Caprichoso

Aw man, that's sad...but at least you tried! I just loooove some people's lack of empathy for living things(not). What a loser!! I picture you flushing his head in the toilet and then telling him that his suite is going to be rented to someone else when he gets back. Ahhh, I feel a bit better now, lol!

Where do these hydra come from? I've been on the lookout for them ever since I saw a planaria in my tank, thinking, oh no, I'm probably infested with everything now, lol!

For your tank size, you will need about 10 of them. I've never seen mine eat a snail either but I see the empty shells.

It wasn't malfunctioning, it just had to be manually calibrated. I know how you feel though, I told my partner that if we didn't get this sorted out fast, that I was going to get the heaters that you can calibrate easier. We have Eheim in our smaller tanks which can be calibrated very easily.

In my 30g, I had my rummynose, cardinals and corydoras in with 5 red cherry and 6 crystal red, plus 5 amano shrimp. No one disappeared and 15 cherry shrimplets even grew up from my one female that had eggs. Strangely, the only shrimp death I had was from my assassin snail...One thing though, after I decided to just have a "shrimp only" tank, the shrimp were all out in the open, rather than hiding in the plants and on the bogwood. It's much nicer to keep them separate because you really get to see all the cool things they do. I also learned that the regular Otocinclus will not eat shrimp or shrimplet.

Update The "No Planaria" seems to have worked. I haven't seen a planaria since I put it in. For anyone who doesn't know, it's main ingredient is Betel Nut extract and it is completely safe. I have snails and shrimp and they are unharmed and doing awesome. Especially since they don't have to shake worms off their feet (yuck). The dosage was easy as the gentleman from Canadian Aquatics had it pre-measured for the size of our tank. All we did was dissolve it in warm water and pour it in. 3 doses in total over 3 days then did a 50% water change on the 4th day. It does cloud the water slightly but nothing else to note. I am very happy with the result!

Unless you have a tank as large as the one at Big Al's that is just cruel. Being a fisherperson, I know how big these fish get, plus they are cold water fish. In a basement, you could "maybe" try for some of the smaller shiners or minnows. That way you won't be "that guy" ...y'know, that guy who puts Oscars and other huge fish in a tank that's wayyy too small. Sorry, just sayin.. Now, you may be dedicating a huge pond to them, and in that case, I retract my comment.

After a couple of adjustments, they both seem to be working together. I put them back in the tank and hopefully it's sorted out now.

Thanks! I put the heaters in separate buckets with thermometers and discovered that even though they were both set for 79F, one made the water 80F and the other one was only heating to 77F. I made an adjustment and hopefully they both come on together now. I've never had 2 heaters before so I've never had to consider this.

Oooooooo, very impressive! I just put some of this in my 5g shrimp tanks, I hope it does well!!

I am running 2 heaters in my 140g, 75 watts per heater. They are Marineland Stealth (not the pro), just the plain black ones without indicator lights. Anyway, I had them placed on opposite sides of the tank, one by the outflow and the other by the intake. I have noticed that one of the heaters gets VERY hot, (the one by the outflow), while the other one, (by the intake), stays cold. I thought the cold one was broken so I unplugged the hot one to test it. The cold heater started heating up! Frig, so annoying....so I decided to change the location of the heaters and put them closer to eachother to see what would happen. Well, that same heater started getting hot again. I also took the cold heater out of the tank and put it in a cold bucket of water...it heated up just fine..it just doesn't seem to do it in conjunction with the other heater. WHY oh WHY!!!! Hoopla! Can anyone offer some advice on why this is happening and what I should do. I've never had a problem with these heaters before...just wondering if I have the placement wrong in the tank. Thanks in advance!

Wow! Nice, clean, organized store...gives the others a run for their money! Nice manzanita wood, plants all really healthy, and the fish look great. The prices are very reasonable and the selection of fish is awesome. Two thumbs up, will def be going there often!!!

Hmmmm, has anyone else witnessed this behaviour?

Ok, I have to ask this as I absolutely cannot find the info anywhere online. I recently got a whole lotta shrimpies and they have some odd behaviour. Please tell me what this is all about...y'know, if it's the "birds and bee's" kinda thing.... Random male shrimps jump on the back of another shrimp (female AND male)...and just holds on for almost a minute. While holding on, the male shrimp on top taps the other shrimps head with it's front feet. Sometimes the bottom shrimp just starts walking around, la di dah, like all is normal AND the best yet (couldn't take a pic fast enough), was a THIRD shrimp got on top of the second shrimp which was in top of the first shrimp.... and the bottom one was just walking around! With 2 shrimps on it's back! I've heard of shrimp mating with the male UNDER the female but this? Well, I just don't know. When I first saw this, I thought they were attacking and trying to kill eachother but they eventually let go and go about their merry way and no one is harmed. Ok, you can laugh know...but seriously, I don't know if this is bow chicka wow wow or some kind of other issue or something.

Sounds good, Thank you:)

Vestitus and Affinis pics look to be the closest match for what they are.

They were labeled at Big Al's as "Otocinculus". No other name attached. Right now they are only 1 inch long....as for posting a pic...I'll try to figure out how to do it...these forums confuse me with posting pics, can never seem to do it.

My spouse came home with a surprise, lol, don't know how to feel about this:S....4 oto's! They are the dwarf variety....is that the type I was supposed to get? The person at the pet store convinced my spouse this was what we were looking for. I was scared to put them in my shrimp tank without knowing for sure so they went on the big tank. Anyway, they are really small, I think I would have to get many more to have them make any difference in the algae. My betta and pearls were very interested in them at first, talk about giving me a heart attack, lol! But then they left them alone and everyone is happy. One strange thing with these little guys is they REALLY liked (or hated) my mountain minnows. They chased/followed them around quite a bit the first day, so not sure what that's all about? More advice...help, what a noob eh? Lol.

Yup in my Painted Fire Red Cherry shrimp tank and have not noticed any shrimp deaths. Tough to say how much I used as i wasn't sure of the concentration I used. I added 0.5 mL on day one and day two, waited a couple more days and the hydra were all shriveled up. Tried it on a tank with Planaria as well but the results were not as good. I will try "No Planaria" next time. I'll let you know how successful I am with it!

They would be perfect if they didn't eat plants and ate Planaria. They get rid of hydra very well but for my planted tanks I use fenbendazole. Have you used fenbendazole with shrimp? If yes, was it safe? How much do you use?

Plants? Dang! I tried to find more info about this, it's very conflicting. I totally believe you so I may have to rethink this as I have a lot of plants! Thanks for the info

Thanks for all the advice guys. I think I'll opt out of the Nerite snails, I don't like those white eggs on everything. As for the oto's , I think I'll try the zebra's in my bigger tank as the smallest shrimps in there are the amano and red rhino. I'll get a group of the common oto's for my shrimps tank. Thanks again!

Thanks for the info. I understand your concern about the Betta but the female actually likes the male and will seek him out sometimes. On occasion the male with follow her and display for her but when she's had enough, she swims away and he doesn't pursue her with too much vigour. I've always had a lot of success with Betta in a community tank but realize that there can be issues. If things were to get out of hand or it looked like someone was unhappy, I would move them to my other tank.

Thank you, that's very nice of you! I was thinking of getting some of these snails, I saw a picture and they are very pretty...but I cannot borrow yours because I would be afraid if I killed it or something! I hear the Spixi kills hydras so maybe planaria too....will have to check it out:). Where did you get yours from? Thanks again

Thank you, I ordered some tonight. I don't see a lot of planaria but I saw one on a cherry shrimp foot and he had a hard time to shake it off...evil little worms! I vacuum the gravel and did another water change, hopefully it helped.