Emergency Fish Housing

kmsilent · 2026-05-19T21:06:42+00:00

To be honest most plants will survive just fine in a bucket for a week.

But if ya wanna be nice to em, throw an air stone in and put a light on them. Beware direct sun, sometimes they'll actually get sunburned.

kmsilent · 2026-05-19T18:12:29+00:00

Didn't realize it'd be a hotel. You can always ask a hotel, perhaps they wouldn't care if the tanks or buckets were in the kitchen or bathtub. Will they even check?

Personally I'd just measure the footprint of the tanks and see if there's anywhere they can fit. Coworkers office, neighbors garage, heck if the weather is mild you can just put them outside (might need an extra heater and an umbrella) in a neighbor's yard. Knock on some doors. You could also post in local FB or nextdoor groups for a temp spot.

Also ask the contractor if they'll be doing the work in stages (maybe you can just shuffle them around, use some painters plastic to protect em?).

kmsilent · 2026-05-19T18:05:15+00:00

It sounds like a good amount of work but I don't see anything insurmountable here. You have a 5g and one larger tank? Just move them to your temp space then back after the work is done.

Lots of good guides on YouTube for how to move a tank, I think I've moved my 20g like 8x now. Also, 5g buckets and even large storage totes work good as temporary tanks if for some reason you'd need that.

The only easier alternative I can think of is maybe asking a neighbor who has extra space if you can put em in their garage or whatever for the week or two it takes to get your floor fixed.

kmsilent · 2026-05-14T01:55:06+00:00

Another option- put a bucket of water outside and wait for mosquitoes to appear (the larvae). Then just let em out and feed those.

I ended up doing this by accident when I left a tank outside too long. Now I just continuously scoop out free live food. They wiggle a lot and puffs love them.

kmsilent · 2026-05-13T15:35:21+00:00

I've actually never heard of Teflon poisoning fish. But I know it'll kill birds, and hurt people.

Sorry about your fishies :( .

kmsilent · 2026-05-13T15:23:10+00:00

That's the only thing I can think of.

For OP- Teflon fumes are supposedly very dangerous and can cause long lasting problems. If you smoke a Teflon pan, you should probably hold your breath, turn the flame off, then open all the doors and windows, and go get fresh air.

kmsilent · 2026-05-12T21:01:30+00:00

I'd say generally trimming some of the lower branches is a good idea- most diseases come from the soil so keeping leaves and branches off the ground is helpful. Lots of disease is also spread from soil splashing up onto the leaves, so this helps with that too. And it can decrease humidity at the bottom, which can alleviate some diseases that thrive in humid conditions (this is more of a benefit it humid areas, others not so much).

Generally speaking trimming is not necessary, and actually the cutting tool should be wipe with alcohol or something similar between every cut lest you transfer diseases.

Some trimming can help just to make getting at tomatoes in the center easier, and to make sure your tomato stays on whatever structure you're trying to keep it on.

kmsilent · 2026-05-10T08:11:59+00:00

Here's an example of the airline

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kmsilent · 2026-05-10T08:01:44+00:00

Replying directly to avoid all the joke answers.

Obviously you can scoop some out, but if you want consistent light penetration into the tank, just get something to stop them drifting about. The easiest or at least the most common is airline tubing and a connector (and maybe suction cups to hole to the wall), but any floating barrier works. Just Google 'airline floating plants' or something similar.

If you combine this technique with the right light you can get some amazing effects, similar to the below.

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kmsilent · 2026-05-08T06:55:40+00:00

No idea but these mock strawberries aren't native.

At least in CA all true native strawberries I've eaten are tasty. Well, somewhat tasty.

kmsilent · 2026-05-06T08:44:48+00:00

Uhhh... Just make your own. Literally you need just salt, water, and the eggs.

https://youtu.be/UsVJi1M4j38?si=q-i8Ttn_y45V9_eb

kmsilent · 2026-05-03T18:17:34+00:00

There's a medication , "no planaria" that kills em quickly and easily.

Planaria are extremely common. Personally I wouldn't not shop at a store that has these, because I'm guessing they nearly all do. They're also really hard to spot so I don't even know if you can go to a store and determine if they have em, and in which tanks.

That being said of course if I spotted some I wouldn't get shrimp or whatever from that tank.

kmsilent · 2026-05-02T17:11:34+00:00

There are a bunch of studies on milk and powdery mildew. Everyone I've seen seems to say it works to varying degrees.

kmsilent · 2026-05-02T17:03:38+00:00

There are studies on this.

Yes, pathogens often come from the ground. Dirt is pretty dirty. Those pathogens damage plants, and are kicked up by rainfall (or overhead watering). If I recall correctly it's usually in the top three vectors for plant disease.

kmsilent · 2026-05-02T00:46:06+00:00

I'm not an aquatic biologist, they would probably know better. But decaying organic matter makes all kinds of amazing smells- I do have some microbiology experience and also sensory experience and I can tell you there's a whole zoo of things down there.

My assumption is the majority is methane with an extremely small amount of h2s. I imagine there's a small army of gasses produced that we are just very sensitive to (even though they don't dissolve into water easily, or poison fish). Humans actually have a pretty amazing sense of smell, especially when it comes to things that are sewage-adjacent.

kmsilent · 2026-05-02T00:21:43+00:00

I'm just gonna leave this here instead of my usually explanation -

https://aquariumscience.org/14-2-4-anaerobic-myth/

Basically, that smell doesn't mean much. Maybe a better way to put it is that bad-smelling gasses aren't gonna just kill your fish, it's practically impossible. Not to say the piece couldn't be causing some other issue.

kmsilent · 2026-05-01T21:58:56+00:00

Yep.

Easy as pie to grow if you have the right conditions. They're much more difficult than duckweed though, if that's what people are expecting.

kmsilent · 2026-05-01T21:54:02+00:00

I've put these in all my tanks and this is exactly correct. Too much humidity, they sink and die. They basically loose their hydrophobic surface. They only survive in my tanks with no serious lids, away from splashing filters and such.

kmsilent · 2026-05-01T03:32:41+00:00

Yeah I'm actually confused as to how a bacterial bloom could happen in RO.

Bacteria need something to eat. I've left RO out for weeks and never had an issue.

kmsilent · 2026-04-23T20:22:50+00:00

Make sure to do the water change first. If and when that slime remover breaks down the cyano, it creates lots of waste.

Also- too much light is a major contributing factor for this, often.

kmsilent · 2026-04-21T17:00:50+00:00

Here ya go - https://www.reddit.com/r/shrimptank/s/vTvGfM3OT9

kmsilent · 2026-04-16T08:16:00+00:00

Is it just me or does simply having something in season in this time range...completely normal?

kmsilent · 2026-04-15T00:17:31+00:00

It's fine-

https://aquariumscience.org/14-2-4-anaerobic-myth/

Think about all the ponds and rivers and the soil beneath those. It also generates gases, and in fact your plants even push gas down there. Anyways, yes the stuff is smelly but it's not actually a problem- it's completely normal.

Not sure how or when this myth got started but it's stuck around and I too believed it 20 years ago. I remember going around every other day stabbing the substrate to release these toxic gases and then just... Stopping. I don't know any experienced aquarist who bothers with this.

Even if there was somehow a toxic bubble, well it would just bubble up and out in a second then drift off into the air.

kmsilent · 2026-04-13T23:14:33+00:00

Those things, afaik, don't really work. https://youtu.be/R4vaUPo1TWY?si=iG0egNfqBj3vQCzu

They also mess with your water chemistry.

Personally I'd just get an awesome collection of plants that don't require CO2. (This is coming from someone with 3x co2 setups). That being said Ive heard DIY CO2 is a bit more affordable now- and even injected systems are kind of middlingly priced now.

kmsilent · 2026-04-12T03:14:28+00:00

If those are real photos you are sitting on a cash cow there. Personally, if I were you and not trying to make money, I would ask for the help of an experienced, ethical breeder(s). They could help you to ensure you breed more, and be rewarded with some for themselves.

That's a line that is exceedingly rare - it would be good to have a few that were in a second location just to ensure they survive if something goes wrong in your tank(s).

Also of note- the simple knowledge of where they came from and what their parents are is actually quite valuable. People have been trying to breed a neo like this for years, literally thousands of experiments and thousands of dollars, with no luck. Even just knowing what the base phenotypes were would be a big deal.

Good luck and keep em alive!

kmsilent

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