anewbie
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Posts posted by anewbie
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The final resolution is they sent a new motor under warranty (i had indicated earlier in this thread they were going to send a replacement before we got into the discussion with voltage).
The new motor is dead silent - i believe the flow is a little less than the older one (but can't measure that) and the cord is definitely a lot cheaper (pre vs post pandemic); but the thing is dead silent 😉
Unfortunately i cant' play with the voltage issue suggested in this thread as they require that i cut the cord on the old motor as part of the replacement policy. I suppose i could try to replace the cord on it if i want to test the voltage fix but on the other hand given a choice between mucking with the cord or doing a 200 gallon water change on my 600 gallon aquarium - i rather focus on the fishes than the motor 😉
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On 2/3/2024 at 6:24 PM, lefty o said:
its subjective. i used to have 5 SAE's in my 120, and they were just fine, but i had lots of plants they liked to lay in. only issues i ever had with them was come feeding time they would just push their way into the food. they werent aggressive, but they were getting in there and eating!
There are two standard dimensions for a 120; mine is the 4x2x2 - so only 48 inches long. Yea 5 could fit in there but a longer tank would work better.
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This is my 10:
Some plants include: red lip pontederifolia (plant on right); some green grecko (basically a nice green wenditti); nurii rosen (they are on the left but not very visible); golden anubia (right front corner); hornworth (in middle); marina moss (stuff growing on the sponge filters and all the driftwood as well as heater); pearl weed (at the very top in the hornworth (snail ate most of it); some small buces; a couple of crpyts (forgot species - front left/left center); ...
Not a fan of parva - takes forever to grow - this tank is 3 years old no co2; infrequent fertilizer but weekly water change - 10 gallon.
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Would be helpful if you provided your tank dimensions; after all some plants that are great for a 5 gallon aquarium don't work so well in a 500 gallon aquarium.
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I tried it once for 2 weeks; didn't seem to do much.
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One of my large L172a (i have 2 large ones 1 medium one and 1 small one). The others have caves in areas which are hard to photograph due to glass thickness - one is very cute hang out at the top of a notch in driftwood during feeding time - (s)he eats the food that falls into the notch as it floats from front to back; this one took a sponge (why i don't know - it initially dug a huge cave under a rock - but maybe someone else chased him out. Btw i have a yoyo that does the same thing - i'll get his photograph one of these days - in his/her case it is an itsybitsy piece of driftwood next to the side:
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On 2/3/2024 at 9:29 AM, Tanked said:
I am keeping 5 SAEs in a 29. Two of them are approaching their 4th birthday, and are still about 2.5 ". They usually work independently, but will group together when resting or frightened. Because they are a social fish, I personally think that you should keep at least three, but never just one. Mine are active, but I've never seen any aggression. The SAEs might get to 6 inches and might live up to 10 years or beyond, but that doesn't mean that they will.
They spend most of their time in the bottom half of the tank, among the plants and decorations, and their swimming habit is basically swim a little, eat a little. My opinion would be that our tanks differ by six inches, but you are good with adding two or three fish.
The only way they are 2.5 inches after 4 years is that they are runts or not actually sae but one of the similar looking fishes like flying foxes. My SAE - which i started in a 29 quickly out-grew it in under a year and then i moved it to a 120 and quite frankly i found the 120 small for it. These are very very fast fish.
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On 2/3/2024 at 8:19 AM, Guppysnail said:
@anewbie I find species that are newer in the hobby have information that doesn’t hold true. I believe this is because the information is limited to where the fish was collected and what was in the stomach of the ones collected vs What conditions the fish are actually capable of thriving in and they full variety scope of their diet.
Then you have a few folks add in little tidbits at a time of what they see.
I’ve made stocking errors plenty of times. I have no experience with the 172a. If you want I can give you the contact of a guy who sells a lot rare plecos and fish. I think I saw him drop a video of these for sale awhile ago. He may have first hand info
The L. dorsigera and curviceps had tons of conflicting info on just temp alone.
I took both groups from 75-81 slowly over several months to find their happy place. Their happy place where breeding happens but no aggression between breeding times was not what the net said.
c-76-77 d-78-79
Sure - i'd email him - i mostly want to confirm diet and acceptable temp. So my D's are only a little warm - with the blue rams there i'm pretty committed to the 81-83 range. The D's have been the best behaved of the Ls i have. They are not super aggressive at eating; they are very polite (the a and t are super aggressive running over anyone and everyone in their way; much like the krobia). They don't hurt anyone they just shove them out of the way 😉
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On 2/2/2024 at 8:12 PM, anewbie said:
Mine is a little warm; sadly i had to raise the aquarium temp to 81 because some of the pleco (L172a) i got the information i had on them were incorrect and they really want a warm tank. Of course 81 also plays nice with the blue rams and eventually the winemilleri when i get them. Sadly the cuviceps and the sterbai suffer a bit at 81/82 - not sure what to do with this - if it was a smaller aquarium i'd fish the pleco out and lower the temp to 77 but that is the pia of a 4 foot wide aquarium - what goes in is pretty much there for life and i made some really bad decisions.
To be more precise on the 172a; the information i had on them suggested 74-82 temp range was good for them but when two died at 77 i started looking for a solution and it seems the recommended temp is 82-86; i'm still confused about this data point. There seems to be a lot of conflicting information on them but i'm now suspecting they are one of the species that require very very fast flowing water and mid 80s; there is also a lot of conflicting information on their diet - and yea i used what i considered moderately reliable (planetcatfish, seriouslyfish (which has a lot of errors); fishbase; ... I'm not convince they require 80+ temp but the ones i have are still alive after a couple of months; so i'm reluctant to lower it. I'm also confused about their diet with some sources insisting they need a fair amount of greens and others insisting they will eat exclusively mullesk and snails (though these haven't eaten my snails yet).
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panda gara will eat bba. Mine did an excellent job of cleaning my anubia.
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I've heard story that some cichild (any species) will discover they like tetra eyes; trap the tetra and eat them (i've read this is true for angles, discus, and various dwarf cichild); but never experienced it first hand. What i will say is the follow (as dwarf cicihild go) i've found nannacara amolae to be extremely clever and adaptive (mine never bothered the small rasboras i had with it but it did eat ton of baby pleco); i will also note that a 20 long is too small for rummy-nose but that doesn't help you.
Beyond those two comments i can't really add anything else - oh if you have a pair (m/f) of nanncara amolae - they are not pair forming and the female will likely kill the male in a 20 long when she has frys unless you have extremely good scaping for him to hide (the females are very very aggressive when they have frys).
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On 2/2/2024 at 7:53 PM, Guppysnail said:
All of my curviceps were ordered by my lfs from a wholesaler. I have no clue. They are dirty white when being held at the lfs in the big tanks way to warm (83-84)and stressed. They color up shortly after I bring them home and they settle in.
Mine is a little warm; sadly i had to raise the aquarium temp to 81 because some of the pleco (L172a) i got the information i had on them were incorrect and they really want a warm tank. Of course 81 also plays nice with the blue rams and eventually the winemilleri when i get them. Sadly the cuviceps and the sterbai suffer a bit at 81/82 - not sure what to do with this - if it was a smaller aquarium i'd fish the pleco out and lower the temp to 77 but that is the pia of a 4 foot wide aquarium - what goes in is pretty much there for life and i made some really bad decisions.
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On 2/2/2024 at 7:58 PM, Guppysnail said:
The anal and pelvic fins of the males will be noticeably longer and pointier. Both males and females color up and down based on mood/ stress. Both will show brilliant color at times. My females do tend to get a deeper blue.
I've not noticed that in my l.a; i've had them before. The primary difference i noticed is the male is much larger and have a hump in the head. The one i said is a female never colours up at all. In fact among my l.a., i've never noticed much change in colouring 'cept when breeding unlike some of the other fishes i have which are very moody. My discus will frequently go from dark brown to very light orange depending on their moves (as well as raise and lower stripes); the festum - you can tell right away when they are angry - the fins raise and the stripes get very dark. There is one in particular that is always moody when has very dark aggressive posture - the first time i thought he was guarding an area (breeding?) but i never identified a female that was interested in him.
Domestic angels of course i see very little change depending on mood- wild angels the stripes are a dead giveaway on mood.
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Much to my amazement since i'm not feeding them i still have krobia frys and they seem quite a bit larger. No clue what they are eating but i havent' lost any fingers.
However the purpose for this post is every now and then is see this; the very first time i saw it i panicked - i mean one of my festy died or something. I believe what is going on is they are 'fish' for insects and stay perfectly still (no fin movement) and occasionally turnover. The angels of course have no clue what is going on but they will swim over and 'poke' at them while they are in this state (i wonder if they do this in the wild since they two species co-exist in the wild); if you look at the bottom you can see one of my head standers (Anostomus ternetzi). Btw the pictures of the fishes in this aquarium (esp from my desk) will never be great because the glass is so thick (it is a 10x4). Not sure what to do about that aspect. In the background you can see a l. theyari (those guys are similar to the krobia in behavior - general monsters - I think i favor the l.a. and l.d. Probably l.d. wins out overall. The l.a are nicer looking but they are also very aggressive eaters (none of these fish have shown general aggression); the l.d are much more reclusive. The 4 i have tend to hang out together and mostly get along - they stick by the blue rams which are also a quieter fish. The krobia and l. theyari are the most aggressive eaters i have - if you wait 30 seconds they act like they haven't had a decent meal in weeks and will eat anything that touch the water aggressively. Still mad at the krobia for eating my cardinals 2 hours after putting them in the tank. Later i'll try to get a good picture of my discus aquarium - i'm waiting to see if they eat the cardinals. From my reading it is 50/50 much like angles sometimes it works and sometimes it doens't but the discus are definitely more reclusive and the slightest change will send them to a corner. The tetras cant' decide what to do with them. When I first moved them into the 180 (72x24x24); the tetra and rams stayed on one side of the tank and the discus on another. When i had workers over today the discus retreated to the bottom right corner and refused to come out and the tetra retook the entire tank but when the workers left the discus came back out and the aquarium got split in half again. The cardinals are definitely leary of the discus as are the rams. Oh well time will tell.
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On 2/2/2024 at 10:38 AM, Guppysnail said:
My curviceps eggs are fertile and not yet eaten. Day 2 🎉
@anewbie decent (not great) photo of L. curviceps This pair has the magenta on the sides of the body near the head that to my understanding comes from one collection location. My others have no magenta and are really blue
I don't know about yours but mine are mostly dirty white 'cept when they display to each other than they get the very rich colouring i posted. Were yours wc or tank raised?
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On 1/31/2024 at 11:45 AM, Mmiller2001 said:
I would like to share this absolutely stunning tank with an amazing write up. Definitely check it out. The write up is so informative.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/CO2SupplementedPT/permalink/6797912793664211/?mibextid=W9rl1R
private group.
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There is no best but any of the mosses or stuff like pearl weed or hornworth. For the bottom green greco (crypt); some small anubia; crypt wenditti brown; ... crypt wenditti tropica... lots of options - 1000s.
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I've had a wenditti grow as tall as 12 inches; but balansae will grow long narrow leaves with pleasing marking. I think my tallest one is around 17 or 18 inches long but i'm sure they can get longer over longer period of time. cryptocoryne spiralis also grow long narrow leaves and there are nice culvature like red and red tiger which range from pinkish to deep red with dark green veins. crypt undulutas can get large. crypt aponogetifolia is a huge plants which can easily take up an entire 20 high given enough time but it really requires hard-water. I have one in soft water and it is struggling quite a bit.
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On 1/29/2024 at 11:26 PM, BIRD0887 said:
@NOLANANO This was ton when i fed them...i cld rly only get a good pic of the one, this is the one who is in the skull most of the time. the other ram isnt nearly as colorful as this one... @anewbie I believe at petco they were displayed as german blue rams. I have them in a 10 rn, i have bigger tanks coming but ddnt wanna dedicate a big tank to these guys.
You should have them with fine substrate; they will try to eat food off the bottom by shuffling the substrate through their gills - naturally they can't do this if the substrate is too large to fit in their mouth or if it will fit but too large to safely pass through the gills it can damage the gills.
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On 1/29/2024 at 1:36 PM, Pepere said:
Are the Brazil and Columbia farms using river water which would also be soft?
Those aren't farms those are wild caught.
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3 ammonia and the fishes would be dead in less than an hour. When you do water changes try to keep temp constant; these fishes HATE fluctuation in water temp or chemistry.
Also are these blue rams (wc) or german blue rams (man in-bred but more colourful). I have two set of blue rams (wc); and they are fairly flexible on water hardness but they do like it warm (80+ esp when young) and as i noted they absolutely hate sudden changes to water chemistry. Mine are like little kids (6 in the discus tank and 6 in the geo tank).
I would not keep them in anything less than a 29 (for water volume); unless you are very experience at keeping their water chemistry stable.
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On 1/28/2024 at 8:59 PM, Arcticgypsy said:
May go with a 20G high tank. Will still fit in the space, and better grow out tank for my fry.......Nice tank. What substrate are you using there? Was looking at Eco Complete Black for the new tank. this one looks nice as well.
that is estes stoney river. Much better than eco complete because it is rather fine and my fishes require fine substrate. Unlike caribsea fine substrate i've never had problem with aernobic pockets forming in this stuff (and i wonder why but that is a side issue).
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On 1/28/2024 at 10:45 PM, gjcarew said:
This was from TC, and that entire bunch is only about half of what I had (after ~2 years). I'm selling the other half this week. Buce does so much better when it's planted in the substrate!
Well if you are selliing them i'll take a few.
What causes algae on the substratre
in Plants, Algae, and Fertilizers
Posted
In the end this was cyanobacteria as many suspected. I fixed the issue using chemi-clean per instruction (under dosed a bit); seems resolved but will update this thread if (a) it comes back and (b) i can find the thread again (which is very difficult on this site) 😉