Stef

@Vicki They don’t spread like a carpeting plant would. They should get taller and fuller. A few of mine are below. These all turned to mush when I first planted 2+ years ago.

Don’t give up on the crypts! As others have said they melt back and look terrible but once they settle and get some root tab love they’ll reward you. I have some of the bronze variety (I think) and they are stunners. Once they come back though, don’t move them or they’ll melt again. They don’t like to be moved.

I crushed up some vibra bites and my CPDs went into a frenzy. It crushed pretty easily by hand and any larger pieces that fall get cleaned up by the snail or pleco.

@Guppysnail thank you, that’s a huge relief.

Hi folks, thought I’d update my snabies status. I have 4 survivors of the original 6. Two are ivory and two are blue. One of the blues is still really small while the other three are about small pea size. Things in their tank are really messy and there’s a lot of debris. I’m cleaning daily. This morning, the largest ivory baby has some spiky things near the front left edge of the shell (left side of the photo but his right). Is this shell growth or something nefarious? @Chick-In-Of-TheSea @Cinnebuns,@Guppysnail I’m still feeding powdered Repashy, first bites and crushed up flake. I’ve tried small bits of mashed up green bean, but they’ll plow right over or around it. They are just 5 weeks old.

Nice! I like it a lot. Is that front rock a little too close to the glass? Can you get a gravel vac in there. It’s seems like the stone is a little squared off to look like it naturally tumbled there. But that just me. I can agonize over placement of stuff endlessly. Love the color of the wood and how it “grows” out of the rock.

@HelplessNewbie also, if you have or are anticipating unwanted bladder snails, a DIY snail trap baited with some food is an easy way to catch them and keep their numbers in control. Just make sure the trap is safe for your betta and mystery so they can’t get into it and get stuck. Plenty of videos out there on how to make one. I have a 6 gallon cube tank with a betta and controlled the ramshorn snails by just dropping in a canned green bean (for feeding mystery snail) and the ramshorns flocked to it quickly and then I just scoop out the bean and the ramshorns. I did this a few times and now I just have a few random ramshorns which is much easier to manage. Most importantly, don’t over feed your fish as the more uneaten food you have the more the pest snails will reproduce.

Hi @HelplessNewbie, From what I’ve read, it’s not advised to keep assassins with mystery snails or other peaceful snails like nerites or rabbits. Though they may be smaller than mysteries, they can very well harass and probe at your mystery snail. It’s what they do - hunt and eat snails. I don’t chance it. Personally, my assassin is boring and I just know he’s doing his work with the ramshorn snails I have. Assassins mostly bury themselves in the sand and wait for a snail to come by. Plus they mostly hunt at night. I only see my assassin once every few weeks. Your kids might find them pretty boring too.

That Filipe Olivera tank is really pretty. I’d say you’ve done a nice job in matching up the look. The snail is an Assassin Snail.

How about some t-shirt fish? I found this tee on Amazon that I’m loving. I love the betta attitude so this shirt was perfect for me. I also have a mustard gas betta. His name is Sonny. Such a ham. But, as you know, bettas have a slew of potential problems that can be heart breaking. Wishing you a speedy recovery.

I like it a lot! Especially the smaller spikier rocks on the right. They compliment the bigger structure. What color sand are you capping with? If you plan to stock with a Pleco beware of them digging up your black substrate. My female BN Pleco made a mess of my tank. I’ve got dirt balls everywhere mixed with my light sand.

Hi folks. Looking for advice to remove small amount of existing gravel (4 lbs?) and replace with 20 lbs black Imagitarium sand for a Ranchu tank. Haven’t done this before, so don’t want to screw it up or stress out the fish. The tank is a 20 gal long. I was going to put the Ranchus in my 1st time 100 gal stock tank patio pond, but decided they were just too darn cute and delicate and I’d end up worrying myself to death over them. So decided to make their holding tank their official home but nicer. Being that the existing gravel is light colored, the fish will no doubt dig through new black sand and expose it. If I remove the light gravel I/they lose the beneficial bacteria. The existing light gravel is just enough to cover the bottom and you can even see the glass in spots, so maybe not even enough BB to worry about loosing. There’s two AC hob filters and two sponge filters now. The tank formerly housed baby BN Plecos that have since been rehomed. I plan to remove the fish to a 5 gal bucket while I add the sand and then reuse the same tank water. Thoughts?

Looks like BN Pleco poop to me. I just finished growing out 123 babies from an accidental clutch. Messy messy messy. They dig a lot too. The poop should be fairly easy to siphon out by swirling and hovering a gravel vac over your sand.

So I came home from work and found the left over egg yolk had white hair-like mold spores. Ugh. Tested the water and had .5 nitrite too. There was no ammonia. Assuming the little seasoned sponge doesn’t have a big enough colony to handle the excess food. I turkey basted out as much of the egg and other food. Then did two back to back 50% water changes. The first wc still detected nitrite, so did another round. All 6 Snabies still seem ok. For food I just added a teeny pinch of Repashy solient green powder. So how crazy of an idea is this? Has anyone tried putting a single small ramshorn in with the babies for say like an hour or two to help eat up excess food and then pull it out? Like a “rental snail”. There’s a lot of powdered food stuck on the bare bottom tank. It doesn’t swirl up with the siphon up easily. Was not expecting nitrite so soon, so just thinking how to have food available 24/7, without nitrite poisoning them while I’m at work. Right now a single daily wc may not be enough. Thoughts??

I don’t have bacter ae or moss but have a bunch of marimo balls. Also have a few anubias plants that are glued down that I can easily transfer over. They are so small I fear if they go on a plant I’ll never find them when doing a wellness check. Big thanks for all tips and shared experiences.

Thank you. Wasn’t sure if yolk stuck to walls better than the others. It’s all sort of falling to the bottom. Tank is brand new with old/seasoned sponge filter. Seems like walls are too clean to have stuff stick to. Babies seem to prefer the walls. Kids 🤷‍♀️

Ahhh, that was a broken off piece from the main clutch from when I removed it from the tank lid. Do you recall how long you offered hard boiled egg yolks? I’m still doing a combo of yolks, first bites, solient green.

Only had the one clutch. No secondsies. She never laid another clutch, tho I’m keeping the water level up (about 1 inch from rimless tank). All 6 alive this morning. The 7th was still motionless laying on his side in a cup 😢 He was the smallest of all of them. The Fab6 aren’t super active, tho still on the glass. Two found the catappa leaf. Do they nap like adults or should they be more active/feeding? I plan to siphon out uneaten food after work. Their water parameters were decent this morning: 0 Ammonia 0 Nitrate 20-40 Nitrate GH 300 ppm KH 40-80 ppm (low, tank I took water from has OTS) pH 7.2

Exciting news. I’ve got 6 live snabies tonight. Have been incubating for 16 days and when I checked late tonight, I could see parts of the clutch eaten away with a snail shell inside. I crushed the clutch in a container of tank water. It broke apart pretty easily. Out of a huge clutch I count just 6. Did I crush too early? I’ve got them in their own tank with heater and small seasoned sponge filter. The sponge is a fine foam and I squeezed it out a bit for them. I used tank water from the tank they were incubating in. I added some but not all of their clutch remnants. While eggs were hard boiling (for yolks) I added powdered Repashy solient green and some easy fry food. Very small amounts of both. Also added a soggy catappa leaf that my betta donated 😄and some of his sand with gunk. There’s a 7th snail that’s still laying on its side and hasn’t moved in two hours. Worried he didn’t make it. I was surprised at how quickly they “woke up” and started moving about. When I added the hard boiled egg yolk (half pea size), 5 of the 6 are up at the water edge. Is that normal? Gosh they’re tiny but oh so cute. Those antennas!! 🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌 So tomorrow, I think I siphon out uneaten foods, feed fresh and repeat? @Chick-In-Of-TheSea, @Cinnebuns, @Guppysnail anything you see that I’m missing or need to fix? @Chick-In-Of-TheSea, I also made it to page 60 of 65 of your journal. Entertaining and educational. Thank you

Kudos to you for jumping right in and trying to build some depth! Check out MD Fish Tanks to see how he uses mesh bags filled with sand and aquasoil placed under a cap of sand or other substrates. I used some extra seriyu stones from a batch that wasn’t particularly nice to prop up driftwood give the appt it was taller.

I’m on a roller coaster for sure. My patio pond project has taken off after a cold spring start and chlorine leaching issue. It’s all resolved now and really enjoying it. Didn’t think I’d fall so hard in love for my comets, they’re awesome. Just wish I could see them better in the big black tub that covered on floating plants. Good problem to have 😁 Then the spiral downward dealing with a young betta with dropsy symptoms. Grateful for the knowledge learned here on how to treat. Fingers crossed. Then another upward shift with a first time clutch of mystery snail eggs I’m anxiously awaiting.

Thank you again for the advice @Cinnebuns hope you are feeling better. I have some wonder shells on hand, just need to be more regular about using them. As to the incubating clutch, it hasn’t changed in appearance. I swap out the top paper towel every night. I find the top paper towel is mildly damp. Is it supposed to be bone dry? The clutch itself seems to have like a fine “dew” over the top. When I change the paper towel, I rotate the clutch so the bottom gets some time exposed to air. I don’t see any darkening of an embryo.

@Cinnebuns, appreciate the tips, videos and pictures. I’ve had the “chestnut” snail for a year+. She (I think she) is quite large. The earliest picture I could find of her is the first one below dated Nov 27 2021. The blue one was added probably 6-7 months ago. The “lightning bolt” scar started appearing after he was added and new growth started. The last two pics were just taken this evening. My parameters are good, just checked tonight. GH 300, KH 120, pH 7.2 - 7.4. I add a nano block every couple of months. Food wise, their base is canned green beans and have been pushing a couple of crab cuisine pcs into the beans to keep the betta from nabbing the crab cuisine. I’ve tried snello recipes with Repashy but I don’t think they like my recipe (I have morning wood, bottom scratcher and community). If they’re awake and I’m feeding frozen bloodworms I’ll drop in some via pipette right in front of them so they can nosh before the betta hogs it all. Do you think they need more calcium? Should the shells be smoother? If they’re napping I don’t drop any food in. i ❤️ that purple snaby, the color is so rich already.

@Cinnebuns the larger snail is a regular chestnut. I think the lighting gave off some purple/magenta sitting under the tiger lotus plant. Here’s some other pictures of same snail and the dad. I think he’s a blue. How do they pull off their balancing act?😄 Hoping the clutch is viable. Seems to be ok in incubation. No major changes other than turning darker pinkish color.

Thanks @Guppysnail and @Chick-In-Of-TheSea Looking forward to this breeding experiment. The parents: