balikiss

Hi everyone. I'm upgrading tanks! Soon will be setting up my new (to me) 50gal. I had figured that black sand would look pretty sharp, and natural at the same time. But after looking at some pictures im not so sure. So the question is...What colour sand is your favorite for making both a good show tank and a natural look? Thank you!

Well if someone else has been able to grow plants with regular daylight bulbs, then so can I!! Another question tho. I haven't been able to find the legs that he was talking about..Any other ideas on how to keep the hood above water? Strips of wood to go across the tank front to back?

This looks like a great little project! But since I don't have the lighting kit to go inside it, could I just use regular household spiral bulbs? I know this is going to cause a lot of WPG talk that I know nothing about. So keeping it simple...Would I be able to grow low light plants (java fern) with two cool white spiral bulbs?

Bit of an update. Just before winter we had our dugout cleaned out with heavy equipment and it literally took three feet of mud off the bottom and the sides were all cleaned up and landscaped. i had totally forgotten about the fish because they were already hibernating. i remembered, but only a couple hrs before it was all finished. i asked the guy if he had seen any fish while cleaning it and he said he didn't. but he remembered one time that he had cleaned a pond with trout in it, and they all swam to the surface because of the very cloudy and dirty water. so I'm eagerly awaiting this spring to see if they survived. But just in case they didn't, im also getting another dozen to put in this spring.

Just recently got the larger tank (everyone was in a 15 gal before) so the filter media is over a year old, and then i added another filter with part old media/part new. the 20 gal has been running for two months.

So for the past few weeks some of my guppies have been getting dropsy and dieing. I came home after been gone for 6 days, and now a lot of guppies are bloated and look like pine cones. Upon farther inspection theres even a few of them who's eyes are huge and sticking out. I don't have a test kit, but i did a water change before i left, and there is enough filtration on the tank. It's a 20 gal tank with about 20 guppies, 4 cory cats and some shrimp. But even the shrimp who were thriving have been dieing off slowly. iv tried adding salt, and parasite medication, but they keep dieing. Any help would be great! thnx.

Well I recently acquired a 20 gal tank, a couple HOB filters, and a couple of heaters. The only thing is that they were sitting in a garage for a couple years probably. Its minus 20 or so around here now, and the filters work awesome, but I'm worried that the freezing may have effected the heaters some how. Will freezing a heater damage it?? Any input would be appreciated. Thanks all.

Definitely a sponge filter, and for guppy fry i also use an elite mini with nylon over the bottom intakes. the mini just offers a bit of mechanical filtration. make sure you turn the flow way down.

Minnows? like white clouds? will they survive the winter tho. Our pond should be at least 12 feet deep. Did you aerate ur pond all winter?? Thats the only thing i'm not sure about.

It definatly could be your betta. Both my female bettas will harass any shrimp they see (even to the point of death a couple times) Theres a pretty good chance you just can't see any shrimp among the plants and gravel. How big is your tank? 8 shrimp isn't that many for even a the smaller tanks. Don't forget that they will often become lighter in colour if being bugged by the fish. So maybe they'v just turned an almost transparent colour and are virtually impossible to see. Hope there just hiding and not dead!

Do a bit of an update. So I put all 10 fish into the pond at the end of may or so. And then I didn't see them and assumed that they had either got eaten by the muskrat or a crow or something. And then last week while riding my horse around the pond I saw a big school of them! Counted all ten there still. They are so bright and colourful now! Must be all that natural food. They seem to be about five or more inches long now. Can't believe how big they've grown in just a few short months. I'll try and get a couple pictures next time I ride.

Well heres a little update on them. Exactly three weeks later..I put the first batch into my 5 gal shrimp tank when they were about 4 days old. Think i put about 20 of them in. Always saw a few of them floating up in the corners, until after the first week. I kinda figured they either were blending in with the rocks, or they had died. And then a couple days ago I saw one!! And it was almost a quarter of an inch long! Super excited that one managed to stay alive. And then next day I found another. And then today another one! So I put the three little ones in the half filled 10 that I was attempting to breed my white clouds in (no luck). They seem to be doing good. Just got my microworm cullture, so i'm gona give the other pair a shot at breeding again.

Heck yes!! Don't really care for the petland in gp. What great news.

wow thats alota shrimp! great job! what are you feeding them?

They are neither cyclops or daphnia, i know what both of those look like...and these are waaay smaller. And they arn't round either, they look like a super small worm that free swims around the surface, occasionally resting on the glass, but then takes off again. Where as daphnia swim in short bursts forward, these guys use a really quick up and down motion to move steadily forward.

hey everyone. As we know, I had a betta spawn just a few days ago and got mabye 20 fry out of it. They are in a 10 less than half filled with water. During my water change today I was looking real hard to spot any fry, and instead I saw really really little bugs in my tank...They don't stick to the side like planaria, and they kinda swim like daphnia, except more in an up and down jerky motion..They'r so tiny I can only see them when looking at a strong light and they'r kinda a white colour. They just look like a straight line, probably not even a millimeter long. The fry don't seem to be chasing them, and there must be thousands of them. Any ideas what they could be? And if their harmful to fry? Or food? Thnx for any help.

The thing is..their free swimming! Not sure how I missed the eggs tho...always looked really hard for them, and both females still look full of eggs.

Well I figured after four days, that they hadn't spawned, so i did a water change, let the male sit in the tank for half the day to rebuild a bit of a nest, and then introduced the other female, he built a bigger nest, but wasnt much interested in her. After two days I pulled her out and did another water change...I was checking up on the male and thought i saw some snail eggs on the side of the wall, so i took a closer look...and they were FRY!!!!! SOMEONE SPAWNED AND I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW!!!!!!!! I have no idea how many there are, dad didn't have a nest and it looked like he was eating them, so in a panic i yanked him out and the fry got stirred around..and i have no idea which female it was..what a disaster!

I tried some duckweed looking stuff that grows along the edge of my pond with really longs roots..it didn't do very well, and now it seems i have a culture of cyclops in my shrimp tank. At least i always find a bunch in my bucket during water changes.

We'll I guess practice makes perfect, so i'll keep trading females until he gets it right lol.

Lol yes she does have a white egg spot (ovipositor) and shes a white colour so i can't see any vertical lines, but I can see her chest full of eggs. Shes definitely ready for him, and goes along with the wrapping, but he just won't hold it long enough. I guess it just all comes down to his inexperience. Just wondering how much practice he needs to master the 'egg squeezing out'

Lol yes she does have a white egg spot (ovipositor) and shes a white colour so i can't see any vertical lines, but I can see her chest full of eggs. Shes definitely ready for him, and goes along with the wrapping, but he just won't hold it long enough. I guess it just all comes down to his inexperience. Just wondering how much practice he needs to master the 'egg squeezing out'

So my male and female have been together for three days now, and he's built up a bit of a bubble nest and finally this morning he chased her under it and attempted to wrap around her..and attempted, and attempted. They were at it for three hours, but every time he got into position around her, he would either swim away too soon, or become paralyzed and sink to the bottom still curled around himself(sans female, who is looking rather bored with the whole process). No eggs have been expelled, but I was wondering..Does practice make perfect and he'll eventually get it right? Or will they eventually quit trying? Thnx for any help.

Hey i'v got shrimplets too!! Green shrimp from Jerry actaully lol. they seem to be breeding quite readily without much care lol.

Hmmm... Perhaps a good thing I didn't add more than a few dormant cattails with this recent snow dump... (okay, who is doing the snow dance?! Show yourself or we will hold the snowman hostage!)

Inside is a bit greener. I overwintered a couple of water lillies, cattails, and parrots feather.

My water lilies have been in a tub of water for the last month, they are growing and are doing better than I expected.

My parrots feather is actually in a regular flower pot on my window sill - I have to submerge cuttings for a couple of weeks for them to convert to the underwater oxygenator role. I think it is still one of the prettiest plants if it hangs down from a pot into the water and grows across the surface.

This weekend I bought a few plants that should do as marginals - canna lilly, calla lilly, umbrella plant, purple pickerel, and a blazing star. Also bought some water lettuce and hyacinth. I was surprised when the greenhouse worker told me that they ordered lots of pond plants and had almost completely sold out (I got the last 5 floaters! :smokey: )...

I came across some water lilly bulbs in Walmart - didn't pay much attention at first as I didn't have any luck with a couple that I had bought last year. But a hint of green caught my eye! I checked, and sure enough, 1 out of 3 pots had small lilly shoots trying to grow out of the plastic bag. $10 beats the $40 the nursery wanted... I picked up 2, and the next day they were scrambling to reach the surface (3-4" growth overnight...).

Can't wait until Rona/Canadian Tire get their pond plants, they often get oddities that the green houses don't carry.

My goldfish are more than ready to go out...

These are what I kept from last year.

I also have a 10g quarantine tank full of smaller pretty ones that caught my eye - and 3 small 3" koi... The koi weren't doing well and the pet store was going to flush them as they were afraid of an unknown disease. They are doing fine now that they have an airstone and the water isn't sky-high in ammonia. The pond can handle them this year, but I lack room to permanently house one 4 foot fish, let alone three! I already promised some goldfish to Balikiss this fall, and I am sure some koi wouldn't be turned down - right Balikiss?

Well i would just LOVE some koi! hey btw...what do you use to filter your pond with...i'm trying to convince my bf to get a kids pool kinda like that one, but the filtration would rather expensive..can you make a complete eco system with a pond like that??