Jump to content
Watch our video on the rules of this forum.

Greg Stewart

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    96

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Feedback

    0%

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Greg Stewart

  1. Greg Stewart
    I will try to get it done this weekend... with photos, and links, and all manner of chaos to enjoy.
  2. Greg Stewart
    I love it! I am in the middle of writing up the beginning of a General topic on cable/hose management tips and accessories so people can add their own suggestions. I've just been horribly distracted this week. I do believe there is hope for you, though. As long as you don't trip and get dragged by those wires into a void where no one can find you 😉
  3. Greg Stewart
    @onlywei Boiling/sterilising your filter will kill your cycle. You can do it, but then you have to recycle the tank. If you are planning to rebuild the tank sooner than one or two months, then you can go this route, but the new cycle could slow you down delay your adding fish. If you do choose to sterilise the filter, just make a 5% bleach solution (1 part plain laundry bleach and 9 parts water), and soak the submersible filter parts for 10 to 15 minutes. Rinse well in warm tap water, then soak for 30 minutes in a bucket of water treated with your usual water dechlorinator to deactivate the bleach. You don't need to boil it. I do feel that keeping the biofilter that's already established is a better way to go, though.
  4. Greg Stewart
    @onlywei Yeah, rinse any bio media (ceramics, stones, "special" sponges, etc.) gently, and just keep that going. I toss out polishing floss on a regular basis, so I'd recommend just starting fresh with any fiber pads or "poofs". You certainly don't want to kill that cycle, and a lot of the critters living in the gunk in the durable media will help consume certain parasites and bacteria as they collect.
  5. Greg Stewart
    Most diseases that affect fish will die off after about a month or two without fish or other critters to feed on. If you have a UV steriliser, that will also help kill off spores and larvae. Since you plan to rebuild the tank, I would rinse the plants in clean dechlorinated water, and let them live alone in a completely fresh build for a month or more to be sure they won't carry anything over to the new community. Plants don't usually like the salt treatment, and some do horribly with chlorine/bleach dips while others do just fine. i think the time game is the best way to go if you have that time available.
  6. Greg Stewart
    Yup, you got it. Good luck to you both 😉
  7. Greg Stewart
    @BettaMarine65 okay, got it. That is a lot to hit him with. Might be better to put him in a QT tank with 1 *teaspoon* of aquarium salt *per gallon* of water for a week, and watch how he does. That's probably the gentlest way to help him recover after dosing so many different treatments in succession. If he doesn't show any signs of improving after a week, I might suggest a more gentle combination antibiotic & parasite treatment using Maracyn 2 and Ich-X together with the aquarium salt. The Polyguard contains sulfathiazole, which is pretty toxic. Kanamycin is also pretty strong, and that API General Cure contains metronidazole, another very strong antibiotic, and the (again, strong) anti-parasitic, praziquantel. But, they are bounced over several days which works for some problems but not others. Treatment with the erythromycin is daily over 7 to 10 days, small doses, no water changes, so the meds accumulate slowly in strength in the water. I've tried blending with food, but it's never worked for my fish (they won't touch it). Similarly, Ich-X (which treats more than Ich), is a low, daily dose, cumulative treatment. None of this is guaranteed considering we don't actually know whats wrong, but it's possible that a slower, more extended treatment could work better. But, I'd only start it after he's had some time to rest after the barrage of other treatments.
  8. Greg Stewart
    @BettaMarine65 I looked (briefly) in the Diseases section but couldn't find your post there. Depending on what exactly it is, aquarium salt may help. If it's FHLLE, it's a long shot, though. You have really hit him with a ton of stuff, haven't you? How long did you treat him with each of those? For instance, did you go 6 days on the Kanaplex, then 2 weeks on the Paraguard, then 6 days on the API General Cure, etc.? And, was all of this done in the same tank? I'm wondering if changing the approach might be a good thing.
  9. Greg Stewart
    @BettaMarine65 what have you done so far?
  10. Greg Stewart
    The faster snails grown, the large their shell gets while it's still pretty transparent. It takes more time for the periostracum to thicken and develop opaqueness. Over time it should get darker. Bladder snails have rather translucent shells to begin with. This often happens when there's a ton of food available for them.
  11. Greg Stewart
    @Odd Duck Ya know... I figured this is probably a good subject for it's own topic, so I'm writing something up to start a discussion dedicated to prettying things up 😉
  12. Greg Stewart
    @BettaMarine65 I'm not positive, but it sort of resembles Hole in the Head disease (FHLLE).
  13. Greg Stewart
    @Guppysnail Since you have rimmed tanks, like I do, you can use something like this to help tame your cable tangle. https://www.amazon.com/25pcs-Adhesive-Adjustable-Optional-Management/dp/B072XJT436/?th=1 I go a little more OCD, since i work in the IT sector, and I have my rats nest tamed using these mesh sleeves and cable ties. All my airlines, heater/ & lamp power, thermocouple leads, and outflow/intake hoses run through these two mesh management bundles at either end of the tank. Leaves an unfettered view of the vast fields of algae I grow on the back wall for my otos 😉 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FW3MKGH/
  14. Greg Stewart
    @Guppysnail Love the tanks. So bright and cheerful. I think I need to have a conversation with you about cable and hose management, though 😉
  15. Greg Stewart
    @xXInkedPhoenixX ludwigia and rotala tend to need lower nitrates, some CO2, and high light to turn red. @Don H Cabomba isn't actually an easy plant to keep. It's got very high light demands and loves CO2. If you got it to last at all, I think you're more skilled with plants than you give yourself credit for. I have wild harvested cabomba that i found locally in a CT river, and I can only get it to stick around in a small spot in my tank--it does well in that small spot, but I kinda' wanted it to fill the background. Oh well. Bacopa is definitely easy to keep. I actually harvested some anacharis from a pond, here in CT, but in the wild it gets so grungy looking I decided against adding to my tank.
  16. Greg Stewart
    I've never had any success with peroxide. Every time i tried it I ended up with melted plants. Seachem Flourish Excel has been working for me to treat algae. I remove the plants, and either wipe some full strength Excel on the leaves, or I prep about a cup of water with 5ml Excel and I do a bath. On more durable plants, i gently rub with leaves a bit to try to loosen up the algae. Then after a few minutes of soak, i just return them to the tank.
  17. Greg Stewart
    @Odd Duck and @Torrey have pretty much already said it all. The only thing I would add is that you can actually opt to start really easy and and not change or add any substrate by beginning your plant journey will "epiphytes". These are plants that need no substrate as they are usually stuck in rock or branch crevices, or attached to the surface of things, and take nutrients straight from the water through a "rhizome", rather than from soil or other plant medium through deep roots. Most ephiphytes are also pretty hard to kill don't require special light. @Odd Duck has already mentioned Java Fern, Anubias, Bucephalandra and mosses. These are all epiphytes, and there are hundreds of varieties to choose from. All a great way to start. I would caution on the mosses, though, as some can grow pretty wildly and take over things if you're not attentive.
  18. Greg Stewart
    Amanos can be jumpers and climbers. Sometimes they escape and are never to be seen again. Sometimes, if they die in a hidden spot, they'll get eaten by the other shrimp and bottom feeders.
  19. Greg Stewart
    I literally have a 5 gallon Aqueon that I've just been using to house some left over plants, and to try to revive my withering monte carlo. It's a random mess right now as I've been meaning to wind it down and put it in a closet. Looks like I'm going to play around with it, now ,and might end up having to keep it going for some time longer 😉
  20. Greg Stewart
    I remove my contacts and everything sparkles like Guppysnail's tanks do. At least I think that's how it works.
  21. Greg Stewart
    @delphineMy harlequins are skittish, untrusting, ungrateful little turds 😉 They're beautiful, but they panic and hide whenever anyone approaches the tank. (What's with that bold font?) My CPDs on the other hand are curious and bold, and the girls come to the front of the tank to see what's up. The males just do their thing chasing each other out of the rock crevices, but the females are pretty personable. My chili rasboras just hide in the back corner most of the time (useless wee bastages). I don't have neons, though.
  22. Greg Stewart
    I've been considering adding/switching to bio balls in my canister, but I've never had an issue with the Seachem Matrix I use, so I don't know if it's worth it. This is interesting info, though.
  23. Greg Stewart
    I fight to keep my phone as app free as possible. Drives me insane sometimes. The controller does keep the settings without the app, i can go for months not realising it's not connected. And, it'll keep the settings across power outages, as well. The app is nice for watching heating/cooling trends. I thoroughly geeked out on it for about two months, and then it quickly died down to an "i'll check when I get suspicious about something" kinda thing.
  24. Greg Stewart
    I have the model up from the one Guppysnail has. The ITC-306A WiFi. It's got two power plugs on the same temp controler, two immersible thermocouples, WiFi enable app so you can view trends and get SMS alerts. It *does* have an audible high/low temp alarm. The only thing I don't like is that every time the app updates on the phone you have to manually reconnect it by unplugging the controller and letting it boot/reconnect again. I like the InkBird controllers. i also use them for brewing. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07X1JT372/ I've actually forgotten, on a few occasions, to turn the controller back to "heat" after doing water changes and filter maintenance. I would have left it go all night without noticing if the thing hadn't started making noise. But, I'm an eejit, so there's that.
  25. Greg Stewart
    At two or three months old, it's still a pretty new tank, and algae blooms are pretty common during that time. It seems, from the description, more like an algae bloom than a fungus, since it's growing on all the plants, as well. And, staghorn (to some degree), green hair algae, as well as brown diatoms, can present this way. Fungus growth from wood furniture is usually more like a slime than a thread. I would still approach it as an algae bloom, at least to rule that out. Decrease light and increase water changes. Are you running CO2? Dosing fertilizer? If so, I would increase CO2 and decrease ferts a bit for the time being, and see if that improves the situation any. You could also try Seachem Flourish Excel, which is an algaecide, but don't dose too heavily as I've had it trigger some general plant melt when trying this, I typically only use it now for spot treatment. But, this is tough to spot treat.
×
×
  • Create New...