anewbie
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Posts posted by anewbie
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On 8/5/2023 at 5:46 PM, Scapexghost said:
The colorful swordtails youll find at a fish store do not get nearly as big as their wild counterparts. Im not sure this is bc of interbreeding with platies, poor breeding practices, or a consequence of domestication but either way, odds are a 20 is fine. Im not sure if the 5.5 inch measurement includes thr sword, bc if not a 5.5 inch sword would be very impressive even for a wild type.
I believe it is the inter-breeding with platies to get desired colours.
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Most otto will die after shipping due to starvation - there is a bacteria in their stomach that will die if they aren't fed. If you buy otto you should ensure that the store has qt or held them for 2 weeks before buying them.
Also your fishes have a fundamental clash since generally speaking tetra are softwater fishes (as well as otto) and platy are hard water fishes.
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On 7/30/2023 at 8:29 PM, PineSong said:
I caught every single guppy fry in my 29 and moved them to a 10g growout tank, then gave myself a round of applause. I went outside to Enjoy Nature Daily with a visit to the Kentucky River, where I saw enjoyed the sight of a very pretty spotted gar moseying along beside my kayak for quite a ways, enjoying the shade on this hot day. I really appreciated Mother Nature's aquascaping--both her moss gardens and her hardscape were inspiring. I brought home some driftwood and tired arms.
Nice river - hopefully you enjoy canoeing a bit. Or if you enjoy a lot of canoeing not so far there are some class 3 and 4 rivers 😉
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I have a solo female angel and a solo female nannacara who both do the same thing - i'm not sure how common it is but it obviously happens. It is more noticeable with cicihld then egg scatterers since they tend to guard the eggs drawing attention to such activity.
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It can be done - it only took me 3 or 4 months to finally get rid of it and i ain't ever bringing it back. A bit of surface current will help in your fight against it.
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On 7/27/2023 at 4:16 PM, Shadow said:
So, educate me a little...I am doing research on a future curveball project as my interests have been peaked for a while now.
SA I can do a Blackwater tank, but not sure I want to go too Blackwater as I want the fish to pop still and not be muddled. Africans prefer more clean, clear tanks. Curious to get more info on both sides of the Cichlid coin & also your favorite fish, tanks you have done...any advice really. I like to dip heavily into the research and I trust this community the most. Google is great and all, but getting it direct beats that any day.
Depends on africans - you have several different types - some (west africa) are soft water fishes like kribs; others like rift lake are medium hard water fishes. Conversely while most sa fishes are one of clear water/white water/blackwater there are ca (central america) cichild which are hardwater fishes.
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anubias don't need a lot of fertilizer; as most are found in relatively soft water. The roots should be on wood - i forget the exact reason but they function better on wood than rocks. water chemistry will impact them - also for reasons i don't fully understand i have found the golden variety more prone to rot.
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On 7/27/2023 at 5:12 PM, tolstoy21 said:
I just started using Carribsea's Jungle River as a substrate in many of my tanks. If you havent seen this substrate, it's a kind of sand made up of a billion teeny-tiny-little-itty-bitty pebbles. Its very light weight and attractive lookin.
Now, I have a specific 40 breeder where I'm growing out a decent amount of Agassizii and Baenschi. Whenever I go to net out fish, half of them quickly dive down into the substrate, burrowing deep, completely underneath, and hide.
Has anyone else seen this kind of lunatic behavior?
I have this substrate - I've not so much noticed burring when i try to catch them but some of my dwarf cihlid will dig into the substrate to make caves which is why i tend to make deep substrate - also for plant roots. At least 2 inches - they don't just dig in the open (for caves) but under drift wood and rocks. I'm a big fan of allowing fishes to make 'natural' caves and try to avoid artifical caves.
Btw not a species of apistogramma but my kribs did this:
This nest is really quite deep they raised many frys in it before i decided enough was enough.
You see the cockatoo near it - though he learned to stay far away over time.
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Yea what i meant is that i had harems of a hongsloi before and had the females do completely opposite thing of each other before. Hum - my festum is mad.
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On 7/26/2023 at 1:51 PM, Guppysnail said:
This has been on my someday list since I saw them in my friends tank. In a group they acted like cichlid guppies 🤣. I’ll definitely hit you up for info if I ever get them.
Thanks for the info.
Question. I’ve now read they are cave spawners-substrate spawners and smooth rock spawners. Which is correct?
@Elodie Rose just offered to take half the panda Cory so he will go in that tank. I put out feelers for folks local who may breed these so I can get him a girlfriend.
I *think* they are substrate spawners but to be honest they will pick a suitable position; these rules are generalities - so i usually ignore them and just let the fishes pick where they want to spawn.
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They are nice fishes; but like all dwarf cicihld they are territorial if they pair up. Usually the female is the more aggressive and the male more passive but i'm not 100% sure for this species. I actually had Laetacara araguaiae; I had 4 - what i can say is they were very aggressive torwards competition (i.e, i ended up with 2 males and 2 females and the larger female hounded the smaller female; as well as the 'extra' male); so once sexed i wouldnt' keep more than a pair. I had them in a 40B; i did not notice any over aggression towards other fishes - or the other cichild (nannacara) i had in the aquarium but the anannacara was one smart dude and he knew the ins and out of avoiding conflict but establishing his presence (lovely fish with a ton of personality); i did not notice any special behavior of the Laetacara other than they were more aggressive to each others than expected and larger than expected - a good 1 to 1 1/2 inch larger than expected size.
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On 7/25/2023 at 11:31 AM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:
@Lenniesuper hardy, grow well, tough, perfect for shrimp or algae eaters who can rasp on the leaves - otos, bristlenose, etc. here’s the thing with them and Crinums, Aponogetons etc- if you have a big swing in parameters or temps then they’ll go dormant. But the advantage is you won’t lose the plant when the tank crashes for whatever reason. The one in my 60 g is the same one I bought 4 years ago. That to me is amazing! They love root tabs I give them one or two every couple months. If they go dormant then just trim back, put some root tabs, do you best to have stable parameters and it’ll come back. Light can be intermediate to moderate for best growth. It can be a magnate for algae’s but when a tank is well balanced it will also fend it away as it grows quite quickly.
Bit confused since crinums are from a different family as aponogetons and have different requirements. Also different apongogetons have different requirements and different tendency towards dormancy. Some require removal to different environment; others don't go dormant and some will periodically go dormant but do not require removal from aquarium. There are different plants sold as 'lace' and unfortunately they come from different regions of africa and have different requirements/behavior.
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crush coral leads to hard water - kuhli are a soft water fish. I wouldn't use crush coral to 'stablelize' ro water since the chemistry constant changes and it is changing chemistry that make fishes really upset.
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A tank large enough for SAE
On 7/25/2023 at 8:59 AM, Tanked said:Basically water parameters are my biggest concern. Nitrates must: zero, low, >20 (I think they meant<20). PH. ranged between 6.4- >7. Sights seemed to prefer 6.8-7.2. Temperatures ranged from 59-89 Fahrenheit.
Water must be pristine. Water should have leaf litter and plant matter, Water must be changed twice weekly. Water must be low flow. Shrimp eat everything. Shrimp must have supplemental food. Shrimp must have calm, peaceful tankmates like Tetras.
We are already off topic, but I do have two questions: Are Shrimp compatible with: (1) SAEs, (2) under gravel filters? This would eliminate the planted community tank.
SAE are very large fishes; an aquarium that is good for SAE is probably larger than most would keep shrimp. I can't comment on if they would actively hunt shrimp as they are largely algae eaters but they do have large mouths and are very fast. Shrimp should be 'compatible' with UGF but long term UGF seem to run into a bunch of problems and i don't reocmmend them - you are better off with a sponge filter. 'pristine' is a useless description of water condition because it doesn't really state what is 'pristine' water condition.
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If you set the water out overnight in a pail does the ammonia drop to 0 ?
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shrimps are a mix bag; i purchased them several times before they stuck - but now i can't get rid of them 😉 My fishes do eat a lot of the shrimpets but a few always make it to become adults. Unfortunately they have been trending towards clear and i suspect that is because they are harder to see and less get eaten. I have them in tap - my tab is around 120-140 tds - kh 3 gh 6 - ph around 7 or 7.1 Tank is kept around 78 as the fish i have in there a - not too uncommon dwarf cichild called a. pucallpaensis in a 10. I can say that if i were to remove the fishes the shrimp would do better but on the bright side even if i don't feed them bbs a few frys seem to make it anyway probably eating similar size shrimpets.
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It could also be a bacteria - kuhli are fairly sensitive to bacteria and it can be quite deadly - having said that your water really is too hard for kuhil - they prefer much softer water...
Also if it is ammonia water change will only help for a short period; it means the tank isn't cycled and it will rapidly build back up. You can partially neutralize it with a water conditioner like prime for a few days but long term you need to get that aquarium cycled (big if).
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As a general rule betta will stay near the top - as long as it mostly stays near the top it won't interfer with the cockatoo (a species i dislike); the fin length won't matter much with regards to dwarf cichild (and rams are just another dwarf cichild; more aggressive than some species of apistogramma less than others). If the betta goes to the bottom - and into the territory of a female (esp if she has eggs/frys) then it will be attacked (short-fin or long-fin). It is really that simple.
A 75 is fairly large and it is probable that cockatoo (or another species of dwarf cichild) will not take the entire tank as territories - it really just depends in the betta is smart enough to learn or notice that it should stay out of the cichild area. One negative is a betta being an asian fish hasn't learned to speak 'sa' (south american) so it won't recognize the cichild signals - yes aggressive fishes will frequent signal intent before actually executing. Having said that most catfishes (esp cory) will ignore those signals which can be problematic when mixing catfishes with cichild. The one big difference between larger cicihld and dwarf cichild is many larger cicihld (like angles) will not use the bottom as their territory but rather higher areas (of course most geo prefer the bottom so it is not uniform and i've had gbr and a hongsloi go mid tank - so these generalities have exceptions).
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Not sure what an 'ammonia filter back' is but i'd be concern the ammonia isn't 0. I'd be even more concern if it is spiking between measurements. In all my 'mature' aquariums ammonia always measure 0; and I consider 0.25 the bottom end of toxic (not deadly for a short period but definitely unhealthy). kuhli are fairly sensitive to bacteria and ammonia. Also you said you did a 40% water change - is there ammonia in your water or did you do something to the filter that damaged the 'cycle' like clean it ?
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They claim it is fine for up to 2 feet but there is drop off on the sides. If low tech it should be fine as it is fairly strong unit however you could start with 1 and then add a 2nd if you find it insufficient. On my 120 (24 inch wide) i have two lights - a wrgb 2 pro and a fluval 3.0. I'm setting up a new 24 inch wide tank and i'm starting with a single blade. 18 inch is sort of that inbetween area - if you hang the light a bit above the tank it will add more to the spread - like 10 inches maybe - of course it diffuses the light some so a bit depends on what you are doing.
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On 7/21/2023 at 12:34 PM, Mmiller2001 said:
I’ve been working on the light settings. Less blue now and higher greens.
Also, maybe the addition of the 3rd light causing less shadowing.
I really do like it - the plants to my eye look really nice with the change in lighting. I realize this is tricky because how they look in photograph is not how they look in person - and with the wrgb which are also blue heavy they look really nice in person but sucked in photo.
Anyways big thumb up.
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On 7/21/2023 at 11:57 AM, Mmiller2001 said:
Rare frontal…
Goals today, fix the 3 center plants and hang the lights from the frame.
For some reason that picture looks 1000x better than the others - it is more neutral - less pink. Why ?
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On 7/20/2023 at 1:23 PM, memorywrangler said:
The fish I'm trying to breed like to spawn on/near the top of the sponge filter, and I'd rather they do it elsewhere. So the wall-like nature of the batten filter is attractive.
Mostly, though, I'm curious to try them out.
Yea i know you said that - but you can always get a sponge that is finer if there is a concern about eggs falling into the sponge; having said that you should trust the fish to know what is best and i suspect having a gentle water flow over the eggs is a positive.... I've had fishes lay eggs on my matten filter...
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I use a couple and while pulling them out is a bit of a pain it isn't that bad - i thought of putting together a 'guard' - a raised lip at the bottom out of the tank out of some glass but not sure it would be worth the effort. I like @Fish Folksolution but you still need the jet thingy to move water.
One thing i don't understand is your comment that a sponge filter is not suitable - if a sponge filter is not suitable than a matten filter won't be useful. For tanks 10 gallon and smaller i just use sponge filters. My 10:
my 29 with swiss tropical corner matten:
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Miller's Journal
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My understanding is that algae (though it depends on the sort) usually forms due to nutrient imbalance. I know i started getting algae on a very stable aquarium when my old fertilizer ran out and i started using something else - but i specifically had that hair/thread algae growing on the surface plants.
You do want to fix the problem else it will get out of control - my best aquarium has been pretty much algae free for four years.
Measuring par would help but i doubt you need more light - but i hate to give advice.