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

Pretty sure ammonia is measured in PPM or parts per million, I imagine it would technically make mustard gas but probably so little it would either be harmless or dissolve into the water or something. You should be dumping out the tank before bleaching it though regardless? It's not like you're just doing a water change on a dead tank like that with bleach as an additive, you use it as a cleaner after the fact.

Yeah but hypothetically -someone- would do it. Also correction - ammonia/bleach isn't mustard gas its chloramine gas (or something like it) which isn't as bad but will still fuck you up

My single surviving baby guppy (who was so close to release and ironically named "Survivor") managed to escape his breeding cage and is presumably eaten. Stupid bastard.

I got three bamboo shrimp recently, but they like to go hang out behind the filter. I don't think they're in danger of getting sucked inside it, but it's kinda disappointing how they prefer to stay where they're the least likely to be seen at. I even built a proper perching spot for them since every place online says that's what they do; they hang at a high spot near the output of the filter and they won't scavenge food off the floor, but they seem to get their fill just by sitting still in the same spot on the side of the filter. Is there a way to encourage them to go out in the more open areas?

My new fish seem sick. It's been awhile and I can't identify why. Bought 20 cardinal tetras and the lady gave us an extra for free. Last night the tank was happy and getting along fine. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/1861/7bd67d2b-bf6f-476b-9823-61fdce696b7e/IMG_20180406_232228.jpg https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/1861/b3ec3220-8246-4186-ab72-b0815b9dee08/IMG_20180407_005912.jpg Wake up this morning and there's 3 fish obviously on their way out. Tumbling around and breathing heavily. One was already dead stuck to the filter and another was stuck there breathing heavily. My first thought was shock/stress and luck of a bulk buy. But I started noticing some fish with white markings. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/1861/3d3bf2c8-7e04-46da-8bd0-42620f2b1408/IMG_20180407_102051.jpg The fish that were dying didn't look too bad but they were scrawny, the runts. Any idea what that white stuff is? Fungus? Damage? Thought it might be Neon Tetra Disease but apparently Cardinals are immune. I just hope whatever is happening doesn't nuke my tank.

It could be a fungus, kind of hard to tell from the image. It might also just be an injury.

You might want to grab one of the dead ones and do a bit of an autopsy. Gill are a good place to start, a lot of stuff out there infects a fishes gills and leaves things like black spots on them

If they were all in one container on the way to the tank that would also stress them out a lot since that's 20 dudes all stressed, all confused, bumping into one another, nipping at each other, and then getting dumped in to a new place.

My bamboo shrimp only goes to where there's the most current from the filter outflow, which changes depending on the water level. Other than that he doesn't really seem to give a shit about where he's feeding, so long as he can face straight up. When I first got him it took about a week for him to feel comfortable moving around and another week for him to relearn how to filter feed. He's in a shrimp only tank and his clumsy ass still freaks out when the lights turn on, cool to watch on occasion but not the most interesting shrimp.

I didn't see any of them behind the filter today when I woke up, and after a couple of hours I did manage to spot one of them on a plant leaf. I suppose they've gotten more comfortable with exploring the place. Once they learn that none of the fishes I have eat shrimp, they might start being out in the open more.

One of the shrimps died, I've no idea what caused the death. Water quality is great and all the fishes seem healthy. I've no idea where the other two are (probably in the plant jungle) and since I can't see them anywhere, I don't know if they're alive or dead.

Just got off the phone with my LFS and asked them to stock some Dwarf Puffers for me. I am ready. https://files.facepunch.com/garry/2017/10/23/heavy-black-heart_2764.png

How big is the tank?

100 liters (26.5 gallons I think?)

My ghost shrimp died recently so I feel you. No idea what killed them.

I can't identify what's up from your pictures, but cardinals are notoriously delicate. It's relatively common for them to get injured/stressed out during shipping. Have you tried feeding frozen foods yet? I've had good (but totally unscientific) results feeding heavy with high quality foods when stuff goes wrong. My thinking with that strategy is that relatively healthy fish should be able to out-compete whatever infection/parasites they have going on if you turbo charge their diet while doing heavy water changes.

https://i.imgur.com/FYnZSmi.jpg I'm not entirely happy with this scape, I'm pleased with the hardscape but the plants, not so much. That Dwarf Hairgrass didn't expand outwards like I was hoping and instead just grew upwards. My java moss is doing fairly good though.

You can trim the dwarf hairgrass down a bit and it will stimulate the plant to grow out rather than up. If you leave it be it will still send out runners, however they are very slow and don't go very far.

Meanwhile java moss will take up all available space within months if you fertilize the tank. I have to trim mine once a fortnight to keep it from growing into the chainsword

I feel terrible, I haven't been feeding my fish their veggies for like five months now. So to make sure they're all healthy and have a balanced diet I went and bought them a massive cucumber to slice up and feed for the next few weeks. I hope they still love me.

https://i.imgur.com/RzaOr3S.jpg It's a sign.

Oh no Its the grim

Guys ive done it. Went balls deep and just decided to get a 180L tank. Got the aqua one horizon 182. Will be fresh water and planted. Need some advice, What fish? What shrimp? What snails? Im looking for a whiteish sand/gravel substrate that is easy to clean and will grow plants, or should go another route? What are the positives and negatives? Just looking for some opinions, I would really appreciate it!

47 gallons, kind of limiting but you can still get some beautiful fish. I'd recommend a Gourami because they have great personality, and then some schoolers, maybe a school of Corydoras as well. Shrimp you'd be good with Cherries or Ghosts more than likely, Gourami might try to snack on them though. I like Mystery Snails. Also I regret going white sand in my soon-to-be-dwarf puffer tank, go with something darker if you don't want it to look hideous once algae starts to hit, also it stains, I'm not sure how, but some of it is very brown now.

If I had some otos or bristlenose pleco would they take care of bottom algae on the substrate? Or would it still get gross?

I currently have a bristlenose in my tank along with some zebra danios because there was nothing in there so I wanted to keep something until I actually get my puffers, the bristlenose ignores the algae on the sand so that's rests on me to deal with, if you siphon it it should clean it up but it's a pain, also (some) algae is good for your aquarium because it'll take what the plants don't.

yeah bristlenose are sometimes lazy fucks, esp once they mature

You can't avoid algae unless you keep the entire tank sterile (which would kill the plants and fishes, probably) so algae will grow kind of inevitably. You can get rid of it by siphoning regularily, and occasionally doing proper gravel wash sessions (for instance if you move to a new house some years after getting your aquarium, wash the gravel under hot water before you set up the aquarium in a new home) I'd recommend darker/multicolored gravel because of that, white gravel will end up looking dirty at some point no matter what you do. I also like how black/very dark gravel allows for more contrast with the plants, fishes and other stuff, whereas lighter gravel will grab more of the attention.

I see, I understand algae is unavoidable, I just didnt know how bad it makes white or light coloured substrate look. Is there any sort of compromise with a light ish substrate that will naturally look decent with algae? If im just dreaming i may just end up going for darker colours.

This is what it looks like after a week of not cleaning it, keep in mind there's only 4 small zebra danios and a small bristlenose in there as well. https://i.imgur.com/hos0I79.jpg