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Post by kagome on May 1, 2019 9:34:38 GMT -5
So, I've got bladder snails. OK that doesn't sound right, let's try that again. I'm infested with bladder snails. Well, that sounds even worse. OK so I've got bladder snails in my planted tank. When I added some new plants, I forgot to bleach dip one batch because I was in a rush. Well, I'm paying for it now I'm not being overrun because the rainbow fish eat a lot of the juveniles and I squish the big ones and then they eat those, too. More than anything, they just kind of bug me. I know I can treat with copper and kill them off. BUT, I'd like to put some shrimp in this tank eventually. What's the best way to get rid of the copper? Poly Filter? Cuprisorb?
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Post by kagome on Apr 29, 2019 17:53:00 GMT -5
I'm sorry your fish have been sick, that always sucks. If you're still having trouble getting him/her to eat, you might want to consider Repashy foods. It's a dried powder you mix with boiling water and then it sets up like jello. I know it sounds weird, but t's pretty much fish crack. You can mix the meds right in and any leftover powder you have can be fed instead of flakes.
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Post by kagome on Apr 29, 2019 17:35:05 GMT -5
Oh also, you might want to switch to liquid test kits. They're way more accurate than test strips. The strips can also go bad after a certain amount of time.
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Post by kagome on Apr 27, 2019 14:36:45 GMT -5
Here's the thing about nitrate in tap water, levels of NO 3- below 45 ppm are considered safe to drink. Above that, and there is a danger of infants developing something called methemoglobinemia. But, for the most part, municipalities can't/don't do that much about nitrates in the water until it causes a public health crisis. Nitrates generally get into tap/well water due to agricultural run off from chemical fertilizers. In some areas, nitrates get contaminate people's wells because of lawn fertilizers. The nitrates won't kill you, but their presence could also mean that the water carries other pollutants from agriculture, like bacteria and pesticides. Do you have municipal water or well water? Do you live in a rural area? Sadly, if there's nitrate in the tap water, there's no handy way to get it out. How big is your tank? If your tank isn't huge, you can buy jugs of distilled water from the grocery store, add minerals to them and use that as your replacement water. For a bigger tank, your best bet is to invest in a reverse osmosis unit. You would need to remineralize the water before adding it to your tank, but you'd have 0 nitrates and wouldn't have to run to the store every time you needed to do a water change. EDIT: You can also use Seachem Purigen in your filters. It is a chemical filtration media that removes all kinds of nitrogenous compounds. You can use it in place of activated carbon (if you use carbon). The cool thing is that you can even recharge it by soaking it in bleach water. www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Seachem.html#purigenseachem.com/purigen.php
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Post by kagome on Apr 20, 2019 16:15:10 GMT -5
They look awesome!
I love the rock work around the pond. I think that I would hang out by that pond all day.
Good call on the netting. Around here, people lose fish to herons ALL the time.
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Post by kagome on Mar 31, 2019 16:22:51 GMT -5
Awesome! I will add that to the list of things I'm putting on my next order.
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Post by kagome on Mar 29, 2019 15:17:56 GMT -5
Just a quick question. I'm looking to augment my lighting a bit. I use a small desk lamp that sits beside my aquarium to give more light. I currently have a somewhat crappy LED bulb in there.
I was poking around on the AAP lighting page and was looking at the Pro Start CFCs. Would one of those work in my little desk lamp?
I know the Sho lights are WAY too big and too intense for what I need. I want to add some eventually, but will need to get different hoods and fixtures to be able to add them above the tank.
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Post by kagome on Mar 26, 2019 13:45:23 GMT -5
Oh hey! I used those for storing drinking water after hurricanes. You never know when we'll be under a boil order for a week or so after a storm. I've still got mine. Those things are really tough. After Hurricane Ivan, we would tote them up to the Red Cross station and they would fill them up for us (we were under a boil order and had no power for 3 weeks!).
I can definitely tell you that they're great. Mine are older, so they probably do have BPA, but beggars can't be choosers after a natural disaster. But, they've been kicked around, gone camping and generally abused for well over a decade and I have had no issues with leaks. My hurricane supplies are currently buried or I'd take a quick pic for you.
Hoping that you'll be using these for years, too.
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Post by kagome on Mar 26, 2019 13:37:02 GMT -5
Oh no! I'm so sorry that happened! And with everything else you've got going on, too.
Don't beat yourselves up about it. It sucks when they die and you know it was because of something that slipped by you. We've all had that happen.
Bless his heart. I'm so sorry about his mom.
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Post by kagome on Mar 25, 2019 16:07:56 GMT -5
I am not the best to advise you on meds and will defer to Carl's much more extensive knowledge on that. I do know that Methylene Blue is commonly used to keep saprolegnia from developing on fish eggs (saprolegnia LOVES fish eggs).
But, as for a container for baths, a good sized plastic food container with a lid is a good choice. No need to break the bank, one from Dollar General or Walmart will do. If it's clear, drape a towel over it to help keep the fish calm.
He might be jumping even more now that his eyes are scratched up. He can probably only see movement and isn't able to discern what is coming near him.
I'm sorry he's in such bad shape.
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Post by kagome on Mar 21, 2019 17:55:44 GMT -5
Poor baby!
The coating of dust on his eyes might be from scratches when he flopped around on the brick. I had a betta who scratched up his eyes big time when he jumped out of the tank.
I hope he gets better!
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Post by kagome on Mar 15, 2019 20:17:13 GMT -5
And it's not just the salt content.
The softener puts the water in a state where you can't get minerals to dissolve in it again. So it strips the minerals out, but then if you try to add them back in, like with Wonder Shells or Seachem Replenish, they won't dissolve in the water. (Holy run on sentences, Batman!)
Fish need minerals in the water to replace the ones their bodies metabolize. (BTW, I learned all that from Carl)
So water softener water is bad all the way around.
Fish are actually less stressed by the temperature going down suddenly than going up.
Usually, the big problem with plastics outgassing into water is plastics containing BPA when they get heated. Like a water bottle left out in the sun. I have also used Rubbermaid containers or paint buckets (empty ones from Home Depot that were never used for paint) to hold water with no noticeable trouble.
I also have a buddy who uses a Rubbermaid trash can as a sump (an idea he stole from one of Carl's videos). He's had the thing running with lights and macro-algae and biomedia for a couple of years. I'll ask him if I can share pictures some time.
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Post by kagome on Mar 15, 2019 20:05:20 GMT -5
I agree that the name "Cycle" is misleading.
If you actually could bottle the aerobic bacteria you need to establish a biological filter, that company would rake in billions.
Deceptive aquarium products drive me nuts. I really think they ought to be illegal frankly.
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Post by kagome on Mar 15, 2019 19:59:51 GMT -5
I'm sorry that your fish died, that really sucks.
The poor little thing probably wasn't well handled during shipping or at the store.
Definitely, keep the heat turned up. This speeds up their lifecycle. You want them to cycle around to the free swimming stage. That's when the little suckers are the most vulnerable so the meds can kill them.
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Post by kagome on Mar 15, 2019 19:38:52 GMT -5
My dad buys all his stuff from you, too! He just ordered a sponge pre-filter for his 55 gallon. Guess who gets to install that? When I launch my own blog, I'm not going to have a store. So all the links for products will go to American Aquarium Products. When I get a sponge filter I won't be in a rush, so of course it will come from y'all. BTW I LOVE my MillionAir pumps. Seriously, they are the best air pumps I have ever had. What do you think about my idea to let Java fern and/or bolbitis grow on the sponge filter?
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Post by kagome on Mar 11, 2019 22:04:15 GMT -5
Carl - I was going to order one, I really like the design. But this one went down, I needed a filter STAT and couldn't afford to have it overnighted. Next time I change out filters I definitely want to try one.
Devon - yeah I know. I need to get one set up in this tank. I think if I move the heater over to the filter side of the tank I could squeeze an air driven one behind the rock work. Then, if a hang on the back dies on me, I'd have time to order what I need from y'all. I could even bounce the seasoned sponge to other tanks if needs be. I know there's a risk of cross contamination, but I think it's an acceptable risk.
These 2 fish aren't exactly tiny, so more biomedia is a good thing. I already dropped some serious bank on the planted tank so I was trying to hold off on spending more for a month or so. Best laid plans and all that. I think I'll add a sponge next month
Edit: would it be a huge deal if you let Java Fern or bolbitus grow on a sponge for filter? They're so tough, you take them out of the tank and squeeze out the sponge in a bucket and just put them back. You could also clip of the roots and take them off when you replaced the sponge. I think I would only do it with an air driven one, flow might be too restricted on a powerhead one.
I know you would lose some flow, but the plants might eat up a lot of the nitrate coming off the sponge
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Post by kagome on Mar 5, 2019 18:22:03 GMT -5
Ermahgawd...so when we needed new filters for some of my tanks, I let my husband do the shopping. And he came back with these filters that he thought would be great because they don't require priming. Well, let's just say they sucked. The lift tubes fell off them constantly and the media capacity was tiny. Two of them conked out on us and were replaced with aqua clears. The third one was on the tank with the big mean cichlids, a 36 gallon bowfront. The lift tube fell, AGAIN, shortly after the last water change. I left it because it only ever stays on for about a day. I started to notice that the Texas cichlid was acting strange a few days after the water change, his color was bad and he wasn't interested in food. So I did another water change and broke down the filter. Apparently, a bunch of cichlid pellets got sucked in and have been breaking down in the filter. So ammonia when to 1 ppm and nitrates went to over 50 ppm! Trashed the filter and got another aqua clear that same day. So now I'm doing 50% water changes every few days, adding Prime and keeping an eye on things. I put some gravel in a bag in the filter from an established tank. I'm pretty grumpy about all this.
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Post by kagome on Mar 5, 2019 18:07:06 GMT -5
The picture looks normal from my long time use of the product. It is noteworthy that nitrofurazone (an ingredient of AAP Spectrogram) can be different colors depending upon water and oxygen exposure Carl I have also experienced this and it totally freaked me out, too. You can't help but go, "This looks COMPLETELY different?! What's going on?!" Carl, you are a true gentleman with a heart of gold. I hope your poor puffer feels better soon. They go through enough just being carted around in the aquarium industry, poor babies. I'm so glad he's with a responsible fish owner who realizes his needs and takes good care of him. Keep up the good fight for the puffers. They are awesome and deserve better treatment.
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Post by kagome on Mar 5, 2019 17:55:51 GMT -5
You know, I just got into a huge argument with a guy on Reddit who said that Cycle was essential for getting a tank set up. After arguing with him back and forth, it became evident that he had no idea how the nitrogen cycle actually works. He swore up and down that you could keep aerobic bacteria alive in a sealed bottle.
I think to a certain extent, Seachem sells certain products because they sell. I'm a big believer in their products, but like Carl said, no company is perfect. They even admit that some of their claims can't be backed up by scientific evidence, like their claim that Prime helps detoxify nitrite and nitrate.
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Post by kagome on Feb 20, 2019 17:04:34 GMT -5
One big thing I would stress, the hillstream loaches have very high oxygen needs. I would make sure that they remained aerated at all times.
As for the substrate, if it was me, I'd toss it and replace with new. It's been aerated some by plant roots, but could still have pockets of anaerobic grossness.
You're going to have to break everything down anyway, and you're likely to need more to cover the floor of the larger tank. I would get the fish out of there before messing with that substrate AT ALL. Once everyone is secured, then you can start pulling up plants to put in buckets of water while you move everything else around.
I'm not saying that you have to scrub the plant roots or anything, but I really wouldn't keep the old substrate.
You should still have a good amount of beneficial bacteria in your filters, but no matter what, the tank might go through a little mini cycle. I've seen it happen when people just moved a tank from one room to another. Same plants, same substrate, same filter, and yet they had to nurse the tank through a cycle.
We had to break down and move 2 of your tanks because we were redoing the flooring in that room. The planted tank was fine, but the fish only tank went through a seriously pain in the butt mini cycle that about drove me nuts. The fish only tank was literally only broken down for about 3 hours, but it decided to give me a hard time nonetheless.
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