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nabokovfan87

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Everything posted by nabokovfan87

  1. nabokovfan87
    That's such a hassle. 😞
  2. nabokovfan87
    Still trying to do the water change on the big tank. Looks like we're using some ice today. I'm working on trying a new technique and spawning mop made out of a different material. Hopefully something triggers them soon. From what I've found, when temp isn't the thing, the main priority is conditioning them well enough and long enough.
  3. nabokovfan87
    Rule #1... We don't talk about tanks exploding on us. Bad juju. 😂 Rule #2... You get what you pay for.... And the bigger the tank, you had better properly pay for and support the tank with a QUALITY stand. Rule #3.... Bigger is absolutely better and it's easier to care for given that it's not "massive". I love my 75G and it's something where I find it very hard to suggest or own a 75G as a result. It's so difficult to work in narrow and tall tanks. It's harder on the plants, it means the lids aren't as good, and it means more bowing. If you're truly concerned about a big tank, then consider the location as much as you do the quality. Ultimately, the depth of a tank (front to back) is as critical or a dimension for me as the length (left to right). I need the tank to be easy to see, I want it to be easy to work on, and I hope that it's big enough to give the fish enough room. That's the goal anyways. 40B, 60B, 75G. Those are all great tanks. I have a 29G I want to change out to a 20L. I have another 29G I with I could transform into a 30L. Both of those have to do with the height of the tank being a bit of a nuisance. Opinions change, but glass deflection is no joke. Consider acrylic. Consider higher quality construction. But no matter what, get a really good stand for whatever goes on it. But that new 60 breeder 😉
  4. nabokovfan87
    Adding th dechlorinator would be the way to guard from the nitrite being toxic. If the wood is doing that then you likely should just pull the wood from the tank. Biofilm is one thing, but if you have the wrong type of wood it can seep all kinds of things or turn to mush. What kind of wood is it? What is the stocking in the tank as well? Most times in an emergency situation you are absolutely fine to do an 80-95% water change if you really need to. I don't recommend it every day and the only species I'd advise against it would be caridina or neocaridina shrimp tanks. The films and stuff on the wood you can just brush it into the water column and then siphon it out like normal after it sinks to the bottom. One of the main questions is going to be the filtration setup, Ensuring the tank is properly setup and that your filtration is operating correctly. If you need any further help please feel free. We are all here to help one another and we've all been there with tank crashes and weird issues! You're not alone. Barring removing the wood. Yes. One big water change up front followed by daily 50% changes until things are back to normal.
  5. nabokovfan87
    Agreed. What filter are we talking here? Ultimately, you can have a "failsafe" with an air stone in the tank. Airstones are a lot more reliable to power back on.
  6. nabokovfan87
    (You might opt to edit that above, just a heads up) Hm.... The fluval canisters are a bit wonky for me. I enjoy the design and mechanical layout of the x07 series a lot more than I do the FX series. The one difference between the two is size, pump, and tray design. In my own view I think everything screams to use the 407 (or whatever they release next) as opposed to the FX just because of of the design choices. Where things break down for me is the fluval pump designs. Sometimes they have issues with impeller design, but it's something that I haven't personally used and it's difficult for me to say. When you say you're having issues with the 107, I wonder exactly what you're seeing. Leaking aside or wear aside, if it's a pump you might start with just that impeller and a seal kit and go from there. The trays on the FX are harder to use and the layout is a bit out of sorts for what media can go in certain spots. I do like that both of them have the spraybar options, but there is also an issue in general of adjustability. It's likely the main reason I don't have one is just that fear of messing up the sizing. The pump on the FX is designed as a "smart pump" which likely means nothing. It's more so likely just designed to handle a certain task better than the other.... Like air in the lines.... Without damaging itself. Everything I've ever owned that says "self cleaning" just means it turns one way for a few seconds when it powers on to remove debris, but that rarely is an effective method to handle that problem. I would argue the choice is entirely on which one you feel works best and which is easier for you to use day to day. It probably sounds goofy, but I feel like bubble walls might make it to a lot of our tanks. Sponge filters are nice and all, but there's just something about a wall/stream of bubbles I enjoy. @TeeJay has some really nice ones he uses that might be cool for your setup. Filtration aside, if the goal is oxygenation, it's nice to have the air for when you're doing maintenance as well and the pumps for the filter are off. We go all the way to September now. But yeah... Summer is just getting warmed up!
  7. nabokovfan87
    I'm just waiting for the diver to show up. 🙂 Looks good! I'm excited to watch the moss grow and do it's thing though. The more people who succeed with moss it can take over the crown of easiest plant ever (sometimes).
  8. nabokovfan87
    I did the maintenance on the affectionately called "side tank" which may or may not be the home for shrimp colony #2. I checked on the swordtail in there and those two will likely end up in treatment after the current two are done. I did notice KH was a little low, GH was a little low as well in the side tank. Details below.... I added enough KH buffer to get the KH up to the other tanks. This is likely just a result of not changing enough water in cadence with the other tanks due to much less bioload. I added enough GH buffer to get it up by about 2 degrees and I'll check things later in the week to verify where I'm at. (I swear I will!) I am hoping to see the fish recover and I am hoping increased maintenance (better water quality and feeding) helps these fish to perk up and do a bit better. I am planning to get some better foods to try and vary up the protein a little bit. I feed omnivore heavy, but the foods I have opted to try this time around were very similar in terms of recipe. Recently I've learned I need to mix things up (different brands, different recipes) to encourage a more rounder nutrition base. Having 2-3 foods might be fine, but there's a bit more to it than that, it appears. I do also have a lot of foods I plan to avoid in future and I'm not sure which will remain. There are things I need to weigh and consider, but for now the base is "quality" food which does have some good algae included in the recipe. The reason this is slightly relevant is to encourage the corydoras breeding and due to what could be dropsy on one of the swordtails with poorer genetics. If it is indeed this issue, than it's something where I need to ensure I am doing all I can for the nutrition of the fish. After I got done cleaning the tanks and the house I was reading an article about Valorie Taylor. I am going to have to watch her documentary again pretty soon. I am spending the night finishing up my coffee and watching a few free shark documentaries on youtube that I haven't seen before. One of them was from the 90's and just absolutely depressing to see how certain things all began. I see the impact of those choices made decades ago and how it's impacted everything since. Such destruction and misunderstanding of the species. (fun fact sharks help coral reefs with algae battles.... that tidbit is about 15 minutes in on the linked video) ....anyways. Tomorrow is the 75G and it's the big clean out. I'll likely add in the new stems, moneywort, but I may have to give them just a little bit more time to grow out.
  9. nabokovfan87
    A lot of schultzei black have poor genetics due to a lot of inbreeding and lower availability. These might be a different species, but if it's schultzei then I would consider trying to add more from another source. It looks like a deformity to me. Normal Tail:
  10. nabokovfan87
    How far below air do you go for this? I have tried it a lot, but never found the magic range for my schultzei's. 2 AM right now, just below 80 degrees. The chart says 74 but it's a bit warmer.
  11. nabokovfan87
    I've heard of people dosing the tank with hydrogen peroxide for situations like this. Beyond that, I genuinely have no idea what it is. New to me.
  12. nabokovfan87
    For sure. It's unfortunate and hopefully you're able to (eventually) find what you're looking for. I am not sure how the behavior or color will change, but let's say you get another female, win. Lets say you get a male, win. The only real "risk" so to speak would be if you had a male and added a male and they just decided to be crazy at one another. As we recently saw with another forum member doing the same thing, I am excited to see it (if/when).
  13. nabokovfan87
    Just be careful with heat. Especially discus temps. This setup sounds about exactly what you're targeting as a setup.
  14. nabokovfan87
    Yeah, for sure. That is the plan! Mine too. 🙂 I would love to have some from Greg Sage one day. I got these as a rehome project from a member here and I absolutely cherish them. Green is my favorite color, they aren't big at all, and it's just a beautiful and interesting fish. The ones I have are maybe just over 2 inches, females a bit bigger. Interesting. I would imagine they are around. There's a few places you can look and hopefully get a name for the specific variant.
  15. nabokovfan87
    Berlin black swordtails / "black" swordtails. It's actually just this unique smaller swordtail. I've seen similar colors in lyretail fish as well as from Goliad farms. I wish/hope they get some in to create there line again. They have one article with one photo and a brief description of the fish in question, but beyond that it's just a sword from Europe that has some availability here in the states. *An attempt was made* I can throw in some mops and stuff but it has just been a process to figure out what these fish need. I've since added better cover and a bit more things in the tank. My hope is that it's just enough to get a handful more fry or that I can use the breeder boxes or spare tank with a lot of Sußwasseetang in it as a fry tank. They can even go in with the shrimp now, but it's just a waiting game. Last time I had the swords it was automatic and there was nothing in the tank, this time it's a bit more fickle. I haven't. Ultimately I have 4 buckets and a bunch of water holding things. I would rather just use separate containers and handle it that way as opposed to the individual breaks. I can run 3 sword groups and hope that one pops some fry (well... hope that two do) and maybe that's the play here. I just need to see some life! (Progress) in the sense of my own feeding and care for the fish. If water parameters are causing issues or nutrition is causing some issues that's on me and I need to improve in that care aspect. I definitely feed very often and very heavy. For them I'll feed flake, but they eat off the bottom and go to town on everything the corydoras go for. Swordtails / live-bearers can just be big ol' fishy pigs and these ones are smaller piglets. The one time I had the female ready to drop overnight in the shrimp tank, I'm sure she spent all night eating baby shrimp in droves. At least 10-30 of them. I think you might be on to something with the blackwater to give some cover. I'll have to get my hands on some alder cones. The goal was to have plenty by ordering 100+ for the shrimp, but we all saw how well that went. 😂 Tea time. I'm happy with that method too.
  16. nabokovfan87
    Yeah. There's fishfam / fishtube, just shorthand for YouTube aquarium content creators.
  17. nabokovfan87
    Ich is definitely a hassle! Hopefully it's easy to handle for the fish and all things go well. What was the med/method the LFS recommended?
  18. nabokovfan87
    I would re-test using the method in this video. Try to use the plastic color scale that comes with the strips to take your photo. Having the strip side by side with the scale helps a ton.
  19. nabokovfan87
    I've got the same thing going on and no botanicals. Maybe it's tap water or something in there we aren't aware of or maybe it's the food. It's difficult to say. I opened the lid and all the bubbles went away. Weirdness.
  20. nabokovfan87
    A bit of a story this time. This tank originally housed 3 male swordtails. I have 2 that are "breeders" and one that isn't. One of the smaller males was the boss for a long time until things got a bit "hasty". When I first setup the tank I only had 2 males. One of the younger (and larger) fish in the female only tank developed into a male and then he was introduced into the female tank. Ironically, because he was bigger, the smaller males were a bit confused. Anyways.... a bit of aggressive behavior calming and I got the trio to make nice and develop into a nice group. There was the occasional mating sparring, but it was almost never an issue. After a long many months the larger male decided he was boss again and he would not stop. I moved him into the secondary tank and then I moved in 4 females. (So now we are up to 2 males, 4 females). The issue after a few more months became that bickering and it was 1 male constantly going after one female or male vs. male for dominance. There wasn't that third break to diffuse aggression and for whatever reason the leader male has his choice of female and she was the one they both kept attacking. After a bit of sparring he developed some fin issues, turned into fin rot and eventually body rot. Here is the "smaller male, breeder #2" Here is what the other male now looks like after he lost his tail and was treated for the fin / tail issues. He's been like this, stable, recovered for months. You can see the difference in texture. It could be a poor genes (cancerous) issue setting in, but it's difficult to know given the other circumstances. So... the past 2 weeks I've tried to quell aggression again. I pulled the boss male out of the tank so that the female and the male can have some time to recover. I spent each morning doing a salt dip on the male and then added that salt dose into the 75G to slowly raise the salt level over time. Given that setup the male didn't really see any different (good or bag) and it was moreso for the sake of "if there was" anything that I could do to help. I checked on the tank today and the female appears to be getting worse day by day. Yesterday it was a small tear, today she has 2 tears and she had a bit of redness. I didn't have the space / area setup due to missing a wood board for the lower section of the stand. I found some pieces to use and hopefully things work out so I can treat these two with salt / meds and let them have a break from the other male. They are in their setup now, things are all configured and should be able to have this tank ready to go whenever I need to use it. If things don't progress the way I'd like I may try to just use this for a female to lay fry. Unfortunately I need to increase the numbers to get the group under control. I have 3-4 pregnant females right now and it's just a hope / matter of time that things work out.
  21. nabokovfan87
    shrimp is probably the easiest one to do and makes the most sense considering your scenario. Minimum two tanks or having a place to sell cull shrimp is important though. If you need help with colony size there are some great resources out there for just about any shrimp variety you want to keep. One that I highly recommend is Mark's Shrimp Tanks. You can also consider something like a pleco setup with the shrimp if you have a means to offload the fry.
  22. nabokovfan87
    repashy super green and soilent green are great foods for otos. There is also a veggie cichlid food that is from northfin that I quite like. There are also a variety of algae / spirulina wafers that are good as well. The main thing to keep in mind is the ingredients and finding something where fish meal is not the #1 ingredient on the list. Trying to find spirulina or algaes as the top ingredients is best for otos. In my 75 I planned to have 5 (ordered 6 because that was the pack size) and then ended up with 4 in there now. I lost one during the move. I don't think there is any issue having up to 8 in a 75G as long as you have a developed tank and don't scrape the back glass. It's really cool to see them swim around together. One of my favorite fish of all time.
  23. nabokovfan87
    I am not contributing this to the cause, but it is something I would consider. If you feed only one food you limit types of nutrients. This betta had a mystery illness and unfortunately passed, but the visit with the vet actually shed a lot of light on issues with her fish. As a breeder that is invaluable information! Aqueon has a new line of 100% fish free food which I am going to plan to use in my own tanks as a staple food. They have a betta version as well as a tropical version that would work well for your application. It's very affordable and might be available locally at the big box store for you. It would be a good option to add as well as something else if you choose to add a third food. The discussion on nutrition and amino acid chains is in the first part of the video below.... @xXInkedPhoenixX What dried food are/were you using for your bettas?
  24. nabokovfan87
    Is it just the same flake over and over or do you have 2-3 different dried foods?
  25. nabokovfan87
    To add.... This is a perfect way to use old content. This format is wonderful and as someone trying to enjoy/learn details in content, this is a great way to "react" and add commentary and more context. This is how I would hope fishtube takes a bit more of an approach at trying to add more detail to videos.
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