I've previously gotten very healthy fish from, but just after a week of having them, they started dying off one by one. After trying every med under the sun (that I could get my hands on anyways), and still losing them 2 or 3 at a time, I gave up. I suspect the main issue was some sort of parasite. Symptoms included heavy breathing/gasping at surface and bloat. Some would just turn pale and hide near the bottom of the tank before expiring. Many of them would start with an area on them with a white cast (not solid white; it would change depending on angle and lighting) that would get worse and worse. I suspect heavy mucous production? Often, when I dosed a parasite med (I tried prazipro, paracleanse, and Ich-x), at least one fish would end up with a bacterial infection afterwards. I suspect maybe from parasites dropping off and leaving open wounds? Anyways, the bacterial infections looked suspiciously like columnaris, so I also treated for that. I tried Maracyn 2, and then when that failed, the Kanaplex/Jungle Fungus Fizz tabs, and when that also failed, I tried level 3 salt treatment for 2 weeks!!! Nothing worked, and the bacterial infections (which were the classic saddleback shaped white patches) would just continue to spread and eventually I would just euthanize the poor fish. Now that all the fish are gone, I'm considering leaving the quarantine tank running empty for a while; it is a quarantine tank that I actually have running always with some plants and snails to keep it cycled in between new acquisitions. I am hesitant to tear it down because I have nowhere to rehome those plants and snails without potentially introducing something nasty into my display tanks. I've seen online that columnaris would need about 36 days to die out in a tank (or die back, since it may always be present). And parasites like costia can form cysts and just "hibernate." If I want to let the tank go fallow and leave it running with just plants and snails, how long am I looking at? A few months? Or longer? Or should I tear it down and leave it dry for a few months? Not sure the best course of action as I'm finding conflicting info online about some of these parasite's life cycles. Thank you for any suggestions!

Hello everyone, I usually dose Expel-P in the water column, because trying to get certain fish to eat medicated food is a losing battle. However, I believe I need to treat some juvenile rainbow fish (Melanotaenia trifasciata) for possible wasting disease, and these guys eat anything. I found @Colu's dosing instructions for levimasole/Expel-P in food (.5 g levimasole to 7 g fish food pellets), but had a couple questions. First, does it have to be pellets? I do not feed my rainbows any hard foods like pellets or wafers because of issues I've had. I guess the soaking process would soften up the pellets and probably eliminate any problems, but could I soak some ACO freeze dried baby brine shrimp in the levimasole? Will that mess up the measurements? Secondly, should I be siphoning/water changing every day to remove expelled worms, or do I just wait until the end of the treatment period, which I think was suggested to be 7 days? Thank you!!!

Hi everyone, I had posted a while ago about my danios that I suspected had columnaris. They've been in a hospital tank since March, had a round of Maracyn 2, then Kanaplex/Jungle Fungus tabs according to @Colu's instructions, and then about a month of salt. I was having a very hard time distinguishing between scrapes and actual infection, and to be honest, I am not sure I ever figured it out. The danios initially presented with white areas (flat) on their mouths and one had what looked like bits of white something sticking out of her gills (not fuzzy). They had been flashing almost incessantly, possibly from flukes, which the other tank mates definitely had. I also thought I started seeing pale or greyish patches on the danios' "saddle" area, which is when I pulled them out of the main tank and started treating as described above. The danios are still in the hospital tank and I have just finished removing all the salt through regular water changes. The only issue I've had was that last week one danio appeared to have a seizure, dropped dead, but then after a few minutes started breathing and swimming again. It was doing so poorly, though, that I euthanized it. I'm not sure what happened, although I question if it had gotten startled, jumped and hit the glass top. I had just turned the HOB filter back on when this "seizure" occurred. Unfortunately today, I noticed that one of the danios once again has a white spot of something sticking out of her gill. I attached a picture, although I know it's not a great picture. These guys are fast. Am I seeing the return of columnaris? Or could it be an injury from them picking on each other, which they do on a regular basis? If it's just an injury from bullying/spawning, I am starting to wonder whether they ever had columnaris to begin with and whether I wasn't just seeing injuries. Any feedback would be appreciated! Please and thank you!!!

I spoke too soon. I was feeding the danios today, everyone looked great, and then suddenly one of them appeared to have a seizure. It looked dead, but then started breathing again, and after a couple minutes could slowly swim, but was in clear distress, so I euthanized it. Not sure if this could be some after effect from the infection, or just one of those weird things. Pretty disappointing because they've been good for a few weeks now.

Hi all! I know it's been a month, and I just wanted to post an update in case anyone visits this thread. I have not lost a single danio, but it's certainly been a frustrating experience. After a full course of Maracyn 2, my danios in the hospital tank looked better but not completely healed, so after 2 large water changes I proceeded with a full course of Kanaplex/Jungle Fizz tabs, according to @Colu's instructions. The danios were still acting okay throughout all of this and eating okay, but I did noticed after the Kanaplex/Jungle tabs, their appetite greatly increased, which I took as a good sign. The bad news is that the meds caused a slight ammonia/nitrite bump. I was expecting it, and testing the water for it, but what I wasn't expecting was for a sponge filter completely clogged up with mold or fungus. There was visible mold (white and green spots) growing on the sides of the tank near the air stones, and the sponge filter was so clogged that when I removed it, it wouldn't release the water and weighed a ton! I also ended up with one danio that got a fungus infection (I'm assuming secondary to the columnaris). To say the least, this was a strange experience, and while I think the meds worked, I'm highly suspicious of those Jungle Fizz tabs. Date on the box was fine (2028). I've never seen mold growing on the aquarium glass, and certainly never had a sponge filter clogged with visible white fungus. My danios ended up flashing and beating themselves up quite a bit with the ammonia/nitrite bump, but after switching out for a HOB filter filled with cycled media, we now have that under control. I've had the danios in a Level 3 salt treatment for a few weeks, just to make sure the columnaris is gone and to help all the abrasions from them flashing to heal. They are looking a lot better now, although I still see a couple spots that are not quite fully healed. A couple of the males have actually decided to color up and I'm seeing some spawning activity, which I take as a sign they're feeling much better, even with all that salt. I plan to start taking it out through water changes in the next couple days, and hopefully, fingers crossed, the infection won't return! Side note - no one in the main display tank ever got this, thank goodness. A huge thank you to @Colu for taking the time to respond to my many questions!

cmo1922 that is not something I had considered, but yes, I tested the tap water and aquarium water within the same 10 minutes. I'll keep in mind what you said, though. My water source is Lake Ontario, and while the source is always the same lake, I wouldn't be surprised if Lake Ontario's parameters change from time to time. The only thing I can think of is that the large population of ramshorn snails (which I did NOT want in there but they migrated from another aquarium) and the heavy plant load are absorbing the minerals in the water. Luckily my tap water has such a high KH, so my ph is very steady at 8. I've even tried lowering the ph by adding a bunch of botanicals (leaves, wood, alder cones), and while I get a nice blackwater affect, the ph is always the same.

AndreaW thank you for sharing that. I have wondered if that is something I should consider - forgoing the mystery snails all together. I'm sure the pygmy cories in this tank are enjoying the softer water anyways. I found an article from Fish Lab (https://fishlab.com/aquarium-gh/) where he suggests the GH might become lower because the plants and other residents are absorbing all the minerals, so I still might want to consider adding one of the small wonder shells to give the plants a boost. Although some of them are blooming (buce and anubias), so maybe they are just fine with the regular water changes. Well, I am certainly learning how much detail there is involved in keeping aquariums! Thanks again.

Thank you for the feedback/suggestions! I did not know they had such a short lifespan. A couple of the ones I've bought were already full size, but strangely those are the ones I still have (2 magenta and one jade). It seems when I get them young, they start to grow but then just die one by one, some after only a couple months. So maybe it is lack of quality food and/or something missing in the water. I only keep my mystery snails with nano fish to avoid bullying, or worse. I have never seen my rosy loaches or pygmy cories bother them.

Hi everyone, I have been having the worst luck with keeping mystery snails alive for more than 6 months. At first I thought it might be the temperature - the snails grew super fast and had a lot of shell erosion in 77 degrees F. And then after a few months they all died one by one. So I tried again with a new batch of snails, with the temperature around 75-76 degrees F. I feed them a mix of veggie wafers and Hikari crab cuisine, and they often go for the repashy that I feed my pygmy cories. The water out of my tap is hard (ph 8 to 8.2, GH is 7 dKH, and KH is 11 dKH), so I did not really think there was an issue with lack of calcium. Unfortunately, they are still dying one by one, some with very serious shell erosion, and some did not even grow to full size this time. So today I decided, out of curiosity, to test the GH and KH in one of the aquariums where I've been repeatedly losing mystery snails. It was exactly one week since I did a 50% water change on this tank. Turns out that, while my ph was still 8, the GH and KH were nearly half of what it is out of the tap!!! GH was around 4 dKH, and KH was 5-6 dKH. How did this happen?! I do have a fair bit of spider wood, botanicals, and plants in there, along with the mystery snails and a large population of ramshorn snails. Are they just absorbing all the minerals? Could this be why I'm losing the mystery snails? Or do I need to just figure out a better feeding regime for them? I have a calcium test kit for freshwater on order, so we'll see what that says, but either way, I'm wondering if I should be looking into using something like Seachem Equilibrium or Wonder Shells. I know more frequent water changes might help re-mineralize the water, but the pygmy cories in the tank absolutely hate water change day, and I'd rather not stress them out further with twice weekly water changes. Any thoughts or feedback are hugely appreciated! P.S. - I attached a pic of the tank in question. It has been running for 6 months. 0 ammonia 0 nitrite and around 10-15 nitrate.