Steph’s Fish and Plants
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Posts posted by Steph’s Fish and Plants
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Very much intrigued now, I was about to get para cleanse since I am almost out of general cure and just started treating for gill flukes in my 20 after I’ve had some weird losses recently. (I also treated with Prazi). I tested my water the day before and the day I started treatment, I’m tempted now to test my water throughout treatment and I’d be very interested if you did the same (maybe start a new thread so it doesn’t overtake this one).
Now back to our regularly scheduled thread post…
I agree with what the others are saying. Running a system with a pH as low as 5.5 is honestly pretty gutsy, as mentioned above the bacteria go dormant when the pH drops below a certain point (I believe 6.4) as ammonia transforms to ammonium, which builds up and up and up but isn’t toxic. However, when the pH comes back above 6.4, depending on how long it’s been, a lot of the bacteria (to my knowledge) has died off, and the ammonium will instantly transform to toxic ammonia again. This is why I always buffer my Kh and recommend others do the same (I work at my LFS and this is a common theme since our city water has notoriously low Kh). Now if you were to keep the pH low and stable, it probably wouldn’t cause any issues as long as it didn’t go too low, which 5.5 is Pretty low, I think that’s where chocolate gourami like to spawn? Idk. Anyways, I think that getting Kh more consistent should definitely be a priority, and there’s a few ways to do that (crushed coral, alkaline buffer, and baking soda.)
I think ultimately a lot of different stress factors were tacked on between pH swings, possible ammonia swings, medications, possible disease, etc. I don’t think it was any one thing, but a combo.
Stuff like this can be really disheartening at times, but what gets me through it is remembering that everything (good and bad) is a learning experience, and it’s what we take away from the situation that is what’s important.
I hope this helped, and I’m sorry for your loss of your Salvini
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I’m so sorry to hear about your loss 😞
as far as getting new fish, I’d wait a couple weeks and make sure that the otos all look normal and are acting alright. As for what to put in there, I do believe the CoOp channel has a few videos on this exact topic, but I’ll go ahead and throw my 2 cents in the ring. If you want to have a bunch of smaller fish, I’d go with something like green neon tetras, Glo lite tetras, or something similar. These are schooling fish so they’d prefer groups of 6 or more. Personally, I have 9 Glo lite danios and a betta in my 10 gallon along with shrimp and some peaceful gobies, and I love all the activity. You could also do a dwarf gourami, or maybe a single male apistogramma cichlid in place of what’s called your “showpiece” fish.
Another route you could go is the live bearer route, which can be super fun. For this you could get a trio (1 male and 2 females) of endler, guppies, or platies, and likely get lots of babies that you can raise up. That’s what really got me hooked on the hobby when I was a kid. The best part about livebearers is the fry can eat the tropical flake food that the adults eat, just crushed into smaller pieces, so it’s very little extra work on the caretaker to get them breeding and thriving.
there’s some other oddball stuff you can do but I don’t want to overwhelm you.
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I think so. When stuff decays in the water and it sits for a bit that fungus or bio film starts growing on it, I’d say it’s more likely your shrimp died or something else and this grew on the remains post Mortem.
when you got the shrimp, did you drip acclimate them? That’s been the #1 thing for me of deaths in my tank is not drip acclimating prior to adding them (well that and my amanos trying to break free and crawl across my floor to freedom…)
which shrimp did you just add and which ones have died, and how long have you had them?
Id recommend going forward to test your water and post the results (check ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, Gh, Kh, and pH) and to break the algae wafer in half and only feed that half, the goal is for the shrimp to consume it in a few hours so that it doesn’t fungus.
I hope this helped
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Baking soda and crushed coral are both great, I’ve also used alkaline buffer by seachem since that’s what they sell at my LFS, I believe the dosing for both baking soda and all buffer are the same. I wouldn’t use marine salt though if you have live plants, and if you do be Very careful. Guppies can acclimate to salt or at least brackish but they need time, so you wouldn’t want to raise the salinity very much at all so you’ll have to add very very little salt, which might not end up adding enough Kh to get you where you need anyways.
I really like crushed coral the best because it is set it and forget it, and occasionally test it. For alk buffer and baking soda you need to test regularly and adjust dosing patterns to compensate. If you have a larger tank or multiple tanks, your lfs might have a 40lb bag (that’s what I went with).
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When in doubt whenever you’re having any sort of issues in the tank, always test the water. It could be, as mentioned above, a chlorine issue. It could be a completely unrelated issue to the softener. It could be a hardnesses or pH issue if you’re not buffering to account for the softener. It could be stress, old age, some sort of internal parasite, tapeworm, it could be a heater malfunction…. It could be a whole host of different things, but I’d test the water for chlorine, ammonia, nitrite, iterate, Gh, Kh, and pH, and if all of those are perfectly normal and within optimal ranges for your African cichlids, then we can start diving down weird rabbit holes. Hopefully we can figure out whatever it is before you lose any more fish 🤞🏻
I don’t know much about water softening systems but I do know that with RODI systems you have to replace the media regularly otherwise it stops filtering stuff out as the media gets used up. I don’t know if a water softener works in this same principle, but if you haven’t tested for chlorine in 2 years it would definitely be worth testing water coming straight from the softener (not in the tank) to see if there’s any in there. Why don’t you go ahead and test both your tank and your source water just to get an idea of where the tanks at, and what you’re putting in it with water changes. A lot can happen in 2 years to a water source.
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I used to live in Texas and I didn’t know much about the hobby, but now that I’ve moved to Michigan and gotten really deep into, there’s 4 LFS within an hour of my house in Texas, lots of both freshwater and saltwater fish keepers from Texas that I’ve come across on Tiktok and Instagram.
I currently live in Michigan and I work at my LFS, and I’d say there’s a pretty strong presence of the hobby in Michigan. My LFS is fresh and salt, but each side is the same size and has its own staff, and the store itself is pretty huge, with a reptile/small animals section and a bird section, each with their own staff as well. There’s also several fish stores in other bigger cities in other parts of the state that I’m going to try and visit this summer.
I will say though that the upper peninsula of Michigan is a much different story and pretty desolate of any pet stores, much less local fish stores.
I think @lefty o made a pretty good guess on it being relatively more popular in more populated areas than in rural ones, likely because of availability and closeness, as well as building stability. I think ponds might skew that a bit though since rural areas are more likely to have enough land for bigger ponds.
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Fully agree with the malaysian trumpet snail ID. I really like them because they’ll turn over your substrate and eat foods that get lost in the substrate, they can breed in freshwater but if you keep feeding under control and gravel vac they shouldn’t get out of control.
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Here’s the water tests I just ran. I also did the API liquid Gh and Kh kits and got a 12 and 4 respectively on those. Nitrate looks to be about 10, no ammonia or nitrite.
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I’ve decided to treat with general cure and Prazi pro to the main tank. 2 packets of general cure and 1 teaspoon of Prazi. I’m thinking it’s gill flukes since I’ve noticed the wasting and the gills have looked bright red on the gertrudae rainbows, and even more so on the male that’s not looking too great. I’ve also noticed them seeming to be out of breath, even though there’s no ammonia and great oxygenation in the tank.
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I think the ammonia is from the water change, I remember hearing something recently about the chlorine being converted to ammonia when dechlorinated which is then converted by your bacteria, it’s been like that before right after a water change and goes down within a few hours. I have maracyn but I don’t have para cleanse. I Do have Prazi pro but I’m unsure if it’s plant safe, and I just got crypt pink flamingo 😬.
the subwassertang was grown in the main tank then moved to the breeder box because I was trying to get the CPDs and gertrudaes to spawn in there 😅
I don’t have any meters or anything that could check for current, but when my hands were in there I didn’t feel anything.
I’ll test everything again tomorrow and probably order some para cleanse. I think I might have general cure, if I do I’ll throw some of that in for good measure.
air wise, I have a sponge filter that’s cranking a good amount in the tank and a lot of water movement on the surface so I think I’m good there.
Thanks for the detailed response
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My breeding failure so far would be my CPDs. I had one successful spawn last December right before I went out of town and I did my best to try and save the fry but I came back from a 3 week vacation and they were all gone 😞 I’ve tried a few different methods since but no luck, I think adding in things like my habrosus cories and my apisto has prevented any fry from happening in tank, so I’ve tried moving them to breeder boxes with no success.
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So I have a 20 gallon long that’s been running since November 2020. I originally got a group of 6 celestial Pearl danios that started in my 10 gallon tank that I moved to my 20. I had 4 males and 2 females. I had one successful spawn right before I went out of town so I lost all the fry while I was gone. Since then I’ve added a blue stiphodon goby (which disappeared, might’ve accidentally been taken out with some plant trimmings?) 7 Habrosus corydoras (lost one but I think something was wrong with its mouth, it never seemed to get bigger and was always skinny, and it’s mouth looked weird). Then I added 4 gertrudae rainbow fish (2 males 2 females) and have had 4 different super red bristlenose plecos (1 re homed when I found out my female was really a male, then one of my two remaining males died, so now it’s a new female and the original female that ended up being male). I also have a male apisto hongsloi that I added at some point as well. I randomly lost a male CPD a few months ago, it seemingly overnight had become almost rainbow 🌈 shaped and it’s mouth was moving really rapidly, like it was breathing heavily. No other signs. I tried isolating it and it died. The cory when it died I think it just wasn’t able to eat due to a mouth deformity. The male bristlenose died right after a water change, which I had dechlorinated and was slightly cooler than the water in the tank, so no idea what happened there. This has been over the course of the last few months. About a week and a half ago I added 3 new CPDs that were juveniles that had just recently moved up to the floor (my local fish store does a lot of in store breeding) and today during my water change I found one dead, it had probably died maybe 2 days ago, some decay but not enough where I didn’t know what it was and I’d seen all 3 of the new ones recently. This morning prior to the water change I also noticed 1 of my male gertrudaes was staying towards the top right at the surface, whereas the other three were swimming around the mid and top level like normal. I also noticed another of the male CPDs was doing the same as the one previously did before it died.
before my water change I tested the water, there was 0 ppl nitrite, 5 ppm nitrate, 300+ on general hardness (according to CoOp test strip) and 40 kh on the CoOp test strip, with a pH of ~7.2. My temp was probably around 79 since my heater was off but it didn’t feel extremely warm. I did my water change, took out about ~25% then dechlorinated with the Fritz that the CoOp sells with the pump head, I did 2 pumps then filled the tank from my tap then added another pump just for good measure.
a few hours after the water change and the CPD and gertrudae were still acting funny so I put them in a Lee’s container on the tank with an air stone, half a tbs of salt and 10 drops of Prazi pro, and within an hour the CPD died.
of my original 6 CPDs only 1 female and 2 males are left, and only 2 of the 3 new ones remain.
Filtration wise I have an aqueon 10 HOB, a medium sized CoOp sponge filter, and I just upgraded my other HOB to the tidal 55, I kept all the old media and added seed. That change was done this past Friday. The flow is as low as it can go but the fish don’t seem to mind, I’ve yet to see anyone struggling in the flow.
I tested using the API Kh kit snd my Kh was ~4 after the water change (which is what I normally run) and ammonia was .5 (but I’d also Just done a water change) so I threw more seed in.
im really at my wits end as to what is going on, why I keep having random fish deaths when everything else looks healthy.
my LFS keeps new fish under observation at least a week, treats when necessary, and I keep an eye on the fish for several weeks before I take them home (I work at my LFS). I do weekly water changes, I test my water frequently, but I’m really at my wits end as to what’s going on in my tank.
Below are some pictures of the gertrudae that I’ve isolated, the freshly dead CPD, and then the tank itself and some of the fish in it. Any advice or ideas would be greatly appreciated, my best idea rn is possible gill flukes? Since I see some red in the gills, but I don’t reallly know much about them yet (I’ll talk to our aquatic vet staff at my LFS tho when I work tomorrow).
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Just now, benchilton said:
@JaredL @Steph’s Fish and Plants thanks for the advice on the baking soda, I haven't heard that before! Fortunately my water out of the tap is rock hard - yay Texas water - but I might try that next time. I am using marine salt though. As for the bubbles, its...quite a bit at once, but I don't have a way of turning the USB air down. I'm hatching a small amount, maybe a quarter teaspoon. I have another batch running today, so I'm going to see once I add them to the water if they're still wiggling even when they settle.
You can try getting a small valve and splicing it into the airline, that’s what I did, and it also helps me control the flow when I’m harvesting as well which is really nice.
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I didn’t realize that shell dwellers could go slightly brackish, Thats cool
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Once plants are growing then that means that they are feeding off of nutrients in the water column such as ammonia and nitrates. I haven’t had time to watch the video yet (I will tomorrow honestly) but I’ve heard him talk about it in the past and have done this method before, and while it’s very nice and hands off, I will say that for the new fish keeper it is a bit more risky, but for the well seasoned aquarist it’s a good way to hands off cycle a tank. The reason I say that is if for some reason you did have an ammonia problem once you added fish, a seasoned aquarist will be able to recognize it a lot faster and know what to do, whereas someone new to the hobby won’t have the experience to know if something bad is happening, and if so what.
Basically, if someone is newer to the hobby then I think it’s in their best interest to still test the water and keep an eye on nutrient levels throughout and for sometime after the initial cycling process.
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LOL I need to do this now 😂 they’ve been going on my fishroom fridge but I’ve got a few duplicates that I haven’t figured out what to do with yet.
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Congrats! I’ll certainly take any extras you end up with 😉 for real tho I’ve been more and more tempted by killies and might get some of the same species later this summer. Good luck, you have a fun project ahead of you for sure, and some gorgeous fish.
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I love rams. We breed em every now and then at my LFS but they’re so finicky for us so we only ever have them from time to time, I’d love to get em going personally some day tho.
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I must admit I’m very intrigued by this idea. I do think that lower temp swings on stormy days might be the one caveat, but if you breed lots of rams then I think it’d be more than worth it to throw a pair outside, and document ur experiences on the forum really well. Would you be pulling the fry? Would rams parent? I must admit I don’t remember a whole lot on ram breeding off the top of my head 😅 but it’s something I plan on doing in the future, so I’m very intrigued. Also, not to derail the post, but the mention of doing apistos outside also caught my attention and now I might try and do that 😂
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I have the San Francisco Bay kit with a 2 liter but will be upgrading to the ziss in a few paychecks… I’d say double check and make sure that they’re moving, they’ll settle and not be as easily visibly moving. I too buffer with just a pinch of baking soda bc my water has very low Kh, but I use regular aquarium salt and chlorinated tap water.
could you be using too many eggs? How much are you hatching at once?
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10/10 for the finnex stingray on the 20 long. I’ve had one for 3 years now and have had no issues, even after several accidental partial dunkings. As far as the rim on the tank, if it’s a rimmed tank you’ll be absolutely fine, it should be able to rest on top of the rim. Rimless I’m not so sure how it would do, but I think it would still be fine. I’ve been able to easily grow low, medium, and even some high light plants over the years with no issue from the light. I definitely wouldn’t go any stronger especially if you’re only looking to do low light plants anyways. For the price point I don’t think you’ll find a better light out there for the 20long.
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That tank is absolutely gorgeous!!! I miss my peas so much now haha.
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I’ve been eyeing a few different species of halfbeaks myself recently… nice score! Be sure to update once all the fish get settled. That play breeding project is sure to be a lot of fun as well
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I’d check aquabid and then the AKA and see if anyone has any eggs or pairs listed, those are my first go to’s
Is it disease or just bad luck?
in Diseases
Posted
@mountaintoppufferkeeper Here is my thread on me currently dosing general cure and Prazi pro. I’ve got the test results from the day before treatment and day 1, Altho I’m unsure if I tested or medicated first, I’ll test again and post results tomorrow/later today (it’s 5am for me rn lol). I’m very intrigued to see if those meds affected my water chemistry at all like yours did with the para cleanse.