Recent content by Snuffleupagus

It might be worth trying to add a filter shrimp or two or a freshwater clam. They would be in heaven, and could possibly clean up the green water more cheaply and in a more interesting fashion. Maybe the water's too far gone, but who knows.

I had a dwarf puffer for some time in a carefully arranged 2.5 gallon with a ghost shrimp, and they seemed to do fine. I felt bad for him eventually though, and moved him to a 5 gallon. I can't necessarily say that he seems "happier" or anything in the larger tank, but it makes me a little...

What you are describing is known as "the loachy dance" in many loach circles. Generally, it is said that many species of loaches do this when: A) They are moved somewhere new. B) Their environment changes somehow. C) They are disturbed/agitated/affected for some other reason. D) They feel like...

Your loaches may be snacking when you're not watching (eg, late at night). I've noticed that mine are like little kids and don't like most foods the first few times I try them out. Then eventually they catch on and do their best to not let any other fish have any kind of food whatsoever...

Hey Ashley, what happened to the fourth clown loach you used to have? Not that I'm suggesting that it's rotting somewhere, I'm just curious what became of the poor little fellow.

I have so far had good experiences buying directly from other aquarists/small companies using aquabid.com. The site could use some work, but it does its job. This has several advantages, including that in many cases you can at least see a picture of the item/critter actually in question, so...

Too bad that link says it's very difficult to maintain in an aquarium -- it's really neat-looking.

That probably wouldn't actually make the water heat up [i]faster[i/]. Aquarium heaters are like house ones -- turning the thermostat up higher doesn't make the place heat up faster, since heaters generally only have two settings (on and off). All that turning up the thermostat higher than you...

Why not use breather bags?

Thank you for all of your clarifications and advice. I probably will look into getting a little bit better of a filter, though in the meantime it's nice to have it confirmed that the rest of the stuff in my tank will probably carry sufficient bacteria. As was suggested, I may also try either...

If you search, you ought to be able to find quite a few threads and articles here and elsewhere about clown loaches' behavior, but the short answer is that they tend te be fairly shy and nocturnal by nature. No matter what, they will pretty much be incredibly shy at first. With time, they...

I have no idea about the plecos, but I agree with you about the coolness of things like the loaches' eye spines. Here's a picture of my finger where I think one of my larger (though still relatively small) loaches slashed me when I poked my finger into his cave in the process of rearranging...

Can anyone think of any reason not to put small neocaridina shrimp and apple/ramshorn/pond snails together in the same breeding tank? Neither adult will eat the other, obviously. As far as breeding, the shrimp are livebearers, so the snails have no chance of snarfing the young'ns, and since...

It's only natural to be concerned, but don't worry, the blackworms hardly feel a thing. :wink: Seriously, though, seeing as guppy adults are probably the most common feeder fish, I wouldn't feel guilty about the fry.

So I've been running this filter that came with a starter kit for a few months, and the filtering pad is starting to look pretty ragged. Eventually rinsing it out isn't going to cut it and I'm going to have to replace the media, which is normal. The problem it, this chintzy filter doesn't have...