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sidguppy wrote:some people here make the HUGE mistake of equating the resistance to chemicals of a 150 pound westernized human with a pristine tropical fish from the rainforest that has a mass of just a few grams......

wich if you pardon my French is pretty dumb

"we" also smoke tobacco wich contains nicotine; it doesn't kill us.
"we" use all kinds of nasty turpentine based paints in our houses, but we don't die from the fumes when it dies
"we" drive cars and sniff an awful lot of gasoline fumes everytime we fill it up

want to test that on your fish, because the resistance of a fish is equal to that of a human being?

I dare @wheels & Apistomaster to toss in a single roll-up cigarette in one of their fishtanks
actually it's a theoretical experiment

No problem. Right after you eat raw fish full of parasites and worm, and cockroaches and scorpions. Fish eat those. Right after you eat those and don't sick, I'll get right on the cigarette butts. Comparing life forms across anything is dumb, but I mean come on, it's chlorine, which evaporates. If you don't want to use it, don't, but please don't make it out to be radioactive waste.

Just to clarify, nobody said to dump raw bleach into your tank. I don't want to make it sound like we're nuts. If you use dechlorinator, or let it air dry, I don't really see any issue with it. Isn't that what we do with our chlorinated tap water? I really don't see how it's any different.

To take your cigarette butt example further (first of all, I don't smoke, as I know it's putting poison your body, so I don't know where I would get a butt from, since Canada is pretty much smoke free everywhere indoors and I'm not about to scavenge on the street), I would not hesitate to use any utensil, container, or tool that has had a cigarette butt on it and been washed and then dump the tool in the tank. After all, the residue has been removed. I really don't know what the fuss is all about. As a matter of fact, I would not hesitate to eat food which has had cockroaches on it and then been washed. I'm from Asia, and have eaten a lot worse.

With that gentleman, I'm out of this irrational thread. Unsubbed.

Hey, I smoke tobacco. I roll my own by hand to stay in practice, ya know?
Anyway, I have been known to let ashes from a cigarette fall in my tanks. I hold them with a hemostat so my fingers don't get too badly stained from the tar. I manage to raise plenty of fish using methods I don't recommend but lots of us use bleach judiciously and fish don't live long enough to develop lung cancer if a fish had lungs. Dose and duration dependent effects.
Use what works for you. And if you got 'em, smoke 'em.

Good thread but lets get a wee bit more info. Bas knows I'm a big fan of using vinegar to clean old tanks so what other good solutions are out there for cleaning snail eggs and snails bodies off of plants? Share your non-bleach secrets gentlemen.

-Smoking and drinking botrytis fungus
Tobacco is a deadly insecticide for invasive species BTW. I'm pretty sure it would effectively wipe out a tank if used the same way, I guess an ash would be sterile in a way so it wouldn't be the same BUT since people no longer use wood ash on their veggie gardens because of the heavy metals, maybe it contains them? - not good.

Here's another green tip that I'm investigating and wouldn't mind getting others opinions on; our enviro people are using willow to suck up and hold the heavy metals leachate (sp?) from our local old landfill site and it's used a lot when starting new tanks because it sucks up ammonia like there's no tomorrow. Good for fish tanks or do you see a downside? I'm tying it with skinny little branches in my new tank.

Ìf I understand you properly, you inquire whether using willow from a heavy metal site would be harmfull for your tank?

I think it depends oi nthe udse of the willow: If you use the tiny bits to suck nitrates out of your tank, the idea is basically to grow willow. Not to have willow be eaten by a Pleco or so.

Even assuming the tiny bits do contain heavy metals, these metals will not be given to the tank, so this purpose is safe

But using the larger bits for your pleco would be a bad idea - the heavy metals would end up in your plecos liver, nd kidneys - copper mostly in the liver, cadmium in the kidney, those 2 I know

Eek, I phased that all wrong.

Ìf I understand you properly, you inquire whether using willow from a heavy metal site would be harmfull for your tank?

No. That's the method that's being used by the Ministry of the Environment to help clean up an old landfill site. So I wanted to see if it would be better at sucking up toxins that are already in my water/brineshrimp ( in ppm amounts) .I've chopped some CLEAN SITE willow branches to provide 'decor' to my new tank. No plecos in that tank. They're rooting out nicely and growing leaves.

Willows branches are used in horticulture as well because they release a rooting hormone (auxins) but whether there's any bad thing about using willow - don't know. Any idea?

I thought using willow stem cuttings for creating root cover was an old practice. You only need an adequate light source for the leaf sprouts and a means of holding the stem cutting in place so the submerged portion can begin producing new root sprouts.
If these 2 issues are addressed willow can eventually grow a lot of long roots which are both decorative and nitrate sponges.
I would collect cuttings from willows growing along clean stream banks. There really aren't any down sides for doing this.
The willow bark when crushed in water will release Salicylic acid but only if done deliberately. It is the basis for the original manufacture of aspirin. The main trick of growing it is holding the cuttings in place and supplying them adequate light.

Untold numbers of willow trees along river banks owe their existence to some fisherman cutting a "y" shaped piece stuck in the wet sand as his fishing pole holder. They shouldn't contribute anything noxious and if they thrive they will remove a lot of nitrates and other metabolic wastes produced by the fish from the aquarium water.

I have considered using pussy willow for this purpose. If the photo-period is controlled eventually the more mature stems should produce the pussy willow's "blossoms".

Thanks Larry,

I knew about the hort and pharmaceutical applications because of my background but I wasn't sure if there was anything to worry about with catfish or fish in general. Like feline cats and things like onions, who would have known that cats lack an 'onion digesting enzyme' unless it specifically came up. Sounds like my willows are safe - thanks. The twigs love them. No headaches maybe. Forgot about them when I said 'No plecos', I always forget the twigs ARE in the pleco family

The willows I used were white willow ('Hakuro Nishiki' (Salix integra), curly willow and the common pussy willow. All I did was stick it in the end of the tank with the ends stuffed between rocks. The top part sticks out of the water. The pussy toes are just starting to open on that kind.

Didn't realize it was old hat for aquariums! I just tried it because I saw what they were doing at the old dump site.

Maybe I should try forsythia and other flowering shrubs. I already use them for my orchids.

Yet another reason to own a fishtank.

The only reasons I have never tried growing willow out of an aquarium are that there is insufficient available daylight and I was unwilling to set up special lighting to grow them.
For decades I have admired photos I have seen of mostly European aquarists growing luxuriant tangles of live willow roots in their tanks.
I think most any willow species could be used but I also like the spiral limbs of "Corkscrew Willow". If you have or will provide the light, I think it is a very natural thing for some biotope types of set ups. Another plant with some potential is the commonly sold, "Lucky Bamboo" but from what little experience I had with trying it the root system wasn't as dense and possibly slower growing than willow but again, proper lighting was probably not supplied so my evaluation may not be correct. It might grow like crazy given proper lighting.

I'll have to see if I can find some of those photos, sounds nice. I don't think I have enough in there. I have pretty high light but I have to use hornwort for now until some of the vals grow out to lay on the top. The glass cats seem quite calm with the cover. Maybe it would be nicer to have a mat of roots. I suppose I could put a ring of foam around the cut end so that it only roots from the bottom. Need to work on that idea.

My corkscrew or curly willow is the main horizontal branch in my tank but it's been dead for years. I just love that plant, very sculptural. I have a corkscrew hazelnut though, somewhat the same but the bends are a little more severe. The bumpy 'log' on the bottom is an apple tree that didn't make it at the garden centre last year. The live willows are at the right end - looks pretty sparse. Out to the garden tomorrow
Here's a little pic of my willow tank. Snail eradicated via the Armstrong Method (squish)
Don't laugh at the lovely veggie clip Beware of those Lucky Bamboo for long term use. They actually a species of Dracaena, a terrestrial plant that does well in water for a while but eventually rots.

i may have not read all of what you guys said but this thread was for me to ask about what these weird whit things were
things have gotten a little bit out of hand

and plus im a 14 year old. im bound to make a stupid bad mistake using bleach.thats why i want to stay away from it. i get paranoid very easily

and with the clhorine in the tap water, i sometimes dont even use dechlorinater in the tank after a water change and the next thing i know my corys start breeding!

and not to be rude or anything but no one has not answered but are these small white things eggs or whatever, dangerous to my fish or tank? and my fish dont even touch it

and i will ask on our canberra fish forum about what bleach solution to use

I like using the Tropical Hornwort, too. It is my standard cover since it floats under the top and doesn't grow roots.
I also keep Najas guadelupensis growing at all times. It does well free floating like Hornwort but it's stems are very fragile so it breaks easily but even a small section can eventually become a large mass. It does grow roots and may be planted in soft, fine sand but that only works with fish which aren't likely to bulldoze or tear it up. Both make great shrimp breeding plants and I like using Hornwort in my Corydoras hastatus breeding tanks because they like to lay their eggs in it and the larvae hide amongst the stiff spikes. These free float plants which grow just under the surface are very utilitarian and especially if you want some plants to grow in bare bottom tanks or as in my case, I often keep only about 1/4 inch of some substrate. I mostly use FloraBase in my tanks but in Apistogramma breeding tanks or even their grow out tanks I like using fine silica sand because these fish like to sift sand like miniature Geophagus. I use FloraBase as potting media for Amazon Swords and similar rosette type plants. It is expensive material to use as your primary substrate but the plants love it but used in pots it doesn't take very much and you can fill a lot of pots with a 12 pound bag. As long as I'm talking about it, I only use NutriFin PlantGro Fertilizer spikes. They are sealed, perforated, plastic spike filled with a timed release fertilizer. They last up to one year depending on the plant and size. I rather confine fertilizers to the pots at the roots but enough traces of fertilizer reaches the water column to help support floating plant growth. I don't see much point to adding liquid fertilizers in tanks where I may be changing 70% of the water every 4th day. It seems like that is not much different than pouring it down the drain so the money is wasted. These comments mainly apply to grow out tanks.
If you are specializing in aquatic gardening then your goals and requirements are different. I am 100% low tech when it comes to my aquatic gardening. I only have one tank that is really a pretty planted tank and in it I have a carpet of Singapore Moss that is wall to wall concealing all the wood and even the 2 ugly large sponge filters. It is very different from the rest of my tanks. I keep the pH at 3.8 to 4.0 and a TDS never more than 15 ppm. I keep 24 Black Darter Tetras and about 15 Parotocinclus cf. epplyei in this 20 long. I feed these tetras only live food and these tiny Parotocinclus seem to only eat Spirulina sticks when they can't find any naturally occurring algae. I had let the algae grow out of control in anticipation of the Partocinclus and it only took them 3 day to polish it clean and they keep it and the Moss free of algae. The low pH and almost no dissolved mineral content also doesn't favor algae growth but Mosses seem to do well.
I wanted to post a photo but that is on the hard drive on the laptop I have in the shop for repairs so maybe I will have to wait or take some new photos and load them on this new laptop. I am really proud of this tank. It is the first time I have ever had a verdant Moss Garden and Singapore Moss grows in a much more orderly way than our familiar Java Moss.

I did not suggest to trying growing "Lucky Bamboo" submersed but in the same manner as we have been talking about with Willows where only the end part of a cutting is kept submersed. You may see Lucky Bamboo being sold as an aquarium plant like a lot of other bog plants like Sandriana but they all die eventually if kept permanently submerged. I guess there is room for some confusion since you can take a long cutting of Willow stems and let them reach the bottom of the tank and roots will sprout at every node but there should be 8 to 12 inches sticking out of the water for the leaves to grow or it will die.

Sorry Dj-don! I thought your question had been answered! oops.

And we know you're 14, so there's definitely a bit extra care made by some of the members here to answer your questions - you're a good example of what's right with the young people

The bleach question was answered already, re-read the post. It's regular household bleach like someone might use to whiten things in their laundry. If you've got a Mom or Dad present, they will definitely know and help you to make up a weak solution if you want to.

Okay, dechlorinator - it's a good thing when your tap water has chlorine to make it safe for people (or Chloramine) It neutralizes the chlorine so it won't be harmful to fish. It's not good idea to skip this if you're using tap water. The cory's may have started breeding for several reasons - cooler water, softer water or it's just the right time but it won't be because they've had to suck up chlorine or chloramine.

Chlorine (as in bleach) - some members use it and some don't. It's bad for fish so if you choose to use it to clean plants or wood, it REALLY has to be rinsed off before it ever touches your fish water. It's up to you, Bas Pels and Sidguppy are very experienced and don't use it whereas Apistomaster is also very experienced and he does use it. I'm a somewhat newbie to catfish so I listen to them all and judge for myself.

Let me take a look back at the thread and sum up what everyone thought the eggs were....hold tight...

Looks like that was answered too. 3 people thought it was snail eggs, one thought it could be decayed food and was thought it was not snail eggs.

and you asked if high current makes it so snail eggs can't hang on - no, I had a river type tank for a while and the snail eggs had no problem being struck everywhere.

So maybe the next step would be to stick your hand in and pull out a blob of the stuff. Out of water, fungused food will usually go flat and just feel like sludge, not slimey. However snail eggs will still feel like Jello, slippery. Sorry for hijacking your post but it looked like your questions were answered. Post again once you grab one of those blobs and let us know what it feels like, that way we may be able to help more?

Apistomaster:
Can't wait to see those pics
I wouldn't say I'm really an aquatic gardener but I am a plant freak so I guess I'm in the middle. This tank was the one that I grew and flowered the red tiger lilies in and I love the flowers of the banana plant (see my ID?) but I grow several species of moss on my bonsai and have kind of gotten bored of the tree part of the bonzai in favour of the moss-part lichens, mushrooms, all are good.

How do you keep such a low ph tank from crashing? Is that the hardness etc causing a 'buffer'?

I've only used Flourite for my plants and use it much the same as you describe, it in the back of the tank in the pic but in pots so you can't see them and I'm cheap. Don't use any ferts or CO2 but I do use Flourish excel liquid carbon when I remember. Never had an algae problem but once had a white water bloom of some kind. If I ever see it starting again, I'll just throw in some houseplant cuttings like pothos.

Some of the lily people recommend those tomato plant spikes and just break off a bit and plant it into the pot. I've also heard of putting a few shrimp pellets in the pot, I suppose this is like farmers and native people in the old days putting a fish in the planting hole.

My latest ground cover attempt went kaplooie. Bought Java moss and the next morning it was nowhere to be seen... So I've switched back to using flattened out moss balls. I've documented it all and will post a how-to when it's filled in enough - kind of spotty at the moment but nice and green and never needs cutting.
The hornwort seems to be the spawning place of choice for the Glow Light Tetras at the moment and it's also good for setting a chunk of frozen brine shrimp on so that it releases into the water slowly. If I just drop it it, the glass cats tear it up and ignore everything that falls to the bottom.
Singapore moss? Nice. There's NO moss for sale around here except the Java Moss but I may have to go for a trip to Toronto soon and will have more plants than fish I think. Running out of fish room but there's always a jar or two for extra plants.
Seen this website: http://www.aquamoss.net/?

It is difficult for an aquarium to have a pH lower than 3.5 using straight RO water as I am, unless you add an acid like hydrochloric or hydrosulfuric acid to it. My thin FloraBase substrate has no effect on the pH. Most people would say my Moss/Black Darter tank has already had a pH crash but that is the kind of water which Black Darter Tetras like. They are a very challenging species of fish to keep but also a very beautiful one. Try a Google Image search for Poeciliocharax weitzmani to see what I mean. FloraBase is an aquarium plant substrate that has small, rounded particles and is chemically similar to Fluorite but less compressed; a softer material. Here it is as a thin substrate in my Corydoras hastatus colony breeding tank. The fish and half grown cherry shrimp help provide a reference for scale. But first I want to mention that Excel is known to occasionally have a harmful effect on some fish when they are exposed to the full recommended normal dose. One example I know is that the baby 1-1/2 inch Sturisoma aureum my friend Barbie asked me to send her were doing fine but most died just after she dosed their tank with Excel. Barbie owns a Spokane, WA. fish shop, Aquarium Solutions, and the Tropical Fish Forum http://www.fishaholics.com and is a moderator on the Loricaridid section of this forum.
She is one of the most accomplished fish breeder I personally know. Her experience is not unique as a web search will reveal.
I am familiar with the aquarium moss web site. I'm sure someone must sell Singapore Moss in the USA but I ordered my start from someone in Singapore. I plan to order several other Mosses when the weather warms up. I want some Flame, Christmas Tree and Weeping Moss.
I think encouraging lichens, mosses and mushroom with Bonsai would enhance their beauty. My experience with mushroom culture is limited to the one time I managed to culture Psilocybe cubensis about 30 years ago. I only managed to grow about 12 fruiting bodies and my next attempt failed due to incomplete sterilization of the mycelium culturing media. Lot of work for a six hours of high exuberance.

sorry guys and thanks l number!

i did a big water change today and found that when i use the siphon, it sucked up the "blobs" or broke them up etc.
and the number is starting to go down because i lowered my feeding rate

and btw larry thats a great school of cory's there!!

Can I say that these look more like a type of Bryozoan than snail eggs. Some of these colonial animals do look like snail eggs.
Fourth photo down.
http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.r ... yozoa.html

I think acidjohn made a good call.

L number Banana wrote:MatsP, Jools:
Those pictures etc are really good, maybe they warrant inclusion into the FAQ type page you two were talking about updating? I'm sure this would fall under a common problem/question. "Eek, there's snails in my tank, what do I do?"

I'll see if I can get a picture of the snails that I was referring to. They're really common in NA and multiply like those first pictures Dj-don put up. It's a physa type and they come in with just about every plant purchase. Same shape as the Physa in Sidguppy's post but brown or black.

Unfortunately, none of those images belong to Alex (Sidguppy) as far as I can tell, they are just links to various pictures on a number of different web-sites .

Of course, if someone feels like writing and illustrating "Snail keeping and destruction in a Catfish Aquarium" , that would be great. One of the pictures is from Johnny Jensen, and I'm sure we can get permissions for that. I can probably get a picture of a Ramshorn snail, and perhaps pond snail too, as I have both. Contact Jools if you fancy writing an article.

--
Mats