I set my little brother up with my old Eclipse 12 tank several months ago. He has 4 swordtails from my tank and an apple snail in it. I've tried to teach him my experiences, but sometimes I wonder if he is paying attention.
Recently he discovered Planaria in his tank. He kind of ignored it completely until he realized it was all in his substrate in mass amounts. So, I tried to get to the root of the problem. I observed his maintenance habits. First he did a water change, everything seemed all right. I asked him how often he did them... "Every 2 or 3 weeks".
/me Slaps hand on forehead
So then we get to feeding time. He has flakes and bloodworms. I watch as he puts a small handfull of flakes on the swordtail side of the divider and I could swear he put half the bottle of bloodworms on the snails side of the divider. I think for a moment if I looked down on the top of the tank I could not see the surface of the water beyond the bloodworms.
/me Bangs head against wall
So I told him to do 50% water changes for at least 2 weeks. And then start every other day with 20%. He seemed ok with that. So I grabbed his bottle of food from his hands and pinched a few flakes between my thumb and forefinger. I held this up to him and said "This much, twice a day on this fish side and half an algae wafer on the snail side once a day." His response was... "One fish is gonna get it all and the others will starve."
At this point my hand and the wall aren't doing the trick and I'm looking around for a baseball bat... for him not for me.
I don't know if he will take my advice, he has to make his own mistakes but I told him to trust me and just do it and I hope he will pay attention this time.
Recently he discovered Planaria in his tank. He kind of ignored it completely until he realized it was all in his substrate in mass amounts. So, I tried to get to the root of the problem. I observed his maintenance habits. First he did a water change, everything seemed all right. I asked him how often he did them... "Every 2 or 3 weeks".
/me Slaps hand on forehead
So then we get to feeding time. He has flakes and bloodworms. I watch as he puts a small handfull of flakes on the swordtail side of the divider and I could swear he put half the bottle of bloodworms on the snails side of the divider. I think for a moment if I looked down on the top of the tank I could not see the surface of the water beyond the bloodworms.
/me Bangs head against wall
So I told him to do 50% water changes for at least 2 weeks. And then start every other day with 20%. He seemed ok with that. So I grabbed his bottle of food from his hands and pinched a few flakes between my thumb and forefinger. I held this up to him and said "This much, twice a day on this fish side and half an algae wafer on the snail side once a day." His response was... "One fish is gonna get it all and the others will starve."
At this point my hand and the wall aren't doing the trick and I'm looking around for a baseball bat... for him not for me.
I don't know if he will take my advice, he has to make his own mistakes but I told him to trust me and just do it and I hope he will pay attention this time.
