KittenFishMom

@nabokovfan87 I have kept wild fish in very large totes. The sides spread out and keeping the water at a level that works for an HOB is very tricky. Also, I don't have a place for a large tote inside. I have to move things around to make a footprint for the 12 gallon tote I use to mix R/O water for changes. If I put fish in the 12 gallon tote, I can't do water changes. If I put the large tote outside, the raccoons try to fish in them, the chipmunks fall in and sometimes don't find the escape stick before they sink. Not to mention all the flying insects that will lay eggs in the water. The leeches seems to have finished off all the shrimp. So I don't have to worry about their population exploding. The neon tetras have kindly never bred. The same for the male bettas. Now I'm wondering if the hillstream loaches will start producing when I'm not watching. I think they are still too young. I will have to find out if they are different sexes and boot the females soon.

I'm planning to take down and clean all my tanks this summer. I'm hoping I can rehome the fish, but it isn't likely. The person that was taking them is now ill and will need surgery this summer. I have given her more than 200 peppered cory, and there is still a hord or them in my 55 tank. I'm thankful for RR for the plants, but I don't have any place big enough for the remaining corries. It is my own fault. I didn't think corries would breed like guppies. I keep finding mystery snail eggs clutches too. I have got to only get males of any species from here on out ! Babies are sweet but I have no place to get rid of them. I don't want to get into shipping living beings.

@Sev_Angel I never keep turtle (hatchlings or otherwise) very long. Usually just over night. If they eat when they get to a good temp, I let the go. If they eat the next day I let them go. I don't catch turtles if they are doing well. This little one was very cold and not moving well. I toyed with the idea of keeping him for the summer, but quickly decided not to. I just wanted to get him outside when it was not so cold and rainy and dark. I have now seen 3 crushed tiny turtles on our dead end dirt road. So I think I did the right thing to bring him inside. If he look injured, I would have called a wildlife rehabilitator. I live on the lake and am very protective of the native plant and animal life here. I am also very protective of salamanders when I see them spring and fall. I do go out of my way to catch the big apple snails. They are invasive and bad news. I also catch jumping worm and break them up and feed them to the lake fish. The jumping worms are bad news for the forests. I don't know if I make a difference, but I try to do the right thing.

@nabokovfan87 and @Biotope Biologist and @Shrimpee I did get a UVB/heat light for him. When he wasn't successfully eating anything I put in the water, including wiggling worm parts, I knew I needed to release as soon as we got a warm day. He is a painted turtle. I saw one of his sibling crushed on the road, and as I said there were birds like crows and gulls flying around where I found him. I figured he had a better chance of getting to the lake if I kept him for a few days. If he had taken to the food I could provide for him I would have kept him one day long because today is warmer than yesterday . As it was, I knew he needed to find something to eat. so I let him go as soon as we had a warm sunny day. I would have continued to feed him in the water. I wouldn't want a turtle to lose its ability to scavenge for food. I often find a small turtle that got too warm or cold and benefits from a day or 2 of R&R and protection from being eaten, before being released. This was the first time I found one when it was too cold for the turtle to move well, so I brought it inside for its R&R. In the past, I have always been able to feed them earthworms if I found the right size. This guy wasn't able to eat the worms I found. I did a bunch of weeding to find tiny and small worms. When he woulds strike at the tiny worm, the current from his head pushed them away. If he bit a small worm, he couldn't rip it apart. I tried making smaller bits of the bigger worms, but never saw him eat one. He knows how to find his food, so I let him go as soon as we got a warmer day.

This is a snail breeding question, but hopefully this is right spot. The water is a bit higher than normal in my tank right now. I saw to snails mating. How soon will the eggs be produced? I don't have a lid on the tank, so the water will drop slowly. (I replace evaporated water with straight RO water) I'm wondering if I should bring it down sooner, or if the mom to be will wait until there is enough dry space for her eggs. I collect the egg clutches for a friend to hatch.

The weather warmed up today and I put the turtle on the lake shore and he made a beeline for the waves. I was worried it was too rough and pulled him out and onto the shore and he ran back into the lake. He wasn't really eating for me. I'm sure he will be better at finding his food in the lake than I was on shore. I tried 2 "hatchling" foods and several worms of different sizes. He would bit at the worms, but he seemed to push them away as he bit. I'm hoping he has had a good dinner and is resting now.

I put the eggs in May 1st. I forgot about turning off the HOB. I'm hoping it all works out well. There are cory fry in the tank, but they don't tend to notice or eat thing that are not on the bottom of the tank. Maybe the HOB will work to keep them up and in open water, away from the fry. I'll let you know.

I found a newly hatch baby turtle at the bottom of the cliff today. It was a cold day with a very cold wind and rain. He was hardly moving. I knew some bird would eat him before he reached the lake. I have him in shallow water with flat rocks sticking out and pebbles on the bottom and hornwort and duckweed. (And an IAL form one of my fish tanks of course) Once he got warm he started moving much more, and much faster. I'm not sure if I will try to keep him for the summer or let him go when the weather warms up in a few days. I offered him some frozen blood worms, but he wasn't interested. I learned he should have a steady temp, and fresh clean water and UVB light. I can offer the steady temp, very small live worms from outside. fresh clean water, and plant grow lights. Will the grow lamps/ fish tank lights give him what he needs to make vitamin D? I can buy a UVB light and it will be here Friday, if he needs one. I won't try to keep him over the winter. I will do my best by him. I know he would have been eaten by gulls or ravens if I hadn't picked him up. They were flying around, probably getting others from the same nest. What should I offer him to eat? I would like it to be as close to a turtle's normal wild diet. I can catch little things in the shallow water. The water plants haven't really started but I saw some green algae(probably) on some rocks close to shore. I will do research, but any advice is more than welcome. I have a mosquito net for aquatic insect larva. I am not sure which type of turtle he is. He currently has a red belly, but I think that will fade. I never saw an adult with a red belly. He has stripes on his neck and yellow where I have seen others with red. I will photo him tomorrow. He has had a big day today. He needs his rest. Morning photo

oops post in the wrong place.

@Hellhounds Keep reading the forum and you will be offering help to others like the rest of us in no time. We all need to thank Cory for setting this supportive place up !

@Bev C I learned from youtube. Youtube never rolls its eyes if you make it back up and show you a stitch again. Youtube doesn't notice if you ask 15 different people to show you how to do a stitch. You can found out lots of different ways to hold yarn and needles. One is likely to work for you. I recommend starting with cotton dishcloths or washcloths. They really clean well and no one cares if your early ones aren't perfect. The cotton doesn't knot up like fuzzy yarns while you backup a few stitches. Try it, you'll like it.

19 baby guppies in a 10 gallon doesn't sound like too many fish. Store bought guppies have a reputation for having been stressed in the store before you get them. Mutt guppies can be very tough and strong. Some guppies that are breed just for looks can be very fragile. You might want to call the store any see if anyone else has had problems with these guppies. Some say stores underfeed their fish so the tanks don't take so long to clean. This can weaken the fish if they are there for long. I bought a betta who looked undersized to me. When I put him in the tank he went after any food like there was no tomorrow. Then I noticed the date on the lid was from more than a month ago. I had a "season sponge filter" I was keeping in a tank, but when I added fish, the cycle crashed because I had not been "ghost feeding" the cycle. You need to feed the tank like the fish are in it to get the cycle ready for the fish. Ghost feeding is important if you are going to add a lot of fish. To me, 19 baby fish isn't a lot. I think people asking about pH want to know your tap pH, you normal tanks normal pH and the QT tanks pH before and after the pH shot up. Those are 4 numbers that you may have given, but doing it again all in one post might help folks help you.

@H20 Plecos You would have to modify a baseball cap:

@nabokovfan87 and @Lennie IT WORKED !!! I trapped the cory fry tonight. The first round took about 10 minutes and there were got 45 fish in the trap! Each round after that caught fewer, but I would say we got 85 to 90% just using the trap. I'm so happy to catch the fish so easily. I never put a net in the tank. The plants were not bother at all. We did catch several neon tetras and a kuhli loach. Trying to net the kuhli in a round bucket drive both of us crazy. I finally got him back in the tank. I will use a square or rectangle bucket next time.

@tanked Amazon sells smaller pieces. That is where I got mine. It is expensive because of the shipping. (I have Prime, but it wasn't covered by Prime) They sell different strengths and styles, so make sure the piece is the same color/clarity and same thickness if you want it to match a piece you already have.

@Fish Folk Please read all the way to the P.S. I put loops of air hose floating in front of the HOBs to keep the water lettuce from floating too close to the output and getting wet on top. sort of a 6-10 inch feeding ring if you will. RR is Reverse Respiration. Folks on CARE researched, If you cover plants or equipment or anything in club soda or seltzer water and put it in the dark for 12 hours, them put it in oxygenated water for an hour (I think) it kills algae, snails, anything that need oxygen. It is wonderfully non-toxic, and kills everything: I have been battling leeches from plants I got out of the lake in the fall: There, I think I answered all your questions. If I missed something, let me know. I'll even add a PS about training my cory fry. KittenFishMom P.S. I'm training my cory fry to go into bottle traps and stay calm:

I know water lettuce doesn't like getting the top sides of its leaves wet. I finally made air hose rings in front of my HOBs and got the water lettuce to grow well. Now I want to put it through RR to rid it of the leeches I'm battling. Before I bag it up and sink it in vast quantities of seltzer for 12 hours, does anyone know if it is apt to live through the process? My Java moss did great in the past, my hornwort didn't do well. I hate to waste the seltzer if being underwater for 12 hours is going to kill it. I can test a small amount, but if someone already has it would save me some time.

@Colu A friend use to say: "If you think all your problem are your bad luck, you luck will not change." It wasn't bad luck that I got leeches, It was not being smart enough to avoid using untreated lake plants.

@Colu I always think of you as the go to person when a cure for a problem is needed. Thank you for all your help in the past and in the future.

I so want to rid my tanks of leeches. Does anyone know a faster better way than I describe below? @Colu, @Biotope Biologist, @nabokovfan87, @Guppysnail, and anyone else who may know about leeches. Last fall before I knew about RR, I set up a Walstad style tank. I didn't have a lot of plants on hand, so I saved a bunch from the lake. I looked them over carefully, but some leeches made it into that 55 gallon tank. I very very carefully set up a second 10 gallon tank with new plants and new substrate. I cleaned the filter with salt and peroxide. Somehow the leeches spread to that tank. I am guessing a bit of plant stuck to a net, or my arm. I then set up 2 new tanks, being even more careful because I was going to move the livestock into those tanks when I took down and cleaned the 2 tanks with leeches. As soon as the cory fry leave, I was going to start those projects. Today, while I was catching cory fry, I found a leech in one of the 2 leech-free tanks. A few days before finding that leech, I moved some extra water lettuce from that tank to the other leech-free tank. I no long think either leech-free tanks are leech-free. I no longer have good a cycled tank to put the livestock and plants in (after RR cleaning) while I rebuild any of the tanks. I have been manually removing every leech I find every evening after lights out, using a flashlight to find them. I am pretty sure they are living off the young ramshorn because of some experiments I have been doing to try to find their food source. All the tanks have lots of ramshorn snails. I am so discouraged. I know it is very hard to get rid of leeches, once they get established. The only thing I know that will do it, is to remove everything and clean the tank, filters and hardscape, scrubbing with a paste of salt and vinegar., then rinsing completely several times, and letting the tank dry to bone dry for several days. Then start over with new substrate, new filter media, plants that made it through RR and livestock you have been watching for and signs of leeches. Of course, first you have to cycle a tank for the livestock, and keep it leech free until all the leeches and eggs are gone. Does anyone know a better way to get tanks to be leech free? I have fish, shrimp, snails, plants, and don't forget leeches. I might try to give away the shrimp. I'm not a fussy person, but I hate the sight of leeches inching across the glass. Carefully picking them out by hand while trying not to let them drop their eggs or young is not showing any sign of slowing the population down. Thank you in advance.

@Cory maybe slippers? @Cory or mitts?

and a fancy goldfish

@nabokovfan87 https://www.ravelry.com/account/login has several patterns. You can make it look like your favorite fish if you plan carefully and you knit or crocket. Just set up an account, it is free and safe and search on fish. Here is a little puffer fish @Cory

I was planning on taping over the open edges to keep water and algae etc out. Have picked a tape yet. Any recommendations on tape that will stay stuck and make a good seal? I was toying with the idea of electrical tape, but it might be toxic over time.

@Lennie Which is amazing? the hat or the trainer?