jwcarlson

Nothing says you care like dropping off a fish that can get two feet long and about 10 pounds into someone else's (small) tank. 😞

You can leave it float, it seems to do better floating for me personally. Or you can clip the main stem below the roots and plant it. Unrelated: Make sure your anubias in the bottom of the picture doesn't have its rhizome buried in the substrate. That usually causes issues! I made that mistake with anubias and java ferns when I first got plants and it was rough on them.

Nightly bottom siphon cleaning of the breeder box netted two fry in the bucket to rescue and I didn't even think I got close to any. Trying to keep it clean so it doesn't foul and kill all the little things. Everything is up and about free swimming as of this morning. They're certainly eating the fry powder, I'm doing a mix of Sera Micron and New Life Spectrum Grow Powder. Wondering how soon I could start adding some vinegar eels, the eels are so small... but I guess the fry are as well. I put a tiny bit of them in last night and didn't see anyone going after them, but it's hard to see. The vinegar eels I'm hoping I can feed and give them something to 'snack' on between feedings of fry powder. If I were at home all the time, I'd probably feed them 4+ times a day and bottom siphon a couple of times. But... I work so we'll have to see how these turn out. 🙂 Something to keep them consuming in between would help keep them growing, I'd think. I suppose the fry powder does circulate quite a while though. Right now I can feed them around 530 AM, 430 PM, and 8 PM either shortly before or after cleaning the bottom. I might consider a drip acclimation type setup that would drip some fry powder mixed with tank water every so often throughout the day... or at least I'll think it through and probably get too scared to do something like that worrying it will make matters worse. Still no idea how much I should be feeding these little things. I'm seeing their little bellies and the ones who have been free swimming longest do seem to have bigger bellies. They're mesmerizing me currently, I bet I watched them for 20 minutes pecking away at fry powder in the water column last night. And during my whirlwind sweep through the fish room this AM I had to catch myself otherwise I'll end up wasting away to nothing down there on my bucket. 😄 All of this will be much easier when they get to BBS eating size in... a few weeks? Here's a short video of them.

I have no idea. How could one tell?

I've got one that kind of half pumps. I just use a plastic pipette.

The dithers has been a thought for awhile. I might end up there. Which I struggle with. I don't care to require more maintenance, which is my main hesitation. Been thinking about some pencil fish if I go that route. Don't want something that's going to surprise breed for me and then I have an endler tank with two apistogrammas at the bottom. 😄

They get it (BBS) twice a day, plus occasional frozen blood worms, freeze-dried tubifex worms, Fluval Bug Bites, Hikari Vibra Bites, and some smaller pellets made by an individual named Paul. The name of his company is escaping me at the moment. Fish Guy Paul or Paul the Fish Guy... something like that. BBS is, by far, the majority of their diet. Edit: here it is, he's got lots of cultures and stuff too. https://fishguysplace.com/index.html

Could always do a 5 gallon bucket. You can probably keep two pest snails in a thimble and they'd reproduce. You just might not get so many of them. Or do you even need two of them... don't some snails reproduce asexually?

Nothing since the 6th, but it's possible she's 'nested' in the filter because I just catch a glimpse of her occasionally. By in the filter, I mean behind the left side of this one between the foam and the uplift tube. Unless she's just trying to hide out in there, but that would be very abnormal behavior. No clue if the male could do his job near a filter that like... add that to the list of perplexing things going on with this pair. If she does have eggs back there that would make a 5th spawn in a total of 5 different locations... or maybe it's 6 spawns in 6 locations... I can't remember. She did use the same cave twice and in the 4th spawn used two locations, so bonus location on that one. 😄 Not sure I want to select for this type of decision making. haha I'm guessing I'll get fry when I quit looking and I'm super busy at work for a week or something. That would make the most sense.

The two that haven't spawned yet... one pair seems pretty lovey. She's pretty consistently lighter colored, especially in the mornings. I have a pretty good feeling that they'll eventually spawn. The other one though... I don't think he's going to kill her and if anything his persuit has waned a bit. She just seems totally uninterested. Pretty dark color most of the time. Hides out in the betta log I put in "just in case" though he doesn't usually come above the bottom half of the tank to sniff around her much. She's the most interactive of all of them, she'll come eat out of the brine shrimp syringe if I put it into the water. Like clamp onto it like a bottle. 😄 And the pair that spawned is acting strange as well... since their last little... episode. It could be that she's just hanging out in the filter as her next cave though. I can't see in behind it (it's one of those suction to the wall with two "can" style filters. I'm thinking maybe she spawned in there this weekend. She just kind of disappeared. Male is just cruising around and totally ignoring her. So... who knows. Feels like she broke after that last spawn in two caves event. 😄 Glad I got three pairs because if I'd have received just one of any of these three I could be even more confused. haha

I punted on Childhood's End, I think I made it 40 pages... just wasn't for me. I finished Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy this morning, it was entertaining. I have no idea what I'm going to read next, but I pulled David Peace's Nineteen Seventy-Four off the shelf this morning. Don't know if I'll stick with that or not. It was 5 AM and I needed to get the fish fed, dogs fed, and myself off to work. 😄 So will have to review the shelf again. I might have to dip back into The Wheel of Time... feels like it's about time.

Quite a few more had lifted off this AM. I *think* they're eating from the fry powder cloud. At least they seemed semi-excited and seemed to be making little micro motions like they were biting something.

Interesting, I have heard lots of conflicting water info! They were very small from Aqua Huna in November, been feeding BBS twice a day for about the last two months.

I guess they take a LONG time to go free swimming. There's a handful of them doing so now. I have never fed fry powder and unsure how much to do, but I will figure it out... Hopefully. There's about 5 swimming quite a bit. Still a total of something around 25, but they're next to impossible to count!

I would guess them being tolerant is likely to change as the new males age into maturity. But like I said, I've not kept the little things. 🙂

It's rounding to two digits. You can mouse over and see the actual number.

We were watching Lowell's Fish Lab scarlet badis breeding video last night and my daughter was like "WE'VE GOT TO BREED THOSE!" Cool video and pics, that's a very white female!

I cannot imagine they wouldn't benefit from a larger setup. It's rare that fish wouldn't, especially territorial ones. I don't have any experience with shell dwellers, but have kept lots of cichlids over the years. Plants are pretty well always going to be an issue for most of them. One option would possible be to pot some of them to get them up off the bottom and maybe out of the fray. Otherwise floaters might be pretty safe, but with such a low footprint the roots are going to hang down 2-4" for most types and that might end up being an issue.

I think my chickens are too spoiled or something. They eventually ate it or scratched it in (before I eliminated it) and they eventually eat dwarf water lettuce now, but they never seem eager. Years ago I set up a japansese beetle trap that just funnelled the beetles into a dish of water and the chickens could eat them. It was a bad year for them and I caught GALLONS of them. Unbelievable numbers. At first the chickens were eating them ravenously. But I don't think they've touched them since. If I catch them I'll throw them to them and they seem uninterested. They also don't seem to care much for earth worms. But when it rains there are TONS of those so they see them and probably eat them a lot. They still love grubs that me or the kids dig up though. They'll ruin the dang yard if they start finding some grubs.

Your duckweed is probably just waiting. 🤣

Cory's got a great point on the bowing. Fill up a plastic tote with water and it wants to bow and (ultimately) lay flat. I don't know the answer for resolving that indoors. You could probably sink some bolts into the concrete and bolt some sort of bollard in a few places along the length, perhaps supporting between the bollards as well by tying them together. Also consider that on the back side the same stresses are occurring and it will be pushing against concrete at the bottom foot or so and then it's open to the wall above that, which may cause weird stresses on that side. Otherwise... interested to see how it goes for you. How do you plan to heat it? Not sure where you live, but there's likely to be a humidity/condensation issue in the room. Especially in the winter.

Started doing this awhile back and it has worked perfectly for me every time since. The biggest tipping point was when I mail ordered discus from Discus Hans (Stendker discus at the time) and it said to plop-and-drop. I thought why not do it with everything if discus do well with it? Now, I'm pretty much always guaranteed to be going up in pH from whatever they're in as most everything I keep is in 8.2. I've heard going up in pH is easier than going down. But there's also plenty of people discus people who move their fish from tap water into straight RO for breeding purposes without much preamble and they don't have issues. I think more often than not factors outside of acclimation might be the bigger deal, but they're harder to identify.

They are pretty skittish. I will say that mine have gotten a bit more social once the jungle really grew in. They're beautiful, though! And pretty active even if you don't see them. Sometimes have to sit and watch them for a bit and remain still. Baby brine shrimp really seems to get them out and about, but even with dry food they come out and show themselves.

I do levamisole in quarantine, but nothing else unless I see symptoms of something. Between the two you have, ParaCleanse is prazi and metro, I think while PraziPro is only prazi. That said, I don't know that I would do anything unless you see symptoms. How long have you had the CPDs? Do you feel like they're gaining mass as they should?

Sorry about your snail. 😞