KittenFishMom

@lefty o We have Activia in the fridge. We think alike.

I caught and cleaned a large bullhead last night and just cooked it with a bit of butter and basil for Mom. She is raving about it. I'm so glad she is feeling better ! (I could use a nap if anyone wants to mail me one 8-), The locate nap store is all sold out ) Persian saffron rice is the side. I haven't seen her eat this much in a very long time. We will both sleep well tonight. Note: It is great that people here are not shaming me for feeding her fresh wild caught fish. I bring it to her in a covered bucket of lake water to reduce the stress on the fish and use the Japanese method to quickly destroy the fish's brain before I clean the fish, to be as kind and respectful to the fish as possible. I only prepare fish for Mom because she is so ill and weak and loves very fresh fish. Update on Mom: They delivered her hospital bed today. Palliative care comes tomorrow. The Dr said to continue to try this treatment one more week. There are only treatments with less than 30% effective rate left to try. Mom did gain some weight. She is still fighting hard.

@lefty o Yes, and Mom likes ginger. We have been using crystalized ginger and ginger ale. Mom developed colitis with the new Rx and food has been flying throw her. We have her on 2 antibiotics and are trying to get things in balance again. The BRAT diet is working, and the problem from the potato chips was temporary. She is feeling a good bit better now.

@nabokovfan87 I do have a lot of floating plants and lights on timers. The last week of Feb, our well went cloudy and the stuff in the water covered the sponge filters and wiped out the nitrogen cycle in 2 of the tanks, which complicated things. Timing is everything you know. I added Fritz 7 and stability every time I was at the cottage. I also added ghost shrimp and snails, and things are looking better now. (As long as I don't test the water) I bought a bunch of plants to plant my 55 gallon tank that I also haven't had a chance to clean after giving away the native fish to an educational display tank. I was saving the plants but am now using them in the 10 gallon tanks. I ended up with leeches in at least one of the tanks from plants that came from the lake. I was planning to clean and sterilize everything for the 55 and toss everything that was in the smaller tanks. I will just use the plants and plan on doing the build in the fall or winter with a new round of plants.

Things are doing some better. I put Mom on the BRAT diet (Bananas, Rice, Applesauce and dry Toast) to try to get her insides under control. When she was watching a movie with my son, She had him bring her a bag of potato chips and now doesn't understand why she is so nauseated. I forgot to tell my son to get food Ok-ed before giving her something. We will keep working at it. I went to the cottage yesterday and all the fish were alive. I fed each tank a frozen cube of food, a wonder shell and a bit of their regular food and topped off the tanks. The tanks looked good. I decided that everyone keeps saying just top off the water, so I didn't test the tanks so I would not feel guilty about not doing water changes. I moved plants and fish a round a bit in hopes of balancing the loads. I also caught a large bullhead for Mom. First fish of the season. She has been craving one. It isn't on the BRAT diet, but if she wants it, I will cook it with just a touch of oil for her tonight. The bullhead was full of young eggs. I put them in the fridge. I wonder if they would be safe to feed my fish. I don't know if parasites infest eggs. The bulbs we plants late last fall are coming up, and Mom says it always snows on the daffodils. It was snowing today, so maybe spring is on it's way at last. Thank you for all your help and support.

I have 5 10-gallon tanks inside. The 120 is still empty in the garage, No time to clean out the native fish pathogens and get it up and running. Besides it still gets below freezing and I have never heated that tank. The fish store is an hour in the wrong direction. I was warned earlier not to mix local pathogens with tropical fish. I have not had time to boil substrate or clean filters with H2O2. etc. I've had very little sleepy this week. I am caring for Mom 24*7. I slept on the floor in the oncologist office while she was getting infusions. I slept on the floor in her room last night. I don't have energy to tackle anything but the absolute necessities. There is only so much a person can do. I'm trying to do the best I can.

one male betta, 2 peppered corys, blue neon tetras, guppies of all ages, a cory with tiny black spots, and 1 female flag fish. I gave away the native fish before Mom's most recent illness. The non-guppies were bought in Dec 2021 or January 2022.

I have been caring for my ill mother since the end of February. It is consuming all my time and energy. We have been trying to hire people we can trust to help with her care, but it isn't coming together. There is a shortage of healthcare people in this area. I can not care for my 5 tank in 1 to 2 hours every 2 or 4 days. I do not have time to find new homes for them, or meet those people to have them take the fish. I will have a few hours to go over to start euthanizing the fish before they start suffering more than they are now. It is heartbreaking, but I don't want any more dying in their own waste. I need help figuring out which fish need to be killed to help the ones that I will try to try keep going. Please understand I am in tears and have been trying to avoid this. Things are getting worse. I care about the fish and hate to see them suffer from hunger and lack of water changes.

My husband picked up ghost shrimp and snails for me and brought them to Mom's house. The dr "on call" called back and sent Mom to ER via ambulance for fluid. My husband went to ER. They only allow one support person in ER due to COVID, so I took snails and shrimp to cottage and added them and hurried back to get the house in order before Mom returns from ER. Waiting for info from ER. I'll find out how the shrimp did next time I get to the cottage. Thanks for all the help and support on this. This forum is wonderful !

Any idea how many ghost shrimp for a 10 gallon tank? What would be good for hiding caves?

@Its Hutch How many would you get for a 10 gallon tank?

Someone recommended snails and/or shrimp for the white slime in my tank. My husband can pick up ghost shrimp and snails at a PetSmart. Would it be safe to add them to my tank with a male betta and 2 corys and some guppy fry that are growing out. I don't have a place to quarantine them, and I need them to work on the slime ASAP. Is this inviting disaster? If you think it is a good idea, how many shrimp should I get? How about snails? is one safer than the other as far as avoiding introducing more problems to the tank? I am staying with my mom, so my husband would have to take them to the cottage and put them in the tank.

I remember reading someplace never to use any product ending in "fix". I don't know if I should try "Melafix" or "maracyn" or something else, or just ignore it and hope my nitrogen cycle doesn't crash again. I had planned on trying to clean and set up my 15 gallon tanks today, but Mom was worse, and we were not able to do anything with the fish tanks. I may take the goldfish to the LFS tomorrow, just to have one less tank to maintain. I've been enjoying them, but maintaining 5 tanks with store bought spring water for a month is a lot of work. I would try to sort out some of the guppies that are growing out, to reduce the load in the tanks, but I don't think I will have time. Maybe I can take a bunch to the store and have them sort out the size they want and pick up what they don't want a different day. I will call them in the morning. A well expert was suppose to come to the cottage today, but canceled due to a different well emergency. It was just as well because we were busy with Mom all day. We will get the well fixed as soon as we can.

@ColBudIt grew across the top openings in my sponge filters and appeared to be the reason I lost my nitrogen cycle in this tank. That is why I am worried about it. I have siphoned it out with water changes, but it keeps coming back. When I disturb it with the siphon, I get pieces of it drifting around the tank. You can see in the close ups how it sets up shop in the sponge and would slow the water flow. I was hoping the corys would eat it, but they don't seem to be at all interested in it. I have 5 active 10-gallon tanks. I was hoping to build 2 15-gallon and a 55-gallon this winter/spring. I am using store bought water for the water changes on my active tanks. I am sure this stuff came from the well because it is also in the tank of the toilet. If I cannot get this white slime under control in the 2 tanks I have found it in, then I may need to give up on keeping tropic fish.

New close up photos. My husband took these. @Colu and @ColBud Do these photos help? Along the edge of the sponge on the bottom front of the tank On some IAL next to the sponge Another angle

It does look like that. I asked my husband to take some better photos. He is better with the camera than I am.

There is a lot of blue-green algae in the lake. The well is about 80 feet from the shore. The blue-green algae usually isn't a problem in the lake until the water warms up, around July and August, Then it is dependent on the weather conditions. It pops up here and there in the lake. We haven't any problem with the well all fall and winter, until a month ago. Well had rain and major snow melt. The lake is about 2 feet low than it's summer level. We are on the south east end of the lake (The muddy, mucky end of the finger lakes. Great for wildlife, but very shallow). So the lake is way out still. I think some surface water is getting into the well, despite having it fixed twice and shocked many times. We will work on the well as soon as Mom recovers enough to for us to start tracking down a new well expert. In the mean time. I do not know what to do about the slime. There is a betta fish in this tank, so I can not increase the water flow. I don't have a tank where I can put him.

Can anyone identify this white slime, or tell me how to get rid of it? After my well got cloudy about a month ago, I started seeing white slime on the bottom of the tanks were I had done water changes with the cloudy water. (I am now using bottles spring water for all my water changes. Plan to get the well fixed as soon as Mom improves. We are prioritizing our crises.) I'm not sure what this stuff is. I tried to remove as much of it as I could. I have not been able to spend much time with my tanks because my mother needs care now. About a week ago I noticed one of the 10 gallon tanks started spiking ammonia. The consensus was that I had lost the nitrogen cycling in that tank. I think the white slime slowed or stopped the water flow through the sponge filter. I have been feeding lightly and added Stability and Fritz 7 every day. The cycle is coming back, but so is the white slime. I noticed it yesterday again. Tonight the areas of white have doubled in size. (See photos below.) I added a course filter sponge to the bottom of the tank to help the cycle grow last week. Now the white slime has started to cover that sponge from the left. The right side is still clean. With Mom needing so much care, I haven't gotten my new 15 gallon tanks set up. I would move the fish if I had a place for them. The pictures do not do a good job of showing the detail. I welcome any advice on taking better photos. This stuff looks kind of web-like on the edges. The slime is in the middle. (My peppered corys of the left) The clean righ side of th filter sponge under the stump ornament You can see a lot spreading in front of the sponge, from left to right. A poor attempt at a close up Last time it was all over all the gravel under this rock, as well as the sponge filters

This Siberian folk band, "Otyken", was in my Facebook page this morning. I found some of their videos on YouTube. Very interesting and high energy. Not your standard band.

@Cory When will ACO start carrying these fish cars? I think they will be the next generations "hamsters balls".😁

I saw these t2o videos and had to share it. https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=1056980171698083

@Odd Duck right 0.5 ppm. When my well got cloudy I started getting a gray/white slim in my tanks. It was growing on the bottom and plants and sponge filters. When I cleaned them just lightly just now, it was all over the insides and the air stones and the x where the air comes into the air stone. The x was pretty covered, so that would reduce the flow throw the sponges. I added a large filter sponge under a small light weight ornament to hopefully give the bacteria more places to grow. Wish me luck

OK, I'll do what I can. I am cutting back on the feedings, that may have reduced the cycle. I can only get here about every 2 days, so it is feast and famine for the fish. I have Seachem Stability and Complete and fritz 7. I'll hit it with them after I change the water. and clean the filter. It has been a very stable tank.

I put a plastic bag under the working filter, in the tank, disconnect the air, disassemble and rub the hard parts with my hands in the bag of water. Then a squeeze and shake the sponge in the bag and hit it against the whit bucket the bag is in. If I can't get the crud out, I will work on the sponge in the sink with well water. Then I reassemble, reconnect and put it in the tank. @Patrick_G Started cycling it in October.

I have 2 ACO medium sponge filter. I clean one last week6 or 7 days ago.