Beardedbillygoat’s Fish & Shrimp Tank Journal

[Patrick_G]

Great shot of the Blue Hawaiian! 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

I’m devastated - came home to find all my full red albino guppies dead - 2 m 6 f juvies. I’ve changed water every other day. Feeding quality foods - fresh bbs, frozen brine, worms and good flake. 30 g tote, 75 degrees, ph 7, gh 300, kh 140, crushed coral, added a little salt, sponge filter. None of the equipment was used with the sick platys. They came from such a good source that I didn’t medicate them - damn I should have trioed them guppies/livebearers are so prone to parasites 🦠 what was I thinking?! Fudge!!!!

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

After the shock of finding floating guppies I finally took stock of the tank 2 guppies were alive - 1 male 1 female. Crazy. I was so upset and disgusted I should have gotten them out an hour before but what can you do? They are now in the medicated bucket swimming with the Platys as of this AM. Hopefully I can salvage this breeding project it’ll just take a lot longer. I e been doing this off and on for 35 years and I’m still learning and still beating myself up about mistakes that lead to casualties. 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

Things have been coming at me hot and heavy since Fishtoberfest- be careful what you wish for when you’re suddenly spinning so many plates. 1 Cory was found with what looks to be a traumatic wound but could be parasites. 

I posted in the disease part of the forum already. All the others are happily consuming some leftover edamame and playing having a good old time.
My son (4) and the little girl (8) from across the street were playing with the shell dwellers tank and dropped a light into the tank (cheap stoplight) well that fried the arc breaker for all the boys and guest bedrooms on the second floor. Yikes, came home to a wife on a mission. The breaker required replacement I think that socket is toast and we’ve all moved on. Busy night. 
My flex 15 appears to have recovered from all the weirdness with the nitrite and platy death. I think I’m going to grab some frogs tomorrow if I can find them. I’m a glutton for punishment I guess. 
The fish in the hospital bucket are doing well, added some Fritz ACCR to make sure we get no ammonia spikes. I’m planning to sterilize the guppy tub and put them in it eventually maybe after a couple rounds of expel-p. 
The half black purple guppy fry are doing well. Looking forward to the this weekend when I can water change and feed them some BBS. 
On a very happy note The Sad Bowl continues it redemption arc and we’ve had some nice molts of the shrimps, loads of activity and happy happy guppies and platys. Also the monster green gecko crypt Wendtii is threatening to take over the tank and I love it!

[Hobbit]

Oh yikes—what a shock. 😞 And then literally a shock when the light went in the tank. 😐 This is a tough hobby sometimes. I’m really sorry you lost so many fish so suddenly. That wound looks awful! ☹️

My platys (the common type, not variatus) have actually done okay through nitrite spikes. Not sure what to make of that, but it’s an interesting data point.

I hope yours make it through quarantine. ❤️ 

[Guppysnail]

Im glad there was no injury to your children from their mishap. I hope your Cory only had an injury and not anything your other fishes could be harmed by. 

[Atitagain]

On 10/20/2021 at 12:34 AM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

Also the monster green gecko crypt Wendtii is threatening to take over the tank and I love it!

I love it as well! That bowl is so cool especially the close up there’s so much going on. I’m gonna have to try one of these. Maybe this weekend I’ll look for a good size. How many gallons is yours? I also want to try out some wet house plants as suggested by @Streetwise have you seen those? 
good luck with the frogs!

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@Atitagainits thought to be around 11 gallons. Last time I checked on Amazon they were no longer selling this size. I think one size down would fit the stand and light better actually but I’m pleased with the setup.

@Guppysnailand @Hobbitthanks so much. Yeah I’m happy the kids are ok. It was $50  it it could have been a whole lot more both physically and emotionally if something had happened. 

[eatyourpeas]

On 10/20/2021 at 7:47 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

it could have been a whole lot more both physically and emotionally if something had happened. 

Glad it did not get to that point and good to know everyone is safe. Electricity and water are always scary.

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

So the update for today is everyone has made it through qt/hospital so far. I went ahead and medicated the panda corys I’m just too paranoid at this point. The half-black purples will be out of qt Saturday so I’ll be cooking bbs starting tomorrow in anticipation of some hungry guppies. The rest will be out Sunday/Monday. Here’s a pic of daddy HB purple so I am really happy I’ve saved these fry 🤞!
African dwarf frogs. It’s been a thing with me and my wife and me and the kids. I think the broken flex is perfect. I can keep the flow slow, they like it shallow so the crack helps with that. The scape is mature as it was the home of the platys until one died and I threw them in qt. In doing research zoonotic and aquatic bugs rarely overlap so I felt ok about just dosing some h2o2 for 5 minutes to reset things before they got in there. Parameters were fantastic so off my son and I went - he’s 4 and this is his day with dad not daycare. Well he was super excited yesterday and even this morning. Well for whatever reason he cooled to the idea. I later found out he was worried that they’d die which I think is totally a valid concern. Anyway we got them acclimated- 1 hour slow acclimated in a bowl inside the tank to get them regulated to temp and to adjust to our water. Got them from a big box store but the woman was helpful and informative- “they don’t have jacked up limbs like most of the orders we get.” Stay positive dud I kept telling myself. If my LFS would take orders I’d have gone that way but alas they don’t always do that so here I am with 4 adorable adf’s!

Branching out into culture of live foods is really rewarding. I’ve been using a method I saw on keeping fish simple of using a small piece of filter material in the tank with the worms and then wringing it out before putting it in for the fish to pick at. They’ve led to a lot of breeding behavior in my plecos and my shell dwellers. My dominant male shelly now has 2 females he’s going back and forth with which is super exciting. Good food, a new cichlid salt, good water change and maybe a little electricity have gotten things going in that tank!

Have fun everyone! 

[Atitagain]

Glad to hear everything is going good, it’s nice to go flat for a while sometimes on this roller coaster ride we call fish keeping. That HB purple is a stunner those fins are huge and the contrast between the black and purple is really amazing. 
I’m gonna be trying to culture live foods as well. What kind of worms are those? They might be to big for my main reason for live foods (rummynose and cardinal tetra breeding) but I could feed them to my cichlids. 
It’s great your kids show interest in the hobby, none of mine hardly even look at the fish. But I think I’ve got 3 of my grandkids hooked. 😃

[Hobbit]

Aww your poor son worried that the frogs might die 💔 I relate to that feeling buddy!!

Also WOW that’s a lot of worms!! Very creepy but very awesome. What do you feed them and do you have any kind of flow/filter in that tank?

[Patrick_G]

Congrats on the frogs. It looks like at least one male and one female. Maybe there will be some tads in your future! 

[CalmedByFish]

On 10/21/2021 at 6:18 AM, Hobbit said:

Aww your poor son worried that the frogs might die 💔 I relate to that feeling buddy!!

@Beardedbillygoat1975 This stood out to me as well. It's so sad, and I do wish he could simply be excited and roll with it. But I also can't help but wonder if having that awareness, at such a young age, might lean him toward being careful with his priorities, and proactive in finding ways to mitigate risk to other living beings, or finding ways to help them after harm has come. In simpler terms, it sounds like it's not just himself that he cares about.

Not to get all philosophical on a forum about fish... but I really think there might be some depth there, though again, I feel sorry for the little guy.

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@CalmedByFish, @Hobbit and @Patrick_G he’s a soulful kid. Until he was 3 he was the quiet one. Always observing and then would suddenly blurt out complete sentences that were super deep. He’s a great kid and loves his tank - he wants to see baby shellies in the worst way and loves watching the births of his mollies. He was really scared after the electrical issues with his light that probably had some impact as well. I think there’s a lot going on in his head we’re always encouraging him to express himself which must be hard at that age. 

@Atitagainthe worms are blackworms, I replicated a setup by @Wild Fish Tanks on his YouTube with a piece of Swiss tropical sponge, a tube from a coop sponge filter and an airstone as filtration. I have a substrate of lava rock and large gravel. I put bits of sponge in with them so that they put themselves in there to create “servings “ of worms for the tank. I ring out the sponge before I put them in the tank. The Fish nibble away. I stole this from a fishroom tour done by Keeping Fish Simple. 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

Unfortunately I lost my full red guppy pair and some oto cats I had in the qt bucket. I’m also down a platy who passed as well.  Rotten luck, appears the otos ever so sensitive did not make it 72 hours in qt and the guppies and platy got hit with an ammonia spike. I had to run to work this morning and I’d be dropping a quarter teaspoon of ACCR in the bucket and one missed dose was enough. 
It was frozen food night for everyone else - brine and mysis shrimp, it was a riot watching the frogs eat. Made up for the sad tableau in my qt. 

[Guppysnail]

I’m sorry for your qt loss. New fish are so hard anymore.  It’s good that you found some joy in your frogs. They are adorable. 

[Hobbit]

Ugh, so sad to hear about the losses. I hope your son wasn’t too upset. The frogs are super cute!

[MsLinda]

Sorry for your losses, but your frogs look great.

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@Guppysnail, @Hobbit and @MsLindathanks much. Luckily I did not let the boys really imprint on these fishes - I’d been keeping them out of sight for concern that something like that would happen. There only 1 variatus platy whose survived sadly and not sure she’ll make it. 
My half black guppy fry are doing well out of qt. They ate well and are very active after water change, foods and meds.

DJ Turbo the betta fish is doing well after a redesign/replant. I bought one of those floating logs and planted a bunch of new stems. For some reason this tank does great with stems but rhizome plants have been poor performers. 

My main display just loves a good water change. The fish just have a little extra pep and the plecos get super frisky. 

 

[Atitagain]

Some great pics of the betta that grumpy face is hilarious. 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@AtitagainDJ Turbo has an attitude and the kids are super fond of him as am I. I just love the mood ring quality of bettas - they just really love to show off sometimes which is something you don’t always get other than from really big cichlids and some others. 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

Sunday update - I’d done a water change on all the fish garage rack and liked what I’d been seeing out if the half black guppy fry tank so I gave them a generous helping of baby brine shrimp around 2 pm today. I came home to find them all dead. I had one platy fry in there - he was in some plants I’d put in there- and he’s alive. Checked water parameters and they were excellent pH 7, no ammonia , nitrate or nitrite.  I’ve had a terrible run with these guppies. They’ve been terribly fragile everything I’d ever heard about fancy “show” guppies was that if you could get them young and used to your water they’d make it. Wow this is hard to take when you really don’t know what or if you’ve done anything wrong. 

When something like this happens I typically get all the bodies out then drop a whole bottle of h2o2 in. Next I drain it and then bleach out the filter and parts then do a big water change going after the gravel and the substrate. Then I fill it and drop a new seasoned filter in and cycle the other filter. I wonder if other people have different ways they do the tank reset?

Ive just got to focus on things I can control and right now turning the fish rack into some breeding setups for barbs and tetras seems the right thing to do as all my winter plans had been those guppies. I’ve started looking at some videos on tetras and barbs and started this thread 

I’ll update here and there I guess as the project goes on. I now have an open 17 g gotta do something with it. ughh 🥲
 

[Hobbit]

Oh my goodness!! 😱 What a shock! Ahhh I’m so bummed for you. 😞 

The tetra and barb project does seem pretty neat though! I’m excited to see how that turns out.

[CalmedByFish]

Oh that's so awful! Especially not even knowing what caused it. Geez! 

My sympathies. [cuss]