Snail looks weird… what should I do?

[Lennie]

Those plants and wools indeed introduce beneficial bacteria too!

[Sherry]

On 3/10/2023 at 11:19 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

 You don’t need to put much. Just a tiny bit.

How often did you put fish food in the tank?

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Like twice a week. Maybe 2 flakes.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

I just remembered you have bottled bacteria. Choose ONE of those products to use to build up your biological filter, following the instructions on the package. Test your water every day for “the big 3” ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. Write results down. If you see any of the first 2, do not change water- you are going to allow the bacteria to consume it. This is called a fishless cycle.

When you get to a point where ammonia and nitrite are reading 0 consistently every day (even with ghost feeding) and nitrate is in range (see test kit instructions for range), you may vacuum your tank from the ghost feeding, replace with water dechlorinated* with your Fritz complete, and add a small fish. Once the fish is in, just feed enough food that the fish can consume in 30 sec. No more ghost feeding or letting food sit in the tank. Continue to test and if everything remains stable, you may add more fish. *Dechlorinate the water before putting it in the tank (vs dechlorinating the tank itself and then adding water) because chlorine will kill your bacteria and harm  fish.

The every day goal is to have ammonia and nitrite at zero always. 

The smaller the tank, or the newer the tank, or the more fish in a tank - the more unstable. We used to say “an inch of fish per gallon” of water. Keeping in mind how big the specific fish you choose will grow over time. Which you can look up before you buy the fish.

Also you may see some brown algae coating the surfaces of your tank/decor while you are going through the fishless cycle. That’s a great sign! It means there is life in your tank and you are well on your way.  It does go away or some people use a new toothbrush to tidy things up at water change time.

Bonus tip (optional):

live plants. They consume ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate, in that order of preference. Live plants help make the water safer for fish. Low light popular beginner plants are anubias and Java fern. They do not get put into the substrate though, they are water column feeders so the roots stay out. A lot of people attach them to rocks or driftwood so they stay put. Live plants usually do not consume ALL the nitrate though, so you’d still need to change water regularly.

Edited March 11, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Lennie]

how is it going @Sherry? Any progress on the cycling and tank building?

Keep us updated!

[Sherry]

I added some plants and decor. My ammonia is at zero, nitrites are about 1 ppm

I ended up posting the test strip photo twice.🤦🏽‍♀️

I don’t have any livestock yet, but I should be able to get some fish soon, I think.

[Lennie]

As long as ammonia and nitrite clears up and plants perform a good growth, must be good to go! 1ppm of nitrite is still pretty toxic but there is definitely a progress. Nitrite to nitrate takes a bit longer than ammonia to nitrite bacterias building up.

The tank looks pretty too!!

Hope it all goes well this time 🙏🏼

Any plans on the stocking? 🙂

A personal suggestion, I would add a floating plant to that tank. Would be nice to shade slow grower anubias some and help a lot more with the nitrate usage!

Also most fish enjoy a plant cover on top. Would love to send you some if I were to live nearby. My amazon frogbits and water lettuce are going crazy!

Can you get floating plants by any chance? Or do you even like them?

Edited March 22, 2023 by Lennie

[Sherry]

I have thought about floating plants, but my tank is a kit and the lights are little so I didn’t know if that would work.

I thought my little Pygmy Cory Cats were so cute that I want to try them again.

[Lennie]

On 3/22/2023 at 8:18 PM, Sherry said:

I thought my little Pygmy Cory Cats were so cute that I want to try them again.

My fav fish! 

Make sure to learn whether they are wild caught or tank bred when you are getting some. Wild caught ones seem to be very fragile. Irene had a video about it before, a bad experience. 

To avoid any potential problems, I highly would recommend going with the tank bred pygmys! I have 16 tank breds, all doing fine even in 8.0 ph! But it is my own experience ofcourse.

On 3/22/2023 at 8:18 PM, Sherry said:

I have thought about floating plants, but my tank is a kit and the lights are little so I didn’t know if that would work.

Hmm. I don't really know about your light but, a couple of floating plants should be okay to have I bet. When I kept my anubias in very shade under both normal floating plants and elodea, it was giving lots of new leaves and flowering! When I removed the thick elodea and most of the floating plants, it suddently got covered in algae...

In my experience they really like shade and love to have a very lil light. That's what worked the best for me at least.

 

the wildcaught pygmy cory video of @Irene :

 

 

Edited March 22, 2023 by Lennie

[Sherry]

I had been comparing wild caught and tank raised… it’s more money to get tank raised, but less stress for the fish, I think.

[Lennie]

On 3/22/2023 at 8:35 PM, Sherry said:

I had been comparing wild caught and tank raised… it’s more money to get tank raised, but less stress for the fish, I think.

Stress is really bad for the fish. I assume we can say wild caughts are mostly more exposed to stress factor, starting from nature to end up in our tanks, just as you mentioned. Also, a fish that is raised similar to your water parameters do better in your tank. For wildcaught fish, you should meet their water parameters and needs in the nature. If they were living in 6.0 ph in the nature and you put the wild caught fish in your 8.0 ph tank, they will probably just won't make it. Tank-raised fish especially from your local area do much better adapting in general. Including food acceptance. Fish don't eat pellet food in nature, so you never exactly know if wild caughts  will ever accept commercial fish food.

Creating the exact nature environment for those fish is kinda hard and takes work to match and balance stuff with every water change or so. Probably you can pay for tank raised fish a lil more but save money on potential products to condition water for wildcaught fish, and have a higher chance of success at the end.

 

[Sherry]

My nitrites test zero. Awesome!

I checked with my “local” fish store (45 miles away), and they don’t have any Pygmy Cory cats, so I ordered some tank raised ones.

Excited! 😊

[Lennie]

Good news,

I would try to stock the tank pretty low at first and keep the food minimal in order to let the tank keep up with it.

Excited to see your new fish friends!

[Sherry]

Well, no new fish yet. They won’t send until the temperatures are above 19 degrees F. Crazy weather - I thought it would have warmed up that much by now, but we’re in the middle of another snow storm! 🤨 Maybe next week.

My plants are doing great, though.

[AndEEss]

On 2/25/2023 at 3:20 PM, Sherry said:

I did a 20% water change before I put the medications in. I have my temperature set for 76 deg. F. I use Fritz Complete as my dechlorinator.

I tested my tap water 0 nitrate and nitrite, about 15 ppm hardness, about 120 ppm buffer, 7.0 pH, 0 chlorine.

From my tank I get 10 ppm nitrate, just under 1 ppm nitrite, 25 ppm hardness (I added Wonder Shell), 120 ppm buffer, 7.0 pH, 0 chlorine. I dechlorinate because I'm using town water and I assume it's treated in some way, even though it doesn't register. I have been doing about 20% water changes every other or every third day since I realized I had nitrites.

I am very confused why I have nitrites. I have added API Stress Zyme, then got Seachem Stability because I heard that the bacterium in these two products are different for different purposes. This tank was started January 27th with two Mystery Snails. Since then one has been moved to my granddaughters' betta tank Feb. 13th, and is doing fine. The one I kept has died. I would think if it was my tap water, neither would have made it.

I bought natural gravel from Walmart, and that seems to be when I had trouble with nitrites. I have since dumped it and am going bare bottom.

 

You saw nitrite because the tank wasn't cycled.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 4/5/2023 at 9:09 AM, Sherry said:

My plants are doing great, though.

The tank is looking nice @Sherry!  Are you using dirt in your planters?  If so, just be careful not to disrupt that; you don't want that dirt to get up into the water column - so if a plant dies at any point, just take the whole pot out rather than pulling the plant.  

[Sherry]

On 4/5/2023 at 8:20 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

The tank is looking nice @Sherry!  Are you using dirt in your planters?  If so, just be careful not to disrupt that; you don't want that dirt to get up into the water column - so if a plant dies at any point, just take the whole pot out rather than pulling the plant.  

This tank was supposed to be my quarantine tank - eventually I want to get either a 20 long or 29 gallon and aquascape it. I didn’t want to put a bunch of substrate in just to have to clean it out, so I thought these containers with dirt would allow these plants to develop good root systems and be ready for the new tank.

Unfortunately there isn’t any stores within 100 miles that carry the size tanks I want, so I’m being patient.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Way to think ahead! That should make it easy for you.

[Sherry]

I am confused. My little fish were shipped today. I set up a quarantine tank over the weekend, treated it with Fritz Complete, put in a heater and air stone.

Tonight, just to be safe, I checked for ammonia. Am I reading this right? It looks like there is ammonia in this tank that is basically tap water.

Here is tap water.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

I am always a little confused at reading those. But it is the kit I use. I just say to myself, green or blue? Green is fine, blue is bad. Because I can’t differentiate between the greens. Now when I’m REALLY in doubt, I do the API liquid ammonia test to confirm the results. Do you have one of those that you can try?  Also does your quarantine have a seasoned filter or a new filter?

If you have some water that fish/snails have already lived in, go ahead and add some of that water to your quarantine tank.

Edited April 11, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Lennie]

This might be a lil different than some other fishkeepers perspective:

I personally see no reason to quarantine the fish I get as the first additions, like to what fish they will spread the diseases to anyway. Stress is one of the worst things for fish, So until they end up in your tank, they go through lots of tanks and shipment already. Then introducing them into a quarantine tank after shipment, stressful enough. Then medicating fish, again stressful enough. Then once they start settling, moving fish again to another tank, more stress. I just don't like it.

I medicate fish only if I observe any potential problems. I don't drink medicine until I'm sick. I don't drink all the pills I find at home to treat a potential sickness or to treat one symptom I have. I act with this mentality. I closely observe my fish everyday, check if they act weird, if they eat well.

If I really wanna medicate, then I wait until I complete my full stock in a tank, medicate them all together after they all settle. And I medicate specifically for the condition I observe.

Edited April 11, 2023 by Lennie

[Sherry]

Thank you @Chick-In-Of-TheSea and @Lennie. I decide on a combination of your suggestions.

I have been running two filters in my aquarium so I would have a backup of BB if necessary. I moved one to the quarantine tank to preserve it and I will put my fish in my regular tank. I plan to hold off on medication since I specifically bought tank-bred (to avoid the problems with wild caught).

The fish went from Marysville, WA, to Seattle, to Louisville, KY, to Fargo, ND. Now they are on their way to my town, in north central Minnesota. I'm getting excited.

[Lennie]

I am excited as well! Hope your lil buddies do well. 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

To add to what @Lennie wrote, I do quarantine, but if these are your first fish in the tank, you don't really need to. 

A separate quarantine tank is highly recommended if you already have an established tank with a bunch of healthy fish, and then you decide at some point later on you want to add some more fish.  It's the new guys that should be quarantined.  I do quarantine for 1 month minimum, so they're not being moved, then moved again, etc in a short period of time.  There are illnesses that can wipe out a whole tank very rapidly (such as ich) and I try to avoid that at any cost because it can end up in heartbreak. No matter where fish are sourced from, wild, store, home raised, etc - they can get sick just from the stress of travel and netting.  It weakens their immune system.  Although if I was buying fish from a friend and I know what she fed the fish and how she took care of her tanks, and how long she had the fish, I would feel more comfortable about the fish health because I know a little bit of their story.  This was the case when I adopted Geppetto, my betta.  He was "rehomed" because he was mean to her snails.  

I created a paradise for Geppetto.

On 4/11/2023 at 9:10 AM, Sherry said:

I moved one to the quarantine tank to preserve it

It will lose the bacteria if there is no food source for the bacteria (waste).  To keep it going you can add a snail to the quarantine tank or you can ghost feed your quarantine tank, which means adding a piece of flake food every so often.

Obviously the snail will need to come out if you need to medicate that tank at any point.

[Sherry]

My little guys arrived safe and sound!