I figure we ought to have at least a few aquarium aficionados. (Pun intended. )
I recently acquired some aquarium stuff from an acquaintance. (Artificial plants made of cloth and plastic, and one of those logs made of…plastic? Feels like plastic.) They were in an open box in their basement for a few years, and they are covered with a thick layer of dust. At the time they dismantled their tank, they did not rinse anything, so who knows what might be on it. (Ick!! Maybe Ich!!) I did ask if there had been a massive fish-death related incident that made them get rid of their tank, there wasn’t, they just got tired of the upkeep. What can I clean them with that would be non-toxic to fish? (The stuff, NOT the acquaintance! :p) Am tempted to try boiling, but decided to ask for advice first.
I have had mollies, platies, and guppies born in the tank. I like to encourage this; it’s fun to watch them grow up, and it supplies me with free fish. I’ve purposely bought pregnant fish, and have had a few matings occur in the tank. The in-tank breedings seem to be very random, and I would like to know how to get them to breed. (I’ve tried soft lighting and belly-rubbing music, but they weren’t interested. :D)
I also would like to know if it would be safe to use that nasty water from the 50% water changes to water houseplants and/or a vegetable garden. It looks like nutrient-rich water, (after all, it’s water with poop,) but a small part of me thinks, “Isn’t there ammonia in the water?” Would it help or hurt? Seems such a shame to dump it down the toilet if I can use it as fertilizer.
Has anyone bought fish online and had them delivered? If so, how did that work for you? The five stores within 25 miles of my home pretty much have the same basic selection. (I saw a black/white zebra striped plecostomus once and would love to have one. Beautiful fish!!) I talked to a store manager and learned that they can order more varieties, they just generally don’t, because it’s a risk. She said if she absolutely knew I was going to buy them, she could order fish for me. (Her italics, not mine. I think she was hinting “pay upfront.”)
Thanks!!
Since the thread title is so general, if anyone has a question of their own, feel free to ask it here. I am always willing to learn things I didn’t think to ask!! The only thing I ask is that we keep it to FRESHWATER aquariums. Please.
About the water: Yes, if you don’t put any chemicals in your water, it is perfectly fine to use it to water houseplants and they seem to just love it.
I used to just love mollies. Buy one fish, get 50 free. I don’t quite know how you’d purposely buy a pregnant one. Everyone I bought seemed to be pregnant (well not the males) and I wasn’t even trying.
I never bought fish online but I did buy aquarium plants online and they were fine. Fish, though, that kind of scares me.
If you have houseplants, it’s practically a crime to pour the “dirty” fishwater from tank cleanings down the drain. Your plants are watching you do that with the same sad-big-eyes expressions as an orphan watching a candy factory burning down.
I’ve never personally done online live-fish ordering BUT … it’s essentially the same method the stores use to get their fish anyway. I know plenty of people (and at least a couple of Dopers) who have ordered live day-old chicks for their chicken flocks with complete success. Make sure you’re familiar with their return/exchange policy and the timeframe for delivery/pickup.
You can clean the fishtank accessories with white vinegar to help cut through the grimy dust buildup. Boiling is a bad idea for plastic-based substances that can’t take the heat, but natural stone and wood, and glass and ceramic, can tolerate it just fine. I doubt after all these years that there are spores or other remnants of any disease-causing germs, but if you bleach anything, rinse thoroughly. (Rinse if you use vinegar too, of course, but the point is that a trace residue of vinegar won’t hurt anything beyond maybe causing a teensy water pH wobble.)
Do you have any problems pre-paying for your order at the store? It’s essentially the same setup as having the special order of fish shipped direct to you, but at least the store acts as a middleman as a buffer in case they’re DOA, plus the shipping costs to you might be lower if your portion of the order is part of a larger shipment.
Good advice on water changes and vinegar.
I don’t like fake plants. They rarely look real, and live plants will remove nitrates from the water, which are bad.
Poop->ammonia->nitrites->nitrates->You with a bucket
To some extent you may substitute plants for you and a bucket.
Yeah, it felt a bit like threadshitting, but I really did want to add that the fake plants are a bad idea. The semi-cloth type stuff they’re made with is unlikely to ever get completely clean. While I don’t know how dirty they’ve gotten, if they were stored in a backyard shed or something for all these years, I doubt it’s even worth the effort to try.
Additional points:
[ul]
[li]live plants assist with the the natural life cycles: food + oxygen -> poop for the fish, along with the entire nitrogen-fixing bacterial cycle.[/li][li]fake plants that contain harder plastic can catch and even rip long flowy fins (bettas, fancy guppies)[/li][li]I’ve always found fake plants rather jarring when the rest of the aquarium is natural-looking, especially if the substrate is undyed gravel or stones.[/li][/ul]
Live plants are best but I use some plastic also when I get fresh water fish. The problem with having fish shipped to you is they may not make it alive, or even in a healthy state. The stores assume that risk when they order themselves. If the store is willing to guarantee healthy fish you may as well pay them up front. I also found local breeders for some fish and when I kept saltwater fish I would trade with other local hobbyists.
when it comes to sanitizing a tank, bleach is actually a pretty good option. However, 1) rinse thoroughly and 2) give it some time (a week or more) with water in it so that any remaining bleach will gas off into the air.
Since conventional wisdom is to run a new tank with no/few fish for up to a month or 6 weeks, that already covers your bleach issues.
When it comes to live plants, I’m more of a fan in theory than in practice. While I can keep houseplants and fish alive virtually forever, aquatic plants don’t last all that long for me. I have a few aquatic plants indoors that are now about 8 months old, so maybe I’ve broken the curse? Anyway, if you can make it work, go for it. It not, I don’t see anything wrong with fake plants.
I was coming in to say bleach those plants also. You’re going to dechlorinate the water before adding fish anyway, and that will take care of any residual bleach. It would be much safer than vinegar.
If you want a shitload of baby fish, I recommend getting bristlenose plecos. We got a pair of them before we knew they are the rabbits of the aquarium world. Now we have too many and are faced with the prospect of having to cull them.
I recommend you never get any sort of pleco or catfish until you REALLY know what you are doing. They are like turtles, in that they live a LONG time and are really sturdy beasts that need a long comittment.
If you want a lot of baby fry, take my Daffodil Pulchers, please.
They can’t keep it in their pants. I describe their spawning as “Get in the cave, bitch!”
I’ve had an aquarium for most of the last 20 years now, and never found a need to put chemicals in them, (well, other than a couple times when I bought fish with Ich, and one time I had to put aquarium salt in the tank to cure something that caused a cottony-looking growth around the mouths of the fish.) My SO, however, seems to be a big fan of chemicals. “They’re necessary!” No, not so much. No one is going to the rivers, ponds, and lakes where these fish were found and dumping “aqua-clear” in the water. I am the one that reads the instructions that say, “do not use in tanks with charcoal filters” and think to myself, um… er… hey… no, choose your battles. It’s not important enough to argue about. The only thing that really bothers me about it is that I am pretty sure these chemicals are the reason my fancy snails keep dying. I love my big ol’ apple snails, mystery snails, and whatever is the name of the big ones colored like old faded denim. I buy them, and they’re dead within a month. BUT, there is hope. Just a month ago, I told him I had had aquariums for many years and never used chemicals and he actually listened. So, maybe, just maybe, there will be a change!
As far as purposely buying pregnant ones, they get puffy, and sometimes have a dark spot. If you are curious, click this: 3 Ways to Tell if Your Fish Is Having Babies - wikiHow
Numbers 4 and 5 explain it better than I can. I also remember reading somewhere that mollies are capable of producing (2-3?) (3-5?) - at least a couple broods from one mating, so that might help to explain why yours were always pregnant.
I don’t know a ton about fish but we did have Goldfish breed in a 20 gallon tank once. Plus Mollies, Zebra Danios and Guppies.
The thing that seemed to trigger the most breeding is the amount of light they got (we only have 2 common goldfish (ie baitfish), a giant pleco and a scavenger mini catfish in the 50 gallon tank right now so no breeding going on).
The goldfish (a Black Moor and a fancy goldfish (double tailed something or another)) made pretty babies that had a range of their parents’ looks: some pop eyes (black moor daddy), some swishy finnage (fancy mom), colors from just orange, just black, to calico and splotches of the two colors. They bred in the spring when the tank would always get algae overgrowth from the spring sunshine shining in … in addition to there being the normal overhead light.
The Guppies bred in that tank too but not as much as they did in the 10 gallon … probably because they like slightly warmer temps than goldfish do. Same for the Mollies (I loved the Black Mollies… so velvety looking and always smiling). I don’t use heaters because of one too many times a small child playing with the knob and boiling the fish. Those children are teens and older now but I still don’t want to chance losing fish again (I have nighmares about this… seriously.)
The main things to do to get fry is to turn down the water filter so that it doesn’t suck babies in and the water isn’t too agitated (harder for the babies to eat and they spend energy fighting the currant) and to give the fry plenty of hiding places. Because Mom and Dad think their babies are nummy (most fish will eat their young; there are a few that will take care of their fry.)
Plastic plants make a great hiding place because the bigger fish will dig around them and then they float to the top of the tank. The fry will hang out and hide in them more easily than most live plants or caves. Which gives me a great excuse to just leave them floating even if there are never any babies in the tank now
We have well water so I don’t have to worry about chlorine. And all I do is “vacuum” every couple of months with frequent topping off (the water evaporates quite a bit during the winter because we have very dry heat… a wood burner). I also don’t change my filters all that often… I prefer leaving the beneficial bacteria in the tank and filter as much as possible.
Regarding cleaning the stuff. I wouldn’t use bleach, but you can use ammonia. The fish produce ammonia to begin with and if you plan to cycle the tank you’d be using ammonia as well. Don’t get me wrong, you still want to do a really good job rinsing them, but of all the chemicals in my house, that’s the one I’d feel safest with in the water. On top of that, if you added those things in later, your bio filter can deal with the ammonia (as long as it isn’t too much).
I had some old lizard tanks that I converted to fish tanks and cleaned them with ammonia and had no issues. I also cycled them, so ammonia was part of the process anyways.
No. I have no problems with pre-paying, and she told me I would not have to pay any shipping costs, as it would be coming in on their truck. I mainly added that part to let other people know that this was a possibility, in case there was a particular fish they wanted, but their local shops did not carry. I filed it away in “mental notes” as an option, and figured I’d get details later. (Such as: is there a minimum I have to order? Can I say I just want 5 of those, or do I have to order them by the dozens, or what? I know with online ordering I can get just one if that’s all I want.) I only asked at one store, though, so YMMV.
Yep. You may have to go to a janitorial store to get straight ammonia though. Some Walmarts also carry it, as does ACE Hardware. Please read the ingredients and be sure there are no surfactants in the product. And to double check, give the bottle a shake. If there are bubbles at the top, it’s not safe for your fish. The ingredients should be ammonia and water, nothing else.
You can also use that to cycle the tank before you put the fish in.
I have a 40 gallon tank so partial water changes are about 20 gallons. I did that exactly once before I realized that at some point I would end up with A LOT of water on the floor. This thing is worth every penny.
Hook it to a sink* and it sucks the water out, turn the knob and it refills the tank. The entire process takes me about 20 minutes and the only time I’ve spilled even a drop is when I had a hose pop off and it sprayed water all over my bathroom. But I had pulled on it, so I’ll call it my fault. Still better then lugging 5 gallon buckets all over the place.
*upthread it was mentioned that you can feed plants. I know some people will siphon this water out a nearby window into a garden. Personally, once it gets going I disconnect it and put it into the bathtub just so I don’t have to have the sink running the whole time. It also splashes a lot when it’s doing that.
I think I got mine from ACE. A lot of work to find it to use, what, like a few tablespoons over the course of a month. Good thing a gallon costs like a nickel.
I got (and still get) a lot of help at the Aquarium Advice boards when I was setting up my tanks. That’s where I learned how to cycle it. That was a boring month but it was amazing when I checked it one day and the ammonia was just…gone. Then I added a bunch more and it was just…gone again.
I am not really fond of fake plants myself, but they were free, and I felt they would offer the babies an additional place to hide, rather than becoming sushi. Real plants seem to die in this current tank, may be a lack of natural light, I don’t know. I had real plants where I lived before, and my 9" pleco just hated them!! I’d plant them, he’d pull on the fronds 'til they were floating, I’d plant them, he’d pull on them 'til they were floating. I think it was a weird game he was playing. I was going to try using fishing sinkers to anchor them, but my pleco died, and then it was no longer a problem.
(By the way, to anyone new to aquariums, a 9" fish is too big to flush down the toilet. My then roommate found him dead while I was away for a weekend and decided to flush him, and it was all bad. Many plungings and overflowings later, he went down without us having to call maintenance, but still… just don’t flush a fish that big!! :eek: )
purplehorseshoe, I am asking for advice and inviting commentary. If you had come at me with “WTF?! Fake plants?!” and then started raving at me, maybe then I’d consider it threadshitting, but honest opinions are always welcome. (Although I would like to thank you for being sensitive to the issue. I lurk here more than I post, and I have seen it be a problem.)
I love plecos, but even in my 40 gallon tank I’ll only get BN plecos. They only get 3 or 4 inches long. Those commons get huge and (IMO) far too big for a 40g.
I also seem to keep killing them. I’ve had two or three good ones in the last few years. After my last one died and the pet store didn’t have any I picked up a Chinese Algae Eater. Gotta have something in there or the tank gets filthy.
)
The only thing I ask is that we keep it to FRESHWATER aquariums. Please.
“They’re necessary!” No, not so much. No one is going to the rivers, ponds, and lakes where these fish were found and dumping “aqua-clear” in the water. I am the one that reads the instructions that say, “do not use in tanks with charcoal filters” and think to myself, um… er… hey… no, choose your battles. It’s not important enough to argue about. The only thing that really bothers me about it is that I am pretty sure these chemicals are the reason my fancy snails keep dying. I love my big ol’ apple snails, mystery snails, and whatever is the name of the big ones colored like old faded denim. I buy them, and they’re dead within a month. 
