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Torrey

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Everything posted by Torrey

  1. Torrey
    If you put a bag of soil on top of the bags of gravel/lava rock, I thnk you'll be happier with the end result: no mess, the desired height, and less expensive if using aqua soil or similar. Also works with the Miracle Gro Organic, and eliminates the need to sift or clean the soil (so no waste) and seems to be lasting longer, nutrient wise, despite the Malaysians not being able to turn the soil over. They turn the BDBS over plenty😅
  2. Torrey
    I bought seltzer water!
  3. Torrey
    I agree that liquid calcium in the water column won't do as much as people think to help the shells. Added to repashy though? Ot added to other dietary intake? It (anecdotally from both personal experience with supplements, and visual anecdotes on how my snails and turle respond) certainlyappears to be more bioavailable than a harder form.
  4. Torrey
    They need you to offer them some veggies (see Guppysnail's journal) like blanched cucmber, blanched green bean (skin hulls, no seeds), blanched squash,blanched carrots. Give it 2 weeks, and your new growth will look better.
  5. Torrey
    My fish' favorite top floating food is mosquito larvae. They always have to return to the top to breathe.
  6. Torrey
    My Patient Spouse™ (aka The Reluctant Nerm™) said it would be a sin and a culinary crime to not participate in tacos. So, x2? No such thing as a "stupid question" here, unless you never ask and don't learn. Honest!
  7. Torrey
    Your red ramshorns are actually sought after, especially if they maintain their vibrant red through adulthood. Yes, fish and shrimp love being able to eat fresh food, especially if you don't offer them more than they can eat at once. You can also throw a large batch in the blender with ice, make mini icecubes and feed later (I add some food to the mix, and my turtle is also appreciative). My endlers eat the eggs and any young snails they can find, so my endler tanks have been fairly stable in population.
  8. Torrey
    I discovered after consulting with Seattle_Aqaurium and Guppysnail that my underfed snails were eating my plants. I tested water every 4 hours for ammonia & nitrites, and my beneficial bacteria colony can handle lightly blanched vegetables left in for 36 hours (the longest it has tken shrimp and snails to finish the food). If the food is all gone after 12 hours, I know I'm underfeeding. I try to have some left at the 24 hour mark, and trade out my bamboo skewers for fresh veggies every 24 hours. I put blanched carrot + whatever else isavailable (cucmber, squash, green beans, a dandelion flower was a hit, etc) on a bamboo skewer to make it easier for me to monitor. Never elevated my ammonia or nitrite levels, even as my plants were initially being decimated (took a week for the snails to decide my plants were finally healthy enough they didn't need anymore pruning, but the blanched veggies did, lol) Supposedly, nerites only live to be 2 years old. I inherited my nerites when they were 10. I was worried we had lost Watson (disappeared since my surgery) but spouse woke up to the right side of the tank being bedazzled so I'm fairly confident Watson is doing just as well as Houdini, and they had split tank duties. One day I'll break the tank down and discover where Watson has been bedazzling for the past 6 months... but that's too much work, lol. They have snail shells that I clean (soak for 48 hours) in H2O2 in their tank to nom on, as well as a bag of crushed oyster shells. I think the bag of crushed oyster shells is what convinced Watson to come to the riht side of the T4' tank, as every snail I knew about in the aquarium (and several I didn't😅) love to hang out nomming on the oyster shell. I saw some shell damage after my cyanobacterial bloom, and added the oyster shell because I already had it on hand. I looked at prices last week, and I'll probably stick with crushed oyster shell. Plants, fish and snails all say 1342/10 highly recommend, lol I lost a few dozen of my Radix auricularia L. when their favorite wafer added copper to the food and I didn't know they had changed the formula (it's a bottom feeder specific wafer, not snail specific wafer), as well as many bladder snails. Didn't seem to negatively impct the nerites at first, but Houdini (zebra nerite) now looks like an old man with a lot of white hidden by his operculum when he's out and about. So always check food sources when buying, they are under no obligation to notify us of formula changes. PS: This fall, Houdini and Watson will have been with me for 2 years, making them over 12 years old!
  9. Torrey
    I remember that, I thought I had responded at that time that adding to the tank instead of the HOB may be more effective and sustainable long term. I've been using crushed oyster shell as "white gravel" in my tanks (and in a bag on top of the UGF in another tank) for a slower dissolving, more sustainable option. The more acidic the water, the faster it dissolves, and more water changes removes it from the water column faster. No single solution will fix everything, every change we make (no matter how seemingly inconsequential) affects othre parameters. It's why going slow, and lots of observation time is the secret to success.... Due to my available resources, I have to look at: How will I use the least water? What is the most sustainable option? What keeps my costs down long term?
  10. Torrey
    Clear lids allow the light in. May need to adjust how you mount, it depends on your specific set up. I use Egg crate light diffuser cut to size on the sides, and stretch saran wrap across to get a good seal under my AquaSky without losing light. So, depends on how creative you want to be. Regarding the algae on leaves, have you read this option yet?
  11. Torrey
    Oh yeah, I'm drooling. Unlike most images in here, yours get clearer on my larger screen. I want to be able to test for iron, copper, bromine, and flouride! Not to mention lead👀 I had to buy a Pur filter, and follow it with a ZeroWater filter so we could safely drink anything out of the tap, or suffer kidney stones. I would *love* to be able to find the happy balance on water blends so I don't have to take everything out and then remineralize water. I refuse to go RO living in the desert.... Looks like this could potentially also help identify how long I could go between water changes in tanks, saving even more water.... ::thinking cap::
  12. Torrey
    @dasaltemelosguy I'd be satisfied with your test strip on a paper towel tbh. I've been thrilled with the Co-op test strips, because I no longer need to ask my arms to replicate a test tube agitator from the lab (I hated the noise, never thought I'd miss them, lol) I'd never been satisfied with other strips' accuracy, but 3 weeks of testing against API I'm happy with my curent mode of testing pH, GH, KH, chlorine, nitrate, nitrite and ammonia... I am intrigued by your test strips, lol (should I add this to the "I might be a nerm" post?)
  13. Torrey
    Aqua soils/nutrient rich substrates *can* work long term as long as you are looking at your tank and making decisions for the long haul. If you are going for short term rewards, faster plant growth, and a tank with wow factor up front (ie: ADA and other scape competitions) an aqua soil is the best option. If you want a tank you can set up and have stable for 5 years or longer, you want to set up for success, and that *includes* how are you going to maintain a cycle where nutrients that are absorbed by plants are returned to the substrate? I have sand in a tank with the same hydrogen sulfate producing bacteria found out in nature (lovely black spots in my white sand). If the tank gets out of balance, it could develop into a lethal problem for my fish, but the malaysian trumpet snails are relandscaping my tank regularly because they have a very valuable role of turning over the substrate and moving mulm and fish waste into deeper areas of substrate for the plant roots to use. It's not the snails fault that I faile to observe nature long enough before I set up the tank, the snails are working with the plants, amphipods, bacteria and fish to establish homeostasis in the tank. It's the silly human with the god-complex that initially set it up in a non-sustainable way, so while my tank inhabitants get a good chuckle at my learning experiences, I am learning where I have a responsibility to leave things alone, and where I have a responsibility to fix my mistakes. Ultimately, all of our choices are about which learning opportunity we want to embrace. [Philosophical fishkeeping, 101]
  14. Torrey
    Depends on what species you are keeping, goals long term, how much you enjoy stress, etc. You have an opportunity for a science experiment, and you can just test, observe, monitor. You have an opportunity to add crushed coral, or some other long term stabilizer, and see how that efffects your cycle. The world (or in this case your fish tank) is literally your oyster, and you get decide which pearl you want to grow: low pH testing and observations? means more work monitoring, and can also be fun! add KH? can alleviate worry and also be fun! I do know that if you make your decision out of a fear of failure, you are 90% more likely to experience what you fear. So literally, my recommendation is pick the path that you think you will have the most fun with, commit fully, and embrace whatever happens as a hilariously entertaining learning opprotunity. It keeps the hobby more fun that way.🤷🏼‍♂️ [Not everyone appreciates my sense of humor, so results vary wildly]
  15. Torrey
    That looks like pH of 6.0? or is it lower? Doing a reverse filter on your picture makes it easier to see. Which may be the problem. Lower pH, the acidic water keeps the ammonia in a safer form which is helpful as the bacteria don't grow as well (the ammonia compromises the integrity of the bacteria). You may have found your answer, it's been too long since I have lived anywhere that didn't have liquid rock (it took me almost a year and an incredible amount of tannins to get *one* of my tanks down to 6.8 pH) to remember the chemistry regarding pH, ammonia, and plant health. Essentially, there may be too low pH for the plants to adequately uptake all of the available ammonia from the food left over. I generally ghost feed my tanks for about 6 months before thinking about adding live creatures, and I feed for what I want to have, so by the time I add fish the tank is stable. Until I fail epically at an experiment... like lowering TDS to get rid of cyanobacteria, lol
  16. Torrey
    We feed the turtle cat food occasionally, and have seen know negative affects on the fish. Too much will definitely lead to an oil film
  17. Torrey
    ORD🤣 Oh, darn. How horrible. Must get another tank for the eel to be happy, lol
  18. Torrey
    Aything other than vinegar based is just a poor imitation of bar-b-q sauce! ::ducks, and runs::
  19. Torrey
    Most likely lack of nutrients based on your description. What are your water parameters? Tank inhabitants? Age of tank? Maintenance and fert schedule? What is your source water, and what are the parameters of your source water?
  20. Torrey
    @Georgiapeach88 here's how I mounted the lights/built out the tank
  21. Torrey
    You already got a lot of great advice. I don't know what your work schedule is, but one of the appeals of a siesta schedule on the programmable lights ( @Streetwise started a great thread) is manipulating the on/off times so we can observe our fish more in their ultimate environment... which includes lighting. If you aren't running CO2, I strongly recommend for a wide variety of reasons.
  22. Torrey
    The first 4-H leader the group had almost ruined the joy for the kids. The next year, the group split and we went with one of the families that were part of our homeschool community. Kids had more fun, the hobby wasn't ruined for them, and the whole 4-H group did a few campouts at our farm, and did movie nights at the leader's family farm. Goggles were the best thing we ever did as a group, and allowed all the younger siblings to safely participate (we had newborns up to 16 yo in the group meetings)
  23. Torrey
    Thank you!
  24. Torrey
    Sand, soft soil, or my eel preferred the mulm under the UGF until he got too big to fit. I second Zenzo, they prefer peaceful, less inquisitive (with their mouths) tank mates and a softer substrate with leaf litter they can explore. My first eel was with cichlids, and I thought it was cute how he hid in the UGF and went up and down the uplift tubes... until I learned enough about how to read animal behavior and realized he opted for suboptimal water conditions because he didn't feel safe in the tank. Eventually he got big enough he didn't fit in the tubes anymore, and about half a year after that the smaller fish who had bullied him in his youth would disappear at night. They are smart, inquisitive, and can plan out how to get what they want if their needs are not met. Breeder tank for feeders was next to the cichlid eel tank, and my ex swears he got up early one morning to find the eel moving back to the main tank from the feeder (it was physically possible, I'm just not sure of the story because there was a tendency for tall tales). Eel could lift the lid once full grown....
  25. Torrey
    Thank you!!! I'm ORD (woke up ORD, lol) Have a great week @Candi!
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