mgudyka
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Posts posted by mgudyka
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Tha
On 4/6/2022 at 11:24 AM, Mmiller2001 said:You should never stop dosing fertilizer and based on your drop checker in the second picture, you are low on CO². That's probably the largest contributing factor causing the BBA you have.
I've found this resource to be incredibly helpful.
https://www.2hraquarist.com/blogs/choosing-co2-why
Also, I would research Estimative Index dosing and how to use it. Fertilizers do not cause algae!
The second image is from a month ago. I was slowly bumping up the co2 so as to avoid shocking anyone by going straight to 40ppm immediately. If you look at the first image, it's lime green.
The ferts may not cause algae but they do not discriminate between what creatures in the tank absorb their nutrients, be it plant to algae.
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I am over the moon with the progress my tank has made in the last month. I am still battling black beard algae, though. I stopped dosing liquid ferts for the last three weeks and that has seemed to help but I am worried it will start to effect my plants. I also feel like I am getting a dusting of diatoms on my plants but I thought they thrived on phosphates and CO2 would help reduce those. And the reduced phosphates are why I am starting to get green spot algae on my tank walls.
It seems like the planted tank is constantly being between a rock and a hard place, huh.
Anyway here are pictures of my tank last night and then from March 6th.
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On 4/4/2022 at 9:22 AM, TheDukeAnumber1 said:
My guess is that those are springtails. I've had those before and they didn't cause problems or leave the aquarium, tbh I sort of enjoyed them. But if you want to get rid of them I would suggest regularly skimming the surface of the water, wiping down the glass, maybe increase water flow at the surface, and deny them any floating plants or structure. You basically have to create a non-ideal environment for them until they die out.
Edit: and to my knowledge they stay on the surface and don't go under the water, so maybe using a hair dryer would be enough to over heat them and take them all out at once ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (I would be very cafeful to not overheat the glass so it doesn't crack due to heat stress, but it may work)
Thank you for the info and insight. I trimmed my plants so there isn't so much at the surface for them to hang out on.
What I am curious about now is how on earth they got in my tank. My intention is also to get one of those arm length gloves for the tank because I can't stand the thought of them touching me. What a wild ride.
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Hello everyone,
I discovered teeny tiny little bugs on the glass in my aquarium doing a WC yesterday. I could deal with the diatoms, the various algaes that plague us, hydra or planeria, even the surprise damselfly nymphs I found in my 20g (though I shutter to think about those, ugh), but these tiny little bugs I cannot deal with.
They are orange and maybe 0.5-0.7mm big. They were mostly hanging out on the glass or on the surface of the water. Our water heater went out at some point yesterday so I ran out of hot water towards the tail end of refilling my tank and I saw so many of them jump out of the water and cling to the wall. I guess they don't like the cold.
I have zero idea where they came from. I bought plants from several stores a month ago so perhaps they hitched a ride on a plant? I doubt a single one of my fish will notice them because they are so small. The tank is stocked with four rope fish, a pair of electric blue acaras, a sailfin pleco, a yoyo loach, and a couple of nerites.
My EBAs love to pull plants so I have to replant at least once a week but I don't want to put my hand in the water with those bugs in there. I have some red phantom tetras in my 40br who might be interested in them but I would hate for one of them to accidentally get eaten by a ropefish.
What can I do?
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I had a hydra problem in my tank so I got this stuff called No Planeria that did the trick for me. I am pretty sure it is NOT snail safe, though, so probably doesn't hurt to do some additional reading into the product before purchasing.
As others have said, there are some fish that do the trick also. My thick lipped gourami appear to keep the hydra in check in their tank.
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I will cut to the chase. How do you deal with all the waste a pleco produces? When I was treating my tank for ich, I actually sort of enjoyed it because the daily water changes meant I could gravel val and clean up the poop for the day. There is lots of poop. Maybe I am putting the blame on the plecos when it's a combination of everyone in the tank (but the poop all looks like it came from the pleco who leaves droppings in all his favorite places to hang out).
But goodness gracious me, there is so much poop.
My 29 gallon tank with more fish doesn't look this poopy between my weekly water changes. This 75 looks very poopy and I last gravel vaccd on Wednesday.
If there a trick to dealing with it? Or am I just going to have to let go and deal with it?
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2 minutes ago, Fish Folk said:
You’re spot on with feeding plan! Just don’t move the ropefish out. They do not take kindly to being moved.
I only have one tank big enough for them they aren't going anywhere!
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1 hour ago, Fish Folk said:
Ropefish and Dwarf Gourami can be tankmates. I’m not sure about how the Gourami and Acaras will get along, but will say that Acaras can hold their own. My main concern would be ensuring that your ropefish get enough (live) food.
Here are a couple overview pages on their care:
https://meethepet.com/ropefish/
https://www.aquariumsource.com/rope-fish/#rope-fish-tank-matesThe acaras are also very food crazy so I have been giving them food first so they can to nuts on like freeze dried tubifex and then I feed live black worms directly to the rope fish with some long ass tongs and as a result the acara are less interested in the food I have presented the ropefish.
I guess I can as more concerned with whether it was not nice to move fish to different tanks temporarily but it sounds like that's not even an issue?
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I would like to give my two voracious thick lipped gouramis a job: eat hydra in my rope fish tank. They are very outgoing and apparently very good at keeping hydra in check in their tank because I had never seen one before until I set up my other tanks.
I know the hydra aren't really going to be able to hurt the fish in my rope tank (2 ropefish, 2 electric blue acaras, and one sailfin pleco), but I hate knowing they are there.
Is it mean to move fish to another tank temporarily?
They would probably like being in there. It's spacious and very planted. They can't fit in a rope fish's mouth because they are too big.
I would love to get some of your thoughts
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I am still pretty new to this hobby so I haven't had a lot happen, but I haven't been entirely spared. After my tank was set up for weeks and got cycled, I finally got some fish in my tank. I was thrilled. One week later, my husband has to go to work very early in the morning. It is 4am, I am asleep in bed, he kisses me good bye and says "there is a lot of water on the floor down here (the basement), I think your tank is leaking." What he says doesn't really hit me for a hot sec since I was basically still asleep. I groggily get up and as I walk out into the basement living room, I step in water. The first thing I think is that one of the dogs peed on the floor but then remember oh yeah the tank. I go upstairs to see that the water level has dropped several inches in my tank. I inspect the walls of the aquarium, the edges, the rim, anything for a sign of some sort of breach, but the tank is completely dry. Then I notice the wall behind it is wet and I discover that one of the hoses on my canister filter is leaking. In my semi-lucid state, I am somewhat satisfied with the discovery, unplug the filter so it stops running and stops leaking, and go back to sleep.
When I wake up I have to deal with the reality of the all the water that leaked from my upstairs dining room into my downstairs basement. Thankfully I only had a 29 gallon running at the time so I was able to sop up all the water with most of my towels. Good thing it was laundry day. I still had to contend with the leaking hose situation. I tried every remedy I could think of to patch it up. Super glue didn't work. Duct tape didn't work. Flex tape didn't work. The stupid hose is ribbed so none of my solutions were working. I tried to get some flex caulk delivered to my house but it never showed up. After a couple of hours of being upset about this and worried about my fish and the bacteria I spent weeks establishing, it finally occurred to me that I could just trim the hose down past where the puncture was. Don't know why I didn't think of that first! It ended up working just fine and I have not had any problems since.
This was not an all-bad situation however. Apparently my gourami are hyperaware of water levels and the low water level triggered my pair to mate. I didn't even know I had a male and female at the time. They successfully mated and hatched several eggs. Unfortunately my red phantom tetras ate every last one of them all up. I was unprepared to rear fry anyway.
Thanks for reading haha
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On 5/18/2021 at 9:56 AM, B1gJ4k3 said:
I loved the idea of the Python when I first saw it, but using it in practice seemed to waste a ton of water. For water changes, I basically built my own Python "hook" from a couple bucks worth of PVC and vinyl tubing from Home Depot and use buckets to take out and water my lawn. For filling, I use a Lee's version of the Python Super Pump hooked up to a coiled plastic garden house that I had lying around. I built another PVC "hook" for filling that I screw on the end of that which hangs on the tank as I fill it. The whole thing cost me maybe $20 (with the exception of the garden hose that I already had)
I really like my python. I can see your point about wasting a lot of water. I just turn the faucet off once the suction has established and it does it thing. I am not strong enough to carry buckets back and forth so it is extremely helpful for me.
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28 minutes ago, Patrick_G said:
Looks like Ludwigia Repens. I’ve had good luck cutting and replanting and It’s probably the plant that I have the easiest time growing.
Like just sticking the piece you cut off back into the substrate? That's easy enough!
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When I bought this plant, I bought a plant bundle and the seller chose all of the plants as a part of the bundle but they also did not label the plants (which they said they would not do so I knew going in). They have doubled in height since I got them two weeks ago.
Can I cut these in half and replant the trimming for new plants?
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11 minutes ago, Colu said:
Looks like ich I would treat the main tank with ich x
Thank you. I thought so too Just dosed it after watching corys video about treating ich. Glad I bought ich-x ahead of time.
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Title asks it all. Is this ich on my fish? Pictures are from today and Tuesday. I am devastated. I obviously can't take back my pleco if I have ich-y fish so that puts a wrench in things. I think I spotted a couple of white dots on the pleco too. Can I treat my entire 75 gallon tank? I just have two acaras, two ropefish, and the one pleco.
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5 minutes ago, Ken said:
I'd show up with the fish in a bucket and tell them what their exchange policy is.
'Course I'm old and grumpy. The smile in my avatar made my face hurt.
I am not looking for trouble, my friend!!
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14 minutes ago, lefty o said:
be advised, clowns are very cool looking, but they do like to hide.
There's plenty places to hide in my tank if that's what they want to do ☺️
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47 minutes ago, Sun.singh1991 said:
Bristlenose and Rubberlip plecos work amazing for me.
I will have to look at what other plecos they have at this store.
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1 minute ago, BIG GREEN said:
I learned not to listen to the folks at LFS, if I come across a fish I no nothing about I pull the phone out do a google search.
By the way, that is a coool lookiong placo, its a shame you can't keep him/her
I mean it's all my fault. He seemed very knowledgeable and he had made good suggestions and echoed a lot of the things I poured over for months when deciding on getting ropefish, so I felt good about getting suggested from him. He also suggested another fish that I had planned to get to go with my ropes. I didn't want to seem rude pulling out my phone as he was talking to me after I had asked for suggestions.
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1 hour ago, lefty o said:
bristle nose, clown, and rubber nose are ones that get 5-6", and are good for modest sized aquariums. there are others, but these are relatively common, and affordable.
I really like the way clown plecos look. Wow! And I would definitely be able to see one against my dark driftwood
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1 hour ago, SWilson said:
Gosh he's beautiful. I'm so sorry this happened. I don't have advice on the species or how big he will truly get but when I recently purchased a pleco at my lfs the guy said that they can easily get caught in nets (even though they will use a net to catch them at the store), so it's better to try to catch him with a container, or possibly with your hands. If you have a large specimen container you could transport him in that or a bucket so you don't have to bag him? You could use a usb airstone for the ride but I don't know if that's completley necessary for 3 hours.
I definitely have a bucket I use for aquarium stuff only. I do have the usb air pump and an extra air stone if that's necessary. They told me they had spines that could get you pretty bad.
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1 hour ago, Cory said:
If it were me. I'd return it in a bucket with 30% water. And try to exchange/pay the difference for a bristlenose pleco.
Thank you Cory. I will be calling to ask about their exchange policy tomorrow. Just fill a bucket 30% of the way and I'm good to go? I hope it's no worse than being shipped.
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I think I have made a poor decision. This past Saturday I went to a store three hours from where I live to buy 2 rope fish. While there I expressed that I wanted to get some other fish to go in the tank, especially an algae eater. The guy at the store recommended a pleco for me. I told him what size my tank was (75g) and he showed me this very handsome sailfin marbled pleco. He told me it would get to be 8-10" so I said sure. This guy knows what he's talking about.
I decided I would buy repashy for him after reading corys article about plecos and how they really won't thrive on algae and algae wafers alone but made the solid point to find out what specifically my type of pleco eats. I never found out because the first thing I saw on the first page I looked at was "max length 1 foot 6 inches". Excuse me what? I checked other pages. 18 inches? These guys get almost double the length I was told and they need probably 100, 125 gallon tank. What! I don't think my house (husband) can handle another even larger tank to support that size.
Do I return this fish? I don't want this guy to be miserable and stressed because he isn't in a large enough enclosure.
If I *do* return him, how do I transport him comfortably for a three hour ride back to the store?
Thanks everyone
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My favorite part about this thread is that it's based on my post but I don't even use prime but instead fritz ACCR
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What a world of difference CO2 makes. Still battling algae though
in Plants, Algae, and Fertilizers
Posted
Yup the co
Yup the co2 is on an hour before the lights come on and shut off an hour before the lights come on. I have the solenoid and the lights on timers.
I can't have any fish or shrimp help in the way of battling this algae. I don't necessarily want SAE because they will grow out of their algae eating phase before I know it and will just compete with my ropefish for food when they are already kind of slow to eat.