BF McUmber

From what I have read a plant can definitely benefit from being in/above an under gravel filter, I do not think you are wrong there. I am going to try it as a partial UGF for cleaning purposes. I'm going to follow a similar approach that "Fishman" does on youtube.

I have been looking into these and other UGF quite a bit because I want to do them in my next tank. I have been working under the assumption that I'm going to put the UGF on half of the tank and let the other half collect mulm for more permanent plants. With the placement of your ponds I was wondering if you could employ a similar approach and only encompass the right most pond with the black modular plates with two lift stacks? I think I would want my uplift tube for my left plate to be on the left side of the pond. I think having my entire flow going through the end of one of the plates would be not the best. I would probably also take one of the plates and cut it on an angle to fill in the gap where the tank angles, again just to allow for more places for things to collect. I don't think I would think about the water trapped under the plate that does not have a uplift tube any more than I would think about the water trapped in decorations. I would probably be more concerned about actually getting the new tube in when it comes. Is the uplift tube that came with the feneci large enough to get an Ziss air stone in it?

The Kanaplex and other things definitely seemed to prolong the fish's life longer than some of the others, however unfortunately she did not improve and died on June 6th. Now, the 3 CPD's, the male guppy, and the amano shrimp have lived in the tank for 2+ months. They seem to look adequate from what I can tell. I would like to move them out of the quarantine tank and into my work tank. This tank is a little more publicly viewed, and I have some reservations based on the thought of it being something like fish TB or something that could continually come back. So my questions are two that I was hoping to get from more experienced minds. 1. We have said that it is unlikely that is fish TB. However, if we assume for a second that it is, I seem to find conflicting data on what to do. Are you of the belief that all tanks have fish TB in subcritical levels? (Such that it would be arguably inconsequential to move them.) 2. After having a possible sickness outbreak, how long would you typically wait before calling the fish good enough to go into the display tank with the other fish? Thank you, Brad

Thank you for that education on the hardness. I don't know with how it has been said other places that I would have looked up that formula.

@Seattle_Aquarist thank you for that comprehensive reply. I used the api calcium test kit. It says it is for salt water but when I asked them at the store they said it works for fresh water as well. I'm am confused as how you arrived at my tank only having 16.8ppm of magnesium? Would it not be 304ppm total hardness minus 100ppm calcium equals 204ppm magnesium?

All the values in the chart are in PPM. I should have cropped the conversions at the top to not be confused with being headers for the the columns they are over.

Thank you for the response Roy. I think in your math you took my KH measurement as the GH. Additionally, I misspoke when I said my calcium was 4.5 degrees. It was 4 to 5 drops in the API calcium test kit, which does not scale as the same rate as degrees but it is close. Today I went and did a larger battery of tests on the tank water and the tap water and put it in the below table. My API liquid GH test kit was not changing color so I was unable to get a new reading for the GH. The liquid kit is not expired and I have not used it since getting the COOP strips, so I'm not sure what is wrong with it. Using the old data I have the GH readings are about 250-300ppm which with 100ppm of Calcium would leave 175ppm for magnesium. Since my original post I have put 2 small wondershells in to see if it made a difference. I have not seen a change in their response though. I am on city water. My water is provided by the village of Waverly in NY. All the values in the table have been converted to PPM. (with the exception of temperature and PH :P) Thank you Brad

I always start rolling mine up and unrolling it from the same end to limit mismatching my twists in the tubing when I wrap it back up. If I mess up and it starts to get twisted I'll lay the rest of the tubing out and rotate the rest of the tubing in whichever way it needs to go to not make the roll twist. Then after that is done it has a shelf in my entry way that it lives on.

@Seattle_Aquarist my water is that hard coming out of the tap. The majority of it is magnesium though. I have measured the calcium in the past as 4 to 4.5 degrees and the gh as 14 to 17 degrees. I have not tested with the liquid kit in a long while, having the coop test strips now. Out of the tap I have closer to 100 ppm of kh. The tank is a 40 breeder. Based on looks and the charts I thought calcium deficiency or magnesium overload as they both deform the leaf growth. However, I would think my water supplies enough calcium.

My pogostemon stellatus octopus has started to grow quite curled leaves. Would this behavior most likely be a calcium deficiency and mg overdose? Should I be considering something else as well? My dwarf sag is also not doing so hot. How do you know if it dying because it is not getting enough light? Nitrate=40 Hardness >300 Kh=40 Ph =6.8 5ml Easy green weekly, crushed coral at base of sponge filter, root tabs have been inserted below the the plants two or 3 times.

Thank you very much. That is exactly what I was trying to figure out, but was getting different interpretations from different places.

I have been ordering crushed coral from the CO-OP in the past. In preparation to setting up a new tank I found out my LFS carries Caribsea products and it seems silly mailing such weight if we don't have to. However, when looking at the Caribsea line I am having a hard time determining what is the basic crushed coral. It seems like some of the main differences is the grain size and if they add sand to it. Would anyone be willing to explain the differences between the different Aragonites vs the Flordia crushed coral? More importantly should I just be getting the Florida Crushed Coral to buffer my freshwater tank? Thank you,

I gave her a little more time on her own and then went and bought a male to put in with her. The male I got was pretty small so I'm not sure if he was there just as company or as a mate. Regardless my guppy got big once again, but this time dropped about 26 fry 🙂 It is exciting. In another month or two I'll have all the guppies. Assuming they survive I'm going to go get them at least a 29 gallon tank. When I got the male I treated him with paracleanse and then waited 2 weeks and treated again. I was going to treat a 3rd time as has been said in some livestreams... but that's when the babies came. I'm assuming I should hold off on any of the other dewormers with the babies being young correct?

I got the kanaplex and put it in the tank. We will see how it turns out. It would be nice if it was just aggression. I also got the brother guppy. he was a hell of a spaz when I put him in the tank, trying to escape through the gravel. I put a towel over the tank and he appears to have calmed down, they appear to be in sleep mode. Maybe I'll leave the towel on till the morning and just skip feeding tonight to hopefully keep him calm.

I would get a new guppy from the store, not move the one I have. That is on the thought that something is going on that would constrain the guppy i have to the tank (like tb), even though that does not seem to be a main contender here. I will stop at the store and get the bacterial treatment I think I only have maracyn at home.

The initial damage is typically around the size of a mouth or marginally larger. I want to say the majority of the times the damages was in a location that can be seen on the bottom most picture. @Guppysnailwhen the bite wounds are fatal do you usually see as the fish progress from injury to death? The slightly switching back to the guppy question. Do you think there is a way to confirm that it is agression? If not it may be in my best interest to go get the brother to the guppy I got before so that it may get old enough to breed in time. I think my female is like a little over a year old.

With the first bunch I had they definitely would spar. I never saw them nip at each other but they did flare up and do their circle dance. With the bunch that I have now I've only seen really any aggression in the past day or so when they would follow the struggling fish. There was an amano in there when the one with the bigger wound was in there. They could have been opportunistic with the weaker fish as well. Also note that the bleeding fish is still alive. It's been long enough that I can't remember how well they were swimming though. Thank you for the response @Colu

Hello All, I have a group of CPD’s that I have been having issues with for about a year now. It seemed like things were better so I got some more fish and now one is showing similar symptoms which is concerning. Symptoms and question. When my CPD’s were dying it was frustrating and I did not keep track of exact numbers of how each one died. However, I think at least 4 of the Celestial Pearl Danios died in a similar manner which is my current concern. When I asked my LFS they thought it may be Fish Tuberculosis which would be a little tragic. I was wondering if any of you had any additional thoughts or confirmations to what I have seen. The symptoms and progression of the fish of note are as follows: They got some damage on their sides that looked like a few missing scales. The tissue under this area may get slightly inflamed such that it is larger than the other side of the fish. The fish may get a bend to their body along its length. The fish would lose control of their balance and start swimming on an angle and having to keep swimming to keep up. The fish would lay on the bottom on its side just breathing. Death or euthanization. It seems like the fish would live through the mark on its side for week or so and then would deteriorate quickly over a few days. I had a single CPD for about 4 months that did not appear to get sick, so I got her some friends to hopefully increase her happiness. Recently I had a brave little fish that wanted to take the gravel vac ride. In doing so she got a small amount of damage on her side (I am assuming that the fish with the damage took the ride solely based on timing). This small mark seems to be progressing in the same manner as the previous cases which is concerning. She has had the skin damage for about 9 days but in the past 3 she has taken a turn for the worse. She is having trouble swimming as well as having inflammation near the damage site. This made me wonder if it was the same illness that I had before, but it could just be complications from the damage. If you have any thoughts as to what you think it may be I would love to hear your opinions. Background I originally bought 12 fish about a year ago. Some of them were on the thin side but it was the first time that the shop had had them in over a year so I bought them. I treated them with the MED TRIO to try to get them healthy in quarantine. Fairly quickly a few of them died due to my inexperience and then the others intermittently died in various ways over the next 7 months. After all the death I ended up with one fish that thrived alone. After about a month of her being alone with some shrimp I decided to move my lipstick goby’s to the tank with her. I had the wild caught gobies for just under 2 years, so they may have been towards the end of life… but they died in the tank with the single CPD and amano shrimp. I also had an amanao shrimp get berried or have something wrong with it, unsure which it was I put some salt in the water and it cleared the fuzz and mass under their abdomen. After 3 months of being alone it seemed like the CPD was doing fine, so 2 months ago I bought 3 new CPD’s to keep her company and she was much happier. I put salt in the tank with the new batch and did not treat it with any medications. Over the next month the 4 CPD’s looked fat and happy. Finally the LFS got more CPD’s in so I got another female as well as a guppy for my guppy tank. The new CPD is a little thin at the neck and the stomach looks really pouchy compared to the other CPDs which are more torpedo shaped. However she was eating well so I tried not to worry. Then 9 days ago one of the CPD’s took a gravel vac ride. I cannot tell the two big females apart so I’m going to assume that the one that took the ride is the one that has the now damaged scales. In the past few weeks I have increased the salt concentration up to 2TBSP per 3 gallons. Additionally as the fish looked well I put some paracleanse in the tank a day after the fish took the gravel vac ride (8 days ago). It would be slightly tragic if it is fish TB because I really want to get the guppy in the tank over to the one i'm hoping to have him mate with before she gets too old. If we are scared that the tank has TB then i'll have to go get another guppy and put them in the tank without any quarantine which seems scary as well. Tank Parameters: 10 gallon tank with moss and hair alagae pH: 6.8 Nitrates: ~25ppm Hardness over 300 mostly magnesium Nitrite: 0 ppm Ammonia: 0 ppm KH/Buffer : 40 ppm Water Temperature: 74F Below are some pictures that I have. I did not photograph all the fish in man of the stages. Additionally it was terribly difficult to get pictures of the fish as they were moving. I think the one picture showing the bleeding fish is a much deeper wound than many of the other fish that seems to be much shallower. It is possible that the amano got to it at some point. An earlier death in the final bits of the sickness. One of the last fish to die with by far the worst skin damage One of the last fish with by far the worst skin damage sowing some axial deformity One of the last fish with by far the worst skin damage Current fish of interest Current fish of interest Current fish of interest Current fish of interest, but I think the camera or its swimming makes the spine look worse than it is. Also this one did not bleed from its wound when lifted above water. Thank you!

As with most things I guess I should have waited 10 more min, (but really need to go to bed). Once she was able to close her lips around the end of the dissolving stick she made short work of it... and then went on to start eating the micro pellets that were for her. Thank you for the replies, I figured she was looking all right but figured I'd ask before bed.

Yea, I thought about a toothpick but thought it would do more harm than good.

My adult female guppy tried to eat a whole Crab Cuisine stick about an hour ago. She can't swallow it so she is swimming around with it just sitting at the back of her lips. Earlier she was rapidly thrashed back and forth and she swam backwards a few times that I've seen. Now she seems to be breathing fine and lazily swimming around. I assume she will be fine but I'll ask anyway, will she be fine to just have it sit in her throat till it slowly dissolves and she can break it apart?

I feel like she has been boxy in the past so I was hopeful and then confused when I did not see fry. I don't notice her drastically getting skinny though so maybe she is just fat off lots of food. I'll wash my containment container I made and see where I get with that. If I give it a month or two and don't see anything I'll get a male.

I made a isolation box with size 7 plastic mesh in the bottom. I could put her in it and see if the fry fall through. If she did abort or absorb the eggs, is that something she would choose to do on a monthly basis? From the sounds of it the gravid spot alone is not evidence of pregnancy though.

I wish I had better hiding spots, but the guppy grass did not do as well as it does in my work tank and the floating pearl weed is struggling. So maybe I should get her a male soon before she ages out of breeding capabilities?

My main question is, if a platinum color guppy has a gravid spot that regularly goes from black to red and black, does that mean that she is pregnant and producing fry? Background I bought a trio of guppies a year ago. They had a round of 4 fry that made it. Then I had some illness break out that killed all my guppies but one of the young females. The young girl would have been 4 months old when the outbreak happened. I would really like fry from this girl as these guppies have sentimental meaning. Since 12/18/2022 she has been alone in a tank with an amano shrimp and bladder snails. Today i took the amano out in case he was eating the fry. Comparatively I fed her a lot but only once a day. She is nice and chubby and eats and swims happily. She is in a 10 gallon tank with a decent amount of moss but no floating plants of mass. I am willing to go get her a male counterpart, but if I don't have to for a generation or two I would prefer not. Mainly in fear of disease. Do you think the amano and or the mother is eating the fry, or is she just not producing fry? I am making a floating 10 cup container with a mesh bottom of we think she is eating the fry as well.