Kat_Rigel

I have a swordplant (Amazon sword?) that has been established in my tank for approx 3 years. I learned back in September of last year that it really needed root tabs, and once I started doing that it REALLY took off. However, I'm disappointed that I haven't been seeing any runners or "baby" swordplants. I did a decent size pruning last weekend due to all the shade it was creating, and hoped it would spur healthy new growth, but I'm not seeing anything new (might be a little too early to tell though.) Is there anything specific I can do to encourage propagation? I saw on a different thread someone recommended cutting the rosette into two and then voila, two plants. I am hesitant to take that approach because it is so happy and well rooted in the tank. Any tips? I give it Easy Green Root tabs every few weeks and dose the tank with Easy Green (mainly for other plants' benefit.) Note about the pic: the plant is not rooted in that rock, it is just behind it. Poor perspective.

Well sad update, the fish is really doing poorly and I honestly don't hold much hope that it will recover. I agree that it appears to to a birth related issue; the prolapse has increased in size and the fish is doing that "I'm almost dead floating at the top" thing. 😕 I think I'm going to euthanize- hate to see unnecessary suffering and I don't think we'll be getting any babies out of this. If anyone has experienced this, please let me know. Just curious. I don't think anything could have been done to prevent this.

If it just looks like a minor tear, I usually do nothing. But if it's significant enough that you've noticed it, I would proactively treat with erythromycin to prevent infection- that's the big danger.

I have a platy that has a weird hernia or prolapse or something, I'm looking to see if anyone has seen this before. I have had the platy for about 5-6 weeks. It was added to my main 55gal tank after a 4 week quarantine, along with one male. I was pretty confident that they would breed in the time they were in quarantine, and I planned to keep an eye out for the female getting large and close to birth. Today it looked like she was "squaring off" and I was excited to see that something was kind of emerging from the anal area. I fished her out and placed her in a breeder box, but when I took a closer look, you can see that it is NOT normal. I can't tell if it is a prolapse, a hernia, botched birth, or what. I think I can see an egg on one side (yes, I know platies are livebearera, but they still have the sperm/egg basics.) It might indicate that there was something wrong with the development of the fry in gestation. Her behavior has been totally normal and she does not appear to be in distress in any way. I haven't bred platies before but I know that it's been about 2 hours with no signs of babies anywhere. Has anyone else come across this? Hoping to save the fish of course, but I would never be able to use her for breeding... unless this is just some normal thing that I'm unfamiliar with. Could be a trauma too, I guess. Tank parameters: Ammonia:0, nitrite:0, nitrate: 20ppm, kh:17, gh: 18, ph:7.8, temp: 79.1F. No meds given during quarantine. 55gal planted with guppies, pencilfish, danios, cloud mountain minnows, cories, assassin snails, mystery snails, cherry shrimp Check out the pics. Very interested to hear what you guys have to say. For now I have her isolated and I'll wait and see if anything else happens.

I supplement my snails with Tums, either straight into the tank as is (I have hundreds in the tank, so you may want to remove the excess after and hour or so.) I will also crush it up and add it to Repashy, or Snello. I use this recipe, roughly: https://steemit.com/snails/@snailshack/for-the-aquatic-snail-keeper-snello-recipe I do not recommend Wonder Shells- I know lots of people sing their praises but I had a terrible time with it knocking my gh, kh, and pH out of whack. I have had better luck with crushed coral in the filter and this Tums feeding supplement. I don't see any issues in the photos you posted, but if you want a smoother shell, then yes, go for the calcium. Good luck!

I can't remember *exactly* what I turned it up to when I treated my tank (ich, it was years ago) but I want to say it was in the 86* range. I want to say I did it for about 4 days. (Sorry for the uncertainty, I want to make sure I'm not telling you the wrong thing!) Although I was following the heat/salt treatment for ich, the reasoning behind it is the same. Keep us updated!

It looks like you've tried quite an array of things; make sure you are completing the treatments for any of the antibiotics like maracyn. Ex. The package recommends treating with Maracyn for 4 days. Although the Co-op has done their own "med trio" as a kind of blanket treatment, I think that is more for cases where you can't really tell there is anything wrong. At this point you know for sure something is wrong, so make sure you are giving the antibiotics the amount of treatments needed. I think aquarium salt and increased temperature would be a good thing to try. Aside from the fact that you've already tried quite a few other things, salt can treat both parasites and bacteria. So regardless of what it is it should help. Higher temperature can help parasites "run their course" faster; they live, they have babies, they die, and hopefully your salt treatment will prevent those parasite babies from thriving on your betta. Usually I give advice like, "but you do what you think is right," but for this I strongly think you should use salt and heat. The Co-op has great instructions, as you probably know: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/aquarium-salt-for-sick-fish

Got 4 platies last week from my LFS and noticed some white discoloration and missing a bit of tail fin on one. I suspect fin rot from stress- do you guys agree? I went ahead and applied erythromycin per package directions (daily for 4 days, 30% water change on day 3 prior to med addition.) I also applied the recommended dose of Ich-X for 4 days since we know fungus and bacteria often go hand in hand. (Although I did not do as many water changes as it recommended; just 30% on day 3.) I'm just kind of wondering how I know if the issue is fixed. I never saw any other symptoms like lethargy, for example. All 4 of the platies are quite active and appear to be happy. The appearance of the fin looks exactly the same. I am wondering if it was already starting to repair itself once it was out of whatever gross shipping water brought it to my LFS. Also, I should probably start the quarantine timer timer again, right? (Personally I like to QT for 4 weeks. I had a bad experience previously and like to play it super safe.) Thoughts? Tough to get a pic, so I took a short video. Please excuse the dangly fish poo. 💩 (I never thought I'd be embarrassed of my fishes' poo lol)

Do you quarantine them? If so, do you do any treatments for them? As you mentioned, these guys are often wild caught, I just wonder if they are introduced to some new pathogen when they enter your tank and because they are just little guys, they succumb faster than some of the other, bigger fish. I love habrosus too; I've had them twice. The first time they were absolutely thriving in my setup. I had to move, so I sold them off, then got a new batch at my new place. Weirdly they just kept disappearing one by one. So... at least know that you're not the only one with this issue. I'm not sure exactly what it is but I think they can be a little sensitive.

I don't think so but it's tough to say 100%. My guppies have white poo like that all the time. I was worried at first but they have behaved normal and are fat n happy.

Personally I would keep them together and raise up the babies, make more babies, get a nice colony going, sell extras to your LFS if you can. The only concern would be if the pair is overbreeding, such as a small tank where the female has no where to run to.

Update: I went ahead and bought one of those waterproof pouches and it worked like a charm. I put my phone in it and left it for a few minutes, I love the results. Much better than the "action cam" I was using. I'll do a little video editing and have my first YouTube vid and channel..... potentially. Take a look!

I don't necessarily see any issues here. I have a planted 55gal with many, many guppies. I feed them a range of foods, although I like feeding the krill flakes cause they enjoy it so much (too bad it has made them fat! lol) But I also feed spirulina flakes, algae wafers, and for some reason everyone in the tank loves the Xtreme shrimp food. As long as you have a planted tank, some of the fry will survive. If you are looking to breed, obviously you would want to look into making a new place for them. Fry will nibble on the edges of the flake foods, I have never had an issue feeding them and I do not feed them specifically. Lastly, I have successfully kept two bamboo shrimp in the tank with all these guppies. Since they are filter feeders, they are going to eat the very very tiny stuff that guppies might miss. I never had an issue with my shrimp starving.

No, I just have an airstone going. I do have multiple sponges in there so that they are all ready to go with good bacteria if I set up a new tank. There is a ton of mulm and plant debris at the bottom; I think if I did have a filter, it would have been easily overwhelmed. I am a little concerned that the pond is getting a bit more acidic than I would like, but it's all part of the experiment, right?

Ooooh, that is a good tip! Thank you! I would never have thought of that.

I'd like to try and put some of my aquarium plants in pots so that they can be moved around more easily, especially if I decide to convert one of my tanks to brackish. The best guide I could find was this: https://www.gardenguides.com/101705-plant-aquarium-plants-pots.html But all it says about what soil to use is "carefully choose which soil to use." Lol My question is whether I should stay away from potting soil mixes. I have an old planter with some potting mix that has been "used up" by plants for one season- I grew Swiss chard, for example. I would expect that I could safely use this soil to pot the dwarf tiger lotus I have, which- ideally- would grow happily in my outdoor mini pond. I am planning to cap the soil in the pot with gravel. Anyone see any red flags with this plan? I don't think the soil would leach any harmful chemicals, but I am going to review Diana Walstad's book to confirm. Edit: Got Walstad's name wrong!

I agree with @OceanTruth, I would just keep an eye on the water parameters and as long as they seem to stay in line you probably won't need more filtration.

@Trishthe mylar blankets are a very good idea. I had to use one once (long story, but I got stranded) and it saved my tushie. I can imagine it would be very helpful with an aquarium.

You will be shocked at how easy it is. I also thought I was "not ready" but seriously these tubs are almost dummy proof. I top off my tub once in a while, that's about it. You can certainly get more involved if you want, but I highly recommend giving it a shot with a smaller size tub, perhaps a 29gal tub from Home Depot (black with a yellow lid.)

Personally I think it takes a lot more effort to eradicate pest snails (and, similarly, duckweed) than to accept their presence. I too fought against snails when I had my first planted tank- I added assassin snails and now have a thriving colony that is so numerous I will never be able to remove 100% of them. (So... pick your poison, as it were. Lol) Snails are a good indicator for when you're feeding too much, they eat dead plant material, and the only downside is if you think they are unsightly. If you do want to get rid of them, I would go with the natural predator approach mentioned above (dwarf chain loach, etc.)

Ah I see, that makes sense. Thank you for the clarification.

What sort of case do are you using there? Personally I am an android user (with no plans to hop over to iphone... ever lol) but my Samsung S10 takes good quality video. I also have an old iPhone 4s and iPhone 6 that does video kind of "well enough " for what I'm trying to do so maybe I will look into cases for those, but it is tough to work with iPhone formatted video if you are not using the Apple ecosystem.

For 30min I actually would not do anything. If your fish are in indoor aquariums, your house should provide enough insulation that a 30 or even 2hr lapse in electricity won't effect temp much. Keep in mind that water holds temperature differently than air too. The only thing I would do is, if you know what time the outage will occur, unplug your heaters and HOB filters. At the very least, confirm that they are on a surge protector so that they are protected if they are plugged in when the electricity comes back on. I would perhaps invest in a USB air pump or battery powered air pump in the future, but again, this is a very short amount of time and will make almost no difference to your fish.

I really love my outdoor tub. I was very nervous going into it (how could fish possibly survive outdoors?! Oh, wait... they do that worldwide. Lol) Since I live in Northern California, I have benefitted from a year round tubbing "season." Right now I have lots of ricefish growing out in my 29gal mini pond (3rd floor apartment... limited space,) and I have cherry shrimp breeding like crazy as well as a few guppies. Im loving it.

Just wondering if anyone had any recommendations for a semi-affordable underwater camera? I currently have a slightly old Sony Action Cam and it has very blurry picture underwater. (It's sort of like a GoPro.) I haven't been able to figure out a way to repair it and as far as I can tell it is a common problem with this camera model. I was thinking of making some YouTube videos and these grainy images are not gonna cut it even for a non-money making video. Any recommendations? You can see an example here, the beginning before it is submerged it is fairly clear. Then underwater it is all grainy. 😞 I tried strapping a flashlight on it too in case it was too dark and saw the same thing. FYI, the fish are gold medaka ricefish, a couple of guppies, and some cherry shrimp. It was such good video!... except its blurry. Haha