Unknown thing in my tank

[cassie2]

Hi all,
I've got a wierd question - I'm pretty new to all this and have no idea what is in my tank.

I have a 10 gallon tank with 1 male and 4 female platies, some ornaments, some live plants, some fake plants.
I have 2 gallon mini tank for babies.

Background: The tank in question is a 2 gallon plastic mini tank that has a mini filter and a 7.5 watt heater on a timer. In it are some live plants and 10 baby platies. 6 are about 2 months old, 4 are about 1 month old. I do water changes every few days out of the 10 gallon tank, vacuum weekly, chemicals are all ok (all within "safe" ranges - have some nitrites, 0 nitrate, 0 ammonia). There are a couple or more little brown snails that came in on the plants.

Question: Stuck to the walls of the tank are 4 or 5 little pea sized balls of jelly like substance - clear jelly with white specks or dots inside.
WHAT ARE THESE??? Should I be concerned? Anything I should do? Are the fish ok? I have not noticed these in the 10 gallon tank.

Also, How big do my platy babies have to be before I can put them into the big tank? I've read "big enuf so they don't fit into the adults' mouths" - but what exactly does that mean???

Update on my earlier question - in 10 gallon tank, my female and male are still badly chasing the other female, and the last two females are still mostly left alone. I had the tank separator in for about 5 days, and when I took it out, the chasing resumed. The one being chased seems a bit less stressed than before the separator, but still hides in the ornament sunken ship fairly regularly. There are still some torn fins.

Thanks much!!

Cheryl

 

[PlecoCollector]

Those are snail eggs, I get them too.
I waited until my platy were about 3 months old until I put them in with my big fish- the three I put in where about half the size of my neon tetras, but the 'big enough that they don't fit in the adults mouth' thing works too.
Edit: Sorry, I forgot to mention that the eggs aren't harmful to the fish at all. If anything, they'll nip at them.

 

[Seleya]

Background: The tank in question is a 2 gallon plastic mini tank that has a mini filter and a 7.5 watt heater on a timer. In it are some live plants and 10 baby platies. 6 are about 2 months old, 4 are about 1 month old. I do water changes every few days out of the 10 gallon tank, vacuum weekly, chemicals are all ok (all within "safe" ranges - have some nitrites, 0 nitrate, 0 ammonia). There are a couple or more little brown snails that came in on the plants.

You're changing water into the 2 from the 10? Why? You need to use fresh, dechlorinated water, not water from another tank. You don't want any nitrites at all, and should have some nitrates if the tank is cycled.

Question: Stuck to the walls of the tank are 4 or 5 little pea sized balls of jelly like substance - clear jelly with white specks or dots inside.
WHAT ARE THESE??? Should I be concerned? Anything I should do? Are the fish ok? I have not noticed these in the 10 gallon tank.

Like PC said, they're just snail eggs. If you don't want the snails, scrape the egg clutches off the glass.

Also, How big do my platy babies have to be before I can put them into the big tank? I've read "big enuf so they don't fit into the adults' mouths" - but what exactly does that mean???

I just plant heavily and let nature take its course -- I have plenty of fry survive that way and don't want to need extra tanks due to overpopulation. It won't take many growing fry to crowd your 10 gallon.

Update on my earlier question - in 10 gallon tank, my female and male are still badly chasing the other female, and the last two females are still mostly left alone. I had the tank separator in for about 5 days, and when I took it out, the chasing resumed. The one being chased seems a bit less stressed than before the separator, but still hides in the ornament sunken ship fairly regularly. There are still some torn fins.

With that sort of aggression, I would try to get more plants in to break up sight lines. Are you sure it's a female?

 

[cassie2]

Hi,
Thanks all! I'd never seen snail eggs before! I guess they are better hidden in the big tank!


Re changing water from 10 into 2 - Big Al's fish guy told me to do so - that way water has bacteria, safe, etc - we've had occassional problems with ph spikes in tap water around here so if I do weekly 1/3 changes in 10 gallon, and every 2- 3 days in 2 gallon topping up from 10 gallon, that might be safer than adding tap water to such a small ecosystem ...

Sorry - got my ites and ates mixed up - we have some nitrates and 0 nitrites.

Re aggression - this has been an ongoing problem - I had posted a couple of weeks ago with more details .... We are considering a bigger tank for daughter for christmas, but not sure yet. (she's 5, I do all the work ) We have quite a few plants (wisteria - 4-5 stems, some floating fast growing long plant, and another slowgrowing oval leafed one 5-6 stems of it - the plants are spread around and do not leave much "wide open swim space" plus we have some fake plants too), a small piece of driftwood, a sunken ship. The one male will chase this particular female ("Red") all over the tank at a very fast speed, (its amazing to watch them zip around ) and the other chaser female - yes its a female that chases too - she chases a couple of the females (Red and another one) and nips at them. So this one female fish Red, gets chased a lot, and she ends up spending a good bit of her day in the sunken ship hiding.

We are considering the bigger tank (29 gallon or so - only have a 30" space available) because of the fry, and because we don't just want platies and their fry!!! We realize that we are already at capacity and I've already explored options of returning fry to Big Als, or getting friends to take.

We didn't really "get" how much was involved in getting our 5 year old a few fish - I'm glad to have found this board for all its great info!!!!

Thanks much!!

Cheryl

 

[MOsborne05]

Congrats on the babies! I could never get my platies to breed, or else they ate the babies before I saw them. Yep, those are snail eggs. Unless you want your tank to get overrun with snails, you should probably try to scrape some off. About the aggression, I had 3 females and 1 male and one of the females always chased the other two off for the first 3 months or so. She was the biggest of the three so I assumed she was the "alpha" female and was trying to keep them away from the male. Eventually, after fattening them up a bit, they got along fine because the other two caught up to her in size. Are all of your platies about the same size, or is one bigger than the others?

 

[cassie2]

Thanks,

My daughter wanted me to "save" some of the babies, so I spent a ridiculous amount of time watching, chasing and trying to catch the fry. I got nothing else done that week. We watched and watched and watched. Everytime another one came out of hiding, I had to chase it.

The most aggressive female "Goldie" is actually the smallest female. The male, "Mickey" (mickey mouse platy) was the smallest fish when we got him, but now he's about the same size as most of the females. There is one female, a sunset platy "Sunset", that is the biggest - she is very docile, and only chases the male or the chaser female when she's had enough. Then there is a dark mostly black female "Dorothy" that noone chases - basically they leave her alone. The chased female, "Red" is about the same size as the black one. The chaser female Goldie (all these are my 5 year old daughter's names ) is more slender and streamlined than the rest but she has a dark gravid spot, - the rest are more plump and rounder. (Red, Mickey and Dorothy are in my avatar) (picture below shows Goldie too)

I think we'll just have to get a bigger tank, and some more hiding spots, and then hopefully things will settle out, especially once the babies come into the tank, and maybe we'll get a couple of other kinds of fish too. Until then, I've pretty much given up trying to help Red out - everything I've tried has not worked very well!!!

 

[Fish Friend]

Like youre platys, they are top!!!!!!
I havent had time to read all of this thread, but if no one has said, i would have removed the snail eggs before they hatch, otherwise you will be over run by snails
HTH's good luck with youre fishys

 

[allybanana]

Nothing wrong with snails

I personaly am overrun with snails and dont have a problem with it they graze the algae off the plants and keep them green and you can squash them against the glass to give great fresh food to your fish they also eat exess fish food.

 

[Fish Friend]

when you 'squash' them wont that introduce bad chemicals into the tank from the snail being squeezed?

 

[Firebug]

when you 'squash' them wont that introduce bad chemicals into the tank from the snail being squeezed?

Nope! A great source of live food...err....was live, anyway!

 

[Seleya]

Be careful to not use your finger to squoosh them. There was an article on the Web about how someone did that and she told how she ended up with an infection that went all the way up her arm! Better safe than sorry, eh Gromit?

 

[ram man]

aww i liek squisting them...