Jen777

Here are some top-down pics from today. You should be able to zoom in for more detail. Let me know what you think. He’s up and around a little more this afternoon.

10G Betta tank with suspected columnaris. Take a look at the pics and let me know what you think about the diagnosis! Onset: 6 days ago, white patch behind his head suddenly appeared. Hasn’t seemed to get worse or better. He is more lethargic than normal, but is still eating and occasionally swimming around the tank (not just up for air). Fin rot seems slightly better now but is still severe compared to what he had before this started. Current treatment: water change and gravel vac immediately and again yesterday; darkness in the tank for four days and now limited lighting, Ich-X (5mL), and Maracyn (1 packet). Left the Ich-X and Maracyn to sit for three days, did a 30% water change and re-treated with both yesterday. (Yes, I did a water change but wasted a couple days trying to figure out what it was before medicating!) Thinking of treating with kanaplex, but have qualms because it’s a heavily planted tank, with a nerite and otos in it that might also suffer or die. Thoughts? This is following a bout of BGA from lack of nutrients, and fin rot from the nasty BGA tank conditions until I got it figured out, killed, and now mostly cleaned up (there’s probably a random dead piece in the gravel). Previous fin rot and BGA were treated with two rounds of maracyn two weeks apart, one round of Paracleanse, big water changes and plant prunings, and more consistent ferts. Tank is recovering and looking much better, but betta’s fin rot is worse again and now he has a big white-tinged patch. He does have the marble gene, and he is just over a year old (he’s been with me a year and was a medium-sized juvie when I bought him). This appeared very suddenly about 6 days ago, more than a week after the last rasbora death. After researching, I found that kanaplex was probably my best bet, but I don’t want to lose my corkscrew vals or my other plants, or my otos, or my nerite, and seachem says it is hard on inverts and plants and some scaleless fish. On other forums, people say most of their nerites survived, and all their plants survived, but they didn’t have vals (which can be more sensitive). Nobody said anything about otos. Parameters: pH: 7.8 Ammonia: 0 Nitrites: 0 Nitrates: 10 Temp: 79.5F KH was high last time I checked it, but I haven’t checked it in a while because it remained steady for a long time and I do regular water changes with tap water and it is fairly hard tap water. I always have to double-dose my Prime because of the chloramines present in my tap water. Other tank inhabitants: 3 otos, one zebra nerite, 2 emerald-eye rasboras (2/4 rasboras died suddenly after I added the otos two weeks ago; no symptoms…betta may have reacted to more stock being added to his happy equilibrium and killed them…or maybe columnaris killed them due to their own stress after the otos). If this was columnaris, wouldn’t the betta most likely be dead already? Or noticeably worse? Wouldn’t the other rasboras or the otos be showing signs of it too? (They’re not, even though I know the rasboras are stressed from losing their school from the way they hang out with their reflections and zip around.)

I usually add Seachem Reef Calcium for calcium supplementation for my mystery and nerite snails. This time I bought the wrong thing and didn’t realize it until I opened it—this time I got Reef Complete, which has magnesium and strontium added. Anybody use this or know if it will be ok in a freshwater planted tank with rainbowfish, tetras, and cories? I had just poured the first capful (20G dose) into my 55G tank when I realized it was a different color, so I didn’t put a full dose in yet.

YES! Exactly what I was thinking! Even just an auto-dosing pump that was small and unobtrusive enough to put on a 10G, that I could just set up on a schedule, would be great! And even more fantastic would be something like a little robot to add root tabs in all around your tank on a schedule...something that of course would be "floataway-tab-proof" as well. I have reminders set up to repeat on a schedule for each tank in my app...but I still haven't gotten the consistency that I want.

Yes, I put a large size of one of those (it's about 2 ft. long) in my pond to catch all the koi and goldfish babies a couple years in a row...then I gave them away. They work great, but don't forget to put food on the inside. It never catches them "all" in my pond, but I definitely went from uncountable hundreds (maybe literally 1000+) to 5 that escaped and have now grown up (I'm sure more escaped but were eaten by their parents and the catfish that used to be in the pond at the time). You can also make a similar trap for pest snails from pop bottles (but for snails, I think hand-picking them out whenever you see them works the best and is the least amount of hassle in the end).

Mine seem to be doing ok—not starving—but I only see them go after the occasional tiny crushed piece of vibra bites. They don’t go after the crushed up flakes at the top at all and obviously can’t eat the larger pellets the rainbowfish eat… I am looking for something I can mix together with the rainbowfish pellets in the auto feeder that will come out somewhat proportionately.

What do you guys find is the food your ember tetras like best? And has anybody figured out an optimal mix of dry foods to put in a community tank autofeeder together (rainbowfish, tetras, cories, snails)?

Hi Everybody! Thank you, Cory, for creating this forum—I am so happy I discovered it today, and I can’t wait to meet the rest of you guys and see what you are up to! I’ve been an educator since 1995, a special educator focusing on autism and related disorders since 2009, a mom and special needs mom since 1997 (5 kids, 4 grown), a grandma and special needs grandma (3 grandkids) since 2017, and an author, dog-lover, and fish-lover since…well, forever. I have three dogs, all rescues: a 10 year old male Chessie (brown) an 11 year old female lab/german shepherd/golden mix who has always looked like a chocolate lab puppy with funny half-cocked ears and a pointier nose a 2 year old male corgi/beagle/basset mix who is constantly walking the line of perpetrating enough mischief to warrant a death sentence and making the most of his "Cute and Cuddly" (and fluffy) to get forgiven again. I have been keeping fish since 1997…mostly mbuna. A year ago I started doing planted tanks and I am loving it (and learning a lot the hard way…) I am currently running: a 10G betta/emerald-eye rasbora/mystery/nerite tank a 55G parkinsoni rainbowfish/diamond tetra/ember tetra/emerald cory/spotted cory/mystery/nerite tank, a 75G mbuna (kenyi, red zebra, OB zebra, maingano, electric yellow) and featherfin squeaker (synodontis eupterus catfish) tank, and a 3-5000G koi and goldfish pond.