I have this journal as well as a physical one 😛 Do you reckon I need a third?
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Consistency Deficiency
- Thread starter Hufsa
- Start date
Yesterday knives were feeling quite good at feeding time, Big boy was out eating chopped bloodworm for a record amount of time, along with the medium and extra small knife. They looked perky and I saw one flash its gills against the sand only once. I tried taking pictures but they all came out quite blurry unfortunately.
I decided earlier today to go ahead with a third course of Praziquantel. My reasoning being that a half finished job with parasites is not good when it comes to resistance, and because of still seeing that flashing yesterday. I decided to go with a dose of 2,5 mg/l instead of 2,0 mg/l. This is to be more in line with the dosing ive read online as being most effective, and the same dosing as PraziPro. PraziPro seems to come highly recommended on many sites, but this particular product is not readily available here. I should have dosed yesterday actually, because apparently 5 days between treatments is the ideal time for a temperature of 25 C. Hoping 6 days will also be ok
I just tried to feed them and the knives are not feeling well. They were not interested in bloodworm and quite listless. They wanted to go right back into the sand.
Its very clear to me now that they either dont appreciate this medication, or something else is bothering them. My forgetful self didnt put an air stone in the tank when I dosed earlier today, but they have two airstones going at full blast now. I read somewhere that a lot of medications use up oxygen in the water, so im almost hoping this is why they arent feeling so sharp. Oxygen would be at the lowest levels down in the sand where they are most of the time. I will monitor them for the rest of the night and have filled the waterchange barrel incase they need an emergency water change later.
[Edit: For the record, im using esha gdex for my medication]
I decided earlier today to go ahead with a third course of Praziquantel. My reasoning being that a half finished job with parasites is not good when it comes to resistance, and because of still seeing that flashing yesterday. I decided to go with a dose of 2,5 mg/l instead of 2,0 mg/l. This is to be more in line with the dosing ive read online as being most effective, and the same dosing as PraziPro. PraziPro seems to come highly recommended on many sites, but this particular product is not readily available here. I should have dosed yesterday actually, because apparently 5 days between treatments is the ideal time for a temperature of 25 C. Hoping 6 days will also be ok
I just tried to feed them and the knives are not feeling well. They were not interested in bloodworm and quite listless. They wanted to go right back into the sand.
Its very clear to me now that they either dont appreciate this medication, or something else is bothering them. My forgetful self didnt put an air stone in the tank when I dosed earlier today, but they have two airstones going at full blast now. I read somewhere that a lot of medications use up oxygen in the water, so im almost hoping this is why they arent feeling so sharp. Oxygen would be at the lowest levels down in the sand where they are most of the time. I will monitor them for the rest of the night and have filled the waterchange barrel incase they need an emergency water change later.
[Edit: For the record, im using esha gdex for my medication]
Last edited:
Just checked on the knives, Big boy was the one I found first in the sand. He seems to be doing better. Sniffed my hand for a bit before returning to the sand. Fingers crossed they just needed some oxygen. I will leave the medication in the tank until tomorrow, unless my last check before bed shows anything else.
Yesterday I changed 75% of the water as planned, meaning the Prazi was only in the tank for ~24 hours for this third and last treatment. I felt it was the best course of action since im so unsure what is going on. Later that night three of the knives came out for bloodworms, and while they did flash quite a lot, they had good appetites and activity levels again. The XS knife was even out and about for a solid 3 hours, as every time I checked on the tank I saw him swimming around rooting up worms.
Im now giving the fish a solid period of just clean water with no fussing for a while, just to see if things will stabilize a bit. I did read that fish may flash during and a little bit after fluke treatments, as the flukes have damaged the gills and it needs to heal. I dont know. None of the other fish seem sick or are itching themselves, so its oddly specific to the knives. Then again they are wild caught.
The death count on shrimp is now above 11. None of the newborn shrimplets or juveniles are affected, which is typical for molting issues. I thought I had the problems mostly sorted out when I was able to do 50% water changes once a week, a regime that would make many shrimpkeepers scream in terror. But 50-75% water changes three times a week seems to have been too much for some of them.
In the back of my mind is the possibility that they are dying from water quality issues, but it doesnt make sense that I find so many newborn shrimplets and have fish fry up to my ears if the water is bad enough to kill 11+ adult shrimp.
The Rineloricaria's (grey fishsticks) second brood started hatching today. It may take 2-3 days for all the eggs to hatch.
In the first brood only two hatched, one struggled too much getting out of the egg, and sadly the other healthy one was eaten by a venezuelanus cory 🙁
This morning I met one of the first in this batch, casually chilling on the glass front of the tank.
Perfect timing for this little guy, as I rehomed all the adult venezuelanus corys. Theres only a few of their fry left, and they will be taken to the LFS once they get bigger.
I dont regret rehoming the big corys, while I really like the species, feeding time is noticeably much calmer now, and it will be much easier for all manner of fry to survive in the tank without the big boisterous hoovers.
I added a few small bits of driftwood a day ago, and they are still floating around on the surface. Somehow, two stick fry have made their way up to them shortly after hatching. They seem to really like it up there. They are impressively camouflaged.
Plant health is alright, they are kinda taking a B role right now with all the fishy business going on.
My lone stem of crassicaulis is doing something weird, the leaves were growing straight and fine for a good while, but then after the pink dotted line on the image, they started growing curly and strange. I cant remember if I moved the plant slightly around that time, or if I did anything else that could affect it. @rebel said I should keep a journal, and I sort of jokingly responded that I have two already. But jokes aside, I could get a lot better at writing down more things and smaller details, especially since Ive had some memory issues this year, and its not exactly getting any better. I would have to be both disciplined and consistent to do that though, definitely a weak side for me
Here is a really shoddy whole tank view. Im gonna let you guys in on a secret, its a real pro-tip actually. If you take a really blurry picture, from a decent distance away, no one will be able to see your algae. Dont tell anyone about this though
I added some more oak leaves to provide surfaces for the fry to graze and for them to hide amongst.
The fourth grey fishstick appears to indeed be a male, he has been cleaning the second cave on and off. The little blur near his tail is another cory fry.
I dont think I mentioned it, but I got four of both kinds of fishsticks in the aim of having a pair of each. So two will be sold off once I have a good pair. For the grey sticks, this took no time at all, while for the brown sticks I assume they need to do a whole lot more growing before I will be able to tell the genders. The brown sticks may prove to feel slightly too big for my tank once they are absolutely full grown. I do prefer the look of small fish in big tanks. But I will see when I get to that point. There should be no issue for the health of the fish, its just my sense of aesthetic. A full grown pair of Sturisoma (now Sturisomatichthys) is very easy to sell
C. pygmaeus has gotten conditioned in record time. I expect they may start to lay eggs soon.
Bold little venezuelanus fry. Pretty much nothing in the tank will hurt him now, and he is not afraid to get his share of food.
Lastly, the gourami has had a grand old time today playing in the bubble stream. She enters from below and then lets the bubbles carry her up and away.
Shes spent the good part of the afternoon playing like this. Ive not seen her this happy in a long time
I will write a post about her at a later point, this post is getting too long. So instead I leave you with this picture collage.
Im now giving the fish a solid period of just clean water with no fussing for a while, just to see if things will stabilize a bit. I did read that fish may flash during and a little bit after fluke treatments, as the flukes have damaged the gills and it needs to heal. I dont know. None of the other fish seem sick or are itching themselves, so its oddly specific to the knives. Then again they are wild caught.
The death count on shrimp is now above 11. None of the newborn shrimplets or juveniles are affected, which is typical for molting issues. I thought I had the problems mostly sorted out when I was able to do 50% water changes once a week, a regime that would make many shrimpkeepers scream in terror. But 50-75% water changes three times a week seems to have been too much for some of them.
In the back of my mind is the possibility that they are dying from water quality issues, but it doesnt make sense that I find so many newborn shrimplets and have fish fry up to my ears if the water is bad enough to kill 11+ adult shrimp.
The Rineloricaria's (grey fishsticks) second brood started hatching today. It may take 2-3 days for all the eggs to hatch.
In the first brood only two hatched, one struggled too much getting out of the egg, and sadly the other healthy one was eaten by a venezuelanus cory 🙁
This morning I met one of the first in this batch, casually chilling on the glass front of the tank.
Perfect timing for this little guy, as I rehomed all the adult venezuelanus corys. Theres only a few of their fry left, and they will be taken to the LFS once they get bigger.
I dont regret rehoming the big corys, while I really like the species, feeding time is noticeably much calmer now, and it will be much easier for all manner of fry to survive in the tank without the big boisterous hoovers.
I added a few small bits of driftwood a day ago, and they are still floating around on the surface. Somehow, two stick fry have made their way up to them shortly after hatching. They seem to really like it up there. They are impressively camouflaged.
Plant health is alright, they are kinda taking a B role right now with all the fishy business going on.
My lone stem of crassicaulis is doing something weird, the leaves were growing straight and fine for a good while, but then after the pink dotted line on the image, they started growing curly and strange. I cant remember if I moved the plant slightly around that time, or if I did anything else that could affect it. @rebel said I should keep a journal, and I sort of jokingly responded that I have two already. But jokes aside, I could get a lot better at writing down more things and smaller details, especially since Ive had some memory issues this year, and its not exactly getting any better. I would have to be both disciplined and consistent to do that though, definitely a weak side for me
Here is a really shoddy whole tank view. Im gonna let you guys in on a secret, its a real pro-tip actually. If you take a really blurry picture, from a decent distance away, no one will be able to see your algae. Dont tell anyone about this though
I added some more oak leaves to provide surfaces for the fry to graze and for them to hide amongst.
The fourth grey fishstick appears to indeed be a male, he has been cleaning the second cave on and off. The little blur near his tail is another cory fry.
I dont think I mentioned it, but I got four of both kinds of fishsticks in the aim of having a pair of each. So two will be sold off once I have a good pair. For the grey sticks, this took no time at all, while for the brown sticks I assume they need to do a whole lot more growing before I will be able to tell the genders. The brown sticks may prove to feel slightly too big for my tank once they are absolutely full grown. I do prefer the look of small fish in big tanks. But I will see when I get to that point. There should be no issue for the health of the fish, its just my sense of aesthetic. A full grown pair of Sturisoma (now Sturisomatichthys) is very easy to sell
C. pygmaeus has gotten conditioned in record time. I expect they may start to lay eggs soon.
Bold little venezuelanus fry. Pretty much nothing in the tank will hurt him now, and he is not afraid to get his share of food.
Lastly, the gourami has had a grand old time today playing in the bubble stream. She enters from below and then lets the bubbles carry her up and away.
Shes spent the good part of the afternoon playing like this. Ive not seen her this happy in a long time
I will write a post about her at a later point, this post is getting too long. So instead I leave you with this picture collage.
Smallish update.
Tank has had a week now of just clean water and rest, and unfortunately it has not helped things. Water readings are 0 and 0 for ammonia and nitrite.
The knives are doing increasingly poorly. The flashing has not subsided and they are more and more apathic and sometimes rest sideways on the sand for prolonged periods.
Yesterday I saw that their pectoral fins are clamped down to lines and somewhat bloodshot.
Theyre reaching a critical point of whatever it is that they have, and I cant afford to not do anything.
Going by the clamped and bloodshot fins, and the lack of results from the courses of Prazi, I went out and bought some strong antibacterial medication for them.
It might be that right now, a secondary (or primary) infection of bacteria is what is hardest on them.
It feels like im fumbling completely in the dark about what the correct course of action is, and every action has several pros and cons.
I gave them all a medicated bath this evening before returning them to the tank. I held my breath as I placed them in the bath, as I reckon they had about a 50/50 chance of just dropping dead on contact with the water. But they didnt seem any worse off than when I fished them out. The gourami was allowed to tag along for the bath, as shes been increasingly blushed in her gills and thats not normal for her.
I dont think fish just get bacterial infections for no reason, unless there is an underlying cause or the fish are very weak. The knives were very weak in the store and the owner told me she had almost lost all of them during acclimatization. So they were weakened before they came to me. But their intense itching/flashing doesnt sound like bacteria to me, and thats what it started with. The apathy came later. I also feel like its now slowly spreading to the others in the tank, as ive seen the pygmy corys swim a bit erratically and possibly flashing a bit. And now the blushing in the gourami. The gourami has been what I can only describe as depressed, since she lost her second husband early this year. So its not super easy to gauge how shes doing, since shes been moody and weird for a long time now.
Im really not keen to dose the entire tank with antibiotics, because I would kill off my entire filter colony.
I still feel like there is an underlying issue here, im just not 100% sure what it is. I picked up a stronger anti-parasitic medication today as well, but it kills both snails and shrimp.
So if im gonna use this, I will need to keep all the shrimp in a seperate tank for at least a month or two. The active ingredient is Diflubenzuron, which is a chitin inhibitor.
It claims to kill fish lice (Argulus), anchor worms (Lernaea), skin flukes (Gyrodactylus), gill flukes (Dactylogyrus), tapeworms (Cestodes).
Fish lice, anchor worms and other large parasites can be pretty quickly ruled out as they would be clearly visible on the fish.
Unlike Praziquantel, I have not found anything online about aquarium populations of gill flukes / Dactylogyrus being resistant to this medication.
It would be nice to have all of these ruled out though, especially the flukes. Unless I have a change of heart, I will likely undertake the quest to get out all the shrimp tomorrow, and get them set up in their own tank for a bit.
I am mentally preparing for the knifefish not to make it.. Its very sad and I wont get any more if I cant save these four 🙁
I want to end the update with some good news and not have it all sad and bad news though.
All the fishstick eggs hatched shortly after the last post, and the tank is now absolutely crawling with fishsticks.
There were a few days I hardly dared put my hands in the tank, as there were tiny fishsticks covering pretty much every surface including the glass.
Now they are a bit older, they are more actively in search of food in the tank and will move out of the way if given some warning.
I cant say that I have lost any of them so far, as the place is still literally crawling with them.
The two male grey fishsticks had a bit of a spat earlier this week when the second male suggested that maybe they could make it into a threesome in the cave, and then the first male could leave and let him get on with it alone. The first male took great offense to this.
They got so angry fighting they turned red
To be honest, at some point I lost track on who was who, but one male was crowned victorious and returned to the waiting female.
One of the firstborn fry observed the whole thing and probably needs therapy.
To top it all off, as of yesterday and today, the male is laying on a double brood, as both females have visited his cave. I assume its the same male as the first spawn.
He seems to be preferred by the females, and the other male is not good about claiming a cave and trying to be inviting for the ladies.
At the rate this is going, I wont have room for much water in the tank by new years. I was almost hoping he would take a few weeks off, kick off his shoes and rest his weary fins a bit. 😉
Tank has had a week now of just clean water and rest, and unfortunately it has not helped things. Water readings are 0 and 0 for ammonia and nitrite.
The knives are doing increasingly poorly. The flashing has not subsided and they are more and more apathic and sometimes rest sideways on the sand for prolonged periods.
Yesterday I saw that their pectoral fins are clamped down to lines and somewhat bloodshot.
Theyre reaching a critical point of whatever it is that they have, and I cant afford to not do anything.
Going by the clamped and bloodshot fins, and the lack of results from the courses of Prazi, I went out and bought some strong antibacterial medication for them.
It might be that right now, a secondary (or primary) infection of bacteria is what is hardest on them.
It feels like im fumbling completely in the dark about what the correct course of action is, and every action has several pros and cons.
I gave them all a medicated bath this evening before returning them to the tank. I held my breath as I placed them in the bath, as I reckon they had about a 50/50 chance of just dropping dead on contact with the water. But they didnt seem any worse off than when I fished them out. The gourami was allowed to tag along for the bath, as shes been increasingly blushed in her gills and thats not normal for her.
I dont think fish just get bacterial infections for no reason, unless there is an underlying cause or the fish are very weak. The knives were very weak in the store and the owner told me she had almost lost all of them during acclimatization. So they were weakened before they came to me. But their intense itching/flashing doesnt sound like bacteria to me, and thats what it started with. The apathy came later. I also feel like its now slowly spreading to the others in the tank, as ive seen the pygmy corys swim a bit erratically and possibly flashing a bit. And now the blushing in the gourami. The gourami has been what I can only describe as depressed, since she lost her second husband early this year. So its not super easy to gauge how shes doing, since shes been moody and weird for a long time now.
Im really not keen to dose the entire tank with antibiotics, because I would kill off my entire filter colony.
I still feel like there is an underlying issue here, im just not 100% sure what it is. I picked up a stronger anti-parasitic medication today as well, but it kills both snails and shrimp.
So if im gonna use this, I will need to keep all the shrimp in a seperate tank for at least a month or two. The active ingredient is Diflubenzuron, which is a chitin inhibitor.
It claims to kill fish lice (Argulus), anchor worms (Lernaea), skin flukes (Gyrodactylus), gill flukes (Dactylogyrus), tapeworms (Cestodes).
Fish lice, anchor worms and other large parasites can be pretty quickly ruled out as they would be clearly visible on the fish.
Unlike Praziquantel, I have not found anything online about aquarium populations of gill flukes / Dactylogyrus being resistant to this medication.
It would be nice to have all of these ruled out though, especially the flukes. Unless I have a change of heart, I will likely undertake the quest to get out all the shrimp tomorrow, and get them set up in their own tank for a bit.
I am mentally preparing for the knifefish not to make it.. Its very sad and I wont get any more if I cant save these four 🙁
I want to end the update with some good news and not have it all sad and bad news though.
All the fishstick eggs hatched shortly after the last post, and the tank is now absolutely crawling with fishsticks.
There were a few days I hardly dared put my hands in the tank, as there were tiny fishsticks covering pretty much every surface including the glass.
Now they are a bit older, they are more actively in search of food in the tank and will move out of the way if given some warning.
I cant say that I have lost any of them so far, as the place is still literally crawling with them.
The two male grey fishsticks had a bit of a spat earlier this week when the second male suggested that maybe they could make it into a threesome in the cave, and then the first male could leave and let him get on with it alone. The first male took great offense to this.
They got so angry fighting they turned red
To be honest, at some point I lost track on who was who, but one male was crowned victorious and returned to the waiting female.
One of the firstborn fry observed the whole thing and probably needs therapy.
To top it all off, as of yesterday and today, the male is laying on a double brood, as both females have visited his cave. I assume its the same male as the first spawn.
He seems to be preferred by the females, and the other male is not good about claiming a cave and trying to be inviting for the ladies.
At the rate this is going, I wont have room for much water in the tank by new years. I was almost hoping he would take a few weeks off, kick off his shoes and rest his weary fins a bit. 😉
I got all the dwarf shrimp and fan shrimp transferred to another tank today.
It wasnt easy, had to take out all the plants, driftwood and dodge numerous baby fish, but I think I finished in good time.
The process was obviously somewhat disturbing the fish, and I wanted to stress them out as little as possible.
Their new tank holds around 50 liters and has unceremoniously appeared in the kitchen next to the coffee machine and the kettle, displacing the toaster and some other stuff that used to live there. I got a heater and an Eheim Hang On Back filter out of the stash, and fortunately I have had the foresight to keep the filter media for this pump in the main canister filter. So it should be seeded and ready to go. They also got a few cups of sand from the main tank, as well as two big clumps of Bolbitis and the pebbles with Anubias on them. These plants should be able to take some neglect for a few months. Used tank water to fill up the new tank so there wouldnt be any shock for them with the sudden transfer. The three fan shrimp are royally pissed at me for disturbing them, but thats their go-to response for everything.
As I was fishing out shrimp I noticed more fish flashing, including fishsticks. This makes me feel more confident in my choice to treat for parasites.
This shrimp holiday colony will have to remain isolated until the main tank is declared healthy, but also until whatever parasite is present in the shrimp tank has died because of no fish hosts. Ill make sure not to use the same equipment on both tanks. I dont know how long all the potential parasites complete lifecycles are, I will do some googling and be very conservative. This is so much hassle, im only gonna do this once and then never again. After this everyone and their grandma is going into quarantine on arrival. I havent even started on the job of disinfecting my entire stash of aquarium supplies..
That will be fun. Especially 20 meters of hose and a 220 liter barrel I cant really reach the bottom of. But ill cry on that bridge when I get to it
Since I used main tank water to fill the shrimp tank, the main tank got an approximate 40% water change, including Prime. The instructions for JBL Aradol doesnt say anything about water conditioners, but since many medications do, I will start the medication tomorrow morning when the surplus Prime has had some time to deactivate.
The bucket gang (4 knives + gourami) finished their second antibiotic bath just now. They dont seem any worse than yesterday. Possibly a tiny bit better but that may be entirely wishful thinking on my part. Some small amount of the antibiotics undoubtedly enters the main tank when I transfer them back from their baths, but I am hoping the levels are low enough for the filter to overcome. I will monitor for ammonia and nitrite just in case.
Maybe I should quickly dip them in a second container of clean tank water before they go back in the tank? I think I will do that as of tomorrow.
I just want to make the stressful process as quick as possible.
Im catching them with my hands as it goes very quickly and is not abrasive to them.
Im thinking to continue the baths daily for five more days unless circumstances change.
It wasnt easy, had to take out all the plants, driftwood and dodge numerous baby fish, but I think I finished in good time.
The process was obviously somewhat disturbing the fish, and I wanted to stress them out as little as possible.
Their new tank holds around 50 liters and has unceremoniously appeared in the kitchen next to the coffee machine and the kettle, displacing the toaster and some other stuff that used to live there. I got a heater and an Eheim Hang On Back filter out of the stash, and fortunately I have had the foresight to keep the filter media for this pump in the main canister filter. So it should be seeded and ready to go. They also got a few cups of sand from the main tank, as well as two big clumps of Bolbitis and the pebbles with Anubias on them. These plants should be able to take some neglect for a few months. Used tank water to fill up the new tank so there wouldnt be any shock for them with the sudden transfer. The three fan shrimp are royally pissed at me for disturbing them, but thats their go-to response for everything.
As I was fishing out shrimp I noticed more fish flashing, including fishsticks. This makes me feel more confident in my choice to treat for parasites.
This shrimp holiday colony will have to remain isolated until the main tank is declared healthy, but also until whatever parasite is present in the shrimp tank has died because of no fish hosts. Ill make sure not to use the same equipment on both tanks. I dont know how long all the potential parasites complete lifecycles are, I will do some googling and be very conservative. This is so much hassle, im only gonna do this once and then never again. After this everyone and their grandma is going into quarantine on arrival. I havent even started on the job of disinfecting my entire stash of aquarium supplies..
That will be fun. Especially 20 meters of hose and a 220 liter barrel I cant really reach the bottom of. But ill cry on that bridge when I get to it
Since I used main tank water to fill the shrimp tank, the main tank got an approximate 40% water change, including Prime. The instructions for JBL Aradol doesnt say anything about water conditioners, but since many medications do, I will start the medication tomorrow morning when the surplus Prime has had some time to deactivate.
The bucket gang (4 knives + gourami) finished their second antibiotic bath just now. They dont seem any worse than yesterday. Possibly a tiny bit better but that may be entirely wishful thinking on my part. Some small amount of the antibiotics undoubtedly enters the main tank when I transfer them back from their baths, but I am hoping the levels are low enough for the filter to overcome. I will monitor for ammonia and nitrite just in case.
Maybe I should quickly dip them in a second container of clean tank water before they go back in the tank? I think I will do that as of tomorrow.
I just want to make the stressful process as quick as possible.
Im catching them with my hands as it goes very quickly and is not abrasive to them.
Im thinking to continue the baths daily for five more days unless circumstances change.
ScareCrow
Member
Hi Hufsa, sorry if I've missed any of the following suggestions but I've read through your thread and don't remember them being mentioned. As a caveat to the following suggestions, I've not kept any of the fish species you are dealing with so can't say if they will work or will be detrimental.
Adding some salt and or tannins to the tank, would act as a mild anti-bacterial/parasite between dips and shouldn't harm your filter bacteria (salt might a little but tannins will be fine). Salt can also be added to the dip solution if you don't want to add it to your tank. Garlic enriched food was all the rage a few years ago, especially for scaleless fish but I seem to remember that recently there was some controversy over it and I can't say I noticed greater success compared to just dipping imported fish. You could also increase the temperature gradually, which may speed up the bacteria/parasite lifecycle. If you are worried about treatments harming your filter bacteria when you add the fish back in, you could run activated carbon in your filter but I don't think you need to worry about this.
You may already but when you dip the fish I'd put the air stone from the tank into the bucket.
Adding some salt and or tannins to the tank, would act as a mild anti-bacterial/parasite between dips and shouldn't harm your filter bacteria (salt might a little but tannins will be fine). Salt can also be added to the dip solution if you don't want to add it to your tank. Garlic enriched food was all the rage a few years ago, especially for scaleless fish but I seem to remember that recently there was some controversy over it and I can't say I noticed greater success compared to just dipping imported fish. You could also increase the temperature gradually, which may speed up the bacteria/parasite lifecycle. If you are worried about treatments harming your filter bacteria when you add the fish back in, you could run activated carbon in your filter but I don't think you need to worry about this.
You may already but when you dip the fish I'd put the air stone from the tank into the bucket.
@ScareCrow thanks for the suggestions 
I think table salt (NaCl) is contraindicated for corydoras, some other catfish and scaleless fish, but Epsom Salt (MgSO4) might be okay. The knife fish are very sensitive to changes, so i may have to weigh the pros and cons of adding some extra Mg. Honestly I have never used salt for fish, so im not entirely sure what kind of salt people are talking about when they say "Add salt".
I had a bunch of oak leaves in the tank, but they got thrown out in the process of catching all the shrimp. I left just one big one as shelter. I figured it might be beneficial to have the tank a little bit "bare" for a while, to make sure the bottom stays clean, no dead fish in nooks and crannies and less places for parasites to dwell. I do have some alder cones in storage somewhere, I could add a few of those.
Funny you should mention garlic, I did pick up Seachems Garlic Guard or whatsitcalled along with the medication. Its apparently useful to get fish to eat medicated foods and generally boost appetite. Interesting that there is controversy with regards to giving it to fish, ill want to look into that. I know that it has traditionally been given to horses to ward off bugs, but is actually not good for them and makes them slightly to moderately anemic.
I would try pimping the food with garlic tonight, but I started the JBL Aradol this morning, and it says no food for 3 days.
I have explained this and showed the instructions pamplet to several disgruntled denizens of the tank, but they were not very understanding.
Im quite torn about todays dip, the two smallest knives are not doing well and I have found one lying randomly on the sand earlier today in broad daylight. Not good at all. I thought it may have passed on, but when we went to gently nudge it, it startled before we could touch it, and scurried off into some plants. It laid motionless for a while there, breathing slowly before burying itself. I think I should just go with my gut instinct and skip todays dip. I dont think they are up for it.
At the other side of the house, the fan shrimp are greatly enjoying what we are calling "the holiday colony", or summer camp. In december 🤔
The female bamboo shrimp has found the current from the filter, and is going further and further up the branch every time we check on them.
Please excuse the highly fashionable cling film (TM) lid.
Even the male gabonensis shrimp is getting in on the flow, albeit in a slightly more secluded fashion.
The gabon shrimp are very shy and the female is nowhere to be seen. Which is impressive for such a small and relatively bare tank. She is always like this in the main tank as well.
The dwarf shrimp are "swarming", but its not just the males. If just the males are scurrying and flying around like this, it just means a female is ready to breed.
But this swarm has both genders. Im not sure why they are acting up like this, the most likely is either that they are hungry, or that they feel like they need to be somewhere else and are trying to find the way out. They have been fed twice, but obviously this small tank has much less surface area per shrimp, so maybe they are hungry still. Ill check the water parameters just after this post, to see if something is wrong there that is making them do this.
I think table salt (NaCl) is contraindicated for corydoras, some other catfish and scaleless fish, but Epsom Salt (MgSO4) might be okay. The knife fish are very sensitive to changes, so i may have to weigh the pros and cons of adding some extra Mg. Honestly I have never used salt for fish, so im not entirely sure what kind of salt people are talking about when they say "Add salt".
I had a bunch of oak leaves in the tank, but they got thrown out in the process of catching all the shrimp. I left just one big one as shelter. I figured it might be beneficial to have the tank a little bit "bare" for a while, to make sure the bottom stays clean, no dead fish in nooks and crannies and less places for parasites to dwell. I do have some alder cones in storage somewhere, I could add a few of those.
Funny you should mention garlic, I did pick up Seachems Garlic Guard or whatsitcalled along with the medication. Its apparently useful to get fish to eat medicated foods and generally boost appetite. Interesting that there is controversy with regards to giving it to fish, ill want to look into that. I know that it has traditionally been given to horses to ward off bugs, but is actually not good for them and makes them slightly to moderately anemic.
I would try pimping the food with garlic tonight, but I started the JBL Aradol this morning, and it says no food for 3 days.
I have explained this and showed the instructions pamplet to several disgruntled denizens of the tank, but they were not very understanding.
Im quite torn about todays dip, the two smallest knives are not doing well and I have found one lying randomly on the sand earlier today in broad daylight. Not good at all. I thought it may have passed on, but when we went to gently nudge it, it startled before we could touch it, and scurried off into some plants. It laid motionless for a while there, breathing slowly before burying itself. I think I should just go with my gut instinct and skip todays dip. I dont think they are up for it.
At the other side of the house, the fan shrimp are greatly enjoying what we are calling "the holiday colony", or summer camp. In december 🤔
The female bamboo shrimp has found the current from the filter, and is going further and further up the branch every time we check on them.
Please excuse the highly fashionable cling film (TM) lid.
Even the male gabonensis shrimp is getting in on the flow, albeit in a slightly more secluded fashion.
The gabon shrimp are very shy and the female is nowhere to be seen. Which is impressive for such a small and relatively bare tank. She is always like this in the main tank as well.
The dwarf shrimp are "swarming", but its not just the males. If just the males are scurrying and flying around like this, it just means a female is ready to breed.
But this swarm has both genders. Im not sure why they are acting up like this, the most likely is either that they are hungry, or that they feel like they need to be somewhere else and are trying to find the way out. They have been fed twice, but obviously this small tank has much less surface area per shrimp, so maybe they are hungry still. Ill check the water parameters just after this post, to see if something is wrong there that is making them do this.
ScareCrow
Member
@Hufsa the salt I was referring to is rock salt/sea salt or fish shops often sell 'aquarium salt' as a treatment, which is just expensive rock salt/sea salt. MgSO4 is another option as you say.
I think garlic helps to boost the immune system and appetite as you say. I believe the controversy around using it arose when companies started marketing it like it was medicated food. It was marketed in the marine hobby as a treatment for white spot / ich but in reality it was just boosting the immune system of the host, rather than targeting the infection.
I think garlic helps to boost the immune system and appetite as you say. I believe the controversy around using it arose when companies started marketing it like it was medicated food. It was marketed in the marine hobby as a treatment for white spot / ich but in reality it was just boosting the immune system of the host, rather than targeting the infection.
Hi all,
cheers Darrel
Salt (NaCl) is a non-starter for planted aquariums, because of the sodium (Na)content. Some people use a salt dip for external parasite etc., but it isn't a route I'd ever go down.
cheers Darrel
ScareCrow
Member
Good point, you're quite right. I've only used it as an addition to chemical dip but I know people do use it in aquariums. As you say they probably weren't planted to begin with or certainly not after adding salt.
Just a quick post here as a note to myself, set up Jebao DP-4 autodoser today.
It will dose ferts daily for me.
Will hopefully be very relaxing, knock on wood it behaves nicely. It was bought used and is apparently 2 years old.
Weekly amounts will be approximately 1/3 EI
10 NO3
1 PO4
10 K
Im running a temporary micro mix made with some left over solutions I had, im out of the dry goods, waiting on a package.
So it will be a little higher temporarily with 0.53 Fe weekly.
Where 0.182 is Fe EDTA + and various amounts of CSM+B traces, and 0.35 is Fe DTPA
Next micro mix im planning to bring it down to 0.3 Fe weekly.
Where 0.2 is Fe EDTA + traces, and 0.1 is Fe DTPA.
It will dose ferts daily for me.
Will hopefully be very relaxing, knock on wood it behaves nicely. It was bought used and is apparently 2 years old.
Weekly amounts will be approximately 1/3 EI
10 NO3
1 PO4
10 K
Im running a temporary micro mix made with some left over solutions I had, im out of the dry goods, waiting on a package.
So it will be a little higher temporarily with 0.53 Fe weekly.
Where 0.182 is Fe EDTA + and various amounts of CSM+B traces, and 0.35 is Fe DTPA
Next micro mix im planning to bring it down to 0.3 Fe weekly.
Where 0.2 is Fe EDTA + traces, and 0.1 is Fe DTPA.
An update on my fish and especially the knives. The outlook is hopeful and moderately positive, for three of four knives.
The sad first though. I put the smallest knife to sleep two days ago.
Ive had some thoughts I wanted to say about it, but the words needed a few days to settle in my head.
I feel that its my duty as their keeper to call it quits, when the suffering seems greater than the potential for recovery.
And while I would like nothing more than for it to have continued fighting, I felt like it had had enough.
It had been laying sideways motionless on the sand, in full light all day.
One might try to argue that its more natural to let it die by itself.
But an aquarium is not nature, and it does not have birds or predatory fish that would have ended it.
Its a tough call but I think I made the right one.
Today I gave the knives a third antibiotic dip, to boost them a bit again. I gave them a break after the first two dips, just what my gut instinct told me.
This time, they were harder to catch with my hands and felt stronger when wriggling.
They were a bit more active in the bucket and didnt flop over on their sides.
After the dip all three were out and ate a good amount of bloodworms.
Today I gave them their bloodworms ~al natural~ as I havent noticed them eating any more when its got Garlic Guard on it.
It might not be anything to do with the effectiveness of the garlic, the bloodworms are not dry so they probably dont absorb much of it.
Im very encouraged to see them doing better. Theyre not out of the woods yet, and they are still flashing. But I have hope.
The Diflubenzuron seems to be a very slow acting agent, much much slower than Praziquantel.
Its mechanism of action is said to be inhibition of chitin formation, and then the parasites will die when attempting to molt.
But I have observed baby shrimp in the tank that escaped "the Rapture", and they have been suspiciously alive. I figured a few tiny tiny babies would be left in the tank, but I didnt expect to see them around this long. I saw one today, walking around like it was nobodys business. But I have seen one or two dead ones as well. So I guess it just takes a while.
I hope it kills parasites faster than it kills sensitive inbred shrimp.
I have not seen any of the other fish flashing for at least a few days. Just the knives.
I sincerely hope they continue doing better and we get out of this with no more losses.
The dwarf shrimp in the holiday colony settled down a few days ago as well, and they are no longer swarming around like crazy. I let out a big sigh of relief, as they were worrying me a lot the way they were acting. I didnt see much fan shrimp poop, which you wouldnt think was a problem. But it is. The water in the holiday colony has a lot less food particulates due to me just lightly feeding dwarf shrimp, and not feeding a bunch of fish. So the fan shrimp would have started to starve before long. So ive started target feeding them with spirulina powder.
The bamboo shrimp sits way out on a branch, but she does her best to hunker down when she senses us approaching the tank.
While she works on braving her shyness, I stir out some almost blue-green spirulina powder.
You can easily see the fans catching food particles. She holds them out in the flow, then brings them periodically to her mouth to lick them clean.
Before:
After:
The sad first though. I put the smallest knife to sleep two days ago.
Ive had some thoughts I wanted to say about it, but the words needed a few days to settle in my head.
I feel that its my duty as their keeper to call it quits, when the suffering seems greater than the potential for recovery.
And while I would like nothing more than for it to have continued fighting, I felt like it had had enough.
It had been laying sideways motionless on the sand, in full light all day.
One might try to argue that its more natural to let it die by itself.
But an aquarium is not nature, and it does not have birds or predatory fish that would have ended it.
Its a tough call but I think I made the right one.
Today I gave the knives a third antibiotic dip, to boost them a bit again. I gave them a break after the first two dips, just what my gut instinct told me.
This time, they were harder to catch with my hands and felt stronger when wriggling.
They were a bit more active in the bucket and didnt flop over on their sides.
After the dip all three were out and ate a good amount of bloodworms.
Today I gave them their bloodworms ~al natural~ as I havent noticed them eating any more when its got Garlic Guard on it.
It might not be anything to do with the effectiveness of the garlic, the bloodworms are not dry so they probably dont absorb much of it.
Im very encouraged to see them doing better. Theyre not out of the woods yet, and they are still flashing. But I have hope.
The Diflubenzuron seems to be a very slow acting agent, much much slower than Praziquantel.
Its mechanism of action is said to be inhibition of chitin formation, and then the parasites will die when attempting to molt.
But I have observed baby shrimp in the tank that escaped "the Rapture", and they have been suspiciously alive. I figured a few tiny tiny babies would be left in the tank, but I didnt expect to see them around this long. I saw one today, walking around like it was nobodys business. But I have seen one or two dead ones as well. So I guess it just takes a while.
I hope it kills parasites faster than it kills sensitive inbred shrimp.
I have not seen any of the other fish flashing for at least a few days. Just the knives.
I sincerely hope they continue doing better and we get out of this with no more losses.
The dwarf shrimp in the holiday colony settled down a few days ago as well, and they are no longer swarming around like crazy. I let out a big sigh of relief, as they were worrying me a lot the way they were acting. I didnt see much fan shrimp poop, which you wouldnt think was a problem. But it is. The water in the holiday colony has a lot less food particulates due to me just lightly feeding dwarf shrimp, and not feeding a bunch of fish. So the fan shrimp would have started to starve before long. So ive started target feeding them with spirulina powder.
The bamboo shrimp sits way out on a branch, but she does her best to hunker down when she senses us approaching the tank.
While she works on braving her shyness, I stir out some almost blue-green spirulina powder.
You can easily see the fans catching food particles. She holds them out in the flow, then brings them periodically to her mouth to lick them clean.
Before:
After:
I suppose another update is in order.
The sick fish situation is not cleared up yet.
Two more knives have been PTS since last post, suffering heavily from bacterial infections.
This leaves only the biggest one. Last I saw it it was only lightly red around the fins, but still flashing a bit.
Ive been away a few days for christmas and havent seen the big knife out looking for food yet tonight, but I did see a snout so he is alive.
The Diflubenzuron treatment was due for a third and final stage last wednesday, but I opted to change 90% of the water instead and go straight for my plan C, which is Flubendazole. The FBZ arrived a few days before and I was quite frankly real fed up with watching the Diflubenzuron do absolutely nothing. I dont understand why its been so ineffective, maybe there has been some interaction of some sort in my tank and that has rendered it inactive. I really have no idea. All I know is fish were not getting much better and I still have baby shrimp swimming around that should have died. You could explain the fish not getting better by wrong choice of medication, but a chitin inhibitor labeled dangerous to shrimp should kill shrimp in 2 weeks, right.. 🙄
Ive also struggled with what I can only describe as a chronic Poop-nado ever since around the time the shrimp left for their holiday colony 💩
You know that weird movie with the tornado made of sharks, right? Just like that, except fish poop.
I would have gotten some gross and gory pictures for you guys, but to be quite honest I dont want anyone to see just how bad it has been.
This has left me even more bewildered than usual. Ive been wondering what has caused all this *#%@ crap to appear suddenly, but its probably a combination of factors.
Here follows my likely suspects for Poop-nado.
1. Shrimp eat fish poop. Makes it into smaller shrimp poops that are more easily carried away by the flow and broken down.
2. Arrival of big 'ol poopers. The four brown fishsticks and additional zebra otos are big eaters. They also poop what I can only describe as "lincoln logs" 🪵
Sure, the other fish poop too, but in a much less obscene fashion.
3. I put more driftwood in, disturbing the flow in the tank. Im planning a "rescape" of sorts for when I move over to the new tank, and ive been adding wood and fiddling around a bit to see how I would like to have things oriented.
Hopefully I can solve the chronic Poop-nado before the rescape. If I cant have as much hardscape as id like, I really wanna know about it now, so I can plan ahead some and adjust my expectations. Id like to rehome the surplus pair of grey fishsticks, but cant until tank health is all clear. Same for the brown fishsticks, except I need to keep them onboard until they start showing some sexual dimorphism.
Ive changed around the filter outlet to see if it influences it, but have not really had any a-ha moments.
No spray bar, just plain open outlet creates a gentle flow and the crap stays all over the bottom of the tank.
Spray bar all along the back causes poop to lift up and get carried away by the flow. This will look like a great solution until you realise that the flow then deposits the poop all over your plants.
Now im trying out a left side mounted spray bar. I also pulled out a fair bit of wood because I was desperate and really wanted to stop looking at poop.
Ive been siphoning out large turd clusters all day and for at least 30 minutes I had a clean slate to work from. Ill never take the clean look for granted again. But, if its anything like the last times ive siphoned it out, it will be right back tomorrow morning.
Im also putting the fish on a very restricted diet.
Since I dont want Darrel to be disappointed in me, the lincoln logs are not allowed to enter the canister filter.
They just get stuck on the inlet mesh where I can remove it periodically.
The way I see it, just sweeping it under the rug (into the filter), wont really solve Poop-nado, it will just be somewhere else, using up all the filter oxygen and giving me even bigger problems. Im starting to wonder if ive had this amount of poop all along, and that the shrimp have just helped keep it hidden from me. If so, I should really practice on limiting my feeding.....
Time will tell. And to everyone reading this, sorry for saying poop 100 times.
The sick fish situation is not cleared up yet.
Two more knives have been PTS since last post, suffering heavily from bacterial infections.
This leaves only the biggest one. Last I saw it it was only lightly red around the fins, but still flashing a bit.
Ive been away a few days for christmas and havent seen the big knife out looking for food yet tonight, but I did see a snout so he is alive.
The Diflubenzuron treatment was due for a third and final stage last wednesday, but I opted to change 90% of the water instead and go straight for my plan C, which is Flubendazole. The FBZ arrived a few days before and I was quite frankly real fed up with watching the Diflubenzuron do absolutely nothing. I dont understand why its been so ineffective, maybe there has been some interaction of some sort in my tank and that has rendered it inactive. I really have no idea. All I know is fish were not getting much better and I still have baby shrimp swimming around that should have died. You could explain the fish not getting better by wrong choice of medication, but a chitin inhibitor labeled dangerous to shrimp should kill shrimp in 2 weeks, right.. 🙄
Ive also struggled with what I can only describe as a chronic Poop-nado ever since around the time the shrimp left for their holiday colony 💩
You know that weird movie with the tornado made of sharks, right? Just like that, except fish poop.
I would have gotten some gross and gory pictures for you guys, but to be quite honest I dont want anyone to see just how bad it has been.
This has left me even more bewildered than usual. Ive been wondering what has caused all this *#%@ crap to appear suddenly, but its probably a combination of factors.
Here follows my likely suspects for Poop-nado.
1. Shrimp eat fish poop. Makes it into smaller shrimp poops that are more easily carried away by the flow and broken down.
2. Arrival of big 'ol poopers. The four brown fishsticks and additional zebra otos are big eaters. They also poop what I can only describe as "lincoln logs" 🪵
Sure, the other fish poop too, but in a much less obscene fashion.
3. I put more driftwood in, disturbing the flow in the tank. Im planning a "rescape" of sorts for when I move over to the new tank, and ive been adding wood and fiddling around a bit to see how I would like to have things oriented.
Hopefully I can solve the chronic Poop-nado before the rescape. If I cant have as much hardscape as id like, I really wanna know about it now, so I can plan ahead some and adjust my expectations. Id like to rehome the surplus pair of grey fishsticks, but cant until tank health is all clear. Same for the brown fishsticks, except I need to keep them onboard until they start showing some sexual dimorphism.
Ive changed around the filter outlet to see if it influences it, but have not really had any a-ha moments.
No spray bar, just plain open outlet creates a gentle flow and the crap stays all over the bottom of the tank.
Spray bar all along the back causes poop to lift up and get carried away by the flow. This will look like a great solution until you realise that the flow then deposits the poop all over your plants.
Now im trying out a left side mounted spray bar. I also pulled out a fair bit of wood because I was desperate and really wanted to stop looking at poop.
Ive been siphoning out large turd clusters all day and for at least 30 minutes I had a clean slate to work from. Ill never take the clean look for granted again. But, if its anything like the last times ive siphoned it out, it will be right back tomorrow morning.
Im also putting the fish on a very restricted diet.
Since I dont want Darrel to be disappointed in me, the lincoln logs are not allowed to enter the canister filter.
They just get stuck on the inlet mesh where I can remove it periodically.
The way I see it, just sweeping it under the rug (into the filter), wont really solve Poop-nado, it will just be somewhere else, using up all the filter oxygen and giving me even bigger problems. Im starting to wonder if ive had this amount of poop all along, and that the shrimp have just helped keep it hidden from me. If so, I should really practice on limiting my feeding.....
Time will tell. And to everyone reading this, sorry for saying poop 100 times.
I suppose the plants should also get a little update while im at it.
The Hygrophila and Nesaea stunted right before I changed over to the auto doser. I dont know of anyone else who is able to stunt Hygrophila.
Im not sure if im proud of this or not. Im a standout in my area of expertise, but my area of expertise is torturing plants
Any how, since I switched over to the auto doser, I figured I would play it cool and let things settle for a few weeks. The Hygrophila is growing again now, so thats good. Im not sure if the Nesaea will unstunt, we will see. I realise I throw the word stunt around a lot, but I dont really know of any better way to describe it. First some really weird looking growth and then growth stops entirely. In the past weeks I also noted a decline, and then increase in green thread algae. Impossible to say why since so much stuff was going on at the same time. I also saw a decrease and then increase in BBA. Its probably a good thing im not scared of algae. Eventually I would like to master growing plants well while growing minimal amounts of algae, but im not in a huge rush to get there.
Im thinking of giving the current levels of ferts one more week before I want to try to decrease the dose a bit, especially of micros. EI seems to be working great for those nosebleed high tech tanks, but so far I havent had such great results with it for low tech. I may be doing it wrong though, im fully aware of that. But at this point I would like to try some other approaches instead of trying to chase just one method.
I wanna see if theres anything to the old theories of BBA ~ high nitrates, and green thread algae ~ too much iron or phosphate or whatever it is they say.
Ive also seen noticeable amounts of pinholes in old leaves before they decay, and found that quite exciting. Havent killed plants this way before (that I know of) This appeared around the same time as the plants stunted. I seem to remember pinholes in old leaves possibly being related to K / potassium. However im not gonna get hung up on that. Nutrient tunnel vision is a real thing and I like to imagine I have gotten over that stage of newbie-ness. Besides, I think we can all agree at this point that a lot of my issues stem from my consistency deficiency 😁 So working on that will be a better fix, and I can fiddle with the small details such as exact K levels much much later.
BBA, thread algae and a sprinkling of other assorted algae
Pinholes on older leaves with yellowing around the holes. Once the pinholes reach a certain amount the leaves seem to decline rapidly and the inhabitants start eating the leaves. Hence you will also see mechanical damage on some of them.
Unstunted tips, with the kinda weird leaves right below. The weird leaves have a bluer shade of green and are more intricate than they normally are.
Poor Nesaea stem You can really tell in this picture how much a suffering plant attracts algae. I also find interesting the sideways curved leaves a bit down the stem. This symptom I know ive had before. I think it was in Staurogyne repens last time. The sideways curving leaves seem to be a precursor to more severe symptoms. Thats just a theory tho. Sideways / horizontal curving, and then vertical curving with increasing mangling, before the growing tip stops entirely.
Poop-nado is gonna steal a little bit of the limelight of this post as well, here is what I woke up to this morning 💩💩💩
I have apparently successfully set up the flow in such a way that it all gathers here in this neat spot nearby the filter intake.
Much of this poop is a dark brown color, a color that none of my fishfood is. I am assuming that lighter tan colored poops and reddish poops are less digested poops containing more fishfood. So that would make the majority of this turd pile fairly highly digested and stripped of nutrients, no? This dark kind of poop I associate with algae eaters. Maybe its not so bad after all? Maybe someone wants to chime in on the percieved quality of my poop collection
Quick and dirty on various fry and breeding going on; all fry has passed away, either from medication or from lack of food / difficulty raising. I did remove all the leaf litter in the tank. Grey fishstick dad is already working on a new batch, so thats ok. Also pygmy corys are laying eggs as of today. Fun times ahead once tank is stable and fish are not sick any more. Looking forward to that 😊
Finishing off with a bonus picture of one of the poopsticks.
Its not so easy to see but they are growing nicely and their bodies are also broader than they were when I got them.
The Hygrophila and Nesaea stunted right before I changed over to the auto doser. I dont know of anyone else who is able to stunt Hygrophila.
Im not sure if im proud of this or not. Im a standout in my area of expertise, but my area of expertise is torturing plants
Any how, since I switched over to the auto doser, I figured I would play it cool and let things settle for a few weeks. The Hygrophila is growing again now, so thats good. Im not sure if the Nesaea will unstunt, we will see. I realise I throw the word stunt around a lot, but I dont really know of any better way to describe it. First some really weird looking growth and then growth stops entirely. In the past weeks I also noted a decline, and then increase in green thread algae. Impossible to say why since so much stuff was going on at the same time. I also saw a decrease and then increase in BBA. Its probably a good thing im not scared of algae. Eventually I would like to master growing plants well while growing minimal amounts of algae, but im not in a huge rush to get there.
Im thinking of giving the current levels of ferts one more week before I want to try to decrease the dose a bit, especially of micros. EI seems to be working great for those nosebleed high tech tanks, but so far I havent had such great results with it for low tech. I may be doing it wrong though, im fully aware of that. But at this point I would like to try some other approaches instead of trying to chase just one method.
I wanna see if theres anything to the old theories of BBA ~ high nitrates, and green thread algae ~ too much iron or phosphate or whatever it is they say.
Ive also seen noticeable amounts of pinholes in old leaves before they decay, and found that quite exciting. Havent killed plants this way before (that I know of)
This appeared around the same time as the plants stunted. I seem to remember pinholes in old leaves possibly being related to K / potassium. However im not gonna get hung up on that. Nutrient tunnel vision is a real thing and I like to imagine I have gotten over that stage of newbie-ness. Besides, I think we can all agree at this point that a lot of my issues stem from my consistency deficiency 😁 So working on that will be a better fix, and I can fiddle with the small details such as exact K levels much much later. BBA, thread algae and a sprinkling of other assorted algae
Pinholes on older leaves with yellowing around the holes. Once the pinholes reach a certain amount the leaves seem to decline rapidly and the inhabitants start eating the leaves. Hence you will also see mechanical damage on some of them.
Unstunted tips, with the kinda weird leaves right below. The weird leaves have a bluer shade of green and are more intricate than they normally are.
Poor Nesaea stem
You can really tell in this picture how much a suffering plant attracts algae. I also find interesting the sideways curved leaves a bit down the stem. This symptom I know ive had before. I think it was in Staurogyne repens last time. The sideways curving leaves seem to be a precursor to more severe symptoms. Thats just a theory tho. Sideways / horizontal curving, and then vertical curving with increasing mangling, before the growing tip stops entirely.Poop-nado is gonna steal a little bit of the limelight of this post as well, here is what I woke up to this morning 💩💩💩
I have apparently successfully set up the flow in such a way that it all gathers here in this neat spot nearby the filter intake.
Much of this poop is a dark brown color, a color that none of my fishfood is. I am assuming that lighter tan colored poops and reddish poops are less digested poops containing more fishfood. So that would make the majority of this turd pile fairly highly digested and stripped of nutrients, no? This dark kind of poop I associate with algae eaters. Maybe its not so bad after all? Maybe someone wants to chime in on the percieved quality of my poop collection
Quick and dirty on various fry and breeding going on; all fry has passed away, either from medication or from lack of food / difficulty raising. I did remove all the leaf litter in the tank. Grey fishstick dad is already working on a new batch, so thats ok. Also pygmy corys are laying eggs as of today. Fun times ahead once tank is stable and fish are not sick any more. Looking forward to that 😊
Finishing off with a bonus picture of one of the poopsticks.
Its not so easy to see but they are growing nicely and their bodies are also broader than they were when I got them.
X3NiTH
Member
- Joined
- 13 Apr 2014
- Messages
- 1,667
Maybe someone wants to chime in on the percieved quality of my poop collection
Same colour as the Bogwood so it’s on the menu!
🙂
@X3NiTH you are absolutely right, I see it now. Theyre eating the wood 😀
Thats not too bad then, the poop should be mostly wood scrapings?
I thought only the panaques and such ate wood, but I guess a lot of smaller suckermouths do too, just in smaller quantities.
As far as I understand they arent too interested in the wood itself, but the things that grow / live on it.
Ive been thinking about how I want to have my new tank set up. I havent been happy with how my current tank looks in ages, algae issues aside. It doesnt help that im a bit of a perfectionist, and it tends to get in the way of the artistic side of things. Ive had some of my driftwood facing branches upwards for a while now and can confirm that its not my taste. The plants just end up drowning out all the branches and youll end up lucky if you can see just a few tips of the woods sticking out of the plantmass. I want to feature the wood more, have it more visible while still having some space to plant. Preferably in the locations where the wood is least attractive.
I found a few pics of my current tank when I first set it up, I havent shared them before because I am a bit embarrassed by them. They dont look great but they show kind of which style I want to go with. I also want to keep at least a small amount of leaf litter because I think it looks really nice and the fish love it. Also great for shrimp and fry. I am planning to get some malaysian trumpet snails to help keep the leaf litter gently oxygenated and prevent any completely stagnant areas.
This was the first iteration, I got two pretty nice pieces of wood and plopped them into the tank without much changes on them. Then I planted them up in a total hurry and didnt consider that I placed the anubias over a lot of nice wood parts and when they theoretically grew in, they would cover up all the wood. It also needed a lot more plants. The mossy caves didnt fit in at all either.
The second iteration was more thought out, but here my perfectionism overtook the look. The wood has been sawed and trimmed up, and small details added. But the overall lines of the layout turned totally artificial and the curves are too orderly and neat. In addition there is no hardscape above the mid height of the tank so it looks empty and weird.
Which brings us to the present date.
I got two new much larger pieces of wood and had a little play around with them in the storage room.
So this is just a temporary mock-up.
Its not possible to tell in the picture, but the hardscape is much taller this time and with epiphytes on top of the wood, should reach up to the waters surface without much trouble. Im not planning to bank the substrate (sand still), so the wood is placed at an angle and im looking to fill the dark areas under the wood with smaller roots and leaf litter, so that you wont be able to see the sand meet the back glass. The two big pieces of wood go right against each other in the middle, which maybe looks a bit crowded, but I think also helps it not get that "two seperate islands" look again. I would like it to have more of a continous riverbank look this time.
If you guys have any suggestions or see any glaring problems be sure to let me know! I can also take a picture with just the two main pieces of wood, so you can see the bare minimum, if that is needed. In this picture I had already placed out a few other bits of wood to fill out parts and provide more surfaces for planting.
This is a -very beautiful- rough splodge drawing of where I figure the plants can go without detracting too much from the look. Obviously subject to change this one as well 😛 The rest of the sand will be covered with leaf litter. I can probably shove anubias into the areas that are too dark for anything else to grow in.
Thats not too bad then, the poop should be mostly wood scrapings?
I thought only the panaques and such ate wood, but I guess a lot of smaller suckermouths do too, just in smaller quantities.
As far as I understand they arent too interested in the wood itself, but the things that grow / live on it.
Ive been thinking about how I want to have my new tank set up. I havent been happy with how my current tank looks in ages, algae issues aside. It doesnt help that im a bit of a perfectionist, and it tends to get in the way of the artistic side of things. Ive had some of my driftwood facing branches upwards for a while now and can confirm that its not my taste. The plants just end up drowning out all the branches and youll end up lucky if you can see just a few tips of the woods sticking out of the plantmass. I want to feature the wood more, have it more visible while still having some space to plant. Preferably in the locations where the wood is least attractive.
I found a few pics of my current tank when I first set it up, I havent shared them before because I am a bit embarrassed by them. They dont look great but they show kind of which style I want to go with. I also want to keep at least a small amount of leaf litter because I think it looks really nice and the fish love it. Also great for shrimp and fry. I am planning to get some malaysian trumpet snails to help keep the leaf litter gently oxygenated and prevent any completely stagnant areas.
This was the first iteration, I got two pretty nice pieces of wood and plopped them into the tank without much changes on them. Then I planted them up in a total hurry and didnt consider that I placed the anubias over a lot of nice wood parts and when they theoretically grew in, they would cover up all the wood. It also needed a lot more plants. The mossy caves didnt fit in at all either.
The second iteration was more thought out, but here my perfectionism overtook the look. The wood has been sawed and trimmed up, and small details added. But the overall lines of the layout turned totally artificial and the curves are too orderly and neat. In addition there is no hardscape above the mid height of the tank so it looks empty and weird.
Which brings us to the present date.
I got two new much larger pieces of wood and had a little play around with them in the storage room.
So this is just a temporary mock-up.
Its not possible to tell in the picture, but the hardscape is much taller this time and with epiphytes on top of the wood, should reach up to the waters surface without much trouble. Im not planning to bank the substrate (sand still), so the wood is placed at an angle and im looking to fill the dark areas under the wood with smaller roots and leaf litter, so that you wont be able to see the sand meet the back glass. The two big pieces of wood go right against each other in the middle, which maybe looks a bit crowded, but I think also helps it not get that "two seperate islands" look again. I would like it to have more of a continous riverbank look this time.
If you guys have any suggestions or see any glaring problems be sure to let me know! I can also take a picture with just the two main pieces of wood, so you can see the bare minimum, if that is needed. In this picture I had already placed out a few other bits of wood to fill out parts and provide more surfaces for planting.
This is a -very beautiful- rough splodge drawing of where I figure the plants can go without detracting too much from the look. Obviously subject to change this one as well 😛 The rest of the sand will be covered with leaf litter. I can probably shove anubias into the areas that are too dark for anything else to grow in.
Four weeks since switching to the auto doser, and the doser is behaving nicely. Hear it running at expected times. Should probably recheck the calibration just to be sure its dosing the right amounts, but otherwise im fairly content and confident with it.
Plant growth has been very poor, hygrophila difformis is barely growing, very small leaves. I got some guppy grass (najas guadalupensis) as a passenger with a fish a while back and the little sprigs have barely put on any size. My floating bush of Hydrocotyle tripartita is strangely yellow pale, but not in new leaves, all the leaves.. 🤔
I have been mentally preparing to switch to Tropicas dosing, just wanted to give the plants a fourth week before I made any changes. The plan was to reduce overall ferts down to Tropica Specialized levels, aka NO3 from 10 ppm weekly to ~7,12, PO4 from 1 to 0.37 etc.
The main differences as far as I see it are PO4 and Fe (iron) levels. Approximately 1/3 of the phosphate and 1/3 to 1/5 of the iron.
Especially reducing the iron from the kinda high 0.53 ppm weekly to 0.08 I think will be a very interesting change to make.
These two are usually blamed for algae growth, maybe there is something to it after all?
Ive been diligently following the EI advice ive been given, but time to try something new now, I hope people wont take it personally 🙂
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. "
May be a silly quote but there is something to it.
But the current poor plant growth is giving me pause. I mean, algae is at an all time high, but previously when I had lots of algae growth, I also had (mostly) good plant growth. Or at least -better- plant growth than what im having right now.
Hydrocotyle pale all over could be lack of nitrogen. Same with Hygrophila absorbing all its old leaves. They might have gotten a bit more nitrate when I was dosing manually.
So with that in mind, maybe I can still try Tropica Specialized dosing, just twice the normal amount.
So weekly amounts ~14 ppm NO3, 0.7 ppm PO4, 9 ppm K.
A true Tropica Specialized clone would have only ~2.4 K, because it uses Urea as a nitrogen source.
But I dont feel like going down that route right now, so theres a slightly higher amount of K, that is added by the KNO3 and KH2PO4.
Not planning to add any K2SO4 though.
That would make the changes to PO4 and Fe less significant, but eh.. Plants dont lie, only sometimes its hard to know what they are telling us.
But right now plants are not real happy.
Getting good plant growth is priority one, making algae less happy is secondary.
Will write a bit more about the fish and stuff later, also planning a plant order to get some new plants to tortur - i mean, fresh blood, err.. healthy plantmass in.
Got my eyes on a few quick growers, just need to have my LFS stock them for me.
Note; as im reading over my post I realise I could also try doubling my current dosage of 1/3 EI to 2/3 EI, algae might go mad, might not, would also be an interesting thing to see. So that is something to consider also 🤔 Wouldnt know which one to pick next though. Appreciate any input
Plant growth has been very poor, hygrophila difformis is barely growing, very small leaves. I got some guppy grass (najas guadalupensis) as a passenger with a fish a while back and the little sprigs have barely put on any size. My floating bush of Hydrocotyle tripartita is strangely yellow pale, but not in new leaves, all the leaves.. 🤔
I have been mentally preparing to switch to Tropicas dosing, just wanted to give the plants a fourth week before I made any changes. The plan was to reduce overall ferts down to Tropica Specialized levels, aka NO3 from 10 ppm weekly to ~7,12, PO4 from 1 to 0.37 etc.
The main differences as far as I see it are PO4 and Fe (iron) levels. Approximately 1/3 of the phosphate and 1/3 to 1/5 of the iron.
Especially reducing the iron from the kinda high 0.53 ppm weekly to 0.08 I think will be a very interesting change to make.
These two are usually blamed for algae growth, maybe there is something to it after all?
Ive been diligently following the EI advice ive been given, but time to try something new now, I hope people wont take it personally 🙂
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. "
May be a silly quote but there is something to it.
But the current poor plant growth is giving me pause. I mean, algae is at an all time high, but previously when I had lots of algae growth, I also had (mostly) good plant growth. Or at least -better- plant growth than what im having right now.
Hydrocotyle pale all over could be lack of nitrogen. Same with Hygrophila absorbing all its old leaves. They might have gotten a bit more nitrate when I was dosing manually.
So with that in mind, maybe I can still try Tropica Specialized dosing, just twice the normal amount.
So weekly amounts ~14 ppm NO3, 0.7 ppm PO4, 9 ppm K.
A true Tropica Specialized clone would have only ~2.4 K, because it uses Urea as a nitrogen source.
But I dont feel like going down that route right now, so theres a slightly higher amount of K, that is added by the KNO3 and KH2PO4.
Not planning to add any K2SO4 though.
That would make the changes to PO4 and Fe less significant, but eh.. Plants dont lie, only sometimes its hard to know what they are telling us.
But right now plants are not real happy.
Getting good plant growth is priority one, making algae less happy is secondary.
Will write a bit more about the fish and stuff later, also planning a plant order to get some new plants to tortur - i mean, fresh blood, err.. healthy plantmass in.
Got my eyes on a few quick growers, just need to have my LFS stock them for me.
Note; as im reading over my post I realise I could also try doubling my current dosage of 1/3 EI to 2/3 EI, algae might go mad, might not, would also be an interesting thing to see. So that is something to consider also 🤔 Wouldnt know which one to pick next though. Appreciate any input
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I slept on it a bit, and made the following changes. Doubling macros to 20-2-20 and I adjusted my light down from 30% to 10%. Its finally starting to look slightly dimmer in the tank. Maybe the Fluval 3.0 is more powerful than people give it credit for? I might even go down to 5% if I get better results but still some algae, but that is a consideration to make only after in 4+ weeks. Have written it down both in my physical journal and now here, so I know what I have done and when.
Every now and then I come back and read through my journal, to see what I have done before, what grew well when, etc.
I feel that every time I do, I see the whole picture a little bit more clearly. So plants and algae grew nothing with no ferts. Plants and algae grew mostly great with full EI, aside from running into some lack of CO2 issues. My T8 tubes were hard to adjust lighting strength on, and the Fluval I have had at 100% (lots of GTA), at 50%, and now at 30%. But 10% is new. So lets try that.
I have given some thought to the plant growers I envy so much, the newbies with a tank chock full of fish, stock lighting and no CO2. They dont know the names of most of their plants, but are throwing out plants by the bucketful every trim. They are obviously doing something right.
So they have a tank full of fish that make a lot of nutrients. dont change water often and certainly not much (removing ferts), and they have weak light. Hmmmmmm.
I can still try to reduce phosphates and iron and all that jazz down the road if I want to, its just simpler to try this change first, because then I wont have to make up a new batch of macros with different ratios. And there is the sneaking suspicion that light driven lack of CO2 has been the elephant in the room for a good while. I suspect its deceptively easy to underestimate the strength of your light. Maybe everyone who reads this thread already know this and are just letting me get on with my stubborn ways, that would almost be cruel But maybe I deserve it.
Every now and then I come back and read through my journal, to see what I have done before, what grew well when, etc.
I feel that every time I do, I see the whole picture a little bit more clearly. So plants and algae grew nothing with no ferts. Plants and algae grew mostly great with full EI, aside from running into some lack of CO2 issues. My T8 tubes were hard to adjust lighting strength on, and the Fluval I have had at 100% (lots of GTA), at 50%, and now at 30%. But 10% is new. So lets try that.
I have given some thought to the plant growers I envy so much, the newbies with a tank chock full of fish, stock lighting and no CO2. They dont know the names of most of their plants, but are throwing out plants by the bucketful every trim. They are obviously doing something right.
So they have a tank full of fish that make a lot of nutrients. dont change water often and certainly not much (removing ferts), and they have weak light. Hmmmmmm.
I can still try to reduce phosphates and iron and all that jazz down the road if I want to, its just simpler to try this change first, because then I wont have to make up a new batch of macros with different ratios. And there is the sneaking suspicion that light driven lack of CO2 has been the elephant in the room for a good while. I suspect its deceptively easy to underestimate the strength of your light. Maybe everyone who reads this thread already know this and are just letting me get on with my stubborn ways, that would almost be cruel
But maybe I deserve it.