nabokovfan87

They can definitely get pretty cold. I wouldn't keep it in ice or anything. You likely can get away without a heater in most places indoors, but it's not really optimal for overall growth. From the research papers I had found it seemed like the "sweet spot" in terms of nutrition, size, development, and colony population was all about 72-76 or right around there. There's some studies that focused on growth of the colony and population, others that focused on the size that individual shrimp grew to, and others that just focused on extremes and what they could handle. Ponds can be a bit hit or miss in terms of clarity though. Things like location, material, air temp, water movement, insulation of the structure, and so many other things play a role. Rachel O'Leary did a lot of work with ponds with shrimp and I am sure others have as well. The only one I can think off the top of my head would be LRB.

Yeah. I'd give it at least 10 days. Worst case is they become food for critters.

Eggs were definitely infertile. I took a video in better light as well as trying to get some photos to show a little detail. The photos won't make sense until you see the video to get an idea of what is their waste compared to the moving parts. I was doing research and I think it's between 2-3 options. They mostly remind me of rotifers of some kind. I do know I have some type of copepods and I did record a video with clear detail of those during a previous spawn, but I don't think that is what these are. It's a different movement and structure. These remind me of gnats or something. (the way a pile of gnats move around a piece of food is how these things move) I would assume my corydoras would be going to town on copepods as well as the other fish in the tanks. shrimp especially! I think I might just need 40-100 barbs in there to have some fun. Sidenote: @Shadow here's what bad eggs look like. Much more "full cloud" Video is a bit overexposed. My apologies! 😞

They look better than mine did. Just emptied the tumber 😞 They are pretty cloudy and I'm not sure if they are viable but time will well.

I mean if you're just giving away Cashews and some lemonade.... I won't mind either!

Higher temp = shorter lifespan. The studies don't generally focus on how cold can they get, but moreso on how warm they can be. This is used for invasive species study data as well. I keep mine in the 72-74 range optimally. They can definitely go colder, and anything in the 70-78 range I am perfectly fine with. Higher temps = more breeding. Lower temps, you generally have better growth rates and development. Too cold and they will have muscular dystrophy issues and die.

Hello everyone, Here is a video of my corydoras eggs. The eggs don't seem to be viable anymore. Last time I had a spawn these things were all over and here we are again.... This time it's pretty intense. Can anyone help me to ID what this is? Nothing in the tank seems to keep them in check and they are pretty much running rampant. Might be perfectly fine, might be something I just need to monitor. Swordtails ignore them. Corydoras ignore them. Shrimp ignore them. They are free floating, most active at night, etc. I assume they go after the eggs because it's a food source, my fear is to make sure it didn't come with the eggs from the fish. They are always on/near the eggs when I have them. Right away. I appreciate the help!

Best of luck deciding. That's a beautiful tank!

I remember the store from one of your earlier posts. Beautiful spot. I'll have to check and see if they ship fish.

Biggs has a pretty unique setup and it might work well for your specific setup. Details are here on how he keeps things going. The main thing I would have is a "kit" so to speak for your most valued tanks. Blankets and straps to wrap the tank. 2 battery backups PER TANK with a single airstone drop and the USB style pumps. I ran mine for 4.5 days straight on a single battery. I have a ziploc with tubing cut that sits next to batteries and my stack of portable pumps. I have 4 on hand, 1 extra just in case one of them is faulty. Something like the ACO pumps I have not tested, but the main issue is to avoid the AC-->DC battery conversion and to keep things as DC-->DC (usb powered). This is also used in the saltwater side of the hobby and was demonstrated/reported by BRS for the major battery backup series for reef tanks. The D-Cell air pumps are also a bit more juicy and would be able to run sponges or stones for you. @Cory Maybe this works for a future ACO pump video idea. Is there any way you could run one of the small green nano pumps side by side with the newer style ones (battery backup) on the same airstone and the same 20,000 mAH style usb portable battery and give us a time that it lasted? The batteries themselves will all drain based on cycles and age, but I just wanted to mention is for your own product bragging rights as well as a means to get this information to the consumer. I can run tests when I have one on hand, but I currently don't. I will once that Farmer book is available! 🙂 This was my setup and a single charge lasted 4-5 days. Great advice! I like to have 2, one in use (whether it's D-Cell or Lithium Ion) while the other is charging. Once it's done, then I have a backup ready to go in case need be!

With a ton of air, the corydoras will do this naturally. They do so as a sign or breeding or grazing. It's very normal behavior. My flow / parameters in the tank are pretty constant but I currently don't do any air stones (running 2 Hobs, 1 spraybar) and the corydoras are quite content to do their up-downs in the circulation. I just wanted to clarify, that it wasn't the bubbles themselves or the increase/decrease in flow that makes them do that, it's just what they do. My general advice for anyone with corydoras or cooler species is to pump in as much air as they wish to and the fish will always be content with that. I use a 150G pond air pump on a 29G tank, 3 drops, the pandas were quite happy with it. Right now the tank has neo shrimp (also a river species). It might be counter intuitive, but depending on what the load is you may just not have enough biological media in the tank. Yes sponge has high surface area, but in my experience it isn't the easiest surface for bacteria to grow on. I had a very similar issue in a very minimally stocked 10G aquarium that was running only sponges. I also had the exact same issue in a 29G as soon as I removed the small HoB, leaving the 2 sponge filters that had been in the tank for ~4-5 months prior to removal. As soon as I removed the extremely small amount of biomedia the cycle crashed and I had a cloudy tank for nearly 2 months before I got it under control. Following that.... The 10G was resolved by adding 3 large lava rocks. The rocks themselves are about the size of the sponge on the sponge filter and within 24 hours the tank was completely fine with no ammonia or nitrite issues. My advice would be to add some lava rock, pumice, or ceramic media to the tank in some way. you can move it near a sponge or try something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Lees-Triple-Flow-Corner-Filter-Small/dp/B0002APWDS/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=lees+filter&qid=1683957797&sr=8-5 There are surfaces for the bacteria and there are ceramics, but something that has the structure and pores to do that biological support for the tank will give you a little bit better stability in my experience. Hopefully you're able to sort out exactly what is causing the instability. Given the deaths you're experiencing, ignoring water quality issues, I would not rule out some sort of contaminant as well. Here is the 10G as an example. It houses a single corydoras with the nano sponge filter and 5 swordtail juveniles at the time of the issue. Very low plant load and you can see the sponge filter.

what brand?

Tank height for reference?

Where did you get these from? That barring is intense. Really high quality!

I would suggest you start by cutting the light back, put it down too 30-40% power right now due to the plants you have in play. There is a few things in work here. The first is that you have a shorter height tank and you have taller plants in play. You also have very low demand plants. Something like java fern can do very well with ambient light from the room. Val and your other plants will also do ok if you reduce the light as well. BBA is what you're dealing with and it comes into play for a variety of reasons. BBA will go hard after old growth and dying plants. What that means is that when you see a plant struggle, you might need to pull leaves, roots, or some sections of rhizomes even. This is what I've been doing over 2 years to recover my anubias and I still get bouts where the BBA will perk up. How long is the light on for, how many hours? I can't speak to getting the red plants to work. I think the majority of your plants might do fine at a reduced intensity. You can use location to put the red plants closer to the hotspot and your lower demand plants in the front / back of the tank.

This is BBA and will eventually turn into rhizome rot. Pull off roots when you see them that way or you can dip the whole plant using this method: Easy carbon is generally equivalent to flourish excel.

I can't verify it because I've tried this plant about 6 times and never gotten it to grow. I have heard it like sub 7.0 PH. Here is a very good plant database article on AR. You can use google translate to get that into english for you. I'll attach some notes below. https://www.flowgrow.de/db/wasserpflanzen/alternanthera-reineckii-rosaefolia

Snails eggs. very likely the ones that make a million by sundown. @FLFishChik has some for comparison!

The best I can do is point you here. I keep one species per tank.

She's finally resting tonight...

Feels a bit like autumn today. The wind is chill but not cold, Wind is always going to be pretty strong, Cloudy, and Clear skies (not a lot of smog today) It's a good day for a long hike.

Welcome to the forums! If you haven't seen it the talk on the members side on youtube by the fish vet is really helpful. It talks a little bit about how to view fish disease as well as showing some common illnesses. The steps to diagnose, how to respond, that's where I learned a ton from it as well as members here like @Odd Duck and so many other people with their microscopes and knowledge. It's definitely a process to learn how to treat illnesses and there is a lot of tribal knowledge mixed in with some "best practices". I think there are some major steps we as hobbyists have to make in terms of our fish care and that is where we do have a lot of opportunity for improvements of the health of livestock around the world. In terms of aquaculture and engineering there is a lot of work to be done.... Especially if we want to be able to, as hobbyists, actually give proper information for disease review/treatment.

@Emry E welcome to the forums! I am sorry to hear about your betta developing the illness. Fin rot is often from what it called a gram negative bacteria. This just means you would want to use a gram negative bacterial medication to treat it. The most common one used in the hobby is from seachem and called kanaplex. It usually will take around 2 full treatments. Barring that, the next one is called neoplex from seachem. For any med you would use there are some basic, common steps you can do. The first step is to use aquarium salt to ease fish stress. As this is an external disease it is common to take that approach. Secondly you can add an indian almond leaves (cattapa leaves) or alder cones to act as an anti-fungal treatment which will help reduce any secondary issues following the bacterial treatment. My regime for treating the illness would be as follows: Day 1: A. Clean your tank, siphon the substrate, and perform a 30-50% water change. B. Then add 1/2 cup of aquarium salt per 10G as well as 1-2 leaves. C. Add in your Meds per the direction on the box. Day 2 through 6: Follow the treatment guidelines for dosing your bacterial meds per the package instructions. Day 7: Repeat the 30-50% water change Repeat this treatment (for kanaplex) the following week for a total of minimum 2 treatments.

I'm at a loss for that. As someone who had to work on "problems" like that for work I'm frustrated for you. Heaters having major failures like this are frustratingly common it seems. Run some carbon, I would keep doing siphons and changes and then clean your siphon, bucket, everything after each time as well as you can. I would keep an eye for rainbow colors on the surface of the water and do a deep dive in your filter a few times as well. I would also suggest replacing the media if you can. .... a lot of that is likely my being overly cautious, but that is just what I would do personally.

If you're really hard pressed for more corydoras, by all means pull eggs. I tend to leave them if you're just doing it colony style. They seem very well hidden and should be fine. Mine only take ~3 days to hatch. I would expect yours to be hatched pretty quickly. as long as flow (or fish) doesn't play with them, you're usually fine and will get a good hatch. The fry being in that tank is the best place for them because of all the food available. They would be perfectly fine in there. The main thing is to feed powder and keep it clean. Toss some moss in there if you can, if you move them.