I am reposting from my own blog, and then, after everything that I wrote, I woke up the next morning and the mommy fish that had the red had a visible hole in her side where the red is at. I stuck her in a gallon jar with some aquarium water from about a week ago, and it's own plant, I just don't know. I read somewhere to use piperazine mixed in with their food so I started doing that. I put some in her actual water, also.
In the aquarium itself, I'm seeing brown, round, curly worms attaching themselves to the snails (this seems like it is just speeding up so fast, and I am wondering if it is because I turned the heat up), and these worms can wriggle themselves up to the top of the water. Not much creeps me out (except the posts about fish to human disease transfer) but these worms, I'm not sticking my hands back in the tank any more without elbow length rubber gloves. Anyway, here is the post:
We have a ten gallon aquarium. We started out with several fish, zebra fish, a cory fish, a betta I saved from PetSmart's teeny tiny containers, and a couple of tequila sunrise guppies. Most of the zebras died, leaving me with only three, but not until long after the guppies floated to the top and became snail food. The snails came in free of charge with the live plants I had bought at PetSmart. I tried Had A Snail, but it didn't work too well. I also bought a ghost shrimp, but I don't think he lasted too long, because I stupidly used the Had A Snail in the aquarium with him in it. (Yes, I do stupid things, and I get just as mad at myself as I do at other people who do stupid things.)
When the cory fish died, and I don't really think he was a cory fish, I think PetSmart mislabeled him, I decided it was a good time to completely break the tank down, clean it up, and eliminate the snail problem once and for all. I'm not against snails, but I don't like them committing suicide in my filter and clogging it up. It's bad for the other aquarium inhabitants.
Ok, so I take the remaining fish out, total of three, all zebra danios, put them in a gallon jar of water, hopefully at about the same temperature as the aquarium's water, and put the live plants in another gallon jar, with a good dose of Had A Snail. Then I start cleaning.
ICK! I am never using a hose again, now that I know all that 'stuff' is in the tank. Nasty! I get the gravel and small stones cleaned up as best I can, hot water, no soap, lots of agitation, this is done in an oval metal wash basin, clean up the inside of the aquarium with a scrubber, and clean the filter and heater, as well. This was done in the summer, in August, and this was also taken outside and dried. Then it was taken back inside, the gravel slowly re-added, making sure that it was only gravel, and then after that was partially done, water was re-added to the aquarium. Then more gravel was slowly added. I cycled the tank a bit, added some StressZyme, AquaSafe, and EasyBalance, let those circulate some, and added the three zebra danios to the water. They seemed really happy. I fed them some of the dried shrimp I bought in a variety can from WalMart, but they were too big and they didn't eat any of them, so I removed them.
Time to rinse out the plants. The snail eggs had swelled up, and looked really gross. Fine, I'll rinse them off, and it'll all be fine. The plants had disintegrated, though. So those all got pitched, right down the toilet. I was so disgusted. It didn't say anything on the label about it could hurt your live plants. Now I needed new plants. I turn to eBay.
I order several varieties of plants from a seller with really good feedback. They come in the mail rather quickly. There were a couple banana plants, some nice fern-like plants in one big bunch that I separated into two smaller ones, several strands of hornwort, which floats wonderfully, and some Amazon arrowplant. I get it all set up. It's beautiful.
A few days later, I notice a huge snail. Where'd he come from? He's almost half the size of the zebras. I decide to keep him. He's grown so fast, let's see how big he'll get. he won't ever get caught in the pump. And even though he can lay snail eggs by himself, as long as they grow as fast as he is, or I remove several and only keep a few, or both, I won't have t hat problem again.
Then, a few weeks later, I'm looking in the tank again, and I find something adhered to the inside of the glass. Hmmm, that looks strange. I know I scrubbed the insides really good. It looks like a hydra. It couldn't be a hydra, I'm thinking, but I look it up anyway. I haven't seen one of these since I was in biology class in the early 1980's. But, looking through Google images, I find that, yes, it's a hydra. *sigh* But one isn't so bad, it'll be interesting. Except I start seeing more. And more. There are dozens in my aquarium! They breed three different ways: spores, budding, and if part of them is cut off by outside forces. At the same time I am looking at the hydra adhered to the glass and finding the others throughout the aquarium, I also notice that I have several shiny blue things swimming in my floating hornwort. What in the world could those be? First snails, and then hydra, and then this? I get a closer, better look at them, and find they are baby fish! My fish have made babies, and I didn't even try. I had considered it, but everything seemed so complicated, I decided to not try it. But there they were, four of them, glowing blue in the light.
I had just taken some of the hornwort out of the aquarium the day before, as it grows just so tremendously fast, so since I was worried about having taken out half of the fries cover, I took them out and placed them in one of the gallon jars. I called PetSmart to find out what they ate, how many eggs the mother fish (there are two females, one male, parent-wise) would have laid, to give me an idea of how many I might have 'killed' by the removal of the hornwort, and the girl actually told me they were live bearers. Sorry, sweetheart, you're thinking guppies, not danios, and these are danios, and danio mothers lay eggs, and danio fathers fertilize the eggs after wards. i decide to do my own research. There's varying advice. Ok, I know some died, because there are only four, but I'm not sure how many.
I start looking at hydra pages, to find out more about them. Great, they can sting, and also eat baby fish and also fish eggs. I watch them, and find them stinging my snails. I start looking for what I can do to kill the hydras, because i definitely don't want them any more. Not a lot, except Clout, and I can't use that until the baby fish are bigger.
I start looking in the gravel more often. I find worms, inside of what looks like fish poop. I find what they are, a couple of weeks later: detritus worms. Fairly harmless, some say beneficial. Ok, fine. They are brown on the outside, and reddish brown on the part that comes out and feeds. Really weird looking.
Then, in the larger rocks, I see what is either a fluke (ack!!!) or a planaria (ack, but not as bad, I think). It's milky white, kind of see-through-ish, and looks like it's doing the wave from the mid-80's. It's in the gravel, under some of the larger rocks. I'm fed up. I decide that I am just going to let the tank go, see what happens, make observations, learn from it, and hope for the best. So now, we don't have an 'aquarium'. We have a science project.
I'm looking in the 'science project' in the wee morning hours today, and find what looks like a couple of baby ghost shrimp, hiding in the smaller gravel. They are see through, and eating stuff from off and around the gravel. They are much smaller than the gravel pieces themselves. I find it impossible to get a good, clear picture of them. Problem is that they don't look like baby shrimp in Google images. I also notice that one of my zebra mommies has a red belly, looks like blood, so I will look in the morning to see if it was eggs that she is carrying.
(And she is the one I was talking about at t he beginning of the post here.) Ok, it posted the pic I stuck on the blog too. If I'm not supposed to do that, sorry in advance. I'll be posting my intro in the morning, it's been a long week here.
Thanks everyone for all your posts, I've been reading and that is why I chose this board to join. too many people I know think they are just fish, but I don't want to do anything that will hurt them.
LorriAnne
In the aquarium itself, I'm seeing brown, round, curly worms attaching themselves to the snails (this seems like it is just speeding up so fast, and I am wondering if it is because I turned the heat up), and these worms can wriggle themselves up to the top of the water. Not much creeps me out (except the posts about fish to human disease transfer) but these worms, I'm not sticking my hands back in the tank any more without elbow length rubber gloves. Anyway, here is the post:
We have a ten gallon aquarium. We started out with several fish, zebra fish, a cory fish, a betta I saved from PetSmart's teeny tiny containers, and a couple of tequila sunrise guppies. Most of the zebras died, leaving me with only three, but not until long after the guppies floated to the top and became snail food. The snails came in free of charge with the live plants I had bought at PetSmart. I tried Had A Snail, but it didn't work too well. I also bought a ghost shrimp, but I don't think he lasted too long, because I stupidly used the Had A Snail in the aquarium with him in it. (Yes, I do stupid things, and I get just as mad at myself as I do at other people who do stupid things.)
When the cory fish died, and I don't really think he was a cory fish, I think PetSmart mislabeled him, I decided it was a good time to completely break the tank down, clean it up, and eliminate the snail problem once and for all. I'm not against snails, but I don't like them committing suicide in my filter and clogging it up. It's bad for the other aquarium inhabitants.
Ok, so I take the remaining fish out, total of three, all zebra danios, put them in a gallon jar of water, hopefully at about the same temperature as the aquarium's water, and put the live plants in another gallon jar, with a good dose of Had A Snail. Then I start cleaning.
ICK! I am never using a hose again, now that I know all that 'stuff' is in the tank. Nasty! I get the gravel and small stones cleaned up as best I can, hot water, no soap, lots of agitation, this is done in an oval metal wash basin, clean up the inside of the aquarium with a scrubber, and clean the filter and heater, as well. This was done in the summer, in August, and this was also taken outside and dried. Then it was taken back inside, the gravel slowly re-added, making sure that it was only gravel, and then after that was partially done, water was re-added to the aquarium. Then more gravel was slowly added. I cycled the tank a bit, added some StressZyme, AquaSafe, and EasyBalance, let those circulate some, and added the three zebra danios to the water. They seemed really happy. I fed them some of the dried shrimp I bought in a variety can from WalMart, but they were too big and they didn't eat any of them, so I removed them.
Time to rinse out the plants. The snail eggs had swelled up, and looked really gross. Fine, I'll rinse them off, and it'll all be fine. The plants had disintegrated, though. So those all got pitched, right down the toilet. I was so disgusted. It didn't say anything on the label about it could hurt your live plants. Now I needed new plants. I turn to eBay.
I order several varieties of plants from a seller with really good feedback. They come in the mail rather quickly. There were a couple banana plants, some nice fern-like plants in one big bunch that I separated into two smaller ones, several strands of hornwort, which floats wonderfully, and some Amazon arrowplant. I get it all set up. It's beautiful.
A few days later, I notice a huge snail. Where'd he come from? He's almost half the size of the zebras. I decide to keep him. He's grown so fast, let's see how big he'll get. he won't ever get caught in the pump. And even though he can lay snail eggs by himself, as long as they grow as fast as he is, or I remove several and only keep a few, or both, I won't have t hat problem again.
Then, a few weeks later, I'm looking in the tank again, and I find something adhered to the inside of the glass. Hmmm, that looks strange. I know I scrubbed the insides really good. It looks like a hydra. It couldn't be a hydra, I'm thinking, but I look it up anyway. I haven't seen one of these since I was in biology class in the early 1980's. But, looking through Google images, I find that, yes, it's a hydra. *sigh* But one isn't so bad, it'll be interesting. Except I start seeing more. And more. There are dozens in my aquarium! They breed three different ways: spores, budding, and if part of them is cut off by outside forces. At the same time I am looking at the hydra adhered to the glass and finding the others throughout the aquarium, I also notice that I have several shiny blue things swimming in my floating hornwort. What in the world could those be? First snails, and then hydra, and then this? I get a closer, better look at them, and find they are baby fish! My fish have made babies, and I didn't even try. I had considered it, but everything seemed so complicated, I decided to not try it. But there they were, four of them, glowing blue in the light.
I had just taken some of the hornwort out of the aquarium the day before, as it grows just so tremendously fast, so since I was worried about having taken out half of the fries cover, I took them out and placed them in one of the gallon jars. I called PetSmart to find out what they ate, how many eggs the mother fish (there are two females, one male, parent-wise) would have laid, to give me an idea of how many I might have 'killed' by the removal of the hornwort, and the girl actually told me they were live bearers. Sorry, sweetheart, you're thinking guppies, not danios, and these are danios, and danio mothers lay eggs, and danio fathers fertilize the eggs after wards. i decide to do my own research. There's varying advice. Ok, I know some died, because there are only four, but I'm not sure how many.
I start looking at hydra pages, to find out more about them. Great, they can sting, and also eat baby fish and also fish eggs. I watch them, and find them stinging my snails. I start looking for what I can do to kill the hydras, because i definitely don't want them any more. Not a lot, except Clout, and I can't use that until the baby fish are bigger.
I start looking in the gravel more often. I find worms, inside of what looks like fish poop. I find what they are, a couple of weeks later: detritus worms. Fairly harmless, some say beneficial. Ok, fine. They are brown on the outside, and reddish brown on the part that comes out and feeds. Really weird looking.
Then, in the larger rocks, I see what is either a fluke (ack!!!) or a planaria (ack, but not as bad, I think). It's milky white, kind of see-through-ish, and looks like it's doing the wave from the mid-80's. It's in the gravel, under some of the larger rocks. I'm fed up. I decide that I am just going to let the tank go, see what happens, make observations, learn from it, and hope for the best. So now, we don't have an 'aquarium'. We have a science project.
I'm looking in the 'science project' in the wee morning hours today, and find what looks like a couple of baby ghost shrimp, hiding in the smaller gravel. They are see through, and eating stuff from off and around the gravel. They are much smaller than the gravel pieces themselves. I find it impossible to get a good, clear picture of them. Problem is that they don't look like baby shrimp in Google images. I also notice that one of my zebra mommies has a red belly, looks like blood, so I will look in the morning to see if it was eggs that she is carrying.
(And she is the one I was talking about at t he beginning of the post here.) Ok, it posted the pic I stuck on the blog too. If I'm not supposed to do that, sorry in advance. I'll be posting my intro in the morning, it's been a long week here.
Thanks everyone for all your posts, I've been reading and that is why I chose this board to join. too many people I know think they are just fish, but I don't want to do anything that will hurt them.
LorriAnne
