Another reason for keeping inverts

[dfreas]

Last night I made quite a few changes to my tank. In fact in retrospect
it was an irresponsibly large number of changes. But they were all
changes I've made before without any problems so I didn't think much of
it - still I shouldn't have done them all at once.

My ghost shrimp population had declined a bit over the past few months.
My candystripe goby likes to eat them but is horrible at actually
catching them so he gets maybe one or two a week. So I added two dozen
ghost shrimp. Also my blackworm population was low. I have an elephant
nose fish that likes to eat those - he doesn't eat a lot but it is
enough to require me to replenish the population every month or so. So
I added a tablespoon of black worms.

While I was at the pet store I saw two new plants I wanted to get.
Corkscrew Val was on sale for $0.99 each and they had a new plant I had
not seen before called Golden something or other (I still haven't
looked that one up). So I bought them and added them to the tank.

Then I noticed that my CO2 bottle had stopped producing so I mixed a
new batch of that. This was the biggest mistake. It was about an hour
before lights out when I did this. To make matters worse I decided to
turn off one of my filters on the tank. The tank is completely plant
filtered anyway so I only use the filters for water movement. I have
one filter that moves the water around at the bottom of the tank and
another HOT filter that moves around the top. I removed the HOT. So now
the top of the water was still. I like this look - plus it has the
advantage (well usually its an advantage) of increasing the amount of
disolved CO2.

Dun Dun DUUUN (stay tuned for the rest of the story after a word from
our sponsors...)

This morning I woke up and the tank looked just fine. The fish were
swimming around, the CO2 was bubbling, the new plants were still rooted
and looking good. But wait....why are there two dead shrimp at the
front of the tank? Actually taking a closer look there are four or five
dead shrimp scattered around the tank. Hmmm...maybe I got a bad batch.
Kind of odd that the fish haven't eaten them yet though - dead shrimp
usually get snapped right up by the goby.

And while I was looking for dead shrimp I started to notice that every
single blackworm in the tank had its tail sticking up out of the rocks.
For those of you that don't keep black worms in your tank I'll tell you
that it is normal to see their tails sticking up occasionally. They do
this to get more oxygen. But they never do it when fish are swimming
nearby because the fish will eat them if they poke up out of the rocks.
So usually in a well stocked tank there will only be one or two very
small patches of tails sticking up in the places where there are no
fish at the moment. If they ALL had their tails up then something was
very very wrong. And the fact that none of them were getting eaten by
the fish was another bad sign.

I started searching the tank for every fish I had to make sure they
were all ok. Not an easy thing to do in a well planted tank but I
eventually found them all. Everybody was fine with two exceptions. My
flounder was pumping water across his gills much harder than usual and
my goby was holed up in a corner turned sideways gasping for air. Not
Good. The goby is not a replaceable fish, they hardly ever show up in
an LFS and besides that he's one of my favorite fish in the tank.

Time to check the tank out. Anyone want to guess what I checked first?
pH had floored out, it was below the bottom reaches of my test kit.
After adding some sodium bicarbinate it is still at the very bottom of
the test kit but the fish are starting to recover. I also turned the
HOT back on and added an air pump for a few minutes. Pretty soon the
shrimp started acting normal, the worms pulled back into the rocks a
bit, the fish are acting normal again. Things are stabalizing.

I didn't lose any fish. But without a few dead shrimp and some
blackworms sticking up out of the substrate I wouldn't have realized
something was wrong until my goby died.

Inverts are an early warning system - and a darn good one. I'll always
keep as many of them in my tanks as I possibly can.

-Daniel

[Angrie.Woman]

"dfreas" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> Last night I made quite a few changes to my tank. In fact in retrospect
> it was an irresponsibly large number of changes. But they were all
> changes I've made before without any problems so I didn't think much of
> it - still I shouldn't have done them all at once.
>
> My ghost shrimp population had declined a bit over the past few months.
> My candystripe goby likes to eat them but is horrible at actually
> catching them so he gets maybe one or two a week. So I added two dozen
> ghost shrimp. Also my blackworm population was low. I have an elephant
> nose fish that likes to eat those - he doesn't eat a lot but it is
> enough to require me to replenish the population every month or so. So
> I added a tablespoon of black worms.
>
> While I was at the pet store I saw two new plants I wanted to get.
> Corkscrew Val was on sale for $0.99 each and they had a new plant I had
> not seen before called Golden something or other (I still haven't
> looked that one up). So I bought them and added them to the tank.
>
> Then I noticed that my CO2 bottle had stopped producing so I mixed a
> new batch of that. This was the biggest mistake. It was about an hour
> before lights out when I did this. To make matters worse I decided to
> turn off one of my filters on the tank. The tank is completely plant
> filtered anyway so I only use the filters for water movement. I have
> one filter that moves the water around at the bottom of the tank and
> another HOT filter that moves around the top. I removed the HOT. So now
> the top of the water was still. I like this look - plus it has the
> advantage (well usually its an advantage) of increasing the amount of
> disolved CO2.
>
> Dun Dun DUUUN (stay tuned for the rest of the story after a word from
> our sponsors...)
>
> This morning I woke up and the tank looked just fine. The fish were
> swimming around, the CO2 was bubbling, the new plants were still rooted
> and looking good. But wait....why are there two dead shrimp at the
> front of the tank? Actually taking a closer look there are four or five
> dead shrimp scattered around the tank. Hmmm...maybe I got a bad batch.
> Kind of odd that the fish haven't eaten them yet though - dead shrimp
> usually get snapped right up by the goby.
>
> And while I was looking for dead shrimp I started to notice that every
> single blackworm in the tank had its tail sticking up out of the rocks.
> For those of you that don't keep black worms in your tank I'll tell you
> that it is normal to see their tails sticking up occasionally. They do
> this to get more oxygen. But they never do it when fish are swimming
> nearby because the fish will eat them if they poke up out of the rocks.
> So usually in a well stocked tank there will only be one or two very
> small patches of tails sticking up in the places where there are no
> fish at the moment. If they ALL had their tails up then something was
> very very wrong. And the fact that none of them were getting eaten by
> the fish was another bad sign.
>
> I started searching the tank for every fish I had to make sure they
> were all ok. Not an easy thing to do in a well planted tank but I
> eventually found them all. Everybody was fine with two exceptions. My
> flounder was pumping water across his gills much harder than usual and
> my goby was holed up in a corner turned sideways gasping for air. Not
> Good. The goby is not a replaceable fish, they hardly ever show up in
> an LFS and besides that he's one of my favorite fish in the tank.
>
> Time to check the tank out. Anyone want to guess what I checked first?
> pH had floored out, it was below the bottom reaches of my test kit.
> After adding some sodium bicarbinate it is still at the very bottom of
> the test kit but the fish are starting to recover. I also turned the
> HOT back on and added an air pump for a few minutes. Pretty soon the
> shrimp started acting normal, the worms pulled back into the rocks a
> bit, the fish are acting normal again. Things are stabalizing.
>
> I didn't lose any fish. But without a few dead shrimp and some
> blackworms sticking up out of the substrate I wouldn't have realized
> something was wrong until my goby died.
>
> Inverts are an early warning system - and a darn good one. I'll always
> keep as many of them in my tanks as I possibly can.
>

For those of us playing at home, why did that happen to your tank? I gather
it was something to do with your homemade CO2...

A

[dfreas]

Well adding a new batch of CO2 and stopping the surface adgatation at
the same time caused a CO2 spike. The spike happened at the same time
the lights went out so the plants were no longer using CO2 and no
longer producing oxygen. So basically there were two problems.

One is that the increased CO2 in my soft water (4 dKH) caused an
immediate pH drop.

The second is that no surface adgatation + no plants producing oxygen =
no oxygen.

So basically none of the fish could breathe and the pH has crashed. The
worms all came up to try to get more oxygen and I would guess that it
was the pH that killed the shrimp. The reason only two of my fish were
showing signs is that they are the two that sit still on the bottom of
the tank most of the time so they have the least water flow over their
gills. The other fish still had enough air to breathe - they were far
less active than normal but they weren't dying. The flounder and goby
were having some serious trouble breathing.

To correct the problem I immediately started up the filter again to
stir up the surface and I added an air line to increase the oxygen
content. Within an hour everyone was breathing normal again.

The pH took a little longer to correct - I mixed sodium bicarbinate in
very slowly raising the pH by about 0.2 per hour. But the pH wasn't
really killing anybody - it was just the sudden drop that hurt them.
Keeping the fish at a pH that low would definately stress them but I
wasn't worried about it immediately killing them. Mostly the lack of
oxygen was the dangerous problem.

Everyone is healthy now though.

-Daniel

[[email protected]]

That's a pretty cool story, aren't gobies brackish water fish? Just
curious as I just read that last night but maybe there are different
varieties. I would like to start having some inverts in my freshwater
tanks after I get my tanks better planted. You don't have to try and
convince me inverts are great to have (I am still a little wary about
keeping certain types that might eat my plants though) as I already
knew that. Are those golden clams you mentioned in a previous post
freshwater? Cool. Later!

[dfreas]

Most gobies are indeed brackish water fish Awaous Strigatus (also
Awaous Flavus) is a freshwater fish though. Common names include Candy
Stripe Goby, Belum Striped Goby, and Candy Cane Goby. These gobies live
almost their entire lives in fresh water - they spawn in the river and
the eggs get washed out into the ocean where they grow and swim back up
river to live their entire adult lives in completely fresh water. Very
cool fish, and very hard to find - they popped up in my LFS as a
suprise one week.

Don't keep crabs, crayfish, lobsters or any snail that you have to pay
money for and your plants should be fine. Any snail that comes into
your tank as a passenger on a plant will not destroy your plants.

As far as the golden clams go, yes they are freshwater. I would not
suggest them until you have kept inverts for a while though. 30ppm of
nitrate might be low for your fish but it's a death toll for clams.
Stock up heavily on plants first and when you're confident that your
tank has consistenly low nitrate levels (like less than 10ppm) then go
for the clams.

-Daniel

[Nikki Casali]

Which raises the question: What's the life expectancy of a fish in a
tank with a DIY CO2 setup?

Nikki

[dfreas]

Um...the same as a fish in a tank without a DIY CO2 system. Or actually
perhaps a bit longer, since the only reason for injecting CO2 is
because the tank has a large number of plants which invariably improve
water quality.

DIY CO2 doesn't hurt fish as long as you don't do anything stupid. I
was careless - I should have waited until morning to mix a new batch so
I could monitor the change throughout the day.

-Daniel

[Elaine T]

dfreas wrote:

> Don't keep crabs, crayfish, lobsters or any snail that you have to pay
> money for and your plants should be fine. Any snail that comes into
> your tank as a passenger on a plant will not destroy your plants.
>
I never thought about it, but my plants have always been fine during
hitchhiking snail population explosions. I control snails with loaches
because they reproduce so fast. Do you know what the little brown
football-shaped ones actually eat? I have a few in my guppy tank and no
snail eaters. Maybe I'll leave them alone and see what happens. I've
got another interesting hitchhiker that's grey and turban shaped in
another tank that my loach hasn't gotten to yet.

--
__ Elaine T __
><__'> http://eethomp.com/fish.html <'__><
rec.aquaria.* FAQ http://faq.thekrib.com

[dfreas]

Sounds like two varieties of pond snail. They eat algae for the most
part. They will also eat the dead parts of plants if you leave them in
the tank but they'll never touch a living plant. If you have a thin
layer of algae on the inside of your glass (as I do in my catfish tank)
then you will actually get to see teeth mark trails where they ate
through it as they walked. Of course they don't really have teeth...but
that's the easiest way to describe it.

They're fun little guys and they add a bit of interest to the tank
without really adding much of a bioload.

-Daniel

[Angrie.Woman]

"dfreas" > wrote in message
ups.com...
>
> Don't keep crabs, crayfish, lobsters or any snail that you have to pay
> money for and your plants should be fine. Any snail that comes into
> your tank as a passenger on a plant will not destroy your plants.
>
>
I think you have that backwards. I have an apple snail, and he never eats my
plant. (singular until yesterday.) I bought him after reading about them -
they prefer dead and decaying material. Unless they're starving they don't
eat live plants. I paid .99 for him.

Those little things that come disguised as eggs on store bought plants will
eat everything in sight.

A

[dfreas]

No, I don't have it backwards. Apple snails are a toss up, there are
two vareties that are sold under the name and aside from a small
difference in the shell shape right at the opening they look the same.
One eats plants the other does not, you got the good kind apparently.

The kind that come as eggs are ramshorns and pond snails - I have over
200 of them in my planted tank and they never touch any plant that is
still alive. Ever.

In general people who claim that pond and ramshorn snails eat plants
have a different problem. All of their plants die because of a nutrient
defficiency of some sort and then the ramshorn/pond snails all go nuts
over the dead leaves. So the unsuspecting aquarist wakes up one morning
to find dozens of dead leaves and every snail in the entire tank
chewing holes in them. It looks very much like the snails are eating
the plants but in truth they are only eating what already died for some
other reason.

-Daniel

[NetMax]

"Nikki Casali" > wrote in message
...
> Which raises the question: What's the life expectancy of a fish in a
> tank with a DIY CO2 setup?
>
> Nikki


That's an excellent question.

pros:
- higher plant/fish ratio producing better quality water.
- higher degree of invertebrates filling food niches.
- ability to cycle organic matter better (ie: decomposing fish).
- plants provide lots of cover (calming effect).
- indirectly: relatively few predators in planted tanks.

cons:
- excessive concentrations of CO2 can be reached.
- greater potential/occurrence of pH/O2/CO2 swings.
- increased exposure to typically used fertilizers.
- reduced water movement (pockets of low O2 and variations in
temperature).
- indirectly: reduced visibility could increase the potential for
undesirable conditions to exist longer (ie: progression of diseases and
decomposition of dead organic matter).

I've cross-posted over to r.a.f.plants so that they can add their
expertise, and any necessary corrections to my points above.
--
www.NetMax.tk

[Angrie.Woman]

"dfreas" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> No, I don't have it backwards. Apple snails are a toss up, there are
> two vareties that are sold under the name and aside from a small
> difference in the shell shape right at the opening they look the same.
> One eats plants the other does not, you got the good kind apparently.

I think the difference is more pronounced than you indicate. Applesnail.net
does a side-by-side comparison. You can't go by color though, that's for
sure.

>
> The kind that come as eggs are ramshorns and pond snails - I have over
> 200 of them in my planted tank and they never touch any plant that is
> still alive. Ever.
>
> In general people who claim that pond and ramshorn snails eat plants
> have a different problem. All of their plants die because of a nutrient
> defficiency of some sort and then the ramshorn/pond snails all go nuts
> over the dead leaves. So the unsuspecting aquarist wakes up one morning
> to find dozens of dead leaves and every snail in the entire tank
> chewing holes in them. It looks very much like the snails are eating
> the plants but in truth they are only eating what already died for some
> other reason.

Hmmmm - you may have a point. I've only had one snail outbreak in my life,
and that was before the internet made aquarium plant care so readily
available.

A

[Elaine T]

dfreas wrote:
> No, I don't have it backwards. Apple snails are a toss up, there are
> two vareties that are sold under the name and aside from a small
> difference in the shell shape right at the opening they look the same.
> One eats plants the other does not, you got the good kind apparently.

Cool! Are there pictures of the difference anywhere? I'd LOVE to get
some non plant-eating apple snails. I've always liked the gold ones but
all of my tanks are packed with plants so I avoid them. I'd been
considering mail ordering Nerites snails but they're pricey with the
shipping.
>
> The kind that come as eggs are ramshorns and pond snails - I have over
> 200 of them in my planted tank and they never touch any plant that is
> still alive. Ever.
>
> In general people who claim that pond and ramshorn snails eat plants
> have a different problem. All of their plants die because of a nutrient
> defficiency of some sort and then the ramshorn/pond snails all go nuts
> over the dead leaves. So the unsuspecting aquarist wakes up one morning
> to find dozens of dead leaves and every snail in the entire tank
> chewing holes in them. It looks very much like the snails are eating
> the plants but in truth they are only eating what already died for some
> other reason.
>
> -Daniel
>
This makes SO much sense. I've always wondered why plant suppliers
would allow pond snails on their plants if they damaged the merchandise.
I betcha they encourage them if they eat the algae and dead leaves,
thus cleaning up the plants and improving the sale value.

--
__ Elaine T __
><__'> http://eethomp.com/fish.html <'__><
rec.aquaria.* FAQ http://faq.thekrib.com

[Angrie.Woman]

"Elaine T" > wrote in message
...
> dfreas wrote:
>> No, I don't have it backwards. Apple snails are a toss up, there are
>> two vareties that are sold under the name and aside from a small
>> difference in the shell shape right at the opening they look the same.
>> One eats plants the other does not, you got the good kind apparently.
>
> Cool! Are there pictures of the difference anywhere? I'd LOVE to get
> some non plant-eating apple snails. I've always liked the gold ones but
> all of my tanks are packed with plants so I avoid them. I'd been
> considering mail ordering Nerites snails but they're pricey with the
> shipping.

Elaine, www.applesnail.net has a very comprehensive ID process.
http://www.applesnail.net/content/3d_models/3d-models_1.htm is a good place
to start, but the whole site has such detailed information - I'm sure you'll
love it. It has about 20 pages dedicated to identifying the different
species.

I found that the 3D model of the shell differences was all I needed. Their
shell has a "shoulder" that the other snails don't have. It's hard to
explain, but imagine you're looking head on at the snail, while he's sitting
on the bottom of the tank. The top of the shell to the top of the first
whorl is about 1/2". (depends on the size of the snail, obviously....) At
the point is a shoulder - the shell juts out at about a 90 degree angle
right at that point, then sworls out progressively to the point. The
evil-twins don't have that jut. Their shells are more like a cone.

.. Plus their "feet" are a light orangish color, while the evil-twin had a
darker mud-color foot. I can't find the link for that right now though,
:( ,- but it is on that site somewhere.

I honestly think that if I'm smart enough to ID the right ones, then you're
certainly not going to have any problems. I did a lot of research before I
added a snail to my tank, and you're way more detail oriented than I am.

Beware though, they will climb out of the water. In fact, they lay eggs
above the water line so it's natural for them.

I just mention that because you mentioned that your eggcrate tank lids have
holes cut for lighting purposes.

Also, they like to float sometimes. If you find your snail floating around,
it doesn't mean he is dead. Even if he does it for days on end. In fact, my
snail is *very* lucky that the site has a section on how to determine if
your snail is dead.

They're great fun. I put an airstone in sometimes, just because he likes to
ride the bubbles up. He'll ride them up, float around the top in the current
from the filter until he ends up in a corner, drop himself back down, crawl
over to the bubbles and start over. My kids go hysterical with laughter. I
saw another on "America's Funniest Home Videos" doing roughly the same
thing.. In fact, that's what gave me the idea to put in an airstone for him.
It's cheaper than taking him to Disneyland, though I would imagine he would
get in free.

A

[[email protected]]

Thanks for the info Angrie! Now I want to get some pomecea bridges
(sorry about the spelling - can't remember scientific names most of the
time to the letter) apple snails. Found a site that sells them - looks
good, large variety of colors. Before I get mine I am going to borrow a
tip from the herps recommendations and insert my aquarium (the one for
the apple snails) heater into a pvc pipe that has tons of small holes
for the heating of the water to a good tropical temperature. Others
here might want to too as I have that one nightmare of a snail crawling
across the heater glass and the heater switches on while that happens.
All - feel free to comment, later!

[Batik]

I have a ramshorn that ate every single plant I had in my tank. No dead
leaves, good ones, down to the root ball, despite of the algae wafers. These
guys are NOTORIOUS for destroying plants.

"dfreas" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> No, I don't have it backwards. Apple snails are a toss up, there are
> two vareties that are sold under the name and aside from a small
> difference in the shell shape right at the opening they look the same.
> One eats plants the other does not, you got the good kind apparently.
>
> The kind that come as eggs are ramshorns and pond snails - I have over
> 200 of them in my planted tank and they never touch any plant that is
> still alive. Ever.
>
> In general people who claim that pond and ramshorn snails eat plants
> have a different problem. All of their plants die because of a nutrient
> defficiency of some sort and then the ramshorn/pond snails all go nuts
> over the dead leaves. So the unsuspecting aquarist wakes up one morning
> to find dozens of dead leaves and every snail in the entire tank
> chewing holes in them. It looks very much like the snails are eating
> the plants but in truth they are only eating what already died for some
> other reason.
>
> -Daniel
>

[Mean_Chlorine]

Thusly "Batik" > Spake Unto All:

>I have a ramshorn that ate every single plant I had in my tank.

Sounds like a giant ramshorn:
http://www.applesnail.net/content/species/marisa_cornuarietis.htm
They'll not only eat plants, they'll eat other snails and other
animals unable to escape.
They're not true ramshorns, but a flat species of apple snail.

[Kay]

Batik wrote:
> I have a ramshorn that ate every single plant I had in my tank. No dead
> leaves, good ones, down to the root ball, despite of the algae wafers. These
> guys are NOTORIOUS for destroying plants.
>
> "dfreas" > wrote in message
> oups.com...
>
>>No, I don't have it backwards. Apple snails are a toss up, there are
>>two vareties that are sold under the name and aside from a small
>>difference in the shell shape right at the opening they look the same.
>>One eats plants the other does not, you got the good kind apparently.
>>
>>The kind that come as eggs are ramshorns and pond snails - I have over
>>200 of them in my planted tank and they never touch any plant that is
>>still alive. Ever.
>>
>>In general people who claim that pond and ramshorn snails eat plants
>>have a different problem. All of their plants die because of a nutrient
>>defficiency of some sort and then the ramshorn/pond snails all go nuts
>>over the dead leaves. So the unsuspecting aquarist wakes up one morning
>>to find dozens of dead leaves and every snail in the entire tank
>>chewing holes in them. It looks very much like the snails are eating
>>the plants but in truth they are only eating what already died for some
>>other reason.
>>
>>-Daniel
>>
>
Yep the red ramshorns snails ate my hygrophila, but thats all they ate.

Kay