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RachelElizabeth

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Everything posted by RachelElizabeth

  1. I LOVE honey gourami! A trio of 2 females and one male would be perfect. They are very peaceful as well, compared to dwarf gourami which tend to be more aggressive. I have never kept peacock gudgeon before, but I think they are very pretty. For a schooling fish, neon tetras are great, but my personal favorite are cherry barbs! For bottom dwellers, you could do snails, pygmy corys, or, another of my favorites, kuhli loaches!
  2. A note on mixing celestial pearl danios and bettas - This is a quote from the celestial pearl danio Aquarium Co-Op care guide: "Betta fish may or may not work because they tend to prefer warmer waters and can be hostile toward intruders. They may be able to go together if the temperature is kept at 77–78°C (25–26°C), the aquarium is large enough, and the betta isn’t too aggressive." Source: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/celestial-pearl-danio Anyways, I would not add them all at once. It is best to add small amounts of fish in intervals to allow the cycle to adjust for the higher bioload. I would do danios first, then corys, and betta last. I prefer to add bettas last since they can be territorial. They typically respond better to being added to a tank with existing fish than already establishing their territory and having new fish added.
  3. Here is one of my newborns! For reference, it is on the nano sponge filter!
  4. Those baby shrimp look to be a few weeks old! At birth they are so, so tiny and nearly colorless. I will see if I can find a picture of one of mine.
  5. I love honey gourami as a showpiece fish! They are smaller and less aggressive than dwarf gourami and 3-spot (blue/opaline) gourami. Personally I would not mix a betta, especially a male with long fins, with danios - the danios are much faster than the betta and when I had danios they were nippy. Others may have had a different experience though. Also, in place of tetras or danios, I would like to suggest cherry barbs! I ADORE my cherry barbs, the males are stunning red under the lights, they are totally peaceful, and I was able to breed them without trying! Only a few fry survive here and there, but I have gone from 10 to 25+ over the past year or so.
  6. It will be fine! I have 0.25-0.5 ppm ammonia in my tap water, so I regularly double or even triple dose SeaChem Prime conditioner to help neutralize the ammonia until my bacteria are able to fully process it. And I for sure dose enough conditioner for the whole tank. For example, if I am doing a 1/3 water change in my 75 gallon, I am putting 25 gallons of new water in, but I still dose for the entire 75 gallons. And like I said, I sometimes double, so I add enough conditioner for 150 gallons even though I am replacing only 25 gallons in the 75 gallons tank, and I've never had any negative effects.
  7. I would say go as big as you can afford. Those goldfish will grow FAST and the nitrates are for sure hard to keep up with. I had to help my sister-in-law with a temporary over-the-winter set up for her red eared slider and a bunch of tiny goldfish that ended up in the outdoor pond somehow (eggs attached to live plants, maybe?). Anyway, we did a 300 gallon livestock tank and even with a huge DIY cannister-style filter plus two large sponge filters and frequent water changes, it got gunky fast and the nitrates got really high. Granted we had the turtle and more than 3 goldfish, but I just feel like the bigger the better when it comes to housing goldfish indoors.
  8. I recently added 2 male guppies to my 75 gallon community tank which is already housing 2 female mollies (and no male mollies). What are my chances of ending up with muppy (or golly?) fry?? I would not be upset either way, I am just curious!
  9. I have five! 75 gallon community tank 25 tall with a single gourami who has to live the bachelor lifestyle because he does not play well with others 10 gallon betta tank 5 gallon shrimp tank 4 gallon shrimp biOrb (the only one I didn't purchase, this one was a gift)
  10. I would never attempt a betta sorority personally. I am way too afraid of things going sour when I'm not around and coming home to dead or severely mauled fish. That being said, I do have a single female betta in a 75 gallon community tank with other peaceful fish species, and she is THRIVING. 😀 I added her to the community as a baby, so I'm not sure if that makes a difference on how well they get along.
  11. I am looking for recommendations on the best betta pellet food. Xtreme? Hikari? Fluval Bug Bites? I actually have 2 female bettas, one in a 75 gal community tank and the other in a 10 gal with snails. The betta in the community tank eats whatever the community gets (flakes, frozen, etc.) and does well, but the other betta is a very picky eater. She won't eat any of the normal tasty fishy foods like brine shrimp or blood worms. She will only eat betta pellets, and only if I crush them up into very fine pieces. I think this may be due to a bit of a mouth deformity that remained after an infection she had when I first got her months ago. Since there isn't much variety in her diet, I want to make sure she's getting the most nutritious food possible. I also fast her one day a week to hopefully prevent constipation since the food is so dry. Thanks in advance!
  12. Hello fishy friends! This is my betta aquarium that I am working on. A few months ago I brought home a pretty blue female betta to live in my 75 gallon community tank. Within two days she developed some sort of mouth infection, I think bacterial. She had white growth on her mouth/face, and seemed like she was struggling to even take a breath of air. I immediately moved her to the quarantine tank for treatment. I honestly did not think she was going to make it because the infection of the mouth was so bad she was not able to eat. It actually looked like her mouth/face was rotting away. I finally got rid of the mouth infection with a combination of doxycycline and aquarium salt, but then she ended up with fin rot immediately after. Over several more weeks treating with salt and Maracyn, I still thought she would pass. Finally two rounds of treatment with Maracyn 2, we kicked the fin rot. Her fins are slowly, slowly recovering. My plan was to put her back in the community tank once she was healed, but the original mouth infection seems to have permanently altered the shape of her mouth. It almost looks like half of her lip is missing. I tried to include a picture of what I'm describing, but it doesn't show up on camera. She can only eat if I take betta pellets and crush them into teeny tiny pieces, or put in a few baby brine shrimp at a time. I'm not sure if she will ever get back to normal. So I guess I now have a special needs fish! Because of this, she will not be returning to the community tank. Since she can't live in quarantine forever, I decided to see what I already had that I could put together to make her a forever home. My goal was to not purchase any new equipment! The 10 gallon tank was just an extra empty one. The heater was just laying around also. For substrate, I used a mixture of Fluval Stratum and Eco-Complete, both were surplus from previous tank set ups. The sponge filter and air pump were being used in another tank just as a secondary form of filtration, so I transferred those to the new setup. I had plenty of fake plants/decor left over from the days before I used live plants, so I put those in there for now, too. I checked to make sure they didn't have any sharp edges. I have a bit of java moss that I pulled from another tank placed in the front, and I will be adding more live plants over the next few weeks. Now I am monitoring the pH to make sure it stabilizes. I have previous experience with Stratum, and it tends to lower my pH from 7.8 (from the tap) to 6.8-7.0 over several weeks. Also monitoring the tank's cycle before Miss Betta moves to her new home, and hoping it won't take too long since the sponge filter was seeded in another tank! I wanted to share my "journey" of getting this little tank set up for basically free. I guess it pays off to keep your old supplies in the garage! Thanks for reading!
  13. My Co-Op USB nano air pump turns off sometimes too! If I move it around a little I can get it to turn back on. Sometimes it shuts off on me twice in one day, other times it runs straight for weeks. My brother thinks its something with the wiring. However, I have a second one that is older and it never turns off. So I'm not sure if it has to do with where its plugged in or not.
  14. Looking for general advice on keeping a Chinese high-fin banded shark! So I am the family fish-nerd, but my brother absolutely fell in love with the Chinese high-fin banded sharks at my local fish store. After about 5 or 6 months, plenty of research, and a long talk with the LFS employee, I finally said okay and we brought one home. He is currently living in my 300 gallon indoor goldfish mini pond (a converted cattle trough, lol). Once the weather warms up, the plan is to transfer him to my parents' outdoor koi pond. We've had him about a month and he seems to be doing very well, but I have never met another hobbyist that has one of these guys, so it would be great to get some tips from someone who has successfully kept high-fin banded sharks. Any advice is much appreciated!
  15. The goldfish are only 2-3 inches (born this past June, I think). The RES shell is about 7 inches in diameter. He will definitely be spending winters indoors, and hoping the goldfish can stay outside NEXT winter when they are a bit bigger and I have a deeper pond dug for them. I don't mind if I need to get a pretty big stock tank for them, but it just needs to fit in through the house door haha.
  16. Hello everyone! Looking for advice on what to do with pond goldfish over the winter. Some backstory: My roommate has a little red-eared slider turtle. We dug a little pond in the yard so he could live outside during the warmer months. I don't know the exact size, but I am guessing around 150 gallons. We obtained some plants for the pond and surprise! They came with baby goldfish. They were so tiny we didn't even notice them right away, but they have been growing steadily over the past 3-4 months. I can't count them individually due to all the plants and such, but I think there are about 10. Now that its October, here in Pennsylvania the weather will be getting colder soon. We are trying to figure out the best way to keep the turtle AND the goldfish over winter. The turtle definitely needs to come inside, and I think the goldfish will need to come indoors, too. I know goldfish are cold water fish, but our pond is not big/deep enough for them to survive temps below freezing. I have 4 tanks set up now, but all are for tropical fish, so the outdoor critters can't live there over the winter either. We are also on somewhat of a budget. My idea now is to get a 300 gallon stock tank for them. The turtle and goldfish have been living together so far, so I would assume they are fine to live together indoors as well? There would definitely need to be a basking area and other turtle-necessities. Do you think this would work? Or should I look into getting something separate for the goldfish? I also need advice on filtration. A pond filter? Cannister filter? How to hook it up? I would prefer not to rehome the goldfish at this point, as I know they would likely end up as feeders for someone. I am willing to dig a bigger pond (luckily I own the house/property), but I know we won't be able to get it done until spring. Thanks for reading my long post and I appreciate any advice!
  17. Co-Op sponge filters do not have carbon, they are just black colored to hide the gunk as it starts to build up.
  18. Right in the midst of treating for camallanus worms, I just saw a cherry barb fry for the first time! I'm not sure if there are others (or if there were others and they didn't make it this far). I was definitely NOT trying to breed them on purpose, so I'm very unprepared. I would love for this little guy to survive, but I have never bred anything other than pond mosquito fish before and I have no idea where to start. I would guess that I need to feed fry food. The fish is approximately 3mm in length. Also, I know there is a big risk of being eaten, either by the parents or the other fish in the tank (75 gallon community with cherry barbs, honey gourami, and rubber pleco). BUT I doubt I'll be able to catch him since he's so small and there are plants all around. If anyone has any ideas to get me started, please let me know! Even if this fry doesn't make it, I want to be prepared if they spawn again in the future! Edit: spelling
  19. Wow, I really like the look of those stands! I bought both of my bigger aquariums used and they came with stands. I think the metal frame should be strong enough to support the aquarium, especially since they have supports in the center. The only negative to these is that I wouldn't have a closed cabinet to hide all my fish foods, chemicals, and other stuff haha.
  20. Any med with the active ingredient erythromycin (an antibiotic) could be substituted for Maracyn. I believe API sells Erythromycin. Might be able to get it through Petsmart.
  21. I did almost the exact same thing you are doing with my 25 gallon. Replaced my old HOB with a new HOB (and brand new media too), but kept the pre-filter sponge and Co-Op sponge filter. If my memory serves me correctly, I also added SeaChem Stability for a few days to boost new beneficial bacteria populations. It did not seem to affect my cycle much at all. That being said, I had less fish than you at the time (5 cherry barbs and a gourami), so if possible I'd play it safe and try to run both HOBs for a couple weeks.
  22. I recently started a topic about treating Camallanus worms with Expel P. I'll put the link to that thread below: https://forum.aquariumcoop.com/topic/15598-expel-p-treatment-for-camallanus-worms/?tab=comments#comment-129805 Over 24 hours have passed since treatment, and for the first time ever I am noticing white stringy poo associated with tapeworms. Now I'm worried that I'm dealing with 2 parasite infections at once. I know the Expel P does not treat for tapeworms. I feel like I should probably wait until my 3 weeks of Expel P treatment pass before I dose another med. I have API's General Cure on hand, which looks to have the same active ingredients as ParaCleanse. I don't want to overly stress the fish, but I also don't want to lose any to these pesky worms. Should I wait or piggy back the 2 meds? Thanks in advance. You guys on this forum always give the best advice! Edit: spelling
  23. I dropped the python water changer hose as I was refilling the tank and flooded my dining room. 🤦‍♀️
  24. I agree with the above replies, it's likely the lid that is making that rattling sound. I have two AquaClear filters, an AquaClear 70 in a 75 gallon tank, and an Aquaclear 30 in a 25 gallon tank. I don't keep a lid on either of them
  25. For me, keeping fish is almost like a double-edged sword. Watching the fish and maintaining the tanks definitely helps with my day-to-day anxiety, BUT I am always worried about the health of the fish, plants, etc.
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