GoofyGarra's Journal

[TheSwissAquarist]

It may be like @Guppysnail said; they’re just a tad old. Maybe try getting a couple of younger females??

[GoofyGarra]

On 10/10/2023 at 2:39 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

It may be like @Guppysnail said; they’re just a tad old. Maybe try getting a couple of younger females??

im really hoping it doesnt come to that, im going to rehome the cories soon then wait a month or so and see if i can find any changes, if it does turn out my current fish are too old and i cant breed them anymore, i think id just rehome the platies and try something new.

[GoofyGarra]

I went in to the bio lab today, i brought some mini ramshorn eggs with me, it wowed pretty much everyone in the lab, ill add a video once i get it.

[GoofyGarra]

cuttlebone for my isopod project came today, so i broke it up into pieces and put a piece in the tank for my mystery snail

(the rock keeps it from floating)

Also with my goal to get BBS going weekly again, i setup some BBS to hatch.

 

Edited October 13, 2023 by GoofyGarra

[GoofyGarra]

On 10/12/2023 at 1:14 PM, GoofyGarra said:

I went in to the bio lab today, i brought some mini ramshorn eggs with me, it wowed pretty much everyone in the lab, ill add a video once i get it.

ok, so youtube isnt working for me, so here are some pictures of the cool things we see under a microscope. We put mini ramshorn eggs (stuff to a sword leaf) under a microscope, we could see the snails moving in the eggs, it was super cool.

Baby ramshorn snail inside egg:

[GoofyGarra]

the temp outside is cooling down significantly (finally) and so is my house temp, so i need to add a heater to the 2gallon. I have a 10watt 80degree heater that i use for this tank, and i just put it in behind the matten filter. I will say, although the matten filter design im using is sub-optimal, im really like the fact that i can just throw my heater behind it and there is no risk of fish getting stuck by the heater, and i dont need to look at the heater, it does hide things well and all i see is a blue background (not ideal, but its not a display tank).

[GoofyGarra]

shrimp arrived from @Guppysnail today! Big thx to @Guppysnail.

They have been temp acclimating for 20 minutes and i have them drip acclimating now:

 

[GoofyGarra]

after some drip acclimating the shrimp have been added, they are happily swimming around munching at mulm and algae. Ill add some cuttlebone in, in a few minutes.

[GoofyGarra]

trying out a piece of wondershell in my tank (also from @Guppysnail)

The fish are very curious about the bubbles emerging from the wonder shell (so am i) and have decided to swim back and forth through the bubbles now, it is fun to watch.

[Guppysnail]

The bubbles are just the air that’s trapped inside expelling. 
 

[GoofyGarra]

i had my meeting with the bio teacher today, everything is going well. Power issues have been solved  and the bio teacher is super enthused. The tank is 15gallons, it hasnt been used in years and is a mess, but ive gotten permission for me and my friend to take the tank to his house where we will clean it out, leak test it,and reseal it if needed. Since the power issues were solved, i will be using a heater, but light will come from ambient room light and a window. Stocking has yet to be decided, might be platies  from home, might be something else. I was told that i should probably get a pleco to eat the algae, and (again) suggested snails instead, so the tank will probably have a nerite or two, and will have bladder and mini ramshorn snails from my plants and equipment. Filtration will be a cycled ACO small sponge filter, it will be a heavily planted tank with Val, and Guppy Grass so bio load should not be an issue.

[GoofyGarra]

we had a shrimp death 😦, the body has been removed and dealt with:

its sad, but after getting new shrimp i knew a few would die, it looks like some of the shrimp have started molting, so its possible this one had trouble molting and thats why it died.

[GoofyGarra]

trying hard not to put all my eggs in one basket, last night i moved 6shrimp out into my 5gallon (with no fish in it), this morning im moving in 3more, they are drip acclimating now.

[GoofyGarra]

I made some more repashy, i had gotten lazy on it, but its a good food and i can feed it to shrimp, fish and isopods so i like it in that manner.

I have it setting in the fridge now, then ill cut and feed it out:

 

Also once i was in the downstairs fridge i saw my BBS eggs and realized i should setup BBS, so i did that too:

one of these days ill rehome my cory horde... there are some new fish i want that the bio load probably wouldnt work with all the cories.

Edited October 20, 2023 by GoofyGarra

[GoofyGarra]

Today, replaced the light on the shrimp tank. The old one was a fluval light i got for free that was bright, and had white and blue LEDs, we replaced it with a Hygger that has red LEDs as well. The main reason for switching it was outlet management, between the timer and ballast the old light took up too much space on the power strip, the new light is USB powered and has a built in timer, so we'll see how well it works.

[GoofyGarra]

just saw the new ACO video, talking about the air lift in the new sponge filter thing. I decided to try something like it myself, my use case is a box filter that uses a air collar, i built the rest of the thing DIY and ill finish it up tonight with hot glue, ill show how it works in the morning:

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 10/22/2023 at 1:55 AM, GoofyGarra said:

outlet managemen

The worst thing ever if you haven’t got yourself a dedicated fishroom ⬆️! 

[GoofyGarra]

Did a water change on the big tank this morning, I need to wc the rest of the tanks later.

I removed the breeder box and moved the cory fry into the main tank, they were the right size where they survive in the main tank, and grow much faster then in the breeder box. That being said im done breeding cories for now, and need to start rehoming most of mine, i want to move the tank more towards a display then a breeding project. I moved the breeder box out and it revealed my amazon sword in all its glory when allowed to spread out, not just bunched in the corner, it is super cool:

Looking back, this is probably one of the best pics of my tank ive taken, so thats nice.

The cories were breeding (again) today, not a bad thing, but im not collecting eggs at this point. Garra Guy was possibly eating some eggs... Also look at this adorable little smile:

Shrimp are all alive, both in the family 4gallon and my 5gallon. They really like to hang upside down in the guppy grass/hair algae blobs that have ended up in both tanks.

On 10/22/2023 at 9:30 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

The worst thing ever if you haven’t got yourself a dedicated fishroom ⬆️! 

Oh yeah, definitely a limiting factor for me many times.

Edited October 22, 2023 by GoofyGarra

[GoofyGarra]

Im really thinking about what i want to do with this tank, this is what ive come up with.

1. Rehome cories, i want to get to a long term manageable group size (probably 8 ) compared to what i have now (like 20)
2. I want to plant it in a bit more. My plan is to use some val (which i have and its doing well) to fill in a wall in the areas in red in this picture, I then want it to fill in behind it and take over the midground as well, but i will be removing (and replanting) any runners or plantlets that go into  the first in or two of foreground, thats where i like to feed, so thats where i want it to remain bare.  I have already planted a few pieces of Val in that area, so im hoping it will take off soon and do what i want it to do.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 10/21/2023 at 8:36 PM, GoofyGarra said:

just saw the new ACO video, talking about the air lift in the new sponge filter thing. I decided to try something like it myself, my use case is a box filter that uses a air collar, i built the rest of the thing DIY and ill finish it up tonight with hot glue, ill show how it works in the morning:

I’m interested because I have the same box filter and was considering doing something similar.

[GoofyGarra]

On 10/22/2023 at 2:09 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

I’m interested because I have the same box filter and was considering doing something similar.

here is what i concluded from my experiment.

1. my air power wasnt powerful enough to create the water lift out of the water. So if you do something like this, the elbow part has to be right at the surface and it needs higher air power
2. It has to be an elbow, my powerhead piece had a hole at the top, and all the bubbles popped there instead of going out the hole, i think check out some videos on hamburg mattern filters, and a tube like that would work for this project

Edited October 22, 2023 by GoofyGarra

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 10/22/2023 at 3:12 PM, GoofyGarra said:

here is what i concluded from my experiment.

1. Air power wasnt powerful enough to create the water lift out of the water. So if you do something like this, the elbow part has to be right at the surface
2. It has to be an elbow, my powerhead piece had a hole at the top, and all the bubbles popped there instead of going out the hole, i think check out some videos on hamburg mattern filters, and a tube like that would work for this project

I wasn’t going to use the box filter itself but rather the sponge filter with the box filter’s lift tube with the horizontal “spout”. I would like to have the air take that 90 degree exit path vs straight up the co op tube, to prevent slime from forming on the tank lid. However I think this would entail drilling or melting the plastic because I’d need to find a way for the air to enter the filter as well. I think the piece could easily break if drilled, so I need to brainstorm it a bit.

Edited October 22, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[GoofyGarra]

Ok, i got mine working. The water comes out of my spout right at the surface of the water giving me extra water flow, i cant tell its working based on duckweed movement. I used the spout piece of a ACO powerhead (i took the piece of my powerhead that had wiring issues...) and attached a tube onto the up tube of the box filter, i like the extra surface agitation so im leaving it like this for now.

On 10/22/2023 at 2:17 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

I wasn’t going to use the box filter itself but rather the sponge filter with the box filter’s lift tube with the horizontal “spout”. I would like to have the air take that 90 degree exit path vs straight up the co op tube, to prevent slime from forming on the tank lid. However I think this would entail drilling or melting the plastic because I’d need to find a way for the air to enter the filter as well. I think the piece could easily break if drilled, so I need to brainstorm it a bit.

2:11 to 2:30

[GoofyGarra]

im thinking to do home platies for the tank at the bio lab. They are easy to care for, and it willl give me a good chance to test whether my infertility issue is due to the fish themselves, or an environmental factor.

Actually on second thought i probably wont do this, i think the amount of platies i have and dont particularly want to move them around and mess up all my ratios, i also want to try something new in the tank.

Edited October 23, 2023 by GoofyGarra

[GoofyGarra]

ok, all the shrimp i could catch were moved out of the 5gallon to go back to their buddies in the main population.

That left the 5gallon open, im thinking i need to go back to basics, ive watched some platy videos and cant figure out whats going on, so im going to simulate one of those videos. I have a pair of platies in the 5gallon now. (Stunner and Gerald), its heavily planted, water temp is 78, and pH and KH are both high using wonder shell, and crushed coral in the filter. Im just gonna leave the pair in for a month, and if nothing happens, i will be incredibly confused.