Freshwater Ecosystems (General Chat)

[aakaakaak]

From what I've heard (I don't have any myself) rubberlip/pittbull plecos can be extra delicate when it comes to aquarium introduction. Just be careful with them if you can.

Also, if you're just doing it for size, bristlenose plecos may work better.

(I have a Clown Pleco and a plethora of mystery snails and still have enough algae to feed a fleet of oto cats.)

 

[SLZM]

ehh, I've always been iffy on adding snails, due to the numerous legions of them I've faced.

@nanu, Im adding a small layer of sand substrate, then varying types of rock

 

[nanu156]

eh... snails are fine, just buy nerite snails or mystery they won't breed like crazy. I like really big snails personally, but i tend to like big fish in general.

Think i will buy snails tomorrow, the little one wanted to call her dad at work today to tell him tomorrow (his day off) we were going to the fish store. I didn't even put her up to it, so I guess I get some sort of goodie tomorrow

 

[SLZM]

My local pet store has gotten really wicked over the years. I haven't been there in a while, but now there's stingrays, and massive knifefish and puffers and all this awesome stuff.

 

[aakaakaak]

...and all of those can be difficult to keep.

Nerite snails - Will drop eggs, but unless you create a brackish environment they won't grow into baby nerites.

Mystery Snails - Are absolutely male or female. If you have one snail, you have ONE snail. If you do get a male and a female of whatever color they may (they sure as heck did with me) lay egg pods at the top edge of your aquarium. It takes about 1-3 weeks for them to hatch. You have that long to simply remove the conveniently placed pod of eggs and toss them in the trash. If you want baby snails just let them be and they'll figure out the rest.

 

[nanu156]

I bought "yellow snails" today... which are probably not actually yellow snails... but I have a sliding glass door across the room from one of my tanks and Im growing algae like crazy... Tank full of plecos yet I scrub the darn walls... Annoying...

My cichlids are likely to murder them, we will see how my adventures in snails work out. over 15 years in fish and I have never actually kept snails... Read about them, have friends who have them, never kept them myself.

Anywho I have been trying to get decent pleco pictures for days... Here is what i could get, btw never noticed how scratched up my glass was till i took these photos....

Some of my peeps are too camera shy today to get a photo of today

 

[nanu156]

and here are the other three photos I could catch....

Sorry there arn't more of the plecos, I have about 4 in this tank who wouldn't come out to play

 

[SLZM]

huh, I remember having some common snail infestation one time D:

 

[IThinkTherefore]

Cool tank Nanu!

 

[nanu156]

Those are yellow snails (apple) I did have a pond snail issue once as well.

Apple snails are bad news if you have plants (I have cichlids so no plants for me) We will see how the fare in my tank, the pet store said they would be pecked to death, at the moment they look good.

I do have an red zebra that is missing her entire tail, she was upside down on the gravel yesterday morning, I scooped her into a breeder net and she seems to be improving, well she is right side up and hasn't given up on life anymore.

 

[SLZM]

well its been longer (a lot longer, eek) than i had meant but the backdrop is finished, sand and gravel in the tank, full of water

as of now, im waiting for the water to clear up, and the filter to run it through, i'll finally post pictures once you can see clearly. unfortunately one of the pieces of driftwood we had fixed to the bottom popped off and floated to the surface, so now we're attaching it to some shale, which we'll replace on the same spot.

so woot.