KittenFishMom

After carefully RR-ing all my plants and quarantining my fish I thought I was rid of leeches, but tonight I found one in my big tank. I am just weeks away from taking my tanks down and leaving the hobby for a while. I had most of my fish spoken for and was going to start netting them and distributing them to my friends. Then tonight, during a water change, I found a rather large leech. I know RR will kill leeches, but I am not sure RR can kill all the eggs that might be in the water around the plants. Should that water plants be tossed and the rooted ones be planted? I don't know what to tell my friends about quarantining the fish and snails. I know leeches can hide under snail shells. I know leeches can get into fish gills. Can the fish and snails be successfully quarantined or do they all need to be given clove oil? I have a wide variety of fish now. Everything from a large betta sorority in my 55 gallon tank to little neon tetras and a big school of very busy hillstream loaches. I have dwarf chain loaches and otos and algae eaters. I also have a lot of mystery snails and ramshorn snails. I have 4 tanks to take down. I look forward to hearing any advice on how to do this without passing the leeches along to my friends.

@Colu had a great post of common treatments for common diseases. I'm search and looking all over and can not find it. I thought it was pinned to the start of the disease forum, but it doesn't seem to be here. A friend has a betta with possible fin rot. I remember salt and AILs and Maracyn II but not the details. If you know the treatment, or where colu's post is, please send it along. Thanks.

The sticker is the first thing I look for. (Kind of like Cracker Jack when I was a kid, when the toy was better than the Cracker Jack.) With ACO, the sticker is great, and the products get better from there.

This is a bit off the beaten path of the normal topics. I just saw this photo of mostly ACO sticker for sale on craigslist. "Yes @cory , people do love the stickers!"

I bought 15 otocinclus today. They might be wild caught. What is the best quarantine treatment in case they are carrying parasites? I have 3 Fritz products. Expel-P(exp 06/21/23) , ParaClense (exp 06/20/23), and Fritz Aquatics Mardel Parashield (exp 08/19/25). the first 2 are powders, the last is liquid. Expel-P: active ingredient : 113mg levamisole hydrochloride ParaCleanse: active ingredients: 250 mg metronidazole and 75mg praziquantel Parashield: Active ingredients: Capsaicin Oil, Chitosan, D-Limonene, Manuka Oil, Neem Oil I'm hoping someone, maybe @Colu, can tell me which of these three would be the best to use on otocinclus, and the best treatment plan for using it. The fish look lively and are swimming around and hanging on the sides of the aquarium like they do in everyone's' videos. I normally wait for symptoms, but I know wild caught fish are likely to have parasites, and I don't know the symptoms, until the fish as loosing weight and not doing well. Any experience or advice is welcome. Thanks.

I have 16 female bettas in a sorority in a 55 gallon well planted tank. One of them is starting to push the other around more and has longer fins than the other females. Is she a he? Any sure way to tell if it is a male or a female? I will work on getting photos to post. Note: I bought these "baby girl bettas" in mid September. they didn't have much color, they were either light or dark. They have gotten a lot of color, but are still very young. I've had them 6 or 7 weeks.

I rehomed my pea puffers after a while. They darkened to match the black sand and dark java moss and where hard to see, and hard to enjoy. They did like their snails and stayed fat on them. They would eat the frozen blood worms now and then, but I think they had a pretty good population of snails in that tank's java moss while I had the puffers.

I feed my tubifex in an open bottle trap. The tubifex only leave the bottle inside the fish. The cories sniffy their way up the side and hang from the upper side of the bottle feeding like fat little piglets. It really saves a mess on the filters too. See this for a photo. (Ignore the knit hat):

I accidently took one back to the store in a bag of fish to donate. Sneaky little guys !

I saw cultures of wingless fruit flies at the pet store. I thought my female bettas were about the right size to love the pupas and maybe even the adults. I plopped down my cash and bought a tub. The cashier said to keep them in the dark or they will start getting wings. That was yesterday. I kept them in the dark from the minute I got home. Tonight I held the tub to the light and noticed all the adults had wings. Now I know how to get winged fruit flies for free, just forget about a piece of fruit with a bruise for a day or 2. (How this work when there is snow on the ground, I don't know) Now that I have a lovely population of wined fruit flies, is there any easy way to feed them to my fish? It seems like there must be a way of handling them, or the store wouldn't be able to sell them. I'm willing to try anyones "tried and true" method, even if it doesn't work 100% of the time. I don't want to toss them 1 day after paying for them. Thanks in advance for your help.

The top of my pump came off early on. I have just been "by guess and by golly"-ing it. which isn't great. I'll start measuring it .

I haver a 9 gallon half cylinder tank with a UGF that has started having strange stuff growing in it. This tank has a male betta, 5 neon tetras, 4 white panda cories, and I think 11 chain loach. (The loaches will move to the 55 soon.) The crud started off as a milky film that I thought the snails and UGF would clean up quickly. Now it is turning into some wirey looking dark stuff. (see photos below) Any idea what this is, or how I keep from spreading it when I move the loaches to the bigger tank? Better yet, how do I get rid of it completely? The plants should look like this: but instead some look like this: and there are stands going betweenthe fake plants that look like this:

My pea puffers seem to have full tummys. They are rather rouded, except for their tail. I have been feeding them mostly snails and some frozen bloodworms. I am trying to start up a daphnia colony, and am going to hatch brine shrimp. Do they need anything else in there diet? Can they over eat on live snails?

@mynameisnobody Shouuld I put it on aftter wetting the plastic then let it sit or is it safe to scrub it before rinsing?

Now let me first start by saying I dust a room by taking my eye glasses off and the dust disappears. I'm not "in to" cleaning, but I have a problem. I have an older tank lid with cut outs lined with clear plastic that have water marks on them. I want to use the lid, but am worried about the amount of light that will be blocked by this grime. I tried the hose. I tryed straight white vinagar and rinsed with the hose. I tryed Fritz glass & acrylic cleaner. I'm wondering if baking soda might scratch the plastic/acryilic. Anyone out that have any luck with this sort of stuff? I think the tank might have been salt water before I go it. I don't know if that latters. All ideas very welcome!

@FLFishChik I do have a small tank of bladder snails, and another of pink rams horn and a trim bcket with random snails. I just don't seem to be getting much production out of them. I add algae waffers and cuttle bone now and then. I think heaters might help. I want to find a nice balance so I have enough snails, but am not over run by them.

Thank @Colu I'll start the shrimp hatcher this morning! Do they eat older brine shrimp or scuds?

I decided to try some pea puffers. I put 4 young ones in a older, well seasoned, and well planted 15 gallon tank with lots of snail and 2 hillstream loaches that refuse to be caught. The hill stream loaches seem to be moving around more, but I haven't seen the pea puffers bother them. The loaches are 5 or 4 times the size of the pea puffers. The snails are disappearing, as would be expeceted. When I offer frozzen blood worms the puffers don't show mch interest. I also tryed vibra bites (sp? little twisty red food) I think the hill stream loaches aet both after dark. What do you feed your pea puffers? do you think they would go for live bbs? I don't want to experiment too much becase there isn't much of a clean up crew. I am thining about adding a heater to my snail and trimmings bucket to speed up snail production. Side note: I bought the 4 from a pet store. 1 is lager, the smaller 3 are about the same size. I don't know if they are different ages or if the big one is a female. They all had white bellies, so Ithnk they are too young to determin sex. They do seem to school a bit. They are fn to watch when they come out of the plants.

I am seeing very heavy hornwort (maybe foxtails?) floating in the lake. I an doing an RR on a long piece. Do you think it will really kill all the leeches at are most likely hiding in the hornwort from the lake? I have had such an awful time with leeches, but would really like horwort in my tanks. Please advise. Thanks, KittenFishMom.

nother fish has died.

Today I bouught 10 neon tetras from a chain pet store. They never left my side. When I got home 40 minutes later, 2 were dead. Should I take the living ones back becase they don't seem to be from good stock, or just QT them and see if more die? The remaining living tetras are all hiding under an IAL and darting out to eat some fry food I put in the tank. I don't know if they are ill or stressed or starved. I tried to keep the bag on its side and covered it with newpaper so it was dark for the fish. There was lots of air in the bag. It did not get too hot or too cold. Any ideas as to why 20% would die on the ride home? Do you think I can build them up with brine shrimp, or should I take them back to the store any shop elsewhere?

@TOtrees I was right when I said I was wrong. 8-)

@Tazalanche When I am catching snails, I use a large cooking ladle with a bunch of small holes. I hook the end of the handle over the edge of the tank and put in one large Algae wafer. I try to keep an eye on it or the cories eat the wafer, and the snails go home. If the snail cover the wafer first, you can get a ladle covered inside and out with ramshorns.

Another hint: It is an insectivore; it kills and eats other arthropods, such as insects and arachnids

A quote from 1902: "It may often be seen darting across floors with very great speed, occasionally stopping suddenly and remaining absolutely motionless, presently to resume its rapid movements, often darting directly at inmates of the house, particularly women, evidently with a desire to conceal itself beneath their dresses, and thus creating much consternation."