#3 Nerite snails

[photozoi]

In one month the 30 gallon went from this...

to this.

Growth.

(First photo taken with the Canon Rebel, second with the Nikon DS-90)

[oleander-neruim]

Big Sun, Tiny Fish

Inktober 2024 Day 9: Sun

Look i love my small mythologies. Look at nerites. He's gonna get shrimped.

Sketch & Base Lining:

[bonezaw]

IT'S KEBIN (EVERYONE SAY 'HELLO KEBIN')

[onehandshort]

Shrampside-down

[thenarrativefoil]

uh oh girlies I'm about to 2:35:23 fish video

[dazzelmethat]

Thank you everyone for reblogging and tagging this post with recommendations and comments! This post will make a good resource for me and anyone else that needs help in the hobby!

Fishkeeping is hard.. not because water perimeters is too hard or keeping plants alive or any of that. But because I only ever learn about a common problem a fish has when I'm googling symptoms.

I've been dreaming about a dwarf gourami for 3 years and just now I find out that 70% of them in the market die from a virus they are susceptible to?

It's so hard to imagine little fishes as a cog in the capitalistic machine that doesn't care about the health of those fish when they are just little guys. They are just so little..

Where do the fish people of tumblr get your information from?

[daycarefriendpickup]

Well, Well... whale 🐋? If it isn't that time of year!

Hello you lovely ballpit goers! We here at DCFP have been hard at work behind the scenes on events to make sure you have tons of entertainment this mermay to draw with!

Presenting you with... The official Daycare Friend Pickup Mermay Prompt List for 2024!

We've got quite a variety up here for you all to choose and draw from this year! And for us to see it all, you'll have to make sure you tag it as #dcfpmermay or #dcfpmermay2024 !

Here's the prompt list broken down in more order!

Weekly

1. Tardigrade

2. Pinnipeds (Seals, Walruses, Sea Lions etc)

3. Cetaceans (Dolphins, Whales, Orcas, etc)

4. Echinoderms (Starfish, Brittle Stars, Sea Urchins, Sea Urchins, etc)

5. Anthozoa (That's right folks, coral is a sea creature too! Time to pump out the creativity on this week!)

Biweekly Prompts (That means one every half a week!)

•Week One

1. Medusozoa (Jellyfish)

2. Cephalopoda (Octos, Squids, Cuttles, and Nautilus!)

•Week Two

1. Limulidae (Horseshoe Crabs)

2. Nephropidae (Lobster time babes! 🦞)

•Week Three

1. Pantapoda (Sea Spiders) [Istiophoridae AKA Marlins this week if spider things freak you out]

2. Neritidae Aka Freshwater Snails/Nerites [Tetraodontidae AKA Pufferfish if Snails freak you out]

•Week Four

1. Rhincodon (Whale Shark)

2. Carcharhinidae (Requiem Sharks)

•Week Five

1. Muranidae (Moray Eels)

2. Torpediniformes (Electric Rays ⚡)

Bonus week of The Deep

(For if you finished everything else but want to do a little more!)

1. Chaulios (Viperfish)

2. Halosauridae (Halosaurs)

The event will go on from April 28th to June 2nd to give everyone who wants to pump out those mermaid drawings all that extra time to put love and attention into these prompts!

And remember, you do NOT have to do all of them! Just do what you feel comfortable with and draw to your fishy daycare's freedom ❤️.

Get ready folks, because it's going to be a splashing Mermay here at the pickup! 🌊

[bestanimal]

May I submit to you the best mollusk, Merlin the mystery snail. He is a good natured slacker that would rather come up to beg for handouts than actually do any algae eating he does however take care of any uneaten fish food and will dig through the substrate until he gets it. (I got him with some of my corydoras years ago and admittedly I didn’t realize they needed calcium supplements at first so his shell got kinda run down but I know now and I had done my best to make up for that since. My other snails are doing just fine now and the zebra Nerite snail Bee in the photo with him is actually still alive going on 3 years old now.)

Omg hello Merlin

[prince-liest]

TIL you guys also like fish!!!! please let me introduce you to the rest of my fishy community!

first of all, these are my fish tanks:

this is a 20 gallon tall tank that I will be upgrading to a 37 long next year when I find out where I’m going for residency. the 5lb pressurized cannister is a CO2 tank that I use to inject carbon dioxide into the water (on a timer)! CO2 is the limiting “nutrient” for plant growth underwater in a tank like mine (with bright light and fertilizers added), so it helps encourage plant growth and more vibrant colors in plants with red and orange tones, as well as carpeting plants.

this is a 6.4 gallon tank that also has CO2 injection, and currently no fish because it is cycling (and will be for about 4 weeks). it will be her highness the betta fish’s new home once it is cycled, because she keeps murdering my shrimp in the community tank. once she is moved, I will probably get a pair of honey gouramis for the community tank.

this is one of the shrimp in question! she is pregnant. (eggnant, you might say.) I love her.

these are my kuhli loaches! I have 6 black and 6 banded. they are technically different species and the banded ones are much more shy. they spend a lot of time swimming circles along the glass and draping themselves over plants upside-down to make me think they are dead. they get very offended when you poke them to make sure they’re not dead.

I have 8 neon tetras. they’re all fat and extremely hard to take non-blurry photos of.

I also have 3 hillstream loaches, which are one of my favorite fish of all time. they’re juveniles that bred from a friend’s tank, and they look like tiny little stingrays that are frequently stuck to the side of the glass. they are aufwuchs-eaters which means they scrape algae and biofilm off the surfaces of things, but they also like sifting through sand and need sufficient protein (aka. not pure algae eaters).

here’s what they look like from the bottom:

I also have snails:

this is the biggest of my three nerite snails! I like nerites because they have bright colors and they don’t reproduce in fresh water. however, if you get a female (like this one), they WILL lay tiny white little sesame seed eggs everywhere, even though they can’t hatch. I used to have “pest” snails in the form of bladder snails and freshwater limpets but, uh, I have a total of 15 loaches in the tank, so. I no longer have pest snails and my loaches are all well-fed. :”)

thank u for coming to my ted talk. I love fish. I love my fish. please come talk to me about fish. I leave u with one last photo of her highness in all her glory:

[wachi-delectrico]

Tank update!

On plants:

I keep having to trim back the rotala rotundifolia because it grows at insane rates and covers all the other plants, the light gluttons. The cryptocorine wendtii are doing much better: one that had completely melted is growing back leaves at really quick pace for a crypt; the one I accidentally cut the leaves of (was trying to cut a bad leaf and accidentally cut that one and the only other healthy leaf the plant had) is coming back and growing a new leaf slowly but surely after I cut its bad-looking roots and replanted it.

I'm fiddling with the amount of potassium I should add as fertilizer, since many plants started showing signs of a potassium overdose - started at 5ml, now 3ml to see if any signs of a potassium deficit show up.

I've also been experimenting with the placement for the CO3 diffuser* (*see: a chunk of aquarium sponge pushed into hose, lol). I've now moved it to where the bubbles rise to the filter's waterfall, so it naturally pushes and distributes smaller bubbles around while bigger bubbles get broken into smaller bubbles. The first location I put it on, one of the corners, worked ok-ish but it wasted a lot of CO2. The second location was right underneath the filter intake, testing if the filter's impeller could maybe break the bubbles and dissolve the CO2 in the water before going back into the tank, but that not only didn't work but also put extra stress on the impeller which made it very noisy and annoying lol. Its current location as previously described seems to be doing the best out of the three, with the plants releasing a lot of oxygen! :3

Lastly, I'm still experimenting with the light fixture. Went from two 325lm 6500k bulbs and one 475lm 2700k bulb, to changing one of the 325lm bulbs for an 800ml 6500k one, two having two 800lm 6500k + one 475lm 2700k, to taking the 2700k out. The two 800lm bulbs have a good reach and colour temperature, buuuut they did leave a darker spot right in the middle where the hygrophilla angustifolia are, so I added one little 325lm 6500k bulb back. Right now, I'm using two 800lm bulbs and one 325lm bulb, all 6500k, with the dimmer one right in the middle.

On water chemistry:

I've gotten the nitrate levels down considerably, from 120ppm (very unsafe and bad) to 20ppm (good :3), turns out the food I was using to up the ammonia created inconmensurable and uncontrollable amounts of waste, gracias Shulet ni para ciclar acuarios servís.

Speaking of ammonia, I'd gotten the ammonia down to 0ppm but these last few days I've noticed it increase up to 0.25ppm - possibly due to a drop in pH caused by the DIY CO2, which could mean the "ammonia" detected is actually ammonium, much less toxic than ammonia, as the API Ammonia test detects both and has no way to distinguish between the two. As An Autistic Guy obsessed with numbers and data and accuracy I'm so happy that the numbers are inaccurate and the test is so vague, I love that so much, it doesn't make me want to pull my teeth out at all (I am in pain).

Despite the "ammonia" issues, things look good rn! Especially thanks to keeping nitrates under control at long last, the presence of visible algae has started to decrease. I've been taking the brown algae out with a stick, and have been dosing hydrogen peroxide locally to the harder-to-deal-with filament algae to weaken it enough for the snails to go at it. I'm happy to report that the hydrogen peroxide has weakened the filament algae to a point where the nerite snail is able to eat it.

(All the little dots floating in the water are planorbis snail larvae that hatched today!! Yippee!!!)

On stocking:

It's still just snails for now. A week or two ago I discovered a bunch of dead or half dead planorbis snails in the filter intake tube, victims of the siren call of all the brown algae within it - apparently - though two adults survived and have laid various egg sacks on the glass, on plants, etc, so their presence in the tank will make a triumphant comeback for sure. The one adult bladder snail I had also fell victim to the filter intake, though that one's babies had been crawling around for a few days before its untimely death; there'll be plenty of snails going around for everyone. Don't worry, I've fixed the issue now and snails with shells that are 2mm thick or more will be safe from now on. The nerite hasn't laid any eggs yet, though when it does I'll probably scrape them off (they don't hatch in freshwater).

I'll be gone from monday til thursday, and though I'm a little worried (as always) I am also confident in that things will be fine once I come back. I'm really excited, I should be able to add the tank's main attraction, a betta fish, very soon. :3

[mod2amaryllis]

hi mod! you are the person i know who knows and is most excited about fish, and my favorite way to learn is to ask people whose passion and delight i am already familiar with. i know this is stuff i could find digging around on yt or search engines but it is just less fun and often less informative. but ofc feel free not to answer if you don't have the time/energy etc!

i am coming to realize that i would really like fish (after attempting to convince my wife that he would like them and then they pointed out that it kind of sounded like *i* wanted the fish and well). but i am very chronically ill (spend most of my time laying down in bed) and also poor. i'm worried about not being able to take care of them well enough.

assuming i restrain myself (that is don't deep dive into habitat design or breeding or anything beyond just having some guys to spend time with while i'm stuck in bed) what are the daily, weekly, monthly things i'd have to make sure got taken care of? are there ways i can simplify or automate tasks while not sacrificing their care?

OR do you know of good places where people have already talked about this, or other people who love fish a lot and might wanna share their knowledge?

my partner is also suggesting a plant&snail tank instead of fish but i'm even less sure how to approach their care needs!

watching you get into fish reminded me of how much i love them (had some when i was young but was not primary caretaker). it's good to see you make creatures so happy.

well thank you for reading and i hope you are having a good weekend!

ahhh weeee haha fish ask fish ask

there's definitely ways to make mega low maintenance tanks! what you're going for is overfiltering, understocking, and planting as much as possible. I'll go over those points. this got mega long so i'll put it under a cut.

overfiltering basically means bumping your filter up a size. if you have a 10g tank, get a 20g filter. this will reduce how often you need to maintain that filter. I'd recommend sponge filters, they're by far the cheapest option and imo easiest to maintain. you'll need the sponge and an air pump. i see a lot of mega reduced amazon sales for the tetra whisper air pump. depending on how dirty it gets you're looking at every 2-3 months taking it out into a bucket of clean tank water and squeezing out the gunk.

in that vein, you wanna get as big a tank as you can. seems counterintuitive, but the more water you have, the more stability. the less maintenance. so if you wanted a 5g for a betta, consider getting a 10g. if you want a little 10g nano school, get a 20g long. if you want a 20g community, get a 40g breeder. whatever's gonna fit in your space. my best recommendation for tank size is 20g long, it gives you sooo many options without being massive. if you're in America the cheapest way to get a tank is wait for Petco to have their quarterly tank sale. otherwise look for something on the local market.

now onto understocking. basically pick animals that aren't gonna shit that much lol, and put in less than can technically fit in the tank. the snail tank is a definite fun option, as long as you're sticking with pest snails and fewer large snails (big snails have a big bioload, even bigger than most fish). a planted 10g with a variety of big snails (a mystery, a rabbit, a nerite, etc), pest snails, and a few amano shrimp, would be fun and extremely low maintenance. you'd even have the option of trying some fancy shrimp, tho they might breed like crazy. if you want a tank with fish instead, i recommend getting a school of a tiny species like chili rasbora, ember tetras, pygmy corys, basically anything that stays little so you can get as many as possible without a big bioload. for schooling/shoaling fish, the more the merrier. absolutely do not get live bearers. no guppies, no mollies, no platys. that's the opposite of low maintenance. shit machines that will multiply forever, don't do it.

now. you know i love my bettas, favorite fish, but i'm always hesitant to recommend them. they're wonderfully personable but the caveat is that it seems more and more they run into health problems as they get commercially overbred. it's luck of the draw. you might get an easy buddy who can survive anything, or you'll get a sicky. most of the time my bettas are super low maintenance and rewarding, but when they ARE sick, it's hard. it can be daily water changes and treatment for weeks, and sometimes even that doesn't help in the end.

so with that said, my dream low maintenance tank stocking would be 20g long with 4 amano shrimp, 1 mystery snail, 1 rabbit snail, 1 nerite snail, and a school of around 15 nano fish (I'd do either chili rasbora or celestial pearl danio cuz they prettyyy). OR i'd just have a centerpiece in that big old tank, like 1 betta for the whole tank or a pair of sparkling gouramis. fish choice is definitely too much to get into for this post lol.

now third point, planting the crap out of it. this is where things can get expensive. i really do recommend investing in this step at setup, but try to cut costs by buying from local sellers, or even seeing if people are giving cuttings away. the lowest maintenance plants are ones that don't require trimming, like crypts, buce, anubias; these plants are gorgeous but they don't filter water that well. faster growing stem plants and floaters will REALLY help to filter the water, but require more maintenance via trimming and replanting stems (monthly) or removing overgrown floaters (weekly). hornwort and guppy grass are great options for something fast growing that you can just chuck in a tank, no need to plant. what I'd most highly recommend for the sake of lowering maintenance is adding some pothos cuttings coming out of the water. terrestrial plants are much better at filtering water than aquatic plants because of their direct co2 exposure, and I've had the most success with pothos! i also love a spider plant in water.

some other money specific points. for substrate, you can use rinsed play sand and/or pea gravel from a hardware store, but you would need to add nutrients if you have things planted into the substrate. you can add root tabs (api root tabs cost about 8 bucks a pack, but you need to replenish them every few months) or a small layer of aquasoil at the bottom. (aqueon has a little bag of shrimp/plant soil on amazon for i think 12 bucks). and the one thing you shouldn't go cheap on is the heater. their failure is more dangerous than other hardware because they tend to fail ON, aka they cook the water. you wanna make sure you trust it. the cheapest heater i trust are the aqueon preset submersible heaters, also frequently on sale. or you can forgo the heater and commit to only "cold" temperature livestock; the snails and amano shrimp idea would be fine w/o a heater.

labor specific points, once it's cycled (which can take weeks, during which time you'll do literally nothing to the tank) and stocked, it'll depend on how fast those plants eat up your nitrates on how often you do water changes. for me, i do 25% every two weeks on my 20g. it could probably stand to have more since mine is pretty overstocked but fish are ok to sit in slightly higher nitrates as long as they're used to it. when testing, i do recommend the api master test kit. it's more expensive than strips but way more accurate and it's lasted me longer than 2 tubes of strips. if you don't want to buy the test kit, just do water changes as often as you can. every 2 weeks if possible, then you can try pushing to 3 weeks, or even monthly.

get a water siphon to make it as easy as possible. empty water into a bucket on wheels so nobody has to carry anything. you can also look into getting a submersible pump with a long enough tube that you can empty water directly into the nearest drain, then to refill with clean water put a bucket in the sink with tap water, put the submersible pump in that bucket, and run the tube back to your tank, adding dechlorinator directly to the tank beforehand. just be careful with this method if you have small animals at risk of being caught in the siphon.

also, some people with planted tanks don't do water changes AT ALL. they just top off as water evaporates. what i do some would consider overkill, but i'm so frequent with my water changes because i have really hard water and there's this thing called old tank syndrome that can happen if you only top off, and yeah that's this other whole spiel lmao BUT not doing water changes IS possible, people have success. just not me!

so monthly tasks; rinsing sponge filter every 2-3 months. weekly tasks; depends on how often you decide to do water changes. daily tasks; feeding, frequency varies depending on livestock, but i basically feed once a day. if you're going for a self contained ecosystem low maintenance dealio, feed as little as possible. i know of people who do this and sprinkle in food weekly or less. i don't have experience with automatic feeders, but i'm wary of them lol, they could be totally fine, idk. it's better imo to just feed infrequently than risk the auto feeder dumping too much food.

to wrap it up, i'll be real with you, setting up something that's as low maintenance as possible while working with budget constraints is hard (at least in my area). this hobby is notoriously expensive, especially when you're just starting out. you need to see what the local market is like. see if there's fish hobby groups in your area that can help you with spare supplies and plant trimmings. your partner's idea of a plant/snail tank might be the best place to start! as far as other resources, the fish subreddits have soooooooooooo much info.

[photozoi]

Wyatt admiring the inlay artistry in the Nerite gallery.

[samayla]

So excited to add some ghost shrimp to my betta Quill's tank today! Here's hoping they get along!

I added a nerite snail a few weeks ago, and Cinder is great at taking care of the glass, the one silk plant, and the underside of the filter box. They'll roll my marimos around the tank and clean the very largest of the gravel, but they don't do much of anything for the rest of the gravel, despite the pet shop's warning that they burrow. I drop half a pleco wafer in every other day on the pet shop's advice as well, but Cinder doesn't seem the slightest bit interested in that or any of Quill's fallen pellets. He does this stupid thing where he'll pack all his food into his cheeks like a squirrel, and then a minute later have to spit a few pieces out again. Or if I don't play for a minute, tapping the surface with my finger before feeding him, he'll spin and splash around like a puppy to get my attention, sinking his pellets if they're already in the water. He is hands-down the goofiest, most sociable betta I've ever seen, so I'm hoping adding 3-4 shrimp to do some cleanup at the bottom and in among the live plants will go okay.

Quill only really fusses about Cinder when the snail is up in the one little corner of the tank Quill has claimed for his bubble nest. It's the slack water spot in the tank, and right above the heater, so... guess where algae grows the fastest! Quill goes full threat display when Cinder's up there, which does nothing at all because snails are pretty much unflappable. Yesterday he bit Cinder, which did not actually solve the problem because Cinder just retreated into their shell and sat there even longer.

The rest of the time, Quill is pretty chill. He hangs in his nesting spot and watches me work at my desk, and swims up to the front of the bow-front tank to greet each and every one of the kids who come to check out books. I even have one boy with autism who comes to visit every chance he gets, and tells me about imaginary adventures he would have with Quill because, if he could breathe underwater like Quill, he's sure they would be friends. He says that even though bettas don't have many friends, he would be a good one, because he would just pay attention when Quill wanted a sensory break. (Oh, my heart!)

Yesterday, I was doing some tank maintenance, and Quill objected to being removed from the tank, so I figured he'd just have to deal with my hand and the siphon and the tweezers. He was so mellow about it! He even swam through my fingers while I was placing a new rock. No threat displays. No flaring or shaking or biting. He just checked out everything I was doing.

Two pieces of frogbit got hung up on the filter intake when I was done, and he was Unhappy about that. He actually swims past wherever I am and flicks his tail to get my attention, and then points -- like a hunting dog! -- at whatever is the problem when he's unhappy. We had a tiny bladder snail hitchhike on the last plant I brought in, and Quill pointed at it until I removed it. I took care of one piece of frogbit because of his pointing, and he got impatient with me, jumped at the surface, then dove down and pointed again until I saw the second piece on the back side. Then he hung out right below my hand, supervising its removal. I could feel his dorsal fin on the back of my hand.

I'm really hoping he's cool with some little shrimp roommates. He is always so interested in whatever's going on, I think he'd like some interesting tankmates to watch.

[spidermilkshake]

:D Nano fishies for my 29 gallon community are heeeeeere!

(Also two nerite snails)

They're being drip acclimated now and seem very healthy. Another half hour and they'll go in their big plant-filled house. :3

[jayple-syrup]

Hi! I saw in your intro post that you like goldfish and fish in general. Do you have a favorite goldfish? I love keeping fish and am really passionate about responsible fish care. I used to keep beta fish, I now have 9 white cloud minnows and a nerite snail. I also help with my dad's tank, he has 3 sunburst platys, 4 or 5 neon tetras, a cory catfish, and a nerite snail. Do you have any fish currently?

HELLO!!! i unfortunately dont have any fish since the weather where i am is usually too hot for them and we are still trying to sort things out for if i ever get some. i do have a favorite goldfish though!!! i like ranchu fish a lot cause their faces are really cute and chubby and they remind me of gummies.

the fish i have had in order:

andrew — blue betta fish (had him a long time ago though)

chiyo — red betta fish

quicksilver — siamese algae eater

chip & nada — male and female guppies respectively. chip was red and nada was like. bluish gray

zip, marble, & arrow — these 3 were all mollies!! zip was yellow and black, marble was black and white, and arrow was red. they were all male except for arrow

if i find any old pictures ill be sure to show/post them!!!

THATS SO COOL THAT U OWN SO MANYFISH THOUGH !!! ive never owned any of those before :0 AND SNAILS?!?@??? HELLO THATS SO COOL

if you have any tips on taking care of those fish (or just. fish in general) id love to hear about it!!! ofc its up to you, im just super curious 😭😭

THANK YOU FOR SHARING W ME !!! THATS SO COOL !!!! hopefully we will be able to talk more :3

[obfuscobble]

Also let me know if I should scream about Jigoku Shoujo / Hell Girl main characters sometime because I have opinions. Yes, Wanyuudo is best boy; deal with it. Honeonna my beloved. Honneonna's two dozen onibi infesting her corpse my beloveds. Yamawaro is kinda meh and I feel his backstory ep didn't _quite_ justify his constant inclusion since je's otherwise a Kikuri interaction vehicle. Ichimokuren actually got character development over time which I was legir not expecting.

LET HONEONNA HAVE FRIENDS GODDAMMIT.

Kikuri is a necessary annoyance. Hellgirl herself is fascinating from a moral perspective and I really do want good things for her even if she's my most "meh" adjudication. Still think season 3 should have handled the posession better. And if one ever rewatches it, even if only a few eps chosen per season, it is indeed _very_ fun to see the progression in what the industry standard for animation was across the decades.

Btw shoutout to jinro soju peach. Absolutely delicious and smooth, yea dazzlingly smooth for a 13% alcohol punch.

Life updates!!! Odekake Kozame season 2 progressing smooooothly. Did y'all see the Aqualand tie-in?choukawaii! My pet leidyula floridiana slugs laid 18 eggys. I bought 2 zebra nerite snails in a 2-for-1 special a few days ago and they seem to be doing well, though one can hadly tell they're stripèd. They are refusing spirulina flakes tjough since our cashew tree keeps shedding cashew fruit into the pond, it's no wonder! Still doing overtime for the old job because it just feels nice to help. :) Discovered I can use excel to do dictionaries for conlangs: revolutionary. Thinking of wading into vowel harmony for my next project after I dominated consonant mutation with my last. And don't make fum of me!but! using minecraft plus a Buck list actually works well for implementing basic vocab, and even grammar when translating death messages/ subtitles. I'm on my fifth rewrite/redraw if the webcomic I want to start. AUGH it's frustrating because I want to lead into the story in the most succint and compelling way possible. Ah well, time and sleep mend all wounds. I just don't want to let down my friend, Metal.

EIGHTEEN SLEGGYIES!!!!!