xXInkedPhoenixX

My Mama Oto laid on the undersides of a small Amazon Sword, they're kind of laid individually sometimes in groups of 2 or 3, translucent. I actually never saw them darken, the babies are nearly see through. The first time I saw one it was on the glass along the top of the tank- looked like a bug to me at first.

I'll pipe in here and say I raised my Oto fry on crushed Hikari Algae wafer and to this day now 6 mos old they pretty much prefer only Hikari wafers and slices of (ENGLISH) cucumber. I've tried everything else.

I'm sorry Jennifer. I've battled dropsy 1x w/a betta (the betta pictured in my board profile here even). I've come to the conclusion it's not treatable- I've never come across someone who cured it and won. I believe I cured the dropsy but there was too much internal damage for my little guy to recover from it. It's not a consolation, but know that some of us have been there and you did the best you could.

@Jennifer I would always remove snails when medicating out of an abundance of caution.

@Guppysnail yeah I can see where a pleco plethora would be harder to maintain. The Otos are so small that my initial daily water changes weren't really needed. Now I do maybe a half gallon a day just for spot cleaning or use a turkey baster if I'm feeling "lazy". Even when they are full size I feel like their bio load is small. The cleaning I do is more from the Hikari wafers than their waste (they're in a bare bottom with pots).

@Guppysnail I'm not a med user unless I see a need so that fits my philosophy fine. I will be the witch in the Hansel & Gretel story minus the unhappy ending and puff the little suckers into happy fatsos. I hope to have good progress updates 🤞

@eolith welcome to fishkeeping!! We all have shelves full of foods. I've been in your situation before with a betta. I concur with the bloodworms answer. Get the small block frozen, put it in a designated container overnight in your fridge. Personally I target fed my singlton fish- so get yourself a pair of non pointy tweezers and feed them one bloodworm at a time. I probably would only start with one big one, maybe 2. If you target feed, you know how much food they are actually eating. Unfortunately with only one fish you will end up throwing away most of even the tiny blocks of bloodworms, I toss them when they start to turn from red to well, not red.

@Guppysnail, thanks for the recommendations I'll likely get some of that too. As with everyone else here I've got lots of foods! My tiny Embers needed smaller food too so I'm slightly prepared for them since on the Huna's website they look super duper little (great for me). Only concern is they come in an 8 pack and I'm sure they don't know boy from girl when so small. I may have to pull some if the aggression I've read about comes out but I have back up plans for that. You'll have to school me there.

I haven't updated this thread in a long time. So the little ones are now between 6 months and 5 months (depending which generation they were in 1-3). I have given away a half dozen to a friend (she had 3 die, and I haven't asked her since), put 11 in my other tanks which leaves approximately 35 specimens in the 10 gallon "grow out tank". The tank, even when not performing daily small water changes (I usually just spot clean nowadays), tests well. I have an HOB and a sponge filter in it due to the amount of fish. This week it was a balmy 78 degrees (remember I run no heater), 7.6 pH, 0 ammonia/nitrite, and is testing pretty regularly at 40 nitrate no matter what kind of water changing I perform- the swords in there are doing really well. Alkalinity is at 3/53.7, gh tests around 107.4. Here's what I'm thinking. I don't want to take them to the LFS. I may give a few more away but I sorta want a species only colony tank (yay so much for an always available quarantine tank). They may or may not end up breeding more but if they do maybe sell the results of those spawns and keep my original babies. The tank is no trouble and as they are a shoaling fish when I do see them at night and early morning they are very active and move in their groups. Since they've all grown past fry-hood I've had no deaths in that tank save for one that jammed it's little self into the HOB's intake (which is now covered by a course sponge prefilter. I know there are others on here that have high capacity tanks. I'd like to hear anyones thoughts on the subject.

I ordered some apparently "extra small" CPDs from AquaHuna, let the experiment begin!

@Odd Duck I have tried sourcing as I have had several Bettas in my fish keeping experience. Their life spans have been erratic at best where I can keep several other species of fish easily in the same tanks. I've had them shipped, gotten them from breeders, LFS, big box. Honestly I've had the best luck with the big box fish but not by a lot. I've had males and females different "types" all the way up to this female who was a GloFish which some have said seem hardier than others. 😐 I'm just over it and don't want to keep them again. I am hesitant to have a pea puffer as they do seem to be moody fish and do enjoy the company of others, maybe I'm just anthropomorphizing them- also I have a harder time feeding live foods though I have a love/hate relationship with my bladder snail population. So ultimately I may be going with the CPD suggestion if I'm keeping fish- or, my Mum's 3 gallon ADF pair have been doing so very well in her tank that I set up, I could go that direction.

@GameCzar I'd probably only do males if I did them at all with guppysnail's comment--- I'd be the one that got the pregnant female. Nope. Nope. Nope.

@Guppysnail what are your tank parameters for them?

@Guppysnail ok so that's a BIG no to guppies then!

What about guppies either male or female would they do ok in a tank like this?

What I think might be nice about the CPDs is that I can keep a small group and won't get terribly attached like I would with a pea puffer or other solo species. (not to say it still doesn't suck when one of a herd dies. )

Well so far I'll put poss ADF and Pearl Danios on my research list!

@laritheloud I have pretty hard water so that's a consideration, not sure I want to invest in anything to change that. I'm half tempted to move my 6 teeny tiny Embers into this tank and putting something bigger into the Flex9 (which is more like a 7gallon). The Flex could use another Nerite so I could move the Nerite to the Flex and still get a puffer. ...maybe I'll get ADF.

On the subject of pea puffers would they be a danger to the Nerite? I wouldn't have a problem moving her elsewhere. @laritheloud @sudofish Are they a bit hardier than the Bettas? I know they have to be "de-parasited" when you get them.

Ok, I'm over Betta keeping. My pretty girl Spark was found unexpectedly deceased. This topic is not to discuss what happened with her (meaning troubleshooting), trust me I did this already. What I am here to say is that I'm totally over Betta keeping. With the exception of 1, they never live long enough to justify my attachment to them. The complete irony of this sad event is that I just got her a 4.12 gallon cube from Aquatop and was going to set it up on the very day I found her. 😔 That aside, now what?! Unfortunately I've had no luck with shrimp so that's out for me. Tank has driftwood, a shelter, java, anubias, a small collection of red root floaters and subwassertang. It's not running as hot as all my other tanks do (right now it's only hitting 70 which is weird since the tank right next to it is at 78). So I'll likely get a small heater to bring it up some. Spark's Nerite, Curlyque and her bladder snail friends are settling into the new tank. Somebody give me ideas! Please. 🙂

@Guppysnail yes I didn't like that they were in a fairly dark quarantine tank with no fresh water other than what I would change out. This will be much healthier for the fish and hopefully if they can get better they will.

So just to update my situation here for future. Verti, as I've been calling this one seems permanently damaged but otherwise healthy. They eat eagerly every day from tweezers. So, since there's no chance they're going to get anyone sick I've aquired a breeder box with its own pump that circulates the water for Verti, thankfully very gently, and is able to view his former friends/home and I can monitor them more easily. Had to modify the standard glass top to accomodate the breeder and reverse the opening but it works quite well and will be their permanent home up and until they are no longer with me or miraculously better.

It's a cuckoo's nest!!

I don't eat seafood, but I'd eat that.

Cereal. Any kind from healthy to seriously unhealthy (and who am I kidding I eat it any time I feel like it)....and it's Count Chocula season!!!!!!