Katherine

Penny Bluey The red onion nerite, hiding in the shadows. Hillstream loach, munching on the guppy pellets. Now that I've got the ez flow kits installed I have food falling all over the tank. There is a lot less algae on this fake rock stack than before I got the hillstreams. And when the water is lowered for a water change you can see where they've been eating it on the walls too. That's not readily visible when it's filled up though. And with additional sinking food going in for the mystery snails and hillstream loaches I can already tell I'll need to start doing some 'pest' snail culling again soonish. It was nice not to need to do that during the several months we had no mystery snails.

I cannot get over how cool the hillstream loaches are.

Water change day, which means I got to add my new uplift tubes. And flake food is a fantastic way to test the new flow pattern, btw. 😂

I had one do something similar, though it seemed to me to be flashing temperatures, rather than error codes, bit like yours it was too fast to really tell. And the 'heating' light was also going off and on. Customer service took care of it for me very quickly.

He has a name now! Bluey. I say he, but I actually don't know yet for either of the new mystery snails. I've yet to witness breeding behavior and haven't gotten eggs yet.

This would be a fantastic photo if I was trying to get the ramshorn. Unfortunately, I was trying to get the guppies. And here we have a beautiful photo of my heater. 🤦‍♀️

They do!

First off, I am so sorry for all the issues you've had and your losses. ♥️ I don't have any experience with Bettas, but a quick Google search says they live about 2-4 years and that they're usually a year old at least when you get them from the pet ship. So it may not be anything you're doing.

That is good news! Mine shows the kit not shipped, just like yours did. Hopefully it's in with the rest of my stuff too and they're just having issues scanning it or something.

Here is our blue guy. I'm not sure what that line on the new growth is from. It's almost like a dent, but is continuing as he grows.

Hey everybody! I don't know if anyone will read this after I've been awol so long, but here's an update anyway. I never quite seemed to have time to figure out what went wrong with the water in the tank we had set up for the kids, so we ended up getting some of what they wanted for my tank. The new additions are several guppies (who have not been around long enough for babies yet, and I'm not sure babies won't all get eaten, but we'll see), 2 mystery snails (all the ones I had before have passed, we will not be hatching eggs this time), and three hillstream loaches. We bought the snails and loaches the day before Thanksgiving and they've settled in nicely. The snails have about doubled in size and are around an inch front to back. This is Penny, named after the previous white mystery snail. We also got a blue one, who has not been named yet and was hiding when I took photos earlier. The hillstream loaches have been out in the open a lot more than I was expecting, which is super cool. They really like the anubias and the fake wood it's attached to. I have seen them eating flake food, guppy pellets, algae wafers, and a locally made bottom feeder pellet. They had been in a very small tank, less than 5 gallons at the store with at least 6 other hillstream loaches plus a few fish, and they were very excited to have more room. They were zooming around the tank the whole evening when we brought them home. I was unable to get a decent photo of the guppies. And just when I was beginning to think The Big Snail, our original nerite, who we've had for over 4 years now, had died in the gravel somewhere here he is, chilling on the front glass! I go months at a time without seeing him. My other two black racers hide a lot as well, but not as long as this guy. My two horned nerites are almost always easily visible, and I can catch a view of my red onion at least a few times a week. (That one is now bigger than The Big Snail.)

I'm glad to hear they're all doing well now, that must be a huge relief!

I ordered a bunch of stuff today, including one upgrade kit. Everything but the upgrade kit has shipped. I wonder what's up with that.

I'd say bladder based on the direction of the shell point.

Yes, if they're still really tiny the shells will color up as they grow. Mine have all started out looking clear.

I would probably go option A, since I only have one tank and don't have the space in it to add the equivalent value in plants without removing some that I already have. Same on the hardscape. Though I'd have to either hatch tiny amounts of brine shrimp at a time or freeze it for later feeding. (Which actually doesn't sound like a terrible idea.)

Thanks guys! Even though it's Saturday I had a response in under 5 minutes and it's all taken care of.

I'm having an issue with a product I bought from the coop but I can't figure out how to email them. The only thing I see on the website is shipping@aquariumcoop.com for if you have a question about an order, but that doesn't seem like it would be the right email for what I need. Is there another that I'm not seeing, or is that the right one for general customer service?

Busy, mostly. Although I've had some setbacks with my hand on and off. It's much better now. Most things don't hurt to do, though I still have to write without my pointer finger. I'm spending some time today trying to get my tank back to looking nice. Thanks for thinking of me!

I have been sick so I haven't gotten to the first fish test yet.

Ok, after a few months of crazy life stuff I'm ready to get back to this tank. Since it had no livestock in it it was neglected. It was fairly obvious a week or so after removing the lobster and doing some water changes that the lobster was not the cause (or not the only cause) of the small bubbles from the air stone. So I'm going to be running a month + experiment to determine what may or may not be safe in the tank. Here's the current plan. Today I removed all but one thing that hasn't previously been used in a successful setup. The filter, heater, plants, and barrel decoration have been used before with no problems. So we're starting with just the gravel that's new. I also did as close to a 100% water change as I could. I'll be doing nearly 100% water changes every day for a week, then filling the tank with water from my 75g. I'll let that run for a week then move 1 fish over when I can sit and watch it for a while. If that goes well I'll move the fish back to my 75 and add one thing back into the tank. Let that sit for a week and repeat the fish test. Hopefully we'll be able to isolate what the issue was. Tank after a few months of just throwing in some food occasionally to hopefully not lose the cycle.

@Smiling Paul Did you end up doing this? We are about to start raising mealworms so my kids can observe their lifecycle, and I was thinking about trying to feed the tiny baby ones to my fish.

I had a dream last night that I had a huge (had to be 8 ft tall, 10 feet front to back, and 25 feet long) tank with like 8 inch thick acrylic walls in my living room. Of course the thing sprang a leak. My aunt was trying to help me figure out where it was coming from (the location seemed to keep changing) and find towels (there were none in the house, of course) and something to move the fish to (a 1/2 gallon thermos 🤣). At one point the water level seemed super low, so I was going to climb in to try to net the fish, but when I got up there the water was still really high. Overall a very strange dream.

Their native habitat, they do grow in balls. They roll around on the bottom of a lake (?) and form as a ball as a result. I have no idea if the ones we can buy are grown this way though.

They are one of the many kinds commonly called pest snails. Whether or not they take over the tank depends on how much there is for them to eat. They'll eat fish food that the fish miss, dying plants, some kinds of algae, dead fish, dead snails...