Torrey

At 7.8 pH, nitrites and ammonia are extremely toxic to fish. How are you treating your water? What are the parameters of your tap water? Do you still have any live fish in the tank?

I second what FlyingFishKeeper said, and will add gouramis are also labyrinth fish like bettas. They *need* a lid on the tank, they need humidity in the air they breath, and they need lots of plants (to observe the tank safely from) and dither fish to help them feel safe in the tank and not be so shy.

Gianne keeps salt in her betta tanks, like always.

Yes, but what was the prey? Ostracods are a very important part of the overall web of life. https://uwm.edu/field-station/ostracods/

😢 I'm so sorry

It depends on the shipper, the time it took for them to arrive, and temps. Fish are almost always shipped in low pH water, to reduce ammonia toxicity. Add new water to the bag, and if your home water is above 6.4 pH, the ammonia from shipping just got extremely toxic. Once upon a time, before the dinosaurs, when I worked for a fish store, we picked up fish from the airport that was almost 4 hours away, drove straight to the store, and as we unpacked each box determined if temps were same as tanks. If yes, bag was dumped in a net, and fish were dumped straight into QT. Net went in methylene blue, other net was grabbed, and process was repeated. We almost quit losing fish after she bought a UV sterilizer for her QT. Most of the places I get fish include floating plant or sponge with the fish, so there's bb to deal with ammonia in shipping. That's a little easier on the fish. Trans shippers, those fish have been bagged and fasted ~ a week. They need into fresh clean water, ASAP. Temp is the most important thing to match.

Did you end up with one of the gifted memberships @Fish Folk? I'm ORD now, it was wonderful chatting in chat! This was linked in the chat in the Livestream, by Cory:

Who's shrimping around in the Livestream? @Guppysnail @FlyingFishKeeper @Fish Folk @Patrick_G @Atitagain @dasaltemelosguy @eatyourpeas ya'll help tag more😁

Goldie Blue, the white clouds can tolerate this temp for short times like they do in the wild in the summer. If the betta is showing signes of stress, I don't think he can safely acclimate to the lower temps the whiteclouds need for good health.

Katherine, have you considered making any? You are in here almost every day. I think it would be cool as more people offer Wordle opportunities, if that's okay with @FlyingFishKeeper I've been playing Cory's each time YouTube lets me find them, too. Which reminds me, anyone know if The Zen Ginger is in the Forum? She loves the Wordles! I try to follow your themes, lol!!! Consider it a balance for that very first one

ORD this is a great image!

#Goals!

It is coming back, slowly, fully submerged in my endler bachelor tank. It's the slowest growing of all my plants I have tried. It dies if I remove the thread around the roots. Because it is so slow growing, by the time a nutrient deficiency shows up, the plant seems to be too far gone. The *only* time I have been able to salvage one (and I am not convinced I salvaged it, more like slowed it's death spiral) is the one in my bachelor tank with a top grow light and a side tank LED, and daily ferts dosing. For @Onescout I second Odd Duck, I don't see a true Amazon sword in your tank.

This is the thermostat controller I use for my tanks, and my kid uses for breeding snakes. Reliable, low cost, and easy to program (even for a recovering Luddite like me). Houses with variable temps are really hard on aquarium heaters. I second Colu, I would get a dual control option, program a minimum temp and maximum temp for each outlet, and replace 300 watt with 2 heaters. Personally, if ordering from the Co-op is an option, I would order 2 Co-op heaters *only* because your temps can drop so low. The 300 watt may have been rapid cycling on warmer days (on/off/on/off) and over taxxed the heater. Two smaller heaters, with an external controller that allows a 3 to 5 degree fluctuation (only turns on when drops below 73° F and turns off once it reaches 78° F for example) will be less work for the heater. It's much easier, and increases life span if the heater comes on and stays on for a while, and then turns off and stays off for an even longer while. Not all fish can tolerate 5° swings over the course of the day, healthy mollies are used to water in the day time being up to 8° F warmer in full sun, than the water at 6 am when the sun first comes up.

That is a lot of fish to put into a new system at one time. There's a good chance this is one part of a larger problem. KH is a bit low to provide the necessary stability long term. You say ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are all 0 ppm, and you are using API liquid reagents (test tubes). Are you running activated charcoal and purigen? If not, are you shaking the liquid reagents before holding the reagent bottles perfectly perpendicular to the ground, to count the number of drops going in? The reagents for pH are a little more forgiving. The reagents for ammonia and nitrites require more precision to get accurate results. Nitrates will give you a false 0 ppm reading unless you shake both bottles of reagents well, and shake the second bottle of reagent and the test tube until you are pretty sure your arm is going to fall off. At a pH of 8, ammonia and nitrite are extremely toxic. The snail is communicating that something is wrong. Plants, especially riparian with roots in the water, are the fastest way to give your fish a buffer while doing regular water changes to keep ammonia & nitrites as close to zero as possible, and give the tank a chance to properly cycle.

By cleaning to this degree, the beneficial bacteria are being removed from these surfaces every week. So is the accompanying biofilm. And that degree of cleaning adds stress to the fish. There are a few potential things to look at: 1. Did you do a full quarantine including preventative parasite treatment on every single fish? 2. Are you testing for ammonia and nitrites ~hour after feeding? It's normal after feedings, especially heavy feedings, for a minute amount of ammonia to be present (food==> waste ==> ammonia ==> nitrites ==> nitrates ==> happy plants) With as much cleaning as you are describing, there's a really good chance that for the next 3 to 5 days those spikes are higher, adding stress to the fish. If they weren't preventatively treated, and even one fish brought in a parasite, they all have varying degrees of parasitic infestation, and the more stress the less resistance they have to the parasites, which will also decrease resistance to other illnesses. Once one thing gets imbalanced (like losing beneficial bacteria) an entire cascade of events can begin and water will appear to be staying perfectly stable unless you are running something like an Apex monitoring system that says "hey, elevation of ammonia 43 minutes and 17 seconds after feeding after every water change and cleaning" I have 7.8 pH to 8.4 pH in almost all my tanks. The higher the pH, the more toxic ammonia and nitrite are. So, maybe make water changes smaller, and only if nitrites/ammonia are detected after a meal. Do a small water change every other week, and don't scrub anything (just a gentle swish in the old water). Only clean the front pane of glass on the tank, leave the rest to grow a biofilm. Look for any signs of emaciation or bloat (parasites can cause both) If another fish dies, consider a necropsy (only way to identify cause of death). Low dose aquarium salt in the water, to give their immune system support

I'm wondering if it's a large copepod (also healthy for the aquarium)? A few freshwater species can get to 17 mm

I pulled up the "Random Old Videos" playlist, and have been rewatching those. So much fun to revisit videos I haven't seen in a while, and enjoy the memories. Plus, there were a bunch I had missed/never seen, so added bonus!

Wordle guessed in 3/6! Can you do better? Try this wordle: https://mywordle.strivemath.com/?word=jsilei ⬜🟨🟨🟨⬜⬜ ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 #mywordle @FlyingFishKeeper I have one for you: https://mywordle.strivemath.com/?word=zogkymw

There's a distinct possibility the "winning male" is attempting to dislodge eggs fertilized by a competing male (or a male viewed as competition). I'm not a @WhitecloudDynasty and haven't bred white clouds, I have simply seen competitive males eat eggs and destroy egg "nests" from perceived competition in other species, so throw it out as a possibility.

If your nitrite is 1 ppm, that's the cause of your betta struggling. As for hard water and high pH, and whether or not to change anything.... What do you want out of the hobby? (Not being a smart alec, honest question to provide better information for you) If you are a water nerd, and love doing chemistry constantly, along with all the math to maintain parameters, then changing water parameters is doable. It's easier to either run a phytoremediation tank where plants suck up the extra calcium (hornwort is fabulous for this) or keep a 55 gallon trashcan of treated water available for water changes. Other options are RODI, but with the water shortage I honestly can't get onboard with RODI. ZeroWater doesn't have the same wastewater problem, each filter costs $10, and if you enroll in the ZeroWatre buyback program, you get $10 back for every 2 filters you send them to recycle. You would then mix water (part tap plus part ZeroWater, or part RODI, or phytoremediation water) and test to make sure what you are putting in your tank has proper TDS, zero ammonia/ nitrites/ chlorine and chloramine, and the GH and KH (KH typically needs to be ~180 ppm to maintain stable pH) and not have pH swings which stress, and eventually can kill fish. I have been working with this and I can say that changing one parameter (I was trying to lower my TDS) can have a lot of unintended consequences (I am apparently now working on a masters degree in water chemistry, and keep having to ask for help identifying what I screwed up for my plants this week). No matter what, I will keep doing the water chemistry approach for my shrimp. Luckily, it's a small enough tank it won't break me. The rest of my tanks? I am slowly re-acclimating them to my liquid rock that pours out of my faucet at 8.2 pH. My only problem? Between October and now, my water authority did something to the treatment process, because last October the KH out of the tap was 180 ppm to 300 ppm. Now, my GH is so far off the charts (calcium carbonate) I can't measure it (hence why I started mixing with ZeroWater) but at least my KH was high enough to keep my pH stable so my fish didn't get stressed (most fish are actually pretty forgiving of pH, as long as it is stable. But they are not forgiving of nitrite or ammonia at higher pH, so it's important we test regularly for both and promptly do water changes and use Prime to protect their gills if we ever see either). TL/DR: High pH is only an issue with some shrimp and a few types of fish. Snails, Mollies and platies actually crave your harder water. The betta will do fine in hard water, as long as: 1. no nitrites or ammonia 2. the air just above the water stays warm (like 85 F warm) and humid (like 90% humidity or more) to protect the labyrinth organ 3. the betta is in his happy place temp wise (most prefer 82 F, some like it warmer, and a few can tolerate cooler) Salt, and Indian Almond Leaves help prevent illness in bettas, and the platies and mollies tend to appreciate a little salt, too.

"Because Cuban treefrogs can be difficult to distinguish from native treefrogs, get help identifying treefrogs from UF/IFAS Wildlife or your local UF/IFAS Extension office." My sister said contact your local office, because there are two Native species being displaced. If you have the natives, the IFAS will want to register them. If you have Cubans, they need to be anesthetized. The UF/IFAS office will be your best resource, either way.

I don't run CO2, so I run my lights with siestas. My big tanks can handle 4 hours on/4 hours off/ 4 hours on. My 2 pico tanks up front grow too much algae for the shrimp and snails to stay on top of now that I added the submersible LED lights (see my video in Scapes From Scraps) so they are on for 3 hours at a time right now (until plants are a bit bigger) for 3 different photoperiods. So, 3 hours on/3 hours off/ 3 hours on/ 3 hours off/ 3 hours on/9 hours off. Here's the light I modified the stock tank light with:

Yes, I should have specified. If you are on Facebook, there's an entire group that all they do is post different times/things that have happened where US companies refuse to ship to/cover something because New Mexico is a foreign country.🤣 At this point I just chuckle a lot. Yes, I should have specified. If you are on Facebook, there's an entire group that all they do is post different times/things that have happened where US companies refuse to ship to/cover something because New Mexico is a foreign country.🤣 At this point I just chuckle a lot.

@jwcarlson I hear the "not liking feeling like I'm failing at taking care of something I care about" The point is, your niggling intuition *did* tell you to check on them "for no reason" and they didn't die. I understand how easy it is to beat ourselves up (even if we think we aren't) when things go wrong, because we've been conditioned to look for what is wrong. It requires a conscious effort on our part to [re]train our brains to learn how to focus on and look for what is going right. Discus have never been the easiest fish in the hobby. I got into breeding them as a Holy Grail of things to breed... in the late 80's early 90's. Go swimming with them in the wild if you can, they are truly majestic in large 'schools' [take your goggles, the sediment does NOT feel good in the eyes]. It's a truly worthwhile vacation, in 1992 we were invited to stay with a family of water guardians. It's... no words. Watching Cory's Peru videos is a pale comparison to actually being there. My point is, they are the most personable, most human like, most sensitive, and most worthwhile fish I think I ever bred. I cried when I sold the last of my discus in 2001, and there was no way I could have properly cared for them completely off grid. They respond like very cautious puppies: They need you to hang out with them, cover the tank if there's going to be a lot of activity in the room, and just be patient. When they start eating out of your hand (black worms are a typical hit) they will start tolerating more activity. I used to play music in their room 24/7, so unexpected noises wouldn't spook them and make them swim into the tank walls. By the time I had the third generation, I could keep them in my living room tank and they would swim to the front every time the door opened. They require a bit more... of everything. Patience, heat, wriggly foods, cleanliness... and mostly patience. I promise you, they are so worth it in the long run. I swear they talk, and then look at us patiently waiting for us to understand what they are saying... or maybe that's just me anthropomorphizing my discus in response to Dune. Regardless, you have some gorgeous fish there! Bump up the heat, and see if the activity increases enough to stimulate the appetite. I always washed the heck out of my blackworms and hand selected what went into a shallow breeding tub, and let them grow for 4 to 6 weeks before feeding to my discus. They loved the live food options, and it seemed to prevent a lot of the live food issues. Another option is livebearer fry you have bred and no the parents were properly quarantined. The livebearer fry yielded better health outcomes, and stimulated the prey activity... especially if you have sufficient roots or plants for them to hunt in.