KittenFishMom

I took his betta log out yesterday because it was full on snail eggs, and I'm trying to get snails in another tank. I will put the other log in right now. (They came in a set of 2.) I shoulg have thought of that. He didn't start doing this until I took the log out.

My normally busy betta has been sandwiching himself between the glass and these pH Alert and Nitrogen alert tags in my tank. He just started doing it. I don't know if it is a normal sort of thing, or if I should worry. Soory it is blurry. I will try to get a better photo. but you get the idea.

My maternal instinct kicked in, and I felt like I should save all the fry that I could. Now that the water has clear and I see how many fish are in the tank, I think it will be best to rehome some and let the adults try to keep the population in check. I was thinking that move the males to a different tank would slow things down, but I just read that female guppies can store sperm for up to 8 month, so it looks like I will be having a lot of guppies for a while. Some males look pretty fancy, but I know mixing varieties will decrease the fancy fins. They are very pretty to watch swim around the tank. I will start slowly transitioning them to well water and see how the population holds up.

@lefty o Thank for the info. I guess I should work on trying to serperate the males from the females over time. I don't really want a ton of babies. I think I have more than enogh fish now to keep me very busy for awhile.

I just brought home a tank full of guppies I bought off Craigslist. The seller didn't seem to know much about the guppies, but she said some where pregnant. I wasn't expecting pregnant females. Do I need to do anything special with them? Do they need to be seperated and/or removed from the tank? The seller said she had also dumped in a bowl of baby guppies a friend gave her. The seller had pulled all her plastic plants out, completely clouding the water, before I got there. There were no live plants. I brought all the water home to let it settle here, to try to see what I have. I added a bunch of hornwort and snails and scuds to start cleaning the tank. I replace the seller's filter with a sponge filter because her filter had no prefilter. Any advice is welcome. From the photo of the tank in the craigslist post I was expecting a few fish and a 10 gallon tank. There are a lot of fish.

All the guppies I have bought at a store died quickly. I decided to try craigslist. Someone was selling a 10 gallon tank full of guppies of all ages with all accessories because they were moving. The tank is a mess. I want to add scuds to the tank to help clean it up. Will the scuds eat the guppy fry? I think there is plenty of stuff in the tank for the scuds to eat. Note: This is why I didn't try to start cleaning the tank myself. The seller did not know much about guppies. She had added a bunch of fry from a friend. Before I got there, she had pulled all cover for the fry out of the subsrate turning the water a gross brown. I could not tell if the adults had eaten all fry or not because the water was too murky to see fry. I decided to save all the water from the tank and see if there were fry once the waters clears at my home. I am using an extra large sponge filter. I added live plants and am waiting until the water clears, before I add the adults I netted out and have in a bait bucket with tank water, plants and a bubbler.

I bought "Gro|dan Macroplugs" rockwool plugs and pots for the plug to start cuttings in for my planted tank. I have searched the forum and found a lot of info about dealing with plants that arrived in rockwool, but I didn't find anything about starting cuttings in rockwool. Should I use rooting hormone before placing them in the plug? Will it hurt the fish? (I planned on setting them in tanks with fish as the plant's roots get started) Should I put a ACO root tab in the rockwool with the cutting or wait until the roots start growing? Any tips of tricks that would be good to know? Thanks

I was was able to avoid doing a water change by moving my turnip between tanks. See "TURNIP TRIUMPHS !!!!" under Plants area. My 10 gallon tank was at 5 ppm nitrites. I moved the HOB filter with the turnip from my 55 gallon tank to the 10 gallon tank and the nitrites dropped to zero in 2 days. Several photos over that.

The Turnip Wins Again ! When last we met upon the heath... I wanted to set up a turnip in my 10 gallon tank because the nitrite were rising. I was stumped for a bit on how to do this with out giving the betta an opportunity to jump out of the tank. I studied the 2 tanks for a while and decided to move the HOB with the turnip to the very edge of the 10 gallon tank, and move the plastic strip enough to make room for the HOB. (No need to cut the plastic strip. Completely reversible) That was Saturday evening. Onw, on Monday evening, the betta tanks nitrites are a big fat ZERO ! No water change, not chemicals, but letting the turnip quietly do it's thing. The betta fish got pushed around a bit when it swam in that end of the tank, so he is staying in the other end of the tank now. I will move the HOB back to the big tank and continue to test water parameters in both tanks. This is much more fun than water changes ! In the photo, you will notice that the turnip turned a darker shade of green while sipping at the 10 gallon tank. I wish I had taken a photo just before the switch. I had noticed the turnip getting pale in the 55 tank and was thinking about adding fertilizer when the idea of the switch hit me. Tonight: Dec 30 in the 55 gallon tank:

@HydraSlayerI have been thinking about getting a 20 long or maybe a 30. We had planned on no tanks inside this winter, then got the 55 for the native fish, then brought in the 10 gallon for the scuds, then the tote for the QT now I am planning on planting a 10 gallon from the garage. but maybe I should wait and see if we get a bigger thank first. Thanks for your help and input.

All the fish seem to be eating enough and looking good and being very active. The betta is swimming all over the tank all the time. He is checking on every change I make. He frequently checks on his betta log, and looks at the snails on his hammock. He is hunting scuds. He was smaller than all the other bettas in the store, new and old. He may just be growing now. There is some algae in the tank, and the scuds and seaweed. I remember how the endlers seemed to go from thin and streamlined to full bellied overnight, they were eating so much of the naturally occurring stuff. The betta might be doing the same now that he feels so much better. I didn't know much about bettas when I bought him. but he looked so sad. I thought he might not make it more than a day or 2, but I wanted him to be more comfortable than laying on the bottom of that cup for what time he had left. It isn't smart to buy that saddest looking fish, but for $4.99, I could not leave him there to suffer. I didn't think he would live long, so I didn't think it mattered that I wasn't up on bettas. Well, he showed me. He is showing that fish in the mirror too. I only put it in when I can watch him closely, and then I take it out if he hits the mirror or starts looking like he might. It really gets his heart going. He keeps going up to the surface for air while he is strutting his stuff. He is so small, and yet so full of himself. It is reassuring to know that as long as he is very active and I am not feeding him too much, I don't need to worry if his belly is rather rounded. I read about all these things that can go wrong with bettas, but he seems to have everything going right for now. Since he no long looks like he is planning to die, I should probably name him. He has crown fins, red pectoral fins, the rest are a light blue, and his body is a dark blue.

That turnip in my 55 is doing so well, I really want to set one up in my betta 10 gallon tank. I have the new turnip, with a bit of hopeful green leaf showing. I have the top part of a water filter thing to hold the turnip. I have green insulating foam and glue to make it float with the turnip in it.. Now I need to figure out how to set it up so the betta doesn't jump out. I have a hinged glass lid on the betta tank that the kitten like to sit on because the tank is heated. He also stands on it to drink out of the 55 tank. So what ever I rig up, it has to keep a mostly grown kitten above the water, and a betta who is feeling so much better under the water, and a turnip at the waterline. I also have to be able to feed the fish regularly. This is getting complicated. I will probably need to sleep on it. I will enjoy reading any thought and suggestions or day dreams that you come up with. Thank in advance !!!!

@Torrey How is that rose doing?

Sometimes we need stop and smell the roses. Other times we just need to stop, roses or no roses. Knowing it is time to stop for a while is very important.

@HydraSlayer I would like to set up a 10 gallon tank with Corys and blue neon tetras How many of each do you think would work well in 10 gallons?

How do you boil long pieces like that? I can see sticking one end in a pot and propping the other against a wall, and hoping it don't tip. then doing the other end. But how do you do the middle? Also how long to you boil it?

@HydraSlayerI made the mistake of going to a bad pet shop to get the first batch of fish. I told them I wanted several corys and they insisted it was best to start with only one. I was new and thought they know more about they variety. They only had 3 endlers, I said I thought I should get 6 or more and they said they only ever get 5 at a time and 3 would be fine. I went back to get more after they said their shipment would be in. They had no endler and only 2 of the variety of cory I had. I had bought guppies as well, and all 5 died. I am not going back to that store again. Do you think I should take the betta out just for feedings? I wanted it in a 10 gallon community tank. with endlers and corys

I have a male betta with 2 endler, 3 corys and a flag fish and a bunch of snails. I only give the betta 2 or max 3 betta beads a day. I am trying to also feed the other fish, but I think the betta is getting more of that food than he should. I sprinkle in a tiny bit of Xtreme flakes and Xtreme Nano pellets. Today I put half an algae pellet where the corys feed, and soon the betta eating a good bit of it. The betta is much rounder than when I bought him. He is always on the go. I often see him hunting around the stones over the pebbles and gravel where the scuds like to hide. I have seen him squeeze himself flat on his side to get under a rock and flush out a scud. When I put a betta mirror in the tank, he gets very excited and display, flares his gills, does a sort of shimmy swim and "drops a load" or 2 so I know he is not constipated. I take the mirror out if he starts slamming it, so it never stays in the full 5 minutes. I want all the fish in the tank to get a varied balance diet. What is a good approach to feeding this crew?

I'm going to gloss over a glossary for new Nerms: HOB Hang On Back. a filter that can hang on the back or side of a fish tank. If you take the cover off, you can stick plant cuttings into it. To save money, you can use polyester fiber fill from a craft store instead of expensive replacement filters LFS Local Fish Store I am pretty sure it in not a big box chain store, but I might be wrong LSF Long Shelf-life Food, not to be confused to LFS Community Tank tank with many different fish that get along well together Neighborhood Tank It is like a community tank, but the occupants argue about property lines and and who has been taking short cut across their lawn, and which food was intended for which fish, etc. EBA Electric Blue Acara not European Bank Authority This is just a start. Feel free to add to it.

@Chris I'm getting better at figuring out fishy acronyms, but what is EBA? Google says European Bank Authority

I let my fish toast the New Year with a fresh batch of baby brine shrimp. I don't think the new neon tetra babies had ever had them. It took them a moment to figure it out, but then they were off to the races. Happy New Year

I've read this thread and I have gotten an earworm: "How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?" (For those Nerms from PA, a woodchuck is a groundhog. but saying groundhog messes up the tongue twister. Try it, you will see) I walked along the shore today picking up drift wood for my planted tank build. It is all bleached by the sun and sanded smooth by the waves. No way of know what kind of wood it is. I think roots make the most interesting shapes. They have to work their way around rocks, that are invisible once it becomes driftwood. I have huge cooking pots, but nothing big enough to boil 3 foot long driftwood. How do you guys boil big pieces? I also have 2 boxwood bushes that someone uprooted and tossed in the compose area here. They are now on ther side in my yard to give the bird feeder birds shelter. They have great twisty roots, I don't know if boiled boxwood is safe for aquariums, do you? I wanted to make a wooden board frame with a screen bottom to look like a seawall. I would have plants above/behind the board and rocks and pebbles right in front and sand in front of that. I was planning on getting rough untreated lumberyard scraps of hardwood. Again, I don't have anything that I could use to boil a 20 something long board. (I could bake it, but not boil it.) I though a maple or beach board would look nice underwater. All thoughts are welcome !

Stainless steel does rust if in constant contact with water. Never use SS below the waterline on a boat hull. It will take a long time for the sink to rust through, but it will get rusty looking.

Happy New Year !!!! I wish great health to you and your family, friends and fishy friends !!!!!!!!!!! (28 minutes and counting on the East Coast)

@Cinnebuns If the metal doesn't discolor or get rough, it probably isn't reacting with the water and a few weeks shouldn't hurt.