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Woowala

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Posts posted by Woowala

  1. I usually just use bleach to disinfect things. Might be kinda hard on any rubber gaskets in the python, I don't use one so not sure if there are any. 1/3 cup per gallon of water. Let it sit for an hour, rinse it well, then transfer to a bucket with dechlor or let it dry completely. Stick an airline hose in one end and seal it up a bit with plastic wrap or something.

    • Like 1
  2. Yes, gh is general hardness, basically a measure of the calcium and magnesium in the water.  The water softener removes cal and mag and replaces them with sodium and I think potassium (might explain why your plants are doing so well).  So that could definitely be it.  Any white marks on the snails' shells?  That would be an indicator of low gh, but a test would be better. Get a test, the liquid dropper kind.  One of the easiest and cheapest tests, so that's nice.

    But I would blame the inconsistent diy co2 if they all died off quickly, like overnight.

  3. On 9/2/2024 at 7:24 AM, beastie said:

    I am going to be losing some luminatus soon, two males, maybe three are thin. I increased feeding to two feedings a day, one is microworms/bbs/frozen cyclops, the other is dry food but I think I am fighting a losing battle with their age

    I have had them for a year and 2 months and bought them at the age where you could recognize male from female, so I assume 6 months, maybe a bit less. I am sad as I dont have as many babies as I expected to have to ensure the colony survival. I have no idea how the pygmies are doing, apart from water change I dont see them much, I see maybe 2-3, during a water change I saw 8 chasing each other, but never 12

    Throw a mop in there. You never know, they might still be spawning. Easy enough to find out anyway.

  4. That's essentially what I was doing, and it worked, but low percentages. This is actually less effort so if I got the same hatch rate this way I'd be happy, but hopefully it can improve.  I've got enough fry now that it's no big deal either way, but when I get some P. mellis it'd be nice to know what I'm doing. 😄 

  5. I was planning on putting them in water on Friday, but jumped the gun a bit and did it tonight. I dunked all 4 sets of eggs I had, collected on 8/28, 8/29, 8/30, and 9/1. So 9, 8, 7, and 5 days incubation respectively. I noted the number of viable eggs in each, so we'll see when/how many hatch out, but it'll probably be anywhere from a day to never lol. The infertile eggs did fungus up a bit, but it didn't seem to spread to the good eggs.

    The 8/28 collection I just put on a paper towel.  All others I cut an empty tea bag (the kind you fill up with loose tea) into ~3x3 inch squares and put that on top of the paper towel.  There's a rougher side to the tea bag which made transferring the eggs from my fingers to the tea bag easier, and it lifted off the paper towel easily with all the eggs when I transferred them to water. So I'll likely do that or something like it going forward.

  6. On 9/4/2024 at 6:59 PM, Tony s said:

    Actually, i have that now with the bare bottom. Using an aquaclear filter, everythind settles into the middle of the far side. 

    The pots are only half the battle though, I have only used gravel so far. Gravel would work with lots of root tabs. But for a better pot what about soil, sand, aquasoil. and how do you keep the pots upright? and what happens when the pot goes over?

    I only have sponge filters, and moss and subwassertang impede flow and trap a lot of stuff.

    I'd probably use soil or aquasoil, but probably no reason to use both. I use soil cuz it's cheap and they're fish tanks, not plant tanks. I usually let them sit in some water for a week before adding to the tank in case it causes an ammonia spike, but if it's not much soil I usually don't bother. 

    I've never had a pot fall over, but I have small fish. If that's a problem I'd go with a heavier pot, like terra cotta. Or a layer of gravel at the bottom for weight/stability, capped with soil and then sand or fine gravel. Or just gravel capped with aquasoil if you go that route.

    • Like 2
  7. I was thinking, for me I actually really like the plastic fake terra cotta planters cuz they're light and you can move them easily when cleaning the bottom of the tank.  I use soil capped with sand, so it might not make a difference if you use heavier gravel.  One of a million little future projects is to figure out a nice easy way to get everything off the bottom so detritus collects in one spot and I don't have to move anything to clean.  

    • Like 2
  8. I've always just accepted this as one of the many annoying aspects of hatching bbs. I just use a wash bottle to rinse the eggs off the sides after a few hours. But the type of eggs, design and cleanliness of the hatchery might all be a factor. Not running air for the first hour or two to let the eggs rehydrate before turning it on would also probably help.

    • Like 1
  9. Mini update. Things seem to be going well. Well enough anyway. About half the eggs are infertile as usual, but that's nothing to do with this. The real question is whether the hatch rate improves or if the timing is better (they all hatch out at once). I collected on the 28th, 29th, and 30th so I plan on putting them all in water on Friday, when the 28ths will be at day 10, the 29ths day 9, and the 30ths day 8.  We'll see what happens.

    Pics, about 5.5 days old/after collecting. It's hard to get a clear pic with a cell phone and a jeweler's loupe.

    20240902_171008.jpg.60348227dffa0db79d6be81716d82f0b.jpg

    20240902_171803.jpg.f7cc49612dfe18a05b0de06a6650f504.jpg

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