lol thanks! I wrote some tips on here for summer, and anyone else who's interested :D

__________________


Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

Think I might have ended up accidentally starting a crash this week. Oh no!

I was in a hurry to get on the road, since I was taking a 5 day break for Thanksgiving, and a forgot to do a water change! I'd been finally seeing some of Fred's babies too...I'm still not home yet, so once I get back, I'll do a water change and see if what damage has been done and if I can still save things.

__________________


Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

Well, guess things were alright after all. Came back from vacation and the hair algae was baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad...I could see Fred going around just fine, but I hadn't been as worried about him as I had the babies. Shouldn't have worried

The anubia finally opened its newest leaf, and I moved things around so that it was sticking out of the water and hopefully getting more light. It just keeps on going no matter what I do to it, the cute lil guy. Christmas moss...it could be better, honestly. If it weren't for the fact that I think I need either it or the algae to help take care of the ammonia from the babies, I wouldn't have added it. The hair algae is ghastly though. Still very little growth from the dwarf sag, guess that growth spurt I had early on was only a growth spurt. Still smaller than a quarter.

I was worried about the babies, but at least Fred's have come through just fine. I noticed a few when I was cleaning and moving around the anubias, along with a LOT more of Fred's eggs...That boy just doesn't know when to quit, lol. Some of them were days from hatching, so I tossed them into the betta tank where they'll hopefully be just fine. The rest though, I tossed with the dirty water. Haven't seen George's boys, but he's only had one or two that I've found and left in there.

__________________


Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

Updated pics?

Is the hair algae on stuff that you can take out and kinda scrape off/rinse? or is it on everything?

Maybe taking it away from the window a few hours earlier each day (so cutting back on the light) will help? Although, even if it is ugly, it's probably helping eat ammonia too.

Questions for you: 1. What do you feed the snails? Are they just eating algae and biofilm?

I think I have a bowl just like this... or my MIL snitched it and I've gotta' find it.... I'm thinking of maybe doing one and using some Elodea, since it's a freaking weed and I don't think it neeeeds heat bc it's a North American weed... And I'd throw some pest snails in. 2.(Do they ever try to escape? I've seen some of my pest snails above the water line in my covered tank...) I had some water lettuce (basically same as Duck Weed... should have kept it!) I would put it on our speaker so it could still get light... cats may knock it over though... o_O 3. Since there's no filter, I'm assuming there's no "cycling" and the snails can go in right away yes? 4. How often and how much water do you change (and do you attempt to clean the gravel from snail poops?

Now I'm super excited and going to search out that bowl! XD

__________________
20g Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981
36g Bow Front Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981

Once or twice a week I drop in a few bits of food, usually betta pellets. I've tried freeze dried bloodworms and flake food, but I'm lazy and the pellets are the most convenient. Other than that though, they're pretty much on their own. I'm sure I don't add enough pellets for every baby to get their own, but since I'm still seeing them, I guess they're doing fine

lol sneaky in-laws! But elodea seems like it would work. I guess I got lucky on the snail front, Fred and George occasionally take trips to the surface, and Fred likes to float around sometimes, but neither of them go out of the water. I bet apple snails and whatnot that lay their eggs out of the water would escape, but as far as I can tell, Fred, George and their children stay under the sea. I supposed keeping plastic wrap on it (to keep in humidity for the anubias) does make escape just a tiny bit more difficult :D

I wouldn't say there's no cycling. Cycling is just the buildup of helpful bacteria after all. But yes, I did dump in Fred and George on the first day. That's part of why plants (and algae I suppose as well) is important in such a small tank. Other than water changes, plants are the only force removing ammonia, nitrates and nitrites.

I do a 60-75% water change each week with a light gravel vacuuming. I can't get out most of the snail poop, so I don't even try, lol. Actually, I've been watching it build up, and as it decomposes it looks more like a substrate than poop. I bet if they got their little roots down past the dirt that's in there, the dwarf sag would love the snail poop. Could probably root in it quite well. I guess that's the way that the snails give back to the plants, lol. The plants give them life, the snails give them poop! XD

Yesh! Do it! and then post pictures! :D

__________________


Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

What do you siphon with? My tank siphon is waaay to big, hahaha. I'd have that tank empty in two seconds, LOL!

Also, is the water change the only thing that adds air for the snails, or do you stir the water now and then?

OH! plastic wrap on the top will keep some warmth in I suppose, and keep snails in... good idea!

__________________
20g Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981
36g Bow Front Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981

lol I just use airline tubing as the vacuum. It's actually the perfect size for my smaller tanks, and not bad for my main tank, since I can weave it though the plants without bothering anything.

Sometimes when I'm bored I play in the water. XD So maybe twice a week or so I'll get the urge to muck around in there, so I end up stirring up the water. Other than that, and the pearling from the plants/algae, no water movement.

__________________


Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

Nice. I've got a syringe I can use to suck up water and spray it back in to stir things up if I don't notice any pearling.

So. Excited. For. Snails. And. Baby. Crypt!

__________________
20g Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981
36g Bow Front Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981

I promise, I'll get more pics up soon! But for now, a picture-less update:

the anubias seems to be doing quite well, or at least the plant on the side of the rock the gets more light. It's the plant with the new leaf, and all seems to be well with it. Now if I could just stop Fred from laying eggs on it, I'd be set. Speaking of Fred, I assumed that at some point I would miss some of the eggs he's laying and would end up with even more babies. I decided to throw the biggest babies I could find into the main betta tank. I put two in, Cadet and Blix...And I named them at like 2am, don't be too harsh on me! XD Unfortunately I still rarely see the babies, so it's hard to know how many are in there. I know there's at least one more baby that's big enough to move over. Something funny about when I tossed Cadet in the tank though, my dumb betta Renoir tried very hard to eat him! The dumb fish...it didn't look like it hurt Renny any, and well, snails have shells for a reason, and I saw both the lil guys a few hours later (somehow)

Anyways, still have major hair algae issues, but I might try a hydrogen peroxide dip to see if that'll take care of it...I'm just worried about it hurting the roots of the anubias. I'm also planning a bit of a change to the tank, possibly adding a dracaena (lucky bamboo) cutting. I think/hope it's roughly the right size. The only problem I can see with it is the leaves might end up at least partly under the water. Since it will be emersed, I'm not too worried about it rotting away.

Also, if I get extraordinarily bored/celebrating the last official day of class before finals, I might set up another palmtop in my current moss jar. Think I would only add dwarf sag to that (the non-dwarf dwarf version), just to see how well it reacts to having plenty of dirt to root in, and with no water changes. That might actually be the problem for the D.S. in the bowl- the dirt's just a little too out of the way for them to root in. oh well, you live, you learn. Haven't decided if I'll add snails to that one, I want to see if I can hit on a way to get as low maintenance on a palmtop as possible. lol, I'm just looking for ways to be a lazy bum while watching something cool.

__________________


Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

Well, I've got some bad news...

I'm heading off on winter vacation, and I'll be gone a month. I don't know how well the palmtop will travel. I'm strongly considering breaking down my mini bottle for the same reason. Trying to figure out how to move the bowl, but some of the plants are fragile... >.>

Speaking of plants, I did a Hydrogen Peroxide dip for my anubias + moss, and now the moss is looking pretty rough. I also added a cutting of lucky bamboo (dracaena) that seemed to be rooting well...I think it's doing ok, can't check the roots though. That's what i'm worried about for the trip...

I do have some good news though. I did set up another palmtop, in the ex-moss jar (threw out the algae/moss). It's pretty much just dirt, a couple of Fred's children and a bit of Dwarf sag from the betta tank. Seems to be doing well. I'm not going to touch it though, aside from maybe putting the moss and stuff from the mini bottle in it. I want to see how dwarf sag grows if I don't mess with it. It'll be in the same window as everything else is now, but i won't do water changes and stuff on it. Thought about adding an airstone to it though, but not sure on that.

Anyways, ideas for what to do with traveling with the palmtop?

__________________


Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

Really could you link me to it? the tank is looking great btw :D

Lol, it's in the thread somewhere. I'll try and get updated pics up too. The palmtop survived the trip! Quite well really.

__________________


Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

Alright, for the long overdue palmtop update! As I mentioned before, the trio of tanks survived the trip over the mountains perfectly well. The moss in my mini bottle is actually doing much better than the stuff in my betta tank, LOL. I took out the moss from the palmtops, and I've decided to keep it out. Just attracts way too much hair algae, even if algae is a good nitrate vacuum. The dracaena cutting appears to be alive and well, though it's so slow growing it's hard to tell changes. I've been gradually lowing the water level though, trying to get the anubias to grow faster, but no sign of changes. The dwarf sag though, seems to be loving life. It's finally broken the "size of a quarter" landmark. Although I did trim my D.S. in my betta tank, and now at least one is that small, hmm... They might do better with different substrate, but I'm waiting for the results of an experiment.

Currently, I'm testing growing drawf sag and snails in a "hand off" experiment. I talked about it before, when I sacrificed my moss jar. I just put in a single dwarf sag plant in about 1/8" of dirt straight from the garden, and plopped in 2 of Fred's kids. I haven't seen it for weeks, and it'll be at least another week till I see it again. Meaning no water changes past the first week (to clarify the water from the dirt) and no air going into the jar. I'm not actually expecting the snails to really do well, but I needed something to keep the jar at least partially clean for awhile. I really jut want to know how well D.S. can grow, and maybe create a small supply that I can just have on hand. How well this little experiment goes will help me decide something else.

I'm going to be doing a pretty big rescaping of the bowl, taking out a lot of the gravel at the very least. It just looks weird and too full. If I do that, I may remove the rock the anubias are attached to, and maybe just leave one in there, planted directly into...whatever I end up using, whether it's the same gravel, different gravel, or even just straight dirt (will depend on the experiment.).

As for Fred and George, I haven't noticed new eggs or babies since the move. I assume it's because the bowl is too cold (likely in the 50-60's) Bother however seem to be doing fine themselves. There's still one of their children left in the betta tank, and he seems very happy, cruising all over the place and growing. That little one will henceforth be known as Cadet (I'm assuming it's the first one I put in there).

Pics time! (more in the next post too, need to upload more)

The bowl right after the move:


And my little...experiment...(the gravel was in there to make sure there was some bacteria to start things off:

__________________


Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

As promised, more pics:

During cleaning:







Fred's doing great, but George is camera shy:

__________________


Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

Well, quite a lot has happened.

The dwarf sag completely dissapeared for some reason. All the healthy leaves just fell off, so I pulled the stumps out. I also removed quite a bit of gravel, and I'm now going to use the palmtop for growing the bamboo and anubias emersed, like I was, but with more of a focus on them. They seem to be doing alright. Fred and George are still around and seem happy with how things have changed, even though I took away half their water. I even saw a baby George, so I'm guessing they're happy. Might have to step up the water changes though, since it really is only about half the water they used to have. I also added some extra baby crypts I had left over from what I got for my betta tank. I'll just let them be for now.

As for the experiment...It was a bit of a neutral failure. The dwarf sag didn't grow as I expected, more like just sat there. The snails though, were still alive and kicking, so I guess they're tough lil guys. I also found a baby George in there...wonder how he got there...lol. Since things weren't going badly in there, and I needed more room, I moved my moss covered rock to the experimental jar and added even more extra crypts. It looks really nice right now, and everyone seems to be happy. Pics later

__________________


Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

Pics as promised

Finally got a picture of the happy couple together, lol. George hates the camera so I had to take this when it was still fairly dark.



And the slightly redone jar:

__________________


Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you