hmm... must look into that. This stupid green water's stuck around through a week-long blackout and I'm losing my patience. The Algone really hasn't been doing anything, although the water isn't MORE green after a week of using it... But I want clear water in my tank again!
Well... fin rot's nasty stuff. Most important thing is absolutely pristine water quality while he's recovering. As a general rule, whatever water changes I normally do weekly are done daily on my quarantine tanks.
Fin rot can just be water quality - how quickly is it progressing? Is it just a slow fraying and color change, or is it happening quickly (as in visibly losing fin daily with the rays left intact)? Real fin rot goes pretty fast, but all the same symptoms can be duplicated just from stress or bullying (damage from those things can develop infections and become real fin rot, though).
Personally for bacterial infections, my go-to stuff is Mardel Maracyn 2. The cheapest stuff out there is Melafix (there's a special brand of Melafix called Betafix just for fin rot in betas). To be entirely honest, the stuff's crap. It's pretty good at preventing an infection in an injured fish or damaged fin, but it's dick for stopping one in progress.
This thread has inspired me to get some triops (I don't currently have an aquarium but they sound cool), but apparently no aquarium stores carry the eggs. Do you always have to order them from that As Seen on TV crap company? At least they do sell the eggs separately.
I'm planning on getting around a five gallon tank, should I get a filter? It seems like it would be easier and safer to just do water changes.
Oh god, Aquatic Gardens just got in a shipment of CW023's. Absolutely stunning corys.
The pictures don't really do them justice. They're big for corys, closer to Brochis or Barbatus size than normal corys. Base color is a bit lighter than bronze corys, but the stripe is brilliant, the exact same color as a glowlight tetra.
I so want a shoal of these guys now, but $25 a fish... Maybe if I hadn't just dropped $60 on congo tetras and a hillstream loach:/
Edit: On trips: Skip the filter. They are very sensitive, but the eggs are also really cheap, and they don't live that long anyway, they're pretty high up the ranks of disposable pet. Since they don't live long and are low bioload anyway, the main problem is you're just not going to realistically cycle a filter and keep it cycled with them.
Quite a few others, mostly seem to be the same brand of kit, for that matter. Check out sites that sell science toys especially. Some of the aquarium supplies have had them in stock occasionally, but I can't find any.
Kits run about $5 on most sites. Sounds like the kit includes a small container, but if you step it up to a 5 gallon you can probably just keep a lot more anyway. Bigger is (almost) always better with aquariums. The container, if there is one, can't be more than a specimin cup - there's another kit on some sites with a 1/2 gallon acrylic tank, and that kit's $10-15.
Well... fin rot's nasty stuff. Most important thing is absolutely pristine water quality while he's recovering. As a general rule, whatever water changes I normally do weekly are done daily on my quarantine tanks.
Fin rot can just be water quality - how quickly is it progressing? Is it just a slow fraying and color change, or is it happening quickly (as in visibly losing fin daily with the rays left intact)? Real fin rot goes pretty fast, but all the same symptoms can be duplicated just from stress or bullying (damage from those things can develop infections and become real fin rot, though).
Personally for bacterial infections, my go-to stuff is Mardel Maracyn 2. The cheapest stuff out there is Melafix (there's a special brand of Melafix called Betafix just for fin rot in betas). To be entirely honest, the stuff's crap. It's pretty good at preventing an infection in an injured fish or damaged fin, but it's dick for stopping one in progress.
It's slow progress, but I was gone for a weekend and he had a weird chunk out that I hadn't noticed before, but could have escaped me since it was kinda in the folded part of his tail. He is acting all weird so I moved him to his own bowl and I'm gonna do a couple days of just doing water changes to see if that helps him and if the fin loss stops.
He may have caught his tail in the filter or something, either that or the pygmy cories took a bite out of him, which I doubt.
Well after closer inspection today I think he has dropsy. He is having trouble staying upright in the water and his left side seems to be swollen up. Going to get some Maracyn 2 and hope for the best.
Well after closer inspection today I think he has dropsy. He is having trouble staying upright in the water and his left side seems to be swollen up. Going to get some Maracyn 2 and hope for the best.
good luck! hope he pulls through.
the_hawke on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
bettas. the aquatic equivalent of puppies.
Well after closer inspection today I think he has dropsy. He is having trouble staying upright in the water and his left side seems to be swollen up. Going to get some Maracyn 2 and hope for the best.
good luck! hope he pulls through.
He is looking better after 1 day, not even kidding. Hopefully he continues to improve!
Hopefully the swelling is just some constipation. It happens sometimes, especially carnivores like bettas, a day a week without food will let them keep the pipes clear.
If you can, take some frozen peas, cut the shells off, boil them and mash them up, then cool them off and feed the mashed up bits to him. As anybody who's had my mom's vegetable stew is well aware, boiled peas are a deceptively strong laxative, they're one of the old go to remedies for DIY fish vets.
I have a noob question. If I was putting together a small aquarium (it'll hold about three-four fish but I'm only getting two) is it best to also get a bottomfeeder of some kind with a live plant setup?
Sorry, I don't know all the correct terminology. I'd rather undercrowd my tank than put too many fish in there. But basically I'm looking to find out if it'll help keep the tank stable and whether they have any issues in a small tank with two fish of another breed. I've been trying to find information on this but not knowing the correct terms is leaving me a bit poorly educated. I just don't want to get one and have the others bully him of sorts. Is this making sense?
Also, will such a small setup be enough to sustain a bottom feeder?
Depends on the bottom feeder. Most of the commonly sold species either get big (pictus around 6 inches, the common synos around 8-12, and the commonly sold pelco species around 18-32 inches, clown loaches 12, bala sharks 18), or are social and need to be kept in a shoal to be healthy (corys, otos, most other loaches).
For a 10-15 gallon tank, a small group of dwarf corys would work, with the rest of the stock being something like male guppies, microrasboras, dwarf hatchet fish, or white cloud minnows.
Non-fish bottom feeders would be even better. Cherry shrimp are colorful, low bioload, and breed readily. Ghost shrimp are cheaper and more available, but not quite as attractive.
The tank I've been eyeing off, because it comes with a filter and water testing kit, only had the dimensions on it. (Given that my dentist chocked me full of valium this morning I can't really be bothered figuring out the volume in litres). It was 25cm high x 25cm long x 15cm wide. It was one of the larger lidded ones available that would still fit on my desk at home.
Maybe shrimp would be the way to go because the tank won't be large enough to accomodate much growth, and with only two-three other fish in it I don't want to get something that won't be able to be sustained by that.
This will be my first tank for many (many) years and I'd rather do right by a couple of fish than go for something more elaborate and risk submitting them to a slow torture. I plan to get the aquarium and plant set up well before getting the fish to put in it so I can get used to keeping track of the chemical levels in the water and have them balanced before the fish go in. The water quality in my area is already very high (who knew some use would come out of working at the water company here) so hopefully I won't have too many problems with chlorine, etc.
Sorry I can't give the gallons of the tank. Litres doesn't seem to be a popular method of measurement for the smaller ones here, just dimensions, so I can't really convert it for you.
25x25x15 is only 2.5 gallons. Closet thing I'd go for a bottom feeder fish in that might be a peacock gudgeon (peacock goby, rainbow gudgeon, eye-spot sleeper, few other names). It's not technically a bottom feeder, but it does dwell on the substrate mostly. At 2.5 gallons, a full grown peacock would be about stock. They are really neat fish, but I don't think they're all that interesting alone. Pairs or small colonies are best.
A betta would work in the tank. A dwarf, thicklip, banded, or honey gourami would work, too, if you don't like bettas for watever reason. I'd suggest a fishless cycle here (See below), none of them take abuse as well as bettas (which themselves aren't as indestructible as their reputation).
I wouldn't really go with more than one fish. Possibly a group of dwarf shrimp once the tank is very well established, but shrimp in general and dwarf shrimp in particular are very ammonia sensitive and need a well matured tank, and in a small tank like that, a dead shrimp can cause a small ammonia spike. It probably won't hurt a betta, but any other shrimp are likely to keel over from it and add to the problem, and it could get bad enough pretty quick that the fish would be at risk.
I'm a big fan of fishless cycling. If you're willing to roll up your sleeves and do some science, there's some advanced options that are still feasible for a first time fish owner.
Hit up fishforums.net, it's a primarily British hobbyist site, but in my experience the British hobby is a solid decade ahead of the US. A practice that's gaining more and more popularity is to use an artificial ammonia source to simulate fish in the tank and build up your beneficial bacterial colonies without the muck and bother that comes with a fish-in cycle, or the heartbreak that usually results in doing what the pet store tells you to do.
This'll take about 3-6 weeks, but you'll get a lot of practice with your test kit in the mean time, and at the end of it there's a LOT of more unusual options for even a tank as small as 2.5-5 gallons.
Now, at the other end of the spectrum from all that complicated stuff is THE easy cheap indestructible fish for small tanks: Rosey minnows. They're usually sold as feeders, almost never as pets, but they're really cool fish. Their closely related to goldfish, but much smaller, their hardy to the point of being indestructible (they're the only fish I've kept that I've seen survive conditions bad enough to kill wild-type guppies), and as far as behavior, they have more in common with mid-sized African cichlids than other cyprinids.
You can get 2-3 roseys for probably less than a dollar. They're pretty much the perfect beginner fish, they're the cheapest thing on the market, easy to come by, hardy, fairly long lived for small fish, adapt to any water conditions, and can form the beginnings of a cold water, temperate, or even tropical community if you ever decide to get a bigger tank. They'll even breed fairly readily, and their similarity to cichlid behavior makes them a sort of gateway drug into cichlid breeding.
Only downside is that, as feeders, they're kept in terribly crowded conditions and are prone to coming with diseases. This is true of most fish in the hobby, but feeders are always the bigger risk. It's not a problem if you're just getting a few and keeping them together anyway, but I'd never add new roseys to an existing setup without quarantining them for a month.
Edit: Fathead minnows are the same thing, but a wild coloration instead of a captive bred morph. You see these as feeders as well, and many bait shops will carry them. Bait fish are very risky, and you'll probably be thrown out of the store if you want "that one right there," whereas a pet shop clerk might be annoyed but will generally oblige if it's a good reason. Despite the risk, you can get some gems at the bait shop - bitterlings, sticklebacks, darters. It's more reserved for the enthusiast than the beginner, though - even I'm not dedicated enough to try to establish a shoal of darters from the bait shop, as much as I want to.
I think I must be remembering incorrectly, unsurprisingly. The tank was at least 5-6 times the size of the larger betta tanks. Hopefully I'll get time to go back in tomorrow and get more details on it and the fish I was considering getting. They did have one larger than the one I was thinking of getting so I can go for that one if it'll suit the fishy needs better, but it just won't fit on my desk as well.
I might come back tomorrow and ask more once I've clarified the size.
A lot of tanks labeled as "betta tanks" are little more than cups. Even 2.5 gallons would be several times that size. Definitely write down the dimensions, though - for this tank and the bigger one you were considering, my whole wall of text is basically assuming the tank is that small, if it's a 5 gallon, it would offer quite a few more options. If it were a 7-10 gallon, there's hundreds of options to fit almost any vision.
so remember when i mentioned my baby platy? he is doing well. also, apparently mom gave birth again. i have one half his size swimming around. very strange.
the_hawke on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
bettas. the aquatic equivalent of puppies.
Did you have males around? If so, she'll probably keep getting knocked up.
Even if you didn't, they can store sperm and get themselves pregnant over and over again. I know mollies can do that for a good six months after mating, not sure where platy's stand on that.
Lady I know here in town breeds mollies. This shit drives her batty, because she'll have two prime specimens she wants to cross and for months the female will just keep giving birth to black short fin lyretails from mating with her brother in the growing tank.
Oh boy... My dwarf gourami has cotton-like white spheres growing on his side and mouth. I caught it quickly and put him in a bucket with a few gallons of water, and have been monitoring the other fish in the tank (so far so good).
Is anyone familiar with this disease? His behavior seems normal, if not slightly calmer than usual, but he wasnt hiding or anything.
Is it fuzzy? Sounds like columnaris, which is sometimes called cottonmouth, but it can happen anywhere on the body. If it is, I hope you caught it soon enough to prevent it from spreading. I've honestly had terrible luck treating it, Maracyn-2 seems to have some effect, but I've never managed to do anything but slow it down, even with stronger antibiotics. It doesn't spread as quickly as some diseases, so isolating at the first sign will at least protect your other fish.
Columnaris actually bacterial, even though it looks like a fungus and a lot of people use fungal medications on it. Strong bacterial treatment is the way to go, though.
Check your water stats, too. Make sure everything's in order in the main tank. As long as the other fish aren't stressed, they'll be much more likely to resist the disease if they were exposed. Dwarf gouramis are frail fish and stress easily, and a lot of the captive bred population is infected with the dwarf gourami introvirus and is particularly prone to stress and disease even in ideal conditions.
i have been thinking of doing some invertebrate tank in the future and wanted some input before i jumped into research... thanks for your info! much appreciated, hevach.
I wouldn't suggest crayfish or crabs for an invert tank, really. Go with bigger shrimp, like cameroon armored shrimp and bamboo shrimp.
If you can get access to Aegla platensis (Pancora is their Spanish common name, there is no accepted common name in English but "cockroach crayfish" and "freshwater squat lobster" are used), they're pretty neat. True freshwater, fully aquatic, far more peaceful than any other clawed invertebrate. They won't go for snails (crayfish will fuck snails up) or live shrimp (even babies), and they aren't known for going after fish, but for some reason dwarf frogs are highly offensive and must die because I've never heard of somebody being successful keeping aeglids with dwarf frogs.
What have you done.
These are exactly the kind of crustacean I've been looking for (I've considered crays but they're boring, mean little bastards). Cold, fresh water, basic diet, peaceful temperament, small maximum size. And to top it off they're really cool looking. I am going to have a hell of a time fining some of these, aren't I?
I just cycled a 2.5gal in about two weeks, using filter media from my established tank, and throwing some plants and fish food in there to start it up.
Okay, it works out to be a 6 gallon tank (roughly, it's in litres so give or take a .00 or two) and I plan to get three Black Widows. They only grow to 2 inches tops so there shouldn't be a problem with crowding. Hopefully it'll still fit on my desk.
Hey dudes, my wee brothers heater in his tank broke while he was out and all the fish were dead/dying by the time he got home.
How the hell do you counter that. Or is it just one of those things. He's has terrible luck with this thing, so any suggestions before we go about setting it all back up would be just great. We're obviously totally paranoid now.
J on
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
Hey dudes, my wee brothers heater in his tank broke while he was out and all the fish were dead/dying by the time he got home.
How the hell do you counter that. Or is it just one of those things. He's has terrible luck with this thing, so any suggestions before we go about setting it all back up would be just great. We're obviously totally paranoid now.
Having two heaters is one way, or hardier fish.
I had a heater that failed and my tropical tank dropped to room temp for like three days. The piranhas were fine, so I dunno.
It does happen. When a heater fails, one of two things can happen - it either turns off and stays off, which is usually not a serious problem unless the room is cold and you've got hothouse fish like angels and discus, or it locks in the on position, which can wipe out a tank of fish in pretty short order. My grandfather lost his lionfish when the heater locked on. When he got home the water temperature was around 115F.
Sounds like that's probalby what happened to J. Really the only way to counter that is to catch it early. I have temperature alarms on my expensively stocked tanks, but if I'm not home to hear them, fat lot of good they do. I replace heaters every 18-24 months to be safe, but I've had them fail in as few as six.
Well, Mr Gourami succumbed to his cotton fungus and was given a burial at sea . Now the issue of sterilization has come up. I was using a bucket to hold him, and my net and water siphon both made contact with the contents of the bucket. What should I do to make sure all of my gear is sanitized?
Chlorine bleach, unscented, uncolored. About a 10:1 solution with water, rinse thuroughly and then soak in water with a massive dose of dechlorinator.
Just leaving stuff dry might be enough. As far as I know, columnaris isn't one of those things like neon tetra disease that will seem to recur in tanks that have been dry for months.
Well, Mr Gourami succumbed to his cotton fungus and was given a burial at sea . Now the issue of sterilization has come up. I was using a bucket to hold him, and my net and water siphon both made contact with the contents of the bucket. What should I do to make sure all of my gear is sanitized?
so sorry for your loss, Capn.
the_hawke on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
bettas. the aquatic equivalent of puppies.
so my baby platy that showed up awhile back has tripled in size and seems to be getting courage when it comes to going near the bigger fish. here he is about to gobble up a flake ...
and for perspective of size... here he is in a pic with my ruby shark. (pardon the glass... still can not keep that one area clear)
possible reason why i can't keep certain parts of glass clean.
it is her television after all.
the_hawke on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
bettas. the aquatic equivalent of puppies.
Loki completely ignores my tanks. Won't leave the gecko cage alone, though, poor things are traumatized on a daily basis.
Anything with water, though, is nothing but trauma for Loki. When I first got him, I was cleaning an empty 30 gallon that was going to be the temporary home of my jack dempsey, and Loki climbed into the tank with about an inch of water on the bottom and couldn't get back out. He was only about 6 months old at the time, too, so an inch of water really was a lot.
I still have a spot on the glass that won't come clean, though, near where I do water changes. I've been told white vinegar is really good at removing water stains from glass, and is safe to use near the tank, unlike windex (can't let any get IN the tank, but it doesn't have harmful fumes that will dissolve in water like most cleaners do).
Well, Mr Gourami succumbed to his cotton fungus and was given a burial at sea . Now the issue of sterilization has come up. I was using a bucket to hold him, and my net and water siphon both made contact with the contents of the bucket. What should I do to make sure all of my gear is sanitized?
so sorry for your loss, Capn.
Thanks for the sentiments! It was a brief 6 days that he spent gracing my aquarium, but he and my $5.95 will be sorely missed.
On an unrelated note, my shrimp have decided that the filter is THE place to be. I'm using an Aquaclear 20, what can I do to make the filter intake fish-proof? I was thinking about wrapping some pantyhose around it or something along those lines.
Pantyhose works, just need to keep it clean. You an get some sponge that you stick in the tube that does the same thing for a higher cost, but it's a bit easier to clean. You do have some lowered flow with that stuff, though.
Hmm... my cherry barbs have been noticeably inactive lately. Coloration is normal and they still eat their flake food (though not as ravenously as before), but they haven't done the love-bump or chased each other around the tank for days. No visible signs of disease, and I've been on top of my water changes.
Any idea why my barbs are lazy bones all of the sudden?
Ammonia and nitrite levels? Nitrite can cause a decrease in activity levels from oxygen blockage (it binds to hemoglobin and prevents it from carrying oxygen). Ammonia can, too, but can also cause increased activity as fish try to escape with nowhere to go.
Another possibility, since color and feeding is still normal, is that they've worked out their pecking order. Barbs, tetras, etc have a dominance order in their shoals. The more aggressive ones like tiger barbs and neon tetras (not kidding, these guys are vicious inside the group - the long finned variety illustrates just how merciless they are to each other) will alway sbe fighting for a higher place, but the more peaceful ones like your cherry barbs will mellow out a great deal once everybody's been put in their place. If you make them go a little hungry they might start getting active again when the subordinates start feeling like they won't get enough food and gang up on the dominant fish.
Very happy today. Finally secured a good supply of live blackworm locally. My knife fish is much happier now - he won't touch dry food and isn't too thrilled with frozen worms. The only place I could get any kind of live worm locally went out of business earlier this year, and nobody else ever has live anything except glassworm, which I've never had good results with.
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Well... fin rot's nasty stuff. Most important thing is absolutely pristine water quality while he's recovering. As a general rule, whatever water changes I normally do weekly are done daily on my quarantine tanks.
Fin rot can just be water quality - how quickly is it progressing? Is it just a slow fraying and color change, or is it happening quickly (as in visibly losing fin daily with the rays left intact)? Real fin rot goes pretty fast, but all the same symptoms can be duplicated just from stress or bullying (damage from those things can develop infections and become real fin rot, though).
Personally for bacterial infections, my go-to stuff is Mardel Maracyn 2. The cheapest stuff out there is Melafix (there's a special brand of Melafix called Betafix just for fin rot in betas). To be entirely honest, the stuff's crap. It's pretty good at preventing an infection in an injured fish or damaged fin, but it's dick for stopping one in progress.
I'm planning on getting around a five gallon tank, should I get a filter? It seems like it would be easier and safer to just do water changes.
The pictures don't really do them justice. They're big for corys, closer to Brochis or Barbatus size than normal corys. Base color is a bit lighter than bronze corys, but the stripe is brilliant, the exact same color as a glowlight tetra.
I so want a shoal of these guys now, but $25 a fish... Maybe if I hadn't just dropped $60 on congo tetras and a hillstream loach:/
Edit: On trips: Skip the filter. They are very sensitive, but the eggs are also really cheap, and they don't live that long anyway, they're pretty high up the ranks of disposable pet. Since they don't live long and are low bioload anyway, the main problem is you're just not going to realistically cycle a filter and keep it cycled with them.
Googling "Triops eggs for sale" there's quite a few science supply and hobbiest sites that sell kits for them:
http://www.acornnaturalists.com/TRIOPS-EGGS-CONDITIONER-FOOD-AND-INSTRUCTIONS-P3206C220.aspx
http://www.physlink.com/estore/cart/TriopsEggsFood.cfm
Quite a few others, mostly seem to be the same brand of kit, for that matter. Check out sites that sell science toys especially. Some of the aquarium supplies have had them in stock occasionally, but I can't find any.
Kits run about $5 on most sites. Sounds like the kit includes a small container, but if you step it up to a 5 gallon you can probably just keep a lot more anyway. Bigger is (almost) always better with aquariums. The container, if there is one, can't be more than a specimin cup - there's another kit on some sites with a 1/2 gallon acrylic tank, and that kit's $10-15.
He may have caught his tail in the filter or something, either that or the pygmy cories took a bite out of him, which I doubt.
bettas. the aquatic equivalent of puppies.
good luck! hope he pulls through.
bettas. the aquatic equivalent of puppies.
He is looking better after 1 day, not even kidding. Hopefully he continues to improve!
If you can, take some frozen peas, cut the shells off, boil them and mash them up, then cool them off and feed the mashed up bits to him. As anybody who's had my mom's vegetable stew is well aware, boiled peas are a deceptively strong laxative, they're one of the old go to remedies for DIY fish vets.
Sorry, I don't know all the correct terminology. I'd rather undercrowd my tank than put too many fish in there. But basically I'm looking to find out if it'll help keep the tank stable and whether they have any issues in a small tank with two fish of another breed. I've been trying to find information on this but not knowing the correct terms is leaving me a bit poorly educated. I just don't want to get one and have the others bully him of sorts. Is this making sense?
Also, will such a small setup be enough to sustain a bottom feeder?
For a 10-15 gallon tank, a small group of dwarf corys would work, with the rest of the stock being something like male guppies, microrasboras, dwarf hatchet fish, or white cloud minnows.
Non-fish bottom feeders would be even better. Cherry shrimp are colorful, low bioload, and breed readily. Ghost shrimp are cheaper and more available, but not quite as attractive.
Maybe shrimp would be the way to go because the tank won't be large enough to accomodate much growth, and with only two-three other fish in it I don't want to get something that won't be able to be sustained by that.
This will be my first tank for many (many) years and I'd rather do right by a couple of fish than go for something more elaborate and risk submitting them to a slow torture. I plan to get the aquarium and plant set up well before getting the fish to put in it so I can get used to keeping track of the chemical levels in the water and have them balanced before the fish go in. The water quality in my area is already very high (who knew some use would come out of working at the water company here) so hopefully I won't have too many problems with chlorine, etc.
Sorry I can't give the gallons of the tank. Litres doesn't seem to be a popular method of measurement for the smaller ones here, just dimensions, so I can't really convert it for you.
A betta would work in the tank. A dwarf, thicklip, banded, or honey gourami would work, too, if you don't like bettas for watever reason. I'd suggest a fishless cycle here (See below), none of them take abuse as well as bettas (which themselves aren't as indestructible as their reputation).
I wouldn't really go with more than one fish. Possibly a group of dwarf shrimp once the tank is very well established, but shrimp in general and dwarf shrimp in particular are very ammonia sensitive and need a well matured tank, and in a small tank like that, a dead shrimp can cause a small ammonia spike. It probably won't hurt a betta, but any other shrimp are likely to keel over from it and add to the problem, and it could get bad enough pretty quick that the fish would be at risk.
I'm a big fan of fishless cycling. If you're willing to roll up your sleeves and do some science, there's some advanced options that are still feasible for a first time fish owner.
Hit up fishforums.net, it's a primarily British hobbyist site, but in my experience the British hobby is a solid decade ahead of the US. A practice that's gaining more and more popularity is to use an artificial ammonia source to simulate fish in the tank and build up your beneficial bacterial colonies without the muck and bother that comes with a fish-in cycle, or the heartbreak that usually results in doing what the pet store tells you to do.
This'll take about 3-6 weeks, but you'll get a lot of practice with your test kit in the mean time, and at the end of it there's a LOT of more unusual options for even a tank as small as 2.5-5 gallons.
Now, at the other end of the spectrum from all that complicated stuff is THE easy cheap indestructible fish for small tanks: Rosey minnows. They're usually sold as feeders, almost never as pets, but they're really cool fish. Their closely related to goldfish, but much smaller, their hardy to the point of being indestructible (they're the only fish I've kept that I've seen survive conditions bad enough to kill wild-type guppies), and as far as behavior, they have more in common with mid-sized African cichlids than other cyprinids.
You can get 2-3 roseys for probably less than a dollar. They're pretty much the perfect beginner fish, they're the cheapest thing on the market, easy to come by, hardy, fairly long lived for small fish, adapt to any water conditions, and can form the beginnings of a cold water, temperate, or even tropical community if you ever decide to get a bigger tank. They'll even breed fairly readily, and their similarity to cichlid behavior makes them a sort of gateway drug into cichlid breeding.
Only downside is that, as feeders, they're kept in terribly crowded conditions and are prone to coming with diseases. This is true of most fish in the hobby, but feeders are always the bigger risk. It's not a problem if you're just getting a few and keeping them together anyway, but I'd never add new roseys to an existing setup without quarantining them for a month.
Edit: Fathead minnows are the same thing, but a wild coloration instead of a captive bred morph. You see these as feeders as well, and many bait shops will carry them. Bait fish are very risky, and you'll probably be thrown out of the store if you want "that one right there," whereas a pet shop clerk might be annoyed but will generally oblige if it's a good reason. Despite the risk, you can get some gems at the bait shop - bitterlings, sticklebacks, darters. It's more reserved for the enthusiast than the beginner, though - even I'm not dedicated enough to try to establish a shoal of darters from the bait shop, as much as I want to.
I might come back tomorrow and ask more once I've clarified the size.
bettas. the aquatic equivalent of puppies.
Even if you didn't, they can store sperm and get themselves pregnant over and over again. I know mollies can do that for a good six months after mating, not sure where platy's stand on that.
Lady I know here in town breeds mollies. This shit drives her batty, because she'll have two prime specimens she wants to cross and for months the female will just keep giving birth to black short fin lyretails from mating with her brother in the growing tank.
Is anyone familiar with this disease? His behavior seems normal, if not slightly calmer than usual, but he wasnt hiding or anything.
Columnaris actually bacterial, even though it looks like a fungus and a lot of people use fungal medications on it. Strong bacterial treatment is the way to go, though.
Check your water stats, too. Make sure everything's in order in the main tank. As long as the other fish aren't stressed, they'll be much more likely to resist the disease if they were exposed. Dwarf gouramis are frail fish and stress easily, and a lot of the captive bred population is infected with the dwarf gourami introvirus and is particularly prone to stress and disease even in ideal conditions.
What have you done.
These are exactly the kind of crustacean I've been looking for (I've considered crays but they're boring, mean little bastards). Cold, fresh water, basic diet, peaceful temperament, small maximum size. And to top it off they're really cool looking. I am going to have a hell of a time fining some of these, aren't I?
Fishless cycling :^:
How the hell do you counter that. Or is it just one of those things. He's has terrible luck with this thing, so any suggestions before we go about setting it all back up would be just great. We're obviously totally paranoid now.
Having two heaters is one way, or hardier fish.
I had a heater that failed and my tropical tank dropped to room temp for like three days. The piranhas were fine, so I dunno.
Sounds like that's probalby what happened to J. Really the only way to counter that is to catch it early. I have temperature alarms on my expensively stocked tanks, but if I'm not home to hear them, fat lot of good they do. I replace heaters every 18-24 months to be safe, but I've had them fail in as few as six.
Just leaving stuff dry might be enough. As far as I know, columnaris isn't one of those things like neon tetra disease that will seem to recur in tanks that have been dry for months.
so sorry for your loss, Capn.
bettas. the aquatic equivalent of puppies.
and for perspective of size... here he is in a pic with my ruby shark. (pardon the glass... still can not keep that one area clear)
possible reason why i can't keep certain parts of glass clean.
it is her television after all.
bettas. the aquatic equivalent of puppies.
Anything with water, though, is nothing but trauma for Loki. When I first got him, I was cleaning an empty 30 gallon that was going to be the temporary home of my jack dempsey, and Loki climbed into the tank with about an inch of water on the bottom and couldn't get back out. He was only about 6 months old at the time, too, so an inch of water really was a lot.
I still have a spot on the glass that won't come clean, though, near where I do water changes. I've been told white vinegar is really good at removing water stains from glass, and is safe to use near the tank, unlike windex (can't let any get IN the tank, but it doesn't have harmful fumes that will dissolve in water like most cleaners do).
Thanks for the sentiments! It was a brief 6 days that he spent gracing my aquarium, but he and my $5.95 will be sorely missed.
On an unrelated note, my shrimp have decided that the filter is THE place to be. I'm using an Aquaclear 20, what can I do to make the filter intake fish-proof? I was thinking about wrapping some pantyhose around it or something along those lines.
bettas. the aquatic equivalent of puppies.
Any idea why my barbs are lazy bones all of the sudden?
Another possibility, since color and feeding is still normal, is that they've worked out their pecking order. Barbs, tetras, etc have a dominance order in their shoals. The more aggressive ones like tiger barbs and neon tetras (not kidding, these guys are vicious inside the group - the long finned variety illustrates just how merciless they are to each other) will alway sbe fighting for a higher place, but the more peaceful ones like your cherry barbs will mellow out a great deal once everybody's been put in their place. If you make them go a little hungry they might start getting active again when the subordinates start feeling like they won't get enough food and gang up on the dominant fish.