[Vivarium Netherlands 2022]

Heya,

Anyone else around here attended Vivarium this year? Had to bribe @Cory but he gave a cap! If youre in Europe, its definitely recommended to pay it a visit 🙂

 

[This corydoras shouldn't be here]

Always nice to find a little surprise. Though this one isnt so little anymore.

[Trying and failing to hatch small batches of brine shrimp. What am I doing wrong?]

I never use marine salt or any other fancy expensive salts. Just straight up salt from the grocery store without any iodine added. Its fine if there are any additives to prevent chunks.

Small bags of marine salt are usually relatively expensive. So if you're planning to continuously hatch a lot of brine shrimp and you're willing to stick to marine salt, see if you can buy it in bigger bags.

If your tap water is extremely soft it might dissolve the egg shells causing them to not hatch properly. Some people claim chlorine and chloramine in tap water affect the hatch rate, though personally I dont have any experience with that.

[Bristlenose pleco babies]

Leave them be, you'll most likely get another spawn sooner or later 😄 I dont think your current stock would predate on them.

[Super Red Bristlenose Pleco eggs kicked out of cave]

10 hours ago, gardenman said:

It's surprising to see the price charged for these guys in pet shops given the ease in spawning them and rearing the fry. At normal retail around here my hundred plus in the breeder box would retail for between $3,000-$4,000 once they hit the two inch mark. They're tough little fish who don't need babying or coddling, no special water requirements, no special care, other than the right food. Compared to rearing other fry, these guys are pretty easy to rear.

Im not sure what the price in store are and what the wholesale price is. But its all about calculating in the price of food / water / heating / rent. The longer the fish stays in the store the less profit is made. Im not an expert on the fish market in the us but generally people dont buy these fish by the dozen unlike say tetras.

And sometimes you just have to be lucky indeed to get good genetics that have big spawns of them.

Would be interesting to hear from @Cory what fish are cashcows and others that have little profit margins individually but larger volumes.

[Super Red Bristlenose Pleco eggs kicked out of cave]

Thats a massive spawn you got there. Seperate the parents if you don't want another spawn. I've had parents spawning every 3-5 weeks for a couple months.

[How many tanks do you have?]

8 And a bunch of plastic tubs. I would take more if I had space for it.

[My Betta is in shock]

Full water change? Did you replace all the water in the tank? That seems a bit extreme and should, in my opinion, be avoided.

And I agree with Brandy, post a picture of your aquarium / setup so we can give you some pointers.

[Is this planaria?]

This doesnt look like planeria to me. Planeria is usually larger and doesnt have bristles.

My best guess is oligochaeta. They seem to be harmless and beneficial, they clean up dead plant matter and are an alternative food source. I personally wouldn't worry about it unless your fish are starting to show symptoms. 

The bug on the left is cyclops.

[How Do You Fund Your Hobby?]

Im a software engineer working for a company that builds optical fruit and vegetable sorting machines. We build the software and algorithms that drive these machines so that the next time you buy a bag of whatever fruit or vegetable you dont get any rotten pieces. With accurate sorting we try to reduce food waste and improve the overall quality of products. We can sort anything as small as blueberries up to watermelons.

[Somewhat rhetorical question...]

This is a neat idea. Not sure exactly what kind of features you would want to see.

I'll have some spare time in two weeks, maybe I can whip something together.

[What can I do with this little ... "thing"]

I'd make some small mini scapes or keep some shrimp in it. Its an interesting tank design.

[DIY Aquariums]

Full glass is rarely cheaper. What I see a lot of people do here us building aquariums out of plywood and having a single window.

Perhaps if you want smaller tanks and you can get some scraps you can cut it to your own size.

[Balloon Fish]

So whats everyones opinion on them?

I went to the fish store today and saw they had balloon ramirezis. Never seem them before. They were a bit bigger than normal rams.

 

[Guppy fry suddenly dying]

What are your water paramters? Do you clean the leftover food / waste from the bottom of the breeder box?

[Aquarium Co-Op Products]

Snek aquarium vacuum cleaner.

I'm looking forward to see Aquarium Co-op adventuring into Europe. Its going to get very difficult to set foot here as there are a lot of old well known brands that most people stick to. But then again there are also some crappy ones that is just chinese rebranding.

I just want to buy two dozen sponge filters. They're not really commonly sold here and most people including me just buy them from china but they're not much of a great quality.

[Forum App for Mobile]

Or did you mean to say "betta" ;)?

App for Android works great. Will test it out for a bit. Do you want to collect the feedback too or just send it straight to invision?

[Trying odessa barbs again]

You should have a look at the Odessa barbs from Greg Sage at SelectAquatics. He has a line where the colors are superior over any other line of Odessa barb I have seen, very dark blacks and really intense red streak. He is even working on getting some yellowing into the fins. I dont really have an answer for your question, but anything about Odessa barbs, he should be able to answer.

[Moving Molly to Breeder box]

20 gallons is quite a big water volume so that should definitely be good for a couple days. Just make sure to not overfeed and have at least an airstone in there. Move her back to the main tank after you see she got thinner, which indicates she has dropped fry.

[Success rate with cold weather plant and fish shipments]

I'm not sure where you would order them, if you have doubt wether it is safe to ship certain types of plants I'm sure you can email the store and ask for their recommendation.

Alternative suggestion; Maybe you can check local facebook groups or ask around and see if anyone has some clippings to spare?

I'm not sure how shipping at the coop goes, so I cannot comment on that.

[Betta Dying]

Before you start dumping more medicine in there, have you tested your water parameters to exclude bad water quality? How long have you used the medicine for?

[Moving Molly to Breeder box]

Is there a bigger tub you can temporary use? Add some floating plants / moss and an airstone?

Breeder boxes cause a lot of stress. I personally do not use them.

An alternative I've used is floating pond baskets. They have tiny holes in them and the fry swim up in there. I got mine from the local garden store. They float on their own and the fry are clearly visible in there. I dont put fish in there as again it will just stress them out and they will jump out of it. What I would also do is cover the tank the next time the lights go out and keep it dark so to give the female chances to hide from the males if there is a lot of chasing going around.

[getting a pleco to eat algae wafers]

Sometimes it just takes plecos to get used to a certain type of food. You can ask the store you bought your pleco from what they feed them. Try to drop a wafer in front of him when he is out of the cave, maybe he'll pick up on it.

You can also feed them canned green beans (mine don't eat fresh ones), blanched zucchini, pumpkin, cucumber. See what works and always try to diversify foods so that if you run out of one, switching wont be an issue.

[Floating Plant Bugs]

I cannot tell exactly from this picture what they are. You can try picking them off if you don't like them.

There are so called Salvinia Weevil bugs that lay eggs and when the larvea hatch they will hide in the roots killing the plants. https://www.lsuagcenter.com/topics/environment/invasive species/giant salvinia/salvinia weevil

If you can get a closeup picture that'd be great 🙂

[Best fish food brands]

10 hours ago, Kieflow said:

I felt like I was shorting my fish bc of how cheap it was

Fish food prices are all over the place and usually the smaller containers are more expensive. Recently came across some price for bulk which made me realise how overpriced everything is:

Small 250ml container here is about 6 euros.
1 liter container is about 20 euros.
10 liter container is 40 euros.

I dont think flakes can last 3 years even though thats the best before date and I dont have that many fish (yet) to justify buying 10 liter tubs of fish food.