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

I have no idea what this bump is on Calvin's head. https://i.imgur.com/KQSKDo6.jpg

If its not fuzzy I would assume its either a cyst or bacterial infection, is there redness around it?

I'm assuming it's a cyst for right now because it's normal around it, just the white spot with a scale or two on top of it.

Thats a relief, if it looks like cauliflower or has clusters of lumps I would definitely remove the fish asap.

Rate my scape https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/134138/e65c4648-7f97-4769-9161-99250544ad8f/20180916_123548.jpg Stuck a small filter in to try and clear up the water since the foam I have on the right isn't the right porousness(?) as I'd like, probably going to pick up another thinner bit to stick behind it for extra filtration.

Is that the blasting sand? Whatever it is, it looks slick.

Its actually just a 2mm gravel mix sitting ontop of aquasoil. And yeah the sand is covering a bit more than I originally planned, im tossing up using a syphon to pull it out and replace it with more of the black gravel. but at the same time I think it could look really cool to have different plants growing on the sand compared to the gravel. Currently ensuring theres no issues with filtration/cycle (been dumping some of the filter media from the other tank in to kick start it) before I go back to the A S T H E T I C S

Aaand the bump is gone?

Thats weird man. But if theres no redness I wouldnt worry much since its probably not infectious?

Well 2 weeks in to my experiment using a matten filter and Im certain I have foam that the holes are too big on which is causing the pressure of the water to be equal on either side of it. Said fuck it and grabbed myself another canister filter for use on the 3ft, not having that giant black foam bit in it will look a lot nicer, I get the feeling a powerhead + foam filter would be useful on smaller breeding tanks to give the massive amount of shrimp somewhere to graze but on a tank like this, meh. At least now I can use the powerhead to pump water up to the tank during a water change rather than having to ferry small buckets up and down a stepladder...

My tank is basically Malawi + Tanganyika but it's not any harder than a normal tropical tank. The hardest part is finding nice rocks for the tank. Although bigger males are incredibly aggressive and it's recommended to actually overstock the tank to prevent aggression towards individuals. If you do what I do you just need to make sure there are enough spaces for them to run and hide if they're being chased and expect to see injuries a lot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf9IGQ8WAOM

Didn't see that one coming... I always wondered what that guy did for a living.

I love otos, theyre so damn cute. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/244344/fe3d1ca9-8550-44af-b6e7-994ea0a0bcdd/IMAG1466.jpg

i want to buy aquarium , because like fish

Also update on the BGA, I used chemicure. Took one week and it completely disappeared, not a trace.

Can anyone give me a rough estimate of how much a tank and all of its accessories would cost to house an Oscar fish (or several)? I plan on training some as a side hobby project, was successful in high school with training one to go through a hoop on command for a science project. I'd like to expand on that.

I've been using the stuff I linked and it's been going away as well. It's note completely gone because there was a shitload of it but it's going away pretty quickly.

Also keep in mind that no matter how many times you go over the pricing and work everything out you will always invariably spend more on something you didn't expect to need/want initially.

Agree, I planned on spending like $750, spent like $1500

Fishkeeping is about as costly as a drug addiction.

I already own a ton of tanks from my reptile keeping hobby, but only one 75g which is a shame. @OvB What would you say to the idea of having the Oscars in a 500-gallon plastic tub? I've seen a similar setup at my old high school's aquaponics project with a few hooked up to each other.

Oscars are pretty social once they're through their sulking period so I'd say it's a little cruel to them to remove the people interaction by removing the glass/acrylic.

I was planning on interacting with them above the water, but yeah you have a point. I was kind of astonished how interactive they could be in the past and I definitely don't want to have any depressed fish on my hands

Oscars get moody just being put in a new tank. I'd hate to see how they are when they can't see anything.

You could always settle for a betta, I figured my one would be like the catfish but man was I wrong. They are surprisingly intelligent (though so are the catfish to an extent), my one seems to be aware that my existence is for more than just food which is super adorable, hell he even recognises me from other people though that might just be because I wear glasses which provide a fairly significant difference. With that being said, I may have accidentally trained my catfish to beg for food. Way back when I first got them at night they would try find stuff on the surface of the water and would make a fair amount of noise doing so. Over time I would occasionally forget to feed them before going to bed and that sound would remind me to get back up and do so. Nowdays they only ever do it if I forget to feed them, they very clearly know its what triggers food to drop from the sky if they are hungry.

So while the forum was dead the 150L tank cycled and now has 5 rummynose tetras and a dwarf honey gourami in it. The gourami is absolutely adorable and I definitely need more of the these little guys. Rummynose are thus far refusing flake based food but the gourami seems to just grab whatever hits the bottom of the tank, I've never had to deal with fish refusing certain foods so this will be interesting. Unfortunately during that time my favourite boy the betta passed away, turns out the water in the smaller tank had gone down to a ph of close to 5.5 so he was not able to recover from his finrot. Lesson learned I guess but now I need to figure out what on earth is causing the tanks PH to be so damn low when I do a 20% water change every week.

What is your tap water ph? Can you check the oxygen content somehow? I have a similar problem, my tap water is ph 7.4, and after adding to my aquarium my ph bombs hard to about 6.5. Im lucky to work at a lab so I tested my params and it turns out my water changes have very low amounts of dissolved oxygen. I was bombing my aquarium with co2 and causing carbonic acid to build up. I fixed this by aerating my water while doing water changes and afterwards.

Tap water PH is roughly 7.2, im fairly certain there's no issue with the oxygen content of the water/tank, going to need to spend some time looking in to it

Thats pretty odd. I would think its either low oxygen in tap water you're adding or its bacteria in the tank and other things breaking down giving you a ph drop. I would be curious to know what is causing it when you figure it out