What did you do with your tank(s) today?

[DMD123]

My recent food order will focus on plant based Omega One Veggie pellets used on the silver dollar growouts along with some cichlid pellets that I already have. The severum are getting the switch to Omega One Super Color pellets to see if there is any improvement to their reds. If I dont see any significant changes then the next step is Hikari Gold which Ive seen 'albino' Oscars turn quite red being fed that food. I really would love to try the NLS Red formula but not available as a floating pellet so not going to work with the sevs. I think I need to switch the treats to only krill with the sevs to focus on color. I will use the spirulina mysis shrimp on the silver dollars and community fishes.

What I need to do is some progressive pictures to see if the diet change works. NLS guaranteed results in 30 days so that might be my magic number. I just have to remember to take pictures every couple days and see if I am noticing a change.

 

[DMD123]

I decided to email Imperial Tropicals and ask them about the fish I ordered. Just really curious why mine look so bland.

 

[DMD123]

Imperial responded to my question regarding the color of the sevs. Nice that they answered so quickly. Of course the answers are a bit expected. Water parameters, stress, genetics all play a part. They did say colors seem to come in more at the 4-5" mark so I could possible see that happening at at some point. As to genetics... thats really not a great reason when you are the one breeding the fish, dosent say much for your stock, lol

 

[John58Ford]

Moved some stuff around yesterday, putting an old favorite back in rotation as the snake has moved on to snake heaven.

Looking forward to seeing it after work tonight without the cloudy water.

By the time I was done is was twilight time so I snapped a shot of the big tank post cleaning.

 

[DMD123]

@John58Ford, did you purchase the rock background or make it? Ive considered doing one for years but never had a tank 100% dry or empty to install one. Tons of questions... lol How does it hold up? Do you get a lot of algae growth on it? Is it easy to clean? Does the color wear off surface?

And of course forgot to add, very nice tank set ups as usual!

 

[John58Ford]

I have huge build thread on how to do it (that 3d tank) over in the international forum I use. It's a heat carved foam core, hydraulic cement coated, painted with drilok (tinted the drilok with cement dye) and silicone into the tank. Behind the right half is that mini sump of acrylic build that used to run the tanks on my old rack. Now it's just a little tiny bit "over filtered" lol.

Longevity wise, I built it in September of 2019. On the top edges of 2 of the bowls I have rubbed through the first of 3 layers of paint. Original paint scheme was highlighted artistically but looked blown out when full of water and lit well. I painted it a coat of solid black and have done nothing to it appearance wise ever since. On those 2 bowls I can see the highlight colors starting to show through, and I believe the wear is from me sliding the matten pre-filter in and out for services as well as messing with the plants.

Never had algae on the background, but, I don't get algae often as heavy as I plant and as much as I like snails.

If I were to do it again, and not for a sump feature, I would use foam core, put a couple huge parts bowl magnets in the core to weight it a little then basically do exactly as I did. Then I could attach it to the tank wet via more parts bowl magnets. Could also remove it for tweaks etc. Issue is I don't really have time. The 55 stack I gave away was supposed to have a matching set of similar backgrounds, I half built them, wasn't happy, started over, and the process repeated and drug on for a year before I threw in the towel. The advantage over universal rocks or similar is that there's no stagnant water or gap for fish to get trapped behind them. The downfall is about 20-30 hours per tank in sculpting and lay-up.

 

[DMD123]

Thanks @John58Ford for the information and insights. I was thinking of the premade stuff by Universal Rocks. I have absolutely loved the big fake rocks I use in the 300 and have been considering doing up one of my 65B tanks with their backgrounds but just have a lot of questions and concerns. Things like the stagnant water issue and whether the item will last come to mind the most

 

[DMD123]

I want to scream! I was doing water changes on the 6 garage tanks and when I was at the refill part, I must have forgotten adding water conditioner because I came back later and found all 7 roseline sharks dead. All the other tanks are fine and I can actually remember putting it in. I was on the last tank and must have forgot. I cant believe I did something so dumb. Ugh…

 

[sir_keith]

By water conditioner do you mean dechlorinator? I had no idea Cl- could be toxic so quickly. Sorry to hear about that.

 

[lloyd378]

Imperial responded to my question regarding the color of the sevs. Nice that they answered so quickly. Of course the answers are a bit expected. Water parameters, stress, genetics all play a part. They did say colors seem to come in more at the 4-5" mark so I could possible see that happening at at some point. As to genetics... thats really not a great reason when you are the one breeding the fish, dosent say much for your stock, lol

If they breed their own, I’d be super curious to see pictures of their breeders. I know that would come off as disrespectful at this point, but I might scour their website and any social media posts from the past to see if they have ever posted them before.

The one thing I’ll say is that they look really healthy and don’t appear to have any deformities in their body structure. I don’t think you have anything to lose in feeding them the color foods for a month or two just to see.

Two years ago, I received a hybrid fish that I had no real interest in, but I decided to grow him out. It turns out now, he is my favorite fish I currently own and his patterning is amazing! I also don’t think you’d have too much trouble rehoming them if / when that time comes.

 

[DMD123]

By water conditioner do you mean dechlorinator? I had no idea Cl- could be toxic so quickly. Sorry to hear about that.

Seachem Safe is what I use... well it is what I should have used in this case. I did some research after the fact and sure enough cl poisening can cause death in fish espically when its larger volume water changes (I was doing a 50%). I ended up dosing the tank with safe after I pulled all the dead fish out but damage was done.

 

[DMD123]

What to do? Buy another batch of Roselines or something else? Last time it took me 3 different stores to get all my Roselines because of the sizes involved, many were so tiny! Lakewood Petco, Aquarium Paradise and Tropical fish World in Bonney lake were the 3 stores I had to go to. Best all around price for size was Bonney Lake which is now gone . Next best for size was Aquarium Paradise but overpriced. Petco had them in regularly at the time but very tiny for the money.

My other fish of interest would be some Australian Rainbows... Likely best to order then from an online source since I can barely find any ones of interest locally.

 

[DMD123]

Lights were in the blue mode and I caught this…

I might have a pair of sevs that are breeding… not sure if these can make it with the eggs on the back wall so close to an Aquaclear intake tube and 4 hungry hoplo cats.

 

[fishguy1978]

The new valve for the FX6 arrived so it is now running on the 220g. It threw me for loop though when it kept shutting off after a couple minutes of running. I didn’t know it had an air purge cycle.
I also added a wad of Java moss and some more rocks to the Tropheus tank so fry will have a chance to survive.

 

[sir_keith]

Tropheus fry are robust and grow quickly; in a matter of weeks they will be large enough to venture out into the open without undue concern.

Except in unusual circumstances, I never isolate brooding Tropheus females. All four of my Tropheus colonies have become self-propagating in this way.

T. annectens are very rare in the hobby, so I have been concentrating on expanding my colony of this unusual and interesting Tropheus species. These progeny are 2-3 months old-

 

[DMD123]

I have a couple larger clay pots I might add to the Severum tank if these eggs are eaten and I may just move the hoplos out to give a fair chance to the parents to maybe raise a batch of fry out. Ive heard that with these Red spot and super reds that a lot of the parents are sterile. Not sure how true that is but will see.

 

[DMD123]

Eggs were gone

Next water change, will try and add clay pots

 

[sir_keith]

Eggs were gone

Next water change, will try and add clay pots

And move the catfish...

 

[DMD123]

And move the catfish...

Yep, they are great eaters in general so they would not pass up an opportunity like that! I also have some foam pre-filters I can put over the Aquaclear intake tubes to give the fry a fighting chance.

 

[DMD123]

Stopped at Aquarium Paradise on the way home from work and picked up Hikari frozen krill. I really want to try and focus on the red on the severums and see if they will improve with diet changes.