thedarkstar

I'm so sorry Nick, I wish I could help ya but I know 0 about cichlids.

Thanks Tyler. I thought I could save him on the first change and he 'seemed' MUCH better. Then almost an hour later his behavior was irregular and he suddenly died.

How long did you have him for?

There are lots of options for 10 gallons. I've got 3 dwarf puffers in mine along with a few otocinclus and amano shrimp. What about a betta fish with some pygmy corys? Or you could always get some african dwarf frogs, kids seem to loooove those!

Coralife makes some compact florescents that will fit into incandescent hoods, and they keep plants pretty happy. I've seen them at just about every pet store I go to.

How do the dwarf puffers work in terms of aggression towards the shrimp?

There are sure a lot of different directions I could go with this. My situation is that I have three kids and each one wants their own fish, so I am sure that I will have to find three fish that look different from each other . For now I put a couple of the standard 13w mini spiral lights in. They sure do light up the tank, but I don't think they would do much if I put any plants in.

13w in a 10gal tank should be enough to have some sort of moss, java fern, anubia or Crypt growing I'd say.

Just make sure the bulb is "daylight"

I would suggest tetras if you're gonna heat the tank or white clouds if you don't. If you have enough plants and filtration in the tank with some drift wood or something I'm certain you could go with some smaller tetras like 3 different groups of 4-5 fish.

Were these tanks cycled before you added the fish? How much prime did you use?

They were both cycled, I know that much.

Why are you using alot of Prime? You need very little, like a few drops for a 10 gallon tank. "Dosing heavily" like you said, is probably killing your fish. And let me guess, every time you do a water change your adding more and more prime right?

Take a 5 gallon bucket and add a few drops of Prime until you get a zero reading on your chlorine test. That's all you need!

I believe it says right on the bottle not to averdose.

Boom :boom:

It says only to overdose if you have nitrite/ammonia issues. For every 5 gal bucket I do less than half a cap full.

:cry: The sick electric yellow started to thrash around the tank, bumping into the glass and rocks, then died. I'm really upset now.

I just flushed another 50% of the water. Now I need to start doing a change on the 10 gallon because he is starting to show symptoms.

I'm so sorry Nick, I wish I could help ya but I know 0 about cichlids.

Looks like 1/4" glass and silicon. If you're at all handy, you could make a bunch fairly cheeply. At the Architecture Clearing House, you can get a 3' x 4' pane for about $30, and you can get a tube of silicon at Home Hardware for $2. Then you only need a glass cutter ($12 at Home Depot) and a broom handle, and you're set.

Measure the glass, score it ONCE with the cutter; put the cut on a broom handle and snap. Repeat 'til you get enough pieces the right size. Next, use tape (masking or duct) to hold the pieces together while you silicon the inside. Let sit for 24 hrs. Fill w. water in the sink to make sure they hold (no leaks), and you're ready.

I thought you had to silicone the glass walls to the base glass?

Or does siliconing the inside spread under the glass in order to seal/hold the panes together?

thedarkstar I would be interested in Riccia and Java moss. I'm currently trying to find a carpet plant and moss for the wood.

I'll have to check out natures corner, I haven't been there since I ventured into SW.

I was there today, they still have a few of the plants listed on their website

To be honest with you I don't know what size the tank is. It's either a 5 or 5.5G so I'm guessing 3-3.5wpg.

I want to stick to a easy to maintain planted tank.

I failed horribly trying this with a 55G so I'm going to learn slowly this time.

With a shrimp tank how many can I have in this tank? Are they jumpers?

I've never seen one of my shrimps jump but I'm sure they can.

And if you are looking for some low light plants, I'm gonna have some Cryoptocorynes, Riccia and Java moss I should be able to part with, possible a few more Anubias.

Otherwise, best bet for most plants is Natures Corner Store

Will the plant root to the wood?

It should either attach itself to the wood or send roots down both sides into the gravel to hold it in place

Could try the white needle point stuff sold @ walmart & michael's.

Would cost a few bucks to make a divider.

If I ever get my laptop repaired I have a nice article on divider creation on it lol

I think that needle stuff is probably your best bet.

Granted separate sections also reduces illness transfer...

Yes well right now they're sharing a small plastic container. if one gets sick so will the other. same food same water.

They dont seem to mind sharing the tank. thought there would be a little more aggression?? They're the gf's problem anyways.

ill stick with my oscar

You could always visit a walmart or something a get some clear tupperwares for them for now lol

Could try the white needle point stuff sold @ walmart & michael's.

Would cost a few bucks to make a divider.

If I ever get my laptop repaired I have a nice article on divider creation on it lol

I think that needle stuff is probably your best bet.

Granted separate sections also reduces illness transfer...

Hey,

I've never kept shrimp before, but I have a 10 gallon with cardinals and some small rainbow fry, live plants and a ton of algae.

Could I keep some shrimp in there without having them turn into dinner??? What kind would be best to act as a clean up crew??? It would be cool if some would breed, but I'm not really focused on that.

Plants - I have some vals, some pygmy chain and some hygro. Planted in black sand.

Temp - 78-80 deg

Filter - HOB Marina

Thanks,

I'd say the rainbows are the ones to look out for, I have ~20 shrimp in my tank with 8 White Clouds and some Guppies and haven't seen any harassing/murders lol

You might want to add a jungle of some sort of moss or Riccia and they would be fine in the tank to me.

Extremely nice tank. :thumbs:

Looks rahter empty compared to most planted tanks I've seen.

The only concern I had with turning the co2 off at night is the Ph swing it could cause.

Small pH swings occur in nature too- not a big deal for the fish.

I suppose that also depends on what type of fish you have as well.

That's great! I love the tank that has all of those juveniles in it, I can't say I've ever seen so many bettas in one tank before. They'd actually be a really cool schooling fish.

:thumbs:

That only works if they are all females lol.

Even the juve males have to be jarred if I'm not mistaken?

It's an incredible setup

I've been trying to snag some nice ones whenever I get a chance, way nicer than ramhorn snails lol

But isn't that the fun of them...

Unless they're a box of chocolates with nothing but the ones I don't like :tongue: , granted they could be caramels

Wow, can't wait to get that tank cycled for them now :thumbs:

Gorgeous

If I'm not mistaken, some Echinodorus don't send runners to propagate...

They produce flower stalks with advantageous growths on them to reproduce or for seeds.

Also found this for you...

Many species of swords produce plantlets when they send up a flower stalk.

The plantlets can be removed and planted when they have several roots. If

you can't get your sword to bloom, try changing the daylength. Try a short

day, long night regimen, if you have been keeping it on a long day, short

night. A short day would be about 8 hours, and a long day would be 14 to

16 hours. If you can't get it to bloom, or if the flower stalk never

produces plantlets, then you can try digging it up, and cutting its rizome

into segments. For this to work, you need an old, well-established plant

that has had a year or two to develop a long rhizome. Float these

segments until you see plantlets growing from them, then plant them. You

can also try fertilizing flowers and collecting seeds. I've never tried

growing seeds, but the books on aquatic plants say that the seeds of most

swords germinate readily and are not too difficult to grow.

Paul Krombholz

They're the jewel in my future hillstream tank, wonderful fish

The plants are wonderful, my issues are ALGAE and NITRITES lol

Yeah, Rams are easy to find here, blue and gold are fairly common. Bolivian Red Rams aren't but they are available. Another good small cichlid would be Apistogrammas.

Which I was gonna suggest, have a look at the Spencer Jack list and get in on the group order

There are a couple of Apistos on that list and you can probably get a pair/trio for about 15$

You could do something like Rams. They love planted tanks, and there interesting to watch. Any other type of dwarf Cichlid would work. 14 is really small but you might be able to make it work.

Especially if you can find a nice pair or trio of the mini Cichlids

I did a presentation using that video for one of my psych classes, woo operant conditioning

Very pretty fish :thumbs:

Very interesting, I have some questions. You had an algae bloom on the plants? and when you plucked and thinned them out was there any plants that you tossed due to to much algae? How much do you think a plant can be plucked before you'd toss it?

Thanks I just have some Algae on some of my 20 gallon tank's plants and I dunno what to do with it.

By the way I like the vals you have VERY cute!

Essentially when I plucked, I removed the leaves that had the most algae at the top of the plant. As I see it, if algae is covering the upper leaves, there's no photosynthesis going down. Not a single plant was thrown out, my Hygrophila sunset might need a new home, but I'm still not sure yet. And as for the plucking before I'd toss it... it would take quite a bit before I give up hope. Most of my Echinodorus sp. seems rather weak but with the lighting and imminent CO2 I'm sure it will make it. The plants I thinned the most were those Vals... the spiral Val in specific, they're short at the moment but many of the plants had leaves extending to the surface before I plucked

Here's hoping my mom makes it home in time to drive across the city lol :thumbs: