Recent content by aquanata

I'm so very sorry for your losses.

I'm very sorry for your loss. It's miserable to lose a companion animal you've worked so hard to treat. There's no way to tell without formal testing what exactly your boy was suffering from & what the ideal treatment to help his body fight it off would have been. It's not often we have access...

He is pineconing & I'm sorry to say, is very unlikely to survive. There's no way we can tell what caused the dropsy - generally the result of organ failure. I'm very sorry. Betta can be the 'hardy' animals that survived living in bowls, but more & more now, they can be riddled with genetic...

Deal. Give me a few days, we'll spread out & come up with something for both our tanks. You certainly don't have to use what the artist troupe & I come up with, but it should give you a plan to work from. :-)

Hope I don't sound impatient - I'm really not! I'm invested & asking *you* repeat questions 'cause I'm too lazy to go back in the thread!! The plants aren't the hard part tho - hardscape is - for me anyway. I think you've got the plant essentials down now anyway: increased light intensity...

A super queasy pea puffer, Split Pea, got her tank replenished with dozens of pest snails this morning after a hurried 90% water change yesterday. Found her floating sideways, mid-tank, clutching a val with her tail. New nerites - 1 dead, 1 dying & nitrates shot up to 40 overnight. Poor Split...

Not a hermit crab expert or even a cricket expert, but I've kept both. I've added the odd cricket bred for lizard feed to hermit crab enclosures. The crabs seem to enjoy crunching them. Sorry.

So ABC is my recommendation because I deal with them. But I'm in Canada & you're in the US so my recommendations for stores are gonna limit you. TClare is 100% right about stem nutrition & anubias being slow growing. I don't use it in new tanks. The 'potted' tissue culture thing seems off to me...

Just encouragement here ... you're working so persistently & just gulping new fishkeeping info. It's encouragement to me to keep learning what I don't know so well. Thank you. Your animals are lucky. Hope the renewed salt & mineral amendment helps your boy.

To answer everything I can ... check that the Maine warehouse is operating at ABC. Their filters are usually very good. To keep track of plant names (which can confuse me too), I keep index cards on each plant & cross - research other online suppliers (like Tropica) for "nicknames" & any other...

If anything, the odd swimming fruit fly would be manna for the betta. Whole papayas falling in the tank, not so much. :-) From what I've briefly read on infection & animal health in unamended rain water, I'd be concerned that opportunistic infection moves remorselessly thru animals with...

This is not my area of expertise but may explain this betta's current, treatment resistant condition & the loss of the previous one. Here's a link to a fishlore thread about using pure rain water. Rainwater Appears To Be Killing Fish ? Any Ideas? | Aquarium Water Forum

Does he have a bubbler or filter running? Has he had it running this whole time? The water changes alone should be sufficiently oxygenating the water but he needs the filtration or bubbling too. The rapid breathing is usually a sign of distress rather lack of oxygen. Can you clarify for me...

Okay. Maybe I'm off the beaten track of my natural tanks, but I *love* your ship. Off to wave hello to the overfed detritus worms on my own glass & think about unfurled red & white sails glimpsed thru foliage. Thank you for the photos! :-)

It looks to me like your plants are *not* dying. :-) To the question about huge #s of plants ... are you very serious about spending money & no snails? Cause I have an answer I think if you are. When I decided to move from scavenged pond plants & the odd plant from the LFS, I went big on...