The Amazing Aquarium Thread- Why is Fishy Sleeping Upside Down? - General

Went to my LFS and they had upside down catfish. They are so damn cool to watch swimming around!

Just wondering whether anyone has experienced a chemical smell coming off of new fish ornaments? I had sterilised it but now soaking it again as I'm a little worried it could harm my goldfish.

Describe the smell a little

[QUOTE=FlakTheMighty;52948664]Describe the smell a little[/QUOTE] It's hard to describe. Sorta like a resin smell, or burning plastic but not so strong. I just got it out the water I'm soaking it in and sniffed it, and the smell is definitely still on it but not in the water yet. I phoned the shop that I got it from, and they've never experienced it before but told me to soak it for 24 hrs and see how that goes. I'm also regularly scrubbing it with a clean sponge, and I haven't put it anywhere near any household chemicals. I've managed to find an image of it online, luckily I kept the label. [IMG]http://www.naturalworldpets.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/544785-300x300.jpg[/IMG]

Try exchanging it if they'll let you, I wouldn't risk it because it could be something in the plastic. Or it could be nothing and it just got too hot when it was molded.

I just checked on it again and it looks like the paint is coming off as I can see blue coming through the brown, so I will be taking it back tomorrow. I'm just praying it hasn't harmed my fish in the time it was in the tank. :frown:

Image dump time! These guys have been in for about 2 weeks and a week depending on the set, but my African tank is up and running now. [t]https://i.imgur.com/JUi4v6N.jpg[/t] Full shot, looks almost nothing like this at the bottom now, Africans are notorious diggers apparently. [t]https://i.imgur.com/ePZZAyo.jpg[/t][t]https://i.imgur.com/4f21jkx.jpg[/t] Red Zebra hybrid and ??? hybrid, the first two I added. [t]https://i.imgur.com/ja47WPk.jpg[/t] Venustus that my parents got me as a gift, he's pretty rad. Now then, my favorites. [t]https://i.imgur.com/BftOB8a.jpg[/t] [t]https://i.imgur.com/bRhWwzp.jpg[/t] My two [I]N. similis[/I], I built the scape for this tank specifically around these guys because I love shell dwellers. [t]https://i.imgur.com/wINe0Aq.jpg[/t] I didn't realize how bad this guy would blend in with the sand, he's almost invisible at times, but the Black Calvus is a mean dude. [t]https://i.imgur.com/mkOw4Av.jpg[/t] My (potentially) female Dragon's Blood Peacock has huge eyes and loves to watch people who walk by the tank. I love him/her. [t]https://i.imgur.com/gCfqeRU.jpg[/t] The Red Zebra and DB Peacock meeting for the first time. [t]https://i.imgur.com/UJJJ0ma.jpg[/t] The [I]N. similis[/I] claimed the left side of the tank, the bigger one lives in that shell and the smaller one lives in the hole formed by the rock with the plant growing into it. And the bigger one is digging his shell into a hole, it's deeper every time I look with a new pile of sand somewhere near it. [t]https://i.imgur.com/zZbn18t.jpg[/t] The DB Peacock and Red Zebra love digging this hole, so I fill it in every day or so. [t]https://i.imgur.com/BrpgycK.jpg[/t] Bonus peekaboo shot. I've also learned that they love to just grab as many pellets as possible and then spit them out in a corner and eat them there over time. It's such strange behavior compared to my tropical tank.

Over night my Calvus had a color change! [t]https://i.imgur.com/VaVmFtU.jpg[/t]

Since the tank was actually technically a Christmas/Birthday present... [t]https://i.imgur.com/6VjmtFw.jpg[/t] Merry Christmas and a Happy Birthday to me.

So I purchased 15 ghost shrimp a few weeks back to keep the tank looking a little cleaner. Over the past few weeks I've been seeing them less and less and my beta has been a little bloated from time to time. Today I found half of the last shrimp sitting on his perch leaf with a bunch of sand, the little glutton has been snatching them up whenever they adventure out of the plants and he didn't even finish this one. Mystery solved I suppose

I got my Python yesterday and used it for the first time today. Oh my god why did I wait so long? This made my water change take like 10 minutes, they used to take an hour and a half each! This is amazing.

Alright so how serious of a requirement is it to wait 30 minutes for your dechlorinator to take effect? From what I learned in my years of chemistry, I shouldn't have to wait so long if I stir the water since I assume the 30 minutes is a generous estimate for waiting for the dechlorinator to naturally diffuse across the water.

[QUOTE=Dr.C;53070388]Alright so how serious of a requirement is it to wait 30 minutes for your dechlorinator to take effect? From what I learned in my years of chemistry, I shouldn't have to wait so long if I stir the water since I assume the 30 minutes is a generous estimate for waiting for the dechlorinator to naturally diffuse across the water.[/QUOTE] It depends on the volume of water, how/if you're mixing it, and what dechlorinator you're using. Unless you're dosing massive quantities of still water, you can probably dose and forget with prime.

iirc Prime is effectively immediate

I'm pretty sure my Black Calvus and [I]Synodontis multipunctatus[/I] ate my sickly Dragon's Blood Peacock... I haven't seen her in days and I moved all the rocks and didn't see her or a skeleton.

Anyone ever buy plants from ebay? The prices are a lot better but I get the feeling they won't have the same quality control and customer service as the dedicated sites. The seller is based in California so I think I'll be alright

Assuming I'd be interested in setting up an aquarium at home. How much money would I have to budget? I was thinking about a 120 litre aquarium.

~31 gallons isn't too big, probably about $200-300 for the aquarium, stand, and equipment.

Anyone ever put shrimp with goldfish? I have a fat fancy goldfish and I want to put some algae eaters in there but I've had plecos before and I want to get something new

Goldfish are trash fish so if it fits in their mouth they will eat it. If the goldfish has long fins and they're larger shrimp, the shrimp will attack the goldfish. [editline]29th January 2018[/editline] How big is the tank?

[QUOTE=FlakTheMighty;53093167]Goldfish are trash fish so if it fits in their mouth they will eat it. If the goldfish has long fins and they're larger shrimp, the shrimp will attack the goldfish. [editline]29th January 2018[/editline] How big is the tank?[/QUOTE] I was under the impression that was only an issue if you accidentally got a type of shrimp with actual claws, my ones just have tiny feeder arms (ghosts) and the few that got large enough to not be eaten by the beta never go near him

Oh ghosts are fine, but goldfish would still try to eat them.

[QUOTE=FlakTheMighty;53093167]Goldfish are trash fish so if it fits in their mouth they will eat it. If the goldfish has long fins and they're larger shrimp, the shrimp will attack the goldfish. [editline]29th January 2018[/editline] How big is the tank?[/QUOTE] I have a 47 gallon(36x18x17). There's plenty of space for it to swim around and I just placed an order for more plants. Ghost shrimp are pretty cheap at petsmart but I feel bad about buying shrimp just to send them to the slaughterhouse. I don't even want to buy more snails because I know he ate the last one I bought. The snail was acting lethargic when I got it so it may have died and then gotten eaten since the previous mystery snails I had before didn't get munched

Knowing goldfish, they hate plants, but it's your fish so if you think giving more cover for the shrimp would help, they tend to hide out in the plants. Mystery Snails are hardy as fuck though, I keep three in with my cichlids and because they have the operculum they just pull themselves in super quick and lock themselves out from the world. The only way anything would get to them is if they're slow, sick, or whatever is trying has a beak (like puffers)

I have a tree house ornament the shrimp could hide in(I mostly want the shrimp so something hides in it) but I'm not looking to buy an expensive meal for my goldfish. How hardy are those spiked nerite snails? I think the spikes would keep them from being swallowed but knowing my fish, he'll probably just choke on it. I could just get more mystery snails. I just don't want to get a pleco that's going to be huge in a few years and require me to get an even larger aquarium. I've seen some enormous plecos and I need to get the right ones because some of them can hurt goldfish

Minimum size for a Bristlenose is a 26 gallon and only get to be about 4 1/2 inches. If you upgrade your tank just a little bit you can get one of them, they're usually pretty docile but they get a little aggresive during feeding.

Well if you want something to keep the plants clean you really would be looking at getting shrimp. Keeping rocks/glass clean on the other hand is the work of snails, I've got trumpets in my tank for that purpose and they seem to do an alright job. I hear Nerite snails are :ok: for that though. Main issue is the goldfish, those things wreck plants and eat anything they can get a hold of, my housemate had a 6ft tank and over the course of a year the goldfish ate every other fish and then every plant in the entire tank. (nfi why he didn't just take it out...)

My goldfish just likes to uproot the small java ferns which isn't a problem since they do fine just floating around. I like my goldfish but goddamn these are both crap fish and great fish. One one hand, they're beautiful and easy to take care of, on the other hand, they really limit your options for what you can put in the aquarium. What do they even do in the wild? Seems like they'd go extinct from destroying their ecosystem so they must have a lot of predators or these selectively bred goldfish were also bred to be assholes to spite the rich warlords buying them for their ponds [editline]30th January 2018[/editline] I found a vendor selling giant sulawensi snails. I doubt my goldfish could fuck with a 4 inch snail almost its size

Oh that's something cool to wake up to. Someone killed Ferdinand overnight, his body was all kinds of mangled. RIP you magnificent bristley bastard, you were a great fish.

Went to a fish store to get some plecos and snails(my god the small plecos are absolutely adorable) and I ended up picking up a monte carlo and some Prime water conditioner and goddamn this stuff is powerful. The instructions don't even say to wait, just works immediately and keeps working. [t]https://i.imgur.com/bFE01sc.jpg[/t] they also had the largest plecos I have ever seen