Semi-budget 40g Breeder Aquascape Journal

[TheSwissAquarist]

Sounds like a good course of action 👍! Any eggs spotted yet?😁

[Schuyler]

On 11/27/2022 at 10:18 PM, TheSwissAquarist said:

Sounds like a good course of action 👍! Any eggs spotted yet?😁

I have pretty good eyesight but not that good... I wouldn't be surprised if she was just saving up eggs for the last few days and releasing them now.

One thing I was to try when looking for eggs is seeing if they glow under black light. My son has a little black light flashlight somewhere and if that worked it would be so nice.

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 11/28/2022 at 7:22 AM, Schuyler said:

I have pretty good eyesight but not that good... I wouldn't be surprised if she was just saving up eggs for the last few days and releasing them now.

One thing I was to try when looking for eggs is seeing if they glow under black light. My son has a little black light flashlight somewhere and if that worked it would be so nice.

Black light flashlight? 😳I’ve seen everything now.🤦‍♂️

[Schuyler]

I saw someone post a picture of a Notho Rachovii in a local Facebook group. I offered to help her try and breed them. Turns out she got her pair from the same LFS as I did. You never guess what she said... The female won't eat!

The bolsters my theory that it's something to do with the supplier. Who knows, if breeding them works out maybe I can use that to negotiate trading/selling some to them.

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 11/29/2022 at 3:17 AM, Schuyler said:

I saw someone post a picture of a Notho Rachovii in a local Facebook group. I offered to help her try and breed them. Turns out she got her pair from the same LFS as I did. You never guess what she said... The female won't eat!

The bolsters my theory that it's something to do with the supplier. Who knows, if breeding them works out maybe I can use that to negotiate trading/selling some to them.

Start a website- localkillifish-r-us.com! 
Any advances on the breeding front?

[Schuyler]

On 11/28/2022 at 10:23 PM, TheSwissAquarist said:

Start a website- localkillifish-r-us.com! 
Any advances on the breeding front?

Nothing yet. Pretty much a waiting game at this point. The earliest anything could happen there would be this weekend. That's when I'll check on the N Gardneri eggs.

A website sounds like just even more work... I'm not looking to make money, more just to offset the costs.

[Schuyler]

This morning I tested and the water has been pretty soft for a while. Most of the fish prefer the water to be a bit harder. So I went to add more crushed coral to the tank and decided that while I was in the canister I may as well clean the sponges. But cleaning the sponges meant there needed to be some tank water so I ended up doing a 5g water change.Hopefully that raises the KH and GH for them since the male guppy's color is looking a bit faded.

I'm also considering selling my Fluval 407 and buying a 207 or maybe even just going with some sponge filters. The 407 feels like serious overkill. It's almost always turned down to 30% and that still feels like a lot of flow.

In Killifish news, Cindy is looking pretty rough. I fed and BBS and she picked at it but didn't really go after it.

I've decided to separate he to get own little container so that I can feed her directly without any competition or questioning about if it was her who ate the food. Plus if she does pass, then I don't have to search for her in the plants. I used the pipette to lure her out of the plants so I could catch her. Turns out training your fish to eat from a pipette has other uses. Hopefully she eats and fills out again but I suspect this more likely a hospice tank rather than hospital tank.

In slightly more fun news, I finally added a profile picture.

And here is a group shot of everybody eating some rapashi dinner

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 11/30/2022 at 6:27 AM, Schuyler said:

In slightly more fun news, I finally added a profile picture.

That profile pic is very cool! Nice fish & lighting.

Shame about Cindy, but you did try everything you could have, which means you’re not at fault.

[Schuyler]

Today's theme is hide and seek.

See if you can find the hiding cory (it's not the

I noticed two fry in the cup and add I walked over to investigate one of them got spooked. It does sound the cup a few times and then just disappeared but didn't leave the cup. Do they hide like this in nature?

Something else that's been hiding and was just found today is this little guy. My son said "Daddy look at this silly snail! Its shell is pointy!"

Not exactly sure how it got in there but it looks like it's been around for a while.

There have been a lot of snails dieing off and lots of chalky looking shells. I think the water may not have enough minerals for them. Hopefully the crushed coral helps with that.

Related to that, the county has water testing information available online that I found today. It gives subs idea of what is in the water here

(And after spending all that time figuring out where stuff was I just realized the date on that was 1998...)

@TheSwissAquarist, I decided to check on one of the batches of eggs and there's definitely growth. You could see the at the very least a spine and maybe an eye. I say maybe by the time we find a few and started taking a closer look my 2-year-old started to "help" searching in the coir and the eggs were lost again... I'm thinking I'll wait one more week so that I can make sure I have everything all ready to go.

Another full tank shot. Probably time to trim things back

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 12/1/2022 at 6:45 AM, Schuyler said:

Another full tank shot. Probably time to trim things back

Looking good! 😊 

[itsfoxtail]

On 11/30/2022 at 11:45 PM, Schuyler said:

I'm thinking I'll wait one more week so that I can make sure I have everything all ready to go.

Looking forward to this! I know it would take one heck of a camera but do you think you could get pics of the eggs with the spine/eye? That would be super cool to see.

Also I legit thought your profile picture was from a book or something. A+. Wish I could take photos like that!

Oh and thank you for the proactive red circle 😅

[Schuyler]

On 12/1/2022 at 2:18 AM, itsfoxtail said:

Also I legit thought your profile picture was from a book or something. A+. Wish I could take photos like that!

Thanks! What you doing see are the 30 blurry pictures where he refused to sit still or my phone decided to focus on the plants. Even in this one the focus is on the frosted background but it's close enough that you can really tell when it's this small. Lol

Fish pictures are hard...

[Schuyler]

While reading some other threads I ran across @Chick-In-Of-TheSea mentioning that a sunken belly could be a sign of wasting disease and it clicked!

I haven't even considered that she could just be sick. Good news is she's isolated so I can treat her individually. Bad news is at this point she's pretty far along and there is potential that others in the tank have parasites now.

I did notice that two guppies no longer have their gravid spots but are still pretty large. They've also had weird reddish, occasionally long and thin poops.

Calling on people who have been following along (@TheSwissAquarist, @itsfoxtail, @Minanora, @Patrick_G😞) Does this sound like it could be wasting disease? Should I treat the whole tank with paracleanse and some beneficial bacteria?

I know one thing: I won't be skipping quarantining/medicating in the future!

(That frown was an accident and I can't get rid of it now... At least not on mobile)

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 12/1/2022 at 12:44 PM, Schuyler said:

Should I treat the whole tank with paracleanse and some beneficial bacteria

If you do, make sure you remove your snail friends first!

[Schuyler]

On 12/1/2022 at 11:18 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

If you do, make sure you remove your snail friends first!

The ACO page for it says it's safe for snails and inverts. Can it kill ramshorns?

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 12/1/2022 at 2:20 PM, Schuyler said:

The ACO page for it says it's safe for snails and inverts. Can it kill ramshorns?

Yes. The snail bodies are similar to worm bodies and anti-parasitic meds have the same effect on both creatures.

@Guppysnail

[Guppysnail]

Yes @Chick-In-Of-TheSeais correct worm and snail bodies are similar. In terms of medication my understanding of “safe” and acceptable for critters is when treating them with a med the mortality level is below a certain percent. Cory did a video on this. 
The level COOP uses doesn’t outright kill snails but that does not mean it’s doing no harm especially if it’s a med to target worms. 
Hope that helps. 

[Minanora]

I have never had paracleanse kill off snails (sadly, because I'm trying to rid myself of MTS that I accidently introduced into the plaza)

I would start with a full course of Expel P if you expect worms.

What anti-parasitic medications do you have on hand? Parazipro is safe for most snails and inverts as well. Then there's expel P, it also won't kill snails - I've treated full courses of all three of these, separately, several times in the fry grow out tank.

I'm going to walk back here, for snails, Expel P is not safe for mystery snails.

Here's some guidance provided from @Colus thread regarding the common illnesses and how to treat them.

"intestinal nematodes and camallanus worms and wasting disease one the most effective treatments is levamisole in food or treat the water column it can take 3 weeks of treatment to successfully deal with internal parasites  you can get levamisole from select aquatics or you can get fritz expel p active ingredient is levamisole if you can't get ether I would treat with fenbendazole in food if your in the UK I would treat with Esha ndx active ingredient is levamisole or JBL Nedol plus NT labs anti-fluke&wormer active ingredient is  flubendazole and JBL Nedol plus aren't safe to use with invertebrates levamisole can effect have an effect on shrimp making them sluggish and it can be harmful to some  species of snail such as rabbit snails and mystery snails can have a reaction to levamisole"

 

Edited December 1, 2022 by Minanora
Start with Expel P, not Parazipro

[Minanora]

I do not have any snails aside from MTS, Bladder Snails, Pond Snails, and Ramshorn Snails. These meds have killed none of them.

[Schuyler]

On 12/1/2022 at 12:22 PM, Minanora said:

What anti-parasitic medications do you have on hand? 

I only have ick related meds... But I'm planning to run to the LFS after work and pick up some others.

If nothing else I can set a snail trap tonight and move a chunk of them to my shrimp tank for a bit

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 12/1/2022 at 3:22 PM, Minanora said:

I'm trying to rid myself of MTS

You can try assassin snails. 

[Minanora]

On 12/1/2022 at 12:47 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

You can try assassin snails. 

Once I finish this course of No Planaria, I will be adding one to finish the job... in a few months... once I'm sure it's safe for snails again.

[Schuyler]

Thanks everyone for the advice! Hopefully something good comes from this.

On 12/1/2022 at 12:22 PM, Minanora said:

 Parazipro is safe for most snails and inverts as well. Then there's expel P, it also won't kill snails 

I wish I had read your comment more carefully. The LFS didn't have any Fritz brand medications. I remember seeing parazipro there but I ever up getting something else the worker suggested, Seachem MetroPlex (but it was close to the end of the day and he seemed pretty checked out). Looking at it now I don't think it's for the right kind of parasites. Just put in an order online for Expel P.

While there I snapped some pictures of their female Killifish. See if you notice a theme:

Ok so those didn't turn out so great... But all of them had similar sunken bellies.

The box of Seachem MetroPlex Matt have helped in a roundabout way though. It suggested mixing it into food and then adding GarlicGuard to enhance the flavor. So I looked at what that is and it's just garlic extract. I figured it couldn't hurt but I'm not paying for garlic when I have some extra strong garlic grown in my back yard.

I minced some and mixed it into some frozen daphnia. It seemed like it may have actually worked. She took a few bites of the daphnia which she has never done before.

In case you're curious, this is what it looks like if you let a garlic flower go to seed:

Each of those are tiny little garlic cloves.

I also picked up Seachem Equilibrium because the water is on the softer side lately and these fish like harder water. Added 1/4 Tbsp to the tank (which was ~1/4 the recommended amount 1T/20g). Right now the total alkalinity is about 60. I'll test again in the morning to see how it's changed.

The cat sat and watch the tank for a while after suggestions left a pre-warmed chair in from of it 

 

[Minanora]

I apologize, my wording should be more direct and to the point. I get lost in my own head a lot.

That is the most interesting garlic I've ever seen.... It looks like a flower, on a stalk. I grow a lot of garlic and mine does not look like that. What garlic variety is that? All of mine has the cloves come together at the top and a knot at the bottom where the cloves connect together at the root. My garlic chives went to seed, but I haven't pulled the bulbs yet. I'm not certain that they have finished their lifecycle. They did this last year and grew back, but flowered the same, like onions do in their second year... Confusing plant this chive plant is... making seeds two years in a row.

I'm happy you got her to eat, at least. Keep at it!

[itsfoxtail]

On 12/1/2022 at 5:36 PM, Minanora said:

Once I finish this course of No Planaria, I will be adding one to finish the job... in a few months... once I'm sure it's safe for snails again.

I actually did an inadvertent test of No Planaria and its mortality rate on snails (because my snail tank had java moss that was absolutely DRENCHED in hydra). While it definitely knocked out the population I ultimately was surprised to see how well ramshorns in particular did. They had about a 50% survival rate while the pond/nerites were tanked by it. Now I kind of wish there would've been some MTS in there just to see.

This info doesn't really apply to anything but just thought I'd share lol. Oh, and sorry to snail people; it wasn't a pretty sight even for me, a 'snails are food' person.  Also rip to my two nerites that I genuinely forgot were in there. 

On 12/1/2022 at 11:44 AM, Schuyler said:

I did notice that two guppies no longer have their gravid spots but are still pretty large. They've also had weird reddish, occasionally long and thin poops.

Calling on people who have been following along (@TheSwissAquarist, @itsfoxtail, @Minanora, @Patrick_G😞) Does this sound like it could be wasting disease? Should I treat the whole tank with paracleanse and some beneficial bacteria?

 

You've already gotten loads of awesome info but I will say if the poos are red and long (and you haven't been feeding krill flakes) I would go with Expel P. I know this is possibly harmful to your ramshorns (I've dosed in tanks with them before and haven't seen die-off anyway) but if it were to be callumanus worms levimasole is really the only thing I think does the job effectively. 

I'd second a round of Prazipro after the Expel P as well!