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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 20, 2018 11:18:20 GMT -5
Earlier this week I set up a little 5 gallon aquarium on my desk: Yes, I know I've mixed nations in the decor. The fish store only has so much to choose from. Think of it as "Asian fusion" decor, I guess. I like it overall, but I may tweak the arrangement a little bit next time I do a partial water change. We'll see. Currently the tank houses one juvenile male betta, who I've named Laz - from lapis lazuli, because of his coloring: He seems very happy in his little tank. Like all bettas, he hangs out near the surface a lot, but there's nothing up there for him to do. So I have a floating betta log and a betta hammock on order to give him more places to hide, play and rest up top. This is my first time starting up a tank with one of those "instant cycle" bacteria products. I only used it because it came with the tank; I've always been very skeptical of these products. But, it has worked surprisingly well so far - there's been no ammonia at all, no nitrites, and I am seeing a small amount of nitrates, just as you would expect to see in a fully cycled tank. Though I am testing the water every day in case the bacterial colony dies off for some reason. And I don't plan to add any more animal inhabitants for a month, just to be sure. When I am sure the tank is stable, I plan to add some freshwater shrimp and maybe one snail. Hopefully by adding the shrimp before Laz is full-grown he won't eat them. (I've heard mixed reviews from other betta keepers about betta and shrimp. It depends on how aggressive your individual betta is, apparently.) But I am not buying the super-expensive shrimp - just in case they go on the menu. If they do get munched on, then Laz will have to stay in the tank alone after that! Before or when I get the shrimp, I'll get some nano-sized marimo moss balls for them. Shrimp apparently adore marimo balls - they eat detritus off them, climb on them, hide in them, etc. And they will give good hiding places for shrimp fry if the shrimp breed. It has been a lot of fun having the tank and Laz right here 2ft away from my face so I can watch him whenever I am sitting at my computer.
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Post by hairymooseknuckles on May 20, 2018 11:51:12 GMT -5
Laura_in_FL, I LOVE IT!!! I used to have a betta. I might have to discuss this wife wify.
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Post by september on May 20, 2018 19:15:23 GMT -5
Laz is a beauty! And living in the lap of luxury with a 5 gallon tank all to himself! I feel sorry for the ones kept in small jars, even though I know the breeders do it as well. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Are those real plants in there? He has so many neat places to explore.
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Post by brownrexx on May 20, 2018 19:18:23 GMT -5
Yes, he is a beauty. I like aquariums too but do not currently have one.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 21, 2018 10:07:20 GMT -5
Thanks, september! He does seem happy. Yes, those are real plants, except for the twoin front of the pagoda, and the "tree" in the center back. I may have to move the plant that is currently in front of the bridge to the back somewhere; it may get too big for that spot.
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Post by hairymooseknuckles on May 21, 2018 11:17:23 GMT -5
Laura_in_FL, brownrexx, september, I've been thinking. During May, we put Tilapia on the in the stock tank because they eat up all the Algae and pond scummy junk and they and they make it look beautiful. We put 17 of the 1 to 1 1/2 pounders in last year and they produced a ton of babies. It's well worth the price of admission, BUT....There's always a but isn't there. The problem is, they die off as soon as water temps begin to cool down. They made it till Christmas last year, but how long they last depends on the weather. They are kind of pricy too, but for what they do, worth it. Now if a feller could net some out of the tank before bad weather hits, it would sure save some money as you could restock from the aquarium. I dunno, just an old man thinking out loud.
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Post by brownrexx on May 21, 2018 12:24:16 GMT -5
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Post by pepperhead212 on May 21, 2018 12:29:34 GMT -5
Gorgeous SFF! Haven't had one of those since I was a teenager.
I've had aquariums since I was 10 years old. As a teen, I had up to 28 aquariums in our basement (only have 4, now). My parents probably figured that this kept me out of some trouble. I would breed many of the fish (bred some gorgeous bettas!), and sell or trade them to local stores. Years ago, when I started seeing Tilapia being grown for food, I remembered years earlier, when a number of species were sold in aquarium shops, and the first "mouthbreeder" I bred was Tilapia macrocephala, known as the black jaw mouthbreeder.
Funny how I've always been bad remembering people's names, but remember these, and now, many of these plant's latin names.
On the subject of that "instant cycle" you mention, when I was first starting with aquariums, this was a rather new idea. People couldn't figure out why totally cleaning the filters out would result in cloudy water, yet the water would remain crystal clear with filthy filters (exagerating a little, of course). It's in that time the "cycling the tank" came about, as well as test kits for it, as I see that you have. Amazing how similar this is to what goes on in soil, with much the same bacteria.
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Post by paquebot on May 21, 2018 12:44:49 GMT -5
I topped at 27 tanks, one less than pepperhead. Ice storm of '76 had power out long enough to kill just about everything. Didn't have the heart nor cash to start over. Live-bearers such as guppies, platys, and swordtails kept me in fish food as I had many young to swap. Also bred angelfish. Australian Rainbows were my most interesting breeding success. Nobody ever could figure out why my water was better than others as those in Madison could not duplicate it.
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 21, 2018 13:15:26 GMT -5
pepperhead212, what is SFF? Terminology for the fin type or something? I gotta admit, "Laz" was a $4 "Oh, he's cute," purchase at the pet store. I don't know much about betta terminology. (At least this pet store had aeration in their betta bowls, and their water looked super-clean, unlike the other pet stores, which keep their bettas in appalling conditions. No wonder their bettas looked healthier!) hairymooseknuckles, you'd probably need a BIG tank indoors to hold tilapias over the winter. Maybe not so much if you were only going to net out the babies and leave the big ones in the stock pond. I know tilapia is the most popular fish to use in aquaponics, but that aquaponics always seemed too involved (lots of pipes, pumps, heaters, etc.) and fiddly to appeal to me. I'm happy keeping my fish and veggies separate.
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Post by hairymooseknuckles on May 21, 2018 14:22:08 GMT -5
We intended to, but there was a problem. The catfish hit anything thrown in the water. We even put tiny hooks on so we could catch Bluegill. Guess what? Dadgum catfish would darn near swallow the tiny hooks. We never caught a single Tilapia and only 1 BG out of 10 cats. It's very fast action on our pond. You chunk and yank.
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Post by pepperhead212 on May 21, 2018 15:16:04 GMT -5
pepperhead212, what is SFF? Terminology for the fin type or something? I thought this was sort of a joke you were making about the "Asian fusian". The old name for bettas was Siamese fighting fish. This goes back to the days when people would pair their bettas, as in cock fights and dog fights, and let them fight to the death. And I guess Thailand was the main place they did this, as well as breeding these fish, and many other aquarium fish. Bettas, gouramis, and other anabantids, that breath some air, are native to SE Asia, in those areas that get almost dried out, in between monsoon periods. Thus, they evolved to live in those stagnant pools, by breathing air.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 21, 2018 22:57:34 GMT -5
Ah, I see. The "Asian fusion" remark was only about the tank decorations since the decorations aren't all inspired by the same country. I wasn't joking about fighting the fish, though I did know that the old name for bettas was Siamese fighting fish, and I did know that two males in one tank will likely fight to the death. I got the betta hammock and betta log in the tank today, but Laz isn't used to them yet. He kind of checked them out cautiously, but he hasn't used them yet. It might take a few days or even a couple of weeks before he makes use of them. Right since the house is quiet and the tank lights are out, he's napping under an Anubias leaf. That seems to be a favorite spot for naptime. He also goes into the pagoda or under the bridge sometimes. It's still weird to me how bettas will lie down on their sides to sleep; with most fish if they are lying on their sides they are on the brink of death. I have been surprised and pleased with how active and curious he is in the daytime. (I guess I am used to seeing those poor sick miserable bettas in the pet stores , stuck in tiny bowls with nasty water, so sick that they barely move.) Laz can actually zoom pretty fast when he wants to, like when a bit of food gets caught in the filter current and he chases after it.
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Post by paquebot on May 23, 2018 12:04:40 GMT -5
What you need now is a second tank beside the first. Put a female betta in that one so Laz can see her. Then he will make a bubble nest. When you think that the female may be full of eggs, shift her to Laz's tank. Then you;ll be a betta breeder. I had friends who did that.
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 23, 2018 23:29:50 GMT -5
Maybe some day. Right now I am just enjoying Laz all by himself.
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Post by pepperhead212 on May 23, 2018 23:35:52 GMT -5
In the old days, they had special tanks for bettas. I'm talkin' real old days - metal framed aquariums, with notches in the metal, for glass partitions, and the male bettas, seeing each other, would always have their brilliant colors, with their hormones running all the time.
Silicone seal tanks came about when I was a teenager, as I remember looking for spare glass, in vacant buildings, and the like, to make tanks with!
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 23, 2018 23:59:55 GMT -5
I feel sorry for the poor bettas kept that way, in "fight mode" and all stressed out all the time.
What's funny to me is how much personality he has. I swear he likes attention, or maybe just the big colorful shapes of people moving around near the tank are just interesting.
My tank has a full lid (a necessity with cats in the house!) with just a little hole for dropping food into the tank. Laz has learned where the food comes into the tank now. When he is hungry, he will hang out near there, watching the surface of the water.
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Post by pepperhead212 on May 26, 2018 23:28:55 GMT -5
Yeah, Laura_in_FL, I used to feel sorry for the bettas in those tanks, too. But then, what was worse, that, or those little 3" betta bowls they'd have them lined up in? Here's one of my fish - hardly a new friend, as he is at least 10 years old, and about 10" long. I got "Manny" - short for Parachromis managuense - at least ten years ago, and shortly after, a friend, who had a female managuense, moved, and gave her to me. I kept her in a tank below this one, and she died at about 7 years old. Another friend and I were trying to remember when I got this one, and it was at least 10 years ago. DSCF0651 by pepperhead212, on Flickr As you can see by the algae in his tank, he is a carnivore!
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 27, 2018 0:48:49 GMT -5
I bet he would eat any fish or invertebrates that you could put in the tank to eat algae, right? Those big cichlids are rough on tank mates! They sure are pretty fish, though.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Aug 3, 2018 13:02:08 GMT -5
So I got Laz some "friends" for his tank - little yellow freshwater shrimp. Here's the clearest photo I have been able to take of the little guys & gals; my cell phone camera doesn't want to focus on them: Here's a photo with Laz to show their relative sizes: They are such fun to watch, constantly pulling tiny bits of algae, biofilm and detritus off any surface with their little legs and stuffing it into their mouths. Laz has so far been curious, but not aggressive. Some of the shrimps skitter under cover when he swims really close, but most ignore him. A few turn to face him and kind of bow up on their rear legs and smack him on the face with their antennae until he backs off! It cracks me up to watch. You can see I've also added some Marimo balls because the shrimp like them, and they should also compete with algae in the tank. There are 11 or 12 shrimps in there. (I ordered 10; they said they sent 13 and there was 1 D.O.A., so there should be 12, but I only counted 11. Still that's 1 more than I ordered, so it's all good.) At any given time I can usually count 8 or 9, with the others being under or behind the plants and decor. However, one time I was able to count 11 this morning, so they all made it through their first night in the tank. Two of the shrimp seem to be egg-carrying, a.k.a. "berried" females. I'm sure Laz will try to eat the babies, but maybe there are enough hiding places in the tank for some to make it. I'm not really trying to breed shrimp, just maintain a population. (Those little suckers are expensive, especially since no one around here sells them so I have to pay big bucks for shipping.) Since I was paying for shipping anyway, I also got some assassin snails for the big aquarium, to deal with a pesky population of ramshorn snails that came in with plants. They all arrived alive and well and are hunting away in the big tank. I expect there will be a lot fewer ramshorn snails in a couple of weeks.
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Post by september on Aug 3, 2018 15:37:25 GMT -5
Reading about your aquarium makes me want to pull one of mine out of storage and set it up with something again. Have to stifle this impulse, I already have trouble getting things done. I love watching swimming things in water, so relaxing. All in their own little self contained little world. When was a kid, I started out with few jars of snails that I brought home from the lake. So fun watching them lay their jelly sacs of eggs, and the tiny baby snails hatching.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Oct 13, 2018 23:08:52 GMT -5
Here's something I discovered today that should help Laura_in_FL smile, when she gets around to seeing it. I have some new finny friends I discovered today, because the parents laid some eggs - probably a couple of days ago, which is when I noticed that the Blue Convict Cichlids were getting more aggressive than usual, and it was mostly the female, which is unusual. Tonight, I saw all the little babies on a sponge filter - the parents had moved them to that spot, maybe a good spot for food. Later, they moved them back to the middle of the tank - the parents original territory. Here is a photo of many of them hanging onto the algae on the back of the tank: IMG_20181013_230711882 by pepperhead212, on Flickr Those fish are vicious when protecting those babies!
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Post by bestofour on Oct 14, 2018 9:43:28 GMT -5
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Post by september on Oct 14, 2018 10:28:54 GMT -5
Love the picture, they are so tiny! You will have a lot of fish, if even half of them survive! I hope Laura's aquarium was unscathed, although without electricity to filter and aerate, the water quality might not be that great. Shouldn't be much of a problem for the betta, now that I remember what she had in it.
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Post by brownrexx on Oct 14, 2018 14:25:55 GMT -5
Beautiful fish pepperhead212, I wonder how many of those babies will grow up?
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Oct 27, 2018 10:16:38 GMT -5
pepperhead212, it is so much fun to watch Cichlids and other mouth-brooders raise their babies. When they feel threatened, all the little babies swim into Dad's mouth for protection. Have you seen that yet? I have mixed news about the fish. A few weeks before the storm I ordered a bunch of fish and dwarf shrimp for my two tanks. The new introductions went fine in the small tank, until the betta started eating the shrimp. Since this was originally intended as a shrimp tank and the betta was an afterthought, I moved the betta to the big tank - there was nothing in there big or aggressive enough to harm him. Unfortunately, I was a DUMMY and did not use a quarantine tank, and diseases popped up. I lost about a third of the new fish and ALL of the old fish except the male bristlenose pleco. I got a credit for the new fish, but of course it was my fault - and my loss - on the old fish. I also spent a lot of money on fish medicines (treating a 100 gal tank is not cheap) to stop the losses. I finished the last treatment and did a water change and put the carbon back in the filter the day before Michael. The good news is that except for the bristlenose pleco, all of the remaining fish are small, young fish, so the bio-load and oxygen demands were low when the storm hit. ALL of the fish in both tanks survived 9 days without filtration, with just some hand-stirring to oxygenate the water. I did very minimal feeding to keep the fish waste as low as possible. I did lose the nitrifying bacteria colonies in the external bio-wheels (they dried out, which killed the bacteria) so I had some ammonia starting up. But I was able to get to an open fish store on the beach on day...11, I think, and get a bottle of nitrifying bacteria. That restored the cycle in 48 hours, which was great. The water clarity is still not quite back...I am still figuring that out. But the water tests look good now and the fish seem healthy, active, and hungry. I will wait to see what the repairs will be...if they replace the laminate I am going to have to move the 100g tank, which is NOT a fun process. Since I will have to empty and break down the tank to move it, I may use that as an opportunity to swap out the substrate from gravel to a plant-friendly substrate, because I have always wanted a lushly planted tank. Only after all of that is done will I get more fish. And I WILL buy a quarantine tank and all new arrivals WILL spend 3 weeks there from now on!
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Post by pepperhead212 on Oct 27, 2018 11:25:54 GMT -5
Sorry to hear about the disease problem, Laura_in_FL. Quarantine tank definitely a good idea, esp. with that 100 gal tank! Those convict cichlids are not mouth breeders - they lay the eggs on a flat surface, and when the fry start swimming, the parents keep them grouped together, chasing away any dangers. Unfortunately, these two almost killed one of the other fish, and were constantly attacking the other fish, even though they would be at the other end of the tank. Finally, I removed the pair to the managuense tank - a fish that they would not be able to bully. The rest of the fish had a gourmet meal, eating up all those unprotected babies in the next few hours. The firemouth, that was almost killed, is recovering, but still not back to normal.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Oct 27, 2018 11:28:51 GMT -5
Interesting. I had been under the assumption that all cichlids were mouth-brooders. Thanks for the info. Sorry to hear about the babies, but I know sometimes you have to make decisions like that to protect your other valuable fish. That's why breeders have separate individual tanks for breeding pairs. But when you have an unplanned breeding and no spare tank to move the other fish to, your choices are limited.
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Post by bluelacedredhead on Oct 27, 2018 11:31:45 GMT -5
pepperhead212, What a mess you had to deal with. I hope putting them in the other tank will allow the hatchlings to thrive.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Oct 27, 2018 11:42:36 GMT -5
bluelacedredhead The hatchlings are gone. Unfortunately, I had to sacrifice them, to save the other fish. It's not like I was going to be able to raise them all, and sell them - I needed a large, dedicated tank to do that.
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