My clown loach

[Sweetie]

NickZac wrote:

fuzz16 wrote:

goes back to breeding as well. get a discus from bad breeding and it wont come close to anything from a decent breeder...BYB vs hans. nice knowing theres other discus keepers here

And your welcome to ignore me, all good and well, but my information is correct from my research and experiance and it is your choice, your actions to do when it comes to your fish. as a public forum, i was giving an opinion.

Water changes wont stressfish, actually its like a rain or drought, new water coming in, as long as the temp is fluctuated greatly, which can be resolved via warming the water before putting it in tank.

whenever you add fish to a tank, it will add to bioload, and then the bacteria will have to catch up and so there may be a nitrite/nitrate spike. hence why you dont buy a ton of fish at once, you get a few at a time.
low levels of nitrates are normal, under 5ppm is nothing to worry about. nitrites and ammonia is bad.

you also have to keep in mind the amount of stress they go under from importing and then thrown into tanks, being netted, sloshed around in a bag on the way home, then introduced to a new place.

live plants help any fish tank, mosses and java fern/anubias are low light plants that require no nutrient supplients other than maybe column, but they wont suffer without additivis. but they will work like filters and help the water quality.

and ick is like the flu, its always there, just something makes it comes out.

I love Hans! I have been in Hans' facility and all I can say is he is the most methodical person I have ever dealt with and the ultimate authority in discus. His are def the best of the best. The only discus I ever dealt with were from Hans despite breeding pairs costing as much as a grand and more!!! I would not sell to anyone who would mix my discus with Asian discus.

What did you use for spawning? I played with a variety of clay pots, hand-made slate concoctions, PVC pipes, and small cones (yes, I stole that method from Hans). Ultimately, I wound up covering a small cone in slate which worked pretty well, but a darned Fire Red pair I had would still lay eggs in other places just to mess with me. If I put a cone in on the left, they laid eggs on the glass wall to the right. If I put three pots in the center then they laid eggs on the live plants in the back. If I put PVC pipe in, they laid eggs on the filter tube. Each time they did it they would look at me the next morning almost to say "what now sucka?!?!"

NickZac: Why not put the items that you have for spawning throughout the tank, that way you have outsmarted the fish. That way you can look at them and be like "what now suckas?!?!"

 

[Sweetie]

Update on my sick clown loach:

She is doing okay, still sick. I tested my water and the results are all normal. The ammonia in the 55 gallon tank is 0ppm, nitrate is 0ppm, pH is 6.5ppm, nitrite is 0ppm. Which indicates that the reason my clown loach is sick is not because of the water, it is because of stress.

I also tested my 10 gallon, and the results are normal. Ammonia is .25ppm, nitrite is 0ppm, nitrate is 0ppm, pH is 6.2ppm.

I am glad that the tests are normal. I will be doing weekly water tests and twice a month water changes from now on.

 

[fuzz16]

NickZac wrote:

fuzz16 wrote:

goes back to breeding as well. get a discus from bad breeding and it wont come close to anything from a decent breeder...BYB vs hans. nice knowing theres other discus keepers here

And your welcome to ignore me, all good and well, but my information is correct from my research and experiance and it is your choice, your actions to do when it comes to your fish. as a public forum, i was giving an opinion.

Water changes wont stressfish, actually its like a rain or drought, new water coming in, as long as the temp is fluctuated greatly, which can be resolved via warming the water before putting it in tank.

whenever you add fish to a tank, it will add to bioload, and then the bacteria will have to catch up and so there may be a nitrite/nitrate spike. hence why you dont buy a ton of fish at once, you get a few at a time.
low levels of nitrates are normal, under 5ppm is nothing to worry about. nitrites and ammonia is bad.

you also have to keep in mind the amount of stress they go under from importing and then thrown into tanks, being netted, sloshed around in a bag on the way home, then introduced to a new place.

live plants help any fish tank, mosses and java fern/anubias are low light plants that require no nutrient supplients other than maybe column, but they wont suffer without additivis. but they will work like filters and help the water quality.

and ick is like the flu, its always there, just something makes it comes out.

I love Hans! I have been in Hans' facility and all I can say is he is the most methodical person I have ever dealt with and the ultimate authority in discus. His are def the best of the best. The only discus I ever dealt with were from Hans despite breeding pairs costing as much as a grand and more!!! I would not sell to anyone who would mix my discus with Asian discus.

What did you use for spawning? I played with a variety of clay pots, hand-made slate concoctions, PVC pipes, and small cones (yes, I stole that method from Hans). Ultimately, I wound up covering a small cone in slate which worked pretty well, but a darned Fire Red pair I had would still lay eggs in other places just to mess with me. If I put a cone in on the left, they laid eggs on the glass wall to the right. If I put three pots in the center then they laid eggs on the live plants in the back. If I put PVC pipe in, they laid eggs on the filter tube. Each time they did it they would look at me the next morning almost to say "what now sucka?!?!"

JEALOUS! I have never been to his place but we emailed back and forth for awhile, great guy and the popularity has def not gone to his head. But you do know hans doesnt breed them? their all Stendkers! I was amazed to find this out. he explained to me that Stendker breeds them, culls them, and raises them mostly. All the fish That Hans has at his facility are shipped from Germany from Standkers facility. In the verbalagreement (they are close friends)Hans is not allowed to raise any discus spawned from the proven pairs shipped over, he sends the fry with the bought pair or a kind customer for free! The idea is that this way Stendkers line survive if anything ever happens to the ones in Germany AND if shipping is for some reason made impossible Stendker can come here and oversee the breeding and selling in US!

On top of that, his filtration system is incredible! I dont know if you got to see it and explained in depth but i got a bit of explatnation on it and its impressive the amount of work and ideas that have been put into it!

Never found the attraction to the asain discus...are they the ones who started hi-fins? thats just...dumb. i dont get that. their all for pretty big and new instead of traditional lines and variations. I am a wild fan too, love the tekes but never got ahold of any.

I never had any luck with spawning...mine were in a community tank and i had only one pair, who would lay eggs every few months but they never hatched and I was a single mom working full time and part time and didnt have time to set up the 29g. So currently dont have any, but am waiting for the brain issues and nuero to clear me and then were getting a house and i will be investing in a couple 120s or 220 and about a dozen 29g/20gL lol...wanna try some okefenokee pygmys too, they seem fun

 

[fuzz16]

Sweetie wrote:

Update on my sick clown loach:

She is doing okay, still sick. I tested my water and the results are all normal. The ammonia in the 55 gallon tank is 0ppm, nitrate is 0ppm, pH is 6.5ppm, nitrite is 0ppm. Which indicates that the reason my clown loach is sick is not because of the water, it is because of stress.

I also tested my 10 gallon, and the results are normal. Ammonia is .25ppm, nitrite is 0ppm, nitrate is 0ppm, pH is 6.2ppm.

I am glad that the tests are normal. I will be doing weekly water tests and twice a month water changes from now on.

do you have hiding places for your clown loach? their not a fan of bright lights or being picked on...or boisterous fish

ich is a pretty common thing and the strains are getting stronger...so it could be a chance thing, and not due to stress or tank situation at all. my pair of eartheaters had it, but i raised the temp and it was gone in two days...cept female still has a couple spots. it happens.

and thats weird your pH is so different, do you have driftwood or peat in the 10g?

 

[Sweetie]

fuzz16 wrote:

Sweetie wrote:

Update on my sick clown loach:

She is doing okay, still sick. I tested my water and the results are all normal. The ammonia in the 55 gallon tank is 0ppm, nitrate is 0ppm, pH is 6.5ppm, nitrite is 0ppm. Which indicates that the reason my clown loach is sick is not because of the water, it is because of stress.

I also tested my 10 gallon, and the results are normal. Ammonia is .25ppm, nitrite is 0ppm, nitrate is 0ppm, pH is 6.2ppm.

I am glad that the tests are normal. I will be doing weekly water tests and twice a month water changes from now on.

do you have hiding places for your clown loach? their not a fan of bright lights or being picked on...or boisterous fish

ich is a pretty common thing and the strains are getting stronger...so it could be a chance thing, and not due to stress or tank situation at all. my pair of eartheaters had it, but i raised the temp and it was gone in two days...cept female still has a couple spots. it happens.

and thats weird your pH is so different, do you have driftwood or peat in the 10g?

I have, in the 55 gallon tank,a big rock and a small holy treasure chest. The smallest clown loach hides in the treasure chest as she can fit in there.

In the 10 gallon I have a few plastic plants and gravel.

I moved my goldfish, all three to the 10 gallon, because the biggest one was picking on the sick clown loach.

I noticed yesterday that my black skirt tetra has popeye. I will be treating the fish with erythromycin. I just hope the goldfish won't eat the tablet before it dissolves in the water. I am thinking of putting the net in the water and dropping the tablet in the net and letting it dissolve that way, but I am afraid that the net wouldn't allow the dissolved tablet to be in the water. Or should I catch the black skirt tetra and drop the tablet in the net with him/her?

 

[fuzz16]

weird, popeye is normally a sign of bad water conditions and yours are stable, i dont have any personal experience with it though. the net idea sounds fine, no reason to stress the guy out though and catch him in the net too.
make sure you take carbon out of your filter, as carbon will soak up the meds.

and fun fact, goldfish have teeny stomachs but no sense to stop eating (lack the nerve we do to say were full) and their gorge and most of the food is wasted, hence why they are such messy little critters and recomended big tanks with big filters what kind are they? you have a good filter?
when kept to small spaces, they will continue to grow on the inside, but not outside, so they get stunted and funny looking until their insides are smooshed causing other issues.
goldfish will eat plants...but i would say go find some duckweed or water wisteria (pets mart carries wisteria in their little tubey dealios!) and the duckweed is a PITA but itd be good with the goldies, help keep the water params down and you will be sad to find it half gone one morning. places will generally give it to you free, but chain stores i dont think will have it. live plants work as a filter though...could also do wendtiis. low light and pretty tough

 

[Sweetie]

fuzz16 wrote:

weird, popeye is normally a sign of bad water conditions and yours are stable, i dont have any personal experience with it though. the net idea sounds fine, no reason to stress the guy out though and catch him in the net too.
make sure you take carbon out of your filter, as carbon will soak up the meds.

and fun fact, goldfish have teeny stomachs but no sense to stop eating (lack the nerve we do to say were full) and their gorge and most of the food is wasted, hence why they are such messy little critters and recomended big tanks with big filters what kind are they? you have a good filter?
when kept to small spaces, they will continue to grow on the inside, but not outside, so they get stunted and funny looking until their insides are smooshed causing other issues.
goldfish will eat plants...but i would say go find some duckweed or water wisteria (pets mart carries wisteria in their little tubey dealios!) and the duckweed is a PITA but itd be good with the goldies, help keep the water params down and you will be sad to find it half gone one morning. places will generally give it to you free, but chain stores i dont think will have it. live plants work as a filter though...could also do wendtiis. low light and pretty tough

The goldfish are just regular goldfish from the petstore, my neighbor had them and she gave me three of them as she didn't want them anymore. I have a Top Fin filter on the 10g.

Well I have just dropped the tablet in and watched the fish, they didn't go after it. Although I had to get my doubletail betta and put him in a 1 gallon tank because he was acting like he wasn't liking the medicine.

The reason why my black skirt tetra has popeye is because the doubletail betta was picking on him/her, he would flare his gills all the time at the black skirt tetra and attacking it. So that is the reason why my black skirt tetra has popeye and I am treating it.

Right now I have no money for anything, but will save up money to get stuff for the fishtanks later on down the road.

Also I didn't know that about goldfish, about them growing in small spaces still and their growth being stunted and getting problems. I will watch out for that.

 

[fuzz16]

Top Fin makes a lot of different filters, all made for diff sized tanks. should be a number on it maybe? 10, 20, 30. im not sure how they name theirs. keeping up on water changes will be fine though, twice a month will be a lot better for them than none at all.

well there are many types of goldifsh, fancys like orandas. or comets, which are commonly used as feeders. and they can grow up to a foot long if given adequete room and could live up to 20 years in a good envirement. goldfish in small tanks is cruel, but sadly reptiles and fish are not reconized as having enough standing to matter to state to make laws like other pets.

and popeye isnt stress related...its from just bad water. if it gets worse, his eye could fall out and infection kill him. def watch for other fish picking on him though, or at his eye. id do a 1g water change min daily on his tank, or more if you can, it could only be good for them.

and if you have a local fish club, maybe you could see if anyone is willing to give you some java moss or wisteria, naja (guppy grass). their quick growing once estabished. i could send you some once it gets to growing though too. but i have mostly high light plants, but if my moss ever decides to take off, be happy to send you a bunch. makes good fry housing too. aquabid or ebay is super cheap too, cheaper than pet stores, but its sometimes too cold for anyone to ship this time of year

 

[Sweetie]

fuzz16 wrote:

Top Fin makes a lot of different filters, all made for diff sized tanks. should be a number on it maybe? 10, 20, 30. im not sure how they name theirs. keeping up on water changes will be fine though, twice a month will be a lot better for them than none at all.

well there are many types of goldifsh, fancys like orandas. or comets, which are commonly used as feeders. and they can grow up to a foot long if given adequete room and could live up to 20 years in a good envirement. goldfish in small tanks is cruel, but sadly reptiles and fish are not reconized as having enough standing to matter to state to make laws like other pets.

and popeye isnt stress related...its from just bad water. if it gets worse, his eye could fall out and infection kill him. def watch for other fish picking on him though, or at his eye. id do a 1g water change min daily on his tank, or more if you can, it could only be good for them.

and if you have a local fish club, maybe you could see if anyone is willing to give you some java moss or wisteria, naja (guppy grass). their quick growing once estabished. i could send you some once it gets to growing though too. but i have mostly high light plants, but if my moss ever decides to take off, be happy to send you a bunch. makes good fry housing too. aquabid or ebay is super cheap too, cheaper than pet stores, but its sometimes too cold for anyone to ship this time of year

Top Fin 10 is the filter that I have on my 10g. I will be doing water changes twice a month with my 10g and my 55g tanks. Also my one gallon tanks as they have my bettas in them. Yes my bettas are separated.

I found a fish forum so I may ask them if anyone is close to me that can send some to me. I may wait until the weather warms up a bit to ask though, that way I will have some money for the java moss, etc.

I would love some java moss from you if you don't mind, I can put it in both tanks and that may help the clown loaches.

 

[Sweetie]

I will also be testing my water weekly to make sure that the parameters stay normal.

 

[fuzz16]

when i get some growing ill PM you, it grows slow though, but once it starts it doesnt stop and also when you do your water change, the water you pull out of the tank, wash your filter pad in that. keeps bacteria from dying and still gets it cleaned up

 

[Sweetie]

Ok cool! Yeah I have an idea for the java moss, I am going to put it around the big rock that I have in the 55 gallon tank. Thank you fuzz16

 

[NickZac]

fuzz16 wrote:

NickZac wrote:

fuzz16 wrote:

goes back to breeding as well. get a discus from bad breeding and it wont come close to anything from a decent breeder...BYB vs hans. nice knowing theres other discus keepers here

And your welcome to ignore me, all good and well, but my information is correct from my research and experiance and it is your choice, your actions to do when it comes to your fish. as a public forum, i was giving an opinion.

Water changes wont stressfish, actually its like a rain or drought, new water coming in, as long as the temp is fluctuated greatly, which can be resolved via warming the water before putting it in tank.

whenever you add fish to a tank, it will add to bioload, and then the bacteria will have to catch up and so there may be a nitrite/nitrate spike. hence why you dont buy a ton of fish at once, you get a few at a time.
low levels of nitrates are normal, under 5ppm is nothing to worry about. nitrites and ammonia is bad.

you also have to keep in mind the amount of stress they go under from importing and then thrown into tanks, being netted, sloshed around in a bag on the way home, then introduced to a new place.

live plants help any fish tank, mosses and java fern/anubias are low light plants that require no nutrient supplients other than maybe column, but they wont suffer without additivis. but they will work like filters and help the water quality.

and ick is like the flu, its always there, just something makes it comes out.

I love Hans! I have been in Hans' facility and all I can say is he is the most methodical person I have ever dealt with and the ultimate authority in discus. His are def the best of the best. The only discus I ever dealt with were from Hans despite breeding pairs costing as much as a grand and more!!! I would not sell to anyone who would mix my discus with Asian discus.

What did you use for spawning? I played with a variety of clay pots, hand-made slate concoctions, PVC pipes, and small cones (yes, I stole that method from Hans). Ultimately, I wound up covering a small cone in slate which worked pretty well, but a darned Fire Red pair I had would still lay eggs in other places just to mess with me. If I put a cone in on the left, they laid eggs on the glass wall to the right. If I put three pots in the center then they laid eggs on the live plants in the back. If I put PVC pipe in, they laid eggs on the filter tube. Each time they did it they would look at me the next morning almost to say "what now sucka?!?!"

JEALOUS! I have never been to his place but we emailed back and forth for awhile, great guy and the popularity has def not gone to his head. But you do know hans doesnt breed them? their all Stendkers! I was amazed to find this out. he explained to me that Stendker breeds them, culls them, and raises them mostly. All the fish That Hans has at his facility are shipped from Germany from Standkers facility. In the verbal agreement (they are close friends) Hans is not allowed to raise any discus spawned from the proven pairs shipped over, he sends the fry with the bought pair or a kind customer for free! The idea is that this way Stendkers line survive if anything ever happens to the ones in Germany AND if shipping is for some reason made impossible Stendker can come here and oversee the breeding and selling in US!

On top of that, his filtration system is incredible! I dont know if you got to see it and explained in depth but i got a bit of explatnation on it and its impressive the amount of work and ideas that have been put into it!

Never found the attraction to the asain discus...are they the ones who started hi-fins? thats just...dumb. i dont get that. their all for pretty big and new instead of traditional lines and variations. I am a wild fan too, love the tekes but never got ahold of any.

I never had any luck with spawning...mine were in a community tank and i had only one pair, who would lay eggs every few months but they never hatched and I was a single mom working full time and part time and didnt have time to set up the 29g. So currently dont have any, but am waiting for the brain issues and nuero to clear me and then were getting a house and i will be investing in a couple 120s or 220 and about a dozen 29g/20gL lol...wanna try some okefenokee pygmys too, they seem fun

I may have been told this but I did not realize ALL of his fish were imported from them! I figured he bred at least some (although I know he gets shipments at the airport which he personally picks up either weekly or bi-weekly [Mondays I believe])! That is crazy! They do a good job culling. While it isn't a happy topic, it seems to be the only way to keep healthy fish. Luckily, the parents I bred did most of this on their own and so we left them with the fry for quite some time. It seems the Asian breeders pull the parents as soon as the spawn is complete. I assume they use meth blue to prevent the eggs from fungusing over and do not cull much or at all. I base this off of seeing many Asian discus with physical deformaties, some pretty severe. Most of those fish have little resistance to disease and they often die when sick regardless of the treatment. I have also read that combining the Asian and German discus can result in them exchanging diseases with each other that the other has no natural tolerance to. I do not know if that is true or not as I really would not do anything except with Hans' stock...after all, they are the only people who give us a REAL fire red.

I believe the Asians are the ones that started the high fin and oddball shaped trend. I am not sure if that is a genetic trait or a series of deformaties from lack of culling, but it seems pretty common. The wild discus are beautiful in their own way. If I still kept fish, I would do a heavily planted 90-100 gallon softwater tank and stock it with a school of them. Pygmys are neat looking fish although I know little about them.

 

[NickZac]

fuzz16 wrote:

when i get some growing ill PM you, it grows slow though, but once it starts it doesnt stop and also when you do your water change, the water you pull out of the tank, wash your filter pad in that. keeps bacteria from dying and still gets it cleaned up

Sooooooo true. It is the easiest way to prevent a post-cleaning ammonia spike.

 

[Sweetie]

NickZac wrote:

fuzz16 wrote:

when i get some growing ill PM you, it grows slow though, but once it starts it doesnt stop and also when you do your water change, the water you pull out of the tank, wash your filter pad in that. keeps bacteria from dying and still gets it cleaned up

Sooooooo true. It is the easiest way to prevent a post-cleaning ammonia spike.

Coooooool! I will do that with each water change that I do.

 

[Sweetie]

An update on my biggest clown loach:

As of this morning, she is doing much better. She was hanging out at the top of the tank ever since she was sick with the fungus and ich. I kept trying to figure out why, so I finally did some research on swim bladder disease and I found out that that was what she had. So I gave her some peas to eat. This morning I found her hanging at the bottom of the 55 gallon fishtank swimming better than she was before.

I am just so proud of myself for finding out what was wrong with her after she recovered from the fungus and ich attack that she had. I am a member on a couple fish forums and I posted on one of them, Loaches Online Forum, and I didn't get any answers/replies at all. I was getting upset because I felt that I was going to lose her before getting any answers to why she was hanging out at the top of the tank. I am glad that I found out why she was hanging out at the top of the tank, now I can treat her for the swim bladder issue.