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xXInkedPhoenixX

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  1. Things have been just nutty in my life lately and I've not had a lot of time to post nor spend quality time with my tanks just maintenance and sadly sometimes just minimal at that. Firstly it's been nice to have deleted a tank- though I miss the Medieval tank a lot my Mum has been having fun with it. She's added a lot of plants from her tanks that are now decommissioned and gave me some of the overflow (which were my plants originally anyway). I don't have a very recent picture but the new Embers and Endlers she's gotten are doing well. She's had the same issue as me with the plain platinum guppies and the few that she bought have passed. Her fancier iridescent residents are fine. I don't know what the platinum guppy issue is but there's definitely something up there with them just dying off randomly. Poor Punk. He's not gotten any better. He still has popeye and his other eye isn't super clear though he seems to see out of it. The tank is lightly salted and has 2 IAL floating at all times but I've run out of treatment options for him. So I try and make him as comfortable as I can. Since I'm not sure how well he sees I decided to make more open space for him. It was getting rather jungle-y in the Angry Man: The plants in the front right were suffering a bit from the salt treatment too so I pulled them, picked off the stuff that was suffering, lead weighted it and put it in front of one of the sponge filters giving him the vast majority of that front area. I am in LOVE with my SAE, Bissell, what a little workhorse fish they are. All of the hair algae is gone to the point where I pulled plants from the Accidental tank to have them clean up. This is the state the Anubias was in and now it's entirely cleaned. Of course I lost a few leaves as they were never able to recover the algae assault, but overall the plant is now doing well: I need to get a pic of how clean it is, but you can get the idea with the picture above of the new arrangement, especially if you zoom in to the both of them as the before pic is a decent amount older. Bissell is steadily growing too. Can't wait until the big tank is up and running to let them loose in there as they are definitely growing! I even started with the smallest fish the LFS had. Bissell is probably already pushing 3 inches. He happily swims along with the other fish in the tank. While cleaning the Dragon Tank with Invictus the Betta I noticed his Betta leaf was covered in algae. So I switched out a clean one for him and decided to give the algae to Bissell too. Well, Not only have they mostly cleaned it at this point but this morning I saw this: Bissell cleaned house and made himself a home! You can see the Anubias leaves they cleaned in the background. I'd planned on removing it when finished with the algae but as you can see I just won't be able to bring myself to do it- despite all the other natural resting options. Speaking of fish named after vacuums, I have recently seen my oldest Hillstream and first love of the species, Kirby: I see the other, Dyson, all the time but they are much harder to take pics of as they are usually wedged between a Foo dog and the middle sculpture- so it would just be a pic of a black Hillstream sideways. Hardly a prize winning photo! Last but not least Invictus doing well, though I think at times he gets bored. I've tried the Betta mirror but he doesn't even acknowledge its existence. He's always looking for my attention, I love the little snuggler. Come a long way from the poor little shell I got at the box store.
  2. There have been some delays in progress on the stand due to a trip and then illness caused by trip. This past week the Intrepid Partner and I treated the Birch finishing wood for it (stained on both sides and half polyurethane'd already, pending that side to dry for the other coats). He also had the marine grade plywood for the top and bottom of the stand and while it's got its waterproof properties that didn't stop us from giving it coats of polyurethane on both sides too. Once that's attached to the stand we'll be calculating a way to get the tank finally out of the crate and onto the stand. @anewbie saw that you changed your sump, looking forward to knowing what you like about that set up.
  3. I am very sorry to see this. I have had 1st hand dealings with dropsy. I wouldn't discourage you to try and treat your Betta, but I would caution you that when a fish, especially Betta display pineconing, this is a symptom of organ failure typically and cannot be cured in 99% of cases I've ever seen. I want you to be prepared and make your fish as comfortable as you are able. If you search "betta dropsy" on this forum you will see countless posts, sadly most of which the outcome was death. I don't like to be negative when it comes to treating our pet fish but again, I want you to be prepared. You do not have to remove or treat snails. Here is one of many posts our friend @Colu has put up outlining potential treatment, in this case the culprit may have been high nitrates. You should check your water parameters if you're able.
  4. I'd compare it to this chart that our friend here @Colu uses to ID and treat accordingly. Remember that Epistylis can be worsened when using heat so if you think it might be that but are on the fence just go with the meds only treatment. : If you search what you think it is with the word "treatment" on this forum you'll come up with lots of threads to help.
  5. This is my uneducated guess. I see those sacks are above the waterline. Once they dry I doubt they are viable eggs. Detrius worms are typically harmless to your population- their purpose is to be scavangers and eat the dead/dying things. I think maybe in this case that is what these are doing, on top of the fact that whatever food you might be feeding- if any of it floats it's probably a great perch for them and the food might stick to the sacks as well. I'm willing to bet they are not doing this on the totally submerged sacks- as I can see just below the top there is a sack that is and there are no worms stacks on it.
  6. The tanks look fantastic! One tip I have for pet sitters. I portion out food in small containers or snack ziplock bags and label them. They get put near or taped to the tanks they belong to. This definitely cuts down on the possibility of overfeeding.
  7. As reported Intrepid Partner had the base of the metal aquarium stand powder coated. We went with semi-gloss black as it will transition nicely with the black framed aquarium. He picked it up on Monday: Now it is home and he's been putting glass and metal onto the stand: I think it looks really amazing. We're going to go on the hunt for marine grade wood for the base and top, also finishing wood for the bottom half of the doors and I imagine will have some sanding and staining to do in the coming days!
  8. Tank got moved! Unfortunately we did run into a couple of issues and in the end only 2 of the 8 Ember tetras made the trip. Only 1 Kuhli spotted during the whole move of 2 possible and they made it through fine. What happened is that when trying to catch the Embers they kept "passing out" from terror (When I moved them from the Flex to the Medieval I had a couple die from fright seemingly, so this played a part in what I did). Sadly I made the decision to leave the rest in the tank. One giant wave (and the only one that happened) on the drive there is probably what did it. As I found them deceased when we got the tank on Mum's countertop. I was pretty bummed. The wave displaced a LOT of gravel from the tree side to the arch side and that is likely what played a part in the deaths- and it covered the beautiful "stone floor" on the arch side too. Quite a mess. I didn't find any dead shrimp though- hundreds of them made the trip fine. I also had the bucket with the Embers I was able to catch and some of the prettier adult shrimp. Hard lessons learned and some good ones too. It was a mixed bag really. Here it is mostly drained (even then the fish could NOT be caught!!!) I took the biggest of the rocks out of the tank but everything else was pretty stable. I got a nice board and we lifted it only very briefly from the shelf to a table we moved up against it onto the board and guernied it to the car. It made it really easy to slide it off the board onto the countertop we transferred it to at its new home. Here are the fish that refused to get caught: Here it is in the back of the car: Honestly most of it went really well so I was really disappointed about my fish losses. If it wasn't for that one big slosh I believe everyone would have been fine. It's not the way I wanted to do it but it seemed like the right thing at the time. 😞 So the tank got set up and it was of course cloudy so lots of Stability, Prime were recommended for the next week to my Mum. I dosed it with Seachem Clarity and Pristine before I left. Mum sent me a pic of the tank the next day which seems to be doing well and 98% clearer than it was the day before: Mum even went to the LFS and got a group of Embers so the remaining 2 will have buddies again. It was stressful! I don't want to do that again! But I have to!!! ACCCKKKK!!!
  9. This weekend is a big weekend for my tanks. The decision was made due to my 196 gallon custom tank that the process of moving and consolidating tanks should be starting. So one big plan is to gift the Medieval tank to my Mum. As much as I absolutely love this tank the small fish and shrimp inhabitants just wouldn't be safe in such a big tank with higher flow and larger tankmates. So the 8 Embers and countless Rili shrimp will stay with the tank and be combined with my Mum's few Neons and 2 Guppies. The not fun part is getting it broken down enough without doing TOO much and transporting it, a 30 minute drive away. Being very long but small will be interesting. The idea is to remove the fish and some of the shrimp (no way of catching all) drain it as much as we can and take out only what we have to. Possibly use plastic packing material to float on top of what water there will be in there to cut down on sloshing. Get ourselves a nice stiff board of wood and essentially guerny it to the car. Any other tips would be appreciated! Moving starts tomorrow!
  10. @AAE Custom Aquariums is very helpful, if you haven't talked to them I strongly encourage you to call. An agent will help you build your "dream tank" and you can tell them about your concerns. We just ordered one from them and are in earthquake country. We went with a framed tank which will add extra stablity and the extra silicone, though very neatly applied will also help with it.
  11. Sad announcement for my tanks. I've been treating Punk my Bolivian Ram for popeye for several weeks with no change. In the meantime though, Industry, my Bolivian female has been in the Parent tank with all my catfish. Sadly, she came down with a fast moving illness. Some days ago I found her not doing well, pulled her to QT and with no real clue as to what was wrong dosed the tank with Kanaplex and Metroplex assuming possible bacterial infection. She came through the dosing but no change. I'd done a water change and had been salting her QT and had IAL but came home yesterday to find her gone. So I will miss the little thing. Thankfully besides my 2 Bolivians and 1 bloated Black Neon everyone else in my tanks (which is quite a number of fish) seem to be doing very, very well. So I have to count the positive things!
  12. After 2 doses of Maracyn 2 there are no changes in fact his damaged eye seems to be more swollen one day and not as much the next. Intrepid partner also spotted a white mark on his other eye. We're not sure what to think about that. Sadly, in the days I've been treating Punk, his female counterpart in the Parent Tank came down with a very fast illness that unfortunately even after QT and meds took her little life. SIP little girl! Here's a couple of pics of Punk's other eye....
  13. Intrepid Partner finished the stand and it has been sent off to get powder coated a semi-gloss black. To be continued...!!!
  14. Welcome to the forum and the hobby. It can be all consuming that's for sure but it's fun to learn! Your tanks are beautiful!
  15. Well without a lot of options for meds, or more information other than a seemingly lethargic fish I would say best option is to try and locate some aquarium salt as it's usually the easiest thing to get a hold of (Study this: .https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/aquarium-salt-for-sick-fish?_pos=2&_sid=a4f341fe3&_ss=r ). Clean, clean water and an established tank (adding established tank items in new tanks when not an option) are great. Keep the lights off and stress low. Lots of oxygen, add an airstone if possible.
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