Fish at Bag End

[Tihshho]

I need to get on the super red bandwagon. If you don't mind me asking, did you find them local? I ask since we're in the same state!

[Hobbit]

I got them at Aquarium World which is in Boothwyn, PA. It’s also where I just dropped off six of them! 😁 If you’re planning to breed them though, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend mine—I bred them on accident and I think there’s a heart defect in some of the offspring. (I didn’t sell any with a defect but they might still be carriers.)

@Fish Folk lives on the other side of Maryland and may have some recommendations for stores to check out. Not sure what part of the state you’re in.

[Tihshho]

On 4/19/2022 at 1:22 PM, Hobbit said:

I got them at Aquarium World which is in Boothwyn, PA. It’s also where I just dropped off six of them! 😁 If you’re planning to breed them though, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend mine—I bred them on accident and I think there’s a heart defect in some of the offspring. (I didn’t sell any with a defect but they might still be carriers.)

@Fish Folk lives on the other side of Maryland and may have some recommendations for stores to check out. Not sure what part of the state you’re in.

I'm on the otherside too, but glad to see other locals on here. Interesting to know about the heart defect, I'll have to read back on your posts to see if it's covered. 

[Fish Folk]

@Tihshho where at in MD are you? We’re out near Cumberland. Rick’s in Frederick gets a nice variety. The LFS out here can order anything. They’ll come from farms in FL or CA. We’re part of PVAS (Potomac Valley Aquarium Society) in Fairfax, VA. Long drive for us — we only make it a few times a year. I’m sure there’s breeders there with super reds.

[Tihshho]

On 4/19/2022 at 2:49 PM, Fish Folk said:

@Tihshho where at in MD are you? We’re out near Cumberland. Rick’s in Frederick gets a nice variety. The LFS out here can order anything. They’ll come from farms in FL or CA. We’re part of PVAS (Potomac Valley Aquarium Society) in Fairfax, VA. Long drive for us — we only make it a few times a year. I’m sure there’s breeders there with super reds.

I'm not far from Rick's they are actually one of my LFS. I generally drive around a lot of the state to find stuff. Cumberland though is a hike. I used to be part of PVAS a long long long long long time ago. I don't get out to VA as much to make it to the meetings.

[Hobbit]

On 4/19/2022 at 2:22 PM, Tihshho said:

Interesting to know about the heart defect, I'll have to read back on your posts to see if it's covered. 

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it anywhere else. I don’t actually know if it’s a real problem or just something I’m making up in my worried mind. 😅 Some of their hearts just look different than others, and to my eye one kind looks normal while the other kind looks swollen and like it stops beating every once in a while. But maybe that’s normal for plecos—who knows? Not me!

On 4/19/2022 at 2:57 PM, Tihshho said:

I'm not far from Rick's they are actually one of my LFS.

I’ve stopped at Ricks! Actually got my original honeys there. It seemed like a great place.

[Torrey]

On 4/19/2022 at 12:49 PM, Fish Folk said:

@Tihshho where at in MD are you? We’re out near Cumberland. Rick’s in Frederick gets a nice variety. The LFS out here can order anything. They’ll come from farms in FL or CA. We’re part of PVAS (Potomac Valley Aquarium Society) in Fairfax, VA. Long drive for us — we only make it a few times a year. I’m sure there’s breeders there with super reds.

Next time I come out to Suffolk, I'll try to coordinate with a PVAS Meeting so we can meet!

[Hobbit]

It’s been a while since I was on the forum, so I just wanted to put a note here saying I’m still here! I had a stressful month because my brother had some major surgery. Thankfully it went well and he got to go home from the hospital this week. With the weather getting nicer, I’ve also been spending more time out and about, which means less time for the forum. I’m hoping to be around more going forward, though, because I’ve missed my fishy friends! 💖

[Guppysnail]

You were missed. 🤗. I’m glad your brothers surgery went well.  Hopefully your out and about included enjoying nature.  

[Hobbit]

On 5/26/2022 at 5:57 AM, Guppysnail said:

Hopefully your out and about included enjoying nature.

Thanks! It most certainly did—it mostly involved (and involves) going to a local horse barn and grooming horses. 😍

[Hobbit]

Just a quick update! I’m bringing 60+ platys and my medaka broodstock to my LFS this afternoon.

After I raise the remaining fry from my medaka, I’ll be done with them for the time being. (Well, except for those that will live perpetually in my outdoor tub. 😄) I need space and energy to focus on trying to raise honey gouramis again!

Boy Fish and Girl Fish are starting to mess around with flirting and bubble nesting, which is a great sign!

The platy breeding setup is still going, though I pared down my platy broodstock to make room for some goodeids that I’m hoping to buy from Greg Sage as soon as he has them up for sale. 😍 Unfortunately, I haven’t been getting many fry out of the females now that everyone’s on the left hand side of the tank. I’m not sure if it’s just because they’re eating the fry, or if it’s a temperature thing, or what. I’ve been hatching BBS again to see if some live food will encourage them to grow some babies. I’ve got two males in there, one blue and one orange, so everyone *should* be pregnant… 🤷🏼‍♀️

As soon as the weather warmed and the sun came out, I started getting THE BEST green water in my outdoor tub! I just used maybe two gallons of it for a water change in this 10 gal and LOOK 🤩 This is where I’ll be raising the remainder of my medaka fry.

I guess the secret is just throwing a bunch of decaying plant matter in the bottom of a bucket and putting it out in the sun.

Speaking of which, I had several medaka last through the winter in this tub on my step. I gave the three adult survivors to a neighbor for her 100g pond (along with several fry) and I’ve been letting their fry grow up in here. They’re (hopefully) eating the mosquito larvae. They didn’t come from my choice broodstock so I haven’t been selling them to my LFS. Not sure what to do with them yet! (The branches are my attempt to shade the tub from the morning sun.)

I also have some sad news… Swirly Snail has passed on. They were looking slow for months now, so it wasn’t a surprise. Still no swirly babies, unfortunately, so I never got the opportunity to line breed them. Oh well. I enjoyed them while they were with me! ❤️ What a unique little creature.

[Hobbit]

Just thought I’d throw a quick update in here, since it’s been a while.

It’s been a busy summer for me. My husband and I have been struggling with health issues for a while, and this summer we finally figured out a big part of the reason why. Our house had a huge mold problem in the ductwork and HVAC. It stemmed from a moldy crawl space that we had encapsulated several years ago, but we never did any work on the air system to clean it out. We’ve already done one round of remediation and gotten rid of a ton of belongings, and now we’re about to do a second round to address the remaining mold we found. So I have been very preoccupied, but also feeling a ton better!

In fish news, I traded my female pleco to @Goosedub for some beautiful ricefish, and I had my sister pick up a yoyo loach from @Streetwise. “Loachy” as my sister named him has been doing great! And with the mom pleco gone, a ton of her last clutch of fry are surviving in the community tank, I suppose because she’s not there to eat all their food. The new ricefish are happily mingling with their new friends in my outdoor tub. 😊

Today I brought more platies to the LFS and traded for… wait for it… two new honey gouramis! 😍 I’m pretty sure they’re both female, so Boy Fish has two new girlfriends to impress. 💖

Maybe if my life ever calms down I’ll get back to regular updates. I haven’t even had time to read other people’s journals, let alone update mine. But I still like poking my head around the forum now and again! Got to spend some time with my fishy friends, even if I’m just hanging out on the edge of the room. 😄

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

ORD. Sorry about the mold @Hobbit, hope this won't have long term effects on you and husband ☹ Glad to know your fish world is doing well.

[Hobbit]

I’m back for an update! It’s been too long. Life is still very busy but when I showed my husband the “Cory Gang” rap from Fish For Thought and he totally didn’t get it, I decided I needed to get back with my people 😄 

Lots of changes around here. I’m trying to simplify my fish life, so I brought all my medaka (besides the ones outside) to my LFS. No more medaka breeding for now (besides whatever happens in the tub).

I do still have medaka in my cat’s water bowl though! She loves fresh fish water. 😊

I also had a very near disaster with my 55g platy breeder. I’d gotten the tank used with a split middle bar, and after a year and a half, the repair failed. The glass was bowing probably a quarter inch on each side. Thankfully I noticed it before anything else broke. Thankfully Petco was doing their tank sale, so I got a new 55g for not too expensive. It was an unexpected 12 hours of moving fish and transferring the old tank to the new tank. I set it up without the matten filters and fry slurpers, since the mattens were getting filthy and were super hard to clean. Now it looks like this!

Another big change is that I traded my Mom Pleco to @Goosedub so he could take advantage of her breeding prowess. I thought that would mean the end of raising little pleco babies, but once she was out of the tank, the last clutch of fry thrived. I don’t know if she was actively predating them, or just eating allll the food. But I ended up with more than 20 pleco babies in my community tank. Which was WAY too many. 😆 Here they are coming to the front of the tank for their nightly wafers. I didn’t mean to, but I think I taught them to be pretty scrappy. They always fought over their food no matter how many wafers I put in there.

Yesterday I went to my LFS and gave them all my pleco babies, which included the ones in my community tank, plus 10-ish pleco babies I’d been growing out in other tanks. A customer actually picked some out before they’d even gotten them out of my bucket! 😊

I traded them in for 8 corys for the new platy 55g. I’m so happy to have corys again!

 

Loachy, @Streetwise’s former loach, is still doing great. He’s hiding behind this log. If you look closely you can see his little eyeball. (He doesn’t have a bent spine—that’s just a weird reflection.) He’s hanging out there with Loachess. You can see her darker markings to the left.

That’s the update over here! I hope everyone’s doing well with their fishes. ❤️ 

[Guppysnail]

Welcome back, you’ve been missed. 🤗 I’m glad everyone is doing well. Corys are crazy fun. I can see why someone would buy the pleco babies right from the bucket. They look plump and healthy. 

[Minanora]

Yay!!!! I'm so happy to see an update. New 55 is looking great! I love your cat water bowl. 😂

The cories are adorable!

[Hobbit]

Well, nothing like testing your water before you leave for vacation to discover that your cycles crashed in two tanks. 🤦🏼‍♀️

This is a reminder to everyone to test your water regularly. I tend to have to learn things the hard way, unfortunately.

I did a large water change on the affected tanks. I also cut up the sponge from the powerhead in the 55g community tank and distributed it among the tanks that seemed worst. The community tank’s been going for so long that its sponge is full of great bacteria. To make best use of the sponge, I cobbled together some sponge filter-like things out of the old fry slurpers and some tubing. Unfortunately the sponge was too small for any of my spare co-op sponge filters.

These platys are just so darn tough. I didn’t realize anything was wrong because they were behaving totally normal! Looking back I see other clues, but man, these fish can withstand anything. I do feel bad for them though. 😕

I did have a bit of fun and rescaped the holding tank for the platys that might develop tumors. The wood will get rotated once it fully sinks, but for now the heater’s holding it in place so it looks wonky.

I hope everyone has a merry Fishmas. And go test your water if you haven’t in a while!

[Guppysnail]

I think we all fall to this. I rarely test my snail tanks unless a stowaway fry shows up in there. I’m usually shocked by something and vow to test more..and still fail to do so. I also rely on fish behavior which doesn’t always indicate anything. 
 

MERRY FISHMAS 🤗

Edited December 20, 2022 by Guppysnail

[Patrick_G]

Wow, that's a bad surprise to get, but it's great that you had some cycled sponge to get things going again. Any idea why it crashed? 

[Hobbit]

I’m not sure, but my best guess is that it crashed after I treated the tanks with meds. I’ve done Paracleanse and Expel-P recently because of some stunted platy fry and weird-looking poops.

The only other thing that changed is I added heaters a few days ago in preparation for us turning our house temp down while we’re gone. In one tank the temp jumped a good 6 degrees at first. So perhaps the rate of decay of the mulm just outcompeted the bacteria for a bit.

[PineSong]

On 12/23/2022 at 10:43 AM, Hobbit said:

I’m not sure, but my best guess is that it crashed after I treated the tanks with meds. I’ve done Paracleanse and Expel-P recently because of some stunted platy fry and weird-looking poops.

The Fritz website itself states that Paracleanse can impact nitrifying bacteria and that Expel-P will not. I’ve observed that Paracleanse has had this effect in my 20g. 
Since the instructions for Paracleanse say not to change water for days after dosing, I have used Prime to detoxify the water while I wait for that Day 5. 

Good that you caught it and are so good to your fish.

[Hobbit]

Well, one tank’s cycle corrected itself while I was traveling. Thankfully my 16-year-old neighbor didn’t have to deal with any fatalities! This was two days ago:

I did a 50% water change on both the remaining problem tanks after taking the above test, and I’ll do another today. The nitrite looks better but still bad. I also have a new filter arriving for the 55g, and I’m seeding a sponge for the 10g in my faithful community tank.

Never a dull moment in fishkeeping!!

[Hobbit]

Progress! Yaaaay!

The new HOB filter is up on the 55 platy tank, and the sponge filter I seeded from the 55 community tank is up and running in the 10g.

I also happened to be near a big box fish store the other day, so I went in for some bottled bacteria. I came out with a product I’d never seen before.

I can’t say for sure if they worked, since I was trying other things at the same time, but it sure was fun to plop these clear balls into the tanks. They totally disappear at first, but after a day or two, as they started shrinking, they get a bit cloudy and you can see them again. I’ll keep an open mind and say I think they helped!

It’s such a relief to have the tanks cycled again. My husband is happy too because he doesn’t have to help me schlep buckets outside for a while. 😊

[Hobbit]

Got this cute picture of Loachess and Loachy ( @Streetwise’s loach) hanging out this morning. 🥰