Jan's blog about aquarium fish and plants

New Ramshorn snails

admin — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:09:22 +0000

Today I got new Ramshorn snails for my Puffers. These Puffers are so lovely! Two Ramshorns were eaten immediately by the fish which lives in the larger aquarium. I also moved a lot of Ramshorns into my new fish bowl (without fishes, of course) and am hoping to start producing a lot of new Ramshorns very soon. They’re necessary because feeding Puffers blood-worms isn’t the best option.

My new Pufferfish

admin — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 21:32:58 +0000

After some time I am writing again… It was a lot of work for me during the last weeks and I was very exhausted. Yesterday I bought 2 specimens of Green Pufferfish. These fishes are really cool and very peaceful! Although many aquarists consider them as aggressive towards smaller species, these Puffers are very friendly.

In order to feed them properly I bought a small bowl for Ramshorn snails. My girlfriend moved thee about 10 Ramshorns and today I gave them one carrot in order to help them to grow faster and healthier . Naturally, Puffers eat blood-worms as well.

Soon I am going to take some videos of these beautiful fish and will put them on-line.

Water change

admin — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 09:51:39 +0000

After a short break when I was very busy with my business I have done another water change in the small aquarium. I also removed the bag with activated carbon outside of the filter because the less foam in the filer is, the worse quality of water is. The water became yellowish and even fish weren’t showing any complaints, I decided to put it outside of the filter at all.

Currently there are such values:

pH
7.1

dGH
3

dKH
3

NO₂
less than 0.3 mg/l

All in all, everything seems to be fine there. I haven’t been hunting Ramshorns for about a week because of several reasons. Meanwhile they ate the whole carrot so I had to put another one there.

Apple snails and cocoon pictures

admin — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 14:16:03 +0000

Here we go with pictures of Apple snails and their cocoons. As you can see on the pictures of cocoons, some small snails should be already crawling the aquarium along with the old ones .

Big water change, big result

admin — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 16:05:47 +0000

OK, the last time when I tested the NO₂ level, I got upset. So today I changed approximately 25 litres of water in the bigger aquarium. The result is significant. The NO₂ level decreased to 1.6 mg/l. I am going to change the same amount of water on Thursday or Friday again. We’ll see the result on Saturday .

God bless water changes, damn those Ramshorns. Maybe I’ll test how a population of 10 Ramshorn snails increases in about a month and also how the amount of their excrements increase without doing any water change. I will need 2 small buckets for this purpose…

Another test of pH and water chemistry

admin — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 10:48:55 +0000

Here are values from my smaller aquarium:
pH: 7.1
dKH: 2
dGH: 5
NO₂: 0-0.3 mg/l

And here are values from the bigger aquarium:
pH: 6.8-7.1
dKH: 2
dGH: 14
NO₂: 3.3 mg/l

It seems to me that the more water changes I do in the bigger aquarium, the higher NO₂ concentration is . It is probably caused by Ramshorns who are laying eggs anywhere where it’s possible.

My next article

admin — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 20:31:36 +0000

Tomorrow I am going to change about 12 litres of water in my smaller aquarium (the one with Apple snails and cocoons ), but I am also going to work on the engine for saltwater aquarium fish database, and also am going to write an article talking about buying an aquarium.

How to get rid or snails in your aquarium

admin — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 09:46:11 +0000

Seeing hundreds of small Ramshorn snails in your aquarium is probably what you don’t want to experience. They can “infiltrate” into your aquarium in a couple of ways. The most common way is buying aquarium plants from other fishkeepers or from aquatic stores. Another, but not very usual way how to become a “Ramshorn snails keeper” is to move rocks from one aquarium to another one. If such rocks contain at least 1egg, you will be sorry of doing this action later. Sometimes newbies don’t know what evil can these creatures cause, so they just take a few snails from someone who already “raises” them.

Buying a Pufferfish is not the most clever idea because they may nip other fish’ fins. Another “strategy” how to eliminate these snails is to drain the fish tank. This strategy doesn’t work too because eggs may survive months and months without any water! I tried it myself, so there is no need to test it again . I thought that it’s the best idea, but it proved to be a failure only. Another solution is buying a YoYo loach or Paradise fish. Even they eat snails a little, you will need approximately 10 specimens in order to eliminate a colony of 100 snails. Moreover, Paradise fish may eat Guppies and YoYo loaches may fight towards each other.

So what to do?

Use the “carrot solution” - the final solution. The carrot must be laid on the bottom and must be visible. Cut off a piece with about 4cm diameter and 1.5cm height (might be more) and put it into the aquarium. The larger the piece is, the better chance of staying at the bottom is. Once you found a good placement and “installed” the trap, wait just a few days. Firstly the snails will ignore the carrot, but later they will love it . And now it is up to you to pick it up from aquarium, take off all snails, flush them in the toilet and return the carrot back to the place where it plays it’s role . You will have to change the carrot from time to time, but it is the cheapest solution and it works perfectly. Just count with me: Get rid of 10 snails each day and you’ll get rid of 100 snails in just 10 days and it will be 300 snails in just 30 days!

What if you have more snails? Use more carrots. Here you can see how they like carrot. When I woke up I removed about 10 snails from there. The picture was taken just 2 hours after the previous removal.

Today news

admin — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 06:36:07 +0000

Here we go again with just another new Apple snails cocoon! There are totally 5 of them and everything seems to be perfect with breeding them. Today I am going to write something on one of the following topics (I will cover all of them as days go by, of course ):

eliminating snails from aquarium (ramshorns of course)
cheap aquariums (I wrote something about it here already)
aquarium ornaments

I will publish articles on these topics here as well as officially at aqua-fish.net.

Just another cocoon of Apple snails

admin — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 07:14:26 +0000

Yesterday I increased the temperature by another 1°C to 26°C. Apple snails are breeding like rabbits these days and I am wondering how many small specimens are going to survive. Another new cocoon means potentially another 30 small snails.

Today I am going to change some amount of water as well, but first I must train a little.