jwcarlson

Ok, who's voting for the hermit crabs on a fish site? 😄

I'm going to assume she's eating because she's pooping. If her belly is, in fact, flat (doesn't necessarily look like it in the picture)... it might be a worm issue. Her poop looks white which can be indicative of worms, but I also wouldn't necessarily say that it looks like typical worm infestation poop... What do you feed them? Do you happen to have a microscope or know someone who does? Even one made for kids is probably acceptable. Personally, I'd probably worm the whole tank either way. Especially if it's never been done.

I've used about 2.5ppm of pure levamisole and I wish it would have killed all my bladder snails. I think it just made them stronger. Have also used it with assassins and MTS and seem to be unaffected. I will say an experimental high dose of metro (on a single discus) killed my assassins when I put them in the water forgetting that I hadn't done the tear down and clean.

These new-to-me apistos are the most hidey fish I have right now, I think. I've also got a bristlenose in my discus tank that is extremely good at hiding and even at the fully drained stage of a 90% water change after I added her, I could not find her. I kept checking under the driftwood and behind the filter thinking she might have sucked onto the glass and stayed there above the water. Finally on the 10th time I lifted up the driftwood she parachuted off and into the last inch of water. 😄 That's just where she hangs out, so now I know where to find her so she's less elusive. 😄

I age/aerate my water because my tap water is 7.0 pH (lots of dissolved CO2, I think) and when aged it jumps up to a pH of 8.2. Which is a pretty big swing in pH and can stress fish. If your tap water doesn't do anything like that and you can match temperature of the tank fairly closely... there's really no point in doing it. I still use Prime dosed at the volume of the whole tank when I do WC. It also becomes more important when you're doing big water changes. So the main driver for me is when I do 90% WC every night on my discus. I don't both aging or preheating water for topping off.

I don't worry much about it personally. Usually I try to do it just with room lights. But some "higher value" fish that I'm introducing I really want to see how they're reacting and it can basically be impossible with the lights off depending on the setup.

This morning she was hanging out in the cave a lot and Captain Dopey was more-or-less ignoring her affections. She's trying to herd him over to the cave and he just keeps milling around with mouthfuls of sand. She was getting pretty frantic with him, but I had to get to work so I couldn't enjoy all the festivities. They were exchanging tail whips in the middle of the tank then she would circle around trying to point him in the direction of the cave and he would just swim off in the other direction. I don't know if these two will ever get it together. I've read/watched a lot about apisto courting and observed a lot of it. It's just remarkable how uninterested she seems until seemingly like the moment she's going to start dropping eggs and then it's like she panics, she seemed almost distressed this AM that she couldn't get him back to the hut. Breathing heavy and everything. 😄 Hopefully it's all just a warm-up to her actually laying.

Well, I had kind of a big die off. Perhaps over feeding? I don't measure any ammonia or nitrite or nitrate, but maybe too much 'goop' even with daily vacuuming/cleaning. So I'm down to about 8 fry. And two of those don't seem to be eating or not eating much. So I'm a little perplexed. The ones that are eating look great and are growing well. And the last set of eggs they're hatching and disappearing like the last batch. I really do not understand that. Not sure what would eat them. It's almost like they're dissolving... I don't even see bodies, but I do see egg husks. Got some thinking to do. The female is probably ready to go again if I wanted her to. I think I'm going to focus on getting the biggest male which I had netted the first time. The tank is such a jungle it's tough to do though. I couldn't even find him last time. 😄 Anyway... here's to learnin'! 🥂

I know people frown on this sometimes, but in limited sample size for me... assassin snails have done pretty well on the bladder/pond/pest snails. They don't seem to do as well on MTS, though they haven't been exposed to them for long. Bladder snails have been a massive problem in my discus tank, but I am slowly bringing them under control my physical crushing and in depth cleaning (which is moderately easy with a bare bottom). Right now I feel like I am correcting the population in the right direction. But I might need the continual downward pressure of a few assassin snails to do that. I'm just too nervous to add them into my discus tank because I think the ones I bought were wild caught. Eventually I might get brave enough. I put 10 assassin snails and a bunch of bladder snails in a small container of tank water for a few days and I was amazed at how many of the snails they ate. Every bladder snail I put in was eaten. The MTS not nearly as much, but perhaps when they're more hungry they would. Right now they have basically eliminated the bladder snails in the tank they're in. All that said, they ate my rabbit snails. However, they seemed to have already been sick/dying for some unknown reason. Nothing else in the tank had an issue, but they just kept acting more and more strange. Possibly too much Easy Carbon? They haven't bothered the two nerites.

That's what I use. It might be a bit of a pain to do if there's not much clearance behind the tank, though. In that case it may be easier to use something more rigid that you can cut to size and tape or otherwise fasten on. My issue with most of that is I inevitably get water on it and it ends up looking trashy. 😄 I love the velimax stuff. I've also used some semi-opaque blue on my discus tank.

My experience with every brand of adjustable heater is that it might be kind of close for a bit, but as soon as you move it, all that's out the window and you can't get it back. I have everything cranked to max and use InkBirds. It's the way to go. They can be had for $25 at the moment on EBay and occasionally they'll dip down under $20.

Happens so quick... Though I don't think she is laying yet, maybe just cleaning. He is putting his nose through the hole like my dogs do through the basement cat door. Haha I'm not sure he can even fit his big head through the hole anymore. I need to get some larger caves.

Rocking some tannins now. This little one is out of hiding, sitting through tail whips, and even returning them. In between showing off her belly from across the tank. Maybe another go for them here soon.

@mountaintoppufferkeeper Did you make that breeding ring yourself or purchase it somewhere? I'd be interested in either the plans or the source.

If I want flake to sink fast I just put it under the water with my fingers and release it.

I currently have three (and a fourth on the way) type of test for pH and so far I don't really trust any of them. Especially the strips. I wouldn't worry much about pH at this point. pH can fluctuate between what comes out of your faucet and The bigger concern is that your tank looks uncycled, I think? 0 ammonia is good. 0 nitrite is good, but 0 nitrate is usually not good unless you have a lot of plants who are just eating it all or that you're doing so much water changes that it keeps it very low, which is possible. In regards to your trip, I wouldn't set up an auto feeder as that's kind of asking to have an issue with your water while you're gone. Your fish will be fine without food for four days. If the light isn't on a timer, I would just leave it off. Your heater should be on every hour of every day unless your house is warm enough that you don't need one or you are draining enough water out that it would expose it.

I often wonder how to tell when to change out this kind of stuff. I guess there's a sludgy brown color indicator? 😄

A couple of my Hongsloi females will come up to the brine shrimp syringe thing and bite the soft, orange tip of it, which I find hilarious. They even eat from the surface if the vibrabites or bug bites haven't sunk yet. At some point I'll get a video or picture of one of them doing it. It's just hard to attempt... need another hand. 😄 They certainly eat some BBS out of the water column, but I think they eat the vast majority of it off the bottom like you say. They've got sand in their mouths a lot if nothing else. So I do try to inject it a little farther down and this comically long coral feeding dodad helps with that.

I was lucky enough to win @tolstoy21's RAOK giveway for a pair of Apistogramma Abacaxis and received them a few days ago (March 31). Set them up a 20L... which has since cleared up pretty nicely. I will say that they are hide-and-seek champions! Though they are getting a bit more outgoing. They're getting baby brine shrimp twice a day. Tough to know how much they're eating. But even the Hongsloi that are out all the time don't seem to eat much BBS. I think they actually prefer to eat it once it settles down more onto the sand where they tend to collect up in little depressions and can be eaten in bigger bites. So maybe these little things are doing the same. In any event, it seems like they successfully acclimated and are settling it. Tolstoy's thread here for a picture of an adult male: I don't know why it quit letting me type. But there's really no update on the Hongsloi, they are... keeping on keeping on... no more near spawning activity right now, which is a little strange. Not sure what to make of that. The pairs are all kind of in a holding pattern. The pair that has spawned multiple times, the female spends a lot of time hiding from the male. The pair I thought was close to spawning just seems to be friendly and no closer to spawning. And then the last pair I still continue to believe the female might very well be a sleeper male. I've been considering moving one of them to a community tank and seeing if "she" starts coloring up without a male harassing.

Looking good, @Birdsnstuff!

That is an extremely long photo period, what kind of light do you have? Typically you'd be shooting for something about half that long or less. I struggle because I'm up early every day and then by the time I am home it would typically be well past a good photo period, so I divided mine up from 5-9 AM and 4-8 PM so that the tank lights are on around the times I'm typically most active with them.

That's beautiful! How long was it set up and how do you get over the hump before the waste produced can feed the plants? I ask because I had an inert gravel substrate and for over a year never vacuumed it. Also used root tabs and still just couldn't seem to get any stem plants to grow. I suspect my issue was the height of the tank, I just tore it down and into a 40B this weekend. But I'm still curious as to your ideas in regards to your tank!

That's about how many eggs I do and it's typically not cloudy unless I don't heat them at all and it goes quite a bit longer than typical. Which reminds me that I didn't put eggs in my 2nd hatcher this morning... that's going to be a monkey wrench in about a day. 😄

Looks like it is still one layer thick mostly. That's not even an infestation yet! 🤣

They recently changed locations, so possibly still stocking back up from that? I will say that almost always the stuff I would be interested in is OOS. But the email notification works pretty good for when it's back.