jwcarlson

@StevesFishTanks I have a pretty old FoodSaver that I bought on sale probably close to a decade ago. I use it for sous vide, biltong, and longer term storage of stuff. I'd buy something affordable that gets good reviews. There's a lot more options now than 10 years ago.

Make yourself a system that makes a water change easy. I added a bunch to a new tank and jacked up the cycle. Been doing twice daily 40% water changes checking with strips in the evenings. Today nitrites were finally low (not zero, but nearly so). So skipped tonight and will do it in the AM. I just age a bucket of water next to the tank with spare heater so it's warm. My tap water pH swings 1.0+ higher, so aged is the way to go for me. And an empty bucket is staged there with siphon. Takes a couple minutes while I'm checking for bacterial infection I'm fighting as well. If I had to gather stuff and fill buckets it would take twice as long. But this is pretty darn efficient. You can WC your way though it. And with your currently light stocking maybe it's less frequently required.

Can I dose Kanaplex in water AND in food? I am 4 days into it in feed and it seems to be having good results, but a couple cardinals aren't eating much even given the opportunity. Or would it be best to feed it out the rest of the week and see what happens?

I've never had them until a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately they came in with *something* that we're still sorting out. But they're clearing up and they're really fun to watch. Excited to get them out of QT and into the 75.

Totes are pretty cheap and the heavy duty-er ones can probably hold water reliably at least temporarily.

I have a dedicated raw food freezer for our dogs and cats, so that shouldn't be too much of a deal for me. Wife already knows I'm nuts. 🙂

Does anyone freeze or refrigerate excess dry foods to extend their shelf life? I'm sure I'm not the only one who tends to over buy fish food. Truthfully, I probably have well over a year's worth considering the Aquarium Co-Op fry food, Xtreme Krill Flakes, freeze dried blood worms, and various wafers/shrimp stuff. I'm used to oscars blowing through Hikari BioGold many years ago so this wasn't ever much of a concern. Any special guidelines for doing this? I can vacuum seal if that would be a better idea, but considering the almost non-existent moisture content, I'm not sure how much that would help. What I'm picturing is me having a smaller secondary container that I go put some frozen dry food into when I'm empty of a certain type. A couple weeks' worth or something like that.

@BATAll that way over on the very eastern tip in Clinton. Born and raised. I did live in Cedar Rapids for about five years right out of college.

I had oscars when I was first into the hobby (15 years ago). I never tried any live plants with them. But anything big enough to be moved, will be moved. Large driftwood and a big terracotta pot were about the only things that didn't get rearranged every single day. Notice the lack of fake plastic in Spike's tank here. Any plastic plants were torn into pieces if I left them in there long enough. 😄 I guess my advice would be kind of like gambling... go in expecting to lose everything you're willing to risk. And if you make it out with something, good for you. Even anchoring them under large rocks... it just gave him something to pull against. Before: After: Squirt was a little more gentle. But there just wasn't much point in trying. I've really kicked around the idea of getting an oscar again, but it's a lot of tank to dedicate to just one fish. Super fun fish though, they're really a hoot, Spike would jump up out of the water and grab his pellets from your fingers and would get VERY excited whenever anyone came in the back door (facing his tank), but would absolutely get most excited for me.

Etsy dawned on me yesterday after this post, didn't look too extensively, but almost all say they won't ship in cold. At least one had a vold weather add on for $3. But I can't imagine $3 paying for a heat pack? I'll do some more digging, thanks for the leads!

I'm looking for some water lettuce, red root, and maybe something else if I can find some cool stuff. Finding some available, but most of them won't ship when it's cold. I'm in Iowa, so... it's cold. I've gotten plants from Aquarium Co-Op in the bitter cold without issue, but... much to my chagrin, they don't sell floating plants. 😞 Thanks!

So here's what I ended up with. Hole in the wall, hose drops down through the floor, runs/supported by the floor joists over to the laundry sink, then it drops in. Normally this hose will just be in the sink so any time I need to I can hook up gravel vac upstairs and start a siphon that drains to the sink. I've tested this and the flow rate is sufficiently slow that the sink/drain "stays ahead". So siphoning water is simple. Then to refill, if all I want to straight tap, I can just hook it up to the python "pump" dodad. I put in cold water bypass around the soft water for the cold water in the laundry sink. To refill with aged, preheated water, I have a 32 gallon trash can that has a heater and air stone. There's a ~$60 submersible pump that I bought that then pumps that water up out of the can and out of the gravel vac. The pump is connected to a Kasa WiFi outlet so I can turn it on/off remotely (from upstairs) so that I don't have to run back/forth for that (or if I'm refilling two tanks or something). I do have to move the connect the hose when I want to fill, but that's not a big deal at all. Refilling the trash can is from the sink, just a short piece of hose from the Python pump into the bucket which is adjacent to the sink, it fills pretty quick so standing there waiting isn't too big of a deal. Once I make sure this all works like I want, I might do a little more permanent plumbing/valving so that I don't have to connect/disconnect hosing... I'd just have to change the valve line-up.

Yep, looked through your other post and it does look just like one of the females you posted. Thank you! Well dang... lol

Now wondering if mine is also not a honey gourami... Not always so sad looking, but I flipped the lights on and he (?) isn't happy 😄

Not a huge sample size, but I got one (just a regular "black" bristlenose) about 10 days ago. Did the same thing with a part of a wafer. Never sniffed it. I thought that was strange as my common pleco 15 years ago always seemed to love them. This new one seems pretty aloof, but it's certainly active. It's eating something (probably all the weird biofilm stuff on the driftwood?). Not bloated by any means, but it's not a nice little ponch on it now... and it's pooping (when is a pleco no pooping?). Doesn't seem to be touching algae at all, but that's probably because it's got something else it likes better. Which I would imagine is the case with yours as well. 🙂

I did a dummy move and ordered all the plants I wanted for my 75 right before buying a good portion of the community that's going in there so that I could QT them. Now the QT tank is very well over stocked with both fish and plants. But at least the plants help with being overstocked on fish! There might be a good chance of "getting away with" not cleaning/sterilizing the whole tank, it's just something I'd be really hesitant to do personally.

Maybe... but here's the thing... the "ich" went away almost entirely well before I started the medicated feed. HOWEVER, the cardinals certainly got something in the fray. The rummynose went from some spots 10 days ago, spots increased (and seemed to constantly change) for about 7 days while I was dosing Ich-X every 12-24 hours). I made the observation that the longer the time went between treatments, the better the fish looked. Meaning fish dosed in the AM looked worse at 4 PM then they did immediately prior to their AM treatment. That didn't add up to me. Admittedly there was also ammonia and nitrite issues in the meantime, so none of this is anything than a half-baked theory. But I'm not so sure it wasn't ich, stress ich, and epistylis. The last being a secondary infection after ich started to clear. At this point all I can do is keep observing and keep the water safe for them. Which pretty much describes fish keeping in general. 😄

I think I'd gut the thing and 'sanitize' it, personally. Native fish (as you note) actively live with all sorts of pathogens that we can't really imagine. Seems kind of risky to me. You can get some seeded media from another tropical tank? Or maybe you don't have one currently. In any event, I think I'm all for option 2.

Are you still actively adding ammonia at all?

@xXInkedPhoenixX Yeah, our tap water comes from aquifers where the water filters down through all of the limestone here in Iowa and is just about what most people would call "liquid rock". Ruins appliances, leaves white powder on everything, nothing rinses clean. Perfect African cichlid water (probably?). But not necessarily so perfect for other stuff. Comes out of the tap at pH of 7 and ages up to a pH of ~8. So it apparently also has a lot of carbon dioxide in it. TDS on aged water pushes 500. To combat it water "softeners" are a big thing here. It's ion exchange that has a resin that strips minerals and replaces them with sodium (usually two sodium for one mineral is my understanding). TDS on my "soft" water is like 1200. I don't use that stuff in the tanks (anymore, I used to mix it to get to temp as our hot water is always "softened"). When I was originally in the hobby (15 years ago) it always scared me away from (my dream fish) discus, but have been pretty re-assured by a number of people that the pH and hardness won't really be an issue for growing out/keeping discus. So I do want to give that a shot soon. On this tank's front, almost no white spots on the fish this AM. I think I saw <5 spots total on the eight rummynose. Will just keep on keeping on (daily ~25% water changes and medicated feed 2x a day) for the time being, everyone seems to be OK other than looking a little ragged from whatever cropped up and now seems to be receding. I've never dealt with "stress ich", but it seems really strange that when I quit treating with Ich-X that it went away. I'm now back to original temperature ~78 degrees and no treatments in the water (except whatever dissolves from the food).

Minor quibble, but that's a cardinal tetra, not a neon. And it sounds like dermocystidium. From: How do I treat Dermocystidium - Practical Fishkeeping

Didn't originally mention this... I'm not sure about the legality and restrictions for travel and wherever you're coming from and going back to, but picking up some meds might be a great idea while you're in the country.

Pretty massive buffer (I think). KH is 16 degrees in tap. Also, I am not positive, but I believe it's more toxic at HIGHER pH, not lower. And yes, talking medicated feed. It says 1-2 times a day for a week.

Less than 10 "spots" this evening. Fins look a bit ragged (assuming former "cysts" or infected areas get wrecked that makes sense). Changed water and fed Kanaplex/Focus/Garlic Guard mix according to directions. All were happy to eat. Ammonia at zero now, still some nitrites, nitrates much higher so whatever is going on hopefully its settled in shortly. PH on this tank is in the 6.5ish range. Says to feed for a week, does that seem reasonable?

George Farmer has like 100 amano shrimp (and some number of cherry shrimp as well, I think) in his planted discus tank. At 82*