BettaFishMommy

bump. nobody has advice on raising cory fry?

and is there anything special i have to do to ensure they hatch and the parents don't eat the eggs or the babies? (yes, i'm going to google my tookus off in a lil bit, lol)

you can microchip fish?!?!?!?!?!? wow, never knew that. very nice aro!

picked up two albino cories from big als on wednesday. put them in my nearly bare 10 gallon qt/endler fry/baby snail tank. didn't do anything special, heck, i've barely done water changes on it for the past 10 days, and i come home to find a whole bunch of eggs on the front of the tank glass! i'm trying to put a photo of the eggs up but AA is trying to tell me the picture is too big when it's only 60 odd k. grrrrrr!

one of my dining room chairs is permanently in place in front of my tanks, in the middle of the kitchen floor, so i can watch fishy tv. just tell hubby he has to deal with it, since your finkids need their people presence therapy, lol.

you are welcome and i wish you wisteria luck, lol.

thanks gtheepie, and everyone else for their comments! gtheepie, in case you wanted any info on how i make it look that way..... no ferts, no co2, open top tank, wattage on lights unknown lol, and i just keep adding plants that i like the look of without worrying about if they are low,med,or high light plants. trial and error so to speak and so far everything is growing very well, no algae, and i rarely have any dead plant matter to remove, and the tank's only been set up since March. basically, fish poop, light, and water changes are all i use to make it look like that, lol.

unless the light itself or electrical components of the light touched the tank water i don't think the fish would have been actually electrocuted.

i found this for you, it was someone else on the big bad web that lost their Hagen instructions too. hope it's what you were looking for! ____________________________________________________________ GH add 5ml water to test tube Add 1 drop at a time to test tube shaking after each drop until water turns blue. Multiply the number of drops by 20 to determine the GH. Divide the GH by 17.8 to determine the dGH. KH add 5ml water to test tube Add 1 drop at a time to test tube shaking after each drop until water turns blue. Multiply the number of drops by 10 to determine the KH. Divide the KH by 17.8 to determine the dKH. _________________________________________________________________

shocked as in electrical charge through the water, or shocked as in going from lighted tank to not or vice versa? sorry, a lil confused. if electrical shock, then i'm not sure what you would do in that situation.

that is wisteria by the looks of it. i have some too that i just brought home a few weeks ago. i will spare you the details on how well mine is doing, lol. you may have buried it too deep in the gravel. the rotting of it may have started before you got it and the plant just doesn't 'want' to come back for you. i would trim off the bottom part of the stem of all affected plants and let them float for at least a few days. if a majority of the stem is brown you may have to do a bit of a hack job and only salvage the tops that are still green. whenever i get new plants i trim the bottom of the stems if necessary and let them float at least a day or two and they almost always send out roots into the water as if trying to find something to root to while floating. it won't hurt them to float for a while. in fact, i brought my wisteria home on a thursday, let it float, and didn't plant it til the following tuesday, lol.

i don't know if that small amount of argonite would directly hurt the cories, but it may have changed or buffered something parameter wise in the water just enough to stress them and make them ill. did you rinse it at all before you added it to the tank? so this 3 cups worth was added to the 90 or the 10 they are currently in? and for what reason did you add it? sorry for all the questions, lol, but trying to help. i did a bit of googling and havn't come across anything that says no to argonite in a tank with cories.

considering what your lil cories have gone through in the recent past it may be after effects of the stresses they were put through during and after the fire. attempting to move them over to the larger tank may have just been enough to put them over the edge, so to speak. how many are in the 10? you might just want to leave them there until they are feeling better, and when you transfer them to the 90 move over everything that is in the 10 as well, including heater, filter, any substrate, plants, etc. you want to have as much beneficial bacteria moving over to the bigger tank as you can so as to avoid the 90 going through a full cycle. as well, i'd drip acclimate them like you would when you bring new fish home, so that any differences in the parameters of the water between the two tanks don't give them too much shock. while they are in the 10 i would be doing water changes as often as possible, perhaps even daily changes of 30% or so, to keep the tank as clean as possible, since you say they are cramped (overstocked). i'll keep my 'finners' crossed for your lil sterbai's! btw, test strips are horribly inaccurate. i would suggest getting an API freshwater master test kit instead.

thanks to all who replied in this thread and thank you for some great technical info on ferts and plants. i think for now i will keep things the way they are as far as ferts and such go. i'm slowly adding more plants to create a more diverse underwater wilderness, as well as upping my cory school once the snails are out of there, so maybe once it's really a jungle in there i may consider dosing ferts.

me and my kidlett just use the coffee table for dining. works great as long as your carpets are scotchguarded! hahahaha.

i too have a small group of only 4 emerald cories. picked up two albinos yesterday in the hopes that they will all school together once the albinos are done with quarantine. i have heard that different types will school together, and i have also heard of instances like yours, where the different types stay within their own groups. it's hit or miss, i think.

melafix is not a good med to be used with labyrinth fish, which a betta is. try the water changes for a while, say a week or so, and see if that helps. if not, then i would go with the Betta Revive med i mentioned.

havn't even had them home for a full day and already found out they looooooove their shrimp pellets, lol. got a little video of them too, just figuring out how to put it on here.

ok, my kidlett named them, lol. just picked these two up at big al's yesterday. i'm thinking i got me a boy and a gal. they were the last two in the tank so i just had to bring them home! and i'm hoping they'll school with my 4 emerald cories to up the group in the tank, once Humpty and Dumpty are out of quarantine of course. aren't they cuties? Sherry.

i would just leave it as is and wait for the bacteria to do their work. if you don't see changes within a week, i wouldn't go scrubbing stuff, as this will remove any bacteria that have had a chance to build up so far. just a large water change if no change in parameters in a week. large water changes will not affect the bacteria btw, as they live on surfaces and not in the water column.

i'm a lil leery of adding ferts due to the chance of algae rearing its ugly head, lol. here is a photo of the tank when i set it up in March, to get an idea of the plant growth since then. the large sword and stargrass are in the same locations (stargrass on far right, sword on left) and the stargrass has had to be trimmed once and i pretty much cut all the stems in half and replanted and they are back to the top of the water as far as growth. this trimming and replanting happened two weeks ago. so would you say this tank is needing ferts dosed (after looking at the photos)? and thanks for the link! very informative.

thanks Rick! i just worried that the high nitrates are due to something being amiss in the tank, but i think i'll relax now, lol. as for the stocking, it doesn't seem excessive for a 55 gallon, does it? all the baby snails are not staying, btw.

ok, i'm confused. i thought that plants would 'eat' the nitrates that are present in a planted tank, yet i'm still getting readings of 40ppm or so the day before water change day, sometimes even a lil higher than 40. I know i'm not going to get a nitrate reading of zero, but dontcha think that is a lil high for this tank? 55 gallon tank, substrate is sand and small gravel mix. i stir up the unplanted areas during water changes, and water changes are done every 7 to 10 days and are 40% to 60% each time. any decaying plant matter is removed asap when there actually is any, which is rarely. my filters are cleaned on an as needed basis with old tank water, usually once or twice per month, and filter floss is changed out with every water change. i don't have co2 running nor do i dose any ferts. lights are on about 12 hours a day, Eclipse "daylight" florescent, wattage unknown. open topped tank. plant growth is really good, the wisteria is the newest plant in there and its grown at least three or four inches in less than two weeks. ph is 7.8/7.9 (just tested it 2 minutes ago with both normal and high range to be sure. ph out of my tap is normally 7.8 i don't know my gh or kh - don't have the tests for those temperature is always between 78 and 80 ammonia and nitrite always test zero (and yes, i use an API test kit, and it is not expired) stock: 1 large angel 1 4" albino rainbow shark, juvenile 4 emerald cories 5 long fin rosy barbs 1 unknown small striped barb 1 very small BN pleco, juvenile 4 adult brigg snails lots of baby briggs, number unknown a few ramshorn snails, dang hitchhikers! lol. plants: (i think i have them all confirmed) giant vals huge amazon sword medium 'rose' sword wisteria octopus plants bacopa stargrass two types of crypts of varying sizes one small bright green unknown rosette style plant three marimo moss balls filtration: Aquaclear 110 hob, with sponge, biomax, and filter floss Marineland Pengiun 350 dual output biowheel hob with filter floss only (both filters have good flow and create lots of oxygen bubbles in the water and good surface agitation. water level is usually dropped an inch for clutch laying) feeding schedule: twice per day, but small amounts. dry prepared foods such as granules, crisps, or flake in the morning and frozen foods such as bloodworms or mysis (1 hikari cube) in the eve. snail jello every three days (1 ice cube size piece) and NLS h2o stable algae wafers every second day (but not on same day as snail jello). once in a while i will give a half dozen or so shrimp pellets for a treat for the cories and a zucchini slice about twice a week for the pleco. so can anyone help me with the nitrate mystery? or is it not a mystery at all?

i would only recommend taking the fish out of the tank and removing the affected portion of the fin if you are a very experienced fish keeper. in other words, don't do it.

by the sounds of it your betta got the rot due to deteriorating water quality while you were away. i've found really good results with a product called "Betta Revive". it contains methylyne blue and malachite green, so it will stain softer plastics, silicone, and suction cups. daily water changes of 100% along with new application of the med is the route i took and all the bettas i had that had fin rot recovered completely. IMO, i would go with at least a week of just large volume water changes, 100% daily if possible, to see if this helps first. if you have substrate in the bowl or tank i would remove it to assist in keeping the betta's environment super duper clean. plastic and fabric plants can be boiled to get rid of the bacteria that causes rot. and be sure to wash up good in between maintenance/cleaning on the betta's tank and your other tanks!