Chris
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Everything posted by Chris
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We're talking about a minimal amount of salt - nowhere near enough to need much of an acclimation, IMO. Caution is always beneficial, but withholding a therapeutic amount of salt while ramping it up over days/a week likely does more harm than good. Therapeutic levels of salt aren't even enough to disrupt a healthy freshwater nitrogen cycle IME.
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The good news is that, at least in the case of endlers and other livebearers, they tend to be very salt-tolerant. I'd just do a heavy dose of salt, and you should see them recover within a couple weeks, IME. No real need for harsher meds IMO - that is, as long as you have a hospital tank you can treat in, so you don't overwhelm your plants and inverts with salt. I tested the exact amount of salt needed to cure ich a couple years ago - I was transitioning a Figure 8 Puffer and a few mollies from fresh to brackish, and they had ich from the store. https://www.fishlore.com/aquariumfishforum/threads/freshwater-ichs-tolerance-to-marine-salt.488909/
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I've got hard water and haven't had issues with neos or amanos, FWIW. A molly or an American Flag Fish are also great ideas.
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I don't think the state of your tank calls for a full "reset" - maybe it'd be worthwhile to get back into normal dosing, do some extra water changes, and try to get the tank chemistry back to what you consider normal. From there, manual algae removal (or the addition of a few amano shrimp or similar) will eliminate the algae that's grown. To me, that seems like it'd be sufficient to get you back on track.
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On second thought, I'll likely wait until I either A) Move or B) know I'm staying here for a while before I start separating swordtail fry from parents. Best case scenario, I'll be moving within 3 weeks, and trying to move a bunch of 2-3 week old fry seems daunting. I ended up moving the Purple Emperor Tetras to the Musk turtle tank - I think they'll do well in there, and it'll free up the 20 long for other projects. The one remaining Krib is still in the 20 for now, but I think I'll move it into another tank once I source a mate for it. The tank is still overrun with algae, so I took the opportunity to remove most of it - and found an Amano shrimp I added to the tank (in vain) 6 months ago! And a nerite snail that has to be at least two years old, possible three.
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They're awesome! This guy was purchased at about the size of a half dollar coin, and he's getting close to baseball sized now, just about 4 months later. The puffer has never messed with him, and seems to know not to get too close. He does great algae control, too - he leaves the glass alone but eats ANYTHING that grows on the rock. He leaves bleached, white rock behind when he's hungry.
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Saw that same sword tail baby again this morning. Glad to know the little guy made it! One of the females is squared off and looks ready to burst, so I expect more soon. If I get the time, I'll swing by the pet store for a breeder box. A
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I'm actually not super familiar with the m50. I'd recommend checking out Jimmy Gimbals guide for aquarium photography - there are lots of simple tips that'll help a lot with your camera and your cell phone pics. As far as lenses, your best bet is to get a fast lens that captures a lot of light. I honestly don't know what would be best, but a lens that's rated well for sport photography or bird photography would likely do a good job with aquariums. I use the stock lens that my camera came with, but would love to get a macro lens for tiny critters. Sea urchin is up on the rocks in the Green Spotted Puffer tank - wearing a mystery snail shell like a hat and chilling.
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I've definitely had ich-X stain silicone, so most of my tanks have black silicone these days to avoid that issue. I've got two tanks with clear silicone, and both had ich-X in them years ago - the silicone is still a bit blue, but not bad. Right after use, it's pretty noticeable.
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Flowerhorn tank is clear-ish for the first time in a while. Covering a nearby window has really made all the difference - considering purchasing some actual blackout curtains for my next fish room after the move! May look rough in the picture, but it's the first non-opaque look I've had in the tank in a bit.
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No problem! -
I like it! What substrate is that?
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This is actually a pretty great example of why TDS meters can be spectacularly unhelpful at times. They only tell us that there's stuff in the water - not what kind of stuff, and if it's harmful. Just how much. May be a bit of an unpopular opinion in some circles, but I'm pretty well convinced that most fish and even inverts don't care too much what PH, KH, and GH they're kept at - as long as the number isn't an extreme and is relatively stable. The vast majority of freshwater fish will do just fine at 7.0 PH IME. I'd also wager that most would do fine at 6.5, and most would do well at 8.0. The key is stability. There are obvious examples of fish that may prefer softer, acidic water or harder, alkaline water, but I've seen people keep a huge variety of fish in parameters that are way off of what they live in in the wild with no obvious adverse effects. TL;DR - TDS meters give us food for thought, but IMO and IME they're pretty much a niche tool and the info it gives us should probably be taken with a hefty portion of ACO aquarium salt.
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Agreed - looks much more like epistylis than ich, IMO. I had a group of guppies have the same issue a while back. Is the puffer eating? It could just be the picture, but he looks very skinny, almost emaciated in some pics. I know these fish are all new - were they QT'd? Treated for internal parasites? What are you trying to feed the puffer, and are you sure his (very fast) tankmates aren't stealing his food? My one experience with epistylis was handled by adding aquarium salt (not really an option in a planted tank like yours), getting water parameters in line, and feeding a good diet. My guppies also came down with epistylis about a week or two into their tank - from @Colu's advice and my own research I found that epistylis is a very opportunistic infection. It's usually not an issue unless the fish are already weakened by stress, another illness, or possibly a dietary issue.
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Sure is! I use a Canon EOS RP - technically a mirrorless camera, but it functions as a DSLR. The main advantage a DSLR has over a phone camera with aquarium photography is actually the variable shutter speed and wide range of ISO and exposure options, at least at my beginner level. My phone camera has a "pro" mode that allows me to tinker a bit, but it really can't get anywhere close to the clarity the Canon can, especially in darker tanks or with fast, small fish like the guppy above.
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Whole tank died at once except snails
Chris replied to Chick-In-Of-TheSea's topic in General Discussion
Don't have much concrete info to add here, but I can offer some anecdotes. I've kept a lot of saltwater and brackish tanks, and frequently reuse substrates when appropriate - even when switching a tank from saltwater to freshwater, and vice-versa. The aragonite/CC mix my green spotted puffer is living with was used for a molly breeding tank at one time, and my colony of snakeskin guppies is living with a bunch of CC that was used in a reef tank several years ago. I didn't even rinse it all that well - just kinda sprayed it off to get the dried salt crystals out, and tossed it in the tank. Basically, I'm saying I've never had an issue and would find it very odd for normal CC to cause a problem, even with an "overdose". If I had to guess, either there was a contaminant in the CC, the swing in KH did them in (plausible with the guppies, IMO), or there was some contaminant that made it into the tank without your friend knowing. -
Brought out the DSLR and got a decent pic of one of the male Ginga guppies.
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I've used some of the cheaper ones in the past (the Green Killing Machine or whatever they call the one you can buy at Big Box stores) and they do okay. Definitely better than nothing while you're pulling your hair out after chasing clear water for weeks or months. Blackouts usually work too for algal blooms, but then again, I've seen people do blackouts for a full week only to have the water go green again as soon as the lights are back on. I prefer to tackle the root problem, if possible, to avoid running yet another piece of electrical equipment in my tanks. I don't mind running them in small spurts, though. I actually have one tank with green water right now - my 40 gallon flowerhorn tank. Water parameters have always been decent, but when I moved the tank to it's current location I didn't think about how much morning sun the tank gets. Turns out, it's a lot. I blocked the window off with curtains on Sunday, and I've done a couple water changes since then. I'm already seeing a bit of improvement.
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Did a water change and moved the Ginga guppy tank into a more viewable location. Took a phone video of them afterwards - I count 2 male and 4 female guppies, and a total 5 Neos. Pardon the particulates! Hornwort has been dying back.
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I personally feel that for a QT barebottom is best. Easier to keep after waste on the bottom of the tank and makes maintenance a little easier in what are typically new, non-planted extremely freshly cycled (and sometimes slightly overstocked) QT tanks. Its a bit more common in the reefing world, I think, but I've seen some people keep their QTs set up like normal tanks (complete with plants, substrate, decor, snails, etc) and just moving fish in and out. Makes them harder to catch and, if they're shy, it makes them hard to observe, but provides a more natural environment that's more stable (due to the plants consuming nitrogen and the higher surface area for bacteria to live on), and is a bit easier on the eyes. I think going with either one or the other is best - if you're going to go barebottom, keep it nice and clean. If you set it up like a normal tank, you can probably relax maintenance more.
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Close! Feeder snails. I used tweezers to pull them out of my deeper tanks and drop them in. It sticks to their shells. Takes a surprisingly long time to die in saltwater.
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Getting inspections done on the house this week... I'm already planning my fish room! It'll be nice to actually be able to put up airline's and such on the wall. I may even go with a piston pump! I hung a blanket up in front of the window in my fish room to try and keep out some of the light. The winter sun has caused algae blooms in a few tanks, including my Green Spotted Puffer tank. Water is clear, but the glass needs cleaned nearly daily. Hopefully the blanket helps. Anyone wanna guess how the duckweed got into a saltwater tank?
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I spotted a sword tail fry! For like two seconds, before an adult came by and attempted to eat it. It got away, though. Pretty interesting that that fry was smaller than the Molly fry were when they were born, and they seem almost smaller than the fancy guppy fry in the tank beneath them. I figured they'd be bigger. So, I guess I need to get an appropriately sized light (48" vs the 30" that's there now) and plant the corners with something that's good for fry to hide in. Any suggestions? I enjoy plants but I'm not laser focused on them, so maybe a forgiving stem plant would be best.
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Good to know. I'm almost positive that the fry are all eaten, but the first batch from young females tends to be small IMO, and there's still not a ton of vegetation in the tank for the fry to hide in. Tonight, I moved my two comet goldfish from the little Kiddie Pool pond into a standard 10 gallon tank. One of them has made it to around 4", the other is around 2". Why the downgrade, you ask? For one, the pool was taking up a huge amount of space for the purpose it serves, and for two, it seems I'm moving soon. This place is a rental - we're buying a home! We had one sale fall through a few weeks ago due to a poor inspection result, but will likely be putting an offer down onto another house tomorrow. It's a roomy home, and I think I'll be able to keep all of my tanks. The comets will likely have a pond outside, once we get settled in - unless I decide to rehome them. I do want to do some outdoor tubbing, and I'd like to have a water feature or maybe a koi pond, but I'm not sure if a comet goldfish pond fits in there anywhere. Maybe we could do a large enough water feature to house them in?
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Wouldn't be a terrible idea. This is one of the first times in my life I've had an issue like this. When I was really young we had a week-long power outage after an ice storm, and it wouldn't have mattered what we did back then - everything would have died. But for short-term outages like the one last month, they wouldn't be bad to have around. I may order a couple to put into my fish supply bins. I've had a couple things of note appear over the past couple days. For one, I lost one of my male Fancy Guppies out of the blue. Parameters check out fine, all the other fish and fry are okay, and his body looks fine - just like he gave up and quit moving. I'll be keeping a close eye on the tank, but I'm hoping it was a one-off incident. Possibly internal issues due to inbreeding? For two, I found my first Koi Swordtail fry! I think they may have all already been eaten, though. I walked into the fishroom last night and happened to see a female acting weird in a dark corner of the tank, and sure enough, there were a couple of newborn fry that hadn't even really learned to swim correctly yet. No more sightings this morning, though, and the other adults were hanging around that area when the lights came on this morning. Oh well - I just need to plant the heck out of the tank, and maybe I'll have some make it then. If not, guess I'll go dig out the breeding net, lol. @PineSong, have you had any luck colony breeding these? I've done it with swords in the past, but I've heard some strains are more prone to eat fry than others. I've got two males and the rest female, so as long as I can get a couple fry to survive out of each batch via colony breeding, I'll honestly have more than I really want pretty quickly. The Ginga guppies have bounced back. I now have two males and 4 females - strangely enough, they're all still tiny. Maybe 1" max, even with the females. They're getting enough food, but I'm wondering if I need to move the tank to a warmer location. I don't even have any shrimplets from the Neos I added two months ago. I may do that in a coming weekend or something. Everybody appears healthy, though. Oh, and against all odds, the molly fry in the Musk Turtle tank have all grown to about 1". Very few plants, lots of adult fish (including some pretty quick and large WCMM), and a decent-sized musk turtle, and I still have 20 or so fry in the tank. I thought for sure they'd be eaten on day one.
