kicker:
If you remember my Red Cap Oranda and her passing a few weeks ago, you'll be happy to know I think I know what killed her. I went to the fish store today and was watching fish in their tanks and I saw several dead, looking just like Stella. Eyes sunken in and shredded. I think it was a parasite of some kind. As I'm watching, I also noticed they had an outbreak of fish lice and many fish had clamped fins from overcrowding and fin rot. I think the employees are sucking at the maintenance lately. I told one of them one of their larger Lionhead's had lice on his tail, she seemed surprised and said she'd put him in the hospital tank, and she never came back. I also found two more with lice and let the attendant at the counter know. I bought a filter and left feeling sad for the fishies!

On a more pleasant note, Sophie is using less and less medication and I don't see dropsy/popeye as much recurring. Her fins are back because she was zipping through the tank. Most of her tail is regrown and you can't see the black part at the end. Here she is:( Read more... )

foxanne_raven:
In a recent article in our local newspaper (Post Gazette) is about a Betta that cause much havoc at a airport. Read for yourself if you got some spare time.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/03362/255283.stm

EDIT: Recently found article, didn't mean a recent one

nuts_at_times:
Summer time and heat sucks.

So does anyone have summer water temp issues and if you do how do you keep your tanks cool?

Excluding a/c unit since I don't have a/c.

This coming week is supposed to be really warm high 80's at the start and low 100's by the end of the week.

Typical summertime temp is only in the 70's so apartments are not equipped with a/c.

Last time we say temps into the 90's I lost 10 fish between all my tanks, and although I haven't added any new fish, I'd like to try and prevent more mass death.

I used ice last time but could not make it fast enough, as it melted within a minute.

lover_for_a_fee:
So, I'm a total nerd and addicted to THIS GAME. It kills time while bored. Just thought I'd share with my fellow fishie lovers. :]

suehypno:
I don't know what's going wrong in my 120-gal tank, but in the past couple weeks I've lost all of my zebra loaches. I mean ALL 10 of them...and nothing else. There are several other species of loaches in there, as well as other community fish, and yet my zebras have been decimated, literally. WTF?!

logosh:
Out of pure curiousity/boredom I've decided to build a small tank and I had some questions.

1. Any DIYers here?
2. Know a good online/retail store for purchasing glass or acrylic?
3. Any tips?

threegoldfish:
It's getting a bit thick in my water gardens and some of my small tanks and I'd like to thin it out. Most of it has been growing outside so it'll probably have snails and algae, but it also has interesting leaves and really long roots (great for raising fry in!).You can either treat it as an annual for outside or bring it in for the winter. It does best in tanks with bright light. Yours for shipping (just a couple of bucks) and I can only ship inside the US and I cannot ship this plant to California, sorry.

_geist_:
First, plants:
From a local little creeky runoff thing, I have snagged a little elodea-esque plant material (the one that's thinner and spinier than elodea, I don't know the name). I rinsed it well, and have it in a vase (dechlorinated water, 'fed' with some fish-water) for the moment. I want to put a sprig in each of my betta tanks. So here are my questions:
One of them has a light already in the lid. Algae grows in this tank (I expect it to become a problem soon). Will this light be enough for the elodea-stuff?
The other has an LED light. I don't really expect this to be enough.
I dose both betta tanks with aquarium salt for each water change. Will this damage the plants too much to make them a viable option?

Second, the future:
I want to keep gouramis! Dwarf ones, preferably. Will a 10g be sufficient for a few, and a couple bottom feeders? Any personal experiences?

raefwolfe:
I just got word from my dad that two of the angels we purchased not too long ago have not only laid eggs, but now have wigglers. I doubt we'll get anything from this bunch, but maybe after I bounce back from my cold (laryngitis in the summer, who gets that, I mean really) the two of us can bonk our heads together and figure something out.

The last pair of angels we had in that tank spawned, too, but we gave mostly half-hearted attempts at keeping the fry. Now we might like to try keeping at least some of them alive.

In case you're wondering - the male like this (color-wise):



and the female looks like this:



Obviously those aren't our exact fish...when I go home to pick up my beardie (dad's babysitting him while I am sick) I can snap a few pictures.

Does anyone know what the spawn would look like as adults?

kicker:
I saw my first "fish lice" today. Not on MY fish thankfully, they are recovering from enough problems. I was at Petsmart picking up cat food, yeah, not fish medicine!! I went over to the tanks to stare at fish like always, and noticed a fish that looked like it had impaled eye 2-3 days ago, still looking funny in the tank. He was lethargic in the corner and looked defeated. I had pointed out the aquarium problems on Thursday to the staff, and they said they would take care of it. It was taken care of...except this one fish. I stared for awhile and got him to come closer when I noticed...it moved and had legs. I thought its eye was messed up, but growths don't stare BACK at you. As I was staring, one of the nice employees who has helped me many occasions before buying aquarium supplies, asked if I needed help again. I pointed out the fish and he goes "OH! More fish lice! I'll take care of that...poor little guy!" I had NEVER seen fish lice before. He said he thought they had gotten all of the fish with them attached, but this louse was a good 1/4". He removed it with a pair of tweezers as I watched. I had never seen it before! He said they were tough and typically they destroyed them buy chopping them up (the lice that is!) I asked if the fish would recover, and he said yes. It was a nice looking fish--minus the louse attached and the damaged aftermath (I don't think he'll lose his eye).

As a knowledge building activity (for me!):
What is your experience with fish lice?
How did you treat it?
Do fish recover quickly?
What do you treat the fish with to prohibit more lice from developing and for how long?
How long does an anti-parasitic medication, like Coppersafe, need to treat the fish for it to be 100% effective and done?

_geist_:
So my dad just bought a GIANT lunchbox pack of bloodworms (it has like 10 blister packs in it, or something crazy like that), and I've just noticed something about the worms in the top pack.

A lot of them are partially or entirely green. Not like a greenish tinge, but like grass green.

Does anyone know if that means anything? Were they maybe rotten before they got frozen? They are unusually fat/juicy looking as well.

Should I feed these to my fish? Throw out that blister pack and start on the next one down? Throw out the whole lunchbox and buy an entirely new one?

Halp, they're really weird looking.

akirashima:
.. One of my Oscars. "the Puppies" is dead. damn it...
He hates loud noises. and with the fourth around and such he has been having a stressful time. his brother does not seem to care as much. well we also have a loud crew reroofing the house near us. they start early in the day. while i am still sleeping or trying to sleep depending on what the hell they are doing at that point. and well he went to his hidey hole but seems to have been caught up in the plants or something there. for whatever reason he was dead over in his hidey area. his brother is ok right now and he is who i am really worried about. i had to separate them once. and they both went into a deep deep depression. they layed on the bottoms of their tanks and would not eat or really swim or anything til i put them back together. then they were like conjoined twins! i am going to try a mirror or something to maybe trick him into thinking his brother is still there and hope it works.

and to think i just bought them a big new tank too... damnit... who is going to try to eat my fingers now and beg for food sticks and be water bound puppies if they both die... damn it.

if anyone has any idea on how to keep the other one from going all suicidal i would be open to anything right now...

mirrors and maybe a oscar decoy is all i can think of. of course i have no idea where to get the latter.

botia:
If you disagree with another community member's methods of fishkeeping, please do so respectfully.

Also, if the maintainer of this community expresses that your comments are inappropriate, I believe that your best course of action is NOT to be a bitch ass mouthy punk and smart off to her, unless your goal is to find yourself unable to post and comment in this community. She has a rather nasty temper when she's got a headache, which is about 80% of the time.

Carry on.

kicker:
EDIT: Does anyone know this to be accurate?
http://www.fishchannel.com/fish-health/disease-prevention/dreaded-dropsy.aspx

Sophie got septicemia, popeye, dropsy AND fin rot when the 55 gallon went to...some people know where. That's why I rebuilt the 55 gallon--which is sitting empty for the following reasons.

Sophie was moved into the 10 gallon to be hospitalized. Poor Stash and Spotacus were moved to the 20 gallon to be treated for nasty fin rot! Stash AND Spotacus are regrowing and have nice trims to prove it! They are doing well and can probably be moved to the 55 gallon sometime...if I ever get over Stella's mysterious death.

More behind the cut: ( Read more... )

wrathofthepuppy:

Are there any plants that grow well partly in water, but sticking above the surface as well? I'm thinking that would be a pretty awesome open-top tank setup...

firepower:
These are really general questions about terminology that I've encountered while researching keeping an aquarium. I'm stuck in rural Georgia for a few weeks so I'm trying to get thoroughly familiar with the apparatus of the hobby before I start looking at tanks/equipment/paraphernalia in LA.

I occasionally have read references to "air pumps" as being entirely different from "filters." My understanding of the aquarium filter was that it used some sort of mechanically supplied force to propel water across its various filtration devices - i.e. the bacteria-holding medium, the strainer, and some activated carbon. Under what circumstances does a filter require an extra air pump - or is an air pump useful separately from a filter?

Also: when web sites give their various "minimum tank size" estimates for a given species, does that mean that that volume of water can only hold one individual of that species, or that individuals of that species simply need that much room in general, and that you could put other animals in? Let's say I have a 55g tank and I'm interested in a species that needs at least 30g minimum size. Is it going to be all right to put five minimum tank size 30g individuals in the tank? Or does 2 x 30 = 60 mean that only one can fit in that tank, and any other individuals had better not have a total minimum tank size larger than 25g?

Another more practical less technical question: With sinking pellets, how do you avoid overfeeding bottom dwellers? I've always been a fan of catfish and it was the catfish exhibit at the aquarium that really gave me the bug for keeping an aquarium. I know that you can feed a bunch with flakes and time how long it takes all your animals to scarf up the flakes, but do the bottom dwellers just run up on the pellets and swallow them? Are bottom-dwellers harder to keep? Is it possible to keep bottom dwellers with other animals?

Finally: plants. If I eventually wanted a planted tank, should I start out with living plants and then try to have fish live in the tank? The opposite? Are plants too difficult to keep for a beginning aquarist?

Thanks in advance, and thanks for the warm welcome after my last post.

sweet_mel:
Hey there everyone,

I am a new (recurring) fish owner. I am just starting to set up my fish tank and add fish to it. I have a 20 gallon fish tank and bought 6 tetras yesterday. 3 Black Skirts and 3 Serpae's.

I had the temperature a little high because I mistakenly left the heater on, but I cooled down the tank before I added the fish. The temperature as I understand it for Tetras should be about 78.

I was also told to add an extra amount of "Cycle" to help speed up the filtration cycle (or something to that effect).

This morning two of the Black Skirts had died. I was afraid that the filter was the cause as it seems they have trouble with the current. I am hoping they didn't get sucked into it.

I am wondering what you guys think might be the cause. Could it be just the store fish? Was it my filter? The filter looks kind of like this at the bottom (little slits).

Could it have been the amount of Cycle I added (2x the dose, store clerk recommended 4x). Possibly the water temperature or just bad luck?

Any tips on keeping Tetras alive would be helpful. Thanks so much!

wrathofthepuppy:

I just now noticed sheet of glass that acts as a support beam on my 70 gallon tank has disconnected with the front of the tank... ( pictures under the cut )

What should I do? Am I going to have to empty out the tank entirely to fix this? =( What a drag....

-EDIT-
I talked to my LFS about it and they're gonna get me a new one by next week delivered here... Hopefully this is just a slight defect in the one I got and not a problem with all tanks like this =( Either way, I've emptied the tank somewhat to ease the pressure on the glass for now...

wrathofthepuppy:

My koi angelfish laid some eggs today! =D This is my first spawn since restarting fish keeping! ~<3

-EDIT-

( Follow the cut for a video =) )

scentedcrayons:
Fish keeping and making necklaces! The middle charm is a fish. :)