This blog has moved

This blog is now located at http://aquatichobbyist.blogspot.com/.
You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here.

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
http://aquatichobbyist.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.

29 Galloners 2: The New Bunch

Well, the metaphorical dust as well as the ich tomites have settled and died, and my 29 gallon is back in business, baby!

First, the casualties:

In the end, only 11 tetras survived. Four of my black neons and 7 neon tetras. All cardinas perished; in fact, they were the first to go, despite a demonstration of being quite hardy as only 1 out of 11 died prior to the outbreak. I moved the little guys to my bedroom, dusting off my old Eclipse tank that I used to keep in the bathroom of my tiny Asheville apartment. I have a timer on the light which wakes me up at 7 am each morning. The tank is also in front of a mirror which makes for a wonderful waking-up effect.

The two giant danios and blue gourami appeared to be largely immune. They were also not afflicted by the heat and salt treatment. They surivived and are doing very well.

Quick note before I go on... I figured out why I had such a horrible reaction to this particular round of heat/salt treatment. I used what I thought was straight Epsom salt but was actually "bath" salts my wife had infused with several essential oils. The oils are INCREDIBLY potent and I imagine they bond very well chemically with sodium.

I'm just glad I yanked the tetras and did enough water changes to dilute the pollutant so they were able to live.

Interestingly, the danios and gourami seemed to be unaffected by the oils. The dying and sick fish clearly demonstrated symptoms of swim bladder failure. This was not the case in the gourami and danios, at all.

Ok, now for the new crew:

I got three green spotted puffers from the local Wal Mart, who, amazingly enough, have shown over the years they can keep fat, healthy puffers better than their franchise live fish competition like Petsmart, Superpetz, etc.

Prior to their introduction for 8 days I boiled the tank at 90 degrees, which the gourami and danios did fine in. I also salted the hell out of it with Kosher salt. Over time I also added crushed coral to slowly raise the pH, which is needed for green spotted puffers as the consensus of aquarium hobbyist knowledge right now states they are brackish and full marine fish at adult size. This may not be the final verdict, however, as I've read and even heard from readers of this blog who have kept these puffers for years in freshwater, high pH environments successfully to five and even six inch sizes.

The three puffers are doing well. I'll try to post some pictures or even video tomorrow. They are very fat and well rounded, with good colors, which is is something I rarely see in their species at stores.

As for the gourami and danios in a very mild brackish/high pH environment... let's just call it a little experiment and we'll see what we see.

Oh, and get this. My local wal mart apparently only feeds the fish the crappy chalk autofeeder tabs, but man, that keeps those suckers in good shape. So far they have not touched my bloodworms, cichlid sticks, or roe, but they loved some boiled chicken I gave them tonight. I've had big trouble in the past with puffers feeding and staying well rounded so I plan to be a lot more creative this time around with the food choices.

Stay tuned for some pics and probably a video of these guys!

Josh
joshday.com

Ich Treatment Disaster

It's been an absolute disaster with this latest round of heat and salt treatment for a major and devastating ich outbreak in my tetra tank. I've lost half the fish.

The two emperor tetras who infected the tank were the first to die. Then tetras started dropping like flies. I'm down to 7 or 8 neons -- all of the cardinals are dead -- and 5 black neons. My clown loach also didn't make it.

This was an extreme outbreak of Ich. It was strange, too. At the outset it was absolutely ich then it seemed to change to velvet, which is smaller white spots which cover almost every part of the fish.

I was out of aquarium salt so I used a combination of epsom salts and kosher salt. Both salts have been recommended NUMEROUS times by aquarists who have successfully treated their tanks, often not losing a single fish.

I may have overdosed as I really added a lot of salt over the period of three days because the infestation was so terrible.

The heat was minimal, only 86-87, which the fish could absolutely take.

What's interesting, aside from the clown loach which is regarded as a "scale less" fish, my fish from south Asia, the gourami and danios, have not appeared to contact ich or velvet and have been untouched. This is pretty amazing as the gourami has eaten probably 5 dead tetras due to the rapid metabolism boost from the raised temperature.

Good news is things have appeared to stablize. I haven't lost any more fish in the last 12 hours. Two days ago I also did a 30 percent water change to reduce the salinity volume.

I'm planning to take the surviving tetras -- I'm wagering on 7-8 -- and making a "work" tank near my computer desk, dusting off the dormant 3 gallon eclipse and setting that up again.

I don't know what I'll do with the gourami and danios yet. But with the 29 gallon I want to remove the driftwood and turn it full brackish and get back into the puffer world again.

- Josh

PS: If you'd like to make me feel better, check out my site at http://joshday.com and take a look at my how-to guide on starting your fish saltwater aquarium. It would make my day if you bought a copy! :)

It's ICH!!!

After a... what, three year hiatus? Ich has struck one of my freshwater tanks. I purchased two emperor tetras 7-10 days ago and this morning I noticed one was swimming with clamped fins. A closer inspection revealed the tell-tale sign of ich, the white spots.

The other occupants -- black neons and cardinal tetras, two danios, a blue gourami, and a clown loach -- are also infected and showing the ich granules. Even if only one fish were infected, that still wouldn't matter as the entire tank has been exposed and over time every fish would show the signs.

Ich has an incubation period involving eggs, free floating parasites, the parasites burrowing into the fish, and finally, only the exterior visible ich nodes. This is why ich can be such a pain in the ass... you may think you've cleared it and then ten days later, bam, another outbreak.

I've fought Ich before, you see... several times. And every time I've won due to this simple and tried and true method I'll outline below.

I instantly raised the temperature to 86 degrees. This speeds up the life cycle of the parasites and the heat wears on them. If you have fish that can withstand temps up to 90, turn up the heat as high as it can go. Most strains of common ich will not last in temps above 88 degrees.

Then I added approximately 2 tablespoons of kosher salt. (29 gallon tank). The salt kills the parasites in the free-floating phase due to osmosis... they burst. I'll add more salt tomorrow just to be sure.

I've tried ich medications and none have ever worked. This method has worked for me three times, brilliantly. The thing is, though, you have to keep the heat and salt treatment up for at least 2 weeks, preferably a month, in order to ensure the last parasite has died and the last egg has hatched.

Stay tuned for some video footage. I'm going to try to film the most afflicted emperor tetra as he's got a classic textbook case of ich.

- Josh
joshday.com

2 out of 8

The two remaining danios survived the night. This morning I kept the room dark enough so that I could just barely see and captured the survivors, bringing them upstairs to my mixed 29 gallon.

I'm out about 14 dollars but it was a learning experience. I'd been told and read numerous times that giant danios are viable dithers for moderately aggressive American cichlids like oscars, severums, etc. Perhaps when they're introduced together when the cichlids are babies. Certainly not when the oscars are full grown.

I'm going to start a new feature on my blog. It will be all about the hundreds of different individual fish available in the aquarium trade. You can get the basic specs on the species from multiple, excellent sites across the Internet, but I'm going to do something a little different.

I'm going to get into the "whys" of each fish. Why am I after large silver dollars as dithers, why I compromised on giant danios, how they worked, how I disagree or differ from popular or "expert" opionion, etc.

I'll also provide pics as well as fun anecdotes.

Josh
The Nano Reef: Your First Saltwater Aquarium