riverpirate

Great idea! Im gonna go give this a whirl tomorrow. Thanks for the info!

ahhh, was just having this issue in my freshwater tank... guess the mysis shrimp could be the culprit.

Yeah I also have a red tail shark and a few platys. The platys keep their distance. the red tail shark gets a lil nosy but mom and pops are relentless and keep beating him down. hes actually starting to look a lil rough around the edges. He might have gotten at them at night all stealthily. Im currently trying to get him out of the tank and rehomed. Gonna try some night lighting next time to help momma krib out at night. As well try to get some dwarf hairgrass planted on the floor. But yeah could have been mom or dad as well. Hoping we get some better luck next time. On the upside I just acquired some wild caught apistos to add to my larger tank, and theyre all looking pretty flirty. Even my other male who was seeming to lack any interest.

Well its a sad day. No more fry left. I looked late yesterday and they only seemed to have two with them on their little excursion. Now today there appears to be none. Water ammonia nitrite and nitrates all are in check. I thing this may be a case of them damn substrate dewlling assassin snail as they kribs shifted out of their cave in favor of a hole momma krib had made under a chunk of lava rock recently. Checked my HOB filter last night in hopes they had been sucked up into there and found assassins were starting to show up in there too... Think I might throw some pennies in there and teach these snails a lesson.. Its a little sad, but hopefully we'll have better luck. It was our first try with egg layers. I was kind of surprised our eggs hatched at all with our ph levels Guess this gives me time to get everything in check for the next go around. Did kind of catch me off gaurd. But since the fry are gone Im going to throw the tank under co2 as well. And while Im at it Im getting culligan to come and hook up a RO unit. For thirty dollars a month and they look after all filters and will suit it to my needs, why not...

Yo Jimbo! Finally on here huh? Good to see man. Ps its your neighbour!

Looking good man! Ive been tempted to do a DSM on the next tank. But thta will be quite some time as Ive been instructed to work on the rest of the house before my tanks....Guess Ill have to enjoy your tanks through continued uploads!.

Ive had the little tank set up for over a year with never a speck of algae and the big ones been going for about seven without any either. Ive been using seaschems flourish line for the past while but have been reading a little into making my own. was getting info on the barr report earlier this winter. Think this is a good route to go as I have a friend who works for a chemical disposal company and they get all sorts of labratory grade chemicals coming through there. Hes been pretty good for getting my shopping lists together. Just have to re read some information for recipes. And I guess I should do some more reading on planted co2 tanks and fertilizing just so I dont get algae showing up. As this is a good part of why I like planted tanks. And thanks for the splitter Idea. I was thinking the same thing yesterday at the welding section but it just wasnt seaming right in my head yesterday. Guess Ill hook it up today. Well maybe not, I just had krib fry in the little tank I want to get under co2. Im thinking I should maybe wait to add co2 so I dont stress the fry out. Any ideas here?

Well thanks for the congrats and the info guys. Just the first time with krib fry. Im just spot feeding their food into the little loop the parents are taking the fry on their outings. I was told the little outings were to teach the fry how to find their own food so I think this should work. Really happy this happened in the Girlfriends little tank as she was starting to get sick of the fish after dealing with an ick outbreak and suffering some losses in the big tank. Now shes all back on board with the fish keeping. Now if my apistos would just get doing the deed now. And grow formula?

Well last week I came home to see what i thought was my kribensis spawning, darting in and out of their lil cave in turn and getting very territorial. well a lil over a week went by and I stopped to look in the little tank. and sure enough mom and dad were taking the little school of about twenty fry for a little outing in the tank. Im so excited! Finally had an egglayer batch of fry. It worked out well as I had just gotten rid of about twenty mollies out of the tank the other day. It just so happened I was enroute to the petstore for lights, so I grabbed a sponge filter. But no one in town had any baby brine shrimp. So my big question is does anyone have any live cultures I might be able to grab off of them? can compensate with money.... In the mean time ill probably just crush flakes and send them in with the ol turkey baster t

Well got the co2 battle won I think. I have gradually been increasing daily and none of my fish look stressed. I think I may have been a little over protective of the fish at first. But after a week of injection I am already seeing noticable growth in my plants. Just about to switch out the t8s for the t5hos I picked up. I havent been able to acquire a drop checker yet, so Im going purely by feel. I want to get the little tank under co2 as well, but dont really have access to another regulator system yet. Both tanks are close to eachother so running a hub would work. I just havent been able to find anything that will work without favoring one of the lines. Any ideas where to find one or where to grab parts to construct one? Thanks for the help.

well I cut my rate right back for the moment until I can aquire a drop checker. Left for work today leaving the needle valve pinched to allow one lil bubble every 5 sec or so in the l00 gal. Im feeding the co2 into the intake before my canister filter. The fish were looking a lil stressed when I came home so I turned the bubble wall back on. Think I might run them together for a while until I can have an accurate measurement and plants are able to take off a lil more and provide the o2 levels i need. Another quick question here: Will pushing the co2 through my canister filter wreck my biological filter in the canister? or should I rig up a power head and do a lil reaction chamber instead? was hoping to keep the lines to a minimum in the tank for a more natural look. thanks

Just hooked up my co2 setup for my 100 gal. Just wondering about what kind of rate I should be using through the bubble counter. Think I might have been running a little heavy this morning before I woke up(the timer had a couple hour start before I got up). Woke up to the roseline sharks looking a lil stresed . I hooked up my powerhead with air running into it and through a bubblewall back in for now. So just wondering how many bubbles per min. Or how I go about checking co2 levels, I remember reading something about comparing ph to carbonate hardness. As well Ive been using a neutral ph regulatar that uses phosphates as a buffer. will this alter ph to carbonate readings? thanks, was super excited for co2 but now Im a lil scared after hearing so many loss stories. Help please?

status update: Lost my beta male apisto while I was out of town working and the girlfriend was continuing treatment. But it seems that all is back to normale. Im about to do a large water change in the morning. was going to remove all decorations and give them a bleach bath, and vacuum the heck out of the gravel and continue with heat for a little while longer. On the plus side, my little puffers have done a number on the snail problem in both tanks. and SUPER excited. My kribensis have decided to spawn in the lil 30g non ich tank!!!

well, chemical levels are all good. 0, 0 , 5 ph 7. Keeping temperature up at 82F, Increased aeration. Just got a canister filter yesterday. Got it up and running alongside the power filter until the bacteria can establish in the canister. Also added some used media into the canister in place of the chemical stage as Im planted and levels are always low. Any Idea how long I should leave the old power filter going?

And i just traded buying a new dresser to buy myself a quarntine tank!

well my male apistos are definately rubbing now, picked up some melafix, primafix, and kordon ich attack 100% natural... Should I do one of these at a time or do a broad spectrum treatment since so many different species have been added recently?

Well, stopped by petland today and I lucked out. they had recently gotten in a bunch. Ended up buying six for the 100g and 2 for the 30g . Right away they went to town munching lil baby snais. Really got to set up a quarntine tank in a hurry. Just got to convince the woman to let me have one more little tank

On top of my assassin snail plague, It seems like I may be battling a disease in my tank. A couple of weeks ago I was passing by big als in edmonton and saw they had female dwarf gouramis for sale. This seemed like a great idea as my males have seemed to be a bit fighty as of late. So about two weeks passed and I lost two of the females and a male. Then this morning I woke up to find another male down(about a month since purchase) . Also my apistos have seemed to be rubbing a bit. Makes me think ich. Im a little hesitant to try a chemical treatment as my apistos are still young and Ive heard the treatrments can cause sterility in the younger fish.... any ideas here? Ive increased temperature and am going to add a bit of salt here today.

well recently got into some troubles in my tank. A while back I got some assassin snails to deal with my ramshorn snail problem. Now I have a ton of them. I see hundreds of little assassins all over my tank. I heard they didnt breed as crazy but, I am running flourite and they seem to like dwelling in there. The problem lies in the fact that I have some apistos in there that I would like to breed. I am concerned that the snails will go for the eggs. I would add loaches, but have had real bad luck with them, and the fact that they would go for the eggs as well. So I think my real option is to get some pea puffers to keep these little guys under control. Does anyone know of a good source for pea puffers ? and how many would be recomended for control in my tanks? I also am battling the same issue in my 30 gal, and my friend next door is fighting ramshorns.(giving him some assassins). Thanks guys

New to the forum here so I thought Id drop a quick hello. Just got hooked on this hobby about a year ago. Love the aquascaping aspect of the hobby alot. Hence why I have gotten into dwarf cichlids. Currently have a 30 gal heavily planted with a pair of kribs a red tail shark, a silver tip pleco, some mollies and platys and assassin snails. (mollies are looking for a new home). Then i have a 100 gal with two male apistos and three females, red tailed shark, 5 roseline sharks , common pleco, a pair of dwarf gouramis and a ton of assassin snails. But this seems like a wonderful site. A girl at one of the local fish shops suggested I come and join here. Perhaps because they were tired of me hanging out there But will see all of you around here!