Try for the "blackwater" look

[Demeter32]

So far things are still going alright. I just finished another water change and the fish are still acting itchy. I don't really see much ich on them, but the little pleco was riddled with white specs when I looked closely yesterday. The temp is about 88F.

On the plus side, I see another runner coming from the jungle val, hopefully in a few months there will be a nice background of it creating plenty of cover for the girls. I've been noticing Nova has a few splits in her tail and anal fin, not sure who is doing it but someone is not playing nice.

 

[Demeter32]

I don't see any more ich and they've stopped flashing too. I'll give it another week before turning the temp down. Once things start going smoothly and the plants fill the tank I might add some sort of crustacean. Maybe a bamboo shrimp (big maybe) or dwarf mexican crayfish (they're supposed to be plant and fish friendly).

Apparently only the plants come in focus.

Grey's tank is coming along. Plants are growing.

 

[dave840f1]

Hi. Reading your Thread I get the feeling you don't have a quarantine tank.?

 

[Demeter32]

I do have a quarantine tank, I usually end up using if for new African cichlids and fry though.

This guy is currently in said quarantine, 10gal

 

[Demeter32]

I just came home from my 5ish days of vacation, everyone is alive and well. The tanks looked pretty dirty so I did water changes on 4 of the 7 tanks.

The double tail refused to hold still where the lighting was better. This is the best I could get.

 

[NickAu]

I want the white one

Nice double tail.

 

[Demeter32]

I didn't mention this, but last week I got a new female. She was in pretty poor condition as were the other females in the same tank. She had ich and stress lines but now she's more or less settled down and the ich seems to be gone. I floated her in a large jar w/ daily water changes for a week and let her out yesterday. Kinda regret getting her, she's been a jerk. Chases the other young females even though she's smaller. I believe her to be a plakat.

Update pictures of a few others:

Still no bristles on this guy, things are looking promising for it to be a girl.

 

[NickAu]

She a beautiful PK, and yes they are little terrors, My little PK is like that shes the boss of the tank. Don't stress too much she will settle down in a few weeks.

PS.
Please note.
When buying young PK's be extra careful as they could be male.

 

[Demeter32]

I checked for the egg spot and it's there. She also had no sign of a beard when she was flaring at the double tail. Even if she ended up being a male I think it would be a bonus, gotta love male plakats

 

[Demeter32]

Went shopping to some very good pet stores on monday. I bought one of those tubes of a large anubias, turns out there were two anubias of different varieties. I tied them down to the driftwood during a water change yesterday.

I also found some IAL, the last pack at V.I Pets actually. One is in Grey's tank and the other two are in the sorority. I never plan to buy them from a store again though, at over 6$ for 3 leaves I'm better off buying several dozen online for the same price.

Apparently I can't resist bettas, like at all. I found another koi female, this one is mostly a deep red with metallic blue scales. I did have her floating in a cup of fresh water Monday night and planned to put her in a large jar like I did for the last girl, but she decided to jump out of the cup on her own. She's far more civil than the little plakat, causes no problems as of yet. This will be my last female for the tank, no more will be added.

I plan to move one of the plecos out pretty soon, Which is how I ended up with an upside down catfish. The little thing is extremely cute and surprisingly curious. It goes right up and swims with the girls. I think this has more to do with it being a schooling species though. Sorry no picture of the catfish, it's hiding right now.


Girls feeding

The three biggest girls, Nova and Rose seem to of gotten into an argument as both are missing a chunk of fin. It's been a few days and both are healing up.

 

[NickAu]

Did you buy the Koi for me?

 

[Demeter32]

No I did not buy her for you, but there was another (even better) colored koi there but she had a severely messed up eye. If I hadn't already reached 10 girls after getting the newest koi I probably would of bought that one too and tried getting her healed up. I've noticed that the red koi has a faint outline of black around her tail, hoping to see more of that.

As for an update, I finally feel a bit better talking about this. Vitya, the little white girl suddenly started behaving oddly on Tuesday. She started to hide away and bump into objects. When she was resting on one of the IAL I took the chance to scoop and float her in a clear cup. She was/is nose up at the surface most of the time. Physically nothing is different, she looks in perfect healthy. Every now and then when she tries to swim around she twirls. I talked to another person on a different forum and they seem to think it might be an infection of the swim bladder. So now I'm treating her with Fungus guard, which works for both bacterial and fungal issues. Yesterday I got her to eat a bit but her condition is the same.

I can't see how it would be the result of adding the new koi or the upside down catfish as symptoms only took a day to start occurring. I do have a hypothesis, but it isn't solid and rather long winded. Whirling disease sits heavily in the back of my mind. If you want the rest of the story then check out the link https://www.fishlore.com/aquariumfishforum/threads/sick-female-betta.291365/#post-3019128

 

[NickAu]

I doubt it has anything to do with the new fish.

 

[Demeter32]

She's doing a bit better, swimming more or less in a straight line and interested in eating. Only problem is when she goes to take a bite her aim is off and she doesn't seem to want to eat from tweezers.

I haven't seen her spinning when she swims so something must be working. Hopefully her depth perception returns to normal or I will have to set up a tank just for her.

 

[Demeter32]

I'm thinking I will indeed have to set up another small tank for Vitya, she's swimming normally but still not acting like she used to. She don't bother with pellet food so I've been feeding her frozen brine shrimp and blood worms. Not too sure how such a protein rich diet is going to effect her health. Her aim is still really bad so it takes a while for her to actually eat the food, all the while the other girls are trying to get the food through the netting.

The evil little plakat seems to of calmed down, but she still has stress stripes. It's weird because I haven't seen anyone go after her.