GoofyGarra's Journal

[GoofyGarra]

back from the lab:

the tank we got yesterday has a kinda neat filter, its a HOB powered by air. The only issue is how the filter connects to the suction cups is bad and it doesnt work well so it kept detaching and floating.

the big cichlid tank (im not in charge of)

trying to get a photo of the frontosa with a photobomber:

salt water tank:

water changes on the 2 tanks i am in charge of:

speaking of which the goldfish were big duckweed fans today. (the stuff in the picture was eaten shortly after).

and a venus fly trap (completely unrelated...)

 

[Elodie Rose]

Very cool to see what you’ve been working with! Are you feeling relieved or sad about that coming to a close soon?
 

Didn’t you say you were going to be getting some shrimp soon? What kind were you thinking about?

[Guppysnail]

@GoofyGarraCheck out this journal. I’ll bet these filterless green water pickle jars would be awesome as grow outs for your platy fry. Green water usually bring out the colors in fish a lot. 

 

[GoofyGarra]

On 8/18/2023 at 4:32 PM, Elodie Rose said:

Are you feeling relieved or sad about that coming to a close soon?

some of both. Doing work while there was work to do was fun. But more of it then i wanted to was sitting around doing nothing, or just cleaning tables and test tubes. Honestly i thought going into it id be setting up tanks, but they never came. Still it was a good learning experience.

 

On 8/18/2023 at 4:32 PM, Elodie Rose said:

Didn’t you say you were going to be getting some shrimp soon? What kind were you thinking about?

possibly soon. There was a slight change in plans. Might still be another month or two. Just standard Neo Davidis. Ive had shrimp once before and they all died, so i need the easiest shrimp i can get.
 

 

On 8/18/2023 at 4:40 PM, Guppysnail said:

@GoofyGarraCheck out this journal. I’ll bet these filterless green water pickle jars would be awesome as grow outs for your platy fry. Green water usually bring out the colors in fish a lot. 

 

If i ever get some platy fry,(which im having trouble with right now...) ill have to look into this. Ive never had the best luck with green water in the past though. I cant just leave tank lights on as all my tanks are in my bedroom and i need sleep. Ive had slight success with direct sunlight, but not that much. Ive tried using 1gallon containers  for water as well, but i dont use them anymore as ive had 2 that have leaked.

Edited August 18, 2023 by GoofyGarra

[Elodie Rose]

Won’t know unless you try and change a variable. Maybe that could be considered the “science” portion of the hobby? Which variable could you change, and maybe find more success with one of those things? 

All a setback means is that you haven’t succeeded in attempt 1.0, method 1.0. luckily there’s a million ways to do things in this hobby. I love that! I fail at my experiments a lot. But once in a while something works, so I keep that part. And tweak the rest, and keep trying different weird things. (No kidding I have 5 kinds of worms right now as I try to figure out what works for me 🪱. Clearly I have no idea yet!)

[GoofyGarra]

On 8/18/2023 at 6:10 PM, Elodie Rose said:

Won’t know unless you try and change a variable. Maybe that could be considered the “science” portion of the hobby? Which variable could you change, and maybe find more success with one of those things? 

All a setback means is that you haven’t succeeded in attempt 1.0, method 1.0. luckily there’s a million ways to do things in this hobby. I love that! I fail at my experiments a lot. But once in a while something works, so I keep that part. And tweak the rest, and keep trying different weird things. (No kidding I have 5 kinds of worms right now as I try to figure out what works for me 🪱. Clearly I have no idea yet!)

yup. Mostly when i see a need for something i will get determined and try lots of things. When its something that im like "nice to have" i honestly just dont try as hard. My next try would be putting the water in a container and put that into a container that is not at all translucent with a 24/7 light so the water in the container is exposed to the light but im not.

[GoofyGarra]

water change day at my place:

and filled up again

a zoo-med block for my mystery snails (the cories were curious)

 

and my female platy in isolation was looking more pregnant then usual so i added in some extra moss to her tank:

i also added some guppy grass from the 2.5 to this tank:

the female appears to be more confident now that there is more cover in the tank. Im using bio rings as fry hides as they can fit into the central holes but the adult fish cannot. Im having trouble seeing from front to back in the tank now with the guppy grass, so any fry that appear should have a good chance of survival.

 

Also for any wondering the mystery fry ive got are growing pretty fast on a diet of BBS and easy fry food. i cant wait to see what they turn out to be.

Edited August 20, 2023 by GoofyGarra

[Guppysnail]

Those platy are stunning. Very creative on the booting hides. 
Im am so impressed by that sword. Swords do not do well for me because I don’t fertilize but they are one of my favorites to look at. 
I can’t wait to see how many play fry you get. 

[GoofyGarra]

On 8/20/2023 at 10:19 AM, Guppysnail said:

Those platy are stunning. Very creative on the booting hides. 
Im am so impressed by that sword. Swords do not do well for me because I don’t fertilize but they are one of my favorites to look at. 
I can’t wait to see how many play fry you get. 

im also very excited to see if i can get any platy fry. Its been so long any successful would be a success. I was at the LFS last week and i saw one of their tanks had fry in it. I couldnt figure out if they were guppy or platy. back when i had platy fry a few times a month, id have been able to easily pick out the platies from the guppies. 😞

I appreciate the compliment.

I should go add more root tabs for the sword, im just too lazy... and i have bad experiences with adding root tabs. (just a personal thing).  I had a second sword but it didnt do so well so it went to a friend.

Edited August 20, 2023 by GoofyGarra

[GoofyGarra]

found a cool find at a used bookstore:

[Odd Duck]

On 8/20/2023 at 1:44 PM, GoofyGarra said:

found a cool find at a used bookstore:

That’s a good one!  There are a few ID mistakes in it, so use other sources to confirm everything that you aren’t already certain about ID wise.  Before you ask, I don’t remember exactly which mistakes are in that version but pretty much all those books have a mistake here or there. The best ones only have a few.

[GoofyGarra]

On 8/20/2023 at 3:13 PM, Odd Duck said:

That’s a good one!  There are a few ID mistakes in it, so use other sources to confirm everything that you aren’t already certain about ID wise.  Before you ask, I don’t remember exactly which mistakes are in that version but pretty much all those books have a mistake here or there. The best ones only have a few.

ill keep that in mind, thank you.

Mostly i got it because i thought "hey this is cool" and might spend a boring afternoon flipping through it. I dont really need to use it as some sort of encyclopedia so if a few bits are off it shouldnt matter too much.

Edited August 20, 2023 by GoofyGarra

[GoofyGarra]

a few minutes until the lights are on, lets see what chaos will happen today...

I spent all night hearing the cories messing around in the gravel so they have been pretty busy. I'll need to setup some Repashy later, normally i do a mix of C+ and SG but im doing a smaller batch today so ill probably just do C+. (its not that i like C+ more then SG or anything, just when i was buying repashy i planned for a higher mixture of C+ and thus have more of it, i dont have as much SG).

and lights are on:

the cories are active today (probably breeding...)

i dont see any fry (yet).

mostly this tank bothers me a bit. Im a rather passive hobbyist, but one thing I do like to do, is keep a calendar. Ive only started doing it recently, but it is very helpful. One of the things i mark on this calendar is moving female platies to isolation. But of course i forgot to mark this one on the calendar so i have NO clue when she will give birth, hopefully soon though.

Floating mystery snail (hes been doing this the past week or so, then ill find him snailing around the tank as usual) any reason for concern?

and the true GoofyGarra:

these pictures do show it well, i have slight tannins to my water from the eucalyptus root i have. It comes out on camera but not in person. I only noticed when i saw the water from my water changes in a white bucket. Though the tannins are not hurting anything, so i dont care. (if they are affecting PH i cant tell, but i have lot of crushed coral in the tank+water changes with tap water seems to be keeping my PH up for platies and snails.

making repashy (going with SG it should last longer)

for repashy i like a 1:3 ratio (repashy to hot water) and something ive learned is waiting. For me it often takes more time then advertises to set. So instead of setting a timer, ill go on with my life and just come back to it 10-15minutes later and it will be just right.

 

Also wondering about fish sleep. I want to setup some green water by leaving the lights on all night for a few days but i have fish in those tanks. Do fish need sleep like we do or will they be perfectly fine without it?

 

Edited August 21, 2023 by GoofyGarra

[Guppysnail]

Mystery snails sometimes just float but it is usually for a reason.

In nature they use this to relocate to a more hospitable environment by being carried on the current.  
Potential current environment lacks enough food, to many potential predators or nosey fish, poor water quality, low dissolved o2 etc.

So if your guy is doing this more often recently evaluate his entire environment. 

[GoofyGarra]

How do matten filters work?

Are they as simple as an air stone behind a sponge or is there more complexities?

Im thinking about one for my 2gallon with the female in isolation. Its a small tank and i have a large enough piece of sponge. Id run both for a week or two to get the matten filter seeded then move out the sponge filter. Mostly due to the versatality of sponge filters i want to be able to have one that i can move around as needed. (the sponge filter also gets in the way in the middle of the tank).  The sponge is just like the aquaclear stuff and its thick so it should provide good mechanical and biological filtration without clogging too quickly.

[Guppysnail]

On 8/21/2023 at 7:07 AM, GoofyGarra said:

Are they as simple as an air stone behind a sponge or is there more complexities?

Yes just that simple. Many folks run the air line through the foam. It’s a sponge filter with no plastic cage cut to whatever shape or size you choose. 

 

[GoofyGarra]

@Guppysnailthx.

 

Im experimenting with one right now, i just set it up, i want to be able to move around the sponge filter as needed. (ill run both filters for a week or two though to get the matten seeded) :

[GoofyGarra]

just got back from vacation, all the fish are alive.

The water lettuce and guppy grass have thrived in my absence, and it turns out i have 1 more cory fry then i thought.

No platy fry yet unfortunately. (to the best of my knowledge, i havent looked too carefully). However the female appears even MORE gravid now so im sure we're getting closer to birth.

2.5gallon has an algae spike, both hair and diatom. As its just seasoning to be a shrimp tank im doing nothing about algae, the bladder and mini ramshorn snails can have some snacks.ill probably move in some water lettuce temporarily to help with the lighting. I used a light i had, which was overly bright for this tank size. the guppy grass loves it, but so does the algae. But the shrimp shouldnt care.

the mystery fry tank is looking clearer then ever, probably due to the lack of feeding on my part (it was an overfed tank). Also one of them is looking a bit gravid, so we'll see what happens.

I dont usually watch much TV but on vacation i looked at the show Tanked. Now that ive seen a few episodes ill probably want to go back and rewatch kgtropical's review on the show. I feel like seeing massive saltwater tanks in the show gave me a good appreciation for the (relatively) tiny freshwater tanks i keep. It also might be that i appreciate my tanks more having been away from them for a few days.

 

and now some vacation pics that have to do with aquatics.

we vacationed in Chinkateague (spelling might be off), which is right by the ocean. So our rental house had a saltwater marsh in the backyard:

i had brought a few nets that had been sterilized with bleach beforehand, i didnt want to cause an ich or duckweed outbreak in the natural enviroments.

I need to get the pictures of the fish and shrimp i caught from a family member who took the pictures, but i have crab pictures from the marsh.

Both male and female fiddlers,+ virginia blue crabs (AKA, Maryland blue crabs, and Florida blue crabs, all about where you find them). Due to the size of the blue crabs i left them alone, but i caught both male and female fiddlers.

male fiddler:

female fiddler:

Virginia blue crab:

 

 

Edited August 24, 2023 by GoofyGarra

[GoofyGarra]

i was working on a matten filter for my 2gallon tank.

I used a 30-40ppi sponge material and the top of the Ziss Egg Tumbler to make it work. (I have the tumbler but have never had great success with it, so dont use it anymore). I had to cut the cover of the Ziss top to fit in tubing as the sponge was rather thick. (cutting wet sponge is not fun or easy, nor was cutting the cover piece on the ziss head).

My next issue was that my airline tubing was longer then the Ziss tumbler neck, thus there was a major air leak with not all the air going into the tube for the filter. I tried expanding the tube at first:

but that fell apart and in the end i just ended up shortening the airline tubing. Now, its working. Ill leave both the matten and sponge filter in for a week or two then move the sponge filter.

Big thx to @Guppysnailfor helping me out with this project.

the next thing i need to do is make sure no fry can get back into the tube, thatll be a project for tomorrow though.

Also more vacation pics (a fish and a shrimp i caught in the marsh, bonus points if you can find the shrimp).

(if anyone can identify the fish that would be pretty cool, shrimp is a Shore Shrimp).

Edited August 25, 2023 by GoofyGarra

[GoofyGarra]

tank lights are still off, it bothers me when im up and the lights are off, but if i turn them on for any longer ill have algae spikes. So it is what it is.

the tank is pretty different at night, though me sitting here with the room lights on pretty much woke up all the fish.

im also unsure if when the lights turn on there will be any difference in lighting due to the water lettuce takeover...

rare nerite snail pic (she is rather nocturnal)

and matten filter is working a bit better then it was last night:

now we wait for the lights to turn on any minute now...

and they are on, i dont think itll come out on camera, but my tank has never looked better. I think a mix of being away for a few days, and with the water lettuce on one side, but not the other due to the HOB and the light dark ratio makes it look amazing. (in my opinion of course).

breakfast for the cories: (the platies will get easy fry in a minute...)

this is my female platy in isolation (same one with the matten filter), when i put her in she was grey with black and blue stripes, now she has some cool color to her:

 

snails are breeding in the mystery fry tank, but i dont care.

and thats my morning update for today.

Edited August 25, 2023 by GoofyGarra

[GoofyGarra]

also question:

On sunday i plan to move most of my cories to the LFS. I want to keep all of my 5 adults and possible 2-3 juvinilles.

I plan to chase the fish into a large net with my hand, which means ill get both adults and juvinilles in the nets.

Would it be better to release the adults when this happens, even though i might have to do that a few times, or move them to their own bucket for a few minutes?

 

also i did not realize how big my amazon sword is, a few of the leaves are now taller then the tank... (Also my betta as a photobomber).

and i know there is a mystery snail community on this forum, so here's one of mine (i have two).

Edited August 25, 2023 by GoofyGarra

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 8/21/2023 at 6:14 AM, GoofyGarra said:

Also wondering about fish sleep. I want to setup some green water by leaving the lights on all night for a few days but i have fish in those tanks. Do fish need sleep like we do or will they be perfectly fine without it?

Yes, they need a period of darkness just like we do.  Maybe you can make green water in a jar or something instead?

[Guppysnail]

On 8/25/2023 at 7:16 AM, GoofyGarra said:

or move them to their own bucket for a few minutes?

Definitely put them in a separate container temporarily. For them to continue getting chased and released it is much more stressful than a mini-vacation in a container. 
 

That is how I do it and it works out great. Plus it is easier on me to catch fry not contending with adults. 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 8/25/2023 at 6:16 AM, GoofyGarra said:

my tank has never looked better. I think a mix of being away for a few days, and with the water lettuce on one side, but not the other due to the HOB and the light dark ratio makes it look amazing. (in my opinion of course).

Yes, and that sword plant is a showstopper!

[GoofyGarra]

On 8/25/2023 at 8:31 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Yes, and that sword plant is a showstopper!

i appreciate that. It took me a LOT of time and effort to get that sword as big as it is.

On 8/25/2023 at 8:26 AM, Guppysnail said:

Definitely put them in a separate container temporarily. For them to continue getting chased and released it is much more stressful than a mini-vacation in a container. 
 

That is how I do it and it works out great. Plus it is easier on me to catch fry not contending with adults. 

Thx. I think the adults will be the hardest to catch anyway as they dont get tricked as easily. Previously when i caught out a dozen cories for a friend i just moved the adults back in, but i think if im moving out the cories in larger quantities im rather likely to catch adults too. My other idea was breed out the emerald/gold sheen ive found in my cories, so keep only the best ones, but as cool as that would be, that sounds a bit harder then what i want to do right now.