bryanisag

I'm not an expert on ghost shrimp but I have heard that the common name "ghost shrimp" actually refers to many species of grass shrimp and I don't think they particularly need it warm. Also I am now remembering that some of them can be quite aggressive and possibly predatory... IDK maybe they are eating the fish

Well maybe they are separate issues. Did you remove the heater? Can you feel a tingle in the water like stray voltage while the heater is on? Can you replace heater with 50 watt? That heater is probably oversized. Even if the LFS has a great track record, things will eventually slip through the cracks. Any chance of disease? Are the ottos eating? Do any of the fish have pinched stomach? The ottos might like the warmth but the shrimp and medaka like an unheated aquarium. Maybe ditch the heater all together and put the ottos in another tank. Hopefully something I mentioned might help. Good luck

Back story: about 5 years ago I bought a horseface loach at an lfs in Monterey CA. I unfortunately lost this guy in a move last year. After setting up a new tank at the new house I bought 4 more horseface loaches from Dan's fish. I have had these fish at least 6 months now. These fish look vastly different from the one I had before. Does anyone know from experience or on good authority that these fish are the same species? Do they take years to grow perhaps? Also the four I currently have look different from each other. 2 have a long white band along their belly. Is this a male vs female trait? Or are these potentially different species as well? Any info on the subject would be awesome. I have read the seriously fish page on them but other credible websites would be appreciated too.

Id replace one cartridge a week apart from each other with reusable sponge

Not a fun answer but id suggest getting another form of water testing tool. The API kit is good but has its flaws. But any one result could be a fluke without another test to confirm it's accurate. Either way time will probably work out your tank

Well I didn't know about the online retailer gag order but I guess it's all the same as I would have suggested Dan's fish either way. I got mine there and will definitely get more types from them in the future

Well most of that type of wood grows white fungus on it for the first month or so underwater. I'm guessing that your fungus just looks a bit different then most. And it seems like there are bubbles forming in there too. Should be gone in a month or so and I would not treat it or anything. Just let it pass

I would lower the water level to a few inches so the fish can swim around. Then press on the crack and if the line grows it's definitely a crack and you will be glad you lowered the water level. Also you could check to see if the glass is tempered while the water is low. If it is I'm pretty sure you can't crack them with out them exploding so if it's tempered then it's a scratch not a crack 🙂

Are you able to put the air pump in another room and run airline tubing to your tank? Might be quitest option. You could look into in tank filters like the fluval u3 or something like that.

Try again to post pictures. They are key to us helping diagnose problems

I agree, all work pretty much the same. But all need multiple coats in my opinion. Use a light on the back of the tank to look for thin spots in the paint. When I think it's enough there is usually a lot more to go...

So I recently went through this with a "worms in cycle" and I followed Michaels fish room technique. It seemed to work out but took a while. I bought 10 portions of black worms at my lfs and set them up in a new 10 gallon with a brand new sponge filter because all of my seeded sponge filters have planeria in them. Then following Micheals advice I dosed with dechlorinator at double strength every 2 days. It is supposed to detoxify ammonia for the fish "worms in this case" in cycle. What I am wondering though is if the bacteria is able to process the detoxified ammonia. I mean I got a cycle eventually and I think the worms all did fine but it's kinda hard to tell if worms are happy.

Ha!!! No clue how I didn't think to look for that. Yep it's definitely a male lol

It certainly could be, but the rest of my males are much thinner with bright orange tail and more green. I think I'm going to separate this fish to see if it swells and drops 🙂

To the best of my knowledge, this is a female red dragon guppy. If she is female I have never seen that much green color on the sides before. Anyone else have experience with the "best guppies in the world"? The fish in the center is in question

Hi all, I have a batch of 10 Corrysoras eggs in a jar of methylene blue that I except to have hatch today or tomorrow. I want/need to move them to a tray in my "deans fry system" but I'm unsure the best way to transfer them. If half are out of their eggs do I try to move them out of the blue stuff or wait till more are hatched? Do I use a net or a spoon or what technique? I have a small shrimp net so maybe that is best? How important is it that the blue water not getting into the fry system? I already crushed one fry from another batch with the net so I really think it's not the best option. Does pouring the jar into the net hurt the fry? Maybe if half the eggs hatch I can add all the eggs and fry to the tray because the remaining eggs will probably be okay to hatch without fungus attacking them for the last day or so? Any general advice is appreciated

Funny you ask about this project when just yesterday I thought about posting an update. Firstly I messed with the plumbing a bit in order to hide it. That went well. Or at least I thought it had gone well. The fitting I used to put the pipes through the plastic whiskey barrel is called a uniseal. At first they are awesome and can seal a pipe passing through curved plastic like a 5 gallon bucket but I have found that they start leaking over time. I have built multiple projects using these fittings and they have all failed after months of use. So one day I get home and the pond is half full and the leak is clearly coming from the whiskey barrel. The way to fix it is to fully empty the filter of all the lava rocks (for the 4th time) and use a stupid amount of silicone all around the fitting and hope that I cleaned the area well enough before hand that the silicone adheres well to the PVC pipe and the abs plastic liner. Maybe in the spring I will do all that. So that's the pond itself. The plants changed a bit too. Firstly my pond only gets a few hours of sun each day. So the sword plant died and never came back. I expected that to happen though. Then I made the trip to Sunland water gardens in southern California. Super cool koi store. I bought a huge pot of bacopa Caraliniana and also a lotus and a pond plant that floated leaves on the surface that look like 4 leaf clovers. They were all super cool but it seems that only the lotus is doing well. I transferred some of the bocopa into my fish room before it died all the way off. Lastly the stocking changed too. The rice fish came inside so that I could try to get more eggs over the winter but so far I don't have many. I probably have 3 full grown adults and 15 juveniles. They are currently in with my neon red rainbow fish and a single guppy that is about to drop. In the pond I have a pair of feeder guppies that were supposed to go to my mom's house to keep her pool free of mosquitos over the winter but the pool never tested safe enough to add them so instead I have some big fishes to take care of. They do eat lots of duckweed for me though!! 🙂 in the spring I intend to add the rice fish back outside and bring the goldfish inside. I want to have hundreds of these rice fish but it's been years of trying and I still have less than 20. fyi, the net is a golf net off Amazon and it's held by a ratchet strap. Works pretty well and it's purpose is to keep my 2 year old from getting into the pond. I don't put it past her for a second to climb in and that could be very bad so for safety I knew I needed a lid of sorts. I tried many and this is definitely the strongest.

Hi all, every time I have bought live black worms they have had what I think to be leaches in with them. I want to start a black worm breeding tank so I am trying to remove them. Anyone have any tricks!?

I'm curious if this ember tetra recovered or not. I noticed that one of my ember tetras has pop eye and I'm treating it with the med trio along with some new fish I got in a separate 10 gallon tank. Hopefully he comes back because he has great color and body shape besides the bulging eyes...

I knew I could count on y'all for some guidance. I live in Hollister California and I have lids on half my tanks. I will buy some monitors on Amazon now and I will probably buy a 50 pint dehumidifier soon. And a ceiling fan but I'm not looking forward to installing that...

Hi all, I live in California and I am building a fish room in my garage. The humidity is already getting high with 10 aquariums set up. I know I need a dehumidifier but I don't know what size I need. How many pints per hour. What brand. All that stuff. Anyone with any experience would super help!

I bet it will hold a 55 or even a 75!

I won't speak to the fish getting along or not as I have not kept those fish in particular. With regard to "overcrowded" that's mostly up to you. You already know the maintenance required to keep the tank clean and healthy with your current fish so it's easy to guess how much a couple more fish will add to that. Also as a side note I love my 37 gallon aquarium and the tallness of it lends you to have a clear "top middle bottom" theme for your fish. I think you would get more enjoyment from increasing your Corry squad and adding a top dweller like hatchet fish. I would love to see a picture of your tank

They almost certainly did not come from a boiled piece of wood. If the wood was fully submerged in boiling water for a few minutes it would come out completely sterile except a few small exemptions. Either way though they are likely beneficial and trying to add even more micro organisms is also likely beneficial. Have fun

Hi guys, I just wanted to share the fish room chair I have been using because I think other people might also want to make one/use one. Firstly I did not come up with this idea, I just adapted it. I got this idea from work where the painters in the commercial construction do it. Although they don't use it as a chair, they use it to move around 5 gallon buckets paint without it spilling over. The materials needed are: (2) 5 gallon buckets (1) Rubbermaid trashcan dolly for 55 gallon trashcan (1) strong 5 gallon bucket lid So the objective is to cut the bottom 3 inches of one 5 gallon bucket off and attach the rest of that bucket to the dolly. I use 4 screws at the base of the cut bucket to attach it to the dolly. Then your second 5 gallon bucket sits inside the first with a lid to sit on. The benefits of this style of rolling chair is that the dolly is wider than the 5 gallon bucket making it extremely stable. It almost can't tip over. Also it rolls really well because the wheels are designed for a huge trashcan. Also typically when two 5 gallon buckets are nested together they become extremely difficult to separate, but because the bottom of the first bucket is removed it changes the geometry of it all as well as eliminating any chance of suction so the buckets never get stuck together. Also you now have a 5 gallon bucket to store whatever you want to in. I keep extra substrate in mine. Also if you get a sturdy lid like the one that I have it holds yet another 5 gallon bucket on it very stable that you can use for water changes or moving fish around or whatever you may need. Also the hight of the seat is very comfortable for looking in on tanks and you can use your feet to spin around or push yourself around. No more walking.