Weirdest Tank

[BeeD]

So one of the things that prompted me to finally start an account was this 10g tank I've had running for two years now. The point of it was to slowly raise the salinity to brackish and see if some nerite eggs would hatch. Nope. The snails are still in there, but this thing turned into a brackish guppy spa.

I will explain, but first, here are the fundamentals of the system... 5 gallons of brackish water in a 10g, sand substrate with 1/3 of the bottom set up as a deep bed, old tiny sponge filter, spiderwood, some cholla, tannins and mulm, old fading light from a Fluval 5 gallon, 3 red racer nerites, 7-9 guppies. The tank registers 0 nitrates, 0 nitrites, and 0 ammonia, probably due to the lava rock and deep sand. Everyone is healthy and happy, but I will be very very gradually acclimating them back to fresh and increasing their water volume. Then everything in the tank will be incorporated into their new system.

Side note... I kept the water level at half because nerites spend much of their lives above the water line. They eat film and whatever else grows on the damp surfaces above the line, and sometimes just stay up there for days.

Long story for the dedicated readers... I put two female guppies in there a little over a year ago. They looked to be carrying panda guppy genes from my mixed tank, and they weren't doing as well as the others. I decided to test a theory. The theory is, my water may be liquid rock, but that doesn't mean it has the best minerals for weaker strains of guppies. So into the brackish tank they went. These two shiny little females flourished and dropped their fry. The whole colony is strong, and the females all have great tails like their mothers. One has this beautiful black/maroon tail that I did absolutely no justice to with my terrible photography.

Fast forward to last week... In my main mixed guppy tank, I noticed a juvenile female with something sticking out of her mouth. I swear to you, it was a beard hair (mine), and it looked stuck. She wasn't eating with the others, and she looked a little stressed out. She was still moving around well, so I decided that she could handle a move. My thought was that if epsom salt helps relax their muscles, maybe brackish water would help her? The other fish immediately started trying to get what she had in her mouth, but the hair didn't move and they gave up. A couple of days later, though, a lot more of that hair was sticking out. After three days, no hair, no sign of infection, nobody else had tried swallowing it. She was still hesitating to eat, but as of yesterday she gobbles food like the rest. 

So there you go, the weirdest tank I've ever run.

 

[Guppysnail]

Wow ok the hair thing is weird. A lot of large guppy farms in other countries mix fresh water with sea water due to the price of fresh water in those countries.  

[BeeD]

On 3/9/2022 at 8:16 PM, Guppysnail said:

Wow ok the hair thing is weird. A lot of large guppy farms in other countries mix fresh water with sea water due to the price of fresh water in those countries.  

Got it. I wonder if their adaptation to freshwater is inhibited, because of osmotic pressure, or if they just need minerals. 

[PineSong]

Weird about the hair! How long is your beard? I'm wondering what is the maximum amount of hair that could have been inside the fish?

 

[BeeD]

I guess it's around a quarter inch right now. It really was crazy. I keep thinking back on it, wondering if it could have been something else, but I just don't think so. I wish I would have seen it right before she dropped it. My theory is that she coiled it up in her stomach and couldn't spit it out. Either the other fish pulled on it, or the salt helped her relax. 

[Guppysnail]

On 3/10/2022 at 1:26 PM, BrettD said:

Got it. I wonder if their adaptation to freshwater is inhibited, because of osmotic pressure, or if they just need minerals. 

That is a really awesome question I would love t know the answer to!

[Torrey]

On 3/9/2022 at 7:03 PM, BrettD said:

So one of the things that prompted me to finally start an account was this 10g tank I've had running for two years now. The point of it was to slowly raise the salinity to brackish and see if some nerite eggs would hatch. Nope. The snails are still in there, but this thing turned into a brackish guppy spa.

I will explain, but first, here are the fundamentals of the system... 5 gallons of brackish water in a 10g, sand substrate with 1/3 of the bottom set up as a deep bed, old tiny sponge filter, spiderwood, some cholla, tannins and mulm, old fading light from a Fluval 5 gallon, 3 red racer nerites, 7-9 guppies. The tank registers 0 nitrates, 0 nitrites, and 0 ammonia, probably due to the lava rock and deep sand. Everyone is healthy and happy, but I will be very very gradually acclimating them back to fresh and increasing their water volume. Then everything in the tank will be incorporated into their new system.

Side note... I kept the water level at half because nerites spend much of their lives above the water line. They eat film and whatever else grows on the damp surfaces above the line, and sometimes just stay up there for days.

Long story for the dedicated readers... I put two female guppies in there a little over a year ago. They looked to be carrying panda guppy genes from my mixed tank, and they weren't doing as well as the others. I decided to test a theory. The theory is, my water may be liquid rock, but that doesn't mean it has the best minerals for weaker strains of guppies. So into the brackish tank they went. These two shiny little females flourished and dropped their fry. The whole colony is strong, and the females all have great tails like their mothers. One has this beautiful black/maroon tail that I did absolutely no justice to with my terrible photography.

Fast forward to last week... In my main mixed guppy tank, I noticed a juvenile female with something sticking out of her mouth. I swear to you, it was a beard hair (mine), and it looked stuck. She wasn't eating with the others, and she looked a little stressed out. She was still moving around well, so I decided that she could handle a move. My thought was that if epsom salt helps relax their muscles, maybe brackish water would help her? The other fish immediately started trying to get what she had in her mouth, but the hair didn't move and they gave up. A couple of days later, though, a lot more of that hair was sticking out. After three days, no hair, no sign of infection, nobody else had tried swallowing it. She was still hesitating to eat, but as of yesterday she gobbles food like the rest. 

So there you go, the weirdest tank I've ever run.

 

The hair is a weird one!!! Do you remember how long the free-swimming nerite babies need before they start getting snailish? I'm wondering if the guppy colony ate the babies, or did your nerites not lay any eggs?

[BeeD]

On 3/10/2022 at 9:13 PM, Guppysnail said:

That is a really awesome question I would love t know the answer to!

I'll have to see how they do long term here in their new environment. I plan on taking at least a month to acclimate them. I have 5 gallons to work with. If I notice anything, I can just abort mission and add marine salt.

 

On 3/10/2022 at 11:03 PM, Torrey said:

The hair is a weird one!!! Do you remember how long the free-swimming nerite babies need before they start getting snailish? I'm wondering if the guppy colony ate the babies, or did your nerites not lay any eggs?

I had them alone in there for quite a while, and it looked to me like the eggs just dissolved. I might have just not seen them though, because I have no idea what they look or how they move. That would be really ironic if I stuck those guppies in just when my nerites finally hatched.

I never really took them (e: the nerites eggs) to full salt. I've been wondering if that was the issue.

Edited March 12, 2022 by BrettD

[Torrey]

On 3/11/2022 at 4:35 PM, BrettD said:

I'll have to see how they do long term here in their new environment. I plan on taking at least a month to acclimate them. I have 5 gallons to work with. If I notice anything, I can just abort mission and add marine salt.

 

I had them alone in there for quite a while, and it looked to me like the eggs just dissolved. I might have just not seen them though, because I have no idea what they look or how they move. That would be really ironic if I stuck those guppies in just when my nerites finally hatched.

I never really took them (e: the nerites eggs) to full salt. I've been wondering if that was the issue.

It depends on the nerite.

Most are actually in more brackish water territoty, but a few young actually swim out to full marine if I remeber correctly? ::goes to research, because now my brain tickles me::

[Torrey]

Research links for anyone else who wants to go down the rabbit hole. Sadly, I no longer seem to have access to some of the research, and have requested copies from some authors.

https://australian.museum/blog-archive/science/amri-news-about-nerites/ 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1874778714000464