3.09.2011

New Guppies

Pregnant Guppy
The female guppy I bought appears to be a variation of White Tuxedo (correct me if I am perhaps wrong), however when under stress her black tux turns yellow with a black trim. The black appears at the very base of her fins and caudal as well, and her fins also have a bright blue line down the front (which you may not be able to see in the photo). She was pregnant when I bought her (which you can see from her photo above) so it will be interesting to see what her mystery fry will look like (since I don't know her mate) and she has recently given birth in my tank to over a dozen fry that I have found thus far. I had purchased a Blue Tuxedo male guppy at the same time (shown in the background behind the female)I bought the female but he turned out to have a case of fin rot and unfortunately didn't survive the week.
Moto & Marimo Ball
Moto my betta is still doing great and he loves to watch me while I'm laying in bed typing away on Guppy-Guide!

2.25.2011

My Marina Cubus Setup

It's not often that I share an entire tank setup however, I had so much fun putting this adorable tiny tank together that I wanted to share it and also share my new pet Betta that I have named Moto!
What I used...
Marina Cubus Glass Betta Kit (0.9L)
White Aquarium Gravel (5LB Bag, used about a cup of gravel)
Blue Male Veiltail Betta
Red Sea Deco Art Nano Filter
RockGarden Tufa Rock Aquarium Plant (Small, I believe all these look different)
Reversible Aquarium Background in Blue/Amazon Waters (Used the blue side and cut it to fit)
Marimo Ball

My Tap Water Additives...
Kordon AmQuel Plus Ammonia Detoxifier
Kordon Fish Protector

P.S. Moto loves napping on the soft Marimo Ball, so cute!

2.22.2011

3 Million Dollar Aquarium *Laughable*

I recently saw this article about a 3 million dollar aquarium.
3 Million Dollar Aquarium
Why I find it humorous, because these people wanted a unique aquarium, only to basically end up with one that to me...looks like a regular wall aquarium. Who could tell that this was made of real gold, t-rex, etc?

Not to mention, Oh REALLY...a "dual filtration system, heater, air pump, lighting, CO2 generator, and automatic feeder", LOL...I think these people got ripped off and should have went to PetSmart for that stuff. For that price...it should atleast have a dolphin living in it! hah.

2.02.2011

Questions and Answers

You've asked Guppy-Guide your questions, so here are your answers!

Q: How much do I feed my goldfish?
It is about 2cm high 3 1/2cm long (not including tail), I have been giving it a 'large pinch' of the food every night & I've had it since like halfway through last year (so I know i'm not starving it), but the thing is.. I was reading the back of the food thing last night and it said "just enough for your fish to consume in 5 minutes" & my fish eats all the food i give him in like 1minute.

A: Most fish food states however much your fish can consume in 2-3 minutes. Overfeeding a fish can shorten its lifespan overtime. If your fish has been surviving for this long then it is probably getting enough food. Sometimes fish have eyes bigger than their bellies, so if you find your tank water getting dirty rapidly or food particles sinking to the bottom then it is probably too much food (also look and see if you have food stuck in your filtration system). You could try giving it 2 small pinches throughout the day rather than 1 large one once a day to insure all its food does get consumed and it isn't going to starve to death.
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Q: Is the Top-Fin 10 good for my 10 gallon tank?

A: According to PetSmart.com these have a rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars. Here's a list of things you may want to check for to insure it is a good enough filtration system for your tank...

-Is your tank 10gal or smaller?
-Is your tank overstocked with fish?
-How is the water quality with the filtration system?
-Does the filter catch a significant amount of tank debry?
-Do you find the filter to be loud and disturb you?

Me personally I currently like the Aqueon Aquarium Power Filters.
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Q: My fish is dying, please help?
I've had him for a while now along with 4 others, hes a small oranda and all the others are tiny goldfish. They are in an 80l tank. However he got like red streaks in his tail one day so imedielty took him out and put him in a tempary tank of about 20l with a small filter. I got some fin rot medication and they said it should clear in 5 days, however its getting WORSE its been a week now and his tails horribly all white and stringly and its going onto his body now he is like giving up every so often he stops swimming then floats to the top and goes upside down after a couple of seconds he swims back down to the bottom again. is it the end? or is there something i can do? btw how do you check ph levels?

A: I recently purchased an oranda with fin rot, yours sounds like a similar fungal infection. Unfortunately nothing worked, including Melafix, PimaFix, Aquarium Salt, Clear Water, Water Changes all were among the most recommended remedies I found online (check my blog here if you want to read the story of Maguro).

You can check pH levels using something like Jungle Quick Dip Aquarium Test Strips (I prefer these over the API test strips) from Petco. However, there are many different methods for testing the water which you can probably find at your local petstore.
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Q: Help I need a betta expert!
One of my bettas has pop eye, I have put API aquarium salt to help with treatment(not marine salt) and I am currently using Melafix 1. Is pop eye bacterial or fungal? I need to know how long it should be before I see improvement and if I don't see improvement by then what should I do? I have the API fungal treatment if that helps, I can use that later or I can buy the bacterial treatment in the next day or so. The tank is a 5 gal tank with heater and small 5 gal filter, the tank is shared by 2 bettas separated by a divider, please don't say its too small just tell me what to do, should I take out my other betta if I start fungal/bacterial treatment? thanks.

A: Here's a good link on the subject, hope it helps!

Source(s):
http://www.aquariumlife.net/articles/fish-diseases/pop-eye-fish-disease/165.asp

Questioners Comment: Thanks that helped a whole lot, I think my fish is getting better after about 3 days by the maracyn stuff, its a new tank so there really isnt much good bacteria yet, thanks so much hopefully my fish will get well.
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Q: Is my guppy going to give birth soon?
Ok, i brought my Guppy 2weeks ago at the pet store. week later i kepted checking up on her, and she was heavly pregnant, and the males where chaseing her day in and day out, then i buyed a Fry keeper (protects fry from getting eat) and put her in there and now ive kepted close eye on her for 1week now, And she moves very slowly, and stops in the cornr of tank, breathing heavly and then goes to planted area and back out and continues doing same thing, she isnt eating she only pokes the flake food and stops, her gravid spot is black, and goes abit pinky, i can also see all the fry inside her it looks very impacked.

Today, she pooped out a seethrew long thing what is this?
Also heres somepictures of my guppie.

http://i55.tinypic.com/arztt.jpg
http://i53.tinypic.com/5md8qw.jpg
http://i51.tinypic.com/2cz8yv6.jpg

I KNOW THEY EAT THERE BABIES!

A: You might be better off putting her in a separate tank with decor for fry to hide in once born, at least 5 gallons with a filtration system that won't suck up any fry being born. She is stressed because for one thing you have isolated her (they are community fish after all) and she is in a small area with little swimming room, hence the white poop. Instead of giving her flake food you should try some freeze-dried brine shrimp (like the Hikari brand) as brine are good to give guppies to induce mating and such. Also a guppy that is near giving birth usually will start isolating herself from other fish and will hang around the bottom of the tank, all you can do is wait at this point. Once she gives birth, you can then remove her from the 5gal tank and the fry will be able to grow adequately without being eaten. I wouldn't worry too much if she does eat any fry because before you know it you will have more guppies then you know what to do with and with adequate fry hiding places she more than likely won't eat them all if any.

1.20.2011

Marineland Penguin Bio-Wheel Filter - Review

Marineland Penguin Bio-Wheel Filter this was one of the first filtration systems I ever owned so I figured I'd give my review on it since I used it for many years.

The filter itself was decent, it collected a good amount of debris although at times it wasn't enough for my 10gal tank, but with an added air-pump going it definitely helped clear up the water. Buying replacement filters was horrible though because they were bad quality, the carbon was coming out of the cartridge which in turn can be harmful to fish if consumed or perhaps I just bought a bad batch of replacement filters (it was part of the reason I opted to start looking for a new filtration system). Aside from some basic carbon and blue floss I wish it was perhaps more complex and beneficial to the tank however, you can cut the top of the cartridge and replace the old carbon (use a rubber-band to secure it back in place if needed).

The first noticeable glitch I had started with the fan system that intakes the water into the box, the fan wasn't staying where it was supposed to and it was catching inside. To fix the fan I had to remove the tube from the box and press down hard on it to keep it from going out of place, simple fix.

As the filter came of age it was running more slowly than my newer filtration systems. The most useless part of this system is the actual bio-wheel itself, it works at first or sometimes, but generally not at all. Basically the water would run around the bio-wheel and the wheel would sit motionless... I would really just throw that part in the trash to be honest. The bio-wheel is only good if you want to try and keep frogs and crayfish types from crawling into the box (my blue lobster did this once without it on!).

When the system was new it did run a bit more loudly I believe, but it definitely got quieter over time in my opinion as the water had basically become a steady trickling stream rather than a waterfall. You may also notice that as your cartridge gets full of debris the water almost bubbles up through the vent in the filtration lid, which is good if you need an indicator, but bad if you let it go unchanged/cleaned perhaps.

Also the box sometimes needs a jump start when first placed onto the tank, so scoop a couple of cups of water into the box before turning it on. Also, the power at my house is always going off and sometimes the system would not start up on its own and I'd come home to a loud buzzing/grinding noise from the lack of water left in the box for it to start filtering the water out again.

Overall I'd give this system a 3.2 out of 5 since it cleaned better than a lot of other similar filtration systems I have tried but this system could spare some improvement which should've been obvious mistakes to a designer that might've actually used this product before putting it on the market.

Reduce Nitrate (in a new tank)

This will show you how I managed to reduce my nitrate to 0 in clean unestablished tap well-water. Generally my tap-water stats are as stated...

NO3 (Nitrate): 20-40
NO2 (Nitrite): 0
pH: 7.2

I had successfully reduced my nitrate from my fresh tap-water using Jungle Plant Care Solutions Fertilizer and Water Conditioner (Ingredients: Derived from potassium chloride and ferric EDTA. Also contains nonplant food ingredients: 0.1% allantoin) and my stats were as stated (over 12hrs later)...

NO3 (Nitrate): 0
NO2 (Nitrite): 0
pH: 7.8

However, my pH did seem to creep up a bit on me. I also tested this product to see if it had any effect on more established aquarium water which had various chemicals already in it. The stats were as follows...

NO3 (Nitrate): 20-40
NO2 (Nitrite): 0
pH: 7.8

The Jungle product did not seem to alter it at all. So, this test shows that it worked best (for myself at least) during the start of a new setup rather than an already established tank setup. However, results could possibly vary for other people.