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Sykes

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Everything posted by Sykes

  1. Sykes
    Have you tried asking Petsmart? If they're not legal for you to own, then they're not legal for them to sell locally, so if they recently stopped carrying them they should be able to tell you if that's the reason or if they'll be getting more in stock. Allegedly this website (Arizona game and fish department) has a full list of restricted pets on it somewhere, but I'm having difficulty finding it. From what I could find on other sites, it sounds like the apple snail and chinese mystery snail are a no-go. I didn't see anything about nerite snails though. They also require brackish water to reproduce, so seems less likely they'd be considered an invasive species to make a restricted list, but I don't know for sure.
  2. Sykes
    A week should be good. If I'm not mistaken, I think Cory actually recommended a week on a recent live stream.
  3. Sykes
    I haven't, but don't see why you couldn't. As I understand it, the waste water is basically the same as your tap water except everything is in higher concentrations. Actually tempted to try it now to cut down on my water waste (though simply changing less water is far more effective for that).
  4. Sykes
    I picked up a half dozen about a month ago and have them in a 75 g planted community tank with some featherfins, peacock gudgeons, and kuhli loaches. They've seemed pretty easy so far; I haven't really had to do anything special for them. Care-wise, I pretty much think of them as small bristlenose plecos. I assume they eat some of the scrap foods that fall to the bottom, but a vast majority of the time I just see them munching on algae. Here's a picture of one of mine attached to guppy grass I had floating. I suspect he's just eating the algae off it, I haven't seen any plant damage from them.
  5. Sykes
    Harassment seems like a potential culprit then. If you have space, you might consider separating the males and females, at least temporarily. If not, my only thought would be to offer lots of hiding places. Or get more females... I thought 2:1 female:male tended to be a pretty good ratio (I believe that's the ratio I used for guppies in the past, but it's been a while), but someone more experienced may have more insight there.
  6. Sykes
    What's your male:female ratio? If males are outnumbering females then harassment could be a concern, especially if they didn't have any time to recover after bearing fry. Have you noticed harassment in their behavior?
  7. Sykes
    My go to for white spots on a guppy would be ich, but it's hard to tell from the picture. Almost looks like it could just be an air bubble. Is this a recent addition?
  8. Sykes
    I'm not sure how you've even added that many. I've had it on my wishlist for weeks and it's been out of stock. Still shows out of stock when I check the site now.
  9. Sykes
    Thanks all!! I think I got too caught up in the 'RO removes everything' mindset to differentiate between gases and solids. Seems so blindingly obvious now. I'll add an air stone to my RO storage and redo some tests using aged RO water, then report back in a week or so with results. @Cory I like your suggestion of a no water change tank in order to keep the pH down. I've been trying to move that direction anyway. I have a 100% tap water planted tank that's only been getting a water change every 2-3 months, and the pH in it has stabilized at about 8.4 vs the 8.7 of the tap. I'll try establishing something similar but starting with a tap/RO mix to see if I can get a stable lower pH, ideally with no water changes except for top off. Are there any particular tests you do to make sure mineral levels don't get too low for the plants? Would something like a GH test be sufficient or would I need to test for more specific things like Calcium?
  10. Sykes
    I expect either will be fine, but just watch whichever one is getting the change for any weird behavior during the first couple days and adjust if necessary.
  11. Sykes
    It might not strictly be necessary if you don't have any chlorine or chloramine in your water to deal with, but prime (and most aquarium conditioners) also have other benefits of detoxifying heavy metals, ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. Heavy metals in particular aren't generally testable by any standard aquarium test strips/kits, so I'd still recommend using a conditioner such as prime to be on the safe side.
  12. Sykes
    I've always kept my dry foods in a cabinet and haven't experienced any fish losing interest in them through the end of a container, which can be a few months. Fridge would probably be better but... I'm lazy. There are other things you can do to extend shelf-life though: Keep it cool. If not using a fridge, I mean room temperature here. Don't set the food on top of a heated aquarium, or worse, on top of the light. Keep it dry. One wet hand into the food jar and it'll go bad in no time. Lower humidity in the room doesn't hurt either. Keep it sealed. This is the one that's hard to control because you need to open it daily to feed, but at least don't break the seal until you're ready to use it regularly and always close the lid after feeding.
  13. Sykes
    I have used salt at low levels in planted tanks without ill effect, but not sure that's a strategy I'd use to try to control snails. Seems like a risky game to play. Another option I'd consider: Assassin snails. They'll seek out pest snails but don't reproduce readily in most freshwater aquariums and in my experience won't harm shrimp.
  14. Sykes
    I've kept both harlequins and CPDs as high as 78 and they've done well. I'd guess they could do 81, but can't say for sure. I'd also suspect that your apistos would be okay to come down a few degrees if needed.
  15. Sykes
    I've generally tried to do as much as I can in tap water to avoid the extra maintenance and difficulties that can come with trying to 'chase pH', and have had relative success despite liquid rock coming out of my tap (pH 8.7 after 24 hrs, GH and KH 20). I'd really like to venture out into some species that require softer, more acidic water though, especially for breeding. I've been experimenting in empty tanks and seem to be able to achieve my target values when first dosing, but can't keep those values stable. My approach so far has been: Create 0 TDS water with an RODI system. Add Alkaline buffer to reach target KH. Add Acid buffer to reach target pH. Add Equilibrium to reach target GH. For my initial test, I targeted pH of 7.0, GH and KH of 5-6. On day 0 (i.e. shortly after mixing), my tests showed that I'd hit each target within the accuracy of the test. I continued testing pH on subsequent days though and saw a steady rise for about a week before finally stabilizing at ~8.2. This is a new tank with literally nothing in it except RODI water with the above additives. Is gas exchange somehow causing that significant of a shift? Is there some latent interaction with the buffers, or some other cause I'm overlooking? In recommendations for how to edit my process so the resultant water has a more stable pH? I'm not as concerned with the exact number as long as it's stable and somewhere in the slightly acidic to neutral range (maybe 6.2-7.2).
  16. Sykes
    @Ben Ellison I got a small bundle from my LFS, and then have just been using cuttings to propagate from there. It grows like crazy. If your LFS doesn't have any, maybe ask around at a local club? If anyone has some, I'd wager it shouldn't be too hard to convince them to share.
  17. Sykes
    Guppy grass (Najas guadalupensis), not so much for aesthetics but because the forest I've made of it is basically acting as a giant 24/7 fry daycare.
  18. Sykes
    If you have a spare container you can keep available for replacement water, you could use your garden hose to fill it instead. Either permanently keep it filled or just fill it up the day before you plan to do a water change. Add you dechlorinator there and let it come to room temperature, or if your tank is significantly different add a heater and set it to tank temperature. Then when your ready to replace water, pump or transfer from your container. It's a little extra work, but gives you a lot more control. That said, I also wouldn't be concerned about a few degrees, but larger differences could be concerning.
  19. Sykes
    Are there particular species you had in mind? Those are all pretty broad categories. A couple favorites of mine which also stay quite small: celestial pearl danios (aka galaxy rasbora) or emerald dward rasboras. Also, what kind of apistos?
  20. Sykes
    ADA aqua soil I understand to be slightly acidic (disclaimer, I've never used it) so that seems unlikely to be the cause. Not knowing what the stones are, they're certainly a possibility. If they contain limestone for instance, that could be adding calcium carbonate to the water, and in turn raising pH. ADA ferts I'm not as familiar with, but look suspicious as well. I just looked up Brighty K and saw this rather pertinent note on their website: *BRIGHTY K is strongly alkaline. The pH of aquarium water may rise temporarily immediately after this product is applied, but it will eventually return to the original level. I have know idea what "eventually" means in this context, but there's clearly going to be some sort of impact (likely from the potassium carbonate, but possibly from some of the 'inactive' ingredients as well). To eliminate some of the guesswork, my suggestion would be to get a few small containers and add 1 of the questionable products to each along with tap water (of whatever water source you're using), plus 1 container with water only. Test the pH of each container each day for a few days. If you're able to test KH as well, that may help other folks on here give you better advice as well.
  21. Sykes
    Assuming your current parameters are stable, I'd personally leave it as is. Doubly so if you're getting them from somewhere local that has similar water to you. If you're getting them from somewhere that has MUCH harder water then you *could* consider making an adjustment, but it's really easy to do that in a way that causes more harm than good. Since it sounds like your current parameters are what you're planning on using long term anyway, I'd expect you and the endlers to both be better off by not attempting to make any adjustments.
  22. Sykes
    A post I've been meaning to make but haven't found the time: How many gallons can you fit in a 40 breeder? Haven't done the experiment to confirm, but from my rough estimates based on the dimensions it's actually 47-48 gallons (or exactly 40 so long as you add just the right amount of substrate first). I'd be curious to see which other tank sizes deviate significantly from their advertised size.
  23. Sykes
    645 / 46.1 / 14 and looking for space for more
  24. Sykes
    No offense, I appreciate a genuine attempt to educate for the public good, but this is totally click bait. Summary: Don't eat shark fin. It's extremely wasteful and damaging to ecosystems. A 2 minute educational bit like that could have been interesting and meaningful, but IMO it was severely devalued by adding 10 minutes of click-baity (and also illegal) fluff to get views. In no way do I support shark finning, but I also can't support this methodology of opposing it. The connection to aquaria is also rather tenuous.
  25. Sykes
    Check out these artificial plants.
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