Guppysnail Aquarium Journal

[Guppysnail]

On 12/10/2021 at 8:23 PM, Atitagain said:

😂😂 I almost used my lucky bamboo for a wet house plant but at last minute changed my mind. I need it in my Oscar tank to absorb nitrates. The spider wood is a good looking piece, nice find.

silicone adhesive added to Amazon want list TYVM. Love the line up of the BNs they certainly are growing fast!

ORD. Heart 💜 this is the only brand I have used. Hubby found it for me after my 30 or 50th time re-glueing my handles on the lids. Those stupid stickers never hold and super glue gives out. Just make sure whatever you glue with this stuff is permanent it does not budge but does take 24 hrs to completely set up. 

[Atitagain]

ORD thank you 

[Torrey]

On 12/10/2021 at 5:27 PM, Guppysnail said:

They are getting big fast and I worry waiting until January I will struggle with water quality. I’m already at 50% wc daily to keep nitrates below 40 (my tap has 20 😡). 

Have you considered adding more pothos to your pleco grow out tanks for immediate use of nitrates, and starting more lucky bamboo to bring nitrates even lower in 4 months?

My plant growth is getting sufficient that I keep worrying I didn't shake hard enough,  so now I include the turtle pond as a 'nitrate control'.

Turtle's produce so much waste, that even the week and a half the surface is covered with duckweed and wolfia, the nitrate levels only drop to 20 ppm.... and then climb as Karma goes on a veggie spree😅

I'm glad your finger is healing, take it easy. If you have access to Deep Blue, it definitely speeds up soft tissue healing. I'm 10 days out from surgery, and while taking my deep breaths every 5 minutes still spikes into 9-10 territory on my ribs, my surgeon says my healing is on par with most of his patients at 4 to 6 weeks. Bruising is almost resolved (except for the vein the student intern blew... it looks hideous, but doesn't hurt🤷‍♂️ I'm pretty sure the intern feels worse about than I do)

Remember my Max Cardenas Blue Guppies? We are now on the third batch of fry to drop, and the first batch has a male who just colored up over the past 48 hours....

And of course he's refusing to be photographed 🤦‍♂️ (he is a purplish blue in a snakeskin kind of pattern, with a lyretail?)

As for your "too deep" tank, have you considered the UGF w/ matten filter? The panda cories would probably enjoy, plants appear to appreciate the foam, and maintenance would be even easier than a bare bottom....

 

(Little Boy Blue refused to be photographed, however one of the damselflies insisted on saying hello. It landed on my phone, and then landed on the wall right in front of me.)

 

[Guppysnail]

Beautiful damselfly. Yes I considered more lucky bamboo and pothos. I stick my biggest pothos vine in as well as what’s in there. The little ones rasp on it so much I often find floating detached roots. They don’t grow as strongly because of this in that tank. I did get 1 more piece of lucky bamboo (the rest looked sad) it’s in QT and won’t come out until the babies are gone so I’m using it in my Pygmy tank. 
as for the too tall tank I’m following this thread closely to see the long term results. I would love to set this up in there if it produces the long term results. 

The pandas will be going in the 20long pleco grow out so it will be easy to maneuver the gravel vac through the tank. 
 

Im keeping you in my thoughts that your surgery goes easy and your recovery is strong and timely. 🤗

[Guppysnail]

Crazy shrimp behavior I have never seen. Video is poor quality but where they were it’s the best I could do. I have seen shrimp mate it always looks like the boy is killing the girl. This was 3-4 boys I thought ganged up and actually were killing the girl with 3 more real close trying get get involved. I’m guessing my boys outnumber my girls by way too many. The female was ok and went about her way. I forgot to turn my phone I was so stunned by this so tiny video I’m sorry. 

Here is a shrimp resetting her eggs while fanning. I always see the neatest stuff right after I add flake food 🙄

@Chad and his hungry panda post had me watching mine devour everything while I did water change on the baby pleco. Poor Angel came along in the background “Mom piggy pandas not let me haz no wafers 😢). I suction cup her repashy on a stick on the back wall tucked in plants to hide it from guppies and pandas 🤣

 

turned on tank lights this morning to a ton of white spots on the glass where panda eggs were before guppies ate them. They spawned again between lights out and this morning 😣

the Cpd I put in with the pygmys are getting huge. The smaller ones are either boys or from the third hatch. It looks like the girls far out number the boys. It’s the same as the ones I put in mom and dads tank, mostly girls. 

HAPPY ADVENTURES…TRY SOMETHING NEW

[eatyourpeas]

I can't wait to see the CPDs breed! Your tank is an inspiration!

Poor shrimp, I have sen that happen before in one of my tanks so now I make sure the girls outnumber the boys whenever possible.

🦐

[Guppysnail]

On 12/11/2021 at 7:54 PM, eatyourpeas said:

I can't wait to see the CPDs breed! Your tank is an inspiration!

Poor shrimp, I have sen that happen before in one of my tanks so now I make sure the girls outnumber the boys whenever possible.

🦐

Im going to take some females from the guppy community and move them over. In that tank girls way outnumber the boys so it should balance out. 

[Odd Duck]

@Guppysnail I read the other day that temps can make a difference on shrimp gender with cooler temps favoring females and warmer temps favoring males.  Pretty even sex ratio at 73’F.

[Guppysnail]

On 12/12/2021 at 12:06 AM, Odd Duck said:

@Guppysnail I read the other day that temps can make a difference on shrimp gender with cooler temps favoring females and warmer temps favoring males.  Pretty even sex ratio at 73’F.

Awesome. Thanks. Yeah I run my tanks all at 77 so that makes sense. When I move them to other tanks I’m going to need to be more gender selective about it in the future. 

[Guppysnail]

I have to give my cat some fish fish guardian  praise. The winds were crazy harsh here last night and we lost power in the middle of the night. My cat Simba pawed at me and cried until I woke up. As soon as I woke up he ran to the fish room and started crying. I seen light in the hall so got up to see. All my fish lights were on (they come on automatically when power comes back on). One of the marine lands did not restart and of course my last 3 remaining Aqua clears didn’t start. I gues it was the light and sound not being as it should that made him wake me up. 🥰. The fish would have been fine the coop nano pumps on battery packs did their job and the canisters started back up but the motors on the filters where already close to overheating. 

 

[Atitagain]

Something so wonderful about this forum, by seeing what so many others are doing we have the opportunity to cross paths with inspiration so often. 
The pic of the panda eggs I assume to most, is what it is supposed to be. I seen the loan shrimp surrounded by the cycle of life. The pennywart looking universal (galaxy’s traveling space) is symbolic of the infinite  number of possible environments this shrimp could of found himself in. 
I’ve had an idea for an abstract tank build for a couple months now but could never get all the details to makes sense. But the pennywart shot from that angle made the final few pieces click. 
TYVM! 😀

love your short update videos such a great way to show what’s going on in your tanks.

[Guppysnail]

On 12/12/2021 at 7:08 AM, Atitagain said:

Something so wonderful about this forum, by seeing what so many others are doing we have the opportunity to cross paths with inspiration so often. 
The pic of the panda eggs I assume to most, is what it is supposed to be. I seen the loan shrimp surrounded by the cycle of life. The pennywart looking universal (galaxy’s traveling space) is symbolic of the infinite  number of possible environments this shrimp could of found himself in. 
I’ve had an idea for an abstract tank build for a couple months now but could never get all the details to makes sense. But the pennywart shot from that angle made the final few pieces click. 
TYVM! 😀

love your short update videos such a great way to show what’s going on in your tanks.

Wow. Yeah I was struggling to get the eggs to show up so I never saw what you did. I’m glad you got some inspiration from it. I love doing the little videos. It easier than trying to type up and create the correct wording to describe what I see. 

[Guppysnail]

For having my sleep interrupted I’m a Chatty Cathy today. 😁. I redid some plants yesterday with planters and forgot to include in my update. The ludwiga grows visibly daily. Much faster than even hornwort. The narrow leaf further to the front of the tank was not getting enough light so the bottom stems are rotting but the top is great. I ran out of the suction cup planters to transfer it to so I ordered more. The others I spaced out in more pots since it’s trailing across the top so that does not happen. I did not trim it. I’m moving most of the plants from the 29 to the new panda setup. I’m hoping with them being so long I can affix the longest ones with zip ties to the mid section of the new spider wood for the 29. I’ll put the new shorter ones in mom n dads tank. Hopefully they do as well as these. Sometimes I shoot myself in the foot by switching tanks with plants though. 😣I hope not this 🤞🏻time 

I moved all the AR cups down. Some of the leaves at the top were starting to get algae. I moved them to different heights to see where the depth for growth maxes out. 
I put all the suction cupped plants and ones weighted to the bottom in the suction glass planters so I could get quick growth to propagate for the panda tank. I put 2 anubias that wouldn’t stay suctioned in them with plant weights. My in labor guppy promptly shoved the anubias out of the cup and dropped a baby in the cup. Her sister the came and ate the baby so got chased out by mom and she had the rest there in the cup 🙄

then the poor anubias floated until dinner time and I put it back  …silly guppies 🥰

ooohhh something yummy on my shell 😋HAPPY ADVENTURES…TRY SOMETHING NEW

Edited December 12, 2021 by Guppysnail

[Torrey]

I came back to say the bottom matten like Gardenman, but you already brought the whole link, lol!

Thank you for the well-wishes. The hardest thing for me is staying ahead of the pain (because I am a rapid metabolizer & I have chronic pain issues, if I don't stay ahead then I run a risk of not being able to get it under control, and then the pain triggers a flare... 😕

Your tanks and plants are such an inspiration! I am now wanting to invest in more lights that can be programmed, so I can test more plants for growth rates under different lighting conditions. 

I do need to figure out why I randomly got cyanobacteria growing on the hornwort in 2 tanks.

Nowhere else... just the 2 tanks.🤷‍♂️

Your shrimp look like my scuds mating.

[Guppysnail]

I was cleaning sponge filters today and the Pygmy/CPD tank caught my eye. It was looking particularly lovely to me now that it’s getting darker so I wanted to share. I did not like the tannin look in mom n dads tank so I put the ail flowers I made on the back wall of the Pygmy tank. 

@Torrey my lights are the cheap hygger ones from Amazon they do not program just 5 manual up and down settings with either white or red blue or red white blue. The only time I turn them up or down is morning and decrease to evening. Plus siesta times  I don’t use the red blue at all because for whatever reason I get massive hair algae outbreaks almost immediately using blue and I can’t set them for just white red so I stick with the white. Often Increasing flow to the area Cyanobacteria accumulates helps keep it from returning. What I know of it is it will grow in dead spots with little to no flow often. I had it grow to cover the back of the funny tank at one point because I had the back to thick with plants and no flow. I did not know it was there until I took the tank down the first time because it blended in the background 🙄 I have almost no sense of smell thank goodness. 🤣

Edited December 13, 2021 by Guppysnail

[Guppysnail]

Reworked some more plants into glass planters. Decided this is last chance for ludwiga super red and scarlet temple. They both do great then die back then do great. It’s too much hassle to have crappy looking plants more than 50% of the time

I got my cardinals into planters. Hopefully they grow straight. I had them suction cupped but kept moving them so all three look like twisted spaghetti 🤣

the two tiger lotus with the bulbs are doing amazing the one without (didn’t get a pic) is doing ok it’s growing new leaves so I’m hopeful. 

moms pectoral fin turned red the te day after I pulled her last eggs. I’m wondering if they are fighting the night after I pull eggs. When dads fin was hurt it was the morning after I pulled eggs. 🧐 They are fine and I have seen no aggression either time. So I’m keeping a close eye.  It definitely looks like an injury and not something more nefarious. 

shrimp are breeding like crazy in the new Pygmy tank I have one CPD girl that has grown twice the size of all the others. I assume she is Meg’s daughter (Meg as in megalodon 🤣). I will get a pic tomorrow. I think I’m naming her Livy (for Livyatan) to stay with the prehistoric marine predator theme for my dominant girls. 
I ordered 3 aponogeton ulvaceus and one aponogeton longiplumulosus because of @PineSong post of the awesome growth. They came today. The longiplumulosus had leaves 😲 so I could not just qt in a cup 🤣. I figured I would water log the new spiderwood since the pleco baby buyer can’t pick them up until mid January 🙄😭. So…the funny tank…yup…hubby is not thrilled it’s now on the kitchen counter 😝 right next to his horrid bug thing 🤣🤣🤣

The purple guppy boys I kept are really changing. The polka dot look that was so cute is turning into a really handsome coloration. Of course they are not willing to sit still for a photo op 

HAPPY ADVENTURES…TRY SOMETHING NEW 

Edited December 16, 2021 by Guppysnail

[Atitagain]

It seems your still a big fan of the suction cup planters? I need to get some of these. Lol @ you already have tanks outside your fishroom 😂! The pics of the purple guppies  I can see the coloration I bet they are beautiful would love to see some more if they ever stay still.😁 

wanted to ask you, when propagating pennywart is it detrimental to float or keep towards the top? I cut some from another tank and about 3” was floating and I couldn’t tell but a couple leaves didn’t seem healthy. Didn’t know if that was because it was above water line or too close to light or something else? Wanna get as much of this growing as possible, any tips?

 

[Guppysnail]

On 12/16/2021 at 6:33 AM, Atitagain said:

It seems your still a big fan of the suction cup planters? I need to get some of these. Lol @ you already have tanks outside your fishroom 😂! The pics of the purple guppies  I can see the coloration I bet they are beautiful would love to see some more if they ever stay still.😁 

wanted to ask you, when propagating pennywart is it detrimental to float or keep towards the top? I cut some from another tank and about 3” was floating and I couldn’t tell but a couple leaves didn’t seem healthy. Didn’t know if that was because it was above water line or too close to light or something else? Wanna get as much of this growing as possible, any tips?

 

Mine grows wherever. I find pieces floating or tangled in other things. It is not picky. But it is HUNGRY like starving Marvin hungry. Especially for potassium. You know how weird I am about never adding fertz to a tank. I had to begrudgingly start adding seachem potassium. The leaves would get the deficiency holes and the plant would consume the older leaves rapidly. @Torreytalked me through components of fertilizer that scare me and explained how each thing a fish can use. I still can’t add it though because even with lots of plants and growth I’m much to high stocked in all my tanks 🙄 and my source water starts with 20ppm nitrate. I do hope Coop comes out with a nitrogen free easy green. After the fish wake up today I’ll take pictures of the leaves that are still there showing deterioration. Pennywort is a terrestrial plant that can adapt to aquatic conditions so anything above the water should not hurt the plant. 

[Guppysnail]

And yes I order 24 more glass planters. I love them

[Guppysnail]

@Atitagain here is the deficient pennywort picture 

[Atitagain]

On 12/16/2021 at 9:00 AM, Guppysnail said:

@Atitagain here is the deficient pennywort picture 

That’s not what these looked like but the last time I had pennywart this is exactly what it all started looking like. I got frustrated and just gave up on it. I will have to get a test for potassium and see what’s going on. This might be a good fix. Thank you 

[Guppysnail]

On 12/16/2021 at 12:32 PM, Atitagain said:

That’s not what these looked like but the last time I had pennywart this is exactly what it all started looking like. I got frustrated and just gave up on it. I will have to get a test for potassium and see what’s going on. This might be a good fix. Thank you 

Can you post a pic of what yours look like here. I might be able to help “might” being the operative word 🤣

[Guppysnail]

I’m excited and totally amused by simple things. It’s a good life. Yesterday when I put the( I’m calling the long skinny one APL and the 3 just sprouting APU. I’m so not into typing those scientific names repeatedly 🤪)  bulbs in the funny tank and took yesterdays picture it as 6 pm. At 6 am today I took another i was so shocked all 3 APU had sprouted already. At 6 pm I took another photo because there was considerable visible growth 😲. I’m so excited I’m going to try and take pictures at 12 hour intervals until no visible growth is noticed. 
6 pm yesterday 6am this morning

6 pm today

So between these and the lotus it looks like bulbs are the new winners in my tanks as well as broad leaf ludwiga. 
 

I took some video of Megs daughter Livy (I’m going to guess she is her daughter due to her really large size so moving forward to me she is. It tickles me to think the matriarchal lineage continues 🤣)

 

@Atitagain I spent 15 minutes trying to get better photos of the purple guppies before I felt silly for not just using video. The pastel purples are really intense but the camera washes them out. 

Other news the tiniest tip of dad’s pectoral is bent so I think I was correct the had a lovers spat that night. Moms wing looks a touch less red. Neither one seems to even notice they have an issue 🤣 I love catfish 🥰

I shot myself in the foot catering to the Pygmy late evening play with dim lights. They have gone full nocturnal. I check on them with flashlights. They have full on Pygmy parties at night now. Even though it’s not good for my viewing pleasure it is better for the tank as a whole. My CPD love playing in the highest light setting. I was keeping it only halfway up for the Pygmy. Today I turned it full blast. CPD had a ball plants got good light Pygmy napped. I do have the tank set that I can see under the hiding spots 😉

HAPPY ADVENTURES…TRY SOMETHING NEW

[Atitagain]

On 12/16/2021 at 12:34 PM, Guppysnail said:

Can you post a pic of what yours look like here. I might be able to help “might” being the operative word 🤣

No the leaves that were damaged I removed while propagating. 
 

thanks for the video of the purples your right the video kinda washes them out. I seen a big blue in there tho 😁! 
that’s great growth on the bulbs, it’s a race who come in second to reach the top? 🥴

[Guppysnail]

On 12/16/2021 at 7:47 PM, Atitagain said:

No the leaves that were damaged I removed while propagating. 
 

thanks for the video of the purples your right the video kinda washes them out. I seen a big blue in there tho 😁! 
that’s great growth on the bulbs, it’s a race who come in second to reach the top? 🥴

🤣 yes the blue one is the one born without a top lip. I have no name for him yet. Nothing hit me so I just call him Little Buddy