Clamped Fins

[WILDER]

I've had no luck with guppys either.

Never kept danio's but they are meant to be hardy fish.
Danio's really need bigger tanks as there active fish.
Very limited to what you can keep in a 10 gal.
Harlequins are nice fish, panda corys, black neons.

 

[Saracirce]

Yeah, I realize that. I would eventually upgrade to a 30 gallon but until then I should probably wait... I don't really like tetras that much. They're pretty but... I don't know. I do love cory cats and the harlequin rasboras... I'll see if the high school is willing to take these guys off my hand that I have right now. They have an aquaculture class with a big lab and everything. Then I'll spend a couple months swapping gravel, meaning I'd have to re-cycle the tank. And then I wanna grow plants, get driftwood all that this time.

 

[shi24137]

you could get a betta and keep him in the 10g. i have 3 bettas. one in a 10g with a few guppy fry, one in my 30g with guppies and platies, and one in its own 5g next to my bed. is your tank in your living room? i discovered that my platies and guppies did not like being in my living room(as my kids were always looking in the tank) they didnt like all the traffic. but now they are in my room where there is less traffic and they are flourishing! my bettas dont really mind the traffic. maybe you could get one and keep him? theyre awesome fish and have great personalities.

 

[Saracirce]

Nope, it's in my bedroom and the door's shut all the time to keep to keep the cats out. I'm not in my room all that much so they get to be left alone a lot. I do want a betta eventually but I don't know. I was thinking I would wait to get one until I could get a tank specifically with a betta's needs in mind. I think the current filter in this tank is a bit too strong for a betta unless it's a female or plakat. Then that combined with the airstone... I definitely I'm going to be getting a male betta sometime down the road and put him in at least 5 gallons with lots of plants. I already know what I want lol.

Going to call the school tomorrow and see if they'll take the platies at least. Hopefully both platies and otos.

By the way, got the first leaf from one of my lily bulbs. pretty cool. it's tiny lol.

EDIT: Went upstairs to feed them and turn out the lights... found a dead oto under my heater... and one's missing so I'm going to presume it's dead...

 

[shi24137]

awww...im sorry for your loss. the swollen eye sounds a little like pop eye? i dont know much about pop eye though so dont take my words to action. and you could keep a betta in there if you kill the current from the filter. what type of filter do you have? i have a tetra whisper 2-10i. its an internal filter. i just cut the top and bottom off of a water bottle and a little off the middle and stuck it over the waterfall part of the filter and it instantly killed the current. it diverts the flow to the back of the tank so the current isnt so strong. my betta loves it!

 

[Saracirce]

It's an AquaTech 5-15G power filter. It seems to me that intake is more of a problem then the output. Like, even my platies seem to sometimes have a little problem with it though they've yet to get stuck or anything. And the intake has a really long tube so it's close to the gravel. maybe an inch or so above it. I have thing gravel layer at that...

The otos seem to like it though because they stay in that corner or the corner with the airstone... which is partly why I'm surprised that I found one dead...

As for the platy with the swollen eye, I 'euthanized' her this morning. I didn't see any sense in keeping her alive at this point since I can't afford meds...

Maybe I have toxins in my water? I do know that the city water is pretty bad and we use a Brita Filter for our drinking water and to fill the water dishes for the dog and cats. But I don't understand why now it's all of a sudden causing a problem... Could it be the bulbs I put in maybe? They could've introduced something probably...

 

[shi24137]

the bulbs could have introduced something but as ive said im no expert. i cought some lilly bulbs from walmart and usually i soak them for about and hour or so before introducing them to the tank. you should try the whisper filter. theyre sooo quiet and easy to kill the current with. also you should add a water condiitioner to your tank when doing water changes etc. i use the jungle (start right) and then when my ph starts shifting i add easy balance to my water. it could be a ph problem but with out water parameters its a little hard to tell. may i ask where you are from?

 

[WILDER]

Swollen eyes can be bad water quality, injury, popeye, parasites.

Popeye and dropsy are closely related due to build up of fluids.

 

[Saracirce]

Well, I've got a test kit on the way. I got an email from amazon saying it was shipped out on the 17th so I'll just have to sit and wait pretty much.

I'm from North Eastern Maine. Like I said in my first post, the only store nearby that sells fish supplies is WalMart. And I think the nearest pet shop is something like 5 hours away. Either way, it's too far to go for emergency trips, especially with our car that doesn't like the cold.


EDIT: Also, I did ask. Our WalMart won't test water parameters for you.

 

[WILDER]

Good Luck.

 

[shi24137]

ive learned that walmart doesnt care about the fish they sell. its terrible to think that people dont consider fish as a life to value. hooray on the test kit though! hope the other fish are doing well!

 

[Saracirce]

Our walmart doesn't sell fish I think there was too little interest and it was too expensive for them. Because they also had to stop doing lay-aways. Like, their storage was chock full of things that had been put on lay away. But that's what happens in a town that's primarily got senior citizens, farmers, and very few big national chains in or around town.

Honestly, this town's biggest revenue is outdoor recreation and potatoes.

 

[shi24137]

wow! id say that it a small town! i live down in martinsville, va. i thought this was a small town. so where do you get your fish from?

 

[Saracirce]

I got my guppies from a hobbyist in town. Recently though, my mom had knee surgery so she was taking quite a few trips down to Portland and Augusta. So, while down there, she grabbed these platies and otos. I was expecting possibly guppies or something hardy but not the otos.

EDIT: Also, the high school has an aquaculture class and they sell guppies and swordtails every year.

And my town's not that small. There's 10k people here. It's just that it's so far from everything else it's hard to get anything up here. And it doesn't help I-95 ends about an hour or so out of town. But, they're extending the highway. So we're all very hopeful it'll bring more up here and more people. Presque Isle used to be fairly big when they had the military base up here but they closed that down in the 70's and a lot of people left but it's starting to grow again. We recently got a Hampton Inn, which is pretty cool. It's like the only 4 story building in town and sticks out like a sore thumb. lol

 

[shi24137]

yea. martinsville isnt big either. the only place to buy fish is from walmart unless i want to drive and hour and a half to the "local" lfs. lol. usually if i need meds that i cant find i drive there but since my transmission is going out i cant...blasted car! lol. right now i cant even get out of the driveway bc of the foot and a half of snow!